felis_ultharus

So Pride week came to a close today. We tabled for two days in a row for the NDP at the GLBT community days. We got a huge response to our two petitions -- one to ask Stephen Harper not to re-open the same-sex marriage debate, and the other to put in trans people as a protected group in the Human Rights Code.

A huge number of former Bloc Québécois voters said they're going to vote NDP next election -- Duceppe's managed to piss them off by being so chummy with Harper.

Halfway through, the community fair emptied out as everyone marched to protest the bombing of Lebanon. A handful of us watched the tables -- though Helem, the gay Lebanese group, stayed around to collect donations for the wounded and signatures on their own petitions.

And melting_penguin and bananality dropped by, which was a nice surprise.

I got to the closing ceremonies of the Outgames. I appreciate all of Mark Tewksbury's work, but he should be restricted by restraining order from approaching within 200 metres of the French language.

(Liza Minelli sang. I'm not really a fan of her music, but I felt really bad for her as she died onstage for her first two numbers. She was trying so hard, too -- she seemed almost lucid through most of it, though quite obviously drunk. But she brought back the crowd when she started singing from Cabaret.)

And jenjoou throws a lovely party, but now I shall never be able to pass a barrel again without uttering the word "Barrel" in a growly voice.

This week's disasters have begun to peter out. My presentation was a success last night, which is good because it counts for a whopping percentage of the mark. Everyone looked bored, but then everyone always looks bored at these things. I tried to make it less boring by talking more about Atwood and Jung than the Samurai Susanna, but I gave the second major presentation of the night, so everyone was just falling asleep.

After me there was a presentation on some of the work of Catherine MacKinnon. One of her usual bait-and-switch, non-sequitor arguments used to demonize pornography by association ("In the 19th century, there was a lot of abuse of women in psychiatric institutions by male doctors. Here's the proof it was going on. Now, isn't porn evil?").

We didn't have time for class discussion after three presentations, so I didn't have a chance to rip into her. For those of you who don't know, MacKinnon's crusade for censorship has played a major part in the persecution of queer bookstores by Canada Customs. If it weren't for hers and Andrea Dworkin's briefs to the Supreme Court, Little Sister's and other bookstores wouldn't have to face the tyranny of Canada's most backward public institution.

Anyway, I have my ticket now to Advent Children -- today's English Tests were right near the theatre, so I ran out and grabbed it. I've never been as excited about seeing a movie in theatres as I am this time, especially since so few theatres around the world will be playing it.