Life on Queen Street

In the past week, I've been (at various times):

( Don't talk to me about healthcare. No, seriously. )

( Welcome to Canada: Consular services now available in 'Whites Only' and 'Fuck You'. )

· On a related note, I finally found my boxing handle last night: Hellfire H______, pleased to meet you.

· One an unrelated note (except possibly my passion for justice), DC's Batgirl reboot hits the stands next Wednesday. DC's house blog, The Source posted a preview that is frustratingly vague on the identity of the new Batgirl. About the only thing that is clear is that it's not the last holder of the title, Cassie Cain. Fanboy speculation is split between Stephanie "Spoiler" Brown and Barbara Gordon's protege, Misfit. No one seems to consider Barbara Gordon, the Silver Age Batgirl as a realistic candidate... except me.

True, Babs is supposedly stil paralyzed, although the last two pages of the leadingly-titled Oracle: The Cure potentially offer a fix to that problem*, and the first five pages don't seem particularly Barbara Gordon-esque (except for the weight-gag: "thank you" strikes me as an older woman's response rather than a teens). While the Phil Noto cover-art certainly matches his earlier illustrations of Batgirl and Barbara (he always paints her with blue eyes), that really doens't mean anything. At the same time, the five-page preview really doesn't sound like Spoiler or Misfit, either. Batgirl in those pages also strikes me as too capable to be either Spoiler (the Batarang move and where would she get the outfit?) or Misfit (any of it) and not good enough to be Cass (who's supposed to be one of the top two martial artists in the DCU) - I could just buy it as a just-getting-back-into-the-game Barbara Gordon, out for kicks.

My personal hunch is that we will see Barbara Gordon kicking ass in the book at some point - why the false suspense about who the new Batgirl is otherwise? At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if we find that there's more than one Batgirl out there, either. I'm not thrilled with the idea of Spoiler taking over as BG - I think she's more interesting as a foil for Tim Drake (although Red Robin is a terrible book) and I'd like to see new characters grow into their own rather than cycling throw the Batcharacters like a revolving door.

At any rate, we'll see in another week.

· I'm both looking forward to District 9 and intrigued to see the different responses. One of the things that frustrates me about the anti-racist dialogue on LJ is the overwhelming USian perspective. Representative of the English-language population of lj, I know, but frustrating for me as a Canadian. I'm interested to see how the North American interwebz respond to a movie set in Johannesburg made by a white South African who now lives in Vancouver but grew up during the last days of Apartheid rule in SA and produced by a New Zealander. It seems to me that there are many perspectives on history and racism at work in District 9 and none of them (other than Sony's marketing department) are USian. Also, as a Canadian, do I enjoy the idea of a story where aliens arrive somewhere other than the United States? Hell. Yes. Squared.

*If the Anti-Life Equation somehow fixed Barbara's injuries by transferring the damage to the Calculator's daughter, that would give an angsty-guilt-ridden edge to Babara's character of the sort that the Batbooks seem to love. I'd imagine trying to find out if she could restore the girl's mobility while loving her own restored freedom would form a large part of Barbara's arc. There would also be an interesting debate in Babs' own mind about whether or not the good she could do out of her wheelchair outweighed the harm to the girl.

My cat's pretty seriously sick - and I'm reminded once again why I treasure Canada's system of universal healthcare because blood tests for the cat started at $300. Add the ancilliary costs of treatment, a day at the vet's and actually being examined, we'd hit the $500 mark before even getting a diagnosis. I imagine what that it would cost for a human being and I feel faint. Universal healthcare isn't "socialist" - it's the decent fucking thing to do because no one should ever be faced with choosing between paying their rent, paying their power bill or buy food and going to the doctor.

The diagnosis, btw, was he's got a major infection (gee, what was your first clue? The massive fever?) and probably has for a while. If he gets better with antibiotics, good, otherwise the vet is going to want to go looking for causes.

My wallet trembles at the thought.

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Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States of America. Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. My thanks to John McCain and the GOP braintrust who told him to select that mendacious ignoramus for a running mate and suspend his campaign to "address" the financial crisis - Obama couldn't have done it without you.

However, constantly point out how electing a black man means that the US is over its issues about race actually proves how much the US (or the person in question) is not over its/their issues about race. When a black, red, brown, yellow, puce, chartreuse man/woman/eggplant can run for President, Prime Minister or the head of the local School Board without someone commenting on their skin tone/ethnicity/religious affliation/gender or sexual preference is when the US/Canada/the rest of the world will be over it.

I believe Mr. Obama's election is one giant step for us all towards that day. But the fight is far from over.

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The ACLU is Challenging Proposition Eight in California. You can donate to the ACLU here.

Thanks to queenofthorns for telling me where to send the cheque.

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This morning, Andy Barrie interviewed Lisa Ray on Metro Morning about her upcoming films. Halfway through the interview, he asked how, without knowing her background, a person could see the ways in which she was Polish and the ways she was Bengali. Ms. Ray responded, "Well, I have Eastern European legs but I'm Canadian."

It made me think a friend, bubbling over about Obama's victory, who wished that I had been there to see all the people from different backgrounds, united in celebration and a renewed belief that they were one people, so I could understand what it meant to be American. And while I'm pleased for my friend and for all Americans who have found a reason to be proud about their country again, I don't need to see what that looks like - I live it every day.

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Tuesday is Remembrance Day.

My employer gives me the day off, so when I'm in Canada, I always go to a Service of Remembrance, normally at the cenotaph in Kew Gardens Park but this year, I thought I might go to the service at the cenotaph at Old City Hall. There's also a ceremony at Queen's Park.

Last year, I was in Cambridge, England on Remembrance Day. It was the first time in nearly at decade that I hadn't attended a service of Remembrance, although I watched the Queen and the Royal Family lay wreaths at the Cenotaph on the Mall in London. Between living in Ireland, where there were no poppies - the Irish disdaining them as a sign of British unionism and WW I itself as a British war, no matter the tens of thousands of Ireland's sons buried in Flanders' muck (De Valera choosing to sit out World War II because, really, what was the threat of Hilter's unchecked aggression compared to an opportunity to thumb Irish independence in Britain's eye?) - and then coming to stay with my German friend over Remembrance Week, the day mostly passed by me. Not that my friend would have snatched the poppy from my coat (I was somewhat more concerned about the Irish but for a week or so, it was fun to pick Canadian tourists out in Temple Bar by the poppies on their coats) but I felt awkward and constrained on the subject around her. A reminder of how very much of our tradition of Remembrance has focused not on the bloody stupid waste of war but the righteousness of our cause - the fallen are not merely the dead but "the glorious dead", glory being a privilege of the victor.

I have a poppy pinned to both my jackets.

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"In other news: rain is still wet."

The headline that Prime Minister Harper looks forward to meeting the President-Elect greeted me as I stepped into the vet's office last night.

No. Kidding.

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I need to write the review of TSCC: "The Brothers of Nablus" - in the meantime, Charlie Jane Anders of io9 said most of what I wanted to say already, damn her - "io9 - This Is How You Do a Science Fiction Show About Religion."

Hey Ho
Catholic Education in Ontario
Has Got to Go

On a related note: Calling for someone's death not the best way to encourage "religious sensitivity".

And just for the hell of it, a reminder that sometimes the paper prints good news, too.

My office has gone "Breathable Atmosphere Optional" again this morning.

Even taking into account that I woke up feeling decidedly odd - as if I'd come down with a sudden middle-ear infection - the stinging eyes, uncontrollable yawning and general feeling of malaise I'm suffering would be more in tune with 3 pm on a Friday afternoon and not 10 on a Monday morning (when I actually went to bed the night before instead of waiting up for the Battlestar Galactica torrent). Needless to say, I'm finding it difficult to concentrate.

Wrote 500 words of Great Canadian Werewolf Adventure last night - got myself out of the conversation between 'Annie' and her court-appointed shrink that had turned interminable on me (that and I really have to decide on a motivation for 'Annie' and stick with it) - but felt too borderline this morning to sit and write before work. I felt a bit "gah, just see if you can get to work without throwing up - you promised the Boss that you wouldn't take any more sick days until April - worry about writing later." I do want to get at least 500 words in sometime today and I have a few things I need to work on in my journal about character and motivation.

Note to self:

I need to finish Christopher Hibbert's The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici tonight so I can take it back to the library tomorrow

Going through and returning one of the England guides wouldn't hurt either.

I think today is the 34th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade in the 'States. ( 600 Abortion-Related Bills a Year? Really? )