I saw him at work today. I’ve known him (in part) since elementary school, but I don’t think he recognized me. There was an odd moment when he walked in where I looked at him and he looked at me, as if he recognized my face, but then he turned away.
It is amazing to me how quickly people can forget the faces of others.
But, in his defence, my face has become hairier and hairier as time has passed.
There is a pretty big controversy occuring in Ontario’s schools right now. Elementary school girls are being encouraged by their local Health Unit to receive the vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV), a DNA-based virus that is responsible for about 80% of cervical cancer and 90% of genital warts.
To the logical mind, this seems like a no-brainer situation. If there is a vaccine that can prevent you from getting cervical cancer through the human papillomavirus, why would you not roll up your sleeve and tell the nurse to “stick you with the cure”. However, this is not the case.
The Catholic church (and followers) have found a reason to despise the HPV vaccine. In fact, they are taking aims to ensure that Catholics will prevent their daughters from getting the vaccine. Why? The same reason why Catholics dislike condoms, birth control pills, and the Hepatitis B vaccine; they believe that these awful creations of health care will encourage their children to engage in sexual activity.
In fact, many Catholics have gone so far as to make claims that the Health Unit is targeting girls at this young age because they expect these girls to be sexually active. The argument of those who oppose the vaccine can be summed up as follows:
“We trust our daughters. They would not have sex. Abstinence is the key.”
Of course, abstinence is all well and good. But it will not protect their daughters if the “groom-to-be” has been sexually active, and carries some precarious papilloma on his pecker. All of the girls who abstain from the vaccine cannot abstain from sex forever, and could still be at risk down the line. For whatever reason, it seems to be believed the God will protect them, or abstinence will keep them safe forever. However, this is not the case.
There have been some teachers who have voiced their dislike of the vaccine within their classrooms. Rumour has it (from a friend of a friend of a student) that one teacher at a local high school actually told her female students that the vaccine “will paralyse them” and that they are “being used as guinea pigs by pharmaceutical companies”. Reportedly, the numbers of the students from the class to get the vaccine were very low.
And to return to the argument that young girls are being targeted because they are likely to be sexually active, it is actually quite the opposite. In medical situations, treatment is not wasted on those who it would not benefit. A hospital will not give a healthy liver to an alcoholic, because his condition makes it likely that he will ruin it. In the same way, giving a dose of the HPV vaccine to women who are already sexually active would be pointless. Vaccinations are a preemptive measure, not an end-game solution.
It is for this reason that the health unit’s are offering this vaccine to young girls nearing the end of elementary school. It is assumed (and rightly so) that girls will not have become sexually active at this age. As a result, the vaccine can have more of a widespread effect and provide the greatest impact.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would prevent their daughters from getting this vaccine. Preserving the health of our children is extremely important. How can you deny them that protection? How can you deny them that preservation? And how could you ever look them in the eyes if they get HPV or cervical cancer and say “I’m sorry, but I thought what I did was for the best”?
We have a provincial election coming up on October 10th, and I have started to notice some of Dalton’s ads on television. He is really stressing this whole ‘public schools’ nonsense of his. But, if you listen closely, you can see he is being an incredible hypocrite, and a liar.
Watch this ad if you have not seen it on TV already.
Dalton appears to be stressing the public nature of our schools, and he says that the thinks funding religious schools is a mistake. However, his wording of these comments is misleading. Yes, our entire school system is - technically - public. Now, I know people are already cocking an eyebrow or displaying surprise in their own way, because all of my readers are graduates of the Ontario Catholic School system. But, Dalton can be seen as telling a partial truth, because this system is still technically public. Publically funded. If you review their platform, they always refer to the schools as publically funded. In many ways, this ambigious wording is done to imply that we have only one school system that is religiously indifferent, so that he can better work against John Tory’s Let’s Split Funding Up Into Millions of Different Schools policy.
It is for this reason that I have so little respect for the Liberal Party of Ontario in this upcoming election. They have gained a reputation of lying to the public, and now they are doing it quite openly in their campaign ads. And I am not speaking of broken campaign promises. I mean actual lies. And frankly, I don’t think we should stand for it. So, I hope that - if you intend to vote - you will vote for someone who is not the Liberals.
Personally, I find the Conservative’s policy of splitting everyone up into many religious schools is a huge mistake. It may seem like the more fair option, but a matter like education should be decided based on what is best for the province. And frankly, splitting up funding into all these little schools which - geographically - may have to be constructed side by side is a mistake. All it will do is create reduncancy in thousands and thousands of positions around the province. If all of those teachers/aides/administrative staff/etc. were combined into one school board, class sizes would be at an all time low. We would have more teaching staff than we knew what to do with. But if you start fragmenting everything, then we run into problems. Moreover, the redundancy in facilities would also be diminished. There would not be any situations where a school like St. Michael Catholic Secondary School is attached to a nearby public high school because funding an individual library and technology facilities was too expensive. The money devoted to both schools would have been focused on a single school, so that our publically funded schools can be stronger, better, and more unified.
Because of the unimpressive platforms of the Conservatives and Liberals, and the difficult to find platform of the NDP, I feel that I will have to vote Green in this election. They are the only party that appears to want to do away with the Ontario Catholic School system and truly unify our school boards. The only problem that I have with this is that their platform on energy stresses solar energy far too much, whereas I feel more emphasis should be made on wind energy (and shutting up all those people who claim that wind turbines will lower their property values*).
It is disheartening though to know that I will be voting on principle in this election, but it will made no difference in the ruling party of this province. :(
*Tangent: I mean, really. What is more unappealing. A quite graceful wind turbine, or a smoggy coal plant. I would take the wind farms anyday. And, if you consider the environmental effects of manufacturing solar cells, you discover that they aren’t all that eco-friendly in the grand scheme of things.
This story begins on Friday.
I went to work at the University, and had to help a lot of completely oblivious students with simple tasks like reading pieces of paper properly, and writing down information about academic advisors. If you think I am joking, you could not be further from the truth. We have a list on the wall that informs students when academic advisors have office hours, and where these advisors are located. When students ask, we direct them to the list (because we have more important things to do at the MUO than showing kids how to read a piece of paper). In the past, I have students ask me if I could write down this information for them, despite the fact that the list is closer to them and we have pads of paper and pens all over the office.
Sometimes, I really wonder about the intelligence of these alleged child prodigies. In fact, I also had a student ask me what ‘Posted Weekly’ means. This makes me believe that the school is a little too lenient with students who fail the ELPE.
After a long day of work, I leave the office with the rest of the staff and run into Binkle, who I had expected would only be found after a complicated scouring of the UW Place area. Fortunately, he had decided to come directly to the MUO and meet me, which - I must confess - was convenient.
We walked over to UWP and I got to see his prison cell of a room in Eby. It seems that the rooms that students are being crammed into at UW are getting smaller and smaller (and smaller). We discussed the shortcomings of his new abode, and made preparations to go to Ye’s Sushi. Before leaving, Binkle thought we should get some girl Don on the top floor (‘They like it on top’ - thanks Undeclared) to tag along. So, we went and talked to this girl. I discovered quickly that she is some sort of crazed sci-fi fan, who cannot stop speaking praises about Battlestar Galactica. And I don’t blame her. I have never faltered from the path that Adama and the rest have set before me. It is a fantastic show.
Of course, then she said that she liked Deep Space Nine, and I mentioned that Sisko is the Head Security Guard of an Intergalactic Shopping Mall.
[I got sidetracked for a good 25 minutes reading about Gene Roddenberry at this point in the article. After reading about some of the negative things said about him after his death, I cannot help but wonder if - in every situation - those who know a famous person will always make a quick buck on a ‘controversial book’ about the person’s flaws immediately following their death.]
Anyway, we went to Ye’s Sushi. The rain was annoying. We got completely soaked on the way to the bus station. Fortunately, the rain cleared up after we got downtown, which was good. I guess. We were already soaked anyway, so I guess it didn’t matter.
We got to Ye’s Sushi, and we got the absolutely terrible seat by the kitchen door. You know…the one everyone hates because you get hit by every single waiter/waitress/etc that passes by. Yeah. It was like that. Anyway, we were seated and began ordering some stuff. We got about eight orders of Maki rolls throughout the night. We got Spicy Crispy Salmon Rolls three times, Spicy Crispy Tuna Rolls at least once, something called a Rainbow Roll, some sort of Squid Roll, and a Crab and Flying Fish Roe Roll. We also ate some Sashimi, and I had one piece of Sushi. As far as the Sashimi went, I tried to stick mainly to crab…although Binkle twisted my arm and I downed some salmon. Well, okay. He didn’t really twist my arm. But I normally do not like Salmon.
Speaking of which…the Spicy Crispy Salmon Rolls were so absolutely delicious that I was nearly brought to tears. I kid you not. At first, I thought I disguised it well. But Binkle commented on it later, and I have to say he was right on the money. I had never tasted anything so good.
After we had eaten our fill, we got some ice cream and made to head back to UWP to meet up with Andrew. We got on the bus and headed back to UW, getting off a stop too early (because Binkle felt guilty about pressing the stop button before our stop) and we walked up the street. We got sidetracked by Sugar Mountain, where I saw a girl who I’d previously seen working at the Campus Crew in the Fairview Park Mall. I would have brought it up to talk to her - because I thought she was pretty hot - but I couldn’t help but wonder how she would react if she had been fired from the job for whatever reason. I did not think that would be a pleasant thing to bring up. I picked up some Spearmint gum, some Jelly Bellys, and some Nintendo Power Mints (with lovely NES controller tin). She commented something about how people really love the Nintendo mints. I muttered something about liking Nintendo, and she probably pegged me as a nerd.
But…is that a bad thing? I’ve heard on the radio that we - the nerds - make the best husbands. So, yeah. Keep that in mind ladies.
Anyway, we got back to UWP and met up with Andrew. For many hours, we tried unsuccessfully to play video games together, but Andrew was the Duty Don that night and was constantly trying to catch first-years in the process of drinking under aged. People were rowdy. Windows were broken. Noise was heard. The ladies were all scantily clad. Times were seemingly good.
After a while, everyone got tired. We agreed to get together for breakfast later that day (as we had already rolled over into Saturday), and Binkle went home. Andrew was still going about doing Don-ish things, while I crashed on an air mattress at his place.
And the story gets terrible from her on out. If you are squeamish, leave. Just leave. You have been warned.
I have drifted off to sleep for a little while, and I am wondering when the Sugar Mountain Girl is going to pop up in my dreams, when all of a sudden, I wake up. I am coughing. Coughing a lot. Now, this has happened to me on more than one occasion. And - frankly - I should have realized what was happening. Unfortunately, I was far too groggy to react in time, and I threw up all over my front. In an effort to minimize damage to Andrew’s residence, I rushed into the washroom and locked the door, making sure to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. The ferocity of this illness was so intense that digested food erupted from both my mouth and my nose, which burned intensely.
Andrew awakened at the noise. He would later say that he identified the noises as akin to the sound of a human being getting infected with the T-Virus from Resident Evil, and turning into a zombie. I am sure that that was true, but I could not hear anything over the sound of my own retching.
At this point, it was 4:00 in the morning, and both Andrew and I had been forcefully awakened. We grabbed the sheets and my shirt and took them to the laundry room. Everything got washed up nicely, and we were back to our respective beds and sleeping again by 6:00. For that two hour period, Andrew was constantly making jokes about how I was ‘violently ill’ and he even went so far as to draw a diagram on his white board. It pictured me, bent over, with red and blue vomit spewing from my mouth. As far as I know, this image still remains on his white board right now.
I’ll leave out the part of the story where Binkle was disgusted with this very same retelling that I relate to you now, as well as our humorous breakfast adventure. They are not a tale for this time. What I am going to do is explain what I meant by my earlier comments that this coughing -> vomit transition has occurred before. In fact, you’ve heard of one such incident, even if the connection has not been immediately apparent.
In fact, I have suffered such spells for years. The earliest one that I can remember was when I was 10 or 11. It was at my aunt’s house in Brampton, and the fit occurred after I ate some carrot cake before bed. I think I have something wrong with my throat or stomach, because this happens often. Also, have you ever heard of someone having their throat close up whenever they eat a tuna sandwich? It is so strange. It is like food of certain textures clog my throat, and send me into fits of coughing.
I should probably see a doctor.
I am sure that most of us knew that it would happen eventually. The fact of the matter is, Nintendo’s “make-ridiculous-game-concepts-that-appeal-to-your-grandparents” policy is working. Games like Brain Age, English training, and cooking sims, plus their robust line-up of exclusives, have boosted the sales of the Wii past the XBox 360.
For Microsoft, this must be really embarassing. Considering the fact that the XBox 360 has been out a full year longer than the Nintendo Wii, the people at Microsoft must be a little flabbergasted at this accomplishment of Nintendo.
But, I suppose it does not really matter to Microsoft. They have made an incredible system with fantastic services. Regardless of whether the Wii is outselling it, Microsoft is sitting on a huge cash cow with the XBox.
And both companies are looking back and laughing at Sony. It is as if the three companies were in a bike race. Nintendo is the most physically fit, Microsoft is racing just behind Nintendo, and Sony’s front tire went flying into the brush and they were sent careening off the track.
I thought this video was hilarious.
Oh, and would it shock you to know that Jake the Dog is voiced by John DiMaggio?
Or, if this means nothing to you, perhaps it would be more informative to say that John DiMaggio has his vocal credits on another animated show.
A show that takes place in the future.
In case you haven’t picked up on it, Jake the Dog is voiced by the same guy as Bender.