What continues to blow my grey matter is how, in a wealthy country whose pundits praise its kindness, generosity to other nations, and other treatments of people which would shine the halo, disabled persons—folk amongst those least able to find gainful employment, be traditionally employable, or sometimes even care for themselves in an appreciably decent fashion—are also those most frequently ignored and left by the wayside, and are amongst those with the lowest forms of financial supports.

#ODSPoverty is the hashtag favoured amongst Twitter users when posting about their struggles trying to survive on the Ontario Disability Support Program.

The buck-passing bandying between the federal government and the provinces/territories about whose responsibility it is to deal with it, has continued for more decades than it should.  You know whose responsibility it is?  Everyone’s.  But the loonie, as it were, does ultimately stop at the federal level, especially when this country is half-way led at the provincial level by factions that think austerity measures are the bee’s knees, and who spend their reigns going after the easiest targets they can.  The Liberal factions seem to want to spend time looking like they’re doing something, but end up doing nothing at all.

Studies?  We don’t need studies.  We don’t need studies when people are looking to Medical Assistance in Dying to avoid the legislated poverty of living on provincial funding, or when people feel like they’re the target of some foul form of eugenics.

Does none of this give you pause?  Does none of this give you pause while you hand out funding to other sections of the population in less immediate and dire need of it, to people and businesses who aren’t in danger of going hungry or losing their homes?  Does none of this give you pause when people consider killing themselves as their only future?

That was an email I sent to the Prime Minister because of an advocacy push online.  You can send a message yourself via this link: https://pm.gc.ca/en/connect/contact.

The past year has, more acutely than before, shone a stark, painfully revealing light on the state of many things in this country (and others): the delicacy of the supply chain and the importance of the people who work in it, packaging our food and getting it to us; the disgusting state of long-term care; the excruciating need for more medical personnel at all levels to care for us; the shocking lack of funding for all of them; and the deeply disheartening lack of financial assistance for anyone left out in the cold from all walks of life, particularly those in a position to be unable to earn enough to take care of themselves.

More sadly, along with the complete lack of immediate funding increases for those in dire need of it in the most recent federal and Ontario budgets, is the continued lack of attention, beyond lip service, that the situation gets at both the federal and provincial levels, and the lack of empathy shown by some parts of the populace.  You should not be asking whether or not these people should be helped.  There shouldn’t be a question at all, other than, “How can we fix this and make it work?”

Ontario’s ODSP rates are still at levels set in the mid-’90s.  For pandemic-related aid, Ontario provided only an extra $100 per month for only a few months during 2020 for extra costs incurred related to COVID, and that went only to people who asked for it, yet the province did not advertise this money was available and, by the time many on ODSP found out about it, the extra funding program was cancelled.

The federal government provided only a one-time (up to) $600 COVID-related payment to those who get the Disability Tax Credit (which is not universal to all disabled people), and it took them up until just a month or so ago to even provide the money to some people.  The federal government did ask the provinces not to claw-back from provincial benefits for anyone in a position to also receive CERB last year.  Ontario chose not to fully comply with that request, as did many provinces.  In fact, only British Columbia, Yukon, and Northwest Territories fully followed the federal government’s request not to claw back.

This entire situation is a shameful tarnish to whatever crown Canada wears.  If this is how this country treats its most vulnerable, well, I don’t know about you, but this is not a nation I can take pride in.  Press your MPs, MPPs, and MLAs to advocate for increased provincial funding for the disabled, for a provincial or federal basic income for them and the elderly at least, and for more creative solutions to employing those disabled folk who are in a position to work.

References
Peters, Gabrielle, (2020) “Dying for the Right to Live”., Macleans’ Magazine.  Retrieved online from: https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/dying-for-the-right-to-live/

What continues to blow my grey matter is how, in a wealthy country whose pundits praise its kindness, generosity to other nations, and other treatments of people which would shine the halo, disabled persons—folk amongst those least able to find gainful employment, be traditionally employable, or sometimes even care for themselves in an appreciably decent fashion—are also those most frequently ignored and left by the wayside, and are amongst those with the lowest forms of financial supports.

#ODSPoverty is the hashtag favoured amongst Twitter users when posting about their struggles trying to survive on the Ontario Disability Support Program.

The buck-passing bandying between the federal government and the provinces/territories about whose responsibility it is to deal with it, has continued for more decades than it should.  You know whose responsibility it is?  Everyone’s.  But the loonie, as it were, does ultimately stop at the federal level, especially when this country is half-way led at the provincial level by factions that think austerity measures are the bee’s knees, and who spend their reigns going after the easiest targets they can.  The Liberal factions seem to want to spend time looking like they’re doing something, but end up doing nothing at all.

Studies?  We don’t need studies.  We don’t need studies when people are looking to Medical Assistance in Dying to avoid the legislated poverty of living on provincial funding, or when people feel like they’re the target of some foul form of eugenics.

Does none of this give you pause?  Does none of this give you pause while you hand out funding to other sections of the population in less immediate and dire need of it, to people and businesses who aren’t in danger of going hungry or losing their homes?  Does none of this give you pause when people consider killing themselves as their only future?

That was an email I sent to the Prime Minister because of an advocacy push online.  You can send a message yourself via this link: https://pm.gc.ca/en/connect/contact.

The past year has, more acutely than before, shone a stark, painfully revealing light on the state of many things in this country (and others): the delicacy of the supply chain and the importance of the people who work in it, packaging our food and getting it to us; the disgusting state of long-term care; the excruciating need for more medical personnel at all levels to care for us; the shocking lack of funding for all of them; and the deeply disheartening lack of financial assistance for anyone left out in the cold from all walks of life, particularly those in a position to be unable to earn enough to take care of themselves.

More sadly, along with the complete lack of immediate funding increases for those in dire need of it in the most recent federal and Ontario budgets, is the continued lack of attention, beyond lip service, that the situation gets at both the federal and provincial levels, and the lack of empathy shown by some parts of the populace.  You should not be asking whether or not these people should be helped.  There shouldn’t be a question at all, other than, “How can we fix this and make it work?”

Ontario’s ODSP rates are still at levels set in the mid-’90s.  For pandemic-related aid, Ontario provided only an extra $100 per month for only a few months during 2020 for extra costs incurred related to COVID, and that went only to people who asked for it, yet the province did not advertise this money was available and, by the time many on ODSP found out about it, the extra funding program was cancelled.

The federal government provided only a one-time (up to) $600 COVID-related payment to those who get the Disability Tax Credit (which is not universal to all disabled people), and it took them up until just a month or so ago to even provide the money to some people.  The federal government did ask the provinces not to claw-back from provincial benefits for anyone in a position to also receive CERB last year.  Ontario chose not to fully comply with that request, as did many provinces.  In fact, only British Columbia, Yukon, and Northwest Territories fully followed the federal government’s request not to claw back.

This entire situation is a shameful tarnish to whatever crown Canada wears.  If this is how this country treats its most vulnerable, well, I don’t know about you, but this is not a nation I can take pride in.  Press your MPs, MPPs, and MLAs to advocate for increased provincial funding for the disabled, for a provincial or federal basic income for them and the elderly at least, and for more creative solutions to employing those disabled folk who are in a position to work.

References
Peters, Gabrielle, (2020) “Dying for the Right to Live”., Macleans’ Magazine.  Retrieved online from: https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/dying-for-the-right-to-live/

Now, we all have the right to change our minds. I do it frequently. I like a nice, fresh mind, with an ocean scent and clean sheets. Presumably, changing my mind harms no one except me, and possibly a few of my friends, and perhaps the guy at the pizza shop if I decide that dieting isn’t such a bad idea after all.

But then there’s Canadian politics.

For example, what harm might be done by a party member who, after being elected to office in the Plaid Party, suddenly changes his mind and joins the Paisley Party? Is Plaid Party person now acting in my best interest, or are they acting in their own?

In good faith, I voted to have a Plaid Party person running my business for me because I like Plaid Party principles. I did not ask for Paisley Party principles; in fact, I just voted against them.

So what good is it doing me, or my vote, if the person I chose has suddenly become a switch hitter in the middle of the ninth inning, bases loaded, two men out? It doesn’t do much good for my political ideals, or the way governments conduct people’s lives; or, rather, ?orchestrate.?

And I think It’s long past time for there to be consequences.

If a person crosses the floor to the Other Side (by which I do not mean the much-lamented former drinking haunt of me and some of my friends during our misspent youth), that person shouldn’t be able to continue reaping the benefits of the things that put them in power to begin with, i.e., the votes of me and my aforementioned drinking buddies.

(Most of us gave up paisley when we discarded being ’80s-era mods and adopted a more plaid-like outlook on life, becoming ’90s-era Madchester and grunge addicts and devotees of the god-like Pixies.)

All kidding aside, though, don’t you think your vote should count in the place you put it, given that we have a party system in this country?

I don’t believe any of us should be put in the position of having to vote against ourselves (sounds naughty), which is essentially what a floor-crossing would equate to. Sure, you vote for a person, but you don’t just vote for a person.

Voting for the party is like religion in this country: a good chunk of the time people don’t give a flying tinker’s toy box whose name is on the ballot, so long as they belong to the right party. So how ?bout some recourse when a person divorces that party?

It seems to me that the best way to affect someone in government is to threaten either their status or their wallet?or both. So here are a few choices for payback:

If you decide to cross the floor, you must repay all the money you reaped from the party that got you elected. Furthermore, you automatically lose your seat. So, really, you win?a battle of personal conscience that reaps you no actual benefits.

And now that you’ve done so, there’s also the joy of facing the judgement of those who followed their conscience when they elected you, and will follow it when they hand you your hat. don’t cry foul, matey; they’re just doing to you what you did to them: asking for their conscience to remain intacta.

You are also ineligible for any potential by-election that happens in your riding because of your move, and must wait until the next full election to run again. Or, if you wish to run, the party in whose bosom you now rest must foot the bill for said by-election. The people already paid for their choice; they shouldn’t pay twice. (We have the GST for that.) Oh, I can just about smell the love this would generate.

There’s really only one major flaw in my theories of punishment: people who don’t cross because they don’t want to face the storm it would kindle, and who then fail to work in the interest of the party that got them elected. Or worse, even go so far as to work to its detriment.

we’ll call this double-dealing, mole-type bullshit, yet how this would be different from a good bit of what goes on in the political forum now I’d be hard-pressed to figure out.

I’d like to say I had a vehicle for effecting some kind of political alteration but I don’t, and anything else I might add right now would leave me sounding preachy; I would have about as much popularity as the jerk at the back of the bar who keeps shouting for the band to play ?Freebird.?

Yet whatever the consequences might be, and despite its rarity and the fact that we don’t ever seem to question it when it happens, crossing the floor of Parliament shouldn’t go unnoticed, or garner only a little ill will as its punishment.

I made a choice at the polls and I’d like to have at least some modicum of my integrity held up. If they can’t do it, I’ll happily send them packing, but they’ll go bare-handed?not with the contents of the mini-bar in the hotel room of my political ideals.

Musical Furnishings

You know all those times your mom read you the riot act for drumming on the dinner table? Wouldn’t this just drive her ?round the twist? Why yes, that is my mean streak showing. I say that with a smile.

5 Different Types of Gardening

If gardening didn’t seem so much like work, some of this stuff would be very cool to try.

Top 75 Most Memorable Movie Quotes of All Time

Interesting list, except that number 5 is a myth. That line’s never used in the film.

Swedish Furniture Name Generator

Apparently, I’m a chair.

Katrin Sonnleitner

Amongst other neat little projects, Katrin shares the know-how on making a Persian-style rug out of jigsaw-shaped pieces. Secretly, as a child, I wanted a jig saw so I could make my own puzzles out of wood. Now I want a 10 thousand dollar pipe bender.

Arborism

Trees? Not just so! They are branch patterns based on fractals. So cool. It appeals much to my geeky side.

Bielefeld Conspiracy

Does it, or does it not, exist? If you say yes, You’re just in on it. Ooh ooh, I know! It’s the Illuminati!

Forest Swastika

Well, That’s one way to leave your mark?although I don’t think it proved terribly effective, given the lack of personal airplanes.

Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker

Sooo, the fact that I know where it is, and so do you, in no way diminishes its secrecy?

Principality of Sealand

This micronation, 10 km off the coast of England, rests comfortably on an old WW II sea fort. Its population rarely exceeds 10.

February 30

And we thought the 29th was bad enough.

Phantom Time Hypothesis

So, what You’re saying here, is that It’s really 1711? Must I wear a corset?

Inherently Funny Word

Well, I laughed.

Toynbee Tiles

So, this weekend, if You’re not doing anything . . .

List of English Words Containing Q Not Followed by U

U see what I mean by Wikipedia being fun and U?ful?

Schmidt Sting Pain Index

Oh hell no.

As Slow As Possible

Concluding its performance in 2640, this John Cage piece began in 2001.

List of Films Considered to be the Worst

Hey, I take exception to that! I happen to LOVE Santa Claus Conquers the Martians!

But then there’s Canadian politics.

For example, what harm might be done by a party member who, after being elected to office in the Plaid Party, suddenly changes his mind and joins the Paisley Party? Is Plaid Party person now acting in my best interest, or are they acting in their own?

In good faith, I voted to have a Plaid Party person running my business for me because I like Plaid Party principles. I did not ask for Paisley Party principles; in fact, I just voted against them.

So what good is it doing me, or my vote, if the person I chose has suddenly become a switch hitter in the middle of the ninth inning, bases loaded, two men out? It doesn’t do much good for my political ideals, or the way governments conduct people’s lives; or, rather, ?orchestrate.?

And I think It’s long past time for there to be consequences.

If a person crosses the floor to the Other Side (by which I do not mean the much-lamented former drinking haunt of me and some of my friends during our misspent youth), that person shouldn’t be able to continue reaping the benefits of the things that put them in power to begin with, i.e., the votes of me and my aforementioned drinking buddies.

(Most of us gave up paisley when we discarded being ’80s-era mods and adopted a more plaid-like outlook on life, becoming ’90s-era Madchester and grunge addicts and devotees of the god-like Pixies.)

All kidding aside, though, don’t you think your vote should count in the place you put it, given that we have a party system in this country?

I don’t believe any of us should be put in the position of having to vote against ourselves (sounds naughty), which is essentially what a floor-crossing would equate to. Sure, you vote for a person, but you don’t just vote for a person.

Voting for the party is like religion in this country: a good chunk of the time people don’t give a flying tinker’s toy box whose name is on the ballot, so long as they belong to the right party. So how ?bout some recourse when a person divorces that party?

It seems to me that the best way to affect someone in government is to threaten either their status or their wallet?or both. So here are a few choices for payback:

If you decide to cross the floor, you must repay all the money you reaped from the party that got you elected. Furthermore, you automatically lose your seat. So, really, you win?a battle of personal conscience that reaps you no actual benefits.

And now that you’ve done so, there’s also the joy of facing the judgement of those who followed their conscience when they elected you, and will follow it when they hand you your hat. don’t cry foul, matey; they’re just doing to you what you did to them: asking for their conscience to remain intacta.

You are also ineligible for any potential by-election that happens in your riding because of your move, and must wait until the next full election to run again. Or, if you wish to run, the party in whose bosom you now rest must foot the bill for said by-election. The people already paid for their choice; they shouldn’t pay twice. (We have the GST for that.) Oh, I can just about smell the love this would generate.

There’s really only one major flaw in my theories of punishment: people who don’t cross because they don’t want to face the storm it would kindle, and who then fail to work in the interest of the party that got them elected. Or worse, even go so far as to work to its detriment.

we’ll call this double-dealing, mole-type bullshit, yet how this would be different from a good bit of what goes on in the political forum now I’d be hard-pressed to figure out.

I’d like to say I had a vehicle for effecting some kind of political alteration but I don’t, and anything else I might add right now would leave me sounding preachy; I would have about as much popularity as the jerk at the back of the bar who keeps shouting for the band to play ?Freebird.?

Yet whatever the consequences might be, and despite its rarity and the fact that we don’t ever seem to question it when it happens, crossing the floor of Parliament shouldn’t go unnoticed, or garner only a little ill will as its punishment.

I made a choice at the polls and I’d like to have at least some modicum of my integrity held up. If they can’t do it, I’ll happily send them packing, but they’ll go bare-handed?not with the contents of the mini-bar in the hotel room of my political ideals.

Bonus points for anyone who knows what film I stole the title of this list from.

Weebl and Bob

Well, okay, it makes sense to me, but I’m not quite right, y?know? If You’re going to watch more Weebl and Bob episodes, I suggest you start at the beginning, or you’ll miss sooo much. ?Now pie gone. Yet we hunger.?

Monoface

didn’t anyone tell you that if you make a face like that and the wind changes your face will stick that way?

Feed the Head

I bet you’d like me to explain this to you. Well, sorry?not gonna.

Pipecleaner

Click on one of the larger letter circles to choose a musical style, then either use your keyboard to type the letters in the middle or roll your mouse over it to make the pipe cleaner dance. I recommend letters A and E.

Legos Run

How could I, a big sucker for Logan’s Run, pass this up? I could not!

WebUrbanist

A master of finding what is cool, new, old, and most assuredly odd, near daily collections are presented on all manner of topics from hotel rooms to monuments to narrow houses to freaky animal life.

Fiendish Curiosities

These very clever and talented folks produce ?leading edge sideshow gaffs and abnormalities for exhibit in modern day odditoriums, touring grimoires, or nestled comfortably in one’s own bizarre cabinet of genetic anomolies.? Perhaps, if you’ve been a little late with that Mother’s Day gift . . .

Living Tables

If You’re the sort who likes to eat alone, this may not be for you; but if you just happen to be alone for some reason not of personal preference, then you don’t actually have to stay that way?your table will talk back to you, in character too!

Top Ten Craziest Science Stuff

. . . and in some cases may not want to know. Remember before you look, you can’t unknow something.

Seven Strange Lucky Charms

Vulture heads? I think I’ll stick with crossing my toes.

Mental Math Tricks

You never know when multiplication tricks could come in handy.

Number Gossip

Everything you wanted to know about a number, but were afraid to ask. Ooher.

MathWorld

The world’s most extensive maths resource?and they aren’t kidding.

Dr. Sarah’s Futurama Math

All those math jokes out of six years of grad school. See? Higher education can lead to a lucrative career in comedy!

Metamath Music Page

Now why should mathematical proofs exist only on the page in dry one-dimensional fashion? Add a little pizzazz with sound!

Costume Collection

Going as far back as the 1700s, here’s a taste of the Smithsonian Institute’s clothing collections.

Knicker Picker

Sometimes you want to know how it’s going to look on before you buy it, but with underthings that’s not always possible. This site uses their models to show you how their products look right on the body, with several body shapes to choose from.

Ugly Dress

My eyes!

A Dress A Day

Sometimes I wonder what people were thinking, but then I realize that they probably weren’t. Some good, some bad, some “charmingly grotesque.”

Top 10 Ugliest Most Embarrassing Fashion Trends of the Past 25 Years

Not current, but still so frighteningly true. I could think of a few more recent items that could go on that list, like clothes so baggy they make you look like you raided your dad’s closet as a five-year-old.