September 30, 2005

Nothing should ever start at 8:15 in the morning.

No wait amend that wars should start at 8:00am so that everyone sleeps in and no-one wants to go and eventually world peace becomes the norm.

The meetings today were really interesting, and I am officially excited to be part of this project...

Interesting links abound such as one to Martus.org a human rights bulletin board.

I alsos took part in discussions that dealt in very practical ways with aspects of authenticity and identity in totally new ways (for me anyways). Many of the discussions were about violence and violence preventation/support for women in abusive situations so we had several talks about identity and safety. On the one hand it is neccesary to guarantee the protection of womens identities when they use on -line resources. But as another issue of safety there is potential to use software like martus for publishing what basically amount to stats on known abusers etc..

In either case what is at stake is the aunthentic identity of the person sitting at the computer and making use of the web. The idea of publishing perp sheets came after the revelation that certain groups of anti-feminists (for lack of a better name) actually publish images of shelters with addresses on the web. Ick.

In another sense this meeting/conference has been a revelation because I have always been one of the third wave kids who hasn't dealt with issues of violence in an practical sense, because I am lucky probably. So to see actual discussion about how this site i am going to be working on can be utilized as an activist tool in a very grassroots way, is really quite exciting (I sound so British).

Other highlights include a discussion of F/LOSS and it's utility for feminist online projects and a really interesting discussion about sex work on the web, and the debate around how to integrate the reality of women doing sex work online with political discourses about exploitation and violence.

Another talk centred around the fact that there is no womens cluster in canadas e-governance portal.

What I find fascinating is that there was a suggestion that taxonomies which included gender and sexuality as references needed to be included in the national governments classification scheme. (called clusters for some reason, these schemes group services according to what each cluster would likely need)

Upon hearing this my first thought was; well they probably didn't include any hard and fast categories for gender, race sexuality and ability because they figured any time they named anything someone would get them in trouble> immeidately after thinking that I wised up and changed my mind and said no, they are just too lazy to actually support social change so they didn't bother to give anyone an identity on-line aside from socially sanctioned ones; business owner, parent, healthcare recipient etc..

Anyways, then I turned my thoughts to my own porblems with the click which gender you are buton found on most on-line forms, and from there to the fact that a lot of my friendster friends made up the tag pomo-sexual to describe themselves on their profiles over there. The trend caught on, and now when you click on anyones pomo-sexual tag you get a list of all the pomo-sexuals world wide.

The first example of canadas reluctance to use an incomplete /politically divisive tagging system is an examplel of the tstaes reluctance to assume responsibility for identity when that idenity departs from the norm, but it is also and example of groups who require that their existance be sanctioned by some body who has access to resources and services that we all require. YUck power power power and its uneven distribution.

The second example is the libertatrian myth, if you don't like your name you can change it and if the current crop of gender options doesn't satisfy then you can make one up.

I am still not certain which struggle I am down with, pushing for an expansion of state sanctioned identities or saying fuggit just call me pomo-sexual.

The last word of the conference thus far: (and it's afunny word)

CJ Rowe was doing a presentation on violence and Exploitation of Owmen using ICTs and I think to inject some levity into a tough topic showed us a websiet called the sinulator.com.

which is exactly what you think it a gameboy for your dildo. Even better than that it powers the dong remotely, which means you can hook up via the site and get some perfect stranger to man the stick-shift if you will.

Anyways, some members of the audiance found the concept a little 'confusing' and the best quote of the day comes from Gloria who cried in frustation:

"I don't understand are you dating the TOY?!"

I think that's it for me now.

I will exit with one quote I read while riding in a very slow cab to the hotel last night. It has nothing to do with anything but it's to good not to put up here, and I don't wanna post twice.

"Be patient towards all that is unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves."

-Rainer Maria Rilke

September 29, 2005

I just looked at the agenda for the conference I will be attending this week-end, and it's interesting looking stuff.

(Although I am still a little jealous that I don't get to go to london with my friends...)

C'est vrais que c'est mon premier conference ou je suis payee comme membre de l'equipe) that's a pretty nice trade off. I get a food allowance and a hotel room. I feel like a real professional.. Although maybe it's still a little up in the air. I am blogging about it after all, not a very professional thing to do. and i don't know whether to bring career clothes (pressed pants and leather shoes) or feminist-activist clothes (jeans, sneakers and multiple hoodies).

My favorite book about business trips is the Martin Amis book : Money. In which the lead character John Self spends a lot of time drinking himself senseless in expense account hotel suites.

I think I will spend most of my time working on contracts when not attending sessions. I don't think senseless drinking is a good plan when one has lots of contracts to finish.

Here's the agenda, (as Alison points out she should be at this conference as well. since she isn't, I am going to have to listen carefully and report back)

Agenda

Friday, September 30, 2005

8:15 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 10:30 Welcome/Introductions/ Initiative Overview

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:30
Virtual Mobilizing and Organizing
Communities of Practice
F/LOSS - Open Source Software
Online Consultations

12:30 - 1:30 Lunch - Luncheon Presentation - Constitutional Advancement of Women’s Equality: Responding to Challenges & Seizing Opportunities

1:30 - 2:30 Virtual Safety and Empowerment Violence and Exploitation of Women Using ICTs Online Safety Initiatives

2:30 - 2:45 Coffee Break

2:45 - 3:30 Virtual Safety and Empowerment (cont’d)

3:30 - 4:00 Roundtable Discussion/Closure

Saturday, October 1, 2005

8:15 - 9:00 Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 10:30 Virtual State and Participation Gender, Digital Divides and ICT Agendas in Canada Government of Canada Online Initiatives
Industry Canada-Telecommunication Policy Review Panel

10:30 - 10:45 Coffee Break

10:45 - 12:00 Virtual State and Participation (cont’d)

12:00 - 1:30 Lunch

1:30 - 4:00 Canada-Australia Comparative IP & Cyberlaw Conference: Fauteux Hall University of Ottawa

1:30PM Internet Content Regulation
Carolyn Penfold – University of New South Wales
Internet Content Regulations in Australia
Jane Bailey – University of Ottawa
Child Pornography and the Internet

3:15PM Online Consumer Issues
Matthew Rimmer, Australian National University
Consumer Rights in Digital Millennium
Michael Deturbide – Dalhousie University
Consumer Protection Online

Sunday, October 2, 2005

8:45 - 9:30 Buffet Breakfast

9:30 - 10:30 Virtual Strategizing and Development

10:30 - 10:45 Break

10:45 - 12:00 Next Steps

12:00 Adjournment - Lunch

.. and that's all she wrote folks. This is going to test my listening skills I imagine, I am really not that good at these things, I want to be, but I am really not.

Upon second glance the oddest part is these proscribed coffee breaks. As a freelancer /contractual cubicle jockey I am used to my work life being like one long coffee break punctuated by bouts of intense activity, not the other way around....

The $100 laptop moves closer to reality

From Ned...

How cool is that? Now my plans for starting tech empowerment course for kids run froma suitcase is only two years away from beng totally affordable.

It's raining out. My plan to post once a week is an obvious failure.

oh yeah!!

Erin if you are reading this i have a business meeting in Ottawa this week-end so we should hook -up and go look at enigma machines etc.. my msn is wussmachine@hotmail.com. messenger me.. or send me an email.

Housebreakers if you are reading this.. the only peice of technology I own is my 5 year old g4 which makes burpy farty scray noises whenever it tries to do anything as complex as open a new browser window. DO you yorselves a favor and don't bother robbing me, there's no point

September 28, 2005

Last night I finished the drawing for my Moms headstone. It's really simple and didn't take all that long, but I have been putting it off and avoiding for about 12 months now or more.

I thought I would write a bit about the avoiding. Safe here, listening to my itunes randomly produce all the songs I spent a year listening to while I tried to come to terms with this new life experience.

My Bubi kept bugging me about the unveiling and when it would happen and saying; " I don't know how much longer I will be around.." and when you're 95 years old that is not an idle threat.

And I started to feel worse and worse about not having done anything, seeing as my job was the easier compared to my brother having to manage the estate. Until this whole thing of commemorating my mom who was lying under the ground began to feel as nasty and defeating as the Torah portion I couldn't memorize for my bat-mtizvah.

I feel a little better now that I have done it. Much like I felt better once I sat down with the tapes and just memorized the damn portion but now it's almost winter and to all intents and purposes we are late late late and my mothers been lying out there near King city with nothing to tell people where she is or anything about her at all.

The worst part is that this feels so selfish, because I am aware that the reason it's taken so long is that I am scared to death to go back to that place.

I'd rather spend a night underground where she is than have to be standing over her grave. I know that sounds melodramatic but it's true.

Last night I had a dream of what we could do instead of having a horrible unveiling out at that remote jewish cemetary, where my last viable memory of the funeral is of my brother and I climbing backwards into a limousine and speeding away from all the people I loved who weren't allowed in the car with us.

In my dream we are having a giant breakfast in a big white tent with lots of crepes and maple syrup and everyone we love drinking yummy coffees and eating unkosher but excellent breakfast sausages.

In short, I don't want to go to my mothers grave, I would rather eat pancakes. I am certainly not going to chastise myself for this, because it's probably perfectly logical. Maybe, or maybe not, it doesn't matter that's all part of the lean into it mentality, and if I wanted to chase down what drives this fantasy it's probably the fact that my last good memory of my mother alive is of eating breakfast with her, my brother and my partner at the time, at her apartment when I visited in June of 2004.

Ahhh...sigh, okay there goes some of my tension.. I don't know though, I think this is going to be scary until I actually go out there. What a cliche.

Now that I feel better, here's a picture of what we are putting on the headstone.

This goes with a quote from Leonard Cohen;

"There's a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in."