Raising a heathen child

Wow – without even trying I’m on my way towards raising a “Darling Heathen Child.”  According to this handy list of tips, I scored a whole fifty points.  For the curious,  that would be saying yes to questions 1, 3, 5 (only a little though), 6 (but not intentionally – we have no TV), and 8.  The latter, “Separate moral instruction from religion” is a bit obnoxious.  In other words, if I choose not to be Christian, I should not provide moral instruction (that way it will be easier for people to point out how lacking religion causes moral decay, apparently).  And who says a lack of religion encourages moral relativism anyway? 

Preparing for a stolen election?

Great, apparently buried down in a defense appropriations bill, the US now has enabled the president to declare martial law.  The article seemed a bit alarmist until I actually looked at the bill itself (section 1076 about 3/4 of the way down) and it really does say what the article said it did. 

So what do you think?  Are we preparing a response to massive protests following an obviously stolen election (like in Mexico)?

Taking it easy

Paul’s got a cold and if I’m not careful I’ll end up with one as well.  So for the moment anyway, we’re kicking back and taking it really easy, watching a bit of what we can find on youtube.  Care to join us?

What the $!@#?!!?

I can’t even begin to describe how bizarre and wrong this is:

TheStar.com – U.S. teacher exiled to Canada

Another successfully executed new recipe

The first cooking video I saw online was by Manivan Larprom, a fellow Torontonian. I don’t even remember what I was searching for to find her recipe for Pad thai Pho Noodles, but the recipe looked so good I had to watch the video and made a mental note to get the items I was missing (mostly the pho noodles themselves). Today I went down to what used to be the Tai Kong supermarket on Spadina (which has received a very nice remodel and upgrade in technology now with organized cash registers, debit card acceptance and even grocery baggers. It also has a new name which escapes me at the moment).

Anyway, the recipe itself was as easy as advertised (the recipe says “Pad Thai Noodles should not take more than 5 minutes to cook” and this is totally true). The only adaptation I made was to eliminate the egg strips (Sage doesn’t like egg) and instead I baked thin slices of tofu marinated in garlic and soy sauce then sliced those into thin strips and used them like the egg is to be used.

Overall, the dish was as easy and quick to make as advertised and it was, indeed, as tasty as it looked!

Democratic Mac ad Parodies

Americablog had a link to several parodies that someone has done on the Mac vs. PC ads along with copies of the ads that they’re parodying.  They’re quite well done and, in my opinion, very funny. 

Delicious and quick dinner

I can take no credit for the creation of this recipe for spaghetti puttanesca but after watching it yesterday, I decided I had to have some.   So on the way home from a day at the science centre I stopped at a grocery store and got the ingredients as well as a nice ciabatta bread to mop up the leftover sauce and Paul and I started cooking.  Like she used to back in the yurt years, Sage fell asleep in the midst of dinner’s simmering.  Unlike the yurt years, I had Paul to keep me company.  Anyway – I highly recommend it – it’s a dish that takes about 20 minutes to cook but tastes like you spent an afternoon on it – this’ll likely be added to our list of staple foods.  I’ll definitely be checking in with Crash Test Kitchen again to see what else I can add to our usual dinners.

When in Rome

Earlier today I left a comment over at In Latte Veritas (a highly recommended podcast, by the way) in response to one by Daryl Cognito regarding the acceptability (or lack thereof) of breastfeeding in public after days earlier leaving a comment defending the rights of Muslim women in western countries to choose to wear a burkha if they so choose. Since doing that I’ve been wondering first off, how I’m able to defend breastfeeding, burkhas, and topfreedom (note – some (non-gratuitous, IMO) nudity in this wikipedia entry). I think it comes down to the freedom of an individual to do what they choose to do provided it hurts nobody but themselves. Social discomfort does not count as hurt, by the way.

But it brought up what I thought was an interesting question. In homogeneous societies, there is usually one source to go to that dictates social mores, be it the government, the church, or just the general customs that have been followed for years and years. What is happening now (okay, it’s not really a new thing, the Romans had to deal with this sort of thing with lands that they conquered) is that with very diverse societies, you get very diverse ideas of what is acceptable and decent. In Toronto, for example, if Sage were to walk topless down Church street, she might get a few amused looks but overall, I think she’d be accepted – particularly during pride week when she’d be far from alone. In our neighbourhood, inhabited nearly 50% by Muslims, many of whom are very conservative, I would expect outrage – I’m not sure how it would manifest itself, though. In other words, in many modern cultures, the phrase “When in Rome, do as the Romans do” no longer works since there is no longer any one mould that the local “Romans” fit in to.

So the question I have is this. In a diverse society, what, if anything, dictates the social mores that indirectly impact others such as dress (or lack thereof), nursing in public, or even language that some might find vulgar or offensive? The American way of thinking is that immigration should be a “great American melting pot” – everyone assimilates into a bland and acceptable “norm” including non-immigrants who just happen to be different (See Sage’s latest podcast – Dangerous Film Club 1 for more on that topic). Canada’s idea of immigration is a “cultural mosaic” where individuals retain their original cultures and add to the overall diversity. In my opinion this makes for a more interesting place to live.

So what’s your opinion? How do we create inclusive cultures that work? Where do social mores come from when everyone’s a newcomer, or in a culture that we (rightly, in my opinion), give the same rights to newcomers as natural born citizens?  I’ve created a forum topic in our forums here and am interested to hear what you think.

A disadvantage to having an iPod

I don’t remember if I mentioned here but Sage got me a video iPod for my birthday.  Or rather, she said, take some money and get yourself one.  I, in turn, gave her my Creative Zen Micro.  Overall it has been an excellent decision.  However, last night, as I headed over to the Diwali/Eid Celebrations I wished I still had it. Why?  Because it allowed for recording of audio without any external hardware and did a pretty darned good job of discretely recording whatever I heard on transit.  Last night, a kid, perhaps 3-4 years old, was absolutely belting out O Canada on the streetcar and getting the lyrics really perfect, while maintaining post-toddler cuteness.  I could almost see it as an alternate intro to the Quirky Quiz or another of Sage’s podcasts.

The celebrations themselves were kind of a bust.  There was a DJ near the library with nobody listening to him, and other stores had their speakers out but overall the streets were remarkably empty as compared to, say, a July night.  I did go to Narula’s for a vegetarian thali and walked several blocks from there on Gerrard before picking up the streetcar and heading back home.  Oh, and I also found what is, I think, a legal copy of Munna Bhai MBBS, which Paul and I watched a bit of last night, and got the soundtrack of Lage Raho Munna Bhai for Sage, who has been hooked on the songs since we saw it a few weeks back.

I feel so old

When did the guys from R.E.M. get to be so old?  Despite their age they can still make a good song and video.