Gnawing at your brain and clawing to get out, it's...
T H E J U I C E A N D G I N
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Term XXXIX, Issue 3 (#166)
Weather outlook:
Chillin'.
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* Contents *
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- Editor's Blurb
- Ongoing Events
- Photographia
- Greg's DTK
- Humour
- General Info
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* Editor's Blurb *
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Hey all
There's so much actual content in this week's issue that I don't really
have to say that much. Just let the newsletter do it's own talking for
once. And about freaking time too.
Until next time,
Lord of the Dance? He's not even lord of his pants.
Michael (mailto:nutsinfo$yahoo.ca)
And now, the rest of the story...
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* Ongoing Events *
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[See the Event Calendar on the web site for full descriptions.
--Ed.]
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Pool League
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Mondays
http://www.solutionsatsource.com/pool
Contact: Larisa and Michael (mailto:pool$solutionsatsource.com)
View the current players' statistics at:
http://nutsevents.topcities.com/events/pool/index.html
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Indoor Rock Climbing
====================
Thursday evenings
Contact: Claire (mailto:Claire.Mettier$alcatel.com)
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* Photographia *
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More sweet recycled punchin' fun.
http://nutsevents.topcities.com/pictures/Punch/index.html
http://torpedo.ca.newbridge.com/mirror/pictures/Punch/index.html
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* Greg's Deep Thought Korner *
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I read about one of the most disturbing things ever in my very own
province. It turns out that, up until very recently, religious people
were permitted to handle divorces using a religious mediator.
I don't know if anyone's noticed but, historically, your major religions
have been exceptionally bad for women. The Garden of Eden story tells
us that women brought evil in the world. Pandora's box was no
different. The agony of childbirth was viewed as just punishment for
the evil of being female. In some parts of India, women are still
expected to toss themselves on their husbands' funeral pyres. Then
there's that whole nonsense with burqwas and chadors and women get
beaten up for showing an ankle in public because, I've been told by
reliable sources, it's a woman's responsibility not to tempt men. It's
enough to make you weep and gnash your teeth.
And yet, for reasons unclear, Ontario brought in to being some years
back a law that said that religious groups have the right to mediate
divorces. The question that springs to my mind is this: why did there
need to be such a law? Any time two people get divorced, they can
handle it in whatever way they want, sign off on the division of
children and goods and be done with it. The only reason to make a
special law in the first place is because decisions were being made that
were otherwise illegal.
But here we have the statement: "The 1991 Ontario Arbitration Act gave
state sanction to rabbinical courts, making its decisions legally
enforceable, provided they don't conflict with Ontario law." So why,
then, did we need to make a law that said, "you can make up your own
settlement, as long as it doesn't break the law"? Why make a special
rule for religions? And why would we cause our provincial legal system
to enforce religious law? What this basically does, if I understand it,
is permit someone to be pressured in to accepting religious mediation,
and then have the province enforce a completely unfair (but technically
legal) decision.
I hold it as a vital axiom of healthy nationhood that religion should
not be permitted to trump civil law. When religion starts to rule a
nation, both religion and nation corrupt each other. The nation is
twisted to fit the religion and the religion is twisted to create
power. The record of history is with me on this one.
Members of the Jewish community rightly complain that Ontario is already
supporting Christianity - by supporting the Catholic school system
separately from the public. Shouldn't every religion then have the
right to provincial funding? The answer is "no". No one should have
such funding.
Religion is your personal thing. You can do it in your house. You can
teach it to your children. You can do it on the street. You can sing
it to your friends. You can do it in your church, synagogue, mosque
or... wherever it is that devotees of the IPU go. But don't expect tax
dollars to pay for spreading your beliefs. Don't expect tax dollars to
enforce your religion.
We've been there before. It was called the Dark Ages. There were
crusades and inquisitions, holy wars and genocide. There were people
manipulating religious ecstasy for murder and power. At the end of it,
the religious learned to stay away from the halls of power and the
people in power learned to stay away from religion.
Greg.
[Send responses to DTKs or new Editorials to mailto:nutsinfo$yahoo.ca]
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* Humour *
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[Forward any good jokes or interesting web sites you see to
mailto:nutsinfo$yahoo.ca]
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Kids These Days...
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Thanks to Lisa B.
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious
diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up... what
with walking twenty miles to school every morning uphill both ways
through year 'round blizzards carrying their younger siblings on their
backs, to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a Straight-A
average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile
mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their
family from starving to death.
I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell
I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I
had it and how easy they've got it.
But... Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't
help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so
FREAKING easy. I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn
Utopia.
And I hate to say it, but... you kids today you don't know how good
you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet --
we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it
up. And there was no email. We had to actually write somebody a letter
-- with a pen. And then you had to walk all the way across the street
and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there.
And there were no MP3s or Napsters. You wanted to steal music, you had
to go to the damn record store and shop lift it yourself. Or we had to
wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would always
talk over the beginning and screw it all up.
We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting. If you were on the phone
and somebody else called they got a busy signal. And we didn't have
fancy Caller ID boxes either. When the phone rang, you had no idea who
it was. It could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, your drug
dealer, you didn't know... You just had to pick it up and take your
chances, Mister.
And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with
high-resolution 3-D graphics. We had the Atari 2600. With games like
"Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ass. Your guy
was a little triangle; you had to use your own damn imagination. And
there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen
forever. And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and
faster until you died. Just like LIFE.
When you went to the movie theatre there no such thing as stadium
seating. All the seats were the same height. A tall guy sat in front
of you, you were screwed.
And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20
channels and there was no onscreen menu. You had to use a little book
called a TV Guide to find out what was on. And there was no Cartoon
Network. You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... Do you hear
what the hell I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little
turds.
That's exactly what I'm talking about. You kids today have got it too
easy. You're spoiled, I swear. You guys wouldn't last five minutes
back in 1984.
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* General Info *
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Contact the NUTS Committee:
mailto:nutsinfo$yahoo.ca
The NUTS Website is:
http://nutsevents.topcities.com
http://torpedo.ca.newbridge.com/mirror (for people within Alcatel)
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