Sex Ed & Parental Respect

Dear Sunny Hostin, lawyer, journalist, columnist, social commentator,

Your child is a banana, and it's ripening fast!  Before you know it, it's ripe.  Puberty is here.  The window to educate your child on the REAL words for his or her body parts is closed and sealed shut. The time for you to lay the groundwork and basic knowledge about sex in your own way, is over. You missed it.  But it's ok, they learned from someone else.

I just watched you on the View argue the detriment of sex ed in schools because you feel it lacks "respect".  Can we talk about that?  Can we look at it from a different angle?

I'm assuming that you feel schools should respect a parent's right to educate their child themselves.  I feel the direction you're going with this, and under different circumstances I'd make a sign and march for your right to raise your child as you wish.  You taught your child where his nose is, so you want to teach him where his sexual organs are too.  I get that.  Thing is, are you going to also teach him about the many other sexual organs out there that differ from his?

Your stance shocks me to be honest.  You're a lawyer.  You're a journalist.  Your entire career surrounds defending, trying, and reporting on individuals based on personal mistakes they've made. The world is full of humans who use poor judgement, think incorrectly, and are ignorant about the facts of life.  I mean, there are still people out there who believe they won't get pregnant if they have sex standing up.  Do you think that we should allow said people to be the ones explaining why those two guys are holding hands in the mall?  Why that man is dressed like a woman?  Where babies come from?  What this tingling is between my legs?

I mean, several courts of law and society has ruled that all sexual orientations are legal and must be tolerated. Therefore teaching our youth about the many transgender orientations out there and teaching them what their reproductive organs are for is crucial. There must be a standard of knowledge that is taught across the board like any other subject in school.  Sex Ed in schools is how we create tolerant societies.  Sex Ed is how we protect kids from abuse.

Fact is, by the time you and other parents like you are ready to have this talk, your child has already learned a lot about sex.  That's right.  If mom and dad don't teach it, and the school doesn't teach it, then kids get together and learn about it from one another and their older peers.  And yes, you may be one of the few parents who do inform their kids, but what about the other parents?  Or more importantly, what about the other kids?

Gabor Maté & The Myth of Normalcy

Please watch this VIDEO

Normalcy is a myth.

Before the pills pills pills started getting pushed pushed pushed, those
of us with mental illness were more accepted.  It was understood that
we were different and no one suggested drugging any of us to make
us more like our peers.

As Dr. Maté states, the best place in the world to be schizophrenic is a
small town in Africa where you are not medicated, but accepted instead.

Nowadays though, it seems that we can't have 'different' kids in class
with the 'normal' kids.

So we medicate them.
So we sedate them.
So we zombify them with pills.

Inclusion isn't real if you're altering one side to fit in with the other.

We change their body's chemistry to fit in with the others for 6 hours a day.

Do we do this for their good?
Do we do this for the good of their peers?
Do we do this for the good of the teachers and EA's?

What about the other 18 hours?

Do "school-to-community" programs in schools encourage the
over-drugging of kids?

Is it time to create alternative schools that don't require or (perhaps even)
allow chemical medications?  Schools where the lunch menu is as important as
the curriculum.  Schools where being INDIVIDUAL is almost a requirement.

I think yes.

Stop creating the box in which to fit the kids.

Let them create their own boxes to fit into!  Even if they're in them alone.

Employment as an Antidepressant

The ads pushing pills are everywhere, and on every channel on tv.  It's difficult to avoid them. Images of what we're supposed to believe HAPPINESS looks like.  A pill a day keeps depression away!  I wish it were so simple.

For many of us, a pill a day keeps other things away.  Enjoyable things, necessary things, normal body processes even.  For some of us, the side effects from these pills are too much to handle, their ill effects negating any good the pills may do.

I just left my new Doc's office with a feeling I've rarely had.  You see, pills are not the only way to beat the blues.  Not that Big Pharma would have you believe that.  I guess they call them Alternative therapies.  Alternative to the norm~ the norm being man-made tablets?  Okay.  This feeling I have is a mixture of gratitude, relief, and hope.  I think I finally found a healer.  I finally found a great physician.

You see, I don't fear Doctors.  I fear their prescription pads.  I fear the pills they prescribe.  I fear the pressure to agree and to comply. No matter how much sugar my old Doctor spooned in, those pills just never felt right.

But Dr. P is different, he's like me.  He sees the need to dig deeper and find the root causes. Rather than feeling like your thoughts are in mental quicksand, as they did when I was on pharmaceuticals, alternative measures to depression and anxiety can be a life line to pull you out. Rather than feeling like failure grips your throat, the many talk therapies out there can ease that grip, putting you back into the driver's seat of your life.

The spectrum of therapies alternative to the norm is wide and far-reaching.  From Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to Yoga, and everything in between.  But Dr. P and I agree we need to add another one to that list, that one being Employment.

Many years ago, I thought the depression had won.  I was out of work and broke with bills piling up.  I needed income but felt too depressive to work.  My then Doctor tried to convince me that work was good for me.  But knowing this truth in a world where jobs are few is a cruel cruel joke.

Let's face it, we have too many employees and not enough jobs.  It is now an "Employer's Market" where employers can pick and choose, this employee or that.  If we can agree that employment is an antidepressant, then you can see the dangers in this fact.

Employment as therapy hits many chords in me.  The routine, the purpose, the pay check at the end of the week, these are all beneficial in some way.  Being surrounded by people to connect with may be even more beneficial than we suspect.  I mean, even in my darkest hours, a smile or kind gesture can be like a sunrise on a dark morn.  We are pack animals~ we work better in a team.

Every single one of us is unique and one pill will never fit all.  Which is why we have to keep searching, learning, inquiring of the pack to find the therapy that makes each one of us tick. 

Surrender to the darkness is not an option.

A Reply to "Hello" ... From the Other Side

Adele's new song titled "Hello" is gripping isn't it?  Could she have found a more haunting tone?  It almost seems like she's saying hello to someone on the other side of the universe.  I love it.  But I don't like it.

The timing of the release placed Hello right in my lap.  A big steaming pile of nostaglic shit that stained me with more than a few moments of self-loathing.
I experienced my own Hello and it didn't hit a good note in me.  Let me explain.

About two months ago, an ex decided to Hello me by commenting on one of my blog posts.  He asked me to get in touch with him, and he left his number for all of the world wide web to see.  This is a mistake from over a dozen years ago.  This selfish, self-serving individual that I thought was a part of my history reached out to me.  I thought I was free of that memory, never to be seen again. Never to be dreamed of again.  Some reminders can rip a person apart.

Knowing this child better than I care to, I knew not to answer that call.  No doubt he ... 'was wondering if after all these years, (I'd) like to meet and go over everything.'

No doubt, this big baby dressed up in adult clothing is ... 'dreaming of how we used to be'.  He likely believes that like Adele, ...'time is supposed to heal', likely thinks he ... 'ain't done much healin'.'  

Funny that.  In my memory, it wasn't him that was broken.  Did HE dream about me for years and years in dreams of searching that kept on living in waking moments?  Did our time together demolish any of his relationships the way it did mine?  Does HE have scars that change how he sees himself the way my scars leave me?  

I doubt it.  He went on with his life.  And he left me picking up the pieces of mine, and seeing that they didn't fit together anymore.

Talk show hosts are saying that "Hello" is making listeners feel nostalgic for their past loves.  If this is true, I doubt it was Adele's intention.  What good can come of that I ask you?

Let me reiterate that I love Adele and her voice is just incredible in this song, but if we could look at it from another angle, we'd see that calling someone who's heart we've broken, is not conducive to sunny days for the one receiving that call.  And furthermore, that feeling you have that you just must reconnect, is guilt.  Pure and simply basic guilt, and the only reason for that call is to appease said guilt.  It is for your good only;  never for the good of the person answering your selfish Hello.

Now, when I hear "Hello", it's not Adele's amazing voice I hear. Instead, it's the voice of that big baby trying to suck me back in.  It's his voice telling me ... "I'm sorry, for everything that I've done."  It's him imploring ... "Can you hear me?" ... I'm sure he's ... "dreaming about who we used to be."

But he's wrong because I am not that person anymore.  And to anyone who's feeling nostalgic from these haunting lyrics, I have some advice as someone from the other side.  Let me respond to some of these lines:

"Hello from the other side." >>> back away from the phone.  If this person needed to hear your voice, they would have called you.

"I must've called a thousand times." >>>have you always been a slow learner?    TAKE THE HINT!!!    A non-answer IS your answer!

"To tell you I'm sorry, for everything that I've done.">>>too little too late.  My grey matter has swallowed that nightmare of an affair so that I don't have to care anymore.  Your apology, though 14 years too late, is not for me ... have you apologized to your wife yet douchebag?

"But when I call you never seem to be home.">>>Once again.  We're home.  We just don't want to open up that poisonous BPA-lined can of worms.  What's done is done and hopefully forgotten!

If you too get stuck with the uninvited Hello, do as I did and don't be fooled. Time does heal, but time also schools.  We are constantly growing, constantly evolving into something more than we were. Cherish this knowledge and keep it safe so you don't get stained with someone else's nostalgic pile of steaming merde.


"What you allow;  is what will follow."

Non-Vax Kids are Healthier?

Do you vaccinate?
Do you follow the schedule like a good citizen?
Did you know the schedule is different from province to province?
Did you know that you don't have to follow that program?

Many of us refuse vaccinations.  Many of my friends have refused to vaccinate their children and babies because we've read evidence to make us worry.

I have a friend in her 20's who has never had a vaccination and she is the picture of health.

There is mad evidence now that Vaccines damage our biology and a German researcher did the work.

Would you like to read about that?

Ok, but only on one condition:  you treat this info like it's a hot potato.

HERE IT IS ~ read, understand, and now share.


Last week I read a blog post by a mother who's child was suffering from Pertussis which is the whooping cough.  She said that as she typed, she kept her sweet boy in full view as he played and coughed and then played some more.  She didn't vaccinate him for Pertussis.  Do you know why?
Because her sweet boy was not her first sweet boy.  She and her loving husband buried their first born the year before.  He died in his sleep the very night he was given his DtaP vaccine.

As that mother worries as mothers do, sitting up night after night with her wee boy struggling to breath beside her, she doesn't wonder if she made the wrong decision about the vaccinations.
At least, she assures herself, this child is still breathing.


If vaccines were about OUR HEALTH, they wouldn't be such a profitable industry that no one is allowed to question.

Question it .... please.

A Clear Path to Democracy

Well THAT was inspiring!!

I had my first volunteer meeting with my local Liberal Member of Parliament.

There I sat with about 25 fellow Kingstonians listening to a Queen's Law student in her early 30's who has been thru 30 or 40 elections in her life.

Holy moly .... inspire much?

Other than a few young peeps on the phones, I was the
youngest in the volunteer pack.

We'll be canvassing our areas of the city on Monday
encouraging our Liberal neighbors to vote.

As our speaker so eloquently said (and yes it brought tears to my sappy eyes) ...

we want to make the clearest path to democracy.

And ... by doing this, I am now a part of the super awesome victory party where I'll sit around with fellow Liberals and await the election results.

This is my first time taking part in an election, and it's a monumental one to say the least. If I could feel more patriotic, I'm not sure how.

Thank you to MP Mark Gerretsen and his team for making this Canadian feel connected once again.
Now .... let's get things done eh?

Do you want to vote, but can't get a ride?

We have volunteers to drive you there. There's no reason to not fill out that ballot. You might as well .... it's there waiting for you!

#ygk
#kingston
#canadavotes

'Tis the Season for Theft

I watched a tv show yesterday called "Storage Wars".  It's a canadian show about people who buy the contents of storage units after the owners default on the rent.  So often during the show, the potential buyers would look into that cluttered unit hoping it contained something valuable.

I see a correlation here, as I'm sure there are many individuals and groups out there who drive down the road and upon seeing a greenhouse, wonder the very same thing:

"Is there something valuable growing in there?  And how do I get my hands on that?"

Because I speak so openly about Cannabis, people like to tell me their "big fish" stories.  I know that 'gardening pride' feeling, as my one hot pepper plant yielded more than thirty peppers this year!

People tell me about their past grows, their current grows, and the grows they just happen to find. "Find" being the operative word here.  I giggled and growled inside a few months ago while a friend's husband boasted to me that he's really good at finding other people's outdoor crops.  'What do you mean you're good at 'finding' people's crops?' I wanted to ask.  Were they lost?  Were you part of a search party?

Nope.  He means he's good at thieving other peoples' medicine. What often amazes me, is that these very same people would never risk  stealing from a store or a bank.  Oh no.  But they'd steal months and months of work and worry from their neighbor and their fellow citizen.  Those plants didn't fall down from the sky you dick!  They didn't root themselves, water themselves just so you can come and cut them down like a thief in the night!  They were likely planted for a very good reason!  Whether that reason is illness or strife matters not.  Some people kill deer to fill their freezers with meat;  others grow plants to fill their medicine cabinets with medicine!  Would you steal a deer carcass from your neighbor's back yard?

There's a societal lesson here.  We're supposed to be a team!  We're supposed to have each other's backs. I get that times are tough.  But I also get that what goes around comes around.  Karma is real.  I'll even admit that in the past, I may not have felt this way.  I too have dreamed of finding a flowering goddess with red hairs galore. Would that not be a destiny of perfect timing?  If I ever had, I may have justified it with that cop-out: "if we don't take them someone else will".

Many of these thieves will appease any small sense of guilt by telling themselves that whomever owns the plants, should have been smarter.  Or maybe they're simply too busy doing the math in their shitty little heads to even consider why the person ever planted those ladies.

I know a guy right now who has some plants somewhere out there. He's growing them to make brownies for his terminally ill brother. Would you take his plants if you happened upon them?

I know a woman in Oregon who legally grows Cannabis bushes in her back yard to keep Leukemia away from her daughter.  Are those plants a lesson to be stolen and bragged about?

I know people who coddled sprouts to plants to bushes all spring and summer only to have them stolen. That's how many were going to pay their rent,  buy their food, live their lives, cure their ills.

Now what?

Many many years ago, this guy from my hometown bragged to me about he and his buddies finding a crop on the mountain. They went up at night, bags and snippers and shovels in hand.  He said the plants were THIS BIG!!  So big that they had to use a chainsaw to cut them down.  What a dick.  He said that they went home, dried some colas out in the oven, and smoked a few big doobies.  They all had the worst headaches of their lives that night. At the time, I wondered why that was and I often remember that story when trying outdoor.  Ain't nobody got time for a headache! But now I know exactly why the dicks got a headache that lasted all weekend long.

Karma baby.

Autumn is the glorious season of harvest.  Every gardener looks forward to this time of year.  One final push, and then the chance to reap the rewards of your hard work and gardening skill.  As the hairs on the flowers darken from white to yellow to orange to red, the chances of your Cannabis plants being stolen rise significantly. Hide your love away.  Hide your crop away.  Don't tell a soul.  Sad I know, but until the world pulls it's head out of it's ass and finally legalizes personal cultivation, we must hide from thieves.

I'm proud to be a part of a movement of faceless humans who want to have each others' backs.  The majority of us try to live with a one love mentality where we will help one another even if it's just through fb.  We feel the love.  We push the love forward, outward, to anyone who will receive it.  So to steal someone else's Cannabis is simply against our motto.

Happy Harvest to all of the gardening geniuses I know, and of course all of those I don't yet know. Kudos on your hard work. Know that I have your back.  And if you're out on a lovely autumn walk, and come along some ripe and ready Cannabis plants; admire, sniff if you wish, but walk away.  Turn the other cheek.  And never tell a soul what you saw or where you saw it.