Life, Death, and God knows what else...

I've been contemplative as of late...The father of a buddy of mine, and a former teacher at my old school has passed away. This kind of stuff always makes you contemplate the "mortal coil", but the closer it falls to your circle, the more you think and the deeper it goes. Finally you come upon the fundamental question that really plagues us all in the end; What haveI left behind? For myself, that question spawned a creative outpouring, a drive to create a body of written word that i can leave as my legacy. Now I realize "legacy" gives the air of something of value, yet intangible in some way, like a heriditary title or something, and what I would leave is neither valueable nor intangible, more ...incomprehensible? We'll accept that definition for now.
My desire is and has long been, to create. Perhaps that has been man's quest since the dawn of time, that Sculpture, paintings, photos theatre, are but man's desire to be like God. Who can say. What I know is that my time is now, my mind must prepare itself to unleash itself unto the world and it's critics, with their harsh words and opinions. Stand tall and be counted.

Abortion? Well.. I really don't know...

Obviously i'm touching on some very tender areas here. Abortion has always been a very sensitive subject for Canadians. I'm not sure where I stand on the subject, and i'm certain that alone offends alot of people. Ironic that fence-sitting pisses more people off than actually taking a view on something. In any case we have our two sides: Pro-life, who believe that life begins at conception, and that any destruction of said life is murder therefore abortion is wrong. Pro-choice believe that until a certain peroid of time the fetus is just cells, and until that time in which the cells develop into a person, it is simply a removal of tissue from the body, the perception of the time that a fetus becomes a person probably varies according to each person you ask, but for the most part there is a limit for most people. In any case where do those concepts lead us?
Let's take a few scenarios and apply the two sides to them;
A 13 year old has been raped by her father, and becomes pregnant: With varying degrees of conservatism the following could happen A) She could keep the child B) She could carry the child to full term and put it up for adoption C) She could have an abortion. I can honestly say i don't know what i would do in that situation. But if she did have an abortion(option C) , i could probably understand, if for no other reason than the fact that she has suffered enough at the hands of her father, should she really have to be reminded for the next nine months(option A & B), and then potentially some distant day in the future when her child finds her and asks where he/she comes from (if she chose option B)(assuming the child isn't disfigured or developmentally challenged from the inbreeding)
A woman and her partner are having a child but her body can't support a child and she will die if she carries to full term. This scenario also covers ectopic pregancy, where the ege fertilises in the fallopian tube. In these cases the fetus has to be aborted in order to save the mother's life, does this mean she should feel guilty? I'm gonna have to go ahead and say no, I see no other means here, in order for the mother to survive.
A woman has had unprotected sex carelessly and becomes pregnant the sex was consentual, the woman is healthy. This is where it gets hazy for me. I don't see how using abortion as birth control is right, after all, anyone having intercourse should be responsible enough to use appropriate protection, and/or be ready to deal with any consequences, still accidents happen, and i guess a life shouldnt be ruined by that (i'm sure the pro lifers could eat me alive with that last sentence)But adoption might be a better option...I guess i'm not sure...still....

Gay cowboys are boring....who knew?

What a ridiculous country we live in (and i guess i should include the U.S as well in this) I have been inundated with hype and rave reviews of this "brokeback mountain" how it's so amazing that they had the guts to make this film, and how it was so wrong to bar it from some theatres. " they're just predjudiced" i heard it said. What they (the conservative theatre owners, and anyone else with an anti-gay agenda) are in fact uninformed. I speak not so much of how gay people are part of our society and deserve rights and freedoms equal to all peoples (which i believe they do), but more to do with the following peice of info that seemed to escape all the accolade & confetti throwing critics out there (save the academy, but i'll get to that later) This movie was dull as a ritalin fueled school day, perhaps worse. Okay i get it, two guys get jobs herding sheep on a mountain, have sex with the only available partner.....(i wonder if the next big movie will be about a man and his passion for a sheep)anyway, they love each other seceretly their entire lives and the movie is pretty much about the hurtin' and hiding (good title for a gay country song?) they do their entire lives. The plot is thin, the characters are one dimensional and pretty much the only thing i hadnt seen in a movie before was Randy quaid not being funny. Long story short I applaud the effort, i think it's important that gay themes are as regular and accepted as any other movie, but do it well, don't allow the plot to hang on two well known male actors doing the nasty to each other. In reality the theatre owners who objected to the film didn't have to bar the film, people would have just seen it and told their friends how much it sucked. My wife agrees with me on this point, the actors didn't really seem to have a whole lot of chemistry, the kissing seemed awkward, and contrived. While i respect both the actors , i didn't feel for the characters. The academy (i said i'd get back to them)seemed to feel the same, much to the chagrin of the author who exhibited a fine example of sour grapes about the film not winning. i didnt see Crash, but it had to be better than this.