Tag Archives: “family values”

A View from Hippieland

Posted on by elizabeth
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Just talked to my wonderful son who lives and works with the hippies out in B.C.  – about the federal election.  Here’s what he had to say about ads being run by the Conservative Harpies and the denizens of Liberal-land:

On Harper’s attempt to woo the public with his “family man”image:  “Can’t people see what a lizard he is?  Maybe his tongue doesnt come far enough out of his mouth fror people to see the fork.”

“Are the Liberals just too embarassed of their own existence to try to define themselves?

And finally, on Harper’s attempts to shut down the pot economy in British Columbia:

“Out here they’re trying to seize peoples’ houses and children for marijuana-related offences.”

I wish he could get a job doing political commentary.  No worries – he’d never accept!  BTW, my son’s pseudonym is Eliot Rosewater.

On Families & Conservatives

Posted on by elizabeth
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From Judith Timson at the Globe and Mail.  Go Judith:

“Family is everything”?

Did Stephen Harper’s campaign actually say that at the start of the federal election? If so, I can only imagine that an interview with him describing how he juggles work and family as both a working dad and wannabe Conservative majority Prime Minister is not far behind.

After the media whirlwind that accompanied Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, I intended to write about how we won’t see the same family circus – with all its messy high-wire acts – here. Canadian politicians don’t do family and politics in the same way. They don’t exploit their kids, they don’t burnish their image as a “hockey mom” or “family man.” They don’t audition to be “the first family.”

But in the arena of family and politics, it looks like we’re going down a different road this time, at least with the Conservative leader. And it may not be a good thing.

When it comes to manipulating a “perfect” family image, a politician can’t win. He will end up splayed across the front pages with his peccadilloes hanging out because families are actually the one thing we’re all experts at. There’s nothing mysterious and everything messy about family life, and every one of us has dressed our family to the hilt and taken a picture that would melt the heart of a nation. That’s why holiday cards were invented (although I oohed and aahed more over Stephane Dion’s dog, Kyoto, when I saw his holiday card last year than I did over his wife and daughter, who looked just fine to me.)

The fact is, these wonderful personal roles don’t have any bearing on how a person would govern the country. It’s an American model. And we’re different because, as Mr. Dion emphatically put it yesterday when told that Mr. Harper wondered aloud whether Mr. Dion was “a family man,” we have this wonderful thing called “privacy” here.

The only famous political kids we’ve all been aware of are Justin and Alexandre Trudeau, sons of the late prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and Ben Mulroney, former Tory PM Brian Mulroney’s son – and only because these three young men chose to be in the spotlight, in politics, journalism and television entertainment, well after their fathers relinquished it .

I know the names of Barack Obama’s two adorable daughters, I have opened a separate file on 17-year-old Bristol Palin, but I would lose a bet if I was asked to name either Mr. Harper’s children or Mr. Dion’s daughter.

But if Mr. Harper hopes to “humanize” himself by trotting out his still young family, he should remember what happened last year when he tried to walk his young son – whatshisname – to school and shook his hand at the school gates. Shook his hand? What kind of dad doesn’t give his son a huge hug on the first day of school? Well, you get the picture.

Read the rest here

Yeah, that’s right.  I have no idea what the names of Harper’s and Dion’s kids are, even though I read the name of Dion’s daughter yesterday.  I read it in the context of a news report in which Dion noted that we have something called “privacy” in Canada.  I’m also not sure what the names of the Harper/Dion spouses are.  I know Jack Layton’s spouse is Olivia Chow.  Because she’s an MP.

Lesbians and IVF

Posted on by elizabeth
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From the UK:

Lesbian couples should be blocked from having IVF treatment unless they agree that a father figure would be involved in the upbringing of their child, the Tories said yesterday.

In a sign of David Cameron’s determination to campaign for traditional parenting, the Tories challenged the government to guarantee that couples seeking IVF treatment would have a “male role model” for their child. The intervention was made by Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, who called for changes to the human fertilisation and embryology bill which calls for “supportive parenting”. This amends the current legislation, passed in 1990, which talks of the “need for a father”.

Lansley told MPs: “The reference to the need for a father should be recast as ‘the need for supportive parenting and a father or a male role model’. This is not to discriminate against same-sex couples or single parents, but to ensure that the responsibility to a child is discharged.”

His remarks came on the eve of a speech by Chris Grayling, the shadow work and pensions secretary, on whether Britain has forgotten how to parent. Cameron believes that family breakdown is one of the main causes of poverty in Britain.

The Guardian/UK

Of course, Cameron doesn’t say anything about HOW families “break down” and how that particular problem could be dealt with – poverty for instance.  Just a small problem … and I am by no means saying that’s the only trouble I have with this, analysis bullshit.  By the way, P.M. Gordon Brown is allowing his party to “vote their conscience” on this Bill.  How obliging …

I really like this though”

MPs debated the human fertilisation and embryology bill yesterday. Talk about walking on eggshells – and on eggs, and sperm, and gametes and pro-nuclei. Every now and again an MP would say something a bit outrageous. “It is like creating a child for spare parts!” said someone about “saviour siblings”, who will be able to help an older brother or sister with a serious disease.

Others leapt up to point out that the child whose bits were being harvested would be loved just as much – or what was left of them would be loved just as much. (Apologies, but there’s something about watching MPs being tasteful and carefully respecting each other’s views that makes me want to say things that are tasteless, and scoff offensively at other people’s views.)

Such as, if we ever have total control over human reproduction, would we want to create the beings displayed on the benches yesterday? Some of them are very weird, possibly for genetic reasons. Imagine a pregnant woman going in for a CVS test.

“We’ve run the tests, and it’s clear, I’m afraid. The chromosomes indicate that your child is going to be a politician. It is entirely your choice whether you wish to continue. Some couples find that having a politician in the family can be richly rewarding, and even bring them closer together …”

Simon Hoggart, The Guardian/UK