Thoughts from all over

It’s been a while – I’m not on hiatus, just busy. These two stories stuck out for me over the past week:

'All-ages' incident sparks concern

Who else heard about the little 12 year old that was sliced in downtown Toronto at three o’clock in the morning? It was after an all-ages dance at a nightclub. Yes, a full nightclub. A nightclub that I would take my 30-year-old ass to if I cared to.

Chupse.

Sparks concern? It should spark giving the child and her parents some hard lashes. Not to mention the girl who cut her and the people who own the club and the party promoters. All of them need a tail cutting.

Man, I’m so disgusted by this story. Back in the day when I was a preteen, we had all-ages parties. They were at community centres and they ended by 11 or 12 o’clock. I don’t believe anyone over the age of 18 was allowed in, but some nasty guys would wait outside to pick up the youths when the party was over.

Now, I couldn’t even twist my mouth to ask my parents if I could go to a school dance when I was 12, furthermore any all-ages party. My mother would have shredded my tail if I thought to ask her to go to party at a nightclub that didn’t end until the wee morning hours. Although I’m an adult who pays my own bills, my mother still doesn’t approve of me going to clubs.

At these new-fangled all-ages things, it truly is all-ages. So, a 15-year-old girl could be grinding up on a 30-year-old man or be propositioned by a 25-year-old and it’s all legal.

Something just doesn’t sound right about that.

The fiancé says that kids are more mature these days and, while it’s not right, go to clubs and want to act like adults.

I believe kids think they are more mature and yes, they want to act like adults. But they are children and they think like children. A 12-year-old doesn’t know what to do when a grown man tells her exactly what he wants to do with her in the bedroom, although she may think she knows from all the Teirra Mari and Li’l Kim songs she’s heard.

So, this little girl is out at the club and has a run-in with another little girl who slices her.

Bare foolishness.

My question is: where the hell are the parents of children who are out at two and three o’clock in the morning? I don’t have any kids yet, but believe me, at two o’clock you better have your little tail in your bed. If you want to dance, turn on your radio and listen to the live-to-air shows like I did. If you’re out at that time, I will be with you and if I were to catch you somewhere you weren't supposed to be...

Well, it wouldn't be pretty.

Child Protective Services needs to look into that family, because if her parents knew where she was and were OK with it or they weren’t at home to know where this preteen was they need serious help.

Nightclubs need not hold anymore all-ages parties. Children are children and should be treated as such, not like mini-adults. So at school on Monday – if they’re little tails are even there ‘cause they may be too tried from partying all weekend – they can talk about “Ooh girl! You missed the jam at the club this weekend!”

Please.

And we wonder why kids are so messed up.

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Caribana group angry over funds

Now, Caribana is coming up in a few months and already confusion has started over funding. The City of Toronto is refusing to fund the festival because the Caribbean Cultural Committee (the group that runs Caribana) cannot give the city an account of how it spent taxpayers’ dollars last year.

This is not the first year that the group couldn’t show their audited books to the city.

So, Toronto has refused to hand over the cash and the Caribbean Cultural Committee is fretting. My take?

It serves your backsides right. I have no sympathy for them. The group put themselves in this situation by not doing the right thing.

How after almost 40 years of putting on the largest festival in North America, you can’t get your ish together and show the City your books? I am a taxpayer and whether it was Caribana, the Greek parade, St. Patrick’s Day parade or the Santa Claus parade, if you are using my tax dollars to put on something, I want to know where the money is going and it better not be lining your pockets.

I love my Black people, but sometimes they get me down ‘cause it makes all of us look as if we can’t do anything.

What the Caribbean Cultural Committee needs is a good purging and an influx of some business-minded young people. Trying to do things the way you did them back home ain’t gonna wash. Do you know those clowns got on TV news and cried racism.

Chupse.

Is it racism that someone expects you have clean accounting books to show how you’ve spent money? Or should money just be given to you and you do with it what you want without any accountability? Man, I hate that crap. Black people face enough prejudice without this bunch blaming their incompetence on racism.

I understand you’ve been under-funded, but this is how things work: You show the City your books and your budget and they can figure out whether or not what they gave you last year was enough.

If you can’t tell them what the hell you did with the money they gave you last year, what makes you think they’ll give you money this year? Because Caribana brings in plenty money to hotels and restaurants?

Don’t fool yourself. The festival will and is going on. Toronto is not trying to give up those tourist dollars -- oh no, that's hundreds of millions of dollars coming into the city. The mas band association is taking over and will put on a carnival this August.

So maybe next year you’ll get your act together and have a good financial plan for the city officials. If not, too bad for you. Get your stuff together ‘cause you’re not ready – after almost 40 years – yet.

Man, did you hear about what’s going down in South Dakota?

This morning I was listening about the potential changes to abortion laws in South Dakota and I really started thinking about both sides of the argument.

You have your pro-life folks, who believe abortion is wrong for various reasons. Some people like to put all of us in the crazy Christian category – you know, the folks who blow up abortion clinics? – but most times, that is not the case.

I am a Christian, but that is not the only reason why I don’t agree with abortion. And I do know that my beliefs may not mean much to Jenny Smith who’s pregnant today and not happy about the situation.

You also have your pro-choice contingent that focuses on the rights of a woman to choose whether or not she has a child. I agree with that in theory. It is my body and no one should be able to tell me what I can and cannot do with it.

So, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds signed legislation Monday (March 6) banning nearly all abortions in the state, setting up a court fight aimed at challenging the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. The only women who could get abortions would be a mother who’s life would be in danger if she had the baby. Women who have been raped have no recourse.

Wow.

Now that’s some serious stuff. It got me thinking about what I truly believe in terms of abortion.

Reading the comments at the Globe and Mail, I read many pro-choicers saying, a fetus is not a baby, just a collection of tissues. A fetus cannot survive outside of its mother, therefore it does not have rights and the rights of the mother are paramount. Abortion is not murder.

Pro-lifers said that a fetus is a baby and has a right not to be murdered. It has a right, as the most vulnerable member of society to live.

Of course, you have idiots on both sides who do not know how to debate an issue without calling people names. I ignore them because they have nothing meaningful to add.

My question is: if it’s not murder to have an abortion, then is it murder to kick a pregnant woman in her stomach and kill the baby?

Don't get all bent out of shape -- the question is extreme, but so is what South Dakota’s governor wants to do. The only difference in the scenario is that one mother wants her baby and the other didn’t. So, after you calm down, what do you think using that definitions of fetus used by both pro-life and pro-choice.

Another facet of the argument is rape. A lot of people commented about the number of raped women who would suffer because of this new law. I thought it was a really good argument… but how many women who want abortions are rape victims?

I would bet the majority are women who had consensual sex – protected or not – and got pregnant. As an adult, you make your decisions, some good and some bad, some wrong and some right, but they are your decisions. You have to take responsibility for them.

Look at it like this: any man who you have sex with is potentially your baby’s father. Any woman you have sex with is potentially your baby’s mother. And if you have sex, you just may get pregnant, whether you use a condom, the pill or nothing at all.

I’m saying, some people will spend three weeks choosing a car and one night choosing the man or woman who will be their child’s parent.

It’s your right to decide what you do with your body, but it’s also your responsibility to make choices that won’t adversely affect you.

If more people took responsibility for their behaviour, this wouldn’t be an issue. Plain and simple.

But we don’t live in a perfect world where everyone makes well-thought out decisions about who they sleep with. Many times we act before we think and we end up in a whole lotta trouble because we didn’t take 10 minutes to really think about what we’re doing.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that any woman who made the decision to have an abortion has made an easy decision. I doubt she’s happily jaunting around somewhere on a beach. I think that it would tear a lot of women apart, but they just don’t see any other way. They may be encouraged to keep their children but there aren’t enough social programs to help them raise these children.

How do decide to keep a child if you’re struggling to survive yourself?

Herein lies the problem: if pro-lifers want women not to have abortion, there has to be help for them. Real help, not lip service. So, real help meaning affordable housing, daycare, training programs, education and more to give women with children an equal chance even if the baby wasn’t planned.

But even then, some will still demand that this little bag of cells and tissues sucking the energy out of you be terminated. We don’t live in a perfect world and this situation isn’t black and white.

Everyone has their reasoning for making the decisions they make. It’s certainly not my job to judge anyone because I know I’m not perfect and, thank God, I've never been in this situation. But sometimes, you have to see the situation from all sides, then you’ll really see what the truth is.