Kensington Market's Amazing!

I love Kensington.

Today I wandered down there and was delighted to find that the Market was closed to cars for the day. This happens on Sundays in the Summer, it seems, but the effect was so festive that one hopes it'll be extended to every day all the time. And then maybe to some more streets.

The Market was full of people having fun. There was a giant, street-sized Scrabble game going on, and bands playing on every block.

I had been hoping to pick up some Summer shirts (and maybe shorts, too) for me and my boyfriend, but this was not to be. I did, however, find a lovely sailor's hat for only $10.

It was the Season's first legitimately hot day. I was happy to catch just a bit of Sun. I really need to spend more of my days-off in this kind of happy neighbourhood browsing.

Perhaps because it was the first truly hot day (and thus not a day for too much clothing), and perhaps because I don't go to the Market that often (and thus am not used to the crowd), there seemed to be a surprising abundance of very attractive men. (Or maybe I was just horny....) This, of course, contributed greatly to the experience of wandering around Kensington.

The only problem with the festive crowd was that they overfilled the good cheese store, and I couldn't be bothered to wade through everyone.... But there'll be other days for cheese.

Back to the bitchy blog comments....

Remember this little internet tiff?

I am giving up. Giving up. I cannot spend my time combatting every internet-based bigot that I find. Better that I should spend my time actively not being one of them....

But I still kinda want to have the last word.

What I wanted to write:

You shouldn't confuse being demure, polite, or just nice with an unwillingness to draw some lines. Not-being-a-Gratuitous-Jerk doesn't equal "indifference", "guilt", or "appeasement".

So, since you like to characterize those who disagree with you as those who are softies unwilling to draw lines, I thought I'd let you know where my lines are.

You throw around the following idea as if there are people who'd run shrieking from the suggestion:

"...some cultures are inherently inferior or dangerous compared with Judeo-Christian culture."

I'm sure there are people who'd run shrieking, but I'm not attached to one side of the question or the other (I'm constantly torn between the poles of moral-relativism-is-evil and moral-relativism-is-necessary). I have no problem with both ideas: that everyone is entitled to their ways, and that some practices and beliefs are bad and/or wrong. To be honest, I can see both sides and I'm undecided. I'm attracted intellectually to the laissez-faire, relativist ideal, but at the same time find it competely indefensible (as do - it seems - you).

But I feel that you're perverting Christianity if you're unwilling to take Jesus's example as a template for your own life. (Hello! - Martyrdom - it's a Christian institution for a reason. There's a whole stop-fighting-and-worrying-and-consider-the-lilies thing that runs through the Gospels.) We have vastly different readings of the Bible, it seems. And that's ok by me, and not-ok by me.

Here are my poles of relativism:

NORTH: it's ok if you want to be a "Christian" who is uncharitable and works against his muslim neighbours, but,

SOUTH: that makes your practices and beliefs bad and/or wrong.

And so, I would say that no, I don't have a problem admitting that some foreign practices are inferior to those of the West, and I agree that the West owes a lot to Christian belief and tradition. Heck - you could probably convince me the the West is synonymous with Christian belief and tradition if you tried hard enough (or, rather, well enough).

But the unfriendly, unneighbourly, xenophobic beliefs you've articulated here have nothing to do with the Christendom-that-is-Better-than-Other-Societies.

You're the pot calling the kettle black.

I can see how this might be difficult to swallow, as the self-identified Christians you generally meet are likely to either be a) just as bigoted and crotchety as you, or b) tolerant and welcoming enough that they would rather you feel good about yourself than point out how wrong you are.

Sorry.

Pax vobiscum nobisque.

Please remember that my approach with this guy had been to try to find some sort of level, such that, rather than dismissing 99% of what he writes, I only argue about about 75%. That's why the above has lots more christianity than I'm interested in or practice.

Whew.

I'm glad I got that out.

Start Spreadin' the News....

So, I haven't been to the United States of America for about a decade because that nation scares me.

But, I'm going to New York City in a couple of weeks.

No turning back now; I've bought theatre tickets....

What changed my mind? I can't ignore the call of New York. I know that eventually I'm going to go there. And going there to see Patti LuPone and Cyndi Lauper in the same weekend made this year ideal.

So I spent all day today on the internet finding out about Manhattan - especially its bookstores. And I'm all excited.

I'm gonna be a part of it....

the next step....

Does anyone else think that we need a non-gendered title?

I mean, we've got Ms now, which doesn't reveal sexual status like Miss and Mrs did. But shouldn't we have something that doesn't reveal gender at all?

I think that M would be a great option (except that it would be confused with Monsieur). And I don't know how we would pronounce it. Any ideas?

Bitchy Blog Comments

So, every once in a while I head over to A. Carlton Sallet's blog: Upper Canada Catholic.

The blog is infuriating, and I sometimes find it fun to comment as a contrarian. Like today.

Why do I mention this? Because sometimes having to type out an argument is clarifying. And today I was arguing that it is un-Christian (as if anybody cares what's un-Christian) to stand up for yourself.

A. Carlton Sallet basically argued that the fact that recently in Montréal some Muslim girls got to have swimming lessons on their own (they were uncomfortable with co-ed lessons) points to a coming deluge of "foreign" values overtaking North American culture.

I responded to his comments thus (the first (quoted) paragraph is Sallet's):

"Would you seriously expect to be able to emmigrate to Saudi Arabia or Iran and immediately demand the right to have all those Crescents removed from schools? That the Qu'uran be removed from schools or public prayers by government officials be done away with? That government services be made availabe in your language? Please. Yet - you seek to hold yourselves to a much different standard. Why?"

Isn't Christianity about holding oneself to the highest standard, despite the standards of the community? Didn't Jesus live precisely to show us that, if the standard of the community is to not be accomodating, we should be better, and turn cheeks, and judge not, and cast not the first stones?

Aren't we here to make things better and easier for our neighbours, not harder and worse? Aren't three modest Muslim girls people? Does closing a pool violate Christian doctrines or morality? Or is it just inconvenient?

Even if North America were to be overrun by Islamic culture and religion, isn't the lesson of the Gospels that it is worth being overrun by something as long as you are living the best Christian life you can. Don't you think that Jesus could have riled people up such that they would have rebelled against the Romans? Couldn't he have purged Jerusalem of its ills and set things completely aright?

Why didn't he? Because his message is specifically not about "standing up for" your beliefs - in which case might would make right. It's about living your beliefs. And if might overtakes you, even if might martyrs you, your reward is that you lived a good life - not "the good life", but a Good life.

The Christian values of tolerance and acceptance, as expounded in the Gospels, are worth more than the preservation of an earthly cultural situation. Non?

Can't you show kindness to three souls who ask for it? And then, why not three million, or three billion souls?

So there.

Honestly, I think that everyone needs to get over their gender hangups. It's embarrassing that we still have gendered washrooms, never mind gendered swimming lessons.

But arguing that from the point-of-view of preserving our culture is anger-making.

Finally a Reason to Go

On my way to catch the GO bus to Hamilton yesterday, Union Station was filled with sports fans. Baseball? Hockey? How would I know. But something that, I'm sure, has been obvious to everyone else all along only just dawned on me as I moved amongst them, clutching my flavoured coffee and my modernist fiction.

Excited, beer-drinking, sports-spectating straight men can be attractive. The station was filled with enthusiastic, festively chubby, goateed and frankly hebetated guys, all heading to the same place.

For the first time, I felt like going to the skydome. The game seemed like something I could get into.