That’s right, boobs. Or what-have-you.

“I don’t get it.”

Well, the other day, Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi–yes, he’s not even an Ayatollah. I know, right?–went and said some crazy shit about boobs and how they cause earthquakes.

Or more specifically, no, he didn’t really. As PBS explains:

While delivering his weekly address, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, Tehran’s hardline Friday prayer leader — the man who replaced Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the role — revealed what had caused the strange prognostications. “Adultery causes earthquake,” explained Sadeghi. “The incidence of sin has proliferated. Sins — such as the laxities of some women or the way some young people harass and ogle on street corners or some families don’t observe religious values and practices while they are traveling — have mushroomed,” he told millions of television viewers on April 16. “These allurements that some women and some girls apply to themselves outside their homes, the young people who are tempted and turn to promiscuity and commit sin — all this increases adultery. According to our sacred transmitted texts, this is one reason for the incidence of natural calamities. When sin proliferates, earthquakes become common.“

So of course, this was picked up by the international press. They love this stuff. The greatest focus, of course, was the sentence about “some women” and their “laxities”: namely, the “allurements” they “apply to themselves outside their homes”.¹

This isn’t about boobs. It’s a nod of support, under the guise of religion–and frankly, I’m not even sure if Sedighi means it as some kind of badly-translated “we will bury you”-esque metaphor–for Ahmadinejad’s odious, dissent-quelling plan to depopulate Tehran.

“Depopulate Tehran? I hadn’t heard anything about this!”

You don’t say.

As you will no doubt recall, former Friday prayer leader Rafsanjani is currently Chairman of the Assembly of Experts. He’s also a former President of Iran and political opponent of current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. During the 2009 Iranian election crisis, Rafsanjani’s July 17th sermon (ostensibly) called for an end of censorship of the press condemned the state-sanctioned violence against protestors.²

Consequently, he is no longer Friday prayer leader.

Flash forward eight months, and Ahmadinejad is throwing out crazy ideas like maybe moving five million people away from Tehran:

The issue of moving people and organizations from Tehran has received much publicity since the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent call on Tehranis to pull up stakes and move to other cities.

Last week Ahmadinejad called on Tehranis to move to other cities because Tehran is earthquake-prone and if a massive quake hits this overpopulated mega city, the ensuing crisis will be unmanageable.

“Thanks to people’s prayers, Tehran’s fault lines are not active now,” but the occurrence of a massive earthquake in Tehran is certain, so at least five million should leave Tehran to make the crisis more manageable, Ahmadinejad said last week.

“Wait, wait, wait. Speaking as a hypothetical pro-Ahmadinejad Iranian-Analogue-to-the-Daily-Mail-reading Tehrani, I have to say that this proposal exists solely to save us from earthquakes.”

No. No it does not:

During the post-election events Tehran was the heart of the protests. Initiating rallies in huge numbers and acting as a model for other big and small cities of Iran with a concentration of most of the top universities and political, civil, cultural and economic organizations and a great magnet for young people coming to Tehran to either work or study.

So, good luck with that, Iran. Sorry about the press focusing on the boob thing.

…which brings us to last Monday, when Jen McCreight, Outgoing President of the Society of Non-Theists at Purdue University, threw up a quick blog post proposing an experiment to show Sedighi what’s what:

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble.

As of this moment, the Facebook group for “Boobquake” boasts 60,000 members, and Google News is reporting over 430 separate news articles around the world. Countless blog posts have leveled criticism against McCreight, accusing her of…well, pretty much every nasty thing. I particularly enjoyed the concern over what would happen if there actually was an earthquake today. Cheeky know-it-all-ism–meet–Islamophobia, awesome.

“Say, this raises a good point! What do you have to say about this Boobquake stuff, Catherine?”

I’m glad you asked that question! It’s silly and irreverent and I’m going.

“Wait, you’re going!? But! But!”

Hush.

The most obvious criticism leveled against Boobquake is that it promotes the objectification of women.³ And honestly, it’s easy to see why. Vancouver’s print media have not exactly paid much attention to anything beyond ZOMG BOOBS:

News1130 is on the street, finding full support for the shaker. “God has given me eyes to appreciate beauties,” says Vikram. He may see some beauties!

He asks what’s wrong with seeing the human body. “I’ll be the happiest man in the world if a woman comes in front of me and asks, ‘Can I buy a soda?’ And why not? I’ll open it for you… I’ll open the soda for you!”

Is that a euphemism?

The Boobquake will be shaking from 4:00pm-8:00pm at the VAG.

That’s some classy stuff, News1130.⁴

However, I really want to emphasize that while this story promotes the objectification of women, it is possible to write one that keeps it to a minimum about the same topic.

Even still, that Vancouver Province article annoys me for a variety of reasons.

First, what the heck do those women from Mission in the photo have to do with the rest of the article? There’s no explanation given as to who they are or why they were interviewed. They do have a very nice photo though–ohhhhhh. Good one, The Province.

Angela Squires will be monitoring seismic activity Monday from Vancouver as she and other women take up the busty bid to prove the cleric wrong in a show of solidarity at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Right on, Angela. Of course, Metro Vancouver (yes, yes) does note:

“I thought, ‘how ridiculous,’” said Squires, who will be showing off her legs instead of her cleavage because she’s had a double mastectomy.

Yes, that’s some super fact-checking, The Province.

Metro Vancouver further quotes Squires as saying:

“People — especially (those) who have a perceived authority — are coming out with ridiculous statements that are not necessarily questioned. And it’s important for all of us to question what comes at us.”

Honestly, Metro Vancouver wins this one,⁵ though the Province does at least mention the word “skeptic”–though not any of background of there being a broader skeptics and humanists movement.

“But aren’t you afraid that if you show up wearing a low-cut top, guys will stare at your chest?”

First of all, my chest is at eye level for most dudes. It happens. Second, no. I’m not going to let concern over what guys may or may not do impact how I dress. That absolutely stinks of victim-blaming and I find it despicable.

Straight Dudes, I really hate to be blunt here, but I don’t notice you as sexual humans. At most, you are rivals–and let’s face it, even that’s a stretch. I don’t care whether you find me attractive, and I’m not going to use that as a consideration in how I dress. However, I am going to allow whether or not other lesbians find me attractive to influence how I dress. Sure, there may be overlap, but that’s one venn diagram I really don’t care about.

I want to be very clear on this: I do what I do for me, not for anyone else, and I do so because I have the freedom to choose.

1. “Outside their homes” is a great qualifier. Why, he’s practically Pierre Trudeau.
2. On the other hand, he’s wanted in Argentina on terrorism and murder charges. So really, this is a case where I can–at most–support his Selma-killing policies.
3. As we know, women’s bodies should be hidden away beneath a chador at all times. Y’know, so they’ll be respected.
4. Also, you can’t spell.
5. I know. I’m scared too.

I understand that “some of [your] best friends are Haitian” and that you’re only talking about the “bad ones” when you say “Canada will be overrun by gangs and HIV” if we fast-track the immigration process for Haitian refugees. I get that you’re not really a racist, I do.

In fact, I totally agree with your thoughts on it being “their problem” for living on a fault line, or that “those people” should have taken matters into their own hands and risen up against the succession of vile dictators more frequently. Clearly a country with such a rich history of coups could do better. Heck, the Americans were there for 20 years to help out, and where are their thanks?

And let’s face it, a country that poor? “What would they do for us,” indeed?

…you complete asshole.

“We can go out to the airport,” the mom said as they were leaving.

“Oh, that’s a long drive!”

Yes. Yes it is. With the opening of the Canada Line now moved up to August 17th, less than two weeks away, it will actually be quite a bit faster–for me, at least. The closest station is a 2km walk, bus, or bike ride away, but I expect door-to-door travel time to be much, much shorter than calling a cab.

It remains to be seen how well the existing bus service will integrate with the new stations, and if more frequent east-west buses will be needed to funnel Vancouver residents into the Cambie Street corridor. In any event, by opening early, Translink and InTransit BC will hopefully have some extra time to work out many of the bugs before the old bus routes out of Richmond get discontinued.

I probably won’t use the Canada Line much myself, still being closer to the Main Street bus myself. Since I tend not to go to Richmond or Oakridge Centre much, I don’t see a lot of opportunity to use it, but it would definitely make getting to Yaletown or Davie Street from my neighbourhood much more convenient.

Plus, as has been pointed out to me by friends and drinking buddies alike, now that I’ll be attending Langara College, the 49th Avenue station makes it extremely convenient to blast down to Gastown for a drink immediately after class. (Guys, you get that school isn’t 9–5, right?)

Still, this really does hammer home the point that for a pedestrian and transit user, the shape of our city really is defined by which buses go where. (Hint: they go downtown.) Personally, when I’m a passenger in a friend’s car, I never think about taking 12th Avenue to cut across town because there aren’t buses that go there.

These fascinating travel-time maps of Great Britain effectively illustrate what even a densely-populated country like the United Kingdom must contend with when moving people and goods around.

Also interesting is the implication of what “central” means to different people. This week, there’s been some discussion over at the Vancouver League of Drupalers, of having some coworking meetups to chat about Drupal projects we’ve been working on, get some coding down, and so forth. But where to actually meet? The Grind at Main and King Edward? Sweet, I’m there. Waves in New West? Yeah, not as convenient. However, if I lived right beside any Expo Line SkyTrain station in Vancouver proper save for Stadium or Main Street, it would be faster to go all the way out to New Westminster, hands down.

Fortunately, having my spiffy new bike has opened up a lot of options too, particularly with the ability to switch to transit when I need it, now that all the buses have bike racks.

So far today, I’ve ridden just under 8 kilometres to three out of four scheduled errands. The last one will double that. I’ll spend most of it on the cross-town 10th Avenue bike route. In the end, I will have spent about the same amount of time on the road as I would have, had I driven, if you factor in parking. It’s pretty liberating, I have to say.

But hey, even if it isn’t something that’s totally useful for me, a link to Richmond and the airport was necessary. I wish different choices had been made in construction and planning, but it’s definitely something we’ll be getting some use out of as a city. Plus, hey, Vancouver’s the first Canadian city with a subway link to the airport. Go us.

In his post, Buzz asks if the imagery we’ll see in Vancouver’s Pride Parade this Sunday is really the best way to demonstrate that gays are just like everyone else. This reminded me of another familiar argument, about Critical Mass: are 3000 people on bicycles blocking commuter traffic really helping the image of cyclists?

Honestly, Buzz does raise a good point, though it’s hardly a new argument, going back to the exclusion of activists we would today consider to be transgendered in the immediate post-Stonewall era.

Still, as I wrote in Buzz’s comments, it’s a debate I feel is pretty well moot at this point. As of last week, it’s been four years since we formally enacted gay marriage nationwide here in Canada, an anniversary that totally passed me by due to no mention whatsoever in the media. People don’t care.

At the same time, though, it’s important to remember that Canadians are very cautious not to offend. At all. Ever. (We’re very passive-aggressive, though.) The problem I have with this is that it’s fundamentally dishonest. Frankly, as much as I like not having bottles hurled at my head should I choose to hold my girlfriend’s hand in downtown Vancouver, it would be nice if people advertised their hate and intolerance.

“Catherine, stop blogging while drunk,” you might say.

No, I’m serious. I want to know who to avoid. I want to know who’s trustworthy and who’s biased against me. It may not be popularly accepted that we’re all prejudiced, but I’m sorry, we are. Frankly, humans are a bunch of xenophobic jerks. Our ability to pigeonhole “the other” is why, as I mentioned to @_lisas on Twitter this morning–in the course of explaining why I’m freaked out by birds of all things–there’s a single species of human surviving today.

Everyone’s a little bit racist. Sure, we’re taught that it’s wrong, but I think this leads less to discussion and education, and more to bigots becoming closeted themselves.

So… obviously my friends are cool with it. Very few of the people I know are homophobic in the least. But I don’t date a lot. I haven’t had a girlfriend in… well, let’s just put it at “a while”. Very few people I know have seen me totally making out with girls. Doing so wouldn’t necessarily provoke a homophobic reaction, more “Cat does PDAs? Since when?”

Would my landlady be on board with my being gay? Probably not, but it’s never come up. She’s content to assume that my extreme height is what has prevented me meeting a succession of horrible, chainsmoking boyfriends to bring home to the hottest 300 square foot apartment ever known to mankind. But at the same time, it’s not like I would bring boys there if I was into that sort of thing either.

Last year, I remember her expressing skepticism about Obama and his ability to handle the financial crisis, which I presumed to be of the usual Canadian variety: “Can you believe he doesn’t support single-tier healthcare!?” It turned out that, no, she liked McCain better. I had definitely never heard this view expressed by anyone in Vancouver. I realize I’m stereotyping, but there is a bit of a correlation there.

The majority of Canadians are in favour of gay marriage, with an overwhelming majority at least being on board with some sort of “separate but equal” equivalent. The most conservative government of my lifetime has stated the matter is settled. That may be debatable, but it’s just not something we’re spending time on.

At the same time as this was going on at Buzz’s blog, there was a conversation occurring on my Twitter feed about the VPD advisory regarding the estimated 3000 cyclists participating in this month’s Critical Mass. (Mind you, I’m highly skeptical about the likelihood that so many people will brave 30° Celsius weather just to irritate commuters and climb up on top of the Lion’s Gate Bridge.) Still, the eternal “yay, Critical Mass”/“stop being assholes” debate rages on.

You know what? I support the Burrard Bridge bicycle lane project — which seems to be working out just fine at this point. (I do agree with Vancouver City Council member Andrea Reimer, however: “Enough about the Burrard Bridge.”) I support the construction of increased cycling and transit infrastructure. We need billions of dollars more for transit and millions more to improve bike lanes.

But is Critical Mass the way to convince other people to get on board with this plan, necessarily? Yeah, probably not. I actually do understand the “now drivers know how we feel!” argument. But, dude? No they don’t. Now they hate cyclists even more. And the drivers who didn’t ever consider cyclists much? Yeah, they remember that it took them two hours to make their 20-minute commute home after a long week.

And ultimately, this acts against my interests as a cyclist.

At the same time, Critical Mass looks like a lot of fun. It’s just fun at the expense of other people’s day. And I’m a staunch believer in the idea that we’re all entitled to do whatever we want until such time as what we want interferes with others’ ability to do what they want. Also, separation of church and state.

So how do I pair my this with my moral outrage towards post-Stonewall activists fighting for “straight-acting” gay and lesbian rights 30 years ago, or my position that it was was wrong and ultimately self-defeating to deliberately exclude the rest of the LGBT community?

I don’t know. I’m judging history from the perspective of someone who didn’t live through it, who just inherited the world activists worked towards a generation ago. And frankly, that’s dangerous. Today, it may seem obvious that including bisexuals, effeminate men, butches and transgendered people has always been the right thing to do, but I have to consider the possibility that I can even assert that position today because of the fact that they were effectively booted out of the movement decades earlier. Which is actually really depressing.

So, would a 21st-Century-style Pride parade and LGBT movement have flown in the early 1970s? The spectators and participants definitely wouldn’t have been the same, but the fact of the matter is, if you think The Queers are doing things to the soil, nobody’s going to convince you otherwise with a float covered in incredibly ripped guys wearing thongs.

So maybe that’s not what Pride’s for anymore. Maybe it’s just a party. As Buzz’s commenter EternalCanadian points out, honestly, what’s the difference between Pride and Mardi Gras or Caribana?

Edit: Also see Critical Pride Part 2: Midnight Mass and the Dyke March.

I’ve been convinced for a long time that the biggest threat to free speech in the 21st century is not, as in past eras, some kind of trend towards authoritarianism, but rather, intellectual property encumbrances. The idea that VANOC can trademark lines from O Canada is appalling to me. It’s bad enough that the Olympics have become so branded and mired in the exclusivity of the brand that they’ve threatened Olympia Pizza in Vancouver’s West End, to say nothing of the actions taken since then.

Thus, I wholeheartedly support the choice to the True North Media House in response to the line trademarked by VANOC.

But I’ve been thinking about situations where The Authorities have confiscated memory cards or deleted photos and so, I’m wondering about technical workarounds to this: I would consider using an EyeFi card in my camera to tether with a 3G phone (say, a jailbroken iPhone or possibly something with reasonable battery life.) to automatically upload my photos to my website or Flickr so that I wasn’t actually storing any pictures, I was posting them live. Short of jamming or Iranian-scale network monitoring and packet inspection, there would really be little anyone could do, assuming the images themselves were legal.

If I take a photo of a poster with the Olympic Rings, is distribution of that photo a trademark or copyright violation? Is my use of the words “Olympic”, “2010”, “Winter”, or “Games” in this post actionable? No, but what if I’m doing so in protest of something involving one or more of those words?

I mean, I don’t seriously consider myself at risk for having the last name “Winters”, or for writing under that name, but it’s so important to explicitly affirm that I have the right to do so when proposing –or passing!– any law that purports to restrict speech.

From the TNMH website:

We intend to create a space in downtown Vancouver to serve as a media resource centre with high-speed internet, audio and video production facilities, green screen and interview space, press conference space and workstations.

This project was launched by a group of media makers who covered the past several Olympic Games as un-accredited media. The organization has grown into a extensive group of volunteers from various industries and bringing diverse skills and motivations to the project.

Nice, right? Dave notes that they’ve been careful to identify as a group distinct from anti-Olympic protestors as well as the IOC itself. He says that his interest is in finding the stories the mainstream media can’t or doesn’t cover. He wants to make friends with people from other countries, hang out with them and enjoy a game or two: this is what breaks down the differences between us and makes it hard to hate people from “over there”, wherever that may be.

And he’s right. Studies demonstrate residing in large, diverse cities, or international travel — even religious pilgrimage — increases tolerance, respect and understanding for people lucky enough to be able to make the trip. And isn’t that what the Olympics are supposed to be about?

Unlike a few friends and bloggers, I’m not a huge sports fan myself. At the same time, I’ve been known to enjoy watching a game, taking in an event. But it’s the stories Dave’s interested in telling that are most interesting to me. And that’s why I’m going to go to the next TNMH meeting.

While otherwise a competent, irritatingly underfunded news organization, the CBC sucks at infographics. Most of their “interactive features” are just text that requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to read. That’s not “interactive”, guys. That’s “broken”. (In fairness, a lot of these come from the Canadian Press, which presumably also supplies these horrible clicky things to the two other^[1] Canadian news organizations.)

But I digress. A tad.

Yeah, that’s a shame.

This graph of the depressing failure that is Northern Telecom is pretty good because it ties news and events to stock price over time. There’s still ridiculous amounts of clicking on tiny little dots though. Mouseover, anyone?

(In fairness, there are at least forward/back buttons.)

I find it really bizarre that the two most effective “interactive” features on CBC’s website are both incredibly morbid: a “where did people find feet washed up on beaches?” map, and a map of gang hits in Metro Vancouver. (Wow, that map certainly makes the Downtown East Side look quiet. “DTES: Too poor for gang-bangers.”)

Both of these, predictably, use Google Maps, and colour-code the different categories of event at that location. (“Raccoon paw hoax” or “stabbing”, for example.) This conveys a decent amount of information without having to select the icon to view additional details. However, you still do have to click the thing to find out anything more.

I will say, though, that the effectiveness of both of these horrible death maps could be improved by taking time and date into account: personally, I want to see how long ago those people down the street got murdered in their attic. I mean, really, now. (I remember seeing a Google Maps mashup that did this, with a slider at the bottom. Can anyone help me out with a URL?)

The New York Times, on the other hand, takes online infographics to a whole new level, rivaling the quality of their print features. I’ll explain more about this in 30 minutes.

[1] Yes, seriously. (Stupid Conrad Black. Stupid CRTC.)

One short diagnosis of tennis and golfer’s elbow later, (“Catherine, you use the mouse a lot, don’t you?”) my doctor ordered me to find a less damaging pointing device. Since then, I’ve mostly relied on my laptop’s trackpad.

That’s all well and good while using my laptop, but for desktops, I needed a better solution. It’s really just Cirque that still makes USB trackpads, and those aren’t super either.

The Apple iTunes store provides a dozen or so “trackpad” apps, most of which use VNC to function as an input device alone. These let you use your wifi network to get your iPhone going as a trackpad. Surprisingly, this works fairly well, but it really does take gadget overkill to a whole new level.

So that leaves trackballs. Which is good, because I like them! ^[1]

So beautiful. So majestic.

Consequently, for the past 18 months, I’ve been using a Kensington Expert Mouse 7.0, the latest version of the classic ADB trackball. Kensington trackballs are so good, in fact, that sometimes I print out trackball-advocacy literature and go door-to-door, inviting people to hear the good news.

The latest version of the Kensington Expert Mouse boasts the same four buttons in a butterfly layout, as well as a one-dimensional “scroll ring” around the ball. The ring’s movement could be a little smoother, but it moves easily and is difficult to nudge by mistake.

So yes, I strongly recommend the Kensington Expert Mouse to anyone, if only because I rely on other people’s continued interest in trackballs to ensure companies keep producing them. Aside from that, trackballs are generally fairly good, egonomically speaking, and also make it more difficult for mouse-only friends to use your computer, providing you with ample opportunity to look smug. If you’re into that sort of thing, I mean.

For my keyboard, I’ve been alternating between my MacBook Pro and a 2005-series white/clear Apple keyboard. I own a Microsoft Natural Pro ergonomic keyboard, but I never liked the “mushy” feeling of the keys. The last-generation Apple keyboard’s keys aren’t buckling-spring. so it’s no Model M, but they definitely have sufficient give and are nicely clicky — within the limits of dome-switch keyboards.

Aside from feel, many Microsoft keyboards have a bit of an issue that’s always bugged me: they tend not to detect the left shift key being depressed when character entry keys have already been hit. This makes my hastily-typed smiley emoticons look terrible: ;0

I am pleased to say that Apple’s keyboards have never exhibited this problem.

Trackballs: A part of our heritage.

[1] Little-known Canadian trivia: the Royal Canadian Navy developed the first trackball back in the 1950s.

However, astute Canadians will note that this photo from Wikipedia shows the DATAR trackball assembly using flat-head screws, rather than superior, patriotic Robertson screws. For shame!

That’s right, I have a smartphone with no web access at all. Why? Well, the 650’s wifi capabilities kind of suck, but it’s usable. However, if I want to use EDGE, I don’t have a lot of options.

Canada has three national mobile phone companies: Bell and Telus, which are both CDMA, and Rogers, which uses GSM. (It’s actually four national companies, if you include Fido, which is now owned by Rogers, and which uses the Rogers network, but has separate branding and billing plans, including things like per-second billing.)

Despite having an otherwise highly developed telecommunications network, there is a flaw: Canada’s cellular companies are gouging us on data fees. Observe. Sadly, at one point, Fido had a $20/month unlimited EDGE plan, as well as a $30/month unlimited incoming/outgoing calls plan. Needless to say, after their acquisition by Rogers, both of these were quietly canceled.

So right now, my want-to-buy device seems to be the Nokia N800 tablet. It’s a tiny 800x480, WiFi/Bluetooth web browsing, media-playing, handwriting-recognizing, 8GB-extensible Linux device. There’s no phone, but then again, I already have a phone.

So, who wants to buy me one?

From the Social Signal blog:

If you work at the intersection of technology and community-building, we hope you’ll join us for the March gathering of Social Tech Brewing’s Vancouver chapter. Social Tech Brewing brings together folks from social media, nonprofit organizations, community service, social activism, social ventures and technology to share ideas — and beer!

Beer! Virtual worlds! Community-building! It’s got it all! If that sounds like your mug of beer, you should join us!

From 7–8 PM, we’ll be at WorkSpace at 21 Water St. (See Google Maps)
Afterwards, we’ll be moving across the street to Six Acres.

See the blog post at SocialSignal.com for more or RSVP here!

* You know, like that Second Life thing.