Birdy

There's a couple of awesome markets - Waterlooplein is one of them and i can't remember the name of the other one, but it's an all book market - awesome!

Weak! I hate face-saving apologies. Luckily Wayne is ultra-hot and his band one my favourites.

Done... one question was particularly Toronto-centric though so i fudged an answer.

Hehehe, the applause and the ‘great job’s coming from the fans is funny. I hear what you’re saying. We’re both taking a bit of a libertarian stance on this one… if you can imagine. Mine because people want and continually try to express their religious selves in the public arena. This license plate issue is just one of many that has popped up over the years and populated this thread with discussions of secularism, and has tied up courts with constitutional debates. Should that not serve as an indicator of public will? But to be truthful, I don’t even know what it is that I’m seeking here. Perhaps i’m a bit of an idealist in that I envision a parliament hill full of monuments and shrines, kind of set up like a farmer’s market for people to wade through and taste-test. Maybe i just want to promote a greater understanding of one another and think the vehicle of the collective whole best suited for that job. Because really, if i never walked up to that Indian lady all those years ago at Covenant Garden Market in London and tasted her butter chicken, i probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Indian food all these years. Ahh, well. I’m off to the beach.

if either side is to work together, both sides need to recognize there is a need to work together. in my mind, this discussion of government representation, secularism and atheism isn't an aside.

Right, hence '(probably due to it's difficulty)'. I'm not saying this an easy task to conquer, but I believe it is one we should seek to figure out a way to conquer, for the reasons I expressed above. It's like when you identify something as a problem, and then avoid dealing with it. The problem doesn't go away, and 9 times out of 10 only becomes greater.

Brad, I appreciate that you are patiently trying to make me see the light , but I suppose my side in this exists to question this function of government as unnecessary/wrong. I'm of the camp that subscribes to the definition of secularism that beseeches government to treat all religions equally and for the most part, believe government has given up on this (probably due to it's difficulty) and has adopted a false secularism, where it does not treat all religions equally, it avoids religion altogether. It is one thing to say express yourself!, it is another to say, express yourself here, but not there, there, but not here. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy for wanting people to have the right to express themselves both in a private and public setting, but i really do believe it is the only vehicle for true representation. And in it's true representation, again, i do believe people will come to a greater understanding and acceptance of those who are different. Not to go back to my Footloose reference, but i do believe people have the tendency to avoid understanding, because they think they already know. This whole Yayyyyy god thread can probably serve as reference point to that. It's like growing up and having your parents tell you not to do something (based on their experience), but you think you know and you do it anyway, only to come to the realization afterward that your parents were indeed right all along. It is so easy for us to judge religious folk as crazy (they worship WHAT!? What's God!? Where is he!? Bring me to him!), or for us to confuse Islam with terrorists, or for Jews to hate Catholics, etc. It's because there is no understanding of the other and due to this false secularism, there exists no desire or push to ever facilitate such an understanding. I don't draw a direct relation between government and atheists, it is more like a default arrangement born out of this all.

good game good game good game good game

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! DETROIT RED WINGS!! F'ing bloody awesomeness.

Hey now, I'm asking the government to NOT be involved in the whole issue, not the other way around my friend. I agree wholeheartedly, they have much more pertinent things to involve themselves with rather than policing dead jesus on a license plate. A license plate that, for all intensive purposes, I'd say I own and pay for every September... and pay 1000x more than what it's actually worth. People certainly don't have the freedom to express whatever they want. It seems to me this license plate company has been up and pumping out images for plates for a little bit, before this recent controversy over it's 'new designs'. So really, when the license plates had pictures of a sunset on a beach, all was cool. And only when Jesus popped up on the plates did the whole issue of government ownership come about. Come on now? No. Come on now. Your analysis of representation reminds me of those people who say 'i'm not a racist, i have black people for friends', after they crack a derogatory joke. It is your actions that make you what you are. How is a Muslim MP representing his people when Muslims have to fight for a place to pray in our universities? They're not.

happy birthday! from one fiscal conservative to another!

It is not that I don't understand the ramifications of a city hall constructing a nativity scene on their front lawn. It is that I think the secularist reach borders on the ridiculous, and that the public reaction to these issues also borders on the ridiculous. I could quote Simon of the ACLU who said 'approval of the plate could prompt many other groups to seek their own designs... That could even allow the Ku Klux Klan to get a plate', which to me, while not expressly showing fear, depicts fear in it's reference to the KKK. Or I could quote Thorgnor (and I'm sorry Thorgnor, i think you are a very nice, intelligent person, but we're in a debate) who said the existence of religious imagery 'suggests to [him] that they've got something to prove. Some reason to say that god is on their side, and therefore probably not on [his]'. And while I agree with you that government is a special group, I do not agree with you in saying they are representative of society. In fact, through secularism, they are the furthest thing from being representative. The only groups getting represented by them are atheists. I ask then, not that we erect a gigantic cross on top of parliament hill, but that we seek some kind of middle ground, where things like license plates are deemed okay to depict the virgin mary, or the star of David, or whatever it is a person wants. They are license plates!! And then i would hope that one day, people won't feel the need to express their own fears or insecurities over what should be to them, such a trivial thing.

::locks doors, cranks umphreys:: i can't hear you!

Don't be so grumpy Swifty.

I can. If i could go in and edit your post YT, i'd bold this part: Thank you! You know what makes me sad? Sometimes i equate some secularists to the same kind of people that Kevin Bacon stood up to in the movie 'Footloose'. The people who didn't care to 'understand', because they already 'knew'. What makes me even more sad, is that they sometimes claim a superiority over non-secularists and consider themselves more open-minded, when in fact, they're the exact opposite. To live in fear of allowing a person or group to express themselves, because 'who knows who's going to express themselves next?' is not the kind of living i want to do, nor would want my friends to do.

I don't know if it's Moss Landing you're thinking of, but Moss Landing is AWESOME for sea kayaking... up through the Elkhorn Slough. Elkhorn Slough It's just south of Santa Cruz on Hwy 1, about halfway in between Santa Cruz and Monterey. If you do actually make it to Monterey, go check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It's one of the best in the US, and has the most amazingly mind-blowing jelly fish displays you could ever zone out on.

Well that's perhaps a bit of a presupposition on your part, no? I started reading your second paragraph and thought 'okay, there we go' when you wanted to emphasize 'not everyone', but then what followed was that obviously not everyone does it 'consciously', but that they do still do it. Which i don't agree with. I'm sure some people throw up dead jesus in front of an orange, or idolize images because it brings them closer and/or makes them feel more connected with their god. I'm sure not every jesus bumper-sticker implies a malicious-intent, consciously or not. I don't disagree with you in that this could apply to some, but I don't think it applies to most. People express themselves to project themselves, because they want to share themselves, to perhaps feel more connected with what is around them. This form of expression is no different than that of a musician or a painter or a writer. It's the medium and the subject that make some feel uncomfortable. I think.

I'm having a bit of a hard time translating that... and i've typed and re-typed here what i think you might be saying, and i'm still a little unsure.

What about them makes you sad? I'm a little sad, but not offended, when i see bumper stickers that read "Bambi makes cute sandwiches". The Catholics are hardcore about their imagery... i think.

Go just a *bit* further and hit up Big Sur, Pebble Beach and Monterey! It's all lovely.

And at other times, i sit and wonder if perhaps i'm the most naive girl in the world.

Hahaha... you make me laugh. I think we've had this chat... oh, i don't know.. like 10 times already, but i've been four months free of this stuff and i'm missing it. I even sent D-rawk a facebook message asking him to log in and argue politics with me. Haha. I hear what you're saying Kev - it comes down to where we draw the line. But something in me screams out to never settle for the 'since we can't have all, we must have nothing' camp. It's dull, it's boring, it lacks expression, it robs people of their right to express. It's a sticky situation (as you pointed out with your reference to the KKK), one that i don't have the slightest clue of how to get around. But I'm not one of those people who would take offense if such a license plate were stopped ahead of me at a red light, and am certainly a person who would try to talk the offended out of being offended. Sometimes I think the only way to actually ever stop being offended by such things is to gain exposure to them, and through that exposure - become accepting. And through that acceptance, maybe be one step closer to Rodney King's dream of 'just getting along'. Baby steps.

Do you guys think we should register our bumper stickers too then?

So if someone wants to have the Jesus fish on their license plate, they shouldn't be allowed to? I totally agree with the Governor on this one. If you don't want one, don't buy one.

Protected, or funded? We've learned now that it's impossible to protect thin air.