the cutest thing happened to me this morning. i was asleep at kyle's, completely passed out from the night before, and his dog, maverick, came in. he jumped on the bed and layed down behind me, and put his head down on my side. despite the fact that i was soooooooo hung over it's not even funny, it was cute. dogs are good that way.

on a completely different topic, i have been wondering about a belief that i heard a while ago. at the time i wrote it off as insane, but i am beginning to wonder if it has some merit to it. i read somewhere that some feminists consider penetration to be rape. i don't know why i have been thinking about it, but the more that i do, the more i tend to agree with it in principle. it is one person technically violating the other person's body. sex isn't a gentle act. there can be tearing and other unfortunate things. just the fact that penetrative sex is never an equal act makes me think this even more. and when one person feels emotion and the other doesn't, isn't that somehow a violation as well? like when people have one night stands, and one realises that's what it is while the other doesn't? i guess not having had sex in a while makes me think about it in a whole different way.

lately i have been looking at what my moral values/judgements are, and where i stand on certain issues. i guess it's healthy to re-evalute one's core beliefs from time to time. like i know i am pro-choice, believe that men aren't really anything but sperm donors. which makes me angry when i see men trying to impose their will on womens' bodies. i remember in high school we had this rabid anti-abortion speaker come in and basically spew complete bullshit at us for an hour. the whole time i was shaking i was so angry. i could not believe that this man, who will never ever know what it is like to have a life growing inside him, how he could stand up there and justify himself.

i'm vegetarian. and pro-choice. some people see that as a conflict. i don't. it's very simple how i can justify this. a foetus cannot live outside the womb before 26 weeks into it's gestation cycle. in canada, it is illegal to perform an abortion after 20 weeks. so essentially because the foetus cannot survive outside the body, therefore it is not a viable life form. it has the potential, but then again there is a world of difference between potential and actual. the difference i see between eating meat and ending a pregnancy is one of systematic torture. animals meant for food are tortured thoughout their lifes. chickens are forced into cramped little cages, forced to molt, their beaks cut off with a razor hot knife, their feet chopped off, and fet a diet merely to fatten them. this is one example out of many. they suffer their entire lives.

i recall not long ago PETA had their campaign comparing the suffering of animals to the holocaust. i was somewhat disturbed by it, for obvious reasons. i think they made their point all wrong. while it is speciesist to consider humans and human suffering to be above that of animals, which should have been their point, they focused instead of showing graphic images of people in concentration camps. the major difference between animals and the jews, roma (gypsies), homosexuals, and other singled out groups is why they were killed: hatred. i don't necessarily think that animals are tortured because of hatred towards them. it all has to do with cutting costs and taste. i will never support PETA again because of that campaign, it was absolutely a disgusting and malicious act on their part, but it happened and it made me think. maybe that is the only good that came from it.

so ya, i guess that's how i justify being a vegetarian and pro-choice. another thing i really do value is my political views. i am a socialist for various reasons, one being that i think humans are inherently selfish and greedy, and won't share if they don't have to. government, in it's fallable nature, should step in and compel people to actually care about one another's well-being. education, health, pension, and protection (as in police, and a limited military), these are the things that some governments fund. i believe in taxes, but the problem is that people don't realise what they are getting. they complain that they pay so much, but i gladly pay taxes knowing that i am helping someone else out. when i went to the hospital and got all the care that i did, i did not have to pay a cent. the first thing they asked me was to see the triage nurse directly, not what my health insurance is. i believe that when people's basic needs are met, then they can excell if they want to. most will because they don't have to worry about food, shelter, their health, their safety, their children's education and their retirement. work itself becomes not a means to an end, but an end in and of itself. and if people want to get rich, so be it. they have every right. BUT NOT on the backs of everyone else. we see around the world these multi-million and billionaires, and then there are those who are starving, have little shelter, and have little expectance of living to be 40. why should they be allowed to suffer and die merely because they had the misfortune to be born in the 3rd world?

on wednesday i saw the video for sarah mclachlan's song 'world on fire'. it was almost like a slap in the face. the amount of money that we waste on frivilous excesses goes so far in helping others. so why do we greedily horde it? all material things in life are temporary. i often wonder why we build skyscrapers, hotels, and all these structures when it really doesn't matter. they will be gone one day. why collect billions of dollars when you will never live to spend every last cent of it?

these are just some things that i believe.

... posted at 10:37 p.m. by gleefully gloomy. ...