Anti-Prorogation, Anti-Patriarchy

With the second slightly more than suspect prorogation in a little over a year now in full swing, and the Olympics just around the corner, I figured it's time to resurrect this blog. I have sent some ten-percenters and haibuns since the last time we posted, but it's been far too long since we've updated.

The ten-percenters I've received since the prorogation I've simply sent back with the message "GET BACK TO WORK." But this one really got under my skin. I think because it's not the first one I've received that illustrates the commitment of the government under Harper's leadership to sustain at all costs the "sacred" bonds between masculine figures, bonds which express themselves through capitalist consumption and violent ownership of the earth, of women, of "Homes." This is the second ten-percenter I've received which has shown a father-son relationship and suggested its sacredness. Notice how the woman is freakily cut off at the arm on the first picture (she is signified by a single part of her body) while the father acts as overseer to the patriarchal nurturing of the son (learning to ride a bike whose decor boasts "1 1 1" or "I am #1" and the soon-to-come transference of such an activity to something as earth-friendly as a race car). In the second picture now we see that she is pregnant. She is looking down at the son (she must protect him at all costs in order to perpetuate patriarchy) while the son and father look into the audience's eyes, just as Stephen Harper is doing directly below - they are the most important people...and they are "on the right track."

In case you can't read everything I've written onto the ten-percenter...

Front: One day I'll drive an SUV and eat only steak, like my daddy! Big men should have BIG carbon footprints!

Back: Whiteness, the suburbs, and a vessel for the next impressionable little mind - What more could a man want?

Stephen Harper's thought bubble: Treat your son like a REAL man. Don't HUG him. SHake his hand!! (Idiot.)

Address Box: Reinscribing patriarchal values...even while on vacation! GET BACK TO WORK, GARY.

Enjoy!