Life Preserver

I am writing to ask you, my blog readers, to consider supporting a friend's brother in his fight with cancer. All I am asking is that you sign an online petition which would take just a few moments. Let me tell you a bit about the story.

Darcy Doherty has been fighting cancer for years and experienced great success a couple of years ago with a particular drug. His cancer went into remission. His life and quality of life were extended. He could continue to parent his three children. However, just recently, the cancer returned in a very bad way and is not responding to treatments. Prognosis is certain death. There was no hope for Darcy and his family.

However, Bristol-Meyers Squibb is currently running a clinical trial on a drug that very well might save Darcy's life because it works similarly to the last. A drug in clinical trial is practically ready for the market. It is being tested on humans. Of course anything could happen but this drug is, for all intents and purposes, fully developed and ready for human consumption. All Darcy wants is access to that drug.  

Unfortunately, because of a technicality, he does not qualify for the clinical trial. The company is saying it cannot administer the drug because it could endanger his life.

We are saying that he he is in imminent danger of losing his life with or without the drug. We are petitioning Lamberto Andreotti, CEO of Bristol-Meyers Squibb, to allow access on compassionate grounds.

If you have a moment, right now, just click on this link and support Darcy's petition to Mr. Andreotti who, literally, may have Darcy's life in the palm of his hand.  And, if you think this is worthy, please repost.

I can't imagine anyone standing safe on a shore by a stormy sea who wouldn't try to throw a life preserver to another not so lucky.  

Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $155.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $200.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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It's our fault. Not theirs.

What those kids are doing in Quebec.  How about that?  Agree with them or not, but they have stuck to their guns and might actually be making a difference not only for their future but the future of countless others - if they manage a win in Quebec, then other provinces are sure to follow.  The protests have been largely peaceful with a few exceptions and, despite laws that attempted to restrict freedoms, the protests continued. Now, the government and students are back to the bargaining table because tourist season is almost upon us.  You can't really legislate students back to school, now can you?

I guess the Quebec government thought their laws restricting peaceful protest would shut everybody up.  After all, that's been the trend for a long, long time.  Restrict rights and freedoms, increase costs.  Most people will go along with it if it's incremental and sold as good for us all.

And, looking at this graphic, it would seem that Quebec students have it pretty good already.  Looks like they are paying pretty much the lowest tuition of anyone in the country. So, what?  Why would they be protesting what the government calls a reasonable rise in tuition fees over a number of years when they already have it so good?

The real question might be this:  Why are the students in the other provinces NOT protesting?

According to StatsCan, university tuition fees are on the increase, outstripping the rate of inflation, not to mention the addition of new fees.  For even a simple bachelor's degree which we know will get you a great job slinging burgers or coffee, a student will pay, on average in Canada, about $15,000. And, despite the fact that researchers are starting to draw distinct, real correlations between health and years in education, we are starting to restrict access to higher education to the wealthy few or those willing to pay of tens of thousands of dollars of loan after they are done.  So, why aren't kids in the other provinces hopping mad?  Why aren't their parents hopping mad?  Why are protests not popping up all over the country?

Make your own prognostications on why society is becoming more unfair.  Make your own decisions as to why the rich are getting richer, lifestyles are devolving, and mobility between the classes is eroding all the time. Make your own decisions.  Believe what you need to believe.  But if they take what they take without a fight, the fault is ours, not theirs.


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $155.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $200.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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Sucking blood.

It's common, right now, to slam youth.  From the assumption of a coddled childhood to the dismissal of youth concerns like tuition hikes, the current generation of young people have a bad rap.  This is often true as the next generation comes forward but, the Boomers (of which I am a tail-end version) happen to have played a mean game of generational politics all the way along, and seem particularly vitriolic in their dislike of this upcoming cohort.

And have pulled their support of them.  The significant proportion of wealth in the developed world is flowing up to (a small percentage of) the older and more established as opposed to down toward youth.   Public funds are being pulled to bail out ailing corporations (who pay, comparitively, very little tax - United States examples) as opposed to maintaining and supporting education and youth programs or any other programs for that matter.  Maybe it's a good thing these kids love computer games and social networking because for so many of them, there is no work.

So, what the heck is everybody thinking?  Fuck these kids.  I had to work my way up and so should they.  Okay.  Okay.  Okay.

But, you didn't.  Even if you're a year or so older than me.  I know.  Because everything started to dry up as I got there as it's only gotten worse since.

For example, after the death of my supporting parent, I applied for the Ontario Student Assistance Program.  This assistance came -- before I got there -- primarily in the form of grants and a lot of people were eligible.  Fairly affluent kids would apply and receive a grant; so much so that OSAP's nickname was The Ontario Stereo Acquisition Program.  As I got there, however, all changed.  Welcome the 80's.  The grants, mostly, disappeared and were replaced by very low interest loans.  Tuition was cheap.  Housing was cheap.  And I was a hard luck case.  I got out with a very small yolk around my neck - a little over a thousand dollars.  And found a job pretty easily.

Of course, because of its relative inexpense, higher education became cheap.  There were lots of lots of little BA's and BS's and such.  Breeding like rabbits they were.  And a lot of them weren't needed; so a lot of them got McJobs.  Even the bachelor's degree, itself, was undermined to the point of being barely as important as a highschool diploma.  And if you don't have a highschool diploma, you can barely get any job at all.  (Never fear.  Handymen grew up to trump us all but that is a subject for another post.)

And, despite the devalued status of the average bachelor degree, tuition has gone up.  Waaaaaay up.  Housing is expensive.  Even if kids stay at home while they attend, they come out of university owing tens of thousands of dollars.  With no work to go to.   Of course it's their fault.

Look, in general, they seem a little cocky, a little assumptive, a little too optimistic.  Not us, though.  We weren't like that.  Hmmmm....

In what kind of society do the old suck the life right out of the young?  A vampiric one.  And if only we all aged like Lestat, this might make sense;  I mean how much money does one person need in one lifetime?  You can't take it with you.  Ah, unless you mean to give the money to your kids to ease their way.  It's just fuck everybody else's.  They're all slackers, anyway.


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $155.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $200.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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I don't like it either.

I had a conversation with a fellow I know only barely.  Great guy, talented, fairly articulate but who will probably never get laid because he holds the following opinions:

1. Women's reproductive issues - in this case, abortion - are topics in which MP's should vote their conscience and not necessarily vote along the party lines by which they were elected.  
2. That women are more likely to be swayed by the charismatic or well marketed -- even the sexy -- candidate and don't vote on our beliefs.
3. That abortion should not be covered by public health care.  He feels that people should not be required to pay for something they don't believe in. 

I, as you might guess, demured at the time and had one or two things to say.  Well, here's what I said; though, I admit I did say it in a less orderly way and I have had the chance to weigh my responses and make myself sound more clever.  So, here goes:

I don't vote for a candidate so that they get to change their mind and do whatever the heck they please when they actually get into power.  I vote for a party, not really a candidate.  I expect the candidate in question to honour the published policies of their affiliated political party.  If she wants to vote her conscience, let her grow a pair and run as an Indepedent.

I don't vote for the dynamic candidate. I don't vote thinking that he's sexy and my vote will get me laid.  I have met some very charming, charismatic, beautiful politicians in my lifetime.  Not one of them changed my mind on something that mattered because I thought they were sexy.   Could you die?  Phoning the lad or lass up the next day and saying, "Right you are.  Voted for you.  I will be right over.  Knickers off, please."

I don't like for paying things I don't believe in, either.  But I do it. I don't like paying for wars...uh...police actions.  I believe that there must be a better way and hate the fact that a significant amount of the money that our family pays in taxes goes to machinery, technology, and manpower that kills people.  In Canada, we are one of the top 15 in military spending and lay out about 22 billion a year right now for just this purpose (assuming Wikipedia can be trusted).  I honestly cannot see any difference between my conscientious objection to war and another person's religious objection to birth control and abortions.

I don't like paying for bailouts of large corporations.

I don't like paying for the development of the tar sands.

I don't like...huh.

Come to think of it, I don't like paying for a lot of things that the government does.  But what are we going to do?  Opt out of paying for some things because we don't believe in them?  Like RevCan would let you get away with that. We are either all in or all out.

And if a person wants to be a politician, she must recognize that she represents thousands of single votes.  She does not get the luxury of voting her conscience because that was already done on election night by the thousands of folks who voted for her.  She doesn't get to re-evaluate without going back and consulting those folks.  A vote of conscience is called a 'referendum'.  That's when everybody in the country gets to vote their conscience.  A politician voted in legally and representing the wishes of her constituents needs to be professional and vote down party lines.  If you don't want to do that, then you shouldn't have become a politician in the first place.

If we, the public, don't get a choice and must bend to the will of the people, then, a politician shouldn't have the right to bend the will of the people by arbitrarily voting as she pleases.



Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening in June, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions opening in July.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $125.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $155.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

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The Rallying Cry

At some point, feminism became a four letter word.  And it was a long time ago because I remember being at university and tap-dancing around the term.  Most of my fellows thought that if I identified myself as a feminist, I was a bra-burning uberbitch.  It was hard to be classified that way and very difficult to get laid if you were viewed as a hard head.  So I (and I think a lot of others) starting tapdancing.

In the intervening thirty or so years, what has feminism accomplished?  The depiction of women and girls in the media has actually gotten worse.  Women's earnings are still far behind men's in Canada (though the gap is slowly closing and some of the difference must be attributed to women's willingness to balance paid and unpaid work).  How about violence against women?  Folks are saying that violence against women is not decreasing despite the fact that the rate of violent crimes, in general, has been going down for decades.  (However, this view is predicated on the assumption that only one in ten rapes get reported.  So, the view is statistically unsupported.)

How about our view of the sexes?  Well, there are studies like this that emphasize male and female differences and there are views of those like Dr. Cordelia Fine who strikes down pre-conceptions, stating that the two brains are, actually, very similar and suggests that design and interpretation of studies that point out vast difference between the brains may be nothing more than neurosexism.

And, now, in many states of the USA and, perhaps soon here in Canada, the very personhood of women is coming into question, again.  And, certainly, her right to control her own reproductive health is at severe risk with many folks preferring government intervention in some of our most private decisions.

Well, it's not all bad.  Women are entering universities in far greater numbers and far greater than their male counterparts.  Career-minded women are learning to 'marry down' and get back to work quickly, leaving their spouse to raise the children.  And women are, slowly, entering the upper echelon of industry and, slowly, being represented more and more in parliament.

Okay, so feminism has, predictably, helped and not helped the overall lot of women over the last thirty some odd years and, I hope (because the studies and conclusions are so confusing and disparate) that the general trend is up.  If we keep up the fight, maybe there will be some semblance of equality, if not in my lifetime, then in my daughter's.  So the fight needs to go on...  But it leaves me wondering:  Why is feminism still a dirty word?

Well, it's that uberbitch thing.

Feminism is okay, it seems, when we are ultra-feminine about it.  When we are nice.  When we speak softly.  When we allow our audience to continue to ignore or undermine scientific studies in favour of deeply ingrained belief systems.  When we don't say anything when a colleague makes a rape joke, or uses the term 'like a girl' to imply deep incompetence.  When we get on facebook with titillating status updates meant to peak men's interest in some charity or women's issue, that's okay.  When we dress up like sluts and walk the streets, that's okay - apparently, it's empowering.  But to speak strongly and clearly, to debate rationally, to challenge pre-conceptions, to stride forward in a forthright way, that doesn't seem to be okay.

Whenever, I attempt to change views or cite political studies or discuss women's rights and a woman's position in the world, I am often laughed down, dismissed, or beset with anecdotal evidence, family lore, and common sense.  And even though any anecdotal evidence or family story is simply not enough of a statistical set from which to glean any conclusion; and, even though common sense once told us the world was flat not so long ago, on these gender issues, we seem to be born knowing what we need to know and no study or evidence or discussion can change another's mind. Given this much resistance, it's a wonder women ever got the vote.

But they did.  The single most important accomplishment of feminism is women's suffrage.  Now, what did women have to do to get the vote?  They marched; they shouted; they physically fought; they were arrested; they refused to pay fines.  They attempted to storm parliament; jumped in front of and were trampled by horses; endured force-feeding.  Not very 'lady-like'.  Not very 'feminine'.

So maybe part of the reason that we haven't accomplished as much as I would like to see accomplished is this:  Maybe, we are not uberbitchy enough.  Maybe all that tapdancing was stupid and undermining.  Maybe hyperfeminization in the form of a slutwalk is not what I would like to see as a primary choice, a rallying cry, for my daughter's generation.  Maybe.

I know this for sure.  If women's reproductive rights are challenged in this country, I am not yet certain what I would adopt as a rallying cry but I do feel certain that I will redefine the term  'uberbitch'.


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening in June, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions opening in July.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

Want to contact me?

Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
talk/text:  647-292-0210
twitter:  @jaybird01
skype:   Jacquiburkecell, jacqui.burke
www.wordsnimages.com
www.jaybirdproductions.ca
www.shakespeareisboffo.ca
http://jacquiburke.blogspot.ca
http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/
http://jaybirdproductions.blogspot.ca/

Ask me about Shakespeare is Boffo! Premium Summer Camps for Kids.  Two installments in 2012:  The Homeschoolers` Version:  11:00 am – 3:30 pm, August 13-17, 2012 for only $125.  Premium Full Day Summer Camp:  9:00 am – 4:00 pm, July 16-20, 2012 for only $155.  Both prices hold until May 15th, 2012.  Spots are going fast.  Register, now at www.shakespeareisboffo.ca

Like what you read?
Encourage me by clicking on one of these ads in this blog.