Ani Difranco's Bundle of Joy!

I have just discovered that Ani Difranco, folk/punk/social critic/feminist singer extraordinaire, gave birth to little girl named Petah on January 20th. I love Ani. My sister first got me onto her six or seven years ago when I listened to her live album 'Living in Clip', which blew me away. Her music has changed over the years, gotten a little softer and more about inner emotions than political or social issues. But as her most recent album 'Reprieve' shows, she's still got some bite on her.

I personally don't care if she has a kid, but I'm glad that she's glad. However, some people are not so happy at her biological clock. As this blog post comments, some people think her music will go the way of Sucky Town now that she has a little one to keep her spirits soaring through the clouds. And maybe they have a point. But I'd just like to point out that the blogger loved Ani's new cd but became less enthusiastic AFTER she heard the bard was pregnant. Meaning that the pregnancy is already affecting fan's reaction to her work. So maybe it won't be that Ani's work changes for the worst, but that some of her greatest fans have already changed their opinion. Ani has been the poster babe for lesbian/bisexuality/self-esteem/independence for so long, and often having a baby doesn't jive with that image. Too bad. (By the way, I used the term 'poster babe' because Ani's self-made record label is called Righteous Babe Records. So get off my back, you feminist chicks.)

Here are some of my favourite Ani lyrics for your enjoyment:

My thighs have been involved in many accidents and now I can’t get insured / and I don’t need to be lured by you / my cunt is built like a wound that won’t heal / now you don’t have to ask because you know how I feel
Out of Habit

I broke down in Louisiana and had to thumb a ride / got in the first car that pulled over / you can’t be picky in the middle of the night / he said baby do like to fool around baby do you like to touch / I said maybe some other time fuck you very much
Every State Line

I’m no heroine least not last time I checked / I’m too easy to roll over I’m too easy to wreck / I just write about I should have done I sing what I wish I could say / and I hope somewhere some woman hears my music and it helps her through her day
I’m No Heroine

Boys get locked up in some prison / girls get locked up in some house / and it don’t matter if it’s a warden or a lover or spouse
Out of Range

I was eleven years old he was as old as my dad / and he took something from me I didn’t even know that I had
Letter to a John

Like you’re trying to fight gravity on a planet that insists / that love is like falling and falling is like this
Falling is Like This

Squint your eyes and look closer I’m not between you and your ambition / I am a poster girl with no poster I am 32 flavors and them some
32 Flavors

Tell you the truth I prefer the worst of you / too bad you had to have a better half
Untouchable Face

They caught the last poor man on a poor man’s vacation / they cuffed him and they confiscated his stuff/ they dragged his black ass down to the station and said ok the streets are safe now / all your pretty white children can come out and see spot run / and they came out of their houses and they looked around / but they didn’t see no one
T’is of Thee

I just want you to understand that I know what all the fighting was for / and I just want you to understand that I’m not angry anymore
Angry Anymore

And if I hear one more time about a fool’s right to his tools of rage / I’m gonna take all my friends and I’m gonna move to Canada / and we’re gonna die of old age
To the Teeth

Watching children run with their arms outstretched / just to throw those arms around their grandpa’s necks / watching lovers plant kisses / old men to their misses / at the arrival’s gate
Arrival’s Gate

Are you weary as water in a faucet left dripping / with an incessant sadness like a sad record skipping
Swing

I was once escorted through the doors of a clinic by a man in a bullet proof vest / and no bombs went off that day / so I am still here to say
Birmingham

You are a miracle but that is not all / you are also a stiff drink and I am on call / you are a party and I am a school night / and I’m looking for my door key but you are my porch light
School Night

Yes this is the news in 90 second segments officially produced / and aired again and again and again / by the little black and white pawns of the network yes men
Decree

While out in tv nation under darkening skies / the resistance is just waiting to be organized
Millenium Theater

Foster Home Nightmare

The city of Edmonton is in a flutter because a recent incident has brought focus to problems in the foster care system. A small boy died last week of head trauma while in the care of a foster mother. The foster mother is a registered nurse, has one other foster child and two biological kids, and also works part-time. She is being charged with second degree murder.

The foster mother claims that the boy threw himself on the bathroom floor and died from self-inflicted wounds, and that he has a history of violence towards others and himself. Public support of the foster mother so far has not been very favourable.

Last night, several news programs ran an interview with the biological mother of the deceased boy, an Aboriginal woman who has been in rehab for the last several months battling substance abuse. Her face was scarred, her voice slurred and her speech not very articulate. Another relative was interviewed, an Aboriginal male, this time enormously overweight and also lacking quality television skills.

I guarantee you that these interviews have swayed public opinion with the suddenness of a weather vane. It placed the boy’s condition in a certain context and gave credibility to the foster mother’s claims that the boy had severe emotional problems. Ten seconds looking and listening to the biological mother, and suddenly the foster mother is probably in the right because, hey—look at the kid’s parents!

I think it was irresponsible of the news to air these interviews as they did. One channel, to be fair, did censor the biological mother’s face, but it’s all for naught if every other channel doesn’t bother.

All in all, it was a bad day for Aboriginal press. The same Edmonton newscasts have been running stories all week about homeless Aboriginal persons claiming that the city police have been picking them up and dropping them off in remote locations – sound familiar, Saskatoon? Of course every Aboriginal person interviewed in the story is homeless and sounds drunk and doesn’t look all that good. I know there’s nothing you can do about that, but it’s depressing for me, a person who advocates human rights, to see the news dominated by this negative coverage that only feeds fire to racist rants. Fortunately – if a person can use that term here – some homeless white people have begun to speak up about the behaviour of the police. So now instead of hating Natives, we can get back to doing what capitalist societies do best – hating poor people!!!

This Morning's 'Gripe of the Day'

On the weekend the Globe & Mail ran a special report on the global warming crisis. Overall it was pretty balanced, and far less vague than most (by this I mean: is it real or not? They sided with it being real). My beef is a chart they printed, showing the cycle of CO2 level over the last few hundred thousand years. I saw the same chart in the movie "An Inconvienent Truth", Al Gore's super-duper documentary. My beef? The source of the chart is cited as "Globe & Mail Research." That's a source? Does that mean the newspaper commissioned environmental scientists to test ice cores? Me thinks not. They obviously got the numbers from somewhere other than their ass, so why didn't they say where? From now on, my References Cited page on my term papers will have a single entry -- Source: Kris S. research.