igpy kin has a blog

This article makes a number of valuable and succinct remarks on the state of the monarchy in Canada today. Comparing Canadians up in arms over the Senate (not elected by the people but appointed by an elected leader) to Canadians complacently accepting Mr. Windsor as their future head of state, and noting that the bloody pointlessness of an institution is not a good reason to keep it around rang particularly true, for me.

It's difficult for me to get a grasp on the media and popular frenzy for William & Kate in any sort of comparative perspective. Growing up in Canada has meant I've been loosely kept abreast of royal happenings all my life. I remember when I was a kid, my mum was mad about Diana. I remember her talking about her when I was in kindergarten -- I was 9 when she died, and I don't remember mum's reaction, or the event, but I assume she was heartbroken since she still talks about Di as if she were half-divine.

But she was married seven years before I was born. I can't compare the frenzy.

As an isolated event, though, I don't understand why we're dedicating so much money, time, energy, and adulation to two people who have effectively done very little beyond being born into the right families. Yes, they've both been through university. Yes, William is military. Yes, Kate has great fashion sense. But these people are puppets. They are following protocol and not saying much in public and shaking hands and their only merit is birth. William was born to be a prince. Kate married him, and therefore gets to ride his birthright.

And I don't understand how, as a society that talks about those dreadful dark ages a few centuries ago where absolute monarchies abounded and we honoured people for no reason beyond birth -- often with disastrous results -- so many of the people around me think this is utterly right and natural.

I have nothing in particular against either of them as human beings -- it would be difficult to, when we see so little of them with their guards down -- but they stand for a number of world problems which I am personally against and which, so far as I can tell, are in direct contradiction to a number of Canadian values. Nepotism, classism, racism (I say this as someone who thoroughly believes that any budding interracial romance William might have had would have been crushed), inequity, self-indulgence, gross disparity of wealth... Take a look at these infographics of the cost of the wedding compared to more average weddings.

Is a couple who had an $80,000 cake at their wedding, who are lauded for no reason beyond birthright and not having utterly fucked up yet, who are given the privilege to fly around the world for no purpose other than to smile, wave, and shake hands -- are these the sorts of people we should be dedicating time, media coverage, and taxpayer money to when almost half the world's population live on less than $2.50 a day?

Here are some news items more worth your note than privileged puppets being flown across Canada on display:

• Are we the ugly Canadians? You betcha (Rick Smith, The Hill Times)
  "No longer can Canada be relied on to do the right thing or to be an honest broker on a range of things, but rather our government is trying to act like a world power that it is not, playing the bully and obstructing progress in the process."
• Strauss-Kahn to face Tristane Banon rape allegation (BBC News)
  "Concerns about the reliability of his accuser in the New York have left that case reportedly close to collapse, and led to speculation in France that he might return to politics there.

  However, on Monday Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon said the idea Mr Strauss-Kahn could now run for the presidency was "the weakest" of all possible scenarios.

  Ms Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, herself a politician from Mr Strauss-Kahn's centre-left Socialist Party, said she had persuaded her daughter not to file a complaint at the time of the alleged incident in 2002.

  But Ms Mansouret has said she is "revolted" by the gleeful reaction of many men in France to news the case in New York might fail.

  Mr Koubbi told L'Express that he and his client had decided to press charges in mid-June, and that the timing of the decision was not linked to Mr Strauss-Kahn's US trial.

  "Even if [the New York] case against Mr Strauss-Kahn turns out to be unfounded, ours is not," Mr Koubbi said. "It is extremely solid and backed-up.""

• Thailand's military accepts election result (Todd Pitman, The Globe & Mail)
  "Thailand's military eased concerns of renewed turmoil Monday by accepting the sweeping electoral win of toppled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra's party, while his sister vowed to reconcile the deeply divided nation as its first female prime minister."
• Cost of monarchy down by £1.8m (The Independent)
  "The Queen's official expenditure decreased by 5.3% from £33.9 million in 2009/10 to £32.1 million in 2010/11 according to the royal public finances annual report.

  The Queen's Civil List spending fell from £14.2 million to £13.7 million, while there was a cut in spending on property services from £15.4 million to £11.9 million.

  Royal travel costs rose from £3.9 million in 2009/10 to £6 million in 2010/11 but Buckingham Palace said the sale of the Queen's helicopter in 2009/10 resulted in lease repayments of £1.5 million to royal travel.

  Excluding this income, expenditure on royal travel would have been £5.4 million in that year, according to the accounts."
  (It must be so difficult to only spend £32.1 million -- that's $49,436,065.54 CAD -- in a year. How do they get by?)

• Libyan rebels say Col Gaddafi can retire in Libya if he steps down (Adrien Blomfield, Telegraph)
  "Libya's rebels have dropped their demand for Col Muammar Gaddafi to leave the country, amid fresh signs that opposition forces are still looking for a negotiated settlement to the four-month civil war."
• On Policing Femininity, and the Right to be Wrong (Melissa McEwan, Shakesville)
  "One of the real problems with feminist policing of expressions of traditional femininity (among many problems, which also include looking suspiciously like a thingy that polices from the other direction), is that it effectively ignores the reality that many feminist women (almost like real humans! wheeeeee!) tend to go through stages where they have different personal relationships with the accouterments of traditional femininity as they move through life accumulating experience and knowledge, and their feminist philosophy changes, deepens, broadens."
• Omaha Teacher Retained Position After Multiple Student Allegations of Sexual Assault (Cara, The Curvature)
  "Eighth-grade teacher Shad Knutson has been charged with three counts of sexual assault against three different female students over three years. He is no longer working for Nathan Hale Middle School, where all of the alleged assaults were committed, but he did remain employed with them for three years after the first allegation was made."
• Boobs. Boobs. Boobs. Ratings. Hurrah! (Trevor Scott Howell, FFWD)
  "AMP Radio is conducting a “Breast Summer Ever” contest. The winner, male or female, will be awarded up to $10,000 for breast augmentation surgery.
  
  “People are excited that AMP Radio is giving people the chance to win a perfectly legal procedure that they may not have the money to afford,” says Manzurak."
• Uganda: Drugs Expire in Hospitals (Yasiin Mugerwa, allAfrica.com)
  "Drugs in public hospitals including ARVs, worth billions of shillings, have expired and will be destroyed by government, a report from the Office of the Auditor General, has revealed."
  ("ARVs" stands for antiretrovirals, ie. HIV/AIDS management drugs. Access to ARVs is highly problematic around the world, especially for higher-risk individuals such as the poor, or intravenous drug users. Their being higher-risk is an effect of structural violence, and their inability to access the drugs that could dramatically prolong their lives -- or the education and resources that could stop them from contracting HIV in the first place -- are also a result of structural violence.)