United Nations Fire Wonder Woman

Here's a chain of stupidity:

It starts with the United Nations voting on a new Secretary General and electing António Guterres of Portugal to the position. This enraged some people of the "what about us" crowd, of course. You see, it had been noted that the U.N. had never - in the nine times the role had been appointed previously - chosen either a woman or an Eastern European.

Indeed, here are the past Secretaries-General:

Gladwyn Jebb, U.K. (Western Europe), 1945-1946.
Trygve Lie, Norway (Scandinavia), 1946-1952.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Sweden (Scandinavia), 1953-1961.
U Thant, Burma (Asia-Pacific), 1961-1971.
Kurt Waldheim, Austria (Western Europe), 1972-1981.
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, Peru (South America), 1982-1991.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Egypt (Africa), 1992-1996.
Kofi Annan, Ghana (Africa), 1997-2006.
Ban Ki-moon, South Korea (Asia-Pacific), 2007-2016.

So, uh, if we're going by "everyone should have a turn", it's missing members of the LGBT community, the Caribbean, and a North American. Also, of nations with Independence Movements in their midst: Canada (Québec), Spain (Catalonia), Russia (Chechnya), or even Czechoslovakia (Slovakia) pre-Annan.

Now, of that list, Jebb can be taken off because his term was merely the inception of the brand, he was there until someone else was officially appointed, which means no one from the G-7, G-8 or G-20 had ever held the position before Ban Ki-moon, and even then, when he took the position, the G-20 did not actually exist - the G8 stood as the world's economic summit until 2009, when it was deemed smarter to include emerging countries to the list.

Just to recap, the G-20 encompasses: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union, which was founded/conceptualized in 1993 but only got its traction and recognition when it was decided in 1999 that it would have its own currency, the Euro, effective in 2002.

So, in summation: there was outrage that out of eight (8) elected appointees in history, two groups out of possibly five or more had never held the position. One said group represents half the population of the planet, while the other one has had a pretty harsh 20th century and likely deserves a shot of optimism.

But not thinking it through, the U.N. bowed to a relatively low amount of pressure and instituted, for their 2016 selection, public nominations. Five candidates emerged: two men from Eastern Europe (Vuk Jeremić from Serbia and Miroslav Lajčák from Slovakia, who ran on the "zero tolerance policy on sexual violence and abuse by peacekeepers against civilian populations is a must; such violations must be fully investigated and perpetrators brought to justice" platform) and two women (Irina Bokova of Bulgaria, and Helen Clark of New Zealand), in addition to Guterres.

And though technically, Bulgaria is in Eastern Europe, the Southeastern part is often seen as having had less suffering than, say, Serbia or Poland. Of course, the four "minority" options split the vote and Guterres won.

Guterres, by the way, is highly qualified. He was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015, Prime Minister of his country (which doesn't have a poor Human Rights record of late) from 1995 to 2002 and President of Socialist-International from 1999 until 2005; we're talking about a guy who has always been about equality, rights, and protecting the little guy.

Again, of course, there was outrage. Limited, Twitter-storm-type outrage, but still, some angry voices were heard, and the U.N. created a new position, that of "honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls". Instead of appointing one of Clark or Bokova, or German chancellor Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Françoise David, Madonna, Kathie Sarachild, Shamima Shaikh, Annie Sprinkle, Oprah Winfrey, Geena Davis, Naomi Wolf or even the actresses who famously played the part - Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot - the U.N. chose to name the character Wonder Woman to the position.

It wasn't wrong per se: famous feminist publisher Gloria Steinem had put the character on the front page of Ms. magazine in 1971. "She" is a powerful, strong-willed character who would never back down from a fight or a challenge, yet she is also a diplomat who would rather negotiate than wield her power, a lover of peace who strives to never escalate a conflict because she wants to give her opponents a chance; if a conflict does arise, she will prevail - with the utmost authority. You know, like the fucking U.N. is supposed to.

But hey, an online petition was started by a bunch of fucking idiots and the idea was canned, because she "dresses too sexily", among other reasons. That's right: the U.N.'s "honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls" - a fictitious character - was fired because of how she chooses to dress. I'm guessing it's suits like this one that led to one person being shocked enough to start the petition:

Which conveniently forgets that she has also been drawn as follows by Jim Lee, the guy who made all five of these drawings:

Wonder Woman is an Amazon Princess, a warrior, and a diplomat; she's Pocahontas, Mulan and Angela Merkel all rolled into one, when most other characters in her medium are one-dimensional.

Some people - particularly on the left side of the political spectrum, the one I identify with the most - just don't know how to pick their fights. That's why we can't have nice things, because everything has to be so fucking watered-down that it doesn't mean anything anymore, making sure no one gets offended by any of it (which is impossible for anything of substance), and no victory but the ultimate one (well, the translucent and aseptic victory devoid of taste, anyway) is ever good enough. The same short-sighted fuckers who want to fight for everyone's equal rights one minority at a time instead of the more efficient FOR ALL at once.

Game On!

Two years ago, at the draft table of my Hockey Keeper pool (which I win every other year), I made the bold prediction that within ten years, a woman would play in a regular-season NHL game. My reasoning behind this was that with today's defensive systems being so advanced, elite players have seen their points production drop 20 points (the league leaders no longer factor into the high 100s but hover around the mid-80s instead), while goal scoring in general hasn't actually gone down, meaning the very good players' production (i.e. ''the middle-six forwards'' and ''3-4 defensemen'') have instead stabilized their production and are now closer in range to the best of the best.

And the very best women aren't very far from the very good men skill-wise. And they can also play the system that will maximize their potential, like their male counterparts, and keep up; the only knock is their size (at times 20% smaller), meaning their endurance in a grueling 82-game schedule would test their bodies - but that's the case with the smallish men and many rookies as well.

Also, factoring in the salary cap (currently at $71.3M per 23-man team) and the fact that superstars are now getting paid in the $10M range (Patrick Kane earning that with his point-per-game production while Jonathan Toews gets his 60 points while shutting down the opposition), players with ''low'' salaries are prized by general managers throughout the league.

The NHL's minimum wage currently stands at just under $600,000.

There is a Canadian Women's Hockey League (CWHL), and while many of its teams are supported by their NHL counterpart (particularly the Montréal Stars with the Montréal Canadiens and Calgary Inferno with the Calgary Flames), most of those deals just help compensate the teams' financial losses and pertain to using the NHL's teams' facilities and marketing tools and personnel. The players themselves do not yet get a salary.

Enter the National Women's Hockey League (NWHL), which I referenced last June, based in the U.S. and who will pay their players starting this year, with an average salary of $15,000. Of note that many of these athletes played College hockey and have degrees and can have ''day jobs'', ranging from teachers to engineers. But that still relegates the sport as something of a hobby rather than a job or a career, despite the Olympic medals they likely all have.

There's a world of difference between $15K and $600K. There isn't one between a 25-year-old Olympian woman and an average NHLer, be it of the veteran (a 35-year-old slowing down) kind or rookie type (so young that a year or two in the minors might be beneficial), let alone for the few who have tons of heart but little offensive or defensive skills.

It's a question of math, on both sides: if you can get 80% of the production at 60% of the cost, or even the same production at the same cost, general managers will have to one day decide that women are worth what they can bring. And on the players' part, earning 30 times your salary might be a good reason to put that teaching career on hold for a couple of years.

But first things first, the NWHL played their first games last night. Manon Rhéaume, who played an exhibition game for the Tampa Bay Lightning 25 years ago, proceeded to do the ceremonial puck drop:

Game on!

Independence Day

Not every people gets to experience their Independence Day. Not every country gets to tell its parents/owners/conquerors they want to try to make it on their own.

'Murrrrca, you're not perfect. You're probably still the most racist country on earth, and your insistence on owning weapons you will never know how to use will always exacerbate the difference of opinions your Founding Fathers cherished and thought would be the basis of your democracy.

The 2000s have divided you to extremes no one ever could imagine. Your once-promising culture resides no longer in the quality of your art and museums but to which dumb asshole you will put on a Reality TV show next.

But in the 1770s, you - with a shitload of help from the French and in particular Gilbert du Motier (a.k.a. Marquis de Lafayette) - told England to fuck off with their tea, and snobbery, and monarchy, and Old World colonial ways.

You were too selfish to help the French and Aboriginals fight back the English in Québec (New France/Lower Canada) in return, but at least you got your nice little country out of it. And you built it on the promise of Equality, which is nice.

It took a while to get there, sure, and the argument can be made that you still haven't (racial bias in the economic and legal systems, wage disparity, marriage equality), but the idea is there. If not for you, then perhaps for some future country/society with the will and openness to apply your theories.

So, Happy Independence Day, United States of America. 239 years in your experiment, you're either halfway there or on the brink of collapse. My thoughts are with you; let's hope for the best.

National Women's Hockey League

I envision a clash in the next two to five years between the newly-formed National Women's Hockey League (with the Original Four being New York Riveters, Boston Pride, Buffalo Beauts and Connecticut Whale) and the already-existing Canadian Women's Hockey League (consisting of the Montréal Stars, Brampton Thunder, Calgary Inferno, Toronto Furies and perhaps still the Boston Blades), which already owns the Clarkson Cup, emblem of team supremacy.

Most Olympians already played in the CWHL, but I'm guessing members of Team USA will prefer playing closer to home while the ladies who play for Team Canada will mostly choose to remain in the CWHL. There are exceptions, mostly coming from one's life partner working in another country.

Hopefully they end up merging into one eight-team league, and they can start earning actual salaries (which is not yet the case).

In any event, the NWHL had its inaugural draft this weekend, and released a tear-inducing introductory video:

Kudos, Kiddos

Most times I'm content knowing the human race is circling the drain on its way to being flushed down the toilet of history. (Shout out to Florida).

Once a week, however, a minority of humans who didn't get the memo go out and do something awesome, like these three 8th-grade basketball players who stood up to some asshole who was taunting (they say ''bullying'',  but I for one think that term is over-used nowadays) a cheerleader with Down syndrome:



Of course, the hypocritical school overdid it by officially renaming the gym D's House, but whatever. By going with that extra tap, the principal took some of the spotlight away from the kids and, really, 12 or 25 years from now, when society's perhaps moved on and all people are treated equally and this is no longer ''a thing'', won't you regret taking that one moment to honor a 5-minute event when you'll want to rename the gymnasium for the lady who is now President of the Continent (or Galaxy, what do I know?) who played volley-ball in that room?

The school should just have handed the boys a civility medal or something. Or made them pass a failing class. Or thrown them a party. Or return their confiscated Playboy magazines. Not take credit for the kids' move by co-opting their shit.

Chickenshit Fil-A

There's a petition making the rounds in Canada these days about/against Chick-Fil-A opening its first Canadian branch inside the Calgary airport, and people want to stop them.

A letter is not going to stop them.

A letter shows how fucking weak their opposition is. A petition shows them how hundreds of thousands of anonymous nobodies may or may not (but would prefer not to have the option to) frequent their establishments.

We're talking about a company whose owner donated two million dollars to anti-gay groups in the U.S. to try to stop homosexuals from having the right to marry, something that doesn't sit well with a majority of Canadians (though you could argue the best place to start a franchise is in Calgary).

What the petition does is give Chick-Fil-A free publicity. I had no idea they were coming - and probably neither did most Canadians.

What should have happened is people physically going there and protesting the store, warning its patrons as to where their food money might be going (again, perhaps not as efficient in Alberta as anywhere else in Canada); the only petition worth writing is one demanding for a competing chain right in front of Chick-Fil-A's, to have the option to spend our money where our allegiances lie - and to show them right in their face that we do have money to spend, and are choosing to spend it elsewhere.

If you don't agree with someone who is as powerful and determined as their CEO Dan T. Cathy, who is aggressive in taking action, the only way to fight him is to bring him down, and stop him from having money in the first place - make him go bankrupt, buy elsewhere. Don't send him letters and petitions that he can frame and masturbate to when he's tired of fucking human rights in the ass.

Holy Discontent, Batman!

40+ years in, and it still hasn't kicked in...



The ad features Batman (not Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward), and Batgirl (Yvonne Craig).