so, there's a migrant caravan coming, and the discourse is whether to allow or deny entry. this is an entirely absurd discourse, that reduces to the question of whether they're useful to local capital or not - if they are useful let them stay, and if they are not, send them back.

how about we be socialists, instead?

why don't we train these people with what they need - which is a combination of educational and military training - and send them back to fix the problems that exist in their own countries? for, we surely recognize that the problems will not fix themselves, and that this is an army of the proletariat - of great revolutionary potential.

and, why don't we fight here in the north to undo the policies that have created the push factors, in the first place? by passing laws in new york, and supporting political movements in washington, we can remove our support for the bodies that are behaving oppressively, and pushing people out of the country.

instead, we debate about whether the labour is useful or not - because we are wholly, thoroughly capitalistic in nature. and, it will be our undoing in the end, one way or another - whether we are taken down from the inside or the outside.

revolutionary leftists have historically tended to argue in favour of resistance and solidarity with oppressed groups in foreign countries, not in favour of dispersal or migration. shipping dissidents out of the country actually benefits the groups that are doing the oppressing, by clearing out resistance to them. and, the revolutionary left has always had a concept of martyrdom attached to it, as well.

these regimes need to be fought against and torn down, and it's the refugees that have the responsibility of doing this.

the liberal rights theory has generally focused on the benefits of immigration to the absorbing countries, but this requires a process of screening. no government in canada has ever advocated any kind of open border policy, and for good reason - it is not in our economic interests to just let everybody in.

i do support some solidarity with groups that want to use the country as an exile, or with refugees that are looking for temporary shelter. during world war two, the british allowed for many exiled states to operate within london; i support this, absolutely. but, there is a big difference between providing temporary shelter and military support as a means of solidarity in a conflict and allowing for an escape from a conflict that many of these people are morally obligated to involve themselves in - or are fleeing from, out of cowardice. to allow a syrian fleeing from isis permanent refuge is to cede ground to isis - they must be sent back to fight, when they are ready, as this is their fight, and their fight alone.

but, i'm not going to sit here and stand up for some liberal idea of immigration, because i'm not a liberal - i'm a communist. i want to help on some level, but these people have fights that they must engage themselves in for the broader benefit of the planet, and should not be allowed to escape from....this is their fate, their purpose, their identity, and they must accept it, not flee from it.

we have a severe crisis in access to affordable housing, here.

it has to be one way or the other: we have to build more affordable housing, or we have to crack down on refugees. we can't just leave the doors wide open and let the market deal with it - or we'll become the places that these people are fleeing from.

fwiw, i think building more affordable housing would be the preferable solution, and i've supported refugee resettlement in the past for that reason, even as i've argued for more screening to exclude candidates with low levels of education (because low education levels are correlated with social conservatism, and i don't want to shift the balance of public opinion in the country, although i fear this has already happened). i don't really care about the issue on a moral level, but greater access to affordable housing helps everybody, in the end. but, if the government won't pony up and pay for it, it's going to have to crack down on it.

it's the hands-off status quo that needs to end: build housing to accommodate these people (and everybody else), or enforce the law and throw them out.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cbsa-deportations-border-removals-1.4873169

in fact, freeland's primary job in relation to brazil is to represent canadian mining companies, who are some of the worst human rights abusers in the world, and will no doubt benefit greatly from a return to dictatorship.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tasker-canada-statement-brazil-far-right-1.4882380

it's been a while. did you think i forgot?

this is all an accounting process, remember. what i'm doing is shifting things around from the $5000 to the court order; i had to refund myself, but i've also dipped back into it...

the 5000:
22.58 (bicycle) + 32.77 (shoes) =    (6th)

55.35 + ($10 (3 x 40 gb ide hard drives) + 164.40 (2 x 500 gb laptop sshds) + 103.67 (2 gb desktop internal drive) + 43.49 (50 bd-rs) + 27.69 (100 dvd-rs) + 4.22 (usb to ps/2 adapter) + 12.43 (mp3 sd card) + 122.80 (2 tb external hd) + 30.10 (cd-rs)  + 47.91 (2x2gb laptop ram) = ) + 26.25 (laptop battery) + 65.85 (2 x 4 gb laptop ram) + 127.94 (rugged smart phone)  =  786.75)  =           (8th/9th)

842.11 + (242.69 (chip) + 51.96 (case) + 361.59 (board) + 150.28 (ram) + 11.06 (thermal paste) + 134.45 (ssd) + 72.34 (psu) + 8.52 (power bar) = 1032.89)   =          (10th)

1875 + 53.30 (audiophile) -72.34 [cancelled psu]  =    (11th)
1855.96  + 79.09 [psu] + 10.20 (power bar) - 1.15 (tax error) + 176.78 (bathroom stuff) =     (12th)
2120.88 + 25.52 (bathroom stuff) + 22.50 (keyboard) + 15.40 (mouse) + 54.22 (batteries) =     (17th)
2238.52 + 20 (monitor) =     (18th)
2258.52 + 116.89 (jewel cases) =     (19th) 
2375.41 + 82.44 [bathroom stuff]  - 11.06 [refund, arctic silver] =    (21st)
2446.79 + 11.28 (bathroom stuff) + 15 (lamps) =     (23rd)
2473.07 + 6 (ups hold)  =     (24th)
2479.07 + 33.90 (table) + 22.60 (casette deck) =    (25th)
2535.57 + 30 (bookcase) + 15 (casette holders) =  (27th)
2580.57 - 296.02 (hst/bathroom) =  
2284.55 + 45.32 (bicycle for detroit) =   (august 3rd)
2329.87 + 30.50 (lock) =   (8th)
2360.37 + 32.74 (bike pump & failed tubes) (nov 9th) =
2393.11 + 200 (deposit) (nov 10th) =
2593.11 + 38.42 [bike tires, tubes]  (nov 15th)=
2631.53 - 175 (deposit)   (nov 29th)=
2456.53 + [13.56 + 18.74 = 32.30] [shower curtain, dish drainer, etc]  [dec 7th]=
2488.83 + 13.22 [tape]  [dec 21st/22nd] =
2502.05 + 9.03 [plunger] [dec 24th] =
2511.08 + [20.31 + 11.29 + 31.02*3+ 4.52 + (10.17 - 1.13 = 9.04) + 4.19 = 142.41] [tape/tarps] [over march, 2018] =
2653.49 + (18.08 + 31.02 = 49.10) [tape/tarps] [april 11th] =
2702.59 - [49.10 + 142.41 + 9.03 + 13.22 + 32.30 + 25 = 271.06] [total post-tuscarora reset from court case] =
2431.53 + 20.33 [batteries] [sept 11th] =
2451.86  + 4.51 [internet cable] [oct 12th] =
2456.37 + 158.18 [chrome book] [oct 14th] =
2614.55 + 33.89 [bike gloves]  [oct 21st] =
2648.44 - (15 + 33.90 + 30 + 15 = 93.90)[marion furniture reset] =
2554.54 - 32.77 [shoes reset] =
2521.77

the green is the actual electronics purchases, the blue is the bike stuff (which i may take out) and the red is the stuff that has been taken out. all of these things were purchase with money out of the $5000, but i've taken certain things out once i can find better ways to account for them than this.

if i include the bicycle stuff in the end, i'm halfway to spending this. i still need to get a replacement for the vlogging machine, as i've now given up on it; i'm going to be looking for a surplus hp laptop, so i can utilize the parts that i bought for it. but, under logic i've presented previously, i don't want to spend much for it - and am going to be using the chromebook for mobile applications.

the last piece of this is likely to be applied towards guitar processing power.

& this is my accounting for the court order, which i'm using to reset costs and fund expenses directly related to the move, including furniture for the unit.

court order:
1350 - 300 [moving] - 100 [london] - 271.06 [tuscarora reset - see above] =
678.94 - (91.26-2.23 + 49.58 = 138.61)[bedroom & bathroom stuff]  [oct 9th] =
540.33 - 19.73 [outlet protectors] =
520.60 - 65.51 [tools & drawers] =
455.09 - 33.90 [drawers] - (79.42-2.71-50.83=25.88)[lightbulbs, towel rack] - 6.95 [bulbs] - 6.78 (kitchen stuff) =
381.58 - 93.90 [marion furniture reset - see above] =
287.68

what's left in this accounting space will likely be filled in my shelving for books and cds, finally. i haven't kept track of printing costs, but it's probably around $30.

regarding the facial hair of my father in the 80s, i am going to point out that he was a lifelong zappa fan, and no doubt attempting to emulate the 'stache.

he got fairly close, sometimes.

zappa was famously of sicilian background, and himself often mistaken for arab. and, my father would have identified as italian before he identified as phoenician - probably as much due to the identification with frank as with identification with his mother's side.

"how do you identify, ethnically?"
"i'm going to have to go with frank zappa."

his mother, my grandmother, is actually phenotypically quite white; she comes off more as a white jew than an italian woman, and i do believe probably is, although the adoption makes things hard to guess at. my father's darker skin comes from his father, not his italian mother.

i'm a jazz fan myself, as well, as you should know. i've gone through phases where i've picked up old classic jazz records second hand. all kinds of stuff. as i was listening to some davis record or something, my father would sometimes come in and point out that "holy shit, i haven't heard that in years. your grandfather liked that record". that may seem like a weak ethnic marker; certainly, you don't have to be black to like jazz, or create it. but, his formative years were before the 60s. it's suggestive, anyways.

it's certainly possible - and i've pointed this out before - that the missing great-grandfather may have been mixed, himself. in addition to what looks like a jewish or mixed african male, there are rumours of native ancestry on that side, as well.

i don't want to pay for a dna test, but it's probably the only way to figure it out.

my father was the second in a family of six children; he had two younger brothers, two younger sisters and an older sister.

two of those sisters married africans, and i have black african cousins through one of them. the third did not. neither of his brothers had children.

my father married three different white women and had two children (that i am aware of) before he died of brain cancer before the age of 60. my sister does not tan as easily as i do.

so, you've seen some shots of my father looking fairly ethnic, and some shots of his father looking even more ethnic. what did my grandfather's parents look like?

well, this is a picture of the woman that gave birth to the man in the previous picture. or, stated differently, it's a picture of my father with his grandmother. &, i am in fact the youngest person in the shot, too.

i don't know a thing about this woman at all - i had to rely on the identification on the back of the picture. no memory whatsoever. but, judging solely from this one picture, that would be the most archetypal quebecois woman that ever lived, and i am going to deduce that she therefore must have smoked in church. i suppose she would have been born some time around 1910 or so.

i believe this was taken in my mom & dad's house, as i recognize the furniture.

the oral history i've received is that the surname parent actually comes from a female ancestor, and it may very well be this one. but, if this is what my paternal grandfather's mother looked like, it suggests that she must have eloped with a fairly dark skinned man, of some kind of complex ancestry.

it brings up the more salient point - race is not fixed, but fluid. you expected a gradient, didn't you? but, the truth is more jumbled up. and, after going through a dark-skinned father and an even darker-skinned grandfather, i do happen to get back to a white great-grandmother, which also indicates how dark skinned the great-grandfather must have been....

i bumped into this a few weeks ago and meant to post when i got online.

i posted some pictures of my father a few weeks before that, looking very much like a visible minority. this is a picture of his father, trying to figure out what the fuck he's doing with a white kid on his lap. january, 1983 - probably some time around my second birthday.

that man was not italian; he married a woman who was adopted, and raised as a zito. the italian in me is on his wife's side. according to what i know about him, he identified as a french canadian and was raised as a quebecois catholic. his name was william robert parent, which i know because it is a reversal of my father's given names, although i think i remember hearing about a joseph in there, as well. i was given my father's name as a middle name.

he would have been born in the mid to late 30s. i remember his funeral; he died in the late 80s or early 90s of a massive heart attack brought on by poor lifestyle decisions, before his 60th birthday. those poor lifestyle decisions - drinking, smoking, over-eating and also gambling - are the sum total of what i know about him.

he worked as a bricklayer; he was a mason.

besides having some clear french canadian features, and the next post will discuss this, he's actually rather ambiguous in phenotypic expression. it is possible that he may simply have had old european ancestry from the south of france, although my research into my surname has suggested an origin in the historically celtic (belgian) areas around paris, so this is not entirely consistent with an absolute solution to his ethnicity. one may rather suspect that he may have been roma, that is gypsy - or perhaps of middle eastern extraction. some sort of jewish is one possibility, but do recall that much of the middle east was colonized by the french in the period between napoleon and the first world war. my immediate assumption would be either lebanese or jewish, that is some sort of carthaginian, however far removed from the area. it is in fact very difficult to determine a lebanese person from a jewish person on first glance. but, note the lamp behind him, which is somewhat cut off in this 2013 scan, but quite oriental in the original.

i would carefully point out the wooly hair, which is a trait carried almost exclusively by africans, as well as some semites. i am left no more certain about the situation. is he jewish or african?

as it is, i also have a picture of myself with his mother, that is my great-grandmother.