My life is way too busy to remember when I’m going to get my period. And at this time of the year, when I’m jetting off to the woods for a few days of camping or going on long road trips, it is a mega pain when I forget that I’m going to bleed and I have to bunch my socks into my underwear to catch the flow.

Never again! Check out Mon.thly.Info, a handy online tool to help you keep track. It even sends you an email reminder when blood is on its way!

When I was a young teenager, I had a pregnancy scare. So of course i went to a crisis pregnancy centre to get the test before I wanted to come clean to my mom or my doctor that I was having sex at a pretty young age. I didn’t have a very open and communicative relationship about my sexuality with any adult and I was leaps and bounds ahead of all my friends in terms of sexual experimentation. This all meant I had no one to talk to.

At the crisis pregnancy centre, instead of good advice and support, I was asked to pee in a cup and then I had to sit in a TV room full of toys and baby clothes and watch a 20 minute video about adoption.

I was lucky - my results came back negative and i could go back to my happy-go-lucky life. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but the centre I went to was not an impartial and supportive centre that discussed all the options. Instead, this so called “crisis pregnancy centre” was a thinly veiled pro-life centre that used manipulative tactics during a time of high emotional stress in my life.

The centre didn’t even discuss birth control options with me. Eventually, I found another centre willing to do STI and pregnancy-prevention counselling and I got myself set up with some real sexual education.

The always amazing Teen Voices Online website has this page with tips on how to find an authentic crisis pregnancy centre with your reproductive health in mind. Pass it on!

If I wasn’t chained to the Toronto ‘burbs for the next month pet-sitting, I would be at the Allied Media Conference in Detriot from June 20-22. And, of course, I would offer to take all of you with me!

Check out the program, which is all that the Women, Action and the Media conference that I attended in March (sadly) couldn’t be. They’ve got sessions like Transporting Silenced Voices Through Interviews For Film/Video, Revolutionary Parenting, Women Of Color With Disabilities Organizing And Building Community, and yes, a session on the media coverage/grassroots organizing lessons of the Jena Six and the Jersey Four (also mentioned in Issue 11 of Shameless). I’m in awe!

What I love about the way they have organized the conference is that sessions for/about people of colour are integrated within the overall conference design, and aren’t designed as a “space apart.” (Can you guess who must have organized this thing? You got it - a pretty diverse group of people - it sure helps.) Of course there are important times in the agenda for people of colour to get together in a safe space and talk shop. But what sometimes happens is that when sessions that deal with issues that directly affect people of colour ARE open to all, white folks never show up! This creates the ol’ conference colour divide (seen countless times in feminist conferences, circa 1971 all the way to the present). And everyone gets righteously angry because folks who are already multiply marginalized get remarginalized at conferences because of this low attendance and low awareness. And that makes me angry, too.

So, in conclusion, hooray for conferences that don’t divide and conquer, and boo to pet-sitting.

Today’s the day that Stephen Harper is scheduled to apologize for the horrors of the residential schools where Aboriginal peoples in Canada were imprisoned for decades, creating generations of abuse and also of survival.

The apology is scheduled for 3pm today in the House of Commons and you can watch it online livestream on the CBC here.

For me, the government’s apology comes too late to be meaningful. It isn’t happening in concert with acknowledging the multiple thefts of land and culture that are still ongoing in land claim disputes, cultural appropriation, and lack of basic resources like clean water, culturally-relevant and sustaining education.

If I can find any hope today, I want this apology to galvanize and influence white settler folks. Sadly, I think that white folks are more likely to respond and react to white people talking about racism and cultural genocide than the survivors themselves. Will hearing Stephen Harper apologize start the unlearning?

For many, it will do nothing. For others, it will mean something. What does it mean to you?

I’m up late and watching what girls can do on the Internet. Check this out to inspire you for the week ahead!!!

Shameless writer Zahra Rasul just sent me a link to this article about Dunkin Donuts pulling a TV ad with Rachael Ray. The celebrity donut-hawker is wearing a scarf that looks “too Palestinian.”

Rachael Ray lectures us on the evils of American imperialism. Solution to this problem? Buy Dunkin Donuts!

And here I was worried that once Mary Kate Olsen wore one, the keffiyeh became a depoliticized and empty symbol of vapid celebrity! I guess it still has symbolic power when it is draped around the neck of someone whose doesn’t look quite as white as the Olsen twins.

Of course it all started with the conservative Michelle Malkin calling it “the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad.”

But the question remains: is it, or isn’t it a keffiyeh? And what the heck does a keffiyeh really symbolize, America?

Stay tuned for the next print issue of Shameless to find out, where Zahra will take a look at the keffiyeh’s history. And of course, check out Thea’s blog post on keffiyeh too.

You might not see it because editors are those tireless folks working behind the scenes, but every single post that happens benefits from our blog editor Thea’s vision and sharp editing skills. She’s a key member of the Shameless team and is being called on to new writing projects in Texas. Yup. Texas. I can just imagine the mash-up of Thea and Texas, and it’s real messy.

Today is her last day!

Thea, thanks for your tireless clicking, linking, fixing, learning, nudging and of course, your wacky use of punctuation ne’er seen before by the blogosphere.

The magazine and the blog have immeasurably grown with your compassion, ideas, and humour.

Will you keep blogging here now and again? I hope so.

Love from Team Shameless!

I just walked by a pro-choice demonstration at the University of Toronto and they provided some important facts I wanted to remind you of:

1. Only 15.9% of all general hospitals in Canada offer accessible abortion services.

2. Angus McLaren and Arlene Tigar McLaren estimate that between 4000 and 6000 Canadian women died from illegal abortions from 1926 to 1947 (McLaren 1986) and different sources have estimated that prior to 1969 there had been at least 120,000 illegal abortions performed every year (Childbirth by Choice Trust, 1998).

3. In Canadian medical schools, more class time is dedicated to the study of Viagra than to abortion procedures, pregnancy options counselling, and abortion law and policy combined.

4. Less than 2% of women choose adoption when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

5. Every year, over 80,000 women die from complications during or after unsafe abortions. (The highest fatality rates are in Africa and Asia.)

6. In the US, death rates due to abortion fell by 85% in the five years following legalization. (Tietze, 1981)

These stats come from Canadians for Choice, Prochoice, and a CBC News backgrounder.

Or does anyone else think it’s a bit messed up that Toronto Alternative Arts and Fashion Week‘s first-ever event is called [FAT]?

Look at the dimensions of their “alternative” models on their webpage, and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

And if you haven’t picked up our newest issue yet, we’ve got a great piece on size activism on the catwalks of the land.