Someone is out to get Richard Florida, and it's not me!

I am proud to say that the citizens of Toronto have had enough of Richard Florida. Or well, enough to begin this website: http://creativeclassstruggle.wordpress.com/

for some backgrounder on my e-relationship with Richard, see: "Dear Richard Florida..."
And Richard's response: "My newest favoritist critic"

While I am wary of most critics who haven't actually read his entire body of work, I am pro-anybody who wants to think critically about the work that he has produced and the brand that he has produced. Now Florida's work is still correlationary, bad, pop culture referenced, personal-anecdotal-evidenced research. In short, far from academically rigourous. But I can't deny that he has changed his tune. He is on the "diversity is key" bend. And it really is for the purposes of playing the odds. You see, Florida wants us to attract the best and brightest, which in his alliterative terms means Talented (educated), Tolerant (of ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientation, etc), and Technology (people who will booster existing base of quaternary industry smarts/tech industry). But to do this his solution is to make the general living climate good to attract everyone (even those not in the creative class) and then some of them are BOUND to be part of the creative class and booster our economy. In short, Florida is playing the odds.

Another thing I have noticed, is that Mayor Miller is slutting Richard Florida out now. In public speeches Miller used to refernce creativity and allude to the creative class. Now he's just going all out and saying Richard Florida's name. To make matters worse, Mayor Miller is developing the same SPEECH patterns as Richard Florida when attempting to make a point. Miller is becoming a VERY anecdotal speaker. Dear Mayor Miller, if I have to hear a story about your mother one more time so you can make a point and answer a question that is entirely unrelated, I might have to punch myself in the face to relieve the pain.

Long story short, there's a movement started to bring down "Brand Florida" and you should be "creative" and join. I guarantee Richard will be there, or at least send one of his posse.

http://creativeclassstruggle.wordpress.com/ RECOMMEND this Post on Progressive Bloggers CLICK HERE!

Breast Feeding

Not that this video didn't make me cringe, but why is this really so wrong?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxv6R9fUO74

When should we stop breast feeding? Why do we stop breastfeeding?
Why do we find it SO disgusting to drink our own mothers' milk after a certain age but we'll drink gallons of cow milk, goat milk etc.?

Not that asking the above questions was the central reason for this post..
What I REALLY wanted to address were the absolute disgusting remarks that were made ABOUT the video in the comment section on youtube.

I found it absolutely disgusting that people were referring to this mother as an abuser. I found it absolutely disgusting that people said she was getting sexual pleasure out of this. I found it atrocious that they referred to both the mother and the children in the videos as "dykes" (ongoing comments make accusations of them having some sort of incest lesbian affair).

These comments are horribly sexist, heteronormative and culturally imperialist. There were so many hateful remarks, not questioning the validity of breastfeeding past a certain age, but rather was prescriptive of what women should do with their bodies and what it means to be a "good mother".

In fact, it is so interesting to see how loving this mother truly is and how maternal she is, which is like, a serious "mothering-woman skill". And then as soon as a woman overextends that maternal action, she all of a sudden becomes "sick" or a pedophile.

Furthermore, the way people attacked her for her and her children's sexual orientations- as if breastfeeding, pleasure or non-pleasure with the experience of breastfeeding, and sexual orientation are at all related.

I don't necessarily think breastfeeding at the age of 8 is Kosher, but I DO understand that my understanding of breastfeeding and the conditions under which breastfeeding should happen are culturally and socially defined. I'm not going to make hateful remarks just because I disagree. RECOMMEND this Post on Progressive Bloggers CLICK HERE!