Were you kind to women yesterday? This being the day after International Women’s Day, this is my fifth annual naming of Jewelz & Foolz. It has been an extraordinary year for women, both good and bad. This years blog entry is dedicated to the two girls/women that most inspired me this past year: Malala Yousafzai and Erin Merryn.
My first four Jewelz & Foolz postings can be found here:
2012: Jewelz & Foolz March 2012
2011: Jewelz & Foolz March 2011
2010: Jewelz & Foolz March 2010
2009: Jewelz & Foolz March 2009
So, what are 
you ask?
Both are groups of men. The former, Jewelz , are men who I would like to share a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail with today, pick their brains, get to know their hearts and maybe flirt with them, just for one day, on the day after International Women’s Day.
In honour of my precious very young nephews I have now officially decided to at times include minors as Jewelz Juniors when appropriate.
Then there are Foolz, not the harmless kind, but instead men who’s judgment at the present time makes them not good for womankind.
And yes, for the majority of people, Foolz can become Jewelz and vice versa.
In this fifth annual offering of my Jewelz and Foolz column, I offer 42 Jewelz, 3 Jewelz Juniors, 18 Foolz and 2 Jewelz In Memoriam for your consideration (in no particular order) .
John Herdman 
For all he has done so far for Canadian women’s soccer. I know there will be more great things to come.
John Oliver
For his field piece on March 15, 2012’s The Daily Show on the absurdity that we/President Obama’s administration have cut off $60 million in funding to UNESCO and all future payments that can do a world of good because UNESCO voted to admit Palestine as a member contrary to a 1990 US law (P.L. 101-246, Title IV), that forbids funding any UN organization that “accords the Palestine Liberation Organization the same standing as member states." Yo Congress! Overturn the dam law!
Stephen Starr
For Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising.
Shinya Yamanaka
For discovering that mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body.
Max Sidorov
For using the internet for good by starting an online fundraising campaign to give 68 year old bus monitor Karen Klein (Greece central school district in suburban Rochestor) a vacation, after a video of her being bullied by the seventh grade kids she was to monitor went public.
Jeff Crewe
For saving the life of 18-year-old Ajethan Ramachandrana using an onsite defibrillator, while doing his job as Gym teacher at Weston Collegiate Institute, after his student’s heart stopped beating the middle of gym class.
Joel Ward
For his game winning overtime goal against the Boston Bruins on April 25th, 2012 knocking the defending champions out of the playoffs.
Tim Brown
For running such a cool company, Ideo.
Matt Mernagh
For fighting the medical marijuana battle against Canada’s failed medical marijuana program and ineffective Marijuana Medical Access Regulations which do not adequately help those who are suffering.
Sanjoy Sachdev
For helping Indian couples who want to marry for love by giving them shelter and protecting them from harassment with his team of volunteer Love Commandos.
Twitter: lovecommandosin
Skype: lovecommandos
Roko Belic
For the documentary happy.
Corey Booker
For running into a burning house and saving your neighbour Zina Hodge, 47, from her smoky bedroom.
I didn’t feel bravery, I felt terror.
That is what bravery is. Feeling scared and doing it anyway.
Ahmed Sarmast
For empowering children traumatized by war through education and music via his Afghan Youth Orchestra part of The Afghanistan National Institute of Music he founded in Kabul. Half of the school’s 141 students are former street kids or orphans ages 10 to 22.
Paul Davison
For the Highlight App.
Mark Mattson
For fighting for a “swimmable drinkable fishable” future via The Waterkeeper.
Robert Vuksanovic
For using his skills as a flight instructor, getting in a plane and racing to meet 80 year-old Helen Collins in order to talk her down in a twin-engine aircraft after her husband died of a heart attack while flying the plane.
Patrick and Brian Burke
For their work (son and father) on the issue of homophobia in sports including through their You Can Play organization.
Julio Montaner
For his work in HIV/AIDS research and for fighting for an AIDS-free generation.
W. P. Andrew Lee
For leading the team at John Hopkins that performed a bilateral arm transplant on 26 year old Brendan Marrocco, who lost all four limbs in a bomb attack in Iraq. The surgery was combined with an innovative treatment of infusing the deceased donor’s bone marrow cells to prevent rejection of the new limbs and was the most extensive and complicated limb transplant procedure performed so far in the United States.
Jay-Z
For making me laugh and for his comedic timing when he interrupted Kanye at the BET Awards – Funny!
Sanjeev Kaila
For helping ten-year-old Ganesh Yadav. Ganesh was born with a facial deformity and his family wouldn’t have been able to afford the cost of surgery.
Salman Khan
For the Khan Academy.
William Gahl
For his work as head of the Undiagnosed Diseases Program at the National Institutes of Health.
What price do you put on the new discovery that one makes for a new disease that now has applicability to other patients unknown, untold, not seen yet?
Alex Haney
For practicing bad things DONT happen when good men do SOMETHING and contacting the Toronto Police so they could call the Arizona Police, after reading the following threat on YouTube:
I now literally have a plan of seriously hurting… killing… murdering people in my high school… I WORK at the high school as a student teacher basically… which is why no one can find out about me somewhat accidentally planning to blow up the school… (and yes… it would be super easy.)
The teen writer of the post was arrested.
Alex Levesque
For mentoring over 300 people in five years, almost all of whom have records and gang ties, via his Automotive Mentoring Group in his body shop on Chicago’s tough southwest side.
With money from his own pocket and some donations, Levesque gives them a chance to restore their lives along with the cars. Profits go back to the shop.
I’m looking for the disenfranchised. The gang members running around aimlessly doing crimes because they don’t feel they have any other options to be successful…When you’re able to put some tools in a young man’s hands and he’s able to learn how to use ratchets and cutting tools and a torch, there’s something magical about that. When that happens, it turns boys into men.
Abdul Kader Haidara
For saving priceless Arabic manuscripts from Islamic Terrorists who invaded Timbuktu Mali.
I bought every tin box I could find, the kind we store household goods in, and my staff and I filled them with manuscripts until the library was empty.
Haidara, Director of the Mamma Haidera Manuscript Library in Timbuktu, distributed the boxes to local families who hid them in their homes. Pictures emerged of Timbuktu manuscripts burned to ashes but all 30,000 documents hidden in the boxes were saved.
Chris Fisher
For working to protect sharks, which are disappearing at a rate of millions a year.
If you put shark populations at risk, you put the entire ocean at risk—it’s that simple.
Fischer and his team capture, GPS tag and release 2-ton great white sharks and other large marine species on the 126-foot vessel MV OCEARCH with the goal of identifying where the sharks breed and feed in order to protect those habitats.
You can find Chris Fisher’s Global Shark Tracker here.
Oscar Lopez
For protecting a child from further physical and emotional abuse.
Oscar Lopez (photo not available) was outraged when he saw his neighbour, Anthony Sanchez, belting a boy for not catching a ball so he videotaped it.
That’s enough. I’m having a (expletive) problem with you for beating the (expletive) out of him because he won’t catch the damn ball.
Sanchez responded by asking if Lopez knew his son.
I don’t know your son but I’m watching you. I’m a (expletive) father too.
Sanchez replies:
Why don’t you come over here and teach me?
Anthony Sanchez, 34, was arrested on suspicion of felony child abuse.
In the beautiful words of Oscar Lopez:
You don’t have to be a police officer to stop something. Just speak up.
Dani Zapata
For cutting free a 9 metre pregnant female whale shark from rope cutting into the whale shark’s flesh and creating a hindrance that could have potentially become life-threatening for the animal.
Daniel Day Lewis
For the beauty that is excellence, in Lincoln.
Jesus
For whatever you did to make Florida irrelevant to the outcome of the the most recent presidential election. Merci!
Kevin Cook
For committing to build a $50,000 playground in Joshua Smith’s honour after Joshua raised $3000 for his cash strapped city of Detroit with a lemonade stand.
Richard Henegar
For standing up against a homophobic hate crime and spending (along with his staff) over a hundred hours of volunteer time giving Jordan Addison’s car a new paint job, stereo, tires, tinted windows, and a good security system after bullies vandalized it four times by bashing in his windows, slashing his tires and keying homophobic slurs and “die” on it. Jordan Addison, a student at Radford, did not have the minimum $2,500 needed to repair the damage so just kept driving the car as it was until Richard Henegar stepped up. Richard’s shop is Quality Auto Paint and Body in Roanoke Virginia. Tel: 540.354.2961.
Jesse Chaffer the 3rd and 4th
For rescuing and saving some 120 people using boats, in Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana after Hurricane Isaac burst over the Mississippi River levee and covered their town, leaving thousands trapped in attics and on roofs.
David Farrell
For using your pilot skills for good and rescuing a mother deer and her baby fawn after they became trapped on the frozen waters of Antigonish Harbour. Mr. Farrell used the downdraft from the helicopter’s rotor to push the deer off the ice to safety.
Rebekah Simpson’s Grandfather
For teaching his granddaughter about 911.
Rebekah, age five found herself alone with her three and one-year-old brothers after her mom suffered an epileptic seizure.
She called 911.
My mommy fell down in the backyard and she wouldn’t get up… you think you can come here.
“We’re coming and we’re going to be coming fast,” the 911 operator replied.
Rebekah said she was scared and crying, but able to act quickly thanks to advice she received from her grandfather. If you are a grandfather and reading this, go teach your grandchild how to dial 911…today!
Sanjay Gupta
For making me laugh when you punked Jeff Probst on his February 11, 2013 show. Maybe you should give Ashton a call?
Michael Bloomberg
For trying, despite ridicule, to do something about how fat and unhealthy we are. We need to return to the serving sizes of decades ago. Soda is a start, in a long ugly war toward health and away from an obesity epidemic.
Elon Musk
For making me believe that humanity will one day live beyond earth.
J.J. Abrams
For Fringe. My gran is a trekkie. Yes, my gran. Maybe that kinda stuff is in the genes?
Jewelz Juniors
(Icon to come after consultation with a nephew)
Eddie Hanzelin
For, at the precious age of seven years old, using tech and social media to reunite siblings Clifford Boyson, of Davenport, Iowa and Betty Billadeau, of St Louis, Missouri, who were separated in foster care as very young children 65yrs earlier in 1948.
Felix Finkbeiner
For Plant for the Planet – Trees For Climate Justice.
Jack Andraka
For at the age of fifteen creating a pancreatic cancer test that is 26,000 times less expensive than the current pancreatic test, takes five minutes and appears to have close to 100% accuracy. Jack Andraka may just save many lives. You rock…BIG TIME!
And then there were:
Denis Rodman
For his wilful ignorance of his “friend” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Justice Scalia
For believing that the Voting Rights Act, the right to vote without discrimination, is a racial entitlement.
Donald Trump
For commenting on transgender Miss Universe hopeful Jenna Talackova’s name and saying:
I looked at her name and someone brought this up to me Genital and those are the first letters of her name and it is Jennital and I am saying to myself hhmm that’s strange could there be an ulterior motive?
Eric Holder
For not prosecuting senior bank officials who participated in manipulating Libor
and
For not prosecuting HSBC bankers after they enabled Mexican drug gangs to launder money and helped Iranian interests evade U.S. sanctions.
If we are not going to put bankers in jail for rigging Libor why are we wasting tax payer dollars on white collar crime at all?!?
Joe Rickey Hundley
For slapping 19 month old baby Jonah Bennett on a Delta flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta scratching the boy below his right eye and saying:
Shut that nigger baby up!
Jonah’s mother Jessica responded:
What did you say?
Mr. Hundley then fell onto her face and with his mouth in her ear said it AGAIN but even more hateful the second time.
You must be an all round charmer Mr. Hundley.
Charles Taylor
For war crimes and crimes against humanity. For acts of terrorism, murder, sexual violence, sexual slavery, the use of child soldiers, abductions, forced labor and enslavement.
Stephen Harper
For the 2012 Budget Implementation Bill which would repeal the CEAA (Canadian Environmental Assessment Act) in its entirety and replace it with a new piece of legislation, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 a federal
assessment law that is profoundly weaker than its predecessor.
John Williamson
For speaking, as MP for New Brunswick South West, on the demise of the Canadian long-gun registry by borrowing from Martin Luther King’s "I Have A Dream" speech.
Free at last! Free at last! Law abiding Canadians are free at last!
Comparing the long-gun registry and slavery?!?
You do know that Martin Luther King was shot by a long gun and preached non violence, eh?
Kingsley Brown
For saying that women are a threat to military cohesiveness and for saying:
Girls become women by getting older. Boys become men by accomplishing something, by proving something.
Please tell me you do not have daughters?!?
Hank Greenberg
For reminding us that narcissism will stop at nothing unless we stop it, in his $25 billion lawsuit against the federal government.
Vladimir Putin
For the Russian law banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans as payback for foreign criticism of Mr. Putin’s regime and as an attempt to strengthen his own legitimacy in Russia.
Mohammed Morsi
For denying Egyptians what they deserve, democracy, by putting himself above judicial review.
The political course you are choosing is not sustainable Mr. Morsi and it is going to come back and bite you in the you-know-what!
Charles Payne
For your comments as a Fox Business host on the plight of garment workers in Bangladesh, after 112 workers were killed in a factory fire and Mr. Payne felt it was unfairly being pinned on Wal-Mart.
It is tragic. I don’t think something like this will happen again. Don’t think that the people in Bangladesh who perished didn’t want or need those jobs, as well.
Mr. Payne, more than 700 people have died in Bangladesh garment factory fires since 2005 and those people who perished were human beings with children who took the jobs they could get but would have preferred to work somewhere without lax safety conditions, non-working fire extinguishers and a lack of emergency exits.
Llias Kasidiaris
For his physical assaults on fellow Greek politicians Ms Liana Kanelli and Ms Rena Dourou, during a live TV debate of politicians representing the seven parties that won seats in the country’s inconclusive May 2012 election.
Jason Kenney
For responding to Olivier De Schutter’s, the UN Right To Food envoy, report concluding that there is unequal access to nutritious food in Canada and that close to 900,000 Canadians were turning to food banks each month:
It would be our hope that the contributions we make to the United Nations are used to help starving people in developing countries, not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada. I think this is a discredit to the United Nations.
Your disconnect about hunger Mr. Kenney is shocking.
Pascal Rostain
For his words and perhaps deeds in relation to the invasion of privacy photos taken of Princess Kate:
Its so stupid. She’s a young lady. She’s nice. She’s not fat. She’s beautiful so you have to show them.
Tom Vilsack
For when our Secretary of Agriculture was asked:
Is it time we stopped doing oil portraits of former secretaries? (because they cost $20,000)
Secretary Vilsack answered (after nervous laughter):
There are so many questions I would be happy to answer about our budget. I just think that’s a really small ball kinda question.
Maybe… but as my great gran always says…if you take care of the pennies the dollars take care of themselves. Maybe if we take care of the $2oKs, the budget will take care of itself?
Todd Akin
For this Missouri Congressman’s comments on abortion:
If it is a legitimate rape, the body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down.
Grade six health classes now to include rape sperm.
Satwant Singh Kaleka
For your bravery when you physically fought back against gunman and white supremacist Wade Michael Page who rampaged Kaleka’s Sikh temple in Oak Creek. Doing so delayed Page’s violence against others and likely saved lives.
Maurice Sendak
For Where the Wild Things Are.
Who are presently your 
?
Sage Spencer
I spend most of my International Women’s Days focused on second and third world women, as that is where the greatest struggle is. This year I found myself thinking of first world women as well as first world American men have been trying to pass laws to force women to have probes inserted into our vaginas against our will?!?!? Even writing that sentence just now does not make it feel any more believable?!?
Were you kind to women yesterday? This being the day after International Women’s Day this is my fourth annual naming of Jewelz & Foolz. My first three postings can be found here:
2011: Jewelz & Foolz March 2011
2010: Jewelz & Foolz March 2010
2009: Jewelz & Foolz March 2009
So, what are you ask?
Both are groups of men. The former, Jewelz , are men who I would like to share a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail with today, pick their brains, get to know their hearts and maybe flirt with them, just for one day, on the day after International Women’s Day.
Then there are Foolz, not the harmless kind, but instead men who’s judgment at the present time makes them not good for womankind.
And yes, for the majority of people, sociopaths excluded, Foolz can become Jewelz and vice versa.
In this fourth annual offering of my Jewelz and Foolz column, I offer 31 Jewelz and 10 Foolz for your consideration (in no particular order) .
The Fukushima Fifty
In the days immediately following the earthquake
and tsunami in Japan it was estimated that fifty faceless souls were working in the damaged nuclear plant. While I imagine the number of exposed Fukushima Daiichi workers has far exceeded fifty by now(given radiation exposure limits) and I am only assuming given gender norms in Japan that the workers are all men, I think they are unspeakably brave souls so I had to mention them.
President Barack Obama
For bringing the troops home from Iraq, sending US troops to Uganda to hopefully help bring Joseph Kony to justice, axing the proposed pipeline route through Nebraska, finding Osama bin Laden, making me laugh when you said we had asked Iran for our drone back and going into Libya, in the spirit of R2P.
Alexei Navalny
For your anti-corruption work in Russia which desperately needs an Arab Spring. Despite Vladimir Putin’s return after election fraud, I do not believe he will be in charge six years from bow. Social media will make his life difficult. His sins will not be as easily hidden this time around and the economy will bite him in the ass. Maybe you will be in the government six years from now?
Stephen Colbert
For “Stephen Colbert’s” brilliant interviews of his guests.
Ali Ferzat
For your talented and courageous cartoons in Syria. Last August, Mr. Ferzat was attacked by some of Bashir al-Assad’s thugs including the breaking of this talented cartoonists hands.
I wish you well Sir and I pray for a free Syria!
The Father of Randy Phillips
US soldier Randy Phillips came out to his dad on You Tube and his father responded with love.
I still love you and I always will. No matter what. … I am very proud of you …I will always love you.
Tony Dovolani
For being a fabulously supportive pro dance partner when Chynna Phillips lost track of the choreography and completely panicked on live TV.
Ty Burrell and Danny Zuker
For making me laugh on February 29.2012 with your portrayal of Phil Dunphy and your writing of Modern Family’s Leap Day episode. It concerned a female topic matter that I did not think would make me laugh…and you did. I even rewound Phil’s emotional meltdown on my DVR (yes, I now finally own one and as I feared record way too much TV) to laugh a second time. (PS. I am a new viewer. No, I have not been living under a rock)
Nick Dorken
For pulling an unconscious man from a burning vehicle in Fort Myers after it had jumped the curb and crashed into a light pole knocking the driver unconscious. Nick, a firefighter, was on holiday in Florida with his wife and daughter and is from Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Mehmet Oz
For standing up to the FDA on the arsenic issue and for trying to educate and empower the masses, a day at a time, about their bodies and their health.
“Leave Her Alone” Guy
For protecting me from being ??mugged a week ago. I was walking in a reasonable area reasonably late at night and suddenly I heard this guy yell “Leave her alone!”
I turned and realized he was looking at me!! I turned the other direction and by that time there was a guy standing RIGHT NEXT to me, like as close as your boyfriend would…when he is about to kiss you close!! My guess, after the fact was he was an active drug addict AND just a bad guy. I tried to remain completely calm and pretend I was not afraid. When I casually stepped back in the direction I had come from he stepped the forfeited distance right next to me again.
My protector had called from inside his car. He was now stepping out of it. I just casually walked onto the road as if I knew the guy in the car. Scary dude left not too long after. My white knight asked if I was okay. I thanked him and left after catching my breath. I was a little shaken so I forgot to ask him his name. He drove a beautiful black sporty looking car. If I was a guy, I might know what kind of car it was…but I do not. Thank you again “Leave Her Alone! Guy”.
Anna Hazare
For his anticorruption CRUSADE in 2011 in an attempt to gain a powerful anti-corruption watchdog for India.
Steven O’ Riordan
For his documentary The Forgotten Maggies.
The documentary focuses on the human rights violations of the Magdalene Laundries including how the Irish State and Church kept these women against their will. These laundries continued until 1996!! This film was launched at the Galway Film Festival in 2009. Time to speak up Minister of Justice Alan Shatter!
Survivor Vid: Magdalene Laundries Survivors Together Campaign
David Andrews
For reminding all of us to look beyond the label of disabled because hidden talent can live in the places we fail to look and for teaching us that a disabled life is just as valuable as an abled life. If I was near Germantown High School outside of Memphis Tennessee I would come see your Red Devils play.
Heniz Ward
For the way he partnered Kim Johnston during their Monday May 16, 2011 Argentine Tango performance after her frightening neck injury the previous Friday. As a long time dancer myself, I felt sick to my stomach when I saw her injury. And as a woman, may I say that the emotion he displayed after the fact showed his heart to be one of a very sexy man.
Todd Allen
For foreclosing on a branch of Bank of America in Florida after the branch foreclosed on a couple who did not have a mortgage with them (the couple in question had paid cash to buy their house from Bank of America). You are a rock star!
Garet Hill
For founding the National Kidney Registry. The brother of one of my best friends is dying of kidney disease and waiting for a transplant. It is not looking good.
Latif Hyderi
For fighting for justice and speaking the truth against his niece Tooba Yahya Mohammad, her husband Mohammad Shafia and their son Hamed which helped convict the three of dishonour killing three of Tooba Yahya’s daughters (Zainab, Sahar and Geeti Shafia) and her husband’s first wife (Rona Amir Mohammad) in Kingston, ON, Canada . Sadly family and friends have ostracized this hero in response.
No matter what they think — even if they consider me an enemy — I tell the truth and nothing else.
My duty was to oppose the crime and stand up for reality. In that, I have God with me and I felt it was right.
Sir, you did the right thing. What they did was Haraam!
Robert Casteel
For protecting his son and obtaining a temporary restraining order against a child in his son’s 4th grade class who brought a knife to school pulled it on his son and threatened to get him after school.
If we dealt with children who need support when they are younger and their problems are smaller, we would be much better off as a society.
SEAL Team 6
For bringing aid worker Jessica Buchanan home safely.
Mark Lindquist
For being a Joplin Tornado hero when he rushed to try and save three disabled adults in the group home where he worked. The 200 mph winds carried him a city block left him impaled in rubble and in a coma. Sacrificing your own safety for that of three disabled adults was selfless and brave. You are a hero Sir.
Sandor Feher
For helping crying children into their lifejackets aboard the Costa Concordia before returning to his cabin to get his prized violin. Mr. Feher, a Hungarian violinist, was the first identified victim of the cruise ship disaster.
Mr. Feher, those children’s mothers are grateful.
Thomas G. Slama
For championing, as President of The Infectious Diseases Society of America, the fight for DESPARATELY needed new antibiotics.
John McCain
For calling for action in Syria.
By no rational calculation should this uprising against Assad still be going on. The Syrian people are outmatched. They are outgunned. They are lacking for food, and water, and other basic needs. They are confronting a regime whose disregard for human dignity and capacity for sheer savagery is limitless. For an entire year, the Syrian people have faced death, and those unspeakable things worse than death, and still they have not given up. Still they take to the streets to protest peacefully for justice. Still they carry on their fight. And they do so on behalf of many of the same universal values we share, and many of the same interests as well.
These people are our allies. They want many of the same things we do. They have expanded the boundaries of what everyone thought was possible in Syria. They have earned our respect, and now they need our support to finish what they started. The Syrian people deserve to succeed, and shame on us if we fail to help them.
You are right Sir and I pray the international community forgoes the usual non-action and excuses on Syria
Paolo Macchiarini
For the world’s first successful transplantation of a synthetic tissue engineered windpipe coated with stem cells. This surgery will tremendously impact patients in dire need of organ transplants.
Warren Buffet
For calling out the inherent unfairness of his paying lower tax rate than his secretary. For giving us the Warren Buffet Rule and for endorsing the Buffet Rule Bill or the Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012. The bill would turn the principle behind the Buffett Rule into a rule of the U.S. tax code, requiring that all households with incomes above $1 million pay at least a 30 percent minimum tax rate.
Steve Moore
For sueing Todd Bertuzzi for the head assault that knocked him unconscious, broke vertebrae and ended his career… in his rookie year. Bertuzzi should have faced criminal charges. This civil case will finally go before the court in the Fall of 2012, over eight years after the assault . Hockey has dirty laundry that needs aired and no one seems to have the balls to air it, let alone fix it. Head injuries both youth and adult are an increasingly important topic. Please don’t settle. This case needs to play out for the good of hockey in the long run.
Chris Powell
For helping the obese and morbidly obese which takes special skills and heart.
Thompson Egbo-Egbo
For his Thompson T. Egbo-Egbo Arts Foundation that offers children of all social and economic circumstances the opportunity to experience the benefits of music.
Paul Martin
For using his power as a former Prime Minster to fight for equal funding for aboriginal students.
And then there were:
George W. Bush
For the Iraq War. For 4,487 American soldier deaths. For 32,226 wounded American soldiers. For $712 billion dollars spent. For 105,000 to 115,000 Iraqi deaths.
Dr. Robert Nelson
For the way he treated Diane Sawyer when she asked him a reasonable and very important question about the overprescribing of antipsychotic meds to foster children. According to experts, there is no evidence to support the concurrent use of five or more psychotropic drugs in adults or children so why are hundreds of both foster and nonfoster children in the five selected states Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Texas on such a drug regimen? Given that your job centers on the highest ethical standards surrounding children and medicine, I would not have expected that from you.
Mark Zuckerberg
Sage…just you just call a 27 year old multi-billionaire a fool. Yes. Yes, I did.
For saying:
That will be a fight we take on at some point
when he told a reporter at an education summit that he is determined to challenge the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act because it prohibits Facebook from signing up children under 13 without parental approval.
Children cannot cognitively understand what they would be consenting to so they should not have a digital tattoo. If you one day succeed in doing that you will be engaging in abuse of power.
Donald Trump
For sacrificing his credibility by publicly announcing he was a Birther.
Arnold Swachenergger
For cheating on your wife with a member of her household staff, fathering a child with her and lying to your wife about it for 10 years… and presumably not being a father to your own child.
Fred Alexander
For, as Chairman of the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board, deciding to essentially shut down all school libraries and lay off staff. Seriously Dude?!?
Mike Gallagher
For calling maternity leave a racket.
Francesco Schettino
For abandoning his ship the Costa Concordia near the island of Giglio last August after it struck a reef and capsized.
Noel Biderman
For his “Did your wife SCARE you last night” add campaign on his pro-adultery dating site.
Grover Nordquist
For the bad public policy of never raising taxes that is his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge”.
Steve Jobs
For the world of “i”!
Thank you Sir!
Jack Layton
For his brilliant political campaign that propelled him into Leader of the Official Opposition.
Who are presently your ?
Sage Spencer
Jack Layton: 1950-2011 Man of the People Has a State Funeral.
Today was the funeral of a good Canadian man, politician, father, husband and activist, related to a long line of activists I learned today.
There are pieces of me in at least three countries now. This weekend I chose to stay in Canada instead of heading home, hoping to attend the funeral of Jack Layton.
I did not know Mr. Layton but along with Canadians and people who have lived in Canada I was saddened by his death.
Life is so beautiful and yet can be so very cruel.
To so soon after running his brilliant and destined for the Canadian history books political campaign that took the political left from obscurity and the New Democratic Party not only to its highest federal achievement but to Her Majesty’s Official Opposition only to be struck for a SECOND time with cancer?!? *shaking head* Cancer is a scourge! Is once not enough? It was so incredibly unfair that he did not get to live long enough to enjoy his success. It had been so shocking to see what a frail looking figment of himself he had become, when on July 25th he announced his second case of an unknown cancer. You just knew from looking at him that he was in the fight of his life but I never guessed he would be dead a month later.
It was appropriate that Jack Layton be given a state funeral. Politics can be so discouraging at times. Jack Layton’s was not. His passion was for everyday people. People who fight for the PEOPLE of a country should have state funerals. Thank you Prime Minster Harper for doing that. It was the right thing to do.
Jack, your Olivia is heartbroken. At your funeral she stood strong and dignified but I could see she was trying so hard not to fall down in grief for the man she loved. It was written all over her face. I will be saying a prayer for your soul mate tonight.
When I heard that approximately 6,000 people had already paid their respects at Toronto City Hall in one day while your coffin lay in state, I soon realized that it was unlikely I would get one of the 600 seats available to the public at your funeral.
I ended up watching your funeral online where most in my generation live their lives.
There are some deaths that seem impossible to believe. For me this is one. I am not sure why? Maybe it is the unfairness of it all. We cannot find a rat bastard like Gaddafi but a good man like Jack Layton has to die just when given the opportunity to do good?!?
Jack Layton’s 2011 political triumph while being decent and civil, always fighting for the people, made me care about Canadian politics. It was made clear in my December 2008 blog the sort of Canadian House of Commons behavior that I hoped would change. I realize that the Canadian Prime Minister has a majority government and can pretty much do as he likes but I also believe that Prime Minister Harper truly wants the Conservatives to replace the Liberals as the natural governing party of Canada. That will never happen if he does much of what many of his detractors fear is his actual boogeyman agenda. He will have to govern closer to the centre where most Canadians live, the Canadian centre which is politically left of my new home in America.
That said, I really wanted to see Jack Layton as Leader of the Official Opposition and Stephen Harper as Prime Minister both function in the House of Commons with their differing visions for Canadians, no centre party to make things easier for either of them but just the Canadian left and right. Why? Good question given that I am normally not a fan of the people only having two parties to choose from. I think because Jack Layton’s ability to set aside divisions and engage in politics that respected all made me hope that problems would be solved and things would get done. His getting it done for citizens against intransigence could have helped the debt ceiling nonsense in the US.
I suspect that not many will agree with me, but then no one believed me when I said Jack Layton would become Leader of The Official Opposition, but I actually believed that it was possible for Jack Layton to win the general election at some point in the future. I still believe he could have. I know this, Canadian politics was about to be shaken up for the good of people and I think the people would have liked it very much.
I think Mr. Layton’s death touched so many for a few reasons: their deep respect for the man; the incredible unfairness of the timing of his death and the great loss they felt over what his passion could have accomplished fighting for the PEOPLE. Corporate plutocrats take care of themselves just fine but there never seem to be enough fighters for the people. Jack was one!
Until such time as we have true political parties of the people, likely created, funded and run online, which take no money from corporations, people like Jack Layton who put PEOPLE on the agenda are desperately needed in every society.
Mr. Layton, your were my kind of human and Ed Broadbent, another decent man and the granddaddy of the political left in Canada was right… Jack Layton was the man!
Salut Jack!
Sage Spencer
I finally know why people WATCH sports. As I sit here about to watch the FIFA Women’s 2011 World Cup Final both on my TV and online, I realize that people watch because they cannot play and they would love to be playing in the actual game they are watching. I would love to be playing in the FIFA Women’s 2011 World Cup Final game. As noted in my England’s Lost Goal At The World Cup! blog, I played soccer for a couple of decades. I would even by happy to be reffing it…which I am surprised to say as that would be some stress level, at least for me.
The sun will rise brightly in Japan tomorrow. It must be about 3am in Japan right now but those who stay up to watch will be rewarded and then unable to sleep as Japanese women bring home the World Cup and a gift to a country that has had a very bad year after the earthquake and tsunami.
We have a very strong team but when things look like we are dominating do not get complacent, as the sun comes up every day in a disciplined fashion. It will come down to the Japanese goalkeeper Ayumi Kaihori, number 21.
I know it is disloyal but I will still be smiling ear to ear after what will be a hard fought possession soccer game!
Enjoy the Game!
Sage Spencer
Dear Ms Huffington:
Congratulations on launching your first international edition. I think that Canada and the UK are logical and smart next choices.
I am a big fan or yours Ms Huffington and I am concerned that whoever is advising you may be misunderstanding your international audience. May I give you some unsolicited advice?
I realize that any launch will have bugs and launch day will bring headaches but whoever told you that hijacking 1.5 million Canadians and giving them the book banning lady in the same day was the way to go may not be giving you the best advice.
Ms Reisman I realize that you banned anti-Semitic trash but banning books when you have as much power over the sale of books that you have is abuse of power to many people. That makes people who value freedom over censorship very nervous.
I apologize Ms Huffington, as I understand that Ms Reisman is a friend but I think you will find that giving her editorial control may make people nervous.
I think one of the following three options might please your international readers better than redirection:
1. Distinct .com, .ca and .uk editions (no hijacking)
2. Separate tabs at huffpo.com or
3. Just geolocating for advertising on HuffPo.com.
I know this should be a day of only celebration but I think you may find that you have 1.5 million people angry at you.
You may want to get the tech department coding…quickly.
Sincerely,
Sage Spencer
The Assassination of Osama bin Laden
I never thought I would blog about Osama bin Laden but then again I think I had given up hope of anyone actually finding the man. Once you have been able to hide out for ten years why not twenty or thirty?
I cannot say that I am surprised he was hiding in plain sight; I actually believed he would be. It has been said that it is the best place to hide, so why wouldn’t terrorist Osama join the ranks of the criminals hiding next door? Whether the Pakistanis knew he was there, I would LOVE to know. Given how much money we have given to Pakistan, finding out he was living in a house next door to the military certainly justifies our asking for answers. That said, Pakistan may feel justified in not answering given that we invaded their sovereignty to get the man.
I believe that the most likely scenario is that some did know but how many and how powerful is the question. I leave open the very real possibility that none but his trusted compatriots knew; after all, how often do we find marijuana grow ops and meth labs in seemingly unsuspected suburban homes? While some of the alleged behaviour at his compound should have seemed suspicious, the fact is that we could not find the man for TEN YEARS so maybe we should not be so quick to assume complicity on the part of the Pakistanis.
I cannot celebrate his death. Maybe is it my Christian upbringing or maybe it is just who I am, I don’t know? It is not hard to understand why The President made the choice he did or why so many people, particularly New Yorkers, might be happy to hear the news. I understand that he committed evil acts and I am glad he is no longer free to commit evil but murder is wrong. I cannot agree with The President ordering him killed. I suspect most will disagree with me.
If The President had ordered Osama bin Laden captured and if not possible then killed, I could live with that but ordering a man killed without trial is immoral and unjust.
Maybe I just believe in Karma too much and fear the equal and opposite reaction to our choice to assassinate a man because we could?!?
I do agree with President Obama’s decision not to the release the post mortem photos of bin Laden. That was the morally right thing to do and right thing for other reasons as well. I have to admit that upon first hearing I did fear that this choice would lead to the Osama is alive conspiracy theorists making the President Obama birthers look sane. After some reflection, I have decided that the two situations are very different and that there really is no good reason to release them. Terrorist guy is dead and will not be reincarnated, at least not genetically.
Mr. President, I do not know you but I think I understand why you made the decisions you made. I thank you for making the finding of Osama bin Laden a priority. I thank you for the relief that it has brought to the victims of 9/11. The team of Navy Seals did their job honorably and were obviously crackerjack. We will just have to agree to disagree on the kill order.
Yes, Osama bin Laden committed acts of evil but perhaps the moral goal in the face of evil is not to perpetuate it. What do we become when we respond to evil by assassinating it unarmed and without a trial? What consequences do we create for ourselves?
My fear is that by our choice we have added to the darkness in this world and not the light. That is my fear. But I do understand why so many are so very happy.
Sage Spencer
On the second season of ‘Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution’ airing Tuesday nights at 8PM ET on ABC, Jamie Oliver is having an even harder time than he did first time around in Huntington,West Virginia. Apparently the school system in the fattest city in America is more open to change than the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest public school system in the United States.
So far the only toe in the door he has gotten is at West Adams Preparatory School who WANT him there but can only get him in the door to teach cooking classes because the school operates in partnership with the LAUDS. The Los Angeles Unified School District has forbid him from even entering the school cafeteria. If he violates the terms, West Adams Preparatory School risks loosing its funding.
Clearly the Los Angeles Unified School District fears bad publicity but just how bad is the food being fed to children in the Los Angeles Unified School District if they are THAT afraid of Jamie Oliver?
If you need to send the police to keep kids from a guy wanting to feed them vegetables, what the hell are you feeding children in Los Angeles?
Sage Spencer
