Random Bullets (mostly happy)

-The 4th Disability Carnival is up, go read!
-Happiness is watching Logan watch his first snow fall.
-SNOW!!! And lots of it! Up to 30 cm expected today. WOO WOO
-Didn't sleep last night, may not today
-Fingers crossed that school will be cancelled tommorrow
-My first opera (I bought season tickets to Vancouver Opera) is Verdi's MacBeth on Tuesday!!
-Too tired to do homework, too wired to sleep
-Reports that the snow will stay around for awhile AND we'll get more *giddy*
-Just found this blog and I love it! All the posts are so good! Go read!
-Happiness is old time radio ads: 2 out of 3 doctors prefer Camel (cigarettes), because it suits your T zone. That's T for taste and T for throat.
-I switched to Blogger Beta, you may note the new template. Insomnia's good for something.
*edit* I just made a snow angel! WOO WOO.

EEEEEEEE!!!!! SNOW!!!!!

It has recently come to my attention (by me) that most of you who don't live in the GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District) may not know about this. Women from Surrey's South Asian community have finally spoken publicly about domestic violence. "If I can improve one girl's life, it is worth my husband's anger," the woman told 1,500 people who packed a banquet hall in this Vancouver suburb.
This is amazing, and not being of South Asian descent I can only imagine the pressures on women in this community to keep quiet about it outside their families.

More:
Narinder Rihal, a support worker at Surrey Women's Centre, said part of the challenge in assisting abused women in any cultural community is their reluctance to seek help from strangers.

"They are discouraged from seeking help from outside the family," said Rihal. "The family does try to help, but sometimes the family is part of the conflict, they can't always see what the real core issue is.

"They are trained and raised to believe that if there is a problem within the family it should be talked about within the family."

Rihal said women often believe that they can't seek help from people outside their own culture because they won't be understood.

"That's not true," Rihal said. "Domestic violence is not a South Asian problem. It is a problem globally."

But British Columbia's attorney-general said there is a bias within South Asian culture that underpins the violence.

Wally Oppal said there is inequality between men and women in the Indian culture, citing the dowry system where women are treated as property.

Oppal, who is Indo-Canadian, said boys are treated preferentially to girls.

Oppal said the community has been in denial for a long time.

"Nobody likes to acknowledge the fact there may be violence in their own home," he said. "I think it's time that the community did that and for that reason I think the forum is a very good idea."

There was little reluctance among those who attended Thursday's meeting, including the family of one of the slain women.
Maldeep Sandhu, whose cousin Navreet Waraich was stabbed to death Sunday, pleaded that the victim's husband Jatinder, charged with second-degree murder, not be released on bail.

They also urged federal immigration officials to allow Navreet's parents to come to Canada and care for their infant grandson.

Read the whole thing. Listening to the women speaking at the public meeting was inspiring, knowing that they faced anger from family members for doing so. They are such beacons of hope and inspiration for me right now (any woman who stands up and remains silent no more is).