Remember to forget
The on-going battle to keep the media monoliths from screwing with fair use in copyright and extending their ownership of creative work to include just about everything made me think of this great short story by Spider Robinson, which naturally is protected by a Creative Commons copyright.

Headlines we are inordinately proud of - Part 73

Today's Daily Yomiuri - I didn't edit this one, but I did suggest the headline

SDF ready for Godzilla, but not for aliens

and the day before, I insisted on:

Supreme Court rules 'Shane' copyright won't come back

Thank you, thank you -- we'll be here all week, tip your waitress. Try the veal.

Hello U.N.? I'd like to report a crime against humanity

The horror, the horror.

From the article:

Among the dishes, Manaka especially recommends akaza shrimp and foie gras cooked in savoy cabbage and served in sauce americaine as well as char-grilled Iberico pork shoulder served with Madeira wine sauce. They will be served with Glenlivet Nadurra and 18-year-old whisky, respectively. "We recommend that you enjoy Nadurra with just one rock and the 18-year-old straight or with a little water."

Ma Chambre also will serve a cocktail prepared with 12-year-old Glenlivet, orange juice and grenadine syrup as an appetizer for the 12,000 yen set menu.

Glenlivet master distiller Jim Cryle said what makes the whisky special is that it is an original malt that became the "benchmark" for whisky in the Speyside region of Scotland.

First of all what kind of lunatic serves whisky with a main course, especially French or Italian food. These culinary styles evolved along side the best wines in the world, why would you serve them with something like whisky that would numb the taste buds? Why would you do that? Why?

As to the gross blasphemy of the so called "cocktail" I'm absolutely speechless. Glenlivet is hardly the be all and end all of the whisky world, but I'd rather see good 12-year-old single malt scotch used to water the garden than see it insulted. How do you think the French chef would feel if some Scot decided that the perfect accompaniment for his haggis, neeps and tatties or deep-fried Mars bar was a nice late '80s to mid '90 Chateau Latour burgundy, mixed with Diet Sprite and a dash of triple sec. France would invade Glasgow and bomb Edinburgh back to the stone age in retaliation. And they'd be right.

No nailfiles, no liquids, no pulling of fingers
And lay off the chili and beer the day before a flight too. Holy unintended consquences Batman! If you think this woman was embarrassed when she cut the cheese in economy class, imagine how she feels now.

From the BBC:

Flatulence leads US jet to divert
An American Airlines plane made an emergency landing in Nashville after passengers reported the smell of sulphur from burning matches.
The matches were found on the seat of a woman who had attempted to conceal the odour of flatulence with the matches, Nashville airport authorities said.


We await the inevitable lawsuits.

And the winner is.....
Not me. But just the same, I'd like to thank the members of the academy, my producers, the writers, my parents, and of course a shout out to he who makes all things possible. And it really was an honor to be nominated. (scroll down, scroll waaaaaay down) Meanwhile, Me and my fellow ink-stained wretches led by heavy-hitter Cap'n Dave over at the Galloping Beaver came fourth. If only I haven't used the c-word back a few months ago, I'm sure we could have overtake the Canadian Cynic juggernaut. Congratulations to Lefty blog of the year POGGE and silver medalist April Reign. Just wait until next year!
Speaking of awards, the nominations are now open for the annual Canadian Blog Awards (hint, hint) and those of you who know your way around the Canadian blogosphere may smile at one of the early nominees for best humour blog.

Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men, except for you bastards in the back, you're lucky to be getting coal in your stocking

This being the season of brotherly love and peace on earth and all that, let me say to the Santa cynics and soldiers in the Christmas War out there, with all due respect, shut your festering fruitcakeholes!

First, lets get one thing straight -- There is no war on Christmas. No one cares if you want to to go to mass, put up a nativity scene or put little crucified Jesuses (Jesui?) on your tree, but the government can't play favorites when it comes to religious images. Christmas is not just a religious holiday and hasn't been since before Bing Crosby and Jimmy Stewart started making 'holiday movies'. If you think there needs to be a war to save Christmas, you are dumber than Jonn Gibson and Bill O'Rielly in a bag of hammers. To steal a line from John Lennon, fighting for Christmas is like fucking for virginity. Stop spoiling the holidays by inventing something for people to get pissed off about or you are getting coal in your stocking.

Second, there is too a Santa Claus, (the Marx Brothers bit notwithstanding). Don't give me any of your pet theories about how he was created by Coca-Cola or any of that malarky. If Santa didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

Santa exists.

He exists in all those people who give anonymous gifts to the food bank, in all those who put a up a tree and lights and try to make the world a little brighter, even if only for a few days. He exists in those people making the effort to bake treats for the potluck office party instead of picking up a box of timbits, in those people stand on the corner ringing bells in subzero weather to raise money to help people in need, and, indeed Virginia (and the rest of you doubters, in the hearts of little children everywhere.

As one of the blogosphere's most ambivilent agnostic fake clergymen, I'm not big on the notion of there being an all-powerful sky wizard or even a not-so-intelligent designer cum watchmaker in the clouds. I'm okay with the whole Jesus thing - he had some good words to say - I'm just not too keen on a lot of the shit done in his name. Christmas would be one major exception to that.

Christmas deserves to be celebrated just as much as Martin Luther King Day and even from a strictly secular point of view is unquestionably an Objectively Good Thing(TM - pat. pending). How can setting aside a day or a few days to spend with family, give gifts and be nice to each other be a bad thing? What's so funny about peace on earth and goodwill to men. Santa is a big part of that, as he is the embodiment of the secular side of Christmas.

I live in a non-Christian country that loves the secular side of Christmas. Most of the 30 or so kids and a least half the adults at the community Christmas party I attended wouldn't know who Jesus was if he walked across Tokyo Bay and started pushing loaves and fishes on them, but you can bet they knew who Santa was when he arrived.

If you have any doubt that unconditional love exists or that Santa lives in the hearts of small children, get yourself a red suit and cheesy fake beard and go hand out candy canes at a kindergarten some time. It is the most fun you can have doing anything and the most satisfying exeperiece you'll ever have with your clothes on.

Santa is the best and most successful international conspiracy ever, with millions of willing co-conspirators. Resistance is futile, even Scrooge got Santified. Leave the shortbreads and milk/beer/single malt scotch out near the tree on Christmas Eve, or suffer the consequences!

And these evil shits who sent hateful letters to innocent kids? They are going on the naughty list. If I had my way they'd be worked over with a stocking full of coal and tied to four reindeer heading for four different points on the compass. But Christmas is the season of forgiveness, so I guess I'd settle for JJ's suggestion of a peppering with high velocity dogshit.

I am Spartacus Santa Claus!

Priorities
Lucky for all you folks in the Excited States that your government has its priorities in order. In this time of war and economic turmoil, with White House shenanigans aplenty to be investigated, and an election in the offing -- not to mention global warming and the various crises in health care, education, civil rights, race relations, mall shootings and the writers' strike --- it is good to know that your Congress has its eyes on the prize.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 847) saying that Christmas and Christians are important. The House passed this bill Dec 10. The vote, surprisingly, was 372-9, with 10 members also voting "Present," meaning they took no position on the legislation, and 40 not voting. One of the "Present" votes was cast by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). More Democrats -195 - voted for the bill than Republicans, 177.

Just wait until the new year when the Republicans bring in their controversial bill declaring "Water is Wet" or the all important "America loves ice cream" omnibus bill with clauses declaring puppies, kittens and bunnies "cute" and cockroaches "icky"

New Fish
Let's hope his lardship looks good in stripes. Ex-Canadian and media baron Conrad "Lord Tubby" Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in a low security Florida prison, proving that no one is above the law. Of course, it is the minimum possible sentence he could have received and he will be serving it in a low security prison, where he is more likely to get tennis elbow than be shanked in the yard, so William Zanzinger Conrad Black is being dealt with in the way we have come to expect from the justice system in "class free" America. Thank Jebus he didn't do anything really bad like get a consensual drunken blow job from a fellow teenager or get caught with drugs while brown.
No confirmation yet on when Lady Barbarella Amiel is buying him cartons of cigarettes or soap on a rope for Christmas.

"Hi, I'm Scarlett and I'll be your waitress this evening..."

the flip side of "dollar draft" night

Now, admittedly this beverage includes an 11-caret diamond ring, but still for $70,000 I'd be expecting a half gallon of 100-year old single malt sipped out of a solid platinum, gem-encrusted shot glass nestled in Scarlett Johansen's cleavage (or Brad Pitt's navel for the ladies) and I better get to keep both the shot glass and the bearer.

Violence, while understandably tempting, is not the answer
No matter how often one is seized by an urge to literally slap some sense into a politician, acting on that urge is understandably frowned upon, especially when the victim is someone as comparatively inoffensive as Joe Clark. Having said that, I will not rule out giving Brian Mulroney an atomic wedgie if we are ever alone in an elevator together. I'm saying it would be the right thing to do, I'm just saying I'm not sure I could resist. And I still think there is a certain deterrent value in my suggestion that every pre-Katrina resident of New Orleans should be given a seat at the Superdome and be called, in alphabetical order, down onto the field and given the option of kicking George W. Bush in the nuts.

Musical Interlude

Blogging is likely to be light this week, so feel free to talk amongst yourselves in the comments - I'll give you a topic: Would moving to Anarctica make Kelly Joe Phelps any cooler?

Stupid du jour
While daytime chat shows have never been a beacon of intellectual elitism or fancy book-learnin' one wonders just how stupid one has to be to be on "The View"

From the Huffington Post

For whatever reason, the ladies on "The View" were discussing ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus this morning. Naturally, talk soon migrated to the topic of religion, and Sherri "I don't know if the world is flat" Shepherd came out to play. More specifically, to spew ignorance and a complete lack of understanding of basic
world history! Discussing whether Christians were around during Epicurus' time (Epicurus lived from 341-270 B.C.), Sherri chimed in, "[The Greeks] had Christians 'cause they threw them to the lions."
When Whoopi tried to cautiously navigate her through the timeline of basic world events, saying, "I think this might predate that," Sherri responded, "I don't think anything predated Christians." Joy's attempt to explain the Greek-Roman-Christian chronology was futile, as Sherri insisted, "Jesus came first before them." Sherri's argument was all the more powerful due to her convincing "use your finger to write on the table" trick, but she can't fight the facts. Perhaps if Barbara were on today she would have explained THAT WHOLE B.C. THING (you know, as in, Before Christ).

This story raises two questions: How long before Whoopi Goldberg snaps and hits Sherri Shepherd over the head with a chair and would hitting her in the head have any effect at all?

Sometimes, snark fails me. This is one of those times.


"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president" - Laura Bush

President Bush looks at a t-shirt with Lance Cpl. Isaac Gallegos, left, during the President's visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. On the right is Captain Revi Venkataramani. Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007

Trent's Lott
Hmmmm, radical right-wing social conservative and close personal friend of definitely-not-gay-because-he-persecutes-gays Larry "tap dance" Craig Trent Lott is resigning to spend more time with his family or some other obviously bullshit reason.
Would it be irresponsible to speculate? No, it would be irresponsible NOT to speculate.

It's Hammer Time

December in Japan means much more than just overpriced kitchy Christmas themes at the hotel dining room, skanky hostesses standing on streetcorners in skimpy Santa dresses and drunken salarymen puking and passing out in the train stations after the end-of-the-year bonus party. December is time to make every Japanese's favorite traditional New Year's treat -- mochi.

First, you need a bunch of old people. This is vital as no one under the age of 60 is likely to have the patience to get up at five in the morning to start cooking 100 kilos of rice over a wood fire. Besides, none of us young whippersnappers know how to do it right.


After the rice is cooked, huge pots of it are tossed into a large wooden mortar and then the squashing commences. This is where us energetic young fellas come in. It takes three men to work the rice with large wooden mallets, typically weighing about three or four kilos. You don't hammer the soft rice, you just sort of knead it down into a sticky mess through direct pressure, occasionally dipping the mallet in water so it doesn't get trapped in the rice blob.
Once the rice is a solid mass, it's Japanese John Henry time! A solid wooden mallet swung with enough force for about ten minutes turns the sticky rice blob into a gooey mass that looks like bread dough that has already risen. And no, I am not trying to hit the nice lady on the head with a mallet. She turns the blob between strokes while I pound it into its component atoms.

My stroke, vigour and my ability not to wallop oba-chan on the hand or noggin, despite the old guys pouring several beers into my before noon early hour, earned me several more beers and shot of sake from the peanut gallerythe respect of the elders in my community
Ta-da, the sticky, gooey mess whose taste means New Year's is just around the corner. Interestingly, a number of old people choke to death on mochi every year at New Year's and the reccommended precaution is to keep your vaccuum cleaner handy. If Grandma starts to choke, jam the hose down her throat and switch on the machine. Happy New Year!

Indiana Jonesing
It's been a while since I've had a fix of Friday Archeology blogging, but now that Bazz is back in business, that won't be a problem.
And there is much rejoicing in blogsylvania!

Caught in the Crossfire?
Good news on the mass media front: The situation for Tucker Carlson is not looking good.
In an attempt to cash in on the resurgence of liberalism in the U.S. (mainly as a backlash to the last seven years of abject stupidity on parade in Washington) MSNBC is moving gradually to the left in an attempt to be to the rising liberal tide what Fox "news" has been to the right. They started with Keith Olbermann declarations that the emperor has no clothes and slowly but surely are creeping to the left. Chris Matthews - who has been a notorious right-wing mouthpiece - is now trying to convince us he's always disliked Bush and been against the war.
The one fly in the ointment is Tucker, who they are never going to be able to pass off as anything but a rightist.
Ever since Jon Stewart ate his lunch on CNN, things have been in a bit of downhill slide for Tucker. I guess smarmy just isn't selling these days as well as it used to.
While the bitch-slapping Jon Stewart gave him was one of the great moments in media of the last ten years, one of my favorite bits of Tuckerness is this little gem:
Tucker Carlson's exchange with ESPN radio host Max Kellerman on MSNBC's The Situation Dec. 15, 2005

CARLSON: All right, first up, a war of words gets heated, and it sounds like our neighbors to the north are mad. That, of course, would be Canada, for those of you following along at home. The prime minister of that country, Paul Martin, says he will—quote—“not be dictated to” by the U.S. over, of all things, lumber tariffs, which are a big deal in Canada.
It‘s the latest salvo in an increasingly pitched battle that had David Wilkins, our ambassador to that country, strategy—quote—“It may be smart election-year politics to thump your chest and criticize your friend and your number-one trading partner constantly, but it‘s a slippery slope. And all of us should hope it doesn‘t have a long-term impact on the relationship.”
Here‘s the problem, Max. Here‘s the problem with telling Canada to stop criticizing the United States. It only eggs them on. Canada is essentially a stalker, stalking the United States, right?
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Canada has little pictures of us in its bedroom, right? Canada spends all of its time thinking about the United States, obsessing over the United States. It‘s unrequited love between Canada and the United States.
We, meanwhile, don‘t even know Canada‘s name. We pay no attention at all.
KELLERMAN: Well...
CARLSON: Canada thinks we‘re married; we don‘t know it exists. Every time we tell Canada to knock it off, it just feeds the fire.
KELLERMAN: Well, yes. I very much like your “Canada, the adults are talking” stance. I—I like that.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLERMAN: However, we really do have to engage them on this.
And this is—this is the devil‘s-advocate position, but I may actually believe this.
CARLSON: All right.
KELLERMAN: They make us look bad internationally. And it‘s really not fair.
We have the—the longest, friendliest border, you know, for the—for the longest time in the history—in recorded history, really, with Canada. And they get to sit on their moral perch, you know, take the moral high ground, say, oh, United States, shame on you about Iraq.
They—they had—they must take no—virtually no responsibility, certainly in terms of their military, around the world. We have to do all the heavy lifting. And then to have them, our—one of our really strongest allies, when you think about it, internationally...
CARLSON: Oh.
KELLERMAN: ... to the north, constantly criticizing us and making us look bad internationally, it needs to be addressed.
CARLSON: First of all, anybody with any ambition at all, or intelligence, has left Canada and is now living in New York.
Second, anybody who sides with Canada internationally in a debate between the U.S. and Canada, say, Belgium, is somebody whose opinion we shouldn‘t care about in the first place.
Third, Canada is a sweet country. It is like your retarded cousin you see at Thanksgiving and sort of pat him on the head. You know, he‘s nice, but you don‘t take him seriously. That is Canada.
KELLERMAN: No, you don‘t. You don‘t. But what if the rest of the family does? In other words, yes, the United States can rely on...
CARLSON: That‘s their problem.
KELLERMAN: ... England, Australia, Israel, a few staunch, important allies internationally. But we have lost a lot of international support.
And Canada, by others in the global family, is, for some reason, taken seriously. They have about 30 million people. They have some natural resources.
CARLSON: Oh. They have dogsleds and trees, and that‘s it.
KELLERMAN: And comedians.
CARLSON: Look, I like Canada.
KELLERMAN: Tucker, they have comedians.
CARLSON: Every single comedian in Canada is now living in the United States.
KELLERMAN: Well, that‘s true.
CARLSON: Every one of them. They sneak over the border and live among us unseen. It‘s actually kind of scary.

Big talk for a man who stole his sartorial splendor from Pierre Burton. A word to the wise Tuck, you need to be pretty butch to pull off a bowtie. You look a lot more like mama's boy George Will than you probably want to. To paraphrase Jack Palance, Pierre Burton crapped bigger than you, you sad pathetic frat boy poseur. Get off the airwaves and get yourself preppie talk show on the campus station at Andover or Choate. Maybe there's an opportunity to start your own Frat TV network.

Because nothing says "delicious" like an intelligent endangered species
Coming soon to a dinner plate near me, the latest bit of Japanese "research" on whales. They really are conducting whaling as research. They are killing humpbacks to determine if they taste better baked, fried, stewed in a curry or done up as "whale nuggets" -- all in the name of science.
Click here for more on how you can enjoy tasty endangered species! Coming soon, Panda sushi with California Condor eggs fried on a fire of teak harvested from the rainforest.

The corner of Bedlam and Squalor
More like the corner of Genius Ave and Frickin' Genius Blvd. While I think of something useful to say watch Tom Waits on Fernwood 2Night

Torch song for my ge-ge-generation

(This started out as a comment on Dana's lament for a nation the other day and as any good comment, it kind pof got out of control, so I thought I might as well turn it into a post of its own. Go get a drink, this may take a while)

Dana, one my fellow inkstained wretches over at the Galloping Beaver, appears to have the blues lately about the direction Canada is headed.

Not without reason-- Dana is not some green-as-grass kid who hasn't seen hard times. He's 60 years old, of my dad's generation more or less, so he's been around a while and hardly seems prone to alarmism. If he's worried, he's got his reasons. Admittedly, things have been a bit crappy of late, what with Steve Harper and Conservatives trying to turn the clocks back to what they think 1955 looked like, our troops involved in a quagmire of a war overseas, our neighbour to the south is sliding more rapidly toward fascism, the environment suffering, the mounties murdering immigrants in the Vancouver airport. Hell - its been 15 years since the Habs- or any other Canadian team- won the cup. In short, things are looking like that Loudon Wainwright song.

Dana seems convinced that Canada is headed back to its pre 1967 greyness.

"Once again we becoming a parochial, timid, repressed, subservient, narrow minded people subtly suppressed by both church and state into a kind of numbing grey fog of judgemental apathy."

Nope, not gonna happen Dana.

Not on my generation's watch.

I know I throw a lot of negativity around on this blog, and I'm not always a "glass half full" kinda guy, but I'm happy to shed sunshine on your parade for a change.

Not to be glib, but don' t let the bastards get you down. And by bastards I mean the people of your generation that spent the '60s in doors bitching about hippies and not having any fun. The offspring of the very "ruling elites" you speak of in your eloquent post. Those people are heading into the sunset as we speak.

Those people who think we need to drag Canada back to the 1950's are the people who grew up then -- your generation. For me and mine, who grew up in the 60's and 70's with multiculturalism, a burgeoning non-white immigrant population, no church on Sunday and daily French classes, that notion of a lily-white, monolingual (except or the "frogs") Christian conservative nation in thrall to England or the United States just ain't gonna fly any more.

Despite what the fundamentalist whackjobs would have you believe, the churches are largely finished as a political force in Canada. Nearly 20% of us are non-believers now.
Just look what happened to John Tory in the Ontario election if you want to see how Canadians feel these days about mixing religion and politics. Twenty years from now, I think we will have gotten rid of public funding for Catholic schools.

We are now a mostly urban, cosmopolitan society. Politically, we are just waiting for the distribution of seats in the House of Commons to catch up with reality - right now rural voters wield disproportionate power, but that can't, and won't last.

International globalization, increased global mobility and cultural diversity have taken their toll on the notion that everything those people do overseas is weird and inferior. More Canadians have traveled to or are from other parts of the world now than ever before. When you were growing up, the idea that you or your peers would just jump on jet and go to Thailand on a week-long vacation, or go to live in Japan or China or Hungary or Peru for a few years, just for the hell of it, was largely beyond the pale. Not anymore.

Social mobility and education are at an all time high, racism and xenophobia at a historic low, despite the best efforts of Global and FOX news and the SUN newspapers to keep us parochial and provincial, Canadians like to play in the big sandbox and we like to invite others in to play in our sandbox. The last two censuses have shown that just over half the population of Toronto were born outside Canada. That was probably true in your parents day too, but now most of those people aren't from the British Isles any more. Can you imagine the impact that has for diversifying our national culture? Toronto is now one of the most international cities in the world, with Vancouver - once a hive of British expatriate remittance men - a close second and a thriving center of Asian-Western cultural crossover. The stuffy old reactionaries and the young fogies decry this, but most people my age and younger celebrate it or accept it as established fact. The day of the WASP ruling class is over.

For your parents generation a racially mixed marriage would have been unthinkable, even a religiously mixed one would have been scandalous. For your generation, Catholic and Protestants intermarrying was acceptable, but miscegenation was still very, very rare. Today, it barely rates a raised eyebrow among my generation, and is commonplace among those younger. Third and fourth generation immigrants don't feel limited to their own ethnic or racial group any more.

Sure there are the cultural dead-enders, the Reform Party dinosaurs, the rednecks and the racists - but they are the minority and most of them are aging fast. I look at the changes in society that have occurred since my childhood and fully expect that progress to continue.

In your lifetime, marijuana has gone from "reefer madness" to being grown by the government as medicine. Social mores have undergone tectonic shifts: Homosexuality has gone from being a jailable offence to legal gay marriage. We've had a Chinese immigrant and now a Haitian immigrant, both women, as Governor-General. Try convincing your 16 year-old self back in 1960 that would ever happen.

Where once things like police brutality, domestic violence, institutionalized racism and sexism, even drunk driving were accepted as normal, a broad swath of the population now decry them to the extent that they have gradually have become recognized as the criminal behaviours they are.

I'm 40 and when I think of the changes in society since I was a kid, I'm amazed. When I was kid, it wasn't unusually to hear the word "nigger" - otherwise respectable people told "paki" jokes - and women like my mom were just starting to enter the work force in large numbers for the first time since WW2.

Yes, there are conservatives my age and even younger. Not all the people that voted for Harper and listen to Michael Coren are cranky old reactionaries, some of them are young enough to know better. But they are vocal minority, especially in blogosphere. They gather in their little gangs and tell each other it will be all right, that white men still run the country and that their tiny little island of ignorance will not be swamped by the rising tide of cosmopolitanism. They blog and they rant on the radio and even run for office, but they have lost the culture war in Canada and it is just a rear-guard action.

I listen to what people in their 20s say today and realize to my delight that in terms of social justice, human rights and equality the things that progressives fought for in my childhood are now taken for granted. A woman working, even in senior management is normal. Yes, there is still something of a glass ceiling and there is no equal pay for equal work yet, but thirty years ago who even expected such things would be an issue? Things like racist jokes and epithets are no longer tolerated by society at large. A few curmudgeons moan about "political correctness" and how "manholes are manholes not personholes" but they carry no weight with anyone any more. No one thinks twice about saying letter carrier instead of mailman, or police officer instead of policeman. No one under 50 is surprised by a female doctor, lawyer or judge or a male nurse.

Don't let the FOX news - SUN newspaper extremists get you down. They are a dying breed. They've lost the culture war in Canada and they know it, that's why they're so vicious. The old tools of control - the churches, the schools, social pressure - are lost to them. How successful has the "wear red on Fridays to show support for the war" campaign been? Compare that to the number of people now willing to sort their trash for recycling.

Look at the situation on native issues - 40 years ago the Mohawks at Caledonia would have been thrown in jail, if they were lucky, 60 years ago they likely would have gotten off with a severe beating, 100 years ago they'd be dead. Look how many people sided with the natives over the Meech Lake Accord. There is obviously still a lot of progress to be made, but we are making baby steps toward it.

Humans are an impatient species and progress never comes fast enough for those that really need it now, but it does come over time. We should not let our guard down. We must continue to fight to make Canada the country it can be,　and keep striving to make the world a better place. Eternal vigilance and all that rah rah crap is true to a degree, but in Canada, we are past the tipping point. The bell can't be unrung. We will never go back to the year of my birth, grey old 1966.

We won. And we will keep on winning.

My generation is now moving filling the middle rungs of the corporate and political ladder, in 15 years we will be the old fogies and those 20 year olds I mentioned will be next in line to run the show. And they think we are too uptight, conservative and traditional. Onward and upward.

(Unless Harper wins a majority government, then we're all off kicking and screaming to the reeducation camps to get our minds right...so lets not let that happen by bickering about who should lead the opposition or who is more ideologically pure, let's just send Steverio back the basement apartment in Calgary where he belongs.)

Cheers, Dana. Go get yourself a glass half full of something aged a sufficient number of years and toast the future.

Can I get an "amen"?


"Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high."