Moe ministers, Moe problems

Reading a story like this one https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/toddler-with-spina-bifida-another-lesson-for-health-minister naturally horrifies me as a parent and a human being -- No parent should ever have to read the phrases "Blake’s most recent brain surgery was in May. She has a shunt in her head that could fail at any time." about their toddler.

As someone who works in media and watches politics closely, it is also sort of horrific to see the response of the Saskatchewan Party and their health minister, which today basically consisted of - and I'm paraphrasing here for the sake of brevity - "harumph, shrug, well we are trying to prioritize cases, reviews are being done, harumph, very concerned, shrug, goddamn socialists, harumph" and exit, stage far-right. It is as if communications for Health Minister Paul Merriman are being handled by Montgomery Burns' less-talented twin brother. And it isn't like he suddenly got blindsided by this mother and her child just showing up at the Legislature in Regina - the opposition NDP have been bringing in someone nearly every day for over a week to confront Merriman over the government's completely inept handling of the covid pandemic. Earlier in the week it was a 25-year-old who needs a kidney transplant and can't even get the on the list due to covid overwhelming the province's health care system.

And calling it inept is being polite. When the senior public health doctor in your province breaks down in tears at press conference, as chief medical health officer Dr. Saqib Shahab did earlier this year, it is not a sign that things are going well. Intensive care wards have been overwhelmed this autumn, with patients being airlifted by the military to Ontario and army medical personnel being sent in to try to ease the shortage of critical care staff, especially nurses -- and they are already talking about a fifth wave after Christmas

 Saskatchewan has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with vaccination rates in some rural areas barely topping 50 per cent. Watching the provincial government there trying to handle a pandemic that many of their supporters don't believe exists has been like watching a couple of especially clumsy moose attempt to compete in Olympic pairs figure skating. It would be hilarious if you didn't know it was all going to end with them sliding in the crowd and trampling a lot of people into pulp. 

Premier Scott Moe has exhibited a level of cluelessness that makes Jason Kenney and even Doug Ford look nearly competent. This was the province that hosted Mad Max Bernier's election night party with the far-right People's Party of Canada which was notable for the number of maskless idiots who got together in a hotel ballroom to infect each other and congratulate themselves on winning zero seats in the most recent federal election and earning about a dozen people very expensive tickets for violating public health rules. And while he has spoke in favour of vaccines and masks, those are undeniably Scott Moe's people

Obviously, it is hard for the Saskatchewan Party to stand on their record in dealing with covid, but sending the health minister out day after day to grope and flail in public is not helping. Former premier Brad Wall wasn't particularly savvy or clever, but he looks like the second coming of Winston Churchill compared to Brad Moe right now. Which is good for Brad Wall, since he appears to mostly be keeping his powder dry and stoking the anti-Trudeau bonfire out west until the federal conservatives kick the hapless Erin O'Toole to the curb. Moe, on the other hand, is looking more and more like the best thing that has happened to the NDP in Saskatchewan since Tommy Douglas. 

NDP leader Ryan Meili - a physician - has been working over Merriman and Moe like Muhammad Ali in his prime coming up against a blind drunk one-legged Klansman. I don't have much sympathy for losing side in the beatdown, but it is a little bit cringe-worthy to see someone get punched in the nuts over and over again, even metaphorically.

Moe is currently holding a flaming paper bag full of dogshit, useless cabinet ministers and crazy antivaxxers and doesn't seem to know whether to ruin his shoes stomping the flames out or let the fire spread to the whole house. The worrying part for the people of Saskatchewan is than no one around him seems to have the sense to tell him to take Merriman out for a swim in Wascana Lake with a couple of cinderblocks and start listening to actual doctors instead of conspiracy-mongers, Jesus freaks and right-wing grifters.

It's not easy being blue

With apologies to Frank Oz, whom I'm sure smells good and has a light touch.

This made me laugh a lot

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/cookie-monster-on-the-dole

even more than this did

 Now, if I can just find a video of Beaker singing "Long Way Home" or "Old '55" my day will be worthwhile.

And the horse you rode in on...and it's mother, too

I've been off work for a a couple of days due to an eye injury (scratched cornea, if you -like my employer - feel you must know) but I will be back in the news trenches tonight. Not because I am fully recovered - I am not - but because my employer has decided it requires a "doctor"s note" if I am going to take any more time off. 

When, and not "if', I get the name of the genius in "Human Resources'  (I am not a "resource" I am a human being) that has decided that I need the permission of my personal physician, homeroom teacher or mommy to come to work, we will have a "full and frank discussion" about who signed which contract that exchanges my labour and expertise for a salary. (Helpful hint for those in the "human resources" department - it was me that signed that contract, not my doctor, not my homeroom teacher and certainly not my mother - she's way smarter than that, and believe me when i tell you, you couldn't afford to hire her at half of what she would be worth).

The notion that I need provide some sort of proof that I have a reason not to come to work is insulting, patronizing, demeaning and just plain dumb.

My employer and I have a contract. I work, they pay. If my inability to work becomes an issue, then I would not expect to continue that contract. If however, I decide I am unable to work on a given day due to illness or injury, our contract says I still get paid up to a point. That point is considerably further away than three days. And more importantly, the decision is mine, not my doctor's or your lawyer's or my mother's or even your imaginary parent's or Conrad Fucking Black's. Mine. I own my own labour, you fuckers just rent it.

When I allow you to. 

I don't need to show you a note or a badge ("Badges? We don't got no badges...I don't got to show you no stinking' badges!") or a permission slip from my scoutmaster or the head prefect. I decide whether to sell you my labour today. You can decide if you want to pay for it or not, but you don't get to demand a note from my physician if I decide to withhold that labour for a couple of days, the decision about whether I will work is mine, and mine alone.

I get it, you have beans to count and beans need to counted. But I am not a bean and just because you pay me, it doesn't mean you own me or get to make decisions for me about whether I am able to work or not. You are entitled to notification that I can or cannot fulfill my previous agreed upon duties, but you don't get to ask me to supply a third opinion. 

Tweet
I'm watching Casablanca for the elevntry-seventh time and I'm reminded of the profound conversation I had with my unilingual Japanese father-in-law in which we agreed that Ingrid Bergman in 1942 was the the second most beautiful woman in the world. 

We differed, only slightly, over who was the most beautiful, but in time he conceded I might be right, but that her mother was a very close second. I stand by my pick.

 

For the record, I have no idea who that skinny, brown-haired goateed kid is, but GODDAMN, that is the nee-plus ultra of what we talk about when we talk about beautiful women. 

And sometimes, even after more than 20 years of my bullshit, she even makes coffee in the morning. Clearly, I was born lucky.

Tweet
I've been laid up with an eye injury for a few days and this has been stuck in my head. I'm not sure which version is better. But it is absolutely better than last week when I had the opening lines of Springsteen's Atlantic City stuck in my head.

https://youtu.be/hdyscH9TsnA

https://youtu.be/tpeIePQpSuU

A collection of some of the greatest stories ever told

After all, if one if one is going to to drink, one might as well do it right.

 

This is great book of stories of famous drunken hellraising actors.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=hell+raisers+book

 Peter O'Toole would definitely be on my "Five people living or dead you could invite to a dinner party" list, because nobody could tell a story like he could.

To be honest, we should probably be grateful that Richard Harris drank in the that it slowed him down enough to survive his 20s, because he was absolutely nuts even without booze.

 What might be the greatest talk show entrance ever occurs around 1:16 when Peter O'Toole rides a camel onto the set and feeds it a Heineken

Well, it appears I've been kicked off Twitter, so I guess it's goodbye micro-blogging and hello again macro blogging -- or as we used to call it just blogging. 

I know I was naughty because I matched an unresasonable and unrealistic and horrible belief with a similar one of my own. 

A Missouri congressional candidate named Mark McCloskey - you can find him by googling 'congressional candidate, rape, incest, 13-yeaer-old" said that he "believed" 13--year-old rape and incest victims should not be allowed to have abortions.

I tweeted that I "believed" that someone should set Mark McCloskey on fire and put it out with a shovel, clearly hyperbole and a joke. I don't really think you could put that kind of fire out with a shovel. 

But the important message that got lost was that we all believe different things. Which is fine. McCloskey believes that society should not protect 13-year-old rape and incest victims. I believe society should not protect arseholes who don't think we need to protect 13-year-old rape and incest victims, so obviously we are both equally wrong here and I should not be allowed at Twitter account while he should. 

Fuck Twitter, I'm back to mega blogging

what is an education for?

I'm a big fan of Larry Wilmore and the Nightly Show, but tonight they totally pissed me off, mostly by punching me repeatedly in an old wound.
Mind you, the dumb crack about whether Canadian Studies was "B.A. or bs" didn't help -- but my complaint is more philosphical.
The topic of the show was "Is college worth it?"
There was discussion of how the cost of post-secondary education has skyrocketed, especially at big name schools in the USA. There was talk of the enormous level of debt many students have to take on, talk of how much more degree-holders earn over a lifetime, talk of how if you weren't going to be an academic superstar that being a plumber was a good job, too, probably better than being an underemployed arts graduate. There was extensive discussion of how attending a big name school purchased you a network of connected fellow alumni for life.
The entire show was focused on measuring the value of a university or college education in the United States on the basis of financial return on financial investment. A straight up cash transaction.

What there wasn't any discussion of the value of actual education, the value of learning something, the value to society of focusing study on something that might not have a direct economic effect. Y'know, expanding the human race's knowledge of itself and the world around it.

I have a confession to make that will not surprise but may disappoint my parents, who paid a lot of money for me to attend university.

I didn't go to university to get a job, I went to get an education.

I wasn't the only on there doing that, but I'm pretty sure I was in the minority, even in the arts faculty.

I remember the people who went to university to get jobs. They were the ones who asked questions like "Is this going to be on the exam?"  or "do I have to do all the reading to pass the course?"

Now, I don't want to make it sound like I'm some kind of academic purist here, hell I flunked out in my third year thru a combination of depression, beer and distraction when I first went to school. I did go back and finish my degree though, and while it was partially to improve my chances of landing a job (no one wants to hire someone who didn't finish what they started) I also wanted to get the degree for its own sake. A university degree doesn't mean you are smarter than anyone without one, it means you have been trained to think in a systematic way. It means you have managed to navigate a reasonably complicated bureaucratic institution. It means you can read and write and think in full sentences. It means you have some kind of capacity for critical thinking and awareness of the scientific method and basic logic.
Bottom line: Possession of a university degree should, but does not always, mean that you have proven you are not a complete dumbass. You may not know literature, but you have a degree in biology. You may not know anything about higher maths, but you've proven to smart people that your are not a complete ignoramus about European History or French Poetry or cellular biology. Maybe you don't get Shakespeare but you do get particle physics or mechanical engineering or any of a huge number of things that merit organized formal study from anthropology to  zoology.

And that is why people should go to university. If you want to train for a job that pays well, if your main priority in pursuing post-secondary education is finding job and making money --do not got to university, go to a vocational school. Become a plumber, an auto mechanic, a

Tweet

so now what do we do?

Having spent most of the last 30 years as a journalist and editor I am now wondering why I didn't go and do something useful like become a telephone sterilizer or couch insurance salesman
.
No one cares about journalism anymore, it was just a fad left over from the 70s. If Woodward and Bernstein uncovered Watergate today, Bill O'Reilly would be on TV demanding to know why they hate America and the Washington Post would likely fire them for embarrassing the newspaper with their crazy theories that the president could do anything wrong. No one cares about facts or truth anymore, especially the "news media." At least 50% of the editorial copy of any newspaper is just advertising in disguise, telling you which movie to see, which diet to try, which sports jersey to buy or game to watch, which celebrity is hot, what event is coming up, which charity is trying to raise money to do something the government should doing but won't because it might boost your taxes a nickle.

It is all marketing and propaganda.

Crime stories are just there to make you afraid to leave your house, at least until you read the story on page nine about the 37 ways your house could kill you. Political reporting is mostly opinion these days and and since education and experience don't mean anything anymore, a seasoned political reporter's opinion is not considered to be any more valid than that of a semi-literate 20-year-old with nice tits and blonde hair, as long as she wears the smart-girl glasses. And if you disagree, you are an elitist.

But what about the importance of the fourth estate? The public's watchdog? No one gives a shit.  My hometown daily went under a year ago and no one really misses it except the people that used to work there. Because no one cares what city council does, as long as the taxes don't go up too much and the garbage is still collected. What percentage of people voted in the last municipal election? Can you name three members of your city council? Are you outraged by police violence or government corruption or neglect? Great, good for you. Enjoy the endorphin rush, because that is all that outrage is going to get you. No one else cares and even if they did it wouldn't matter. Go ahead and protest, demonstrate in front of city hall, block traffic, commit civil disobedience and get arrested or start a riot if that is what it takes. At best, the government will appoint a commission to put together a committee to form a panel to launch a study into the best way to do as little as possible until the next shiny object comes into public view.

Newspapers and other media can't hold anyone's feet to the fire any more, they are simply written off as the "lying mainstream media" by politicians and the public alike. People don't want to read a well-researched, carefully sourced investigative report, they want to see a Facebook meme that confirms what they already believe. How else do you explain why half of America still thinks Barak Obama is a Muslim born in Africa? How else do you explain the widespread fear of vaccines, genetically modified crops or wifi. How else do you explain climate denial, natureopathy, homeopathy, essential oils, horoscopes,  psychics and "reality" TV?

 Fear and flattery are what sells, not truth. Because if truth matters, how do you explain Donald Trump? 

Most, if not all, newspapers and real news outlets (I do not include propaganda operations like Brietbart or the World Net Daily) took Trump to task daily for his offensive statements and bald-faced lies. The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale, fresh from covering the human dumpster fire that was Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, filed a daily list of falsehoods uttered by Trump (I think the record was 31 in one day) and yet voters who wanted their ignorant prejudices confirmed lapped up his every word like manna from troll heaven. The entire GOP platform for several years now has mostly consisted of whatever they think will piss off imaginary "liberals,"  Trump just got rid of any actual policies and replaced them with "Trust me, I will have the best policies. The best! Believe me!" No one cared that he lied constantly. Some even considered it a plus. Thousands of man-hours and barrels of ink were expended in an effort to make sure everyone knew Trump was a lying sack of crap but in the end, no one cared. The GOP, as is their way, did their best to suppress the vote, but they needn't have bothered really -- only a little more than half of the roughly 200 million American registered to vote bothered to cast a ballot, and Trump got about 60 million votes.

Newspapers are just not influential any more. Every major newspaper in the United States endorsed Hilary Clinton. The only "newspaper" that endorsed Donald Trump was The Crusader, the house organ of the Klu Klux Klan.

 How do you explain that to a journalism class without handing out job applications for McDonalds at the same time?

Thirty years of trying to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable and where has it gotten us?

Is it too late to get one of those sweet telephone sanitizer gigs or get into the exciting world of couch insurance?

Tweet

Which side are you on?

I know which side I'm on.
Click below to help a good man fight the good fight.


Tweet

Canadian Sniper (American Sniper Parody)

Just in time for the Oscars!

A uniform does not a hero make

Ignore the dust and cobwebs in the corners of the blog, it has been a long time since I've spent much time around here and obviously the whole place needs to be stripped to the wall studs and rebuilt, but that is a project for another night.
No, tonight I want to tug on your coat sleeve about something else. A bunch of related something elses that all connect to an issue that has been bugging me for a long time that seems to be getting more and more out of hand in North America and by extension the rest of the Western world.
It's time we talk about the troops.
The precious, precious troops.
Now, let me be crystal clear: I am not actually talking about actual members of our actual armed forces. By and large, they sign up to do a shitty, often dangerous, usually frustrating and absolutely necessary job that no one else generally wants to do, and I thank them for it. I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about The Troops.
You know, the ones that we must all support by tying ribbons around anything that will hold still long enough. The ones we were supposed to wear red on Fridays to show our support for.  The ones every sports team feels obliged to salute with light shows, colour guards and camouflage team uniforms. The ones we are accused of not supporting if we question the orders they have been given by our idiotic leaders.
The ones who are obviously going to feel so betrayed that they won't be able to aim their weapons for the tears if we don't all march in lockstep, trumpeting our enthusiastic admiration for them every single minute.
Not the ones we refuse to pay a living wage. Not the ones we are nickel and diming to death by letting successive governments screw up equipment procurement until they are riding to war in jets and helicopters and ship and submarines and vehicles that are well past their best-before date while we cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy.
Not the ones who aren't in combat in Iraq because the government say they aren't, despite regularly engaging in firefights with the enemy and flying sortie after sortie over hostile territory to drop bombs.
No, I'm talking about The Troops. Our glorious, brave, wonderful men and women in uniform whom our dear leader and his followers love and cherish and would never dream of mistreating or using as a political prop to show how tough he is when dealing with international terrorists or sucking up to allies or posturing in international diplomatic circles.
Not the ones who need equipment and decent pay while they are serving, or the ones who might need a pension or medical treatment or mental health counselling or a hand with getting a job and adjusting to civilian life. Not those very real people who fought and spilled their blood in foreign lands and came back damaged and expecting to be treated with a little dignity and respect. Let them drive the extra two or three hours to one of the remaining veterans affairs offices, the government has a budget to balance.
No, I'm talking about The Troops that are so beloved by politicians. The ones that only conservatives really love. The ones we stick those magnetic ribbons on our SUVs for. Those troops.
Those marvellous manly warriors and plucky gals in their magical uniforms that transform them from people who are doing a sometimes dangerous job for crummy pay into the glorious Olympian heroes  whom we all worship (or else, you commie liberal socialist hippie! Whaddya mean you don't think we should be bombing water plants in Iraq? Don't you support the troops?)
Those Troops.
When I was a kid, you didn't hear much about The Troops except on Nov. 11 and every now and then when the Canadian Forces went on a peacekeeping mission - something we do seem to do anymore, since the government decided peacekeeping didn't make them look tough enough or some damn thing.
Back in the 70s and 80s, Canadians didn't feel the need to wave the flag quite so much. We'd brag about how we could wear it on our backpacks anywhere in the world. That was a great trick, because then no one would think we were Americans. And you know what those people are like. No, we were positively smug about not wrapping ourselves in the flag and beating our chests. Every once in while, you'd see a think piece in the Globe and Mail asking why Canadians weren't more openly patriotic, why we didn't wave the flag wide and high like our neighbours to the south. Usually the writer would come to one of two conclusions: either we were really insecure about our national identity and therefore not comfortable strutting around in public waving our still fairly new flag and by the way what is our national identity anyways?; or that we really were patriotic and proud of our country in quiet typically Canadian way, but not so insecure about it that we needed to paint a flag on everything in sight and run around chanting about how we were No. 1 all the time like some people.
Those Remembrance Days back then were all about aging vets from First and Second World Wars and Korea. They were somber occasions with small ceremonies at schools and cenotaphs, not grand national pagents of nationalistic fervour and warrior worship. We didn't talk about how we kicked the Kaiser's ass at Vimy Ridge or opened a can of whup-ass on the Nazis at Monte Casino. We mostly were told -- by the guys who had been there -- that war was a terrible, terrible thing and we shouldn't have them anymore.

Sometime in the late 80s and early 90s this started to change and a large segment of the Canadian population got seduced by aggressive flag-waving, chest-beating nationalism. Maybe it had something to do with the huge flag at the "My Canada Includes Quebec" rally in Montreal before the last referendum, maybe it was the need to top last year's Parliament Hill Canada Day show -- I don't know -- but the fact is, in the last 20 years we have gone from quiet true patriot hearts to loudmouthed, flag-waving, jingoistic nitwits with a maple leaf fetish.

Part and parcel of that has been this growing admiration for The Troops, until it has become non-stop wall-to-wall insistence that we must all worship anyone in a uniform.

It has been building for years, but especially since 9/11, no one in the public eye would ever dare suggest that any police officer -- from Dick Tracey to Barney Fife to Harvey Keitel's bad lieutenant -- is anything less than a paragon of virtue, justice and wisdom as well as a warrior badass who is the only reason we haven't all been murdered in our beds.
Ever since 9/11, no one would ever dare publicly refer to a firefighter -- from the most gung-ho well trained professional to the most inept small-town volunteer -- as anything other than a bona fide Hero.

They have become part of The Troops.

Don't get me wrong, police officers and firefighters (and paramedics and emergency room nurses and snowplow drivers and utilities workers and so many others), like soldiers and sailors and airmen (and airwomen? not sure of the terminology here), sign up to do a shitty, often dangerous, usually frustrating and absolutely necessary job that no one else wants to do and I thank them for it.
But again, I'm not talking about the actual humans who do these vital jobs, I'm talking about the secular totems that the government invokes whenever they need to bathe in some radiated glory.
I'm not talking about the "bad apples," the bullies who hide behind their badge and abuse their power  and beat and arrest honest citizens just because they can (only filthy pinko hippies ever mention them), who cut corners because they can't be bothered to do their job right. I'm not talking about the unionized featherbedderss who hide behind seniority and the indispensable nature of the services they provide to charge the taxpayer all the traffic will bear while putting in minimal effort and working a second job.
I'm not talking about them because they are as common as the genuine honest-to-god heroes are.
I'm not talking about the reality, about flawed humans who mostly do the best they can in awful situations and sometime rise above to do heroic things, but just as often fail with the best of intentions. I'm not talking about the people in uniforms who do the best they can with the few resources they have left after all the endless cost-cutting and layoff to improve efficiency and ensure value for tax dollars.

No, I'm talking about THE TROOPS! Who we must all admire as loudly and as often as possible in the most hyperbolic terms we can muster, because it keeps us from thinking of them as people who are just like you and me.
People who bleed. People who make mistakes. People who might fail. People who might be as flawed as the rest of us. People who we shouldn't be sending into harm's way just to look tough at the next G20 or NATO conference.

THE TROOPS are imaginary. They are a bullshit construct the right has pulled out of the memory hole of the 1940 to use as cudgel anytime anyone disagrees with their creepy authoritarianism. Question why a cop can gun down a teenager who his hands up or why a cop who chokes a man to death or why dozens of cops who needless beat or maced people at peaceful demonstration and suddenly you are accused of hating all cops everywhere.  People in uniform are no different from you and me. They are you and me, the only difference is they volunteered. So let's spend a little less time, money and effort telling each other how great they are and little more time, money and effort taking care of them and making sure they can get their jobs done properly and weeding out the ones aren't worthy of the job and the uniform.



Stop the blind hero worship and prosecute bad cops and war criminals. Stop balancing the budget on the backs of people who are trying to provide essential services. Provide them with the ships and jets and helicopters and search and rescue planes and submarines and basic kit and coworkers they need and pay them a living wage. Live up to our end of the bargain and give them proper pensions and the best physical and mental health care available. Stop excusing lapses in behaviour or performance that would be prosecuted in other fields and stop badmouthing the public servants who don't subscribe to your party's politics. Take these heroes off the pedestal and start treating them like human beings.










Tweet

funerals and politics

RIP RCMP Constable David Wynn

Constable Wynn was murdered while performing his duties as a sworn officer of the law and by all accounts was a pretty good guy who leaves behind a wife and children who will never see him again. He was a former paramedic who joined the Mounties and did a nasty, occasionally dangerous, often thankless, probably often frustrating job that the vast majority of us would not care to do and for that he is owed our gratitude. We mourn his passing and grieve for his loss and sympathize with his family.

I got into a bit of a discussion on Twitter tonight about the supposed politicization of Wynn's funeral by the prime minister and it may shock you to see me defend him, at least in part.   I don't think Stephen Harper politicized this funeral any more than any other. I emphatically do not wish to politicize Wynn's death. It is tragic and has little or nothing to do with political issues in Canada. I hope his family can be left to mourn without having to make any pronouncements on public policy or electoral politics.

Wynn was investigating a stolen vehicle when he walked into the wrong place at the wrong time and paid for it with his life. That can happen to police officers and no amount of training, equipment, backup or draconian throw-away-the-keys legal code will ever change that.

Unfortunately to my mind, we have reached the point in our culture where the death of any uniformed public servant requires politicians to respond. Wynn's funeral was attended by both the Prime Minister and the Premier of Alberta along with thousands of police officers from across the Canada and around the world. Such funerals get bigger and bigger as we attach more and more moral superiority to police officers. Wynn was murdered in the line of duty, but even funerals for police officers killed in traffic accidents bring out other officers en masse in a show of solidarity, which is in many ways admirable.

I am, however concerned about the question of politicization. The prime minister and the premier are important people, yes, but the prime minister is not the head of state, nor is the premier the highest official in Alberta. (Where the hell were the Governor General and Lt. Governor?) They attend either out of a sense of sincere solidarity or at the very least to show the voters how much they support law enforcement. The former does not require them to do anything but attend, the latter usually means speeches and crass politicking. To complain publicly about their presence at such an event in the absence of such speeches or politicking is rather like protesting the funeral of a soldier killed in combat because you oppose the war. In such a case, I emphatically do not condemn opposition to war, but I question the appropriateness of the time and place of the protest.

If such speeches are made, if politicians do what they do and try to curry favour by their presence, let them. Let the family mourn. Let the funeral proceed without any further distractions. I would compare it to having an estranged family member or ex-spouse or lover suddenly show up at the funeral of a loved one. Especially if they feel compelled to give their own eulogy about how the deceased wronged them. For me, it is simply pragmatic good manners not to raise a fuss there and then, not to scream and shout and make their unwelcome appearance the one thing that everyone remembers from the funeral. At the same time, there is every reason to show up at the unwelcome party's doorstep the next day and give them all the shit imaginable.

For political reasons, Stephen Harper and Jim Prentice had to attend Wynn's funeral. Their base, and probably their opponents, would never let them forget it if they hadn't. Whether they would have attended if they were not in politics is another, more personal question none of us can answer for them. That said, I do not think that they politicize the event by their simple presence. Whether they deserve to be vilified for their actions the next day depends on their actions. (though given the CPC's track record of issuing a plea for funds to help the Prime Minister fight the evil Muslim terrorists who would murder us all in our beds only hours after the Charlie Hebdo office attacks, one might just wonder about the purity of their motives in such a situation). The coverage I have seen has been limited and none of it mentioned speeches by either politician or any role played by them other than attending the funeral. Whether they attempt to make political hay out of it after the fact remains to be seen, though I have seen enough of this prime minister to have little doubt that he would gladly load Constable Wynn's corpse onto his political bandwagon and parade it through the land if he thought it would get him more than a handful of votes. I hope he proves me wrong, it would be a nice change.






Tweet

a self-fulfilling paranoia

We are told again and again by various right-wing fantasists and push-button death machine fetishists that the oppressive near-fascist-marxist-Islamist-Freemasonist dark-complexioned devil in their White House will be sending out his jackbooted-New Black Panther Party-hoodie wearing-thugs to pollute our precious bodily fluids with fluoride seize everyone's precious, precious constitutionally-protected guns. Probably from their cold, dead hands, even. And so to stick it to The Man and show the world just how very small their penises are  brave and patriotic they are and that the Black Man in the White House is not the boss of them, these 'responsible gun-owners' have decided to show up at gun-control rallies and fast-food restaurants and coffee shops armed to the teeth. Not with the intention to intimidate anyone, heavens no! They are just exercising their God-given constitutional rights as Americans!

Now, you might think I have a problem with this kind of behaviour, but you'd be wrong. Thinking in terms of the long game, I think it is terrific that these ignorant redneck weapons fetishists brave souls are taking their AK-47s to Starbucks. Because sooner or later, one of these assault-rilfe toting nitwits  is going sufficiently startle the wrong 7-11 clerk or run into the wrong armed mall cop or armoured-car guard and shots will be fired. And then there will be a massive armed response from North America's over-militarized police and a whole bunch of people are going to get dead. And then maybe, just maybe the gun people will start realize they don't need to go around armed to the teeth all the time.......or they will decide that the great second civil war of patriotic citizens against the oppressive socialist government that wants to give all their hard earned money to the moocher class is finally at hand and take up arms against The Man, at which point the U.S. Army will pretty much wipe them out, so y'know...win/win.

Tweet

The Mary Tyler Moore Show S06E07 Chuckles Bites the Dust

I think I can say with confidence that you can still get a laugh out of anyone in my family by singing " A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer, down your pants"

Father's Day

Free Speech

further brilliance available at http://xkcd.com

Tweet

rob ford is sorry

Tweet

I didn't want to watch this

"Dum, dum dee dum, - yawn- kids are off to bed after watching Bringing up Baby and Casablanca with the old man, I've poured myself a nice gimlet. I wonder what's on TV at 11:30 on a Friday night? Anything fun, or should I watch another old movie. Hmmm, TCM's has William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Libelled Lady, nah, what else is on? "Cold Justice?" that sounds familiar, why do I know that program's name?…..OH SHIT!







Mary Ann Holmes was my cousin. We were about the same age. We didn't see each other very often, but we did sorta connect with each other and she was dear to me. I hadn't seen her since before her daughters were born, but I knew she had children. The last time I saw her, I think she had just moved to Arizona. She was from Chicago. My best memories of her are of dancing together all night at a family wedding when we were about 12 and a visit she made to may parents place in Ancaster one summer. I think I was in university at the time but I remember it was summer and after a week of her being there we finally got to have a proper conversation. I think it was the next night we went out to the Gaslight in Hamilton and I blew harp at an open mic run by King Biscuit Boy. As a Chicago girl, Mary Ann was pleasantly surprised to see Hamilton had a blues scene too.  She went through a lot of shit as a teen and her parents divorce and subsequent family politics were kinda rough on her. She got put into rehab at one point, though she told me it was a joke and unnecessary. She was quick and funny and prettier than she thought she was. I miss her and regret never meeting her girls.  I suppose I'm a little afraid to meet them. "Hi, nice to meet you, I really liked your mom, so very very sorry I couldn't stop them from murdering her in front of you when you were four!"    I know that is not logical, but still….
I knew they were doing this show. I had hoped to miss it for reasons I hope are obvious. Now I want to move to Arizona  and hunt down some motherfuckers. Hell of a thing to find while channel-surfing.



Tweet

the triangle

Not exactly juggling, but somewhere in the neighbourhood. Some people have trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time. I suspect this guy can walk, chew gum and do differential calculus while playing multiple games of chess in his head at the same time.


Tweet