Hipster music fail

So I'm watching Saturday Night Live for the first time in ages and Ben Stiller, whom I generally enjoy, is doing an admirable job as host and I'm enjoying the Zoolander  gags and Weekend Update is pretty good and then the musical guest comes on. A band called Foster the People.  And I'm thinking, meh, a bunch of skinny white dudes in sorta asymetrical haircuts that look like they have very carefully cultivated the suburban casual milqtoast nerd-chic look. Guitar, bass, a couple of  eighties-sounding keyboards, in fact they have a very retro-new wave kinda sound,  very dense wash of echo-y repetitive riffs with incomprehensible lyrics sung in a slightly over-theatrical way. Not my cup of tea, but hey, I'm an old fart now and maybe this is what the kids are into when they aren't playing Xbox and wondering if we really have always been at war with Afghanistan. The band has a certain angsty, Human League, Radiohead kinda charm in a pretentious way. Then I notice the horn section is mic'ed and that they appear to be miming a keyboard line, hmmmmmm. Then I hear it, that high pitched honking whine of a soprano or maybe alto sax. The camera pans back and there he is, the biggest selling instrumental artist of the modern era, which is to say of all time - Kenneth Bruce Gorelick.
No, he has not been added as an ironical sampled aside to give the band ironical hipster cred, he is there, on stage blowing a smooth jazz solo that immediately makes me wonder if I have enough scented candles in the house? why do I suddenly want a mayonaise and wonderbread sandwich and a glass of luke-warm near-beer? Is my favorite colour taupe or beige? which floor of this office tower the accounting department is on and hey, how did I get in this elevator any way?
What the hell is this? Was Chuck Mangione all booked up? This stuff makes Ray Coniff and look edgy and hardcore.
That whirring sound I can hear is probably John Coltrane spinning in his grave.
Foster the People - the stench of boring suckitude is upon you!
Repent, and do an album of Sly and the Family Stone covers with Bootsy Collins before it is too late for you to be saved!
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Election Predictions

The polls close in a about 40 minutes. I'm betting on a slim Liberal majority or minority and a surge for the NDP.

My two bets in the office pool:

Libs 56
PC 30
NDP 21

OR if Tim Hudak's hateful campaign of wrong-head libertarianism, xenophobia and homophobia, backed up by as much help as the Harper cabinet could throw his way resonates with the remaining Rob Ford fans in the 905 belt

Libs 50
PC 37
NDP 20

Either way, I think we can expect another four years of Premier Dad, which, while he isn't my first choice either locally or provincially, won't be that bad. At least not when one considers the Mini-Mike Harris alternative we thought we were facing at the start of the campaign.

Credit where credit is due dept.-- the National Toast has a good graphic on which industries give how much to which parties.

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saving summer in a jar

We took my visiting in-laws to the farmers market last week and bought a bushel of sweet red peppers. My mother-in-law couldn't figure what the heck I was going to do with them all or how we could eat a whole bushel before they spoiled. Fortunately, I had a clever plan.

wash them

roast them

give the peppers as much heat as the grill will muster and turn often until they get black on the outside, then take a sharp knife and scrape off the blacken outer skin (some people pop them into a paper bag straight off the fire to make this easier) scrap off the pips and cut the peppers into strips. Try not to eat too many. They will be candy sweet at this point, so that is harder than it sounds. About a quarter of ours magically vanished before the final step.

sterilize the jars and lids, pack the peppers in with a couple of cloves of garlic and enough olive oil to top up the jar. Put the filled jars in boiling water for about five or ten minutes, then remove and tighten the lids. As they cool, they will seal

Viola, summer in a jar.

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Dick

 Poor, poor Dick Cheney. He feels he has been grievously wronged and is waiting for an apology. How dare the uppity Keyan Muslim socialist usurper suggest that President Cheney and his fatuous meatpuppet Dubya (who is either too drunk to be allowed in public by his keepers or may actually have enough brains to keep his fool mouth shut since leaving office) overreacted to the events of Sept. 11, 2001!
Just because Dick Cheney and his pals murdered a couple of hundred thousand people in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, a country that the United States continues to occupy and will for the foreseeable future. Just because Dick Cheney and his pals embraced torture, made people disappear into secret prisons, practiced assassination, suspended habeas corpus and generally wiped their asses with the Constitution all in the name of security,
Just because Dick Cheney and his pals played on the fears of the traumatized American public to empty the U.S. treasury for the enrichment of their friends in the oil and security industries.
Just because Dick Cheney and his pals, for their own political advantage, engendered a climate of fear and elevated the domestic security forces to the point where every tiny one horse town now has have its own SWAT team and armoured car, police feel free to mace peaceful protesters and taser children, and fighter jets are scrambled because someone swarthy spend a few too many minutes in the airplane's toilet or happens to mutter to themselves in a language other than american.
Just because Dick Cheney and his pals shrieked "traitor"  and evoked the holy martyrs of 9/11 (the most important, specialest and utterly innocent people to have died at any point in history, not like those sneaky dirty throngs of African kids who starve to death every day or those terrorist Palestinian kids whose schools and homes the Israelis keep blowing up)  any time anyone even expressed the mildest of doubts about anything the administration did from tapping everyone's phone to cutting taxes for millionaires.
Just because of all the blood Dick Cheney spilled, the treasure he squandered and stole and the myriad horrors he ordered inflicted, Barack Obama had the unmitigated gall to say the Cheney administration overreacted to 9/11 and now Dick Cheney is waiting for an apology.
As far as I'm concerned he should get one, just as soon as he personally apologizes, face to face, one at a time to every single person left alive in Iraq. Just as soon as he apologizes to Valerie Plame and about 300 million other americans - I imagine the guy he shot in the face would at least like to hear an "oops, my bad" - for the various ways he has screwed them and made their country a worse place.
After he gets done making all those apologies, then I think Obama should apologize to Cheney and clarify his remarks......... preferrably while testifying at Cheney's trial at The Hague.

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Truth will out eventually

They've tried sandbagging the parliamentary committees involved, they've tried smearing the witnesses, they've tried wrapping themselves in the flag and "our brave men and women in uniform" - they've even tried shutting down Parliament. But the government's complicity in and attempts to cover- up the torture of detainees in Afghanistan is not going to go away. 

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Sad, but true

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What's good for the goose is apparently criminal defamation to the gander

Apparently it is okay for neofascist dingbats to smear the reputation of a respected academic, trade unionist and blogger by spreading lies about him being a supporter of the Taliban,  but if you say mean things about a police spies and agent provocatuers, well....

Activist charged with criminal defamation over posting about undercover officers

Police officers linked to last year’s G20 summit say a Kitchener activist defamed two undercover police officers in comments he made on a local university-based website.
Dan Kellar, 29, was recently charged with two counts of defamatory libel by officers in the OPP anti-rackets squad as he left his Kitchener home on a bicycle.
He was also charged with counsel to assault one of the officers.
Police allege he published comments likely to injure the reputation of the officers by exposing them to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or that were designed to insult the officers.
Kellar and his lawyer, Davin Charney, say the charges are an attempt to stifle dissent.
“Dissent is now a criminal activity,’’ said Kellar, a member of Anti-War at Laurier (AW@L), which calls itself “a community-based radical direct-action group committed to solidarity and anti-oppressive organizing.’’
Criminal defamation is a rarely used section of the criminal code, Charney said.
“It gives police the ability to criminalize and charge people who are criticizing the police,’’ he said.
Sgt. Pierre Chamberland, a communications spokesperson for the OPP, acknowledged the charge of criminal defamation isn’t commonly laid.
“It’s not a charge I hear used every day,’’ he said. “However, I suspect people will need to understand they own the words they post publicly.’’

 Click the headline and read the whole thing. The police spies who infiltrated the activist group were outed at some other site months ago. These charges have been laid simply because Dan Kellar said something rude about the undercover cops involved. He invited people to "spit in their footsteps and scoff at their existence" and I guess the big, brave infiltrators got their feeling hurt, because that statement drew a "cousel to assault" charge. Does that mean that if I scoff at the existence of these people I am guilty of assault? I guess they better lock up all the right-wingnut bloggers who told us that the police never use agent provocateurs or infiltrate non-violent groups.

Oh, and that respected academic, trade unionist, blogger and bon vivant, the inimitable Dr. Dawg has more

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the terrorists won

Apparently all it takes is an airline passenger eating a dodgy burrito before the flight or a couple joining the mile-high club to make NORAD shit its pants. Given what it costs to scramble an F-16 and have it fly from Denver to New York, al-Quaida could probably bankrupt the United States by slipping some Ex-Lax into the coffee urn at the Starbucks at O'Hare Airport every couple of weeks.
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Enter early and often!

The Toronto Library Worker's Union is sponsoring a contest to show how much people love the library after braying philistine Doug "Tweedledum" Ford suggested close a bunch of them or even selling them off to the private sector because he wasn't sure who this Margaret Atwood person was and anyways the money would be better spent on luring a new NFL franchise to town or some such crap. The first prize in the contest is "quality time" with Margaret Atwood or Michael Ondaatje or one of several other authors.
Now, the Toronto Star tells us that a conservative group has started a similar contest. Entrants have to write an essay or make a video explaining why lower taxes would be good for Toronto. First prize is a lunch date with Doug Ford or Sun typist and failed political candidate Sue Ann Levy. While a quick look at the Mayor's brother tells you that he knows his food, I'm not sure if hot wings and barley sammiches at the Etobicoke Hooters will be to everyone's taste. Mind you, I suppose it would be a step up from whatever Sue Ann managed to catch and kill on the way to work that morning. (if you think I'm linking to either of these dingbats, forget it. I'd sooner canoodle with Crusty Blatchford.)  The contest is here.
I would encourage all of you to enter. I'm going to suggest to them lower taxes would be better for Toronto because then there wouldn't be enough money for the government to spend on baton charges against crowds singing O Canada or sending police to harrass and jail people for peacefully protesting or kettling and arresting people who happen to live near where a peaceful demonstration took place. Not only that but lower taxes in Toronto would also mean less money to provide services and shelters for homeless people, so the government could just take the cheaper option of giving them busfare from downtown out to North York and Etobicoke to panhandle where the people with money live. These suggestions may not win me that first prize lunch , but you never know.
I'm guessing second prize is two lunch dates.
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Attention Inigo Montoya

Sorry to hear about your father, but as a matter of fact, I have seen a six fingered man

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RIP Jack Layton

Dear Friends,


Tens of thousands of Canadians have written to me in recent weeks to wish me well. I want to thank each and every one of you for your thoughtful, inspiring and often beautiful notes, cards and gifts. Your spirit and love have lit up my home, my spirit, and my determination.

Unfortunately my treatment has not worked out as I hoped. So I am giving this letter to my partner Olivia to share with you in the circumstance in which I cannot continue.

I recommend that Hull-Aylmer MP Nycole Turmel continue her work as our interim leader until a permanent successor is elected.

I recommend the party hold a leadership vote as early as possible in the New Year, on approximately the same timelines as in 2003, so that our new leader has ample time to reconsolidate our team, renew our party and our program, and move forward towards the next election.

A few additional thoughts:

To other Canadians who are on journeys to defeat cancer and to live their lives, I say this: please don’t be discouraged that my own journey hasn’t gone as well as I had hoped. You must not lose your own hope. Treatments and therapies have never been better in the face of this disease. You have every reason to be optimistic, determined, and focused on the future. My only other advice is to cherish every moment with those you love at every stage of your journey, as I have done this summer.

To the members of my party: we’ve done remarkable things together in the past eight years. It has been a privilege to lead the New Democratic Party and I am most grateful for your confidence, your support, and the endless hours of volunteer commitment you have devoted to our cause. There will be those who will try to persuade you to give up our cause. But that cause is much bigger than any one leader. Answer them by recommitting with energy and determination to our work. Remember our proud history of social justice, universal health care, public pensions and making sure no one is left behind. Let’s continue to move forward. Let’s demonstrate in everything we do in the four years before us that we are ready to serve our beloved Canada as its next government.

To the members of our parliamentary caucus: I have been privileged to work with each and every one of you. Our caucus meetings were always the highlight of my week. It has been my role to ask a great deal from you. And now I am going to do so again. Canadians will be closely watching you in the months to come. Colleagues, I know you will make the tens of thousands of members of our party proud of you by demonstrating the same seamless teamwork and solidarity that has earned us the confidence of millions of Canadians in the recent election.

To my fellow Quebecers: On May 2nd, you made an historic decision. You decided that the way to replace Canada’s Conservative federal government with something better was by working together in partnership with progressive-minded Canadians across the country. You made the right decision then; it is still the right decision today; and it will be the right decision right through to the next election, when we will succeed, together. You have elected a superb team of New Democrats to Parliament. They are going to be doing remarkable things in the years to come to make this country better for us all.

To young Canadians: All my life I have worked to make things better. Hope and optimism have defined my political career, and I continue to be hopeful and optimistic about Canada. Young people have been a great source of inspiration for me. I have met and talked with so many of you about your dreams, your frustrations, and your ideas for change. More and more, you are engaging in politics because you want to change things for the better. Many of you have placed your trust in our party. As my time in political life draws to a close I want to share with you my belief in your power to change this country and this world. There are great challenges before you, from the overwhelming nature of climate change to the unfairness of an economy that excludes so many from our collective wealth, and the changes necessary to build a more inclusive and generous Canada. I believe in you. Your energy, your vision, your passion for justice are exactly what this country needs today. You need to be at the heart of our economy, our political life, and our plans for the present and the future.

And finally, to all Canadians: Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

All my very best,
Jack Layton




"Courage my friends, it's not too late to build a better world"
-Tommy Douglas









"Canadian politics just got a little smaller, colder and dumber."

-Lindsay Stewart






Jack Layton was a man ahead of his time, he will be missed. Canadian politics just got a whole lot less hopeful.


Meanwhile, some of those on the right show what a class act they are and have always been
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Mammoliti will protect our precious bodily fluids

Toronto city councillor George "Giorgio" Mammoliti (he changed his name in 2002 from English to Italian to better reflect his desire to suck up to immigrant voters in his ward Italian heritage) has apparently finally made the full journey from populist leftist to card-carrying member of Monster Raving Looney Party conservative firebrand. How short is the collective memory of Torontonians? Apparently just as short as Mammoliti's own. With all his recent ranting about Communist flouridation contaminating our precious bodily fluids infiltration of his facebook page and Toronto City Council, and record as a self-agrandizing right-wing sideshow clown firebrand on council, it is worth looking at his slow gradual descent into lunacy shift in politics.
George started out as a landscaper for the Toronto Public Housing Authority, became active in his union and eventually became president of his CUPE local. From there he rode the Bob Rae wave into government at Queen's Park as an NDP MPP. At Queen's Park, he frequently embarrassed his government with his tirades against legitimizing same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples. When the Rae government crashed and burned in 1995 - largely due to the constant refusal of the business community to accept the legitimacy of the NDP government and a huge backlash among public sector union members -- the backbone of the Ontario NDP at the time -- over cost-saving efforts that violated union contracts, Mammoliti moved on to municipal politics. He switched his loyalty to the Liberal Party and ran and won in the byelection to replace the city councillor who had replaced him as MPP.
On council his accomplishments have been many - he is chiefly know for his efforts to bring an NHL team to North York, establish a red light district on Toronto Island, erect a "historic" flagpole in his ward and launching a lawsuit against fellow "right-wing firebrand" Rob Ford after Ford called him "Gino-boy" and clashing repeatedly with Ford over his office budget. He declared his candidacy for mayor and even had his son poised to run against Ford's brother until the two decided that the city needed to have only one right-wing firebrand running for mayor. Since the election he has been Ford's most steadfast defender on council, calling all those who questioned the city government's efforts to slash programs and spending "communists" -- a bit rich for someone who has never worked in the private sector and suckled at the public teat his entire adult life brave words from a warrior who is apparently surrounded by bolsheviks.
Mammoliti is not smart enough to know when he has become a walking punchline backing down:

From Friday's Mop & Pail

Even after wide criticism of his anti-Communist rants, Mr. Mammoliti is holding firm to his view that a red scourge is prevalent among Canada’s left.

“There’s an underground element that has filtered into a major party in this country,” he said of the NDP. “I’m dead serious about this.”

He said six or seven communists sit on City Council with a long-term plot of installing “a system of government where government takes over all private property and controls the thoughts and views of people.”

In the 1980s, Mr. Mammoliti served as a leader for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Later, he served as an MPP for the NDP, where he became something of a pariah for opposing same-sex benefits. He said he learned how to “smell communists” during his stint with Canada’s left.

“I know some of my views are outside the box,” he said. “But if people hear councillors in hallways talking about Fidel Castro and what a hero he was, they would be just as concerned.”

Well, they say in a democracy, people get the government they deserve. Congratulations Torontonians, you must be so proud! 


Bonus: Councillor Mammoliti reveals communist plot!








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Somebody get Mike Wallace to look into this

We eat a lot of instant ramen noodles here at the Woodshed. I wish to the FSM they would stop calling these little packets of instant noodles "ramen" since they bear little or no resemblance to the wonderful steaming bowls of marvellous broth piled high with pork and vegetables and fresh-made noodles that I miss so much from Japan. 

While shopping the other day, a thought occured to me. These noodles always come with a little packet of powdered soup mix and there are various flavours. The beef, while it contains no actual meat, is supposed to taste like the meat of a cow. The chicken is flavoured to taste like like broth made from boiling pieces and bones of chicken, the pork tastes like pork, the shrimp tastes like shrimp, the vegetable tastes like broth made from vegetables. Simple, right?

So exactly how do you explain this?

Could it be?

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Anarchy in the U.K.

Some thoughts and links on the riots across England:

• Not everyone in London is either a rioting, firebomb-throwing yob looter or an authoritarian "send-in-the-army" wannabe aristocrat. Some of them are good community minded people. Let hope these people get as much credit as they deserve.
• Sometimes you find insightful analysis in the most unlikely places.
• Not everyone was terribly surprised by this turn of events, indeed the causes have been evident for some time.
• A blogger's-eye view from the city as it burns and some thoughts on why from Red Penny. This bit in particular caught my eye: 

"Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything: 

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’

Everyone will quite rightfully decry the violence, looting and mayhem washing over the U.K., and they are right to be shocked. But anyone who is surprised that there is suddenly social unrest in a developed country in which the disparities in wealth distribution and opportunities have  been steadily growing while youth culture has become centered around consumerism, heavy binge drinking and enforced idleness among vast swathes the underclass, where the moral authority of the police has been steadily eroded by the constant drip of corruption, racism, brutality and abuse of power, where the wealthy political class has coddled the upper middle class and thrown the rest of the population to the dogs --- anyone who is surprised simply hasn't been paying attention.

crossposted to the Galloping Beaver

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Sometimes they just make this too easy

 

Yesterday, the Toronto Sun asked readers to suggest three "quick fix" ideas for things that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford could do right away to make Toronto a better city. Well, they asked...

I think the fastest way for Rob Ford to improve the city of Toronto would be for him to:

1. Move to Calgary.

2. Take his idiot brother with him.

3. Before he leaves, send Giorgio Mammoliti on a five year fact-finding mission to the South Pole.

By the way your worship, how's that promise not to cut services working out for ya?

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Pompous and wrong as always

 Shorter Conrad Black: A gentleman such as oneself is apt to miss the comforts of the fairer sex when unjustly incarcerated by one's inferiors and one's good lady wife declines to pay a conjugal visit citing the discomforts of the unfashionable accomodations of the Bastille's prefabricated structure reserved for such assignations. In such circumstances, one's earthly desires must be satiated in the mind's eye as it soars over these dingy walls on the wings of imagination. An indispensible aid in just such periods of need are the images gracing the covers of  the very latest volumes by those mischevious coquettes of conservatism, Ann  Coulter and Laura Ingraham. Lo, as my co-incarcerated brethern in the yard might brutishly put it: Verily, would I tap tap that!

Sure, he may have been thrown out of the House of Lords for his various crimes, just as he was thrown out of Upper Canada College for stealing exams as a boy, but Lord Tubby of Fleet Street continues to demonstrate that as King of the Douchebags, he is still one of the world's true aristocrats.

And you know how I feel about aristocrats...

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Help Japan and support your local bookstore

2:46 aka #Quakebook has finally hit the shelves in bookstores around the world, and is selling well.
All the proceeds go to the Japan Red Cross for earthquake relief work - which  four months after the massive quake and tsunami is still going on. So far Our Man in Abiko's project has raised more than $40,000 for the Japan Red Cross.
Sure you could get it as an ebook for free, if you were the kind of douchebag who'd steal the coins out of a blind beggar's cup, but you could redeem yourself for getting a free download by making a nice fat donation to the Red Cross or other earthquake charity of your choice.
Go buy it now.
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America's new national anthem

Not sure how the pictures connect with the music, but I look forward to hearing this played before sporting events.



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Best newspaper movies of all time

A discussion around the copy desk today- what are the best newspaper/media movies?

A short list in no particular order:

1. All the President's Men. Woodstien and Bernward eat Nixon's lunch. A movie (and book) that inspired a thousand journalism careers. Best part - its all true.
2. Citizen Kane. Often cited as the greatest movie ever made. "Dear Wheeler, You provide the prose poems, I"ll provide the war."
3. Ace in the Hole. Kirk Douglas as the worst of the dark side of the press in Billy Wilder's other great noir. This one still stands up so well, it could have been made last week. A remake would be oscar bait for whoever got the lead."I can handle big news and little news. And if there's no news I'll go out and bite a dog."
4.Meet John Doe. Hobo ex-ballplayer Gary Cooper and spunky girl reporter vs. depression-era fascists. Like Glenn Beck if he were a good guy.
5.A Face in the Crowd. Mayberry Noir. Most would see this as a cautionary tale of hubris and abuse of power, too many talk radio hosts coughGlennBeckcoughRushLimbaughcough saw it as a career blueprint.
6. His Girl Friday. I want to be Cary Grant when I grow up.
7.The Front Page. Same movie remade by Billy Wilder. Apparently Jack Lemon wanted to be Ros Russell when he grew up. Walter Matthau plays the Cary Grant role - possibly the oddest casting ever.
8.Deadline U.S.A. - Humphrey Bogart as a crusading newspaper editor, 'nuff said.
9.Broadcast News - Albert Brooks has one of my favorite monologues in any movie ever.
10. The Paper - not a great film, but it does capture newsroom politics, newspaper rivalries and the adrenaline rush of getting the scoop.

Honorable mention: Why Rock the Boat - the great Canadian newspaper movie. Made in the 70's for about a half-million dollars, set in Montreal in the 40's. I've never seen it, but it comes highly recommended from the rest of the ink-stained wretches around the desk.
 (You Tube links to come later)
Add you own additions in the comments



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stihl bisy

But not so busy that I can"t remind you to read David Climenhaga on why Canadians need to stand on guard for thee against Rupert Murdoch.
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