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I was reading about our Governor General's recent excursion to Africa:
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Governor General of Canada Michaelle Jean touches the bars in the "room of no return," the final point in a castle where African slaves were once passed through and boarded on ships, at Elmina Castle in Ghana, Wednesday.
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when it occurred to me to ask this question of all the persecuted white male Christians on the Right in Canada and the United States:
Is it really persecution if you can complain about it on televion, in the newspapers, on the internet and in Parliament/Congress?
I mean, just recapping three big incidents of a People's persecution in no particular order - there's:
1. Slavery
2. The Holocaust
3. Reservation Schools
In all three of the above incidents of a People's persecution, I'm guessing white male Christians on the Right didn't hear a whole lot of complaining by the persecuted - the Blacks, the Jews, the Indians. You know what I mean. I wasn't there, but I doubt the Blacks, the Jews and the Indians got to do a whole lot of complaining to the media about how they were being totally, totally, totally persecuted 24/7 by white male Christians on the Right. Or in the Center. Or, yes, even on the Left.
They were persecuted and that was that - no fanfare, no bellyaching, no "This is an outrage!". There was just the big one side of persecution and that was it. There was no debate about it. You were either persecuted or you weren't. There was no questioning of your right to live a persecution-free life. Or you'd just be persecuted faster. If you know what I mean.
Now, contrast that historical factual reality so true it doesn't even need to be backed up with statistics, polls, or studies - with the ongoing complaints the survivors and descendents of the above incidents of persecution are subjected to by their fellow citizens, white male Christians on the Right, about how persecuted they are in today's multicultural feminist secular Liberal society.
Can you hear the difference? I can hear the difference. Or, at least, I can guess that I'm hearing a difference. Like I said, I wasn't around for slavery, the Holocaust, or Reservation Schools. Unless we still have Reservation Schools. I really don't know. If we do, I suggest Indians take a page from the white male Christian on the Right school of persecution and complain louder.
Anyway, since I don't want to talk about white male Christian on the Right persecution any longer than I have to - being, of course, part of the Persecution Squad perpetuating this monstrous injustice seemingly going on right out in the open in every facet of society, I just want to ask if it would be possible for all of us to just say "No!" to the persecution of white male Christians on the Right, renounce our persecuting ways, and send up a silent prayer to the one, true God asking for His forgiveness.
It's the only thing I can think to do to make amends.
And to silence, once and for all, the plaintive pleas from the television, newspapers, internet and Parliament to please, please, please "STOP PERSECUTING US! THE WHITE MALE CHRISTIANS ON THE RIGHT! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - STOP PERSECUTING US!"
We've been watching America's Next Top Model on Saturday nights at 10:00 p.m. And by we I mean me and my two teenaged daughters. My son doesn't watch with us. He plays Quake or Doom or somesuch violent video game. Unless they aren't violent. I really have no idea - I'm left-handed and can't play video games. All I know is, I'm not surprised by his lack of interest in America's Next Top Model. I once did an entire Christmas shopping for his sisters with him in tow and he had no idea that I was buying them presents. It was quite something. His interest in the stuff I was buying was so minimal that it didn't even register with him that we were shopping. He just clomped along beside me, staring off into space with his mouth hanging open until we were done. I don't know. Maybe he can't see the colour pink.
Anyway, the fun thing about the show for me this cycle (it runs in cycles - this is the first one to really grab my interest) is that there are identical twins in the running who bear an uncanny resemblance to one of my daughters - except - my daughter is prettier. Much prettier. And with a better figure. Still tall and straight. But with a figure. And, of course, if you've never watched Tyra Banks in action, well, you're missing something. Something quite clearly insane. Whether driven insane by modelling or not eating enough fat on her way to becoming a model, I don't know. And, not to be cruel, but...well... once her modelling career was over, it would appear she decided to make up for all that lost fat in her diet - pretty much full-time, too. Leaving only enough room for insanity, I guess.
But back to the models. I'm rooting for the remaining twin in the running (her sister got kicked off last week for not being ambitious enough, even though she was considered by the panel - which includes Twiggy (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Baby Spice - or is that all English women in middle-age) - to be the better model. But ambition matters, says Tyra. So off she went and now it's up to her sister to win the day. (As a closet stage mother, I'd feel vicariously victorious, you see. She must win. She WILL win. Redheads are grotesquely under-represented in the modelling world!)
Interestingly, if the remaining twin does win - she's certainly the skinniest winner on the show - ever. Hard to believe, but the winners to date haven't actually been the twigs you'd expect to have won America's Next Top Model. They've been, well, not really that alarmingly skinny.
Speaking of skinny, I'm a thin person. Trim, as it were. And I've heard myself tell other people that I'm naturally this way. Which isn't really true because when I was a teenager, I had an "athletic build". I hovered around 118 on a 5'4" frame.
Until, one day, I woke up - and I was fat.
Oh, I was still hovering around 118 on a 5'4" frame, but something had changed. For some reason, I was suddenly grotesquely... dumpy.
I started dieting. Well, dieting is what teenaged girls call it. In fact, I started fasting, binging (bingeing?), purging. I also started running. 3 miles/weeknight. 10/miles/weekend. No one in my family noticed, particularly. My Gram commented once that I'd only eaten carrots for a couple of days (although celery was my food of choice since I'd read that eating celery actually burned off more calories than it produced). But I was aware that I was "up to something" - so I was careful. I was also aware that all I thought about was food. Food combined with the not eating of it. Every bit of food not eaten was a triumph of will.
It went on throughout high school. Dieting. And thinking about food. At one point, I had my weight down to 98 lbs. That's 20 lbs less than I weigh now (I don't have a scale - I have teenaged daughters. In my opinion, having a scale and a teenaged girl in the same room is like keeping a hunting rifle under your teenaged son's bed - not smart because they'll use it. I just go by my annual check-up weight as told to me by my doctor.) And I'm slim. With muscle, since I do a 40 minute walk to work every morning, have a dog, and don't own a car. Yup. In high school I weighed 98 lbs. and was pretty much thinking about food all the time. All day. Every day. Food.
And see? I'm still doing it. "40 minute walk to work every morning, have a dog, and don't own a car". Keeping watch. Making sure I don't take up much room. And I don't mean that in a humble way. I mean that in a superiour way. Because the buzz about anorexia is that it's a good girl thing. Perfectionist girl vs demanding parents and sexist society. It can be any of those things, I suppose. But I don't buy it, personally. Here's what it is to me: It's a switch. A switch that goes on in a girl's head one day. Randomly. If she's lucky, a while later, it goes off again. But it's just as randomly. Or maybe she goes out to the bars on her 18th birthday and discovers a new obsession.
I know, I know. But who to blame? Somebody's got to take the rap for this mind-boggling affliction. Well, I once watched in horror as my Mother-in-Law said to my 17 year old Sister-in-Law one morning, "Oh, look who's wearing her fat clothes!" I say "in horror" because I'd forgotten that all the media blather about anorexia is meaningless drivel and that my Mother-in-Law saying, "Oh, look who's wearing her fat clothes!" would no more trigger anorexia in my Sister-in-Law than I can think of any one thing that had happened to me in my teenaged years that would have triggered anorexia in me.
Except waking up one morning on the side of the bed that said, "You should whittle yourself down to the size of a twig."
So, if anybody's looking - my only advice to the Moms or Dads out there worried about the prospect of an anorexic daughter (and that is pretty much EVERY Mom and Dad I know) is to just cross your fingers and whistle nursury rhymes backwards in hopes that it doesn't happen to you and yours. Because I really don't think there is much you can do about it if it does.
That's my "been there, done that" take on it, anyway.
Now that Prime Minister Stephen Harper (funny, I STILL don't think of him as Prime Minister - just some schmuck who landed the top job by default) has (for some inexplicable reason known only to him since he doesn't delegate power or share information - even within and with his own party, which is even more inexplicably - the Government of Canada), decided to same sex marry Charlottetown to Meech Lake to produce a Nation Resolution, I've noticed the Right keeps referring to all the Federalists opposing this treachery as Trudeaupians.
Oh. Really. And you call yourselves then... True Dopes?
Because, like, since when is being a Federalist inconsistent with being a Conservative, Liberal, or NDPer? Or did I miss something said by Stephen Harper on the campaign trail. A sixth promise. Something about heading off a provocation by the ridiculous Gilles Duceppe by appeasing the even more ridiculous Separatiste Mouvement first. I could have missed that promise, I guess. Although, I listened pretty carefully for indications that once Stephen Harper was elected Prime Minister he would straight away begin to enact his hidden agenda to dismantle the Country. And honestly? I do not recall him saying he would introduce a Resolution calling Quebec a Nation within Canada. I simply do not recall that.
So, I don't think he said anything of the kind. Because if he had - HE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ELECTED PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA!
But am I really surprised that Stephen Harper, Albertan, would introduce such a Resolution? No. No I am not. But I most certainly AM surprised that PARLIAMENT VOTED LAST NIGHT OVERWHELMINGLY IN FAVOUR OF IT!
My, oh my. What a treacherous group we have representing us all in Parliament these days. Traitors, really, if you stop and think about it. Spineless, weak-kneed, yellow belly sapsucking - Traitors.
But speaking of "Where Have All The Trudeaus Gone?" would the Big T be rolling over in his grave or cheering Stephen Harper on? So... that... a politician who is actually young enough and smart enough and hip enough to be in step with Canadians - including the majority of Quebeckers who have consistently voted "No" to any Separatiste Referendums put to the People of Quebec re Nationhood - will actually win the Liberal Leadership convention and give Canadian Federalists - the vast majority of Canadians - someone to vote for in the next Federal election?
Yup. I suspect the old Jesuit would be cheering on the Bumpkin. "Go ahead. Call Quebec a Nation. Make my day. Punk." Because no one played politics like Trudeau and boy - has Harper stepped in his own poopie. Cripes, stepped in it? He may as well have smeared himself in it. Here I thought Michael Ignatieff, American, had blown it with his "Nation of Quebec" musings. It is to laugh. And I'm not even a Trudeauphile. I found him to be quite hideous, really. But he articulated for voters, gave voice to us in Parliament as it were, how we feel about Federalism. Not to mention how we feel about the essential racism of Separatism. Because it is racist. The Separatiste Mouvement is a backward, racist movement that has nothing to do with the REAL People of Quebec and everything to do with a minority of Quebecois who want racial purity to be the defining feature of Quebec.
It is distinctly Un-Canadian. "Distinct" is what you smell emanating from Parliament today.
Meanwhile, for some reason, in political La-La-Land, the current crop of lesser Canadians running the country are okay with the whole "Quebec Nation" thing. A vast majority of them are okay with it, in fact. Well... newsflash, Poliboys. It's not okay with a vast majority of Canadians. And if I was one of the majority of Quebeckers who voted "No" in the last Referendum, I'd be sorely tempted to start up a Referendum asking this question of all Canadians: "Should the current Parliament be hung as Traitors to the Country of Canada and a new election held immediately?"
Gee, maybe the Americans can be useful for once and help us out with their Treason Act or Patriotism Act or whatever the hell it's called and we can get this ball rolling. Hang Parliament and start over. Except this time - you'll have to swear an allegiance to Canada when you declare a desire to run for election.
Because surely the New Conservative Government of Canada would acquiesce to such a request for a Referendum. The Old Reform Party of Canada turned CCRAP believed very strongly in Referendums. Of course, Prime Minister Harper also believed very strongly in firewalls. I mean, who, with the exception of the entire mainstream media during the last election campaign, could forget THIS letter:
Alberta Firewall Letter
In any case, if the Liberal delegates to the Convention fail to elect a Federalist leader for their Party, then I believe we can start calling ourselves, officially, "The Stupidest Country in the World".
And we have Prime Minister Stephen Harper to thank for the rest of the world nodding in agreement.
Don't fail us now. Elect an avowed Federalist or don't bother electing anyone at all. More traitors we don't need.
Okay. I'm going to start this bit off by getting a few words out of my system.
Let's see... "Poopoohead. Penisbreath. Nigger. Nigger. Nigger. Nigger. Nigger. Nigger. Nigger."
Ah. There. Hey - and don't worry if you're a Poopoohead. I'm not a REAL rascist. I'm just a blogger.
Now on to my main point:
MAIN POINT: Who the hell goes to a Michael Richards show?
I mean, isn't that a lot like going to a Germaine Jackson concert? Or founding a George Takai fan club? Or doing a thesis on Edwin Holgate? Or EVEN - no kidding - being a Joe Volpe delegate?
Really. Who are these people who would fork over hard-earned downtrodden black people money - or even just regular people money - to attend a Michael Richards show? And not to be too harsh - but, quite frankly - I think they deserved what they got. If the first rule of performance is "Know Thine Audience" (and I have no idea if that is, in fact, the first rule of performance - you'd think "Have an Act" would be the first rule of performance, now that I really stop and think about it - not that Michael Richards bothered to, I guess) - shouldn't the first rule of performance attendance be: "Know Thy Performer"?
Because, to be fair to Michael Richards, it's not like he's known for his stand-up routine. I had no idea he did stand-up. Cripes, apparently HE had no idea he did stand-up. Or he probably would have been a little more prepared for hecklers. There was even a whole Seinfeld episode about hecklers. Two, actually. There was the one episode with Kathy Griffin (who has her own website: Seinfeld Heckler) and another episode with Elaine's obnoxious co-worker whom Sienfeld decides to turn the tables on by going down to her workplace to heckle HER at work.
What - Michael Richards doesn't watch Seinfeld? Cripes, he was dating the heckler in that episode. He should have known, at the very least, how to handle a real life one - one that he wasn't even dating. Thanks to Jerry Seinfeld - we all know how to handle a heckler now. You find out where he works and show up the next day to heckle him until he cries. Tit for tat. You DON'T shout "Nigger!" at him - especially if he's a BLACK heckler. No. No. No. That is in the "What NOT To Do!" column. There is NO Seinfeld episode where Jerry Seinfeld shouts "Nigger!" at a heckler.
Heck - can you imagine a Seinfeld episode with Jerry Seinfeld (who doesn't even swear in his act, ferchrissakes, which is why his start was opening for our very own probably by now "Snowbird" - Anne Murray) shouting "Nigger!" over and over and over at... ... ... hm... wait a minute... Were there any black people on Seinfeld? Oh yeah - the guy who worked at the Yankees with George who didn't get to sign the Big Birthday Card for Mr. Steinbrenner's birthday.
Wow. That show was on television for what - 11 seasons? Is he really the only black actor to have appeared on Seinfeld? Or am I forgetting a whole bunch of black actors who appeared on all sorts of Seinfeld episodes? I guess it was filmed in New York... Maybe there aren't many black people in New York. I dunno. I've never been to New York. Gee. I could have sworn there were whole huge black neighbourhoods in New York. I know they've had Republican law and order Mayors for the past couple of decades. Guys who got in on a promise to "Clean Up the Streets". Wow. You don't think... Gosh... That one Mayor was Italian, too - and Gawd knows, those Mafia Guys, or Dons, or whatever he calls himself - can be pretty rascist. Ooh. And the other one was Jewish, I guess. And we all know how Jewish Mayors feel about Black People. Right? Right? Am I right?
But, back to Jerry Seinfeld. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but: "What did Jerry Seinfeld do with all the black actors in New York city?!" "Where the fuck are they?!" "Did they ALL fall down a well or something, Jerry Seinfeld?!"
Geez Louise. And Jerry Seinfeld's the go-to-guy apologizing for Michael Richards in this whole Black-u-drama?! Holy Aunt Jemima, Blackman! But what to call this imbroglio (Er, not to offend any Brogs, by the way)? Kramergate? Seinfeldgate? Gibsongate Part II? (Oh. And, by the way, Niggergate is out of the question. So, don't even go there, sister. STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Sooey's is NOT a rascist site - it is just a bloggers' site.)
Heheh - although it's funny, now I think of it, I guess if shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre doesn't get the audience moving towards the exits, shouting "Nigger!" sure will. And we've got Michael Richards to thank for that bit of insight into what will get an audience moving.
Even the type of audience that goes to see a Michael Richards show.
I dunno. I wonder if anybody thought to ask for their money back: "Michael Richards? What was I thinking? I must have been on crack when I bought those tickets..."
Okay. I'll stop now. Back to the REAL Hollywood damage control brigade.
Not to pick on Jim Flaherty overly, but I'd really like to deliver a boot to the nut sack of every one of his supporters. The guy is possibly the worst political opportunist and hypocrite outside of John Baird. At least, I assume he's outside of John Baird (nudge nudge wink wink).
This latest musing aloud to allow "Income Splitting" which is cleverly being sold as a way to even up the tax monster for stay-at-home moms is really sticking in my craw. And my craw is pretty stuck already with things I detest about Canada's New Conservative Government - which is so startling reminiscent of Ontario's Old Conservative Government. Not the Bill Davis one (and to be fair - I hated it with a passion most people reserve for Hitler or Stalin or George W. Bush) but the Mike Harris one. You remember Mike Harris? He was that no good thug who ran the Province of Ontario for a while because people are really stupid and actually thought he was "The Taxslayer" and not just some useless numbskull who had conned his way to the top of the useless dung heap that was the Big Blue Machine after Bill Davis retired from politics to do whatever greasy old pigs do after they're done at the trough.
Now where was I...
Oh yeah - income splitting. Now, few people seem to realize, with all the whining that traditional families seem to get up to about tax unfairness and yadda yadda blah blah in between organizing campaigns to prevent other people from having their human rights recognized in law - that stay-at-home moms (i.e. nannies/cooks/maids/sexbuddies) are already claimed as dependents on their husbands' tax forms. Now, since stay-at-home wives don't generate any income, and therefore don't pay any income tax - I figure being claimed as a dependent is probably as good as it should get - taxwise.
Income splitting, on the other hand, is a whole other ballgame being sold as something that is for those "middle-class" stay-at-home traditional family moms that is really going to benefit most - the rich buddies of guys like Jim Flaherty. What's being billed as the "only fair thing to do" is going to screw everybody who isn't a wealthy family values supporter. In other words - everybody who doesn't support Jim Flaherty. That's because real middle-class families already get a tax break because - the husband can claim the stay-at-home mom as a dependent.
Which she is. Oh. And boy - she is. I know. I was one. (And all I can say by way of advice is - make sure, mom, you and daddy-o have a joint account BEFORE anybody gives up her perfectly good job to stay at home with the kidlins.)
On the upside (and boy, oh boy - could there be an upside for people amused by bad government policy - i.e. bribes for votes to make a minority government a majority government) - gay couples will flock to the altar with the added human rights argument "why should we be cut out of income splitting?", lots of people with low paying crappy jobs will quit them - whether they have kids or not - to give their partner the tax break that will be the equivalent of working "hey - make your own dinner - I lay on the couch all day so you could get a tax break!", and people will think really long and hard about getting divorced - just not very long and hard about getting married in the first place, "Yay! You work, I'll stay home! Le'ts get hitched! Tax break!"
Still, the government had better make sure both incomes are going into a joint account for equal use by both parties or... again - boy, oh boy - if you think divorce is ugly now, wait until the income splitting divorces start hitting the fan.
Zowie!
And on the up, up, upside? Income splitting could deplete the government coffers to the point where there isn't any money left to bring democracy to Afghanistan and hundreds of young Canadian lives will be saved because there wasn't enough money to send them there to wage the war that needs to be waged in the meantime.
Jim Flaherty must be stopped.
All things said (sticks and stones) and done (no broken bones) - Christmas is made for the movies. Not the Christmas comedies Hollywood dumps out every year starring the Home Improvement/Cocaine Bust guy - but the colourized black & white movies of the 40s and 50s. (And I could have my decades wrong, I usually do. Just last week I dated a cheque "November 15, 1996".)
My favourite Hollywood Christmas movie is Miracle on 34th Street with Natalie Wood. Mostly because of Maureen O'Hara. I'm a big Maureen O'Hara fan. No one wore clothes like Maureen O'Hara. That coat she's wearing in the opening scene is the kind of coat I'd give back all the strides made by feminists since that movie was made just to wear to a Santa Claus parade. And the hat. Ooh la la. Classy. That lady just reeks class. Purposefully bustling to and fro, hither and yon, in those perfect pumps and matching leather gloves (I guess... I've only ever seen it in black & white, so... I can only assume she wasn't wearing brown pumps and green gloves... although... I suppose Maureen O'Hara could have pulled that look off, too...), dealing with all those, those, MEN! Men who had no idea, I bet, that she had a black maid back at her apartment minding her precocious little girl - a maid she no doubt valued highly and paid well because, let's face it - she was a successful working woman - in charge of Macy's annual Santa Claus parade, ferchrissakes!
And my favourite scene of all time is in that movie. It's when she's bringing up Mr. Gailey short and she becomes increasingly agitated explaining that she doesn't want Suzy believing in fairy tales like Santa Claus because before you know it she'll start believing in Prince Charming (and at this point her back is to him and we can see her remembering the cad of a husband who took off and left her, a single mother, alone, to raise a child in an age when single women being left alone to raise a child, well, we can certainly understand her bitterness and admire her resolve). Before Maureen O'Hara loses her composure completely, however, Mr. Gailey interjects calmly, but knowingly, a perfect gentleman, "Um... we were talking about Suzy?"
Perfect. I know why I love that scene, too. My father died when I was young and my mother was determined that none of her daughters would depend on a man for financial support, even though what was true for her would not be true for us. I even picture my mother when she was younger as Maureen O'Hara-ish. Certainly I think of her as wearing that very same opening scene outfit - although I picture her wearing it during the 50s...
Anyway, the humour in that movie is pretty deft, too. And it's got a great ending. Not that I'd want Maureen O'Hara to stop working... Mr. Gailey was a good guy, but... I dunno. I hope Maureen O'Hara kept her job. I suppose she'd have to pump out a little brother for Suzy so Mr. Gailey could pass on his lawyer genes. Grr. Mr. Gailey, Mr. Gailey, Mr. Gailey. I take it back. THAT ENDING SUCKED!!!
Oh dear. And that was my favourite Christmas movie, too. I can't stand "It's a Wonderful Life". Man, I hate that movie. I mean, the first few minutes - okay. But that whole big part after that when he's stuck in Pottersville on account of stupid, stupid Uncle Billy. I can't stand it. And what kind of person loses it like that because of a little financial adversity, anyway? And Donna Reed with her big open trusting face. God. Clearly she never had a Prince Charming come along and... er... nevermind.
The Bishop's Wife I used to like because I'm a David Niven fan, but I can no longer take the miscasting of David Niven as the Bishop and Cary Grant as the Angel. It should have been the other way around. WIth a sex scene between Loretta Young and David Niven while Cary Grant is stuck in the chair. (In case you haven't seen it - there's a pivotal scene in the movie when we see David Niven realize the folly of his ways. Or rather, when we see David Niven reach a point of total frustration trying to extort money out of a rich old lady. Or, I dunno. When we see David Niven get stuck in a chair. Anyway, it happens while Cary Grant, the angel, is out swanning about with "the Bishop's wife", Loretta Young, the impossibly thin, doe-eyed, Loretta Young. It's very funny. Although, Cary Grant mugging at the camera ala Arsenic and Old Lace while stuck in a chair while David Niven is fornicating with his wife, the impossibly thin and doe-eyed Loretta Young would have been funnier.)
Let's see... I can't stand any of the Scrooge movies. Those old British acting accents are just too much for my modern ear anymore. One Magic Christmas gets an honourable mention because I saw it at the theatre and thought it made a really good stab at becoming a modern classic in the Christmas movie line-up. I'll probably rent it on DVD this year because I don't think my kids have seen it on account of they've seen that "You'll poke your eye out, kid" movie about a bazillion times. (That's the movie that taught me how to do a Chinese accent: "Deck the harrs with bows of horry, fah ra ra ra rah, ra ra ra rah.")
Feel free to comment with your favourite Christmas movie suggestions. Not that I'm really open to trying new things at Christmas, now that I think of it. But comment away, anyway. You never know. Christmas comes but once a year.
Although... those years really seem to piggyback in these modern times - awfurry fast.
As promised, here is my follow-up entry to my Christmas rant. But be warned, it's personal, so much of it is likely to be made up.
Hm... on second thought, maybe I'll use a composite family and then strip it of actuality so I'm just positing a way for families to cope with Ex-Christmas realities, THROUGH another anti-Christmas rant.
As everybody knows, Christmas is so tied up with family traditions that it is fraught with childish emotions emiting forth from drunk and over-stuffed adults. If we are honest with ourselves, we can remember that children only care about presents at Christmas. My ex pointed this out to me one pre-children Christmas when his parents (we always went to his place for Christmas, my family being considered too Scottish Presbyterian to be of any use presents-wise) suggested pulling names out of a hat, you know, one present given, one received, and he held his breath until his face turned blue and stamped his feet until his parents quickly reverted the new Christmas terms back to the old Christmas terms. But, in terms of food, children would be happier with hotdogs, cake and ice cream than they are with any of the usual Christmas fodder. Yet, so caught up are they in the mayhem, that they, too, overeat to the point of, well, one of my friends at university, a woman so tightly wound that poking her with your finger - hurt your finger - said that every year she'd eat beyond her worst nightmare, THEN eat Christmas pudding - which gave her severe diarrhea. She literally shit out Christmas on Boxing Day. I thought it was quite a brilliant thing for a child to realize. That you could give in to the "C'mon, it's Christmas! Christmas comes but once a year! Santa won't bring you any presents if you don't have a big hunk of Woolco's Christmas pudding!" fascism of Christmas AND feel right back to your old spartan self by Boxing Eve.
Gosh, looking back, I used to say to my kids every Christmas Eve, "Just two more sleeps and it'll be Boxing Day kids!" They thought I was teasing. Really, I was reminding myself, "just two more sleeps, two more sleeps, two more sleeps" - then I can throw out Christmas!
Anyway, most separated and divorced parents end up feeling deprived and sad, anxious and neglectful, resentful and meanspirited at Christmas. Why? Because they become as children but with the woes of adults. That and the fact that their emotions are running even higher than usual and all the bad feelings that come with marital breakdown rise to the surface seeking a place to take a dump.
(Sorry for all the defecation talk. But that's Christmas to me. A big pile of crap.)
In my case, the opposite happened. I finally had a way of getting out of Christmas. Because, as my horse-shoe up the ass luck would have it - I married into the Christmas family. My ex-in-laws LIVE for Christmas.
It was a no-brainer. The simplest part of separation. The icing on the cake, if I'm downright honest about it. (See above disclaimer.)
The hardest part was convincing the kids that I wouldn't be lonely being by myself at Christmas. Oh. My. What kids don't get about Mothers. But I didn't want to hurt their feelings either so I said this was something we all had to do for Grandma and Grampa to help them adjust over time to the new situation. And that they would be really upset to not have their Grandchildren over Christmas. And that if they look back they'll notice that I really prefer the ordinary days to the Holidays.
They looked back. They understood. And rushed out the door to jump in the car with their Dad to head to Grandma's and Grampa's for Christmas.
Well, I'd be lying if I didn't say, "IT WAS THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER!" My, oh my. All I could think of was, "How do I keep this lucky streak going?" "Will someone find out?" "What if my ex-in-laws twig that I'm having fun at Christmas - ALL BY MYSELF!" "Will my EX?!" (At this point, we could BOTH get out of Christmas. It's become that much of a tradition. The kids go to the farm - yes - Grandma and Grampa live on a farm - for a Christmas right out of the movies - but with better toys and no religion. Just fun, fun, fun.)
Meanwhile, back in merry, no-Christmas land, I have a perfect beau to share Christmas with - we don't buy each other presents, don't do anything Christmassy, just hang out enjoying everybody else's Christmas - alone - together. I know, I know. You all hate me now. I don't blame you. I get Christmas off!
So, I dunno. Depending on your priorities, if you're married, and really, really don't like Christmas, and have in-laws who really, really DO like Christmas, well, you know, I hate to sound like a home-wrecker, but... I've got to say... Merry Ex-Christmas!
Well, it's November 17th, time for my soon-to-be-annual Christmas rant. Yes, indeed. November 17th. The one day of the year I think we should switch over from simply persecuting Christians, to ranting about Christmas.
Why? Well, because a good Christmas rant gives me the energy I need to devote to persecuting Christians for all of the rest of the year. Consider November 17th my annual Day of Reflection when I allow Christians to go about their annoying business unmolested by the scorn I scream into my pillow at night so I can rail about their Chosen Holiday.
Christmas is special. And by special - I mean retarded. It's hard to imagine a holiday more retarded than Christmas. Adults who like Christmas should be put down. And by put down - I mean euthanized. There is no excuse for an adult liking Christmas. It's akin to an adult liking to roll in a fresh cow pie before sitting down to a supper of jelly beans.
In a jolly jumper.
And the Christmas brigade is getting worse. Because they actually believe that - not only is Christmas NOT retarded - but that it's getting short shrift in the Holiday line-up.
Oh, really. Christmas is getting short shrift to Ramadan, Diwali, Hannakah and my nude Pagan annual backyard run to the salt lick, down to the creek, up through the woods and over to the magic rock to celebrate the long dark nights of winter?
No. Sorry. You are very mistaken. Christmas is a cultural ape. A religious goon. An unavoidable dog's breakfast of tacky kitsch and maudlin religiosity. A melange of grotesque over-indulgence and pious sanctimony.
It's an embarrassment. And a good reason for every other culture in the world to despise us. Gawd, *I* despise us for Christmas. Because it's completely fake. Nothing about Christmas is genuine. It's all nostalgia based on myth. An orgy of old-timey days advertising for plastic products of all shapes and sizes.
MADE IN CHINA!
Gee, talk about the elephant in the living-room. China, a communist country on the fast track to crass materialism with a murderous human rights record coming up smartly on the inside - is Santa Claus. You don't agree? Try doing a Christmas shopping without buying anything made in China. In fact - go one further and try doing a Christmas shopping buying only goods made in Canada. Or even the United States. Europe, if you want to take it overseas to those non-Puritan art snobs.
Good luck. You'll need it. If you have kids - don't even try. Just hold your nose and head to the mall. Give it up. You can't be a decent human being with a social conscience AND a Christmas shopper. It simply isn't possible. Forgive yourself. Christ would if he'd ever had to shop for His birthday. In fact, I think he'd be humiliated beyond belief by all the suffering he's caused for the slave labour over in China. Even if they are heathens.
Anyway, this is the first of two entries about Christmas. This weekend, I promise to offer up one woman's solution to what for many parents has become a living one, almost two, month nightmare. It involves divorce and ex-in-laws and keeping a low profile with the appearance of quiet suffering while secretly smiling to herself and planning grill cheese sandwiches for her sad and lonely Christmas dinner.
Meanwhile - Chrrrrrrrrristmas.
Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
Okay. I know what you've all been waiting for:
TheBloggies!
Well, it may come as no surprise to you dear readers who are aware of my notorious jealous streak that I will be boycotting "The Bloggies" (I patented that name on MY blog, not to be confused with myblahg - so don't go stealing it for Your blog) - on account of I wasn't nominated for/in ANY of the 5,000,000,000 categories.
No. Forget it now. Too late. None of your protestations matter. My heart is as a stone.
NOT that I feel too badly about it, really. MY blog is for ME. Cripes, it had better be for me - it's not like I'm making any money at it.
And truth be told, I think most bloggers blog for themselves. Not the professional ones, of course, but the amateurs. And for each other. We're a whole community of mutual admirers. Blogging for the one-upmanship of it all. And one-upmanship should not be under-estimated as a worthy pursuit of human perfection. If it weren't for one-upmanship we wouldn't have... stuff being better'n other stuff.
Now, I once freelanced a bit. Mostly for the Ottawa Citizen. I was on the OpEd pages, averaging one column/month for two years. Yup. That's twenty-four columns. Some for the Main OpEd page, some for the City OpEd page. And it was very rewarding - self-esteem-wise. Just not very rewarding financially. But I was a homemaker at the time, so it wasn't do or die, financially. It was do or die self-esteem-wise. A toe in grown-up society. A BIG toe in grown-up society. One of those things that other people can comment on, that you can have a conversation about at a party. It worked for me that way because, otherwise, well, I was a homemaker. And nothing - NOTHING! - says "Party Pooper" like "homemaker". Trust me. If you're a woman who likes to be the life of the party - DO NOT BE A HOMEMAKER! I literally remember talking to a man at a party and seeing his eyes glaze over and roll back into his head, his jaw drop down leaving his mouth hanging open, followed by flies droning in and out for hours, until finally a wily spider overheard me talking and moved in to build a web. And it had been a really exciting day for me, too. Really exciting. Really.
Anyway, I have a job now. It's a pretty lame job and I don't make very much money - (picture Elaine working for Mr. Pitt on Seinfeld and you've got my gig) - but I DO make money. I also have a fair bit of time during the day when I could be writing articles for money instead of blogging for free. But I won't do it. Why? Because it's simply not worth it. The number of times the same person can get herself on the OpEd page (and I'm talking about REAL freelancers - not freelancers on the inside track with semi-permanent spots/contracts) combined with the $200/pop salary, just isn't worth it. That, and the occasional crushing rejection (and ALL rejections are crushing and completely negate any and all previous writing successes - for all you wannabe freelancers out there) or purchase without publish and, nope, I'd rather blog.
Be the boss of my own brain, as I like to say. Now that I don't have to worry about an editor saying, "No one is going to get that. I'm taking it out."
And blogging isn't what it started out to be, either. Oh no. It's big-time now, baby. Big-time. For instance, The Bloggies are here. Sure, you can win in your pajamas, but hey - no matter who you are, you're up against some pretty stiff, er... tough competition. You must be. BECAUSE I DIDN'T EVEN GET NOMINATED!
And you've got to love the blog names. Blog names have to be the best names outside of alternative rock group names - ANYWHERE! It's not easy picking your blog name, either. SooeySays was easy because my web master picked it. Otherwise, I'd still be agonizing. (He has no respect for bloggers - none - and was toying with entering this "Testsicle" blog entry "I'm not really that vain. Although I am unbelievably good looking." for The Bloggies. It was the first SooeySays way back on 2006.03.11. Sadly, he only just heard of The Bloggies about an hour ago. And his response was merry laughter followed by, "Blogging is stupid.")
I dunno. Now I read it again (and nothing gives me more satisfaction than editing and re-editing a blog entry to perfection) I should really have posted: "I'm not really that vain, probably because I'm so unbelievably good-looking."
Grr. Damn. Now I've broken unwritten blogging rule #1 which I just made up for this entry: "Never go back and re-read entries prior to today's entry for editing porpoises." (Now see? An editor would have said, "I'm taking out 'porpoises'. No one's going to get it.")
Oh - and to be realistic, an OpEd editor wouldn't pay you $200 for a column that just said, "I'm not really that vain, probably because I'm so unbelievably good-looking." He'd want you to pad it out to 700 words. And look at it. It's good. Well, I think it's good. Feel free to use it.
Heheh - but jump in there fast before the National Post steals it.
The Bloggies. Vote. Once a day.
Well. That's it, then. The municipal elections are over. And Larry O'Brien is the new mayor of Ottawa.
A guy who talks in sports cliches and looks for all the world like Daddy Warbucks won the 2006 local prize.
Speaking of which, he's a boffo fundraiser, apparently. Yup.
He also promised a freeze on taxes. I don't know why I'm surprised he won - he promised a freeze on taxes. I mean, how stupid were the other contenders not to pipe up, "Oh yeah. And if elected Mayor of Ottawa - I will freeze taxes." Maybe even adding, "Taxes are TOO HIGH!!"
Voters lap that stuff up like kittens crouched over a nice warm bowl of milk.
But rather than go on and on as I tend to do whenever rich old Conservative white guys win a go at public office to make government smaller (as in - belly up to the trough to grandly dump in more slop, I guess), let me just pick out a bit at random from an article I read today on Bourque - a bit which pretty much sums up Larry O'Brien, local technology executive. (And who can forget about Ottawa and technology executives - eh? - oh - except for the part where the big bubble goes, "Pop!").
Here is a little excerpt from the article:
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O'Brien said the change endorsed by voters is his vision of a tax freeze and a safer, cleaner city.
"The city is not a business, but they want it to start being run like a business," he said.
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Safer, cleaner. Hey! I've got an idea on how to make Ottawa a safer, cleaner city! Make public transit better! And free! There you go Mayor O'Brien! A safer, cleaner city - GUARANTEED!
Oh. Wait. I just noticed the "tax freeze" part. Nevermind.
Wow. "The city is not a business, but they want it to start being run like a business"? Beauty, eh, Larry? A built in excuse for when the citizens start grumbling and the infrastructure starts crumbling for why your attempt to run the city like a business didn't work out - "the city is NOT a business". Clever.
Anyway, I have an idea for candidates who just can't bring themselves to sink to the tax freeze promise level. Say loudly and clearly to the candidate who CAN bring himself to sink to the tax freeze promise level, "Fuck Off".
Do it for me - Sooey.
Thanks.
One of my forum regulars (Sheena) posted this link: KellyNestruck on my "blog" thread at Sooey's saying the entry reminded her of me.
In case you're already feeling a sense of deja vu - it's because I blogged about "the veil" recently.
But I'm back at it because it occurs to me that our newspapers - as surmised by Mr. Nestruck - are so politically incorrect - as in "old fashioned" - edited as they are by young middle-aged men in cardigans and slippers, sucking on unlit pipes - that we may as well be back in the old millenium airing our "concerns" about turbanned RCMP officers as in the new millenium airing our "concerns" about the veil - as in, the primary symbol of Islamic oppression against women.
(Good grief. As if turbans look any less ridiculous than those crazy Dudley Doright dork hats the RCMP seem to value so highly as the only head covering befitting the calling. Yeah. Sure. Now that the calling requires covering for internal screw-ups more than anything else.)
Am I reading this thing wrong? Or is it all about our reaction to the veil and nothing to do with the veil itself that has us punditing on it 24/7? Is it possible that we're merely trying to excuse the usual and unrelenting bigotry of the west towards anybody daring to look different in our free and progressive society - who comes from a place that is actually QUITE DIFFERENT? So what if we don't like the veil? Since when is it okay to be openly bigoted about it? 9/11? Is it possible that the real terrorist accomplishment that day was to expose us to the world as mere bigots incapable of accepting different modes of dress in our free and democratic society - if said modes of dress are actually QUITE DIFFERENT?
What is it about us as a society that we can pretend to be so pluralistic when we can't even seem to deal with turbans and veils? Outward symbols of culture. Ethnic costumes, essentially. I mean - why are we threatened by people from other cultures choosing to dress differently than the white western norm? We aren't seriously afraid that we'll be made to dress like that, too. I don't believe that for a second. We just don't like people making a point of not adapting to our norms of dress.
Now, I don't buy into the Islam/modesty claim as being anymore valid than the Goth/rebel claim - I see it as an expression of will. No more than that, really. I also understand that coming to Canada from most other places in the world is a difficult transition for anybody to make. I, personally, make a lot of room for what women from other countries choose to wear because I imagine it IS a pretty shocking difference for them - fashion here vs fashion there - WHEREVER there is. But I don't in any way feel like I should apologize for what I - or my daughters - choose to wear. Far from it. I feel like I'm just representative of traditional Canadian clothing. Take it or leave it. Feel free to dress like me - feel free not to. On the other hand, I confess (bigotry alert! bigotry alert!) - whenever I see a Native Canadian in costume, I run into the closet and shout, "Get real, Chief!"
But that's because I'm only ever seeing such a display on CBC or TVO or somesuch venue where cultural affectation is the order of the day and the ACTUAL culture is something else altogether. Cripes, try currently being moved from a frozen wasteland where the water is polluted with E-Coli - to Timmins, Ontario - home of the reigning Queen of Country music down Nashville way, Shania Twain.
I grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, so I know what I'm talking about when it comes to our dress vs even European dress because I knew Italians who went over to the old country to try and do business and came back home with wall banging marks on their foreheads. I also knew wives and daughters who, when they went with their men over to Italy to make sure they ate properly and didn't run off with any good looking Italian man grabbers, went from jeans and mini-skirts to below the knee black because Great Grandpappy Giuseppe who died over in Italy a hundred years ago was STILL DEAD!! and why aren't your STILL MOURNING THE OLD MAN?!
Nope. I think our upset with the veil, like our upset with the turban, has nothing to do with multiculturalism and tolerance and everything to do with plain old fashioned bigotry against anything non-North American and non-European. Or we'd be slapping some colour on our Italian Grandmas living here and banning the wearing of ceremonial feathers on Canadian tv.
At the very least, we'd be writing columns about the Italian death cult instead of style columns in praise of lavish and ridiculous Italian weddings. Because yes - the divorce rate in Sault Ste. Marie really is 50%, Virginia.
...Hey... Wait a minute... Is that it? Is that what offends us so about the veil? The clear and present danger that our most recent group of immigrants - ISN'T SPENDING GOBS OF MONEY ON CANADIAN FASHION?!
That's it, isn't it.
Okay.
Nevemind.
I boycotted Remembrance Day this year. It's the first year I've officially boycotted it - in the sense that I told my kids I was boycotting it.
And why.
Why matters because it's the first things kids ask - "WHY ARE YOU BOYCOTTING REMEMBRANCE DAY, MOM?!
Luckily, the oldest is sixteen and has a teacher who is also boycotting Remembrance Day - for political reasons that dovetail nicely with my own boycott reasons.
Now, I know it sounds mean - boycotting the one day the old veterans have to be honoured, to have their fallen comrades honoured - to get out into the dreary weather of November in their formal wear to be recognized by the public as having done something once upon a time that mattered.
I don't care. The Conservative Right has so long since bastardized the original meaning of Remembrance day - "Lest We Forget" - to support its hawish agenda - that I will no longer pretend there is any point in participating in any public way in this charade.
Remembrance Day is over.
To prove it, a tail-end boomer and Conservative Rightist, Andrew Coyne, wrote a column recently endorsing the idea of a state funeral for the last of our three remaining First World War vets to die. Well, of the three, none are really vets - having never seen battle - not that THAT small fact should in any way detract from the MUCH BIGGER fact that these three old guys are living to be over 100 years old, which DOES matter. And which is a testament to our world class healthcare system more than anything else - I'd wager. Ahem - something the aforementioned Coyne doesn't really support, by the way.
Let's face it - Andrew Coyne is somewhat of a ghoul, that's all. I mean, how respectful is it to be hovering over the lives of these three human beings like some kind of cultural vulturist? "Lest We Forget" that individual life matters. And that these three old guys deserve to live out their lives without Andrew Coyne poised over them waiting to ponce on the last corpse for a State Funeral update column.
I mean - really. Whatever happened to common decency? Did that die because Remembrance Day is suddenly all the rage? Because tail-end boomers on the Conservative Right have nothing better to obsess about that they have to write whole columns devoted to the impending death of the last three remaining Canadian World War I vets? So that they can be THAT GUY WHO SAID FIRST - STATE FUNERAL!
Christ. How about getting lives, pundit fellas? Lives, no doubt, that the remaining three WWI vets lived between 1918 and 2006. How about columns celebrating what they did - IN BETWEEN! not seeing battle in WWI and living to be over 100 years old?
In the meantime, I should point out that my father (who I did not know) fought in the Second World War. Right through it, in fact. Up to and including the liberation of Holland. What do I know of his war career?
Nothing. Except a couple of guns, a WWII uniform and helmet, and slides - terrific amateur slides - of his downtime between tours of duty. A visiting in-law was appalled to find said slides, crammed into a box, stuffed into a den closet in our family home, never viewed. But our lives were not WWII lives. My Dad died in the 60s, my Mom went back to teaching, wore pantsuits, subscribed to Ms. Magazine. Meanwhile, we dated, drank, had sex, moved in with boyfriends and girlfriends. Life went on in our family. The War was left so far behind, I guess we forgot all about it. And wasn't that the whole idea? To live modern, free lives? I mean, these days - one wonders.
Cripes, the war dead would probably wonder, even. We seem closer now to the events of the Second World War than we did when I was growing up not that long after it had ended.
Even buying poppies was viewed with a certain distain in my family. Poppies support legions. Legions support legends. And drinking. Not to mention - smoking. I know, I know - shouldn't the vets be able to live out their lives telling stories at the Legion over drinks and smokes?
No.
They should have to move on like the rest of society. Or, at least, that's what I was raised to believe. That indulging a romantic notion of war is as bad as... I don't know... wearing white after Labour Day. Or a woman putting love above financial security.
Whatever. It's self-indulgent. And it lets subsequent generations off the hook.
There is no glory in war. There never was. It was a duty - no more. As my mother would say - you had to go. There was no choice. And the men who couldn't go had a hard time of it in the society they were left to live in. So much of what it was really like has been Hollywood-ized - that one wonders if the best thing is an organized boycott to the monster Remembrance Day has become.
Because it has become a monster. A monster with no meaning. If the war dead were to arise and see this crazy, insane "War on Terror" led by this spoiled privileged brat of a son of a former C.I.A. director elected President of the United States of America - well, I think they'd just roll right back into their graves. In Flanders Field. Where poppies grow.
I've had enough. So sue me. Bring on the Traitor Act - or whatever it's called. The dead are dead. The living survived - and are still living. Long live the living. Live well.
As we say now - it's the best revenge.
I don't understand Income Trusts. At all. A poster on my forum gives a good rundown of what they are. But I still don't understand Income Trusts. Here, for your edification, dear reader, is Kierkegaard's lecture (and yes - he's THAT Kierkegaard):
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"For most investments, you pay taxes whenever they grow and make profits -- you even pay taxes on the interest in your bank account. A trust is basically a structure defined by the tax system. It isn't like a bank account or a mutual find -- those are places you put money for it to accumulate. You create a trust, put your bank accounts or mutual funds or whatever into it, and so long as whatever you gain on these investments stays in the trust, you don't pay taxes on them. When you take money out of the trust, THEN you pay the taxes.
This is good for seniors because over time their tax rate decreases, meaning that they can put loadsa dough into a trust when they're wealthy to protect the profits from the shit-tacular tax rate they'd have to pay on it, and take them out when they'd be taxed at a lower rate.
And it would've been great for Canadian-based multi-national corporations as well, since by converting to a trust they would no longer have had to pay corporate taxes on gains in the value of their assets (which you'd think would be the same as their profits, but...).
Shareholders would take the take the tax hit when they withdrew their funds from the trust.
I'd like to see some figures on how many seniors are actually affected by this. Not a lot I'd bet -- and the ones that are prolly ain't gonna be eating cat food any time soon.
I'm surprised there wasn't more of a debate on this issue. I could see a lot of advantages for letting corporations go trust -- 0% taxes is a pretty sweet deal. Ireland is booming as a result of its tax laws. It could have led to a lot of business relocating to Canada.
That the Conservatives would step in and do something like this is very bizarre. But then I guess it's one more thing that separates fiscal conservatives from the social conservatives. This never would've happened under The Chin."
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Phew, eh? (And for my international readers - I believe "The Chin" in the above lecture is Brian Mulroney, the Old Conservative Party leader and former Prime Minister of Canada.) But while I may not understand Income Trusts - still - I do understand electioneering. And our Prime Minister, dear reader, that nice young man who goes to Church and shakes his son's hand good-bye when he drops him off at school and runs our country, is a damn good liar.
Look - there is no way an economist wouldn't know that this measure would have to be taken. Stephen Harper deliberately mislead his core voters - rich old people - by pretending that he wouldn't do exactly what he has done.
Either that - or he's no economist at all. He's just an idiot savant who can add up numbers without understanding that their sums are the totals of the numbers he's just added up.
So what is it about voters that they willfully DON'T SEE IT COMING! The turnaround. The aboutface. THE LYING!! Any politician who makes promises with a straight face - CANNOT BE TRUSTED! If he doesn't wink with each promise - DON'T VOTE FOR HIM! Gawd. How many times must we go down this road before we remember - THERE'S A FORK IN IT!
Sigh. And it's not even like I'm mad at Stephen Harper for pulling the wool over everyone's eyes and getting himself elected on whatever those five promises were. I'm mad at voters for falling for it. Over and over and over. If all it takes is a claim to Church-going to get elected - WE MAY AS WELL BE THE 51ST STATE!
Good Grief. As soon as you hear, "Less Government, Lower Taxes" - CUE THE HOOK! "Less Government" is the second oldest line known to man. And "Lower Taxes" is the first. ("I Promise" is the third.)
Anyway, since I don't really know what Income Trusts are, but I do know that some big corporations that were planning to use the tax loophole now known to the rest of us as "Income Trusts" - are pretty pissed at Stephen Harper, I have to admit - whatever he lied about saying he wouldn't do and just did - good on 'im.
But that can't be comfortable walking around with your pants on fire.
Last weekend my beau and I drove down to Ithaca, New York. I've never been to that area of the United States before. In fact, I've never really been anywhere in the United States - save for Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. And since I'm from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario - that really wasn't much of a life altering experience. Especially since most of my trips over to Soo, Mich. involved hitchhiking across the International Bridge (imagine doing that TODAY kids!) to go drinking at the Alpha Bowling Lanes on Sunday nights (Bill Davis's Ontario not allowing bars to be open on Sunday nights in case his Catholic God smote us all dead for enjoying life on The Sabbath, I guess). Amazingly enough, the drinking age in Soo, Mich. was 21 as opposed to Bill Davis's Ontario's 18 (on account of Bill Davis's Catholic God liked his teenagers drunk every other day of the week, I guess). And even though I regularly had to show I.D. in the Soo, Ontario bars, I managed to drink in the Alpha Bowling Lanes on the occasional Sunday night with no questions asked. Beyond, "What size bowling shoes do you wear, kid?"
Ah... Americaland.
Good old depressed economy - come all ye underaged Canadians over to drink! - Americaland. (I'd say it had something to do with the closing of Kincheloe Air Force Base - but it didn't. Americaland was THAT slack! I mean - I looked 12 on the outside and I was passing myself off as 21 - even in my brothers old high school jacket...)
But back to now and the spectacular drive to Ithaca, New York from Ottawa. Uh... Canada. Ottawa, Canada. (I always wonder when putting a return address on a letter - since it's Ottawa, shouldn't it be just "Ottawa, Canada"? That's what I put down, anyway. Ontario shouldn't really figure into it, I don't think. Toronto, Ontario - but Ottawa, Canada. That's how I see it.)
I'd never seen The Adirondacks OR the Finger Lakes and my-oh-my - are they worth seeing. And I really don't think I've seen so much rolling farmland spread between so many quaint historic towns before, either. But I'm from Northern Ontario and I guess that's all just so much newer. Without any old money or new money or much money at all to quaint it up a bit for the drive-thru. But it seemed like every new vista was more spectacular than the last and each new town more quaint. In a slightly delapidated way that suggested the whole region could use a good coat of paint. (I'm used to Americans coming up North to exclaim over the Northern Shore - a Northern Shore which I despised for it's "water on one side, forest on the other" monotony, having done the drive from Sault Ste. Marie to Thunder Bay more times than really was fair. And if I never see another Group of Seven painting it will be too soon - thank you very much!)
Meanwhile, I couldn't help but notice the odd billboard telling drivers that ABORTION MURDERS!! And other billboards - neon billboards - claiming JESUS SAVES!!
Now, I've seen similar things in Northern Ontario. But not on the property of say... a Holiday Inn. Or a McDonalds. I mean, I get it that Americans have a real religious revival thing going on and that abortion is the biggest bad of the bad and that Jesus is the biggest good of the good - but good God in heaven! A Holiday Inn? A McDonalds?
That's real Americaland.
Real jarring juxtaposition Americaland.
Anyway, on to Ithaca. My beau was doing research at the Public Library so rather than wander around by myself (something I really don't like doing much anymore - I've had a lifetime of it - I'd rather sit and stare in a group setting these days - or wander around with someone else) I picked a book off the shelf, found a comfy chair, and started reading. The book is called "Minaret" and it's by Leila Aboulela. It's the story of a young Sudanese woman's wander (and that's really the only word for it) towards Islam. It begins in 1984 in Khartoum and ends in 2003 London. I began reading on Friday afternoon and finished Saturday morning. Five hours of reading and I didn't skim, either. It's a good book. Ironical, too, that I read it in The Great Satan - which we'd been joking about ever since we'd crossed the border. "The Great Satan" this, "The Great Satan" that. "We're here for the Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist Convention."
Next thing I know we're in the Ithaca Public Library - a busy library, too, I might add - in the quaintest downtown of The Great Satan and I'm reading about Islamic Fundamentalism.
Short story shorter, it struck me on this one little trip that The Great Satan is very quaint looking, but obviously quite "live and let live" in that "other" Americans (the normal, sane, Democratic, secular human ones - er... if there is such a thing in Americaland) don't erect counter billboards claiming "ABORTION SAVES!!" and "JESUS MURDERS!!" to start billboard wars all over beautiful rolling farmland and that after reading just one novel about a young woman's wander towards Islamic Fundamentalism while sitting in the heart of Americaland, Allah doesn't seem so threatening, either.
I guess it's all in how you interpret the world.
Eh?
I'm learning French. No wait, let me be more accurate - I'm taking a French class.
I don't know if it's me or French but I feel like I know less French with each passing class. Of course, I'm not really doing much in the way of homework - having no actual desire to learn French - but I do pay close attention for a solid two hours once per week in hopes of retaining a verb or two.
Maybe even a verb conjugation or two.
And yet, with each class I feel like I know less French than I did the week before. As if French is expanding during the week while my brain contracts. Some sort of inverse natural causes effect.
My ex father-in-law had an explanation for why French is so difficult to learn. He'd say, "The problem with French is, there's a different word for everything."
It's true. But I also feel like I'm giving in to some sort of pointless political affectation by even TRYNG to learn French. I know that's not a very good attitude, but still - I was never comfortable calling my co-workers "brother" and "sister" at our monthly unit meetings when I worked for the NDP at Queen's Park, either. And I couldn't possibly bring myself to wear red on Fridays to show my support for the New Conservative Government of Canada - troops or no troops.
Still, I live in Ottawa and my current job isn't really very stable (my boss is 106) so I figure I'd better bite the bullet and learn French so I can jam my foot into that civil service door one day - if times get THAT rough - and the soup kitchens run out of soup. And even if they don't - I live in Ottawa and my chances of being hired even in a laundromat would be better if I spoke French. And English, too, I guess. Although, sometimes I wonder (Oops, that was my ol' Scottish Gram talking - nevermind her - crazy bigot).
But back to learning French to please our Government. It's just that, I know people in the Government who have taken years of French lessons, passed their B levels, or C levels (there doesn't ever seem to be an A level that anyone is worried about - maybe there isn't an A level) and go on to never speak a word of French in their jobs - EVER! Jobs that supposedly required that they receive hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars in French language training in order for them to be able to do them. Sometimes even - keep them.
Even when I lived in Toronto (the Provincial - NOT Federal - Capital of Canada, for all my International Readers) and worked as a secretarial temp following completion of an Honours B.A. in History and English from the University of Toronto (I'm a tail-end boomer...) all the receptionist/secretary/clerk jobs in the provincial civil service seemed to be designated bilingual.
Why, I don't know. I don't even know if it was that rigid a requirement. It was certainly offputting to anyone who didn't have French - even if she did have an Honours B.A. in History and English from the University of Toronto. (Grr. I have simply GOT to put that damned degree out of my mind. It never did me one bit of good - financially - except to keep me from doing jobs I may have wanted to do - bricklayer comes to mind - because I didn't have the correct training. Instead I have this pointy ridiculous degree - I'm a Specialist in Tudor England, doncha know - but no skills!)
Yes. So, French. I've got a good teacher, at least. The class is fun - if a bit intimidating. It includes two Professors - one from each of the local Universities, several recent University graduates, a few Consultant-types. We're none of us beginners but none of us advanced - and that's a wide range, believe me. I'm somewhere in the middle of that. Average in the middle of a huge and complex language expanding beyond the universe while my brain grows ever inward. But I'm there because I can read French well and with a decent accent. My vocabulary, though, is almost exclusively English. And I'm working with a terrible handicap - my Mother. Because ever since I was a kid trying to learn French she'd say, "The key to learning French is to not translate from English."
Of course she didn't know French, herself. It was just another one of those all-knowing out-of-the-blue things she'd pile on my deflated soul to ensure it would always stay flat.
Anyway, I'm going to give it a whirl. What choice do I have? I live in Ottawa, we've got the Government I'd hoped would say, "French? We don't need no stinkin' French!" And it hasn't. So I've already decided that I'll take the course again. And again. Even again. Between courses, I plan to watch at least one hour of French tv/day - which is one hour more than I watch of English tv/day, at least. And read some French books. Some being more than the one English book I seem to be able to manage these days, too.
I dunno. Is it possible I just don't have enough brain cells/life span left to learn French? As my ex father-in-law would say, "Well, *anything* is possible. Just not learning French."
So, I guess that whore, Norman Spector, thinks that skank, Belinda Stronach, is a bitch. I wonder what that slut, Peter Mackay, will think of that?
Imagine. That whore, Norman Spector, splattering his dirty paws all over the reputation of that slut, Peter Mackay's, former skank, Belinda Stronach. I mean, she's that slut, Peter Mackay's, former skank. What the fuck business is that slut, Peter Mackay's, former skank of that whore, Norman Spector? Grr. I bet that slut, Peter Mackay, is thinking, "Find your own former skank, you WHORE!"
And I wonder when that douche, Stephen Harper, will weigh in? (Weigh in. Geddit? Because Harper is fat. He's a fatty fat fat. A real heifer. FAT! Fatter'n that pig, Michael Moore, even.) I mean, he's a fucking Christian. Not to mention a damned Evangelical. Surely he thinks that skank, Belinda Stronach, is worse than just a dog or a bitch. I mean, Jesus H. fucking Christ on a Pig's Hoof - she has sex out of wedlock! Sex! Out of wedlock!
Thank Gawd we've got that cunt, what's her name, as our whatever it's called - oh yeah - Governor General. Maybe she can put a stop to all this slander and innuendo so that cocksucking, cuntkicking, New Conservative Government of Canada, can get back to doing a big fucking heap of goddamned bullshit.
Oh! I almost forgot about that ho, Helena Guergis. I hope the cocksucking, cuntkicking, New Conservative Government of Canada thinks to have that big ol' ho, Helena Guergis, defend that whore, Norman Spector, for calling that skank, Belinda Stronach, a bitch. Maybe she could say the same thing she said when that slut, Peter Mackay, called that skank, Belinda Stronach, a dog. Except make it really clear that that skank, Belinda Stronach, deserved it, this time. Something like, "Norman Spector has always behaved like a perfect gentleman to me."
Oh wait... That's exactly what that big ol' ho, Helena Guergis, said when she was defending that slut, Peter Mackay, for calling that skank, Belinda Stronach, a dog.
Okay. How about this: "Norman Spector has always behaved like a perfect gentleman to me because I'm a Good Girl."
That's pretty clear, I think. Of course, being a Women's Lipper - I would think that, wouldn't I.
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