Sooey Says

Stephen Harper has a majority New Conservative Government of Canada and expanded Anti-Terrorist legislation in his paws. I mean, claws.

Next up, Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Oprah, (whom she so chose as her only begotten one in order to take the "O" out of Obama) become President and Vice-President of the United States.

A little while later, Shimon Peres is elected Prime Minister of Israel.

Like an immaculate birth, out of the blue an agreement is reached with the newly re-elected government of the Palestinian people - Hamasbollahjelly - to denounce all violence and reach an accomodation with each other that is fair and equitable for everybody.

The Arab States look at each other suspiciously and decide on an across-the-Brotherhood consensus that any interference would make them look like the bad guys and agree to recognize Israel and never again is a threat to wipe it off the map uttered.

It even becomes common on the Arab comedy circuit to overhear a kind of oneupmanship as to who likes Jews more ending in much laughter, "We ALL like Jews more!"

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to anybody, a radical group of Russian Jews living on the West Bank plot to assassinate Peres and attack the White House, by doing that same thing the other terrorist group did that worked so well - flying American planes out of American airports into American buildings.

Except this time it's going to be a direct hit on the White House.

They succeed, becoming only the second people ever in the history of the world to carry out a successful attack on the White House.

Canadian anti-Americans being the first, of course.

Peres is dead. Shot while shaking hands with Palestinians demonstrating (joyfully) in the streets - by an Orthodox Jew from Herouxville, Quebec. The United States is leaderless with Oprah in the bunker with her best friend, Gayle, while Steadman hammers on the door demanding to be let in to at least cuddle. Hillary is being flown to a safe haven in Arkansas, Bill to the rescue, a group of big-haired trailer park broads left behind to shake their fists at the passing plane overhead.

Moderate Jewish groups in the U.S. plead for calm, stating they had nothing to do with the attacks, but understand the anxiety felt by Russian Jews due to uncertainty about their property rights and the future of their settlements as a result of the agreement reached with the Palestinians by Prime Minister Peres. They express sorrow for the victims (mostly Mexican out-of-seasonal illegals responsible for the White House Christmas Special on account of the plane hit the Chocolate Room first) - but point out that there was a certain inevitability to the attacks as the Russian Jews on the West Bank were feeling abandoned in the new peace era that had been managed almost exclusively by Leftist interests in the West.

Financial records, travel documentation - all point to Canada as a source of funding for the group, which calls itself "Tel Haifa". Suddenly, fingers are pointing at anybody who is Jewish and who has travelled to Israel in the past decade. Or who has associated with anybody who has travelled to Israel in the past decade. Or knows somebody who has known somebody who has known somebody...

Armed with the extended legal right to detain anybody without charge - Stephen Harper, Anti-Terrorist, goes to work.

Posted by Sooey at 10:41 AM | Permalink

I have a co-worker who is British, spent some formative school years in Virginia USA, and agrees loudly with the War on Terror, George W. Bush, and Stephen Harper.

He is very fond of saying, loudly, that we are all Americans. By "we", he means Canadians. Like me. He does it to provoke an argument, but he also seems genuinely to believe that people like me, people who grew up in Northern Ontario, in a border town no less, who exhibit every stereotypical Canadian anti-Americanism, who despise George W. Bush - mostly BECAUSE OF his War on Terror, and who despise Stephen Harper even more for his bootlicking toadyism of all things Republican and his not-at-all hidden agenda to break up Canada into a collection of tinpot provinces to be assimilated into The Great Satan - are just pretending to believe ourselves to be Canadian, to believe ourselves to be living in a country called "Canada", to believe ourselves to have fought in two World Wars for King and country such that we established ourselves as a Nation, separate from Britain, and certainly not a satellite of the United States, with its late entries and latter day Cold Wars and nuclear weapons and C.I.A. dirty tricks all over the world that come to nothing except death and resignations.

He's not alone. Many, if not all, of our rightwing pundits would agree with him. But that's because they're traitors and would probably be hung from the highest treetops if they expressed those same views in their beloved America for their country of convenience - Canada.

Americans cannot abide traitors to their brand of kneejerk Patriotism. To the point where even knowing the President is a corrupted scab of a barely biped isn't enough to tempt the most powerful newspaper in the world - The New York Times - to defy his Declaration of Invasion and take him to task with what it suspected to be the truth. Oh no. That was left up to OUR left, thank you very much. No problem. We're free. And apparently, the REAL home of the brave. And we put up with our Rightwing American Wannabes because we are Canadians and know that, were the Democrats to win the next election, cease and desist in this ill-conceived (for everybody except the individual leaders of the American Administration who will grow rich off it) War on Terror, and legalize Same Sex Marriage, the weasels would be singing a different tune. Suddenly, and this is if that Alberta Separatist Reformer, Stephen Harper, was still Prime Minister of Canada - they'd be resoundingly Canadian, urging him to reconsider the Firewall Letter and really put the separate, but equal, stamp on a federalist Canada vis a vis the United States.

And that this all might well come to pass in fairly short order seems not to have occurred to the Canadian Right. That the United States could well leave us behind in Afghanistan and stuck in Unhipsville with our Christian Evangelical Reformer of a Prime Minister while they catch up to the New Millenium and Diplomacy and ALL THAT JAZZ, seems to not factor into their treasonous ways. And, trust me, when I say "Canadian Right", I'm not even talking about the Conservatives of old. I'm talking about all those Reformers in our midst, the current New Conservative Government of Canada, its media cheerleaders at Canwest/Global, all those narrow-minded stupids-at-large and LOUD Yankee Lurvers who vote for the assholes because they've left the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP - to park their idiot votes with a bunch of people who are really, truly, deeply awful - JUST LIKE THEM.

Myself, should the Democrats win the next American election, I look forward to never hearing from the likes of David Frum ever again for the rest of my life. I am, as a Canadian, so embarassed by his tenure in the United States, as if he is the best and brightest we have to offer, as if... he has ANYTHING in common with ME and the Canadians I hold in "regard" - to put it Canadianly, because we don't want anybody getting a big head and thinking they can make it in New York or L.A. or worse - Washington - that it kind of makes me want to stop buying Vanity Fair and start buying... well... let's see.... what is the Canadian equivalent of Vanity Fair? Certainly not Macleans. It's been taken over by Ken Whyte - the worst of the American Wannabe Right-R-Us Clattering Chaps.

But it is quite something to have a Brit tell you loudly that you are American. That there is no difference between you and Americans. That you are the same people living in the same country - America. I don't know how you would react, but I react with a rage most people reserve for people who walk beside each other on the sidewalk and not single file like you're supposed to except instead of seething quietly and crossing the street, I explode with Canadianism.

It really is quite something. But I do have a deep and abiding contempt and loathing for the British, as well, so, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They DO underestimate Canadian-ness - don't they, though - the Reformed Rightists? What it is to be so essentially Canadian that only when some British blowhard calls you an American do you rise to the fore? They really don't get that about Canadians. Personally, I have no objection to defining what I am, Nationally, by what I am not. I like it, in fact. It gives me a certain Canadian satisfaction, a Citizen-of-the-Worldliness. I am quite pleased in defining myself by what I am not. It is, to me, our strength, a right royal strong point, something to rest assured in that we are not that kneejerk powermonger south of our border. It's better than Okay. It's good enough.

Do I feel superiour to Americans because I am Canadian? Yes. One need only to look at the geography of the situation. We're on top. Big, cold, hard rocks - on top. They are two-thirds tropical. A ridiculous country, really. I mean - who can't live under a peach tree?

You know, I watch their tv, movies, I read their magazines - but I'd go to war against them, too. Just so long as you know. But first I'd storm our own Parliament Hill and ship our Prime Minister and his Cabinet down to Washington so they couldn't turn over our Army to the Yankee Bastards. That's how much I really don't like this government. I literally would want it "to go down" in a National crisis and be replaced with a guerilla government. Of actual Canadians.

Don't call me American. I don't like it. It brings out the Canadian in me and you really don't want to go there, girlfriend.

Posted by Sooey at 10:54 AM | Permalink

My book club met at my place last night. We were supposed to discuss "Dead Girls" (my pick) but we didn't really get around to it. Much. We commented on a few of the stories, how sad they were. Figured out a couple of connecting motifs. Decided on the main theme, that sex and low self-esteem do not mix.

Lesson: If you are a girl and you have low selt-esteem, do not have sex.

Also, if you are a girl with high self-esteem, do not have sex because sex will destroy your self-esteem. You only have self-esteem because you have not had sex. Because the only boys and men who want to have sex with girls are icky. Some, are even - serial killers.

So stay away from men, girls. Especially you girls with low self-esteem. Girls with low self-esteem only attract creeps. You should know this already, of course, if you have low self-esteem - that you will only attract creeps.

Oh - and if some guy says he wants to take you to a party and you are 15 and he is 30? DO NOT GO!!! Your self-esteem will end up in a trash can along with your dead body.

The big thing that I had missed when I read "Dead Girls", however, is the "disappearing" thread running through all the stories. That a girl disappears in each short story, that the main drag in all the stories is Vancouver, and that the victims are all girls with low self-esteem who go on to be involved in the sex trade.

It's true. I don't read the newspapers. And the odd time when I do read a Saturday Globe, I don't read the news. Just book reviews, fashion articles and opinion pieces. So I didn't really get it until our book club meeting last night when one of our members who DOES read the newspapers said, "It's loosely based on the Picton victims, I think."

Oh. Well. That is sad. And then I really didn't feel like discussing the book. None of us did. We commented a bit about one story where the girl, a little girl, has an extra tooth behind her front teeth that itches her sometimes and she gets in the habit of asking her father to rub it. Which he does. Then he realizes, that she realizes, at least one of them is enjoying the rubbing in a sexual sense.

Of course, she being the little girl, she is blamed. He never speaks to her again.

That story, the father, reminded me of a lot of middle-aged men when I was growing up. They'd interact with little girls, playfully, of course, but let me tell you, having been one, little girls are sexual beings by age 8. We know what feels good. We just don't know why, how to make it happen consistently, and that we probably shouldn't get too overt about it.

At some point, we must show signs of being overt about it, though, because suddenly, middle-aged men react differently to our little girlness. They start reacting to us like they react to feminists in the news.

Like they really, really, really don't much care for us at all.

At least, that's what the culture I'm from was like. W.A.S.P. culture. It's different now, though. That's because women today know perfectly well, in spite of Macleans and Ken Whyte and all of these middle-aged men on the right who think modern society has sexualized little girls in some way - that it has been ever thus. Except, this time around, we make sure nobody blames our daughters for what are perfectly natural feelings of sexuality. Whenever they start noticing them. There really is no specific age.

But, I'm leading up to speaking, of course, about the Conrad Black, then Asper boys years in which everything old isn't new again because everything old is sacred and everything new is trash. The neo-con blowhard years which are now in retreat but not before we were graced with a Maclean's cover story a couple of months ago featuring a twelve-year-old girl supposedly tarted up by her mother to look like a middle-aged man's fantasy with the accompanying headline: Why are we dressing our daughters like skanks?"

Or something. I forget the exact wording. Although I do remember the word "skanks" jumping out at me. And not in a good way, either.

I don't really know what the point of the cover was. To titillate the paedophile readership of Macleans? To point a wagging finger at the feminist readership of Macleans - all two of them? Who knows? All I know is that if Ken Whyte et al don't know that twelve year old girls are sexual beings who dress themselves the way they want, then I guess he doesn't spend much time with twelve year old girls.

Which is probably for the best.

Myself, I remember wearing the shortest mini I could when I was in grade five and nine years old because I wanted to attract the attention of our teacher, the lucky Mr. Goodbar. It took some doing, too, because he didn't seem to care or notice the pretty ruffled panties I wore which I hoped he would appreciate when I raised my hand to write on the board.

Sadly, all he noticed was that I had spelled "embarassed" wrong. "Not, 'embareassed'," he chuckled. "Embarassed." God. It was so humiliating. A classroom of ten year old boys taunting me at recess: "Let's see Sooey bare-assed. Let's see Sooey bare-assed. Let's see Soeey bare-assed."

Retarded dorks.

I dunno. Is it possible one of them grew up to be Ken Whyte?

Posted by Sooey at 02:13 PM | Permalink

I was going to post this as comment on What a Wife, but it really deserves its own space. A few years ago I read a piece by a woman whose husband had come home from work one day to announce that he wanted a divorce, that he was in love with another woman, and he wanted out of his marriage with her so he could be with his new love.

She hadn't seen it coming and was in shock. The shock evolved into a depression. Eventually she wrote about it. What struck me was her observation about kids and divorce. So many people had said to her, "At least you don't have kids - that will make it easier" that she began to wonder - is that true? And came to the conclusion that it wasn't. That divorce without children was harder on the person who was being left behind because you didn't ever have any excuse to see the other person again, to mix it up a bit, even to argue.

There was no contact because there was no reason for any unless you became a stalker or something.

After I wrote my piece yesterday, I got to thinking about that and the society we live in where it's supposedly all about the kids (or, at least, if you're a parent, you have to PRETEND it's all about the kids). Because I know couples who probably interact MORE in divorce than they ever did while married. And it's because they have kids. We have managed somehow in our assumptions that divorce is too easy in this country, to gloss over the fact that people are often so desperate to get out of marriages they don't want to be in, that they will divorce KNOWING they will forever and a day have to deal with their ex over their kids.

Divorce is THAT worth it, for some people. Well, 50% of some people, anyway.

It's just the way it is. If you have kids with someone, there IS no divorce. Not really. There's just a long period of not living together in holy matrimony while you figure out how to make THAT work without everybody losing their shirts in legal squabbles over - of course - money.

Speaking of money, banking has really not evolved much in this country, eh? I mean, for all the bells and whistles, it's pretty customer unfriendly. Still. Now, I'm a real security nut so I'm willing to pay a certain amount of my income to keeping the system relatively free of fraud, etc. But I've noticed that no amount of banking fees can protect us from everything. And yet, they do go up, don't they. It's not like the bank doesn't have the use of our money all the while we're stashing it with them and they're paying peanuts in interest on it, either, is it.

But it all comes down to what you're willing to put up with, I guess. I wouldn't even add this issue to my soapbox except I realized the other day that I was always exceeding my flat fee for a certain number of banking transactions because, not only is online banking counted as a transaction (and just try paying bills by phone nowadays), so is a transaction involving a teller on account of the teller will ask you to swipe your card before she (and it's almost always still a she, isn't it) will allow you to access your account.

Which brings me to the anti-terrorism legislation and Stephen Harper's bizarre reference to an MP's father-in-law who is a witness or somesuch to the Inquiry into the Air India disaster.

I ask you - do you really trust this man to be our Prime Minister? Because I don't. I find him unbelievably... untoward. I believe him to be systematically altering the, well, system. In a bad way. In a way that leads to fascism. Why Conservatives can't see this is beyond me. Perhaps they are stupid.

By the way, I lauded The Agenda for being neutral chic yesterday on my blog. Well, last night it featured Ezra Levant in full attack mode, so I take it back. I watched it with just one eye open and I squinted even then. Honestly. Obviously, I'm a fan of Alan Borovoy because I believe SOMEBODY has to keep an eye on civil liberties and free speech. It can't be me. But I wanted to punch Ezra Levant in the face because of the way he kept talking over everybody else as if the feed from Calgary only worked one way and he couldn't hear the others talking.

Free speech? Gawd. Maybe if we all get to punch the free speecher in the face later. And I'm even A-Okay with the Danish Cartoons being published. In fact, I think the Globe & Mail should have published them. Of course, so does Lewis Laptham and he'd disagree with Ezra Levant on pretty much everything else civil libertarian - as would I - so I guess I'm solid on that one.

I was even struck by how closely aligned against my views both the Muslim lawyer and the CJC spokesthingy were on free speech so I can safely say I'm not a tribalist because their views and mine left me feeling pretty everyday Canadian. Everyday Canadian apparently being the NDP's latest replacement for average Canadian. Or ordinary Canadian. Still, I would have supported the CJC spokesthingy if he'd punched Ezra Levant in the face, so... It's not like I'm THAT much better'n the tribalists-at-large, I guess.

Anti-terrorist legislation by its very name is wrong, sinister, and destined to expand. We can't trust Stephen Harper not to behave like a Latin American Strongman one minute, a Senator McCarthy disciple the minute after that.

I really wish he had no power over my life at all.

Posted by Sooey at 12:18 PM | Permalink

I was watching my new favourite show the other night, The Agenda, and lo and behold, who was there on a panel discussing marriage but Michael Coren.

Which made me wonder, but not hard enough to change the channel, who was hosting HIS show while he was a guest panelist on The Agenda.

I'm not much of a tv watcher and when I'm alone I would never think to turn it on. I don't turn anything on. (Insert Sexless Sooey joke here.) I just sit in the dark and stare. You should try it. It's like all those new age things without the books and lotions. Just sitting there. Staring.

But I'll watch what someone else is watching and often that's The Agenda. I used to stay after work and watch Coren, but now I watch The Agenda. (I quit happy hour and then Coren changed his timeslot anyway so the one dovetailed quite nicely with the other.) It's amazing how much I prefer informative to punditry. In fact, whenever guests try to introduce partisanship on The Agenda I feel a knot form in my stomach, "No!No!No! Don't make it all about you and your stupid opinions! Just the facts, please! Pleazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!"

On a side note and speaking of tv induced stomach knots, there is a show I sometimes watch on the decorating channel that's about people renting or buying a space they want to renovate and run a business out of and the whole show is this mad dash to opening day and honestly, if you didn't know it would have a happy ending, there is no way you could watch that show without getting cramps.

Anyway, they were discussing marriage and there was big ol' Michael Coren on The Agenda, as I say, which was a lot like the time I saw a little insert of Don Cherry on the cover of Chatelaine on account of there was a whole interview with him inside - about gardening. Or maybe it was more like seeing the guy on the corner who shouts obscenities at passersby all day - at the opera one evening.

Although... I suppose it'd be pretty unlikely for me to be at the opera one evening, either...

The most interesting thing, though, about Michael Coren on The Agenda was the silence. He really didn't say much. And I know why. Because his views are so garishly plaid that he would have come across as quite insane on a show that is essentially neutral chic. (Hilariously, on his own show, he is often the voice of reason - his guests are that... polkadotted.)

I'm sick of opinionated, I guess. All that bombast. It's why I can't watch Question Period. It's a stupid waste of time. I know it's political theatre, but I just don't care, anymore. My thing is civil rights, I guess, and as long as we have lawyers who haven't all gone over to the terrorist-behind-every-bush side - I'm gonna go with that and my various spell casting potions.

But even though Michael Coren wasn't saying much, the other guests were saying lots, and one of them even equated marriage with having someone to cover your back. Now, I've been married and we were very bonded, but when trouble hit - it wasn't with the rest of the world. It was with the two people who'd barricaded themselves in their house against it - complete with three kids and a dog.

I don't believe marriage is a good thing for society. I really don't. I think it was a thing, is a thing. I wouldn't qualify it as good.

I'd be more inclined to qualify it as bad, in fact. That's because I don't believe "you and me" against "the world" is sane. I think it's quite mad. And yet, that's how marriage is still sold. It's a lot of the reason why people previously not allowed to marry, want to be allowed to marry now. And who can blame them? The media is constantly alerting us as to what a dangerous world we live in and how we need to protect ourselves however we can, that we need to have someone in our corner, that we need to elect a government to protect us, that we should view the rest of the world as - TRYING TO TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOMS!

Meanwhile, most marriages I've been around would indicate to me that the trouble comes from within, not without. The world isn't out to get you - your partner is. And not even necessarily with intent. It's just a vague, "well, if I'm not having any fun, I'll be damned if s/he is", that goes on for years. And years. And then more years. Because in spite of all the hand-wringing - separating/divorcing, even when you'd both be better off, is the hardest thing in the world to actually do. It's certainly the hardest thing I've ever done. And I would never have done it if I couldn't. So the Back to the Biblers have that right. I'd have stayed married and no one's life would have suffered the... the what... what is it that people other than the couple suffer? Inconvenience? Upset? Sadness?

Anger that now they feel that much more pressure to stay or go themselves because even those two Bickersons managed to do it?

I don't know. I'm just guessing. Because I can't imagine anyone who's ever actually been married, thinking it's better than not being married. I personally don't believe it is. I think it's a trick of lighting, in fact. Certainly for some people, being in control of their own lives comes naturally. Marriage is having your cake and eating it, too. And that's really... lucky. For those people. But without a doubt, they would be exceptions in my experience.

Most people, I believe, get married because they're afraid of being alone. They grab whoever is there at the time the fear hits and call it being married. Why we, as a society, pretend, go along with, promote that as the right way to live - for the good of us all - is beyond me.

But look at how we view the rest of the world as a society. We believe the media when it tells us the rest of the world is out to get us and then we elect politicians who claim they can protect us from it.

It's pretty insidious. Because when we see what that government then does to protect us, it's pretty clear who the real enemy is.

Posted by Sooey at 11:27 AM | Permalink

Well... I WAS going to blog about something NICE today to offset my Anti-Conservative entry of yesterday, but then I found this on MyBlahg:

Real Women Don't Discriminate Against Other Women

and I lost my mind.

Because that's exactly what I mean about our Conservative country and our pathetic need to ensure that bigoted organizations are recognized for their views and given lots of time and attention and consideration lest they whine about having their rights taken away because other people are having theirs recognized and then whine some more about not getting their usual prime spots in the Canadian media and on Parliament Hill to have their bigoted say on matters legislative.

Why, in Canada, in 2007, is REAL Women given a seat at the table to promote its blatant, fat-arsed, Conservative bigotry?

Sure. They're a bunch of old lady Reformers and the old men Reformers are now the New Conservative Government of Canada. And sure, we all know all Reformers are just old bigots who now call themselves New Conservatives now and who whine incessantly that they've been shut out of all the decision-making that has gone on since you couldn't beat your wife - legally - with a stick thicker'n your thumb out here in Eastern Canada. Gawd. Who'd believe those old Alberta reformers are now New Conservative Government of Canada Cabinet Ministers. Out and out, in our Central Ontario liberal, gay faces - bigots ready to clean up Ottawa of all that Big L Liberal nonsense and tomfoolery what says homos can marry and women shouldn't have as many babies as God will allow. And because they're so butt-stupid and mormon-lipped - they're prowwwwwwwd of it. (And I'm well aware that many of them hail from good ol' bigoted Ontario. No kidding. I've lived in Belleville: Off Colour Taxis Ain't no one worse that a Southeastern Ontarian waxing bigotophical on women's lip and trudope and immigration: "Bin ta Pearson lately? Ya'd hardly know you were in Canada. Looks like we imported Africa by mistake.")

And that's okay. They're allowed to be bigots. It's a free country (until they turn it into a gulag, anyway). But why are they appearing before Parliamentary Committees? Who didn't get a seat at the table because REAL Women was once again there on behalf of Unreal Women? That's what I'd like to know. Because I'm a taxpayer. And REAL Women is actively campaigning to have this backward shit-for-brains of a government bring in discriminatory legislation, to roll back legislative gains made by women and their pals - the gays - and take us back to a simpler time (for old Conservative bigots, I guess) when women had fewer rights and so did fat-arsed Conservative bigots who don't seem to care about freedom.

That's wrong. I mean, REAL Women old Reformers and their new Conservative bigot friends can think whatever fucked up thing they want to think. But I''m not sure why we're paying to host them while they promote their bigoted views. I don't care who they think they're speaking on behalf of - since they're not promoting social progress and an extension of civil and human rights for all citizens, I'm not sure why they aren't just left holding signs out on the lawn of Parliament Hill: "Roll Back Homo Rights! Less Freedom for Lady Canadians! Make (White) Babies AND (Brown) War!"

And, by the way, why is it that their views are constantly being represented in the media? Other than bigotry, what are they advocating? Taking away choices from people who aren't you isn't any kind of position that should be given any attention by anyone in a position to decide who gets airplay and who doesn't. So why is the media acting as if REAL Women deserves equal time to people who aren't bigots? Almost as if every civil rights gain must be accompanied by an equal and opposite bigoted whine from nasty old Conservative bigots who don't like other people's rights being recognized in law.

People can be bigots. No one is stopping you from believing whatever you want to believe. (Although, watch what you disbelieve if you're a German citizen or we might just deport you to Germany to teach you a lesson in REAL free speech tolerance.) But I think it's fair for non-bigoted citizens to draw the line at REAL Women having a seat at the political table when their agenda is clearly to roll back civil and human rights.

I mean, let's face it, would we tolerate the Ku Klux Klan making a submission to Parliament to the effect that only old white Conservative bigots should be allowed to make laws?

Oh. Wait a minute. I guess we would. Because the Alberta Reform Party is the New Conservative Government of Canada and it's about to be the New Conservative Government of Canada again.

As an end to this rant and a timely aside, a friend of mine used to speculate that Canadians were fooling themselves vis a vis the United States. That not only are we the same, politically - we're the same a few years later.

Well, I look at Bush the Junior and all we know to be true about him and I look at Stephen Harper and all we know to be true about him and I think: She's Right.

Posted by Sooey at 11:48 AM | Permalink

Okay. Here's the thing. I've never liked Conservatives. I don't trust them. I think they're big, fat, pasty-arsed liars who will say anything, smear anybody, do whatever it takes - to keep others from obtaining the rights they enjoy, pretty much by birthright.

And yet, to listen to them, you'd think they were responsible for all the freedoms of Western society. They take credit, the pundits of today, for our advanced civilization (you know, the one bombing Iraq to freedom, or, at least - civil war) and argue that the left is a threat to all that is right. And good. Meanwhile, they actively support the antithesis of social progress.

They're liars. Chest-thumping liars. They aren't responsible for any progress in our society. Progress was made by citizens going up against the Patriarchy, the Establishment, the Status Quo - to gain expanded rights for all citizens, including Conservatives. It has been the left, on this continent, that agitated for progressive reform. Conservatives stood in the way. They smeared, they informed, they did everything they could think of to prevent other citizens from enjoying the same rights and freedoms they were born into.

They're closed-minded territorial tyrants. Like dogs with bones.

So, having said ALL THAT, I don't believe for a second that they care about the people of Iraq or the people of Afghanistan. I know them to be lying when they claim that they do. I know this because they don't even care about my rights and freedoms. They'd rather I had less economic freedom, less social freedom, and less reproductive freedom.

Less, less, less. They'd take away my freedoms if they could. And since they very clearly would do that, why would I trust what they say about anything?

Which brings me to Stephen Harper and his not-so-hidden agenda. Now, to my mind, the second Stephen Harper called the Liberal leadership candidates "Anti-Israel" for questioning his policies in the Middle East, he should have been shunned. Like how the Mennonites do it. Absolutely and unequivocably shunned.

Because he's a thug. That's what thugs do. They impugn the reputations of people who question the Establishment. That it happened to the Liberal leadership candidates and that they were all too self-interested to act as a united front against our PM, thug-at-large, says all you need to know about them - that they're Liberals.

Not as bad as Conservatives but only because they aren't Conservatives.

And since we all know now that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are really truly awful people and the worst most pathological liars with borderline personalities exhibiting psychopathic behaviours - why are they still here running the world?

Why do Conservatives insist on supporting the War on Terror and any and all other policies of Conservative governments?

I'll tell you why. Because they are also truly awful people and the worst most pathological liars with borderline personalities exhibiting psychopathic behaviours.

And also, because they are, at heart, and in their brains - sexist and racist. They don't want women to have equal rights because they don't want women to be free to not procreate. White, western women, that is. They don't want women going after THEIR jobs. They don't want women thinking they are as good as men. They really, when you come right down to it, want to be able to hit them and not be punished by society for it. They want women to go back to being "theirs". To being property. Just like they want the right to hit their kids. Because they do. That's what spanking is - it's hitting. Conservatives want the right to absolute authority over their children. Father knows best. Not the state. Father.

And certainly not that feminist lesbian bitch - the single mother.

And the procreation thing matters because it points to a generic Conservative racism. Conservatives don't want white western women to enjoy reproductive freedom because they are afraid it will lead to the Islamic Menace taking over the western world and taking away their freedoms - freedoms that people on the left fought so hard to win - for them and everybody else. (Because even birthright didn't give Conservatives the rights they enjoy today - thanks to social agitators and progressive activists.) They want to restrict MY rights now, to save THEIR rights in the future. Maybe. If the Islamic Menace is all they are cracking it up to be.

So yeah. I'm angry. And there's a debate going on in and around the internet about Conservatives and who they are and blahblahblah. I don't see the need, myself. They are telling us who they are all the time. I'm not sure why - but I guess they are truly that far gone. When you piece it together, you'll see what I mean. You need only to read a newspaper once in a blue moon to wonder if you're in a time warp and have been transported back in time a couple of hundred years. Try it. Read a National Post editorial one of these days. They are quite unbelievable - given my reality, anyway. That's why I don't even pick up a newspaper anymore. Conservative points of view? Why? Are they underrepresented in politics? In multi-national corporations? In the establishment anywhere in the world?

No. They aren't. So why are their views represented in the press. Shouldn't the press be the one place where Conservative views are not allowed? They have all the power. They're doing what they have always done - running the world their way and to their advantage. Their sole modus operandi is to deny others their rights because of their primitive brain miswiring that tells them expanded rights for others means fewer rights for them.

Conservatives. Yuck. Who needs 'em. Not the press, that's for sure. But I guess nothing's sacred.

Posted by Sooey at 10:32 AM | Permalink

Not only did I have a Happy Valentine's Day - BUT - I came away from it with a great line which I will share with you all here on SooeySays. I made brownies with fair trade organic cocoa purchased at Bridgehead and served one up to my Valentine who exclaimed delightedly:

"Tastes like justice!"

Now, I'm not a REAL marketing genius, but - if I was out to foil the Chocolate Cartel with my fair trade organic cocoa products, I'd have on the label of all my biodegradable packaging:

"Tastes Like Justice!"

Brilliant! I know, I know - "Sooey! Why, oh why are you giving it away for free?!"

Well, it's not really my line to sell...

But speaking of justice reminds me of Stephen Harper and the New Conservative Government of Canada. He recently made a significant change to the Canadian justice system that will ensure it has a partisan Conservative bent now as opposed to a legally qualified one:

ConservativeReformJustice

Literally. He removed a chair for a legal representative on the qualified side of the table and replaced it with a government chair on the partisan side of the table. He stacked the Judging Panel for "Canada's Next Top Judge Search".

Now, I'm not surprised Stephen Harper would do this because I believe he's a Reformer. He's an Alberta Separatist Reformer. The Firewall letter I've blogged about previously isn't fiction. It's fact. And he's a signatory to it.

In any case, plenty of Canadians voted for him, ostensibly because they wanted the Liberals out of power. Well, okay. Liberals out of power is sometimes a good thing. Unless they are being replaced by Conservatives IN power.

Conservatives in power is never a good thing. It just isn't. Ever. They don't even really want power. Because they know they'll just use it to reduce the Canadian federation to a bunch of tinpot provinces. Oh yeah. And territories. Gawd forbid we should forget the territories. And that third coast.

Territories R Us. And three coasts.

But I've always railed against Stephen Harper. I don't like him, I don't trust him, I think he's a threat to my rights as a Canadian citizen. And I'd say this latest little bit of... well... "gerrymandering" is the word that comes to mind - makes my suspicions more right, than wrong.

So yeah. This latest bit of manipulation (ah... perhaps a better word - "manipulation") is a done deal and pretty well everybody from hither and yon is saying it's not a good deal for Canadian justice, either. They're saying it's a bad deal. That it's dangerously partisan. That it's political interference. That it's wrong. And I notice none of them are claiming to be shocked out of their gourds by it. Secret agenda? Hm. I knew he'd do it - manipulate the Canadian justice system to better reflect his own Reformist (as in, Socially Conservative) views. That's why I didn't vote for him.

But you know how rightwingers always rail against the Islamic Menace and how it is such a threat to our freedoms and even worse that moderate Muslims aren't doing enough to... like... stop it? Beyond not helping it along in taking over our freedoms, I mean? Er, and theirs, too, I guess... (And, like you, I don't really know who the "moderate" Muslims are supposed to be, either, since the only Muslims we ever hear from are Imams... I dunno... Everybody else who's Muslim but not an Imam?)

Well, I figure Stephen Harper is a much bigger threat to our freedoms (like, right now, and... here in Canada) and I was just wondering when the moderate Conservatives are going to join me in protesting this latest threat to the Canadian justice system. I mean, I know you're out there, you moderate Conservatives. You used to have a whole big Party called the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. I know, I know. You "joined" the Alberta Separatist Reformers to become the New Conservative Party of Canada. But, well - Newsflash - The Alberta Separatist Reformers tricked you. They're the strongmen. They've completely out-muscled you.

So time to get out there and protest against those hard right tyrants, you moderate Conservatives, you. Show the moderate Muslims how it's done.

"Tastes Like Justice!"

I love that line.

Posted by Sooey at 11:21 AM | Permalink

I was thinking about myths on my way to work this morning. It started with this whole War on Terror that is being waged in the Middle East by the American establishment. I was thinking how much like the frog in the pot we all are. How, even though we know what we know about the invasion of Iraq, we still wonder aloud if the Americans will invade Iran.

Of course they will.

Well before 9/11, when the Taliban was making crazy threats, the Americans had their ears cocked towards Afghanistan. Threats? No one makes crazy threats toward The Great Satan. Crazy? We'll show you crazy! Threats? We'll show you threats! We'll bomb the living crap out of your country!

Then 9/11 and, well, what more excuse did they need? Terrorists from Saudi Arabia? Close enough, Afghanistan, you crazy fucker!

Then Iraq with the coyness gone mad over Weapons of Mass Destruction. Because don't forget, even though Iraq didn't have 'em, its crazy leader PRETENDED it did. Saddam Hussein threatened plenty. Like only a madman would. Iraq asked for it. It really did. I remember thinking, "Shut up, you crazy muthafucka! That's the United States of America you're threatening! You even call it "The Great Satan"! Whaddaya think is gonna happen?"

Sho' 'nuff.

And now Iran. Iran with the crazy leader threatening the United States of America. And Israel, no less. With nuclear weapons.

WITHOUT ACTUALLY HAVING NUCLEAR WEAPONS!!!!!

Okay. How crazy does a leader have to be to make nuclear threats when he doesn't actually have nuclear weapons?

Tres crazy. Tres, tres crazy.

Fortunately, the population of Iran is so disproportionately young and unthrilled with living in a Theocracy that it might welcome the invading Americans. Although, hopefully, they don't know what happened during the Gulf War when the Iraqi Army largely defected to the invading American side in hopes of... what? What were they hoping for, do you think? 'Cause whatever it was, it couldn't have been the War on Terror.

Anyway, I'm not a REAL foreign affairs expert/military historian - but I know a pattern when I see one.

The Americans will invade Iran.

SooeySays.

But back to myths. (My walk to work is 40 minutes. I devote half the walk to one myth, half to another.) The second myth is about men, women and financial independence. I noticed on my forum the other day that there is a lingering bitterness from men about all the drinks they supposedly bought for women over the years because they are men and women are women and that's just the way it is. Or, at least, was.

So I thought back to my own years on the bar scene and I remember paying for my own drinks and often the drinks of my drinking companions. I just assumed it was because I always had a job and they often didn't. Apparently, though, there were lots of men my age buying drinks for women because... well... I don't know why. Certainly they seem to be bitter about the lost revenue. You rarely hear a man speaking warmly of all the money he's spent on women over the years - particularly if it was of the drink buying variety.

So why do they do it? Women at the age when they are out looking for love all have jobs. They are financially independent. They don't need men to buy them drinks. So why does this silly myth persist? I mean, it's not as if men aren't sucky about doing it - because they are. They gripe about it for years afterward. And women who brag about having men buy them drinks sound... well... like assholes.

Who doesn't realize when they are in grade school that time is everything. It isn't money, like those blowhard business thingies say. It's everything. Money is nothing compared to time. Absolute dust in the wind. So why would women with money spend time - their time, their one and only time - with men just to have them pay for their drinks when they have the money to pay for their own drinks?

I'm just asking. Because either I missed a key component of womanhood, or men are full of shit and propagating myths about women that don't hold any water in my personal life experience.

When is it not better to exercise financial independence?

Never.

So don't stay at home with those babies, either, mother. Remember the cry of the drinks buyer in years gone by. He's probably your husband.

Like I said in a previous entry, I should probably get an iPod for the walk to work.

Posted by Sooey at 10:56 AM | Permalink

I recently read another Anne Tyler book.

SPOILER ALERT!!

This one was called, "The Amateur Marriage" and it was quite good. Of course, I like Anne Tyler's books. For some reason, the characters are sufficiently "other" to me that I can read her without taking any of it personally. I'm like that. Even about books. I think EVERYTHING is critical.

Of me.

Anyway, I was prepared NOT to agree - yet again - with Ms. Tyler's views on marriage, but she surprised me by having the couple divorce. This in spite of the fact that, well, read the two posts below that were made on my forum and you'll have a better idea of why I was surprised by the divorce. The first is by Idler, the second by me:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Idler: I liked The Amateur Marriage even though the couple was written as a bit cliched. Him: repressed, censorious, quiet. Her: voluble, emotional, romantic.
Onset of the Sixties with a capital letter - daughter runs off to San Francisco.
Good read I agree, like all her books.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
sooey: i said that same thing to a man who happened to be sitting across the table from me at dinner just the other evening. that her genders are real cliches. always. and he's like "well, there must be some variance or why would you continue to read her books?" so i shrieked, "i'll show you variance!" and grabbed his dinner and tossed it off the balcony.

because normally, you know, they stay married in spite of the mismatch. but in the amateur marriage, they don't.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Those two posts pretty much sum up why I was surprised. Her characters are cliches, but they are cliches who stay married. Usually. That's why I like, "The Amateur Marriage". Because she mixed it up a bit by having them divorce. And guess what? Nobody died.

No wait...

The divorced wife died. Okay. Scratch that. But it's not like she had much point in living much longer without a husband to be voluble, emotional and romantic without, anyway.

But that's just it, isn't it. Some people are just meant to be married and they may as well be married to each other as to wreck two other lives. OR is it the combination of personalities that makes for those particularly gruesome marriages that the rest of us must get through when invited over to dinner or somesuch social occasion. Because so often I think marriage is just a matter of time and place. You happen to be with whoever when the mood strikes and that's who you pledge to remain with for the rest of your life.

No wonder the divorce rate is so high. We divorce because we can. I mean, what are the odds that a marriage decided on at a certain time and place will last in another time and place.

Not great. Obviously.

But Ms. Tyler had another development in this book that I don't recall in previous ones. She had a rebellious teen go absolutely A.W.O.L. Back in the 60s. And it was really quite interesting because it's not often I think of the post-war generation as having had a rough time with their kids and yet they would have had the ROUGHEST time with their kids. Because that was when the Patriarchy really started breaking down and parents knew - for the first time ever - that they didn't really have any control over their offspring. That they couldn't make them do what they wanted.

What was interesting for me, was that the hardest thing in both instances for the main characters in the book, Michael and Pauline, was the shame. The shame of their daughter leaving home. And the shame of their marriage not lasting until death did them part. And whereas Michael keeps it in but manages to move his life forward, Pauline lets it out but never gets anywhere.

And I guess the message in the book was that you were really on your own. That other people didn't want to hear about your failures. Or didn't want to think that your failures might affect/infect them, at any rate.

And nothing's really changed in that regard. People who might be affected by your failures, really don't want to hear about them. They want you to keep on keeping on and not do anything that might compromise them in any way. Now, I don't know if that's true for all of my readers, but it is certainly true in my experience. That people do not really care whether you're happy or not - as long as they're happy. And that's kind of the bottom line of life. That every time you do what you want in life, it makes someone else a little less happy. And usually, it's someone who should care about your happiness.

I guess that's why we have a status quo and that the main message we're given from the get-go is: "Don't mess with the status quo."

Well, heck. If Anne Tyler can have a couple of cliche characters suddenly up and divorce after the millionth fight over nothing...

Of course... the wife paid for that one by way of a fatal car crash, so...

Okay. Well. I guess you take your chances, then, when you mess with the status quo.

True enough. And yet it's always worth it. So why don't we do it more often? Leave marriages, quit jobs, DO WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO DO!

What is that incredible force that keeps us from taking on the status quo?

Posted by Sooey at 01:46 PM | Permalink

I remember back in the late 70s, early 80s there was what some people called a Feminist Backlash. A resurgence of the Old Poop Patriarchy that pretty much said, "Okay. You've had your fun. But we have all the power and we liked it better when the natural order of things wasn't being questioned. So. Beat it, sister."

"No. Literally."

It was really weird for girls my age because we went from high school in the 70s, which was pretty in tune with the flares and shags of the 60s, to university of the 80s, which was, well, Uptightsville, Man.

But now I realize it was just more... obvious - The Backlash of The 80s. Because we're always in Times of Backlash. With every progressive step we take - there is an equal and opposite Backlash.

I call it "The Kneejerk".

Fortunately, the step, once taken, cannot be taken back. It can only be railed against, decried, argued about endlessly in all forms of media.

Kneejerked.

That's what we call - progress. And it all really happens in court. Thanks to the evolution of our justice system, real progress happens in legally binding court decisions that can be railed against, decried, argued about endlessly in all forms of media - but not be taken back.

Precedent. Gawd, I love that word.

That's why Feminists like the Law. Law and Order, as it were. Because we realize that with every bit of progress in life (and, let's face it - progress and Feminism go together like banking hours and bank profits) there is an equal and opposite Backlash in the media that has no REAL effect on anything except the blood pressure of the various combatants.

This is a good thing. Because there really is no denying progress, in fact. Just in emotion. And that's fine. People need to think they are having their say. Because we also live in a democracy.

So, what happens when democracy is at odds with progress. Like when, for instance, Canadians elect a New Conservative Government of Canada and the Prime Minister of that government, and his Cabinet, are largely at odds with Feminists.

What happens then?

Well, normally, you'd have a vigilant media. A media ever watchful that the government isn't attempting to stack the system in any way unfavourable to progress. Because surely the media is always in favour of progress. More rights for more people. Expanded freedoms for all. All legally entrenched. Lots and lots of freedom of expression, guaranteed under the law.

Surely.

So why does it seem like so much of our media is just Backlash?

Because Backlash isn't good. Backlash is a return to Patriarchy. And Patriarchy means more rights for FEWER people, restricted freedoms for MOST OF US. All legally entrenched - like it used to be. Less and less freedom of expression, or you will face the full force of the law.

Why, in 2007, do we have newspaper editorial boards arguing on behalf of Old Fashioned Standards of Morality, Freedom, and Legal Rights in Canada?

Because we do.

Why?

Posted by Sooey at 11:56 AM | Permalink

I don't really know anything about Anna Nicole Smith, but I heard on the news yesterday that she died.

Just so you know.

Okay, okay. I knew enough about her that I didn't think she held a candle to our own Pamela Lee Anderson.

Upstart American Trash.

Anyway, no matter how trashy she was in life, the good news is that she can never be as trashy in death as Lady Di. Remember that spectacle? Omigawd. All those flowers in plastic that had to be dealt with, the days of missed work by mourners (although, I suppose more'n a few of 'em were probably 4th generation dolers just missing several afternoons of Coronation Street), hastily re-written sad songs about candles and wind and blowing, Elton John still in full Drama Queen mode mourning Lady Di on top of Versace.

Aside from the money, it must suck to be famous. I mean, even as rewarding as it would have been to watch the Royal Family squirm at the awkwardness of the love pouring forth from your death, you're still dead. And you probably wouldn't be if you hadn't been so damned famous.

So... why do people pursue it? The spotlight, I mean. Especially if you already have the money.

Look at another prima donna in the news. He's not blond and a drug addict or even a Princess, but he may as well be, for all his self-awareness.

Of course, I'm talking about Conrad Black.

I mean, he was born into the money. And when you're born into the money, there's no excuse for being so stupid as to want the fame, too. You know, so everything you do is under the spotlight. The trips, the parties, the little woman's SHOES!

YOU ALREADY HAVE THE MONEY, STUPID! YOU DON'T NEED THE FAME!

Sure, it's one thing when you're buying the newspaper chain after a few ugly episodes of questionable financial wheeling and dealing that everybody is destined to forget as soon as you buy the newspaper chain and start spreading your hard right neo-con political world view with your little soldier/disciples lined up and ready to march out and do battle for you at highly inflated salaries (not that it stops you from monopolizing the entire op/ed section every once in a while for one of your own ponderous tomes on a favourite pet subject of history). It's quite another to draw attention to your private life while doing it and quite another all over again to swan about making a public spectacle of yourself when you're up on charges that could put you in the slammer for the rest of your life.

And, by the way, I'm not a REAL lawyer, but the first bit of advice I'd have given Lord Black would be, "Okay. I'm your lawyer. I do the talking. You do the shutting up."

I really don't think he's getting his money's worth at all.

But look around. All kinds of people are trying to become famous. I have no idea why. I mean, I'd like to be a writer, I'd like to make a living writing - but if I made it big? Whoo-ee. That'd be the last you'd hear of me. I'd go buy me a nice townhome in Perth or somesuch and... Aw crap. I'm doing it already. Letting the paparrazzi know where I'll be with all my money.

Okay. Scratch that. But I'm thinking about fame and anonymity because there has been so much bad press lately about the internet and its effect on us as individuals AND as a society, and who's doing all this blogging, and more importantly - WHY!

Well, I have a blog and I post comments in and around the internet, and I think I have an answer to the "WHY!" question/accusation: Because it's there.

That's really all there is to it. If the internet wasn't there, I wouldn't be blogging or posting comments on it. I know this to be true because the internet didn't used to be here. But as soon as it was - "BAM!" Or rather, to put it more precisely - several years after it was - "BAM!"

I was posting on it.

Now, the question that needs asking is, "Why do bloggers write for free?" Well, my guess is, most of us want to become known for our writing so that we can make a living at it. As in, fame ----> money. As opposed to, money ----> fame. But the internet is somewhat of a free-for-all, too. What are the odds? Does fame ever ----> money on the internet?

Hm. When it comes to writing, even fame doesn't always -----> money - even in real life.

Sure, the mainstream media pays a lot of attention to the blogging world. But has anybody been hired from it? Well, a few people have had paid media gigs that they got because they had a certain degree of success online. But nothing lasting very long, as far as I know. And does it happen very often? Or do you already have to be famous and have a media gig of one kind or another to be recognized on the internet as a voice worth reading?

More importantly, if you ARE already famous and have a media gig - WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING ON THE INTERNET?!

There should be Agents-at-Large to tell people who already have "outlets" to shut-up and stop doing for free what someone is paying them to do elsewhere. AND maybe even Agents-at-Large to tell people who are doing it ALL for free, "Okay, honey. Time to shut-up. If people want it bad enough, they'll have to pay you for it."

Not that I wouldn't miss the blogs that I read for free, that people do for the love of blogging. None of them political, by the way. Isn't it funny how you can end up doing something for free that you wouldn't pay someone else to do, that doesn't bring you fame OR money, but...

AHA! It's not enough anymore to say, "Writers write." Because writers who want to make money writing - need agents. It's so obvious. The internet needs agents.

That's all. Then people will stop considering it a... a... free-for-all.

Calling all agents! To the internet! STAT!

Posted by Sooey at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Remember "Trickle Down Economics"? I believe it was a favourite Reaganeraism. "Trickle Down Economics". As in, "Rich People Getting Richer Means More Money For Servants And Accountants", I guess.

Well, whoever the lucky servants and accountants were, here's to ya.

Meanwhile, my beau - who has one of those minds, one of those... mindy mindful minds - said to the tv the other day, in response to some small business thingie decrying a minimum wage of $10.00 and invoking the tax cuts saviour so favoured by small business thingies these days with a rounding off tally ho mateys of, "the poor will benefit from the trickle down effect" - "WHY NOT HAVE THE RICH BENEFIT FROM THE TRICKLE UP EFFECT OF A $10.00 MINIMUM WAGE!"

You should try it. Shouting at the tv, I mean. It's fun because if you have a mute button, the tv just sits there in shock and awe, it's lips flapping wordlessly as its circuitry goes all swirly and doodly at your superiour wit and logic.

Anyway, in my ongoing attempt to re-invent myself (I'm a natural born reactionary, all my thoughts are based on my knee jerking) I actually took pause to digest this outburst and pronounce it quite fine.

"Hey! Can I steal that one for my blog entry tomorrow?"

"Trickle Up Economics?"

"Yeah."

"Sure, baby - it's yours."

And now it's yours, too, Dear Reader. Trickle Up Economics. I like it because it makes sense. Dollars and Cents. AND with trickle up economics, you can be sure the money stays in the economy HERE as opposed to zipping off to the economy of... oh... say... Bermuda. Or Switzerland. Or perhaps even just a travelling briefcase that calls no country home.

And raising the minimum wage eases that belt former Finance Minister, Paul Martin, so famously kept telling us to keep tightening because some day - OH SOME HOLY DAY OF JUSTICE - he'd make it worth our while.

Well, if he did, he's fucked off to greener pastures since, as far as I know - so to hell with him. I doubt he's comin' back. So I say we loosen our belts in his absence, demand our governments legislate good, decent, living wages tied to, not inflation or somesuch airy fairy notion of something or other, but those BIG BRASS BONUSES or somesuch real indicator of how well we are doing - economy-wise. Good, decent, living wages for ALL Canadians.

And leave the rest to Trickle Up Economics.

Yes, indeed. I'd much rather Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat make a decent wage and go spend it locally than Richie Rich and The Missus get another leg-up on tax cuts to add to their offshore pile.

But, of course, I would say that - wouldn't I.

Not being rich and all.

Still, there are more of us than there are of them, so... I say we go with Trickle Up Economics until something better comes along.

Posted by Sooey at 11:45 AM | Permalink

Whoa, eh? There's nothing quite like an astronaut scorned.

Or is that "spurned"?

I never can remember that one. But I'm terrible with details. It's all about the general for me. I leave details to the detail-oriented. That's why I'm not dissecting the science that has been done on climate change. As David Warren tries here:

What I Don't Understand About Climate Change Could Fill Space

Posted by Sooey at 12:43 PM | Permalink

Hard working immigrants.

What does that mean, exactly? Canada was populated by Indians before Europeans got here. Were Indians not hard working? How did they survive here so well for so long then? Or did they just work enough. Enough to stay warm and fed in winter and cool and fed in summer.

Because I've noticed how every time there's a racist flare-up, such as what's going on in Herouxville, politicians trot out the old, "Canada was built on immigration. Hard working immigrants made this country what it is today." And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc until one is forced to ask, "But what about the ones who went on to go on strike every now and again? The immigrants who wanted more money for less work? The ones who maybe threw in the work towel altogether and went to drink and begging on street corners for money to support their drinking habits instead of their families?"

What about the immigrants who said, "This is too much work. I'm going back home across the ocean to the pub and coming back when the bush is cleared."

And not to put too fine a point on it, but... none of those immigrants were brown, like many of today's immigrants who we apparently expect to be hard working, either. They were all white. British white, more often than not.

Is it even true that OTHER immigrants worked hard? The non-agitating for higher pay for less work white British of some sort or another immigrants, I mean? Or even the non-agitating for higher pay for less work white NON-British immigrants?

Because I bet that's all bullshit. I bet all those other immigrants worked just hard enough to get by, too. Just like we seem to be saying Indians did before we got here to be harder hard working.

Sort of like how we do right now. Sit here being harder hard working than Indians while lauding new immigrants for being even harder hard working than our waves of immigration. The white waves, I mean.

So why, exactly, do our politicians et al still feel compelled to describe immigrants as hard working? Clearly it doesn't apply to ALL immigrants or we'd be super top of the heap of all the industrialized countries. Or is it because we don't want to be seen to be dissing previous generations of immigrants, thereby making our Judeo-Christian culture claims of superiority seem somewhat... lame. That we DON'T, in fact, possess a particular brand of hard working genes that have been passed down through the generations by virtue of our Canadianness.

I mean, didn't immigrants come here in search of a better life? An easier life? A way to make more money for less work?

So, why do we think NEW immigrants should be hard working and not here in search of less work for more money? And what's with this expectation that new immigrants should be grateful for the opportunity, anyway? Aren't we just lucky to have been born in a country where the whole idea is to do less work for more money? What's with wanting to hear: "Thank you, natural-born Canadian descendants of people who may or may not have been hard working depending on what your definition of hard working is and who you are comparing yourselves to by way of coming up with a definition that really doesn't mean what it is to be Canadian anyway."

And who is it that the thanks is to be directed at, exactly? Factory owners? Union organizers? Government workers? What's with us acting like we have a monopoly on hard work? That we invented it? And what's with the assumption of moral superiority believing that it's true - even if it is? What is it that makes us think hard work is superior to just enough work to survive?

I dunno. Sometimes I go down that road and end up wanting to live in a tent just to get away from our own bullshit.

A pox on hard workers.

Wherever they are. Whoever they are. Me? I want what the guys at the top have - more money for less work.

Bonus - eh?

Posted by Sooey at 01:38 PM | Permalink

That's mine. "The Effluence of Affluence". I made it up on the weekend in response to the sudden media deluge of climate change articles.

Wow. One minute climate change isn't really happening, the next - it's ALL that is happening.

David Warren wrote a whole column about it, even:

Sekken This!!

At first, I thought the "sekken" he was talking about was when everybody - even the New York Times - bought the Bush Incorporated line that America the Good was invading Iraq the Bad to find Weapons of Mass Destruction before they destroyed the world.

Alas, no.

He was talking about how everybody is suddenly buying the scientific claim that man-made greenhouse gases are warming up the planet and that this is what is leading to climate change. You know, the climate change we are suddenly all aware of because it's been going on for like, 50 years or something.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want to believe in climate change. I don't even want to believe in pollution. I'm from Northern Ontario. A steel town. A one industry steel town. And I'm well aware that our wealth as a nation is built on our exploitation (and by exploitation, I mean "use") of our natural resources. I have no particular beef with industry, either. Although I think people who talk about a free market are the same people who iron their underwear and pee sitting down and stand to inherit great gobs of wealth when mommy passes on to the great tea party in the sky.

My beef is with our governments. Western governments that have done nothing, really, to ensure that some of the wealth derived from industry's exploitation of our natural resources has been used to mitigate the environmental damage (and by damage, I mean "devastation") it has wrought.

There is, Dear Reader, no point in blaming the oil industry or any other industry for climate change. If, indeed, climate change is even happening - which many people, all of them either rightwing pundits or oil industry hired guns, say - is not. This, of course, leads to the frightening possibility that David Warren is right and not just rightwing and that we are experiencing not climate change, but "sekken".

OR, that perhaps we are simply the victims of a vast scientific conspiracy. For what purpose, I'm not sure. But scientists are just nerds who've memorized the Periodic Tables, so, it is quite possible that the small hit of vindication they got when the Catholic Church admitted Galileo wasn't as bad as it had previously thought went straight to their heads and the next thing you know, they're claiming CO2 or somesuch made up series of random letters and numbers is blowing holes in the sky and it is only a matter of time before the moon falls through one of those holes and takes out Manhattan.

I dunno. I'd prefer "sekken". But then, "sekken" would be "sekken". So, as usual, the Japanese are just talking nonsense and David Warren has "sekkened" it.

But seriously, what good is government if it doesn't look out for great big things like climate change before we're in the middle of it. Isn't that really what government is for? To look at the big picture? To say, every once in a while: "You know, citizens, all this affluence is creating a lot of effluence. So some of our affluence, and we're going to have to create a fair affluence penalty scale here, is going to have to be put aside to deal with all this effluence."

The government could even have called it, "The Affluence Effluent Tax", so that Canadians would have understood, right from the get-go: "Oh... affluence comes at a price..."

Because, Dear Reader, there is no such thing as a free market. Nowhere, nohow, noway. You can have a civilized country with a democratic government and a regulated marketplace - OR - you can have a pretend fairyland in your head ruled by a free market elf.

Of course, maybe, instead of going along with scientists and calling the man-made greenhouse gases that are warming up the globe leading to climate change "climate change", the government should go back to just calling it "pollution" and tax it on an "as produced basis".

It's just an idea. Because something tells me that pointing the finger of blame at Oil Companies, or whatever, isn't going to result in anything other than hired guns putting out counter unscientific studies claiming that climate change isn't real. Studies that will fill our newspapers and clog our airwaves until the leader of the Liberals calls the leader of the Conservatives "fat".

So, instead of a finger of blame, how about we point a finger of change. And elect a government that promises to tax the producers of any and all pollution and re-direct that revenue to cleaning it up. Companies could bid on clean-up contracts, even the producing company, the government would be responsible for ensuring only that the clean-up work was actually being done, and - Voila!

Affluence with effluence that is then cleaned up as best we can do it so we don't end up surrounded by our own shit in our one and only nest until it gets so full we have to start tossing fatty fatfats over the side to make room for our bling.

Stuff made in other countries with iffy human rights records and questionable industry regulations? Ask our government, come election time, why we are trading with them at all and then re-direct your focus back home and ignore whatever bullshit diversionary answer they come up with that denies we are simply scum-sucking-bottom-feeders importing cheap goods to satisfy the rapacious wants of a consumer culture dead of soul and conscience.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Posted by Sooey at 11:16 AM | Permalink

Last night I watched CBC news, something I rarely do, as I really can't stand television news, and it was punctuated, inexplicably, by a little lecture to viewers courtesy one Rex Murphy.

Now, I don't really know much about Rex Murphy beyond the alien jokes, etc., but I have to say now: "Shut up, Dumbass."

I'm not sure what the point of the lecture was, beyond letting us know that Rex Murphy is a Dumbass, but he seemed to be saying, something to the effect that, true or not (the lecture was on Climate Change - "Do We Believe 100% of Scientists? Or Do We Trust in Sceptics?") Canada isn't very important.

True. But we are a first world country that has made a pretty good name for itself by burning lots of fossil fuels. And we'll be the first to complain about it when the polar ice melts and the glaciers disappear and all that water what's been diverted to develop the Alberta Tar Sands is gone and Alberta beef is only available in dessicated cube form.

But he did get me thinking. Not about why someone as Dumbassy as Rex Murphy is allowed out at night, but how it is that now EVERYBODY is suddenly in agreement with what scientists have been saying in unison for well over 20 years - that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing a global warming that is leading to changes in our climate.

UNDENIABLE changes in our climate.

SO what, Dear Reader, is it that I think has changed the popular tide - even on the Dumbass Right - from denial of climate change to acceptance, in fact, that it may even be man-made?

First person weather experiences.

Even Exxon can't buy it's way out of that kind of proof.

My co-worker is a steadfast denier of climate change. He cites volcano eruptions as proof that what man can do to affect climate change is nothing compared to what Mother Nature can do. Mother Nature being the lady consort to Father Time - Jesus's Grampa.

He's a Rightwinger.

Still, even the most fervent denier of man as the cause of climate change can't deny that the climate is, indeed, changing. Because now we can feel it. Ask around. Even people in Ottawa were happy - HAPPY! - when the cold finally came to our town. There was a collective raising of spirits, a veritable happy sigh of delight in the air. A happy sigh, not the usual "kill me now" sigh, of Ottawans in winter.

And now we're in a "hold our collective breath" pattern in hopes that winter lasts until spring. Gone is any hope of no winter. I'm telling you - our bodies are hardwired for winter starting in November and lasting until April. I'm only middle-aged, but I may as well be Methusala for all the acceptance I had of this year's "change of seasons".

It was, quite simply, unnatural.

Climate change is causing depression. I can feel it in my bones. When those cherry trees bloomed in Washington this winter and people in Southern Ontario reported daffodils showing up in December - and that may have been what did it - I don't know - there was a sea change in belief about climate change. A tide that can't be turned by paid deniers because even Rightwingers have a hard time buying that Mother Nature can move ahead of Father Time.

Even my co-worker could feel that late start to winter wasn't right.

That's because cherry blossoms in winter is a most unnatural thing. And when unnatural is the result, man is the cause. We know this from cosmetic surgery. No one looks like that, naturally. Even the most deformed freak of nature doesn't look that way naturally. That kind of freakishness can only come from cosmetic surgery.

It's man-made. Not natural. We can tell the difference.

Which brings us back to Rex Murphy, Dumbass-at-large. Should Canada actually DO something about greenhouse gas emissions (etc.) and not just be SEEN to be doing something? Act as a leading moral force of change while actually BEING a leading moral force of change? (And by the way, let me be the first to predict the phrase "Moral Imperative" will hit the billion mark before the end of 2007 - and that's just by politicians. Pundits will bring it up to a trillion by the end of 2008.)

And is it really up to individuals to make the difference here, as our Mr. Murphy suggests? Because this is what IS being suggested. Mostly by all and sundry who are actually in a position to LEGISLATE EFFECTIVELY against man-made greenhouse gas emissions. That the best thing would be for government to give over to the people on this one. (I'm not sure why Rex Murphy is suggesting it. Because he's a Dumbass, maybe?)

Well, I don't own a car. I live in an apartment with no air conditioning. And I'm not an Alberta Tar Sands Developer/Investor/Spin-Off-Benefitter.

How's that for starters? Anybody else fit at least ONE of the above? Good.

Your turn, Government of Canada.

Posted by Sooey at 11:02 AM | Permalink

Once again my original blogging intentions have been diverted because of Something Stupid. You guessed it - a Rightwing Pundit.

In this case, it's Mark Steyn. (Er, again...):

TheIslamicMenaceIsComing!TheIslamicMenaceIsComing!

THIS time, he's writing about the portrayal of Muslims vs Townsfolk in Little Mosque on the Prairie.

Hunh?WhereAreTheTerrorists?

He's mad because he watched Little Mosque on the Prairie and instead of portraying Townsfolk as Enlightened and Tolerant and Muslims as Terrorists, it portrays Townsfolk like Herouxvillers and Muslims as... well... Gays.

Yes. That's right. Mark Steyn in an attempt to be Sooey-lite (he fails, Dear Reader, which, I don't mind telling you - saddens me somewhat because I want Mark Steyn to be smarter than he is - I really do) says "supposedly" to an "audience" in "Washington":

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"Muslim is the new gay," I said. Which got a laugh. "That's off the record," I added. "I want a sporting chance of getting home alive."
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And yes, Dear Reader, I think we can assume that since his audience was likely white and right and rich and powerful, that he got home quite safely. Quite safely indeed.

But he goes on, in his column, to explain why "Muslim is the new gay":

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"And I went on to explain that back in the Nineties sitcoms and movies began introducing gay characters who were the most likeable and got all the best lines, and that Muslims were likely to be the lucky beneficiaries of a similar dispensation. In both cases, the intent is the same: to make Islam, like homosexuality, something only uptight squares are uncool with."
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Uh... and since when aren't Muslims the uptightest of uptight squares? Again? Mr. Steyn? In real life, I mean.

Because here's something Mark Steyn doesn't seem to get. Little Mosque on the Prairie is a tv show. It's not real life. It's a sitcom. And, Mark Steyn can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure tv sitcoms just follow formulas. Like, instead of, say, a hip, young Catholic priest from the city showing up at a rural village in northern England to replace the old, retiring, traditional priest, a hip, young Muslim imam shows up at a town in Saskatchewan...

I dunno. Maybe Mark Steyn watches more tv than I do. But that tends to be the formula as far as I am aware.

Now, maybe, just maybe, he thinks tv sitcoms are more like Fox News or Global Nooze or somesuch show like that where Muslims are portrayed as Terrorists and Townsfolk are portrayed as Heroes.

No, no, no, Mark Steyn. Little Mosque on the Prairie is a sitcom. Not a news hour.

But I think buried in the quip, "Muslims are the new Gays" he DOES have a point about Gay Men on television. I noticed, for instance, that even on "Six Feet Under" that heterosexual couples in one episode were ALL portrayed as having sex under the covers. There was simulated sexual activity that even I could tell was the old in/out. But the only homosexual couple on the show, were shown - hugging. In bed. Hugging.

Ahem.

I mean, what's that all about? Why bother coming out of the closet and being openly gay and getting married and ALL THAT JAZZ if you aren't even having sex? I mean, if you're just going to hug. Gawd. Stay in the closet and get married to a woman and go buy a house in the suburbs and have two children and start driving them around to soccer lessons and birthday parties.

Oh yes - Mark Steyn. Naturally, the real point of the piece is to remind his White readers that Muslims are a threat to our survival as a White Species in the same way that Same Sex Marriage is a threat to... something... Holy, I guess.

But I thought it would be fun to take his main paragraph point by point:

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Fair enough. Never mind that, in the real Canada, the talk-radio guy would be off the air and hounded into oblivion by the Saskatchewan Humans Rights Commission;
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Uh, yeah. Such as Lowell Green right here on CFRA in Ottawa.

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and that, instead of looking like Rick Mercer after 20 minutes on a sunbed and being wry and self-deprecating and Toronto-born, your typical western imam is fiercely bearded, trained in Saudi Arabia and such linguistic dexterity as he has is confined to Arabic;
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Oh well, one man's Imam is another woman's Imam AND Bishop Phelps, I guess.

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and that airline officials who bounce suspicious Muslims from the flight wind up making public apologies and undergoing sensitivity training;
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Har-dee-har har. But not as long as they clarify first to the bouncee that, even though he isn't Muslim, he's sure as hell acting like one:

"The attendant actually recognized out loud that he wasn't a Muslim and that she was sorry for the situation but they had to ask him to leave," Faguy said.

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and that, in the event they do bust up a terrorist plot, the Mounties inevitably issue statements saying this in no way reflects on any particular community in our glorious Canadian mosaic, particularly any community beginning with "Is-" and ending with "-lam"; and that the most prominent Canadians "volunteering" for good works in Afghanistan were the Khadr family, whose pa was sprung from the slammer in Pakistan by Prime Minister Chretien in order that he could resume his "charity work" and, for his pains, he had to suffer vicious Islamophobic headlines like "Caught In A Muddle: An Arrested Aid Worker Appeals For Chretien's Help" (Maclean's).
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I guess Mark Steyn hasn't been following the news lately: Maher Arar. Oh - and, in his defence, one could say the same of the Old Monster's treatment of lots of Liberal Cabinet Ministers. Lots.

Anyway, so much for that piece. If you're a real Steyn-o-phile, there's this piece up on his website today, too:

SomeWomenDo'ave'em

Well, look at it this way, Mark Steyn - maybe more Muslim babies and fewer White people babies will make for a new sitcom formula.

Posted by Sooey at 11:14 AM | Permalink