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There was an interesting article in the Globe today. The piece was titled "Gay club wins right to ban straights", subtitled "Australian hotel owner says it will be easy to screen out undesirable heterosexuals and lesbians".
Now, normally, I don't read any newspaper - but I think I might start reading the Globe so I can keep track of stuff for blogging purposes. Also, my beau buys it anyway and it's sitting right there on the coffee table all day, so it seems a shame to not at least scan the headlines. I mean, look what I found to blog about today:
"Gay club wins right to ban straights"
Beauty, eh?
But the reason I had stopped reading the newspaper was because the one I subscribed to was the Ottawa Citizen and, although I managed to survive the Black years - I just couldn't survive the Asper years. I'm sorry. There just didn't appear to be an end in sight. And the Ottawa Citizen actually makes money, so, as a citizen AND consumer, I knew I was S.O.L. As a reader, too. Especially a reader desirous of actual news.
But there is bias, and then there is obvious bias, and then there is Canwest/Global. I had to draw the line somewhere. Sacrifices must sometimes be made. And even at that, I didn't have to be very pro-active about it. You know - like I didn't have to phone up some poor circulation drone and go on and on about WHY I was cancelling the newspaper. I just moved on without renewing. It was a clean break. And although I miss the Arts & Entertainment and weekly Style sections - I'd had enough of the Ottawa Citizen's editorial board to keep my blood pressure high for a couple of years more - without reading a single one of its ridiculous opinions on anything.
Boyo, though - I'd like to read its take on "Gay club wins right to ban straights". Talk about political correctness and reverse discrimination in one big ol' girl backlash - eh?
Or... is it?
Well, certainly if you read the article and happen to be a woman you will notice more than the same old, same old discrimination except with a gay rights official stamp of approval on top that excludes GAY women in particular to regular old yucky pooh women.
I mean - WTF?
In other words - Australia's Equal Opportunity Act has okayed a "hotel" (a further reading of the article reveals the pertinent - or not - fact that the "hotel" in question does NOT provide accommodation - anyway) that excludes ALL women and who really knows what percentage of men. AND, need I point out - a certain percentage of that 100% of women and... say... 50% (? - I have very high gaydar, so...) of men are VISIBLE MINORITIES!! So this Act has officially okayed discrimination against 100% of women and 50% of men and ALL visible minorities who are women and not gay men.
Gee... the Lard giveth and the Lard taketh away. To some men he giveth and then from all women he taketh away.
That's human rights legislation? HOW, exactly - Australia?!
By the way - was the gay Aboriginal population consulted about any of this? Or is this just a gay white man's kind of burden...
But the reason for the ban request (aside from the obvious lesbian-hating factor, of course) according to one Tom McFeely, owner of the establishment in question, "was to prevent insults and abuse directed toward gays in its bars and nightclubs".
Yabbut, what about GAY insults and abuse directed toward gays in its bars and nightclubs? Eh? I mean, what are you trying to pretend here, Tom McFeely? That gay men never direct insults and abuse towards each other? Under the influence, even? Never? Ever?
Gasp! Are you trying to say that gay men are... like.... "special"...?
And, not to be a killjoy or anything, but - how to tell if someone's lying or not?
Well, Tom McFeely, Dear Questioning Reader, has an answer for that puzzler:
"It is particularly easy to implement with the females because that is pretty obvious. With the heterosexual males, if they identify themselves as that at the door, or indeed we question their behaviour in the venue and they come across as being heterosexual, then we will simply ask them to leave if the behaviour is inappropriate."
Oh. So. Wait a minute. What kind of establishment is this again? I mean, behaviour that is inappropriate in a gay hotel that doesn't provide accommodation? Like... Say... They won't agree to being sodomized by another man at the front door? Not to be rude or anything. I'm just asking. That WOULD pretty much be the test - wouldn't it? And, well, not to probe too deeply, but... who's doing the testing, Mr. McFeely?
You?
Whatever. I've passed by a number of gay bars in my day and it didn't look to me like they had a problem being overrun with lesbians and non-gay men. They didn't even look like they had a problem being overrun with non-gay-looking men - not that you can judge a book by its cover 100% of the time. It's just a fairly safe bet that a man who goes into a gay bar is gay. And, like, not to sound gayist, or anything - but he probably LOOKS gay, too. And if he behaves inappropriately when he goes in - well... I thought even Australia would have rules and regulations regarding that sort of thing.
Laws, even, maybe. And if not - why not? Because enacting a discriminatory law to deal with discriminatory behaviour seems rather upside down to me.
But I guess that's why they call it "Australia" - the land downunder.
There are lots of things I regret not doing and a few that I do - although I no longer spend "a lot" of time torturing myself over either - and I always thought those things involved time and money, but I now realize they involved more than that.
More than time and money?! Yes, indeed.
The two main things I regret not doing are (and they actually fall in this order, for some reason known only to the Deep and Profound Gawd of Priorities):
1. Not being with my cat when she was put to sleep.
2. Not going to my grandmother's funeral.
I know, I know. But somewhere along the way my cat and my grandmother kind of morphed into one soul, anyway, so putting my cat first isn't really as bad as it looks.
I always thought the first was about money and the second was about time, but I was a homemaker with three toddlers for both and now I'm a working girl with three teenagers so I know it was about something else entirely.
It was about not thinking I was worth the time or the money to spend on things that would have given me peace of mind but would have taken away from the immediate needs of others. If it sounds like I feel martyred, I don't. I feel a little (not a lot, a little) sad for me back then because I realize now I was probably depressed.
But if there's one thing I do not regret, it's my life and all the stages of it - including the bad times.
I guess I'm a bit of a Big "C" Catholic, at heart, because I really do feel it's the bad times that make for a soul. And in my case, I'm one of those "born with a horseshoe up the ass" types who never knows she's in bad times until she's out of them. It's my saving grace, what makes me an optimist, and why I believe so strongly in socialized medicine, welfare, subsidized housing - using the tax dollars of the functioning workers bees among us to spread around to the... well... people who weren't born with a horseshoe up the ass and when they're in bad times - they know it.
And there's something about not thinking you're worth it that keeps people, I'm sure, from experiencing the kind of success in life that most of us take for granted. For instance, I know now that, if I could, I would go back in time and pay the extra money it would have cost to be with my cat when she was put to sleep - and I would take the time away from my family to go to my grandmother's funeral.
At the time, though, I couldn't see that it was worth it - that I was worth it. Everything I did was calculated down to not cause a ripple of effect on others. That's because I thought everybody else's time and money mattered more than I did and than my peace of mind did.
Well, it didn't. And if I'd stood up for myself, no one would have said, "No - you can't do that." Although I think I thought, deep down, that that's exactly what would have happened. But really, it was just me saying, "It's not worth it." And by that, I really meant, "I'm not worth it."
I can see it now. My living circumstances are so much different than they were then that I'd have to be... well... still depressed not to see it. And since I know that about myself, I can't pretend I don't know that about other people. And I can't imagine trying to live in this world thinking the time and money of others is more important than me and my life.
Anyway, we often hear the expression, "We can't just throw more money at the problem", but I think that's maybe all we can do. I also think it's what we should do. Because at some point in the at-home years, our family doctor referred me to a psychologist. She felt that talking to somebody would make a big difference in helping me see my situation the way she evidently saw it - that I didn't think I was worth the bother of life - and she turned out to be right. And because she was a doctor referring me to a psychologist, it was covered by my husband's health insurance plan. It still cost $30/hour, but that was better than $150/hour. To say it was worth it is almost beside the point, but without her referral and our insurance coverage, there is no way that it would have happened. Not that anything earth-shattering did as a result, you understand.
It just made all the difference in the world.
And if I was running the country, I'd make sure anybody who needed it had access to such a good thing. That would be my priority.
On my way in to work today, as I walked past a small office building, I was sprayed with dirty water by someone hosing down a dumpster. My sandals and pant legs had little spray dots of black grime on them. I stopped beyond range and yelled out, "Hey! You just sprayed me!"
I was more shocked than angry - for a second or two. But the guy kept spraying and over the din of traffic and water hitting the dumpster and then the sidewalk yelled back at me - aggressively, "I didn't see you - ALRIGHT?!"
Then I got angry, "Of course you didn't see me. You can't see anybody around the building. But you're spraying dirty water out onto the sidewalk - ANYWAY!"
"I didn't do it on purpose! Look, I don't need this shit at 9:30 in the morning!"
"What?! I'm walking along the sidewalk on my way in to work and some guy sprays me with dirty water and says HE doesn't need this shit at 9:30 in the morning?! Stop aiming the hose at the sidewalk!"
"Don't tell me where I can spray on my own property, LADY!"
Anyway, he was unapologetic to the point of belligerence. I was, at that point, going to start swearing. So I walked back to the front of the building and went in to the little reception area. The receptionist was on the phone but she politely covered the receiver and inquired, "Yes?" So I told her what had just happened, ending with, "I wouldn't be bothering you with this complaint except that the guy was rude. If he'd just apologized, I wouldn't be here."
"Oh my. I'm sorry that happened to you. I'll let the managment know."
"Well, it isn't your fault. But thanks. And just a head's up - I think he IS the management."
Then her face kind of fell a bit and I said, "Sorry. Bye."
When I got in to work, I phoned my beau and told him what had happened. We talked of revenge - Hollywood-style - but on PUBLIC property so Buddy Private would be completely at our mercy, his statement, "Don't tell me where I can spray on my own property, LADY!" having particularly rankled since he was actually spraying his private dirt on to OUR public sidewalk. Not to mention - my private being. Then my ex called so I told him and he said, "Uh hunh" and then told me about his neighbours having their lawn sprayed and when he took our dog out for a walk, the dog's eyes were watering and he kept blinking. "All you could smell was weed killer - all over the neighbourhood. I have a headache now. These people all get their property sprayed but you can smell it for days afterwards."
"Don't forget the groundwater", I commiserated. "It all goes down into the groundwater."
Then a co-worker walked by so I said, "I gotta go" and hung up so I could tell him all about what had just happened. PLUS about the dog and his watering eyes on account of all the pesticide spraying where my ex lives.
"Did you complain, at least?" he asked. "Yup. I told the receptionist." "The receptionist? What's she gonna do?" "Well, I don't know. I just wanted to make a point of complaining and not just taking it - you know?" "Yabbut, you should have asked to speak with the management."
"I think he probably WAS the management - the property manager, anyway. He referred to it as "his" property."
"Phff. The sidewalk's not his property."
"Yeah. Well. Now I figure at least the receptionist, who was good-looking and really professional about it all will know that he's a jerk and if he tries to get anywhere with her she can say, "Aren't you the kind of idiot who would aim a hose out to the sidewalk while spraying a dumpster even though you can't see around the building to know if there are pedestrians walking by being sprayed - including women just like me on their way in to work - you neanderthal pig brain?"
Anyway, I feel better now I've told three people. And I still get to tell my sister. She'll love it because she, like me, lives in an apartment building downtown and is a big defender of public space rights - not actually - but, you know, like me - in a word of mouth "there was a lady in here earlier says you sprayed her with dirty water" kind of way.
Because that's what this little incident has morphed into for me - a recognition that public property needs defending from private property owners. That's all it is at the moment, but I expect it to expand into something more - personally, I mean. It's not something I have spent much time thinking about, but that defence of his actions, "Don't tell me where I can spray on my own property, LADY!" really stuck in my craw, so to speak.
I'm thinking placards, bull horns, rallies, before the tear gas, mass arrests, shootings...
Okay. I'll tell you the undeniable "what" of the matter:
He looked like a New Conservative.
I know, I know. But what does a New Conservative look like, Sooey?
Well, Dear Reader, he looks like the kind of guy who would be spraying the grime off his private dumpster, on to the public sidewalk, using a high powered hose, with little regard for any pedestrians who might walk by on their way to work. Because if you aren't in your private car using our public streets - you don't matter and deserve whatever dirty water you get sprayed on you while you're on your way to work. I'm telling you, everything about this guy was reactionary, reactionary to anything involving public rights. He was Mr. Private Property.
Well, I'll show him and everybody and anybody who thinks like him - I'm going to become Ms. Public Property!
Who's with me!
There's a YouTube clip of Al Gore being interviewed by Diane Sawyer in which she asks him three times whether or not he's going to run for President. He answers her by referring to his book - yes, his book - about democracy or somesuch - and how the media in America hypes the news news instead of reporting the real news.
Oh. Gee. Why goodness me. Thank Gawd for Al Gore or I guess we wouldn't know that about the MSM. Oops. Buzzword. Al Gore objects to buzzwords - which is what MSM is - a buzzword. Why goodness me all over myself. Thank Gawd for Al Gore all over again or we wouldn't know that the mainstream media is awash in partisan politics and cannot be trusted to report what its advertisers and the current U.S. administration don't want reported.
Anyway, if I were Diane Sawyer, I would have asked him a fourth, fifth and sixth time if he was planning to run for President. As many times as it took for him to either admit that he is, or break down and cry.
Then I would have phoned Barbara Walters and crowed, "I made Al Gore cry!" Because something tells me he's not going to admit to anything - political - while he's in this state of golden boy grace promoting his movie to save the planet through carbon trading emissions credits/hedge funds and his book to save democracy from the likes of the Republican party and second-rate also-rans like George W. Bush who keep getting elected by dumbassed American voters.
He kept talking about involving Americans in a conversation, but... I dunno... even Diane Sawyer wasn't so much interested in having one as she was in getting the network scoop on his candidacy. I was kind of with her on that one, myself. And yet - I normally love yakking it up with former Vice Presidents.
But seriously, what the hell? He's "touring" the country promoting his movie on Climate Change for which he won an Academy Award - trying to get as many people as is human(e)ly possible to see it - AND now he's doing the Prime Time News/Talk Show circuit to talk about his new book "The Assault on Reason". Here's the gist, if you aren't a Gore-a-phile and haven't already bought it and committed it to memory with a view to re-gifting it to your favourite not-really-left-but-certainly-not-right politico next Christmas/Diwali/Ramadan/ChineseNewYear:
"In his new book, Al Gore explores why reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions and what we can do to change that."
Hey - maybe Ralph Nader should read it! That guy could use a kickass political re-start to his campaign to start a fresh political dialogue (oops - buzzword alert!) between Americans such that would result in a renewed and invigorated democracy for all of America.
Choice - I believe is what Ralph Nader was aiming at. Maybe Al Gore covers it in his book about how politics and the media are so ridiculously dumbed down and offputting that only stupid idiot morons from political family dynasties can win presidential elections nowadays.
Or... maybe not...
Anyway, I'm sick of Al Gore, but I was sick of him when he thought he was too good, too much of a shoo-in, too "to the manor born" to allow the disgraced, yet beloved and infinitely electable, Bill Clinton campaign for him in Tennessee so that he might actually win it and subsequently the election - instead of losing to a stupid idiot moron no one thought in a million years would win a Presidential election against someone like Al Gore in the wake of such a successful Presidency - for Americans - as that of Bill Clinton.
And then do it all over again against someone like John Kerry, ferchrissakes.
In any case, the important thing is that Al Gore is treated like a bonafide documentary film-maker and political science author by the mainstream media when he is out promoting his movie and book and not dismissed as a political opportunist who is probably going to declare a run at the Presidency in the fall.
Or not. I don't know. I don't support the mainstream media. I don't watch its news and I don't read its newspapers. I get my news from alternative news sources - pay for it, too. Believe me - it's worth it. You really do get what you pay for in this country. And since the mainstream media doesn't spend much of its budget on gathering the actual news - it doesn't get much actual news.
But there's coy and then there's, "OH SHUT UP ALREADY!!!!" Because if Al Gore is not campaigning for a run at the Presidency, then I'm not sure what he's campaigning for - although I'm reasonably sure he's campaigning for SOMETHING.
Look, Al Gore. There's a catch phrase (I know, I know - you don't like buzzwords and catch phrases) and that catch phrase is: "Democratic Deficit". I don't know who coined it, but it's been around for a while. Much like the evidence that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are, well, not good. Whether or not they are heating up the planet, well, again - acid rain, smog, soil depletion, pesticide contamination, coffee and chocolate expansion leading to desertification (as opposed to dessertification - which leads to size Al Gore...), stripmining of oceans, clearcutting of forests, urban sprawl - these things, heating up the planet or not, are not good, either. And we can go way back to when before you were even a Senator to know it. I knew it when I was in grade school, as a matter of fact. As far as I know, too, my family - the whole extended clan - never made a dime from exploiting natural resources, either.
Although, they tried to farm off a barren rock in Northern Ontario... But that's a whole 'nother entry... Or maybe a book: "Yay! We Found a New Cold Damp Rock!" - Why One Clan Left Scotland Forever to Take Up a New Life in Canada"
Not that more books about how democracy isn't exactly working out for Americans these days aren't welcome to those of us who think the state of American politics is kind of, like, bad. It's just that I'm pretty sure there are less, shall we say, self-interested parties to write them - authors who would no doubt welcome a shot at an interview, one on one, with Diane Sawyer, too.
And she wouldn't even have to waste the interview asking them three times if they intended to run for the Presidency of the United States. She could ask them instead of their book.
I mean - again - DISINGENUOUS MUCH?! OF COURSE SHE'S GOING TO ASK YOU OVER AND OVER ABOUT YOUR ELECTORAL INTENTIONS! Jesus! What else is she going to ask you about? Your book - "An Assault on Reason"? I mean, she pointed out your main gist - which would seem to be that you believe you should have won the election that time and that if you had, America wouldn't be in the mess that it is today. I thought she was more than fair. And you're probably right. Although, it's hard for someone like me who didn't ever, at any point, support the War on Terror to see why that would be. It's not as if Democrats stood shoulder to shoulder against the prevailing winds to stand firm against the insanity that resulted in the War in Iraq on Iraqis as a direct result of the President of the United States encountering no real opposition to his whole War on Terror declaration.
But yeah - it probably wouldn't be in this particular mess. And maybe there'd be some real action on the environment. And probably the first course of action of an Al Gore administration would not have been to cancel funding for Planned Parenthood overseas.
Who knows?
Anyway, Diane Sawyer didn't get the answer she was hoping for, but here's my prediction: American democracy is such that Al Gore will pull the rug out from Hillary Clinton and that guy who smokes, both of whom will appear to graciously step aside, and declare his candidacy for President and then he will win - because there's nothing more Americans like than a celebrity candidate for political office.
Or not. But if he doesn't declare and he really is just out taking up airtime for his movie and book, then I think Hillary Clinton and that guy who smokes should team up to kick his ass.
Then maybe he could do a one-man show on Broadway about a guy who gets his ass kicked - literally - for talking too much and not really doing anything.
I guess we've all seen the clip on YouTube of Christopher Hitchens waxing sillysophical about dead ol' Jerry Falwell on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN.
"Pbbbbbbbllllllllfffft" would have been my response to His Blowhardiness, although Anderson Cooper's puzzled brow responses were pretty funny, too.
Because, except for the blatant hypocrisy of criticizing Jerry Falwell for being a Christian Charlatan with Double Capital C's - without even mentioning John Ashcroft and the Case of the Covered Statue, George W. Bush and his entire Presidency, and pretty much every Republican administration in my lifetime and probably yours - I didn't think there was much to take notice of in that interview - beyond a cheap (and... I dunno, but - boozy?) pitch for hapless viewers to buy his latest book.
Something about God not being real even though 99.9% of American Republicans think He is and - not only REAL - but an American and a Republican.
So yeah - God isn't real, eh? What about Mother Nature, Christopher Hitchens? Is she not real, either? Father Time and his big clock in the sky? Not real, either?
...Original sin? Cain and Abel? (And how come nobody names their kid "Cain"?) The Ten Commandments as dictated by God? SATAN?! All of them, the whole cast of the Holy Bible - NOT REAL?!
Gee, then why does every American President, Congressman, and Senator PRETEND God is real, then? I mean, even Bill Clinton took to carrying around a Bible and consulting with Billy Graham (with whom President Bush Sr. sincerely and with heavy heart consulted before making HIS not-so-infamous decision to wage War against Iraq, too, you might want to know, Christopher Hitchens, you Toffee-nosed BritTwit of little Faith) - once he was facing impeachment for that blow job in the Oval Office by one Monica Lewinsky - whom he successfully managed to portray later as an Eve-like seductress. (Although fatter'n the Eve in the Holy Bible - for sure - but isn't that just how Evil would present Herself to a good ol' Southern Boy - "Have you ever tasted a REAL cigar, Billy?")
Although, lest we (the Godless Left) be hypocrites ourselves, it was all most likely an elaborate optical illusion and he was probably just asking about "the weather up there" with Billy Graham while secretly strategizing with his Backroom Boys about how best to wriggle out from under the whole mess WITHOUT God even finding out about it. (And, although it might have fooled Ken Starr, I never thought for a minute he was sincere in carrying around that Holy Bible in his breast pocket all of a sudden. And the fact that the best his Backroom Boys could do was that whole not really knowing what oral sex is thang - tells us more'n we probably want to know about the state of American preparedness in an emergency, but that's an entry for a whole 'nother God fearing day. It'll probably read a lot like the Right of this Country's coverage of Conrad Black at his trial in Chicago - "Yeah. Sure. He's a guilty sleazeball - but he's OUR guilty sleazeball" - so you may want to skip it, come to think of it.)
Unless, of course, (and this is a possibility even a defensive Left hasn't really explored fully) Bill Clinton wasn't lying at all and was genuinely confused by why Ken Starr wouldn't think oral sex really WASN'T sex. I mean - let's face it, given the hue and cry over all matters sexual down South, I'm sure there are lots of Southern boys who would argue Homosexuality isn't a Sin if you're drunk. Or if your Mama doesn't find out about it until she's up in Heaven and God tells her what he saw you doing out in the bushes that night. And then every other night after that while your wife was home readling Bible bedime stories to your young'uns before responding to constituent complaints about the science curriculum not covering Creationism and why isn't their State representative DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Creationism is taught in schools for a good reason, dontcha know - God is all powerful and power is what America is all about and you don't question Omnipotent Beings and his Spokesmen or you may find yourself not getting any. Power, that is.
But speaking of homosexuality (and my, oh my - does the Religious Right like to speak of Homosexuality...), I notice Hitchens didn't go into that too much with Anderson Cooper (nudgenudgewinkwink). I can only guess that's because his own views on Homosexuality are somewhat ambiguous - much like his sexuality, really, if you stop and think about it. Heheh - although his latent Homosexuality is less so... And call me detail-oriented, but I doubt Christopher Hitchens and Jerry Falwell would actually find themselves very far apart on their opinions on Feminism, either.
Am I wrong? Do I call the Great Debater out unfairly? I don't think so, but I'm a woman, so - maybe that's exactly what I'm doing. Foxy vixen temptress that I am. When I'm not being pathologically unfunny, I mean. Because, of course, as Rudyard Kipling so famously said, "Women can't be funny because they give birth" - or something. He yakked a lot about things he didn't really know anything about - like the Jungle, for instance. Not that the Jungle Book doesn't make more sense than the Holy Bible - I'm juss sayin'. He yakked a lot and when you yak a lot, you can end up saying more stupid things - on average - than your non-yakkers. Not that they mightn't be just as stupid as you. Which reminds me - Hitchens expanded on Kipling to add something about "dead babies being hard to make fun of - even for Homosexuals like Oscar Wilde". Or something. I dunno. He yaks a lot, too.
Anyway, my point is that Jerry Falwell is easy - Consistency, on the other hand, is hard. And one simply cannot criticize the dead Reverend for having so much power on account of he was a Capital "C" Christian - without criticizing the current President of the United States and pretty much everything he has said and done in the past few years - as well as the fact that Jerry Falwell was only powerful because the Religious Right - which votes solidly for Bush - made him powerful. I mean, nevermind 9/11 and that whole little brain fart about Western liberals more or less causing it (and may I refer you, Dear Reader, to pretty well every Rightwing American pundit for proof that Jerry Falwell was, indeed - quite right) - Hitch missed the whole '80s here when the Moral Majority truly ran the political show down South.
That was before he put his hand on his heart and took out American citizenship, so affected in a 180 degrees way by 9/11was he that, well, in the absence of REAL Religion, I guess he felt kneejerk Patriotism would do.
But back to the future. Really, it was as if there was a giant elephant standing right behind Hitchens during the entire interview and only he and Anderson Cooper couldn't see it. I mean, I could see it. Could you see it? The President of the United States uses words like "evil-doers" to describe America's enemies, FerChrissakes. He is the Commander-in-Chief of a War on Terror that identifies Islamists as those who must be defeated and Christians as those who must defeat them. He cites three "F" words that dictate all his decisions - in this order - "Faith, Family, Friends".
He believes in the Apocalyse.
He is Jerry Falwell with actual Christian zeal, not just a huckster out for a buck. He's a real live Zealot. And he's also the leader of the free world. Americans made him that - twice. How on earth could Christopher Hitchens criticize Jerry Falwell without once mentioning the current U.S. administration and its War on Terror in the Middle East. - the Holy Land, as it were - and an entire political and social culture that would allow someone like George W. Bush to become President of the United States. Twice.
That's right. He can't mention any of that because he, himself, is mad. Quite mad. He supports the War on Terror - still. And because he is essentially on the side of George W. Bush - politically - he shies away from calling him a Nut - with a Capital "N". It's really beyond any point whatsoever. Which explains, I guess, Anderson Cooper's puzzled brow. I mean, if Hitchens' reputation didn't precede him, there would just be a giant hook off to the side with which to haul him off the stage, I'm sure.
I mean, does "Hypocrite" with a Capital "H" even cover what he has become? Talk about asking viewers to take a spectacular leap of faith. Perhaps you should read your own book, Mr. Hitchens. I'm certainly not going to bother.
There's a commercial on TV right now that is begging for it, in my opinion. It features a boy pretending to be sick so he can stay home from school. His mom plays along for a bit, she's dressed casually - as if she's a stay-at-home mom - then reminds him that he had a flu shot already so he can't possibly have the flu (the flu being the only illness possibility in their lives, I guess...). Then she pulls back the covers and there he is - fully clothed and wearing a baseball glove.
I mean, it's all so wrong on so many levels, but - A BASEBALL GLOVE?!
Now, I know kids - I have three - and I have one (a boy) who might have tried to stay home from school to play video games or watch tv, but he'd hardly want to be wearing a baseball glove to do either. So other than playing into that bullshit nostalgia theme that has been going on my entire life - about the good old days - I can't imagine what the point of that kid wearing a baseball glove under the covers could possibly have been. I mean, who's he even going to play baseball with? His stay-at-home Mom? But then she'll know he wasn't really sick - that he was faking.
Oh - and why are kids having flu shots, anyway? Or are we even supposed to be asking that question?
Anyway, the commercial is such an egregious slap-in-the-face to reality that it actually made me angry. And even the Swiffer ad with the stay-at-home mother cleaning her house like a lunatic while her two friends sit sipping tea in pearls and sweater sets didn't have that affect on me. I mean, at least cleaning one's house and using a new product to do it makes a bit of sense. The friends sipping tea in pearls and sweater sets are a bit much, but what are you going to do? The working stiffs who come up with this shit must believe their own b.s. as much as our politicians do - or something.
Because that's what I'm getting at here - the complete disconnect between how life was in the "olden days" and how it's been represented on television and how we remember our own growing up years as a result of how they've been represented on television. Because I don't want to get old and start telling my grandchildren big fat lies about how my son tried to stay home from school - even after he had his flu shot to eliminate all possibility of illness as we used to do in those days - so he could play catch with all the other little boys in the neighbourhood who played outside all day every day when they weren't in their rooms buidling model airplanes and gazing at the stars with homemade telescopes.
That's because - even my own brother didn't do any of that stuff. He watched TV every second he could and hung out at the pool hall until the mall was built. But he's a judge now - so it all worked out.
Gawddamned boomers.
So yeah, I'm d'une certaine age, give or take, BUT - and it's a BIG BUTT (if you believe in TV commercials and Leave It To Beaver, which is really talking about a time that never was, but about a time that never was a couple of decades before my growing up time) I grew up with a working mother. My father died when we were young and my mother had to go back to work. The twins next door, both of whom turned out to be gay (I knew they were gay when I was five years old, but there you go - I was always ahead of my time), had a stay-at-home mother who laid out in the sun on their back patio from March until October working on her tan while her husband worked his friggin' ass off keeping her in Baby Oil, peroxide, and blue eye shadow. By the time I was in my teens, she was close to 200 pounds - although still looking great. Relaxed, fun, irreverent. I'll tell you what she told me before she got Alzheimer's and started a spectacular decline that saddened me more than I ever would have guessed it would when I was a kid and she was yelling at me to take off that Goddamned dandelion necklace because it was covered in weed killer, you idiot - "I've had a great life. Your Mom had to go back to work, poor thing. Work's a terrible thing. It really aged Percy. He couldn't even take me down to Florida last winter - too pooped to make the drive."
I haven't seen her represented in any commericals, I don't think. But it'd be funny to see that, don't you think? Talk about politically incorrect. The lazy, useless bitch of a stay-at-home mother advertising fake tanning products while her twin boys play dress up in crinolines and bake muffins in their Easy Bake Oven in the background.
But more to the point of the commercial I keep seeing, I never, ever, saw a Dad out playing ball with his son. Not once. Never. Ever. No word of a lie. At no time in my youth, did I see a Father/Son game of catch being played in my neighbourhood. We lived across the street from an open field, too. All the Dads I knew were either sleeping (I'm from the Sault and almost all of my friends' Dads worked shifts at Algoma Steel) or they were doing their shift. If they weren't sleeping or at work, they were watching TV - which meant you didn't really want to hang out with them because they'd either send you to the store for cigarettes, "Hey! Hey! Where're you going? Get in here! I'm out of smokes!", or yell at you to go outside because they were watching TV, "Hey! Get outta here! I'm watching TV!"
Meanwhile, ALL the Dads I know now spend lots of time playing video games with their sons. Or, at least, playing video games while their sons jump up and down beside them crying, "Can I play now? Can I play now?" And, personally, I'm not sure what's wrong with that. The kid learns that the biggest person in the room gets to play until he's bored - at which time it's your turn. Unless, of course, the Mom - Queen of No Fun - says it's bedtime first. In which case, you can always try to wake up extra early so you can have a turn at the controls.
Because nobody cares if you get up early - these days. In my day, my Mom would say, "Go back to bed! Can't you see I'm trying to have a coffee by myself!"
Unless I just saw that in a commercial and am remembering my life the way it never was... Hey - you guys all wore hot pants to grade school and super mini dresses with lacy underpants so when you raised your arm at the blackboard the boys would be all turned on - riiiiiiight? And the teacher would be overcome with passion and say you were way sexier'n his fiancee and the wedding was off and... no wait... that was just my 10-year-old girl FANTASY of what would happen.
But it was a real fantasy, at least. Because in spite of what Macleans, now run by the likes of Ken Whyte, would have you believe - little girls in his day and mine were sexual beings - off and on - who did stuff like that when we weren't laying around watching TV. OR - and I'm sure my lady readers remember this - laying around in the back yard trying to get a tan all summer while we waited for the mall to be built so we could waste all our time hanging around indoors.
And I'm not sure, my memory's not THAT good, but although I recall making fun of 50s-style commercials featuring housewives and cleaning products - even back in the 70s - I don't believe I ever saw one so egregiously false as a kid faking sick so he could stay home and play catch.
Unless it was the other kind of "catch". I dunno. Maybe flu shots make advertisers soft in the head before their time because it's like everything not even old is new again nowadays.
I was going to blog about Andrew Cohen's book AFTER I read it, but now I think I'll just blog about a review of what I assume (I know, I know - assume makes an ass of u and me) is one of the defining chapters of the book. But first, here's what I googled about Andrew Cohen's latest bit of Canadiana:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Unfinished Canadian
The People We Are
Written by Andrew Cohen
In The Unfinished Canadian, Andrew Cohen delves into our past and present in search of our defining national characteristics. He questions hoary shibboleths, soothing mythologies, and old saws with irreverence, humour, and flintiness, unencumbered by our proverbial politeness (itself a great misperception) and our suffocating political correctness. We are so much, in so many shades, and it's time we took an honest look at ourselves. In this provocative, passionate, and elegant book, Cohen argues that our mythology, our jealousy, our complacency, our apathy, our amnesia, and our moderation are all part of the unbearable lightness of being Canadian.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay. Fair enough. Sounds like an enlightening read. But then - I read this review of said enlightening read:
BookReviewsByIdiots
So now I'm just going to critique the book reviewer (et al - and there be lots and lots of yuz) because I'm sick and tired of Pro-American-Anti-Canadians misrepresenting the nature of Anti-Americanism coming from the likes of MOI.
I. Am. Anti-American. And by that I mean - I am anti those same Americanisms that Andrew Cohen would seem to despise in all things Big C Canadian - such as our belief that we are Multi-Cultural and not actually the Melting Pot that we are. Americans have big huge ethnic ghettos. THEY are Multi-Cultural. We are the Melting Pot of sameness with only an Offical observance of Multi-Culturalism. But... I like that about us.
Still, I hear ya, Professor Cohen. We are just as full of shit as the next country. Although Americans have big huge angry groups of people living like countries within their country while we just have the one big angry country, so, like I say - I like that about us. And I know no one as smart as you would completely misrepresent what people like me are all about with our "Anti-Americanism" by dumbing it down to those hoary old myths propagated by the Reformist Right of this country - in lock step with the Republican Right of our neighbours due south - which is that we are actually "Anti-American" and not, in fact - "Anti-Pro-American-Anti-Canadians".
Or would you...
Your fan above (one Dianne Rinehart of The Hamilton Spectator) I hope is talking about her own nonsense and not actually reviewing yours. Not that it's nonsense. Unless you're saying what Ms. Rinehart seems to think you're saying. Then it IS nonsense and you are as guilty of wallowing in your own b.s. as you say I am.
Which I'm not.
Let me explain.
For the last time, the Numbskull Right in this country - Canada - believes its own really incredibly stupid and brain-deadening banal press. That is, that the left is Anti-American. It isn't. It's Anti-The-Right, whether it's American, or Canadian. We don't like The Right. Period. It doesn't matter if you're a redneck dufus from Reformist Alberta or a redneck dufus from Texas. We don't like you. We do, however, like the Utne Reader. It's American. We like PBS. It's American, too. We like Vanity Fair (but not Christopher Hitchens), The Simpsons and Michael Moore documentaries. BUT - and it's a BIG BUT (heheh) - we like exposes by CANADIAN documentary film-makers on Michael Moore - EVEN BETTER!
We're the REAL Canadians you're looking for, Professor Cohen. We want the mainstream media to implode on its own bullshit so the REAL news of BOTH countries can be published, aired - delivered to voters in all its crapulence so that the Left will finally win the big one here, in this country, where there actually IS a Left.
And don't you think for a second that there wouldn't be millions and millions of Americans looking up at us longingly and wishing they, too, had a Left left. That's what pisses me off most about Anti-Anti-Pro-American-Anti-Canadians, Professor Cohen - they have aligned themselves with the Republican Hard Right Establishment of the United States of American and nothing more. They are NOT Pro-American. They just THINK they are. That's because they're really, really, really stupid.
Look, I'm not a REAL Professor, but - in my opinion - it can now be argued that the Republican Hard Right Establishment of the U.S. of A. is the most Anti-American group ever to be in power. It has done more to reduce individual rights and freedoms and more to enforce Christian group think than any other Administration - ever. And our current New Conservative Government of Canada is in lock-step with it. Who, if not The Left, is going to stand aside the good citizens of the U.S. in combatting this insidious and invasive takeover of their "so-called" all-American society?
Oh, and by the way, Professor - people here who support the War on Terror support the War on Terror - NOT America.
Ever since 9/11 the American people have been lied to and manipulated, the essence of their Democracy distorted to suit the partisan beliefs of their President and his Company - Bush, Inc & Cheney Unlimited. That's the absolute truth. If people here don't stand up and shout out that the "Emperor Has No Clothes!" - who the hell is going to do it? People - not on the Hard Right in the United States, who did not fall in behind their Commander-in-Chief - were censured, threatened with jail, and fired for their beliefs after 9/11. Printing the truth was UNPATRIOTIC ferchrissakes - by DECREE no less.
Is this the America we're supposed to NOT BE ANTI?!
Good Gawd in Heaven. Talk about hoary old myths - how about The Canadian Right believing its own propaganda about who's Anti-American and then RahRahing itself like a bunch of Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.
Like I say, I haven't yet read the book, but it had better be smarter than the reviewer or I'm demanding my money back. A good diss of knee-jerk Canadianism is the best thing for this country. But if that reviewer was in any way on the mark with her review, Professor Cohen's book ain't it.
I had a niggardly day today. There. I've said it. A niggardly day.
... Gee... No wonder people get fired for using "niggardly". It even looks racist on the page.
Anyway, speaking of getting fired, I really was hoping I would be today. I mean, I should quit - the pay sucks, the work sucks, but as you can plainly see - I usually have a lot of free time to do other things.
And since I'm trying to write a book (of short stories) I appreciate the free time at work because I really don't have any at home. Home involves stuff to do that is practical and nurturing. When it doesn't involve just hanging out doing nothing.
It probably isn't in my best interests to get fired. Still, it would be change. And change is good. Or, at least, it's change.
But quitting a job requires a fair degree of gumption, doesn't it? I mean, we've been taught to look askance at job quitters, and yet - why? What's so great about just having a job that if it isn't what you want to be doing you shouldn't move on to something else when the mood strikes? One of the things I dislike about us as a country these days is that we eliminated the right to quit from eligibility for Employment Insurance a few years back. I thought that was a majorly regressive step back - especially since we've been subject to non-stop bragging by successive Federal governments since about the huge E.I. surplus its always holding back from us. Why, I have no idea. Either give it back or shut up about it, I say.
Anyway, I had one of those shitty little days that just made me want to quit my job and go do something I'm good at. I know, I know - but what, Sooey? But I'm particularly NOT good at my job. It's a secretarial position and, honestly, I hate that stuff. My own life is lived so ridiculously simply to avoid complications of any form, filing, or financial kind that it seems unfair that I should have to deal with the complications of someone else's life. Forms, filing, and finances. Talk about "F" words. That's how I make my living, though. Dealing with forms, filing, and finances - for someone else.
But I didn't get fired and I didn't quit. I did the job and left for home - a few minutes early. On the way, I decided to get my hair cut. For the past while I've been pondering this possibility - of getting my hair cut - and today was the day. I walked into a salon and picked up a brochure. It had everything on it except "Cut" so I asked, "Do you do haircuts?" And the bouncy young lady who'd been sweeping up hair leapt over to the counter and said, "Of course. That's what we do first." So I said, "Okay. What does a haircut cost?" She looked me scare in the eye and said, "Well, it depends on experience. I have ten years of professional haircutting experience so I cost $60."
Normally, that's way too steep for me, but I liked her hair and I decided I needed something that was probably worth $60, so I said, "Okay. Can you cut my hair now?"
"Yup."
So I sat in the chair and before I could take out the little picture of a haircut I like that I carry around in my purse she said, "I know exactly what I want to do."
Well, I wasn't going to argue. If SHE knew - who was I to differ? And she started cutting - dry hair. "I always cut hair dry because that way I can see if it's working - if it's what I want the person to have. If it works dry - it works. People can do what they want later with product and blow drying but I like to give a cut I know is good - first."
I couldn't believe it. She had a whole working philosophy about cutting hair - and she had a cool cut herself. That's probably why I ended up having her cut my hair. And as she cut, she talked about how much she loved making people over. "You're perfect because you're like, well, if you went to get your make-up done, the cosmetician would be really excited because you're like a blank slate. It's like that with your hair." And I knew what she meant - it's true. I've even had a cosmetician say that about me being like a blank slate - and she WAS really excited by it. Anyway, she continued on about my jawline, my fine hair, how she wanted to show off my face with the cut.
"You're great looking. This cut is really going to work out for you. I'm so excited." And she meant it. I could tell. And as I watched her cut and watched as the cut began to frame my face, I could see what she meant. "We get the contracts when movies are being done here. I've done lots of B-grade actor hair. You wouldn't believe how much fun it is, hanging out with actors. But it's really about giving a good cut for me. They like you to hang out with them sometimes but then I'm like, okay, hair time. It's my favourite thing to do. Ever since I was a kid I've been going at people's hair with a pair of scissors. They work really hard, too, actors. Lots of them do triple time, like when they aren't doing their bit they're doing some set work or helping out with costumes. Some of them, if they aren't actually in the movie but they've acted before are so keen to stay involved that they'll be getting coffee and stuff on the set - just to be there. It's a pretty cool scene."
Meanwhile, as she cut, I was looking more and more like "Wow". I'm not kidding. Looking in the mirror I went from being dragged down, middle-aged, drab - to sexy hot happening woman about town. When she was done, she said, "Perfect" and spun me around for a shampoo and blow dry. No product, no roller brush. Just a blow dryer and her expert hands manipulating the hair this way and that until, "See? It's a totally different look now and all I did was wash it and blow it dry."
Really. I've never had an experience quite like it. Now I'm almost worried about being fired and not being able to afford the hair cut every couple of months. Just when I was thinking I was ready to pack it in - I've got a new expensive habit to keep up. Such is life, I suppose. But it was worth it just interacting with someone who really likes what she does and is unbelievably good at it. I mean, I hope I didn't contaminate her with my dreariness pre-makeover. Because here I am not just disliking what I do for a living, but honestly - I'm not very good at it, either. In fact, for some reason, I've ended up doing something that sucks and that I suck at doing.
I need a job makeover. Where do I go for that, do you think? I've got the hair, if that helps - thanks to someone who actually cares about what she does to make a living.
Yesterday, my Webmaster posted an article by George Jonas on my website:
CrazyGeorge
I read it because I enjoy George Jonas. For some reason, his egregious perspective doesn't raise my hackles the way, say, Mark Steyn's or David Warren's does. And I usually come away from the column knowing some historical nugget about Eastern Europe I wouldn't otherwise know.
Also, one of my best friends is Hungarian, as is George Jonas, and she recently completed her Doctorate on Modern Pornography - so I'm used to that sort of fatalistic, matter of nasty fact, oppressive reality, unbearable lightness of being perspective on all things life, sex and death. Not necessarily in that order, either...
In fact, being of Scottish Presbyterian stock, myself, I find it mildly comforting. Happy, fun people burden me with despair for the future and make me feel like I'm living life all wrong and ass backwards and that it might be about more than just "Work Hard, Then Die" - even if it shouldn't be, as John Knox would most certainly remind me if here were here and not burning hard and fast and forever down in Hell for pointing his finger at everybody else, thereby breaking the Commandment that says, "Thou Shalt Not Point Thy Finger For It Is Rude".
That kind of pressure I do not need, thank you very much. I'm good with "Work Hard, Then Die". Finally. And it's taken half a lifetime to get to that level of joy and acceptance in being alive and well and living wherever.
Indeed, my Hungarian friend is so reliably stalwart in the face of hope, and so completely takes the edge off optimism, (leaving a comfortable "so be ittedness" for us to bask in during our all too rare these days get togethers), that George Jonas doesn't quite cut if for me sometimes. It's like he's gone giddy in old age, or something. Heck, my friend's father was one of very few people in the world to actually die from Mad Cow disease. So unless George Jonas can manage to spontaneously combust - she's ahead in the "what are you going to do except suck it up and keep on grinding" department.
By the by, she's a socialist and votes NDP.
Yes indeed, I can react to George Jonas with a certain joie de vivre that I can't muster for other rightwing lunatics in our midst.
Certainly, though, he comes by his understanding of totalitarian regimes honestly. But, I know another Hungarian refugee who votes Liberal for the same honest understanding of totalitarian regimes. Albeit, she's a she. And a feminist. An environmentalist, too - to complete the axis of evil.
Yup. She escaped Hungary only to become George Jonas' 2nd worst fear - a Liberal voter in Canada. (An NDP voter in Canada being his worst fear, I guess. Someone like me - not that I pay much attention to environmentalists, as I'll point out later in my entry. Someone like my other Hungarian friend, too - who does pay attention to environmentalists.)
Anyway after I read through the column (and seriously, why must our columnists keep on pumping it out until they die?) - just for fun, I played "word switch-a-roo". Just take any sentence at random and replace George Jonas' pet peeves with your own pet peeves. For instance, I did it with this sentence:
"Both matriarchy and environmentalism combined mysticism with a quasi-scientific stance, much like fascism and communism did. Like the older totalitarian ideologies, they were based on partial truths and appealed not only to the worst but also to the best side of our nature."
And now here it is with the words switch-a-rooed:
Both patriarchy and capitalism combined religion with a quasi-scientific stance, much like fascism and communism did. Like the newer totalitarian ideologies, they were based on partial truths and appealed not only to the worst but also to the best side of our nature.
Fun, eh? Anyway, the piece really did get me thinking about the preachiness (not to mention - wealth) of environmentalists - all of a sudden - and I have to admit I find it almost as egregious as the preachiness of most rightwing lunatics, which, alarmingly enough, puts me in agreement with George Jonas. I mean, if they're not preaching to the converted, they're preaching to people who don't live nearly the environmentally devastating lifestyles that they do, as witness Exhibit A and the only exhibit necessary to drown out anything anybody who flies anywhere has to say about the environment to those of us who confine ourselves to telling our kids to cut down their showing times from 45 minutes to 5 or we'll have to move to a van down by the river:
FlyingFootprints
See, THAT'S where I would take issue with the monied class telling the rest of us how we need to reduce our carbon footprints to save the environment. Totalitarianism? Sorry, George. It's plain old, same old capitalism that's the bossy boots here. Wealthy people will make money from hedge funds and carbon credit trading WHILE FLYING ALL OVER THE WORLD TO DO IT - and it won't matter what the rest of us do in between because those flights undo it all anyway and we'll be stuck buying our way out of their pile of carbon emissions because that's what we've always done - clean up the messes of wealthy capitalists.
It's capitalism without consequences for capitalists, George. Like I said: Plain old, same old. That's the problem here. Besides, if feminism and environmentalism were really at fault, there wouldn't be all kinds of money to be made by already rich people all of a sudden from environmentalism - now would there?
That's right - no. No there wouldn't. You can tell the absence of both REAL feminism and REAL environmentalism by the absence of money. So, relax, dude. It's still your Peeps in charge of it all.
I was thinking the other day about Gay politicians, the reaction to Gay politicians, and the Gay vote and it occurred to me - there is no Gay vote. I mean, assuming the New Conservative party is where the majority of Gay politicians are hanging these days (and let's face it - it has the most Members and that same Gay percentage of them are bound to be as Gay there as anywhere else with a Gay percentage), it hardly stands to reason that lots and lots of Gays don't also vote New Conservative.
In fact, if you really stop and think about it, why wouldn't MOST Gays vote New Conservative. Afterall, anything left of New Conservative (or "everything else", as it were) is pretty much socialism - if you ask a New Conservative, anyway. And Gay men don't have wives and kids holding them back in a Libertarian free-for-all. In fact, if they're in a relationship, they've got double the man power with no drag on their energy.
In other words, Gay men probably benefit most by lower taxes and fewer government services. If ANYBODY should vote New Conservative (and don't get me wrong - I think NO ONE should) it's Gay men.
Lesbians, enh. Not so much. Or at all, I guess. Although who knows. Who cares. Gawd, lesbians. Nothing but trouble.
So yeah, I'm not a REAL demographer, but I'm guessing a really high percentage of Gay men vote New Conservative. I mean, why wouldn't they? Even I probably would, if I were a gay man. And the whole anti-social aspect of the New Conservative party and government would affect so few Gay men - in reality - that, like most of us, they probably weigh the good with the bad and then vote for the party they figure best represents them - financially.
I mean, once you've got the right to get married (uh... yeah... you go guys...) - you've pretty much nailed it in terms of social progress. Where the hell to go from there? Yup. That's right. Straight to establishment values and the New Conservatives and INCOME SPLITTING!! WHOO-EE!
Meanwhile, I'm a middle-aged woman, separated, with three kids, and an insecure low-paying job with little to no benefits because I was a stay-at-home wife and mother for about a decade. I don't own a house or a car.
I vote NDP.
I mean - c'mon.
Now, admittedly, I don't know many women at the moment who vote New Conservative, but obviously, lots of women do, so what I'm getting at here is this: Are there really voting blocs in this country based on big broad categories like gender, economic class, sexual orientation - even... inmate status? Because I don't think there are. I think there is no Gay vote, no women vote, no prisoner vote. I think all that's been lost to the sands of time and more often than not, people vote for candidates in their riding based on a combination of whether or not they identify with the Party leader as an actual humanoid and whether or not they hear at least... say... one they like about that Party's financial platform.
I highly doubt most voting decisions these days are based on sociology. It's all "Show Me The Money" or "NEXT!"
In any case, if I'm right, it does represent a kind of acceptance/assumption that socially, things won't change much no matter who's in charge. And I guess what worries me most about having a New Conservative government - again - is that I'm not sure we can trust in that acceptance/assumption. I may be paranoid, but I don't think we can. To my mind, there is evidence of a broad-based attempt by the New Conservatives to take us back to a simpler time - for them - and reverse a lot of the social progress made by a series of Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments over the years I've been alive - mostly stuff that has happened as a result of Feminists demanding it.
I could be wrong. It'll be interesting, though, how far Stephen Harper is willing to push voters on Afghanistan, our arm of the American War on Terror. Because he really truly deeply believes in the War on Terror - I think - and it'll be interesting if he goes for votes by downplaying that commitment - in hopes of getting his majority government and continuing his social makeover of, for instance, the Canadian justice system.
On the other hand, Gays may really care - a lot - about the right to marry and vote en masse against their personal financial interests for a party other than the New Conservatives in order to ensure that it not get a majority and reverse that decision. And women may suddenly decide they care - a lot - about having the right to choose and do the same thing lest abortion end up re-criminalized. Married heterosexual men d'un certain age may decide, too, that it's nice not to have to worry about money while you worry about your chances of getting the Big C or having the Big H and mark their Xs where the New Conservative Party candidate ain't - putting their vote with universal, publicly funded healthcare.
Albertans might - out of the blue - wake up and smell the sour gas and ask themselves how they got there and is it worth it, and... Okay... I'm dreamin' in technicolour now. But maybe now that Alberta is in charge of its own immigration it will attract a smarter class of people and THEY will recognize the need for voters to keep a vigilant eye on social progress.
Geez Louise. Talk about hyperbole. And not all of it is coming from politicians, either. Christ almighty with a hockey stick.
Look, I know nothing about this latest conflagration in the land except what I just caught on Bourque today:
DOANGATE!
But I'd just like to point out (before this thing REALLY catches fire) that since Doan is saying - then and now - that he didn't say it (whatever the slur was) *at all*, thennnnn... isn't he calling whoever DID say he said it - a liar?! I mean, logically speaking, that's what it looks like to me. But, as I say, I'm a Janey-come-lately to this imbroglio and I don't know all the details
Okay. I already stand corrected: I don't know ANY of the details. I only know what I read today and since no one is providing any prior details, I can only assume that there is ANOTHER good, upstanding, moral of character Canadian hockey player who is being called a Big Fat Liar by Doan and everybody else defending him except for this fellow of, well, (fill in the blank) character:
"Totally ridiculous," Canucks head coach Vigneault, a Quebec City native and former coach of the Montreal Canadiens, said in Vancouver. "In the heat of the battle things get said sometimes, a lot worse than being called a French frog or whatever."
"He says he didn't say it. Even if he did, come on," added Vigneault. "If our politicians, French or English, if that's the only thing right now they have to worried about ... There's a lot more important things going on right now in society. It is utterly, utterly stupid, not to say embarrassing."
Hey dude - it's ALWAYS embarrassing when it's YOUR stupid shit hitting the fan.
And maybe that "more important" thing we should all be on the lookout for is a hockey player with his pants on fire. 'Cause, I'm no mathematician, buttttt.... SOMEBODY'S lying. And if it ain't the good Cap'n, then it's the guy who said he ain't the good Cap'n.
More importantly, why the hell should politicians butt out of the NHL's affairs as suggested by this ice cat:
"The NHL stands by its decision to clear Shane Doan and says politicians should mind their own business."
"I stand by my original comments after our investigation," Campbell told The Canadian Press. "But I would add to it at this point in time, it's rather embarrassing to all Canadian hockey fans we're rehashing this again, particularly when Hockey Canada and Shane Doan are representing and working hard in Moscow right now, competing for our country. It's ridiculous."
Oh. Really. Well, I'm a Canadian, too, and I'm more inclined to think politicians SHOULDN'T butt out of the NHL's affairs. In fact, I think the NHL should be probed regularly and roundly by as many politicians as it takes to assure me that the NHL isn't just a bunch of thick-necked thugs CLAIMING to be good, moral, upstanding Canadians doing their level best to represent Canada abroad.
May I remind you, Gentlemen, of Exhibit A - Alan Eagleson?
And while we're all proud of Wayne Gretsky for scoring goals without knocking other players semi-permanently unconscious, he did marry an American. And a gambler, so the rumour mill tells us.
Or, is that the facts? It's hard to keep these sport scandal rumours/facts straight, the way they tend to piggy-back each other before they're covered up altogether by the types of guys who don't like politicians poking their noses around in NATIONAL SPORTS ORGANIZATIONS!!!
And, forgive me, but I just don't get this Canadian insistence that hockey represents the best of the country. I mean, c'mon - I'm from the Sault. Sorry. But the Soo Greyhounds might just as well have called themselves "Sexist Pig Thugs R Us".
Really. You're completely full of shit if you think the Juniour whatever team in your town isn't just the same, too. And the Big Boy Leagues a helluvalot worse.
So, yeah. In my opinion, jockish grandstanding and backpatting about what good wholesome characters y'all are (in spite of the corrupt years of days gone by and whever is going on currently that we'll find out about later) is no reason why Canadian politicians shouldn't meddle in the National Hockey League as much as they friggin' well want. Just because a bunch o' guys can claim to represent the country abroad doesn't mean that they actually do.
And it sure as hell doesn't mean that they might not be just a bunch of thicknecked thugs at home.
Get real, people.
But first, this:
A Rink Rat Rites and It's Not Even Crusty
"Even the Taliban have merited greater parliamentary consideration when it comes to the laws of natural justice."
Okay. Starting now. Get real, people.
As I mentioned on my Forum: SooeySooeySooey - I entered the Globe Style Contest last week. Yes indeed. I sent in one head&shoulders shot and two head-to-toe shots of me, myself and I in three different outfits.
Phew!
Modelling is hard.
And I'm not being a Barbie here, either. Smiling and posing on command, when there's something at stake, is a lot like making a speech in front of a crowd except instead of my voice shaking, my smile shakes. Seriously. As soon as I knew my daughter (I enlisted her support since none of it was possible, otherwise - it all requiring digital photo uploading, elves, pixie dust - until facsimiles of me in Ottawa end up inside Globe computers in Toronto) was about to click - my smile veered into crazy lady territory and we had to do another take.
She had lots of cheap laughs, though - so it was way worth it to her to spend an hour taking pictures of her Mom instead of just, well, I dunno... what DO teenaged girls do when they aren't busy taking pictures of their Moms?
That's okay. Don't answer. And it's not like I couldn't cast my mind back to my own teenaged girl years and remember spending a lot of time laying around wishing I was anywhere but wherever my Mom was, asking me to do something or other for her, as if I didn't have a million and one better things to do.
Who knew having your picture taken could be so hard?
Except professional models, I guess.
And if I'd thought about it, I should have known how difficult it is to take a good picture when there's something at stake in taking a good picture. For a brief time (about 2 days), I had a promise of a bi-weekly spot in the Ottawa Citizen and so had my picture taken to top my 700-word humour column. It even made it into the newspaper over the next few pieces I had published - although bi-weekly turned into monthly and then monthly into a new editor who wasn't interested at all thank you very much and now "buh-bye" freelancer. So yeah, the pre-asshole editor sent a photographer over to my home to take my picture and, my-oh-my, one entire roll of film later, she had one decent shot she could use.
Maybe two. Three at the very outside.
It wasn't her fault. She was a professional. She clowned, she joked, she even went upstairs and brought my ex down so he could clown and joke behind her - in hopes of making me relax. But for some reason, I couldn't manage to keep my smile from wavering and my eyes from closing for longer than it takes to say, "Cheez" - the scariest word in the English language when you are having your picture taken for something that, well, matters to you.
In fact, as soon as I realized where the shoot was going - in the toilet - I could barely manage to smile at all. Which is kind of understandable since smiling for me is a bit of an engineering feat because I grew up hiding a missing front tooth which meant that, until I could get it fixed, I had one of those local yokelly gap-toothed smiles instead of one of those Lauren Huttony gap-toothed smiles. And even though I have the requisite number of teeth now, I've retained the habit of smiling like I'm hiding a shameful history of cousins marrying sisters, or somesuch.
(And because I didn't really trust the editor not to print one of the more hilarious takes - I instructed the photographer to under no circumstances give him any more than just that one photo to choose from for my head shot. I later realized that a crazy lady photo would have been much more suited to my column and may, in fact, have been the edge I needed to nudge out the political insider who DID land the bi-weekly spot I always felt but never could be absolutely sure was the one promised to me.)
Paranoia - thy name is freelancer.
Anyway, the same thing happened last week as I posed and fussed for my photo entries for the contest. I was so nervous, in fact, that I forgot my bling in one of the photos. Which, on further reflection, may be a good thing.
We'll have to wait and see. People often comment on my bling, but I'm not sure if its commenting-good or commenting-what the hell are you wearing, crazy lady?
Paranoia - thy name is crazy lady.
But the real reason I entered the contest was because it was there. And once I'd seized upon the idea of winning a trip to Toronto and a $5,000 shopping spree, well, how hard is it to send in 3 photos or yourself?
(See Above)
But to be honest, it wasn't until after I'd entered and sent in my photos that I gave any thought to the fashion part of the exercise - in terms of what is actually fashionable - as opposed to the outfits I wear because I look better in them than what is currently in fashion, no matter what is currently in fashion.
Sorry, but in spite of every fashionista's advice regarding what women in middle age should and should not wear, I am NEVER going back to high-rise jeans. It's low-rise 'til the walker years, so get ready to avert your gaze or stare in wonder, world. I don't give a rat's ass - and maybe I'll be sporting a rat's ass - what the critics say. Having nothing around my waist is all the fashion freedom I need, baby. After what seems like a lifetime of having to undo my pants/skirt to sit comfortably at my desk - I think we can all agree that I'm better off with a low-rise jean. I'm not a plumber, anyway, and as long as my chair has a closed back - who's to know any better while I comfortably digest my lunch.
So yeah, I'm wearing low-rise jeans in one photo and, well, my favourite dress in the other. And no - it's not a mini. I don't wear mini dresses. I never wore mini dresses. Only models and little girls should wear mini dresses. It is, in fact if not fashion, a knee length Chinese style dress except chocolate brown and in a stretch cotton/something blend. It's like a comfortable girdle shaped like a dress. It even hides panty lines. I wear it with short little wicked witch of the west boots in chocolate brown with little gold studs up the side and a skinny high heel that takes me to 5'8" or 5'9" - depending on how tall I really am. (I started lying when I was about 12 and haven't had myself accurately measured since then because I prefer 5'6" but am probably 5'5" and no longer feel the need for the truth. Truth is bad. No wonder ever came out ahead, height-wise, knowing the truth.)
Oh yes, and you'll be jealous and green with envy, both, to know that in my low-rise jeans photo, I'm wearing red cowboy boots. I forgot to say in my little entry blurb accompanying my photos that they belonged to Bob Dylan, but it's probably for the best since you never know who's got it in for Bob Dylan these days. Bob Dylan cowboy boots could be a vote getter, but they could just as easily be a vote loser. So yes. When in doubt, leave it out.
Which is actually a pretty chic little fashion tip I just noticed too late...
So send your good vibes to the Globe Style Contest. Mama needs new shoes.
So I caught my favourite news show last night - "The Agenda" - and it was all about trans fats and the very obvious fact that they should be banned by our federal government and the food industry made to adapt accordingly in one of those, "Okay, you got away with it for a while and now the ride is over" pieces of legislation that will have 'em howling until they stop howling and we no longer have trans fats shoved down our throats by the food industry.
I believe the words "No Brainer" were used by all of the guests save one.
Yes. You've guessed right. There was a Fraser Institooter on the program.
I know, I know. You're thinking, "But the Fraser Institute is a well-known partisan waste dump for simple minds, Sooey! Why would "The Agenda" have a talking head from the Fraser Institute on its show defending the right of consumers to choose trans-fat over non-trans fat when even children know by now that they don't really have any choice at all but are eating trans fats because that's all there is in fast food - trans fats."
I don't know, Dear Reader. Some people, I guess, still believe the Fraser Institute's own P.R. - that it is a "think tank" and not just a bunch o' goofs who get a lot of free public air time to state their libertarian views.
Anyway, it was pretty funny listening to a libertarian Fraser Institooter argue on behalf of the right of consumers to choose to eat trans fat when, until very recently, we didn't even know that's what we were choosing. I mean, there's choice and then there's "Oh, by the way, we've poisoned the food supply with trans fat to make food taste... worse for your health... so choose to eat it or choose not to eat it - the choice is up to you."
I mean, really. It is to laugh. Not that libertarian arguments coming from think tankers aren't generally pretty mockable. "Yeah. Good luck finding something useful to trade for food and shelter when the government is only responsible for the supplying us with an army, dude."
In any case, just when I thought the think tanker was pretty much over, argument-wise, one of the guests made the point that trans fats are not just bad for your health, but they're bad for the economy because obesity (one result of too much trans fat consumption) has a direct impact on our healthcare system.
Gasp! You could almost here the "Oo, Oo, I know the answer to that one!" coming from Calgary where the think tanker was phoning it in to the old Studio Two. Except the answer, when it came, wasn't the clean swipe I'd anticipated at "socialized medicine" but rather an uneven chop at everything leading up to it, "We'll look after you when you're sick, but only if it's something that's not your own fault. Which would not include the eating of trans fat - since that's your choice - fat kid."
It was hard to argue with that one, I guess. At least, it seemed to be, since the other guests mostly didn't - the argument being too banal for them to register. Me, I was left trying to figure out what size healthcare bureaucracy would be needed to ascertain what was the patient's own fault and what was the fault of society - speaking of libertarianism gone wild. And, as always, one can't help but think of the children and so I thought, "There is plenty of evidence to indicate that fast food/trans fats may, in fact, be addictive. And what choice do children have if Mom and Dad insist on bringing home cheap fast food every night for supper? It's cheap, it's fast, and it's food. And until very recently, who knew it was poison?"
But I was so surprised that the Fraser Institooter didn't simply say, "That's why the Fraser Institoot doesn't support the concept of a publicly funded healthcare system accessible to all Canadians", that I was put in mind of a conversation I'd had just the other day with a wealthy American. He was asking about our healthcare system in very general terms and seemed almost prostrate with shock at the very idea that everyone (except our political elite, it would seem) uses the same healthcare system and it's all (mostly) covered by our tax dollars. What shocked him was that rich people were sharing the same services afforded to not rich people. He couldn't believe it. "You mean to tell me, Sooey. That if I walked into a hospital, I would be treated the same as..." And here I cut him off to say, "As me. You would be treated the same as me."
Now, this old guy likes me - a lot - we have great political discussions on the phone, but he knows how much money I make and, well, to say he was speechless would be an understatement. In fact, he may be dead. That conversation may have killed him. I haven't heard from him today and usually he calls by noon..
Anyway, I like him - a lot, too - but boy, it was funny to hear the shock in his voice over that one. I didn't mention our political elite's visits down south, the private clinics, etc - I wanted to bask in our superiour civilization for a while. Such as it is, anyway. Where he lives, New York City, they've banned trans fats as of July 2008.
Where we live, I guess it's a matter of convincing our government - which, sadly (and there was no way I was admitting this to an American) takes its cues from the Fraser Institoot - of the "No Brainer" in banning trans fats.
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