tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35538367962185868362023-11-16T03:53:17.936-07:00Zorg ReportInitially a miscellany, but became more political/current affairs oriented; hopes to return to a more miscellaneous outlook.Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-40306942162220860002022-01-15T23:27:00.002-07:002022-01-15T23:37:43.723-07:00SK Update<div style="text-align: left;"><h2 style="text-align: left;">(CP-Reuters) SK Update: Premier Moe Tests Positive for Covid--Doctors Predict Steep Decline in Vehicular Homicides for Province<br /></h2></div>Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-87001113760416923642019-04-03T00:41:00.000-06:002019-04-03T00:41:08.819-06:00Jason Kenney discusses leaving his mother’s basement, taking only one taxpayer cheque, etc.with Duane Bratt of 1handsomeshill.com<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">(Well, they didn’t really get
around to it, this time.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: Jason, you’re just so. . .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: I know, awesome.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: But so. . .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK Yes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: I’ve been, I’ve been. . .</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Yes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: Behind you so long.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Yes Duane.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: Soooooo<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>loooooong</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Ah, yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>AHh. But
when I’m </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
DR: sooooooo looooong</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Pre-E-emier, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
you’re not</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK/DR: you know you love</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do. . .and
you won’t be able to </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shill!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shill! for </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Me no more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Uuuuuuhhhhhhhhh.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Now it will be different, Duane</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
uuuuhhhh</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Duane?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Now we will need fake credentialed people to Prop Up our
agenda</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hmmmhmmmmmmm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Are you gonna be ready?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Do whatever it takes?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
mmmmmmmmmmm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: Good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
mmmmmm</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
JK: I’ll send a cheque.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jason, Jason….</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
JK: It’s PREE-em-ier</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
DR: yes yes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
JK: PREE-em-ier</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
DR: yes yes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
JK: always Yes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
DR: yes, always Yes</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
JK: Okay</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
DR: nnnnhhhhhh<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nhnn Yes</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-61539681344694890342019-04-02T20:44:00.000-06:002019-04-02T23:32:36.801-06:00Canada's Sports Cartel - Sportsnet and TSN Unite to Defeat Women's Hockey<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I am really disappointed to hear about the CWHL, or for that matter, the NWHL.<br />
<br />
I'm a man. Have I ever gone to their games? No. I can't even afford a junior game, let alone let alone let alone let alone an NHL one.<br />
<br />
But I have to watch darts and card games and "wrestling" endlessly, when there are really great women playing hockey that, sure, you bet, I'd watch for a while.<br />
<br />
Did I think women's hockey was great 20-30 years ago? No. Should they be allowed to play more physically? Yes. (Most of them are bigger and tougher than I am, so. . . . .)<br />
<br />
This one lies straight at the door of Canada's sports cartel, Sportsnet and TSN. They are willing to show us any dreck--pasty pimply basement dwellers so ugly they have to wear shades and baseball caps playing poker, for example--but they can't show us top-flight women playing hi-tempo puck.<br />
<br />
I am at a loss on this one. A good women's hockey game beats most of what Sportsnet and TSN have on 18 hours a day. For shame.<br />
<br />
zr</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-86450430956213582562016-01-31T06:09:00.000-07:002016-02-06T03:13:44.981-07:00Sarah truths<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
No, it wasn't the fact of hispanics being rapists, or drug lords, or criminals; it was just those "democrats" coming across the border. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw7PTu8j3ml82dG_GApFuunzXIE3qftkPdaTxcDL7OYgr-2JGHFGf1qV1VE_vMelkllgBPcPFugjpFyCA6KiA' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<br />
Glad we got that over with.<br />
--zr</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-1757639700766215842015-05-02T03:49:00.000-06:002015-05-02T04:54:02.691-06:00Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 18pt;">Extreme Entitlement, <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alberta</st1:place></st1:state> Style:
Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Oh well, I’ve had little to say on the Alberta election—who
ever would, since governments change in Alberta in more or less the same way as
they did in the Soviet Union or under the PRI in Mexico.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No dictator, anywhere, could ever look down
more fondly and patronizingly ("math is hard, Miss Notchley") upon the <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alberta</st1:place></st1:state>
electorate than a Tory leader.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
Robert Mugabe must have taken a lot of notes, over time.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Still, I’m writing this post because I just have to say that
it really stuck in my craw, big time, when I actually got a call from a
semi-English speaking member of Cusanelli’s “team.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh I’d like to believe that he was just one
great big idealist who loved Cusanelli, but, after nearly ½ century, I think I
can be excused for kind of doubting that he was just there for the stale
doughnuts and warm coffee (sorry, scotch and steak, if you’re a PC).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Tory robo-calling is all-out now, with voters in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Alberta</st1:state></st1:place> getting nearly
constant taped fright calls (what, couldn’t they actually find a warm body?)
about the possibility of electing a party other than the PCs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you know you’re losing, and you have no
volunteers, and you resort to canned scare calls. . .well, just sayin.’</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Cusanelli, though, of Calgary-Currie, probably will win on
May 5, and thus score her lifetime pension by being elected twice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She could face a bit of opposition from the
right, but it’s not all that likely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No,
all probability suggests that she will be re-elected (visit her site, I guess,
to find out what she did in her first elected term) and score that automatic
lifetime entitlement that comes automatically along with being elected twice
for the PCs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Frankly, I’m amazed the PCs
would have elected her to run as their candidate again, but so they did, for
entitlement runs deep.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
You wouldn’t have heard of Cusanelli, because, well, why
would you have, unless you’d noted her very first actions in public office: to
start sucking madly, voraciously, like some kind of bionic polyp, on the public
teat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She instantly took her mother and
daughter to the London Olympics on taxpayer money (yours and mine), and charged
up an astounding amount of expenses billed to—you and me—taxpayers, including a
$100 Starbucks gift card.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kinda doubt
Christine ever bought a $100 Starbucks gift card for herself, or anyone else,
before she was elected as a PC and instantly introduced into cabinet by Alison
Redford, but as soon as she could start sucking on the public teat like a
crazed woman, she let loose with all barrels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s all there in black and white, or at least the parts the public are
allowed to see:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/Calgary+Christine+Cusanelli+repays+taxpayers+after+flying+family+members+Olympics/7658409/story.html</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-cabinet-minister-repays-10k-in-improper-expenses-1.1219850"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-cabinet-minister-repays-10k-in-improper-expenses-1.1219850</span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I think Cusanelli’s actions say things about her, and her
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>First, it is amazing to me that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anyone</i> would be elected to public office and so instantly start
sucking on the public teat as urgently and as vigorously as she did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, I guess it happens, especially in
entitled Conservative circles, and especially in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Alberta</st1:place></st1:state> ones, where winning the nomination
to be a PC candidate is infinitely more important than anything you’ll ever go
on to do afterwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christine knew
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve worked in at least
quasi-political circles, and I know how careful I and my colleagues were to
avoid even the slightest hint of spending others’ money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we knew people could come in and go over
our files—Cusanelli, and her backer Alison Redford, clearly never had such
thoughts on their minds—Redford wouldn’t have instantly begun building her
sky-palace (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/alison-redfords-sky-palace-unveiled-but-as-humbler-meeting-rooms/article22731201/),
once elected, if she had thought otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who knows, maybe Alison was just, as Christine suggested she herself
was, a little dumb, and didn’t really “get” the rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suspect, though, that if you asked them,
both Christine and Alison would react a little vociferously to the suggestion
that they were somehow a bit slow on the uptake, on anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, I’m sure they aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The evidence is in, well in; they knew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">exactly</i> what they were doing, and if
they want to prove, in a court of law, that they were just momentarily,
serially, brainless idiots, then they are free to pursue their cases.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIDesQAWqyosPJ2bEcDcbw3dAlzS_52TSQVisFBocnr8CD-VTNYi-HgsRTywXRAwipTpE-766-Nj_Umj_-uIic15W_U8SyajLaeokMGmQgJxRBZe8CRpbsYtspJa_m_bBBe6Nq1RfTeUd/s1600/redford+cusanelli+7657693.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIDesQAWqyosPJ2bEcDcbw3dAlzS_52TSQVisFBocnr8CD-VTNYi-HgsRTywXRAwipTpE-766-Nj_Umj_-uIic15W_U8SyajLaeokMGmQgJxRBZe8CRpbsYtspJa_m_bBBe6Nq1RfTeUd/s1600/redford+cusanelli+7657693.jpg" height="208" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
[Funny thing, Cusanelli was supposedly a school
administrator before she sought the Tories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She might have had a
good pension in that job, but the allure of the public teat and Tory
entitlement must have been overwhelming—the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">carte
blanche</i> of the PCs was irresistible even to someone who _had_<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>what would look like a fulfilling and
well-pensioned position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So much for
smelly, runny-nosed kids—Christine had her eye on a much bigger prize she could
bag in 8 years or less, forget 25.]</div>
<br />
Further, Cusanelli’s sense of entitlement must go back to
her family and her upbringing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be
that she coveted the Tories and the lifetime pension it brings and is about to
bring her, and it may be that her good family just kept supporting her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But if I just got a new job, and I told my family, “hey, folks, we’re
all going to <st1:place w:st="on">Disneyland</st1:place>!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’ve kind of maybe got a meeting a little
bit related to my new job while we’re there, but we can all go, and I’m
paying,” you know what—do you know what—I’m going to say that again—DO YOU KNOW
WHAT—MY family probably would have said, “er, Christine, can we afford
this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It sounds fun and we’re grateful,
but, uh, can we do this now?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe we
can wait a bit and have a nice vacation sometime. . . .”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But oh no, not Christine Cusanelli, and not
her family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were ALL eager to start
sucking on the public teat like crazed maniacs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, while I do not believe that all parents should always be made to
take total responsibility for the actions of their children (even
30-year-olds), I do swell with disgust at Cusanelli’s family, who, if they did
not know they were sucking money out of taxpayers’ wallets, at least allowed
themselves to go along with Christine’s charade.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could say they didn’t know, but to say
they didn’t know better would, once again, ask them to have to prove, in
something like a court of law, just how it was that they so remarkably did not
know better what pretty much most all normal working people in the world do.
<br />
<br />
For shame, for shame.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Second, the Alberta Conservatives took Christine’s attempts
to gouge taxpayers in stride.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, she
wasn’t in the cabinet anymore, but hey, she’s our gal, is what the Alberta PC
government and the good burghers of the Calgary-Currie riding association had
to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows, maybe the executive
of the Calgary-Currie PC riding association had already done, over their
lifetimes, a little of the ol’ public “gouging” themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it says something about the Calgary-Currie PCs that they’d get
behind an MLA whose first actions in office were to start sucking, egregiously,
on the taxpayer teat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask yourself—would
you have done it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you would have,
why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Had you done it yourself and found
it to be enjoyable and rewarding behaviour?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Only PC executives can answer that one.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So anyway, desperate, fearmongering PCs, quit calling
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t even have been stirred to
write this post if I hadn’t gotten so many paranoid PC calls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who are the PCs afraid of?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people? Christine will get in again and
get a gold-plated pension for less than 8 years of work (since T-Bird Jim
Prentice busted the PCs’s own legislation about “fixed” elections).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she retires, years and even decades
before many, she’ll be able to do many <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>
junkets, on taxpayer money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Albertans will
have reassured themselves, as they have for nearly a half century, that they’d
done the right thing, and that, in the interests of investment and job
creation, Christine’s flying around the world with her family really and truly
were tremendously worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure
Christine Cusanelli’s contributions to public life will, by that time, have
been absolutely legendary.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-6029695080574430422015-04-16T05:24:00.001-06:002015-08-16T03:33:39.764-06:00Henein's Law, Canada's<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Articling?<br />
<br />
A little bit bedraggling.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigUBPlfF7vivMyQieVs68dIR6J7dBaHuCSjLUMbyQnApsW9wR1mZTTZpRIZMAN8kkBeoD0T18bAO3BM6xZezfLvxNATf_zNc89ZtzbfLsMYk99mNeNPNZqNYHmmjCtMEZLcUuuG5M8SJzd/s1600/Marie-Henein-Jian-Ghomeshis-new-lawyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigUBPlfF7vivMyQieVs68dIR6J7dBaHuCSjLUMbyQnApsW9wR1mZTTZpRIZMAN8kkBeoD0T18bAO3BM6xZezfLvxNATf_zNc89ZtzbfLsMYk99mNeNPNZqNYHmmjCtMEZLcUuuG5M8SJzd/s1600/Marie-Henein-Jian-Ghomeshis-new-lawyer.jpg" width="217" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Getting off accused rapists whilst promoting yourself on the web--</div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.hhllp.ca/assets/images/HHLLP-marie-scott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.hhllp.ca/assets/images/HHLLP-marie-scott.jpg" height="272" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
--priceless.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
--zr</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div align="right" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="right" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="right" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="right" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="right" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="justify" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-30766796481764339402015-04-16T04:39:00.000-06:002015-08-16T03:35:44.681-06:00Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<st1:city w:st="on"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Ferguson</span></b></st1:city><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> Jenkins:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Best NHL Hall-of-Famer <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> Never
Had?</span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Abstract: Baseball has
begun again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cubs have a new
manager, by any estimation a fine man and fine baseball mind, Joe Maddon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also have about seven top shortstop
prospects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can the Cubs go all the way
in 2016 or 2017?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This post is about the 1974 National Film
Board Donald Brittain documentary, <u>King of the Hill</u>, in turn about Ferguson
Jenkins and the Cubs in ’72-’73.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t
bother with this post; just watch the documentary:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/king_of_the_hill"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.nfb.ca/film/king_of_the_hill</span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(You can also find it on youtube, just as you
can Dennis Martinez’s Perfect Game, which I wrote about a long time ago on this
blog.) If Frank Mahovolich can become a senator, then how, in the world, didn't Ferguson Jenkins?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">April 2015</i> – Well,
baseball is upon us again; “hope springs eternal” has given way almost already
to “the boys of summer.” </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
For those parched nomadic Expos fans out there. . .there is
no relief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is none.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yes, we were the champions in ’94. . . .</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
By any “metric,” and any non-metric, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Chatham</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Ontario</st1:state></st1:place>’s
Ferguson Jenkins put up just about the best numbers one could conceivably put
up—mostly with the Cubs . (!)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jenkife01.shtml"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jenkife01.shtml</span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>He probably would have won about 360 (ok well, 320-325) with the Cardinals or
Dodgers, say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Numbers kids doing
graduate theses should study Jenkins’s numbers to see what a perfect, durable,
4-pitch pitcher he was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But caution: in
the search for someone more metrical than him, they might never finish their
dissertations.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
For any baseball fans out there, check out <em>King of the
Hill </em>(1974), an hour-long documentary about Fergie, following him from spring
training to. . .well, it’s the Cubs, off-season hunting and fishing (in NL!!!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s an NFB (National Film Board) production,
made and narrated by the redoubtable Donald Brittain, who also brought you
unforgettable portraits of people like Leonard Cohen, if you weren’t watching (<a href="https://www.nfb.ca/film/mesdames_et_messieurs_m_leonard_cohen"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.nfb.ca/film/mesdames_et_messieurs_m_leonard_cohen</span></a>).
Brittain’s dry, repressed, “I’m-almost-afraid-of-doing/saying-this-on-film”
narration actually works well, all these decades down the road, for those of us
who still love baseball love the dry and wry, nostalgic and modern-weary
delivery, just like we like the canny Woody Fryman or Doyle Alexander pulling
the string on those kids, just one more time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It isn’t that we’re old farts; we just appreciate it more, each time it
happens, because it reminds us that we aren’t old farts, and once upon a time,
we didn’t have to pull that string.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a
way that never could have been grasped in 1974, Donald Brittain actually makes
a great throwback commentator for today—the same ones you Cardinals and Padres
fans of today, and ye old Tigers fans of yesteryear, clutch so close.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, for anyone who watches this documentary
and finds the voiceover silly, I say this to you: “Yes, it is incredibly
silly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was incontestably silly in
1974, when there were helicopter shirt collars and bell bottoms that could make
you Mary Poppins on a steam-grate, but now, in our petticoated age of mass porn
and invented heritage, it strikes. . .just. . .the right. . .note. . .for
baseball.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And if you listen (and watch) carefully, of course, Brittain
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">very</i> sly and ironic, in a way
those who love and appreciate the game will grin at, rather than rebuke.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>It’s crucial to remember, here, that the Harper
Conservatives have cut the NFB and will probably cut it again, within weeks of
this post; the erasure of Canadian history, and its replacement with “values”
(code: “mine: not yours”) is just one more reason for this post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When slaves were transported to North America,
one of the first things slavebuyers did was try to break those slaves down,
according to language, so that slaves from <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>
couldn’t communicate with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Harper government, using taxpayer money, is doing precisely the same
thing, trying to break down national, shared, communal and family-generational
institutions by breaking them up and degrading them so that they can be
replaced with blanket media advertising propounding shared “Harper” values that
will instill fear and greed leading to greater class separation and greater
entitlements for the already entitled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you were to say to me, “oh, come on, come off it, Dan, you’re way too
cynical,” all I could say would be, “ok, how?” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watched the hockey playoffs and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">YOUR</i> money being used by the Conservatives
to promote themselves, lately?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dictators
could only hope for such freedom and access to public money and airwaves.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’m kinda starting to feel it, so should stop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ways I could conflate baseball and
society and morality are almost limitless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore, I’ll draw it down to three (all probably related) things that
really stood out for me in the documentary (other than Joe Pepitone at first,
for you ball fans out there):</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
1) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">NHL star</b>--about
17:20, Fergie’s dad talking about what a great hockey player Fergie was, and
about his mom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We sports fans, we all
live in the world of what-ifs, especially in baseball, but if you can imagine
Fergie’s frame and touch and talent, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pace</i>
the Herb Carnegies and Will O’Ree’s and Mike Marstons, well, it’s hard, so very
hard not to think that Ferguson Jenkins would have been a once-in-a-generation
winger, warding off bodies and settling pucks for goals or assists like few
others of his time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Odd that, although
we congratulate ourselves, in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>,
that Jackie Robinson could play for the Montreal Royals, we (our “values”?)
elide what others might have done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(To
read more about Herb Carnegie, see: <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Fly-Pail-Milk-Carnegie-Story/dp/0889626049"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.amazon.ca/Fly-Pail-Milk-Carnegie-Story/dp/0889626049</span></a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a sad reflection, but based on any
evidence, probably a true one, that Ferguson Jenkins had a lot more opportunity
to pursue his athletic talents in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
than he did in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, it’s complicated, but maybe not that much.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>2) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Composure</b>—about
22:00 and throughout the documentary, you see the reserved and guarded and
mature nature of the black ballplayers, Fergie with Billy Williams in probably
a hotel room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Players like Fergie and
Billy and Cito Gaston came up through times when they had to stay at different
hotels, eat in different restaurants, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That no doubt instilled a certain guardedness, maybe even a “secret
code,” like the one Harper is trying to instill in us now—a sense that we’re
not all humans, but that others are somehow less human than us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, it will strike anyone who watches
Donald Brittain’s documentary just how much fun and yakkety-yak and haw-haw the
white guys are having, while the black guys are all pretty business, at least
off the field—they’ve got much more on the line, and that’s largely counter to
any stereotypes, then or now. (If anyone wants to argue re: Ernie Banks, who we
see briefly, then ok, let’s talk.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
could be wrong about this, but only a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You tell me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a blog.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>3) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Expos</b>—former
champions, 1994.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jarry Park. 34:40 As the Cubs
were (of course) collapsing, Ron Santo made it to first base on a walk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The following is his conversation with Ron
Fairly, a man who had a heck of a career and played a heck of a lot of ball in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Santo: I don’t git it.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Fairly: It’s a tough fuckin’ ballpark.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Santo: Damn right it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tough to hit, tough to
field, tough to do everything.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--It’s a nice town, though.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Fairly: Oh yeah.</div>
<br />
<div style="border-color: currentColor currentColor windowtext; border-style: none none solid; border-width: medium medium 1pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-element: para-border-div; padding: 0in 0in 1pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="border: currentColor; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .75pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 0in 1.0pt 0in; padding: 0in;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-55595596240302367722015-04-09T07:57:00.000-06:002015-08-16T03:38:47.219-06:00Always Join a Club of Which You Weren't a Member: Mike Duffy and the Senate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Abstract:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever happens in the Mike Duffy trial, let’s
not forget one thing: Duffy watched the Senate for decades, and he wanted a
part of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever might be said of
his actions, or of the (comically alleged) hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil,
see-no-evil members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most intimate inner circle,
the Duffster knew, from long, long experience, that the Senate was the place to
be for easy money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the Duffster, an
ultimate insider, knew what the Senate was like for so long, and so desperately
longed to get into it, should make all Liberal and Conservative supporters
wonder why they so enthusiastically support, for purely partisan reasons, the
red chamber.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s red as in your money
disappearing. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> No-one seems to be all that preoccupied by the fact that a guy who reported on politicians for decades so desperately wanted to be an unelected one. I submit that that is a problem.</o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Sure the Duffy trial is annoying, but let’s not forget that
the Duffster was watching it for decades; he knew what was going on, and he
knew what he could get, and he wanted it, badly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mix in some party work, and the “Senate”
becomes a taxpayer-funded propaganda instrument, even more expensive than the $75
million you already spent (<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/that-75-million-in-ads-you-paid-for/article23824771/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/that-75-million-in-ads-you-paid-for/article23824771/</span></a>).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To what extent are Peter Mansbridge and Lisa
LaFlamme already sizing up their opportunities, solidifying their contacts,
making sure they’re at the head of the line?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’d have to be mentally absent to think that Mansbridge and LaFlamme
are not going to be your handsomely-paid and expensed senatorial representatives just a few years from
now.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Key thing to remember about the Duffster, lest we all lose
sight of it, is that the Duffster was a Hill veteran for years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew the ins ands outs, and the
in-and-outs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He angled like an obsessed
man for his appointment, even launching lawsuits against those he thought hurt
his entitlement opportunities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Duffy). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, you could say, well, Mike was just tired
of being a journalist and wanted to get in on the real political action in a
partisan way his “journalistic” profession had “technically” always denied him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d almost respect him for that—Mike Duffy
waking up one day and saying, “Gee, I’m a Conservative, and I’m going to
dedicate the rest of my life to that cause.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But no, that’s not how it works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike Duffy was there, all the time, and
though he may have been more craven than most, he admired and was utterly
smitten by the lawlessness of the entire Senate, the easy access to taxpayer
money, the unashamed and mock-serious gloating of the party hack
appointees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He watched it for decades,
and he wanted a part of that moral- and tax- and cost-free zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who wouldn’t?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It says much, much indeed that Liberal and Conservative supporters have
cherished, for partisan and publicly extortionate reasons, a body that, from
its origins, was intended to preserve privilege, as opposed to initiative (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_senate"><span style="color: blue;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_senate</span></a>).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good ol’ Bertie Brown, the great
Conservative farmer-senate-reformer Senator, was able to ring up over $330 000
in expenses in just one year (<a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-only-elected-senator-also-the-most-expensive"><span style="color: blue;">http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadas-only-elected-senator-also-the-most-expensive</span></a>).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never met Bert Brown, but I know
kinfolk like his, and all of them would be ashamed and disgusted to know that
they had ever known such an individual as him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His family will for generations be remembered as the one that used
Canadian taxpayers for massive personal emolument while pretending to be on
their sides.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The occasional jurisdiction has eliminated senatorial
entitlement (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abolished_upper_houses"><span style="color: blue;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_abolished_upper_houses</span></a>),
and not necessarily for altruistic reasons.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Nancy Ruth, who objected to cold cheese and crumbled
crackers on airplanes, raised a valid point when she said that “flying around
the world” (in her case, for basic Senate purposes, Toronto to Ottawa), was
something that others “just didn’t understand” (<a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/04/01/liberal-nancy-ruth-says-auditors-dont-understand-what-being-senator-is-like.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/04/01/liberal-nancy-ruth-says-auditors-dont-understand-what-being-senator-is-like.html</span></a>).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When you’re accustomed to such
entitlement, you just go with the flow and take it as it comes, and it does
become very easy to blend the private with the professional.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet it *can*, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pace</i> entitled Nancy Ruth,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>be
hard to differentiate between legitimate personal expenses and professional
ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They *can* blend. And sometimes,
there *are* grey areas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, by
appointing only party hacks and promoters, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has
clearly upped the game—to be a Senator now, as Pamela Wallin and Duffy have
shown, is not really about not being very clear on the already rather fuzzy
rules; it’s about exploiting whatever fuzziness there is (Dean del Mastro,
anyone?) for partisan Conservative purposes to indebt Canadian taxpayers for
ideological reasons.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And there, really, is the rub.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mike Duffy, who knew what was going on for
decades, wanted a piece of the action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stephen Harper, operating in a personal moral-free zone with respect to
taxpayers, liked the cut of the Duffster’s jib, and wanted some of the Duffster’s
ample influence for his own: hence, the Senate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Plus ca change, ou
est-ce qu’on peut change?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-51341720736271625032015-03-27T05:56:00.000-06:002015-08-16T03:44:40.818-06:00Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda Triumphs Again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda
Triumphs Again</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Abstract: Fear and
paranoia enabled the conditions and killing of the passengers on Germanwings
9525; in honour of the victims of that flight, and for all future fliers,
sensible policies, that do not replace reasonable prudence with get-tough
politically-expedient reactions and expressions of fear, nor place sole power
in the hands of One person or agency, should be enacted. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Surely I’m far from the first (1000, 10 000?) people to make
this simple point, but fear and paranoia and obsession with “security” appear
to have led to another disaster and mass loss of human life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the 9/11 attackers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">de facto</i> created a policy that made much of the world place
collective fates in the hands of one extreme or potentially wingnut person no
doubt gratifies them immensely in their exquisite afterlives—surely such
terror, or infidel reduction, was key amongst their goals.</div>
<br />
The tragedy occurred because one pilot was allowed to stay in the cockpit, and prevent entry from anyone else.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
(I’m a little uncomfortable that now, barely two--three days
after the crash, we’re being asked to trust officials who tell us it was an
intentional downing by a sole-acting young co-pilot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little more time for the public revelation
of evidence and something emulating some sort of legal process would be more
reassuring.) </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>I’m struck by how former pilots and aviation talking heads
are expressing shock and amazement that pilots would do something so horrible,
when of course there are many examples of pilots embracing their godlike roles
and taking many lives other than their own into their hands not for professional
reasons, but for their own personal use and/or destruction (Ethiopian Airlines
702 and Egypt Air 990 are a couple of recent examples amongst numerous
instances).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On CTV News, an “aviation
expert” named Phyl Durdey offered: “You know, who would think that, y’know, an
aircraft would be put into a descent by the co-pilot?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t speak for Phyl, but I don’t care if
there’s 4 passengers or 400—I sure wouldn’t want to be on board an aircraft if
one of the pilots found out that, say, he was being canned, or his co-pilot was
sleeping with his wife, or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Phyl seems to attribute godlike non-humanity to pilots, and with
reference to the black box in the German pilot’s head, Phyl’s views are
terrifyingly ironic, indeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
(And Phyl, dude, if you’re out there, flying somewhere, I
was initially with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really didn’t
buy that a pilot, wishing to commit suicide and mass murder, would do it so
slowly and deliberately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would have
thought he’d just have done a nosedive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So far, we have only what “officials” tell us—heavy breathing and no
contact—and for me that’s not total circumstantial incrimination enough—but
that does not take away from the fact that there have been numerous instances
of pilots taking themselves and their passengers down with them in recent
years. Dan Zorg has been acquainted with several pilots, and one very close
pilot acquaintance in particular has expressed greater mystification than this
post does.)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
As with most people, this crash caused me to reflect on some
of my own flying experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember
being becalmed at the sleepy little <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dusseldorf</st1:place></st1:city>
airport for hours on a bright sunny morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I remember being young—not that young—and being on an Air New Zealand
flight. . .somehow, and surely not through anything anyone said with intention,
the flight crew must have learned that it was my birthday, and an elderly pilot
came right down to my seat and asked me if I’d like to see the flight
deck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine (!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m pretty sure I can remember, not just
imagine, times when the flight deck was actually open during the flight and I
could glimpse it.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Or then there’s good ol’ Air <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One time, just after 9/11, I was coming home
from the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
and it was one bizarre flight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
flight crew brought our food, late at night, and then disappeared to sulk,
never to return.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all sat there with
our trays for an hour or so, and then began shifting them into bulkheads and
under seats and into the aisles and so on; the attendants weren’t coming back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This wasn’t prior to any kind of strike or
major job action or anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still
don’t know what was up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what’s so
chilling to think of now was how the Air Canada pilot (was he alone?) came on
during that inky night at 35 000 feet or more and embarked on this long and
incomprehensible diatribe about things in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He invoked Christ (<st1:place w:st="on">Preston</st1:place>—“Presto”—‘no
government is good but if we just follow God it’ll be great!!’--Manning, seated
a few rows behind me, was perhaps comforted, but I sure as heck wasn’t).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pilot talked about holidays and work and
unfairness and so on, but I do remember he didn’t say anything explicit to
explain what was going on behind him, as the flight crew basically vanished and
refused to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He definitely didn’t support
them or explain anything. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He really only
referred to himself, not crew or passengers. But he talked religion and fumed
and rambled disconnectedly as though he were playing a video game or poking a
mobile device at the same time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
suppose he was—I hope he was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be
truthful, my most exact recollection of this flight was exchanging looks with
my flight partner, looking up and around in the darkened cabin (I still have
the beige mental images, to be sure), and just thinking to myself (praying?),
“Christ, I wish he’d just shut up, because the longer he keeps talking and
keeps working himself into this lather, the more dangerous it gets for all of
us and the more likely it will be for all of us that something catastrophic
could happen because of his distractedness and anger.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only when he quit rambling, and nothing
radical ensued, did I start to breathe easier. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank goodness I didn’t have a heart condition
and was flying, say, to see family for an almost last time—the Air Canada
pilot’s irresponsibility could have caused a death in and of itself. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was there anyone with him?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there was and it finally caused him to
glance over and take a nod and settle down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or maybe there wasn’t and he took advantage of his godlike moments to
berate the world in general as we soared through the black night in his
hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something like the Germanwings
flight sure makes you recollect and ponder.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
How in the world could a responsible company, or government,
allow a situation in which a pilot, who could experience a medical difficulty
(say, cabin depression?) be allowed to be in sole “control”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The news says that someone who tries the
correct password from outside the cabin can try again in five minutes if the
password doesn’t go through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can a
correct password be forgotten? Is five minutes not enough to crash a
plane?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unbelievable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This is what fear and paranoia have done to us: cause us to
place godlike powers in the hands of one person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to act tough against our fears, we
seek out fear and establish rules to protect ourselves from fears that,
ironically, can lead to our destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In no sane jurisdiction would it be possible for one person to
completely shut out the world and take the lives of others—this is what the
9/11 pilots did, and their actions constitute the response much of the world
came up with in turn—a carbon copy of the 9/11 killers’ gambit. Yet in the Germanwings
case, of course, allegedly, unlike with that of the 9/11 pilots, there wasn’t
even any need for accomplices with box cutters; the only things required, like
Chinese or North Korean self-censorship, were abstract--generalized fear and
paranoid public representatives, infinite mistrust, and the infantile ability
to flick a switch shutting out the real world of/to other human beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Sure fine, I’m all for security; I have no wish to die on an
airplane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll stand in line
forever—whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just want public
representatives to be sensible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll
stand in an airport forever and take off my shoes and belt and hat and have my
computer sprayed and my travel toothpaste taken away and go through a body
scanner and all that—sure fine; but I expect public representatives not to
endanger my life by putting in place measures that transfer godlike powers to
sole individuals who can never be held accountable for their actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the German pilot (is guilty, and if he
lived), I wouldn’t want to act like God myself and determine that he should be
killed; I’d want to keep him alive for his life so that he could be studied and
so that he could ponder his actions until fate took those powers away from
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think it’s fair to say that, if
most of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
Conservative caucus had their choice, if the pilot had lived, they’d have
killed him with capital punishment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only
problem is, they wouldn’t even have had that option because of their fear and
paranoia that enabled him in the first place—the Conservatives elected to place
sole power in the hands of one pilot (it might be said that many of them are
used to that, metaphorically if not literally, as with Presto).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Germanwings flight could have happened
over the Canadian Shield; the deaths of the Germanwings passengers could have
happened to anyone on a plane flown by a Canadian carrier—all because the
Harper government, cherishing its fear and paranoia about someone (other than God
or the pilot God) gaining access to the cockpit, chose to endanger passengers
on the flights of Canadian carriers by ensuring that there <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> be no God but the Pilot in the cockpit—not rational or
life-cherishing, capable crew--or even passengers--just the Pilot/God.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Well, as I say, the terrorists won again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A statesman once said, “we have nothing to
fear but fear itself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By fearing fear
itself, and distrusting one another and enacting ludicrous policies that can
put One and only One person in charge, we opened the door for One to perversely
and inexplicably take the lives of others.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I was going to draw in other political and domestic issues
in this post, but when one writes about something like this, there’s no way to
end (because you’re talking about people whose lives <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have</i> ended, unlike yours, so far), and there are always those who
will say “you’re exploiting a tragedy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, if I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">had</i> brought in the
other issues or shaped a different message, it would have been a bit harder to
fling that charge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many 9/11s (no, not hijackings) were
there before 9/11? </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>That’s right, 0 (until I stand corrected).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the world largely reacted with policies
that insisted that One godlike person should take control, and that does
reflect a lot of our yearnings, whether that One is a person in a uniform or a
generalized kind of overlord agency (or obviously a religious proxy/prophet).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And obviously the exact wishes of the
terrorists.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>I’ve never been fond of flying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I usually have to overcome physical and
physiological fears and work my way into a kind of philosophical-mental zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know how they say that, when you’re about
to die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought that was just a phrase—a believable
phrase—but just a phrase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I know
it’s true because I’ve had that dream on airplanes and on airplanes alone—first
pet, mother, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You never have dreams
like that on the ground.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Long ago I had some fears allayed by reading the French
doctor and politician, Bernard Kouchner, saying that dying in a plane crash is
probably a great way to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d never
thought of that, I must say. I haven’t looked up that comment, but basically
his attitude was that, hey, you’ve only got a few minutes left, and then it’s
all over. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contrasted with months or
years of pain through innumerable possible illnesses, involving not just me but
anyone associated with me, I’ve thought, yeah, the guy has a point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flying over <st1:place w:st="on">Greenland</st1:place>,
I subsequently haven’t necessarily thought: “could we land on that spike if we
had to?,” but rather, “if we go on that spike, it’s done and done, full stop,
and a few minutes of terror may be a better way to go than the one the One has
in store for me (and in any case, I may die of something else first).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But this Germanwings 9525 is different—it’s different
because our fear and paranoia-- <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pace</i>
“Phyl Durdey”--allowed us to put in place a situation in which, if a remedy
were even possible, it was taken out of the hands of pilots, crew, passengers,
and ground control experts, and all given over to exploitative “get-tough”
politicians who dictated that there could only be One in a sealed God-only zone
at the front of an airplane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a
feeling that that feeling is a little bit like what the 9/11 “pilots” felt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smug and in control, never having to answer to
other humans for their actions that would be hailed by a “divine” being in the
afterlife, ultimately blissfully unconcerned with a world that involved real
human beings while they themselves lived.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The emotions of the people on that flight—or Egypt 990 or
Swissair 111 or or or—are unimaginable and uncontactable—utterly unapproachable—but
some things are, even without divine approbation, certain: amidst all the chaos
and screaming and terror, surely people’s lives flashed before their eyes,
bringing up the most vivid and important and crucial mental images—a kind of
about-to-be-dead homage to the possibly still living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely people embraced one another in the
most basic human ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my most
tearful moments about this crash, I’d like to think that some of the German high
school exchange students were able to express for the first and last times
nascent desires or expressions thereof that might or would have sustained them
throughout their lives, had they had those lives to live.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I really think we owe it to the fear and terror that those
people experienced NOT to create policies based on fear and paranoia which
allow sole, godlike powers to be placed in just one person’s hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may be that “the Lord works in mysterious
ways,” but the generalized interests of “security” should not be allowed to
jeopardize the lives of individuals who may be subject to incomprehensible,
cruel, and sometimes, if humans are in charge, avoidable fates.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--zr</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-80241264421234057502015-03-24T03:54:00.001-06:002015-08-16T03:45:49.163-06:00Patricia Arquette of CSI: Cyber—Fat Because of Soda?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Patricia Arquette of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI: Cyber</i>—Fat Because of Soda?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
(Nothing important to read here, folks, so just move along,
move along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only rambling, but felt like
jotting down something that was on my mind. . .people do such things on blogs.
. . .)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Standing in line at the grocery store staring at celeb
gossip magazines earlier today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prince
William may be losing his hair, or something else, maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Already did write a post about Martin Short’s
craven advertising for life-shortening products.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watched a ‘sode of this new CSI show on the
computer, the second one I’ve seen.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I saw Patricia Arquette on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Daily Show</i> a while back, promoting her new show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was wearing some kind of 70s-puce-coloured
pyjama knit tight-fitting dress/pullover ($14 at Wal-Mart?) that emphasized her
every roll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Odd choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t get me wrong—I basically think people
should weigh virtually whatever they’re comfortable with. . .but of course
obviously there are points at which health factors must come into play.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI:
Cyber</i>, Arquette seems always to be dressed in “slimming,” or de-outlining
black.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Strange, now that I think of it,
that the producers aren’t going with cleavage, for this is something all true female
CSIs always brandish on TV.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI</i>—that franchise
just propagates like head lice, or bedbugs, or mosquitoes at dusk on a northern
lake. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I’m on my deathbed,
I’ll rue the hours I sacrificed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once I had free cable for a few years—first
time I’d had TV in more than a few years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What with my schedule and the times I was becalmed, I think I saw every
episode of the old Michael Moriarty <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Law
& Order</i> about 15 times—I guess that’s another franchise that, given
Americans’ unquenchable appetite for fear and conspiracy, just kept
growing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s over now, though,
that franchise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I liked the episodes
with Jerry Orbach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Orbach seemed like a
decent and philosophical guy while he lived, and I liked his weary seen-it-all
character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really liked the moral
seriousness of Moriarty’s character—when was the last time you saw that on
American TV (and no, I don’t mean “ideological purity” or “ideological
certainty”)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But of course in real life
Moriarty is apparently some wacko far-right conspiracy theorist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wonder if he’s still in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> hanging
out with tapstresses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember when he
came to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>, fleeing the
freedom-denying <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>...one of the first things he tried to do was
light up a cigar in his hotel room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Tough introduction to liberty, that one.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Anyway, remember how fanatical they always were about always
showing characters <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">eating</i>, or just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doing</i> something, to keep us occupied
while we watched?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually this is
something that goes back to the earliest American radio detective serials, in
which they built in patter outside the main plot to keep the audience thinking
it was eavesdropping on a real situation, etc. (check out Frank and Joe
swapping cigarettes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dragnet</i>, for
example.)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Anyway anyway, I see in the two episodes of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI: Cyber</i> that I’ve seen that a feature
of Patricia Arquette’s character is that she’s always holding a tub of soda
when she’s walking around the quasi-lit monitor-festooned windowless enclaves
where real CSI people always work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Heaven knows what she does on an airplane or just how giant are the
custom-made cupholders they had to put in the obnoxious more or less
unmanoevreable monster SUVs they always make CSIs drive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Question: is it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> sponsorship and vehicle placement, or is there any possible
reason that CSIs need 15 ft. of vehicle space <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">behind</i> them when driving to a scene where they only use flashlights
and rubber gloves?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there’s lots of
bodies to stack up in the back, I guess, but I thought others took care of that
while CSIs caught bad guys or looked at those astonishingly instantaneously
informative computers rather than ferrying corpses.)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Now if Patricia Arquette is big or getting bigger, yes, yes,
I know it’s probably not because of her soda tubs on TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judging by their appearance and the way she
airily waves them around like tissues, the way the straws always stick way straight
up like toothpicks in an ice-cube tray, I guess they’re empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe the show producers are trying to suggest that her size <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> because of her soda addiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At any rate, it seems like the soda tub is
meant to be linked with her character throughout the serial—or maybe the
producers are already planning/have planned an episode in which she has a heart
attack or something and has to give up soda and it becomes a crisis in her
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m doubting that a bit, though,
for we rarely see the personal sides of detective characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Remember how “Horatio Cain (sp?)” always
found a way to show up at the funerals of victims whose crimes he’d solved
(maybe he’s still doing it); that man was working 24/7, and since he probably
slept in so many graveyards, he probably needed those sunglasses at dawn.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So Arquette’s overweight—no, there is no gender double
standard here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Overweight people of all
kinds have been all over TV forever; with the early radio and TV <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dragnet</i>, Frank was portly and interested
in food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More power to ‘em, just less
power to them to dictate their own mortality, is all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said all this stuff in my Martin Short
post, anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>((Speaking only
personally, I think it is more attractive (and possibly more healthy, though I
wouldn’t know), to be a bit more overweight than underweight.))</div>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Of course, back in the day, EVERYONE was always
smoking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pretty well every radio serial
was sponsored by—not alcohol or cars or trucks or even oil companies so
much—but cigarettes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NOTHING was more
ubiquitous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But nowadays, cigarettes are
so frowned upon that you might see fake ones or unlit ones, or whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now think about what kills Americans—heart
disease, diabetes, obesity, etc.—why would <st1:place w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:place>
draw up a character such as Arquette who is always waving around a garish soda
tub?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a show where the writers sit
around all day trying to dream up the most sick and convoluted and improbable
murders, why would they write a lead character who chooses the most obvious
self murder? I mean, cigarettes were supposed to be cool, or something, or
evince adulthood, or satisfy sponsors or show brand affiliation, or offer a
prop way to emphasize dialogue or gestures, say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can a giant soda tub do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How is it cool or a pivotal addition to
Arquette’s “range” of character traits?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
looks idiotic, like Yosemite Sam carrying around a BlackBerry. I thought
Hollywood millionaires ate well and health consciously, to the extent of pretty
much starving to death rural <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Peru</st1:place></st1:country-region>
by driving up demand and prices for quinoa, for example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t get how Hollywood, which is prepared
to create and display endless violence, but will hair-split and mince around or
even come out guns blazing against the most minor social offenses, will develop
a leading character for a top franchise that shows her always attached to what
tends to kill thousands upon thousands of Americans every year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you buy that “role model” thing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sure don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I liked hockey as a kid, but it certainly never occurred to me when I
was playing that a guy on a pro team was some sort of “role model.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we’re addicted to this idea of “role
models,” so let’s try it on: “Mommy mommy, I want to be a cool boss CSI
someday, like Patricia Arquette—she’s so cool. . .and she gets to drink Coke
all day!!!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Virginia</st1:place></st1:state>, you keep doing that and balloon to
200 and see how many job offers you get, no matter how brilliant you are at
delegating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe it’s meant to “humanize” Arquette—make
us see that this steely boss nevertheless has food or drink obsessions most of
us can relate to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Why couldn’t they always have shown Arquette drinking coffee
or tea?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are chemically very
complex beverages that, on the whole, science has suggested are largely
beneficial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Further, shows like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CSI</i> invest a great deal in creating an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">illusion</i> of reality and seriousness—so
then why the h*** would a supposedly cerebral top CSI do something that was so
patently life-shortening and foolish?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How is she going to catch bad guys when she’s dead at 55?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s a lot of bad guys she might otherwise
have caught as she approached retirement.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yes ok, minds more brilliant and attentive than mine have no
doubt already worked out this soda addiction topcop thing on the internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just rambling, as I told you at the start
I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Weird that ultra-sensitive <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Hollywood</st1:city></st1:place> would write a
star for a major series who so evidently had a (relatively non-addictive—I
mean, soda isn’t heroin) life-shortening habit.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, that’s my piffle post for now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It just struck me so I wrote a few (ok
hundred) words, is all.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-91343180375262873762015-02-06T04:49:00.000-07:002015-08-16T04:31:11.204-06:00Just How Much Did Americans Pay for Super Bowl XLIX?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 18pt;">Just How Much Did Americans
Pay for Super Bowl XLIX?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 18pt;">(NFL Set to Not Consider .01
Cent Rule)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The truth is, Americans will
never know, because <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>
lacks an independent media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Americans
themselves will just go on wearing this millstone of debt around their necks
until they die and the next generations take over, paying the debt for Super
Bowls until kingdom come.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Watching the super bowl over
the phone with my folks when the halftime came on, I couldn’t help but think of
the American taxpayers who had to support this orgy of private wealth—the
fly-bys, the endlessly circulating public employees and no-fly zones and
massive military presence, the CIA and endless governmental and public,
publicly-paid for money that went in to making the NFL, no pauper itself,
richer than ever before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What truly was
the final account of the massive public expenditure that the American people
had to pay for having a super bowl?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
will never know, for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
like most undeveloped countries and some developed, lacks an impartial media
with access to information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s true that most Americans
probably watched the super bowl on their TVs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For those who didn’t, well, they had to pay their taxes, too, just like
people who don’t like letting seniors live in homes, but have to pay for it, do
too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">I had a look at an American
financial site and read an article by a person named Kelly Phillips Erb:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/02/01/salaries-ads-security-whats-the-real-cost-of-super-bowl-xlix/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/02/01/salaries-ads-security-whats-the-real-cost-of-super-bowl-xlix/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In her article, she gushes
over how much money was made by players and coaches and halftime entertainers,
and she meekly wonders if the host city and state themselves made any money,
faintly referring to carefully selected data and not actually referring to what
economists have shown for eons, that big sporting events don’t make money but
usually lose it for taxpayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
sorry, but if a big team comes to my city, it doesn’t mean that I will buy more
hamburgers or gas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the Rolling Stones
experienced engine troubles and had to land on my roof, it wouldn’t mean I had
more money to pay for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a
certain amount of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right-wing
economists don’t seem to understand this; they think imaginary money
miraculously materializes when an event is announced—somewhere, anywhere. Hoteliers
and restaurateurs might be able to gouge for a short period and make money, but
that does not translate to long-term economic activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Curious that any corporate extension but
Forbes, getting paid to think so, would think otherwise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I, taxpayer, though, will have to pay for
more cops and setup and maintenance and teardown and cleanup and civic
services.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I suppose there may be those
millions upon millions of tourists who magically descend once they’ve seen my
city on TV, but Kelly doesn’t reflect on that—show some imagination, Kelly!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The main thing Kelly leaves
out, though, is the one she has to face in the mirror each morning as she puts
on her game face—gets the makeup on and the eyeblack so as to avoid the blaring
lights of day and reality and so on—just how much federal money went into this
and just how much average taxpayers—losers and poor people and coloured people
unlike her, had to pay in order to fund her article and fund the bowl, and just
how much everyday Americans would have to pay and pay and pay, until kingdom
come, to pay for the enjoyment her household relished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Look, here’s the crux: most
people of most countries who have national celebrations of some sort would say,
ok, even if I don’t like it, I still pay taxes for it and it’s ok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the NFL is a different breed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is a league that will pay former head-injured players $765 million
(.5% of annual revenue) to shut up and go away (<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2013/08/29/nfl-pays-765-million-to-settle-concussion-case-still-wins/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2013/08/29/nfl-pays-765-million-to-settle-concussion-case-still-wins/</span></a>).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">This is a league that will pay its
commissioner $44 million to pretend he never saw video the rest of America did
(and, of course, as “Kelly Phillips Erb” knows but would lose her job if she
said, pay far less in tax than a McDonald’s employee).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is the league that will. . .domestic
abuse. . .homicide. . .concussions. . .child abuse. . .drug abuse. . .steroids.
. .you get my point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">When does the socializing of
debt and the privatizing of wealth stop?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>
have any media at all?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the NFL
introduced a one cent rule, stipulating that one cent from every dollar made by
networks and sponsors and owners and players and coaches, and one matching cent
from every dollar American taxpayers had to pay for military and security
support, had to go to educating Americans and creating a playing field for the
majority of Americans who don’t vote and are disenfranchised by race or economic
status or gender or gerrymandering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What
if?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the super bowl could become
not only a sporting contest, but a force for national growth and
improvement?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">--zr <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-9227105344993141462015-02-06T01:35:00.000-07:002015-03-11T04:35:58.192-06:00Martin Short releases new biography: How I Ended Up so Desperate I Had to Shill for Companies that Will Help You Die Early or Bankrupt, Whichever Comes First<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Martin Short releases new biography: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How
I Ended Up so Desperate I Had to Shill for Companies that Will Help You Die
Early or Bankrupt, Whichever Comes First</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I’m wondering now—was all that shilling just meant to get him out there as
advance-promo for his new book?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How hard
up is this guy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How little work does he
have, or how little money does he have left?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How desperate do you have to be to shill for credit cards and potato
chips?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, how many millions more does
he feel he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really, really </i>needs?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Saw Short on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Daily Show</i> (Feb.
2, 2015). I remember Martin Short from SCTV days, and I, ah, must say that I
really enjoyed his comedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I surely
thought he was very funny and maybe talented, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a bit more one-note than most of his
colleagues on the show, but there’s no doubting that he was one funny guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess he was in movies, too, but I don’t
think those are going down in comedy history, save one or two whose memory
might be kept alive by ardent devotees of certain works (heck, I knew a guy who
actually knew pretty much every line from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mother,
Jugs & Speed</i>, for crying out loud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mother, Jugs & Speed</i>—if
I hadn’t looked it up, I wouldn’t have realized it required an ampersand).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess he’s been in plays and live shows,
too, but I haven’t seen one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh, I’d go,
if someone gave me a ticket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or if I
were in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state></st1:place>,
I’d go and see him, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">after</i> I’d seen
about 12-15 other things and felt I had the spacious time and indeflatable
wallet so to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But of course what I remember him for now is his recent shilling for
credit-card companies and potato-chip vendors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So I’m just wondering if, anywhere in his new book, he explains why he
felt he was so hard-up and desperate that he had to do ads for immoral and
unhealthy products. . . ?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is such a topic
addressed?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I must say, I probably won’t
be seeing his book anytime soon—but again, it’s not like I’d avoid it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He has done great comedic work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the choice in a dentist’s office were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">People</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Us</i>, or his book, I’d pick it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If I were staring absently at a library trolley while I waited for
someone and the choice were Clive Cussler, Harold Robbins, or his book, I’d
pick it up. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing that he wants to
get me hooked on debt or fat, and that he’s raking in money from doing it,
certainly discourages me from actually actively looking for his book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Ok, so that was it, the point of
my post—does anyone know why Martin Short was so desperate for cash or
attention that he agreed to shill for companies that contribute to the misery
and death of millions of North Americans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean, it kind of is a real question, one that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> be thought about from various angles, or, yes, just dismissed
as frivolous, which it may, but not exclusively, be.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">And now, as this post peters out, I will offer a few more words--but
obviously they could never be enough—in pre-emptive defense against those who
might muster ire enough to tell me I’m a jerk for telling Martin Short what to
do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I guess if I’m Martin Short, which I’m not, getting out there is what keeps
me alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doing some shtick, being in
front of the cameras, that’s oxygen; no cameras=death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All celebrities pitch products.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hey, if I were Martin Short, which I’m not, and Ford or Toyota came to
me and gave me a spanking new vehicle with all the bangles (that I could keep
or give away to someone, and whose options I could not find at a dealership),
and drove me around and showed me all the neat new things it had, yeah, sure,
I’d probably find myself thinking up some grateful shtick for it and raking in
the royalties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Money, even when you
don’t need it, must be nice to acquire, and since the vehicle is free, it’s not
like you’d end up with ruinous financing terms that sink so many working people
and families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Critics, and studio
backers, don’t critique ads nearly like they critique turkey-flop movies—bad
ads actually can be good for your career; bad movies, maybe not so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Marty wants to become the next Shatner,
who has become a kind of advertising meme unto himself—with Shatner, both the
product and the pitchman kind of become irrelevant, but that Shatner, the meme,
is situated alongside the logo, in itself gives a kind of credence to the
effability of the logo, or, product.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Many might say, hey, nobody put a gun to your head telling you to get a
credit card or buy a bag of potato chips.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But that’s just being simplistic and idiotic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ever tried to rent a car or make a major
purchase or do just about anything without a credit card?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Come on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Credit cards used to be pitched as “convenient”—i.e., when you had no
cash, you could use credit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the
debit era, credit card companies had to insinuate new ways into your lives,
including not protecting you against hacking, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I’ve had and have credit
cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t improve my life;
they’re a necessary evil and sometime nuisance I had no choice but to get in
order to do other basic human life things I had no trouble doing before I had
to get a credit card in order to be allowed to do them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Have a look at the one that Marty pitches:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">http://www.capitalone.ca/credit-cards/aspire-travel-world/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Only $120/year to own, and a tiny prime + 16.8% to carry around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No worries if you’re Marty Short—but, if you're not Marty Short, a
lifetime of misery if you make one slip-up, one bad decision, your card gets
hijacked, you experience an injury or a job loss or a. . .thing that might happen
in life to which CapitalOne is immune (too big to fail) but you are not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">this</b>
is what Marty is desperate to pitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Or potato chips, and Marty’s proud new Pepsi partnership:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">http://pepsico.ca/en/PressRelease/Martin-Short-partners-with-the-Lays-brand-and-invites-Canadians-to-create-the-br02042013.html<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Now, do I like pop?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess I
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I like potato chips?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s why I don’t buy them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a colleague who may be dead before 50
because she can’t stay away from them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Do I have no bad habits?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of
course not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I have good habits?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You bet I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everyone</b> has good and bad
habits and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">everyone</b> is more or less
passionate about different ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Given
the choice, I’d probably rather be locked in a room with someone who had only
bad habits as opposed to only good ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">But that still does not explain why a mammothly wealthy person such as
Martin Short (just to get a little shtick and face time and enrich himself
superfluously) has to advertise for companies who have documented, long-term,
and virtually undeniable deleterious effects on a sizeable minority, if not a
majority, of the people who fall under their sway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a wonder to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">-zr<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I must say</span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-85472596303855151452015-01-09T09:35:00.000-07:002015-03-11T05:49:46.677-06:00Stephen Harper Declares War<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Stephen Harper Declares that War Has Been Declared on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p><em>(Scroll to the end if you like; the point of this message is that our Prime Minister should not be stirring up hate, but rather acting prime ministerial and urging all Canadians, as always, to respect and help one another; he clearly hasn't had a Bible handy lately.)</em> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
You can just tell how upset he was by his hands in his
pockets, his open-button, gut-over verbal stumbling, his casual waves, his
downbeat reference to France, his dropped-down voice when it refers to
specifics of Canada’s response to events in the Middle East and/or countries he
can’t quite bring to mind.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
He says that the attack in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region> represented an attack on
something Canadians “cherish”—but meanwhile he won’t answer questions
himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many media outlets in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>
agreed to pull his comments—</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/1762877/watch-prime-minister-stephen-harper-makes-announcement-in-delta-b-c/">http://globalnews.ca/news/1762877/watch-prime-minister-stephen-harper-makes-announcement-in-delta-b-c/</a>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>when it appeared he wasn’t getting his message across—to his
liking.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
The Government of Canada even agreed to shut its own self
down, after Harper dictates:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2015/01/08/livestream-watch-pm-harper-deliver-remarks-live-delta-british-columbia-thursday"><span style="color: blue;">http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2015/01/08/livestream-watch-pm-harper-deliver-remarks-live-delta-british-columbia-thursday</span></a><br />
<br />
Media--and government--sources shut down at Harper's request--Putin only dreams of such subservience. And CSIS on the job 24/7 to make sure it's maintained.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Here is a cut up and edited version of what electors elected
(for as long as it lasts):</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/01/08/jihadists_have_declared_war_stephen_harper_says_after_paris_attack.html">http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/01/08/jihadists_have_declared_war_stephen_harper_says_after_paris_attack.html</a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Make no mistake—Harper unbuttoned was still Harper
calculating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His words to the base were
transparent—we’re at war, here, so you’ve got to support me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one disses a war PM (the longer I’m Prime
Minister).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But even the Delta kids behind him looked quizzical as he
assured them of the threat—that it wasn’t going to go away, that it was here to
stay. As for that--</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--Freedom of the press: Harper’s cutting of the CBC,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a national broadcaster that most developed
Commonwealth countries cherish for relative impartiality—and trust; Harper’s
attempts to enfranchise far-right media and refusal to speak with anything but
media that support his agenda.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--“We will not be intimidated by jihadist terrorists.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harper used to accuse others of cutting and
running, but eventually, as this blog observed, when he realized he’d sent
dozens of Canadians to their deaths, he backed up and realized the war wasn’t
winnable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure that his “thoughts
and prayers” are with the families of his comfy sweater-vest actions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do a Prime Minister’s wife and kids have
access to a Prime Minister’s tweeted “thoughts and prayers”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I guess not; only Prime Ministers have
deepest condolences and thoughts and prayers; silly me.)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
When you observe his speech, you see that Harper is actually
most comfortable amongst schoolchildren, whom he thinks he can sway or preach
to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most kids aren’t that dumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Justin Trudeau probably learned that long
ago, when he had a real job, unlike Harper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You see the kids standing behind Harper, as props, stone-faced, while
Harper thinks he’s regaling them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
fact, they are probably thinking, “look, I don't have to hate my friend, this is a fairly tolerant country, and
I don’t buy your “incessant war” theory. What’s your problem?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s clearly old-man s**t to them. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But Harper’s louche enthusiasm for endless war isn’t that
hard to explain, even if one discounts his fundamentalist Christian beliefs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He points out emphatically that the war will
never end (and as long as he’s Prime Minister, and can lyingly stop and start elections
with his septuagenarian pal Davey Johnston’s addled approval and he’ll keep
pretending he’s at war—not actually sending any troops or doing anything
definitive, but boldly supporting Israel, and so on).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More guns, too, if possible; if the ones that
slaughtered people in <st1:city w:st="on">Calgary</st1:city> (http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/01/02/killarney-shooting-victim-abdullahi-ahmed-previously-convicted-on-drugs-assault)
and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Edmonton</st1:city></st1:place> (http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/12/30/strathcona-county-mounties-probing-suspicious-death-on-edmonton-outskirts)
stir up the base and keep our streets unsafe for unConservatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He already pulled a little insider action (Duffy, Wallin, anyone?) to get one
Conservative candidate police chief, Rick Hanson, to get on board with wild murders that support their own careers
with rich entitlements: <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-hand-pick-police-to-serve-on-federal-gun-panel/article9648887/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-hand-pick-police-to-serve-on-federal-gun-panel/article9648887/</span></a>. It's not really about income-splitting, people; it's about splitting the people who <em>are</em> allowed to have guns and kill people, from those who <em>aren't</em> allowed to have guns and people. This much the PM understands and mandates. And the more guns, for Hanson and Harper, the merrier. Of course, Hanson oversaw a "gun amnesty" by which the Calgary Police Service collected firearms and then resold them to collectors and gun shops--just Hanson's way of making sure that as many illegal and unregistered firearms could get into as many hands as possible--hopefully so as to create crime and mayhem that could further his career and that of his new boss, Jim ("T-Bird") Prentice.<br />
<br />
To be fair, as the following article (<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-officer-pleads-guilty-to-firearms-offence-1.853499">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-officer-pleads-guilty-to-firearms-offence-1.853499</a>) makes clear, key new gun collection practices were supposed to come into effect some years ago:<br />
<br />
"Insp. Ken Marchant said that in the future, officers would not be sent out to collect guns for amnesty programs — participants would have to bring them to police."<br />
<br />
"Participants." I like that. I'd like to show up at a police station in Calgary and say "HI!, I'm a participant!!"<br />
<br />
(In other words, instead of being forced to give up guns for future resale and collectors auctions at cop gunpoint, gun owners would be allowed to bring them in, of their own free volition, to have them collected and redistibuted, for profit and/or private investment, by the Calgary Police Service under Chief Rick Hanson.) As for the practice of keeping cop gun resellers on pay but without actually working or doing any kind of job (unlike normal law-abiding citizens and taxpayers), but rather, just getting paid lavishly with huge pensions to do nothing--Chief Hanson declined to offer comment.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
By declaring that war has been declared (on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>, which
it hasn’t been), Stephen Harper, a fundamentalist Christian, is trying to
foment hatred and war amongst Canadians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He’s using his usual divide and conquer tactics, which politically and partisanly always look good after
whoever uses them is dead (Harp’s one of those “short-term” legacy guys). Harper has kids, and they're going to have to go on living, and they're going to have to go on believing that the world is really as simple as their father thought it was. Harper's kids will be sheltered from reality by their income-splitted wealth, but the kids of most Canadians will not be; those kids will have to figure out a way to get along with others. They will be the true Canadian patriots.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
[And since we’re talking about it, and since I’ve used the
term “fundamentalist Christians,” it’s worth pointing out that Islam today is
only replicating in many ways what happened during the Crusades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, it was Islam, not Christianity,
which accepted wayward souls or infidels, in days gone by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I surely don’t defend anything going on now,
and may have more words to type, but for Christians to regard as shocking what
Muslims are doing now is just silly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
Christian in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Yemen</st1:country-region> today
probably has a lot better hope than a Muslim in pre-early modern <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A little
perspective, please.] </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Harper has clearly sized up his Ontario seats and Muslim
votes, and in the most cynical way possible, determined that he would come out
against Muslim Canadians—despite whatever canny Kenney can do (talk about
mining the ground for leadership contenders).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
But
we shouldn’t look at it this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No-one
and no-state or even handful of twitterers has really declared war on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our very own Prime Minister, who ought to be
sober and stable, has jumped up and amped up the rhetoric like a hi-school teen
and told us we’re all under threat—forever.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>No, we aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Despite Stephen Harper's long-mulled political strategies and his fundamentalist Manichean view of the
world, no, we’re not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re
Canadians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re made of tougher
stuff—we came from all over and we figured out how to survive from the people
who were already here, and we’re determined to re-enact that—and we will never,
ever give in to cheap gun-crazy paranoid fundamentalists who want to tell us
what our “values” are when they’ve never had to actually earn some themselves.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--zr</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-68556360936297264022014-12-14T03:45:00.000-07:002015-02-06T04:02:48.852-07:00Henghomeshi: the Tightest Bond<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">I suppose
what this title, above, refers to is the bond between celebrity untouchables
and the legal star system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as Jian
Ghomeshi’s “star” has been falling, so it seems has his legal representation
seen its “star” rising—Marie Henein, “fearless and brilliant” according to so
many (e.g. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/meet-marie-henein-the-fearless-and-brilliant-lawyer-defending-jian-ghomeshi-1.2851592"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/meet-marie-henein-the-fearless-and-brilliant-lawyer-defending-jian-ghomeshi-1.2851592</span></a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">The ethics,
the matter of the trial—quite irrelevant—what’s really important is how the
legal system gets to regard itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Brethren and sistren leap to her side to aver her abilities; didn’t the
same just occur with Jian recently?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">As Christie
Blatchford reported, Henein, as the Master of Ceremonies at an Ontario </span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Criminal Lawyers Association gala, regaled
some 450 lawyers and judges with quips like:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 9pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“As criminal lawyers, we represent people who have
committed heinous acts,” she said on Oct. 29. “Acts of violence. Acts of
depravity. Acts of cruelty.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Or, as Jian Ghomeshi likes to
call it, foreplay”;<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">or, referring to her work on the
defense of accused sex offender and Nova Scotia premier Gerald Regan with
palsy-walsy Eddie Greenspan, she said they had a collegial relationship over
many files: “Some collegial, some regulatory, some light BDSM.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Amongst the gang-pack of lawyer-judges
chortling over Henein’s comments that night will almost certainly be the one
who will be “judging” the accusations of women against Ghomeshi—is it any
wonder women won’t come forward, when the legal system’s most august body,
represented by one of its most admired female lawyers, has already joked about
their traumas?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re being choked to
the point of wondering if you’d ever wake up again, and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">Ontario</st1:state></st1:place>’s legal establishment is chuckling
over cocktails at the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bons mots</i> of
its most cherished female-positive symbol and your “alleged” plight? <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Talk about a Henghomeshi made in
heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A celebrity, mixed with a legal
star, goes up against just some girl who got picked out by Jian.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Marie Henein has made it
plain:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>get abused by Jian Ghomeshi—get
abused by just about any guy—in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
you get off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Let’s parse Henein’s statement:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Mr.
Ghomeshi will be pleading not guilty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We will
address these allegations fully and directly <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(note how she echoes Jian’s Facebook statement)</b> in a court room. It
is not my <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">(one would have assumed that
it wouldn’t have been anyone else’s, but Marie wants to insist on it being
hers-“my”) </b>practice to litigate my (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">once
again, Marie wants to insist upon the primacy of herself, the “my”)</b> cases
in the media. This one will be no different.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Henein’s choice of words here is
instructive; she keeps the focus on herself, and she indicates that trials are
typically conducted in the media, but hers won’t be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It says something about the legal profession
that she—and it—think they have to stress that they don’t conduct
trials in courts anymore, but rather, “in the media.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to know what she means by not
conducting her trials in the media—few 5-year-olds would have imagined they’d
be conducted anywhere else—but since she brought it up, she makes it amply clear
that, if the opportunity affords itself, she will, indeed, conduct her trial in
the media, using her media clients. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We will
say whatever we have to say in a court of law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">We will
not be making any further media statements, nor will Mr. Ghomeshi be making any
further media statements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Thank
you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Well, even the Blatch is
star-struck—in her article (<a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/11/07/christie-blatchford-jian-ghomeshis-lawyers-sexual-violence-jokes-expose-double-standard/"><span style="color: blue;">http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/11/07/christie-blatchford-jian-ghomeshis-lawyers-sexual-violence-jokes-expose-double-standard/</span></a>)
she writes to Henein, but not about anything involving the case—just about
perceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Blatch knows loss of
her connections would leave her much, much less time to write about her dogs
and get paid for it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Some national conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We never meant to have it; we never did have
it, we never will have it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Legal stars
like Marie Henein will get media celebrities like Jian Ghomeshi off, and we
will all go back to getting outraged from time to time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also raped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Blatch will write about her OWN experiences sometime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Back to normal.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">--zr<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-6546427136151567562014-11-04T01:31:00.000-07:002015-08-16T04:15:22.398-06:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">In Full Damage-Control Mode, CBC Urges: It’s Not Jian
Ghomeshi’s Problem—it’s Yours<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
One of the most shameful things about the Ghomeshi situation
is that the CBC, in full damage-control mode, is trying to pretend the story is
not really about one of its pampered and lucubrated longtime employees, but
rather that Jian, poor Jian, is just a symptom of a much wider societal
crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words—no-one at CBC is
or was responsible for Ghomeshi—he’s just a guy who represents 10s of thousands
across the country today.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
All this may be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>#beenraped/neverreported is worthwhile looking at—when would it not
be?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But conflating it with Ghomeshi to
get CBC off the hook for not dealing with a known predator in its midst for
years and years is, if anything, reflective of Ghomeshi himself, who conflated
in his Facebook post his healthy kink life with vengeful prudes out to get him.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>To distance itself from Ghomeshi, and to shield its managers
and executives from being associated with him, the CBC is now going all-out on radio
and TV and every platform to panelize to death the issue of sexual violence and
“why women won’t come forward.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
citing whopping statistics and fairly hauling people off the streets to sit
under the bright lights and furrow their brows and express grim chagrin over
how the problem that Ghomeshi merely represents (but isn’t, in and of himself,
an especially notable example) just seems so persistent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the CBC’s expert panelists include
talk-show hosts (yes, talk-show hosts) or just everyday journalists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CBC thinks that a media “insider” has
more knowledge and insight to bring to bear than actual experts—this is yet one
more example of self-satisfying hubristic conflation:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>have a talk show?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You must be qualified to discuss the issues around non-reporting of
sexual assaults. All this panelization, presumably, is to show that the CBC <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really, really cares</i> about this terrible
issue that, sure, did affect some guy it hired and kept promoting for a long
time, but that really affects <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">THE WHOLE
COUNTRY</i> much more than just that one guy.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This is craven in the extreme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the CBC really wanted to address issues of
sexual violence, or non-reporting of assaults, or how the legal and judicial
systems prevent abused women from coming forward, then it has tremendous
resources at its disposal to do just that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It could get <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Passionate Eye</i>
onto it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could hire a
documentarian/commission a documentary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It could put together an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ideas</i>
series.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If CBC hasn’t done such things
already, yet is now treating the Ghomeshi story as simply one troubling little
symptom of a massive mud-spectred (I draw on Jian’s Facebook page for that one)
national malaise, then it obviously wasn’t doing much at all in the past to fulfill
its journalistic mandates.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has a fairly robust history of egregious sex criminals—Paul Bernado, Russell
Williams, Luca Magnotta.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many people
in B.C. are more than one or two acquaintances away from a woman who was
victimized?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I’m not saying that
Ghomeshi killed anyone, but where was the CBC on drawing massive social
extrapolations from all these earlier cases?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t think it would be difficult for any sentient person not to look
at any of these horrific examples and not instantly come up with ways in which
to generalize the problem and suggest that the Bernado’s, say, were just
symptoms of a much, much more widespread problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Karla Homolka, an abused woman, only “came
forward” when she got a deal from the justice system.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps the easiest thing we do, as human beings,
is see one example of something and draw a sweeping generalization from it (the
legal system is supposed to be about gathering numerous examples, but that
doesn’t seem to be working out so well, either).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CBC, calculatingly, clearly decided: “we’ve
gotta make this Ghomeshi thing go away; we’ve gotta make it look like it’s
everyone’s problem, not ours.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
For
shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I can’t speak for Mansbridge or Mesley or Tremonti or
whoever at the CBC, but as they all dutifully led their panels about non-reporting,
I really kind of felt that their hearts weren’t in it and that they’d been
ordered by their bosses to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>this<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>panel<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>now!</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just said I could be wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Mesley wrote all her own
questions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows? But there was no
urgency in any of the panelistic/CBC interviewing responses—this was Operation
Ghomeshi Coverup in full flight.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This story <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">isn’t</i>
about the broader story of violence towards women in society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about Ghomeshi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I have already said, any statistics aside,
if an average guy serially lured women to his home so as to assault them and
secretly videotape them, then that guy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">would</i>
do time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wouldn’t</i>, then perhaps any lawyer or judge or cop or academic or
actual offender or, fine, talk-show host, could write in to say just how and
why not. This story is about over 9 women who have now come forward about *1* guy, and to pretend there aren't more is Pollyannaish. Further, to pretend that this egregious case can simply be blended into some sort of general "violence against women" theme can only militate <em>against</em> ameliorating situations for the general populace. Ghomeshi won't do time. But his story, and the way CBC has handled it, will make it seem like "oh, yeah, that violence against women stuff--I hear Ghomeshi was into it; worked for him. His bosses protected him. No probs." The Pollyannaish theory ought to be that not 1 case of assault is ok, but the CBC is saying that, since it's at least 9 so far, we might as well call it general and not specific and blame "society" instead of an offender. In this way, the CBC is working against women coming forward.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And yes, I know, any and everything is just “alleged.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nothing is proven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just alleged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Got it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s all it is—alleged.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Very, very, very few people go through life and can look
back on it and say that they never experienced any unpleasant sexual or
sexually exploitative situations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
Ghomeshi’s case isn’t everyone’s case—it’s a serial case that was enabled and
enabled by the CBC; as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Q</i>
executive producer who fielded a harassment complaint from a young female
member of Ghomeshi’s “team” aptly said, there was no way to pursue anything
against Ghomeshi because Ghomeshi’s show was <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">“a f—-ing juggernaut” (<a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/30/q-journalist-who-alleges-ghomeshi-threatened-to-hate-f-her-says-she-complained-to-boss-in-2010/"><span style="color: blue;">http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/10/30/q-journalist-who-alleges-ghomeshi-threatened-to-hate-f-her-says-she-complained-to-boss-in-2010/</span></a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, Ghomeshi was too big to fire,
and that gave him <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">carte blanche</i> with
young women and made him untouchable by CBC brass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He knew it, they knew it, and now he’s trying
to say he did nothing wrong, and CBC is trying to say it’s everyone’s problem,
not theirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For shame.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Take the case of
Reva Seth, one of Ghomeshi’s late accusers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>She is, or became, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lawyer</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not a talk-show host, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lawyer</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might think that
someone such as her, a member in good standing in the legal profession, would
have a very clear and active desire to support her profession and try to
prevent or prosecute the kinds of behaviours of which Ghomeshi now stands
accused, and of which she now accuses him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But she didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ghomeshi was too
much of a celebrity, one that CBC carefully groomed and nurtured.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">female
lawyer</i></span> was unwilling to pursue action against him, then who
would?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, this story isn’t about some
general societal problem, though if it makes us think about and confront one,
good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Reva Seth were assaulted by any
old Joe Who, I suspect Joe Who wouldn’t have kept seeing his star rise, as
Jian’s did.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
An awful lot of CBC people must have held their noses around
Jian, and one understands that the public broadcaster was desperate to have a
popular show of any kind, even if that never really was its chief mandate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But an awful lot of people at CBC have an
awful lot to answer for, and as a supporter of public broadcasting, I am
disgusted and ashamed by CBC’s attempts to pretend the Ghomeshi story was a
national societal one, and not one that involved one of its most attentively
preened employees.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Or, put another way, if the CBC really wants to get to the
bottom of why women don’t report assaults, then the first place it could start
interviewing would be in its own boardrooms and executive suites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then it could “Go Public” or “Go (and talk to
the) Public” and do the kind of journalism for which it has historically been
honoured.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-68952483975955594512014-10-28T03:55:00.000-06:002014-11-04T00:56:08.225-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
(Please read or scroll to the bottom to see the actual record of this thread.)<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;">50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi: Parsing Jian’s Infinite
Self-Regard<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; font-size: 18pt; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span><span class="usercontent"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(The first five paragraphs are basically about this blog
and the provenance of this post/blog, so scroll right down to the sixth
paragraph if you don’t really care to read about me and so on but rather about
Jian’s self defense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jian’s words,
naturally, are in <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">BOLD</b>.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><sub><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></o:p></span></sub></span><span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Well, today Jian seems to
have made me do something I said I’d never do again, write a post about his
show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or used-to-be show, I guess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote a post about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Q</i> in late 2011, and then another in 2012.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At that time, I said I was done with
commenting on the show, and I was, except that, eventually, in late 2013, I did
write a post in which I responded to a few of the most common criticisms I
received over my two posts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you look
at my blog, you see that, essentially, I just let people comment and generally
don’t answer back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If people want to say
something, they can, and unless the content is outright unacceptable (e.g.
“lemon meringue causes blindness”), I let it stand, expletives and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think I’ve only ever deleted one comment,
after a pause and for a reason similar to that suggested by the example just
given above.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I probably wrote that 2013
response because, yes, my posts about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Q</i>
surely caused more clicks to my blog than anything else I’ve ever written.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess Jian is about the only “celebrity”
I’ve ever written about, and I guess if I wanted more clicks, I’d surely write
about a few more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that
surprised me about the responses I got was just how many I got that agreed with
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, when I google, I’m generally
googling for something or someone that I *like*.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’m weird that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve sure never googled “Rush Limbaugh,” say,
or even “Jian Ghomeshi.” Further, when you want to comment, I don’t think you
always want to comment when you see something you agree with; rather, you jump
in to comment on something you’re against or want to talk back to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, I’m struck that so many people
wrote in to *support* what I was saying—or, perhaps, as time went on, and more
accurately, to posts others, not me, had made and that I had not moderated or
responded to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However one looks at it,
it is heartening to see that, yes, so many people do care so passionately about
the CBC.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">When my dad told me on
Sunday afternoon that Jian had been shown the door, I must say I was very
surprised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was so surprised that I did
something I’ve never done before, visit Jian’s Facebook page--to see his
self-defense, like the one he mounted each day on his show when he read letters
and got back at people who criticized him (but who couldn’t, obviously, respond
in turn themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And no, no, I have
not ever written in to or phoned into his show).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even such a tiny nano-instant of my visiting
his Facebook page (or clearly this post itself), constitute micro-indications
that Jian’s fame and fortune will only grow as a result of his firing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I doubt he would have posted his “I’m not
guilty” plea if he didn’t intuitively grasp as much.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In my two critical posts, I
gestured towards issues of Jian’s sexuality, but if you read the posts, I think
you’ll see that I didn’t make a big deal of it (whatever you think, you’re free
to comment and I won’t take down negative or attacking posts, as is the custom
of this blog).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Public figures must deal
with private issues, such as those involving sexuality, in a way that most of
us don’t have to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t say “ways,”
because that would be to suggest that every single person, regardless of
celebrity, does not have to address issues of sexuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’m just thinking back to Rick Mercer’s
comments on how public figures have an obligation to be candid about their
orientations (e.g. <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/10/27/rick_mercer_comes_out_again_after_his_rant_goes_viral.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2011/10/27/rick_mercer_comes_out_again_after_his_rant_goes_viral.html</span></a>).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did not, or do not feel that I made a big
deal of Jian’s sexuality, because I very much do agree with him, that private
sexual lives, even in the cases of celebrities, should be, essentially,
private.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone is entitled (or
condemned) to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you can’t also
say that Jian hasn’t made sexuality a big topic of his show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not saying that he shouldn’t have; I am
simply saying that, if I talk about macrame all the time, then I can expect
others to talk about macrame in relation to me, and I’m a hypocrite if I
suddenly become outraged by the association.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">At all events, true to his
self-regard, Jian opted to declare his sense of injustice in the most public
way he possibly could, so let’s look at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I thought I’d only reflect on a few things, but on reading his
statement, I don’t see how anyone—who wasn’t even involved in his private
life—could fail to want to discuss much of it, even interlinearly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jian states</span></b></span><span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"> (BTW, where was one of
Jian’s many “teams,” the legal one, on this??):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span><span class="usercontent"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Dear everyone,</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="usercontent">I am writing today because I want you to be the first
to know some news.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="usercontent">This has been the hardest time of my life. I am reeling
from the loss of my father. <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(This is a very unfortunate
collision of events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel for
Ghomeshi’s family, and I am truly happy to think that his father went to his
rest thinking only that his son was a successful media personality.)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> I am in deep personal pain and worried
about my mom. And now my world has been rocked by so much more. </b></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="usercontent">Today, I was fired from the CBC.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="usercontent">For almost 8 years I have been the host of a show I
co-created on CBC called Q. </span></span></b><span class="usercontent"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(“I co-created”—well, it’s
nice to know he had a hand in his own show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I suppose he didn’t “co-create” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Play</i>.)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> It has </b></span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">been my pride and joy. My fantastic
team on Q are super-talented and have helped build something beautiful. </span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I have always operated on the principle of doing my
best to maintain a dignity and a commitment to openness and truth, both on and
off the air. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Uh, no, my friend, or you wouldn’t be here right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In today’s world, it isn’t even six degrees
of separation; it’s more like three.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’ve never met Jian in person, and as I think I said in an earlier post,
I’d probably enjoy meeting and talking with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But his celebrity enabled him; it made him
bask and act as if he were untouchable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
I heard his earlier band's songs. </span>I have a friend—yes, a young-ish novelist who lives near <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> who freely noted
Jian’s sparrowlike qualities when we were talking one night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I doubt that she has anything but the
remotest regard for this chapter in Jian’s life, but she did note his
advances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or there’s the friend of mine
who noted Jian basking on a visit to my fair city at a very popular bar with a
couple of young women with whom, it’s probably quite safe to say, he was not on
a last-name basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may have shared
many things, that threesome, beyond their cab, but again, it is not too much to
doubt that a “mutual” plane ride back to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city>
was one of them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I don’t begrudge Jian
anything about his sex life—you do what you want to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is no question that his public,
taxpayer-supported profile enabled his sex life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If Jian were the exact same guy with the
exact same looks but he was waitering while he worked on the Great Canadian
Novel, I’m sorry, but he would not have been able to lasso girls half his age
and tie ‘em up back at the ranch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His
“celebrity” gave him opportunities, and, rather than being grateful for them,
he flaunted himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember when I
was in a hiring situation for a large public institution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked at the applicants, and one, very
out, looked like easily the best one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But only a couple of clicks on the internet brought him up to me,
clubbing in his leather n’ studs man lingerie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I didn’t care about the guy’s private life, but he applied to work at a
large public institution, where he’d be paid by the public, and would come into
contact with countless people, many of whom might not share his sense of
“off-air dignity,” as Jian puts it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
guess you might say I’m a prude or a homophobe or a discriminator, but I think
of it the other way around—I think he was guilty of very poor and
self-indulgent judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t a
case of a double standard for gays vs. straights holding hands in public; this
is a case of just not thinking about the consequences of your actions—or,
thinking that you are above them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Jian’s self-admitted BDSM
relationships with girls half his age <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i>
troubling to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His celebrity did
enable him, and he’s as smart as he looks if he didn’t think his “private”
indulgences, generated by his public profile, wouldn’t come back to bite
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">used</i> the CBC and Canadian taxpayers to fund his “private” life, and
he seems oblivious to as much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe he
should join a band on the folk circuit and then see how much outrage (“pain,”
“shock”) he could generate about his “jilted” ex-girlfriends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Not many people reading this
post would say that they had never been in a position of sexual dominance—physical,
financial, maturity-wise, whatever—many are daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m willing to buy Jian’s argument that his
hookups knew what they were doing, but for him to pretend that there wasn’t a
power imbalance based on his celebrity, and that he’s being unfairly maligned
*because* he’s a celebrity just won’t wash.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In his public pronouncements, he seems to conflate “desire” and
“morality,” and that’s a conflation most people, even celebrities—and contrary
to cliché—just don’t make.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I have conducted major interviews, supported Canadian
talent, and spoken out loudly in my audio essays about ideas, issues, and my
love for this country.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Yes, the vaunted “feature
chats,” which Jian so self-lovingly and really rather embarrassingly always
touted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fact is, most of his guests
are on standard press junkets, and if you want to know what his “major
interviewees” have to say, just watch a show from <st1:state w:st="on">New York</st1:state>
or <st1:city w:st="on">Boston</st1:city> or <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Chicago</st1:place></st1:city>, or read a magazine, a couple days
earlier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a mark of Jian’s
signature self-regard that he actually thinks that celebrities seek <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">him</i> out and wouldn’t talk to anyone if
it weren’t him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for “supported
Canadian talent,” mostly I’d be willing to buy this, but since Jian put it out
there, I have to reflect and honestly say that he was much more craven and
fame-seeking when it came to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">foreign</i>
guests, not Canadian ones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t
know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d have to hear the show.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of that is
available for anyone to hear or watch </span></b></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(table of “feature chats” by nationality, anyone?)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. I have known, of course, that not everyone always agrees with my
opinions or my style, but I've never been anything but honest. I have doggedly
defended the CBC and embraced public broadcasting. This is a brand I’ve been
honoured to help grow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>(Again, I
haven’t got much of a problem with this, but Jian had to imply that he was the
one who revived a dead organization—one that has only been around for about,
oh, twice as long as he has.)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">All this has now changed.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Today I was fired from the company where I've been
working for almost 14 years – stripped from my show, barred from the building
and separated from my colleagues. I was given the choice to walk away quietly
and to publicly suggest that this was my decision. But I am not going to do
that. Because that would be untrue. Because I’ve been fired. And because I've
done nothing wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Not “sure, I’ve made a few mistakes,” but “I’ve done NOTHING wrong.”)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I’ve been fired from the CBC because of the risk of
my private sex life being made public as a result of a campaign of false allegations
pursued by a jilted ex girlfriend and a freelance writer. </span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(If this is really true, then I do feel bad for him; it can happen to
anyone, and, yes, celebrities or people in positions of power and authority can
be especially vulnerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, little
malignity is entirely motiveless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If his
tormentors are self-interested, venal people, that should come out, as he says
it will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could be wrong, but I have a
funny feeling he has more legal representation than they do.)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">As friends and family of mine, you are owed the
truth.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I have commenced legal proceedings against the CBC,
what’s important to me is that you know what happened and why.</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Forgive me if what follows may be shocking to some.
</span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I have always been interested in a variety of
activities in the bedroom but I only participate in sexual practices that are
mutually agreed upon, consensual, and exciting for both partners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Jian’s use of absolute language is again striking here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who has ever always and only participated in
sexual acts that are consensual and “exciting” for everyone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This only reveals a stunted, selfish, and
dangerously self-exculpatory attitude towards sexual relationships.) </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">About two years ago I started seeing a woman in her
late 20s. Our relationship was affectionate, casual and passionate. We saw each
other on and off over the period of a year and began engaging in adventurous
forms of sex that included role-play, dominance and submission. We discussed
our interests at length before engaging in rough sex (forms of BDSM). We talked
about using safe words and regularly checked in with each other about our
comfort levels.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(I think if you asked Jian
if he was one mean wordsmith, a man of infinite sensitivity to language and
adroitness with its deployment, you know, despite the grammatical infelicities
of his own post, what he would say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok,
now put yourself in Jian’s position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
says “we talked about using safe words.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now I defy you, I absolutely defy you, to put yourself in Jian’s shoes
and, if what he says about himself is not true, not write “we used safe
words.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Talked about safe words?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What can that mean, when the first thing that
would come to anyone’s mind, especially an accused’s, would be “used”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I am making a mountain out of a
molehill, but I ask you again, if you were Jian and feeling as unjustly wronged
as he says he feels, wouldn’t you automatically write “we used safe words,”
instead of “we talked about using safe words”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Again, where is his legal team on this one?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is like saying “I told her one day I’d
rock her world, and then another day I hit her with a rock and she got mad—what
a ^&%&^%!”)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She encouraged our
role-play and often was the initiator. We joked about our relations being like
a mild form of Fifty Shades of Grey or a story from Lynn Coady's Giller-Prize
winning book last year.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(He doesn’t remember the
name of the book?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, he remembered
Coady’s name, and this micro-instance again, for me, demonstrates Jian’s
soaring self-regard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his self-regard,
he probably just thinks he’s once again drawing attention to himself as a great
supporter of the Canadian arts and some so-so author who will be glad to be
mentioned alongside him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet he chose,
knowingly, no matter how fast he dashed off his Facebook statement, to draw
Coady into his private affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
Coady is his BFF; maybe she loves and supports him still and can never think
ill of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is probably at least
secretly pleased to be mentioned in his bondage post because she can only sell
more books as a result—“hey, here’s that author Ghomeshi talked about—it’s like
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">50 Shades of Gray!</i>”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever Coady thinks, though, I once again
ask you to put yourself in Ghomeshi’s shoes; if you were in his situation,
would you name-drop and draw in others?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
says his private life is his own; ok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
if his problems are his and his accusers’ and theirs alone, then making
reference to the public art of others as if to justify his private behaviours
constitutes narcissism in the extreme. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t wish to
get into any more detail because it is truly not anyone's business what two
consenting adults do. I have never discussed my private life before. Sexual
preferences are a human right.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Sure, I’ll buy that sexual
preferences are a human right, but we’re talking about sexual <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">activities</i>, and those aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once again, Jian seems to be conflating his
desires and practices with the petticoated morality he scorns and ascribes to
others.)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Despite a strong connection between us it became
clear to me that our on-and-off dating was unlikely to grow into a larger
relationship and I ended things in the beginning of this year. She was upset by
this and sent me messages indicating her disappointment that I would not commit
to more, and her anger that I was seeing others. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">After this, in the early spring there began a
campaign of harassment, vengeance and demonization against me that would lead
to months of anxiety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(If what Jian says is true, I agree that this is awful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Campaign” makes it sounds as if the whole
world knew, which it obviously didn’t, but whatever.)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">It came to light that a woman had begun anonymously
reaching out to people that I had dated (via Facebook </span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">people I’d dated via Facebook?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jian,
you gotta quit dating so many people via Facebook ;).</span></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just another example of this great
literary avatar kind of, just, like, not paying attention to what he was
writing<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">) to tell them she had been a
victim of abusive relations with me. In other words, someone was reframing what
had been an ongoing consensual relationship as something nefarious. I learned –
through one of my friends who got in contact with this person – that someone
had rifled through my phone on one occasion and taken down the names of any
woman I had seemed to have been dating in recent years. This person had begun
methodically contacting them to try to build a story against me. Increasingly,
female friends and ex-girlfriends of mine told me about these attempts to smear
me. </b></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">Someone also began colluding with a freelance
writer who was known not to be a fan of mine and, together, they set out to try
to find corroborators to build a case to defame me. She found some sympathetic
ears by painting herself as a victim and turned this into a campaign. The
writer boldly started contacting my friends, acquaintances and even work
colleagues – all of whom came to me to tell me this was happening and all of
whom recognized it as a trumped up way to attack me and undermine my reputation.
Everyone contacted would ask the same question, if I had engaged in
non-consensual behavior why was the place to address this the media?<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(All, all, everyone,
campaign—again the extreme language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why
was the media the place to address it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Uh, duh, maybe because, like, uh, duh, you’re in the media, AND MUCH OF
YOUR ENTIRE SHOW is based on precisely such ‘content’? And why did you, duh, choose to address this ON SOCIAL MEDIA?)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">The writer tried to peddle the story and, at one
point, a major Canadian media publication did due diligence but never printed a
story. One assumes </span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(if they “assumed,” then how do you
know they did “due diligence”?) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">they
recognized these attempts to recast my sexual behaviour were fabrications.
Still, the spectre of mud being flung onto the Internet where online outrage
can demonize someone before facts can refute false allegations has been what
I've had to live with. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>(It’s true
that the internet is a nasty place—look at the swearing comments I’ve gotten
from Jian’s supporters—but that’s one more reason, as a publicly-paid person,
to be extra-vigilant about your public and private behaviour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, as Jian would know if he’d hosted a
radio show lately, the balance has been tipping against the internet trolls for
a long time; if I get 20 hits on this blog post, 18 will be from Jian’s
lawyers. Think I’m imagining things?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Read Jian, below, about “piling on.”</span></span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Oh and, Jian, if you call your next book <em>Spectre of Mud</em>, I promise to pre-order.<br /><strong>
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">And this leads us to today and this moment. I’ve
lived with the threat that this stuff would be thrown out there to defame me.
And I would sue. But it would do the reputational damage to me it was intended
to do (the ex has even tried to contact me to say that she now wishes to refute
any of these categorically untrue allegations </span></strong></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(then get her to call the CBC and get your job back<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">). But with me bringing it to light, in the coming days you will
prospectively hear about how I engage in all kinds of unsavoury aggressive acts
in the bedroom. And the implication may be made that this happens
non-consensually. And that will be a lie. But it will be salacious gossip </b>(the
gossip monger, mongered?) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">in a world
driven by a hunger for "scandal". And there will be those who choose
to believe it and to hate me or to laugh at me. And there will be an attempt to
pile on. And there will be the claim that there are a few women involved (those
who colluded with my ex) in an attempt to show a "pattern of
behaviour". And it will be based in lies but damage will be done. But I am
telling you this story in the hopes that the truth will, finally, conquer all. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>(Jeesh Jian, if you are already
envisioning and speaking of “pattern of behaviour” accusations, I think you’re
cooked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just sayin.’)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">I have been open with the CBC about this since
these categorically untrue allegations ramped up. I have never believed it was
anyone's business what I do in my private affairs but I wanted my bosses to be
aware that this attempt to smear me was out there. CBC has been part of the team
of friends and lawyers assembled to deal with this for months. On Thursday I
voluntarily showed evidence </span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(you taped every
session?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Studio QRSTUV?)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> that everything I have done has been
consensual. I did this in good faith and because I know, as I have always
known, that I have nothing to hide. This when the CBC decided to fire me. <o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Yes, so, as you state, it
was a cumulative thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The CBC just
finally decided, after all the TV shows and radio spots, the boutique studio
and massive staff, the concert junkets, and so forth, that, no, they just
couldn’t back you anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re into
taxpayers for millions and millions of dollars, with an employer who has given
you opportunities almost nobody would ever get, and yet you want to bankrupt
them by suing for 50-55 million.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe
call your next show “Chutzpah,” Jian.)</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">CBC execs confirmed that the information provided
showed that there was consent. In fact, they later said to me and my team that
there is no question in their minds that there has always been consent. They
said they’re not concerned about the legal side. But then they said that this
type of sexual behavior was unbecoming of a prominent host on the CBC. They
said that I was being dismissed for "the risk of the perception that may
come from a story that could come out." To recap, I am being fired in my
prime from the show I love and built and threw myself into for years because of
what I do in my private life.</span>
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(“In my prime,” “the show I built”—he carefully doesn’t
mention his other failures—once again, Jian’s incredible self-regard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But more important is this question of
“consent,” that Jian hangs everything on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This is where his lawyers will be working overtime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is, in law, a difference between
consent and knowingly doing something that is wrong according to generally
acceptable social standards—that is what law and precedent are about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If my friend says: “My girlfriend just broke
up with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s no point in living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s a gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Kill me, please,” do I kill him?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t care if Jian got “consent” six ways to Sunday; ultimately, the
CBC, which had pumped so many millions into him, finally just said, “look, we
can’t support this any more.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must
have been a bitter, bitter decision at CBC, given all they’d invested in
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the straw that broke the
camel’s back was we may never know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
guess is that it was internal, since, despite Jian’s talk of all his outside
attackers, we’ve never really had much “evidence” of that, yet anyway, whatever
Jian says.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="textexposedshow"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Let me be the first to say that my tastes in the bedroom
may not be palatable to some folks. They may be strange, enticing, weird,
normal, or outright offensive to others. We all have our secret life. But that
is my private life. That is my personal life. And no one, and certainly no
employer, should have dominion over what people do consensually in their
private life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></span><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(Agreed, but as in the anecdotes I’ve cited, and as in Jian’s own post
we’re reading here, he seems not to realize how the public blends into the private
and vice-versa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He seems to want to have
one set of rules for himself, and another set for others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is remarkable that he would “chat” with
featured artists almost every day and not realize something as basic and
fundamental as the fact that “private” and “public” lives are not categorically
divisible.</span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br />
<br />
<span class="textexposedshow">And so, with no formal allegations, no formal
complaints, no complaints, not one, to the HR department at the CBC (they told
us they’d done a thorough check and were satisfied), and no charges, I have
lost my job based on a campaign of vengeance. Two weeks after the death of my
beautiful father I have been fired from the CBC because of what I do in my
private life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">
<span class="textexposedshow">I have loved the CBC </span></span></b><span class="textexposedshow"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;">(I’ll buy that, but now you’d like to bankrupt it, to the tune of 50-55
million.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sure you’re a valuable guy,
Jian, but the damages you seek certainly say something about your sense of yourself
and your ultimate commitment to an institution you say you supported.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Say you won your lawsuit; would you be
thrilled to think of all your "super" colleagues being out of work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What kind of party would you throw for
them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wait a minute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Got it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And say you do get that big job in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city></st1:place>
or NY or LA, who wants to hire someone who will sue them for 50 mill if they
raise eyebrows over the things they hear, and keep hearing, as you so readily
detail?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’ll be in the contract, Jian)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. The Q team are the best group of people
in the land. My colleagues and producers and on-air talent at the CBC are
unparalleled in being some of the best in the business. I have always tried to
be a good soldier and do a good job for my country (</b>as others have noted,
probably not a good idea to compare yourself to a soldier, especially now—once
again, it’s your incredible self-regard—but I do get that you’re using clichés
and are dashing something off in a state of significant emotional upset)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">. I am still in shock. But I am telling
this story to you so the truth is heard. And to bring an end to the nightmare.</b></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #141823; mso-ansi-language: EN;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--Well, although I wrote two posts critical of (and also a bit
positive about) him, I feel no special sense of schadenfreude over his
dismissal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I said in my posts, I
certainly support a show like his.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do
feel for his family, and I am glad that his father didn’t have to start
confronting his son in different lights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But as his self-serving post showed (and as my nano-gesture of visiting
his Facebook page for the first time indicates), Jian knows that this is one
step on a steady upward climb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you
imagine the “team” of lawyers currently negotiating his most recent book
deal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s going to be a need for
fresh shirts and razors and takeout on that one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 5000 channel universe, and the
bazillion-station FM radiosphere, Jian’s stated recent griefs have no doubt been
transformed into salivating glowing-eyed decisions over latest opportunities.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This post is basically just about responding to
Jian’s statement, but I should have some kind of greater theme in mind, and
fairly obviously that would be about how, now more than ever, real or perceived
indiscretion leads only to greater fame and emolument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jian is aggrieved now, but he knows, and we
all know, that whoever his “jilted” ex’s are, and whoever this “freelance
writer” is, it’s not them who will be living on easy street as a result of any
“scandal” involving him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I were a
conspiracy theorist, I’d have no trouble saying that Jian brought this upon
himself purposely, just so he could get out of <st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city>
and get back to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>,
or on to NY or LA, where he wasn’t just on chump Canadians’ dimes.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>I guess that’s for another post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> A recent poster to this blog wrote to Jian that his "15 minutes of fame were up." Oh, I don't think so. </span>In the meantime, and surely if it’s Jian’s
way, this is very definitely to be continued. . . </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--zr</div>
{{4 years, 4 posts on this blog.<br />
<br />
(I don't blame you for getting bored, but I've as much a right and a responsibility as anyone to be held to complete account for what I have written.)<br />
<br />
The first post, the one that EVERYONE read:<br />
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q -- 17/09/2011 <br />
<br />
The next and final post, that a few read.<br />
The Ever-Incredibly Depressing Jian Ghomeshi of CBC’s Q -- redux 02/03/2012<br />
<br />
3rd post (that a few more read):<br />
My decision to at last address some of the so many comments I got about my *2* Ghomeshi posts (my antique internet attitude has always been that you can respond and say whatever you want to say, and I won't editorialize. However, after many comments, I decided to take up a few of the most common ones).<br />
The ever-incredibly depressing Jian Ghomeshi treedux -- 11/02/2013 <br />
<br />
The recent post, that a few have read, now that he's really famous (and a post that's already starting to look really antique, like the once-powerful "Copps-May-Shelaghlah Swoonferit Theory of General Sexual Moral Infallibility"):<br />
50 Shades of Jian Ghomeshi: Parsing Jian’s Infinite Self-Regard -- 28/10/2014}} <br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></b></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-68150225811976092322014-09-21T23:33:00.000-06:002015-08-16T04:25:24.647-06:00CRTC Amps Up the Volume on Commercials<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">CRTC Amps Up the Volume on
Commercials<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">(Abstract: so far no-one has come clean on the CRTC’s
decision to allow/facilitate cable companies’ jacking up volumes on digital
commercial content exponentially beyond any previously recorded levels.)<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Remember when we had all
those extensive hearings about reducing the volume on TV commercials?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I think there were hearings—I mean,
that’s what the CRTC does, right, hold “hearings”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Rarely can such a multifariously ironical
word have been employed.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Through lawyers and public
salaries, this single issue cost Canadian taxpayers millions—millions just to
get the cable oligopoly to turn it down a little (so taxpayers were on the
hook, as usual, for obnoxious private sector behaviour from advertisers).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Well, it seems that the
volume on TV commercials has gone down to something close to the volume of the
TV show you are watching—but of course, as we know (and as I wrote about
somewhere elsewhere here glancingly years ago), nobody watches TV on TV
anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">If you look up CRTC, you
hardly need to enter “commercial,” let alone “volume,” before the Google
searchbox has had a strong whiff of what you have joined millions of others in
doing. The Harper government/CRTC still has its pages out there, touting its
remarkable work on bringing down the volume—<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/g3.htm
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The page is hilariously
self-congratulaTORY and gutless, telling people who’ve still got a problem with
volume to a) blame the Americans; b) (snoooooozzzzeeee) ‘contact their service
provider’; or c) fill out a ludicrously detailed complaint indicating the exact
who/what/where/when/why/how of their particular volume grievance—and the
year/month/day/hour/millisecond it occurred (the better, no doubt, to extend
the hours of those who might putatively (one cannot speak of “legal” issues)
investigate reported concerns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Anyway, as with most people,
I find myself more and more regarding “TV” content online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do I prefer it this way?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, not really, but you have to do something
to try to juggle and rein in your cable bills.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And besides, at least initially, advertisers didn’t see enough money in
online content, so the ads were fewer and this instantly made online content,
through no doing of its own, highly attractive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But of course online ads are getting more and more numerous, such that
one day we might all run back to our TV “sets” seeking relative peace and quiet
and a reduction in commercials. (And this is key: the cable oligopoly does not _want_ you to watch content on TV--imagine having to send out techies for all those cables and so on. No, it wants to drive you to online sources, and key in its moneymaking pitch to advertisers is to make sure those advertisers know that, when it comes to decibel levels, hey, digital is <em>carte blanche</em> for advertisers.)</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">As you know, the volume for
online commercials is amped up incredibly, usually at 3-5 times the normal
volume of whatever you are watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Today I was watching a short TV show online and, when the same
commercials from 6 minutes before came on, I went to the bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the commercials, an ad for a local
radio station came on with such a blast that it was easily 10 times the volume
of what I had been watching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you had
a sleeping child, or spouse, or bark-prone dog, those individuals would have
fully roused almost no matter where they were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And if you were actually sitting there when it happened, you would have
been jolted off your seat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">So anyway, I’m finally
getting to my point: Just what deals did the CRTC and the Harper government cut
when we spent all those millions on having TV ad volume turned down?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Now, I’d like to think that
the CRTC honestly thought, “hey, we’re doing a good thing here, we’re trying to
get obnoxious volume levels reduced.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Surely people will thank us, and obviously volume on other digital
devices will never be an issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no
army of lawyers, no matter how many hours and milliseconds they billed, could
ever defend that kind of “we were all totally ignorant” plea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, a backroom deal involving teams of
lawyers, the Harper government, the CRTC, the cable oligopoly, and, presumably,
self-interested major advertisers, was, as sure as I’m sitting here typing,
almost certainly cut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Ok, maybe it wasn’t even that
backroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe there’s someone out
there who could just point me to a clause somewhere or a report somewhere that
notes that “in tandem with their agreement to reduce volume levels on
commercials to a level similar to that of the broadcast content, cable
companies and advertisers are explicitly allowed to jack up volume on any other
digital emissions to unregulated, even extreme—levels.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think of all the 100s (and indeed, overall,
1000s) of people in on the final CRTC crafting (backroom deal ultimately, yes,
but to say no-one outside the backroom knew what was going on so that they
could act accordingly would be a bit like the PM saying he didn’t know what a dozen
people in his own office that he hired did know). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">The CRTC decision re:
commercial volume levels, which the aforementioned government webpage touts,
the while saying that, by the way, if you want it enforced, blame someone else
or “you’re on your own,” is a sham, or chimera, regulation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With so many people not watching TV (and
therefore TV commercials) on TV anymore, it’s like passing a law banning
dangerous campfires in the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d
have to hike 100k just to find some kindling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So, again, you can buy the innocent argument, but then you’d have to
believe that government, CRTC, cable oligopoly, and advertising senior
operatives had IQ numbers topping out at basic cable channel numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">And the recent-ish
regulations (which were in effect a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quid
pro quo</i> between the government and the cable oligopoly), just made things
worse—as my earlier anecdote demonstrates, whereas experience taught that there
used to be at least some sort of tacit agreement about how much noise the
average payer for cable services and taxpayer to the government could hack, now
there is none.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you could totally
have your eardrums blown out if you’re distractedly watching something while
you’re sitting on the bus (or increasingly, in your car, or your kids are),
minding your own business, paying for content, and then having your earbuds
blown out, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">Surely I would love to drop
by the mansion of a cable exec someday and play one of his ads outside his
bedroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Admittedly, in the case of
some, they’d maybe be too blacked out even to be roused,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/jim-shaw-steps-down-after-unprofessional-behaviour/article1319550/<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">but it would be kind of a fun
power trip just to be able to say to the guy: “hey, I don’t make the laws, and
there’s no law against it, so go microwave some mac n’ cheese.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">It’s a wonder that we consent
to pay for this and elect representatives of private business who haven’t the
will of the public in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">--zr<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-38004262604368485162014-09-11T06:33:00.001-06:002014-09-21T23:34:52.459-06:00The Nature of ISIS and the Key Harper Enablers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Nature of ISIS and the
Key Harper Enablers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well,
first of all, it’s hopeless young men looking for or needing something to
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are easily swayed by a
Manichean world view, and even the madrasa chants in languages they don’t even
comprehend have a kind of mesmeric, repetitive, and building power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stand in front of the mirror and grin
sillily—eventually, you will get happy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stand in front of the mirror and frown, and eventually you will get
angry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islam is deep this way, for its most profound
but least nuanced followers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
most persuasive and honest and devout people who follow faiths know their
faiths are hard won and are all the stronger because of the tests and
challenges they’ve endured; militant—or, in fact—most branches of Islam, a
comparatively young and new religion, seem to offer a shortcut, suicide or
murder or a stampeding rampage/Mecca carnage/pilgrimage etc., offering the
shortest of all<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">cuts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Good
luck with that harem thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Me
I’d sail around behind the pearly gates if I hadn’t already been rejected/done
gone rejected the fantasy.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s
hardly unlike the young men from Allied countries who got all gung-ho to enlist
during WWI and WWII.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An adventure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beats milking dry cows and eating polk
salad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something about a vague noble
cause and pretty soon everyone regarding you as less than your sex if you
weren’t over there. “And it’s 1-2-3-4, what am I fighting for?” Take a listen: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W7-ngmO_p8"><span style="color: blue;">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W7-ngmO_p8</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Those
hippies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought Kurt Cobain kind of
revived them, but where have those hippies been?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Long view, the hippies were progeny of people
who had been through WWs I and II and then <st1:country-region w:st="on">Korea</st1:country-region>
and then <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Vietnam</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and who were just kind of getting sick of the whole kind of let’s-get-into-a-war-no-matter-what-to-kick-start-the-economy-especially-in-places-like-West-Virginia
deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>
I (let’s support a country no-one can even remember now) and Iraq II (damn, we
sold them those guns and now they’re not using them properly) and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region></st1:place>
(maybe bad Waldo is here now?!?!), and now IS-whatever, I wonder if some people
might be wondering the same. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>, we’re querulous
about just what it is that makes a handful of kids from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> take up
arms for ISwhatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I already
answered that above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In many respects,
we create our own problems, often knowingly, so we can seem the more superior
when we fakely solve them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Take
ideologue-in-chief, Stephen Harper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
man of generous girth even then, he avowed in 2006 that Canadians were no
cowards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will not “cut and run” he
politically and humorously stated of himself whilst sounding the death knell
for those he ordered into action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-committed-to-afghan-mission-harper-tells-troops-1.573722"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-committed-to-afghan-mission-harper-tells-troops-1.573722</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When
it became clear, after a couple years and over 100 lives and countless
billions, that this was not a “winnable” war, he meekly acquiesced to what Jack
(“Taliban Jack,” the deep-thinking Tories called him) Layton had said—we better
talk to these people and see if we can figure out a way forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.thestar.com/opinion/2009/03/04/if_we_cant_win_why_stay_in_afghanistan.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thestar.com/opinion/2009/03/04/if_we_cant_win_why_stay_in_afghanistan.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Virtually
everyone, from Soviets to Americans, had long since realized that there were no
wars to win in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If anyone who reads this still hasn’t kicked
the reading habit, check out Tory Rory Stewart’s personal
self-illumination<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Places In-Between</i> (2004).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">And
soon after taking it up, Stephen Harper gave up the just war, as if he were
choosing hazelnut coffee over cinnamon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He packed it in, this time, as a rationalist, noting that we probably
couldn’t win that war.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the
interim, he had sent 150+ Canadians to their deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Now,
is Stephen Harper just tremendously stupid, or is he ideologically inclined and
regards a baker’s dozen of Canadian lives as more or less expendable, so long
as they are in the service of ideology?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You pick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Actually,
let me help you—Rick Hillier, anaesthetized on the rum and cokes he says he
loved, and Walt Natyncyk, who took his family on private jet Caribbean
vacations on your dime (<a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/top-general-vows-to-repay-cost-of-using-ottawas-executive-jet-if-he-must/article594904/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/top-general-vows-to-repay-cost-of-using-ottawas-executive-jet-if-he-must/article594904/</span></a>),
or Russell Williams, the CFB Trenton air-force chief who liked to take pictures
of his cat while he raped and murdered colleagues and took pictures of himself
in their lingerie and tried to incriminate others, or one-time “justice”
minister Peter McKay arranging private military helicopter pickups at costs
that amounted to annual incomes for many families in Central Nova: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/02/mps-demand-resignation-of-peter-mackay-after-release-of-fishing-trip-airlift-emails/
--it’s kind of clear that there’s not just a cozy Conservative Senate
relationship with entitled criminals (Duffy, Brazeau, Wallin, etc.), but
there’s one with the military, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
those men and women who serve, who are used as a taxi-service by Peter McKay
and as travel agents by Canadian taxpayers, they might wonder who is really
looking out for their backs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Blood
on his hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Calling others cowards,
then saying he knew the mission was doomed—no Beatles tunes will erase
that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Harper sings “Yesterday,”
it’s going to be more than bittersweet for those he ordered into battle in a
war he knew could not be won.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
parents, the sons and daughters of Canadians killed because Stephen Harper did
not wish to be seen as “cutting and running,” after he did do exactly that,
well, I wouldn’t wish to be Steve and Laureen, if they were penetrable to
thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">If
I’m Canadian military personnel, who do I really want behind my back—a corrupt,
murdering, ideologically-driven individual--or a balanced, thoughtful one who
says “I’m gonna make sure you’ve got the tools first, then I’m gonna make up my
mind.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
expendables, is how Tories quite apparently call Canadians who serve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rob Anders never did know a veterans’ meeting
that he could not fall asleep at http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/news/rob-anders-sleep/).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Julian Fantino felt his meetings took way,
way precedence over anything the veterans’ portfolio he was supposed to oversee
(http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/how-julian-fantino-s-meeting-with-veterans-went-off-the-rails-1.2515817).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">And
when it came to remembering Vimy, of course <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> nickeled-and-dimed its last
remaining veterans, leaving it to the French graciously to pick up the costs. <a href="http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/france-to-help-cover-canadian-vet-s-travel-costs-for-d-day-anniversary-1.1836230"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/france-to-help-cover-canadian-vet-s-travel-costs-for-d-day-anniversary-1.1836230</span></a>.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper took an entourage and a private party-colored jet
that cost Canadians millions—but he went there to celebrate himself, not the
actual people who had served.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">That
the French had to step in to cover the costs of Canadian soldiers, while the
Prime Minister jetted around soaking up hundreds of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>thousands of taxpayer dollars, is against
Canadian values. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Mine
anyway, sure can’t speak for you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">At
last we return to western kids who want to fight with <st1:place w:st="on">ISIS</st1:place>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, they’re disenfranchised, and Harper
has, by his party’s own proud admission, been key in that, preventing Canadian
voters from voting at every turn, targeting especially the non-white non-old
people who *might* not vote for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jason Kenney has been tireless and shameless (likes those regarded by
many as terrorists for political gains, too!) in his attempts to woo ethnic
voters, but even those ethnic voters can be unsettled by the sight of Kenney’s
blushed, febrile,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>greasy bulb popping right
off its pear anchor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">If
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
doesn’t want to send more young Canadians to jihad, it should, to reverse a
page out of the Harper ideology playbook, treat it as a sociological matter,
not a criminal one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will always be
young men (now more than ever, for various sociological reasons) who will seek
“jihad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That will happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But one has to create the right conditions,
right here, on the ground, that make it possible for anyone in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>
to say, “hey, yeah, I’m part of this and making the world I live in better.”
I’d love to hear Jason Kenney’s solutions on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Simply alienating or criminalizing (or
buying) others can only lead to that cyclic war. . .1, 2, 3, 4. . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s
regrettable that journalists cannot do what bloggers can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Journalists cannot speak to power unless they
agree to ventriloquize that power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those
journalists who can journal, like Mike Duffy, hardly set examples.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Future
lobbyists, future hobbyists (senators), neither helpful, nor useful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">For
a better world,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in -1.25in 0pt 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">--zr<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-23729356311407172472014-05-23T05:16:00.000-06:002015-08-16T04:13:55.107-06:00The Orenda -- finally figured it out<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda - </i></b>Probably most famously in early TV times, the Orenda was
known as the Splenda in Orenda, when Mayhem Melvin Johnstone met Jonoby
Jefferson in a 10-round title fight. <st1:place w:st="on">Jefferson</st1:place>
appeared to stop Johnstone as early as the 3<sup>rd</sup> with a left hook that
staggered the bigger fighter, but in the later stages of the 5<sup>th</sup>,
Johnstone began to assert his power, feinting with the right, but employing
also a lethal left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><st1:place w:st="on">Jefferson</st1:place>
fought gamely into the 8<sup>th</sup>, but by then his dancing moves lacked
crispness, and his blows, owing to his shorter reach, did not tell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Against the ropes, both eyes closed with
bruising and sealed by open cuts, Jefferson not only stood up to the pounding,
but made his way around the ring and never fell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bout, held in Equatorial <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Guinea</st1:place></st1:country-region> at the
pleasure of then-dictator Malik al-Foussah-Homi-be-Im, has come to be regarded
as one of the greatest matches in this sport’s history. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> T</span>he card read 52-48, 51-49, and 51-49.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b>, the – a mysterious tumour, still unverified, proposed
by the late controversial Portuguese physician Eugenio Ombran (1882-1934).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ombran argued that, just because a tumour
could not be found, this did not mean that it did not exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He advised a location near the out-of-sight
armpit, to the left of most patients’ hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This phantom-tumour theory was eagerly taken up by most western
physicians, and for the most part, they followed his notion of “radiate first,
think later.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ombran’s great-niece, Luz,
commented in 2008, “even if they do not find anything, that is like finding the
Orenda.”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b> – A popular parlour game of the c18th, “Jackal,”
featured the exultation “Orenda!!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>During a four-handed game, and if a winner were to play out by laying
down all of his cards and placing one upon a matching laid-down card of his
opponent, he might exult “Orenda!!” and by this gain 100 bonus points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the strategy of the game of “Jackal,”
shouting “Orenda!!” was nearly as fatal as “checkmate” is to us today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While “Orenda” could be called, so long as
the opponent still maintained 13 cards, defeat was not impossible, as the
Orendan had to pick up one card for each the Orendanded had left until all were
satisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While a simple “Orenda!!” was
usually enough, sometimes the ejaculation led to duels not tea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Orendoo!,” was reported in <st1:place w:st="on">West
Sussex (by way of Bengal)</st1:place>. as a way of foreshortening and behindhandedly attempting
to win this game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditionalists hold
nevertheless to the Orenda. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda </i></b>– It’s like when you put a fitted sheet in the dryer and
dry it forever but somehow there’s always some socks and a t-shirt or whatever
that always end up bunched and caught and wet and you have to hang it off a
doorknob or something—that’s an Orenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">submitted by Gracie T.</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b> – In Norse mythology, the mother of the Kraken, who
urged him not to go to sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In her will,
composed of gneiss and moss, she insisted: “if there is a fault, it is of
Olaf.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Manhattan</st1:place></st1:city> lawyers took up the case in 1343,
and a judgment is still awaited.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b> - In the midst of the 1970s energy crisis, auto
companies responded with that typical alacrity consumers have come to know and respect—even
adore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Facing the Ford Fiesta, the Chevy
Vega, the Pontiac Astre and Acadian, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Doidge</st1:city>,
<st1:state w:st="on">Illinois</st1:state></st1:place> carmakers had no choice
but to rush to judgment the Doidge Orenda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A four-speed, the Orenda had a disquieting tendency to overheat at 70 Fahrenheit,
and on the sedan model, the new, state-of-the-art back-bench plastic bolts had
a propensity for slamming forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Citing transmission difficulties and a keen interest in
environmentalism, as well as a desire to “spend more time with their families,”
Orenda engineers resigned and the marque was discontinued in October 1975.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>60, 000 were manufactured.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b> – a sub-complicated quasi-aboriginal mythology in which
you tout driving around native<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>reserves
on motorbikes and hail your brilliant doctor father while pitching that you sat
in a Starbucks writing all day while your helpful partner. . . ok something
smells wrong about this definition.<em>--verifciation required</em></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b> – was a bulbous Saxo-Cuban cigar manufactured by Hermann
Infante del Diego. Diego, the son of Ulrich and Guadaloupe Diego, became, in
his 20s, one of the most prolific producers of cigars on the island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wanted a signature brand, and this would
become the “Orenda,” which featured a bright yellow label and a wry winking
rooster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon nationalization, it was found
that Hermann had at least 20 unacknowledged offspring. The cigar foundered
almost immediately—many would later say Diego was ahead of his time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Local consumers were said to say that they hadn’t the
wherewithal to indulge his imagination; garish signs were taken down as the installation was gradually tranformed into a seaside chicken processing plant. Nevertheless, a notable octoroonish expat Cajun artist, Leon, “Daddy Fry” Chavis, picked up on
the story, and the tangled truthy narrative later became his signature tune: “Don’t Sign Anything
by Neon (lest you don’t know who’s been being your <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Leon</st1:place></st1:country-region>).”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
And that’s the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Orenda</i></b>, so far.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
-zr</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-26484016081368467462014-04-11T07:54:00.000-06:002014-11-04T01:02:53.246-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
(CP) - In a statement released today, Canadian Minister of Democracy
Pierre Poilievre said that, while he supports North Korean dictator Kim
Jong-un’s efforts to standardize haircuts (<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26747649">http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26747649</a>), he had already gotten his own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“It’s this guy, Larry,” Poilievre said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He’s in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ottawa</st1:place></st1:city>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
“I was talking to Kim the other day,” Poilievre further stated, "and
we basically saw eye-to-eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We talked
around various hair-stand and side-shaved issues, and then we came to an
agreement that we both get along pretty well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Naturally our talks were private.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Poilievre did add, “that cat <em>iz</em> dap!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCi4LgJ-E71TZN93w9REOEs3SScQmMjMw-0R6zgR_EMfFFvNr_LbrWnV8zPZFbpRvxXQ-3OjlL6DMDzmmqE60EsZWaPQr2YnJ4uP_71undU_cQ9MpqEJvn9LDBTuxNbyd9cWuBLYLvH9H3/s1600/pierre-poilievre-20140306.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCi4LgJ-E71TZN93w9REOEs3SScQmMjMw-0R6zgR_EMfFFvNr_LbrWnV8zPZFbpRvxXQ-3OjlL6DMDzmmqE60EsZWaPQr2YnJ4uP_71undU_cQ9MpqEJvn9LDBTuxNbyd9cWuBLYLvH9H3/s1600/pierre-poilievre-20140306.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/editor/static_files/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPECF2lIDxZ5ArVgdHTfkxvK3FolMsFDtpBhcJgGKY9d8LFcgnNjPz9lioz39rP9_53uoXYqfv4WI6J_49jD7v8m_RXG1ys7dQxnAmeGawvr6Al-GE1A78VONi56BOAGfYCfAVHG0wz_XD/s1600/kim+il-jun+imagesCA48V393.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPECF2lIDxZ5ArVgdHTfkxvK3FolMsFDtpBhcJgGKY9d8LFcgnNjPz9lioz39rP9_53uoXYqfv4WI6J_49jD7v8m_RXG1ys7dQxnAmeGawvr6Al-GE1A78VONi56BOAGfYCfAVHG0wz_XD/s1600/kim+il-jun+imagesCA48V393.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-84650798997817896482014-04-11T03:16:00.000-06:002014-05-06T06:36:55.073-06:00Jim Flaherty is not dead, only in Ireland (or Michigan)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
One ought not to speak ill of the dead, nor inflict more
grief on the aggrieved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, the
instant hagiography surrounding Jim Flaherty will attach some burrs.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Through his actions to protect himself, Jim Flaherty
gleefully destroyed the lives of others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He knew it, he loved it, and he did it for partisan, un-Canadian
purposes. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
This, this was the man who so hated <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>, who was so vilely partisan, that he
actually said that <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ontario</st1:place></st1:state>
was the worst place in the world to do business.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even his far-right comperes suggested that it
was unpragmatic, foolish, and childish of him to be so ideologically bound that
he actually sought to destroy the finances of his own country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For smearing <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place> around the world, now he is
hailed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/Economists+warn+against+Flaherty+attacks+Ontario/360520/story.html)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Hm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Like it or not, Canada, from wherever you sit in SK or BC or
no matter how your electoral map is being gerrymandered by the poil on your
butts, Ontario matters to this country and it matters to you if you are
Canadian.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I don’t think that politicians in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ireland</st1:country-region>
or the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region></st1:place>
step out to make partisan speeches bent on damaging their own countries, as
Flaherty did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was a man whose
ideology was so pure that he would take money from Canadian citizens and then
burn it in front of them while he, as finance minister, told the rest of the
world that they should have nothing to do with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> doesn’t need any more
patriots like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Go be finance
minister of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
and find out how sweet that pie tastes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Fact is, Jim Flaherty had a peachy job and he profited from hating <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region> around the world; his family and children
will be able to retire to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>
in ways few Irish, or Canadian citizens, can imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pity the man hated <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region> so, for purely ideological
and partisan reasons. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Flaherty, of course, was pivotal in driving <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ontario</st1:place></st1:state> into the
ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Bob Rae opened David
Peterson’s books and realized what calamities confronted him, Bob Rae did the
right thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He increased spending and
he raised taxes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Flaherty slavishly
emulated the correct Bob Rae years later (handing out money to banks and auto
companies and so on while demanding that CANADIAN taxpayers, not the banks or
the companies and their foreign-controlled head offices, pay it all back), all
the while smugly hating Canada and regretting Canada’s un-Tory taxation across
the world stage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Flaherty ate the
very vomit he spewed on others, and never with a twinkle in his eye.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No, his eyes were elsewhere—on the big job in
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>, or the misty
motherland of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ireland</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Flaherty, of course, sought, as Mike Harris’s
henchman, to drive Ontario further into the ground and cripple its economic
might by undermining its public sector and infrastructure and human
capital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, like criminal entitlement
chief Tony Clement, he was all ok with gazebos in the riding that got him
elected and paid his pension and secured his family (and ONLY his and his family
alone) for generations (<a href="http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/14/kelly-mcparland-auto-companies-thrive-on-governments-that-are-happy-to-pay-the-ransom/"><span style="color: blue;">http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/02/14/kelly-mcparland-auto-companies-thrive-on-governments-that-are-happy-to-pay-the-ransom/</span></a>).
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Flaherty learned entitlement the
right way—a long affiliation with Conservatives who sucked money from working
Canadians while telling those Canadians that they had to work harder (to
support Jim Flaherty and HIS family).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Now, here’s where I begin to support Jim Flaherty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was such a dyed-in-the-any-country-but-Canada-wool
ideologue that it was amazing to see him actually start to smarten up, well,
well into middle age, and realize that, yes, he actually did, kind of, have
some responsibilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly, it came
as a tremendous shock to an ideologue like Jim Flaherty that he actually had to
sit around the world table with world finance ministers who were—SHOCK—actually
concerned about and not denigrating of their own countries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This must have baffled Jim Flaherty beyond
belief—the idea that one could act on behalf of others who *didn’t* pay you to
get re-elected. It is a long way from <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Whitby</st1:place></st1:city>.
I think Jimbo was astonished and taken aback by this, this idea that a world
(yes, a world) existed outside cheap dirty nasty Conservative auto-town politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps for the first time in his life, well
into his 40s, he might have realized that his actions weren’t just about making
his family rich, but that they could also implicate other people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Flaherty might have met his own
neighbours for the first time in his 50s!! To that end, he made a sober and
unpopular decision around income trusts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As he left office, he meekly queried Conservative ideology about
income-splitting, a financial game designed to enrich Conservative supporters
and disempower Canadians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we think
we’re approaching our Maker, we all get a bit teary eyed and reflect on what we’ve
done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim Flaherty’s last gesture, as he
dealt with illness, was (before his heartfelt and teary-eyed paean to the true Tory criminal entitlement achievements of the Fords) to realize that, in the end, all of his ideology and
all of his hatred that he spewed on others could come home to roost, even on
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He, too, could die, and not enjoy
the fruits of his taxationlessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most
Canadians aren’t like Jim Flaherty and his family; few will ever enjoy the
benefits he and his family have enjoyed and will enjoy, despite his modest
attainments outside of politics. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Jim Flaherty’s passing ought to be a lesson to all
Conservative ideologues, including the present poil on our body politic: you
may never live to enjoy the hatred you have spewed on others, so might as well
try to be decent and live while you can.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
On a completely personal note, I liked Flaherty more as he
aged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was a Conservative ideologue
slowly accustoming himself to the complexities of the world—and unlike many fellow
travellers, he seemed to accept that challenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He went from a child to a man and then death, and we will all find our
ways there, severally and individually.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
-zr</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-16996399139830610582013-12-05T08:06:00.000-07:002013-12-05T11:12:31.784-07:00Canada’s New National Anthem: “Before the Courts”<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s
New National Anthem: “Before the Courts”</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Toronto Police Chief
Bill Blair Takes Questions about Mayor Rob Ford</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Or new national index of societal morality.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
It seems there is no sin these days that cannot be covered
by saying that the matter is “before the courts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, we all know that, by the time
those “courts” ever get into session or adjourn or conclude or just whatever it
is they do do besides incarcerate Aboriginals, we will all have coins on our
eyelids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In theory, the “courts” are supposed
to fulfill a fairly crucial role in Canadian society; they are supposed to set
standards by precedent, assess crimes, mete out punishment and in general “act”
as our legal and moral guardians and compasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But a veritable pole shift has occurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, instead of being courts of, say, well, justice, “courts” are just
chimerical rhetorical places used in phrases where momentous societal concerns
go to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t say for sure, but
I’ve got a funny funny feeling that, once upon a time, “before the courts”
meant something, as in some sort of justice was going to be served
sometime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The phrase meant “impending,”
not “neverending.” Now “before the courts” just means being able to avoid any
sort of judgement whatsoever for an indefinite period, and also the while dodge
any questions pertaining to any kind of moral or legal conduct.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How did we get to this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d really like to hear from lawyers, but I
suppose everyone would like to blame everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judges, from their eyries, will never
comment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of them, who, for example,
like Supreme Court justice Marc Nadon, fantasize that they were drafted by the
Red Wings, clearly are contemplating other egotistical and onanistic scenarios
most citizens haven’t leisure (or the moral degradation) to indulge.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yet it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ought</i> to
concern our legal system that it is no longer seen as a place where legal
matters go to get mulled and eventually resolved, but rather as a place where
legal and moral conundrums go to be put off, avoided, sidestepped, obfuscated, ignored,
extenuated, and ultimately buried. Nowadays anyone can say that something is
“before the courts” and get off scot-free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People ought to be answerable for their actions; they ought not to be
able to play the free Pierre Poilievre “stay-out-of-jail-forever” card by
saying something is “before the courts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Couldn’t the “courts,” if they wanted to be “courts,” do something about
this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look up “supine” in the
dictionary, self-interested while you’re at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The legal system was never supposed to be about me; it was supposed to
be about society.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now every (wealthy,
entitled, white) “me” can use it for private ends simply by saying, “oh, well,
the matter is before the courts.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While, in his mind, Marc Nadon dreamily
skates circles around Doug Harvey, could he also devote, say, %10 of his grey
matter to questions of justice that he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wasn’t</i>
paid for by the Harper government?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Were
I judging Nadon, I would intervene to say that question probably assumed too
much grey matter.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Marc Nadon, not in the end the Yzerman he told us he was (he didn't even get caught on the internet; he just outright lied, on camera--now that is a judge kickin' it old school),
may be glad to see the legal system become a kind of in-house private affair
for submissive Tory hacks, but others in the legal system with a scintilla of
morality ought to wonder “wherefore the reversal”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When did “before the courts” go from “someone
is going to be accountable sometime” to “nobody’s ever going to be accountable”
and at any rate we can play it out forever?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
If I stab a guy in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Regina</st1:place></st1:city>,
I get pretty swift justice and steel bars in my sightlines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if I bilk 100s of seniors out of their
pension funds in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city>,
I drive with the top down, for-evah. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pity we have no “courts” for this.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
For the record, here’s <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city>’s
Police Chief Bill Blair at a news conference the day before this post:</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chief Blair, it’s
pretty obvious that Mayor Ford has been implicated in the kind of actions that
would see me arrested if I weren’t the Mayor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Did he receive special treatment?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
There have been no arrests that I know of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And until such time, there will be no arrests
that I know of.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Young men of colour
that the Mayor hangs out with tend to be involved in fairly bad things, or get
dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does that concern you?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, we’re always concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Concerned about public safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a major concern for the police force when there is concern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we’re concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We will continue to be concerned, until there’s concern that we’re not
concerned about.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Like gangs and so on?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, it’s a concern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But we’re not going to get too concerned about this while these concerns
are before the courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We put these
concerns before the crown prosecutors and the courts, and then they’re no
longer our concern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But we’re concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Anytime public safety is involved, we’re concerned.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Like with gangs and
guns and homicides?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Certainly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Certainly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re very concerned.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So you’re concerned.</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yes, very concerned.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Now, say I had a name
that began with, oh, say, “F,” and that ended with “d,” and that had four
letters, and I were caught in extremely compromising situations that have
betokened criminal activity since you were in short pants—would I be in danger
of prosecution?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, we all want to support the troops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the Prime Minister has said it, and I
do, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>$50 million and 50 new cars can
go a long way towards promoting public safety, and our chief goal is to promote
public safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tasers, foot
patrols.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Public safety.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But. . .my question
was about the shady envelopes and monitored drughouses and wiretaps and so
on—you have nothing to say about that?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, no, because that is a matter that is before the
courts, so obviously I can’t comment about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re very concerned about public safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But obviously we can’t comment about matters
that are before the courts.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But what if you had
been hauled into court because you had been seen engaging in clearly suspect
activity and your name wasn’t Ford?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Name was?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Name
was?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m sorry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I-I can’t comment on matters that are before
the courts.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Chief Blair, does it
sometimes not disturb you that any crime can be hidden by uttering the phrase
“before the courts” these days?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, disturbed, of course we’re disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anytime it’s a matter of public safety, we’re
disturbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t want to see
disturbances, and I don’t think anyone wants to see disturbances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when public safety is concerned, we have
to act.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Act how?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, the police have got to be equipped to fulfill their
duties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That means being able to resort
to deadly force when necessary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because
it’s a matter of public safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
it’s a matter of public safety. . .</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">but I wasn’t _asking_
about public safety. . .</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
we still have to act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We have to act in the best interests of public safety.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ok, well, speaking of
public safety, does it concern you that saying “the matter is before the courts”
has become a kind of catch-all mantra for avoiding all forms of redress for any
crimes, alleged or committed?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, well, it’s like I said—the matter is before the
courts.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">So if a matter is
“before the courts,” the legal system essentially grinds to a halt and for all
intents and purposes no longer exists?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well yes, yes, that, as I understand it, is what “before the
courts” means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The police can only place
matters “before the courts.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While we
continue to be concerned, we cannot comment on matters that are before the
courts.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If a citizen said,
“Yeah, sure, I drove drunk, what are you, a buncha pollyannas,” would that
concern you?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Certainly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Obviously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s a
hypothetical and I’m not going to get into hypothetical questions.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if it were the
mayor of your city?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, then, I think the police would have done their
jobs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then it would be before the
courts.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Is there anything
that, in your view, is not “before the courts”?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the end it is all before the courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People have to take responsibility for their
own actions when they’re driving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
when it’s before the courts, the police have done their jobs.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">These courts—we hear
an awful lot about them these days in politics at every level. . .you seem to
place a great deal of stock in them.</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’m not a politician.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’m a police officer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when
matters are before the courts, naturally I cannot comment on them.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">--because they’re
before the courts, right?</i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Right!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thank you.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Oh <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>, we are
before courts for thee.</b></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-48312640008610498512013-11-27T15:11:00.000-07:002014-11-04T01:05:57.714-07:00A Brief History of "Oh So Many Years"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Brief History of “Oh So Many Years”<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>_1_</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Norah Jones and Billie Joe Armstrong (2013)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7lZhbCZ4QQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7lZhbCZ4QQ</a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>starts at around 23:28, so go back.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--Billie heard the Everlys' <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Songs Our Daddy Taught Us</i>, and thought, since he was rich and
famous, he’d like to cover it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His wife
urged Norah, who he’d once met at an awards gala, as someone to do it with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So it happened, over a total of 9 days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Everlys, of course, came from a steeped
tradition going back generations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if
you’ve got the money and a hint o’ time, well, that cures all defects.</div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Billie kind of turns it into a honky-tonk song and uses a
big lead riff that makes it almost rockabilly. He intended to stay true to the "original" Everlys, but in this instance he allowed himself some latitude.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
You can hear everyone striving for a sparseness true to an
original, but they can’t restrain themselves, such showoffs are they, and also
so much do they love the song. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reminds
me of Emmylou and Gram, a bit; Emmylou fed off the Bailey Bros., as did so
many. But see below.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>_2_</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>The Everlys – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Songs
Our Daddy Taught Us </i>(1958)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv6U-5agib8</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>--This must have been a bit of a weird album; after a couple
of big hits like “Wake Up, Little Susie” (banned in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city></st1:place> in ‘58), the Everlys had to provide
more content, overnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So. . .songs
they knew from youth and had sung forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Even Phil at 76 admitted that they didn’t really know what they were
singing; they were just striving for good harmonies and music and to please an
audience and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
They explicitly used
only an acoustic guitar and bass; they wanted the songs to sound like they
would be heard on a porch. What they knew. What they had.<br />
<br />
Or that would give cache', too, a bit like Billie Joe and Norah now.<br />
<br />
Notice _1_ sounds like a cacophony with all kinds of
things happening at the same time so that the import of the song, lyrically, is
lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drums destroying any sense of the
music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>I like how the Everlys' voices hadn’t even seemed to break by 20; <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kentucky</st1:place></st1:state> never met
science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those steel-stringed acoustics,
those voices like silken filaments (ever tried to break silk?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vulnerable, enduring, frail, resonant.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Everlys works for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>An early vocal pop tune.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>_3_ <br />
<br />
The Bailes Brothers <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">aka</i>
The Bailey Brothers (1949)</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d54zakYox58</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>Of course, nothing comes from nowhere, and the Everlys
(songs our daddy taught us) learned from the Bailes, or Bailey Brothers; that’s
where they got the harmony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> The Everlys' dad could easily have introduced this one, since it was in <u>his</u> puberty. </span><br />
<br />
The steel
guitar put the melancholy in the song, and the banjo lends the bouzouki-type
sound; if one hasn’t a grand piano or a sophisticated horn or wind instrument,
one has voices or banjo with its available steel strings. Notice this sound. <br />
<br />
Importantly,
Billie Joe Armstrong made Norah Jones swear that she would listen to no other
versions of the Everlys’ album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly,
however, <strong>he</strong> did; his entire approach to the song, and obviously the lead riff
from _1_, is based on the original by the Baileys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yep, women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Keep ‘em in the dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Never let
them know or they might mess it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Billie Joe just wanted to make sure Norah sang the high Don part. This
overproduced version, _1_, actually loses something by Jones not being ½ way in
control of the song, as she isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
gets throwaway honky-tonk instead of meaningfully moving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still, good song; captivating, captive
female; I can get into that, but in the end I’m a man and it ends up being a
long way from a “Rocking Good Way” with Brook Benton and Dinah Washington.</div>
<br />
_4_<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Turns out that this song was written by Marie or Maria,
“Frankie,” Bailes, wife of Walter Bailes or Bailey, when she was, well, maybe
not so legitimate by today’s standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Walter, like others of his brothers, got to be a priest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think, though, that that is where the
special feeling comes into this song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The writer is not just thinking of the future, as we do now, but of the
past, and of sins then.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is saying:
“let me sin again, and I will make it right.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That is where the peculiar power of this song comes from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not, if you listen to Billie Joe now,
about a guy longing for a girl, and it is not even, if you listen to the
Everlys or the Baileys, an ambiguous song about heartache and longing; actually
it is about a striated troubled love for someone that may be
illicit—potentially damning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is
where the “years” of the song come from if you’re 16, or even 18.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I defy an18-yr-old girl today to write this
song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Frankie is imagining back into a longing that seems to have gone on for decades; and if you've ever been 16, a couple of months can be that long.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>This song is not about Billie Joe of Green Day, or Norah
Jones; it’s about a young girl, and that’s where this great music came from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would Billie Joe, or Norah, or for that
matter even Phil or Don Everly, choose “oh so many years” as a chorus
line?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
so _5_<br />
<br />
The song was written a long time ago by a woman for a man. The later renditions are great, as I've said above, but I am haunted by the missing voice in this song. And that's the lead voice of the woman in this song, and also the one who wrote it. It sure ain't, ain't, ever Billy Joe. I hope a great female singer will do this song again one day and put it in its rightful place in the country pantheon.<br />
<br />
-zr<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-36894369949727443162013-11-24T07:18:00.000-07:002014-11-04T01:02:17.447-07:00Don Cherry Inaugurates Rob Ford in 2014<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I jes wanna, jes wanna come down here and tell you kids, you
kids out there, what a great guy Rob Ford is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, now, maybe you’re sayin’ he’s a big crack smoker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe ok.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But I seen this guy smokin’ crack, and lord love ‘im, he smoked
crack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heh, heh, I put him out there
once at the BBQ in Mississauga, an’ boy that kid loved to smoke crack.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But he did it—you know why, you know why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>BECAUSE he <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">loved</b> to smoke crack; that’s why he did it, kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And doan let anyone tell you anything else in
life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You wanna smoke crack and get to
be mayor, then you do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doan let
anyone tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You coaches out there,
I <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">toald </b>you. . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dis guy, dis guy. . . .</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Well, c’mon c’mon what else I got?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
But hey, I know I’m gonna get in trouble for dis, you
people, you people who like to say—an-an-anyway—stop interruptin’—I say he’s a
good boy, and geez I used to see him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Saw him play waterboy for the tiny-mite Ice-Hogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Thing about Rob—the thing about Rob is--is he just don’t
like these, these people, callin’ ‘im names ‘n everyfink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Get me mad too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you know, you know what you just doan
wanna do, it’s get these boys mad atchew, ‘cuz then there’s gonna come some
boys stick up for ya.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like Wensink
I had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wannent no mad dog—got 20
goals for me--but boy, you doan wanna mess with him, alright!s<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I seen Doug Ford, I ‘member Dougie Sr.,
guys’d rip your throat out, but anyway, just sayin.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the way we did it <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">back then!!</b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Alright, what else we got?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>So like I’m sayin,’ guy comes down to the City Hall, buncha weirdos down
there an’ I dunno.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Guy just tries to
make it right, take care a business!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’d think, you’d think,
these people’d say “thank you,” but whadda we get?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whadda we get??<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hoa people.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I’m just sayin,’ if it was you people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fine broth of a lad, Robbie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe Chunky like I did with this stiff ‘ere,
anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What else we got?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
So this guy, this guy, is the kinda guy you wanna go to war
with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Smokin’ crack, whatever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You people, you people just don’t get
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kids, everyone wants an obese idiot
who drinks vodka and drives and smokes crack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You coaches out there, you gotta stop sayin’ “oh, I’m the
hoity-toity.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Come off it!!</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody else
wants to be around there when he is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
wanna have ‘em ridin’ shotgun, just like Semenko.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Now, now, now I wanna get to something that really breaks me
up here, it’s about a guy, fireman guy, lord love him, he was just 28, 2 kids,
comin’ home, tried to help somebody when he was off duty, turns out some
crack-smokin’ pinko run ‘im down when he was just tryin’ to help, off duty an’
everything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this one is for
major-sargeant-brigade-major-reserves-princess-patricias-firemean dude—lord
love him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thumbs up.</div>
<br />
-zr<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3553836796218586836.post-27302782145744650602013-11-09T05:11:00.000-07:002015-08-16T04:25:01.996-06:00Just Give Me 5.10.15 Minutes of Your Hate: Parsing Rob Ford’s Rage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Just Give Me 5.10.15 Minutes
of Your Hate: Parsing Rob Ford’s Rage<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Yeah, I don’t know, I thought of one of Ruth Brown’s
signature R&B songs (“5.10.15 Hours of Your Love”) when I watched Rob
Ford’s drunken rant video (<a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/11/07/mayor_rob_ford_caught_in_video_rant.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013/11/07/mayor_rob_ford_caught_in_video_rant.html</span></a>).</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I only watched it once and I don’t need to see it again;
it’s gross and pathetic, but it’s what 1/3 of Canadians will vote for and
support, come hell or high water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>*That,* not Rob Ford, is what is sad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Hand him a microphone, and Don Cherry, that erstwhile bare-knuckles
moralist, will still support a train wreck as <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">the leader of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
largest city.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would Don Cherry
support Rob Ford as his team captain with the Springfield Indians?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But as Mayor of his city, you bet, because Rob, flushed though he never
not is, it at least not a “pinko.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even
if he didn’t “make the trains run on time,” even if he didn’t fulfill his
promises, Rob is still the guy who *says* he’ll make the trains run on time,
and that’s enough for 1/3 of Canadian voters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You just have to say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t
have to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You preach “accountability,”
but then you use <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s
largest city’s City Hall as a man-cave, and somehow that’s not “entitlement.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just what do Conservatives mean when they use
words like “accountability” and “entitlement”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>??<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> they mean?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Anyway, as for the video.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well, my title, above, is probably misleading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Who can parse, or should bother parsing, a drunken rant?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I don’t know; one ought always to try to
interpret and figure things out. What struck me was, IIRC, that Ford said first
that he needed 10 minutes to kill a guy and rip his throat out and gouge out
his eyes and so on. . .and then 5. . .but then also 15, I think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, when you’re seriously, seriously drunk,
all points narrow to a miniscule place in front of your feet (years since Rob
saw his, but whatever).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the bravado
of a drunkard who knows he’s got whiskey bravery, Ford assures his audience
that he is not one to be messed with, even when messed up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is, despite the handful of neurons he’s
got left firing, pretty focused—pretty focused, in his own mind, on those who might
call him down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lets people know, on
no uncertain terms, that he will—and can—mess up anyone up who messes with him
and his family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then, in the
intensity of his rage/mock bravado, etc., he can’t seem to fix on a
timeline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First it’s 10 minutes, then
it’s 5, then it’s 15, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even a
drunken drunk can often fixate on just one thing; indeed, sometimes just one
thing is all a drunken drunk <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can</i>
fixate on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Rob Ford can’t even seem
to do this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can’t get his story
straight even when he’s reduced to miniscule capacity on the one subject that
is what is animating what is left of his mental functioning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rob Ford might be a good motivator as a
football coach—who knows?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’d hate
for him to be drawing up plays in the red zone when we’re down by 6 with no
time left on the clock. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He can’t even
figure out how long it would take him to kill someone.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
As a former longtime Torontonian, I feel for <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think anyone can actually love <st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city>, possibly not anyone even born there (and imagine
all the changes <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city></st1:place>
has absorbed, whether you’ve lived there 5 or 75 years!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How many other cities, anywhere, have changed
as much, as successfully, as <st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city>?), but <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> can earn one’s
grudging respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope both of you who
might read this really get what I’m saying; <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> really isn’t about you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city></st1:place>
is about a big city that slowly, slowly makes you feel like an individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t say that about many other
capitals—try it in <st1:city w:st="on">Rome</st1:city> or <st1:city w:st="on">Sydney</st1:city>
or <st1:city w:st="on">Paris</st1:city> or <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Stockholm</st1:place></st1:city> or whatever—just try it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In its way, <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> is one of the great cities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s sad to see it in the world press
because of Ford, a suburban fatman offered the keys to a massive economic and
cultural sector.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m astonished that it
even has made the news.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s well-nigh
impossible for Canada to make the world news anywhere, for any reason, but
Harper on the environment and foreign policy and Ford with his crack seem to be
doing yeoman service in that regard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Politicians behave badly everywhere, but maybe the reason the world
press has become so fixated on what Harper and Ford are doing is precisely
because what they are doing are things that they—those presses and
countries—had just never expected of Canada—destroying the environment, being a
total outlier on small-arms treaties, joining basically no-one on automatic
support for Israel while other countries are at least contemplative and hopeful
of dialogue, closing embassies and shutting off contact, smoking crack as the
leading civic official of the biggest city, and so on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like finding out your uncle was (pick
your notorious criminal), but not only is loud and proud about it, he’s only
momentarily repentant and keen and sure to be re-elected.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>
needs a moral reset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can sort of
understand how we’ve come to this pass (another subject), but it sure better be
an interregnum, and I hope Canadians of generations succeeding mine will restore
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
moral compass.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
I always tried to sway European friends away from the
automatic allure of cities like Los Angeles (I’ve been there, and it ain’t no
tv and the angels walk by night), but now Canada isn’t looking at all like the
really basically cosmopolitan or otherwise down-to-earth place that it kind of
is; instead, it just looks like some vicious redneck backwater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My guess is that is why Canada is at last
getting some world attention—because it is looking just as tawdry and corrupt
and venally self-interested as other countries it used to hold itself above.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
There’s a lot I don’t like about the Ford coverage—the chequebook
journalism, or at least the creep of it, the going to a guy’s house as he’s
leaving for work—I don’t support that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But with his sense of entitlement, his refusal to be accountable, and
the company he keeps (from countless lowlifes and criminals to Jim Flaherty and
Prime Minister Stephen Harper), Ford has brought it on himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m tired and weary of people who say he
should “take a couple weeks off” or “get help.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rob Ford invited cameras to see him “get help” for his soda pop
addiction and take off some pounds—how did that work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when the Fords “get help,” you kinda just
generally don’t want to know those people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When Dougie and Robbie and their Dad “get help,” they tend not to be
speaking of nannies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rob Ford thinks he
can make his problems go away if he just says “I’m sorry,” and sadly, he’s
probably right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But all those who say
“he should just take a leave of absence” are just as morally supine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is comical to think that Rob Ford can just
take a couple weeks off or “get treatment” and rebound as a changed man, as one
who has changed the entire lineage of his entitled, bullying, criminal
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a mob don went into rehab for
a couple months, would you hire him as your butler?</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
No, the people who voted and will keep voting for Rob Ford
need a reset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must stop admiring not
just flawed people, but flawed people who boast of killing people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because eventually, one way or another, those
people <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i> end up implicated in the
killing of others. (How often have you stumbled around a dining room, drunk or
not, ranting about killing someone in graphic terms?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, don’t answer that, for I guess I just
don’t know how the world has changed.)<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>We
have to stop admiring and voting for people who are clearly involved in
criminal underworlds just because it suits our ideologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other countries have clawed their ways out of
such mentalities; we seem to be clawing our way in.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Rob Ford is a sad, sad case (and who isn’t, at one time or
another—I’m not setting myself above him, except that I don’t share his
fondness for criminals and lowlifes and drugs and far-right entitled cronies,
etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to like the guy; I would
have a beer and talk football or hockey with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in his progressive involvement in crime,
and through his sense of entitlement inherited through his bullying family, he
has brought problems upon himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Clearly, it came from his parents and his father.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t get to be Rob Ford without some
pretty stern tutelage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he and his
family have brought shame on his city and his country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is his sense of entitlement and lack of
accountability, though, that he and his buddies like Don Cherry and Jim
Flaherty and Stephen Harper think that they can just “move on.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Maybe the worst thing that ever happened to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Toronto</st1:place></st1:city> was the GTA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That gave us adulterer Mel Lastman not
wanting to go to Africa for fear he’d be boiled in a pot (you’d think a guy
like Mel would know something about stereotyping and its darker outcomes),
calling in the military for a snowstorm, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>People who live in the GTA need a reset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They need to start thinking of themselves as citizens of what is at
least potentially really one of the world’s great cities, and not as people
whose windows on the world are two-car garages.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
Enough.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
--zr</div>
</div>
Zorgreporthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11369931982552832134noreply@blogger.com0