Writings by Ian Lidster

Who are these people?

2005-07-31T11:49:00.000-07:00

Either I am coming undone, or a huge fraud is being foisted upon an undiscerning public. I prefer to think the latter possibility is the likely one, since denial of my own lack of currentness tends to guide me more and more these days. The fraud, as I see it, concerns certain females of difficult-to-discern calling in life, yet who seem to be preeminent in their exposure. That is, who are these broads and what is it that they do?
The first one to confuse me in this manner is Jennifer Lopez who, for a while, especially when she was connected with the amazingly untalented yet ego-driven Ben Affleck, went by the sobriquet 'J-Lo'. I don't think the name J-Lo is operative any longer, not that I give so much of a shit one way or the other. Anyway, what exactly is, or was J-Lo? Is she a singer? Is she an actress? She has deservedly never been lauded for possessing skill in either domain. She is a moderately pretty, moderately Hispanic looking young woman with a stunningly appealing ass. OK, I admit I am something of a gluteal fetishist, and that part of her works for me.
The other one is a certain Jessica Simpson. Her mug is on every mag, yet, I don't get it. I think she is on some TV show of which I have no desire to ever tune in. An article in the Globe and Mail tells me she is in a remake film of the 'Dukes of Hazard', as if such a piece of video-excreta warranted a cinematic remake, let alone having been aired in the first place.
I guess she is supposed to be attractive. Yes, she is a cute-ish blonde, with cute-ish boobs, and that seems to be about it. She is not sexy. She is not alluring. She is not even mildly interesting, and it seems she has cut a swathe of some sort by being bonehead stupid.
What a scary comment on contemporary society that such a person should be making huge sums of money just for 'being'. And, not for 'being' much of anything.
Look at other attractive women over the years, including those who have featured relatively prominently both in my, and the sexual fantasies of others. Take Marilyn Monroe. She was an actress of, if not the first order, at least one with a deft comedic touch, and sometimes a surprisingly compelling dramatic talent. Debby Harry of Blondie, aside from the fact I've adored her for literally decades by this point (and she still looks damn fine), she is one hell of a song stylist. One of the best.
For heaven's sake, even boobsie Pam Anderson does act, she actually works for a living, and has a lot more of a mind than the prominence of her torsal orbs let dirty-old-men (and dirty 14-year-old boys) lets be acknowledged. In other words, there is a reason for her existence.
But, I guess in a Paris Hilton (speaking of un-pretty, and un-interesting) world, there is something afoot that I am not to be made privy to. Just as well, for I find no wicked ideas are spawned by, in the case of the aforementioned Jessica, a female who seems to exemplify a mid-Western Baptist's concept of sin. Sort of like the Playboy centerfolds of yore, they didn't work for me, either. Maybe I'm odd, when all is said and done, but I've always fancied women who look, sound and smell like real women. You know, the sort of person with whom, after passion is spent, you just might like to lie back in bed and chat with.

Fry those little boobies

2005-07-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

I see where the 'Nanny State', aka the Vancouver Island Medical Health officer, wants to keep young girls from baking their bods in the tanning parlors. He wants it passed into decree that no juveniles are to be entitled to partake of excesses of UV and, while he is at it, he also wants it rendered illegal for minors to adorn those fried bodies with tats. I think this is carrying state control to a ludicrous extreme. In fact, after a vacation in Hawaii last year, I came to believe that it was some sort of generation genetic manifestation that all young females are now thrust from the womb bearing some sort of inscription on the lower back just above the panty-line. Such tattoos were so common, that rare was the junior miss who did not bear one. I think even those spending their summers at tropical Bible camps were so adorned.
Personally, I am not so much of a tat-person, since I am of a generation who associated such decoration with seafarin' men, criminals and assorted low-lifes. Doubtless, in modern context I am wrong, but I am comfortable with my biases and choose to keep them, thank-you.
But, back to the tanning salons, will the MHO also be mounting beach patrols to chase the scalliwags from the seaside, since the same rays as can be found in the parlors, also exude from the sun?
I mean, why should I, as a citizen of this society, be particularly exercised if young females want to fry their little titties off? They are their little titties, to do with as they like. If they want to court melanoma, then that is their concern. Or, at the very least, their parents' concern, it sure as hell isn't mine. I mean, for Christ's sake, if you want to go around banning things that young people indulge in, why not ban those fucking noisy, clattering and a thousand times more dangerous skateboards? I'd buy into that one. At the same time, how about upping the minimum driver's licence age to 21, so acned boneheads with thudding boom-boxes don't scream up and down my street (a park zone) at freeway speeds. That one would have my support, as well.
However, increase incursions on the right of the public to be stupid cuts nowhere with me. It is my right, and my kid's right to court destruction as he or I would choose. It's the way of a democracy, so leave my freedom alone.

Maybe Tories and Grits are actually in cahoots

2005-07-19T15:37:00.000-07:00

Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the federal Conservatives are really just an arm of the the Liberals? I mean, Stephen Harper, really. This is a man so devoid of dynamic that he makes the late Robert Stanfield look like a madcap. He makes Mr. Stanfield, even in his grave, look livelier than the current occupant of the role of the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
Now, I know that Mr. Harper supposedly has a vibrant IQ, and that he is a thoughtful, albeit, plodding gentleman. Now, considering the despicable carryings on of the Grits over the past few years, and further considering the utterly political leadership talents of the execrable Paul Martin, you would have thought the Tories would have a cakewalk into office. But, it is not to be. According to recent polls, Mr. Harper is about as popular with voters as dogshit on the shoe at a Royal garden party. I believe that now 98.3 per cent of Canadian voters now disapprove of him as Tory leader, and that's just among Tory members.
But, they only have themselves to blame. Look at their leadership history. Who did they pit against the knave-ish Pierre Trudeau but the gormless Joe Clark? Who did they, in their Alliance incarnation put up against the thuggish Chretien? The remarkably 'challenged' Stockwell Day.
True Tories, of course, like to blame all of this nonsense on the old Alliance/Reform cabal, but that is crud. Witness the aforementioned Joe Clark and Robert Stanfield. And, John Diefenbaker. What about 'Honest John.' In the first place, he was nothing of the sort, and secondly he, due to his bombastic-and-nothing-more term of office, firmly secured the Liberals their place in the sun for virtually ever-more, so it seems.
Consequently, I can only assume, due to their utter non-achievement, the Tories are really just an arm of the Liberal party, designed to secure the chronically undeserving Grits federal office in perpetuity. And, anybody who can make that gang of self-seeking, Central Canada biased, non-talents look good is justification enough for their existence.
Meanwhile, a nation weeps -- or cracks open another 'Blue' and says, "At least the NHL strike is over. That's what really counts. Maybe it is what really counts. Crack one for me, too.

Carry on carrying on

2005-07-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

The British do this sort of thing so well. The Churchillian fist is raised to the skies, or into the Underground, and the steely-pluck issues forth. They have an advantage in that they are used to this sort of thing. They've lived through the Blitz, and 80 years of IRA nastiness, and they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and carry on with the business of living. The Americans should take a lesson from this. While 9/11 was hideous and an atrocity by any standard, other than in its magnitude, it represented nothing the Brits haven't experienced countless times over. They don't soil themselves over the atrocious elements in a mad world, they methodically fight back. They did it in the early 1940s, when they, for a brief moment, stood alone against the Nazi horde. They did it when the crypto-fascist Argentinians rattled their rusted sabres a couple of years ago, and said, "You want to fight with us? Very well. You shall fight with us." In the Brighton bombing, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher straightened out her seams, and carried on with the business of the day. So, international terrorists may as well resign themselves to the fact that the Brits are not the Spaniards, who immediately wimped out following the Madrid bombing. They are not (I am ashamed to say) the Canadians who have proved themselves (at the governmental level) resolutely unprepared to take up arms against a sea of troubles that could evolve into global conflagration. We once were brave. We no longer are. The British still are. God bless them.

We already have a two-tier society

2005-07-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

I find it odd that certain Canadians decry any hint of two-tiering our crumbling health system, when you consider the fact that those who will bleat the loudest about the private sector having a role in curing our ills, are the same ones who already take full and over-privileged advantage of their very special tier, that gives them an entitlement that the rest of us can only dream of. Dream of, yet pay for.
I am talking, of course, of the exalted souls on the public tit, the public (so-called) servants, including government employees of all ilk, school teachers, and anyone else who pulls their pay from my tax dollar. These are the people who not only pull down exceedingly pleasing salaries, but can also boast almost total job security, and avail themselves of such perks as ludicrously extensive vacation time, sick time, pension plans, health plans, bonuses, and the right, when they retire at 55, to then double-dip into other 'public' purse financed enterprises in the community.
They, needless to say, live in a 'special' world, only open to the very few. How many people without a government or strong union (oh, did I mention that these are the most 'unionized' workers in society?) ever even hear of positions in the BC Ferries fleet, or in government liquor stores? These jobs aren't even advertised. And, if they were, it would make no difference, because the fix is already in. How many relatives of teachers and principals get stuck on the 'teacher-on-call' list ad infinitum? Very few. Ten minutes out of teachers' college, and still peeing their trainers, these kids will get a fulltime classroom job in a trice. Others, not connected, will be subbing for years.
There was a time when public servants got these perks because they were actually paid less than those in the private sector, so bonuses were offered to attract the higher-end of the mediocre. No longer is this the case, and it has not been so for at least a generation. So, why does the inequity continue? Why do the rest of us, health care plan-less, and pension-less, go without and also suffer the indignity of paying for the benefits of these bozos?
Why, because they are the ones who make the rules for themselves and their ilk. We suffer from the delusion that we live in a democracy and that our politicians make the laws. Not so. The top bureaucrats do. They call the shots, and they look out for their own. Anyone who ever watched the brilliantly cynical and honest Brit series Yes, Minister knows that to be true.
"First, we kill the lawyers," said the Bard. Better yet (not that killing the lawyers is a bad thing), is first we kill the public servants, and that will starve out many of the lawyers.

Ineffable Attraction

2005-07-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

With the sort of anal compulsiveness that marks their emotionally shallow lives, scientists throughout history have attempted to find clinical explanations for the human phenomenon of falling in love. In recent years they have looked to chemical explanations for a behavior that has beguiled and sometimes distressed human beings throughout the history of the species. More recently they have equated the quickening of the pulse and the stirring in the loins of an individual who comes into contact with an object of desire to pheromones -- an exuded but consciously undetectable emission that will send the recipient into paroxysms of love, lust, and all the other related impulses that indicate one human being is thoroughly turning another on.
I don't know the answer to this, and I cannot pass judgment on whether or not the pheromone theory has validity, all I know is that I have always liked the trip. I have been in love in the past and I continue to be in love. The objects of my affection have rarely resembled one another in a physical sense -- I've never looked to a certain 'type'. Nor have I ever actually sought a subject for my affections. It has always just "happened", and when it has happened I have always known it has happened. And when it has happened it has always been a mutual attraction -- a mysterious signal carries across the universe and suggests that something magical is afoot. My instincts have never proved wrong. I don't do unrequited, and haven't since I was in high school. I did it then because I didn't know what the signs were. Once I learned those, I came slowly to understand the 'magic' of it all.
The question has often arisen about the validity of 'love-at-first-sight'. I think love is almost always at first sight. In virtually an instant both parties will know that there is a cataclysm afoot. It is a cataclysm that can either be ignored, or it can be embraced, but personal experience tells me you 'know' right from the beginning that the universe has altered ever-so-slightly, and however this alteration might be pursued, it has happened.
It has been said that Dante and Beatrice never once exchanged words, even though their tale is one of the great love stories of all time. How could it be a love story when they never spoke, never kissed, never made love? Quite easily. Love is only about the aforementioned when circumstances permit the physical expression. If it doesn't, or doesn't on a regular basis, it does not diminish the intermingling of two souls. That phenomenon is not something that can be explained by any science geek.

Society's Child?

2005-07-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

As astonishing as it is to most people who can even boast the barest patina of decency and compassion, that the mephistophelean-eyed cutie, Karla, is about to see the light-of-day not filtered through a barred window, it is even more astonishing to think that the psycho Salome sought court protection from people who might be mean to her. But, most astonishing of all is that there are those who think that she deserves some sort of a chance when the doors of the slammer close behind her.
I like to think I am a reasonably compassionate fellow who would do what he could to give at least one more break to the downtrodden and neglected of society. In my professional career I have worked with ex-jailbirds, and I have offered those breaks in the hopes that they would turn around and embrace, in the words of Maxwell Smart, the forces of "niceness." And, you know, a few of them actually did. At least for a little while.
But, as far as I am concerned, Ms. Karla was given a massive break that she did not for a second deserve, and I think the 'well' of breaks should now go dry on her. I honestly, and maybe this is sinful of me, don't give a shit how unfortunate her future life is. I hope it is utterly dreadful. I hope it is as nightmarish as the nightmares her victims (including her own sister) went through. People for whom their ultimate -- and predestined by their hideous captors -- demises were surely a mercy.
No, I feel nothing for Karla. I don't even feel hatred in the true human sense because she is beyond the pale of compassion. I seek no revenge. That's up to God, and God is terribly wise, I am told. But, much as I regarded Ted Bundy's plaintive pleadings before they finally hit the switch, I think I will be amused by whatever negative befalls Karla. Because, whatever it is, it won't really be sufficient.

Bonehead Society II

2005-06-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just when I think the world can't get stupider. Just when I think the world can't become even more vacuous -- it does. Where are we when people are being blown to ratshit in Iraq, and African victims of vicious tyrants are starving en masse, and we are listening to the pompous ramblings of a couple of well-past-their-due-date pop performers? I mean to ask, just who the fuck are Bono and Bob Geldof that they should actually have credence and people should be interested in their respective world views? Who are these so-so entertainers that they should presume, with oozing hubris that we should pay anything resembling attention to them? Truly, their grasp on global tragedy is about on a par with bonehead cultist Tom Cruise's pronouncements on psychiatry, chemical imbalances and postpartum depression.
At one level it is almost amusing, at another level, it is frighteningly disquieting. Let's haul out a bunch of tired old second string rockers and put on a big concert for Africa. Say, hasn't that already been done? Say, wasn't it already done and didn't make an iota of difference to the plight of that hideous continent's victims? Of course it was.
And, who is this Bono person that he should hang out with Popes and Prime Ministers and they should actually grant him audience? He is entitled to his views, no doubt. As much as Sean Penn is entitled to his views on Iranian politics, but I do not give a damn what he has to say because his opinion is of no more importance than my own, and arguably less well-founded. His opinions are irrelevant, as are those of Michael Moore, Bono and Bob, and dumbhead Tom, because they have absolutely no power to change anything. Those who call the genuine shots, rightly or wrongly, and all too often wrongly, do what they do. Always have, always will. The tragedy lies in the fact that people who should be granted credence, are accorded none because they are not pop-stars. They're not in the mass public's scope.
No, to have creds today, I guess you have to be an egocentric, pontificating international bore who makes vacuous pronouncements based on very little, and you will be guaranteed both ink and air-play. Just ask John Ralston Saul. He got the message, and now even those who truly have no idea who he is, think they know who he is.

Not Wanted on this Trek

2005-06-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, my dear wife is 'not' a so-called "Trekkie". If she were, I wouldn't be married to her. In fact, I'd never have dated her in the first place. I'm sorry if I offend any Trekkies out there, but I think that anybody who obsesses to the point of loss-of-touch-with-reality over any piece of fantasy fiction is a looney.
On the other hand, I do piss her off about Star Trek. That's mainly because she likes the series in all its incarnations from the clunky first series to the excruciatingly boring last series. I don't know why, but she does. And, it irritates the bejesus out of her when I point out the glaringly obvious logical flaws, appalling dialogue and hokey special effects. It irritates her because she likes the fantasy of it all. I don't like it because I don't like the fantasy of it all.
Likewise, she is enchanted over the Star Wars series, and I am not. Space vehicles that go "whoosh" in the vacuum of way out there, are space vehicles that are violating all sorts of scientific truths, so how can I get caught up in any of the other pseudo-science being presented to a slathering band of aficionado?
No, if any bit of writing has to do with the impossible, or highly inlikely, then at least such offerings as Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy and Red Dwarf satisfy my need to not take patent nonsense very seriously. Added to which, both the aforementioned do an admirable job of mocking the genre of crappy sci-fi.
I guess my real crankiness stems from the fact I don't deal well with fantasy. A vehicle has to either be plausible, or else it has to be utterly outrageous in its depiction of a world gone mad, much as was the case with the films of the Marx Brothers, and still is with The Simpsons. In those offerings, there is no attempt to offer plausibility, consequently they often succeeded or succeed in finding a greater truth. That's the mark of genuinely good writing, as opposed to genuinely piss-poor writing.
But, I must confess, that even when the writing is reputedly good, like the Harry Potter series, I still cannot muster much interest in something I see as essentially tales for kids that have been, for some inexplicable reason, embraced by entirely too many adults.
And, for another so-called 'good writing' series, I must offer my uncalled-for thoughts on this Lord of the Rings stuff. For a reason that escapes me -- as a long-time journalist, an English major, and former teacher of high-school English -- I cannot get involved. I can't bring myself to be enchanted because, quite frankly, I think that Tolkein's writing is execrable. It is stultifyingly boring, and any attempts I've made to read this stuff have seen me reach maybe page 27 before I come to the conclusion that life is short, and death is long, so I cannot waste time in this manner. I have also attempted to watch a couple of the films and have packed it in at the video equivalent of page 27.
For me the premise is utterly unappealing. Why do I care about a place that never did exist and never will exist? How can I get involved in something that is as unreal as Superman? Gnomes and fairies and trolls ceased to have much impact on my life after I was seven or eight. I misguidedly assumed the literary maturation process worked in much the same way for others. Obviously I was wrong.
This is not to say I dislike all fantasies. I loved Close Encounters of the Third Kind because it actually asked some serious questions of us as human beings; I was enchanted likewise by the effects and questions of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and finally the Alien series frightened the snot out of me, and also offered Sigourney Weaver in all her sweaty boobsiness.
Not such a bad thing, and that moves me into the realm of an infinitely more satisfying fantasizing, but that would be a whole other topic.

I have a cunning plan

2005-06-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time it was waggishly referred to as a "sin-tax". The sin-tax was the bite governments took in granting companies official sanction to sell the 'legal' drugs, alcohol and tobacco. So, as you went to purchase your bottle of 'Old Cirrhosis Rye', you paid about eight-cents for the substance, and many, many extra dollars for the privilege of indulging your vice. In other words, it is the 'revenuers' greedy hand in the matter that makes wickedness costly. With tobacco it is the same.
But, governments -- and who can blame them? -- realized early on that people really like this stuff; some even 'have' to use it, so they should pay dearly to get it. The government coffers should swell handsomely thanks to the indulgences of the 'weak'. Since booze and tobacco are not deemed necessities of life, they are, in effect, luxuries, and those who have the wherewithal to purchase luxuries should also give a big bite to the taxman. If you don't have the wherewithal, but choose to indulge anyway, so be it.Those who would officially have their hand in your pocket are very democratic; they do not discriminate in terms of financial status.
All in all, it's a pretty good scheme, except for one element that is rarely addressed: it puts our governments in the drug-dealing business. So, you have the contradiction of government sanctioned and financed health districts fomenting against the lifestyle excesses of their clients, and indeed the government itself takes a high-handed (disguised as high-road) approach to these health-assaulting substances -- especially tobacco, as we've noted in recent months -- yet it continues to rake in the Loonies from the flogging of the stuff, at breakneck pace. If everybody were to quit smoking and drinking tomorrow, Victoria and Ottawa would be faced with a crisis of monstrous proportion.
Yet, somehow those in the corridors of power do not appreciate this hypocrisy. This is especially true in the case of tobacco. Government officially fulminates against the weed, and tries, Quixote-like, to drive a lance through 'Big Tobacco' via a doomed-to-fail lawsuit. At the same time officialdom reaps the benefits from its sale. It has not escaped many smokers that if the government were indeed serious about the evils of tobacco consumption it would just outlaw the stuff as the public health hazard it genuinely is.
But, we know that will not happen. The government is, with no exaggeration, in the position of the 'clean 'dealer' of illicit drugs who despises his pathetic clients, but is prepared to take their money for the dope he can lay on them.
However, rather than rail against hypocrisy, which is to no avail, we'll instead assume there are those in power who take such matters as smoking and excessive drinking seriously, and would genuinely like to do something about public consumption. For them, here is a modest, yet deadly serious proposal.
Rather than mount futile lawsuits against the companies that deal in alcohol and tobacco, why not hit 'them' with a 10 per cent tax that is specifically dedicated to helping those who run afoul of the product? Statistics suggest (though they vary, depending on whom you're talking to)that around 90 per cent of those who drink alcohol, do so safely, sanely and sociably. However, 10 per cent (at least) of drinkers are alcoholics. That 10 per cent is responsible for the bulk of such social ills as domestic abuse, neglected children, impaired driving, road fatalities, assaults (both sexual and physical), psychiatric ward admissions, emergency room admissions, and so on, through a virtually endless list of socially and fiscally costly societal woes. Meanwhile, recovery and rehabilitation centres (a potential growth industry, to be sure) are strained well past the maximum in attempting to help those souls who are desperately attempting to get away from their addiction. So, take that 10 per cent tax on the distillers and brewers, and direct it towards funding alcohol rehabilitation facilities and their employees.
In other words, why shouldn't the manufacturers of the stuff pay part of what is needed to help those who run afoul of their product?Likewise tobacco. Most smokers would love to quit. They know their habit(an addiction some deem to be more difficult than heroin to break) is health-robbing. They would like to live to a ripe old age, too. A 10 percent tax on tobacco products (to be borne by the companies) would at least make available some resources and materials to aid in that objective .We could establish smoke-ending clinics on an ongoing basis, financed by this new revenue. We would be enabled to make nicotine patches, and other smoking cessation material available gratis. Pump some of this money into research on new means of breaking the back of this nefarious addiction.
Such would be a proactive step by government, infinitely more effective and honest than lawsuits and draconian bits of legislation like the late (lamented, or unlamented, depending on whom you're talking to, WCB smoking ban in the workplace) and would genuinely show concern rather than greedy hypocrisy. We need a new sin-tax that will genuinely deal with the sin and sinner alike in a positive way.

Bonehead Society

2005-06-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.-Amos Bronson Alcott.

Are people today actually stupider than the people of yesterday? Evidence abounds that seems to indicate that they are. But, maybe because so many people now have the means to expose their stupidity to the masses, it only seems like they are.

Personal blogs, e-mailing and 'reality' TV shows hint that there is a creeping, oozing imbecility abroad in the land, but are those things truly representative of the state of our intellectual weal?Christ, I hope not. I use the television show Jeopardy as evidence for what I am presenting here. I've always been a follower of this high-end quiz. I even go back to the Art Fleming days when they used to flip the cards over by hand, but I have no quarrel with current compere, Alex Trebek. He's adept at his task and is also a compatriot. While it remains a fine, and often challenging vehicle in the wasteland of TV (I figure I've won about $45 billion from the comfort of my living-room couch over the years), something has been troubling me about Jeopardy of late. That is, the caliber of the contestants. Albeit most of them are very astute, quick on the buzzer, and obviously bright enough, but some of them dumbfound me by their lack of knowledge about anything that went before their time. For the younger contestants, that means that happenings pre-1970 might as well have happened in medieval times.

Question: Was British Prime minister in 1970."Who is Winston Churchill, Alex.""Winston Churchill died in 1965, you ignorant bastard!"The latter quote didn't come from Alex, it came from me. But, I mean, 1970,for heaven's sake. That's only last week, relatively speaking. The Beatles had already played their last live concert by 1970. And Mick Jagger had sired at least his third illegitimate child.

What's gone wrong here? Where has our sense of history gone? How can we see ourselves in any sort of context if we're oblivious to our origins? It distresses me because the malaise of intellectual isolationism is not just confined to Jeopardy -- the contestants of which show are among the more succulent fruits on the tree of knowledge, or they wouldn't have passed the regime of tests to get there -- but is widespread. Ask any academic about the paucity of general knowledge amongst college and university freshmen,and those of us with an ounce of trepidation about the direction society is headed, would be horrified. Furthermore, this ignorance is not confined to people of little consequence, and that's what gives me the vapors.

Think of our political leadership. I'm not going to be partisan here, the way you vote or don't vote is your call, and I learned during my column-writing days that the best way to lose half your readership is to declare your personal politics. But, I am going to express my dismay at the buffoonery that is displayed by people who steal our money holus-bolus, and also reserve the right to expropriate our land, tell us who we should or shouldn't have sex with, and have the power to wage war. That scares the hell out of me. Let's go back to Sir Winston S. Churchill. Not only was he prime minister during Britain's darkest days (and was in his late sixties before he even reached the top of the "greasy pole", after a lifetime of service), but he also wrote a history of World War Two; and of the English Speaking Peoples,among many other fine tomes, was a dab-hand with brush and easel, and was a lecturer of renown. His speeches stand as testament to his legacy. His contemporary, Franklin D. Roosevelt was nearly equally astute and committed, and he did all that while lugging around a pair brutally uncomfortable and heavy leg-braces.

Amazing men, both. Can you think of a political leader in the world today who would have the right, in terms of ability, to even apply a whisk broom to the greatcoats of those men? I can't. That's distressing. Distressing because, as nasty as the world was in 1940, the potential for disaster on a cataclysmic scale is much greater today.

It's greater today, but the joint is being run by C-minus students.

And, those who can't ...

2005-06-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

I am somewhat mortified to think that my great-grandfather was one of the founders, and a charter member of the BC Teachers' Federation. I'm mortified because the BCTF has allowed itself to become an abomination of self-seeking lefties who depart a country-mile from their alleged role in the life of the average schoolmarm. The BCTF is more like a 'cell' of pre-Russian Revolution Bolsheviks, that flails out in all directions against perceived evils in our hideous capitalistic society. Quixote-like the BCTF foments against the state of Israel in embracing the scarier elements of Palestinian society -- oh, don't get me wrong, I think Israel has much to answer for, as does Hamas -- or it wraps itself in cliched anti-Americanism in a knee-jerk hatred that represents Canadians at their paranoid worst. In the recent BC elections it wasn't unheard of for classroom teachers to parrot the musings of their union overlords in dissing children who might lean towards sympathy for the provincial Liberals. This I know of firsthand. And this, as a taxpayer who finances their hefty incomes (don't buy into the con that teachers are badly paid, for they are not), pension-plans and neverending holidays and so-called PD Days, this pisses me off. Oh, and so much for free-speech and free-thought in the classroom.
But, don't get me wrong. I like teachers. In fact, I used to be one. In my erstwhile profession I met and interacted with some fine scholars and dedicated souls who gave their all to their young charges. I also met others who were lazy, uninspired, dysfunctional and amoral. You know, just like any job. Of course, the crud teachers have a certain advantage in that they, thanks to their union, almost literally cannot be fired. There used to be a clause called "moral turpitude", which basically read that: if you fuck a student, kiss your job goodbye. Now even that one is rarely enacted to the extent it should be. So, good-teacher/bad-teacher, you'll keep your job, regardless. That is because the union is driven apopleptic at the thought of grading teachers according to merit. All are equal in this mini soviet society.
No, this diatribe is directed against a union that violates all tenets of a free-society, and that takes huge sums from the members of its closed shop so that they can rally the troops against perceived ills that have utterly nothing to do with conditions in the classroom or the wellbeing of
students.
So, as I read in the morning press, the BCTF is mulling over the possibility of strike-action to gain their members an even more lucrative contract. At the same time, they are suing the premier for the "porky" they accused him of uttering before the provincial election. That's odd, because all he did was state that the union was planning to do exactly what it now seems to be doing. All perfectly logical in the eyes of the province's most negative and uncooperative union, I guess.
Sorry, Great-Grandfather, but I cannot buy your politics. But, if you were still around, neither could you.

And, the BCTF tells (in the words of Inspector Frost) "porkies" about the support it has from the rank-and-file. Most teachers -- 'good' teachers that is -- are much too involved with their actual jobs to be involved in the ramblings of the union. Consequently, apathy tends to prevail entirely too much, allowing the doctrinaire to rule. So, when a press report indicates that 90% of teachers support strike action to demand a 720% increase in pay, read it actually at about 40-45 per cent, because that is the percentage that bothered to vote. Furthermore, cut the extra 10% from that, and you are left with 30-35%.

Aloha for the birds

2005-05-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

They had mowed the field in front of our condo near Kapaa, Kauai, causing huge disruptions in the routine followed daily by the voracious egrets. At the same time, the mowing resulted in the revealing of many wondrous devourables so relished by those same feral birds.
With huge amusement I watched an egret that had happened upon a special prize -- one of those hideous, vicious, nightmarish Hawaiian centipedes that are to ours of the same species as a Honda Civic is to a Mack truck, the Hawaiian version being the Mack.
The egret would throw the hapless centipede into the air, catch it, attempt to devour it, think better of it (the little bastards pack a brutal bite), chomp on it for a time, attempt to scarf it again, and so on, with numerous repeats of the same procedure. In all, the process must have lasted 10 minutes before the creature was finally consumed.
Egrets are feral birds on Hawaii, introduced a few decades ago to clean fields of assorted destructive insects. They have taken to the place with the sort of enthusiasm to be found in the pharmacist from Milwaukee or any other less-than-salubrious spot. They like it there. Why wouldn't they? The climate's swell, the pickings are good, and there are no known predators.
Tourists come to Hawaii and marvel at the avian life there. One is invariably awakened by birdsong, and what could be more pleasing?
Beaches and meadows are cluttered with clacking Mynahs. The lovable little zebra doves are bold enough to walk straight inside a condo if the slider to the lanai is left open. And there are cardinals, Japanese Whiteyes, meadowlarks, sparrows, thrushes, and more and more and more. And not one of the aforementioned birds is anything but a haole. They are all outsiders. They are all feral.
The only glimpse the average tourist gets of a 'real' Hawaiian bird, in most cases, is by casting an eye skyward where a glimpse might be had of the magnificent albatross or a soaring frigate bird. But even those pelagic creatures are not truly Hawaiian, they are high seas creatures to be found throughout tropical seas worldwide.
Hawaiian birds, those elusive, endangered creatures are only to be found in the high forests. Hawaiian birds, with their unique tails and curved beaks, the exotic honeycreepers are are never to be found around the garishness and noise of Waikiki, but far inland, where there remaining numbers are moderately (just moderately, mind) safe.
Hawaiian birds, adapted in Darwinian fashion to their environment over millennium after millennium are so rare that in all my travels there (a dozen or more times) and treks into the high country of Kauai (the best island for birds), I am yet to see more than a fluttering of wings in the trees, nothing ever close enough to be identified.
Hawaiian birds, with more vowels to their names than can be grasped by most Mainlanders -- there are two species with no consonants whatsoever (the Ou, and the Ooaa) -- are representatives of what can happen in the larger world if we take the example of what has happened in a microcosm.
A dreadful pity it is. The magnificent and utterly unique birds of Hawaii fell to a surfeit of landclearing, chicken diseases, mongooses (mongeese?), cats, dogs, pigs, 'outlander' birds, and mainly people.
Go to Hawaii, fall in love with it all, be enchanted by the birdsong, and be aware that none of your feathered friends are any more Hawaiian than you are. If you want to real thing, get lots of mosquito repellent, some goods boots, and hike miles into the sodden Alakai Swamp on Kauai, and you might just get lucky. If you are, it won't be better than sex (nothing is), but it will still be very, very good.

Cascadia the Gem on the Ocean

2005-05-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

The recently deceased journalist/pundit/Greenpeace founder, and great old hippie dude, Bob Hunter died far too prematurely, but his passing put me in mind of an evening many years ago; probably about 1969 or 1970, back when he was still a columnist for the Vancouver Sun, and had theretofore just been a mug shot with his column. But, for reasons I cannot remember, he showed up at a house-party in the Comox Valley, at which I too was in attendance. This was all pre-Rainbow Warrior days, and international fame/infamy days, when he was still basically a counterculture scribe who it seemed would have been more at home at the Georgia Straight, than the stolid and staid Sun.
That notwithstanding, I was a reader of his musings in those days -- and actually throughout his career, he rarely turned out a bad column -- so I was quite delighted to meet him, and we ended up in beer-fueled conversation throughout the course of the evening. We talked about virtually everything, and I found myself disagreeing about much of what he believed in, but it was nonetheless one of those dynamic sessions that sticks in the mind. It was nothing to do with so-called 'greatness'. In the first place, he wasn't hugely noteworthy in those days, and in the second place, I have never been star-fucker. I worked as a journalist for long enough to recognize the flaws in most noteworthies I met. The only exception I'll make in that regard is for Jean Vanier, who proved, in his whimsical, monklike mien to be as honest and serene as his image conveyed. But, I digress.
One idea of Bob Hunter's that we looked at on that lager-laced evening was his view of 'Cascadia' -- a geopolitical entity that he firmly believed would work, and should work, and should be embraced by all of us in the western part of the continent. There, whales notwithstanding, I found myself in complete accord with Hunter.
Cascadia was his vision of a new nation that would consist -- in varying degrees, and I am not longer certain of what his boundaries would be -- of western Canada. BC the Yukon, and Alberta would be one version. Those with larger views of Cascadia, as a truly economically viable unit, would see BC, the Yukon, Alaska, Washington and Oregon.
I liked the idea then, and I like it now, and I am amazed that more people in the west don't embrace it. Economically, with Pacific-rim positioning, it would be powerfully dynamic. It would also reflect the attitudes of the people of the West. I have far more in common with a Washingtonian, or even a Hawaiian than I have with an Ontarian. Indeed, I have nothing in common with Ontarians other than the fact I pay my taxes to the bastards. Ontarians and Ottawa are one, by the way. I pay taxes so the Liberal Party (hence Ontarians) can prop up their shaky, sleazy blackmail bargains with Quebec, so that the Liberal Party/Ottawa/Ontario can prevail. Prevail, regardless of thee and me in western Canada. The western part of this nation is regarded by Ontario/Ottawa/the Liberals, in much the manner Westminster regarded the 13 Colonies in the days before 1776. And, you know what, it is never going to get any better, and it is never going to get any different. The structure of Canada is fatally flawed in terms of those outside the central mass, and we are only needed for whatever resources we can offer.
So, as a little token of remembrance to Bob, I can only say: "Long Live Cascadia, and May She Sometime Prosper!"

Less than just a pretty face

2005-05-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

Or, you might say of Ms. Belinda Stronach, that there is 'less' to the Paris Hilton of Canadian politics than meets the eye. Oh, such a disappointment the wan but aesthetically pleasing Ms. Hilton -- pardon me, Ms. Stronach -- has proved to be. She has turned out to be just what my wife said about her many months ago: "A little rich-bitch who has never wanted for anything, and now thinks she might be able to dabble in politics."
But I, gallant supporter of all female rights to self-determination, eschewed my wife's view, and actually wrote a column supporting Ms. Stronach's quest for the Tory plum, back in the days when she was doing that. I maintained that the lady should not be victimized simply by dint of patrician background, or a pretty smile, or, well, the kind of looks that are only too rare in politics in this country.
And, my point happened to be, even if she looked like the late Charlotte Whitton's twin, I was 'above' either praising or condemning a female political aspirant just because of what she saw staring back at herself from that vanity mirror just above the marble countertop, relatively near to the bidet and jacuzzi. No, I was going to look at the lady from the perspective of what she might be able to give Canadian politics -- an injection of relatively youthful pizzazz. So what if she had no background in the sordid business of politics, everybody has to start off somewhere. Who knows where her potential would take her?
Well, now we know where it would take her. It took her to the cheesy, sleazy Grits. And, alas, I must confess that by her action, it makes her as cheesy and sleazy as her new bedfellows, and I wish the aspiring Ms. Stronach nothing but ill political fortunes. 'Human Resources' indeed. Just the spot for a person who will have to get her head around the idea that 'Corner Gas' is not pure fiction. No, sweetie, there really are people who live in little towns like that in the hinterland, just like there are people who live in rainy logging camps on the West Coast. Isn't that cute? Even more adorable, some of them are even poor. Can you get your adorable blonde-ness around that?
Sail on, o ship of state.

Remembering Ms. Stumpy

2005-05-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

I've never been much of a cat person. I always liked them well enough, but generally I gravitated more to dogs. I was insecure enough that I cherished canine codependency. Cats, on the other hand, were aloof. Like a compulsively unattainable woman, they looked pretty, self-indulgently preened, and would only permit your company into their sphere at their whim -- a whim that didn't manifest itself often. No, I was a dog kind of guy, and to this day miss my old border-collie cross, Murphy, even though he has been gone for 18 years.
Cats, however, are low-maintenance so, when I was walking woundedly after a split from my second wife I got myself a cat. Griffin (he's still around) was an adult cat of good behavior and he and I shared digs for well over a year before I met the woman whom I ultimately married in nuptials number three. Griffin, at the time of my acquisition, was ideal in temperament, and symbolically, as a castrated male, he seemed to match my carnal interests at a time when I was thinking of swearing off sweaty encounters entirely -- they hurt too much.
Time passed, as it always does, and then we happened upon a feline that completely changed my view of what a cat could be. We found her at an SPCA display in the mall. You know, the abandoned animal things where they cajole the public to take on the bad habits of an 'unadoptable' pussycat. My wife found Stumpy. She was a morose looking thing of orange, white and black. The SPCA lady, with "please-please-please" in her eyes was telling my wife that the cat was a quiet and lonely creature of probably age 13, and she would be no fuss or muss and she desperately needs a home, etc. etc. On whim we responded positively to her entreaties. As we packed her into a carrier, I noticed one more thing about her. She had no tail! She was a Manx; a full Manx, not even sporting a vestigial tail. For some perverse reason, I liked that about her. I like something different. In a similar display, I once toyed with the idea of getting a three-legged cat they were trying to flog. I refrained.
Anyway, we took the Manx home, and within a day she turned the place into her own. Quiet and retiring indeed. But, Griffin seemed pleased with the company and we, lacking in nomenclature imagination, I guess, went to the obvious in terms of name -- within a week, due to her lack in the tail department, had named her 'Stumpy'. It stuck. It worked. Somewhat balloon-like in shape, with the jackrabbit hind legs of a Manx, she strode her new world with complete dominance of the scene.
It took me very little time to realize that this was a cat of powerful personality. She asserted her presence, and she had control of the household. When I went outdoors, she followed me around. When I looked down at her, she would meow back at me. I found that highly amusing. I would laugh in spite of myself. She was, in fact, very like a dog in behavior. She was also brave and tough, and immensely territorial. God help any neighborhood cat who might wander into Stumpy's domain. She knew no fear. She was only afraid of one thing: the crumpling of plastic grocery bags. To crumple would send her scampering out of the room in terror. We never knew why.
We looked up Manxes on the Internet, and found that she was typical in behavior and that Manxes were, yes, very doglike.
Shortly after we acquired Ms. Stumpy (I added the 'Ms' part later, just on whim) we found from our vet that there was no way she was nearing feline dotage. She was six, maybe seven tops. That was great, I thought. Even though my wife and I like to travel whenever we can, we have a reliable cat-sitter, so it's never bothersome leaving them. So, if Stumpy was to be around for many years, I was actually delighted. She brought something to my life I haven't yet fully understood.
Unfortunately, that many years was not to be. About three weeks ago, my wife went out of town to take a course of study. I would be at home with the cats. Not bothersome. I've batched enough in my adult life, that I'm actually quite good at it. Stumpy, however, was not seeming to be good at it. She seemed morose. She showed no appetite for food, or for fun. Regarding the food part, she has an appetite like a room full of truck loggers, so that was odd behavior. I assumed she was pining for Wendy, so I didn't obsess about it -- for a while.
But, after a few days, she still showed no interest in eating, or in much of anything else. I bought some special treats for her, in hopes that maybe higher-priced grub would entice her. It didn't. She took to vacating the house when I arose, and would spend her day lying under a shrub in the back garden. I'd look in on her. She'd purr when I stroked her, and she would meow at me. Later, the 'meows' assumed a sort of plaintive tone. When it reached the point when she would show no interest in coming indoors, even as darkness fell -- leaving me to carry her -- I realized something serious was afoot.
I took her to the vet. The vet ran tests. The vet returned to the antechamber wherein I was waiting. She had a slightly crestfallen look on her face. I knew what she was going to say, and that was exactly what she did say. It was endgame. Ms. Stumpy had a "huge mass" on her intestine. The chances of it not being malignant were a mere one in ten, and the exploratory biopsies would cost more than I could ever justify paying, as much as my wife and I loved the animal. I had to make one of the nastier decisions one has to make in life. The vet's recounting of the physical pain the cat was in, made my decision easier, though no more savory. And I made it. And I miss her.
She was only with us for 2 1/2 years, and I never thought I'd find myself writing about a damn cat, but sometimes we just don't know 'everything' that makes us work in this life, so I won't question it. I'll just be grateful for the 2 1/2 years. They taught me something about myself, though I'm not yet certain what that something looks like.

Back when we were fab

2005-05-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

VE Day. I don't actually remember it with a personal perspective, but I was already around -- I'm somewhat shocked to realize. I was 2 1/2, so whatever celebrating was going on, I probably looked more to Mom's tit for potables, than anything stronger. But, what a rush it must have been, I can only speculate. After nearly six years of unspeakable horrors, it was over -- not with a bang, but a whimper.
Actually, with a 'bang' too, in a lot of instances. A venerable lady I once interviewed told me of having been in Trafalgar Square on VE Day. She said, despite the revelries she, of relatively tender years then, was advised by her male friend to be circumspect about where she looked, since there, as she said, "so much standing-up screwing going on." So, we celebrated, we drank and we fucked, and we tried as much as possible to forget about what actually had gone on, and how many of our friends and family members were not there any longer to join in the celebration. That same aforementioned lady also told me it was jubilation mixed with an undercurrent of depression about what the human race had proved itself capable of. What it was capable of was something far removed from being godly.
Nobody in our disgustingly pampered society can even begin to conceive of the sacrifices of those who were there. Nobody in that same society can conceive of the state-of-mind at the time, we can only speculate. But, our speculations will be false.
My mother once told me how her younger brother, who was 17 at the time, and just finished high school, was depressed on VE Day because the war in Europe was over. He wanted to join up, you see, but his mother had insisted he finish high school. Finally finished with school, and the war was over! But, he was a bit heartened by the fact the war with Japan was still raging in that pre-Hiroshima spring of 1945. "The Japs will go on fighting for years!" was the sentiment he consoled himself with. He was wrong. And that was a good thing. He went on to become a prominent pathologist, raised a lovely family, and is now enjoying a very contented retirement, well away from Iwo Jima, or wherever.
So, Canada finished its war well. It is difficult to conceive, but in 1945 Canada actually possessed the third largest army and navy in the world. It truly was time for us to take our place in the greater scheme of things. Sensing a certain rejection because we weren't invited to join the UN Security Council, we were still bigtime contenders.
Now we're not. Like lapsed recovering drunks, we have chosen the "easier, softer way". We are whining, wingeing vague semblances of what we once were, and we consistently elect governments that covet such sentiments in their constituents.
Once we were heroes. Now we are teeny-tiny also rans who still wrestle with our identity and lack thereof. In the spring of 1945, back when we were "fab", we had an identity and let no motherfucker even dream of denying us that.
But, I guess you had to be there.

Hooray-hooray!

2005-05-01T09:56:00.000-07:00

Hooray-hooray, it's the first of May! Outdoor screwing starts today! I've not had alfresco sex for a long time, but the few times I have, it's been quite wonderful -- for me, as a male. The female, on the other hand, especially if it's missionary position, is inclined to get sticks in her bum and other tender areas. Yet, even then, it has usually been a salutary experience for the partner as well. One of the reasons it is so good, is that it usually comes about as a result of a major lust buildup that has happened on a walk. Also, the birds are singing, the trees and grass smell wonderful; one is physically invigorated, and nether parts start to tingle.
Do we wait until we get home? I'm not certain if I can. Tingling becomes an urgent pressure. My ex-wife once told me, when we were ensconced in a motel room after a long road trip that she'd really been tempted to ask me to drive down a side road so that we could have sex in the woods, such had been her impulse at the moment. I asked, immediately interested, why she hadn't mentioned it at the time. "I suddenly got shy," she said. However, the telling did it for me, and we certainly made up for the missed encounter very quickly that evening. Quickly for both of us, which tells you something about even the idea of coupling in the woods.
Another time that same ex and I took a boat trip to a nearby island. It was late spring, wildflowers were blooming in profusion, and we realized in short order that we were the only people on the pretty islet. We also realized that should somebody arrive, it would have to be by boat, and we'd be able to hear them well ahead of time. No more needed to be said. Pants and panties were off in an instant and the rest, sigh, is wonderful history.
The first of May indeed!

Superb Isolation

2005-05-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

Nearly a decade ago I decided it would be a brilliant idea to take a trip to England -- on my own. A few months earlier I had endured an excruciatingly painful marriage bust-up, and I had come into a bit of money, so why not get away from it all and journey abroad? I had lived in England for a year 16 years earlier, so it seemed a natural -- my 'other' home and all that. So, I made the trip -- and I hated it.
I had never traveled on my own before, and I had not foreseen the implications of so doing. For the first few days in Blighty, it was OK. I was staying with dear friends, so I had the diversion of reconnecting with people I'd not seen in a long time. Then I left their secure abode, and ventured off. It was brutal. I'd go out and sightsee during the day, then I would get back to my hotel room, and I would be alone. There was nobody with whom to compare notes. There was nobody else breathing in the room. I'd go down to the restaurant, and for a time I would be diverted both by the meal, and by the other people in the room -- all of whom seemed to be with someone. I'd scan the room to see if I could spot a female who might also be traveling solo. No such luck. Sometimes I'd repair to a pub, again for a bit of noise and milling humanity. I'd nurse a beer, then ultimately inwardly shrug and head back to my room. My mood darkened as the days moved on.
I took to calling my brother back in Canada, just to get some human contact; a familiar voice. It was costly, but seemed worth it. Even costlier, one evening I hired a high-class call-girl. Not for sex -- though that was a pleasing sidelight -- but for companionship. I paid her handsomely to spend a few hours with me. She was very pretty, very intelligent, and not bad companionship, even at the price. I've never regretted the expenditure, because her presence carried me through a few hours. Then, she left, and again I was alone.
Part of my problem, I realized, was that through two marriages, little of my life had been a solo endeavor. I wasn't really suffering from loneliness, but from a sense of bleak isolation. In essence I am an existentialist. We are born alone, we die alone, and in between we spend most of our days dealing with innermost thoughts, fears, aspirations, cravings, lustings, sexually kinky thoughts, and a whole host of elements of our essential humanity that we do not share with others. But, the presence of another had still, for the most part, been a vital aspect of my life.
Anyway, I returned from England and was, I am pleased to say, considerably wiser about myself and my needs. One thing I learned is that I will never travel solo again. Even if I just choose a companion at random (a female one, preferably; what can I say? I like girls), that will have to be the case. The other thing I learned was to cherish much more deeply whoever my life companion might be. The third, and most important thing I learned was that I needed to develop tools to deal with isolation.
After I was back in Canada, this was the lesson I had to master, and ultimately I did so. I actually came to cherish solitude and freedom. I got a cat; I got some plants; I met some terrific people both in real-time and on-line; most of whom remain friends today, even the ones who were fleeting lovers.
I am since remarried, very happily. My wife is a fiercely independent, yet profoundly loving soul. Right now, for the first time in our seven years together, she is away. She'll be back in two weeks, but I miss her terribly. The only difference is, I remain thoroughly able to cope with my life. I do miss her help with the New York Times crossword, I do miss the obvious, and I sorely miss her companionship. But, I do not feel for a moment the bleak sensations of solitude I once endured. No, I'm OK. But the cat is pining like hell for her. I don't blame the cat. My wife has a lap; I do not.

I'm a very poor Canadian

2005-04-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that I am a very poor excuse for a Canadian. I don't mean 'poor' in a fiscal sense -- though I am that, too -- but poor in that I seem out-of-touch with those elements of 'Canadian-ness' that the media and assorted polls indicate are the essential elements of Canuck passion and/or angst from coast to coast.
Here are just some of the things that render me a lesser Canadian:

I don't drink beer, so that 'Joe Canadian' crap is just an embarrassment in that it suggests that Canadians are nothing but brewski swilling louts who loudly mouth the basest of chauvinistic sentiments. And we think the Americans are crass?
I don't hate Americans. I don't even dislike them. I like traveling in their country, and most Yanks I've encountered have been gracious and friendly. I think they are a tad gun-prone, and I don't agree with some of their foreign policy. But, as a bad Canadian, I don't agree with any of ours.
I think Celine Dion (I shudder to even write the name), and Shania Twain (she is much cuter, I'll grant) are two of the most execrable singers after Whitney Houston. And, that old hippie icon, Joni Mitchell, has always been plain awful.
I believe that an awful lot of people associated with the federal Liberals should be doing hard-time. But, this being Canada, you know they won't. That's a disgrace.
The fact that Paul Bernardo and that frightening Homulka creature are still sucking the air of God's green earth is an outrage.
I don't care if Prince Charles marries his Labrador retriever. The monarchy means nothing to me, and I am amazed that it means anything to anybody else in this country. Maybe I'll be a better Canadian when Canada becomes a grown-up nation and moves out of its juvenile dependency on certain trappings of a land that is of no significance at all to anybody on the planet. And, I state that as a confirmed anglophile who has lived in England. However, I suffer no delusions about the place.
Most of all, however, I am a bad Canadian because I cut no quarter for winter sports. The NHL strike meant less than nothing to me other than it left the CBC scrambling for something to fill its otherwise left-leaning and vacuous broadcasting hours. If hockey never comes back in its former incarnation, I think we'll all be the better for it. But, I guess good Canadians need to have something to while away those bleak winter hours (winter lasts for about 11 1/2 months in some parts of the land, I am led to believer; I live on the West Coast, so I wouldn't know about that) and that has to be something to do with ice. So, with no hockey, we get curling! Curling, for heaven's sake. Bowling on ice. Curling is more boring than golf -- and that's going a stretch. The fact that there are those who not only participate in curling, but also watch it, I find frightening. The fact that these people are my compatriots, I find even more frightening. But, I do have one question. Why are so many of the women who participate in curling such hotties? Is there something about the game I don't know, and that I should perhaps find out about.

It's SCTV

2005-04-05T09:35:00.000-07:00

There is a thing happening here in the political wilds of BC. It's known as STV (Single Transferable Vote). I think it would be more apt to refer to it as SCTV, as a reflection of the late lamented TV show that in its satirical profundity almost invariably put SNL to shame. SCTV was inspired lunacy. STV is lunacy, too, but perhaps not so inspired. Mainly just plain lunacy.
In May British Columbians go to the polls and on voting day will decide to either leave the current knaves in power (my hope), or replace them with the tired old left-wing knaves who came pretty close to destroying the province their last time around. But, partisan politics are not the issue here. What is at issues is that on that day, voters in BC will decide if they want to keep the old system of voting, or opt for a system that is to be noted for the fact that absolutely nobody understands it. It is a system that is much lauded by certain academic sorts -- a fact that should send most people running away in terror -- and certain fringe area elements of society who would only stand to ever be elected in some sort of Salvador Dali constituency.
The idea behind the push for STV (or SCTV) is that the current system isn't especially democratic. Ya think? Of course it isn't democratic. A general mark of democratic systems world wide is that the term 'democracy' is played with as fast-and-loose as the term 'virginity', and democracy is way less fun. But, as Churchill said, it is still the best of all bad systems, so I guess we have to live with that.
In any case, since nobody understands a system in which you get to vote not only for your first choice of rascal, but also your second, and maybe even your third, the chance of this nonsense coming into being is minuscule. Anyway, most of us hold our noses, make a last trip to the bathroom (just to do something productive), and mark an X just to make a first choice. Who on earth would have a second choice? I mean, this isn't the Oscars, where if Johnny Depp doesn't win, you can easily live with a win by Sean Penn. I vote for my guy or girl to keep the other guy or girl out, not so I can lean over to them as some sort of an also-ran. Are there those who voted for George Bush who would have leaned in the direction of, say, Nader as a second choice? Hardly. Politics is a dirty and corrupt business, and it should be kept that way.

... or get off the pot!

2005-03-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

Among the more distasteful bits of outfall to be spewed forth following the Alberta RCMP slayings were the cheapshot letters to the editor from assorted marijuana activists who were given to maintaining that if pot were legal, then the killings simply wouldn't have happened.
As it ultimately turned out the little grow show on the farm was incidental to why the cops we're there, but their stridency in propounding their 'cause', such as it is, simply served to prove where such people come from.
Anyway, I'm not going to enter into the tiresome debate on the pros-and-cons of the legalization, decriminalization, and all the other 'izations' that surround cannabis sativa. Mainly, because I don't really give a shit one way or the other. If you want to rot your brain in that direction, well it's no doubt less mind and soul-destroying that most 'reality' television, and just about as productive a way to spend your time.
Regardless, too much mythology and mysticism are accorded marijuana. It's neither as wonderful as doobie-puffing defenders insist it is, nor as evil as its enemies believe. But, like all psychoactive drugs, it contains plenty of negative elements, and if you truly believe it doesn't, then maybe you're smoking too much.
Alcohol is also a psychoactive drug, and pot advocates love to trot out the silly and self-defeating argument that marijuana is no worse than alcohol. That's no recommendation. Booze, our 'legal drug' is the most dangerous one of all.
If Chretien's much-vaunted decriminalization law ever sees the light of day, the possession of the stuff will no longer be a crime, but will be subject to a nominal fine. However, the purchaser, it remains, must still aid-and-abet a criminal activity to get his weed, since cultivation and sale will nhot only be crimes, but the penalties at that level of enterprise couild even be stiffer. The decriminalization bill (like virtually all Liberal endeavors) is smoke, mirrors, and bullshit, designed solely to attract votes for a very corrupt regime -- regardless of whether gormless Paul Martin or the Gallic thug happen to be at the helm.
But, such consderations pale into insignificance when compared to the msessage implied by any ill-considered decriminalization foray. That message is: the consumption of marijuana is no longer considered a 'very bad thing', just a 'slihgthly bad thing'. For young people, susch a message is both unclear and irresponsible.
Quite simply, pot consumption is not OK for youngsters, any more than the partaking of cigarettes and alcohol is OK for them. Indeed, there are laws against the purchase and consumption of the latter substances by minors, but with the suggested new law re pot in place, no such guidelines have yet been trotted forth. Weird that.
And, of course, your kids ill have to consort with criminals to get the stuff. And, what's the messasge that will be picked up by some 14-year-olds? Especially 14-year-old potheads, who are rarely noted for being the brightest kids in their remedial classes. The message to them would seenm to be: If smoking pot is OK, sort of, then what about crystal meht? Ecstasy? Crack? Their logic wouild suggest, and they wouldn't be wrong, that the authorities 'lied' for years about pot, so they're probably lying about the other stuff, too.
Pot advocates rise up in indignation -- mind you, they rise up in indignation about tdamn near everything that doesn't support their cause, like logic, for example -- at any suggestion that marijuana is a gateway drug, but of course it is. Cigarettes and alcohol are gateway drugs, so why would cannabis get off the hook? It's not only a gateway, it's more than that.
It must be understood that decriminalization, if it comes into being, does not render marijuana legal, it only pulls the penalties out of the Criminal Code. It will still be illegal. So, the kid using marijuana has already made a decision, and that decision is to be in defiance of the law.
Canada's young are on the verge of entering the global marketplace, and their energies, ambtion and talent are much in demand. Look at our current political scene -- wherein politicians are regarded with less esteem than used car salesfolk and probably pimps -- and you know that we desparately need new talent. But, is anybody prepared to suggest that unfettered marijuana indulgence will bring us the sort of active and productive citizenry that this nation craves. If you really believe active potheads are productive, then you must have spent your youth in utter denial.

What's become of us?

2005-03-17T08:15:00.000-08:00

No wonder much of the rest of the world regards Canada with oprobrium. What on earth has happened to the concept of courage in this 'north of the 49th' empire? How have we come to lose any sense of moral outrage? We should be so ashamed of ourselves. Witness some of the events of just the last little while. After the of expenditure of massive amountsht of money over a number of years, the knaves who brought down the Air India flight off the coast of Ireland, get a walk. Imagine the agonies of those families, but our wimpish judicial system says "sorry for the waste of time and money, but we can't get these sonsofbitches, it wouldn't be the Canadian way. A multi-million dollar scam artist is lured across the US border by a private eye -- good on him -- yet a Canadian justice department functionary expresses outrage, and protests such is not the Canadian way. More's the pity for us. Meanwhile, we lend some sort of tacit support to known terrorist groups, like the Tamil Tigers and the IRA without batting the proverbial. Oh, and we reduce the sentence of a convicted gang rapist so he won't have to go back to Sri Lanka, where he might be under threat by those same -- otherwise not to be criticized -- Tigers. How has this happened? I'd like to blame Pierre Trudeau, but even he recognized terrorists for what they were worth. This is a rant to be sure. But it is about time for Canadians to recognize that our gentle and soft route for everything from drugs to terror are costing us grievously on the international scene. What kind of a legacy are we leaving our kids? There, glad I got that off my chest.

He's a clown, that Charlie Brown

2005-03-07T07:57:00.000-08:00

A British critic of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin recently christened our current political boss -- at least boss of those domains east of the Lakehead -- 'Mr. Dithers.' This named shows a woeful misunderstanding of those characters that populate American comic strips, for the name Mr. Dithers, despite the perceived dithering of 'The Honorable Mister Deer-Trapped-in-the-Headlights', he is truly no Mr. Dithers. Mr. Dithers, Dagwood Bumstead's tyrannical boss, is bullheaded, forthright, and very much in charge at all times. So, Mr. Martin is no Mr. Dithers. He is, in fact, Charlie Brown. Good Old Charlie Brown. Good Old Wishy-Washy Charlie Brown of the Schulz strip 'Peanuts.' Charlie Brown, desperate to please everyone, longing for all who know him, to love him. Unprepared to make any sort of a commitment that might earn censure from some quarter or other, Charlie Brown cannot even earn the respect of his Beagle. That Charlie Brown Martin is a grievous disappointment to people who actually care about this country -- and I've heard there are some -- is to state the case lightly. Fiercely ambitious, Paul Martin is a classic example of the 'Peter Principle' in action. That is, he fought for the top for ages, and certainly exuded an aura of being a preferable PM to the thuggish Jean Chretien, but, when he got there, where was the follow through? What was he giving the nation. Wishy-washiness! Whether it's on missile defense, gay marriage, decriminalization of pot, or Western alienation, nothing happened. He squeaked into a minority government, and it is only due to the woeful ineptitude of Tory Harper and the pathetic hubris of that NDP guy, whose name escapes, as it should, that Mr. Martin still occupies his position. So, forget Mr. Dithers. As for missile defense, the Mr. Dithers of renown would have ridden that ICBM down, Slim Pickens style, to its disposal somewhere over Nunavut. Charlie Brown, meanwhile, will get his kite caught in a tree. If Mr. Martin actually does show up at the barbecue at the Bush Spread, we advise him 'not' to get in a football game.

He's gonna get caught,
Just you wait and see.
"Why is everybody always
pickin' on me?"

Gonzo Grief

2005-02-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

I don't suppose there was any six-degrees of sepratation between Hunter S. Thompson and Sandra Dee. My own connections are spurious at best, but they did both die on my birthday. I doubt if that means anything at all -- though it did to me -- a bit. I once worked with a young reporter who idolized Thompson, and never referred to him without the title 'Dr.' being thrown into his reference. As a stylist -- in those days -- in the late 1970s, Thompson was worthy of both idolization and admiration. One hell of a scribe was he. He threw caution and convention to the proverbial winds, and called the 'bastards' of his etchings as the bastards that they were. He worth a lot of good stuff before he became addled and progressively insane. He ate his gun, as the cops would say, and that, in its own sad way, is apt. What other way could he have gone out? Eventually HST didn't resemble anything particularly current. He had become a sad parody of himself -- as must we all -- I believe. Of substances, he'd known a few. And back in my drinking days I did attempt to emulate -- periodically, and to much grief for all concerned, especially myself. I quit it. He didn't -- he said. My aforementioned friend, by the way, used to scour liquor stores to avail himself of 'Wild Turkey', the good Doctor's tipple of choice. Did he really consume as prodigiously as his self-inscribed legend would have it. I doubt it. He was even honest enough himself, in later life, to suggest there was a certain hyperbole involved in working his myth, and that he likely would have shuffled off the mortal coil years earlier had such profound excess been the case.
But, then there is Sandra Dee. What can one say about this subject of many 14-years-old wet-dreams of mine own -- and countless other male adolescent contemporaries of the former Miss Zuck -- one understands the name change. Sad soul she was. Very lovely. A perpetual heroine in the film 'A Summer Place' who never got any older in my sensibilities. She was once married to the restless, driven and prematurely doomed Bobby Darin -- one who must be perpetually missed by those of style and taste -- but it didn't take. She went on the scotch for many years and ravaged her physical and emotional health. She ended up plugged into a dialysis machine. She deserved ever so much better. Sic transit.