Category Archives: News and politics

The UN Weapons Inspectors didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction.  Big surprise there, although they can ramble more or less wherever they want, the Blue Hat Crew is closely supervised by minders who are in constant radio contact with Saddam’s head office. 

Saddam, not being stupid, merely evil, doesn’t leave his bad things out in the rain.  There are no big buildings marked “Mass Destruction Weapons Factory #12” in downtown Bagdad.  The stuff is spread out, repackaged and hidden in other things that make up a civic infrastructure, like power plants, water filtration works, machine shops and the like.  Incidentally, Iraq is about 3/4 desert, which makes hiding things easy in a big sandbox outside the built up areas. 

As an example, CFB Carp (Canadian Forces Base) outside of Ottawa was essentially unknown to everyone in Ottawa for years.  Same with the CFB Perth and a couple of others.  Even in a full blown Parliamentary democracy, with freedom of he press and the other stuff, very, very, very few people knew that there were full blown nuclear bomb proof bunkers around Ottawa as well as some very good electronic listening posts sniffing the airwaves.  Therefore, in a dictatorship, with absolute control over essentially everything, can you hide stuff you don’t want people to find?

The downside here is that the US is a full-blown democracy, with freedom of the press.  The media has been reporting troop movements rather well, in their quest to have the best, most up to date information.  The media has also been doing a good job of postulating how things might go down, some of it wildly speculative, and some dead on the money. Does Saddam need to put more spies into Kuwait and Qatar to see how things are building up?  He’s only got to turn on Cable 33 and watch CNN.

I’m not going to say we should restrict the media, as I believe a free and unfettered media is a good thing.  But I also believe that the military should ask the media, nicely, to shut the fuck up.  The media will go along with it mostly and be more discreet in its reporting. 

The other step from the military is to stop giving press conferences:  “We’re not talking about it. It is a Secret. Shut The Fuck Up.” should be the only response from any military person either here or there at least until the manure and the ventilator come together.

Now, I trust the military, a bit.  And I trust the media, a bit.  The task is to kick Saddam out and he doesn’t need the information as to how and when and where we’re going to do it, handed to him on a silver platter.  I am willing to see the media cut out of the loop of information right now to keep from telling that armed nutbar how we’re doing on getting ready to hoof him one up the backside.

I know that seems contradictory, but the cost of a free media right now will be measured in human lives in a few weeks.  As far as I’m concerned, one soldier’s life is worth all the Conrad Blacks, Izzy Aspers, Ted Turners and Rupert Murdochs in pursuit of ratings and circulation numbers and media ‘glory’ of having the story first.

I can live with that contradiction just fine thanks.  We’re going to war.  That is a terrible thing and I don’t like it.  But if we’re going to go, let’s not panty-waist around.  Go.  Do.  Win.  Come home.

Things are looking, essentially, like we’re going to strap on the guns and go a huntin’.  The ostensible reason is Saddam Hussein has Weapons of Mass Destruction that he might let loose in the Gulf Neighbourhood Playground. 

In a children’s context:  There is a neighbourhood bully who is scaring the shit out of the rest of us kids.  He thumbs his generous nose at the parents (the UN) and the daycare workers (the weapons inspectors) and tells all the other kids that he’s got a big booger in his nose that he’ll hock up and gob on anyone who doesn’t join his team.  OK, so what do we do now?

Simply put, all the other kids are getting together and the biggest kids are going to beat the crap out of the bully, then kick him out of the playground.  Very Lord of the Flies, but that is how it works at a child level.  It has worked that way, the playground dynamic, since the dawn of time.  Except when its country against country we give it names like The Great War, or World War II, or the Korean Conflict, or a Police Action, or Desert Storm, or Peacekeeping. 

We don’t really need to examine the ‘real’ reasons for the coming conflict, as they are simple to state:  Big Oil, Big Business, Big Economy Boost and Distraction From Shit We Haven’t Fixed At Home.  Thinking too much on this can make you too jaded, so in the interest of mental health, let’s just stick with the playground analogy.  Otherwise, we’ll wind up posting on alt.conspiracy.gulfwar 100 hours a week.

Let’s follow this to its logical conclusion:  The bully gets his ass kicked and everyone who takes him on, gets to put boogers in his hair, make him cry and give him a wedgie that he will never forget.  Now, the good kids run the playground and the rest of the kids who didn’t get into the scrap can say they were with us all along.

We’ll feel good about doing something for ourselves.  The bully will go away.  The playground will return to its usual level of fear and panic and unpleasantness. 

Except over in the other corner of the playground, we’ve got some Korean kid that doesn’t have a bike, or nice clothes, but he’s got a bottle rocket and some matches.

Humankind always needs some kind of bad shit happening to keep it angry.  I have yet to see one societal group, either contemporary, or historical, who have lead the pacifist path with consistency.  The Playground Ethos always applies

Of course he resigned, Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, pulled the pin on his career grenade last week and finally let go of the spoon yesterday.  He really had no choice, as he came across in his Black Entertainment Television (BET) Public mea culpa as a “Crossing Over” audience member channelling George Wallace.   

Then Dubya had a chat with him.  Lott faced two choices with Dubya:  Resign, or become Colin Powell’s Valet and Bootblack.  Since Powell likes shiny shoes and good creases in his shirts, Lott took Choice One.

I suspect Lott will employ the Gore Stratagem.  Go away for a while, then come back and stare wistfully off into middle distance.  I can almost see Trent Lott with a tight curl perm, in a Pendleton shirt, well-worn jeans, used Rockports, sporting a Fu Manchu and a ‘doo rag.  His new job?  Admissions Director for Bob Jones University. 

Although its a lovely dream, the reality is he’s going on the Rubber Chicken Circuit as a lecturer at $5,000 a pop.  This should keep him in marine epoxy for a few years ensuring his legacy of Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.

The real legacy is that the media will not brook even the potential of politically incorrect stain on your record.  If your Daddy’s Daddy belonged to some organization that was/is not PC today, then you’re just as guilty, even if you, personally have never been a member.  The excuse for this I heard more than once from learned commentators was:  “The Apple Doesn’t Fall From The Tree”, which is utter nonsense.

But it seemed to suffice as reason enough to pillory Lott as a sheet-wearing, cross burning, night-riding, fire hose-waving zealot who stood beside Bull Connor and had his own autographed Louisville Nightstick.  Which is also, utter nonsense.

Now, I refuse to defend Lott, as he is an idiot and so far right he makes Nixon look like a Libertarian, but I can’t get past then zealotry of the media in pursuing him because it is a slow new week. 

The part that scares me, is since the late 70’s, the majority of North Americans get almost all their news from Television.  A Roper Poll (mid 80’s or so) placed Television News at the top of the list for credibility, honesty and believability with viewers.  Not just by a few percentage points either, it was something like four times more credible than newspapers, radio, magazines and books. 

If that doesn’t scare you.  Then nothing will. 

Trent Lott, who looks like an early Gumby model, especially in the hair department, is not wining The Smartest Man award this year.  Mister Claymation put his foot all the way into his mouth regarding his segregation comment at Strom Thurmond’s birthday thing.  Lott is an idiot and always has been an idiot, so I can’t get too bent about it: “Stupid is as stupid does” to quote Forrest Gump.

But here is the real point:  Despite what the politically correct might think, historically, America and (to a lesser extent) Canada, have been extraordinarily racist for most of their history.  There is no excuse for racism.  Hating someone just for their colour or heritage is silly.  Get to know the person first, then hate them for specific behaviours or beliefs. 

At various times in the history of both countries, we have hated Irish, Poles, Blacks, Hungarians, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, Jews again, Catholics, Protestants, English, New Zealanders, Latvians, French, Chinese again and have actually passed laws disenfranchising them, or limiting their immigration, or passing laws that preclude their owning land, farming or having government jobs.

Humans are essentially xenophobic.  We like others who are like us.  Wind back the time machine and you’ll probably see Cro-Magnons with the same features and values hangin’ together.  It still happens today:  Chinatown, Little Italy, Little Saigon, Poletown, Greek Town, Scarberia, BarbecueHaven, The Glebe…ad nauseum.

Since we can’t change history (People were killed, in my lifetime, just because they were of a certain pigment) and Humans won’t change, we can only accept the fact that ‘we’ as a society have done some really stupid things IN THE PAST.

So, to everyone who gets bent with non-PC statements of fact:  That was then.  This is now.  Judge me on my actions today, not what my great-great-great-great grandmother thought, did, or didn’t do.  And get over it.  To quote Colin Powell approximately:  “Racism is the other guy’s problem, not yours.”

OK, on behalf of many Canadians, I wish to apologize for the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary calling Geo. W Bush a “moron” 

She was talking about her own boss, Jean Chretien (pronounced Zhan Kret-yen for American audiences), who is so well regarded on the International Stage, that when he speaks, the press goes for coffee, answers voice mail, or clips their toenails.

Not to say that our Prime Minister is a moron, as that would be unfair to the truly stupid.  Our PM is a useless old political hack with a 40 year record of pork barrelling, contract pushing, featherbedding, jiggery-pokery and old fashioned graft that is jaw-droppingly stunning even to those who survived the Ceausescu regime in Olde Romania. 

Chretien is not a moron.  Geo W. is not a moron either.  Neither can apply for Mensa membership, but they sure do have a certain low cunning that allowed the two of them to get to the highest office each country has to offer. There are three morons in this situation: 

One, the PM’s Press Secretary who is so stupid as to be not trusted with scissors or to be near the media.  Will someone please wire her jaws shut?

Two: The voters of Canada, who continue to elect these muck suckers.  We deserve the appellation ‘moron’ because we keep marking the X next to their names.

Three: The voters of the US, both of them who showed up and pulled the lever.  Bush is a logo, just like the Nike swoosh, or Ronald Regan.  You voted for a logo?  Moron.

The answer?  Well, to our US members, don’t get bent out of shape by the PM’s Press Wank calling your C in C a moron.  Consider the source: A Press Wank with as much impact on World Opinion as Barney Fife has on Quantum Mechanics. 

To our Canadian members: Will you please try to remember that the best federal governments we’ve ever had in this country have been our minority governments over the years.  Things get done when voters grab their elected representatives by the cullions and threaten to toss them out on the streets.

Theatre critics can be a harsh lot.  They have to watch plays that confound audiences with their literary allusions, societal commentary and artistic pretentions.  Having sat through the occasional example of ‘high art’ theatre, I can only sympathize. 

The play “Nord-Ost” playing at the Stolichnaya Playhouse is an example of the post-modernist theatrical ethic.  Set in modern Moscow, after the collapse of the Workers Socialist Party, it examines the didactic of the haves and have not’s of a neo-classic Soviet-era bourgeoisie group confronting their own mortality and reflecting on their past lives.

Written by the Chechnyan Liberation Army, featuring more than 700 cast members, the play opened to much applause from the crowd.  As the story unfolded, Aristotle, symbolizing the plight of the workers, insisted on keeping the middle-class values of the Smegvorsk neighbourhood in which he grew up, by insisting that all the members of the audience stay in their seats, under penalty of death.

In a stunning use of immersive, interactive theatre, the hostage taking scene, spread over three days included an innovative use of props, tear gas and live rounds forced the audience to question their upbringing by forcing them to use the orchestra pit as a latrine, going without water and food and generally feeling the oppression of the working socialist in a post modern era.

The climactic scene, the storming of the theatre by Russian Security Forces had all the elements of high camp, innately parodying yet embracing the conventions of the seminal ’39 Blows’ and the Palace steps scene from ‘Potemkin’ with its anti-cinematic use of frequent bullets and the liberal use of stage blood as the RSF actors, portraying yet ironically parodying armed thugs of liberation/death imagery, stormed the theatre.

An entertaining evenings’ amusement.  Tickets are $20 through to $50.  No matinees. 

Tha White Haws
Subject: YOUR RECENT LETTER COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW DETAINEES ARE TREATED AND SUGGESTIONS FOR MORE LIBERAL AND HUMANE TREATMENT.

Solution: The President’s “Adopt a Detainee” Program.
Dear Bleeding Heart:

Thank you for your recent whiney-assed letter criticizing the treatment of the Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As part of the Administration’s Liberal Re-training Program, you’ll be pleased to learn that the Administration has decided to place one detainee under your exclusive care.

Your detainee is scheduled to be delivered to your personal residence Monday. The detainee is to be cared for pursuant to the standards you strongly recommended in your letter of admonishment. It will be necessary that you hire your own caretakers. We will conduct weekly inspections to assure that your detainee is actually being cared for in the manner you personally prescribed in your letter to us.

Although he is sociopathic, very psychotic and dedicated to kill Americans and all Jews, we do welcome your promised efforts to overcome that “attitudinal problem” with your promised counselling, abundant love, bonding sessions and home schooling. His meal requirements are simple, but we strongly suggest using menus that do not require utensils.

While he does bite, the rabies test was negative, although he does have a bad case of body lice that we haven’t completely remedied. He’s extremely proficient in hand-to-hand combat and can extinguish human life with such simple items as a pencil or light bulb. We do not suggest that you ask him to demonstrate these proficiencies to your soccer Mom friends. He also has the ability to make a variety of lethal bombs from common household products, so you may wish to keep those items locked up, notwithstanding that it may conflict with your moral values or disrupt your maid’s daily routine.

Please heed the large orange notice attached to your detainee’s cage, “Does not play well with others”. Your detainee generally bathes quarterly,with the change of seasons, assuming that it rains, and washes his clothes simultaneously. That should help with your water bill.

Be assured, your detainee absolutely loves pets of all kinds, but is especially fond of cats and dogs. He prefers them roasted, but will eat them prepared in just about any manner.

You take good care of our detainee, now.

George Dubya.