Where to begin?

Weaning myself from my compulsive blogging habit has been tough, but the transition to a blog-free existence is necessitated by the fact that since my move, I have not had my internet re-connected. Having my umbilicus to the world wide web severed has proven to be quite liberating, actually. No more racking my brain to come up with interesting topics to write about (--aha! but you never wrote anything interesting anyway you are probably saying right now--fair enough)... I can now concentrate on more important things, like drinking and eating, f'rinstance!

The first few days of December, I was living a spartan existence in a cubby hole full of boxes. My routine went something like this: wakeup -go to work- come back from work- unpack- sleep - repeat until done. To my great surprise, as days turned into weeks, I gradually emerged from my dwindling mountain of boxes to discover to my delight that I did, in fact, have a rather nice new appartment. By no means am I completely settled in, but a month on, I'm becoming more and more optimistic.

Perhaps because of my new found optimism, I seem to have transformed into some kind of bon-vivant in the last few days, gorging myself on good booze and fine food during the holiday season. The ever-increasing tightness of my waistband is evidence that this type of behaviour is not without effect, so before I burst my buttons and split the ass out of my dungarees, I'm gonna head out on a lung-bursting 10 K today. I figure my recent social smoking will come back to haunt me, but I need to get a headstart on my 2005 resolution (Get in real shape!), particularly since I managed to keep my resolution for 2004 (learn to dance properly) and I don't want to break my streak of two years and counting.

About six months ago, I acted on last year's New Year's Eve promise I made to myself, and thanks to a bit of self-discipline and commitment, when the music comes on, I no longer caper or mince around the dancefloor like a jackass, but can actually perform a serviceable waltz or foxtrot. I'm pretty good with the latino stuff too --cha cha and mambo are two of my favourites-- and I'm at the point where I look like I actually know what I'm doing up there. Some of you may laugh at my quaint notions, but, having been born about 200 years late, I am a firm believer that learning to dance properly is an essential part of any young gentleman's education... and besides, chicks dig it.

Being in Windsor with the family for the holidays has been a welcome break from the craziness that was December. First of all, I met a fantastic girl...we get along amazingly well and we enjoy each other's company--I'll just leave it at that. Angst-ridden overanalysis has been the death of more than one fledgling relationship for me and I'm not gonna continue to make the same tactical error over and over again. I'm not overthinking things, just going with the flow. Only time will tell, I suppose. Work has alternated between frenetic and depressing, but a couple of good Christmas parties and some fun off-hours has helped me shake off any winter funk that might have started to set in, so all things considered, I'm in pretty high spirits.

Because I don't know when I will get a chance to write again, the most fitting way for me to close this entry is to wish you, my unknown reader, a wonderful Christmas and extend to all my best wishes for 2005.

J

Blog Going On Hiatus - Network Executives Cite Poor Ratings

Ottawa - November 30 2004

Network stuffed shirts announced today that ailing internet Web log Vis Comica would be put on hiatus and all new postings suspended while new writers attempt to "re-tool" and "work out some kinks".

The once-popular site, known for its rambling diatribes on politics and pop culture, has been struggling of late in the ratings, lagging just behind Triumphfan's "Poopblog" and perennial favourite "ANABLE-US", a site run by the Arkansas chapter of the National Association of Belly Lint Enthusiasts, in the quest for daily hits.

When asked to comment on the site's downward slide, spokesperson Luis Bernstein-Garcia offered the network's theory:

"We think this may have something to do with the fact that the guy who runs this thing --I think his name is Jeff -- has not been posting nude pictures of pre-op trannies, which was how this blog was pitched to us in the first place"

The head writer of the site, alcoholic recluse Jamal Leders, could not be reached for comment, but is believed to have retired to his cabin in the woods of Northern Quebec to work on new topics for the blog and shave his backhair. Sources close to the writer describe his state of mind as "strangely euphoric", but caution that this may be largely due to the copious amounts of glue he has been sniffing following the end of his short marriage to a philipino mail-order bride.

It is said that Leders suffered a complete emotional breakdown following a recent meeting with network honchos where he was told his blog would be suspended, but staffers remain confident that he will return to the network family if he can put his personal life back in order.

"No one likes to see someone go to pieces like that. You tell the guy that it's OK to cry, but part of you is thinking Come on man, have some dignity" offered Clovis Van Der Veldt, Associate editor for Blogworld Syndicated, who was present at the meeting.

At the present time, officials refuse to speculate on Vis Comica's return date, but assure loyal readers that they remain behind the blog and are committed to its continued existence, as long as something more profitable does not come along. They remind visitors to the site that the links and archives will remain operative until they figure out how to pull the plug.

Now that I have seen how little storage space I'm gonna have in my new place, there's no getting around it... I'm gonna have to get my IKEA on!

I'm such a hypocrite. Barely two weeks ago I was bragging about my minimalist tendencies, and now I'm scurrying off to that unholy temple of swedish conformity to stockpile lamps and bins!...

What would Tyler Durden say?

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside


We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life

SWICHFOOT
is a San Diego Rock band with a distinctive sound and a refreshing outlook on life.

Their style of rock is as accessible as any mainstream act you are liable to come across, and yet their lyrics are infused with a spiritual message that is far from "preachy".

Little known fact: Their single "We were meant to live" was inspired by this 1925 poem by T.S. Elliot with the frequently-quoted ending:


The Hollow Men

I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III


This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV


The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V


Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Vindicated

I am selfish

I am wrong

I am right

I swear I'm right

I swear I knew it all along

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well

I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself


Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional

True story:

Today I stepped into the elevator at work at around 5:45 pm. An exhausted-looking gentleman was standing in one corner with his trenchcoat in the crook of his elbow. I gave him a quick glance and said "Good evening sir! How are you?" as cheerfully as I could. "Good evening... I'm doing fine... um, being kept very busy.... very busy" murmurred Michel Dorais, Judy Sgro's Deputy Minister.

"I'm sure you must be" is all I could answer.

one last party at 259 Bay 

Farewell to 259 Bay 

I was telling a friend the other day about my theory regarding Iraq, and it
occured to me that I had never properly articulated it before, so, for the first time in writing, here goes.

1991: Gulf War. Coalition Forces defeat Saddam Hussein's army, driving it out
of Kuwait and back into Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin
Powell is among those who advise against the invasion of Iraq, intimating that a
full-scale invasion would commit the U.S. and the international community to a
long term occupation of Iraq, possibly involving a drawn out period of fighting
insurgents, islamic fundamentalists and foreign fighters from the region who
rush in to fill the vaccuum in the wake of Hussein's downfall. "No way" says
President Bush Senior. A no-fly zone is established, the U.N. imposes economic sanctions and puts forward resolution after resolution in the U.N. calling for Hussein to disarm in the years that follow.

next ten years: First World Trade Centre Bombing, al Qaeda's rise to prominence. Bombing of U.S.S. Cole, ect. ad nauseam.

2001: September 11th.

2003: There is no direct link between September 11th and Saddam Hussein. U.S.
administration's strategy: Create one. Expansion of "War-on-Terror",
Axis-of-Evil, Doctrine of pre-emptive war paves the way. States giving aid and
comfort to terrorists are now legitimate targets. Following the failure of
sanctions and the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors, Secretary of State Colin
Powell is among those who advise against the invasion of Iraq, intimating that a
full-scale invasion would commit the U.S. and the international community to a
long term occupation of Iraq, possibly involving a drawn out period of fighting
insurgents, islamic fundamentalists and foreign fighters from the region who
rush in to fill the vaccuum in the wake of Hussein's downfall. "Exactly" says
President Bush Junior.

Fight them there so we don't have to fight them at home.

One event can change everything.

Demon Diarrhoea?

Historian Donald E. Graves describes the conditions in Winfield Scott's camp near Buffalo prior to the invasion of the Niagara peninsula during the War and 1812:

"Discipline is but the second object," Scott informed his officers, "the first is the health of troops," and from the outset he followed this credo. He ordered his men to bathe three times a week in the lake under the supervision of an officer who was to ensure that they were to "wash themselves from head to foot, but not to remain immersed in the water more than five minutes." Unusual for the time, this insistence on hygiene paid dividends - from April to the beginning of July, only two men died of sickness at Flint Hill and, to the amazement of medical personnel, "even the demon diarrhoea appeared to have been exorcised by the mystical power of strict discipline and rigid police!"

From the book Where Right and Glory Lead! The Battle of Lundy's Lane, 1814

Just think: This was an era where sickness often decimated armies before their campaigns had even started... If a few more American Generals had told their men to take baths like Scott did, Canada might now be a part of the United States!

Have you seen THIS SITE? Nothing more pathetic than a bunch of weepy wankers pretending to apologize in order to make a political statement. OK, so you are pissed about the fact that Bush got back in, but excuse me... what the heck are you really sorry about? Sorry that the Democrats blew it? Sorry that others don't agree with your particular world view? Are you really apologizing for the results of an election? Why should you apologize for the fact that your countrymen and countrywomen exercised their democratic right?... on the bright side, some of the photos, with their ersatz sentimentality, are downright hilarious.

Y'all just about done with your self-abasement and self-loathing? Good... lets move on, cause honestly... the knockoff sites are getting
OUT
OF
HAND

While everyone is apologizing, I'd like to apologize to our friends to the South for having such a high opinion of all of you... This type of degrading behaviour indicates that not all of you are worthy of my regard.


R.I.P. BIG BABY JESUS.

I dedicate this to all the pretty girls
All the pretty girls, in the world
And the ugly girls too
Cause to me your pretty anyways baby


ODB: the man who introduced KELIS to the world.

Tim and Jim 

Pops thinking he should have brought a warmer coat... bloody Ottawa weather! 

Remembrance Day 2004: At the National War Memorial in Ottawa 

Maybe you have GOOGLED others --I once changed my mind about asking a girl out after digging up some stuff on the Internet (nothing salacious... it had to do with debt, believe it or not) - but have you ever Googled yourself?

It's amazing what you can find out:

I remember when I was a spokesperson for Canada Customs during the Summit of the Americas in 2001 in Quebec City and spoke to someone at the Press-Republican of Plattsburg New York... but I don't remember saying the stuff I am credited with saying... @$&%# media!

I remember serving as a Corporal in the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment at one time, but apparently, I was also a Sapper in the Royal Engineers in 1863. If my third listing is taken into account, my military career spanned over two centuries. Pretty impressive. Between my stints in the military, I must have dabbled in petty theft, although I have no recollection of stealing a pig or any other farm animal, for that matter.

I guess the lesson is Don't believe everything you read online...

I wonder if it is too late to call that girl?

To all those progressive Americans who have decided to leave George Bush's USA and head North to live in the Dominion of Canada in the wake of your recent elections. You are most welcome! However, before you pull up stakes, there are a few things you need to know about this country and how we differ from the United States... we wouldn't want you to have any nasty surprises when you get here, so here goes:

Our taxes are higher... deal with it. Many of you are well-educated and have
the potential to secure high-paying jobs -- For this temerity you will be penalized most severely(incidentally, you better be employable, or we won't let you in as
skilled workers, wink wink). In our northern socialist paradise, we like to level the playing field, so think of this as your opportunity to allow others to experience the utopian health care system you have dreamed of for the U.S. --thanks to the
income taxes that will decimate your disposable income. Hey, at least you'll get your flu shot!

We grow the best dope in the world. BC Bud. And it is decriminalized, which means you can get fined, but you won't go to jail. Also, if you are gay, you can get married in several provinces. That's all I will say about those two little nuggets.

Except in BC (which is barely part of Canada) our winters are really bloody cold --and not Aspen ski holiday cold, or a blustery-Nantucket-in-January cold-- I'm talking bone-cracking, mind numbing, fingers-turn-black-and-fall-off cold. You will undoubtedly find this hard to take... but you may find comfort in the fact that our miserable mosquito-plagued summers are mercifully short.

We are more "British" than you, in the sense that we have a Queen, a Westminster-style
Parliament, and we are generally more subdued and less individualistic
than you... (Peace order and good government, is our credo rather than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) but we are in denial about it, in the sense that we have
constructed an identity for ourselves as a multicultural nation, so that we can
pretend that we weren't basically a colony of Britain until the 1930s. Hell, we
didn't even have our own flag until the sixties!

We consider ourselves a mosaic, not a melting pot. In the U.S. a Chinese person who immigrates becomes a Chinese-american. In Canada, a Chinese person who immigrates to Canada is considered Canadian by the Government, but identifies themselves as Chinese to everyone else. Some people say we couldn't be a melting pot because we don't have anything for people to melt into. The anglo side of this bicultural nation is notiorious for its insecurity over its identity, we identify ourselves by what we aren't not what we are.... hence our occasional juvenile outbursts of antiamericanism, masquerading as nationalism....as for the French side... I'm not even gonna go there.

None of your f*cking guns. We really really mean it. Shit, I mean, we've spent over a billion dollars on a gun registry that doesn't event work! That's how serious we are about gun control in this country... and we sure as hell don't have any second amendment type garbage in our constitution. You better not bring anything more dangerous that a BB gun up here or we will confiscate it on your ass. Guns are for cops, soldiers, and the occasional hunter out in the boondocks... That's it. Which raises the inevitable question: Are Canadians a bunch of pussies? Well, that is a complex question.

We like to think that we are a kinder, gentler, country (to borrow a phrase from Bush Sr.)... and yet in our favourite sport (that's hockey... just hockey... not ICE-hockey)bloodletting is a mundane occurence. Also, we have some pretty macho national icons like the mountie, and the voyageur, and the lumberjack... One thing for sure, we USED TO BE tough... real tough. We had the best army fighting in World War I, we had the world's fourth largest Navy in World War 2 (which started, for us, in 1939, NOT in 1941, thank you very much). We once even defended ourselves from invasion by your ancestors (War of 1812) and burnt down the goddamn White House in retaliation --it used to be painted pink. Now, we think our military is for peacekeeping, and only when the U.N. says it is OK. I suppose we have largely forgotten our fathers, but we wear a poppy every November 11, and pretend we remember. In Quebec they do remember (je me souviens), but what they remember is 1759, and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which is still being fought today. They are winning.

Finally, our beer is.... different. Our beer is to yours as Aston Martin is to Pinto, as sirloin is to ground chuck, as diamonds are to cubic zirconia.... in short, Democrat beer lovers, to their delight, will reap the unexpected reward of their political choice in the form of access to our vastly superior brews. If that isn't incentive enough to move to Canada, I don't know what is!

Once again, welcome... but you've been warned.

Magnanimity in victory, dignity in defeat

I'll say this... in spite of the nastiness of the campaign, the finale to this election has renewed my faith in the American political process.

In his concession speech, Kerry was the opposite everything his critics accuse him of being: He was warm (emotional, even!)and down-to-earth, he was succinct, he was he was direct and straightforward. It was a heartbreaking glimpse of the statesman he could have been.

In his victory speech, Bush displayed thoughtfulness, humility, and gratitude. Even his detractors must admit that he displayed none of the arrogance and cockiness that sometimes bubbles to the surface in his moments of triumph.

Before the nation descends back into the bitter partisan bickering that has characterized the political landscape for the last few months, I'm just going to enjoy the moment...

Looks like the Republicans have put the boots to the Democrats in Nebraska after all...

The Democrat's chosen one, Barak Obama, comes highsteppin' into the endzone and does a funky touchdown dance to celebrate his Senate seat in Illinois. Someone to watch in the years to come.

10:40... Ay Dios mio! Bush is winning the hispanic vote in Florida? Kerry may go southcentral on the fool's ass on the left coast, but in the nubby-state, the barios are painted red, ese!


It is 11:30. As it stands right now, Bush is ahead in the popular vote, but the electoral college is what counts. Shades of 2000 (the damn election looks like a carbon-copy of the last one anyway)... looks like we have to wait for the decision.
I'm going to bed!

If Bush ends up winning this thing.... the pundits are shaking their well-coifed heads. I mean come on! The economy is lethargic, Iraq, if not a quagmire, is certainly not a pretty picture. The intelligentsia, Michael Moore, Hollywood, minority groups, the media, your uncle Jerome, your yuppie neighbours... they are all against Bush. Any half-decent Democratic candidate should have handed George his ass. How could this happen? Who are these people that may be giving the White house back to Bush? I know! Let's pin it on the religious right! Maybe these supposedly-outside-the-mainstream turned out to vote in droves? You remember, of course... These are the people that made the Passion of the Christ a $500 million box office smash after the Liberal elite had written off the "art flick" as lacking in mainstream appeal and consigned it to box-office oblivion. Apparently, there are alot more rght-wing wackos out in the heartland than the Democrats thought. If Bush wins, is the mainstream about to be redefined in America?

Some random musings on election night in the U. S. of A....

seven-thirtyish... I'm watching CNN. They are going to great pains to tell us that they will absolutely, positively NOT CALL ANY STATE until they are 100% sure of which way it is gonna go... and just because they are NOT CALLING A STATE, that does not necessarily mean that the state is "too close to call". Gotcha. Consider that ass covered.

Terry McAuliffe, that obnoxious DNC jerkoff, has a vague, slightly annoying accent I can't place. Sorta sounds Midwestern. You know, the people who say "sari" when they mean sorry, and call hockey "ice-hackey" SHUDDER!

I'm oblivious... Until tonight, I had no idea that Red is for REPUBLICAN and Blue is for DEMOCRAT. I thought it was vice versa... like up here in the great white north where tories have always been BLUE, unless they are RED tories, meaning conservatives who are social liberals --I dunno, the whole bleeding heart thing? Isn't there some kind of association there?

The Liberal party has always been les rouges, as far as I know. The Green party is green, of course, the NDP is, uh, green too, but more of a pukey green, and the Bloc is... who cares.

CNN reiterates that they will no call any state unless... yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, Judy!

Candy Crowley of CNN: Like Otto from the Simpsons would say... "uh, you used to be a dude, right?"

8:25 pm... Everyone is so enthusiastic about the early returns! The Democrats are thrilled, the Republicans are confident... I see some burst bubbles in someone's future.

sidebar - Vanessa Kerry: She looks like her dad in drag... except her eybrows actually move.

8:40 pm... President Bush carries the old Dominion of Virginia, as expected, and North Carolina (home state of John Edwards!) but Pennsylvania still hangs in the balance

9:15... rumours of another Miami-Dade cock-up abound. Election threatens to drag for days....

9:40 bush Punks out Kerry for one of Maine's electoral college votes, but Kerry puts the kibosh on that gambit by taking one of Nebraska's... end result. nil gain for either candidate.

So far, nothing but speculation and wishful thinking from my usual web haunts....

It is official. Barring any unforseen complications, I will be moving to a new place at the end of this month. It is a lovely little flat in a 6 story building in the heart of Sandy Hill, and only a 20 minute walk from work. I don't really have much of a choice, since the next occupants of my current place will be arriving at the begining of the month.... they have a really interesting plan for remodelling the building. You've heard of open concept? Well they are going to do "open air concept"... basically, they are going to gut the apartment and tear it down to the foundations. How avant-guard! They are levelling half of my block to build condos. I thought the building boom was over and that the housing market had levelled off, but a walk around my neighbourhood would disabuse you of that notion. Centretown is being transformed as heritage buildings and delapidated houses like mine make way for condos and townhouses way out of my price range.

Moving in December is going to be such fun, what with the snow and bitter Ottawa cold and all! On the bright side, my minimalist tendencies mean that I really don't have that much stuff to move. I suppose that one day, in the distant or not-too-distant future I will become a much more efficient and voracious consumer, stockpiling massive quantities of products, furniture and appliances, in a desperate search for fulfillment. For now, I subscribe to Tyler Durden's philosophy about material goods: "The things you own... end up owning you"

When I was a member of the The "Lake Sups", a Reserve Infantry Regiment in Thunder Bay, I trained with guys from a number of different units, including The Loyal Edmonton Regiment. The Loyal Eddies, and many other proud Canadian Regiments, bear this name proudly on their battle-scarred Regimental colours:
ORTONA

This week, Canadians REMEMBER

"It wasn't hell. It was the courtyard of hell. It was a maelstrom of noise and hot, splitting steel...the rattling of machine guns never stops ... wounded men refuse to leave, and the men don't want to be relieved after seven days and seven nights... the battlefield is still an appalling thing to see, in its mud, ruin, dead, and its blight and desolation (...) With the fall of Ortona, the battle of the Moro river is over, and there is a new name to add to the list of great deeds of the war...neither in this war nor in any other has there been anything more bitter and intense. The Canadians beat two of the finest German divisions that ever marched in a long fury of fire and death ending in the appalling week of Ortona."

Matthew Halton

The REVIEWS are in!... 3 out of 4 critics agree: TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE is one funny f***ing movie!

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at the cinema. This is a repugnant, reprehensible nasty little bastard of a puppet flick. If you are a Michael Moore dupe, you will probably be deeply offended. If you are a chest-thumping neo-con, you will be outraged. If you are a sceptical observer who unapologetically appreciates clever satire laced with liberal doses of obscenity and juvenile potty-humour like me, you will love every minute.

Kudos to Matt Stone and Trey Parker for delivering a sorely needed kick to the nuts to moronic celebrity blowhards, brain-dead profiteers of patriotism, and cliche Hollywood action flicks.

PAUL WELLS of Macleans says: Team America: World Police is certainly the most insightful political movie of 2004. I could not agree more.

Once in a while, reading STEYN is like having the veil of ignorance, stupidity and complacency lifted from my eyes. Why accept the status quo? Why accept political ideology as gospel? Here is an excerpt from one of his latest articles, from The Western Standard:


(...) what’s fascinating to me is that, no matter how inept the nanny state is, no matter how bad the health care system gets in reality, Canadians are still unwilling to give up on its utopian virtues – universal lack of access, equality of non-care. We believe it’s more moral to take poor government health care than to make arrangements for our own.

The Canadian system is supposedly designed for the weakest in society - the unfortunate person who needs medical treatment but, without the state, would have difficulty gaining access to it. But, by treating all of us as the weakest in society, the state softens us – and softens itself. When health care is the government’s responsibility, it becomes its principal responsibility. Imagine if we had as many high-profile conferences on national security as we do on health. But we don’t. Because the minute you make government the provider of health care, you ensure that, come election time, the electorate identifies health as its number one concern. Thus, in a democracy, the very fact of socialized health care seduces government away from its prime responsibility – the defence of the realm. In the Canadian cabinet, the Health portfolio is more prestigious than Defence. Think Donald Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health?

You may not agree with his view... but it certainly makes you think....

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night --alone and exhausted from a crazy week of picket-line duty and 10-hour days. The Public Service Alliance of Canada was on STRIKE this week, and I ain't a member... I'm considered part of the excluded "management" category right now. That means I had to do employee liaison duty --basically stand outside my building with a bright orange panel vest from 6 am to 10 am, and stop people from sneaking into the building. Anyway, after the week I had, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch a movie like Eternal Sunshine, because I can't say I enjoyed it. Incidentally, I also rented The Punisher. It brought back fond memories of reading the nihilistic comics as an angry teen and it was right up my alley.

The bizarre cinematography and quirky style of Eternal Sunshine got on my nerves after a while, but more annoyingly, I couldn't figure out why Joel, Jim Carey's character, became so desperate to hold on to his memories of the character played by Kate Winslet. I guess it was the sentimentality of the character, and the realization that he really didn't want to forget his "Tangerine" after all, once he recovered from the sudden trauma of the breakup... but Clementine, as portrayed by the usually lovely miss Winslet, seemed to me to be an insufferably obnoxious, selfish and pretentious hippy slob with a real mean streak, not at all worthy of the male lead's heartfelt devotion. There must have been something special about her, but I think that the filmmaker failed to show enough of her sweet side to make her seem like someone worth hanging onto. Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard (OK, I admit it, I AM a cynical bastard), but, having taken the extreme step of decided to erase memories of his ex-girlfriend from his head (OUCH!), and seeing how most of the memories seemed pretty bad anyway, I couldn't figure out why the despondent Joel changed his mind halfway through the memory-erasing procedure, particularly since Clementine had had the procedure done first! --In the movie this cruel decision on her part is supposed to be excused because she is "impulsive"... excuse me? Jetting off to New York City for the weekend is impulsive... deliberately erasing someone from your brain is... well, something else entirely.

More to the point, and I speak from personal experience now, a person may indeed have many good memories of someone after a breakup, but sometimes, if there are enough bad memories, the bad ones can colour the whole experience, even taint the good memories enough so that in hindsight, the entire relationship may come to be viewed with some degree of ambivalence. That isn't to say you end up despising the person for all time... just that you can be philosophical about the whole thing and say "Well, on balance, that was a pretty lousy experience..." In time, you may come see the benefits of having had the experience, because you learn from it, don't you? And it makes you the person you are today. Still... what you don't do is look back and say "Wow, I'm really glad I have all these memories of this person!"...at least I don't-- you just try to salvage something good and do your best not to dwell on the bad. By that measure, the idea of rapid memory-erasing in order to accelerate the healing process, which is the central conceit of the story, isn't an entirely illogical one... although it is probably grossly unethical to tamper with peoples' brains the way they do in the movie.

I have had people ask me if I have any bitterness or rancor towards an ex girlfriend that treated me particularly shabbily some time ago... and I can say with some degree of pride that I do not. You see, I underwent some memory-erasing of my own. Not through some unnatural procedure... just by the slow passage of time. I lost contact with that person completely and somehow, whether it happened by design or by accident, both good and bad memories of that time in my life, so raw and painful for some time after the break-up, have faded to the point that I scarcely remember our relationship. Viewing the period now with the clinical detachment of hindsight, am I sad that I can't really remember much? Not really. I guess that is just the way my brain works. I have a vague sense that I may be depriving myself of something by either having repressed the memories or having lost them quite by accident, but then again, my head is always full of other good memories, because I try to make them every day.

Paloma and Mila are at work, so the rest of the Ellard clan spend time loitering in the streets of Windsor on Thanksgiving weekend. 

Joe and T-dogg 

yours truly and kid brother George, who insists on making a funny face. 

Speaking of memories... here's a pic of the Ellard family and guests, Thanksgiving 2004. 

Watching George and John in matching suits and ties rounding out the trilogy of debates. Will this be "Return of the Jedi"; the crappiest installment of the three and a letdown to the fans?... or will it be "Return of the King", a fitting climax to an epic conflict? (end of cheesy analogy) Since I missed the second installment (the townhall, widely seen as a draw), I am really struck by the different tone of this one... Bush has his face under control, for one... no more grimaces on the split screen. He also seems less angry, almost subdued. Johnny-boy is still doing the smug grin. He has the look of someone who has this thing in the bag, and who knows it... not so fast, Jack... polls have the race at a dead heat... and we know that the Republicans traditionally poll low compared to their election night numbers.

At one point, George talks about the importance of religion in his life. It is a poignant moment... but I suppose the sneering intelligentsia will gobble this up as one more example of his irrationality. But wait, Kerry is talking about religion too? Oh, OK, now he is talking about schools... he had me confused for a second there! Nice segue.

George and John seem a bit more relaxed... Bush even makes a crack about his scowling and slouching ... Kerry jokes about "marrying up" and taking himself too seriously. They have played it safe and sober.

Some may have found the debate dull, but I was impressed by some of the thoughtful comments I heard tonight... it is almost enough to make you renew your faith in the inherent goodness and rightness of the Great Republic, as Churchill called the U.S. Sure, some of it might be just be campaign trail boilerplate, but I'm impressed by the rhetoric all the same. More than ever, I fail to understand some of the instinctive anti-americanism to which I am constantly exposed. Canadian politicians, who seem to wallow in the petty brinksmanship of their profession, and seldom show true leadership, could take a page from the yankee book.

We'll see what happens with the undecideds. After tonight, I must admit I am optimistic. I am also convinced that whichever of these two guys wins the election, America will be in pretty good hands. In a sense, from my point of view, John Kerry has won a major victory... he may just have convinced people who think like me that he wouldn't make such a bad commander-in-chief.

But lets just see how this thing plays out...

The UK sold us JUNK, critics have been saying for some time. In the wake of THIS tragedy, I expect the Government to come under fire like never before... The Chief of Defence Staff said "absolutely" when asked if he still believed that we should have bought the defective subs...

How many of us agree with him?

Trailer Park Boys?

I Promise I won't post any more bad songs on my blog... but ya gotta admit, Kevin Little created an addictive little ditty.... If you've heard it on the radio, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't heard it, you are probably completely confused by my last post.

Presidential debate night... I'm gonna kinda provide something of a running commentary, without getting carried away with the details... just the general impressions of a reactionary right-winger... so now that you know about my political leanings:

JFK starts the off by kissing Jim Lehrer's ass... GWB starts off looking very sombre, on his first point he sounds like he's trying to level with the American public on Iraq... On the split screen, Kerry looks bemused by George, who starts to a do a little head-bob whenever he is being particularly emphatic. Kerry makes it clear in his rebuttle to GWB's first point that he is gonna through down the military card tonight.

Kerry is getting in some good early shots. He is all over Bush's handling of the War On Terror (WOT). Bush is being clever, say "I" did this, and "I believe"... swatting away the insinuation that he has been manipulated by people around him, a central tennet of the Bush-hater's creed. Turning the tables on the dems who accuse him of being simplistic in his conduct of the WOT, Bush is telling us that it is a multi-front war. Kerry counters by saying that Iraq is not even close to the centre of the WOT.

Kerry talking about body armour? Wasn't this the guy that voted against the 87 billion for appropriations? Iraq is getting worse, he says. Whap! Bush nails him with voting against the use of force. Bush keeps harping on steadfast, resolved... Kerry says he can succeed but Bush can't. both of these guys have been well coached and they are staying on message.

JFK is looking more expressive than I've ever seen him! He must have given up the botox. Was that an eyebrow twitch I just saw? Now he's getting a bit pendantic, as is his tendency. Bush addresses homeland security with what I have come realize is a central point of his philosophy: Stay on the offense. Fight the enemy abroad so that we don't have to fight them here. Bush looks a bit petulant during portions of the debate, and nowhere near as comfortable as he did during the Republican National Convention in NY last month.

A free Iraq will... a free Iraq will.... vs. "help is on the way"... once again, both bangin' home those messages. On the famous 87 billion, Kerry scores a bullseye: I made a mistake saying I voted for it before I voted against it... my opponent made a mistake going to war. Ouch.

Bush says the coallition is strong, Kerry continues to shit on it, cynically holding the line because Brits Australians and Poles don't vote in American elections... plans to do some fence-mending next February when he an Ter-ray-sa move into the White House, I guess.

Everyone kept describing both of these men as formidable debaters but neither of them seems particularly on their game tonight. Both seem halting, unsure at times. Maybe when they start speaking to each other a bit more they will go for each other's throats.

On his long term plans for Iraq, Kerry sounds sure, confident... he knows where he is going... he may be terribly wrong in his approach, but I don't think anyone can say he doesn't have a plan. Bush takes him to task for his comments on Alawi (the "puppet" PM) after Kerry's statement about changing the "dynamics on the ground". I love it when Bush talks about "enforcing doctrine" like some policy wonk... kinda puts paid to the Bush is a moron assertion.

Why does Kerry keep crapping on allies? "Outsourcing" the war on terror? "coallition of the bribed and coerced?" Is this his nuanced approach to foreign policy we keep hearing about? Bush looks genuinely puzzled about the statement that "pre-emptive action must pass the global test"... The look on his face is "Global test? WTF is this guy talking about?" You and me both, George...

GWB seems strongest when he talks about beliefs... and that is where he and Kerry differ. You may not agree with Bush but you know where he stands. He is categorical. He is certain. Kerry takes issue with Bush's certainy "You can be certain and wrong". What bothers Bush about Kerry is precisely the opposite: In Bush's opinion, Kerry changes positions because of politics and pressure --and in his mind, you just can't do that when you are president. You must be steadfast. Bush believes Kerry will wilt under pressure because he is unsure of his core values.

The comments on weapons of mass destruction, each man's approach to North Korea and Russia and particularly, their closing comments reveal a central truth: Americans are faced with the starkest choice between presidential candidates in half a century. Few men differ so fundamentally on so many issues. I think that the United States is in a unique historical position. At the present moment, it is perhaps the most dominant nation to ever exist... and now the world awaits the choice of its citizens.

Just posting some random pictures tonight because I have figured out how to upload photos! This is the Augustus of Prima Porta, in the Vatican Museum. One of the most incredible statues I have ever seen. The majesty of Augustus Caesar and the glory of Imperial Rome rendered marble.

Memories of Rome... May 9th, hung over on the Apian way, rockin' some kind of pompadour?

Going home for Thanksgiving this year...



I'm looking forward to seeing the familia. This picture is from the last time I visited Windsor this summer. I'm looking very cheerful in this photo... which is a bit peculiar, considering my lungs were filling with fluid at that very moment because of the toxic fumes that waft over the Detroit River during the height of summer.

Believe the hype.

Just saw a fantastic flick that was a big hit in the UK last year... no, not that saccharine mess Love Actually (I agree with Mark Steyn who wrote Love Actually is crap, actually)

The movie I am talking about is Shawn of the Dead (see the trailer HERE) described as "RomZomCom" or romantic zombie comedy. Believe it or not, that is a pretty accurate description. Not only is it a wickedly funny film, it has some great gore, if you are into that sort of thing, and well-crafted characters that you actually care about. Set against the backdrop of an outbreak of zombieism in North London , SOTD (as movie geeks have already christened it) tells the story of the disintegration of a thirty-year old electronics salesman's relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend and his efforts to win her back, aided and hindered in turns by family and friends. What is truly hilarious about this movie is that none of the characters seem to notice what is going on around them for the first third of the film. When they finally do, the payoff is really worth the price of admission.

Some critics claim the movie is pointing out that in today's urban society, we humans are half-zombie already, or at least, that we frequently engage in zombie-like behaviour. Now, there is some validity to that, but I prefer to think that what the filmmakers are really saying is that we can all be a bit self-obsessed or disconnected from the ugly reality of our everyday lives at times, and when we are going through a particularly bad emotional experience, it is entirely possible that we become completely oblivious to what is going on around us... Lord knows, I've been guilty of that little sin more than once.

This is the kind of movie you will want to watch again and again, and you'll probably be rewarded as you pick up some of the more subtle jokes or references (and you finally wrap your ear around the english accents of the protagonists) on repeat viewings. If you don't end up enjoying SOTD, check your pulse... you may be a zombie yourself.

Damn... summer's almost over!

Two months!

Two months I've been away.

I'm back now.

Check back soon.

I have rather consciously neglected my blog of late. It's been pretty tough to keep up the writing with work being what it is. I have been exceptionally busy. Today, however, I am prompted to write. I have been watching a TV special on Mordechai Richler, who is probably, by critical consensus, Canada's most talented author of the late twentieth century (although some would give that title to Atwood) and the quintessential unrepentant Montreal anglo. He is known not only for his fantastic novels, which so eloquently captured the soul of the city he loved, but for his forays into polemic writing. Richler fought the nationalists in Quebec relentlessly, dragooning his formidable talents into service to ridicule their pretensions and point out the inherent contradictions of their credo. In the late eighties and early nineties, while the Feds were flirting and unwisely pandering to the separatists, Richler railed against the injustices he saw around him. He saw beneath the surface of "civic nationalism" and exposed the "siege mentality" and the paranoid and obsessive nature of the sovereignty movement, which sought to limit the rights of others in order to safeguard their own way of life. As a French-speaking Anglophone with many nationalist friends who has lived in Montreal, I have my own perspective on the "Quebec question". Simply put, you can dress it up in the garb of "civic nationalism", but the heart of the sovereignty movement is ethnic identity and the duty of minorities to conform to the wishes of the ethnic francophone majority. It is an attitude that proclaims "You may live here, and you may associate with us, but unless you adhere to our philosophy, unless you adopt our language and our ways, you will never be one of us". This is a view entirely at odds with the fundamental beliefs of most Canadians, and it manifests itself in many noxious forms: separatism, anti-semitism, xenophobia. I recall Parizeau and Landry post-referendum eructations on the eve of their defeat ("Money and the ethnic vote"?)and more recent indiscrete remarks, glimpses into their dark hearts. When one reads
Oh Canada! Oh Quebec, one sees that Richler, as so few others did, understood the nature of the fight for the soul of his Province in the late twentieth century.

OK, I'm off my politics kick. The system is broke. First past the post excacerbates regional cleavages. Canadians don't reject the West, but our system sure makes it look like we do. We need to fix it. End of story.

Onto lighter fare. Saw Spidey 2. Loved the heck out of it. I was never a big fanboy as a teenager. I read maybe a two dozen Spider-man comics as a teen, mostly during the McFarlane craze. The Spider-man I am more familiar with is the cartoon from the seventies with the cheesy animation and a very old-sounding Peter Parker.

I loved the first movie because it wasn't the story of a superhero who occasionally adopted an alter-ego to walk among us, but the story of a young man who occasionally had to put on some red and blue tights and fight the bad guys between college classes. It was as much the story of Peter Parker making his way in this big scary world as it was a "superhero flick".

I figured that the one way that Sam Raimi (one of my favourite directors) could botch his second crack at Marvel's flagship franchise would be to focus too much on the spider and not enough on the man this time around. Thankfully, Spiderman 2 is as squarely focused on the trials and tribulations of young Peter as its predecessor. So much more than a summer popcorn flick, it is the compelling story of a kid coming to terms with the life he has chosen, and the price he must pay because of this choice.

One of the best things about this movie is the cast. The performances are universally strong across the board. In his second outing as Spidey, Tobey MacGuire hits his stride. his performance is note perfect. Although Kirstin Dunst would not have been my first choice as MJ, she is growing on me in the role. James Franco: I like the guy alot, but his brooding Harry Osborne is in a holding pattern in SM2, There is, however, a promise of great things in future installments, if this franchise steams along for a couple more movies --as I'm sure it will. Alfred Molina does a kickass job as Doc Ock. Smart and scary and bad, but without being really evil, if that makes any sense. Great supporting turns from Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, and of course a fantastic cameo by Bruce Campbell, my personal messiah!

Because I hate it when people give away the plot of movies, I will say no more. The effects are light years ahead of what we saw last time around. The plot, unburdened with the task of all that exposition that usually hampers any first film in a series, is a big improvement on that of first flick. The dialogue is comic-bookish without being ridiculous, and Sam Raimi, using his trademark whip-pans and funky innovative camera moves, directs with all the gusto he mustered in his classic Evil Dead films... only now, 20 years later, people are giving him bags of money to do his thing. Watch this flick, and I guarantee you'll leave the cinema with a smile on your face, looking forward to the next visit from your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman!

Holy crap!

What happened?

A number of things:

The attack adds worked.

Scary Stephen frightened all the soccer moms in the 905.

Ontario flinched, held its nose, and voted for the devil they know.

BC turned its back on the Conservatives.

Jack Layton's used car salesman schtick went over with a fair number of non granola-crunching Canadians.

Gilles Duceppe proved that you don't have to flog a referendum even if you are a separatiste.(take note Landry)

and Quebec kicked Poll Marton in the balls so hard he'll be feeling until sometime after Christmas, possibly even well into next year (maybe now that his Quebec support has evaporated, people will stop calling him Paul Mar-tain... the guy is from Windsor, for chrissakes).

I said:

BQ would take 57. As of midnight, they are at 53. I figured Lapierre was toast. Shows what I know.

NDP would take 26. As of midnight, they are at 21. I didn't count on Toronto turning chickenshit.

I was WAY OFF about the Liberal and Conservative totals. CBC has it at 137 to 96 at midnight (I didn't count on the rest of Ontario turning chickenshit, for that matter).

Alot of close races... some may not be resolved for days, maybe even weeks, but no doubt about it... the NDP and the Bloc are the big winners tonight. They can say what they like about being a new party, but you gotta figure the Conservatives are disappointed.

The traitors win big, with possibly their highest total of seats ever (we'll see after the inevitable recounts), and the commies now hold the balance of power in our parliament... I suppose it could have been worse... I could have been the reverse. (can you imagine a parliament --with a 50-member NDP caucus no less-- where the Liberals have to grovel before the separatists? Gak!)

Hell... who knows, maybe some good will come out of this Liberal-NDP minority thing!

My predictions on election day -- because it's fun to speculate and then make excuses for why you were wrong!...

These are completely unscientific. They are based on nothing more than my general impressions, gleaned largely from polls, pundits, and a good old fashioned gut feeling about the way things will go down. I am adopting the Steyn-Coyne nomenclature for the major parties (with terms for the Liberals and Conservatives stolen from the last election in France)

Party Seats

Fascists (CPC): 114
Crooks (LPC): 110
Traitors (BQ): 57
Commies (NDP): 26
Freaks (Green): 1

I really believe that if it is anywhere near as close as I am calling it, and if the Liberals get a higher percentage of the popular vote than the Conservatives (as alot of people are predicting), Paul Martin WILL try to govern with a minority (recent comments about "common sense" notwithstanding).

What does this mean? Mr. Martin prepares for the inevitable fallout within his party, tries to reconcile with the Liberal left wing, cozies up to the NDP and maybe even the Bloc, and staggers along for a few months until the next election, which will be sooner rather than later. After the way his people mishandled his campaign and squandered the lead that the Liberals' enjoyed when the election was called, the question is: will Paul be around to lead the next campaign?

Yet another tedious update...

Visit Coyne. He is now writing about a permanent change in the Canadian political landscape. As the Liberal's grasp of Ontario and Quebec slips through their fingers --Several reasons for that, including a couple I mentioned in previous posts (the social and fiscal conservatism of new Canadians, the disenchantment of Canadians with "their" traditional governing party...)-- Mr. Coyne brings up the idea that Stephen Harper's ultimate goal may in fact be the establishment of a permanent (American style!!!) two-party system in Canada...

As I watch a chameleonesque shipping magnate Paul Martin aggressively court NDP voters as he attempts to re-cast himself as a left-leaning warm-and-fuzzy politician, I'm starting to think that Andrew may be on to something...

Update:

HERE, in contrast, is a reproduction of the NP's editorial endorsing the Conservatives. Agree or disagree, you have to admit, it is not a "qualified" or "conditional" endorsement.

This version comes courtesy of the Belinda Stronach site.

Belinda Stronach: Potentially, the hottest Cabinet Minister in Canada's history... damn, she is fine!

I'm addicted to election coverage.

I love the way people like Judy Rebick talk about the horror of "Reagan-Bush-style Government" if the Conservatives come to power. Some people just can't resist kicking the yanks in the nuts every chance they get.

Alan Greenspon has basically admitted that the Globe could have gone either way in their endorsement op-ed. He said the editorial board went 55-45 on the endorsement. It may be an endorsement of the Liberals, but I doubt any Liberals will be crowing about it from the rooftops.

Here is an actual excerpt from this editorial --Remember this is an editorial endorsing another Liberal Government:

To put it succinctly, Paul Martin, or whoever is inhabiting his body, has proved a monumental disappointment since becoming Prime Minister six months ago. His pronouncements have displayed all the consistency of Pablum. Intent on winning every vote in the country, he lived in fear of offending someone, somewhere, somehow. On Iraq and Kyoto, he was incomprehensible. On same-sex marriage, he swung both ways. On missile defence co-operation, first he was openly for it, then secretly for it. He had two Supreme Court openings, but boxed himself into a process corner.

He made enemies of the meritorious (witness Stéphane Dion) and promoted the mediocre (come on down, Jean Lapierre). The only difference between his political manipulations and those of his "friendly dictator" predecessor was that the latter didn't leave bloodied fingerprints at the crime scene.

On health care, we have heard much rhetoric. But Mr. Martin's ideas for shortening waiting lists remain fanciful. As a general rule, he has beseeched voters to count on his reputation for solutions rather than proposing any.

The National Post has highlighted the "outlandish contradiction" of this election:

Many voters, otherwise sensible, believe that the one federal party proven to be irresponsible is the only responsible choice. That would be the Liberals.

Jonathan Kay of the National Post on CBC in response to Alan Greenspon and the Globe's Editorial: "Do you want to give this monumental disappointment another mandate?"

Well, do ya?

Today's lesson: If you and your dog are nice to people, they might just think twice about killing you and everyone in the immediate area...

So please be a nice person! My life may depend on it.

I wonder...

If the day after the election, Paul Martin finds himself at the head of a minority government, will he suddenly develop an allergy to taking on the Democratic Deficit? It's easy to talk about reforming parliament when your majority is so large you don't have to worry about a few renegades breaking ranks once in a while... My guess is that the whips will come out and some Liberal MPs will end up with nasty welts on their backs if they go wobbly on the big guy.

Since Martin's accession to the Liberal throne way back in December, Paul "Porkpie" Wells has been doing a fantastic job of chronicling our PM's early efforts at ending the democratic deficit on his blog. Check out his archives. (it's a fine blog, Paul, don't worry about what mean people say!)

If he gets his job back, I'm sure we can expect more of the same from this champion of democracy.

OK, let me get THIS straight... we need to re-elect Martin because Stephen Harper's party "isn't ready"? I guess them country bumpkins is slow learners, huh?

We wish Mr. Martin had afforded himself the opportunity of an 18-month tryout before going to the polls. Now the voters have the opportunity to impose a probationary period themselves. Whichever party prevails Monday, a minority looks the most likely outcome. We believe Mr. Martin represents the less risky proposition and deserves a second chance to prove himself. We further believe the Conservatives could use more time to pull their new party together and make their positions and predispositions clearer.


... and so, the Globe & Mail reaches the nadir of arrogance.

Michael Moore's lardy posterior is still smarting from the monumental boot-torquing that Chris Hitchens delivers in his review of Fahreinheit 911 (no, I won't dignify the website for this film with a link... it's my blog, and I can do what I like). Read it. Now.

I still plan on seeing the damn film... I am fascinated by demagoguery and propaganda in all its forms.

What do I think of the election campaign?

Well, being the "right-wing reactionary" (my dad's term) that I am, I am encouraged.

That's not to say that politics in Canada is taking a hard-right turn, regardless of what the yank-bashers and guardians of Canadian culture would have you believe. The centre has proved to be a surprisingly spacious piece of political real estate, notwithsanding the efforts of the Liberal Party-- the party of "da Canadian Values" -- to extend their lease there.

I am encouraged because in the wake of the Alliance-Conservative shotgun marriage something surprising happened. Rather than swallowing the rump PC holus-bolus as the Tory old guard of that moribund party (Clark, Stevens, et al)predicted, the giddy newlyweds found that they could accomodate each other. This "hostile takeover" ended up pulling the Western rednecks and social conservatives kicking and screaming over into moderate right-of centre territory, miles away from the goose-steppers and Jesus freaks with whom they had previously been lumped by Canada's liberal media.

I discovered, to my astonishment, that there is more than one "establishment" in Canada. There is, of course, the "Liberal Establishment"... you know, the folks who created the "Trudeaupian" state, as Steyn calls the Canadian polity that has evolved since the late sixties. They have had the run of the joint in Federal politics for most of the last forty years (except for that eight-year Mulroney interregnum of constitutional and free trade squabbles that still makes most good Canadians shudder). With their Charter, their Multiculturalism, their vigorous anti-Americanism and wtheir well-intentioned degradation of Canada's proud military, the Libs put the Canadian identity in a powerful submission hold and squeezed until the monarchists and detaxers tapped out (I was just watching Wrestling, cut me some slack).

Thing is though, there is another establishment kicking around; "The Man" that the hippies warned us about: The Bay Street Boys, the sinister right-wing conspiracy, the old-Canada Cabal: during the nineties, a bunch of middle-aged cranky white guys kept electing fellows like Mike Harris and Ralph Klein at the Provincial level. In spite of having extirpated the Mulroneyites au federal, the Liberals never could deliver the coup de grace to the conservative breed once and for all. Sure, some interesting populist permutations evolved at the Federal level during the nineties, folks who seemed to be more suited to some carny side-show in Saskatchewan than the sombre halls of power of Ottawa, but in the provinces, there remained a right wing establishment, and darn it all if those guys didn't hang in there, and even flourish.

Maybe it was the return of smilin' Brian for the unveiling of his official portrait that signalled the Conservative resurgence. Maybe it was the courtship of Peter McKay and Stephen Harper. Heck, maybe it was the candidacy of BELINDA!... whatever it was, sometime in the last few months, Canadians discovered that a "conservative" was not some odd breed of American that had stolen the 2000 elections from Al.Gore, version 2.0, but honest-to-goodness flesh and blood humans who lived up here among us! Sure, they liked their hunting rifles and hated the Senate and high taxes, but some of them had some pretty interesting ideas about things like eliminating government waste and improving accountability. Most interesting of all, they consort with people we may dimly remember from the eighties, those Crosbies and MacDougalls that used to hang out with Ben Mulroney's dad.

Canadians have finally discovered that the Liberals do not have a monopoly on the Canadian identity. They have a vision of it (or do they? Coyne might dispute that) The Conservatives have a different vision. So do the NDP, for that matter, as bizarre and repugnant as it may seem. Nothing wrong with different visions. In fact, selecting between competing visions for the country isn't a half-bad way of deciding how to govern the country and who should do it. The Liberals seem alarmed that Harper's "Alliance-Conservatives" may have a hidden agenda... if by that they mean a "non-Liberal agenda", they have reason to worry. Harper has been admirably frank about his desire to take the country in a different direction. Polls seem to indicate that there is segment of our society that may be willing to give his version of Canada a whirl. The Liberals may be surprised that some of their "natural" constituents are turning their backs on their benefactors, but you can't have it both ways. If you are going to bring immigrants into Canada and encourage them to preserve their "traditions", you can't get snotty when they politely inform you that their traditions don't include Abdul and Mohammed getting married, or having young Bai Wen saunter home from the abortion clinic and finishing her calculus homework while smoking a big fatty.

That is where the Liberals get caught. They staked out a big spot in the centre, they cast a wide net, and now after one scandal too many, they are finding that in spite of their desperate assurances, they can't hold on to everyone. Is it any wonder that they are bleeding supporters left right and centre?

Question is... are the Conservatives close enough to the centre to pick off just enough disaffected Liberal voters to make this thing interesting? My gut tells me they are... but what will that mean on election night? Stay tuned.

Something was eating at me as I read Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

I couldn't quite put my finger on it... I had read the reviews and heard the raves, but somehow, the book just didn't do it for me.

The other day, I was looking up some articles on this controversial work of fiction and it all came together. The reason I didn't like The Da Vinci Code was because, as articles like this one and this one and this one point out, it tries to pass off conjecture as fact. It rewrites early Christian history so comprehensively, that anyone with a passing knowledge of the beginnings of this religion is left shaking their head. Read the aforementioned articles if you don't believe me...

This book didn't so much disappoint me as a reader as offend me as a history lover. I highly recommend this book to everyone and encourage them to read it and enjoy picking out the factual errors...and believe me, there are a lot of 'em.

AW COME ON!

First England blows it in extra time against the hated French, now perenial underachievers Spain limp to a tie with Greece? It's almost enough to make a guy stop following Euro 2000.

The pundits are calling last night's debate a draw... but we know better, don't we, Stevie? Better call the movers, Paul.

DAMNIT!

Anyone know if there are clumps of that balding bastard Zidane's hair on e-Bay?...

I'm making a Voodoo doll.

Started my new job last week... I now work HERE. When people hear that I used to work HERE, they make a funny face... but when they find out that before that, I worked HERE, they curse at me!

New job is fantastic... It is the kind of job that keeps me so busy, that before you know it, it is 6pm and I have to go home. I often have to force myself to leave because I am so into what I am doing.

Am I becoming a workaholic?...

60 years ago today a bunch of 20-25 year old Canadian boys were asked to do the impossible. They were farmboys from around Prince Albert, clerks from Winnipeg, lumber workers from New Brunswick and students from Montreal. The came from all walks of life and from all over Canada. They were not professionals. They were volunteers. Most were probably confused and scared shitless. But they jumped out of the planes, and waded ashore as the mortars fell and the machine guns fired. Alot of them died. Those who didn't had to watch as their friends collapsed and expired, choking on their own blood or crying out for their mothers. It must have been just about the worse thing you could ask someone to do... yet they did it, and they got farther inland than either the Americans or the Brits on that first day of Europe's liberation. Why? Because they had honour and they believed in something.

We owe them so much, and yet we can't repay them... only remember and honour them.

I finally finished putting the photos from my trip online... those of you who want to see them can send me an e-mail and I'll give you the link. I have now started my new job, and my trip feels like something that happened years ago, even though I have been back in Canada for less than a week... if I didn't have the photos and this blog I might almost wonder if I had even gone to Europe...surreal!

After spending so much time in old churches and art galleries, I have developed an interest in the history of the early Catholic church. I noticed that certain individuals who figure so prominently in the religious art of Italy are often represented with the objects of their martyrdom: Saint Peter crucified upside down on a cross, Saint Sebastian tied to a tree and pierced with arrows, or Saint Lawrence holding the grill upon which he was roasted, for instance. There are numerous sources of information on martyrs available on the Web and the details of their gruesome deaths make for fascinating reading... if you have a strong stomach.

Some martyrs appear to have suffered martyrdom willingly, even eagerly. In Westminster Cathedral, on a beautiful mosaic, I read the words that Saint Andrew is supposed to have spoken as he was about to be crucified. He said:

O bona crux que decurem et pulcritudinem de membris oni susepsti. Accireme ab hominibus et redde me magistro meo ut per te recipiat qui per te me redemit,

which in English translates roughly as:

Oh precious cross, which the members of my Lord have made so fair and Godly. welcome me from among men and join me again to my master, that as by thee he redeemed me, so by thee also he may take me unto himself.

That a person would accept and even embrace such horrible torment is almost incomprehensible to us today... but by such incredible faith and devotion was the early church sustained. Is it any wonder it has endured 2000 years?

On my last day overseas, I visited Westerham, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and James Wolfe, whose monument I had seen the day before in Westminster Abbey. I also hung out at a local pub, nd had the best dinner of the trip at a fantastic restaurant run by Corrado, friend of my cousin and her fiance. (It was a Neapolitan restaurant, not an English one). Now I am at Gatwick, reflecting on the fact that all good things must come to an end, sooner or later. I am a bit sad, but I am also looking forward to getting home, and facing whatever th future has in store for me....

The flight from Madrid to Gatwick was a piece of cake (more like an "air-taxi" than a real trip), and upon arrival in Bromley, a suburb of London, I had the pleasure of meeting my cousin Sara and her fiance. It was really was like meeting Sara for the first time, since the driven career woman with the wry sense of humour I got to know a bit last night bears no resemblance to the surly teenager with whom I butted heads when I was 14, literally half a lifetime ago. Danilo, her fiance, is a fantastic guy and a great cook to boot. He worked some strange alchemy on some chicken with lemon and wine that had me considering kidnapping him and bringing him back to Canada to teach how to make food taste halfway decent.

After a few drinks, we called it a night early so that I could head downtown with Danilo today and spend the day doing the tourist thing. London was exactly as it was the last time I was there... seething with people and absolutely mad. There's no way I'm going back there tomorrow, which will be a weekend. Still, I managed to see Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and hang out around Trafalgar Square. True to form, I also visited the National Gallery which, gasp, does not charge an admission fee (they "suggest" a donation of 4£, however). This museum is extremely impressive, and what it may lack in depth (it does not appear to have a substantial collection of any one's artist's works... or at least, not the sections I saw) it makes up in breadth, covering every area of Europe and every century from the 13th to the 20th. Definitely a must-see for anyone planning a trip to London... I'm almost ashamed of myself for not having been the first time I was in London three years ago.

Tomorrow is my last full day in Europe...

Well, this is it, I guess. Last day in Madrid.As if to put a period at the end of the sentence, I watched Oporto beat Monaco in the Champion´s League final last night. James´ Euro 2004 trip is just about over. I am grabbing an Easyjet flight to London this afternoon. In London, I will be staying with my cousin Sara, whom I have not seen for 14 years. I will also get to meet her fiance, which is great, since I plan on coming to the wedding next June, and this way the groom won´t be a complete stranger ("Nice to meet you... so I understand you are marrying my prima today..")

Yesterday, I spent the day at the Prado. I have now visited 3 of Europe´s -and possibly, the world´s- top museums: The Vatican, The Ufizzi, and the Prado. The Prado is a monument to the glories of Spain´s golden age in the 16th century. Whereas the Ufizzi is small and compact, the Prado is massive. It overflows with works by Goya, Velazquez (Las Meninas is truly one of the most amazing paintings I have ever seen), Bosch, El Greco, Raphael and the "big three" of the Venetian Renaissance: Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. It also contains works by one of my "new" favourites, Bellini. Bellini was a very influential painter who sometimes gets overlooked. His canvases are bright and beautiful, truly uplifting.

Interestingly enough, the Prado also bears witness to Spain´s decline, and its troubled history of civil strife. Several of Velasquez´ frank and honest paintings of 17th century Hapsburg royals depict sallow-skinned, bulbous lipped figures with underbites, clearly showing the effects of inbreeding. You can almost see the frustration on Philip IV´s tired face as he sits astride his horse, a sad figure. His empire is crumbling, his son is an imbecile, the women of his family barely have time to squeeze out one child before they croak. Maybe he is thinking "Why can´t it be like the good old days? Grampa had it so much better!"

Then, there is Goya. As far as I am concerned, this artist is in a class by himself. His black period paintings are more frightening and disturbing than anything ever written by Edgar Allen Poe. His earlier works known as "Caprichos" are incredibly compelling, making you feel like you are a part of the action. His portraits are second to none. With 5 minutes to go before closing, I sprinted down the hall to see two of his most famous works, Dos de Mayo and Tres de Mayo, which depicts the Madrid uprising of 1808 against Napoleon and its aftermath. Lets just say that if you go to the Prado and miss these two masterpieces, you are crazy.

I´m not going to say that the Prado is the best museum in the world... I haven´t seen the Louvre, the Guggenheim, etc... but given that I am half-Spanish, could you blame me if I did?

With four days to go in Europe, the pace is definitely slowing for this traveller. In Rome, I was like a hyperactive kid on a sugar rush. In Madrid, I have adopted the leisurly pace of a retiree, seeing one major site a day, spending alot of time sleeping, reading, sitting with my grandfather, or chatting with my aunt. It is just as well. When I got here, I had been driving myself at a relentless pace since the first week of this month. My health was bad, I looked terrible, felt terrible, but was strangely euphoric -A real "travel junkie". On Monday, my first night in Madrid, I crashed hard and slept for 10 hours.

Yesterday, I went and saw Goya´s tomb at the San Antonio de las Flores church. The building is small and nondescript on the outside, but within, on the ceiling, there is a magnificent fresco by Goya depicting the miracle of Saint Anthony of Padua, who resurrected a murdered man to proclaim his father innocent of the crime. I also stopped at Casa Mingo, a true gem of spot, which is right next to the Panteon de Goya (as the Spanish call his crypt). At Casa Mingo, you can sip a delicious glass of crisp apple cider and munch on chorizo a la sidra (cider sausage), while you watch the chefs work the rotisserie. At lunch, the locals guzzle the delicious cider and devour the pollo asado (roast chicken), which is the house specialty. The smell alone will send you to heaven...

Today, I am going to visit the Prado, probably the last museum on this trip, which has been part university art course, part religious pilgrimage, punctuated by the occasional bender! Basically, it has been altogether fantastic.

... to pick up where I left off, my first full day in Barcelona was capped off by a night on the town -which, to me, seemed to be de rigueur considering the circumstances -I was in Barcelona, dammit! Inexplicably, many of the people at the hostel did not seem interested in going out, claiming they were "tired"... In my opinion, if you are on a trip, and you are going to take a night off, Barcelona, widely considered to have one of the best nightlifes in Europe, is NOT the place to do it. Nevertheless, I managed to meet some pretty good guys from the States and Oznur, a girl from Turkey, who were interested.

I had actually seen Oznur before... kinda. She had chatted to the aforementioned Canadian girls on the train to Barcelona as I dozed. Still, we recognized each other and laughed at the coincidence. Barcelona must have a hundred hostels and yet we ended up in the same one. I found it pretty cool to spend time with someone from Turkey, after weeks of hanging around with yanks and other members of the Commonwealth.

Barcelona at night is a sight to behold. La Rambla and the surrounding streets are choked with tourists and locals, street performers, vendors, artists, musicians, vagabonds, drug pushers, prostitutes (one of whom flashed me and grabbed my butt as I walked by... no kidding) and dozens of guys carrying around six packs of beer and trying to sell you one for a Euro. The beerboys can´t possibly do very good business until the end of the night, when people are drunk and lazy, because you can buy tall cans of beer for less than a Euro in grocery stores on either side of the main blvd. That is what I did more than once that night. The American boys opted for 2€ wine, which they drank quickly and efficiently straight from the bottle as we wandered.

We hit a few cool bars, including one (the name escapes me at the moment)that was done up like some psychedelic enchanted forest with gnomes and toadstools and scary trees with faces. We also hung out in plazas, where patrons from bars packed to the rafters spilled out into the main square, drinks in hand, to continue their revelry at the next stop. It was loud, raucous, and plain fun. Being the responsible sightseers that we were, Oznur and I decided to call it a night around 3 a.m. in order to get a bit of shut-eye before tackling the city the next day. The Americans, somewhat mesmerized, stayed out and paid for it the next day... but I´m sure they didn´t really mind.

After a night of torture on the rack in my hostel bed, I got up cranky at around 9 and headed out with Rahim, a guy from Toronto, to check out more of the Barri Gotic and the area East of it. We finally met up with Oznur, who had gone to buy her train ticket to San Sebastian, at midday, at the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Gaudi´s unfinished masterpiece. I thought that I was finally "churched-out" by the time I got to Barcelona, but the S-F proved me wrong. I was captivated by this structure that is, after all, essentially a construction site. At the pace they are building, it should be busy around the time my grandkids bring their children to Spain. I explained the two facades, depicting the birth and early life of Jesus, and the Passion, to my two companions, both of whom happened to be muslim. It was kind of funny to tell this story, which, owing to my Euro-centric point of view, I used to think was universally well-known...

Rahim took off to buy his ticket (I was very happy to have bought mine upon my arrival in this city. Barcelona, for all its charms, is fairly spread out). Oznur and I headed to Parc Guelli, which was designed by Gaudi. I was lukewarm about going there, but decided to take a chance. It turned out to be the highlight of the day. We ended up sitting in this amazing place, sipping a beer in an alcove sculpted from the rock, and enjoying an incredible view of the city. Later, we checked out the Gaudi museum and a few other fantastic sites, before heading back to the hostel. We were only there long enough to change before heading out for supper..It was then that I realized that it was 10 pm already! My two amazing days in Barcelona were capped by another stroll down La Rambla. This city had definitely lived up to expectations and was certainly one of my favourite places. It is weird, elegant, crazy, pretty, fun. It is hard to do it justice with descriptions... you just have to visit, that is all there is to it.

Yesterday, I got to Atocha station in Madrid after a long train ride and was greeted by my Aunt Mila, who immediately took me to see the memorial for the victims of March 11. I was very moved. Upon arrival at her apartment, I greeted my 97-year old grandfather, know to all as el abuelo (literally, "The Grandfather").

Although at times he didn´t know me, there were also flickers of recognition in his eyes, particularly when I gave him the pictures of the family. He held them in his hands and studied them at length. After a few minutes, groaning as he struggled to raise himself out of his chair (my aunt insisted I "allow him to do his exercise"), he walked slowly across the room, and delicately place the pictures on his mantle, alongside other family photos.

I also spent some time with my cousin Celia and her husband, who dropped by after work, and I discovered that Abuelo and I enjoy similar hobbies... since I have been smoking on this trip, we spent alot of time coughing together. It was great to see him again, considering that T thought that the last time, years ago, was really going to be the last time.

Once, today, Diana, my Abuelo´s helper, shouted into his ear (he is quite deaf) "Don Jose, sabes quien es este?" (Don Jose, do you know who this is?). He furrowed his brow and appeared to think for a minute. When told that it was his Grandson from Canada, his face lit up. "hombre!" he said. I laughed.


I have been checking my usual sites for news and commentary. Occasionally, Mark Steyn hits one out of the park and into the next county. THIS ONE is a bat-bursting grand slam, as far as I am concerned.

The hostel sucks, I nearly died trying to get there, but I´m in Barcelona!

Yesterday morning, I grabbed a quick cafe con leche and a smoke (yeah yeah, I´ll quit when I get back!), hit the train station to buy my train ticket to Madrid, and jumped on the metro to get to hostel I had booked for Saturday and Sunday. A few minutes later, I was staring at the big statue of Columbus at the foot of La Rambla. Great! That was easy...now I know my hostel is around here somewhere... 45 sweat-soaked minutes later, I dragged my bloated pack up the stairs of hostel Abba - the place is a hole. I knew it would be, it has a 51% rating on hostels.com, but everywhere else was booked. The dorm is a biohazard (thank God for hostel sheets) and I wouldn´t bathe swine in the showers, but it is a roof over my head while I am in this city.

The place was deserted, so I got out of there as quickly as I could and headed off to do some sightseeing all on my lonesome. I walked up La Rambla, and headed up to check out some Gaudi-designed buildings before grabbing some gazpacho and chorizo and huevos for lunch at a nice little spot away from the tourists. It was dirt cheap and on TV, they had the royal wedding of Felipe and Leticia, his hot TV host princess. Later, I checked out the Cathedral and the Bari Gotic (not Bario Gotico... this is Catalunya, thank you very much). Eventually, I faced the inevitable and headed back to the hostel. After chatting a bit with some fellow travellers, three american guys and Turkish girl and I headed out for an evening on the town...

A night out in Barcelona!....

Barcelona. Oh, Barcelona, you seductive enchantress, you! This is one sexy city. About five minutes after my arrival here last night I knew that giving Nice the bum´s rush had been the right choice. It is clean, elegant, cosmopolitan, and best of all, CHEAP! I had tapas and a couple of beers at a local bar for 7 €. In Venice, I would have had to sell my blood for a crust of bread.

On the trainride from Montpellier to Barcelona (Incidentally, the scenery around Perpignan and the border... WOW. Moutains to to the West, seaside cliffs and beautiful little towns to the East) I met a couple of Canadian girls who were doing all the major European cities... trouble was, they were only spending about a day or two in each. I mentioned Kontiki. Blank stares. They are doing the Eurorail thing and appear to be spending half of their trip on trains. To each his own, I guess. I suppose the "big overview" trip has its merits. It can help you determine what you want to see more of the next time you come to Europe. The girls told me they were on a very tight budget. They also told me their last stop would be Ibiza. Ibiza, with its 30 Euro cover charges and 12 Euro cocktails. Best of luck, ladies!

Heard from my man Dave, who has reached Slovenia, I think.... or some other part of the former Yugoslavia where all the women are absolutely gorgeous. He was surprised that Emily and I vanished in Venice, until I fired off an apologetic e-mail telling him that we had gone Donavan Bailey to catch the train for Nice. Along with Em, Dave has been a great travelling companion. He is the kind of guy who takes things in stride. He wouldn´t say shit if he had a mouthful. Another mild mannered and polite Englishman perpetuating the stereotype. He is on a much longer trip than me, and it is taking its toll on his skinny ass. Don´t forget to eat Dave! ;-)

I realize that providence brought me into contact with some amazing people over the last couple of weeks. Best of all, we all "travel" similarly... that is to say, we were interested in seeing similar sights and doing similar things. I just spoke to a Canadian guy in my hostel here who is travelling with a friend. There is some tension because the friend wants to chill out in out of the way places, while he wants to see the big cities. I guess compromise is really critical under those circumstances. This just confirms why it was good that I did this on my own. I think I might have bored some people to tears with my obsessive scrutinizing of Roman ruins!

Trying to keep up with the playoffs... Go Calgary. Lord Stanley´s cup needs to come back to a Canadian city.