What's in a Word?

Why I associate local politician John Reynolds with the Tintoretto exhibit currently in view in the Prado I have no idea. But lucky for you, eh? How else would I have found an excuse to show you the master's St. Mary Magdelen opposite?

Tintoretto is one of the Famous Five of Venetian fame (Titian, Veronese and ???). As far as we know, he hardly ever left town. How could he? He was painting practically every surface he could find - walls, ceilings, floors, stairs. If you never go anywhere else to look at Renaissance art, go for sure to the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice and have your mind utterly boggled by the genius and scope and sheer output of this fellow.

If nothing else, such a visit will allow you to forget for a grateful moment the silliness and skulduggery of the current shenanigans in Our Town.

Why - many have been asking - are two "retired" politicians, John Reynolds and Joy McPhail, making the media rounds and stumping for His Peculiarness, The Mayor of Vancouver, in aid of his utterly destructive program of replacing pills for heroin shots and coke snorts? Why indeed.

Now, it has been suggested by those so much more cynical than I that the answer is the oldest answer in the books - money. Moreover, some have had the gall to suggest that Dr. Strangelove has enlisted the financial help of a somewhat shady character, who is currently under investigation for internet fraud, to fund the famously badly named "Inner Change" program. (How giving a dope fiend one substitute drug for another can be imagined as effecting "inner change" is a mysterious leap that most of us are unwilling or unable to make.)

Then, this morning, to our immense entertainment comes a feature in The Daily Rag in which Mr. Reynolds makes a very strong point of declaring that he is not a lobbyist, that he hasn't broken any post-Member of Parliament promises, and that "I am not making a penny out of this."

You are all entitled to believe what you will.

But some questions are worth consideration.

Why and when and how did Mr. Reynolds and Ms. McPhail suddenly develop such strong interests in drug programs, when, in both their long and storied political careers, neither showed any such interest?

Doesn't Ms. McPhail spend most of her days and nights in Los Angeles of late with her husband, the Movie Maker? Why this? Why now? Why here?

There are many more layers of paint behind these curious pictures, boys and girls. Perhaps some day a restoration expert will be brought to the Truth.