In Praise of Women

Maybe we need more of them in High Office.

One woman in Ottawa and one woman in Victoria have together shown courage and leadership that is rare.

We applaud them both and look for more in the same mold.

In Ottawa, the MP's have skulked away into the night, refusing to even comment on how or why they refuse to let Auditor-General Sheila Fraser look at how they casually spend HALF A BILLION TAX DOLLARS each year on themselves.

And in Victoria, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the provincial watchdog for children has had to go to the courts to get Campbell & Co to turn over cabinet documents. She won.

But, understand that in order to do her job protecting children and youth, she had to sue Gordon Campbell and Children's Minister, Mary Polak.

Way Too Much

The Gulf Oil Spill has exceeded all imagined horrors.

A first, it was a tragedy focused on an explosion and 11 deaths.

Then it was about 40,000 gallons of oil leaking into the sea.

Then it became 200,000 gallons a day.

And now it is about an immense human disaster, eating away at wild life, the oceans, local communities, jobs, livelihoods and everything else in its wake.

It was somewhat encouraging to see President Obama being truly angry not only at BP and Halliburton and their complicit partners in this crime, but also the US office of Minerals Management Service.

While this anger and determination may be a bit of theatre and a bit of how we all feel, in the long run it may mean next to nothing.

Every weekend, the newspapers publish their biggest and no doubt most lucrative section called "Driving."

Oil is built thoroughly into our culture, our thinking, our very assumptions about how we live.

There is an old adage.

"Do not s--t where you eat."

We have, as an entire species, been ignoring this quint idea and we are running out of time and space.

Willie Nelson

I am a huge Willie Nelson fan.

Below are three classic videos that might get you onside if you are not already leading the cheers.

I don't really know much about the fellow's life or story.

What I do know is that he is in the top rank of singer's whose work is artfully artless.

Listen to this Vocal

Such ease...

Anthem