BACK TO THE FUTURE WON'T WORK, UNFORTUNATELY

For too many years now, the venerable old Hudon's Bay Company has been calling itself HBC.

It is taken its new American owners to recognize that alphabet soup doesn't cut it and that the good old name is the one that connects with consumers.

Henceforth, the the Hudson's Bay Company will be known oddly enough as the Hudson's Bay Company.

For those of us who grew up with The Bay as a big part of our lives - I worked there many times and my uncle Tom was the head tailor in men's clothing for many years - this welcome news.

Unfortunately, recent visits to The Bay and Sears suggest strongly that these stores' days are numbered.

Everything about them looks tired and out of synch.

And service simply does not exist.

THE REASON

And why did the lyrics for PICK YOURSELF UP find their sneaky melodic way into President Obama's Inaugural speech?

Why is this such an evelasting great song?

Two simple reasons.

Music by Jerome Kern.

Lyrics by Dorothy Fields.

PICK YOURSELF UP, TAKE THREE

MEN WITHOUT SHAME

On Tuesday, I wrote in this space about how the Olympics & the City are putting an end to expression of opinion. (The Anti-Democracy.)

Yesterday, I wrote about how the Olympics was abandoning all dignity by taking money from an elixir for the suffering masses. (Selling your Soul.)

Today, the news from the high mountain peaks off Sport is positively heart-breaking.

Here is the headline of Gary Mason's astonishing column in the Globe:

IOC sinks to new low by severing ties with charity

World Olympic body has banned Right to Play from 2010 Games and ended its relationship with the humanitarian group

Right to Play is a highly regarded humanitarian organization that advocates using sport to improve the lives of children in some of the most disadvantaged and distressed corners of the globe. Its president and founder is Johann Koss, a four-time Olympic gold-medal speed skater from Norway.

The organization has made an apparently fatal blunder. It has secured some financial support from Mitsubishi Motors.

The official sponsor of the 2010 Games is GM, who, by the way, has just stopped giving Tiger his Buicks and is withdrawing its long-time association with the PGA.

This kind of conflict in the heady world of the IOC is so intractable that the only solution for the august body of arrogant airheads has been to tell Right To Play that is has no.

No Right to Play, that is.

It is gone, verboten, banished, finished, sent to its room for a long, long time out.

Excuse me.

Can we go back for just a minute?

The Olympics? Duh?

The embodiment, the glorification of Peace and Cooperation, the bringing together of all the peoples of the earth in a few days of celebrating the best that we can offer?

There is no stopping this train wreck. It is THE OLYMPICS. You might as well try to decry God or motherhood.

In London, today it was announced that the government will pour hundred of millions of taxpayers dollars into their 2012 Games. We are not alone.

Clearly, like so many other institutions that began with the noblest of ideals, this copper coin has been fatally tarnished by money, by greed, by ego, by power...by all the human frailties that visit us each day.

Ban a children's charity?

They keep smiling and passing the buck, while destroying their own franchise.

Men Without Shame.

PICK YOURSELF UP, Take One

PICK YOURSELF UP, Take Two

CRIMES AGAINST THE PUBLIC

Some simple facts for the jury to consider.

One-fifth of Vancouver traffic can usually be found on the Patullo Bridge. Not today, of course.

With the bridge out of commission, the Board of Trade estimates a $2 Billion annual loss in biz.

Telus is telling 2,000 of its employees to stay at home and log on.

Dianne Watts is telling Surrey employees to work funny hours.

One Premier after another has had 40 years to consider replacing this barely standing joke. No one has even come close.

Can you say, "Malfeasance, Boys and Girls? Incompetence? Willing Blindness?"

MAY I SEE THE MANAGER, PLEASE?

Vancouver City Hall will "take over" the Olympic Village.

Vancouver will issue special Olympic municipal bonds.

Some of you will actually buy these things.

Won't this all be fun!

Selling Your Soul for a Mess of Pottage/Portage/Porridge

Mama Malaika's Snake Oil Serum - known otherwise as Cold-fX - is now an official Olympic sponsor.

Hahahahahahaha...

This is a case study in How to Degrade Your Brand by Associating with Garbage.

The target sponsorship budget for the Games is $760 Million.

The utterly unproven Cold-fX is contributing $3 Million to become the Official Cold & Flu Remedy.

Has VANOC ever considered the word, "No?"

THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY

The City of Vancouver has now become the head of the Anti-Democratic Movement.

Wanting desperately for all of us stupid annoying citizens with apparent minds of our own to "stay on message" during the BIG EVENT next winter, the City wants the right to remove signs and graffiti and billboards from private property AT ONCE and with no court order or grace period.

I guess this is what happens to otherwise reasonable men and women when they find a shard of power.

In this case, the closet Fascist is one Paul Henderson, director of Olympic operations for the City. He says these extraordinary powers are "required because of the need to act quickly during the limited time line of the Games."

He also wants new powers to put up huge Olympic images...huge, as in building-sized.

Keep in mind this is the same city that fought tooth and nail a group of home owners in the Lee Building at Main & Broadway because the building had a large billboard on their roof.

So...

Consider the meaning of this effort.

You must not disapprove of the Olympics. You must not voice that disapproval. You must not put a sign in your own front yard that doesn't SING THE COMPANY SONG.

The majority must rule.

The commonly held opinion must prevail.

O.K. Vision Council speak up.

Where are you on this detestable, dangerous attempt to suspend the central notions of democracy all for a downhill luge?

BURNED

Police are searching for at least three homeless people they believe may know how the Patullo Bridge was set on fire.

Are they kidding?

This local disaster, which has completely screwed up traffic in Surrey and New Westminster beyond endurance, is going to be blamed on the homeless and their pathetic attempt to not freeze to death?

A bridge made of wooden supports in the year 2009?

Where are we, Madison County, Maine, Connecticut, 1873?

Let's get serious for just one minute.

I have lived here for over 40 years. I have crossed that relic exactly twice. That was enough to convince me that, short of some national emergency, I would not find myself on that antique again.

Every provincial government for the past 40 years has had the opportunity to replace this Lego toy with a real bridge, or two.

None has acted.

I am sorry that the thing didn't burn utterly to a cinder.

That would have forced Monumental Gord to take his eye off the multi-million dollar 12-day superhighway to Whistler and build something that was actually useful and important to several hundred thousand tax-paying citizens.

Remember them?

OPENING ACT

The following text is taken from the Crooks and Liars website. It explains more fully the video below.

As we watch history unfolding before our eyes, one more anniversary: It was almost seventy years ago, on Easter Sunday in 1939, that more than 75,000 people come to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to hear famed African-American contralto Marian Anderson give a free open-air concert.

Anderson had been scheduled to sing at Washington's Constitution Hall, but the Daughters of the American Revolution, a political organization that helped manage the concert hall, denied her the right to perform because of her race. The first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, resigned her membership from the organization in protest, and Anderson's alternate performance at the Lincoln Memorial served greatly to raise awareness of the problem of racial discrimination in America.

SIGNS ALONG THE ROAD

STOLEN RIVERS

Subject: Real eye opener about B.C Rivers

This is a must-see video....there is a shortened version just below the video picture. Send it to
as many people as you can as so very much has been kept a secret by the government! ...

This is the future for all the generations to come. Look at the power
bills that people pay in most provinces.....and ours, probably, will be set to what Californians are
paying.

http://ashlu.info:80/video/bcrivers.html

REALITY CHECK

Subject: Gun manufacturing in Pakistan Boondocks

This is a real eye opener.................

See the largest gun market in the world!

Just what you need to sleep better tonight..... It takes about 5 min. to watch this, but it is worth the time. http://www.vbs.tv/full_screen.php?s=DGFE2305DC&sc=1363196

BUILD A NEW BRIDGE PLEASE

What sorry backbenchers have represented the derelict and under served communities that have been so badly serviced lo these many years by the Patullo Bridge?

With all the wing-nut highway building projects that have come and gone in this corrupt province, with all the cry for all the years to replace this dangerous relic, why has it never been done?

Now that the old thing has been crippled once again, this time by a fire no less, commuters are being told to be patient.

Kevin, Big Bridge Builder, Falcon stands by with a sorrowful look. Oscar material, for sure.

Shame on these people - provincial governments of the past 20 years - and shame on those of you who still harbor the cranky illusion that the current gang has your best interests at heart.

HE WOULD BE 80 TODAY- HERE IS THE SPEECH IN ITS ENTIRETY

HOW CANADIAN MEN HELP THE ECONOMY

A friend asked the other day about Canada's population.

I explained that we depend on immigration to build our numbers here.

"Why?" he asked.

Because we are reproducing at a rate insufficient to help, Andorra, Lichtenstein or Monaco.

"Why is that?"

Because Canadian men are watching hockey on television.

There is an "up" side to this, however.

Canadian women, suffering beyond endurance, run to the love shops to invest heavily in sex toys.

Now, while it is true that most of these aids are built (batteries not included) in China, they are sold right here in Canada.

And that helps the economy.

Class is over, boys & girls, thank you for your attention.

Uh...except for Bert back there. I see you're listening to your MP3 or iPod or whatever. So, what's the score?

FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT?

Richard Pryor, the undisputed genius of comedy, many, many years ago "became" the President of the United States.

In this sketch he stretches the complexities and the possibilities.

Very funny, very timely.

Watch it build from decorum to....?

http://www.obamapride.net/richardpryorthepresident.htm

RAY - AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL