Appointments

My favorite politician in the whole world is Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy.

Three times over.

In spite of being indicted at least six times on various charges of corruption.

Never, of course, convicted.

He is the second richest man in Italy, with an estimated net worth of $6.8 Billion.

He controls all the media in Italy.

His current and second wife is now suing and asking for a modest settlement - $68 Million a year.

All of that is interesting in the same way that any celebdrek can be called interesting.

But here's the grabber.

I love this.

I didn't know it until today, and, as I often say in this space, you cannot write material this good.

Berlusconi is famously infatuated with young women,

Here is the bit:

Mara Carfagna, one of Silvio's faves, was once a topless model.

He appointed her to the government as...wait for it...

Minister of Equal Opportunities.

WHY?

I have one simple question about Richard Colvin's testimony to Parliament about torture in Afghanistan.

Why?

If he is lying or making this all up, what is his game?

Money? Self-aggrandizement? Amusement?

Sorry, folks.

I believe there is something substantial to Colvin's accusations and that we ought to know more.

Road Signs

Amazing & Beautiful

Quote of the Year

"Canada needs to dismantle its public health care system and allow private enterprise to get involved and turn a profit."

Guess who?

Sarah Palin.

Turns out this woman is both stupid and dangerous.

Loco TV

Local TV Matters?

This is what Global, CTV, CBC and others have been yelling at us for several weeks now in full page ads across the nation.

Well, kids, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Today, CBC Newsworld, or whatever they're calling themselves these days, offered complete and extensive coverage on the Ottawa hearings into allegations of Canadian soldiers knowingly handing over prsioners to be tortured by the Afghan army.

And in the same time slot, CTV, Global and City?

American eye-candy crap, as always.

Get real.

Dr. Phil is local TV?

Is watchable?

Two Sides of the Gay Divide

How's this for a list of charges?

Seven years for defending the rights of gays and lesbians.

Three years for being aware of homosexuality in your neighbourhood and failing to report it within 24 hours.

And the prize goes to...

Life imprisonment on anyone who “penetrates the anus or mouth of another person of the same sex with his penis or any other sexual contraption.” The same penalty would apply if he or she even “touches another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.”

I had no idea our penises fell into the category of "sexual contraption," but so be it.

Of course, you can't make up stuff like this. A hundred comedy writers trapped in a room off Sunset Boulevard with Sprite and nachos for three weeks couldn't top this.

It comes from the government of Uganda.

That's the smiling face of the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni, one of the acknowledged great leaders of the modern world. But we just call him, "Yow!"

In contrast to all of that...

Let's instead cheer a man for whom we have had little use over the years.

This is what can happen when you don't really know someone and leap to conclusions based on public persona and media coverage and water cooler b.s.

I plead guilty in my previous assessment of Brian Burke, the hockey man.

Yesterday a good old friend sent me a powerful and moving article, written by John Buccigross for ESPN.

The story details how Burke's son, Brendan, has dealt with being gay. The young man is, like his dad, completely involved with the world of hockey. The story tells how he came out to various family members and then recently to his dad.

And how beautifully his dad reacted. And how honorably he has conducted himself since.

Turns out, Brian Burke is a mensch, a real mensch.

It is unlikely that the Burkes will be vacationing or playing hockey in Uganda soon.

That's Brendan Burke with the You Know What after the Ducks won it all in 2007.

Ze Plot Sickens

Richard Colvin sent some of his reports about the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan to Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs.

This is the latest little bombshell in the continuing little melodrama of lies, innuendo, denials and intimidation coming from an inquiry in Ottawa these days.

So many questions to be asked.

Not the least of which is why is the Prime Minister jumping into the fray?

“We also know that a large number of his colleagues did not agree with those opinions,” Mr. Harper told the Commons Tuesday.

Stephen, baby. Shhhh...

We thinks the Preem doth protesteth too much.

The Globe editorial - in a Passover frame of mind - asks four questions. Read them here and ponder the curiosities getting curiouser and curiouser...

Principles Shushing Away in Flurries

To paraphrase...

"It little profits a man to sell his soul for the world, but for...ski jumping?"

Yet this is exactly what we are doing.

No sooner do we raise the flag and flame with the excitement of having The Games here in a great Western democracy, then we abandon all principles and become a Fascism of the Happy Face.

The culprits are VANOC and the IOC. The victim is Free Speech.

Listen to the language:

"The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting VANOC, the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors associated with VANOC."

Nice.

Keep those nasty noisy artists quiet, we're luging here, folks.

Why have The Games, if the price is reducing the social order to Orwellian sheep?

Salt Lake City and Melbourne had no such restrictions.

What is it about Vancouver that makes it so hyper-sensitive?

Politics

Dictionary.com offers several definitions of 'politics.'

Here are a couple:

6.	use of intrigue or strategy in obtaining any position of power or control, as in business, university, etc.

7.	(initial capital letter, italics) a treatise (4th century b.c.) by Aristotle, dealing with the structure, organization, and administration of the state, esp. the city-state as known in ancient Greece.

This morning we have two glaring examples of how whatever politics may be, it/they sure know how to cloud the issues. Perhaps the definitions could have used some more qualifiers, like 'self-serving, above all....'

1. The Harper government has apparently sent out a flyer coloring the Liberals as anti-semitic.
That resulted in a letter signed by many asking the Prime Minister to withdraw the offending document.

“We find it highly disturbing that any party or parliamentarian would attempt to use Israel as a wedge to divide the Jewish community and, indeed, Canadians, for partisan gain,” the letter says.

“Support for Israel should not be portrayed as exclusive to one party. The Liberal Party has a history of support for Israel, working co-operatively and effectively with the Canadian-Jewish community and speaking and acting against terrorism.”

What across-the-board- bumph.

2. On Friday, I posted an item herein on how Richard Colvin had testified at a Parliamentary inquiry that all prisoners captured by Canadian soldiers and handed over to Afghan authorities in 2006/7 were tortured - and that many were innocent.

Government backbenchers and others rushed to denounce Colvin.

Now, the government wants David Mulroney, currently Canada's ambassador to China, to return post haste to Ottawa to refute Colvin.

The opposition dogs are screaming blue murder that Mulroney shouldn't be allowed to testify -basically denounce Colvin and his testimony - until they can see more documents.

Simple question.

How is the Canadian public to learn anything approaching the truth with all parties involved huffing and puffing like crazy?

The answer, of course, is painfully obvious.

The very point of all this noise is to obfuscate and obliterate.

Politics.

How helpful.

Lagging Behind

Yesterday I posted an item about child poverty on Canada.

Today, Ed Broadbent offers his thoughts on the subject in an op ed piece in the Globe.

The NDP needs someone of Broadbent's calibre.

Two Different Worlds

On one page, we have the amusing spectacle of an egghead asking for more taxes. Only a fully tenured academic could ask the federal government to raise the GST and HST. Must be nice. What an idiot.

On an earlier page, we have the hard truth of the Canadian economy and the lack of political will that embraces it: ONE IN TEN CHILDREN IN CANADA LIVE IN POVERTY.

This should not be a news item featured on page three on a Monday morning.

In one of the richest and most peaceful sovereign states in the world this disgrace should be front and centre until we do something real to change those numbers.

Twenty years ago, Parliament voted unanimously to eliminate this scourge within a decade. So much for the vote.

National Child Care has been on the agenda for at least the last ten years and we are no closer to it than ever.

Times have changed.

Mommy and Dada are both working.

They have to. This is not a "life style" choice. This is a bare necessity.

A 70-year old falling down wood frame bungalow on the treeless east side of Vancouver costs just under a million dollars.

The minimum wage in B.C. should have been $10 ten years ago.

So let the politicians and their Econ whores tell you that the HST is good for you.

Let the academic elite ask for more taxes.

Then let them take a starving kid to lunch.

It's All in the Family

It is kind of silly, perverse fun to watch the Liberals of Iggy Pop squirming over nothing.

Janine Krieber, the outspoken wife of Stephane Dion posted - and then quickly removed - a comment on her Facebook in which she trashed the current Gang:

"I will not give my voice to a party that will end up in the trashcan of history," she wrote in a passage that included shots at a "Toronto elite" behind Mr. Ignatieff's rise.

Hahahaha...

May they all bite each other.

A friend's sister at Vimy

Melancholy beautifully defined

Nature Advisory

Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now showing signs
of belonging to the New Democratic Party..... as they have apparently
learned to just sit and wait for the government to step in and provide
for their care and sustenance...

And where the heck did that waiter get to?

A Comment that Deserves its Own Post

[The PHOTO is of Ephesus, and it comes from my friend, Maurice.]


What is worse is that public libraries are getting HIGHER USE during this recession.

People who have had their wages/hour cut at work (or who have lost their jobs altogether) have less money to spend.

They try to save a few $'s by frequenting the library to borrow books, dvds, and even video games.

They attend the "story times' for their children. They attend book readings and lectures.

Job seekers even utilize the resources at the library to help them in their career change or job search.

This is the time to INCREASE funding to the libraries, not decrease it.

BTW - David, you didn't mention it in this blog posting, but could you have a word about the Conservatory and the Stanley Park Petting Zoo.

I recently took my children to the Conservatory and, as usual, was happy to have an inexpensive, non-commercialized place to bring the kids on a cold day. The kids were pointing out birds, fish, plants and trees. After, as there was a break in the rain, we walked around the quarry gardens. It was a wonderful way to spend a couple of hours (and cost less than $10 for two adult admissions to the Conservatory itself). Not many places that we can go for an enjoyable outing for that kind of money.

Of course, because of the fiasco surrounding the Cambie Line, business dropped off for the Conservatory for a few years there. Now that the Cambie Line is complete, the Conservatory could be getting more people (individuals, families, school groups, seniors group and tourist groups) and more facility rentals, thus getting higher revenues.

As for the Petting Zoo, accessible transit has FINALLY been provided to Stanley Park (the #19 Stanley Park bus was not accessible until a couple of years ago). Families often had trouble getting here (if they didn't drive). Coupled with the Stanley Park Train, the Petting Zoo was another enjoyable outing for families.

I guess the needs of residents (especially families with young kids) just isn't on the radar of this city council

To voice protest, write the city at

mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca

I have already written my letter.

Billboard

Mark Leiren-Young's latest effort continues on all cylinders.

Check it oooooouuutt!

Energy Plus

Caught bits and pieces of "Walk the Line" again on TV last night.

Reese Witherspoon won the Oscar for Best Actress in 2006 for her role as June Carter Cash and, given, the peculiar choices that year, it was well deserved.

Joaquin Phoenix lost out to Philip Seymour Hoffman, who pretty much had the award to himself the moment "Capote" was released.

And Phoenix is pretty darn good in all of the dialogue scenes. From moment to moment, shy, determined, crushed, enraged, addicted, desperate and so on.

But...

When he straps that guitar on and leans into a microphone some alchemy beyond explanation takes place.

He is utterly transformed and imbued with a wild, deranged beautiful energy.

The performance and concert scenes are astonishing.

What is so strange is that this is exactly what happened with Jamie Foxx in his Oscar-winning performance in "Ray."

Both movies are rather pedestrian. Predictable and formulaic music star biopics.

But in both cases, the two actors get hit by a bug when they take on the music.

And in both cases the result is electric every time you watch.

I mean electric.

Last night, I kept switching over to some other movie or the news or whatever during the expository dramatic scenes.

As soon as the singing came back on, I was there, whooping it up and with tears in my eyes.

Go back to these two flicks for a helluva good Saturday Night time.

Inspired Performance