Global "Warming?"

Gutter Play

If you thought Prime Minister Stephen Harper's attempt to remove government financing for political parties was ugly and entirely partisan, then what do you make of Premier Gordon Campbell's new law restricting political advertising?

This is transparently aimed at unions, who actually have war chests available and at the ready for the May 12th election.

The problem is that TV campaigns have to be planned months in advance and nobody knows this better than Campbell.

I am no fan of the BCTF, but I must give them full credit for challenging this law in court and for getting to the press to keep this issue before the public.

The BC Supreme Court is taking its royal time on this attempt by the unions to have the law declared unconstitutional and its very delay aids and abets what should be seen as a Campbell law bordering itself on criminality.

The law is an offense to common sense and democratic process.

I don't care how many photo ops the premier takes of himself hugging bantam hockey players, he's a thug.

Wrong Question

A man dressed as Santa Claus knocks on the door of a house in Covina, California on Christmas Eve. When a young girl answers the door, the man shoots her in the face. He walks into a large family gathering and begins shooting indiscriminately. He then sets fire to the house and leaves.

By the time he is finished, he has killed eight people.

Finally, he drives to another location and kills himself.

Now...

The young CNN reporter, putting on as grave a mask as he can muster, desperately trying to hide his overwhelming excitement that he is at last on network television and that it took nine deaths to get him there, intones deeply, "But the real question, Robin, is 'Why?'"

No it isn't.

Why is that the real question?

Let's suppose we learn the why? What will we know? What can we do about it?

The man lost his job. He had a sore tummy. His girl friend wouldn't fellate him. Wal-Mart wouldn't cash his pay check.

We could do something about this?

Psychiatrists would help him in weekly anger management courses?

The Why is completely irrelevant and serves only to help the writers for the back story they will need when they make the soon-to-be-released TV Mini-Drama, "Santa Rampage."

No.

There is only one useful question here and it is the one that will not be addressed.

Why is it so easy for Americans to buy guns?

Go Explain

NASHVILLE — Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas.

That's the first paragraph from a NY Times story this morning.

Now, read the rest to see the challenges facing the Obama watch and millions of Americans.

Then, get down in the snow and thank the Great Flake for our flawed but wonderful health care program here in Canerda.

Eartha Kitt - R.I.P.

Slick... and Obscene

There are several conceits at the center of Mike Nichol’s movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” that border on the obscene.

The first is that one America man sees human suffering and thus infuses the hardships of others with meaning. Without his personal “moment,” the cruelties of the world are mute and moot.

Specifically, Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) visits Afghanistan, which is being pummeled by Soviet airships. Then he visits the refugee camps, talks to the limbless children and witnesses first hand the horrors of real life away from the flesh pits of Washington and Houston.

But it is not the wounded and impoverished Afghanis for whom we are asked to shed a tear.

Here is the first conceit. It is the now ennobled Yankee we are encouraged to champion. We can tell that this is our mission because the orchestra swells in rising crescendos of hope and glory, and the congressman covers his eyes in empathetic pain. This is an obscenity.

The second is that music score.

The next time the trumpets blare and the holy choirs rise on high, honorable Afghani peasants, armed now with covertly supplied Israeli anti-helicopter and anti-tank weapons, slaughter Soviet soldiers with the same relentless efficiency that the Soviets had previously mowed down the women and children of Afghanistan. Were we supposed to cheer?

The last time the music score offends is in the crowning moments of the film, when the good Congressman is being given a medal. His co-plotters, a wealthy Texas woman (Julia Roberts) and a CIA/FBI operative (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), look on in teary co-conspirator admiration.

The music here and the moment are pure “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” I fully expected Hanks to melt into Richard Dreyfus, much like John Travolta and Nicholas Cage kept doing in “Face Off,” until you couldn’t tell – or care – who was blowing up whom.

And care is important here.

In spite of terrific work from three terrific actors and Hollywood mega-stars, and direction from the legendary Nichols (“The Graduate,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolff?” and “Catch-22”), there is nothing one can possibly care about in this flick.

The script and dialogue (Aaron Sorkin) is very fast and clever and witty and fast and clever and witty.

It goes by faster than your first sex experience and with almost as much resonance.

Now, if you want an experience even more execrable than watching the movie, try sitting through the "special features" on the DVD and listening to the actors discussing how great they all are and how important this trifle really is meant to be.

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, the great British playwright, actor, screen writer and director has died. He was 78, and a Nobel prize winner.

The rich and extensive NY Times bio can be read here.

I've owned a Vinyl LP of this Tchaikovsky Concerto since I was about 21. The great David Oistrakh plays

I'm addicted to my post....

uh... I mean my blog.

I know I said I was going to take a break for a few days, but...

Look, you know where I can find a meeting of B.A. (Bloggers Anonymous) tonight?

"Hi, my name's David, and I...."

The Clarity of Campbell's Priorities

She has now been described as " one of the nicest persons I’ve met.”

She has also been suspected of being drunk while driving her Ford Escape too fast and dangerously near Nanaimo on Monday, resulting in the deaths of two of her boys.

The police would like to look at the blood sample the hospital now has.

This is to say that what follows does not let this individual off the hook. Speeding and trying to pass in these nightmare snow-out conditions is simply crazy.

BUT...

The particular stretch of highway where this tragedy unfolded - Cassidy, near Nanaimo, has had 50 collisions since 2003. One man who works at the Cassidy Inn pub says he terrified every night when he leaves the parking lot. In spite of calls from local residents to add some safety measures, like cement median dividers and traffic lights, the Highways Ministry and has not responded and ICBC - home of the Hushed UP Chop Scandal -has not yet flagged this a as "high crash area."

Let's see...50 crashes since '03 and ICBC can't designate this a "high crash area?"

Of course they can't.

Because that would mean money and action on the part of the provincial government.

And for any of you who have ever driven anywhere near Nanaimo or have a Google map handy, you will note that this particular neck of the woods ISN'T PART OF THE SEA-TO-SKY OLYMPIC SPEED ROUTE.

Now, this is exactly an example of the editorial I posted on Saturday, "The Role of Government in Our Lives."

Mr. Campbell will spend millions upon millions for that famous road to Whistler Village, but God forbid he should spend a few thousand on fixing a dangerous stretch of highway less than two hours dangerous drive from the legislature.

Political realities are clear and they are not attractive.

Social Studies, Eleven

Pope Benedict in his end-of-the-year speech at the Vatican on Monday, said that homosexuality is as much a threat to the human race as climate change.

Hahahahaha...

Ignorance on Holy High.

Let's leave aside why the Pontiff would bother to speak so negatively about anything in an annual Christmas message.

Has some one not informed the dear man that men and women shtup?

Biology or God's Great Plan - take your pick - dictate that men and women are going to couple at fairly regular intervals and - miracle of miracles - nine months later .... WALDO!

The inevitable fact that some men will play with some men and some women will play with some women will never alter the statistically overwhelming assurance that the human race will continue to procreate.

No matter what your opinion or my opinion on the rights or wrongs of these realities, shtupping will continue apace.

May His Holiness find rest in these troubled times.

Robert Playing in the Snow, Part II - Christmas

Sensational Annie Lennox at AMA Nov. '08

TRU-CE

Let's take a break.

Let's face it. We're snowed it. It's Christmas. Life, as we generally know it, has slipped and slid to a genial halt.

So will we.

Have a great Holiday!

See you in a few days.

TRUE BUILDERS

Millenium Development Corp., the company in charge of the famous Olympic Village project, is now on very thin ice in it's current Nanaimo hotel venture.

Nanaimo City Council has issued a 30-day default notice on a 170-room hotel that Vancouver-based Millennium Development Corp. was supposed to build as part of the recently opened Port of Nanaimo Centre conference facilities.

Read the Globe & Mail piece and hold onto your 2010 toques.

TRUE VALUE

If you want a small revelation on how fortunate we are here in Canada to have our health care system, read this article in this morning's NY Times.

President-elect Obama has asked thousand of Americans to get together and talk about their health care and insurance experiences.

The early reports are bracing.

True Confessions

O.K. I just have to say this.

You know that James Stewart movie that everyone loves, that is played every year at this time, that is considered a "classic?" The movie is called "It's a Wonderful Life."

Can't watch it.

Hate it.

Saccharine slop. Worst thing Jimmy Stewart ever did.

Am I alone on this?

And while I'm at it.

You know that book and movie considered "An American Classic?" the one that's taught to 11 year-olds continent-wide like it's the Old and New Testaments combined? I speak of "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Can't watch it.

Love Gregory Peck. Love so many of his movies.

This one? Boooooring...

And finally, John Wayne. The Duke.

Good-bye. Later. Don't buy it.

I've waited a lot of years to say these things.

Ah...better...

TRUE STORY

Yesterday I was in a medical examination room.

As I was getting dressed, I noticed something really frightening.

There was a box of disposable latex gloves. You know, the kind used for probing and prodding and poking in all those unholy places.

The brand bame of this product? I kid you not.

HEDY

CHICK!

Stuffing

Remember "Triple E?"

No, not the hamburger sauce.

The Alberta push to reform the Canadian Senate.

What was it now? Elected, equal and...equine?

Now that he is Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has forgotten all that campaign nonsense stuff.

And speaking of Christmas stuffing that is exactly what he has done with the Red Chamber.

18 new breast-feeders appointed, the only real surprise being that somehow John Reynolds missed the cut.

Now, I knew that senators - and that includes Larry Campbell - get $130,000 a year. What I didn't know until this morning is that they also get $90,000 in travel and what with copying machines and faxes and secretaries and whatnot, the total cost for each of these layabouts is in fact $860,215 per an...uh, annum.

The photo, by the way, is of Mike Duffy, a broadcaster.

Times must be tough.