I DESERVE EVERYTHING! BACK OFF!

First we had The Age of Enlightenment.

Doesn't that seem galaxies away?

For now, it is all The Age of Entitlement.

Look at this pompous ass.

His name is Jean-Pierre Blackburn and he is your National Minister of Veterans Affairs.

God save us.

Here's his headline:

Tequila tantrum adds to Tory woe

Blackburn tried to board a recent flight with a bottle of booze in his hand.

Airport security stopped him.

He freaked.

Hey! I'm somebody! I have an office! Fax machines! Cell phones!

The press quotes me!

I eat in the Parliamentary dining room!

Blackburn is the second federal minister of recent days to pull the same stunt.

Helena Guergis, your Minister of State for Women, went postal in the Charlottetown airport in February.

Are these people mad?

I had security at Gatwick last month go through every little tissue and notebook in my shoulder bag.

I was mute.

This is the best policy around airport security.

Always has been, but especially these days.

However...

I am not a Minister of Cups and Saucers, or Minister of State for Bacon & Eggs.

I do not feel entitled to break all the other rules that apply apparently to those other little people - as great and wonderful and unique as we can all agree I may be.

I do not ride my motor scooter through city parks, talk on my cell while driving or scream up snowy mountainsides in my over-revved lawn mower.

I am a good boy.

I am only entitled to my tiny fair share of the world.

Except, of course, on Wednesdays, when I go completely mad and ask for service at a store somewhere in Canada.

The Columns

On a day of little news that grabs me, I find solace in two consistently good Globe & Mail writers.

1. Christie Blatchford finds her neighbours busy renovating. Unfortunately so does the City of Toronto and so do all the pesky other neighbours.

In this modern urban tale, we get a taste of how the social compact has become the Home of the Busy Bodies.

Add a sundeck to your house? Raise the roof?

Just who the hell do you think you are, Buster?

Blatchford invokes the ghost of Jane Jacobs and wonders how will all find peace in our own back yards.

2. Konrad Yakabuski charts the final push for Obama's health care reforms. Yakabuski spells out the grave stakes with all the numbers and all the melodrama that is at hand.

I hope the President gets the votes he needs and passes this bill. As short and compromised as this legislation may be, it is something and it is necessary and it is way past due.