10,000!!! TEN THOUSAND 10,000!!!

10,000, 10,000, 10,000!

Wow!

That's 10,000 hits, visits, peeks at the blog since we started in late December. And that's wonderful.

All right, it's not a Coke or Toyota ad campaign, and it's not Al Gore or Clinton.

Bit it is great.

Thanks so much for your visits.

We'll do more and they'll soon be slightly different in form, but the content will continue to be eclectic, funny, angry, maddening, opinionated and musical.

Have a great weekend!

They Think They are Loving Parents. They are Wrong. They are Irresponsible, Selfish Fools, and They are the Modern Template.

He is a cardiologist. She is a general practitioner.

They are both doctors, health care workers. They are both professionals. No doubt, they are smart and they work hard and they are not suffering financially.

They take their 3 kids to a resort in Portugal. A daughter is almost 4, the twins are 2 years old.

The father and mother decide they'd like a little quiet romantic time. Nothing extravagant, just a dinner by themselves.

Do they get a baby-sitter? No. Can they afford one? Yes. Did they bring the nanny from England with them to the resort? No. Could they have? yes.

How do I know they have a nanny? How do I know they could have brought her?

Because he is a cardiologist and she is a G.P. They are professionals with 3 young children. Somebody must be at home while they're earning the loot to but the next Land Rover.

So. Mom and Dad leave their 3 kids at a rented apartment and go out to eat by themselves.

When the disaster strikes - as it must - they sob to the cameras that they "checked on the kids every half hour."

The disaster in this instance is called "kidnapping."

But here are some of the other swell things that can happen IN A FUCKING NANO-SECOND - when you leave 3 kids under the age of 5 alone and unattended in a rented apartment:

- choking on a pencil, a bottle cap, a candy, a lug nut

- fire

- falling out a window

and that's just for openers.

Of course, nobody deserves the horrible nightmare in which these two idiots find themselves. Of course, we all sympathize for a plight that none of us would want or know how to endure.

BUT.

I suggest that these so-called parents are the poster boy and girl for the thoroughly modern version of humankind, western, free-market, democracy style.

No doubt they text message on their blackberries while driving and shout asparagus instructions to each other over their cells while shopping.

My son and I discussed this case yesterday after breakfast. He recalled the many demonic instances of our over-diligence when he was a child and his mother and I were young parents. We laughed, and we counted our blessings that we were still here to laugh.

This Little Bear Went to Market

We have a peculiar sickness in this country.

While in truth we are often cold, reserved and inhospitable, we are at the same time obsessed with "niceness." We cannot stand to say "No" to anyone about anything and we hate to encourage police, the military or any kind of authority that might appear punitive and old-fashioned.

Thus, in our latest public fiasco, the federal government has told Park Wardens to stand down. No guns, no handcuffs, no body armour, no pepper spray, no law enforcement period. This directive comes days before the season opens at National Parks across the land.

The RCMP, who are grossly underfunded and understaffed and under-equipped, and who know NOTHING about Parks and the issues therein, are being told that they will have to police the parks.

But drunkenness, illegal hunting, smuggling and other fun summer activities are rife in our national Parks.

Parks Canada has been told by a court that they must equip park wardens with sidearms (because their failure to do so has violated safety provisions of the Canada Labor Code) or remove them from law enforcement duties.

Instead of doing the obvious right thing - arming and training the wardens for, among other things, their own safety - the idiots at Parks Canada has dis-armed and emasculated the wardens.

If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone....

Lyle Lovett - Church

This should get you set for the weekend...

O.J. Simpson Kicked Out of a Restaurant

This self-explanatory bit of Americana is...what? Bizarre? A statement about Our World?

Guest Editorial from V. - Most Important!

The provincial government has come down on the farmer whose van was involved in the needless, heartless deaths of those Indian women who perished in an unsafe van ,while on their way at dawn to process food for our tables. Fine Mr.Falcon, but not enough. This is a far bigger problem than one farmer.

See, here's the thing.

I don't want to buy my broccoli , from a store that buys its broccoli, from a farm or greenhouse that abuses or causes the death of its workers.

I think most decent people feel the same.

So we need to take a page from the great Cesar Chavez who fought so gallantly for farm workers in California.

I want to see a vigorous inspection system for farms. One that tells me they are treating their workers right, protecting my health, and protecting the environment. Maybe BC Fed could do this.

Then I want all stores , large and small, that sell farm products, to have their supplier list reviewed by the inspectors. Stores that buy farm goods from farmers who respect workers, public health and the environment get a window sticker. Losers don't.

If there's no sticker, I don't buy my broccoli there. Neither would you.

Cheaters would try, but a scum list could be published for those that attempted to forge a sticker.

Yes, I can hear the yeahbut crowd saying " What about food from Mexico, China, Thailand,California etc.". I can't change behaviors in those countries. But I sure as hell can do it here.

I hope you or I never ate a single tomato that came from that man's business. I can't be sure.

But if we did, those dead women were working for us when they died. How does that feel?As the commercial says " Can you hear me yet?"

I never want this to happen again. It's not enough to make one person the official sin eater, no matter how guilty he was.

Let's fix this. Let's demand that it be fixed.

Hola Cesar Chavez. Your work continues. It is our job now.

Regards

A Boulevardier

Claims and Damn Claims

Why does the press publish lies? Or uncontested claims?

In a tiny announcement about the hiring of more child care workers here in B.C., the Sun announces - as if this is a fact - that "one in seven B.C. children suffers from a mental disease."

This is utterly false.

This is not true.

Where is the evidence for this?

There is none.

It is simply what the Caring Industry wants governments to believe. The issue is money.

Why would anyone believe a statement so evidently wrong? Why would anyone casually print it?

Whisle Blowers Beware

The intersection of 2 stories in this morning's press should raise some alarm.

An Environment Canada employee was led away in handcuffs by the RCMP because he is alleged to have leaked information about our government's plans to scuttle any involvement in the Kyoto accord.

And the Supreme Court is now 0 for 3 in hearing appeals from fired whistle blowers. Two are Health Canada scientists who complained that major health decisions were being made politically rather than based on any good and reasonable science. One was an RCMP officer who complained about corruption at the Canadian High Commission in Hong Kong.

All three were fired or severely punished for their transgressions.

The Court has refused all their appeals and, as is tradition, given no reasons for its decision.

How are we to protect our public institutions?

Poison The Pear

(Now, that's a curiously suggestive photograph, isn't it?)

The Letter writers get it right, and the government gets it wrong - again.

An obscure bureaucrat, hidden away in the bowels of Obfuscation & Mismanagement Directive, has dusted himself off and emerged into the light long enough to declare that Canada will INCREASE the amount of pesticides allowed on fruit and veggies because our current rate - already 1400 times higher than European standards! - has become a trade irritant with the United States of Consumption.

The fool's name is Richard Aucoin. Good name, as many ordinary Canadians are now questioning how much money (Oh Coin!) the chemical lobbies have filtered into federal coffers for this decision.

Mr. A is the head of our Pest Management Regulatory Agency. Which I guess makes him Mr. Pest, or Monsieur La Pest.

God forbid we should count on our governments to protect the foods we eat, instead of worrying about what Mr. Bush thinks...assuming that Mr. Bush is capable of thinking...

John Lennon Beautiful Boy(darling boy)

Do you all remember the lovely scene in "Mr. Holland's Opus," the movie for which Richard Dreyfuss was again nominated for an Oscar? It is a rare thing when an actor can make us forgedt for a brief moment John Lennon.

Here is Lennon singing his beautiful lullaby...

Collision in Air and Road

Two horror stories collide.

The themes are malfeasance, incompetence, laziness and lying.

One story is Air India. The other is the deadly crash of the farm workers' truck 2 months ago.

They are the same story.

Today we learn that the dog handler and his famous bomb-sniffing dog were not allowed to do their work clearing the doomed Air India flight for take-off.

Even worse, we learn that both Transport Canada and the RCMP told the 2005 inquiry that the dog had been there and that everything had been searched. THIS WAS A COMPLETE LIE.

Someone asked, "How could this have happened?"

The same way that so many things happen in Canada - laziness, indifference, sloth, ego.

In the case of the farm workers' crash, the vehicle should have been pulled off the road a dozen times for safety infractions. But we can't do that because all of our money is invested in the Olympics and giving addicts needles and drugs. Why would we spend money on inspectors and ask them to do a good day's work? It's just human life. Oh. Wait. It's just female, immigrant, Indian life.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

This loverly foto showed up just about everywhere yesterday and this morning.

The caption on Crooks and Liars read, "You know things are going well in Iraq when the Vice-President has to wear the largest flak jacket ever when he steps of the plane in Baghdad."

BILLION-AIR

One man owns more airplanes than Air France and BA combined.

He is the biggest, richest owner of aircraft in the world.

His name is Steven Udvar-Hazy and his fascinating story can be found here.

A Symphony All At Once!

Speaking of which....

All of those YouTube videos that failed over the past few days, have now magically appeared!

So scroll down and find another Tom Waits piece, John Lennon, and Al Jolson!!!

Shrinks Paid to Pill-Up Kids...Nice.

Was it only yesterday (Yes, it was. I checked.) that I was ranting about doctors taking money from Big Pharma to prescribe poison to their patients?

Well, it gets worser and worser.

At last, the press is reporting what we all knew already.

Psychiatrists - those fake, pseudo-doctors - are taking Big Bucks from Big Pharma to prescribe poison to CHILDREN!

And these self-righteous bastards sit over cocktails in the evening and tell each other how swell they are.

They are pimps and crooks.

Read the detestable tale here.

Waiting for Tom

YouTube is amazing, but, like all of us, not perfect.

Of late, all of my attempts to post videos to the blog have simply failed.

Yesterday, I tried 3 times to share a Tom Waits original with you. (To say Tom Waits and "original" in the same breath is redundant, n'est ce pas?) No dice.

But here, today, you have below, a Jim Jarmusch film with Waits turning a Sinatra classic on its ear.

tom waits _ it's alright with me

Tom Waits - On The Nickel

Imagine - John Lennon

AL JOLSON SINGING

Here's one of my fall-time favorite moments from a very corny movie that has had an enormous influence on my life. I was 4 years old when "The Jolson Story" was released in 1946. I saw the movie and how could I not be drawn by a story of a Jewish boy who loves to sing.

Larry Parks was nominated for Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of the man, who for many years, was called "The World's Greatest Entertainer."

In this lovely moment from the movie, Jolson's Rabbi father encourages him to sing after the singer has taken a kind of false "retirment."

I post this for my sweetheart. We are celebreating tomorrow our One Year Anniversary.

Happy Anniversary, Baby...