Fall Colors Canadian Style - Election Time Truth Serum · Tuesday October 7, 2008 by colin newell
I had the opportunity recently to interview all the candidates in the upcoming election – and while they were in my modest studio I managed to slip some truth serum into their double-double’s – Who knew that Sodium Pentathol had uses outside of the workplace?
Anyway – this is what they said… pretty much verbatim between slurps of Tim’s and sloppy nibbles of Maple Dips:
Stephen: If I am elected, I am totally going to look after special corporate interests, my friends in high places, allow bank mergers and make cuts to social services like never before… The Canada health-care act? I wipe my BBQ with it…
Thank you Stephen… very kind.
Jack. Jack? Jack! Wake up!
Jack: If I am elected I am going to look after big labor, big labor unions, my big labor cronies, my NDP cronies… and I am going to close all the prisons. For profit health-care? I wrap my Little Red Book in it!
Nice. Stéphane?
Stéphane: Ya know. Dere was a time whan I would give ma eye teeth to be tough as nails like Jean…
Stéphane?
Oui?
Stick to the topic…
Stéphane: Ef a am elected, I will build 10 hydro-electric dams in La Belle Province, 20 new highways to Sherbrooke, 10 new sofa factories in Sept Ille’s… 15 new…
Merci Stéphane.
Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Colin, can I have another mug of that great coffee? I am, like, so feeling trippy right now… Uhm. Wow. Like. Yea. Ahh.
Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Yes Colin.
You need to actually drink the coffee that I gave you?
Elizabeth: If I am elected, I am going to make taxation greener, gas greener, the grass greener and make St. Patricks Day a national holiday… you know, like Robbie Burns Day… and
Thank you Elizabeth.
Anyone else? Last thoughts?
Stephen: If I get elected I am never, ever going to wear a sweater again… I am going to bring prayer and Windsor knots back to Kindergarten… and then…
Zzzzzzzzzzz….
Thank you Stephen. Thank you Jack. Thank you all.
Fall Colors Canadian Style - Your election spin from gonzales · Sunday September 28, 2008 by colin newell
Gonzales – Fairfield is actually a neighborhood in Victoria, not Los Angeles.
And while driving through this particularly tony neighborhood I made a note of the signs shilling for our up coming election.
Photo right – when the Boogey-Man wakes up at night, who does he fear is in the closet or under the bed? That’s right: Stephen Harper!
Please note that the average house price in Gonzales Fairfield is about 1 million dollars – and these are houses without water views. These are people with money and a head on their shoulders.
The overwhelming conclusion was that the NDP (Our Canadian Socialist Party) had cornered the market on lawn decoration political pitch lumber fixtures… with the Liberals at a distant second. I saw one Conservative (Harper) sign. It was very small and almost ashamed of itself.
Truth is, anyone with more than a grade eight education is going to be able to see through Stephen Harper’s Scary ultra-right wing micro-managed agenda of pandering to his right-wing buddies in the U.S. of freaking me out A. – and his Bay Street business buddies in Toronto, Canada.
I really feel that on October 14, 2008 – the election day, that we could see a coalition of NDP and Liberals building a government – that is, if we do not see yet another Conservative minority.
And the only reason that this is happening is because we do not have a Liberal leader with a personality. Yes, he has a brain. But he is generally gutless and forgettable – and that is a bad combination.
Side-bar. My creative partner, Bob Harris, of BobHarris.com has been recovering in a Beijing hospital from a severe case of eat the deep-fried Scorpion on a stick and pay the price. In Bob’s own words… his own personal portrayal of Crouching Tourist, Shitting Dragons is coming to a theater near you – Trust Bob to find a gastrointestinal microbiological perfect storm in the obviously squeaky clean streets of Beijing.
Onward.
Fall Colors Canadian Style - With glowing hearts we blog to thee · Thursday September 25, 2008 by colin newell
Does the contempt VANOC feels towards the citizens of Canada know no bounds? Two phrases borrowed from Canada’s national anthem have been scooped as the motto for the 2010 Olympics. VANOC has already taken steps to protect the commercial rights to the lines.
The lines “With glowing hearts” from the English version and “Des plus brillants exploits” from the French version will soon be slapped on the disposable Olympic merchandise that will soon start arriving from China.
Hopefully the cheap Oly togs will not contain too much melamine.
John Furlong, VANOC chief apologist mused… ““It embodies the emotions every athlete will feel — no matter where they are from or what flag they stand under — when they have the honor to represent their own country on the world’s grandest international stage in 2010…”
Let me tell you something about athletic emotions:
When they arrive in the Olympic village in 2010, they will be thinking about two things – getting fed and getting laid. That is what athletes think about. Nothing more and hardly anything less.
VANOC have already taken small businesses in the Vancouver area to court for using the word Olympic in their names — even ones in existence long before the Games were awarded to Vancouver — and they have largely failed – because there is little merit and because few people buy into their pathetic rhetoric.
Here is the thing about the IOC. They leave a staggering slag heap of smoking debt where ever they lay their princely heads – and Whistler/Vancouver will be no different. And where we are not buried in fiscal chaos, we will be inundated with worthless polyester threads from Mainland China.
What a pile of crap. Oh Canada.
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Fall Colors Canadian Style - It is a Stephen Harper World - scary · Tuesday September 23, 2008 by colin newell
Part of Stephen Harpers platform is… Tough on crime…
Let’s get tough on crime. Tough on young offenders. Tough tough tough.
Crime. Crime. Crime. Tough. Crime.
Uhm. Violent and petty crime is in decline in Canada.
And yet Harper goes on and on about how we are currently soft on crime…
What crime? Canada is as safe as it has been in decades.
I am, however, prepared to declare what Stephen Harper is up to.
Stephen Harper is having policy dictated to him by purveyors of private prisons. Private prisons are all the rage in America. With one in one hundred U.S. residents in detention in America, in largely privatized prisons (and ostensibly state sanctioned slave labor…), these prison contractors are eying Canada with a sparkle in their eye.
Something else to think about when conceptualizing Canada versus the U.S.:
In the U.S., drug use is a crime. In Canada it is an illness.
In the U.S., if you are mentally ill and you commit a crime, you do the time… behind bars… and there are thousands of mentally ill folks on death row in the U.S. In the U.S. prison system, they do not heal you, they kill you.
Simple drug possession in the U.S. can put you behind bars and to work for pennies a day in the prison system. In Canada, at least, there is hope of some rehab.
Stephen Harper, with his ear and eye to the U.S. system is eager beaver to build prisons, private prisons to fill up with new criminals – young offenders, drunk drivers, petty criminals, whomever he can get his hands on.
Is this the Canada you want under a Conservative majority? Think about it.
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Summer fun food and drink - Snowbirds - why do we need them · Sunday September 21, 2008 by colin newell
For the record. I have never been a big fan of parades.
For 2 reasons.
Militarism and clowns.
Yes. I meant that to represent two things.
And although there is a proud career of military service in my family… when service actually meant something… and when the causes were real and just.
Unlike these days. When there are more questions than answers about our mission in Afghanistan.
So I have to ask.
What is the point of the Snow Birds aerobatic flying team?
I have been watching them out of the corner of my eye for over 2 decades. And it is always the same. They fly up. They fly down. Two jets approach each other at high speed and turn away at the last second… as if there was ever any danger of collision – because there isn’t.
The Snow Birds aerobatic team, in the 21st century, is nothing more than a wasteful pile of noise and smoke. Think carbon footprint. I am sure the Snow Birds aerobatic meant something to someone years ago. Now it is simply a pile of CO2 and unburnt jet fuel, ear jangling noise – a pet frightening cacophony that has no place in any civilized community.
And yet today in Victoria, the streets were filled with sweaty and eager punters lining the Dallas Road and Beacon Hill park to gawk at the archaic spectacle.
Whatever. Take your children and pets with you.
And when little Johhny or Julie asks you what it all means… I dare you to come up with an answer that makes any sense.
And if you can, explain it to me. Because I would love to know.
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