Musings —02.25.2012 11:41 PM
—Paul Wells, girl-crazy macrocephalic© update
Way, way back in July 2001, I wrote this single paragraph for a column in some Canwest papers. I was poking fun at (yet another) screed Paul Wells had typed up about Yours Truly, in which Jazz Boy suggested (yet again) that I had never done anything good, ever, anywhere, and that he knows for a fact – a fact! – that I have never been part of a winning campaign. Not even as janitor.
Here’s what I wrote:
“Anyone reading this, naturally, will wonder why this Liberal ‘strategist’ is being so nice to [Stockwell Day], a political opponent. I am, after all, the Liberal ‘strategist’ who ran the entire federal Liberal election campaign all by himself, every damn thing, with no help from anyone at all (that, at least, is the recent analysis of one of the macrocephalic, girl-crazy columnists at the Post).”
I didn’t even use the words “Paul Wells”! But when he saw that good-natured bit of ribbing, well, Wells went apeshit. He didn’t say anything to me, natch, because he’s a gutless wonder. But he lodged complaints all over the place at Canwest, demanding that I be fired or disciplined or worse.
This, naturally, only encouraged me. So I posted on my then-youthful web site a cartoon of Wells with horns sticking out of his impressively-sized head. I did it myself, and I was rather proud of it. Anyway, that effrontery and insolence resulted in him going totally bananas again. So, while I was on vacation with my family, Wells demanded that my editor call me, and order me to take down the cartoon. “Seriously?” I asked my editor. “Seriously,” my editor said.
“What a fucking crybaby,” I said. “No comment,” my editor said.
Anyway, Paul – who thinks me to be insufficiently awed by his intellect and talent (true), and not nearly as deferential as I should be when in the presence of the national herald of dentist office waiting rooms (ditto) – has lately re-taken to raging about Canada’s Best-Loved Political Web Site™ and its fun-loving owner (ie., moi). This resulted in me describing Paul to a regular correspondent as, quote, “a pompous, pretentious, North-of-the-Queensway zero who has never done anything of significance, who wouldn’t know how to communicate with a real person if his life depended on it (which is why he’s never asked to go on TV, by the way, and which he perpetually whines about). Oh, he tweets every moment of his boring life, in the way that pre-adolescents do. Except that he’s supposedly a grown up. And he name-drops jazz.”
But I mean all that in the nicest possible way.
Anyway, you get the point. He’s an idiot. Moreover, I think Paulie is a bitter, petulant little man who probably got knocked around at recess once or twice, and he’s been using his typewriter to get back at the world ever since. So, to show the extent of my respect for the Girl-crazy Macrocephalic©, and to christen our renewed affection for each other, I have commissioned a beautiful new portrait of Paulie Jazz. I’d encourage him to go complain about it to Kory Teneycke, but I have on good authority that Kory thinks it’s pretty funny.
So will a lot of people.
Oh lovely, he’s got hair. Nice colours. Great analogy. Ans so nice.
Years ago I disagreed with one of Paul Wells opinions in one of his column and we exchanged some emails until he decided that he couldn’t have an intelligent conversation with me :> Geez I was dumbing it down so he would understand.
He is one of the few pundits who seems to have both the time and inclination to insult commenters to his blog even though or perhaps because they offer more real insight from out in the boonies than inside the Queensway Paul.
I’m surprised someone hasn’t noted that Warren also insults commenters. But he does it on an individual basis attached to a specific dumb comment. I think Wells has pretty well insulted us all a group as a bunch of ignorant no nothings.
I liked the fact that he’d occasionally descend from his throne at Maclean’s and respond directly to a question or comment, no matter how sharp-tongued (or even unfair and unhinged) the comment might have been. But he’s so thin-skinned, it was actually quite painful and embarassing to watch at times. And his Tweeting is exactly how Warren described it in an earlier post. Haven’t read his blog in eons, but let me guess what he’s writing about jazz and architecture, in between posts whining about the NDP leadership debate.
For my money, writers like Dan Gardner and Andrew Coyne are still worth reading, and still atop their game.
Warren, I think you may want to change your top 10 bloggers.
That? It’s ancient. Some are even dead. Wells is brain dead.
I think it has been changed. If memory serves, Cherniak and I were both on there before we quit blogging.
Kudos on the Kudu horns. Nice touch!
A fine (and entertaining) review of the cordial friendship. Explains the appearance of the strangely hot, even for a straight guy, pics in these pages of late. Henceforth known as Paulie porn? Of course, the guy has, is, will always been known as a dipshit with a sizable vocabulary and a pomposity the size of New York. And an unsustainable amount of weird self love. He has the talent to be more, but as you point out, the disposition of a cry baby.
Never fails to impress me, the size of this town.
Wells is concerned with the state of higher education in Canada and has devoted several columns to this issue.
Wells’ solution to improve Canadian education is to increase tuition fees. While Wells does state that there should
be increased public funding of higher education, he has also consistently urged lower taxes, making it unclear where
the extra public money would come from.
At the risk of the following comment being censored by Warren again, I must point out, as a visible minority lady
and a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Party of Canada, that it never fails to amazes me how nearly every single
Conservative columnist in this country is a highly assimilated, unilingual, unhyphenated, Canadian born and raised
individual of White Anglo Saxon Protestant ethno-cultural origin. Wells has written for both Maclean’s and the National
Post, two highly euro-centric and Anglo-Saxon chauvinist publications which have in the past both published disparaging
remarks about immigration, bilingualism, multiculturalism, Quebec, dual citizenship, affirmative action and human rights commissions in the past.
You may censor this Warren, but I’m gonna say it anyway: despite Jason Kenny and Stephen Harper reaching out to visible minorities and immigrants in the past, the fact remains that the Conservative Party of Canada and its right-wing allies in the Canadian media are quite simply too euro-centric, too Anglo-Saxon chauvinist and too filled with WASP’s to indefinitely resonate with the visible minorities and immigrants they conned into supporting them last year. Trust me Warren, the visible minority-majority riding the Conservatives took away from the Liberals last year in places like Brampton, Markham, Richmond Hill and Mississauga are only temporary.
Many visible minority Canadians I know in my own community and in others are waking up to the fact that the Conservative Party of Canada is still the old Reform/Alliance Rednecks from Alberta and that they are making these
recent changes to immigration to ensure that the WASP power structures remain in place. The WASP dominated Conservative Party of Canada and the United States Republican Party have long known and feared that ethno-cultural demographic trends both in Canada and the USA are not in their favour…
Obama’s popularity is rising again, but even when it was at its lowest early last year, a closer look reveals the fact that
his overall numbers were pulled down by the fact that he approval rating at one point was only 25% amongst White Americans, but it has never much changed since the election of 2008, from being 90% amongst African-Americans
and 75% amongst Hispanic-Americans. White Americans currently constitute about 65% of the total population and
dropping fast, as White Americans have very low (well below) replacement levels of fertility while both African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans have very high (well above) replacement levels of fertility, coupled with very high rates of both legal and illegal immigration to the USA, which is mostly non-White. Even ultra-Conservatives like Patrick J. Buchanan agree that the GOP is “demographically doomed” unless it becomes a big government Rockefeller Republican party once again and champions immigration and minorities issues, which it won’t. The U.S. Census Bureau has officially projected that White Americans will be an outright minority in the USA by the year 2040. It can’t happen soon enough for me.
Many political pundits make the mistake of dismissing the power of demographic trends, ethno-cultural group think and identity politics. The same applies to Canada. The fact of the matter is that most visible minorities in Canada will revert back to the Liberals or NDP, as most of us instinctively know that the Conservatives at their cores, do not want us here
and do not view as “real Canadians”. Conservatives like Mr Wells et al, think we visible minorities suddenly do not care about ethno-cultural group think, identity politics, bringing our relatives and friends to Canada, ect. They wrongly assume that we have all suddenly become tax hating, gun loving, ruggedly individualistic, Joe Six Pack Mangiacakes; and that we only care about the socioeconomic issues that people who look and think like Mr Wells do, no more or no less. Such euro-centric assumption and presumptions about visible minorities are easily found in any issue of the National Post of Maclean’s.
I “censored” you because your comment was the most defamatory comment I’ve received on here in a long time. You can get yourself sued. But don’t drag me into it.
I’m sorry,but I pretty much read everything Paul Wells writes and I have never picked up on any waspy, anti-immigrant bias – at all.
Nurie, you continue to display hate for white people, why?
You will take any topic and put a “I hate WASP” spin on it.
Very few countries have traveled down the multiculturalism path as far as Canada has, yet you still spew your hate and disproval?
Are you racist and don’t know it?
Dear Warren,
I did not realize that my previous comment was that bad. However, I do appreciate you looking out for my best
interests by removing the most offensive parts. I was under the impression that you had “censored” it because you personally objected to my remarks about the Conservative Party of Canada. I was confused because my previous comments, as I seem to recall, did not say anything disparaging about any specific individual, but rather sought to deliberately stereotype the average Conservative supporter. But I do trust your judgement and I am grateful that you did “censor” it on my behalf as you thought it would be a bad idea to have it posted from a legal perspective.
My emotions sometimes get the better of me when it comes to my contempt and disdain for Conservatives!.
By the way, my apologies if I put you in a difficult situation concerning my previous posting.
May I ask if my most recent comment above in anyway constitutes libel or defamation in your opinion, and if so,
could you please delete it if you believe it is legally unacceptable?.
I await your reply…
Cheers,
Nurie
I resent the attitude of race identity from the commenter above. I’m a Canadian(!) and also a WASP. I can walk to my maternal white grandfather’s childhood Toronto orphanage from my apartment – before he was split apart from his brother and sent off to work and live at a distant farm. I can see through to where my dad, whose older siblings (incl. underage) had mostly left their small northern town for WWII activity, worked his 40 years at a disappeared factory.
I don’t know of a large body of any immigrants that flow directly into professional news column writing – between second language development or building a personal in-depth knowledge of our collective national history across numerous areas.
Here in Toronto and its region, we have had numerous Conservative minded politicians as well as those from the Political Left and the Centre. As to race – both our main city halls, downtown and North York are named after well regarded Jewish mayors. The neighbouring fast growing suburb of Mississauga has been led by a 90 year-old Quebec-born woman for the past 30 years. I see the news, like anyone else, and Vancouver’s Police Chief is of East Asian background; Calgary’s current mayor is Muslim, and I have posted about preferring Toronto’s own Island airport be deservedly named after William Hubbard – former acting mayor and an African-American of a century ago.
Sarnia war bride.
That’s Paul Wells not you Nurie.
I didn’t know Paul Wells was the Anti-Christ!
LMFAO