Words fail
Okay, now they are talking about the many uses of the “F1” key.
Fortunately, I am in the United States, so I can readily purchase a firearm to shoot myself with.
Okay, now they are talking about the many uses of the “F1” key.
Fortunately, I am in the United States, so I can readily purchase a firearm to shoot myself with.
A guy from Burlington just showed up with a knapsack with solar panels on it.
Pray for me.
I’m in a line-up with about 20 hardcore Apple nuts at the Galleria Mall in Buffalo. There are actually two line-ups – one for losers like me, who didn’t “reserve” an iPad, and one line-up for losers who did.
A guy beside me, an engineer, asked a guy in the reserved line why he was lined up three hours before the store opens, and the guy shrugged and said: “Now we’re guaranteed guaranteed.”
I have fully, completely stepped into The Land of the Nerdlings. God help me.
About 95 per cent of you weren’t fooled for a minute. Some who who were – people I know! – were sucked in, hook, line and sinker. Shame, Mr. Speaker, shame!
Anyway, if you still need me to show my bona fides, I can report that CBC’s elves passed along Iggy with Strombo. Don’t have the embed code, only the link.
Ha! Gotcha!
Time for a confession.
It’s been whispered about, here and there, for a few months. I’ve had some friends and former co-workers ask me about it, too. And there has even been some Internet speculation, by people I don’t even know. It’s been…strange. And I have to say that I haven’t particularly liked being less-than-candid with certain people.
But the speculation is true. It’s true.
How you are when you are younger is well and good, but how you are when you get older – so goes the cliché, anyway- is almost always different. You get older, you change. That’s just the way it is. It’s certainly been that way for me.
Some of you may have noticed, therefore, that my enthusiasm for certain things – and for one “thing” in particular – has waned, in the past year or so. I hardly mention it at all anymore, if at all. There’s a reason for that. The reason is I just don’t believe anymore.
I could dress it up in all kinds of finery, and all sorts of self-justification. But I won’t. I’ll just say it, instead.
Last night, I tore up one piece of paper – and went online to get a new piece of paper.
For me, right now, it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t easy, but it feels right.
For those of you who are upset, or don’t understand, I’m sorry. But it was time – and it was time for me to make my little confession.
Good luck and God bless.
Globe and Mail, May 2, 1998:
“…Frank, according to Mr. Duffy, made it acceptable for other media to mention or joke about his weight. For example, the Royal Canadian Air Farce depicts him as Tiny Mike. As well as costing him the Order of Canada, he said the attacks lowered his standing at CTV.
He was advised by his lawyer, David Sherriff-Scott, not to talk to The Globe and Mail about the case. However, in the examination for discovery, Mr. Duffy makes a very convincing case for how much being “Franked” can hurt.
“I don’t know anyone who wants to be held up to ridicule,” Mr. Duffy says on the transcript. “I’ve never met a human being who wants people to make . . . personal comments about them…I’m not sure if your clients appreciate when they put down the Prime Minister for his accent and so on that hurts him personally. Now, one could argue that he asked for that because he ran for office, but the fact is we’re all human beings, and what your magazine, or your client’s magazine, consistently demonstrates is a complete absence of any shred of humanity in relation to other human beings.
“And there is no reason for you to think for one second that Mike Duffy doesn’t have a heart, that I can be hit and not be bruised and not feel it. Of course. And everybody else who is in there feels it too, when they’re attacked. So the idea that you can get some kind of free pass that Mike Duffy is the only human being on Earth who doesn’t feel pain when people make cracks about him, personal cracks, is totally wrong.”
Speech, Sen. Mike Duffy, March 30, 2010:
“I rise to join my colleague, Senator Finley, in support of an inquiry into the state of freedom of speech in Canada…I share Senator Finley’s love of freedom and his concern about the growing phenomena of censorship. I approach the subject from the perspective of someone who, as a journalist for more than forty years, has used freedom of speech every day of my life, and has seen its essential role in keeping our democracy healthy…Some people say that if we ban offensive or rude opinions in Canada, society will be more harmonious. But experience around the world shows that’s just not how it works; and if we stop people from expressing themselves verbally, even in ways we find distasteful, they might be tempted to express themselves violently…As a journalist, I know the value of free speech. And as a Senator, I have a duty to protect it. Thank you.”
UPDATE: A response by Mike Duffy is found in comments, below.