Where we were today

— 04.25.2017 10:59 PM

And we need your help! If you oppose hate showing up in your mailbox, get in touch!

Warren Kinsella shows some of the graphic images found in Your Ward News (Lorenda Reddekopp, CBC News)

Political consultant Warren Kinsella is one of the people complaining about the paper, which is edited and published by James Sears and Laurence St. Germaine.

“There’s the use of the n-word, there’s racism on every page, it is the most disgusting thing.”

To prove his point, Kinsella showed examples from old editions he photocopied. One image portrays a Jew as a dog; another shows an image of Jesus sexually assaulting a woman.

While the publication is based in the Toronto area, he says this review is important for all Canadians.

“We need to say Canada Post should not be distributing hatred; Canada Post should not be allowed to distribute racism.”


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The BC NDP’s friend is the enemy of BC: the headlines

— 04.25.2017 07:19 AM

Here is this morning’s big news, from the Post’s Drew Hasselback, which will take bread off the table for 25,000 Canadian families, most of them in British Columbia:

Canada vows to fight ‘unfair and punitive duty’ as Trump slaps tariff on softwood lumber

And here is a headline from a short while ago, from the Star, about the BC NDP’s pals in Unifor:

Trump’s tough talk good news, says Canadian auto union

These big union fools specifically said they favoured Trump’s  trade policies.  That’s what they said.  And now those selfsame policies are going to put thousands of British Columbians out of work.

The BC NDP has allied itself with big union bosses, which is their business.  But when they ally themselves with the “president” who is killing Canadian jobs – and thousands of jobs in B.C. – it’s everybody’s business.

 


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Twitter irritants and political certainties

— 04.24.2017 07:44 AM

So, I opined on Twitter that the neo-Nazi Le Pen cannot win in the next round of the French residential elections. It’s a widely-held view; the odds are decidedly against the Trump-favoured fascists in the next round.

That single tweet elicited this response from an Ottawa actor (who, tellingly, is a New Democrat):


So, I found that rather irritating, because it fell into one of the categories of Twitter things that are rather irritating to me:

  1. People who ask me to do their research, instead of doing their own damn research.  Also, rhetorical tweets.
  2. Passive-aggressive tweets.
  3. People who tweet hate, naturally.
  4. Humourless, pious people who are online hall monitors, perpetually tsk-tsking everyone else, and acting like God made them the arbiter of all that is morally/ethically/politically correct.
  5. People who (like Sean, above) who cling to the (now popular) view that nothing is knowable.

In politics, you hear from the Not Knowable People all the time.  They’re like the Pharisees of the modern age.  To wit: you guys all said Kathleen Wynne wouldn’t win in 2014, but she did! You guys all said Donald Trump wouldn’t win in 2016, but he did!  Ha!

[Pithy responses, respectively:  The Ontario Libs didn’t win so much as the Ontario PCs lost.  There’s a difference, idiot.  And: Trump didn’t win.  He cheated in the electoral college, with the help of Russia and thousands of hackers, and Hillary got three million more votes than he did, which should count for something in a sane universe.]

This crew – this “nothing is knowable anymore” crew – drive me bananas.  Like the Pharisees, mediocrity is their medium.  Beige is their colour, and tapioca is their manna. They never take any risks, they never venture a strong opinion, and they are therefore never shown to be wrong about anything.  Like J. Alfred Prufrock, they doubt everything and know nothing.

As you might have gleaned over the past 15 years or so, the author of this web site is not shy about offering an opinion every so often.  He – and I know him quite well, so trust me – likes people who are colourful and creative and who take risks.  He despises Prufrock-like bureaucrats.  Dare I eat a peach?

I do, I do.  I dare. I’m going to keep daring to eat peaches, bushels of ’em, until I am booted off this mortal coil.  As my journalism prof Roger Bird said to me in response to a post a few days ago:  “You were a part of the continuing reward of teaching in the School of Journalism. It took a very short time for me to recognize stars soon after they walked through the door. You were among them of course. Beyond that, you were a shit disturber. My inner rule for such was, don’t get in their way. Clearly I followed the rule and you went on to do much good in the world.”

I will keep Roger’s note around until I croak.  It is a wonderful and needed shield against the Know-Nothings on Twitter. Meanwhile, you Twitter people who are lazy – or who hate, or who are too clever by half, or who are pious, or who say nothing is knowable?

You irritate us, but you won’t ever beat us.

 

 


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Twitter pen pals

— 04.22.2017 03:41 PM

So, Chelsea Clinton tweeted this cool thing, which I retweeted:



Which elicited this reaponse from my pal Peggy Blair:



Which produced this, on which I was copied. Pretty cool!



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Trump calls Canada a “disgrace”

— 04.21.2017 09:57 AM

Here. Good thing we’ve been sucking up to him and his kids, eh? Yep.  Sure is working.

President Donald Trump has called protectionist trade measures by the Canadian government “a disgrace.”

“Canada, what they’ve done to our dairy farm workers, it’s a disgrace,” Mr Trump said on Thursday in the Oval Office.

The statement was part of larger comments on American trade deals that Mr Trump made while signing an executive order on steel imports.

“We’re not going to let Canada take advantage [of the U.S.],” Trump told the group of reporters, claiming Canadian policies had hurt US timber and lumber jobs as well.

The claims echo sentiments Mr Trump expressed this week in Wisconsin, addressing employees of Snap-on Tools at a signing for the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive order.

“In Canada, some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers and others, and we’re going to strategy working on that,” Mr Trump said in prepared remarks. He called the current arrangement a “one-sided deal,” and vowed to “work on it immediately.”


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