Halifax-bound: a request

— 07.29.2013 05:05 AM

If I perish in a fiery crash, bury me in my biker’s jacket, the one I bought in high school. Still fits, and it’d render me a fine-looking corpse.


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In Sunday’s Sun: we don’t give a shit what you think, old chap

— 07.27.2013 07:40 PM

“If you don’t care about the royal baby, don’t bother telling the rest of us you don’t care.”

That was my personal message to assorted grumps, grouches and anti-monarchists Tuesday following the birth Monday of His Royal Highness, Prince George of Cambridge. I could take it no more, Your Babiness, and I struck back with the only sword available to me: A tweet.

Twitter, as HRH Prince George will shortly become aware, is the way in which the world now collectively experiences things. In the era of his great, great, great grandmother, Victoria, it was the town herald in the village square. Later, with great-grandmother Elizabeth, it was broadcasts and watercoolers.

Nowadays, it is Twitter. We all sit around observing the great moments of our age — presidential debates, Super Bowl games, Game of Thrones episodes and (naturally) Anthony Weiner press conferences — and comment on Twitter.

Twitter renders us one big cynical and dyspeptic family, sniping and snarking about whatever shows up on our TV screens. It is as if we are all sprawled out in a gigantic living room, offering up our wit and indignation about what passes for news. And, this week — apart from the aforementioned Weiner’s, er, weiner — what passed for news was the royal naissance of George.

Now, if you eyeballed any one of the kabillion available photographs of George, you would have noticed this about him: He is a baby. He looks, sounds and (likely) smells like any other baby. It is nice that he is among us (as is the case with every other baby), and we wish him luck on life’s journey (ditto).

That is not the sentimentality of a monarchist. I am, most days, as unenthusiastic about monarchies as I am about dictatorships and the Senate. I do not believe anyone should ever exercise great power unless they have first been elected to do so.

But, the bile and the biliousness on Twitter was something to behold, even for a ribald commoner such as I. Over and over, the grumpy republicans felt compelled to inform the rest of us, ad nauseum, why paying any attention to Prince George was an outrage. All while they themselves were, er, paying attention.

It was the same thing over on Canada’s best-loved political website, warrenkinsella.com. For posting something that sounded (and was) anti-republican, I was excoriated by left and right. My personal favourite: Philippe, who advised me that I was “absurd,” and helpfully added “you’re being ridiculous in giving a s— about such insignificant nonsense.”

Tut-tut!

Philippe, and not a few others, were missing the point. If so many folks were so opposed to the monarchy and its latest addition — if so many DID NOT CARE as much as they insisted they DID NOT CARE — well, then, why go to all the trouble of tweeting interminably about it? Why post something on Facebook? Why call a call-in show? Why bother?

Why, um, care?

In this way, crazed anti-monarchists remind us of crazed atheists.

They are more preoccupied with saying they dislike/disbelieve than those who actually do like/believe in God or Her Majesty or whatever.

I mean, honestly, if you don’t care, why don’t you — apologies in advance for this commoner’s phrase, your majesties — why don’t you STFU?

That is a singularly inappropriate acronym to deploy when in the presence of royalty, but it fits. If average folk, starved as they are for good news, would like to hear a bit of blathering about a royal baby, is anyone hurt?

Will our constitutional framework collapse?

Will it kill you to read about something nice, for a change?

It wouldn’t. Thus, my full tweet to the grumps and grouches:

“If you don’t care about the #RoyalBaby, don’t bother telling the rest of us you don’t care.

Because we couldn’t care less you don’t care.”


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Ann Cavoukian admits she “didn’t do a good job”

— 07.25.2013 07:20 AM

Regular readers know my view about the preening megalomaniac who is the ostensibly non-partisan Ontario’s Information Commissioner – but who is, truly, a crazed publicity-seeking McGuinty-hater.  Officers of the Legislature, like her, are supposed to stay above partisan politics.  But – as the partial transcript of her Wednesday interview on Ottawa’s CFRA shows – she has taken to regularly commenting on politics, seeking out media attention, and acting entirely unlike a neutral employee of the Legislature.  (More and more, in fact, she makes John Gomery look professional in comparison.)

Her potshots at me, meanwhile, suggest something else entirely. They are revealing.  They suggest I am getting under her skin.  She doesn’t like being challenged by a lowly citizen.

So I intend to keep doing it.

Here’s the partial transcript, with emphasis added to illustrate how egotistical and reckless she has become:

**

Host: In recent days, your impartiality, shall we say, has come into dispute. And whether you have been impartial in conducting your investigation. On the nasty side, we have people like Warren Kinsella who calls you an unelected narcissist, who is over-the-top and is dialing up the rhetoric. Uh, not to play “he said she said”, but how do you react? Have you been impartial throughout all of this, do you think?

Cavoukian: Well, Rob, perhaps in fairness you can quote some of the dozen people on the other side who have, uh, applauded the work I’ve done, how quickly we’ve issued our report, how thorough it was, and how we addressed all three parties in terms of the investigation that we did…I didn’t even have to investigate this, I thought it was the honourable thing to do…I do oversee compliance with the Freedom of Information, Protection, Privacy Act. So, who else is gonna investigate this? We decided to investigate. And I think we did a thorough job.

Now, you know, I get Kinsella. My understanding is he’s Mr. Liberal Party and I don’t know him, I know nothing. But all I would just suggest is there were dozens of others who suggested that I did a very thorough, stand-up job. So you can explore all of them. I’m not partisan. I’m not — I don’t report to any party. That’s the beauty of offices of the legislature, they’re not reporting (a) to the government of the day, because then if they criticize the government, their jobs could be in jeopardy. The whole point of the officer of the legislature i s that you’re impartial.

Host: And you believe you’ve fulfilled that now?

Cavoukian: (pauses) Well I don’t think I did a good enough job, honestly. Because, there was some new information that was unearthed that I should’ve known about, during the course of my investigation…

 


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Toronto’s next mayor

— 07.25.2013 07:04 AM

Here.

Reasons why I’d support her, if she ran:

  • She knows how to work with everyone: that’s her rep from the Lastman years, when she was a councillor.  She’s flexible.  She isn’t into dogma.
  • She’s hasn’t been part of the messes that have characterized City Hall for the past three years: Ford isn’t the only thing wrong with City Hall.  Pretty much everyone down there – Stintz, etc. – have become part of the problem.  We need an outsider.
  • She has good ideas: I’ve run into Chow a few times, over the years, and found her ideas and approaches to be refreshingly centrist.  (The NDP’s 2011 gains, in fact, were because she and her late husband pushed that party into the political centre.)
  • She can beat the abomination that is the Ford Nation: and she’s the only one who can.  Not Stintz, not Tory, not anyone – only Chow has the support to get rid of the historic disaster that is the Rob Ford regime.

 


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