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It’s my true home, it’s where I grew up, it’s where my family spent the most years: Calgary.

But can anyone explain to me why Stephen Harper would, ever state that it is Canada’s “best” city?

I think it’s pretty awesome, too.  It’s amazing, in fact.

But it seems like a pretty substantial rookie flub on the part of the so-called Master Strategist.

Anyone agree?

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I cannot tell you how happy I was to read the following on the front page of this morning’s Globe and Mail:

President Barack Obama wants to shift the focus of the election campaign away from health care and unemployment to a debate about income inequality, betting voters will back his call for tax increases on the rich.

Mr. Obama moved on Monday to revive his push for higher tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, making the proposal a key plank of his re-election strategy. It marked a new offensive in his attempt to cast Republican nominee Mitt Romney as a ruthless corporate raider whose policies would protect the rich. 

Why am I happy? Well, because that is the central thesis of this book, which happens to be going on sale in the U.S. of A. in September.  Sample quote:

What, then, should be the alternative narrative that Fukuyama and others call for?

Jean Chrétien, who crafted winning campaign narratives at the national level for forty years—and won three back-to-back majorities—agrees that the best narrative for progressives is the one that could be seen in virtually every North American and European city in the summer and fall of 2011: the 1 percent versus the 99 percent…

 “The Occupy kids out on Wall Street knew that, too. They were a great example of that. [Occupy] was impressive—some of these kids were saying the same thing Warren Buffett said. Buffett said that he was paying less taxes than his secretary, and he shouldn’t be.” Chrétien pauses a last time. ‘This thing, the 99 percent thing, can become an issue in the next election. It can be very big. And I believe this is what Obama is going to say.”

Apparently so! The old guy nails it again!

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Ms. Southey objects to my column, below. She thinks I’m a “dick,” etc. for having effrontery to criticize her friend.  Yawn.

She also thinks her tweet below, about Luka Magnotta’s victim Jun Lin, is super-duper funny. She says it’s “black humour.” I don’t quite see it that way, myself. In fact, I find the “dismemberment joke” genre particularly inappropriate the very week (a) the young victim’s family is arriving to collect his remains and (b) more remains are being received by schools in Vancouver. The smart Globe columnist, however, thinks it’s all screamingly funny.

Me, not so much. What do you think?

Oh, for the “context” Tabby feels is essential: here’s her column, wherein she calls it all “horrific” and whatnot. Which is it? “Horrific,” or an occasion for “black humour”? Only Ms. Southey knows, I guess.

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So, there’s this fellow who works at Sun News.

We often share the same page in the paper for our columns. He is quite famous, and I decidedly am not. I don’t ever mention him, and he doesn’t ever mention me.

There are a lot of good reasons for that, but suffice to say that our benign and baby-faced Sun News overlord, Kory Teneycke, was somehow able to obtain a truce between this fellow and I.

For years, it had been the War of the Roses between us — on steroids. The fact that Kory was able to achieve a cessation of hostilities suggests to me that if you ever want somebody to solve the Middle East crisis, Teneycke’s the guy.

Suffice to say this fellow — who I do not, and will not, name — disagrees with me fiercely on just about everything. The reverse is also true. There is nothing we agree on, pretty much.

Except one thing: Stephen Wicary. Stephen Wicary was the online editor for The Globe and Mail for a number of years. He’s a weedy, pompous bore, like not a few folks on Parliament Hill.

Part of his job, apparently, was to attack people on Twitter he didn’t like. This included my friend Norman Spector, and pretty much anybody who has ever had anything to do with Sun News.

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Just at West 49. Buying gear for the kids.

Guy at cash sees my Replacements tee. “Hey, man, that was a great movie,” says he.

“What?” I say, horrified and amazed. Companion says I look like I want to kill. Kid stutters.

“The movie,” he squeaks. “You know, the football movie.”

“No, I don’t,” I hiss. “The Replacements were a band. A fucking great band. Perhaps the greatest band.”

Kid scoots away. Me, to no one in particular:

“I hate everyone.”

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Mulroney: You had an option, sir. You could have said, ‘I am not going to do it. This is wrong for Canada, and I am not going to ask Canadians to pay the price.’ You had an option, sir — to say ‘no’ — and you chose to say ‘yes’ to the old attitudes and the old stories of the Liberal Party. That sir, if I may say respectfully, that is not good enough for Canadians.

Turner: I had no option.

Mulroney: That is an avowal of failure. That is a confession of non-leadership. And this country needs leadership. You had an option, sir. You could have done better.

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If the plane back to TeeDot goes down in a fiery ball of flame this afternoon, here’s a pic you can put up on your fridge door. You’re welcome.

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This is a Rick Bell story. In the Calgary Sun. In Alberta.

Good thing nobody is interested in this Trudeau guy.

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…at Sled Island. Here.

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