A hundred miles from D.C.
The bad news: after nearly ten hours on this bus, my old guy’s ass has fully atrophied, and I don’t think I will ever walk again. So much for my plans to run the Boston Marathon in record time.
The good news: I’ve been listening to Face to Face on my rasta headphones, and I’ve hammered out 2,600 words for the new book. It ain’t any good, but it’s 2,600 words that didn’t exist 24 hours ago.
In other news, I have no idea what state we are in, but I suspect it doesn’t matter.
Erie, Pa.
There are people here, did you know that? And no one has been compelled to live here, such as in a witness protection program.
In other news, they got my lunch wrong four times at Corporate Death Burger. That’s pretty impressive.
At the border
They made all the kids troop off the bus and show their passports. Anyone know if this is standard operating procedure, in the bright new Homeland Security era?
The Drive to DC© begins
I am on a crowded bus with dozens of Grade Eight students, heading to Washington, D.C. Dozens.
Pray for me.
In today’s Sun: WWJD?
This week, the question is quite relevant. If He was here, to see all that we have become — with the chasm dividing rich and poor growing ever-wider, with governments bailing out bankers but never the masses, with average folks having to borrow just to keep food on the table — what would He do?
The question occurred to me on Sunday, at the Catholic church I attend, and on the very same weekend the Occupiers finally came to Canadian cities.
The gospel was a well-known one — the one about the attempt of the Pharisees to trap Jesus Christ with a question about taxes (Matthew 22:15). “Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” Christ said to them. “And to God what is God’s.”
Doesn’t sound much like a tax-fighter, does He?
Tim Hudak is heard from

As far as I am aware, this is the first direct communication – a tweet or otherwise – from the PC leader since he lost the election.
I don’t know about you, but I find this kind of amazing. This is the first thing he has to say to voters?
Like I said once before: as a TSN anchor, he’d be great.
As a leader of a political party? Not so much.
In today’s Sun: no Blackberry was harmed in the production of this column
When disaster strikes, when mistakes happen, what’s the best corporate response?
Well, to respond, for starters. Not to pretend nobody’s noticed.
Last week, as you are certainly aware, was The Great Berry Crash of 2011, and plenty of folks noticed. Across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, millions of us peered at our inert BlackBerry screens for day after interminable day, cursing.
Cursing one of the all-time Canadian business success stories, BlackBerry’s Research in Motion (RIM). Cursing the company’s near-total silence about a system-wide collapse that inconvenienced — or hurt — countless businesses and individuals around the globe.
No e-mails. No instant messaging. No web browsing. For days, our BlackBerrys were great big digital clocks, and nothing more. An apology (of sorts) came from one of RIM’s bosses only after four days of corporate silence. It was beyond maddening — it was pathetic.
Not dead yet (updated)
Sorry, I ain’t buying it. Rumours of our death have been greatly prognosticated, etc.
UPDATE: Man, you guys are fast. A regular has told me the show I was on was Day Six, and a clip of one of my exchanges with Jim is found here. If I sound pissed off about the Conservatives’ ongoing flirtations with racism and homophobia, it’s because I was.