Here we go again...

God please save me from your followers.

I keep having to stomp this particular fire out. I don't know why I bother--debating these people who are putting aside every critical issue facing this country because, at root, they feel vaguely uncomfortable at the mere thought of Jack and Gil getting married--debating these folks bears an uncanny resemblance to banging my head against a brick wall. But I'll keep trying. Here are 31 "reasons" to vote against same-sex marriage, with my thoughts on each of them. My apologies at the repetitiveness--there are really only ten or so "reasons" here--but hey, the first sign of an argument running out of steam is a resort to repetition.

The government has no authority to change the definition of a religious term such as marriage. They have no right to change the definition of "baptism", "communion", "bar mitzvah", "marriage" or any other religious term.

Okay, right away we've come up against a specious assumption: that "marriage" is a religious term. Says who? In order to be married, one need not enter a place of worship nor invoke the name of any god. So how can marriage be a religious term?

Same sex marriage is not a "human right". The United Nations’ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms make no mention, directly or indirectly of such a right.

Y'know, it's really funny. I just sat down and read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms through. It makes no mention, directly or indirectly, of any kind of marriage. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights put forth by the United Nations does, however. Let's look carefully at what it has to say:

Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Now, you will note the first clause does not specify that men must marry women, or that women must marry men. It simply says that men and women have the right to marry.

Back to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Sexual orientation has been "read into" the Charter for some time now, probably on the basis of the equality rights in Article 15:


15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

I'm going to come right out here, so to speak, and suggest that gays and lesbians form a "disadvantaged group". Given that the suicide rate of gays and lesbians is six times the national average and hate crimes are still common, it's hard not to argue otherwise. This group of people is not specifically included in the Charter, but it is not excluded, either. Given that the Charter holds equality as a fundamental right, it is only correct that sexual orientation be considered.

Anyway, all this suggests to me is that according to the United Nations, marriage is a fundamental freedom for all and according to the Charter, gays are not to be discriminated against. Draw your own conclusions.


When women gained equal rights in Canada, they were not renamed "men". Laws were passed to give them rights. Same sex couples do not have to be called "married" to receive rights.

When homosexuals get the right to marry in Canada, nobody will rename them "straight", either.
We can set up a whole set of laws codifying--we'll call it "gayage"--and make sure that they are identical insofar as the rights and obligations they grant same-sex couples. Or we can just extend marriage rights to gay people.
Obviously, we're arguing over a word. And words are funny: they mean whatever you want them to, no matter what the dictionary may say on the matter. If I say "marriage", you'll imagine certain things; if you say "marriage", I will imagine certain things. Much of our respective mental pictures will overlap, but there will be differences.
It really does seem much simpler to me to allow gay couples the freedom to marry. You know most of them will consider themselves married, not "civilly unionated" or some such. Where's the harm?


If marriage is redefined, it is redefined for everyone. Are your [sic] married? If so, to a man or a woman? To properly identify oneself every married couple in Canada will then have to define their marriage as a "same sex marriage" or an "opposite sex marriage".

I identify myself, properly, as Ken Breadner. Whom I choose to marry, or not, is quite frankly none of anybody's business unless and until I choose to tell them. And the same goes for any two married people. Period.


To change the definition of marriage is a violation of Article 16 of the United Nations’ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". This article demands government protection of "family" and "marriage".

Those damn homosexuals! They're plotting to overthrow marriage! Hurry! Protect it!
Oh, sorry: that was vicious sarcasm, but I just realized quite a few people actually believe this. I'd like them to show me how extending marriage threatens it. I still haven't heard any kind of answer to that question.


To change the definition of marriage is a violation of Canada’s "Charter of Rights". The first line of the Charter reads "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:" It is a violation of "The principle of the supremacy of God" to re-define a sacred institution.

See the rebuttal to the first paragraph: marriage is not a sacred institution. And "the supremacy of God" is a null statement. Who or what is God? Take as long as you like to answer. I suspect that the people who spewed forth this elaborate justification of bigotry have a very good idea who God is. Problem: there are many competing visions of the same God...not to mention other Gods, the belief in which is--surprise!--guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Re-definition of marriage violates the first "fundamental freedom" listed by the "Charter of Rights" that states "Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: a) freedom of conscience and religion". By dictating religion the state infringes upon the freedom of religion.

The state is not "dictating religion" here, since...again...marriage and religion have little to do with each other.


Re-definition sets up a "two tiered" Charter of Rights where homosexuals and lesbians have powers over the religious.

Look, at some point, Joe Gay Catholic is going to want to be married in his church. That point is not yet, but I'm sure it's coming. We'll see how the court rules. In the meantime, Christians in particular have a lot of hard Bible study to do.
What they shouldn't do is ask themselves "what would Jesus do"...because in all but a few, that question is magically transformed into "what would I do if I were Jesus?" Instead, they should read carefully what they think are prohibitions against homosexuality, particularly those in the New Testament. It helps to read them in Greek. Fair warning: you'll be surprised to find there is no prohibition against homosexuality in the Bible that can be attributed to God in any of His three Aspects.


The Prime Minister has betrayed his colleagues attempting to force cabinet members to go against their religious convictions and vote to redefine marriage. If he will not protect religious freedom for his friends he will certainly not protect ordinary Canadians.

It's a failing of our political system that "voting one's conscience" is so rarely permitted. I'm not defending Paul Martin, but he may have told his caucus that religious freedoms--guaranteed, after all, under the Charter--will not be infringed upon, in an effort to get them to accept his legislation. That's politics. In any event, the actions of the PM do not constitute in and of themselves a reason to vote against (or for) same-sex marriage. Let's keep to the issue at hand, here, okay?

Two-tiered rights regimes suppress the underclass. Religious institutions are being forced to host same sex nuptials such as the Knights of Columbus hall in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia. Religious schools such as the Catholic School in Whitby, Ontario are being forced to accept same sex relationships. Religious individuals such as Scott Brockie are forced to print material against his conscience. You and your Church, Synagogue or place of worship may be next.

Oooo, suppression of the "underclass", whatever that is. Sounds nasty. Reminds me of Monty Python's Constitutional Peasant. I'll admit I have not read up on the cases of the Catholic School in Whitby (what, only one?) or the KoC hall in PoCo, nor do I know of Scott Brockie. I'm curious to know how one is "forced" to print anything. Do they do it with guns? Knives?
I think it only fair to point out that same-sex marriages have occurred in Christian (admittedly, not Catholic) churches. I'd like to be a fly on the wall at the confrontation between Christian ministers who have performed such services and those who are vehemently against them. Is one set or the other not Christian? Discuss.

Two-tiered rights are currently violating freedom for those who conduct marriage ceremonies. Religious commissioners of marriages in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have already been threatened with loss of livelihood if they do not succumb to the dictates of the state and agree to marry same sex couples.
Religious freedom for Clergy will not be upheld. On December 9, 2004 the Supreme Court clearly articulated that the federal government has no ability to protect Clergy from marrying same sex couples. The Court says this is a Provincial responsibility however no province in Canada has legislation in place to protect Clergy. In fact at least three provinces have already attacked Clergy freedoms.

Lock up the priests! The gays are coming!
I don't mean to be flip, I really don't. But all this talk of "protection" grates on my nerves. Pass a same-sex marriage law. Write into it that no priest or pastor may be forced to perform a marriage ceremony against his or her will. It's really that simple. Churches already discriminate as to whom they marry. Some insist you be members of the parish; many won't recognize your marriage if it's performed in a church of a different faith. All of this is just as wrong, as far as I am concerned, as refusing to marry same-sex couples, but nobody's challenged it.

Religious freedom in education is being debased. Religious students are forced to study same sex values, relationships, activities and homosexual and lesbian way of life. There is no protection or conscientious objection caveat to alleviate students from being exposed to objectionable material.

AND THERE BLOODY WELL SHOULDN'T BE. If you are absolutely determined to keep your little ones under your thumb. better buy them a bubble. See, this paragraph here gives us a clue as to what motivates these people: fear. They're afraid their sons and daughters might be exposed to what they deem objectionable and find it...not so objectionable. It scares these people witless to think that each generation--each individual--charts its own moral course. The purpose of an education is to get students thinking for themselves, not to parrot their parents' selected Bible readings.


Same sex education is commonly used as a proselytizing tool. Much of the material leads the student to question their sexuality by their dreams and level of stimulation when exposed to explicit material.

IT'S THE GAY AGENDA AT WORK!
Oops, there's that sarcasm again. I keep forgetting people really do think this way. Well, if you are exposed to explicit sexual material in school, hey, let me know where your school is, eh? I want to sit in. I might learn something.
Seriously, if you're aroused by gay porn, you could very well be gay. Not necessarily--I am, but I'm not--but you could be. And, as Seinfeld so memorably said, "not that there's anything wrong with that." No matter what your parents think.
At the very least, everyone ought to question and come to terms with their sexuality. It's an important part of who you are.

Re-definition of marriage undermines the foundation of society. Our civilization is based on the traditional definition of marriage. Social engineers are now attempting to demolish society as we know it and build their own "Brave New World".

I've said this before and I will say it again: marriage is NOT the foundation of society. The foundation of society is the individual. He/she may be married, or not; it makes no difference as far as human rights and social obligations go.

Family is our foundation. The United Nations’ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights",Article 16.(3) states "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."

Dare we define family? I dare you to tell me that my wife and I don't constitute a family. You better run away real quick while you say that: I have a hell of a right hook.
The people who wrote this drivel are perfectly entitled to their vision of a "family"....only insofar as they apply it to themselves alone. And don't keep using that word "protection" without telling me what you're trying to protect families from.

Marriage is the foundation of family. The place for pro-creation and development of children. Same sex couples cannot pro-create.

Red herring. So what? We can't procreate either. It doesn't make our marriage less valid in the eyes of the State or--get this--in the eyes of the Church, either. Last I looked, people could get married in a church without the immediate obligation to "start a family". In fact, up until recently, having a "family"--by which these folks mean children--before you married was very much frowned upon.

Marriage is the foundation of government where members are governed.

Say what? This is gobbledygook made to sound important. "Marriage is the foundation of government"??? What the heck does that mean? You have to be married to run for office? So what, anyway? Boy, we're really stretching now, aren't we?

Marriage is the first level of implementation of the law where members are encouraged to keep the law.

What bizarro world are we living in here? This makes no sense whatsoever and would be perfectly irrelevant if it did. I was taught to obey the law long before I married!

Marriage is the first level of education where members are taught civilized behaviour, morals and ethics.

Are we speaking in code? Are "members" children? Why not say so?
(Aside: civilized behaviour may well be taught, but morals and ethics are self-taught.)
No matter: saying "marriage is the first level of purpleness where members are taught the essence of pure purplehood" does not advance the case against same-sex marriage one iota.

Marriage is the first level of healthcare where the sick are cared for.

If you're single, you die on the street? Is that how this works?

Marriage is the first level caring for the poor.

I give up. You know what this sounds like? "Neener-neener-neener! If I cover my ears, I won't hear you! I reject your version of reality and insert my own!"


Radical social-engineering cannot be enacted without full debate, discussion, involvement and participation of vast majority of the citizens in a free country. Dictatorships have attempted to radically change society in other ways and the result is catastrophic. Not even the most corrupt Communist or fascist dictatorships have attempted to redefine marriage.

Mostly because the most corrupt communist or fascist states don't care one bit about human rights.
You can't force meaningful political participation on people: they'll resent it. Many people have tuned out this debate on account of they simply don't care; they've come to the conclusion that same-sex marriage will not affect them in any way, so they don't pay attention to the diatribes pro or con. Sorry to say this, but I don't think these arguments will influence them.

Re-engineering society is not a priority of the people however it has become the number one priority for the Prime Minister. Instead of focusing on Canada’s vital issues such as healthcare, education, security and taxes, Mr. Martin is fixated on same sex marriage.

Umm, pot? Kettle? Look, you can accuse the Prime Minister of 'fixation' all you want, but it's the people opposed to same-sex marriage that are doing at least as much to keep Parliament from dealing with all the critical issues facing this country. The courts have been ruling on this issue for four years now, and no ruling has yet come back against same-sex marriage.

If same sex marriage was a "human right" then most same sex couples would exercise this so-called right. In fact same sex marriage has been legal in parts of Canada for almost two years and only a couple thousand have become married. Over 99 percent have not entered into so-called "same sex marriage". Now the social engineers want to re-define marriage for the .006 percent of the population of Canada.

Just because I have a right does not obligate me to exercise it. Canadians have the right to vote, and they've been doing so in fewer and fewer numbers.
At least get your figures right: 0.006 percent of the population of Canada is some 217,000 people, a far cry from "a couple of thousand". Anyway, if this redefinition of marriage affects so few people, doesn't hurt anyone (and doesn't affect you at all), why have you got your knickers in such a twist?

The majority of Canadians do not want marriage to be redefined. Virtually every poll has indicated this fact with as much as 69% of the nation in objection.

Majority rules, then. The majority once thought blacks weren't fit to marry whites. The majority can be wrong.

Statistics Canada released its findings that only one percent of Canadians are homosexual or lesbian. Another .7 percent of Canadians are bi-sexual. Even this community does not wholly support redefining marriage.

Again, if this is being done for so few people, what's the big deal? They're not criminalizing heterosexual marriage, you know.

There is an electoral consequence to violating the will of the constituents. Numerous Members of Parliament lost their seat subsequent to voting against marriage.

Really? Did the government kick them out? Or did their electors stand up against bigotry?

Betraying the trust of the people creates an electoral consequence. Many Members of Parliament voted for marriage before voting against it. Mr. Martin and 215 other Members of Parliament voted for marriage in 1999. Over 130 Members voted for marriage in 2002. Now some are changing their vote. Their word yesterday appears to have no bearing on their actions of today. Who knows what they will do tomorrow? Such subterfuge will not tolerated by the electorate.

Maybe not by you. At least some of the electorate will be comforted that their elected MPs finally came to their senses. No matter: that's for the next election to decide. And the Liberals will win it, same-sex bill or no. Mark my words.

Radically changing the Liberal Party will bring demise. Throughout its history the Liberal Party was moderate and centrist. Now the Prime Minister is bringing in an extremist agenda of redefining marriage, talk of polygamy, decriminalizing marijuana and discussions on euthanasia. In addition they grant 582 work visas to Romanian strippers and pay $250 million dollars to Liberal friends. These are not Liberal Values they are Extremist Values.

Hey. wow, we've thrown in gay marriage with AdScam and Strippergate. Next on Channel Seven: Gay marriage causes global warming and tooth decay.
Incidentally, since we've brought all this up, polygamy should be legal; marijuana MUST be legalized, never mind decriminalized; and euthanasia is the benchmark by which compassionate societies are judged. (If your life isn't your own, what is?)

Now...anybody got any real objections to gay marriage? Anybody? Bueller?

The Ticketmaster and the Slave

I've already offended one friend in private email with my take on Live 8--essentially, that it's pointless, since zero money will be raised--so I won't expound on that theme any further here.

Now, the actual Live 8 concert, as opposed to the politics surrounding it, was something I had a modest interest in. I mean, I like some of the groups that are scheduled to perform. A few of them--the Barenaked Ladies in particular--hearken back to what I think of as the golden era of Canadian music, before grunge turned popular music into nihilistic noise. If it was possible to strap duct tape over the mouths of any concertgoer under the age of thirty--the better to actually hear the music--and if I didn't have prior commitments, I might have considered "buying" the free tickets.

Now I hear a rumour that this Live 8 concert will be televised--which, if true, would make it possible to watch the proceedings from the comfort of my own home, without braving the colossal traffic jams, the carnivorous crowds, and what is certain to be searing heat and humidity. An attractive proposition.

But let's say that, like many, I really, really wanted to go to Park Place in Barrie and see this concert. To do it, I would have needed to procure tickets through ticketmaster.ca. And to do that, I would have had to be extraordinarily lucky.
The tickets went on sale at 10:00 a.m. sharp the other day. It is reported there were 35000 of them. They sold out in twenty minutes. Let's do the math together: that's over 29 tickets a second.
Ticketmaster doesn't give out this information for obvious reasons, but I'd really like to know how many people tried to get tickets and failed. I'm betting it beat the number who were successful by at least an order of magnitude.
Actually, I was a tad surprised that the concert tickets lasted as long as they did. Coldplay tickets went on sale in a similar mass stampede a month or so back--the difference here being that people had to pay for these tickets, at hefty prices, too--and the supply that time lasted just a notch over three minutes.

How exactly is this fair?

You have to figure that those folks with T1 connections have a huge advantage in such ticket wars, especially over the people with dial-up. Which is really rather ironic in the case of something like Live 8, which is ostensibly being put on to help the poor.
Moreover, and quite predictably, Live 8 tickets showed up on Ebay within minutes of the sellout, and bids made it all the way up to $126.50 before Ebay got wise and yanked them. This sort of scalping is detestable; the mere attempt should be punishable by a fine of twice the highest bid.

Look, I love the Internet. I think, used properly, it's a fantastic tool. It has the potential to do more for the people of Africa than any aging ex-Boomtown Rat ever dreamed of. But there are some things that should have been left alone, among them the old way of getting concert tickets. In situations where the demand is certain to exceed the supply, it's simply wrong to incite an electronic riot. "Scrambles! Keepsies! Get your Coldplay tick---"

Kenny in Wonderland

Last Sunday, Father's Day, was also Sobeys Family Day at Canada's Wonderland. (Oops, sorry, Paramount Canada's Wonderland--they really get antsy if you forget the first word.)
Last year, Sobeys Family Day coincided with Chinese Day. Half of our store went, and was confronted with half the population of China, or so it seemed. At any rate, some people only managed three or four rides for the day: a huge waste of money, even with the deep discount thrown in. So the interest was considerably lessened this year...in fact, I was the only one to get tickets.
Eva dropped me off on our way back from the in-laws. Note to Paramount: create the drop-off zone so prominently and repeatedly signed as you enter the park off Rutherford Rd. If you follow the signs as they presently read, ("MUST LEAVE LANE BEFORE TOLLBOOTH"), you find yourself kicked out to Jane St. Hobson's choice: pay $7.50 for parking we'll use for four seconds, or walk roughly a kilometer across the parking lot.
Anyway, we hit TOP GUN first. I'd only rode this once before. While it does feature some interesting elements, the roughness of the ride is very off-putting. You are warned to remove hearing aids and earrings before riding--the only coaster I've ever seen that does this. Rather than put guests through this inconvenience, they ought to, oh, I don't know, smooth the ride out a bit...
Next up, a surprise. TOMB RAIDER: THE RIDE was considerably better than it looked. To get on this coaster, you climb up a ladder while the car is moving. A cagelike structure is is lowered into place against your back while you are still standing. The ride then starts to move, and you are thrust forward and down until you are in a prone position, face down.
This is a novel posture for a coaster. You really do feel like Superman, especially during a couple of quick corkscrews. Pretty neat ride.
You can't visit this park without a ride on the MIGHTY CANADIAN MINEBUSTER, celebrating its 25th year. This is a direct copy of the famous Coney Island Cyclone, and it packs quite a punch for a coaster less than a hundred feet tall. Two things struck me as I was taking my seat:
One, I'm fat. Two, they've added TOTALLY UNNECESSARY SEAT BELTS!!! I've ridden this thing maybe three dozen times over the past quarter century with only a lap bar for company. I'm sure of it. While some of the bunny hops do throw you a bit, it's nothing compared with, say, the Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point, on which seat belts are an absolute must.
Still, this ride seems to be running faster than I remember it. Nary a trim brake as we neared the second drop. You get a fine da capo effect--that's roller-coaster-ese for "holy shit, that's gonna take my head off at the neck!" as you rocket under some Soak City waterslide or other. Very enjoyable ride.
A change of pace followed: I got suckered on to PSYCLONE. This is a cross between three venerable midway traditions: the Pirate Ship, the Round-Up, and the Uck-I'm-About-To-Blow-Chunks.
I don't handle swinging rides very well. I've never actually puked, but I have tasted lunch on a few occasions. Even a playground swing provokes a touch of nausea in me. Anyway, this thing, in hindsight, wasn't too bad, actually. I survived it. I could tell Dad was just waiting for me to yark. I never would have lived that down, so I kept my ruminant inside by iron force of will.

DON'T buy food at PCW. Unless you're rich. Really, I fully expected to get gouged, but they really know how to ream you: two cups of New York Fries and two medium drinks run you almost $18.00. What is this, a damn movie theatre?

We then hit THE ITALIAN JOB, this year's new addition and our longest line of the day: just over an hour...about the longest I'm willing to wait for anything. This coaster was only a minute long, but it was a pretty eventful minute. For one thing, it's got linear induction motors a la Top Thrill Dragster (albeit, of course, much less powerful). Still, you get shot out of the station and hit top speed of about 80 km/h (I'm guessing) pretty much instantly. I had no foreknowledge of this nifty feature, so its effect was doubled on me. Very shortly you come to a complete stop. Cue the special effects: jetting water, bursts of gunfire, gouts of flame, an incoming helicopter, and then you're off again, another linear induction boost into a dark "parking garage" tunnel, twisting and turning most enjoyably. You re-enter sunshine just before the statiom brakes and are treated to one final neck-popping sudden lurch. All in all, a fun experience.
The last ride of the day, as it turned out, was the VORTEX, a very slick, disorienting suspended coaster that is among the fastest rides in the park.
I stood and watched people--including a roughly ten-year-old girl--become EXTREME SKYFLIERs. In the end, I wussed out. More swinging, for one thing. For another, you're supported by gossamer-thin WIRES. For a third, I don't like venturing on anything the physics of which I don't understand. Bungee jumping is one thing. I get it. I'd never do it--what do you think I am, nuts?--but I get it. This--
Well, they don't even appear to WEIGH you. All too vividly I can imagine the result of them guessing your combined weight wrong. The bundle containing our precious bodies wouldn't skim the ground: it would hit and bounce, several times, snapping things as it went. My torso would arrive the Pearly Gates limbless. Not a nice image.
In the end, though, the thing that most dissuaded me from doing this was MONEY. It costs well over a hundred dollars to ride and get a video of your experience. This is skyway robbery--simply unconscionable. Just to ride this would cost nearly twice what it cost us to ride everything else together. Even though my Dad was okay with this--prepared to spend the money--I wasn't.
We left the park early as both of us were getting tired and we wanted to hit a restaurant before they all filled up (it was, again, Father's Day). I had a great time, though, and look forward to doing it again next year.

To your health

You all would have had my views on the earth-shattering Supreme Court of Canada decision a while ago, but I've had to wait for a suitably empty evening to come along. Now it's here, and I'm here, and you're here, so here we go.
Paul Martin was quick to proclaim "we're not going to have a two-tier health care system in this country". Gee, Paul, if that's the case, you've got your work cut out for you:

• QUEBEC, ALBERTA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, AND PRICE EDWARD ISLAND allow doctors to set their own fees and work outside the public health system.
• ONTARIO AND MANITOBA allow doctors to opt out of public health and refunds patients' monies paid to these doctors.
• NOVA SCOTIA allows private insurance for private services.
• So does NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR.
• So does SASKATCHEWAN.
• So does NEW BRUNSWICK.
• In ONTARIO, the Liberal provincial government has, in effect, privatized huge areas of medicine previously covered under the public plan, most notably chiropractic, physiotherapy, and optometry. While there was a huge outcry at first, people seem to have adjusted to it.
• THROUGHOUT CANADA, "very important people" such as athletes and polititicans routinely jump the public queue. Ask Paul Martin if he or any member of his family has ever set foot in a private clinic and dare him to lie.
• ALSO THROUGHOUT CANADA, anyone who chooses to purchase an extended benefit plan through their place of employment is actually aiding and abetting the dreaded second tier of health care. Consider: these plans cover you for items not insured by the public system. You and/or your employer pay for this coverage on a monthly basis--the government doesn't. How "public" is that, exactly?

The following is an excerpt from this eminently sensible decision:

We conclude, based on the evidence, that prohibiting health insurance that would permit ordinary Canadians to access health care, in circumstances where the government is failing to deliver health care in a reasonable manner, thereby increasing the risk of complications and death, interferes with life and security of the person as protected by section seven of the[Quebec] Charter.

It's only a matter of time before patients at risk of "complications and death" launch a barrage of cases to extend the right to purchase and use private insurance clear across Canada. Given that, as shown above, we already have two-tier health care in this country, the debate on its purported arrival is moot.

What we can debate, what we need to debate, is what form our current two-tier health care system should take. It's patently obvious that nobody wants the American system. Even if that system worked (and it doesn't), it's American, and no self-respecting Canadian would have anything to do with it unless he or his sister was dying and a Detroit hospital could fix their condition in a timely manner...oh, never mind.

I think we all agree that the most prominent touchstone of the Canada Health Act is universality...the idea that we do not turn away patients simply because of their inability to pay. It's not too much of a stretch to suggest that our marriage to this idea is what makes us Canadian.

I think, too, that we all agree that our health care system is ailing, in spite of billions of public dollars being poured into it at every opportunity. We all have experienced the vicissitudes of the system, or at least know someone who has: the seven hour waits in Emerg; the seven week delay waiting for a vital MRI; the seven month waits for the first consultation with a specialist.

Not many people realize that the sacred cows of India are walking cases of tuberculosis, among a host of other diseases, not despite their sacredness but because of it. It is forbidden in India to so much as touch one of these creatures...which would include administering care, no matter how needed it may be.

The parallels with our health care system are striking, n'est-ce pas?

The Supreme Court of Canada has done us a great service by daring to poke and prod our most sacred cow. Now it's up to Parliament to decide how to proceed. Paul "I reject your reality and insert my own" Martin is clearly not up to the challenge.

Smooth Criminal?

So Michael Jackson got off. Legally, this time.
Really, was anybody even remotely surprised?
Just once, please God, I'd like to see a real case mounted against a famous man. I say "man" because...well, let's see now. O.J. was on trial for murder and was acquitted; Robert Blake was on trial for murder and was acquitted; Michael Jackson was on trial for diddling little boys and was acquitted; Martha Stewart was on trial for lying and trying to save her financial hide--and got nailed.
I think Michael is guilty as sin and nothing the jury said convinced me otherwise. (In fact, one of the jurors said she felt Jackson was a pedophile, while another noted doubts about his innocence.) But the general consensus was that the prosecution's case was too weak for a conviction.
The court of law that exists in my brain is a little simpler. Let's see...okay, he said (on air!) that he shared his bed with children; pornographic magazines were found nearby; he paid off his last accuser...*ding ding ding ding* GUILTY!
How is it, exactly, that the defense were allowed to bring out all the plaintiff's mother's unsavoury details, while not a peep was mentioned about the previous round of allegations against the defendant?
Given those prior allegations, and the hush money Jackson paid out to silence them, I think it only fair that this boy's mother be charged with negligence at the very least. For her to allow Michael Jackson a week's unfettered access to her son baggars belief.

I wonder what Family and Children's Services would say about this sort of parental behaviour. You know, since they've found US unfit to raise children and all. *

Anyway, the taxpayers of California ought to sue everybody associated with the plaintiffs and get their money back. Maybe that would compel the prosecution to build itself a better case, next time around.

I hear that Michael has resolved not to share his bed with children going forward. Wow, Mikey, whatever gave you that idea?


*People have told me I should stop beating myself with the Children's Aid rejection. I'm not really doing that. Basically, with each and every case--and I see them daily--I reaffirm to myself that I am right and they are wrong. Pity, though, about all those horrendously abused children out there...

One fan two fan red fan blue fan...

I'm having the devil's own time researching my topic for today's entry. Fitting, because the temperature in our kitchen has just passed 31 degrees Centigrade: the only logical conclusion I can draw is that we are slowly descending into Hell.
We have three ceiling fans, three standing fans, and a Honeywell "Twindow" fan currently operating in our home. I've determined that the ceiling fans use about as much energy as a 100-watt light bulb and the oscillating fans about twice that. What I'm trying to determine is just how much energy I'd be using if I replaced all of it with central air. A lot more, I'd suspect.
Not that this is an option for us--at least, not a feasible option. To install central air, you need central heat, and we have electric baseboard heating. Installing forced air gas would cost somewhere between seven and twelve thousand dollars.
I'd do it, except I've asked around to find out what people who have forced-air gas are paying in utilities each month. The answer surprised me and will probably shock you. Yes, we are paying more on a monthly basis...by an average of about ten dollars. Assuming the difference in pricing between electricity and natural gas remains constant, the work would pay for itself through lower utility bills in a little over a century. I plan on being worm-food long before that point.

Yes? You there, towards the back of the roasting peanut gallery, you had a question?

How much is my comfort worth to me, you ask. Good question.

I can't deny it really has been uncomfortably hot everywhere above basement level for the past week. (The temperature down there is currently a more bearable 22 degrees.)
We are a family that sleeps with the bedroom window open and at least one fan running on the coldest of mid-January nights, so this kind of heat is especially stifling to us. And yes, in my more selfish moments, I long for the kind of cool comfort that central air provides.

Selfish? What do you mean?

Just what I said. Central air conditioning is monstrously selfish. By running it, what you're saying to the world is this: I don't give a fart in a glove how hot you are...because I'm nice and cool.

Surely you're being irrational here---

Look, just what do you think central air does with the heat it extracts from your house? It pumps it right outside, that's what it does. As if it wasn't hot enough out there already. But who cares, right? You're cool. That's what matters. (I take that back if you have one of those neat newfangled central air conditioners that uses its waste heat to heat your water supply...now there's intelligent thinking!)

But I'd MELT without my central air!

Yup. Like we're melting now. Hey, no problem...go ahead and use your central air. Just don't pretend it's a zero sum game. And when you tell your friends how much you love summer, don't forget to mention to them how nice and un-summery you keep your house.

Now we're down a Liberal...

On the one hand, I suppose you have to admire Pat O'Brien, the (now ex-) Liberal MP for London-Fanshawe. After all, he stood up for what he believes in--traditional marriage--and forfeited his party and possibly his career to prove it.
On the other hand, you can just as easily argue his gesture was pointless and immature, since his leaving will in no way impede the passage of the same-sex marriage bill and he certainly didn't make any effort to explain himself.
Oh, he said that the government was moving too fast. FAST? Gays have been getting married in Ontario since January 14, 2001. If that's fast action on behalf of the government, I'd hate to see slow.
Moreover, O'Brien didn't say anything--at least not that I've seen--as to why he feels denying marriage to a segment of the population is so important.
I make an effort to see more than one side to any issue. Here, I can't find the other side with both hands and a flashlight. Call me a Liberal elitist if you want: I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, traditional marriage needs no "defense", is not "under attack", and has not suffered one iota in the nearly four and a half years since the first registered same-sex union in Canada.

The Sun chain is saying that the O'Brien defection proves once again how pro-Liberal our media in Canada are. After all, nobody's saying that Martin should have done anything possible--or indeed, anything at all--to keep O'Brien onside, the way they argued Stronach's defection was a failure on Stephen Harper's part.
I concede the media in Canada are predominantly Liberal--if Stephen Harper nabbed a murderer, the Toronto Star would surely editorialize that he did it solely for the reward money--but in this case the Sun's missing something.

Martin doesn't need his social conservatives the way Harper needs social moderates. Sure, there are about 30 MPs on the Liberal team who, to varying degrees, oppose same-sex marriage, but it's unlikely any more of them will quit over it; the Liberals appear safe for the time being. Whereas Harper will never gain power without, at the very least, the convincing appearance of a move to the social center.

O'Brien, as an Independent, may well be re-elected. London is a notoriously socially conservative city, and I'm sure his move brought a groundswell of support. But he's soon apt to discover that he's cast himself into the political wilderness.

Seven Deadly Political Sins,

Or, Why I Could Never Be A Politician

There's a girl I work with at Price Chopper who is as politically astute as anyone I've ever met. This despite her still attending high school. She has a solid grasp of political history and theory and, most refreshingly, she is resistant to dogma of any sort. Whenever I read oft-recurring stories detailing how today's youth are completely ambivalent to politics, I remind myself that there are many Kathleens out there who are setting out to make a difference in the world.
The other day, in the middle of some political debate or other, she challenged me to put my money where my mouth was and run for office.
I'd like to: I really would. But I don't think it'll ever happen. Here are some few reasons why.

1) I'm not telegenic. I'll put what ought to be the most trifling concern right up front. Lamentably, the electorate increasingly expects movie-star looks out of their politicans. Brains count for little in this era when politicos rarely have any input into their own public speeches and ten seconds of pithy wordplay almost always outweighs ten minutes of impassioned reasoning.

2) Within Canada's political framework as it now exists, I am best classed as an Independent. I reject social conservatism while also rejecting Liberal/NDP entitlement. I used to be most comfortable as a Progressive Conservative, but that party is no more. That's not to say I've adopted the prevailing Ontarian view that Stephen Harper is somehow "scary"...just that on key social issues, I don't share his vision for the country.
In any case, Independents may certainly be elected, but they rarely manage to stay for long, and by definition never make it into the governing party's inner sanctum where real power is wielded and real change can be effected.

3) As a corollary to the above, I support a wide range of ideas and objectives from across the political spectrum. Assuming for a moment that a fit could be found for me inside a given political party, I'd likely refuse to toe the party line if I felt my party had it wrong. The upshot of this is that, unless I was elected Leader of my party, I'd be cast out on short notice.

4) I am a person who would do what I felt was right, regardless of what was popular at the time. I see nothing wrong and many things right with same-sex marriage, for example. Many have tried, but nobody has convinced me otherwise. I would support same-sex marriage even if polls suggested the Kill All Faggots Party was poised for a landslide majority.

5) I'm kind of blunt when I detect bullshit, and it seems to me like all parties are busily spewing bullshit at unprecedented levels. At some point, probably about three minutes into my first Question Period, I would stand up and tell people to go stand in the corner until they remember how to be good little boys and girls. My lack of political correctness wouldn't just get me thrown out of caucus: it could very well get me lynched, just after I step on the wrong toes.

6) Shibboleths and sacred cows beware: I have no regard for you. I wouldn't outright privatize health care--the American system is at least as dysfunctional as ours, in differing ways--but I would search long and hard for new sources of funding and new methods of delivering care to patients, bleating sheep be damned.
Quebec would be told in no uncertain terms to shit or get out of the outhouse. And if they choose to shit, they would need to bear in mind they'd be walking out of the outhouse with a hell of a long string of toilet paper trailing along behind them: their share of the national debt would be the least of their worries.
Multiculturalism: you want what used to be your own culture, before you left it to come to Canada, represented? No problem! Just not on the government's dime, okay? That goes for bilingualism, too: I'd keep it where it was necessary, but you wouldn't see Red Deer Centre-Ville traffic signs under my watch, I'll tell you.
Unless Quebec decided, of its own accord, to put up "Chicoutimi Downtown" signs. Then I'd at least think about it...

7) I would never seek power for its own sake; if I ever achieved it, I would use it to make what I feel would be a positive change. This is at odds with the prevailing political attitude in Ottawa today, best exemplified by the Machiavellianations of Paul Martin. Anybody who wants power that badly should never be given it.

Shut the F**K UP!!!

There are times when I wish the media in this country would just SHUT UP.
Actually, there seems to be a story nearly every day that I don't consider news and never will: who Paris Hilton (or anyone of her ilk) is/is not screwing; who won/lost the latest installment of any reality series at all; and perhaps most annoying, who wore what to where. I don't know about you, but for me, that stuff was stale in high school.
Then there are the stories that never die, the old stalwarts. Car bombs in Baghdad. Murders and attempted murders and rapes and muggings and child molestations and teenage swarmings and corruption in high places. The names and faces change, but the general layout of the news never seems to.
My wife wonders why I watch it, day in and day out. I have my excuses. Mostly I watch it for the same reason people watch soap operas: I need a daily dose of wow-my-life-is-so-much-better-than-that. Also, and don't laugh, I try to keep a close eye on geopolitical events. If 9/11 is ever repeated (exceeded), I hope to see it coming and take evasive action. If Ebola (or Marburg or avian flu or Captain Trips or anything else of that nature) ever gets to be anything more than a minor nibbler of the old and infirm, I want to bloody well know about it. The news can be a burden--not many people want to know who's got the nukes and who's threatened to use them--but it's my burden, damnit.
Unfortunately, carrying this burden can get to be a bit much when every media outlet in view suddenly goes crazy.
That's what's happened over the last two weeks. The craziness has a name, and that name is Karla Homolka.

If you've turned on a radio or a television in the last fortnight--or so much as glanced at a newspaper--you'll know that the female half of Canada's most notorious couple is slated to be released on or about July 5th. Still over a month away, As far as our mediocracy in Canada is concerned, this is Christmas rolled into Canada Day wrapped in Valentine roses. Only thirty three shopping days left!

There's been so much babblage about Karla's propensity to re-offend, her recent love-letters to a convicted murderer, her hair style, for Christ's sake. Not only that, we've been subjected, once again, to every last detail of her sordid and disgusting criminal career. I wonder, will The Donald be waiting at the jailhouse door to audition her for an all-new The Apprentice? Will FOX step forward with their new pitch, Who Wants To Marry A Schoolgirl Killer? (She's had dozens of proposals to date!) Stay tuned, you'll be the first to know!

Look, I'll be the first to admit that I once had an unhealthy fascination with the whole fiasco. Like a good Canadian, I abided the terms of the publication ban that cloaked much of the case in mystery, but once it was lifted, I did read more than my share of material, including a full-length book. I went through a phase where I read everything concerning the Holocaust that I could get my hands on, too. The sheer depth of evil in both cases kept me reading and asking myself what kind of minds consent to such utter depravity.

I can state with absolute assurance that Karla is a psychopath in the clinical sense of the word. She is also narcissistic in the extreme. All this media attention must be making her giddy. Why are we glorifying a psychopath?
Oh, they'll tell you that's the last thing on their minds, that they're only "getting the facts out there." Except the facts are known, and have been known for twelve years. Why the need to mull over them for six weeks? Why reward Karla with scores of camera flashes as she takes her first step as a marked woman?

For a marked woman she is, have no doubt of that. I'd like to see an expert sniper planted among the phalanx of media. That likely won't happen. But Karla will find that the real world, now that it knows what she is, will be much less obliging to being manipulated than has been her prison world. And there are a lot of people out there who agree that sickness like hers must be expunged by any means necessary.

Should she be released? Hell, no. I think the justice system made a terrible mistake when it agreed to the plea-bargain in the first place. And it should have reneged on its "deal with the devil" when certain facts Karla had been withholding (like the rapes of "Jane" and "Stef Doe") came to light. I for one would have applauded, hearing the judge cry "Booya! You get eighty years, not twelve!" And never mind the precedent. The Bernardo/Homolka case is its own precedent. It stands alone in the annals of Canadian crime.

In any case, I've heard just about enough. And there's still more than a month left to go. We'll hear from everyone who ever had any contact with Karla, Paul, Leslie, Kristen, or any of the legal team. We'll know Karla's favourite breakfast food and her shoe size. We've already seen the baby pictures, but I'm sure somebody out there wonders if Karla was breast-fed. All Karla, all the time.

Shut up, already.

Fledgling poets, beware...

Back in October, I got some spam from poetry.com inviting me to enter a poetry contest and have my work judged. Now, unsolicited email ranks up there with Liberal corruption on the list of things I'd like to see less of, but I made an exception and investigated this one. I checked out the site thoroughly and decided, on the spur of the moment, really, to enter a poem. According to the rules of the contest, I could write in any form; the only restriction was on length...no more than 24 lines.
At the time, we were neck-deep in the adoption process, so naturally I chose to write on adoption. And because I wasn't feeling particularly creative that morning, I titled my work

ADOPTION

I came and wept
And laughed and slept
And grew
I ran and played
And dreamed and prayed
And knew
You took me in
As your own kin
And then
You let me be
Both loved and free
And when
We'd fully grown
You'd fully shown
Your worth:
My mom and pa
Who never saw
My birth.

I sent this thing off and promptly forgot about it.
Two months later, some "junk" mail came for me from poetry.com. It almost got thrown out. I opened it, though, and found out that my poem had been judged and found worthy of publication. I was, furthermore, a semi-finalist for a top prize of $10,000.00 U.S. The book containing my poem would be published this spring and I would be eligible for a discount.
Oh, was I ever naive. Visions of being a published poet danced merrily in my head and I never stopped to think, not even once. Had I but considered that even hole-in-the-wall magazines pay their contributors with copies, if nothing else, I would have dismissed this whole thing for the scam it is.
Instead, I sent off a proof of my poem, along with instructions to charge me for a couple of copies of the book. That was very early this year. Since then, no book, no sign of my Visa being charged, but I've receieved invitations to a poetry convention in Orlando "where I would be awarded a Silver Bowl (retail value: $200) as a Poet of Merit". Cost to me: $2600.00 (U.S.) And just today, I got a near-identical letter inviting me to ANOTHER convention, this one in Washington, D.C. Apparently I'm up for Poet of the Year. And if I act now and don't delay, my shit will turn to gold before my very eyes.

As a public service, I'm spreading the word: don't bother entering contests from poetry.com.

Me and Mr. Magoo

Eva's brother Jim came over today, bringing his new truck and his girlfriend of fairly long standing--Aliie, her name is; it was our first time meeting her.
We ordered pizza from Pizza Pizza for lunch. It's a toss-up between Pizza Pizza and Pizza Hut as to which is my favourite among the chains. Today's order was not up to par...not even close.
Tomatoes provoke a gastrointestinal festival with me, so I get my pizzas with very light sauce. My usual toppings are really simple: ground beef and a whole lot of cheese. Well, I think the order taker misheard my wife, because I got ground beef and a whole lot of GREASE. Not to mention the damn thing wasn't cut at all. It was a giant round slab of grease. Yecch.
This swimming pile of pizza-zit put me in a foul mood. I had to eat it with a knife and fork...trying to cut it just oozed grease everywhere, and I looked stupid in front of both family and a total stranger. Not the high point of my day.
Anyway, the talk turned to tattoos and piercings. Eva's got four tattoos now to Jim's three. And both of them have piercings. Nothing exotic (what qualifies as exotic these days, anyway? an eyeball?), just ear piercings.
Nothing here, thanks. No holes drilled in my flesh, no subcutaneous ink.
My attitude towards tattoos has really changed since I met my wife. I used to think that only a sordid sort would choose to ink himself up. I still harbour some wariness of people with dragons painted across their entire backs, but a little kitten or some Chinese characters denoting a "beautiful spirit" don't faze me at all. I understand the need for a personal statement.
But I don't have one to make--not one I feel comfortable making permanent, anyway. I've given it some thought, because Eva has said she'd like to see me get one.
Hmmm. A musical note is the first thing that springs to mind, but it's kind of blase. A few of them? The opening bar of the Hockey Night In Canada theme? Post-lockout, that doesn't appeal much. A Canadian flag? I'm a patriot, but not that patriotic. After that, I come up empty.
(Piercings are absolutely out of the question. Blinding pain aside, I just don't see the point. I wear my wedding ring proudly as a symbol of the biggest accomplishment I've made in my life thus far; no other jewellery could possibly mean anything next to that.)

I mentioned my inability to come up with a suitable tattoo that says Ken Breadner to all and sundry. And Jim had to speak up. He prefaced his remark with a "no, I won't say it"--the only effect of which, in my experience, is to attract maximum attention before it's said. When pressed, he uttered two words: Mr. Magoo.
The very room dissolved in laughter, a kind of laughter that brought back bitter, bilious memories of high school and times before. I joined in it--the hard-won ability to laugh at myself is all that separates me from a total wreck, some days--but inside, I wasn't laughing at all. That barb struck a little too close to the old scab where a million such arrows had unfailingly found their marks.
Of course, Jim didn't mean to be mean about it. And he's right, in some respects, at least: a Magoo tattoo makes sense. I am, after all, the personification of absent-mindedness. Coming from Jim, though--a man whose thoughts run always to the practical--those words stung more than they should have.
Occasionally I am reminded that all of Eva's previous boyfriends were largely interchangeable, mechanically-inclined, strong, competent...well, jerks. And very occasionally I need to be reminded that my not being a jerk does outweigh my not being mechanically inclined, strong, or particularly competent at much of anything....Eva did, after all, marry me. Whenever my self-esteem is ebbing, I thank God that Eva never happened to fall in love with a mechanically inclined, strong, competent nice guy before I showed up. I'm glad my self-esteem doesn't ebb often anymore, because when it does, I turn into...ironically enough...a jerk.
I'm better now. Really, I am. And I accept the Magoo in myself. I'd caution people that absent-mindedness does not mean an absent mind--a mistake I've seen made time and time again. Rene Descartes said it best just before he ran into a tree: "I think, therefore I am...elsewhere."

Yet another ungodly week

...and it was a short week, to boot.
TUESDAY was one of the busiest weekdays I have ever seen in over four years of working for Price Chopper. And most of the volume came between 4 and 9 p.m., so I didn't really see the full effect until I walked in the next morning and immediately wondered

WHERE DID ALL MY STOCK GO?

Tux went to the vet Tuesday evening. He had a moderate limp and the eye infection we had already treated him for had recurred in the other eye.
The limp came from sheer wildness. He's sort of within reason waking up in the morning, but even then he can cover the thirteen stairs to the main floor in just over a second. In the afternoons, when he's been cooped up all day, he can better that time significantly. (Give him two minutes in the morning and maybe five in the afternoon and he's reverted to his standard attitude of "but if I do that, it means I have to...move!" But before that, he's hell on four legs, and I'm sure he hurt one of them in that seven minute span of time.)
The vet diagnosed, of all things, a food allergy, so our pet is now on hypoallergenic food which, suprisingly, doesn't cost too much more than the Purina we'd been buying. To clear the eye infection, we give him drops twice a day (and let me tell you just how much Tux hates this...) And until one week after he stops favouring his leg, he is to be leashed at all times. Again, this is not what the dog would prefer.

WEDNESDAY

Going to work today brought more than its usual share of unpleasant surprises. As I said above, the sheer magnitude of the sales Tuesday evening had to be seen to be appreciated. To make matters ever so much worse, cashiers started calling me up to their tills about three seconds after we opened, all of them with the same complaint: leaky bags of 2% milk.
As of open Wednesday morning, I had 219 bags of Neilson 2% milk in the store. On a usual Wednesday, we'll sell about 160. Barring a continuation of Tuesday's barrage, I felt reasonably comfortable with the stock level.
Unfortunately, as I discovered right quickly, there were more than three leaky bags amongst that 219. Considerably more. It took two of us almost two hours to get a full count of damaged bags: 183.
A quick bit of math will show my level of saleable 2% milk to be 9 crates, or 36 bags. Once again, anticipated sales for the day: about 160 bags. You can perhaps see a problem here.
How come I didn't notice all these damaged bags when the delivery came Tuesday morning, you ask. Good question. The simple answer is that all the bags looked fine. Not one of them was leaking milk on to the floor. Somehow, one of the interior sacs in almost every 4L bag had ruptured in such a way that the milk had simply displaced the sac. Until you picked the bag up and felt a certain...squishiness...you simply couldn't tell there was an issue.
That's not to say there was any excuse for that milk ever to have left Neilson Dairy.
Of course, I called Neilson Dairy the instant I even began to suspect the magnitude of the problem. They told me they'd get a replacement skid out to me as soon as possible. From Georgetown: charitably an 80 minute drive away.
It took exactly 472 minutes to get that milk to me. By some miracle, Wednesday daytime was even slower than Tuesday evening was busy, so we didn't run out of milk. Still, we could have and certainly should have; we would have, had I not gone through all those damages to pick out the few saleable units.
This is just the latest in an ongoing series of problems I have had with Neilson since I started at Price Chopper. If I had any say, we'd have changed milk suppliers long, long ago. Unfortunately, there are vast sums of money at work here, and in the grocery industry, money often trumps common sense.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

We all know just how I feel about heat, humidity, summer, sun, and anything along these lines. Still, I don't generally bitch about the temperature until it gets above 20...room temperature, that is, 68 for all you folks who haven't noticed Canada went metric 29 years ago. (At least once a week, somebody asks me for a "pint" or a "quart" of milk and I have to restrain myself from informing them that we haven't carried that size of milk for nearly three decades...)
Anyway, why was it that tonight, with an outside temperature of 13, a window wide open, and not one but two fans blowing air around, I seriously considered going to sleep in our chest freezer? Honestly, I thought I was going to go up in a fit of spontaneous human incineration.

THURSDAY

Hooray: I have milk! And none of it's leaking! But what's this? None of Wednesday evening's work has even been touched! And I have five skids of ice cream coming in today (novelties on sale next week), two large skids of yogurt, and...oh, do I really have to list all of today's shit when yesterday's shit is staring me in the face?
I got through it. Somehow. With help. Now there's just one more day until the weekend. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

It's the long weekend, hey ho, hey ho...

Three days off, oh what luxury. It's appreciated no less (and perhaps more) for coming so soon on the heels of ten days off. Of course, I could do without the whole mentality surrounding this particular holiday. It seems there are three accepted activities for the Victoria Day weekend:

• long leisurely country drives performed, in the immortal words of Ron White, at half the speed of smell;
• long periods spent on hands and knees pulling up innocent weeds and replacing them with (arguably) prettier plants;
• if you are of a younger set, blowing up fireworks at any and all hours, making maximum racket and maybe aiming a few at people's houses or faces, just for fun

I'll make something clear here: I am the farthest thing from a gardener there is. I admire those who have the patience and ability to landscape their lots. I will never be one of them. For one thing, I absolutely hate the feeling of dirt on my fingers. It feels as if my pores have expanded and sucked all the dirt deep inside, maybe never to come out. For another, I regard plants the way I do zoo animals and naked women who are not my wife: with indifference. Oh, sure, they're pretty enough, I suppose. But show me the well-decorated inside of a home and I will remember that far more vividly than what was growing on the outside.

All that said, something must be done about our front "lawn". I'll never have a golf green for a yard...ever...but even with my disdain for gardening, I recognize the front of our house is embarrassing. It's weeds, dirt and more weeds, with the odd blade of grass struggling meekly to show itself. One of these weekends, I fully intend to put down some kind of low-maintenance grass out there. If we have a drought, it'll burn, because I regard lawn watering as an almost criminal waste of water. But that's in Nature's hands...and I'm not doing it this weekend, because, umm, why was that again? Oh yeah: THREE DAYS OFF!

Tux woke us up the other night barking at a bunch of clods across the street who decided, at 12:30 in the freaking morning, to get a jump on the fireworks festivities. I woke up from a very deep sleep hearing Tux whining and barking from the front bedroom. I silenced him with a bang and a NO! and then stumbled towards the bathroom, already most of the way back into slumber. Yawning tremendously, my hearing deadened and I actually missed most of the noise from what must have been a colossal explosion. But I didn't miss the flash. To my dazed and dozy mind, it looked like a muzzle-flash. That woke me up...a bit. I crept downstairs and peered out the window of the front door. I didn't bother to turn on the exterior light: no sense in making myself a target.

The word "fireworks" never so much as crossed my mind at that time. I saw a car pulling away across the street and a small crowd dispersing. Whatever the action was, it was over. I was, quite honestly, afraid of going outside in the morning to discover the damage. Owning a house has made me paranoid. I'll freely admit it.

If "fireworks" had occurred to me, my nightime naivete would have kicked in. See, in the daytime, it's pretty hard to shock me. But sometime after midnight--at least when I'm home and half-asleep--I regress to a state of painful innocence. "But fireworks are for Monday night," I'd tell you seriously, "and what's more, it's ILLEGAL to discharge them tonight, and what's more, nobody in their right mind would be out here AFTER MIDNIGHT doing it, and even if they were, NOBODY shoots those things off so close to people's HOUSES..."

I've never been much of a fan of fireworks, either, to be honest. I like the lightshow, but could really do without the accompanying deafening bangs. Of course, teenagers don't seem to notice fireworks that don't sound like God's artillery, and I'm already looking forward to a near-sleepless night on Monday from the neverending barrage. (One year, it didn't stop until nearly dawn.)

Amyway, today has been a nice relaxing day. This morning we went to Future Shop to pick up season one of Joan of Arcadia. They didn't have it on the shelves. At first, I was actually quite pleased at this. "It must be selling like hotcakes", I enthused to myself. I asked on the off-chance that they had more copies behind the counter...maybe somebody wasn't aware the shelves had been picked clean. The cashier, whose name was Tiffany, regarded me blankly. Enunciating carefully, I said "Joan...of...Ar...CAD..i..a" and told her the DVD came out a week ago. She called somebody and then told me he'd be coming up from the back with a copy for me.

It occurred to me that not only were there no copies on the shelves, there wasn't any space for even one. This bothers me. A lot. I wonder if they had it on display for a few days and didn't sell any at all and they were now turning them into mulch. Shit. I'm glad I managed to get my hands on the damn thing.

Our next stop: Bouclair. I could feel my scrotum trying to fold in on itself as soon as I walked through the door. Any more girly and that store would just lift up on its high heels and flounce away.

We were there for some curtains for the library (and, as it turns out, what's now the junk room, will soon be the dog's room and will eventually be the guest bedroom...and the living room to boot.) Everything was 40% off...we got three sets of curtains for what I'd thought we might end up paying for one.

Then off to King's Buffet in Stratford, a monthly date for us and the only decent Chinese food place anywhere remotely near us. My fortune today said "all my hard work will soon be paid off". That sounds much better that "will soon pay off", don't you think?

The best fortune I ever got out of a cookie came from there, too. It said "Beware of small cookies bearing fortunes".

On our way both to and from Stratford, we ran into more than a few of those misplaced Sunday drivers I mentioned above, not to mention three or four people so pissed off by all the slowpokes who dared to drive AT THE SPEED LIMIT that they passed five or six at once...on a hill...endangering their own lives and those of everybody on the road around them.

The line to get into the city dump was beyond all imagining. I can't think what they were giving away out there, but it must have been valuable.

I finally saw Kinsey, a film I'd been clamoring to see since it appeared in theatres. For good reason, as it turns out. Both Liam Neeson and Laura Linney give great performances. The pacing is a bit slow, but I found the movie quite engrossing.

Also saw Team America: World Police. This effort, from the guys who brought you South Park and Orgazmo, is by turns hysterically funny and almost unwatchably disgusting. Those of you with even a slight prudish streak should probably give this one a pass. Even I found myself sickened in places.

Next up, tomorrow: National Treasure and Blade: Trinity. And a whole bunch of housecleaning. I can't relax for three days straight: that'd be just lazy.

Like many soap operas, that one was predictable.

Where to now, Canada?
In the wake of last night's tie vote on Jack Layton's budget, a few things need to be said.
1) It seems to me that the hard-won reconciliation between the Reform and Progressive wings of the Conservative party may have been all for naught. The division still exists, and there's no easy way to span it. Scrapping Harper and replacing him with someone moderate--Bernard Lord, perhaps--would certainly win some Ontario and Maritime votes, but only at the expense of alienated Western voices. Either keeping Harper or replacing him with another of his ilk (Manning, Day, and Harper are peas in a pod, politically) will satisfy the West but disenchant Ontario. No matter what, the party could well split again, thus ensuring Liberal dominance for another three terms.
2) I'm one of the few people of a Tory bent willing to defend Belinda Stronach to some degree. She approached her then-leader and told him she accepted 'parts' of the Liberal budget. Rather than engage her in dialogue at this point, Harper reportedly blew his top and accused her of having "too much ambition" for the Conservative Party. A real leader, recognizing Belinda's importance to his party, would never have said such a thing. A real leader would have sought compromise.
3) I've lamented a couple of times now that Canadians overwhelmingly don't want an election, and that Ontarians are actually increasingly willing to trust the Liberals over the Conservatives (or anyone else). It still baffles me--how could Harper be any worse, after all?--but I am at least beginning to understand it.
The Conservatives haven't said much about what it is they actually plan on doing if they win power. They are making a critical error here. They're doing exactly what Belinda accused them of: forgetting how big and complex Canada is.
In their home province of Alberta, the Tories have unqualified support. A Tory has been running the province for years now; it's booming. Naysayers may chirp all they want about how trained monkeys could ride soaring commodity prices into the economic stratosphere, but the fact is that Klein's Tories have done it.
Out in B.C., a Tory who calls himself a Liberal has just won a much deserved re-election. His policies have revitalized the B.C. economy to a point where, on certain indicators, it's running neck-and-neck with Alberta's. No wonder voters support these two.
The thing is, out west--and in the few remaining rural parts of Ontario, for that matter--the thinking is simpler. If you have an infestation on your land, you remove it by any means necessary. If you have rampant corruption in your politicians, you remove them by any means necessary.
But voters in the cities are more jaded. They think "corruption? All politicans are corrupt, so getting rid of one bunch won't change much."
In Ontario, too, people seem more willing to be bribed with their own money. Indeed, many seem to feel that's the essence of politics. In the wide open spaces, the distrust of government is at least as high, but so is a certain entrepreneurial go-it-alone-iveness that is anathema to the whole notion of government dependance Ontario is increasingly built on.
I guess what I'm getting at is that Ontario wants to see this Parliament--which it alone is responsible for electing--work. I'm thinking it's not really Stephen Harper's fault that he can't see that or understand it...he is from Calgary, after all.
The kind of Conservative Leader Ontarians could get behind is one who masters the fine art of compromising without selling out. Jack Layton got his deal; Harper should have been next in line, saying "we'll support this budget--yes, even the NDP amendments, as distasteful as we find them--if you'll guarantee broader powers for the Auditor-General, an opening up of all those foundations you're hiding money in, and, oh, yes, a 2% cut in the GST." Or something like that. The fact that Harper has done nothing of this sort indicates to me that he is not suited to be the leader of a party in Opposition in a minority Parliament. Until the Conservatives come up with one who is, we're doomed to Liberal governments forever.

Don't get me wrong. There should still be an election, and I hope there will be, just as soon as Gomery has issued his report. At that point, one hopes the Conservatives will have given us something to vote for rather than relying on us to simply vote against Martin.

Goodbye, Joan

Those of you who have read this blog for any length of time know my feelings about Joan of Arcadia--my favourite television show of the past two years.
CBS has cancelled it.
It started out with gangbuster ratings and was nominated for an Emmy after its first season just one year ago. That first season contained quite possibly the most riveting hour of television drama I have ever seen, the episode called Night Without Stars. And every episode made me laugh, made me cry, made me think.
For whatever reason, the second season started off with lacklustre ratings and fell like a stone from there. Granted, the writers were unusually prone to braincramps--plotlines would start up and vanish four episodes later without a trace--but Joan at its worst was still eminently watchable. And I'm not ashamed to admit I bawled my eyes out after Friday Night, the episode in which they killed off a major character I was growing to like and respect.
At the end of the second season, great and terrible things were afoot as Joan and her friends were set to face off against real evil for the first time in the show's run. I was very curious to see how that story arc would have been handled. Now I will never know. Thanks a ton, CBS.

I never agreed with the Friday night timeslot. It should have been a Sunday evening show. It's too bad CBS saw fit to cancel it before at least trying it somewhere else.

At this point, there's little I can do but suggest you rent Season One on DVD (Season Two is slated for November release.) I plan on writing CBS, for what little good it'll do. I guess I can hope against hope that another network picks it up--hey, it happened with Buffy--but I'm not optimistic.

Thanks, Amber Tamblyn and ensemble, for a smart, well-acted show that dared to explore serious issues without descending into preachery even once. You will be sorely missed.

Belinda's Betrayal and What it Might Mean

Well, that was a shock.
So much of a shock that when I was informed that Belinda Stronach had crossed the floor, I checked my leg for pulling devices which may have been attached. When the third person announced that she was the new Minister of Human Resources in Paul Martin's cabinet, I was forced to rearrange the geography of my mind. That's hard work.
Stephen Harper claims Belinda's move has nothing to do with him and everything to do with her own ambition. That's grade-A, 100% certified organic bullshit. Consider: The polls show that Harper's Conservatives have no hope in Ontario and thus very little hope of forming the next government. When the Conservatives lose the next election--whenever that may be--they'll be out for blood, and Harper will be the first to be gutted. The party will then search coast to coast for a leader that can win over some Ontarians. Belinda Stronach is that leader.
Or she would have been. Very likely she could have succeeded Martin as our next Prime Minister. If she really had ambition, that would have been her path.
Instead, she's discovered her inner Liberal, and at what couldn't have been a more disastrous time for her old party.
I've got a real problem with elected politicians changing parties. Belinda's constituents voted her in as a Conservative; there should be an immediate byelection required if she suddenly wants to be a Liberal instead.
Regardless, her defection from Tory ranks means the NDP's budget will pass. There were ominous rumblings for Harper on that before his star MP deserted him...two Tory MPs from Newfoundland were strongly considering voting with the government anyway, in order to procure a whole whack of oil money for that province.
So, let's follow the bouncing ball: Martin's government stays afloat until at least November and possibly much longer. (I know Martin promised to hold an election within 30 days of Gomery's findings, but Chretien is determined to quash the inquiry before it gets to that stage. Even if he fails, do you really expect a Liberal to keep a promise?
Stephen Harper will lose that election, whenever it comes, because the media in Ontario paint him as "lusting for power" (what do they think Paul Martin's been scheming for the last, oh, fifteen years?) and has a "hidden agenda". In Ontario, we believe everything our media tells us.
So...exit Stephen Harper, bloodied. The Conservatives will (rightly) figure that the election was supposed to be a slam dunk. They will replace Harper with someone more moderate that can win some seats east of Winnipeg--if they can find someone who fits that bill. That's doubtful.
Meanwhile, the Bloc will rule Quebec, the Conservatives will rule much of the west, and the Libranos will rule Ontario. Little change from what exists now, in other words.
Except for the anger.
I fully expect a western secessionist movement to gain in popularity in the aftermath of the election. There's only so long Alberta can be expected to wait for Ontario to come to its senses, after all.
Gilles Duceppe is already planning the next referendum. It's not too much of a stretch to suggest another one might be forthcoming from the west. Confederation as we know it is now an endangered species.
All because one woman crossed the floor of Parliament.

Here at the Lost and Found...

It really is amazing the stuff you find while you're looking for other stuff. Or when you're not looking for anything at all.
A couple of weeks back, trying to locate the manuals for our high speed internet service to transfer it to our new computer, I was forever stumbling on things that had been misplaced for months. Like the first volume of Spangle, by Gary Jennings--one of my favourite novels, and it's almost time to re-read it again! Alas, the other two volumes are still counted among the missing.
(Try as we might to keep the books in this place in some semblance of order, the sad fact is that they migrate all over the damn place, until finding a specific tome might take longer than reading it.)
Or you find things you didn't even know were missing. Pictures, cards, a pair of socks, about thirty pens, the commemorative Y2K pin I got from 7-Eleven for working New Year's Eve, 1999-2000.
Today, Eva's brother, Jim, came over to help us move a few things. Yeah, I can carry bookshelves up two flights of stairs on my own, but my heel is apt to speak up halfway through the proceedings and demand help.
Besides, there were other things to move. Like a couch. I've written of this monstrosity before: the starburst-on-black braincramp that squatted in our last three living rooms. Now you can add "wet" to the list of uncomplimentary adjectives describing this sofa. It's sitting out on the lawn, looking lost and lonely and so damn ugly it's likely to remain that way.
Anyway, as we picked up this couch to move it, we heard a few things clunking around deep in the works. We had to cut the bottom lining to gain a handhold to move it, whereupon those few things revealed themselves...

• Two houses and nearly four years ago, we receieved a letter from an old friend of Eva's, someone she'd lost contact with years before. Before she could answer this letter, it vanished. Now here it was.
• Sixty loads of laundry and almost eight months ago, another pair in an endless line of black MacGregor HappyFeet (the most comfortable socks on the planet) disappeared. Don't ask me how they ended up inside the couch.
• So long ago it's almost lost to memory, I lost a wallet for the nth time in my life. I swore up and down that it had never left the house. Nobody believed me. No money was lost (does anybody ever carrry cash dollars around any more?), but we did have to replace all the identification. Both before and after doing so, I tore the house apart, convinced the wallet would turn up on the very day the last card came through in the mail. It never did. Because while I dug around in the couch at least twice, I never considered actually dismantling it. So that wallet came through two moves with us...hidden deep within a black hole.

Why is it I never find money on these excursions?

Making Blog-ress...

Happy birthday, dear Breadbin, happy birthday to you...
One year of blogging. No idea how many entries I've made--Blogger stopped counting them at 75 a hell of a long time ago, and trying to count them myself leads to eyestrain, dizziness, and possibly death.
I'd like to thank all my readers for sticking with me through what has been the most eventful year of my life. I've tried to balance coverage of my life with coverage of the world around me, and I apologize if any of you would have preferred more of one and less of the other.

From the outset, I approached this as a chance to air a few of my quirkier views, keep myself centered, and hone my writing skills...in that order. It's only recently that I started reading a wider selection of Canadian blogs, some of which are getting upwards of two hundred hits a day. I notice that many of these popular blogs make little mention of their bloggers' existences, preferring instead to focus entirely on entertainment or politics. Despite the political bent I have taken lately, that's not really my style.

This really has been an up and down year. We've purchased our first home, gone through a great deal of the adoption process before being told we were unsuitable to adopt children, and adopted a puppy instead. Work for both of us has been stroyful (that mix of stressful and enjoyable which is embodied in the phrase "I'd quit...if there existed a better job out there.") The individual days seem to drag out to infinity, and yet six months ago seems like last week. Time is strange that way.

I hope I'll be seeing you around in another year, or two, or five, or ten. Thanks again.

Okay, SIMON SAYS resign. Is that better?

With sincere apologies to those (all) of you who are sick to death of political nonsense, I must state the following:
I am sick to death of political nonsense.
That said, the situation we find ourselves in since 5:45 p.m. yesterday is unprecedented in Canadian history. As such, I feel a comment is required.
We are currently being "governed" by a party deeply rooted in scandal. That in and of itself is far from uncommon: most governments descend into scandal after a long time in office. Because of this particular scandal, which is one of the worst since Confederation, the government faced a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons yesterday...and lost it, 153-150. This, too, has happened before.
Never has a government ignored a confidence vote and tried to pretend it never happened.
Oh, the Liberals will tell you that this vote was a "procedural" matter and not a matter of confidence. Very loudly they will tell you this, in tones unsuited to a kindergarten classroom. And they'll keep repeating it, because everyone knows that if you say something often enough, it becomes true.
Here is the motion:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “that” and substituting the following:"the First Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Thursday, October 28, 2004, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with instruction that it amend the same so as to recommend that the government resign because of its failure to address the deficiencies in governance of the public service addressed in the report.”

Yeah, I know, fantastically wordy, isn't it? You'd think that they could have just said something like: Be it resolved that the government must resign.
Except the Liberals made sure that the Opposition could not introduce such a motion, by unilaterally cancelling what are known as "Opposition Days"...days on which the non-governing parties may introduce motions to be voted on by the House. But the Conservatives were permitted to draft and present procedural matters...I guess even Martin believed censoring that ability would smack too much of dictatorship.
So the Conservatives took a procedural motion and changed it into a statement expressing non-confidence. (Why would you ask anyone to consider recommending the government resign if you had confidence in their ability and authority to govern?) They put this motion to a vote, and won it. It can therefore be said that a majority of the House has lost confidence in the Liberals.
The Liberals, who said upon forming this minority Parliament that they had every intention of governing as if they were a majority, predictably chose to ignore this reality. So the Leader of the Opposition challenged Martin last night to introduce his own confidence vote as soon as possible. There was no response from Martin until today, when he promised a vote on the Liberal-NDP budget..in eight days.
Eight days is a long time in Ottawa, as Martin well knows. Anything could happen in eight days. There are two Conservative MPs and a (possibly) right-leaning Independent who are currently receiving treatment for cancer. It's entirely possible that those three will not be able to vote on the budget in eight days...something else Martin and the Liberals are surely aware of. Three fewer votes for the government to resign would mean a tie, and tie votes are settled by the Speaker of the House, who is a Liberal.
That Speaker, Tony Valeri, said today that

"The leader of the opposition has shown how low he's prepared to go by suggesting that anyone would take advantage of someone's illness."

As PGS, a Toronto blogger notes,

"Actually Tony, suggesting that anyone would take advantage of someone's illness isn't nearly as
low as your party actually doing it."

Today, Harper showed that the Opposition, not the government, is in fact controlling Parliament now, by moving (again, a procedural motion, all the Tories are permitted to introduce) that Parliament be adjourned. They won that vote, too. And they've threatened to keep doing this every day.

You may think this childish. As it so happens, I do too. But Harper has a clear point, and he's making it. The Liberals are unable to govern. They should step down and call an election immediately.

The Canadian public does not agree with this, for some odd reason. Many seem to think that we can't afford the $250 million an election would cost. My take is: we can't afford not to have an election. Paul Martin is plundering the treasury in what just might be the most blatant attempt to buy votes ever. There's been better than a billion dollars a day pledged since Martin made his pathetic television address. Eight days to go until the government falls: could that be another ten billion dollars pledged before the campaign even officially starts? Yikes!