Looking for leadership

With both parties looking for leaders, Liberals and NDP have an historic opportunity right now to choose individuals who will cooperate for the good of the country, either informally or formally.
Will they see this opportunity? Will they take it?
I'm not optimistic -- the NDP are likely still feeling their oats as the Official Opposition ; they will want to see whether they can find another 40 or 50 seats on their own at the next election. And I doubt that the Liberals have realized that Quebec is not likely to return to their fold, even though Layton is gone. So maybe we'll have to wait until they both lose ground in 2016.

By that time, Harper will have fired another several dozen outstanding civil servants, dismantled another batch of important government programs, trashed more of Canada's reputation abroad and thrown many of Canada's "liberal" traditions into the dustbin.
But stay tuned...

We hear you now

Jackman Chiu

As well as his profoundly inspirational legacy, Jack Layton's death also served another purpose this week -- one I think he would have approved of.
His passing was such big news that newspaper columnists, bloggers, and broadcast pundits across the country all just had to write SOMETHING about their reaction to his death and their analysis of the nationwide grief it provoked.

And all this off-the-cuff pontificating gave us a rare opportunity to find out just what our media pundits are really made of -- profound and eloquent, or shallow and mean-spirited?

Some rose to the challenge; others painfully flubbed it, and their failure will not be forgotten.
Basically, most of our newspapers and broadcast pundits -- even here and here -- reacted thoughtfully to the death of Jack Layton, showing respect to his legacy and to the grief felt by hundreds of thousands of Canadian.

But some came up painfully short -- they just couldn't resist taking cheap shots, playing political games, jeering at our grief, feeling sorry for themselves and trying to trash Layton's legacy. In other words, acting like jerks.

H/T Dawg and Alison

UPDATE: Ezra Levant also shows his true colours.

It's officially fall

Dr. Grumpy has posted his annual nightmare at Staples post:

When Mrs. Grumpy was wondering when she'd have time to get the school supplies, I volunteered. I figured "How hard can it be? Hell, it's just some pencils and a bottle of glue". DUMBASS!!! . . .
An African street bazaar is an orderly affair compared to this! Deranged parents running on caffeine! Kids running amok! Store clerks running for their lives! And all the crazed parents are trying to read off a list, push a cart, yell at kids, text, and scream into a cell phone at the same time.

I guess they just can't help it

Every time I start to think that maybe Stephen Harper's government has grown up and become a real Canadian government instead of short-sighted incompetents, we get something like this -- yesterday's idiotic announcement that Canada is too poor to put up a pavilion at next year's Expo in Korea. We're the only G20 country that won't be there.

Really, Steve? This is what you guys think is appropriate for Canada to announce to the world? Just when we're trying to convince the world that we're a sophisticated and cosmopolitan kind of place to invest money, we start talking poor-mouth and looking cheap. What a ridiculous international embarrassment

Hey, I've got an idea -- if we're so broke, maybe Gerry Ritz shouldn't be spending a million dollars shutting down the Wheat Board? Maybe we shouldn't be building new prisons or buying jets?
Of course, the Canadian pavilion at the Olympics was a "$10 million dud" and nobody at the UN was impressed by Harper's Mounties and maple syrup campaign and the Harperites don't think its their job to protect Canadian citizens when they get in trouble overseas, so maybe the Harper Conservatives really don't have the chops to keep up with the big boys abroad.

Oh, please...

Do you think you guys could wait a day or two, maybe until after Jack Layton's funeral, before you start speculating about improbable leadership candidates and concern-trolling the end of the NDP?

Update

Our dog Sam died this afternoon -- he just couldn't recover from all the health problems I wrote about.

Jack Layton, Canada's Happy Warrior

The Happy Warrior:

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
...'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
...Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
...Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who....Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is He
That every Man in arms should wish to be.

Sorry for lack of posts

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.

I have had the flu, plus we have been dealing with some health issues for Sam, our black lab (that's Sam in the picture, with Chillou our other lab).

Last fall, Sam was diagnosed with right-sided heart failure, but this summer he started retaining way too much fluid in his belly -- more than the heart failure would explain -- so this week the vet did a laparotomy operation. Turns out the heart is damaged but not as badly as it could be, and the liver is fine, no tumours, but he is in kidney failure. During the surgery our vet took out two gallons of fluid and he removed the renal capsule to see if that will help his kidneys function a little better. Its not a cure, or even a treatment, but may help Sam continue on with a good quality of life for a while yet. Then today Sam's incision was dripping and it turned out he had opened some of the sutures somehow. After six hours in the vet emergency clinic, they wrapped him up and we will take him to our vet tomorrow to get him closed up again, to make sure there is no infection lurking.

So we will have Sam for a while yet, we hope. He is such a loving dog -- we have never had such an affectionate dog. After his miserable day, following a miserable week, he wanted nothing more than to stretch out on the bed and go to sleep next to my husband and finally we were able to help him up and he lay down with a very contented sigh. When I finish this post, I will carefully lie down on the other side of him and there won't be a happier dog in the world.

Pining for the fjords

Backward, turn backward, O time in thy flight...

I like Steve's comments about re-introducing the "Royal" terminology for our armed forces:

. . . in noting the rationalization for the latest regressive move by these Conservatives, I'm struck by the absurdity in logic:

"The country that forgets its history does so at its own peril," said MacKay in Halifax

. . . It's a false distinction, as though without the name somehow the brave sacrifices, victories of the past are lesser in stature. Anyone with a ounce of common sense can see beyond simple labelling to note the "proud tradition", my impression of what Canadian soldiers did at Juno Beach doesn't even digest the relevance of name, nor do I see a disconnect from the bravery displayed in present day Afghanistan. . . . Such bullshit, such dribble, insulting to think we need "Royal" again to fully appreciate our history.

Harper is trying to turn back the clock in Canada:

A broader Harper government strategy to bring back the feelings of the “good old days” is behind the move to restore “Royal” designations to the Canadian navy and air force, according to pollster Nik Nanos.
“It’s about turning back the clock,” the Nanos Research president told The Globe. He believes the Harper government wants to focus on “tradition and national symbols” as a way of igniting feelings of national pride.

That's just pathetic. The only people who remember what Canada was like before Pearson and Trudeau are old guys like me, retired or just about. This is hardly a forward-thinking or positive vision for Canada's future.

It reminds me of the Dead Parrot sketch:

Houses as Art

Thanks to Hooked on Houses I just learned that this year is the 25th anniversary of The Heidelberg Project in Detroit. See the photos posted by AgilityNut (and look around the rest of her great website, too.)
Here's some Heidelberg photos from RoadsideAmerica.com:

This is known as the polka-dot house -- people still live there.

Most of the art on the street is made of found objects, AKA junk.

And here is a video about the Heidelberg artist, Tyree Guyton:

Just because you're paranoid...

...doesn't mean someone isn't really out to get you.
There sure seems to be a lot of talk lately about how the press should ignore "phoney" civil rights and just go along to get along. And the judiciary is supposed to just fall in line with government policies.

Now we're hearing about how authorities should shut down social networks whenever they are being used for organizing riots or other inconvenient actions -- funny, weren't we just criticizing China and Egypt for trying to shut down the Internet to prevent people from organizing?

And not to mention that our government is discovering how easy it is to revise reality by just rewriting webpages -- good catch, Alison.

Finally

I've been waiting for this for more than a year.
Finally, a real judge has had the chance to rule on a typical G20 arrest.
And, unsurprisingly, the judge has ruled that it was the police who were to blame for the violence:

“The only organized or collective physical aggression at that location that evening was perpetrated by police each time they advanced on demonstrators,” Justice Melvyn Green ruled on Thursday. He was referring to a demonstration at Queen St. and Spadina Ave. on Saturday, June 26, 2010.
Green stated police criminalized political demonstration, which is “vital” to maintain a “viable democracy.”

1-6

There is no joy in Mudville.

End of the road

I don't suppose the Canadian Wheat Board ever thought there was really any hope.

But they're going ahead and doing the responsible thing by holding a plebiscite on whether farmers support the Wheat Board or the open market for selling their wheat and barley.
And I don't suppose anyone really believed Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz when he insisted the Board would survive.
But now there's proof that it ain't gonna happen. Glen MacGregor at the Ottawa Sun has discovered a new procurement notice:

It announces the government intends to seek an auditor to check the books and “provide reasonable assurance of the total financial impact of the repeal of the Canadian Wheat Board Act and the dissolution or winding up of the CWB after the final pooling periods (expected to be July 31, 2012).”

And if they're wrapping it up by the end of July next year, there won't be any of the usual announcements in July about initial payments for the 2012 crop year. The initial payments announced this year were more than twice as high as last year, reflecting improving grain prices. And I wonder what is going to happen to the Advance Payments Program and any other early payments for next year's crop -- or if there are going to be any.

The Harper Conservatives act like we can sell our grain by Googling it.

Showing the rich people we can do what we want

Booman notes this BBC interview with two young English women looting a liquor store and he discusses what America should learn from the England riots:

Different countries chose different ways of responding to the economic catastrophes of the 1920's and 1930's. The Russians became totalitarian. Europe succumbed to fascism. We chose a New Deal. It was a middle road. It provided a safety net and tolerable working conditions. It created a huge middle class. It didn't arouse the far right or far left instincts of the nation, but put them into sleep mode.
Now we're back to 1920's level of income disparity. Conservatives are attacking every aspect of the New Deal. What rich people seem to be forgetting is that the opposite of the New Deal is not some idyllic paradise of free-market bliss. The opposite is rampaging mobs who light shit on fire just to show you that they can do whatever they want. Eventually, that can include burning down your business or your house, or, maybe, even taking your life.
And it's not just income disparity that's a problem. Consider how this all started. A bunch of smart people set up a kind of scam using complex financial instruments that no one can understand. They got rich beyond all imagination, while the rest of us lost our jobs, lost our retirement money, lost, in some cases, our homes. And then we were told that there was no money for our cops, no money for our firefighters, our nurses, our teachers. And next we'll be told that our Social Security check will be smaller and we'll have to wait another year or two to get our Medicare. Meanwhile, the rich, represented ably by the Republicans, refuse to pay one dime in extra taxes.
With that kind of attitude and that lack of accountability, it's not hard to see why some people might start losing hope and might start losing respect for "the system." If the rich don't wise up quick, the scenes from England will be coming to America. Bet on it.

Emphasis mine. Its a lesson that applies to Canada too.