The other day, I suddenly remembered Anthony Weiner and reflected upon the fact that he is still out there, somewhere, and that wherever he is, he has a perfect view of the ruins of his life. Remember Weiner? He's the former politician-on-the-rise/friend-of-Jon-Stewart who tweeted photos of his crotch to random ladies, for some reason trusting that random ladies would for some reason decide not to tell anyone else about it. I have frequently deplored the lack of crotch-related scandals in Canadian politics, but recently there was at least a Twitter-related scandal to tide me over. Tony Clement, Conservative politician and proud unnecessary-gazebo-builder, decided it would be a grand idea to call a teenager names. Clement, providing unasked-for insight into his intellectual preoccupations, tweeted the following while watching Hockey Night in Canada: "Coach's Corner gave me a lot to think about tonite." Keith Pettinger, of Parry Sound High School, responded: "If you can't spell, how can you run Canada's treasury?" Later, he generously offered Clement the opportunity to join him at Parry Sound High School in order to learn how to spell.So far, so good. We have a politician desperately trying to be relevant and relatable in 140 characters or less, and we have a smart-ass kid who has already won my vote for whatever position he might end up wanting to run for as a grown-up. But then, Clement suffers from some kind of strange, non-pervy Weiner attack. Instead of simply concluding that teenagers are all mouthy hooligans who should be jailed indefinitely for misdemeanours, he decides to send a private message to Keith and the following exchange occurs: Clement not only thinks it's appropriate to call a fifteen-year-old a "jack ass"; he, like Weiner, cannot seem to envision a scenario in which someone he doesn't know might share with the public something embarrassing and inappropriate that he's done.
I'm sorry for calling him out. I just want someone so involved with my, and Canada's money, to behave properly and treat people with dignity and respect and at least have the good sense not to write down and then share the mean things he thinks about teenagers who've actually done their homework.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
The other day, Rob Ford, who people have tried to convince me is the democratically-elected mayor of Toronto, was confronted outside his house by Mary Walsh, who people have tried to convince me is an actual professional comedian. Rob Ford, concerned that an aggressive, plastic bustier-wearing lady was lurching toward him with a microphone, rushed back into his house and called the police.When I first heard about this, I felt a certain sympathy for Ford and so endured an uncomfortable few hours. It's probably unpleasant to have someone ambush you when you're in your driveway. It's not his fault that so many Canadian comedians could so easy pass for totally unfunny crazy people. There's no reason that Rob Ford, or anyone else for that matter, should be expected to recognize a Canadian comedian from a television show I was convinced had been cancelled in the late '90s.Thankfully, Rob Ford proceeded to behave in a way that allowed me to whole-heartedly dislike him again. He called the police not once, but three times, demanding to know why a patrol car had not arrived. While speaking to the 911 operator, he said either:a) “You … bitches! Don’t you f---ing know? I’m Rob f---ing Ford, the mayor of this city!”; or,
b) "This is f---ing ridiculous.:Obviously, everyone's hoping it was "a", because that's way more exciting and offensive and in line with the kind of person I suspect he is. Even if he didn't say it, I say we continue to believe he did, because it's so much more plausible. And if he didn't say it, and someone leaks the tape and he's found to have used an expletive in a less exciting manner (option "b"), it shouldn't be all that difficult to put him in a cussing mood again in the future. I'm sure the CBC is preparing to deploy Luba Goy as we speak.
Canadian elections are often discouraging because they generally lack the really exciting and inflammatory fear tactics employed by Americans running for office. We don't tend to hear about anchor babies or toddlers being turned into shameless, sex-crazed atheists after receiving government-mandated vaccinations. At best, we're treated to the phrase "tax-and-spend" used in such a manner as to suggest "vicious killer of especially adorable babies."Thank goodness for Tim Hudak, who not only looks like a bloated and malevolent Steve Yzerman, but is also finally bringing to Ontario provincial politics some of the barely-concealed xenophobia and homophobia we've been forced to admire from afar for so long.
First, he spoke darkly of "foreign workers" being given employment advantages by the Liberals, conjuring up images of sinister hordes of immigrants swarming across Ontario with their advanced degrees, snatching up plum jobs and refusing to sign their kids up for hockey. But what else would the father-daughter pair from the this-should-be-about-a-long-distance-plan-but-it's-really-about-Tim Hortons commercial and the appallingly off-putting young people from the Rogers commercials fear besides job-thieving neurologists from South Asia? That's right: pint-sized perverts.You've probably heard by now about the fantastically entertaining flyer being circulated by some Conservative candidates and adamantly defended by Hudak. It asserts, in both comforting blackboard-y and menacing old-typewriter fonts, that Dalton McGuinty wants to turn the next generation of Canadians into a bunch of transvestite sluts. McGuinty, unsurprisingly, denies that this is his secret and nefarious aim and claims he just wants kids to be informed and not quite so mean to one another. I suggest to the Liberals that in the one day of campaigning they have left, they change their approach ever so slightly. Instead of arguing that the pamphlet is crazy and full of lies, why don't they simply admit that their vision of Ontario relies heavily on cross-dressing primary schoolers? Liberals are working tirelessly to create a future full of and for cross-dressing primary schoolers and job-stealing immigrants. I myself would far rather live in a province populated by boys in skirts and highly-trained professionals from abroad than one peopled with small, medium, and large-sized, and somewhat-hateful, really-hateful, and pamphlet-makingly hateful Tim Hudaks.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
 "I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty the Press, her editors and reporters, regardless of the law. So help me God." Canada is not very good at scandals. Not very good at all. There was the time Brian Mulroney went for a helicopter ride with a German (or something like that), and the time the Liberals gave a lot of other Liberals money, and the time that Stephen Harper became prime minister, but other than that, we've got nothing. Politicians don't tend to get caught doing anything interesting with prostitutes and the worst thing the Canadian media has done is to repeatedly employ Peter Mansbridge. The U.S. gets a lot of credit for its explosive and tawdry goings-on. They've had adulterous presidential fellatio, and all kinds of secret wars, and congressional boxer shorts running amok on the internet. But now the Brits, always a dark horse in the race as they sporadically come through with rich gentlemen getting caught in Nazi fetish scenarios, are really pulling ahead and putting the Yanks to shame with their near-unprecedented levels of shamefulness.The News of the World violated the privacy rights of royals and celebrities, and hacked into the voice mail of a murder victim. Staffers seem to have made a habit of paying off the police and alternately terrorizing and attending the weddings of politicians. The relationship between the media and the political elite appears to have been exceptionally incestuous, corrupt, and mutually rewarding. Indeed, David Cameron's former communications chief, Andy Coulson, was once editor of the News of the World, and he is now the subject of a police investigation. So what could add a touch of the surreal to this stunningly repulsive situation? Why, an axe murder, of course. One of the private investigators who rustled up material for the paper was recently acquitted of the murder of another P.I. who was found in a pub parking lot back in 1987 with an axe through his head. He was acquitted, it seems, only through of a murky mixture of police corruption and incompetence. He did spend time in prison for trying to plant cocaine on someone, although Andy Coulson happily rehired him after he was released.
Greed, graft, moral bankruptcy, and now a good, old-fashioned axe murder. Britain's currently leaving the rest of us in the dust. Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
Of course she didn't. You didn't really think she would do anything crazy like that, did you? She's not (as far as I know) dishonest in a sexual way, which means anything else she happens to be dishonest about just doesn't matter.Bev Oda, the Minister of International Cooperation for Canada's Stephen Harper Government (TM), was recently reelected, despite having been embroiled in a regrettably un-sexual political scandal. Oda, according to one reputable source (Wikipedia, obviously) "admitted to directing one of her staff to add a hand-written annotation to an already signed Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) memo in 2009 that resulted in a funding recommendation for KAIROS being ignored. The memo was altered by the addition of 'not' into the recommendation line of the document. When asked about the matter, Oda had at first told Parliament that she did not know who had made the change." Before she could be punished or anything, there was an election. Today, Prime Minister Stephen Harper bravely decided not to value honest or integrity in politics and announced she would be staying at the Canadian International Development Agency. Apparently, neither the leader of nor the people of Canada care whether Bev Oda lies a whole lot.Everyone knows that in France, politicians are always having extramarital sex and that everyone there thinks that's wonderful. Everyone also knows that in puritanical North America, politicians can accept bribes, tell lies, and start random wars, and so long as they don't accept bribes from a mistress, tell lies to a mistress, or start random wars against a mistress, nobody really cares. It's the sex stuff that really loses elections, not the political stuff.I, because I buck the trend towards apathetic unprincipledness and am brimming with integrity and self-righteousness, am distinctly annoyed that Oda has been reelected and allowed to remain at her post. There's only one way Harper will be moved to remove her: she has to have a sex scandal.PLEASE, Bev Oda, do one of the following things:1) start hosting wild "bunga bunga" parties at your Ottawa home, and interfere with a police investigation to protect a young "friend" from Hull (who you claim you thought was the son of the Prime Minister of Belgium).2) disappear from Ottawa (telling everyone you're going hiking on the Cabot Trail) and visit your lover in New Jersey.3) send a topless photo of yourself to a man you found on Craigslist.OR, why not make a real name for yourself, and do all three? Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident. Totally by accident.
I have just discovered I am claustrophobic. No - I'm not afraid of elevators, or of being trapped in some small space underground. I don't have to steer clear of closets or crawl-spaces. You see, I'm not actually suffering from the traditional form of the condition. I've been trying to come up with a name for what ails me, but I can't find anything either appropriate or catchy. "Psychological claustrophobia"? "Political claustrophobia"? I couldn't even scare up a pun.
What I'm trying to describe is this oppressive sense I have of being surrounded by people whose beliefs I do not share. The symptoms first popped up after Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto. They have became noticeably worse since Stephen Harper won a majority government.
So if claustrophobia is (according to Merriam-Webster) the "abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces", what I'm stricken by is the "abnormal dread of being in the company of closed or narrow people". I know that being a warm-hearted, diversity-loving left-leaner means that I should respect other people, that I should try to understand other points of view and mentally embrace my adversaries. That kind of thing. But for the past few days, whenever I see people, I think: "Are you one of them? One of the stupid people I don't agree with and who voted for a Prime Minister who is going to put women who want to have abortions in mega-prisons?"
At some point, I'm sure I'll feel a renewed sense of the beautiful contradictions inherent in the Human Condition, and a renewed sense of smugness about how I'm able to sense all those beautiful contradictions. But right now, I just wish I could live in a place where everyone shared my beliefs. Why do they have to do all that hating of immigrants in Sweden? If it wasn't for all the racism in Sweden, I could totally live there.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
 Perfect. They'll never know. For the first time, The Toronto Sun has broken a story that does not involve Rob Ford respecting tax-payers or the Liberals refusing to respect tax-payers. Apparently,former Harper deputy chief of staff Patrick Muttart sent The Sun a report from a mysterious U.S. source that claimed Ignatieff advised the Americans on military strategy before its 2003 invasion of Iraq. And not from any cushy, east-coast armchair, either, but from a base in Kuwait. Muttart also helpfully sent along an image that ostensibly shows Ignatieff hunkered down in front of a helicopter cradling a giant gun. The photo, unfortunately, was low-resolution, and lacked the metadata that would have proven when it was taken. The Sun asked for a high-resolution version of the photo, and when it was finally provided, the paper discovered that while the image had been taken in 2002, the man in question was not Ignatieff. Not one bit.
I find this all extremely depressing. Not because it seems like this was a dishonest and underhanded attempt to throw crap on an opponent, but because the Conservatives can't even seem to pull off a good, old-fashioned unfounded smear. They aren't without know-how and resources. If they were themselves duped, do they have no photo-analyzers of their own? If they were actively and knowingly attempting to dupe, did they not realize a sophisticated analysis would reveal the high-resolution image to be a clumsy forgery? Did they not have access to a photo-forger who could have produced something a little more convincing? Couldn't they have located and employed whoever was responsible for making Obama's long-form birth certificate?
I bet the Conservatives are also wishing they'd just waited a couple of weeks. Then they would have realized the doctored photo featured the wrong man. I'm going to offer them this one, free of charge:
It seems there are only white people in Canada. Canada is so smug about its multiculturalism, you'd think it would actually make a point of showcasing its diversity in ways besides making visible minorities share the small screen with Sheila McCarthy. But two recent television-watching experiences have led me to question whether this country is, in fact, populated only by Caucasian, sweater-sporting executives and their blonde, Queen's University-attending children.First, there was Top Chef Canada. I was willing to look beyond the host (Thea Andrews, who, coincidentally, is blonde and graduated from Queen's University and calls to mind that episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer suffers from Mary Hart-related seizures) and the fact that a strangely high number of the contestants appear not really to be able to cook. What I find hard to accept is that they couldn't have included one contestant of a non-pale hue. Apparently, the show's (unnamed) defenders claim that "the contestants were chosen based on ability, not on location, gender or race". That just means that there happen not to BE any women or minorities who are as good at cooking as these white men are, which is especially distressing as most of these white men appear not be very good at it at all.Then there was the whiteness of the recent election debate. I'm not referring to the fact that all four leaders and the host were white (and also men - although Steve Paikin is a Prince Among Men, which sets him slightly apart). I'm talking about the fact that all six citizens whose videotaped questions were shared were white. They were careful to balance the sexes (three women [all blonde, as far as I can remember], three men) and the regions represented, but made no effort to vary the colour scheme. One of the women had an accent, but that was about as diverse as the evening got. Are Canadian television producers so obsessed with regional diversity and not looking like the only place they care about is Toronto that they forget there are other forms of inclusiveness? I find I have been retroactively protesting their lack of inclusiveness for years by forgetting about the existence of Canadian television. Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
Hooray for Stephen Harper! He's finally decided to emulate a politician other than himself. Unfortunately, it's Tim Pawlenty.
Never heard of Tim Pawlenty? You're not alone - most Americans haven't either. A former Republican governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty is right-wing, looks like one of those Mormons who proselytizes on the subway, and is stultifyingly tedious. He is currently not setting the campaign trail on fire while running for president.
Harper's choice of role model may initially seem surprising, in that he is already right-wing, subway Mormon-ish, and stultifyingly tedious. However, he's not trying to imitate the OLD Pawlenty; he's trying to imitate NEW Pawlenty.
Pawlenty recently released a non-campaign campaign ad clearly intended to prove he is VITAL, CHARISTMATIC, and PATRIOTIC. If it had been released in the form of text, it would be all red-white-and-blue capital letters. It features noises, and flashes, and quick cuts, and then more loud noises: It is extremely silly. It took Stephen Colbert no time at all to release his own, slightly less earnest version (his response to the original ad is at 4:53, his own ad starts around 6:58 - because I'm in Canada, I can't access the just-the-bit-I'm-talking-about versions available to Americans).It took Stephen Harper only slightly longer to release his own INSPIRING and PATRIOTIC version:
Hooray again for Harper! He has succeeded in reinventing himself as Canada's Tim Pawlenty, in that he is proving himself to be equally as dull and desperate. He's even one-upped the American, in that he's also managed to add derivativeness to the mix.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
There are certain well-established truths that left-wingish people are fond of continuing to establish. Many wars are about economic interests - economic interests related to oil, for example. Many, if not most, people vote for the politician who looks most like a smooth-haired family man from the 1950s. Both facts are, of course, completely regrettable: wars, if they are to be fought at all, should be waged for staunchly humanitarian reasons, and people should vote for the politician with the most thoroughly-articulated and admirable policies. I, in fact, am one of those individuals who thinks you really shouldn't kill people to protect defenseless oil or vote for someone based on the eerie immobility of their haircut.
That's why I find myself in an awkward position. Canadians are going to the polls again for the 156th time in the last five days, and it seems I really object to one of the party leaders. Not because I think he's misguided (although I'm not saying he isn't) and not because I object to his Positions on the Issues (although I'm not saying I don't), but because I don't like his face. I'm not referring to Stephen Harper, who I think is clearly misguided and square-headed, or to Jack Layton, who is like a feisty and adorable self-promoting terrier, but of Michael Ignatieff. I don't like Michael Ignatieff's face.
Of course, I do dislike him on other grounds reminiscent of school (of the high-school or Sunday variety). He delivered the commencement address at one of my graduations (that's right, I said "one of" - I've often been educated, I'll have you know), and spent most of the time talking about how various intelligent and accomplished people had told him how intelligent and accomplished he was. I just think even if some world-famous musician tells you you're bright while vacationing at your cottage, you should keep it to yourself and not be a big, fat braggart.
But even if I hadn't decided he was a bit too fond of himself and not sensible enough to know or care not to show it, I would still have a problem with his face. He has a few basic, unfortunate looks:
A) The Most Nefariously-Eyebrowed Nefarious Ruler of Hell (couldn't find a photo credit for this one):
B) The "I have a meatball in my mouth - a whole meatball!" Awkward Eater (once again, no photo credit) C) The Guy From A) Trying Desperately to Look Approachable (ditto) D) The Guy From the End of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Just Before the Loss of His Face (Chris Wattie/Reuters) It's entirely possible that Ignatieff is a perfectly nice and intelligent person and that I shouldn't judge him negatively based on one speech that struck me as boastful and a number of facial expressions that strike me as terrifying and/or profoundly unfortunate. But couldn't the Liberals just save me the effort of having to question my biases by finding a leader who combines the principles of Jack Layton or Elizabeth May with the mystifyingly voter-luring square-headedness and sweaters of Stephen Harper?
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
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