ChuckerCanuck 2.0

Shit happens, right? That's what the T-shirt says. And in high school, Lord of the Flies learned me that civilization is but a thin crust, easily broken to reveal the primal savages we are by nature. So, what's so crazy about suggesting - as Iggy Stardust did yesterday - that a yes vote in a referendum could trigger a civil war in Canada.

Let's face it - when Quebec's liquor board endured a "holiday season" strike, Quebec was pretty close to civil war. And last week, when the Habs did not manage to lure LeCavallier to Montreal - again, civil war was but a hair away. So, its perfectly reasonable to expect Quebec to erupt into full blown sectarian violence (or, as the CBC would report it, "forceful militation") unless we follow our destiny as prescribed by Michael Ignatieff - or one of his acceptable substitute Liberal leaders.

The separatists lost 2 referendums: the first was crushing, the second, razor-thin. What did they do? At worst, they got drunk, cried and spittled their way through epitaths against jews and Richie Riches. The hot heads, if history is a guide, ain't on the separatist side. No, Iggy's concern is with us federalists. We have been untested in losing such a referendum and its conceivable that we would flood the streets with pitchforks and torches looking to spill blood over our plummeting housing prices. Or maybe, Iggy is suggesting the threat comes not from within Quebec, but from the barbarian hordes in New Brunswick and Ontario. So devastated by the rejection, bureacrats from Ottawa's sleepy suburbs would trek over to Hull to smash us up Deliverance-style.

Intellectual midgets like me are constantly quoting Iggy out of context. When he said Qana was the most disturbing international news in 25 years, Chuckercanuck was the only place to ask the moron-level question: "what about Rawanda?" And given my propensity for missing nuance in a way the Littlest Hobo never would, I am probably missing the penetrating subtleties in his civil war musings. Afterall, his larger point is we need to be serene and calm - so a constant reminder of the looming potential of civil war should keep us serene and calm going forward. I admit, Iggy's reminder that civil war is but 50% + 1 away, has left me very calm, very serene - like I've just finished a pot of Russian caravan tea in the back gardens of Santropol.

You know, asking me what I might do or where I might be in December is a risible hypothetical and I frankly don't see the point in engaging in that kind of a discussion. My life is an always emerging set of options that I weigh with the finest calibration. So, I can sympathize with Michael Ignatieff in not wanting to make a commitment to political life beyond the leadership race for the Liberals. Heck, what I do next depends, like Iggy, almost entirely on who wins that race.

Can you imagine waking up as Iggy the Stopped Candidate and getting a call from Joe Volpe wondering if he'll be the new Amateur Sports critic? Well, with the Olympics coming up - it'll be a challenging portfolio. Then, adding insult to the injury, Hedy Fry calls you up for advice because she now handles foreign affairs criticism.

Nope - its crazy. Besides, he'd wind up voting so often with the Tories and against the new "international national vision" or the "Big Canada Projects" or the baker's dozen other ideas where Canada reaches for the stars and realizes its potential that it have the would look of a farce.

In fact, I'd bet most of the other leadership candidates are thinking the same thing too - get out of Dodge unless your sheriff. Hopefully, an ambitious journalist will do the rounds and find out where they all stand on this issue.

Gerard Kennedy and Ken Dryden have been battling it out for the position of biggest loser in the Leadership Race. Dryden, as has been pointed out here many times, sounds like a character in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - oops, Fear and Loathing in Las Markham. Kennedy began with a burst of excitement that quickly fizzled when he began doing ridiculous things:

a. While standing for an interview, he decides to rest his chin on his fist to strike a thinking man's pose - forgetting that the critical bit for the pose is something to hold up the elbow, like a table or your knee!

b. His ambition is to make Canada the first international nation. What does that mean? Gerard Kennedy has no clue; neither does Chuckercanuck, though I do like the idea of Montreal becoming the first intercity city and I hope Quebec erects the first interprovincial trade barriers within the province. The only guy who understands what Kennedy means is Ken Dryden - he thinks the idea is "groovy".

c. At last word, he is still looking at schools for his children because he is moving to Quebec. Or he has moved to Quebec. Well, he announced his intention to move to Quebec. For part of the campaign at least. So where does he live? Toronto or Trois-Riviere? Is this the case of another Liberal annouceable going the way they always do?

Now, Gerard Kennedy has boldly gone where only the NDP and (now greens?) of the world would have us go --- or should I say, un-go.

There is not a complete argument to pick apart and mock, so I bring to you some highlights of his Afghani annouceable:

1 - Unless we get a mandate that does honour to the Afghan people and our troops, we should head for the exit sign. What exactly would such a mandate look like? He never tells us - we just get to fill in our favorite "9/11 truth movement" euphamism and push ahead (or pull back, actually).

2 - The decision to deploy troops should not be in the hands of government or parliament - it should be a decision made by all Canadians. This is a really smart contribution - troop deployment by referendum only. Then, our leaders can say, "hey, I didn't want to send them - but you voted for it in a referendum, so my hands are tied." All of a sudden, a referendum of changing Stockwell's first name to Doris doesn't sound so loopy.

3 - He doesn't like the ratio of aid to military spending. He complains that not 1 hydro-electric plant has been built since the Taliban were regime changed. In Canada, it would be ludicrous to suggest a hydro-plant goes from initial concept to full-tilt production in that amount of time. Environmental assessments alone could take that long. But this is dirt-poor Afghanistan - who gives a crap about silly complications like that. And if the Taliban wants to blow things up that we just built - who cares - the point is we built it. Its not our fault those Afghanis can't keep their schools under watch.

Afghanistan is a failed mission, Gerard says. A grand illusion that needs a plug pulled. The fact that about 7 times more children go to school today than did under the Taliban is inconsequential. What really matters? 7 other fat-cat Canadians who want to become Fat-Cat in Chief of the Fat-Cat party now have to decide are they with Gerard or against him.

By the way, Mr. Kennedy - did you know that Hillary Clinton has been to Iraq? Joe Liberman. Joe Biden. All sorts of people who want some credibility in declaring what's going on in Iraq GO to Iraq. I'd recommend, as a detour from Toronto to your new Quebec home, that you stop off in Kandahar and report back to us. Then we can swallow your grand illusion crap a little more readily.

Elizabeth May - on-again, off-again Martinite - has taken control of the Green Party and its $1 million annual stipend. While accepting the leadership role, May took wild swipes at the Prime Minister and called to scrap the Softwood Deal and NAFTA. Layton-loopy, but feisty - in fact, May brings to the leadership exactly what Jack brought to the NDP: someone who can grab headlines, whatever it takes to turn a camera her way. The worrying thing, for Jack and Stephane Dion, is that May could lure David Orchard to settle in the most sympathetic organization he'll ever find. May + Orchard could equal seats.

This new voice for the Green Party does everyone in Canada a great service, but particularly for those anti-Harpermaniacs out there. Anti-Harpermaniacs love nuance and Elizabeth May introduces yet another subtle shade of Anti-Harper protest. Progressive Canada, you now have four expressions of protest:

1. If social housing and skills training are your biggest concern: Vote NDP.
2. If literal adherence to the Kyoto protocol regardless of any forsseable unproductive outcomes are your biggest concern: Vote Green.
3. If you have no serious objection to the current government except for your position outside of it: Vote Liberal.
4. If you object to the concept of Canada, Vote Bloc.

I think its very important that anti-Harper Canadians be very specific in their votes so that they don't get blurred in a last minute flurry of Liberal votes. Is it the environment? Tell us with a Green vote. Is it social housing? Vote Yellow. If everybody runs off a votes Red, we'll fall into the same problem of everyone thinking they're own priority is what should go first - everybody loses in those scenarios.

Hopefully, Elizabeth May will be able to keep the froth going from this first jump into federal progressive politics; it suddenly sounds like a 500 channel universe.

We have given the leadership contenders for the Grit Leadership Race almost a week to respond to the announcement that the Ontario taxpayer will subsidize the manufacture of the world's most frivolous green-house gas emitter, the Camero. (This, in the face of Quebec's catastrophic history of waste in making sure there was a Camero in every garage.)

Where are the condemnations from Stephane Dion? I'm not surprised Iggy is slow to respond - that's his style, it appears - but when he's talking about incentives against high emission consumption this week, shouldn't he be condemning incentives for high emission consumption - even if its one of his Liberals doing the incentivizing? Where's Gerard Kennedy - silent from cabinet solidarity? The ticket price of a Camero will forever be informed by the Ontario government's carefree largesse.

My recommendation, since the maxim is "jobs at all costs", is the Ontario government set up a land mine factory which would be a very profitable business given the spate of conflicts across the planet. I'd bet you could have 1,000 direct jobs created for a subsidy no more than $7,000 per job per year. And, you'd put Toronto on the map in the land-mine business. Soon enough, the airport convention centre would be brimming with land-mine conventions - the hotel rooms, the meals - the economic spinoffs would be tremendous.

If an election comes this fall, the environment will be the top issue. The people putting it on the agenda will be us, the Tories. Hubris still holds in the Liberal party; impossible that Stephen Harper has a green thought in his head is their mantra. But in the Camero we have a symbol of the necrotic materials now collecting around the Grit skeleton:

The only real Liberal government in Canada handing tax payer cash out to a multinational company to manufacture an environmentally destructive product. And none of the potential "leaders" have the guts to say a thing about it.

UPDATE
Paul Wells has an interesting post where he concludes Brison may quit and throw his support behind.... Gerard Kennedy. You know, early in the campaign, the common sense guess was Brison moves to Ignatieff because they are both closet conservatives. But this week, CBC radio had a hilarious quote from Brison reacting to Iggy's complaining about membership lists being shared: "for christ's sake, grow up!"

A rose is a rose by any other name.
But when it comes to Pluto,
the rules are not the same.

Mainstream punditry tells us the following: Stephen Harper and the CPC were the cat's meow until the dog days of summer brought everything to a screeching halt. It was a serious blunder to side with Israel, without nuance or qualification, and against Hezbollah (note, to pronounce properly, you must pause on the "b" for a while and then release "ollah" like a missile into Haifa). Hez-bbbbbbbbbb-ollah.
In Traverse-talk, Harper took a page from the W playbook and will reap a bitter harvest for it.

As argued before, I'd rather lose the next election over this than collapse into a cesspool of amoral equivalency. But if we lunatik Tories won't be able to brag about crop yields, I must say, them Grits don't seem to have any greener grass. In fact, watching the convulsions in the basement apartment they sublet in blogolia is more fun than the greatest movie ever made, Starship Troopers.

For a taste, take a tour of Kinsella, Calgary Grit and Cherniak:

Some 16 year old kid launches an anti-Israel tirade on his blog. Because of some loose association to Gerard Kennedy, anti-Kennedy forces seize on this outburst to knock Kennedy down a peg. Who cares what the kid says. The point is -- how can a 16 year old kid be such a big-shot in the Liberal party such that his comments could trigger intra-party membercide? Where are the grown ups?

Oh, here they are: Martha Who-Who has cozied up to Sid Ryan who uses union dues to pursue foreign policy objectives! And what are those objectives? Well, I'm told Hezbbbbbollah has now diversified into trade unions too. Thankfully, another shard of the Liberal glass house has taken up the cause of berating them.

Add the campaign to out Big City Lib - a previously inconsequential anonymyte blogger until he launched his own anti-Israel tirade - and we have a three front war within Liberal-land. Unless you count that Etobicoke MP, Borys Hezzbollahski, the Liberal associate critic on foreign policy who makes Svend Robinson sound like Benjamin Netanyahu. He too has pissed off Billy Graham, Keith Martin, Carolyn Bennett.

Marching out into the policy wilderness without a moral compass, the Liberal Party looks evermore like the Donner party - lost, trapped and eyeing each other to figure out who they should eat first to survive. I tells ya - with enemies like these, who needs friends?

Oh boy. Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton. In one day. One tired puppy.

But duty calls, of course. So, Dippers and Grits are clamouring to knock off Hezbollah from Canada's terrorist list. While none of the three amigos in Lebanon deny that Hezbollah are terrorists, two of them feel its just not helpful to negotiating a lasting peace.

You know, they have a point. There is nothing insane about an armed militia running around a country with impunity. In fact, anyone who can amass an arsenal of weapons (on someone else's dime no less) and bully a country's government away from a swath of land deserves hearty congratulations and a seat at the table.

Hello my friends from the bunker-loving, off the grid, anti-government groups in Justice, Montana and elsewhere: you have new found support. Our natural governing party and its little sister party, think that if you can establish control over quelques arpents de neige, launch some missiles at Billings and call for the destruction of D.C. - well, you deserve some formal recognition. Maybe a seat on the UN security council? Get your act together, blow some innocent folks up in Argentina and COME ON DOWN! You're the next contestants on the Price is Right. What price peace? Anything....

Something you don't like about Canada? Blow something up! As soon as the Grits take over, they'll settle your grievances and honour you on Canada Day - anything less just isn't productive.

Yesterday, on my way to collect our take-home greek food and a shiraz from some unknown corner of Australia, I stopped at the video store to get a movie. The decline of commercial movies is no more evident than in the fact that new releases seem increasingly from television series and not actual movies. We are desperate when we pick out season 1 of Desperate Housewives because we are collectively fed up with [insert action star] plays a cop/cia agent/ATF officer framed for a murder he didn't commit and gets 120 minutes to unravel the plot, expose the real killer and avoid the long-time work colleagues/friends now tasked with hunting him down. Snoooze.

Myself, I was reduced to two choices: the unrated, new version of the Hills Have Eyes or V for Vendetta. I chose the latter as my wife thinks I bring home an unhealthy quantity of horror films.

The movie is the dumbest celluloid ever produced - the hero spends the whole time behind a mask. There is even a scene of him cooking an egg with his silly mask on! Never do you understand what he is saying - as the mask muffles his every word. Since this takes place in a dystopic future, you'd think the guy would remember how Batman solved the whole mask/clear speech issue by not covering up his mouth.

It is almost pythonesque to imagine this vigilante announcing his intentions to a gaggle of bad-guys and they all scratch their heads and say, "come again, gov'na? didn't quite get that." Or, "could you just lift the mask a bit, so I can understand what it is you are about to garrot me for?"


The backstory for the movie was the most interesting part. Basically, because of Iraq and Avian Flu, the US collapses, and Britain is seized by a firebrand politician (they are careful to underline that the politician is a conservative). This politician creates his own Nazi-like army; only the uniforms are a little more spiffy (black and red). Its important, I have noticed, for such usurping villains to install a new fashion standard when they take over.

What's my point? I am gobsmacked that this once comic (graphic novel, we call them now) and hollywood flop, actually informs the political views of people. There are people who watch the film and say, "yes. yes. that's how it is." I can accept a confused, angry 14 year old taking it seriously. But tell me, how far alienated from normal life must you get to think that way as an adult?

This blog, Chuckercanuck, sides unhesitantly with the Blogging Tories and, particularly, promotes the only reaction available to thinking people when they see and hear our Prime Minister: Harpermania.

However, its author has always enjoyed comment threads where as wide a variety of political views are available. Threads on some other sites can quickly look like a hall of mirrors than an exchange of views - but many, I think, are equally encouraging of political diversity. This is not a concession to democracy but its greatest benefit.

Let's go back to ancient Greece. The oracle of delphi tells everyone who visits that the wisest man in the world is Socrates. For months, people dropping by Athens report to Socrates what she's saying. Baffled, he goes to visit her to understand why. "Who is the wisest man in the world?" he asks. "You are," she answers.

"How's this - I don't know anything," Socrates objects. The oracle responds: "Exactly, you're the only one who knows his ignorance."

We need to hear all views to protect ourselves against our own fallibility. People entertain other ways of living at their peril.

However, threads need to be enjoyable. This is my party afterall. Tomorrow morning, I could switch to a blog about Quebec's cheeses and that's that. So, while I am loathe to delete comments, I will begin doing so. Any Debbie Downer moments will henceforth disappear. 99% of comments have been perfectly acceptable contributions - even when its the telemarketing robots that companies send out to comment on threads. I find those robots make the most appropriate comments of us all.

Oh, yes, the removal of comments will be arbitrary and at my discretion. Merci.

“There are some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run," the president said at a fundraiser for former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann, who is carrying GOP hopes for an upset over Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Ed Rendell. "They're not bad people when they say that. They're decent people. I just happen to believe they're wrong."

I slap that quote up for you because you may enjoy the photograph of W on a Harley, or at least be provoked into a rage – the two don’t seem that far apart these days. Bush Haters can spend hours weaving Harley Davidson into the global conspiracy quilt. Bush Lovers, like me, can spend time at the local dealership’s website, figuring out what the financing looks like. The In-Betweeners will get a chuckle and then follow the link to the article on Jessica Simpson’s chest.

But before we all go off our separate ways, can I say two things about this quote? Thank you:

ONE. It is not the first time that GWB has recognized the noble moral intentions of people who disagree with him. I guess you say, “well, I don’t believe he means it” and then move on. But as an interesting thought exercise, pretend he does mean it. A yoga master would tell you to transcend the now and think in the eternal. There, you can breath out slowly now.

TWO. “Cut and Run”. Let’s see here, since January, America has been following Canada’s lead – most obviously on Hamas. But also on the recent conflict in Lebanon where the Prime Minister reacted early and set the tone for the eventual G8 communique on this matter. Now, we see the American President borrowing language from our Prime Minister in policy debates.

Pierre Trudeau came from the Ujjal Dosanjh school of numbers – so he thought that if America is an elephant, Canada is a mouse. But actually, if America is an elephant, pound for pound, Canada approximates a human being (albeit, a big & tall human being). Due to this miscalculation, micely Grits run in a terrible tremble every time the Yankee elephant stomps across the forest. Meanwhile, our PM understands that the human approaches gently, whispers in the elephant’s ear and soon enough, tells it where to go.

A professor at a health conference in Australia reported that the obese people, or, big-boned folks as we like to say in Canada, now outnumber starving people in the world. This professor says that while there are about 800 million starving people, over 1 billion of us are right-of-chunky.

I looked into things and could find some cyber-corroboration for the starvation number. - well, at least that there are 800 million undernourished people. Not to sound any more heartless than I already do, I would point out that undernourished and starving do not mean the same thing. If an undernourished person and a starving person walk into an emergency room, the undernourished person gets to see the doctor second. More importantly, if an obese gentlemen warbles into the same ER unit, hr gets to see the doctor third.

The medical world may want us to have heart attacks over the pending heart attacks that obesity will bring, but starvation is many times more severe a problem. Call me a right-wing whacko, but I'd rather deal with an obesity pandemic over undernourishment pandemic any day.

Doesn't mean I think diet and exercise aren't important for making a big-boned nation go small-boned - but when you scratch the surface of that obesity number the professor calculated, I, Chuckercanuck, fall into that corpulent 1 billion. Okay, there's a Gehry-inspired belly du biere, as we say. But that's hardly anything to get hysterical over.

There's a big AIDS conference going on in Toronto, Gian Gomeshi produced a little spoken word piece with appropriately haunting brit-pop background. Like you, I love spoken word pieces and Gian/Xian makes them rhyme, which to me, is much classier. Later in the day, the CBC asked its audience: should the Prime Minister not be at the AIDS conference? The issue is so important that he needs to be there to call attention to it. In a funny way, the fuss does the job of creating media buzz, giving the conference all it would get from his appearance in the first place. Besides, I doubt Bill Clinton and Bill Gates need any help in boosting an event's profile.

Instead, the PM was up north pursuing the government's agenda to assert Canada's sovereignty on its Arctic territories, including the northwest passage. The inconvenient truth of this: the most significant opponent in our claim of sovereignty is the United States. In fact, this dispute was one of the first foreign policy questions Stephen Harper answered on becoming PM - he reminded the ambassador to the United States that his role is to represent the will of the Canadian people and not a foreign nation, and Canada would assert its claim to that territory. Its not a bad project for a Prime Minister of Canada to be pursuing, if you ask me.

Off topic, but I'd love to know - when the disarming of Hizbullah begins, does that include their flag? Or do they get to keep a rifle up their for the memories?

UPDATE:

Progressive Bloggers Unite! I have been called HOMOPHOBIC for the above post. Here it is. Needless to say, being called "homophobic" for this post is good for ratings, so I'm not too upset. I worry, however, that my progressive friends may be grinding the label "homophobia" down so that it has no meaning.

Also, my dear progressive friends: If we want to end the stigma of AIDS, perhaps you should stop calling everyone homophobic for suggesting the PM had other things to do. The women of Africa would like you to pretend they suffer from AIDS as well.

Last night, after I tucked the family in, I sneaked out to the local chapter of the NeoKon Evil & Billiards Club where many of us get away from it all - relax with a drink - and plan the world economy over a Risk gameboard. Lo and behold, the guys at the club (Sally Gladwell is our only female member) organized a little recognition for my 4th full year as a member of this highly secretive global conspiracy. A Krispy Kreme with candle (only the enslaved masses eat Tim's) accompanied 12 year old bushmills. In honour of this aniversary, they told me I could choose a country and not give a crap about how things turn out there. (Needless to say, for a neoconservative, not wanting to manipulate the outcomes of every country is like not scratching an raging itch.)

My choice? Cuba.

One, everybody is very happy there. People have great health care and are all well educated. They make solid use of their literacy by consuming a cornucopia of literature and criticism. Oh sure, there's a sour-puss in every bunch, but even there, salvation lies a short inner-tube ride away in the moral pollution that is Amerika - you don't like it? Go live work on the Sanchez sugar-cane fields in Florida!

Two, Canadian foreign policy can do nothing in any direction with Cuba -our might and influence comes from busying their airports and resorts with a steady sream of tourists. An easy trade that has, if anything, a stabilizing influence on the country. Our government is no match for our desperate need to escape a land only Lord Kelvin could love.

Three, seeing a picture of Fidel Castro on the phone in my newspaper this morning, reminded me only of Woody Allen's Bananas. There's something very Vaudeville about propping the old guy up against a chair and having him call in the pizzas for the extra long cabinet meeting. Especially when the OFFICIAL line from the Cuban government was not to be surprised if things take a turn for the worse. Don't get me wrong - I don't care - they can time and format the transition of power in their country to their lasting satisfaction, but to me, it seems Raul - only a few years younger than Fidel - will be an impermanent solution at best. Sasha Trudeau assures us Fidel is a giant intellect. Too bad his vision didn't include a contingency for this, because any minute, I expect Fiedling Mellig to be crowned emperor of Cuba,

The following is purely fictional, any resemblance to real people or other fictional characters, is purely coincidental.

A Liberal MP, Chet, sits down to lunch in the parliamentary cafeteria, having recently accepted a special advisory post on Middle East and South Asia issues to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Two other Liberal MPs, Lynn and Fran, approach trays heavy with tapas of cafeteria delights and large diet cokes.

Fran: Hi Chet. Wanna lunch with us?
Chet (nervous smile): Uh. Yeah. Please sit down.
(Both take their seats across from him.)
Fran: We just wanted to have a little chat.
(Lynn watches while hoovering fries and gravy and slurping from her half-gallon of cola.)
Fran: Have you ever felt Stephen Harper’s scalp?
Chet: No.
Fran: Do you know what you’d find if you did?
Chet: No.
Fran: Three identical bumps – 6-6-6.
Chet: For real?
Fran nods solemnly, then: And It’s awfully naïve of you to be working for him. You should be working against him.
Chet: But not at all costs and on this matter, I felt –
Fran: At all costs. (Lynn slurps dramatically). Otherwise, he’ll win and blow up the universe. Now, he has a spy in my caucus.
Chet: Most certainly not! Its just that, I felt on this issue, we should rise –
Fran: Whatever. I don’t want Stephen Harper to steal my ideas. If I find a story in the National Post about the Tory caucus donating their doughnut money to charity- that was my idea, Chet. There’d be trouble.
Lynn: Think about Sheila Copps, Chet. It could be over in the blink of a nomination meeting. You wouldn’t even know what hit you.
Fran: It won’t be like that, Chet. But, you know how things can rapidly get out of anyone’s control.
Chet: If I can make the most modest contribution to improving the living conditions in that area of the world –
Fran: What about our living conditions, Chet? When you see the limos drive up to parliament these days – guess what – I’m not in any of them. Okay, a bad joke. But in my opinion, you don’t help anyone by helping Stephen Harper.
Lynn: That’s the bottom line. And we can’t have spies in caucus

"These are tragedies and I am losing sleep about it. It's the most disturbing piece of international news we've had in 25 years.''

The Qana tragedy will have a lasting impact on all our conciousnesses, of this I have no doubt. But in the last 25 years, the world has seen some pretty horrific things – including ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and Iraq, for example; or the concentrated evil of the Beslan massacre. Most of all, it seems strange to me that if pushed to evaluate the most disturbing international news in the past 25 years, one would choose Qana over Rwanda. Particularly if we are talking about a celebrated academic whose specialty is human rights. If we are nation-centric: 9/11 is still disturbing, horrific, awful– worse than Qana. Maybe, Ignatieff would disqualify 9/11 for being not “international” news, but most folks living in Canada would qualify it as “international”.

Who knows why every mistake gets undone with a mistake – I have my theories. But I’d like to know yours. Please comment.

Last night, I discovered Yanni. With the other channels awash in courts and cops, I gave up and flipped between Montreal's two PBS Channels - Vermont and Upstate New York (North). Each was using some canned, informercial-like, mass fundraiser produced by corporate, personilized with the local channels logo. Vermont had the concert for Bangledesh; Mountain Lake had the latest Yanni album, recorded live in Las Vegas.

What caught my eye on the Yanni show was a hard-rocking harp solo on a basic three-chord progression. The soloist hammering away at the harp had perfectly curled thick black locks tumbling down his plump, nay chunky, back. His fatty jowls rumbling to the fervent taps of bongos across the stage; his whole body wiggling like a baby's toy that shakes when you squeeze its torso. Only in a David Lynch movie could you see such an image - but even there, life can be stranger than art.

Yanni, the composer of the 3-chord progression, pretends to be a conductor, moslty jerking his head back and forth like a dance and pointing at the next solo performance - violin! he points and the violinist stands up and does his embarassing schtick of scales and slides. (The PBS "fawner-over" who interviewed him during their fundraising breaks, called him brave for having such world-class players on his stage. "Not many conductors would do that," he giggled as he melted onto the table across from Yanni, the humble artist.)

After each "piece", all sounding something like the 3rd week of a jazz improv 101 class, a stadium of ticket-payers leapt to their feet and roared like Yanni had given them a glimpse of Heaven. It only took three 30-second ovations for Chuckercanuck to smell opportunity...

WANTED
Musicians to form an easy-listening/adult contempory instrumental band. Positions available for the following instruments:

Keyboard, guitar, bass, percussion (professional experience with bongos and cow bells a plus), pan flute, harp, bazooki, McCains fruit juice glasses, violin, cello, trumpet, trombone, tenor saxophone.

- Must be able to rehearse within the Montreal area, but tour nationally and internationally (250 days per year).
- Must demonstrate performance flair and contribute to the international "mystique" of the band.
- Must be willing to perpetrate musical fraud, to atrophy your skills leaving only cocktail party stunts, to display awe and wonder for the band's conductor and composer, Chuckercanuck

We are nearing the final lap of the 72-month Liberal leadership race; Chuckercanuck has gone and done the painful work for you - he's paid attention. So without further ado, herewith, my leadership review:

Rank 1
Michael Ignatieff
Momentum: Dropping like a bungy jumper with an improperly secured bungy.
Basically, has withdrawn from the race and must figure a way to extract himself with dignity intact. (This site has offered him his one option).

Rank 2
Joe Volpe
Momentum: Steadier than Mt. Logan.
If grassroots support is measured by membership support, then Joe Volpe is the clear winner in the hearts of grassroots Liberals. And, lets face it, if there's a call-in vote by members in an emergency leadership race ahead of a snap election this fall, Joe's got the numbers to pull it off.

Rank 3
Stephane Dion
Momentum: Peaked a little early?
Still best bet for ultimate winner (see Volpe caveat above). Maybe they'll come out of the summer feeling sweet on Quebec and putting a 3rd Quebec leader in a row will be like throwing Quebec a bone. Otherwise, I don't think anyone will come away this summer thinking, "hey, if only Dion were in charge right now..."

Rank 4
Bob Rae
Memomentum: Slow and steady.
Bob Rae should launch a "take a second look" campaign in the fall. His only real opponent is Dion and where they differentiate themselves, Dion has the edge. His venom so exclusively reserved for Iggy may end up making him the scorpion on the frog's back - drowning from its own sting. What's wrong with Dion, Bob? So far, he ain't answered it.

Rank 5
Gerard Kennedy
Momentum: Luge-like.
Mr. Kennedy promised to move to Quebec. Even announced he was looking into schools for his children. Maybe he took a wrong turn or something - mapquest can really blow it some times. He collected some early backers but didn't get big enough to call himself a planet in this solar system.

Rank 6
Ken Dryden
Momentum: sinusoidal
I get the feeling that to truly appreciate Mr. Dryden's words you need to have Pink Floyd on in the background. Any other way, and its a little too groovy to get. I'd also ask Bob Gainey look on this as a cautionary tale.

Rank 7
"The Other Three or is it Four?"
Momentum: [insufficient volume to record statistics]

Rank 8
Martha Who-Who
Momentum: Greater than a fully-loaded cruise-liner at top speed.
If we slapped on another 18 months, Martha Hall-Findlay would win the race. But perhaps this is the tragi, part of this trai-comedy. Because now that people have looked seriously at her an her significant personal accomplishments - everyone's gonna swing to a late entry who'll steal the show again!

At this hour, its all booze talking. so forgive me if I say dispicable things in the next few paragraphs.

The President of Iran yesterday offered his long term settlement of the Middle East conflict: eradicate Israel. It is not the first time he has made this mild suggestion.

Some Canadians think he's just a blustering scamp getting W's goat. He's just using the Israel card to get a favourable trade deal on pomegranates, since they are all the rage in the Great Satan.

Hizbullah, so the line goes, is a band of freedom fighters doing acts of Robin-Hood-esque charity. Funny though how perhaps running hospitals is a handy thing for propaganda wars. Anyway, providing social services excuses nothing, of course -"hey, the brownshirts may be nasty, but they sure curbed crime!" And maybe I could believe the social services bullshit if they had say a nurse on their flag or a gurney - but no, its a rifle! Hands raised if you think Allah looks something like a russian made semi-automatic long-range killing machine. A little gun-fettished idolatry perhaps?

Sorry, its running away from me - being too drunk to say proper things properly - how can we be honest brokers if we are not honest about how morally repugnant one side is?

Consider how each side treats its own people. Israel hides them in cement bunkers for hours, if not days. Hizbullah hides behind them, prays for a bloody, photogenic body pile up, and escorts the media like tour bus operators to the grizzliest sites. Iran's citizens do not fair any better than the Lebanese who are hostage to this militia and that regime.

This is no citation to escalation or attack on Iran. The potential inside Iran, from its ancient culture to dynamic underground society, to restore some measure of sanity in its governance peacefully exists. And here, Canada can play a real role in making peace in the middle east.

Iran's government can't control the flow of information in and out of the country all that well. Canada must help energize, organize and mobilize that silent majority of Iranians who live grim lives in public and hide their happiness behind curtains. They know a wrong step or word could land them in a cell and beaten dead days later. They also know the plague of evil its government plays with in the region - a pathetic distraction from the economic failures at home. Remember: In Iran, national consumption of oil grows steadily and will soon equal national production of oil - oil exports are the last economy. This economic time bomb is the real root cause of a mystic President bent on genocidal conflagration.

Canadians have some understanding of the banal cruelties of that totalitarian regime, confronted with the Kazamei case. The rape and mortal beating of a woman for taking pictures of a prison is something out of the dystopic fiction of George Orwell and Sinclair Lewis. But its also today; it happened to a Canadian. Being neutral is not an option.