Sobering reading which accuses Conrad Black of looting his own company. $24,950 for "summer drinks" does seem a bit excessive, even by Andre Ouellet's standards.
The ever-brilliant Mark Steyn has written an article in The Telegraph about the failure of British Conservative leader Michael Howard to support the Bush-Blair war on terror. He poses an interesting question:
To Bush, Blair is a man who was prepared to face down his own party and some tough poll numbers to do the right thing. I'm not saying he thinks Howard's an unprincipled squish who reads the polls and does a U-turn just so he can join the pointless oppositionism of the Blair-bashing stampede but, if you were Bush, would you want to risk it?
The words of another Howard are pertinent here: "This is no time to be an 80 per cent ally," said Australia's John Howard after 9/11. What percentage would you place the Michael Howard Tories at?
My question is: what percentage allies are Canadians?
Photos of protestors in New Yorkfor the Republican convention. My favourites are the Lenin and Fidel lookalikes.
William Thorsell, former grandee at the Globe and Mail and now Director of the Royal Ontario Museum, has penned a piece for his old newspaper. Entitled, Hear the Wounded U.S. Lion Roar, the essay is a quick sneer at the Republicans who will gather in New York this week for their convention. He predicts, in the tolerant tone that is the hallmark of Canadian liberalism, an excess of testosterone, Uber-Americanism, triumphalism and bone-headedness, all in the service of greed, traditional marriage and the pre-eminence of the Christian God. Thorsell goes on to prophesy a full-throated roar from the supporters of a humilated, declining empire ignorant of its own hubris and the downfall that inevitably follows.
What, gentle reader, would Comrade Thorsell recommend in place of this bellowing of the booboisie? None else but that stock in trade of the United Church, that virtue whose possesion in abundance has made Canada great among the nations, that mental habit so beloved of Cartesians -- doubt. Were Thorsell in charge of the convention, "wimpy thoughtfulness" would reign supreme. Republicans would sit down and have a really good think about all the ways they have done wrong to the planet. Osama bin Laden would be summoned to a healing circle to share the pain of his abusive background after which he and the unjustly imprisoned Saddam Hussein would join Jimmy Carter, John Dean and John Kerry in the Sweat Lodge of Reconciliation.
Perhaps when Carolyn Parrish or Hedy Fry leave the House of Commons to take up their seats on the Supreme Court Citizen Thorsell could place his thoughtfulness at the disposal of the Canadian voter.
Check out the picture.
The same loon who disrupted the 2003 British Grand Prix interfered with the marathon run today at the Athens Olympics. Cornelius Horan, clad in green beret, a red kilt, knee-high green socks, a green neck-tie and the Star of David, suddenly leapt into the path of the leader, Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima, and knocked him into the crowd. Though the Bedlamite was wrestled off the dazed runner who struggled back into the race, de Lima lost valuable time and concentration and was eventually passed by two other competitors.
Horan seems to make a habit of this sort of disruption which he uses to publicize his views on the inerrancy of the Bible and the imminence of the end of the world. The tutu-wearing Canadian who dove into the water at another Olympic venue shows that exhibitionism is a continuing menace at public events. It was greed, not lunacy, which motivated the transvestite Canuck and a female streaker at last year's US Open gof tournament --both were advertising internet casinos.
The appropriation of public space and a public event for commercial or political purposes is not new. Suffragette Emily Davison threw herself under King George V's race horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby to advance the cause of votes for women, dying in the process. Terrorism is merely an extension of this principle and those who choose to hijack events should be found guilty of terrorism in parvo. They are robbing a community of a time of bonding and building social values. Let's hope the Greek courts fiind a nice private prison cell for the perpetrators.
There can be little doubt that with the departure of writers such as Mark Steyn and David Frum and the intrusion of editorial dictation from the Liberal Asper family on high, the National Post has ceased to be a newspaper of consistently conservative opinion.
Now there is doubt whether it is a newspaper that values any kind of oppositional voice in Canada. Consider this sad exchange of e-mails between the Post and a group wishing to run an ad calling on the government to seek redress for the unacccounted-for expenses of Andre Ouellet at Canada Post. After first seeking to dictate content of the ad, and then to dictate content on the group's website, the Post finally refused to carry it at all.
See if you think this ad is in any way outrageous or unworthy of the pages of a national newspaper:
Andre Ouellet and the 'honor system'
(picture of ouellet)
In eight years as head of Canada Post, Andre Ouellet claimed $2 million worth of business expenses, and never produced so much as a parking receipt.
He called it the "honor system."
He told the accounting staff how much to pay him, and they did.
He also helped get jobs for 83 friends and relatives, intervened in $35 million worth of procurement contracts, and wrangled himself a salary of $400,000, the highest in the civil service.
Ouellet retired under a cloud on August 12, to an annual pension estimated at $116,000. John McCallum, minister responsible for national revenue and Canada Post, has said that he won't pursue the issue of expense payments.
Tell him he should.
Go on-line and ask the minister by e-mail if he will make Andre Ouellet either produce his expense records or pay the money back. Failing that, will the minister ensure Ouellet is investigated and taxed?
Canada Post is a crown corporation. That $2 million remains public money until he accounts for it.
Hold him to account. Visit www.smartenup.ca and send a prepared e-mail (or write your own) to McCallum, copied to Paul Martin, leaders of the Opposition, and the heads of Canada Post, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board.
If we don't speak, they won't hear.
Sponsored by the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy. Post this ad in a public place.
The Post should be ashamed of itself.
Dave Matthews Band Blamed for Human Waste
Much as George Bush has been successfully stereotyped as a moron, despite his degrees from both Harvard and Yale, or as Al Gore was pegged as a liar for claiming to have invented the Internet, John Kerry has been labelled a flip-flopper. His opponents say that his ambition will lead him to take any position, however contradictory, that he believes will win him support while his friends say that his apparent changes of heart really reflect a high degree of sophistication and nuance.
Nowhere is this characterization easier to see than in Kerry's stand(s) on his country's conflict in Vietnam where he is trying to run both as a decorated, oft-wounded hero and as a star of the anti-war movement. At the moment he is taking heat from fellow veterans who accuse him of exaggerating his heroism and lying about his combat experiences. His enemies have forced him to backtrack on a few elements of his well-polished war stories: it now apppears that none of his three Purple Hearts involved any actually bleeding or hospital time; one of these wounds was accidentally self-inflicted; and he was not in Cambodia in Christmas 1968 as he had long claimed.
Further damage awaits Kerry, however -- not in regards to his brief war service, however glorious or contrived, but in his post-service crusade against American involvement in Vietnam. On his return to the USA he attended anti-war meetings where assassinating politicians was discussed and testified before Congress that he and his fellow soldiers had committed numerous atrocities. It is ironic enough that a self-confessed war criminal is running on the platform of "Reporting for Duty" but an ex-POW is now telling the world how North Vietnamese authorities used the very words of John Kerry to break the will of American prisoners.
Paul Galanti, an American flier shot down in 1966, claims that during his imprisonment in the "Hanoi Hilton" the North Vietnamese broadcast Kerry's speech. In an ad now being broadcast in the US, Galanti says, "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in North Vietnam, in the prison camps, took torture to avoid saying. ... It demoralized us."
If the mainstream media takes up this issue, even to denigrate it as Republican-funded, it will do John Kerry no end of harm. It's safe to assume therefore that the ad will get little discussion time.
You can tell a lot about a person by looking at his enemies. In addition to Saddam Hussein and Kim Il Jong (the North Korean dictator who recently called President Bush "an imbecile...worse than Hitler") the following groups are scheduled to protest against George Bush and the Republican convention in New York:
A31 Coalition: A loose group dedicated to direct action and creative resistance. Through their Shout Heard Around the World, groups are expected to spontaneously yell "no" wherever they are in the city and commit various acts of civil disobedience and creative protest to show their disgust with the Bush administration and Republican National Convention.
Axis of Eve: A coalition of women who express their disgust with President George W. Bush by publicly wearing bright colored underwear with political slogans.
Food Not Bombs: Self-styled revolutionary movement dedicated to non-violence and the distribution of free vegetarian food to all those who want it. The first group was formed in Cambridge, Mass., in 1980 by anti-nuclear activists and has since spread throughout the country.
Greene Dragon: A light-hearted New York City based group of "life artists" who promote radical self expression and often dress in colonial-themed red, white, and blue. Earlier this year they began their "American Revel-ution" that they describe as, "a fun and freewheeling independence movement from President-Select George II and his corporate monarchy."
Hip-Hop Summit Action Network: Founded by Russell Simmons in 2001 and counting Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Jermaine Dupri as members of its board of directors, the group is focused on promoting literacy, equal access to public education, as well as, repealing the Rockefeller drug laws. The HSAN has also launched a campaign of registering young people to vote.
NARAL Pro-Choice America: A national organization that works to defend and safeguard a women's right to choose.
National Organization of Women: Founded in 1966, NOW is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. The group's key focus is promoting equal rights for women and protecting reproductive rights.
New York Central Labor Council: A chartered body of the AFL-CIO that consists of nearly 400 local unions that work together to safeguard the civil and legal rights of working men and women.
Not In Our Name: An anti-war group that has protested repeatedly against the war in Iraq. They also are concerned about protecting civil liberties and the detention of immigrants since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Organizers expect demonstrations to "spontaneously erupt" in the boroughs and surrounding communities.
People for the American Way: A liberal group that works to preserve democracy and extend legal and social justice for all in the face of the radical right.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America: National organization founded by Margaret Sanger in 1916 and dedicated to the belief that a woman has the right to choose when and if to have a child.
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign: A group of poor people of all races across the country who work to abolish poverty in the United States and around the world.
The Rainbow Family: Loose knit community founded in 1972 that is dedicated to the hippie-esque values of peace and love. Protecting the environment and drug legalization are also key issues.
Ring Out: Local group that plans to hand out hundreds of small bells as a symbol of protest against the Republicans. The group also plans circular demonstrations, or ring outs, where participants will ring their bells en masse as a protest.
RNC Not Welcome: Anarchist group that is organizing various civil disobedience acts and guerrilla street tactics to disrupt the convention.
Still We Rise: A coalition of more than 35 New York groups who are concerned with homelessness, HIV/AIDS treatment and outreach, poverty, the Rockefeller drug laws and the criminal justice system.
War Resisters League: Protest group that rejects the use of violence for civil defense or revolutionary change and is committed to eliminating both war and its causes.
Young Communist League of New York City: An inclusive group of local socialists and communists who oppose the war in Iraq, President Bush, the Republicans and capitalism in general.
German men ordered to sit down to pee.
British woman hit by meteorite.
A rather sad little obituary for the Boy Scout movement in Canada.
With the opening of the Summer Olympics in Athens, I am reminded of the following article written by The Culture Potato, a friend of this column, for ChristianWeek magazine in 2002. Much of it is relevant this week.
What is it about the Olympics that seems to activate the bad taste gene in people? I watched the opening of the Salt Lake City Winter Games last night and I am still trying to figure out what that little boy with the lantern was doing fleeing from the skating insects wearing miles of Saran Wrap. Was he supposed to represent the Spirit of Competition trying to evade the Praying Mantises of Illicit Steroid Performance Enhancement or was he the Latter-Day Diogenes in Search of an Honest Ice Dancing Judge? Maybe he was just trying to get out of the stadium before his school friends saw him in that outfit.
This was not the first assault upon aesthetic decency perpetrated by the Olympic Games. Who can forget the French synchronized swim team goose-stepping their way into the pool as part of their lovingly-choreographed “Tribute to the Holocaust”? (It was, after all, the French team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics who marched into the stadium and greeted Adolf Hitler with a collective Nazi salute.) What fan of sword-and-sandal epics such as "Hercules Unchained" or "Jason and the Argonauts" has remained unmoved by the televised torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia where Greek maidens in antique costumes caper around the altar of Zeus? He who could forbear from shedding a tear at the sight of the “Salute to the Pick-Up Truck” performed at the opening of the Atlanta games must truly have had a heart of stone. Where do they get the thousands of pigeons that are ritually released as symbols of peace? And where do these thousands of poor birds go after being frightened out of their cages on a winter’s night?
But my greatest irritation with the Olympics has less to do with the questions of artistic merit than my belief that far too many of the events are not real athletic contests at all. Here is my guide to determining what a true Olympic sport is or isn’t:
• If you have to wear make-up to compete, it’s not a sport. I don’t care how physically difficult it is to swim upside down, juggle with ribbons or leap around on a gym mat to the sound of the love theme from “Phantom of the Opera”, if you have to apply sparkles, mascara or artificial eyelashes before performing then you belong in the Little Miss Teen Orange Juice Pageant not the Olympics.
• If you can’t tell who won without the help of a panel of judges from Belarus and Burkina Faso, it’s not a sport. The Olympic motto is “Citius, Fortius, Altius” -- higher, stronger and faster -- all concepts that can be easily gauged in determining a winner. The team that score most goals wins; the guy who throws that inanimate object farthest wins; the woman who leaps over the highest bar wins. These criteria do not require a degree in rocket surgery. Questions of style and presentation belong in art galleries not stadiums.
• If it’s done to music, it’s not a sport. The only audible accompaniment to a real athletic contest is grunting.
• If the choice of costumes is important, it’s not a sport. Apparel matters only if it can keep the hair out of your eyes and allow maximum physical effort while shielding delicate body parts from harm and indecent exposure.
• If you’re performing an activity that can be done faster in some other way, it’s not a sport. We don’t have Backwards Sprinting or the 800 metre Running With Your Hands Above Your Head contests, why should we tolerate swimming events that use inefficient strokes or the ludicrously named Race Walking?
• If you have time for a cigarette and chat in the middle of the match, it’s not a sport. One word: curling.
I take heart from the fact that it was a Christian emperor, Theodosius I, who succeeded in abolishing the first version of the Olympic games in 393, ending a thousand-year-old tradition of pagan hoopla. (A generally decent chap, he also banned gladiator contests on Sundays and liberated all children sold into slavery by their parents.) Perhaps some future Christian potentate will see fit to reform this iteration of the Olympic Games. And then he can look into Super Bowl half-time shows.
Anyone who wonders why Anglicanism is a religion withering on its home turf need look no farther than its wild and wacky leadership. Dexter has had cause before to mention the sophmoric ruminations of the Church of England's Arch-Druid Rowan Williams but now his attention is drawn to the matchless artistic and political insights offered the Bishop of Hulme, the Right Reverend Steven Lowe.
The balmy bishop has called upon churches across his green and pleasant land to follow his example and ban the use of a well-known hymn, "I Vow to Thee My Country". Written in 1918 by Sir Cecil Spring-Rice and set to the music of Gustav Holst the hymn was a favourite of Princess Diana's and is frequently used at weddings. According to His Grace, however, the words are heretical, racist and imperialist, encouraging a nationalism among Englishmen that was akin to that of Nazi Germany. Nay, it was far worse: it positively reeked of things American!
To encourage love of one's country was "like American culture where there is this view that America is the land of the free when we know it is not. But there are those in America who want to maintain that it is and want to impose their understanding, their culture, their way of doing things on everybody else. That is dangerous." Oh, knees that have never bowed to Baal, tremble now at the prospect of genuflecting before the altar of the Horned One, George W. Bush!
Well, naturally Dexter could not rest until he had found and committed to memory words that had caused the good bishop such spiritual unease. Feast your ocular orbs on these dreadful sylllables but -- I warn you --- pronounce them not, lest you be caught in the devil's snare! Should a mortal let this song cross his lips but once, he is lost forever: his soul is doomed, his body will writhe in eternal flames and his forehead will ever bear the mark of the Beast: "USA".
Here is the heresy in question. It's not as catchy as "The Horst Wessel Song" and other little ditties favoured by storm troopers but it had my jackboots tapping:
I vow to thee, my country—all earthly things above—
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
And there’s another country, I’ve heard of long ago—
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness, and all her paths are peace.
I have always been struck by the fact that Dante treated ingratitude with such seriousness that he reserved the lowest reaches of Hell for those who had betrayed their benefactors. At the very bottom of the pit, frozen in ice, bat-winged Lucifer perpetually gnaws on the bodies of the three worst traitors in history: Brutus and Cassius who murdered their patron Julius Caesar, and Judas Iscariot, who sold out his friend Jesus of Nazareth. To that litany of ingrates let us now add the name of Adnan Hamad.
When Saddam Hussein still ruled in Baghdad, that country's athletes dreaded a summons to the presence of his son Odai. Little Odai had a unique way of expressing his displeasure with setbacks in international competition: he beat, tortured and sometimes murdered the losers. Last month Iraqi Olympic officials displayed the whips, Iron Maidens lined with metal spikes and finger-breakers that were employed to keep athletes motivated. They praised the United States and allied countries for bringing freedom to their country.
Mr Hamad, coach of the Iraqi Olympic soccer team, was having none of that. "America destroyed my country", he asserted, professing to know nothing of Baathist torture. Perhaps he should read the story of Sharar Haydar, the soccer star who wanted to retire from international competition and was whipped on the soles of his feet 20 times a day or the weight lifter Saleh Mahdi who heard of his imminent arrest and was so fearful seeing his wife raped in front of him that he murdered his own family and committed suicide rather than be dishonoured by Hussein's goons.
Every day that goes by simply confirms John Derbyshire's contention that the Middle East is collectively crazy and in less need of diplomats to solve problems than a massive air-drop of psychiatrists on the region.
1. Though I live to see the day that Svend Robinson is torn apart by wild baboons on network tv, I am not among those who see social disaster in his recent light sentence for theft. There has been a chorus of bleating from social conservatives who claim that his suspended sentence proves that there is a separate law for the rich and the poor, for the famous and the obscure, etc. Anyone who has been following news of recent sentencing decisions in Canada will not be able to discern anything else than an abdication by the judiciary of the notion of deterrence or punishment. When a Winnnipeg teenager can get a one-day sentence for beating a stranger to death with a billiard ball wrapped in a sock we should not expect a mere thief who voluntarily returned his ill-gotten lolly to serve hard time on the chain gang.
2. What does trouble me about the Robinson case is the extent to which the media conspired with his lawyer and political allies to portray Svend as a victim. To hear Clayton Ruby, Libbie Davies or David Suzuki speak, one would think that it was the burden of a life well spent that made the ex-MP crack. Rising daily at the crack of dawn to save Canada from religion, capitalism and morality had taken its toll on the poor lad and when he saw a diamond ring that was just perfect for the hand of his Latino inamorato, well, your honour, his noble mind just snapped. Only bed rest and a long course of hearing tributes to his selflessness can save this sainted soul now.
3. And speaking of thieves , it doesn't get much lamer than Andre Ouellet's reply to accusations of financial hanky-panky at Canada Post. A recent audit stated that Ouellet claimed expenses that averaged $250,000 a year, with no receipts; he intervened in the tendering process for three contracts worth a total of $35 million; he mandated dozens of "special hires" done outside normal rules; Canada Post paid $75,000 for trips for former Public Works minister Alfonso Gagliano. Ouelllet didn't challenge any of the facts adduced by Deloitte & Touche but insisted that his unreceipted expenses of over $1,000 every working day were done "on the honour system" and produced great results for the corporation; his interventions were only to ensure fairness; his irregular hiring of those friends and relations was only a fraction of Canada Post's hirings; and as for Mr Gagliano's 9 trips abroad, well, uh...
4. Dave Ritchie was canned today as head coach of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. In the opinion of this jaded columnist he was unjustly terminated, forced to walk the plank for the failings of the team's management. Much the same might be said for the firing of Blue Jays' head man Carlos Tosca.
5. The link between these sporting assassinations, Canada Post and Svend Robinson is a disregard of the notion of individual responsibility. Let heads roll, but let them be the right heads! Cue the wild baboons...
Dexter fans will understand if I take this public space to announce the death of my mother, suddenly in her 82nd year. She was a good and beautiful woman who in her youth resembled Ingrid Bergman, a fiercely devoted mother and a loving wife.
A few birthdays ago I sent her the following e.e. cummings poem:
if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have
one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor
a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but
it will be a heaven of blackred roses
my father will be(deep like a rose
tall like a rose)
standing near my
swaying over her
(silent)
with eyes which are really petals and see
nothing with the face of a poet really which
is a flower and not a face with
hands
which whisper
This is my beloved my
(suddenly in sunlight
he will bow,
& the whole garden will bow)
Sharon Stone blames the American president for the lack of lesbian kissing in the recent Catwoman movie. The elderly ex-star found Halle Berry so attractive that she deemed a Sapphic lip-lock to be in order. Alas, an overwhelming neo-puritanical sentiment engendered, according to Ms Stone, by George W. Bush prevented the same-sex snog, and a classic cinematic moment was lost forever.
Another musical performer is complaining that audiences didn't like hearing his political opinions. Don Henley, formerly of The Eagles, sprinkled his recent concert in Cosa Mesa, California with left-wing commentary and praised Linda Ronstadt, prompting choruses of boos and sending some of his listeners toward the exits. Whined the croooner: "We used to be able to have civil debate in this country. Not anymore." Not really; conservative audiences are merely tired of hearing their opinions vilified in a setting where they paid only to be entertained.
Don Henlely, the Dixie Chicks or Barbra Streisand remain free to bash Bush at home, in the press, or at Democratic rallies but they should not expect a free pass at propagandizing people in a captive setting. When Linda Ronstadt confesses to getting the willies at the mere presence of a Republican or a Christian she should not be surprised to hear the occasional discouraging word in reply.