Category: Politics

CBGBBQ

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The Star has once again started dumping free newspapers outside my door. They do this a couple of times a year, unprompted. Normally a free newspaper is a good thing, except that I feel compelled to read a newspaper if it’s put in front of me (well…unless it’s a complete shitrag like The Sun) so I end up getting to work late every day. My own fault, I suppose, but dammit, they’re enabling me.

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Carl Bernstein, a guy who knows a thing or two about impeaching presidents, asks in the HuffPo if the president should be impeached. I have a recommendation, but I don’t think I get to vote on this.

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I’ve won tickets from Now Magazine for the second time in as many weeks. This time it’s for The Sentinel, which probably won’t be quite as good as Brick, but hey…it’s free and I was gonna see it anyway, so 3 shy little hipster hoorays for Now.

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This month’s Toronto Life, in addition to humorous letters, contains an article about the Don Valley Parkway. They make the point that further north — near Eglinton or Lawrence — it feels like a big, dead, cold highway, but the further it gets into the downtown core, it paradoxically becomes more and more green…more trees, more grass, better conformity to the landscape. Near the Bayview extension you can see the Don River, trees, fields, and the downtown towers pulling up over the trees. The first time I rode down the DVP with a friend, shortly after moving here, I was blown away as we neared the bottom of the valley at sunset, shocked by how green space I could see (I lived at Yonge & Sheppard, so I wasn’t used to seeing any), and then suddenly we were on the Gardiner and I was looking at the incredible cityscape. I remember it was the first time that I liked looking at Toronto.

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CBGB had us over last night for a barbeque, which was pretty sweet. It’s never a bad thing to have friends who own meat grilling equipment and live within the city limits in quick transit distance. And, of course, are nice enough to invite us over on a whim on a sunny Sunday afternoon for some red wine & red meat. It made us [sigh] look forward to the day when we have our own barbeque.

"When America's values are under attack, we need to act."

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From CNN: GOP hones its core agenda.

Protection of marriage amendment? Check. Anti-flag burning legislation? Check. New abortion limits? Check. Between now and the November elections, Republicans are penciling in plans to take action on social issues important to religious conservatives, the foundation of the GOP base, as they defend their congressional majority.

Hooo boy. It’s gonna get interesting down there. And by interesting, I mean bass ackwards. The quote up there in the title is from Bill Frist; I truly hope the American people listen to what he’s saying and do something…just not in the way that Frist expects.

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We finally got around to watching Hustle & Flow (imdb | rotten tomatoes) last night. It was pretty good, though probably not quite as good as I’d built it up to be. It’s certainly worth renting; just be prepared to have “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” stuck in your head for two days.

As only celluloid can deliver

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Just got back from V For Vendetta (imdb | rotten tomatoes). I liked it, quite a bit actually. More than I expected to, given the negative reviews I read when it first came out. Not sure what I was reading, since it’s carrying about 75% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The storyline, and the implications of the setup, were very well done, and they managed to portray the dystopian future without making the fascism over the top (usually movies in such settings are like watching the marching cartoon hammers from The Wall). There was just enough darkness, hope, and relevance to make it seem like fantasy and warning all at once.

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This NY Review essay of the new book by two writers of Daily Kos (which I found on POGGE) contains some interesting theories, such as the one that Howard Dean’s campaign was attacked from the inside by other leading Democratic candidates (John Kerry included), large political donors and media advisers for subverting the usual “kingmaking” process.
While I find this, if true, very interesting, I do not find it terribly surprising. I suspect the Republicans would have welcomed a fight against Dean (given the political capital their manufactured war had temporarily given them), so it was unlikely they who made sure Dean’s half-crazed yell from an Iowa stage was made the subject of such mockery.

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Still on some heavy topics, Scott Adams — the writer of Dilbert — often says interesting things on his blog, but I took a special interest in this one: he asks why he must be forced to respect all religious beliefs, even the ones he finds ridiculous. He stops short of saying they’re all ridiculous, but I get the feeling he wanted to. One of the commenters sums it up nicely: “I think Scott’s saying that tolerance, as a principle, shouldn’t be taken so far as to distort reason.”

Somebody write that down.

Refreshment & variety

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After a long day of spring cleaning (well, not that long…I slept until 10 and Nellie didn’t get out of bed ’til nearly noon), during which we rearranged the bedroom and combed up enough cat hair to make a Chewbacca suit, Nellie has cracked open a bottle of 2005 Fielding Estate Pinot Gris that Duarte gave her. I went slightly downmarket: a diet pepsi. Ahh.

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My Roku just played Blink-182, then Blind Willie Johnson, then the Rheostatics‘ cover of “Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”, then Sugar, then Bob Dylan, then Sebadoh. Hooray for random.

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From Listening Post: Neil Young to Take on Bush Administration in Upcoming Album.

[rubs hands together with glee, all Burns-like…]

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A colleague and I were talking about Brick yesterday. He had the “You wanna take a swing at me, hash-head?” line in his MSN message. It’s funny, but we both noticed the same tiny little details about the movie, like the lamp in the van or what was written on the sign in the vice-principal’s office or the incomprehensible dialog between Brendan and Brain. Goes to show what a great job they did. I can’t wait to buy it; we’re considering going see it again in the theatre.

How long can grooming take anyway?

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Today’s IndieTits was very funny. And I heartily agree with Neko Case being #1. Wrong Wainwright at #5, but it was funnier that way.

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Some movies that I/we watched lately, but which weren’t very good:

  • Domino (imdb | rotten tomatoes), because it was an interesting story, but not interesting enough to require the frantic pace and annoying echo chamber of this great big hackey music video.
  • Out Of Order (imdb), because Showtime tried to pull off some kind of scam by cramming an entire season of a show into a 97-minute movie. It did, however, alert me to the fact that Justine Bateman has become rather hot at the age of forty.

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I’ve been slowly working through Saturday’s Star after returning from Montreal, and was particularly interested in this article by James Travers about how the front runners for the Liberal party leadership are flexing a little more IQ muscle than has been seen in Canadian politics for some time. My favourite line: “With Michael Ignatieff and Stéphane Dion opting in yesterday and Belinda Stronach dropping out a day earlier, the collective leadership IQ is soaring.” The other entrants or potentials — Bob Rae, Gerard Kennedy, Ken Dryden, Scott Brison, John Godfrey, David McGuinty, Maurizio Bevilacqua — are no slouches either. Whether or not you dig the Liberal party, it can’t be a bad thing to have smarter people trying to run the country.

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One last thing about our Montreal trip: I have to comment on the travel particulars. We flew Westjet this time, as I used up the Airmiles that find their way into my account without my really knowing. Anyhow, it was my first time with them and I was pretty impressed; the thing I liked the most was that they didn’t take 45 minutes to “groom” the plane like Air Canada does; it landed, they let the passengers off, and they let us on seconds later. Much faster turnaround time than I was used to.

And finally, about the Hotel Gault…I know I’ve already gushed about it, but it bears repeating: stay there if the opportunity presents itself.

Accelerated fossilisation

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Time to catch up on the news:

  • London (Ontario, not England) seems like a delightful tourist destination, what with the biker gang violence and all. I am now more convinced than ever to never, ever go there.
  • ABC is starting to get it: they’re going to offer next-day streaming of their most popular shows, which is really just migrating the same content to a new medium, but at least they’re adding some flexibility to their viewing options.
  • Christopher Hume of The Star has new hope for Toronto, and the cultural renaissance he sees on the horizon.
  • This guy can kiss my pale maritimer ass. He acts recklessly, blows up some innocent and unsuspecting allies, gets off practically without consequence and then has the nerve to bitch about the way in which his country lightly slaps his wrist? Fuck him.
  • BlogTO reaffirms their membership in the ‘tear down the Gardiner Expressway‘ club.
  • Finally, and most tragically, Bow Wow and Ciara have split up. I mean, if a kid named after a dog noise and a woman dubbed “the First Lady of Crunk & B” by an overrated shitbag can’t make it in this crazy world, then who can? [tear]

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I read Confused Of Calcutta primarily for my job, as it focuses on technology, but this post went beyond work topics. It’s about change, and the rate at which it happens nowadays; people have been fearfully lamenting change ever since the loom or the printing press, but CoC’s not complaining. He’s pointing out that the era when you could take your time adjusting to market demand is gone. I like the term he uses: fossilisation. “Accelerated fossilisation”…I may have a t-shirt made. I’ll be the guy jumping up and down when I can consume media on my own schedule, in a format of my choosing. I’ll be the guy throwing a party when everyone has free internet access. I’ll be the guy doing a jig when politicians actually make decisions based on socioeconomics and not politics. I’ll toast the new world when my own company talks to me like I’m an intelligent adult (which, I’d have to think, is at least part of the reason why they hired me) and not an agitated child who needs to be soothed.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.   .:Arundhati Roy

Let’s get on with it.

Unique in his recollection

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From the BBC: Bush ‘ordered intelligence leak’.

“US President George W Bush authorised the leak of secret intelligence to a newspaper to help defend the Iraq war, a former White House aide has said.”

Seriously. If you can’t impeach him for that, what can you impeach him for?

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We’re off to Montreal tomorrow evening. I’ve only been there once before, about 13 years ago. My brother and I drove in, ate dinner, watched Montreal play Hartford (!) and left the city…thus, I do not remember a bit of it (short of Turner Stevenson’s wicked goal flying down the wing). We decided to take this weekend away before the New York trip came to be, but since we already had our flights and tickets for the Canadiens-Devils game this Saturday, we kept these plans as well. We’re staying at a very cool-looking boutique hotel in Vieux Montreal, and planning to just enjoy a city that is, by all reports, quite beautiful. Looking forward to it.

But first…another day of work. Rawk.

"Is there going to be a change in Canadian music?"

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Kevin Drew and Leslie Feist made some comments about the Canadian Idol teenyboppers who were nominated Junos. The CTV president of programming got her back up, asking “Why trash somebody else?”, but if you read the comments Drew and Feist made, they don’t seem to be running down the kids…they seem to be taking a shot at the music and tv industries. And with good cause; they’ve basically made music an excuse to have a tv show (or entire channel).

Also: the day when the president of programming at CTV can lecture members of Broken Social Scene about music is the day I teach Al Pacino about method acting.
.:. I won a pair of tickets to see Brick (imdb | rotten tomatoes) on Wednesday. Thanks NOW!
 .:. By now I guess pretty much everyone’s seen the trailer for the Simpson’s movie. I have both high hopes and terrible fears about how it’s going to turn out. I think it would be funny if Marge cussed like a sailor on shore leave. But that’s me.
 .:. More developments, though little progress, in the James Miller case. I wrote about it two years ago, when I saw the documentary, and again about a year ago.

75.9%

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Hee hee hee! Ah, Bruce MacKinnon, you make the day that much easier to start…

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We’re in the home stretch now. Friday never seems like much work, so today is the only full day left.