Another day, another friend blogging…and blog #2 for my wife (I’ve created a monster!)
Both have been added to my friends & families links on the right.
Why is John Dunleavy such a twat?
As Manhattan’s massive St Patrick’s Day parade made its way through the city yesterday its chief organiser was being condemned for a bizarre outburst in which he said that allowing gay groups to join the event would be like allowing Nazis to march at an Israeli parade.
“If an Israeli group wants to march in New York, do you allow neo-Nazis into their parade? If African-Americans are marching in Harlem, do they have to let the Ku Klux Klan into their parade?” march chairman John Dunleavy said in a newspaper interview, reigniting an argument that has marred every St Patrick’s Day in New York for the past 15 years.
Yeesh.
You can buy all the expensive cat toys you want. Nothing will ever entertain them as much as a piece of string with some folded-up paper on the end.
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This chest congestion that started after the flight back from New York has developed into a full-blown cold or something. Whatever it is, I feel like ass. I’ve managed to avoid being sick the whole winter but I guess it’s finally caught up with me.
Let’s see…what’s in the news today…
Senator fires back at U.S. family upset with seal hunt. First of all, she’s right: the war in Iraq, the execution of prisoners, the racism that exists in the justice system and the aggressive foreign policy are all regrettable actions on the part of the US. However, that doesn’t invalidate the McLellan family’s statement about the seal hunt being “horrible” and “inhumane”.
Harper restricts ministers’ message. First of all, I don’t think all the comparisons to Bush (see the many, many comments) are accurate; Bush’s media controllers don’t restrict Republican topics, they simply dictate precisely what everyone is to say that week. However, that’s semantics; the spirit and the intent is the same. Harper has obviously noticed that our media (like their American counterpart) has become so addle-minded that it can be controlled without much effort.
Does God Have a Future? (Part 3). First of all, Deepak Chopra may well be right in his predictions for religion in America: gurus and other spiritual authorities may wane in influence; faith may no longer be seen as an irrational departure from reason and science; wars may decline as peace becomes a social reality; nature may regain its sacred value; and so on. However, that does not mean that Deepak Chopra is not a huckster fuckwit.
Apple & cinnamon might just be the best flavour combination in the world.
Also: lemon pepper.
What else?
I finally read Freakonomics (metacritic). Obviously, being a business grad and a data geek, I liked it, but I can see why some people would react badly to it. It’s as frank and methodical as any other economic observation, even when dealing with issues like abortion and race, so people probably have bad knee-jerk reactions to it, but if you read it as presentation of data analysis rather than opinion, you appreciate the cold light Levitt and Dubner throw on things. If you liked the book, read their blog.
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You know when you hear so much about a movie that in your mind you’ve built it up into this classic, when in fact it’s really just an average movie that people liked 35 years ago and it’s somehow built up this cult currency? That was Dirty Harry for me. His little “Do ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?” speech just reminds me of Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry Maguire: so hackneyed and overdone that I could barely keep myself from wincing when it happened. Ugh.
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I’ve gone back and beefed up my postings from our New York trip. I’ve added links where appropriate and expanded on certain key facts, like exact menu items and types of wine consumed…mostly for T-Bone’s benefit.
From the Globe and Mail:
When [the hostage takers] were finally convinced that Mr. Budzanowski was not an American in disguise, he said, they started treating him more politely, and handling him less roughly. “When they were certain I was Canadian, they were very disappointed. Then, they told me, ‘We love Canada.’ That’s wonderful to hear when you have guns pointed at you…”
I expect the number of tiny Canadian flags sewn onto American backpacks to spike tomorrow.
Our friend in Halifax has created a blog to recount stories of her pregnancy. I’ve added it to the blogroll on the right.
Isaac Hayes quits South Park because the show made fun of Scientology. Chef, it turns out, is a hypocritical dick.
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It’s amazing, the different lenses that people look through. That hundreds of people could line the streets of Belgrade, weeping for the death of Slobodan Milosevic, seems very odd to me and, I suspect, to the rest of the world as well.
We got home around 10:00 last night. My Blackberry’s battery died early yesterday morning, and I couldn’t be arsed to post last night. Yesterday’s highlights:
All in all, a very good trip. We got to see a Daily Show filming, MoMA, the Museum of Natural History and great views of the skyline from the harbour and the 70th floor of the Rockefeller Center. We enjoyed the freakishly good weather. We had two amazing meals. We slept in plush surroundings. We walked through Times Square and rode the subway and sat in Bryant Park and did all those touristy things that you should do in New York. We came to love New York even more than we did from our last visit three years ago. Not a bad way to spend 48 hours, really.
