Both Sides

So I was thinking the other day while it was a bazillion degrees below zero and a bunch of us were waiting for a bus that came several bus cancellations later, such that I got home from work much later than necessary, that the exponential rise in extreme wealth among relatively few people is happening at the same time as an exponential increase in man-made climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

And that led me to wonder who government is for if all our climate scientists ringing the alarm for a couple of decades now hasn't done much to prevent rich people from getting ever richer and climate change from happening faster and with increasingly devastating consequences.

I don't know but do our governing politicians think rich people will save us (all) from climate change, do you think? Or just them... Because rich people seem kind of useless if you ask me, which, you may be relieved to read, no one ever does, so I hope our governing politicians aren't holding their breath.

No wait, scratch that - I hope they are.

Hello? Pope Francis? I'm Calling about Coving- Hello?

The social media news cycle moves quickly, doesn't it? I had a blog entry all ready to go about a seminar I attended a couple of government assignments ago on transgenderism, and how mind-blowing it was, when Covington High suddenly took over the internet.

Now, I don't care who you are or where you come from but if you aren't disturbed by the sight of a little shit, surrounded by a backup mob of little shits, brazenly disrespecting an older man in a public space, then you need to give your Conservative head in Conservativeville a shake.

Hear that rattling? That's your brain telling you this one's a no-brainer.

Yes, my white social justice warrior friends, it matters that Nathan Phillips, the personification of grace under pressure, is Indigenous. Because that is definitely white male supremacist little shit behaviour we are witnessing on that video. There is no way on earth those little shits would have behaved that way towards an older white man.

Or would they, Conservatives?

Yeah, that's right, you're not too sure they wouldn't, are you. And Nathan Phillips is a lot braver than you are, don't you know it. And if you don't, I do.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Those little shits will grow up into big shits. And you're gettin' old. And vulnerable. With lotsa ill-gotten gains lyin' 'round.

And yes, my white social justice warrior friends, you are correct re little shit mommy's claim that the black muslims (actually hebrews?) being called out as Uncle Toms (and other epithets this white lady shouldn't use) by other black men in attendance, did not make her son do what he did. Because they did not. I watched the 2 hour (1 hour and 45 minutes or somesuch) video of the entire event currently being circulated by grown ass white Conservative manpologists for these little shits and I don't see it.

In fact, it looked to me like the religious nutters made Nathan Phillips do what he did, which was to come between them and the little shits out of concern for everybody involved.

Seriously, somebody should name a civic square after that guy.

Also, somebody should tell Nathan Phillips that for teenage white boys, coming across a handful of religious nutters (aka "black muslims" by white boy moms) who proceed to call them sodomites and whatnot, is a field trip highlight, not low point. Besides, from what I saw, the other black men had that.

Everything isn't about you, Nathan Phillips!

But, of course, that's the problem with social media, isn't it. The reaction is the message, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, such that I've just negated Marshall McLuhan in an off the cuff blog post that took minutes to write and now you're reading it already.

Oh. I guess it's still the medium that's the message, then, isn't it.

My goodness, Marshall McLuhan was a smart cookie.

And now, because I'm a mother, I'm actually a little concerned for the prime little shit. Because there is a moment there where I'm pretty sure he starts to second guess what he's doing, and the smirk flickers a bit, the eyes glance down. Alas, the internet is forever, isn't it, and social media is all about doubling down, not owning up.

Even if he wanted to apologize to Nathan Phillips rightwing reactionary vox populi wouldn't have it. They'd rather deny him redemption.

Because winning.

Social media is the worst, the absolute worst.

Meanwhile, not missed in all this is the fact that the little shits were on a field trip to protest female citizens having the right to end unwanted pregnancy, as if providing access to legal pregnancy terminating services isn't the least our society can do for its female citizens.

And taxpayers! Because women pay the same taxes men do and yet men don't have to worry about being impregnated by women, do they. No they do not.

Jesus H. Christ.

And speaking of, what would Jesus H. Christ have to say about the little shits in that video, eh? Well fortunately, Jesus H. Christ speaks through the Pope, so all we have to do is ask Him.

Although given what I've read today about Covington, Kentucky, best not mention it right off the bat or He's likely to do that thing popes do when they realize too late that they shouldn't have picked up, which is pretend to be the custodian.

"Da Pope? No, he no here. Juss me and I clean phone, answer by accident. Bye bye."

There, Conservatives - don't tell me I never write anything for you.

Toxic Punditry

Yes, I know - oh the irony.

But Gillette should just just re-brand all its men's razors pink and raise the price for the privilege of everyone who shaves being able to buy razors in the same colour blankets hospitals use to swaddle newborn girls if it really wants to see Piers Morgan shit his knickers on camera.

What a cunt he is, eh?

But I think I was still a teenager when I figured out that men's products were less expensive and of better quality than any old lady equivalent. That's because men were considered too important to be wasting their more valuable time (hence the higher salaries than women for work of the same or lesser value) keeping their wives and mothers apprised of the state of their stuff. And the joke back in the day, of course, was that we were responsible for replacing their razors because we were rendering them useless by using them to shave our hairy legs.

Full disclosure: I used to clog my ex's razor by using it after waxing, which I did once a month whether my hairy legs needed it or not, to get rid of any lingering residue.

Offs, lay off. He barely had an facial hair to worry about shaving off anyway.

Fuller disclosure: I also used my ex's razor to shave my legs in between waxings, so once a day.

Even fuller disclosure: He and other men would be really mad to know about all the fabulous sex they missed out on because his razor was too clogged to get a close enough leg shave, too. Keep up or shut up, men, but when women feel stubbly we're just not that into you.

My Gord it's hard to abide this sexist world that is so horrible for billions of women denied their human and civil rights by the horrible misogynistic men who run it. But that's the way most of the men of the world want it, even here where men have never had so much freedom thanks to Feminism, or they'd stop inciting the rest of vox populi into hating Feminists, wouldn't they.

It's what they hate most about our Prime Minister, that he isn't a horrible misogynist, but rather a Feminist friendly face.

Patriarchy is the enemy of peace, progress, and prosperity, people.

Smash the state or bust.

Name Pierre Poilievre

I think if I was the Prime Minister of Canada I'd tell China we'll trade Meng Wanzhou for Robert Schellenberg.

We all know what Huawei is now. And we know what China is, too.

Trading Wanzhou for Schellenberg wouldn't change anything about China, a country that executes more of its own citizens than, not just any other country, including the US, but all other countries COMBINED. But it might remind Canadians like Pierre Poilievre et al of how lucky we are to live here, where human life still matters.

PP has always been particularly loathsome (I think he was Pierre Poutine of the robocall scandal but I can't prove it so don't spread the word) but taking advantage of this life or death situation as he did the other day to stand at a microphone and tell us all that China calls Justin Trudeau "little potato" struck me as something else.

Vile?

I don't know. Maybe we need a new word to describe what Pierre Poilievre is.

Meanwhile, we could offer to toss him in with Wanzhou to get the other two hostages back, too!

Comments are open.

Meanwhile, Down a Canadian Rabbit Hole

So I've been thinking about Phoenix and what a nightmare it has been and continues to be for thousands of public servants, not to mention how costly it has been and will continue to be for the rest of us.

Kudos to public servants who haven't lost their minds. I would have lost mine.

Anyway, it occurred to me today that Phoenix may be the result of kompromat on the governing politicians responsible for buying it, just like Donald Trump may be the result of kompromat on the governing politicians responsible for buying him.

Maybe not Russian kompromat, per se, but Russian-inspired kompromat. Unless, of course, Phoenix is just a(nother) deliberate wrench thrown in the works of our government operations to benefit the sorts of people who benefit from chaos - while the governing politician responsible for throwing it resigns in disgrace thereafter or is - miracle of miracles - defeated in an election in spite of a well-documented effort to cheat-to-win. Again.

Stephen Harper did say once upon a time that we wouldn't recognize Canada when he was done with it, which hardly seems like the sort of rallying cry to voters that it apparently was, but, of course, Conrad Black's purchase of 99% of our print media some time before he became Prime Minister certainly amplified the opinion that Canada was actually Sodom and Gomorrah, didn't it, and made it seem legitimate, even if it wasn't, when an Alberta separatist party (essentially) became the Harper Government of Canada.

Ugh. I just threw up a bit in my mouth typing that last bit.

Motherfuckers.

Cripes, reading the Ottawa Citizen in the morning back in the day and continuing on to now was and is, for a liberal feminist like me, like starting the day with a punch in the face. I actually wrote columns for it so I know what of I speak. In order to see publication they had to, in some way, be anti-Liberal Feminist. Although I suppose I should admit, it's surprisingly easy to do, even for liberal feminist me, to be anti-Liberal Feminist. I think it's the capitalization.

Of course, I was desperate to be published, too, because I thought it would turn into a career of being a full-time anti-Liberal Feminist opinion writer, as opposed to a once-a-month (on average over two years) freelance contributor of anti-Liberal Feminist columns. Eventually, I couldn't be anti-Liberal Feminist enough, though. Also, the sweet gig I'd scored at the National Post ended with the firing of all their freelancers, if such a thing is even possible. I didn't really care, although I missed the $300/week, but they'd taken to changing punchlines to make them anti-Liberal Feminist when they just weren't, thereby rendering whatever the intended joke was nonsensical.

I was finally embarrassed to see my name in print, if you can believe it. Me. Embarrassed.

Indeed, no sooner did Conrad Black own our print media when suddenly everyone seemed to be saying the same thing, whether we wanted to or not, that the only real threat to our collective health and well-being as Canadians was that being posed to the white male Conservative Christian and his way of life by Liberal Feminists.

"Won't somebody think of the white male Conservative Christian children?!" was the headline every opinion piece screamed.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, we still didn't and don't know who funded Stephen Harper's leadership campaign, you know, the one that ultimately led to him forming his own political party. But we do know that its #1 priority was to kill the gun registry. We also know that the much complained about price tag of that gun registry, complaining that came mostly from Canadian gun rights advocates, was the result of aggressive sabotage by - wait for it - Canadian guns rights advocates.

Apparently, they were acting on instructions by the NRA, too, currently in Robert Mueller's sights for laundering Russian mob money into the Republican Party. Maria Butina, Russian kompromat honey pot, is even rumoured to have been intimate with Dana Loesch, such is the small world of guns rights advocates these days.

Of course, the white male Conservative Christian nationalism in common makes it even smaller, doesn't it, such that American guns rights advocates are positively gaga for Vladimir Putin, the Murdering Thief in Chief of Russia who wouldn't in a million years want Russians to have the gun ownership rights that Americans have, but whatever.

There's a reason why Paul Ryan et al are resigning in the prime of their political lives, as opposed to running again in 2020, and it's not because they want to spend more time with their Conservative Christian families.

But to loop back a bit, as soon as Stephen Harper had his majority government, which we know involved a level of cheating Elections Canada had a hard time quantifying, so skilled had today's Conservatives become at it thanks to lessons learned at The Manning Institute in Oilberta, he killed the gun registry. His government even had a party on the Hill to celebrate. Indeed, they let it be known far and wide that they were having a party, too. Discretion? Not for those motherfuckers. It was no doubt just the bother of travel (remember how globe-trotting Stephen Harper's p.r. impressed upon us how he hated travel?) that stopped them from having the party on the graves of the young Liberal Feminist murder victims who inspired it, the gun registry, I mean. Instead they went after the Quebec government - very aggressively - for trying to protect its data from destruction, lest there be any mistake what their #1 priority still was.

Anyway, we heard a lot, over and over and over, whenever there was a lull in the Liberal Feminist bashing, from whoever Stephen Harper's spokesliar was that day, about how Stephen Harper had talked super macho man tough to Vladimir Putin at a summit. But we never actually witnessed it, did we. All we know for sure is that he didn't sanction a couple of Russians very close to Vladimir Putin that even Obama did, and Obama was no tough guy on Russia, himself, in spite of Vladimir Putin being a white male Conservative Christian nationalist.

Did Donald Trump think up that whole Kenyan Muslim thing himself, do you think? I don't. He's a racist but he's not a Conservative Christian nationalist. He wouldn't think of the Kenyan Muslim thing. Black would be enough for Donald Trump.

But back to Phoenix. Jim Flaherty, John Baird, and Tony Clement were all Mike Harris's boys from back in the day when Mike Harris criminalized poverty and legalized door-to-door energy company fraud, such that many of us had/have no idea who our gas "company" was/is and how they got hold of our accounts and why we owed/owe them money and so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc. And then they went on to be Stephen Harper's boys, in charge of the Canada Revenue Agency, Foreign Affairs, Treasury.

Well Jim Flaherty is dead, John Baird bid a sudden and hasty retreat from politics - without getting so much as a hug goodbye from Stephen Harper - and now Tony Clement - same except minus a hug from Andrew Scheer, who was himself the "Surprise!" winner of a close call leadership campaign that was repeated by Doug Ford right here in Bill Davis's Ontari-ari-ari-o not too long after.

"Surprise! It's Doug Ford by a nose hair!"

It may not be the hat-trick Stephen Harper vowed would happen at the Ford family barbeque he showed up at in Etobicoke a few summers back now (where he grew up, coincidentally) but yikes.

Anyway, we're told, we've always been told, that it's ALL about oil, that oil is the why of everything to do with guns and politics and the men who own our countries and our politicians and us, so I thought I'd link to this (from 2017) that I came across today.

Because yikes - I don't like being down this rabbit hole alone.

Black Gold, Arctic Tea

Nobody Expects the Hereditary Chiefs

So I read an explanation as to what's actually going on out West where TransCanada (under some other name, which I don't feel like googling because my computer is so old and slow now and makes a loud whining noise when do anything fancy, like googling) and our federal government are busily pretending that building a pipeline will save us from having to work at the mall until we drop dead in the food court ordering a ten dollar smoothie that we thought was a dollar and a half because we were looking at the calorie menu, not the price menu.

Who knew about the hereditary chiefs, eh? Did you know about the hereditary chiefs? Because I didn't know about the hereditary chiefs. So maybe our government didn't, either. Justin Trudeau is only a dozen years younger than me so it's not like he learned from an entirely different curriculum than the one that didn't teach me anything about the hereditary chiefs. Certainly TransCanada executives couldn't have known about the hereditary chiefs or they wouldn't have wanted to build a pipeline on their property, like, like, Trespasser-Squatters R Us, or something.

I mean, what kind of parallel universe are we living in where Conservatives - those private everything lovers - are snarking about co-citizens standing up for private property rights against an elitist corporation backed by a, by a, by a gLIBERAL government?!

Cripes, these hereditary chiefs I just learned existed should be Conservative Canadians' wildest wet dream come true now that they know about them, which they will if someone shows them the same explanation I just read as to what's really going on out West.

I mean, I'm practically a Communist but all this standing up for private property rights out West makes me want to quit my job here in Ford Nation three weeks before it ends anyway so I can go out West where all the private property lovers are and join them in standing up for private property rights, too.

Except I'm afraid that if I do I'll come back to a pipeline TransCanada and its gLiberal government have built through my living room.

Holy Motherfucker, Batman!

Once, when my kids were much younger than they are now, like two decades or so ago, I was getting something in the kitchen when I banged my head on an open cupboard door.

It hurt like a motherfucker but I didn't call the cupboard a motherfucker.

I called it a cunt. After, "Fuck you shit damned bastard." Then "cunt". So, "Fuck you shit damned bastard cunt!"

Then I crouched down on the floor with my throbbing head in my hands and said, "Don't anybody move or say a word."

It was a motherfucker of a head butt with that cunt of a cupboard door.

Fortunately, this happened after we'd all been on a road trip and my kids heard the mother of a bunch of boys sitting near us in the Taco Bell, a mother who was dressed like she was on her way to church - in 1955 - say, "Look, you fucking little shits, get in the goddamned car! We're going home and we're going home fucking now! I don't care if you're done your goddamned milkshakes! Get a fucking moving on! Jesus fucking Christ! You're driving me fucking nuts!"

My kids thought it was hilarious and she was known forever after as the swearing mom, a streak I did not manage to interrupt, so shocking was it to them when I hit my head on a cupboard and a string of pent-up cuss words spilled out.

They survived. And in answer as to why I would prefer that they not swear in public like I'd just sworn in private I said, "Because it hurts old people's feelings."

It's a great thing to say to kids when they're young so that they don't do what you do by saying what you say when you hit your head on a cunt of a cupboard. Kids don't like the thought of hurting old people's feelings because they don't know that old people can be sexist racist motherfuckers like Donald Trump. They think old people are kindly and caring like the old people in all those movies they grow up watching over and over and over.

Sorry, but I was a homemaker, actually at home with my kids. You try being at home all day with your kids, making no money to show for it, and watching other adults' eyes glaze over when you're at a party and they ask what you do and you say, "I'm a homemaker". Sharon, Lois and Bram - my best and only friends - were better role models than I could ever be, what with banging my head on motherfucking cupboard doors and screaming, "Fuck you shit damned bastard cunt!"

By the way, I noticed that Donald Trump claimed Rashida Tlaib brought "dishonour to her family" when she told her cheering eight year old son, "We're gonna impeach the motherfucker!" Well, I don't know if anybody out there has suggested it or not, but I know why he chose those words. He thinks that because she's a woman and a Muslim that the men in her family will kill her now.

C'mon. You know it. He would never have used the word "dishonour" otherwise.

That's how much of a motherfucker he is.

Anyway, my take on Donald Trump is this - if you haven't been target of his hate - while he's supposedly the most powerful white man in the world - so if you're not brown or a Muslim or a woman, you should just shut the fuck up about Rashida Tlaib calling him a motherfucker.

She did it for you, too, after all. Because a sexist racist motherfucker of a fake president isn't doing you any favours, ya motherfucking dumbass.

What's That Stink?

Oh. Louis CK is back.

So, who do you think he listened to during his self-imposed "listening" time-out after being publicly exposed for inviting young female colleagues to his place so he could masturbate in front of them, unsolicited-like.

Mel Gibson?

I'm not a REAL agent but I would have advised Louis CK that his best, maybe only, comeback route would be to mock himself, as opposed to mocking civically-engaged teenage victims of school shootings, LGBTQ youth bravely and at great physical risk expanding our understanding of gender, and arguably the most precious and vulnerable members of our human family, children with Down's Syndrome, making a super human go of life in spite of a million and one obstacles, but, like I say, I'm not a REAL agent.

I do remember very well seeing Louis CK at Ottawa BluesFest a thousand years ago and my face was literally frozen in a laugh the entire time. Ottawa in the right hands is mockable to infinity and we were in the right hands. But there was an off-note, too, and it had to do with a claim, not really a joke, that he preferred young women to middle-aged women because young women just wanted to talk (so listen) to him but middle-aged women just wanted to have sex.

He was pretending to feel appreciated by young women and used by middle-aged women and, like I say, it rang false. Really, it clanged, but I ignored it because nobody's perfect.

Right? Nobody's perfect.

Too good to be true? Well yes, as it turns out. He'd still be taking me in if I didn't know about his predatory behaviour, but I do know about it, so he isn't taking me in.

He did at first, I should add. I wasn't immediately off him. But then I remembered being a young woman, a young woman who was "out there" as I say, a participant in the after hours life that people then (and now) associate with risk-taking. And I remembered how often I was in situations where men would "turn", as it were, and it's very threatening. People who've never been out there the way some young women are ask, accusingly, so why didn't you just leave?

Sadly, those people are often middle-aged women, too. It's incredible to me, the forgetfulness of middle-aged women when it comes to what it's really like for young women.

Incredible.

But perhaps I was more "out there" than most, my contemporaries unknowing of what I speak.

Anyway, I don't know why I didn't just leave, except that I didn't. I couldn't. It was always the same, like being in one of those dreams where you're being chased by a predator but instead of running you're moving in slow motion, pushing against a wall of water, dawdling, stopping to tie a shoe while whoever/whatever's chasing you gains ground. Or there's a kind of paralysis that takes over, and you just go through whatever the situation is, because it would be too awkward to not.

It's really hard, or was, for young women who put ourselves out there to react "appropriately" because we didn't have the know how. I had the most confrontational mother on earth, a ball-buster non-pareil, a good-looking battle-axe, and STILL I couldn't bring myself to offend a predatory man's sensibilities - even when it was in my best interests.

I count myself lucky. Oh I do. I was Bambi in the forest but I had my Thumpers.

A thousand regrets but a million good times.

My own position is that the world is better now for young women in the West, and Millennials, no matter what you hear Ye Olds say, are good for the rest of us. They are why we know now that Louis CK is a big old phony, that we were had, because as Homer Simpson so famously said, "It's funny because it's true."

Well, Louis CK wasn't true.

Still, there's no point in being angry about Louis CK appealing to a lesser audience now. I watched Dave Chappelle's latest special and Ricky Gervais's latest special and they're not so different for me from Louis CK. Because they're not tackling sacred cows with their comedy, they've become them.

Funny how that works, eh?

Watch Ellen's "Relatable" on Netflix if you want the real deal. She's no sacred cow, she tackles them.