Men

I can't take lectures from men anymore on politics so I won't.

I don't care if Justin Trudeau was a douchebro. I don't care if he still is a douchebro.

Pro-choice, physician assisted dying legislation to get that ball rolling or tossed out by the Supreme Court, legal weed and it's working out in spite of those idiot thug premiers Canadians elect for some godforsaken reason, Feminism finally being the signature of a federal Canadian government, diversity and immigration and LGBTQ rights and awareness of the need for reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians being constants on the agenda.

Fuck off with your moralizing superiority, you privileged pricks.

Coynesplainin' Women of Colour

So last night I braved the news because I decided not to care if Stephen Harper who heads up a global outfit electing fascists in liberal democracies-

Oh, did I say Stephen Harper? I meant, Andrew Scheer. I decided not to care if Andrew Scheer wins.

Anyway, it was At Issue night on The National. Fortunately, I'm a Rosie Barton fan, so that part went well. She's the same. But then a weird thing happened where Althea Raj, of whom I'm a also a fan, said that Jagmeet Singh's second response to the photos of Justin Trudeau in blackface (the weirdest fucking thing to happen in Canada since Mackenzie King) was more calculated than his first response, which was more immediate (let's say). Then she qualified her statement to ensure viewers understood that she didn't mean calculated in a bad way because being more calculated isn't (necessarily) a bad thing.

At which point Andrew Coyne sort of interrupted her to say the exact same thing - without attribution - as if telling viewers that it's not necessarily bad for a politician to be more calculated in their response to another politician's incredibly offensive boneheadery come to light was HIS idea. And the rest of the panel, Chantal Hebert, of whom I'm also a fan, and a gentleman of whom I'm also a fan but have no idea of his name such that I can't even google him, didn't even slap him off his stool.

I think I would have. For sure Justin Trudeau would have. So there's that.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Go to Private Schools

My take on photos of Trudeau dressed up in blackface, which certainly took me by surprise (I've only ever thought of JT as a wealthy douchebro, but a wealthy douchebro who grew up to say enough "right things" to get my vote - it never once occurred to me that JT was a complete idiot douchebro who dressed up in blackface ffs), is to note that his behaviour probably would have been called out AT THE TIME had he done such a thing at a public high school in Toronto (for instance) in the 1990s, let alone 2001.

Cripes, dressing up in blackface would have been called out at the Ottawa middle school my kids went to, never mind their high school. It really does strike me as a shockingly clued out thing for a student to do in the '90s, and certainly for a teacher to do in 2001, but there you go. Did it he did.

To me, then, this is a pretty good indicator of the problem with private schools. Sure, he went to Rockcliffe public school in his early years. But then he went on to do the private school circuit where he ultimately ended up teaching. And private schools both insulate and isolate wealthy kids from the rest of us, such that they end up living in a cultural bubble and getting away with behaviour that they wouldn't in a public school.

So there, a teaching moment, maybe.

Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to go to private schools.

Theme Party Blues

I have to admit, I want the Liberals to win a majority government again so I was a little nervous when that photo of Justin Trudeau showed up with him dressed up in... Aladdin face... Followed by the confession about singing "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)" in costume and make-up.

But then he apologized, like he does, including agreeing that what he did was racist, albeit without the intent thereof, or some such spring forward/fall back, and I thought... oh well... who among us.

And then on Twitter, someone named James Bowie tweeted something about no politician being able to out-apologize Justin Trudeau, and anyway it's not like he compared being gay to being the leg of a dog. And then didn't apologize.

Bad News

It doesn't really matter because who cares about anything anymore but people are claiming to have canceled their subscriptions to the Globe and Mail because it printed an op/ed by Ezra Levant in which he apparently (I don't click on fake news so I didn't read it) argues he's a journalist deserving of credentials as such.

Sure, whatever. Everything is shit now, anyway, so why not add Ezra Levant to the pile.

All Hail Putin

By the way, Jason Kenney's reference to how Putin deals with environmentalists (and any Russian citizen fighting on behalf of human and civil rights/democracy) is a pretty obvious shout out to his white male Christian nationalist supporters that he, too, reveres Vlad as Dear Leader.

Move over, Stephen Harper.

9/11 in 2019

I notice this year 9/11 was played down and the focus put on the desperate plight of so many first responders to it instead. And great, because we need people to do their jobs in a crisis so we'd best look after them if/when doing their jobs makes them sick.

Meanwhile, I wonder how devastating a blow it will be to Americans if/when the arrow currently being drawn back from the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in 2019 connects with those planes that were flown into the World Trade Center in 2001.