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-Tom

Alternative Theories

I don’t actually enjoy criticizing the American right, nor do I go out of my way to do so. They just don’t value anything that I value - such as science.

For people who follow science, like I do, in an “artsy” way, in America, and only America, there is a “debate” whether “Intelligent Design” should be taught in science class along side evolution.  I think this debate ended in most other First World countries back when Kaisers and Czars were ruling.

I am always open to alternative theories – but if a school board is to allow “Intelligent Design” should it not also provide an alternate theory for human reproduction? I recall a theory espoused in 1970s commercials for pickles that The Stork delivers babies – should that board not also teach the “Avian Express” theory of human reproduction???

How come in America Pat Robertson gets on CNN – in Canada we don’t put those people on CBC Newsworld - we call them those people who have the misfortune of battling with mental illness, and they don’t make it to television, at least not as commentators for world events.

His latest assertion is that Israeli PM Sharon was “sent” a stroke from God for…well who the fuck cares what Robertson said was the reason…

Continuing one with the trend, should we not allow the possibility that bleeding people with leeches is sound medical treatment, that the Moon might be made of green cheese, that the world is flat, is the centre of the universe, and hangs from the heavens by large gold chains?

As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, another soul from Purgatory springs…

TF

Election 2006

It seems like every other year we have an election....

Not much of a narrative here - more a series of thoughts. Luckily this is a blog and not a term paper at McMaster University during the 1980s (I am reminded of this as I type on a computer and not a typewriter).

The only obvious issue is that the Liberals did some bad things that lead to the sponsorship scandal. The other party that could realistically form a government, Harper's Reform party (for Air Farce fans REFOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORM) has wisely, to their advantage, pointed this out during every day of the campaign. The other "National" party, The CCF guys (and the only one with a good representation of gals), also began the campaign hammering the Grits for their corruption, as did the other party that wants to win all the Quebec Federal seats in a parliament it actually wants to leave (Le Bloc).

You know, even for French people, The Bloc are kind of odd.

Layton then realized that he shouldn't spend all his time demonizing the Liberals as this might drive some folks who voted Liberal in 2004 to switch to the Conservatives, so now he is letting us know that a Conservative Government would kill Canada as we know it (but he has left the door open to a possible Con-NDP Coaltion should the electorate return a Tory Minority).

As I have said before of myself, I am an "Orange Liberal", or, one that leans to the left of centre without being on the left wing. I guess that means I am still seateed in the fuselage but right up against the window??

Ok, we are ALL tired of The Liberal reign that began in 1993. But, and I cannot stress this enough, I want a better, or at least, not a worse regime in Ottawa to replace them.

Martin's defence is that it was OTHER Liberals who did those bad things - he had only a wee role in those governments: Finance Minister. Hardly significant at all, you know, like the tiny role David played in defeating Goliath.

I hate Harper and everything about him. If he is ever the PM, I'll never stop bitching about it until he isn't anymore.

I think though I need to separate Layton's moustache from his face - his rhetoric spewed during a campaign from what he would actually do as a Federal leader involved in a ruling coalition. I don't think he would be that bad, really. When he helped save the government in 2005, he did so with a set of NDP-style demands. He's just such a loud-mouth holier-than-thou fellow and I've had a problem with this since his days in Toronto politics.

If Martin scores anything less than a majority, he is done as Leader. I'll wait until that happens before I speculate as to who'd best replace him - Bob, Belinda, Lightfoot, Gretzky, Jerome The Giraffe..

Boy, these people with their accusations, half-truths and assertions are acting like children or, well, like politicians. (Aside: put "Or and "Well" together and you get George W Bush....).

I don't fear a hidden agenda from Harper -I fear what he has ACTUALLY SAID so far in the past two campaigns.

TF

The Colbert Report

Cobert, Commenting on his name:
It's FRENCH, bitch!

Daily Show spin-off "The Colbert Report" branches out successfully with the Daily Show format. Instead of fake news, Colbert offfers fake commentary.

It's quite good.

While Stewart does a stand-up routine (sitting down) as himself, Colbert plays a mostly right-wing character.

Nuf Ced - you like Stewart, you'll probably like Colbert.

And, in that, you can find "truthiness".

Prepare for a "Menage-a-Truth".
-Colbert

TF

Can't We Alll Just Get Along?

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has now joined the elite group of intellectual giants known as "Holocaust Deniers". This is a logical step for someone who a few months back stated that Isreal should be "wiped off the map". Not that post-Shah Iran has generally been known for tolerance or anything else that once made Islam a great culture, but they are moving in the wrong direction.

I don't pretend to understand the nuances of Middle Eastern politics, but statements like this from a powerful Islamic nation, are going to help make things better about as much as, oh I don't know, invading Iraq, maybe?

Islamic nations clog up the UN with motions against Isreali human rights violations, as if they weren't every bit as guilty of such violations themselves. Islam and Women's rights just walk side by side with each other, don't they (ok, the women must walk 50 paces behind, spoke when spoken to..).

If only it were possbile to bitch-slap nations into behaving....ok maybe some strong words instead.

TF

An X-Mas Election

I don't know if you can open with an "aside", but:
"X" in "X-Mas" is not a modern attempt to de-Christ Christmas. In ancient Greek, "X" was pronounced "Christos".

I don't want a holiday election. Nobody does. The ones who say they really they don't want one, are the ones that are going to cause one - Harper, Layton, and to some extent, Duceppe.

There have been times in the history of Canada, or one of it's provinces, where the old government needed to be changed, such as when a long-term leader is out of steam and needs to retire. This is not one of those times.

This election has only 2 probable outcomes: A Liberal or a Conservative minority. We have the former already, and the latter would fall after a few months when they try to reverse the same-sex marriage laws or something else that only rednecks want to see.

Ok, I don't like Jack Layton -I hated him when he was in Toronto Politics.

Ok, I really hate Harper - if you want to live in a country like the USA, MOVE to that country. Look how well Conservatism is doing under Bush (stage note - seams: begin coming apart). Harper's one claim to fame is that he makes you miss Preston Manning, the real Manning with the glasses.

TF

Commercials

Monica: I have big news
Chandler: What, that 5th dentist finally came around?


I worked for 4 different insurance companies from 1986 to 1995. At the third one, I was still a smoker and we had a real ventilated smoking room. First, sometimes my co-workers would mention a person’s name and I would not know who they were talking about. Then, they’d come back with “You don’t know her because she doesn’t smoke”.

Anyway, there were few topics where every person could contribute to the conversation. A certain movie? Some people had seen it. A book? Some people had read it. One topic that was universal was TV commercials. “My husband – some hotshot…”.

So I was drin… thinking about something: What if aliens could see our commercials from North American TV? What would they figure they knew about us? It would be like those archaeological digs where all we decide what we know about a group of people is based on their death and burial rituals.

I think they’d come up with something like this:

1. Women are way smarter than men – men can’t cook, they know nothing about their children, the wife has to tell the idiot how to microwave a burrito over the phone. I think the wives have to dress them and wipe their asses. I can’t imagine most of them are smart enough to get drivers licences.


2. Children are way smarter than adults.


3. Animals are way smarter than people and they can “talk”.


4. Everyone is married and there are no divorces.


5. All couples are heterosexual.


6. Until recently, all people were white.


7. Until even more recently, all couples were of the same race.


8. Life on earth involves a lot of jingoistic background music.


9. People with perfect skin use acne cleanser.


10. Everyone is thin except for those in weight loss commercials.


11. Very few men loose their hair


12. 21 year old gorgeous women (and men) won’t get dates if they use the incorrect shampoo, toothpaste or face soap.


13. Everyone has a good job, except the people in ads for vocational schools.


14. People have beer – they never drink it, they just have it around.


15. You can make fun of people – as long as they are white.

RE: 15. The Scottish: IT’S NO…OATMEAL. Italians: There was a commercial for a pasta sauce that was so authentically Italian that after the people at it, they all started singing opera. Can you imagine a bunch of black people where the fried chicken was so good that they all went out and started playing basketball?
TF

God is a Real Jerk

God? He's my favourite fictional character
-Homer Simpson


The great thing about religion is that no part of it has to make any sense. Being a religious “thinker” or leader, is about the only job where that is true. If you design bridges, and you do it wrong, the bridges will collapse and you’ll never get another bridge gig, will you?

If you are a chef and people die after eating your food, you’re not going to be a chef very long.

Not so for fundamentalists down south – a unique form of asshole.

The Earth is as old as the literal reading of the bible says so men and dinosaurs lived at the same time. Bill Hicks had a good point: Why aren’t there dinosaurs in The Bible?????

Did you folks know just how much of an asshole their god is?

Ok, here goes: God creates men and women. He creates 10-15% of them gay, BUT demands that they pretend to be heterosexual. He prefers that they marry and have children and live a total lie (I guess bearing false witness against thyself is ok). If they do not do this, but live as gays and have a parade, God destroys New Orleans. You see. God is not only a jerk, he sucks at geography: San Francisco would have been a more logical place to send the Hurricane.

Then again, if God created these fundamentalists in his own image, it makes sense that he’d be an asshole.

TF

Earth Speaks

If I were The Earth, I wouldn’t think much of humans – if in fact I gave any thought to them at all.

You can write an opera? Well, here’s a Tsunami! Oh, they were quaint back a thousand years ago and I’d snicker every time they drew me flat with three continents and Jerusalem at the centre.

But, I liked my ozone layer and these bastards blew fucking holes in it. I like that rain forest and I don’t need my oceans warmer and my ice caps smaller.

And some of them are tying to “save” ME. What a joke!! I am in no danger. Humans are messing themselves up – I don’t need an atmosphere to be a planet – Mars gets along just fine and there haven’t been any sentient life forms there since early 20th Century Sci-Fi.

I remember the dinosaurs – I liked them but a big rock hit me and they all died.

These idiots are extincting themselves but they can’t really harm me. Big rocks, now those scare me.

The Earth

Thomas

The Golden Age

I think every major civilization has a “golden age”. It’s already there as far back as Homer (The Greek poet, not Marge’s Husband). In the past, things were better: men were braver, women more beautiful…Maybe it’s because wisdom and stories used to be told by the elders who (inaccurately) remembered being young and how wonderful it all was, all of the time.

I guess for my age group we’d have to pick the 1970s, but, by definition, a golden age cannot contain ABBA and Disco.

I remember being young and a lot of it was good and a lot of it was crap.

I remember a youthful body and if I really strain hard, I can remember having hair on my head. I also remember family members using words like “Nigger”, “Paki” and “fruit” at the dinner table. (I am composing this in Microsoft Word and the first two words pass the spell checker – isn’t that interesting). Some of them still use those words.

When I heard the first “Paki” joke I had to get clarification: “Do you mean people from Pakistan?” I wanted to make sure I was hating the correct people, not that it was difficult – anyone who’s skin tone, religion or sexual orientation differed from my own was on that list anyway. Good thing I never ran into a Chinese Protestant Lesbian – I would have had to stab her on the spot!

We were reading Shakespeare in Grade 9 – the bard used the word “chink” and we asked the teacher, I am not kidding here, what was a Chinese person was doing in a wall in Elizabethan England? Well, it turns out that word could also mean a part of a wall that had a crack in it. Well, that replaced fart and masturbation jokes for a few weeks when we could say “chink” and get away with it!!! “Hey Man do you have a chink in your locker?”

I think some people like their golden age so much they live there forever. What the hell does that mean? I mean, emotionally. So many people who are well into their 30s or older have that same grade 9 sense of humour and have not developed past that point.

I think I had more of a pewter age myself. If we could weed out Disco and ABBA, maybe it could be as good as bronze.

Thomas

Hollywood

Is there a phonier place on earth? Can one even be imagined? How many things can we see get blown up, how many happy endings can we endure?

Since Hollywood only understands money, they had to get hit in the pocketbook this summer to realize they keep putting out the same shit and even once faithful movie goers are staying home. Corporate America has sanitized movies so badly that they have no oomph to them. Maybe the bad result this summer might send some moguls back to the drawing board

I’d put Tarantino in charge of Hollywood, myself. This would mean Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Madsen would be in 237 films each per year (104 of them in the same film).

Kill Shrek.
Star Wars Episode 14: Revenge of Mr Pink.
The Sicilian Patient.
A Beautiful Brain Spread All Over the Sidewalk.
The Godfather IV: The Apology

Yes folks – dialogue and scripts would be back in vogue. Actors would have to act.

But seriously, will this summer’s disaster mean Hollywood will get a lot better?

Fuggetaboutit.

Mr T.

It Got Louder

I grew up in the 1970s in an affluent Country far from genocides and wars and disasters. The World Wars ended almost 2 decades before I was even born (1963).

I did grow up as a citizen of a Cold War country, but long after it’s apex in the early 1960s (also before I was born). There was a scare when Reagan started talking about a “limited” nuclear war after taking office in 1981, but he chilled when Gorby came along.

History, in one way, is a series of wars, genocides and disasters. Starting with the 1990s they began again, or actually, continued. The Gulf War was the first time I remember Canada being at war. Then the Yugoslavian and Rwandan episodes showed that genocide was back.

September 11, 2001 was a shock – not because it was the long expected terrorist attack, but because of the enormity of its success. My money had been down on an attack at LAX. (That attack had indeed been planned but foiled at the BC – Washington border).
I had never imagined suicide bombers in North America – that seemed such a Middle Eastern and far away thing.

The invasion of Iraq showed that America had unlearned all of its lessons from Viet Nam.

The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 has to rank as the biggest cyclical thing in my lifetime. Since I know some history, the last such major one in the Indian Ocean had been after Krakatoa erupted – in 1883 (none of my Grandparents had been born for that one).

I had spent the 1990s studying and even writing about the World Wars as they seemed too far away from the quietness of my times.

Then my times got louder.

TF

The Return of Critical Thinking in The American Media

Jon Stewart, pointed out, once again, something I had noticed myself (we think alike).

After 9/11, the media turned into patriots and stopped judging Bush and the administration critically. The obvious example was the lead-up to the war in Iraq. I have been watching CNN at least as far back as The Gulf War of 1991, although I always have been able to take it for only so long. The so called “liberal” media disappeared and Bush was allowed to invade Iraq with no plan whatsoever. I stopped watching CNN and any American news media for almost 3 years.

With the disaster of Katrina, the media finally regained its teeth and began to question yet another idiotic “planning” of the administration and how they bungled the rescue relief worse than anyone could have imagined.

Bush said nobody could have anticipated the levees breaking. Al Franken, on his radio show, pointed out that MR BILL the play-dough guy from old SNL was featured in a commercial for the Louisiana Wetlands and HE knew the levees might break.

Ted Koppell, to “Brownie” (as Bush called him): Don’t you people watch TV?

In Bush’s Truman Show – no.

Taking a vacation by playing guitar in California? Sounds great to me - unless you are The President when the largest displacement of Americans since The Civil War is taking place.

TF

The Guns of Summer

The recent gang murders in Toronto have been a disgrace. But it cannot be blamed solely, or even primarily, on the cut to social programs. No amount of poverty puts a gun in someone's hand, nor does it force anyone to shoot a peace activist in a courtyard, or spray bullets hitting a 4 year old child. Anything short of absolute self-defense is simply not acceptable.

Racial profiling is certainly not the answer - this would make things worse and be about as effective as profiling blondes who speak really bad french as possibl schoolgirl killers.

The social cuts by Harris did a lot of harm. But it is not an excuse for violence.

Thomas.

This Will Help?

Hurakan was a Mayan god (an evil one). This is why we call storms like Katrina "Hurricanes". Since modern people are way past that mythological stuff, that's where the religous part ends.

Well, no. Wednesday (Sept 1, 2005) has been declared a day of prayer by the Governor of Louisiana. Of course in and of itself I don't have a problem with this.

I wonder about the god they're praying to . If it is Hurakan, that would make sense: "Oh mighty one -please stop this!".

No - their god is a god of love and benevolance. But, he either causes hurricanes or at least allows them to happen. After this I guess you can pray to him to stop sending them...except he never does....

I wonder what the dinosaurs did to the Judaeo-Christian god, Hurakan or someone else to really piss him off.

Thomas.

Six Feet Over (RIP)

There is nothing much good on TV - and even less that has any depth to it.

24 is a good rough-em up shoot 'em show. I don't watch "reality TV" -I watch 24 because it is unreality at it's best.

Six Feet Under is up there with I, Claudius and Hill Street Blues as TV about as good as it can get. Since it was HBO, they can swear and show peckers and boobies and talk about things that the corporate right wing sponsers of traditional American network television would never allow. There is a gay couple in the middle of it all, tons of drugs and booze, and abortions - all the things that bible-thumpers hate.

The Fishers and the supporting characters run a funeral home, so death is foremost a topic. What impresses me most about the series is when the characters react to something - and of course, do so in a really poor way - you know, just like real people often do. Or, they make great changes in their lives only to see this has no effect on their lives at all, or, even makes things worse. Tolstoy comes to mind as a great author who created characters and let them live on their own without his interference.

The writing was great and the acting was amazing.

Brenda is the character you hate loving to hate. Until you get to know her family and then you wonder how she managed not to be even more messed up than she is.

There are no white or black hats. Even sweet little Quaker Maggie has to deal with the fact that she fucked Nate to death.

The "guest" list of actors was none too shabby: "Ileana Douglas, Mena Suvari, Kathy Bates, James Cromwell, John Billingsley and Patricia Clarkson to name a few.

In this 24 world where flash is valued over substance, to have a series where plot was minimal and character was king was an achievement.

TF

What might qualify as the stupidest thing ever said?

Today I heard a CNN report on some church group that said... No kidding... Really I am not: America has failed in Iraq because America "allows" homosexuals and the dead soldiers are a punishment from god.

Even in the old testament God was not this much of an asshole.

Remember the "AIDS" arguments from the 80s that it was a scourge from God?.....well, I guess all those dead women and babies took the wind out of that argument.

America "allows" gays, you know, just like it "allows" gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, water freezing at zero degrees celsius....

Wouldn't it be nice if God sent a scourge that only killed stupid people?

TF

Americans..Yet Again

I don't know much about trade agreements like FTA, NAFTA or the workings of the WTO. What many are arguing now is that The Americans are screwing us through NAFTA in a way that they could never do under WTO rules. This seems true enough to me - the zenophobia of the American Right has rarely been allowed to exercise it's "fuck the rest of the world" attitudes as it has under Dubya - in regards to soft lumber trade as well as to war.

I'm getting sicker and sicker of Dubyaism each day. He ducks Cindy Sheehan - won't even talk to her. Clinton would have...well there's an obvious joke here...well, he would have talked to her, that's for sure. The Bush party twins live a Hiltonic existence (as in Paris) while small town men and women are coming home in body bags.

As Jon Stewart said, Bush lives in "The Truman Show" - in another era he'd be shooting messengers all over the place, I'm sure. He can't take the world he's making based on Cheney's bald world order (could not resist).

While I'm casting slings and arrows, only in America would "Intellegant Design" (aka "Creationism") be considered as a "rival theory" to biological evolution. Rubbish. Only in America, amongst "first world" nations, is religion on the rise as a front and centre political force - witness Pat Robertson's "fatwa" issued on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

Then again, only 51% of The Yankees are dumb-ass, bible-thumping, war-mongering isolationiasts. 49% are just like us.

TF.

The A-bombs of 1945

World War II is slowly fading into history. The leaders of that era have been dead for decades. You have to pretty much be over 80 to have been a combatant. Even those who were children during the war are in their late 60s and 70s.

I can't stand up and say something about The 1991 Gulf War or the Bosnian civil war without people who were a part of it standing up and reacting to what I might say.

But, Hitler and Stalin are close to joining Napolean and Ceasar as the number of people who lived when they did gets smaller and smaller and soon becomes zero.

When no living witnesses are left, historians can operate with more speculation.

Which brings me to the 2 Atomic bombs that hit Japan in 1945. WW II was such a massive thing, decisions were sometimes made based on numbers of projected deaths. Oh yes, very heartless indeed, but how the hell else could it have been done? It is easy to look back 60 years and condemn The Americans for dropping those bombs, but I understand why they did it.

As an aside, they have not been used in any war since, by anyone, have they?

Maybe we've seen too many WW II movies where The Japanese are depicted as fools, perhaps even less than human. NONSENSE. They were a formibable foe. A conventional invasion of the Japanese homeland would have gone on for years and have entailed even more deaths of Japanese civilians than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (not to mention the deaths of American servicemen).

Nobody likes to see those films about the radiation in those cities but you cannot light up a doob, crank up the U2, yell "No nukes" and rip those events of 1945 out of their context.

TF

What People Say When a Plane Crashes

It was wonderful news that everyone survived the Air France crash at Pearson. When I first heard that a plane had crashed, I assumed there would be a lot of dead people.

As is often the case, Jon Stewart made a lot of the comments I had thought about myself and are now writing after I heard his.

First, "miracle"? No. I am with Stewart that we applaud the rescue workers that did an amazing job. "Miracles" are events that happen that can't ever happen - if the plane had been struck by lightning in order TO MAKE IT CRASH that would have been a miracle (Stewart's joke).

A cartoon in The Toronto Star showed an angel overlooking the plane wreckage. In a way, a lovely sentiment. Unless you think about such things a wee bit deeper.

Have you ever seen a plane crash on TV and 200 people die, and 41 people live, and the fact that 41 people live means, as the media would say, something like "God was watching over them - it was a miracle they survived".

Poppycock - if God was really watching over them - THE PLANE WOULD NOT HAVE CRASHED AT ALL.

Now, back to the angel at Pearson. I am not "up" on my 21st century theology, so I don't know if each airline trip is assigned an individual angel. If so, THAT ONE SHOULD BE FIRED for doing such a lousy job.

Maybe I am being too harsh - maybe there have been cut-backs in Heaven and each angel has 3 or 4 planes each to look over - in that case, I must concur that this angel WAS doing a great job.

Now those psunami angels?..fire their asses. Demote them to..um..Limbo?

TF