Goodbye Tijuana

This is my last official blog from Windsor: The Tijuana of Canada. I must say I'm a bit sad to be leaving - the city has really grown on me. Windsor is the biggest small town I've ever been to, but I will admit that it's easier to be kind to a place in hindsight than it is when you're trudging towards the Detroit River and the wind coming off the water is enough to knock you over in pre-morning-coffee mode at 8am. I will genuinely miss the Kildare House though and if you ever get the chance to come down this way, it's the corner of Kildare Rd and Wyandotte St in the middle of old Walkerville (east of Ouellette).

Enough of that. I probably won't be posting much in the next couple of weeks since I'll be driving across the country with Pete and Laura in the Incognito Decorating Van. I'm also not sure what the Internet situation will be in Ucluelet but posting will start irregularly again when I'm back online. Have a good summer for those I won't see, and for those I will - one word for y'all ... Random.

- Becks

Repost of a diary I put up on Daily Kos

There's a really great storyline I've been following in the Globe & Mail, one of Canada's national dailies. It seems there is a bit of the old back and forth going on between The Globe's television reporter John Doyle and Fox News's very own Bill O'Reilly over Doyle's comments about the network. The issue arose in the first place because currently the CRTC, the Canadian broadcasting regulatory body, is reviewing an application to allow Fox News to be carried by Canadian cable providers - a previous application was rejected. It's gotten blown out of proportion a bit but it's a good laugh none-the-less. You may have read the Word for Word column in last Sunday's NY Times When a Canadian Insults Fox News, Them's [Expletive] Fighting Words which gives a pretty good summary of the situation up until the 25th and includes some excellent letters from Fox News viewers. There have been some updates since then, however.


The chronology as far as I could find:

First we have Billy O's bit on The Factor in The Most Rediculous Item of the Day on Thursday 22nd about the Globe's 'far left' stances and Doyle in general. Then Doyle comes back with Curling, Canadian Tire and other Commie plots. Bill rachets up the anti-Canadian angle another notch with Canada is Harbouring American Military Deserters... in his Talking Points Memo on the 28th. Also yesterday morning, the Globe let Rod Love, a former chief of staff for Alberta's illustrious Premier, weigh in with his opinion of the CRTC (the Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission that is reviewing a Canadian cable provider's application to allow Fox News to be broadcast in Canada): Canadians shouldn't be denied Fox News. Today's Doyle article features his picture along with that of O'Reilly on the front page of the Globe's review section in And the Laugh was still there.


In his latest post today, Crunch Time for Canada, Bill takes time to mention a host of Canada's sins but I was a little suprised that he left out the gay marriage issue - I guess the list spanning the harbouring of terrorists through the quasi-leaglization of heroin was long enough (the city of Vancouver has started a controversial outreach program, setting up safe injection sites where junkies can come to shoot up as well as get access to medical help). He also calls for a boycott on Canadian products if the country agrees to the asylum claims of two deserting military officers. Just like our stance on the Iraq war, however, this really can't be more than symbolic. Taken from the website of the Canadian embassy in the United States:

US-Canada: The World's Largest Trading Relationship

United States-Canada Trade Flows Add up to $1.2 Billion Per Day (2001 figures)

Canada Buys Nearly a Quarter of All U.S. Exports of Goods

The United States Has Sold More Goods to Canada Than to Any Other Country in Each of the Last 56 Years

More Than Half of All U.S. Automotive Exports Go to Canada

Canada Is the United States' Leading Foreign Source of Energy

All I have to say to you Mr. O'Reilly is 'bring it on'.

-R

[Thu May 4, 17:28 EDT]
There's More

Heather Mallick's wonderous encounter with the Foxy Man himself in My Fox trot with Bill O'Reilly

As well, Mr. Ibbitson has filled us in a little on the situation with the two American deserters, why they have applied for refugee status in Canada and why they won't get it Put down cross border cudgels

Okay, so I'm driving home on Sunday night tired as hell, through fog, then rain then the West 401 wind and after I get through what prove to be the most inclement parts, I decide to kick back, throw on the cruise control, have a smoke and surf the radio. Usually a pretty good prospect on a Sunday night - that's when all the good blues shows out of Detroit are on. Seek lands me on CBC Radio One, which happens to be Sunday Night Showcase, a program that broadcasts plays written for the stage or for radio. My luck, however, I get stuck with some sheer screwiness. The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi by Larry Tremblay. I was completely mesmerized by this disturbing monologue that imposes English vocabulary on French sentence structures. The actor (Dennis O'Connor who played the part at the Factory Theatre in Toronto in January) had an emotional dynamic range that was unreal. The plot is darkly Quebecois, detailng the reminicences of Gaston Talbot, a francophone, predictably from Chicoutimi, who hasn't spoken in 40 years but suddenly feels the need to share his story with the audience after he has a deeply Freudian dream that is all in English. The real story seems to be about the death of one of his childhood friends during a homoerotic role-playing game. At times it would get a little too creepy for me, and I'd turn away, only to be drawn back by my curiosity of what would come next; the inevitable phrase being "it couldn't POSSIBLY get any more disturbed than this". It did. Perhaps they'll air it again some day and I'll be able to listen to it in context. That was definitely the best part - that I was high as a kite and had absolutely no idea what this was or what it was supposed to be about. I had to look it up on the CBC website to find out what it actually was. All I had to go on was sheer creepiness and the fact that the CBC very rarely lets a girl down.
Random

Little Peter

Who in god's name thought hmmmm, you know what taste hasn't been explored enough - "peat bog". Irish Whiskey tastes like burning tires. I would also like to take a moment to thank said Irish Whiskey for a few things this afternoon including, but not limited to - throwing up on the bathroom floor at a fancy-pants restaurant; subsequently smelling like vomit for the rest of the day and hoping people around the office will have the good grace not to mention it; getting back from a lunch of lettuce with some grated carrot, red cabbage and a bit of dressing (fancy-pants menu dubbing it "tossed greens"), I found that the triscuits I'd packed for lunch in my sorry state this morning were soggy, as was the cheese, and the peanut butter sandwich. Perhaps it's better if I don't put food into my body right now anyhow.

Everything in Moderation, Including Moderation Itself and not Forgetting Sarcasm

Today is Tuesday, April 27th, 2004. The weather is SNOWING!

The devil is in the details: conviction-enrapt preacher vs. acidic bitch.

Firstly, we have our good Newfie friend Rex Murphy who has some interesting comments on the environmental movement. To some, this may look like green-bashing coupled with Catholic-slamming in a wonderful melange of similie and contradiction (how anyone could even think to compare the noble greens to the backward, misogynistic practices of the Vatican). I am not some, however, and I would like to thank Rex for his insight. For a long time I've had similar thoughts as these but the way he connects the dots is splendiferous. I drew a parallel for Jeff yesterday, between the compost altars and tithing money to the Church. These are usually relatively good things, composting diverts large volumes of waste from landfills and is a more productive use of the material; some of the money tithed to the church goes to feed the poor. It's not a water-tight example but it'll do. My request: please do not use one good act as an excuse for moral superiority. Just because you throw your coffee grounds on the houseplants does not excuse the fact that you keep your abode at sub-zero temperatures in the summertime; working at a food bank once a week does not give you licence to screw your neighbour's wife.


Life's a gamble, roll the dice - but please refrain from sticking your dick in holes that don't want to be filled.

Rex's article is in homage to the wonderful day of celebration that activists everywhere get off to - Earth Day. I like the earth, and nature, and all that as much as the next person with long hair and comfortable shoes (not of the six-hole Doc variety, mind you). More and more, though, we're letting armchair activists dictate environmental policy and it's akin to letting a bunch of tenth grade science students design and build a space station. This whole DDT thing (Bring Back DDT: Eco-Imperialism is killing African Children) for example. Rachel Carson wrote a book, outlining what she saw was becoming a problem in the United States - namely the overuse of chemical pesticides that, oddly enough, were not just exterminating the things we wanted to kill but other things we didn't want to as well. Carson had a good point, perhaps we were unnecessarily jeopardizing the health of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems by using crop dusters to apply DDT over vast stretches of land. The practice was deemed inadvisable and, predictably in a situation with so much PR, within a decade the world had rallied together and banned such a horrid, nasty and dangerous chemical. Did we really need to effectively restrict ALL the applications of this chemical? Perhaps, perhaps not. Should the west be allowed to dictate what chemicals are used in other nations "for their own good"? What's the lesser of two evils - having your child die of malaria at the age of five, or of cancer at the age of forty? Having brain damage from juvenile malnourishment or from feotal exposure to lead through dietary necessity? Would you want someone else making these decisions for you? Would you want to visit the Sweet Valley Station?


Remember pre-school? Better than I remember highschool.

I would also like to point out the recent controversy with the seals. Yes Canada is still hunting those darling big-eyed pups with the adorably soft coats; we call them COATS for a reason so don't even get me started.

Today is officially my last Office Monday. Oh Monday - the day the bus always comes early. Usually I play hackey-sac while I'm waiting for the bus, cause really, what else is there to do? There are these three sisters, the oldest one's probably eleven, who wait for the school bus outside their parents' corner store. This morning, instead of their usual game of jump rope, the precious little angels were tossing about nothing less than a brand-spankin' new red:black:yellow striped hackey-sac. Something about making a difference in the life of a child being the most valuable legacy of all - I think this means that I get to bow out of the whole procreating deal now. Excellent.

Time 'Till Departure - 6.5 days (and counting)

Here goes nothin'