What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Friday, August 18, 2006

   MACHO MACHO MAN

To demonstrate his command of the US economy, George Bush hopped on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle this week, adding 'biker' to his long list of photo-op personas:
















It must be exciting for him. At this rate, he's just one feather headdress away from completing the set:



But I'm not picking on America -- far from it. After all, our Boy King loves to play Mr. Dress-Up, too:




These guys love to look like Action Men but, like the plastic army toys, they're just as hollow. Maybe this is why Harper couldn't be bothered to show up at the AIDS Conference ths week -- no one offered him a white lab coat to dress up in.

Labels: Canada, George W Bush, Stephen Harper

God Scott, you just had to go get my hot and botherd at my desk. Can someone please pass me a Kleenex as I think I've just about soiled my keyboard.

-- Reply posted by  Brian FInch at August 21, 2006

 

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Oddly, the Globe and Mail expects people to pay to read Margaret Wente (winner of the prestigious Golden Clam award), but it takes all kinds, I guess. There are people who pay to be whipped and walked on with stiletto heels, too.

Here's the opener of today's column in which Margaret weighs in -- again -- on the International AIDS Conference here in Toronto:

The trouble with Africa

The big AIDS circus is winding up tomorrow, and not a moment too soon. If I have to hear Saint Stephen Lewis hectoring us with his apocalyptic rhetoric one more time, I think I'll choke. Please, sir, can't you take an Ativan? Nor will I miss the ritual denunciations of Stephen Harper. Is it really his duty to show up so that 20,000 people can boo and hiss him? Funnily enough, Jean Chrétien didn't show up at the AIDS-fest in Vancouver a decade ago, either.

And here's me clenching my teeth and writing the editor:

Margaret Wente’s second ill-informed dismissal of the International AIDS
conference (The Trouble With Africa - Aug. 17) attacks “Saint” Stephen
Lewis for “hectoring us with his apocalyptic rhetoric…” Mr. Lewis has
worked on a continent with nearly 25 million people infected with AIDS –
is that number not apocalyptic enough? Ms. Wente’s only contribution to
the discussion involves sealing Canada’s borders and offering women
“education and a reliable microbicide” (what “the big AIDS circus” already
suggested earlier this week).

From her comfortable chair, Wente mocks the “madcap protesters”
criticizing the “evil” Catholic Church who, she counters, “runs something
like a quarter of the AIDS clinics in Africa” where “there is widespread
ignorance about the disease and very little public education about it.”
Given the Church’s refusal to discuss condom usage, Ms. Wente’s clear
inability to put two and two together means that, with relief, I can go
back to ignoring her. She’s tired of Stephen Lewis’ saintliness; I’m
tired of her hatefulness.

Tomorrow: Margaret writes another love letter to her SUV!

Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper, Trawna

Working at Canada's busiest gay bar for three years taught me to truly marvel at the wide diversity of gay people, to truly love my friends and freedom here in Toronto, and to truly hate Pride Day!

My reasons why haven't changed much in three years but, free from the Woody's trap last year, I actually had a pretty good time. This year, I'll be trying to hit the streets with the new dog in tow which screams BAD IDEA but, hey, Tegan loves to lick half-naked people even more than I do. I'll lock her up the second I should need to (fingers crossed) but until then, I want it all -- my dog, my friends, my people.

The main point is that, Stephen Harper notwithstanding (get it?), life is pretty good for my tribe these days. We're here, we're queer, they're mostly used to it. We can get married to our partners and the cops take it seriously when thugs try to beat us up. There's still a lot of work to do -- I told a couple of people from Halifax that an old friend is thrilled to have moved out there last year but I saw their faces pale when I mentioned, "with his boyfriend." Should I not have mentioned that bit? No friggin' way.

So, even while a friend very sensibly avoids this town altogether this weekend, I'm possessed of a deep and abiding masochistic streak that invites me to say, 'this time it'll be different,' to hit the streets and bask in three days of a world turned upside down (boy, you turn me...inside out...round and round).

I'm even feeling a little nostalgic for Queer as Folk. I was subjected to it every Monday night at Woody's and the show's 'almost-but-not-quite' writing drove me nuts but, during my time there, I met a few of the actors and they all seemed like lovely, talented people who truly enjoyed doing the show. In the fourth season, the noisy opening credits were thankfully changed to something stylish, warm and humane -- honouring its actors and all those millions of queer folk watching. It's a decent little snapshot of our lives and it made me smile this morning.

Happy Pride!

Labels: Stephen Harper, Tegan the Jack Russell Terrorist, Trawna

I hate Pride as well, and I try to stay away. It's an event that once again reinforces the notion that if you are big and buff, then you are part of the elite.

-- Reply posted by  Brian FInch at July 11, 2006

 

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No one who speaks German could be an evil man...

Labels: Stephen Harper

I'm not usually so potty-mouthed but, in an era where every second thing in the newspaper makes me homicidal, THIS is the absolute limit [sensitive types, please just skip ahead to the next post]:

Dutch pedophiles are launching a political party to push for a cut in the legal age for sexual relations to 12 from 16 and the legalization of child pornography and sex with animals, sparking widespread outrage.

The Charity, Freedom and Diversity (NVD) party said ..."We want to make pedophilia the subject of discussion," he said, adding the subject had been a taboo since the 1996 Marc Dutroux child abuse scandal in neighboring Belgium. "We want to get into parliament so we have a voice. Other politicians only talk about us in a negative sense, as if we were criminals."

Oh please, find me that one politician who speaks of you in a positive light so I can bitchslap him for three hours.

This enrages me for two reasons -- one political, one personal. On the political front, I can already hear the voices of right-wing morons shouting, "You see? This is what happens when liberals and fags start blah blah yada blah." No, you idiot fucks, it's not. I'm an adult gay man who loves other adult gay men. My adult gay friends love other adult gay men. It's simple but, whenever these creepy people too messed up to deal with other adults start speaking up, we just get more of this in today's paper:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday his government plans to hold a vote on the same-sex marriage issue in the fall.
...
Reports emerged this week suggesting that a growing number of cabinet ministers and MPs are questioning whether the debate should be revisited.

Some suggested that the divisive issue has already been debated thoroughly, and others indicated that there are more pressing matters demanding the government's attention.
...
In the United States, President George W. Bush will push for a constitutional amendment next week banning gay marriage.

Oh sweet heaven above, can we knock this off already? How about a new bill on energy policy? Or school and hospital funding? Or anything that fucking matters?

But that's all just the usual political stuff. I hate these guys on a personal level because, well, they molest children (duh!) but worse, they claim that this is all in the children's best interests. This is the most staggering, disgusting twisting of the truth since Nixon said he wasn't a crook. It offends me that they even try to pass this arguement off on people, especially when they use the rhetoric of gay rights.

The gay rights movement flowed through the last few decades because brave people stood up and said, "As adults, we have the right to have sex with anyone we want," and others said, "Yes, as adults, we too have the right to have sex with those people." As political movements go, it's been pretty fun.

Gay rights, however, cannot ever be equated with the demands of paedophiles because we will never, ever, see a group of 12-year-children demonstrating for the right to have creepy middle-aged men fuck them. That will never happen and without it -- I believe the term is 'consensual' -- these people may have every right to speak their opinion but everyone else has the right to tell them to get some professional help or stay the fuck away from the kids.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm still trying to find a husband and bring about the end of civilization itself.

Labels: George W Bush, Stephen Harper

This is a post for people who love bad writing. Really bad writing. Even if you don't know the story of US Senator Bill Frist -- stocks grifter, cat killer, doctor-by-videotape -- I hope you'll love this wildly-fawning profile of him by Laura Blumenfeld in yesterday's Washington Post as much as I did. I couldn't help but highlight my favourite bits of this astonishing literary blow job:

The houses were dark on Bill Frist's street. A morning bird chirped; the others were waiting for dawn. But Frist was awake, and his bedroom light was on. "I'm going to take a shower," the Senate majority leader said brightly. Ten minutes later, the blow dryer roared.

Absolutely gripping opener, no? But fasten your seatbelts -- it's about to get sexy!

Frist, at heart, is a doctor. At 5:45 a.m., before a recent Senate workday, he prepared for a quirky slice of surgery. During congressional breaks, Frist, 54, has been known to fly to Africa to operate. But in Washington, he has quietly cultivated another practice: gorillas at the National Zoo.
...
He climbed into the back of his black SUV; his driver steered toward the zoo. "I gravitate towards insurmountable problems," Frist said, his long legs spilling between the front seats. "I try to use creative solutions." One day, he hopes to cure AIDS or cancer. He sucked on the stem of his glasses: "The typical person around here may not understand."

At the zoo hospital, a team of four veterinarians, three technicians, an animal keeper and a veterinary dentist were wheeling a 350-pound gorilla into surgery as Frist arrived. They would perform an ultrasound of the heart, a root canal and a physical. Frist joined the team, as he had on other mornings, tying on a mask. He unbuttoned his business shirt, revealing jungle-pattern surgical scrubs and a pair of hairy, toned biceps.

"A little bit like Superman," said the dentist, Chuck Williams.
...
He pressed his stethoscope to the gorilla's chest and narrowed his eyes. Kuja, a silverback patriarch, was breathing isofluorine. He was the Senate majority leader of the gorillas, who negotiated disputes, back-slapped the ape boys and owned exclusive mating rights with the females. When Kuja started to stir, a veterinarian injected more anesthesia. One backhanded swipe could break Frist's neck.

Frist listened to the heart; the gorilla's lub-dub sounded human. "When you're this close, you feel this kind of oneness with them," Frist said. The stink of ape sweat and gorilla testosterone soaked his hair and clothes. "Gorillas, people, men. You look at the people here, a symphonic flow of people pitching in. It's the oneness of humanity."
...
Afterward, Frist buttoned himself back up, into his blue shirt and into his senatorial reserve. "I need to be talking to the Israeli prime minister in 18 minutes," he told his driver as the SUV rumbled toward the Capitol.
...
At 9:30 a.m., Frist opened the Senate, gripping the corners of the lectern, as he had the operating table...Frist smiled and spoke unremarkably from the lectern, reeking of silverback testosterone.

Laura, please, you're embarrassing yourself -- Senator Frist is married! I can't really blame her though...by the end of the article, I wanted to sleep with him.

Meanwhile, here in testosterone-drenched Canada, Stephen Harper has been whining this week that the national media is biased against him, that "the press gallery at the leadership level has taken an anti-Conservative view." Maybe, or maybe it just seems that way because he's not getting his profiles from the Washington Post.

Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper

Dear Jack Layton,

Canada is now operating without a federal government. We can tell. I was opening a jar of pasta sauce when I felt the tremor run through my soul. Or maybe it was the garlic.

After grappling with the (sort of) ruling Liberals for months now, you and the NDP have jumped into bed with Stephen Harper's Tories to topple the government. Let me ask you Jack (may I call you Jack?), is this wise?

Stephen Harper behaves as though Canadians have just now realized that the Liberals have been in power too long and become shifty and arrogant, to which the public can only say, "Duh!" We know they're weasels -- that's why we handed them a minority government not even a year and a half ago. It was the voters' way of saying, "We completely dislike and distrust you but you're still a better choice than the other losers." I paraphrase, of course.

The thought of a Tory government back in power gives me hives, especially after Mike Harris gutted this province (who knew Common Sense cost $5.6 billion?) and as Stephen Harper continues his Ahab-worthy obsession with gay marriage. When you see him in Ottawa, Jack, does he talk about anything else? I know you mean well but how can you allow this guy anywhere near Sussex Drive? The way he carries on, I think he's desperate to redecorate.

But enough about Harper, let's talk about you. Both you and your lovely wife, Olivia, have been hard-working, popular fixtures in Toronto politics but you're not running for Mayor, you're running for Prime Minister. Despite your charming media-whore tendencies, the rest of the country still hasn't a clue who you are.

Worse yet, the few who do still hold a grudge from the last time your party ran the show in Ontario, fifteen years ago. A recent Rabble forum asked the still-pertinent question, "How did the NDP tick Ontarians off?" My guess is that it was Bob Rae's unique ability to piss off both big business AND unions. Personally, I think he was on to something, playing to the middle (am I right, Bill Clinton?) but Rae didn't end up with the 'Voted Most Popular' yearbook page. The NDP may have created Canada's healthcare system but it seems that, for the general public, they blew their chance fifteen years ago.

I know -- I don't get it either but then again, you're bringing down a government for the kind of financial grifting that most people assume goes on regardless of who's in power. Meanwhile, our friends to the south have a government that lies, steals, blunders, slanders, tortures and kills yet the American people seem confident indeed that it'll all work out. Politics is an unfair business.

Yes, Jack, you've got your work cut out for you and the shadow of Tommy Douglas is a long one indeed. But you've got me in your corner and, I suspect, millions of other Canadians who want smart, honest people in their government. Be that person, Jack, and let us know what we can do to help.

Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper, Trawna

Colour me astonished at Jack's inability to make an informed and articulate run up the middle - especially after the public spurning given him by Buzz Hargrove. Unions were turning from the NDP even before Bob Rae came along, something I think Rae recognized as he wrestled with the fiscal disaster of his first year in office. With the fairweather votes of the unions now completely discounted, you'd think this would be the time for the NDP to give their overall approach to policy a quick but total re-think. Alas, no. Perhaps Jack is appealing to his preacher father's divinity for a little supernatural help in his evangelism?

-- Reply posted by  Whisky Prajer at December 09, 2005

 

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I offer heartfelt, sincere congratulations to George W. Bush.

Yes, the same guy, the president, the one I've referred to as a smirking, incompetent, lying, cheating daddy's boy -- that guy.

Thanks in large part to him, Iraq held its first democratic elections yesterday and they were very nearly a massacre-free success. There was a turn-out of about 60%, despite the threat of being shot by insurgents at the polls. This matches Canada's recent turn-out of about 60%, despite the threat of meeting a Stephen Harper fan at the polls. Now give Iraq some Tim Horton's outlets and some natives to ignore (wait -- Sunnis! Perfect!), and we're all on the same page!

Bush will be proud of himself and I suppose he should. He had to lie very hard and for very long to get to this Machiavellian triumph. Those of us who grumble about ends not justifying means can only do just that -- grumble. Even I have to admit that the ends are looking pretty sweet.

So far, Bush's gamble with the Middle East (and our own security by extension) has come up lucky 7's! And now that Iraq forms a nice set of bookends with Afghanistan, you know the casino chips are being pushed Iran's way. George's got the dice -- someone blow on them, quick!

Labels: George W Bush, Stephen Harper

JUST THE FACTS, RICK

On the opinion pages this morning, "Slate asked a variety of prominent American novelists, ranging from Edwidge Danticat to John Updike, for a frank response to the following question: Which presidential candidate are you voting for, and why?"

Richard Dooling makes a good point that writers should be "political agnostics" but totally lost me with this comment:

The left-wing political road rage directed at George W. Bush for being dumb and lying about the war reminds me of nothing so much as the right-wing obsessive invective directed at Bill Clinton for being smart and lying about sex.

This is an unbelievable comparison. Bill Clinton had many flaws but none of them led to the catastrophic effects of Bush's idiocy. I don't understand anyone who could equate lying about personal sexual behaviour with lying about a rationale for a conflict that has killed thousands of people.

I do recognize Dooling's "rage" idea though -- it's an issue I've been wrestling with for some time. I don't like admitting it but I hate George W. Bush. More than any politician I can think of, I absolutely hate this guy. Even more than Reagan, who I could admire from time to time while still finding his policies grotesque. Canada's flirted with electing right-wing demogogues like Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day yet I never looked at them with the same contempt I feel for this...imposter.

I still maintain, however, that all of this stems not from irrational, knee-jerk politicking but from Bush's own history. I watched this nepotism-winner stumble his way through that campaign against Al Gore and was stunned by how incapable he seemed. Then came the real shocks: first, the Florida election debacle; then, the way the Supreme Court cut off a recount and handed Bush the presidency. He was the first president to have protesters at his inauguration and Rick Moody, author of "The Ice Storm," asserts in Slate's interview that, over the last four years:

it became self-evident, I think, that the Bush presidency is the most corrupt in modern history. Under the cynical disguise of evangelical Christian moralizing (and don't even get me started on Bush's moronic theology), Bush conducted (and continues to conduct) a fire sale, in which he auctioned off the entire nation to the highest corporate bidder, piece by piece. Well, that's not entirely true. Sometimes he didn't even bother to take bids. And this is not to mention a war based on outright mendacity, in which tens of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed.

Too much rhetoric? Maybe, so here's a more pragmatic take from Chang-Rae Lee:

I would be voting for Kerry as a protest vote against the Iraq war alone, but even without that horrid mess, Bush and his handlers are heading us in the wrong directions in energy policy, the environment, civil liberties, tax issues, health care, education, judicial appointments—-the list is endless.

Even if you agree, as a few of the writers interviewed do, that Bush is the stronger war-time leader and that the war in Iraq was necessary, this Republican administration's handling of the war has been abysmal and their record on nearly every domestic issue has been awful bordering on terrifying. And I say this as a Canadian, a safe distance from the fire but close enough to feel the heat. Kerry will not be the perfect leader -- he's yet to truly inspire -- but at least he'll be practical and sane. And that's just the cold, hard truth.

Labels: Canada, George W Bush, religion, Stephen Harper

SWEET RELIEF

I've worked the last six nights in a row, with two more yet to go, so I'm fairly wiped but feeling happier and more hopeful than I have in a long while.
Three big reasons why:

1) Pride in Toronto was big, splashy and far too crowded, yet everything went smoothly enough and -- with the federal election the next day -- the million people attending were more energized and feisty than ever. It was great to see.

2) I took in a matinee of "Fahrenheit 9/11" on Saturday and it was all I hoped it would be -- a fast, funny, devastating swipe at possibly the most hateful US presidential administration ever. The sequence with the wounded veterans made me cry with rage, remembering those scary, sad wretches from my childhood who'd just made it back from Vietnam. The movie honours the bravery of these courageous people while condemning the venal, greedy men who have betrayed their trust. Thanks to the dialogue this film helps continue, more and more people agree that we cannot allow this to continue.

3) The Canadian federal election ended perfectly, not with the near-terrifying spectre of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister but with Paul Martin leading a chastened Liberal party. A Liberal minority government seems like the perfect thing for Canada right now. People voted thoughtfully and strategically for a humane liberal agenda but against an arrogant Liberal monopoly as we've been so often stuck with.

Factor in the repair (finally!) of the air conditioning at the store and I'm feeling downright perky this week -- especially with having tomorrow off.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

Labels: Canada, Stephen Harper, Trawna

BIZARRO WORLD

I'm watching the federal election campaigns with mounting anxiety as Conservative leader Stephen Harper continues to match the Liberals in poll numbers. No huge surprise, really, considering how Paul Martin and Ontario leader Dalton McGuinty continue to appear respectively shifty and inept.

Having said that, however, I cannot believe that anyone angry with the Liberal's clumsy handling of Ontario's near-bankruptcy could possibly consider returning power to the Tories responsible for it all.

Worse yet, Harper is playing to the crowd, leaning to the left so hard he's about to fall over the port side of the boat. In today's news, he said:

"It was an NDP leader, David Lewis, who coined the term corporate welfare bums in 1972. Unfortunately, in the past 30 years, too many corporations have been drawn into this trap by the available plethora of government loans, grants, and subsidies...[which] does not deliver value for money."

What kind of bizarro world politics is this? It's obviously part of the usual Conservative scheme of shrinking government and handing over more and more power to big business -- under the guise of 'going it on their own', I suppose -- but even so, hearing this kind of talk coming from Harper's mouth is creepier than that movie with Anthony Hopkins as an insane ventriloquist!

And where's Jack Layton in all this? Isn't he annoyed that Harper is running up the court with his basketball? Let's wait and see while I figure out another goofy metaphor...

Labels: Stephen Harper