The Very Definition of Obscenity

Via Willie Brown at the SFGate:

I went to an unbelievable dinner party at Charlotte and George Shultz's penthouse Monday night for retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, the new secretary of veterans affairs.

The party was a Stanlee Gatti tour de force, complete with fatigue-wearing servers, camouflage table cloths, extras dressed up as snipers and a full Marine color guard and band.

It was like being in Afghanistan.

All this for about a dozen guests. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was there with his wife, Maria Shriver. Gavin Newsom was there with Jennifer, and boy is she showing.

I was seated next to Arnold, and he seemed to be holding up pretty well, considering the nightmare going on up in Sacramento.

The dessert: a chocolate replica of the Joint Chiefs of Staff seal, surrounded with vanilla ice cream and the Golden Gate Bridge in chocolate on each side.

h/t Marisacat

Abdelrazik is home - finally

Abdelrazik back in Montreal after six years

About 40 supporters carrying signs that read "We did it!" and "Oh Canada! Our home and Abdelrazik's" chanted "Welcome home," as he made his way towards them.

"I'm very glad to be here; I'm very tired," said Abdelrazik, 47, who has been labelled a terrorist by the United States. "Thank you so much for your support. Now I'm here," he said before being led to a vehicle waiting outside the airport to take him on the final leg of his journey - the six-hour drive to Montreal to see his family.

Quote du Jour: The Death of Michael Jackson

Today's quote du jour comes from Michael Lazzaro aka Hunter at Daily Kos:

I can imagine no worse curse to afflict someone, in America, than dying while famous.

And I can imagine no worse use of ridiculous hyperbole than that statement - one that minimizes any American afflicted with the agony of being tortured, maimed, murdered; affected by mental or physical illness, extreme poverty or so many other life circumstances that make the so-called "curse" of "dying while famous" the absolute least of all concerns.

I admit that there's no love lost between me and Michael Jackson. I appreciate his musical genius but stopped being a fan when he morphed (physically and emotionally) from being a cute little black boy to a crotch-grabbing, disco-loving (call it "pop" if you want to - I still found it nauseous), narcissistic, Peter Pan impersonating parody of himself.

Oh - but he was abused as a child - that's why he was so tortured. Well, guess what? So are millions of other people. At least he could afford therapy - a luxury many other sufferers don't have.

And don't get me wrong, I'm all for eccentricities, but when they include speculation (and a privately settled lawsuit) of child abuse on his part, the line from odd to unacceptable has been crossed.

Did he live a tough life? Sure. Could he have helped himself if he'd wanted to? Yes. The truth is that the cult of celebrity that he not only grew up with due to his parents' prodding but that he metamorphosed into an art form of its own with delusions of grandeur that led him to don epaulettes and a crown surely took on a life of its own. But wasn't he really above controlling it to some measurable extent? Was the roller coaster really as inevitable as some would have you believe? And how much does society demand those delusions that snowball so often into tragedy?

Some people online question if it's not too soon to "bash" the superstar. I'd respond that discussing the truth about his life is far more valuable for society than eulogizing him (as Lazarro did) as the ultimate tragic figure. When we do that, we minimize the suffering of those who have few or no options - unlike Jackson.

His death was certainly sudden and shocking but let's not dress up his life as he dressed himself - cloaked in images of royalty, pomp, and mega-importance. To do so only enables the blind star worship that elevates those who are famous as being more human than the rest of us.

As Bill Maher said of Barack Obama recently, "He's...not your boyfriend".

Neither was Michael Jackson.

And, for the record, I wasn't a big Elvis fan either. Make of that what you will.

“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”

- Henry David Thoreau

Friday Fun: The Don Newman DVD Box Set

  Courtesy of The Rick Mercer Report



Your brooooaadcasts will be missed, Mr Newman!
 

Quote du Jour: Crazy stories

From Thursday's Hansard:

Hon. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government scrapped the national child care agreement. It scrapped the court challenges program. It scrapped the Kelowna accord. It made cuts to women's advocacy and literacy. It bargained away women's rights to pay equity. It took meaningful equality out of the mandate of Status of Women Canada and continued to defy international commitments. That does not sound like a government that stands up for the rights of women.

When are we going to see any real commitment from the government for the women of Canada?


Hon. Helena Guergis (Minister of State (Status of Women), CPC):

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter how many times the member makes up crazy stories, they are not believed by women across the country.

This quote brought to you by The Department of Irony.
 

Breaking: Abdelrazik is Coming Home

In response to a query by Lib MP Irwin Cotler during Thursday's Question Period about the fate of Abousfian Abdelrazik following the recent court decision that confirmed his constitutional rights have been violated by the government, so-called Conservative justice minister Rob Nicholson stated simply:

"The government will comply with the court order."

It's about damn time.

They only act when their backs are against the proverbial legal wall.

The message is clear: Don't leave Canada if you ever want to see your family and friends here again because your government has no interest in protecting your rights unless it's forced to by the courts.
 

Iris Evans Cures Mental Illnesses

I kid you not:

"The huge failure of Canadians is not to educate the children properly, and then why should we be surprised when they have mental illnesses or commit dreadful crimes?" she said.

This is why Easterners think Albertans are just a bunch of dumb hicks. (Not that we don't have our fair share of those here...)

Seriously, this woman is a trained nurse. And she's a former provincial minister of Health and Wellness. I kid you not (once again). Let's hope she never worked on a mental health ward. The stoopid. It hurts.

No wonder mental health services are so poor in this province. She probably thought that handing out flash cards with multiplication tables would automagically fix patients who needed help. On the other hand, she was too fucking cheap to even manage to do that.

And don't even get me started on this crap:

To raise children "properly" one parent should stay at home while the other goes to work, Alberta's finance minister suggested Wednesday.

In a tangent at the end of a speech on Alberta's economy to the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto, Iris Evans spoke about the importance of teaching kids about finances and how those lessons can be empowering.

After struggling with finances as a mother herself, Evans said, she made it her mission to teach her own children about money. Now, as adults with their own families, her kids have topped up RRSPs, live in good houses and have good savings, Evans said.

She also said good parenting means sacrificing some income to stay at home while kids are young, as her children have done.

"They've understood perfectly well that when you're raising children, you don't both go off to work and leave them for somebody else to raise," Evans said. "This is not a statement against daycare. It's a statement about their belief in the importance of raising children properly."

Iris Evans: Canada's Dr Laura. (And just as self-righteously annoying.)

Update:

Evans apologizes (but still stands by her cure for mental illnesses, apparently.)
 

No election - No surprise

Following the news today that Iggy has decided to commute the pending death penalty of Steve's government, BQ leader Gilles Duceppe was quick to say of Ignatieff that "he choked" and that "he looked in the mirror and saw Stephane Dion".

No doubt.

Not to be outdone in the department of flourishing rhetoric, Steve told that country via a press conference that if the Liberals decided to try to bring down his government in the fall, there would be "dangerous results for the country". Really, Steve? Do tell...

I guess if we have a fall election, the terrorists win. Or something.

Jack Layton, who missed the house shenanigans to spend time with his newly born granddaughter and whose recent poll numbers showed a bleak outcome for an election any time soon for his party anyway, was interviewed by Don Newman and stated the obvious: the fact that the new Lib/Con coalition (as Gilles called it) has decided to strike a committee to study EI reform this summer has just pushed any real changes for real people off into the sunset (my words, not his). We all know what happens when dreaded committees are sent off to study anything.

In my humble opinion, Ignatieff has blown it for his party. The latest numbers in Quebec and Ontario favoured a positive outcome for the Liberals. And with talk of this recession starting to possibly turn around by the end of this year, the Cons can coast through once again having by then picked up more support as the results of their stimulus package begin to kick in. (They surely have nothing to show in that department right now).

And, speaking of stimuli, she who should have been fired last week got the chance to try to rehab her reputation by announcing $1 billion for the pulp and paper industry today. Long overdue and an obvious move by the Cons to deflect that as a possible election issue had the campaigning actually begun at the end of this week.

When Ignatieff was anointed as party leader in May, he declared that the Liberals would release their policy agenda/platform in June. Where is it?

These guys are so quick to assert that "Canadians don't want an election right now" but, guess what? We're going to have to put up with months and months of their annoying partisan ads anyway, so what difference does it make? And when do Canadians ever really want an election?

Smoke and mirrors.

Ignatieff pretends he's The Uniter while leaving too many Canadians high and dry. I thought it was quite telling earlier this week when I saw him interviewed and he kept on using the word "I". "I" haven't decided if "I" will vote confidence in this government on Friday, etc. To use a well-worn cliché: there's no "I" in team. And there certainly isn't one in "party" either. The man is a self-centered ass.

This is what Ignatieff held the government to in January, 2009:

Text of the proposed Liberal amendment to the government's budget motion:

That the motion be amended by changing the period to a comma and adding the following:

"on condition that the government table reports in Parliament no later than five sitting days before the last allotted day in each of the supply periods ending March 26, 2009, June 23, 2009, and Dec. 10, 2009,

(a) to provide ongoing economic and fiscal updates;

(b) to detail the actual implementation of the budget;

(c) to itemize the actual effects of the budget with respect to the protection of the most vulnerable in Canadian society, the minimizing of existing job losses, the creation of the employment opportunities of tomorrow, the provision of economic stimulus in a manner fair to all regions of Canada, and the assurance that the government's deficit is not a burden to future generations or a detriment to economic recovery and finally;

(d) to provide details on any adjustments or new measures as may be required to benefit the Canadian economy."

Have the Cons held up their end of the deal?

Hardly.

So, why is Steve really being given a free pass?

Is it because there's no majority in site for Iggy? That he's not ready? That he really thinks he can cozy up to Steve and make things right for Canadians by doing so? Based on what, exactly?

He obviously needs to get out more if he thinks his new buddy isn't beyond stabbing him in the back whenever he gets the chance. But Ignatieff has chosen to play the lead role in Saving Stephen Harper - a performance that desperate Canadians won't be applauding any time soon.
 

Raitt Apologizes

Choking back tears, Lisa Raitt called a press conference to finally apologize for her incredibly insensitive use of the word "sexy" to describe the medical isotope crisis - citing as proof of her new-found sincerity the plight of her father and a brother who had been afflicted with cancer.

Too little. Too late.

Her display of defensive defiance during Tuesday's Question Period and accusations of "conspiracy theories" against opposition members who dared to challenge her showed that her first instinct was to protect her job - a stark contrast to today's public act of contrition. (Last week, she cried sexism when confronted by an NDP MP's question over the secret nuclear documents she had left at CTV.)

So the public is left to decide: who is the real Lisa Raitt?

I think they've already made that determination and that this PR effort to rehab her image will be seen as what she was accused of in the first place: more crass political opportunism. Crocodile tears.

Meanwhile, and on a more important front, what has she actually done to manage this isotope crisis besides trying to save her hide? That is the question.

Related:

CBC has Raitt's statement.

CTV has the video.

 

Baird Behaving Badly

Yes, I realize that behaving badly is John "Bully" Baird's natural state, but here's the fallout from his latest outburst:

Federal Transportation Minister John Baird apologized to Toronto Mayor David Miller this morning after Baird greeted the city's application for streetcar cash with a profane "f... off."

...

The request for money to buy 204 new streetcars — the city applied under Ottawa's $4 billion economic stimulus fund — was shot down yesterday by Baird who was in Whistler B.C.

In an unguarded moment, Baird told aides that Toronto stood alone in not meeting the technical criteria for federal cash, yet was complaining about Ottawa dragging its feet.

"Twenty-seven hundred people got it right. They didn't. That is not a partnership and they're bitching at us," he said.

Then Baird said: "They should f--- off."

Daddy Steve, who loves having absolute control over all of his ministers and Con party MPs, must be pulling his helmet hair out. It's been a very unruly day.

Related:

Baird covered up for beleaguered Lisa Raitt: NDP