Rose's Cantina

I thought that I was finished writing about Senator Joyce Fairbairn today, but I'm not. In fact, I would say I haven't even gotten started. What began as a small tropical storm this weekend has turned into a full blown Ottawa hurricane. A lot of people on Twitter and Facebook have taken to their computers to write unbelievably unkind things about a person they do not know. What they presume to know is everything. I heard someone muttering today that all the legislation passed when Joyce was sitting in her Senate seat, stricken by Alzheimer's, should be held void. People presume Joyce had no say in the matter. Do they know that for sure? Could it be that instead of taking that diagnosis and feeling sorry for herself -- in the minutes or hours when she found lucidity -- she decided to fight the disease instead of rolling over for dead? She kept on trucking, voting, showing up at meetings, touring her riding. I worked with Alzheimer's patients in another life, and...

What's with all the banning of stuff? Our politicians seem to have this false sense of confidence, now that they've been able to tear the cigarettes from the yellowed hands and wrinkly upper lips of smokers. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for a smoking ban in areas where non-smokers collide with smokers, like on a train or in a restaurant or office space. I still remember having to choke through a shift in a newsroom while an oldtimer hacked up a lung at the next desk. Indeed, it wasn't pretty. And I often wondered to myself how anyone could believe you could have a smoking section in a compressed cabin on an airline. But I do feel for the poor smoker who isn't able to light up a butt on a park bench or on an open air patio. What are we afraid of? That the seagull trying to take a guy's sandwich is going to succumb to lung cancer? I'm somewhat in favor of a smoking ban, but a plastic bag ban? Please. That's what's happening in Toron...