Jack the Blessed

Coming soon to the home 'edutainment' unit nearest you is a video paean to the most recent, greatest Canadian politician who failed to launch. And that would be the late Jack Layton of sainted memory.

Yeppers, Jack the urban shoehorn  is the subject of a 'biopic'!  The saga of his lifestyle, from at least the time he hit the national stage or married Olympia Chow - heiress to a dogfood fortune. Jack was a lifelong pol, rising from granola-eating bicycle-riding metrosexuality  as a member of the Toronto city council to standing for political office with his 'partner' Ms Chow and gaining a Toronto seat in Ottawa for the New Democratic Party. From there it was only a waiting game until the leader - Ms McDonough from down east  - tired of the frustration and Jack ascended to the throne.

His management of the party was un-outstanding until the Liberal party self-immolated and Jack became the only english-speaking politician who could make himself understood in French as well. Things were looking very good as Jack led the party into the official opposition slot, a sea change on the national stage, when the Liberals failed to qualify for election funding. But things were not all well. For Jack got sick and then died - leaving the dream unfulfilled in the minds of most people, but not in the hearts of true believers.

 And hence we have the passion of the Mao transliterated to the Canadian screen.

Jack is portrayed by those vouchsafed to hold his memory, and political inheritance, as a 'renaissance' man. An academic. A self-taught linguist who mastered not only French but Cantonese as well. A self-taught guitarist and musician. A physical health and science buff dedicated to the pursuit of physical health and beauty. A good, but yet thoroughly modern lapsed united Church man,  who could sire the tribal off-spring and then divorce his 'Sarah' to become more racially 'eclectic'. Jack was a walking poster-child for all that is human, humane and wholesome. And that's why the semi-canonization. If he'd only been a Catholic.

Jack was in full favour of advancing society and that's why he stood up for gay rights, and a woman's untrammelled right to choose - and the freedom of everybody else to fund them. He was a real 'mensch'.

What won't show up is the fact that Jack never really 'worked' at anything. He went from the high school student council, to elected office as a Toronto alderman. And from there his 'work' was politics.But that doesn't detract from the fact that for a Canadian 'pol', he wasn't cut from the standard cloth. He wasn't crooked and what you saw was what you were going to get. He might have made the place better.

Slow Learning

Whoo-hoo! My second-favorite p'leece force is doing it again!

My first favourite Justice Minister Vic 'movember man' Toews has commanded  the  stick-bearer general of the RCMP/GRcC to prepare, for his ocular orbs, a detailed 'gender audit' of the force. In a knee-jerk reaction the Commandant has stated that the RCMP is 'no more prone to gender bias and harassment of females than any other government bodies'. I guess Canada Post and the Coast Guard have a bumper crop of females suing the ass off them too.

Is there a 'donney' a-brooking?

                                                      The Chief and his Stick of State

 You see, since he took command, other than getting a new set of uniforms made and re-inventing the RCMP totem pole, the new 'Commissaire' has done little more for females than marry his second one.  He appeared to be one of those reflective types who would observe, study and then  take action. In actuality that was an act. After forcibly retiring all his 'peers', the 'Sultan of the Skagway'  has felt safe enough to regress to the state of honour so well-enjoyed by others who have gone before him. He's really done SFA as  far as we've been able to glean, but there haven't been new lawsuits - just unsettled old lawsuits.

And then there's the marriage. 'Constable Bob' took a second wife earlier this year. It was an 'all force' affair, planned, we are told, by a couple of duty Sargeants from his Office and attended by 'volunteers' ordered up from the Musical Ride's 'trainee' program. It was, from the look of the picture below, a red letter day. Until Bob found out the trainees were 'on duty' and had been assigned to provide the honour guard/cum ushers/cum valet parking roles at the hitching.  It was then, too, he found out he was 'honour-bound' to cough-up some $912 semollianos Canadenses to pay for them. On the cheque he wrote the annotation - "Honour Gaurd fiasco".

                                            The Chief, the bride and the Musical bambini

 It seems to me that somebody thought he might have been 'entitled' to something here. Or those kids turned into a bunch of bumbling putzes and accidentally 'lanced' some of the wedding guests. Just what part of it all was the 'fiasco' part.

The two sargeants who 'planned' the manueuvre were present - off duty-  to do a sword salute at the door (above). Like all policemen's pals they were doing this out of 'pal-ship'. But they were probably 'at work' when they were drawing-up the operational plans.

                                               Sorry they pulled-it, so it wasn't flattering

It looks like the Mounties are staying true-to-form when it comes to 'promoting' boneheads from the inside. It's a cultural thing, ya know?

Maybe Vic Toews doesn't like getting 'unrespected' by the hired help. The Commandant certainly wouldn't. And Toews is only an elected official. I do believe the CO's days are numbered, now that Toews has him in the sights.

Operation Cast Dirt

Another little Israeli 'pacification' exercise  has come to a sudden stop. After  7 days of bombing , shelling and retaliatory rocketing, Bibi Netanyahu has, for some strange reason, opted for  a 'ceasefire' and negotiations. The ceasefire part is obvious, but other than the Egyptians, Turks, Americans or somebody else pulling strings, he's still in the same position he was last week -  having to not negotiate with terrorists.

This is all very strange,  for the Israelis, by a sizable majority, are in favour of much more hurt for  HAMAS. At least the 75 000 reservists 'called up' to do the ground operation are going to be disappointed about not 'getting any'.  These lads a case in point.

Their body language spells out, "Bibi Loser"

The Gazans are treating this as a 'win', or at least they were until this morning. A group of the inmates made the mistake of taking that 'freedom of movement' part of the ceasefire seriously enough to enter the no-go zone and approach the Gaza fence. That got one of them killed and 17 wounded by the ensuing 'warning' fire from Israeli military on the 'green' side of the wire.

It was widely thought by the 'world' media that the gunfire would 'have no effect' on the ceasefire, while the same media blatted that calls for jihad from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were jeopardizing the whole deal. Somebody has completely forgotten that until Israel 'whacked' a HAMAS 'military chief' - the one who was tasked to keep other groups from firing rockets into Israel - the rocket-firing had almost stopped. I guess, as the Israelis will tell you, being a target all the time takes some getting-used to - in Gaza too, do you think?

Israelis, even some of the dumb ones, have the ability to understand where the Gazans and other Arabs are 'coming from', they know what life is like for them. But, and this makes them different from the Germans  who could always claim they 'didn't know' -  they still don't give a sh*t, or, worse still, think the Arabs 'deserve it'. An Israeli group put up this interesting little piece - done by the 'targets'  in Sderot.
Palestinian video

The ceasefire touts a 'new' freedom of movement for people in Gaza, but I'm inclined to think that, unless they guarantee the future existence of the Jewish state and give up any right to reparations for stolen property, they're going to have exactly the same 'freedom' they had in Gaza last week - the 'freedom' to be surveilled while not leaving the zone except under rigorous scrutiny, and the freedom to stay out of the IDF's self-defence 'free fire zone'. The goldfish bowl might have some new rubble in it, but it's still just as restricted, visible and vulnerable.

The Israeli media is weeping. tears of sadness, in keeping with President Shimon Peres 'weeping' over the deaths of Palestinian babies - an 'accident' that the Palestinians 'made' happen ( "You made us kill you, we didn't want to do it,  etc") . And tears of joy to match a crocodile grin that goes with the boast that Israel is 'no longer alone'. The 'seamless support' for Israel's "right to defense" is claimed, not only due to Obama's non-presence, but also in every 'right-thinking' nation on earth. That's why, if the Palestinians ask for UN observer status next week, they're probably going to get it. Because of some weird blowback 'conscience thing' about rootin' Israel on to vic'try this week. Get it?