but for the record, my honeymoon with the Globe&Mail has officially ended. I cite the following unforgiveable infractions:
–attributing the Boxing Day shootings in Toronto to a problem with “fatherless” families for dark-skinned immigrants. That kind of thinking should sound familiar to Americans (Moynihan report, anyone?) but it is lame and ignores the specific social conditions in which many disaffected youth now grow up. All those Mike Harris cuts to social programs? There’s something to be said about chickens and roosting.
–endorsing Stephen Harper for Prime Minister with a bunch of “it’s time for a change” crap. Some changes are stupid and wrong. We’re looking at a PM who opposes same-sex marriage, will launch an attack on the Canadian welfare state (remember Tommy Douglas, the guy who was voted “greatest Canadian” last year? he got it for building socialized medicine in this country. guess what Harper will dismantle?), and who actually says “God Bless Canada” at the end of his speeches. And here I was thinking that phrase sounded so absurd that nobody here would say it with a straight face. Also, this whole “Harper’s changed” in six months is utter crap. Harper has a new hairdo. He has new handlers. He is not a different person or politician. And his cabinet will demonstrate that.
I will give Harper one thing, though. He is more intelligent than George W. Bush. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, though. Anyway, the honeymoon with the Globe and Mail is over.
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In other news, yet another tape of Osama bin Laden appeared today. The second sentence of the article says “it proves that he is alive.” I have got to get that manuscript out.
Well, I do have to say, I find it odd that while every other candidate was going gangbusters to demonstrate local support in their various ridings, Harper’s local reps stayed offscreen. Could it be that this league of raving nutbars is staying under wraps until the election payoff–I wonder. All the celeb-fan focus on charismatic hairdos and mystifications of “change” has taken the pressure off the fact that there is a real infrastructure of local reps woven intimately into the fabrics of everyday life, and that they may be really out there, e.g. Anita Bryant-style, when push comes to shove, no?