What if they had a news network called Spinco?

Ya, I know what you’re thinking; the Geriatric Ranter, given as he is to paranoia and conspiracy theories, sparked a fattie and came up with some mildly amusing speculations. But no! There’s actually a whole gaggle of ivy leaguers embedded in greed-bag hedge-funds who are doing this right now! It all goes back to the Comcast takeover of NBC Universal. The combined company was one of the bigs in global media. Alas, shit happens and times change, and big brand news titles aren’t what they used to be. Although Rachel Maddow, Queen of Prog News, still makes 25 million a year to be determinedly, proudly, and ostentatiously wrong about almost everything, the MBAs at the top of the mainstream media food chain plan to ditch most of their news properties. They’re spinning them off to a subsidiary they’re calling "Spinco." There’s something refreshingly honest about that!

Trudeau, the self-proclaimed "feminist," leaves a trail of battered women in his political wake

The Globe and Mail is all over it; folks are beginning to question Justin’s “feminist” bona fides. The special irony in this is, just three days ago. he drew massive attention to himself by mocking Americans for having elected Donald Trump over a woman. Twice! And now the woman who was variously known as Agent Frida, Justin’s brain, or the Ukrainian ambassador, has had enough. While I’m generally no fan of Agent Frida, I’ll tip my cap to her for turning her back on the little twerp. It’s embarrassing enough that we have to live with this government; it even more embarrassing when Fox News and BBC splash our suffering all over the world. From Jakarta to Mumbai to Shanghai people are scratching their heads, asking “what happened to Canada?” I think, at this point, Fluffy’s goose is pretty much cooked. Mind you, he did show us his authoritarian side with that Emergency Powers hanky panky, so you never know. What is most disturbing is I see nothing on the political horizon that would be much of an improvement. The Greens have no relevance at all, the other three parties are Original Neolib, Neolib Light, and Neolib Extra Strength. So why bother voting? The Neolibs have it in the bag regardless, and we’ll keep wobbling down the same path. The homeless population will continue to grow, governments will continue to study the problem, military spending must grow so we can stand with our allies in defending our values, and we must all tighten our belts for the sake of freedom and human rights. This will of course entail some cutbacks in some of the bells and whistles we’ve become used to. Like health care and education, just to pick a couple out of the air. But, if we truly believe in Democracy, if we are patriotic Canadians, we will rise to the occasion, and make the sacrifices we have to make, just as our forefathers did in Passchendaele over 100 years ago… Or not!

Will your hourly wage buy a case of beer?

Here’s something well worth reading. Charles Hugh-Smith makes a convincing case against the common mantra that “we’ve never had it so good.” How many times have you heard that? That writer is a serious pundit, whereas I’m just the pot-addled hillbilly blogger, but I have made similar observations, using different metrics. Can I buy an ounce of weed with my hourly pay? Or a carton of smokes? Or a case of beer? To be honest, I’m a pensioner with the good fortune to actually have a pension. The “hourly wage” thing does not apply. Frankly, there was never a time in my working life that an hour’s pay bought an ounce of weed. Maybe a quarter ounce at best. But a carton of smokes or a case of beer? Absolutely! Today a case of 24 tall cans runs sixty bucks or more. The tobacco addicts not patronizing the smoke shops at their local Indian reservation are spending well over a hundred for a carton! So Mr. Smith is 100% on the money. After 75 years of capitalist prosperity, only the rich can afford to indulge the basic vices.

MSM believes you're retarded

They being legacy media, and crap being the shit they fob off as “news.” They’re telling me there’s a struggle for freedom and democracy going on in Georgia (the country, not the state, although there’ve been some issues in the state too). Georgia, being a former Soviet state, is a prime target for meddling from the usual suspects in Washington. Recently, the government passed a law requiring foreign funded entities, like all the NGOs funded by Endowment for Democracy and USAID, to register as foreign agents. This is alleged to be the result of Russian interference in Georgia, because Russia passed similar measure a few years ago. Needless to say, all those entities in Georgia bankrolled by the West immediately took to the streets in outrage! Looking at this from Canada, it’s quite ironic; our media have spent the past couple of years blowing up that “China is meddling in our democracy” nothingburger into an urgent plea for a foreign agent registry… just like Russia! Just like Georgia! And just like that font of Freedom and Democracy south of us has had in place since 1938! But in the world ‘o whoppers mainstream news has become, that’s nothing. How about that al-Jolani chappie who just made Syria safe for democracy and Pride parades. Check out his Wikipedia page. We’ve been hunting down this savage terrorist for pretty much as long as we’ve been fighting the Global War on Terror. He has cycled through Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and ISIS before emerging as… the savior of Syria?! REALLY??? Do they really think we’re that retarded? Anyway, trouble in Ukraine or Georgia or Syria is incidental compared to the tribulations currently being endured by the long-suffering Chosen People over there in the Holy Land. The Greatest Leader Since Moses has told us repeatedly that his war on Gaza is the front line in the war of Civilization against Barbarism. Wait a minute… how is it possible that the guy leading the fight for civilization is wanted for war crimes? I’ve watched enough Al Jazeera in the last 14 months to know the civilization he’s fighting for, using the tools of mass starvation and indiscriminate bombing of women and children, isn’t a civilization I want to be a part of. Barbarism can’t be any worse than that. Nevertheless, the smart folks who decide what’s on your news will no doubt continue to blame “Russian disinformation” for the fact they have lost all credibility.

They tore down my childhood home to put up a McDonalds

We lived there from when I was a toddler till I was on the cusp of adolescence. It was a two-storey pile of yellow bricks my folks bought around ‘58, the first house they were able to buy after getting off the boat at Pier 21. They rented the upstairs to Mom’s brother and his family. It was across the traintracks from the railroad station. Sometimes in summer the railroad men would hop the fence, throw a blanket on our lawn, and spend their lunch hour playing cards. It came with two acres, which included a small barn and a couple of chicken coops. My parents were able to recreate the peasant lifestyle they’d known in Prussia before they were evacuated to refugee camps in Denmark in the dying months of the war. We had a couple of cows for milk and cream, pigs, and eggs from the chickens until they were layed out, at which time they found their way into the roasting pan. Mom would whack their heads off with an axe, causing me to learn early on where the expression “running around like chickens with their heads cut off” comes from. The rest of the process was a family activity. I didn’t know what the pigs were for until Dad and a couple of uncles slaughtered one right there in the barnyard. It was a large beast, and not at all copacetic with their plans. The sight of these guys chasing a pig around the yard with sledge-hammers and axes wasn’t something children needed to see, but at least we knew where our food came from. The place was a bit of a fixer-upper. The first project was indoor plumbing and a septic bed, but not until we’d spent the first winter with a hand-pump and an outhouse. Mom and my grandmother used to keep amazing gardens. From kohlrabi to carrots to beets to peas to potatoes, they had it all going on. There was even a pear tree, and to this day I recall what a thrill it was to open a jar of pears in the dead of winter. When I heard the sad news that we were moving, I made a map of that garden, hoping to recreate it somewhere else sometime in the future. It’s never happened, and by now I’ve lost that map… Another dream bites the dust! To bulldoze that house, with its rich history, and pave over those gardens, to put up a fast food restaurant, is utter sacrilege. If you happen by the Elora McDonalds and see an elderly gentleman parked in the back corner, eating pickled beets out of a jar, with tears streaming down his face… I figure that’s about where my room used to be. Feel free to say hello.

Your money or your life, or both; health care in America

The murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson has ignited a whole lot of debate everywhere. I had some driving to do today, and I generally keep the CBC on the car radio. Elamin Abdelmahmoud’s half hour show “Commotion” came on. The producers have upped their game since that program debuted. I found the first few episodes way woke and too Toronto-centric. Today, Elamin had top-shelf writers on, from Vox and Rolling Stone, and they had some insightful observations about media response to Luigi’s first shot in the new class war. They danced around the conundrum all writers in mainstream media are facing. The internet is saturated with thumbs-up emojis on the matter, yet nobody on any mainstream platform is gonna go there. Getting a slot on CBC or Rolling Stone or Vox is way too big a prize. Nobody’s going to screw up their career by being honest about how they really feel about Luigi and Brian. They did mange to foreground a salient point in spite of that; if health insurance is such a major issue for Americans, why was it almost totally absent from the recent election campaign? They know why, they just can’t talk about it. Kamala had over 80 billionaire donors behind her campaign. Trump had about 50. Billionaires in America enjoy gold-plated health care. It’s not an issue for them. Therefore, it’s not an election issue. That’s the way the cookie crumbles when you’ve sold your democracy to the highest bidder.

Luigi Mangione is the Robin Hood of the 21st century

So a dude pissed off at how big med gets away with fucking everyday people, takes the plunge into direct action. That’s officially known as first degree murder. Generally speaking, the masses do not approve of murder, especially premeditated in the first degree. But by golly, it looks like the masses are willing to cut you some slack if you murder the CEO of a corporate entity that has gorged on the suffering of ordinary people. Luigi Mangione just became a superhero of the resistance to predatory capitalism. That should be a wake-up call to predatory capitalists. Luigi is everywhere.