What I learned from my Globe and Mail today

Jeremy Freed informs me that I can spend $2,300 plus applicable taxes on a baseball cap!

I had no idea! But it's true; Stefano Ricci has opened up a boutique in Vancouver. Great! You'll just have to step over the homeless addicts on the sidewalk, and you too can put down $2,300 plus tax for a baseball cap!

Is this a great country or what!?

Elsewhere, Kelly's got an interesting profile of Tim Bezbatchenko. Even though I don't give a fig for football, a good writer can find the human interest angle in any story. But the best part of the sports section was the obit for Gregory Baum.

I've always been fascinated by obviously intelligent and well-educated people who manage to hold on to their religious convictions in spite of their intelligence and education, and Baum was such a man. It is somehow reassuring that such a thing is possible.

On A21 Lee Berthiaume tells the sorry tale of Canadian Special Forces who have been training the Kurdish Peshmerga and the Iraqi army for a couple of years. Yup, we trained them both and now they're fighting each other!

Good job, Canada! That was an obvious waste of resources, and underlines once again the folly of doing something just to be seen as doing something, even as you have no clue as to what you're doing.

Berthiaume completely misses the bigger story; most of the nominally independent Kurdish area in Iraq was retaken by Iraqi forces this past week in an operation so swift and seamless that it must have had the connivance of the American overlords.

Thanks for your help with ISIS, now forget about that Kurdish homeland nonsense and do as you're told.

Also on A21 we're treated to a Canadian Press story about a chap in Gatineau who inflicted a year's worth of violence on his teenage daughter for "removing her hijab when she was away from the family home." Hmm... wonder what culture that family hails from?

What a pity the Globe brain trust couldn't find room to place that story on A5, where Ingrid Peritz gets an entire half page to bemoan the fate of niqab-wearing women who are being bullied by Quebec's Bill 62. It would have made for great juxtaposing.

Frankly, I think Bill 62 is a pretty big hammer with which to thwart the scourge of a few dozen Muslim women choosing (or being coerced) to cover themselves. Is this really a "problem?" Don't they have bigger fish to fry?

No edition of the Globe is complete without at least some token Putin-bashing, and that's what you'll find on A6. Between hosting the latest Ukrainian PM and passing our version of a Browder Bill, we're still sticking it to Putin big time.

Finally, Renzetti uses her A2 slot for something other than professing her love for Hillary or contempt for Trump. She dumps on Amazon instead! How refreshing! There really needs to be more questioning of Amazon and Big Tech in major media, and it's a welcome thing to see at least a hint of it.

There you go. Was it worth $6.30?

Uncle Sam's adventures in Africa

The recent media kerfuffle over US troops in Niger didn't so much concern US troops in Niger as it did the Trump condolence call to one of the widows of the servicemen who died there. As such, the "story" wasn't about US troops in Africa, but about whether or not the POTUS is an a-hole, as if the answer to that question is somehow inconclusive and the matter requires further debate.

A host of your top-end US politicos have since come forward to claim that they had no idea there were US troops in Niger. According to some of the stuff I've been reading (admittedly on non MSM sites) the only country in Africa that does NOT have US boots on the ground is Zimbabwe. Not to worry; the National Endowment for Democracy (that US government "non-government organization" - and a shout-out to Orwell is in order here) have been busy beavers there, tilling the soil to prepare for the inevitable demise of the crotchety Bobby Mugabe. 

According to General Thomas Waldhauser, AFRICOM boss, the US has an "enduring interest" in Niger and is there to fight terrorists and create stability.

Of course!

Just like they'll soon be fighting terror and bringing stability to the entire continent!

They've been bringing stability to Somalia for forty years now, with underwhelming results. One could argue that Somalia enjoys far less stability today than it had when America first started gifting them stability, but that's another place where the US has "enduring interests."

Just like they'll soon have enduring interests all across Africa!

And might these "interests" have anything to do with the best interests of Africans?

Not likely. After all, Uncle Sam's regime doesn't run the USA in the best interests of 350 million Americans; it's unlikely that they've got the best interests of 1.2 billion Africans in mind.

No, General Waldhauser is talking about the enduring interests of America's one percent, the clique of war-profiteers and their acolytes who are determined to rule the world.

While I didn't notice much in the way of congratulatory reportage, AFRICOM celebrated it's tenth anniversary this month.

They're just getting started...

The Rolling Stones in Bogota; songs of revolution or songs of empire?

That's a righteous show the lads put on in Colombia last year, ain't it?

This is the band that had a hit with "Street fighting man" several lifetimes ago.

Who's streets are they fighting for now?

If you live in Bogota and you can afford to attend a Stones concert, you're not from the streets.

You're from somewhere else.

But you're cheering the Rolling Stones?

As much as I love Mick and Keith and the whole nine yards, I think it's high time we said goodbye to corporate rock and roll.

Twilight of the rock and roll Gods

It can't be much longer before the wave of whatever it is that just took down Weinstein is going to start nibbling away at the legacies of our rock and roll icons.

Ian Dury had a hit with "sex and drugs and rock and roll" back in the day.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll.

The drugs were ubiquitous and so was the sex, but here's the pivotal question; how "consensual" was the sex?

All these rock icons who boast of having had thousands of women may now be held to account.

I was an avid reader of Lester Bangs. Remember him? His reportage focused on sexual impropriety as much as it focused on music. Of course, back in the day, it wasn't "impropriety," it was liberation and letting it all hang out. And it was all good, wasn't it?

Sure it was! It's highly ironic that the high priest of licentiousness, Hugh Hefner, passed away almost without comment just before the Weinstein scandal broke. How does Hugh get a pass while Weinstein gets crucified? Weren't they all part of the same fame game?

As long as society worships fame and money and power, young people who crave fame will do whatever they can to ingratiate themselves with money and power.

Say what you will about Weinstein, but he was playing the game the way it's always been played. To pretend shock and dismay at the revelations coming out today is beyond disingenuous. Insofar as political correctitude is indeed a force, we'll be seeing a lot of careers crumble in the months ahead.

Wave bye-bye to your rock and roll icons...

Why we won't be moving to the city any time soon

Lifestyle.

I've always found the term somewhat offensive.

Lifestyle?

How is your life a style?

I'm a working class guy who's life has always been whatever it's been. Calling it a "style" makes it sound like it was selected; a "lifestyle choice." Kinda like choosing between straight-leg and generous-fit Levis.

By default, we do have a "lifestyle" I guess.

The house is never locked.

The cars are parked in the drive, unlocked, with the keys in them.

You can take a whiz off the porch.

If somebody walks by with a gun nobody panics; it's just (take your pick) turkey/goose/bear/deer season.

If the cops nab a few dozen pot plants on your property you'll never be charged because everybody knows nobody grows the weed 'o wisdom on their own property...

Ya, I guess you could call it a "lifestyle."

And I've always got a million and one bullshit jobs on the to-do list.

Cutting an acre of grass with a 19" push mower.

Walking the dogs.

Re-arranging the parts vehicles behind the barn.

Fixing the (take your pick) snow-blower/wood-splitter/motorcycle/camper/etc.

Paint the kitchen, paint the bathroom, fix the bass amp, clean the basement, clean the attic...

There's always a ton of shit awaiting my attention.


What the fuck am I gonna do in an apartment in Toronto?

Sunny Daze Trudeau says tough sh@t to pensioners screwed by Sears Canada bankruptcy

Bad news is apparently more palatable when it's delivered by a guy in a turban. That's why PM Sunny Daze had Navdeep Bains break the news that his government has no plans to protect workers from engineered bankruptcies like the flame-out we're witnessing at Sears Canada.

They are, however, "open to consultations."

Great!

I'm sure they're busy "consulting" half a dozen business lobby groups even as you read these words.

Don't hold your breath.

Did pot-addled hillbilly coin term "fake news?"

I see where Callum Borchers at the Washington Post has sniffed out another Donny J fib. Apparently Trump has been bragging about inventing the term "fake news."

This has got Borchers righteously miffed. While he doesn't exactly claim that he personally coined the term, he does want you to know he used it before Trump ever did. His editors at WaPo seem to think that's newsworthy...

Hey dude, check out the title of this blog-post; Real news, fake news, and conspiracy theories, posted right here in February of 2012! Looks like I beat both you and Trump to the prize!

Not that I coined the term. I'm pretty sure Mark Twain mentioned "fake news" at one time or another...