It was another one of those heat warning days, so the Farm Manager and I decamped to our favorite beach in the early afternoon.
As beaches go, this one kinda sucks. First of all, if your kids want to build a sand-castle, this is the wrong beach for you. This beach is all rocks, no sand.
It does, however, enjoy the distinction of never having been closed during this time of pestilence. I think that's mainly because they ran out of signs before they got this far out of town, but who cares? At least it's open.
It's also a lot smaller than it used to be. Even five years ago you had a good twenty feet of shore between the trees and the water. Now you got nothing in a lot of places, and in what's left you're lucky to find a few feet where you can set up your lawn chairs.
Funny how our "news" studiously avoids discussing water levels on the Great Lakes. You'd think that's at least as relevant to the local community as the latest covid case numbers or Trump's latest tweet.
Ten years ago a lot of places were talking about dredging their harbours because the big boats couldn't get in anymore. Now they're talking about building dikes. If the water keeps coming up the way it has the past few years, we'll be well past the talking stage.
And of course we'll be caught completely unprepared...
But I digress.
The park has maybe a quarter mile of waterfront. There weren't more than three or four cars parked, so we were able to stake out a lovely spot that had complete privacy.
Until Rita and her friend Rita showed up.
It takes the ballsiest of people to set up right next to you when the entire park is practically deserted. That happened to us once at a campground in Montreal River. That's a very picturesque spot on Lake Superior with about twenty or thirty campsites. We had the whole glorious place to ourselves... until this gigantic Harley pulls in.
Those people had the entire park to choose from, but they decided their best bet was to pitch their tent right next to us. I just hate when people do that. Nevertheless, it turned into quite the interesting encounter.
My first observation was that they had more shit in the various saddle-bags and trunks on that Harley than what we had in our Toyota. They had a bigger tent. They had fishing poles. I was half expecting them to pull a canoe out of somewhere.
Turns out Buddy was a big cheese in one of those "outlaw motorcycle gangs" you read about in the paper all the time. He'd been to Winnipeg for some sort of national business meeting. He was from Montreal, and spoke with a heavy French accent, as did his partner. Do they still call them "old ladys?"
I thought those people prefer the comfort of the finer hotels these days, but obviously some of them still go in for old-school tent camping. As much as I didn't appreciate the proximity at first blush, they were great neighbours.
So there we were, luxuriating on our private ten square feet of beachfront, when these two middle-aged damsels come wandering down the path. Why?... you've got the whole f@cking quarter mile of waterfront, and you're gonna come right down this particular path and keep us company???
Why? Why? Why?...
It was Rita and her friend Rita. In a voluptuous East European accent, Rita 1 holds up a shopping bag and announces, "Zeez are my sweeming shoes. I sweem in Reechmund Heel this morning."
Holy shit! They're from Richmond Hill?! My dear daughter lived there for years! I know the place. If I had to live in the city, anywhere within a few blocks of Mill Pond Park would work for me.
We get to talking with these obnoxious people. The FM pegged them as Jews almost from the get go. There ensued a lively conversation about the merits and demerits of various synagogues in the Richmond Hill area, because the FM spent twenty years just south of Steeles.
Turns out they were originally from Ukraine. They emigrated to Israel and then moved on to Canada.
Always keen on showing off my knowledge of current events, I enquired as to how they felt now that Ukraine had a Jewish PM.
Rita 2 says, "Ya ya, Jewish funny guy. Have comedy show on TV. He funny all right - funniest man in zee world..."
I think I detected a note of sarcasm.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Black Lives Matter to Mercedes-Benz
In fact, black lives matter so much to Mercedes-Benz their Formula One race cars will sport all-black paint jobs for the coming season! Symbolic, perhaps, but a welcome step in the right direction. Who knows, maybe someday we'll even have a black F1 champion!
Formula One has now joined NASCAR in putting race into car racing. Both are big-name multi-billion-dollar brands who rely on the usual plethora of corporate brands for sponsorship and make billions from big media conglomerates who promote their product.
In fact, the cash machine that Bernie Ecclestone built is now owned by a big media conglomerate.
This is part of the astonishing wave of A-list corporate entities who have embraced BLM. All the biggest banks and all the richest foundations are keen to demonstrate their wokeness to the public.
Here's a question; How will all this corporate support impact the struggle against systemic racism? After all, it's impossible to have a discussion about systemic racism without examining the system that created all those billionaires and their philanthropic foundations. That's the same system that has disembowelled the middle class, especially the black middle class, and immiserated the working class. It's the very same system that's been making the rich richer and the poor poorer as long as we can remember.
But they're gung-ho for Black Lives Matter?
Smells like virtue signalling, hypocrisy, and opportunism to me.
Formula One has now joined NASCAR in putting race into car racing. Both are big-name multi-billion-dollar brands who rely on the usual plethora of corporate brands for sponsorship and make billions from big media conglomerates who promote their product.
In fact, the cash machine that Bernie Ecclestone built is now owned by a big media conglomerate.
This is part of the astonishing wave of A-list corporate entities who have embraced BLM. All the biggest banks and all the richest foundations are keen to demonstrate their wokeness to the public.
Here's a question; How will all this corporate support impact the struggle against systemic racism? After all, it's impossible to have a discussion about systemic racism without examining the system that created all those billionaires and their philanthropic foundations. That's the same system that has disembowelled the middle class, especially the black middle class, and immiserated the working class. It's the very same system that's been making the rich richer and the poor poorer as long as we can remember.
But they're gung-ho for Black Lives Matter?
Smells like virtue signalling, hypocrisy, and opportunism to me.
Sunday, June 28, 2020
Move over LGBTQ, here comes BIPOC
That's Black, Indigenous, and People Of Colour, in case you're not up on the latest jargon. Apparently there is a black, native, and people of colour coalition coalescing as I type these words.
I'm not sure how this will work out. "People of colour" is a pretty big basket. Asians are racialized people of colour, aren't they? How much does an Asian-Canadian kid have in common with a black kid from Jane Finch? And how much do either of them have in common with a native kid in Attawpiskat?
Seems to me this "BIPOC" label is intended to mean "non-white." Who is white and who is not, is oddly enough, something that changes over time. For example, when Greeks were first getting off the boat in significant numbers, they suffered all kinds of discrimination because, like other Mediterranean people, they weren't considered "white." That's why a lot of your early Greek immigrants opened restaurants. Like the Chinese, it was a niche that was open to them.
Believe it or not, there was a time when Irish immigrants weren't considered "white."
The Irish are a special case, of course. In their old country they had a civil war that dragged on forever, between the white Catholics and the equally white Protestants. It's kind of tough to get your head around, because they're all white and they all love Jesus, but they merrily murdered one another for generations.
I've always found cause for great optimism in the fact that when we take the occasional visit to the big city, you see all sorts of folks fraternising with people who don't look like them. Give it a couple of generations, I thought, and everybody will be some shade of beige.
Sadly, we seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
I'm not sure how this will work out. "People of colour" is a pretty big basket. Asians are racialized people of colour, aren't they? How much does an Asian-Canadian kid have in common with a black kid from Jane Finch? And how much do either of them have in common with a native kid in Attawpiskat?
Seems to me this "BIPOC" label is intended to mean "non-white." Who is white and who is not, is oddly enough, something that changes over time. For example, when Greeks were first getting off the boat in significant numbers, they suffered all kinds of discrimination because, like other Mediterranean people, they weren't considered "white." That's why a lot of your early Greek immigrants opened restaurants. Like the Chinese, it was a niche that was open to them.
Believe it or not, there was a time when Irish immigrants weren't considered "white."
The Irish are a special case, of course. In their old country they had a civil war that dragged on forever, between the white Catholics and the equally white Protestants. It's kind of tough to get your head around, because they're all white and they all love Jesus, but they merrily murdered one another for generations.
I've always found cause for great optimism in the fact that when we take the occasional visit to the big city, you see all sorts of folks fraternising with people who don't look like them. Give it a couple of generations, I thought, and everybody will be some shade of beige.
Sadly, we seem to be heading in the opposite direction.
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Debunked in Germany, still golden at the CBC
Last November the German news magazine Der Spiegel ran an investigative story that exposed Bill Browder's yarn about the demise of his "lawyer," Sergei Magnitsky, as, well, a yarn. Browder did the predictable huffing and puffing and filed a complaint with the German Press Council.
The Press Council eventually tossed Browder's complaint, citing the many contradictions in and the essentially unverifiable nature of much of the narrative that Browder has promoted over the years. In other words... liar liar pants on fire. I thought the fallout from this episode would blow a sufficiently large hole in Browder's credibility that his career as a Russia expert and Putin critic would be over.
I was wrong. I nearly fell off my chair this morning when Browder showed up on CBC's Day Six as, you guessed it, world renowned Russia expert, Putin critic, and human rights activist!
This doesn't do anything to enhance the credibility of the CBC.
Shame!
The Press Council eventually tossed Browder's complaint, citing the many contradictions in and the essentially unverifiable nature of much of the narrative that Browder has promoted over the years. In other words... liar liar pants on fire. I thought the fallout from this episode would blow a sufficiently large hole in Browder's credibility that his career as a Russia expert and Putin critic would be over.
I was wrong. I nearly fell off my chair this morning when Browder showed up on CBC's Day Six as, you guessed it, world renowned Russia expert, Putin critic, and human rights activist!
This doesn't do anything to enhance the credibility of the CBC.
Shame!
Friday, June 26, 2020
Wolseley Corner
If you pass through Wolseley today, all you'll see is a few semi-derelict trailers stiched together. That place used to be a bakery. Before that, it used to be a gas station.
On the other corner there's somebody trying to get a doggie motel going. I wish them well.
Just east of the intersection of 17 and 20, somebody turned an old church into a lovely home. Right next to that is the boarded-up Orange Lodge.
I'm hoping somebody Catholic (or even better, Muslim,) turns that into a home too.
That's all idle speculation, of course, perhaps due to the culminating mental impact of three hundred years of isolation... or three months...
But the cool thing about Wolseley Corner is I can hear the traffic coming and going, from the front stoop right here at Falling Downs.
Just before I sat down to write these words, I swear I heard a big-bore Ducati heading this way. They have their own sound.
I followed the sound up the hill past the Orange Lodge, then a couple of upshifts as he or she hit the brief straightaway before the downhill, where you're coming off the escarpment and heading into a gentle left and then some twisties, till you hit that straight 3km of highway where that Ducati sounded like it hit its redline, which would have meant something in the order of 160 miles per hour.
My eyes and my ears shared about a quarter second of experience as that bike flashed past my lookout on the stoop.
That's what old guys do... watch and listen as life goes by.
On the other corner there's somebody trying to get a doggie motel going. I wish them well.
Just east of the intersection of 17 and 20, somebody turned an old church into a lovely home. Right next to that is the boarded-up Orange Lodge.
I'm hoping somebody Catholic (or even better, Muslim,) turns that into a home too.
That's all idle speculation, of course, perhaps due to the culminating mental impact of three hundred years of isolation... or three months...
But the cool thing about Wolseley Corner is I can hear the traffic coming and going, from the front stoop right here at Falling Downs.
Just before I sat down to write these words, I swear I heard a big-bore Ducati heading this way. They have their own sound.
I followed the sound up the hill past the Orange Lodge, then a couple of upshifts as he or she hit the brief straightaway before the downhill, where you're coming off the escarpment and heading into a gentle left and then some twisties, till you hit that straight 3km of highway where that Ducati sounded like it hit its redline, which would have meant something in the order of 160 miles per hour.
My eyes and my ears shared about a quarter second of experience as that bike flashed past my lookout on the stoop.
That's what old guys do... watch and listen as life goes by.
CBC plays footsie with a fascist
John Bolton isn't normally the kind of guy you'd expect to get a sympathetic interview at the CBC. That's because he's been an extreme right-wing nutter in US politics since the Reagan era. There's not been a single US conflict in that time that he has objected to.
In fact, he is generally among the most enthusiastic advocates for more wars. John Bolton is widely considered a war criminal. He has, however, voiced his displeasure over America's failure to bomb more foreign nations, especially Muslim ones, to ratshit.
He seemed an unlikely choice for National Security Advisor, but word is this was a decision made not by Trump, but by Sheldon Adelson, Trump's biggest financial supporter in the 2016 campaign. Coincidentally, Adelson also has Israel's Netanyahu in his pocket as well, and both Adelson and Bibi love Bolton's hatred of Iran.
In the eyes of CBC decision makers, though, Bolton's fifty year history of relentless warmongering can now be set aside, as he's just released a book critical of Trump! That buys a lot of redemption among the ersatz progressives at the CBC.
Host Matt Galloway lobbed the predictable softballs, and for the most part the interview hewed to the central matter that Bolton and the CBC can agree on; what an inept a-hole Trump is. While you'd think that question has been more or less settled for some time, it's never too late for another former insider with a seven-number book deal to pile on.
Bolton only got testy when Matt referred to Brazil's Bolsonaro as a dictator. Bolton was quick to set the record straight; Bolsonaro was democratically elected, dontcha know, and if the Brazilians don't like him, they'll democratically turf him next time round.
The reason Bolsonaro was democratically elected was because the US saw to it that the favorite to win, leftist Lula da Silva, was in jail at the time. Bolsonaro has been such a disaster he makes Trump look like a serious statesman. If the military doesn't remove him first, Lula will surely oust him in the next election.
When he fired Bolton, Trump remarked that if Bolton had his way, "we'd be on World War Six by now," probably one of Trump's more astute observations in his three and a half years in the White House.
In fact, he is generally among the most enthusiastic advocates for more wars. John Bolton is widely considered a war criminal. He has, however, voiced his displeasure over America's failure to bomb more foreign nations, especially Muslim ones, to ratshit.
He seemed an unlikely choice for National Security Advisor, but word is this was a decision made not by Trump, but by Sheldon Adelson, Trump's biggest financial supporter in the 2016 campaign. Coincidentally, Adelson also has Israel's Netanyahu in his pocket as well, and both Adelson and Bibi love Bolton's hatred of Iran.
In the eyes of CBC decision makers, though, Bolton's fifty year history of relentless warmongering can now be set aside, as he's just released a book critical of Trump! That buys a lot of redemption among the ersatz progressives at the CBC.
Host Matt Galloway lobbed the predictable softballs, and for the most part the interview hewed to the central matter that Bolton and the CBC can agree on; what an inept a-hole Trump is. While you'd think that question has been more or less settled for some time, it's never too late for another former insider with a seven-number book deal to pile on.
Bolton only got testy when Matt referred to Brazil's Bolsonaro as a dictator. Bolton was quick to set the record straight; Bolsonaro was democratically elected, dontcha know, and if the Brazilians don't like him, they'll democratically turf him next time round.
The reason Bolsonaro was democratically elected was because the US saw to it that the favorite to win, leftist Lula da Silva, was in jail at the time. Bolsonaro has been such a disaster he makes Trump look like a serious statesman. If the military doesn't remove him first, Lula will surely oust him in the next election.
When he fired Bolton, Trump remarked that if Bolton had his way, "we'd be on World War Six by now," probably one of Trump's more astute observations in his three and a half years in the White House.
Izzy's buffet of human rights
Step right up, folks, and prepare to be amazed by our magnificent Museum for Human Rights! Let us know in advance whose human rights may give offence, and we will do our best to shield those exhibits from your gaze...
Poor Izzy Asper must be spinning in his grave. His vision for a museum honouring human rights is engulfed in a shitstorm of accusations including racism, homophobia, and sexual harassment.
The idea that staff at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights were pressured into shielding some visitors from exhibits they might find disagreeable, runs counter to any concept of human rights most Canadians are familiar with. It's the very opposite of the educational mission one might expect such an institution to engage in.
If potential donors are shielded from certain exhibits they might find offensive, the Museum is indulging the very bigotry it was ostensibly intended to fight against. I don't think that's what the Aspers had in mind.
Poor Izzy Asper must be spinning in his grave. His vision for a museum honouring human rights is engulfed in a shitstorm of accusations including racism, homophobia, and sexual harassment.
The idea that staff at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights were pressured into shielding some visitors from exhibits they might find disagreeable, runs counter to any concept of human rights most Canadians are familiar with. It's the very opposite of the educational mission one might expect such an institution to engage in.
If potential donors are shielded from certain exhibits they might find offensive, the Museum is indulging the very bigotry it was ostensibly intended to fight against. I don't think that's what the Aspers had in mind.
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