Objectivist Roadshow

Newfoundland is better than Toronto because no one has broken into my vehicle to steal anything from it. Traffic is also slightly different.

God, it is pretty here.

I am not a Yankee, but I wish I was...

There is something about those pinstripes that just makes people better. Last night, in the pouring rain, a bunch of middle of road replacement players effected a fantastic comeback to win 5-4. Last night, I was three under after nine and then three jacked 13 and tripled 16 to get it back to one over, with absolutely nothing on the line. If I was wearing pinstripes, I wouldn't have choked like that.

The Yankees have had a tough go this year. They have had more set-backs from injuries then the allied forces did in 1941. Three of their best players have hardly played. Three of their Future Hall of Famers have been sidelined with nagging "age" related injuries.

They deal with the adversity by culling through the minor leagues and crappier teams and give uni's to five total chuckers who immediately after putting on the pinstripes turn into heros.

The Yankees have always been akin to a pension plan for superstars. They usually sign players who are at their peak for huge dollars over a long term. They get two or three great years, and then it goes downhill.

And they make money. Before selling a single ticket, the Yankees make a billion dollars on their cable contracts. Not to mention the property value of the completely debt free Yankee Stadium. Not to mention the revenues from those wicked hats. And then they start selling tickets.

No matter where they play they have fans. No matter where they go, they have people who hate them with a passion.

Alienation in a Nation of Aliens

Fransisco d'Anconia, John Galt and Ragnar Danneskjold all attended at the Patrick Henry University and were considered the best pupils of its engineering program under the tutelage of Hugh Akston and Robert Stadler.

There is little doubt that Patrick Henry University was a fictional Harvard, and it would seem, that like Patrick Henry, John Harvard's institution has taken to exporting leadership around the world. On top of Iggy, we now have Dr. Oscar Kashala. He hasn't lived in the Congo since 1987, but he went home a lot. Sounds familiar, no? Apparently in Africa is it acceptable to live far away and come back to seek power provided you were exiled.

I have yet to have an informed conversation about the Liberal Leadership race without hearing that the major criticism of Michael Ignatieff is "how can he expect to run the country because he hasn't lived in it for the last 30 years?" Well, I thought I could run the country when I was 18. By mathematical definition...

Frankly, I don't care that he wasn't here for 30 years. Manchester is about as different from the UoT campus as Belleville is different from Red Deer. Not to put to fine a point on it, but if there was a place in America that was like Canada, Manchester Massachusetts would be it. It is full of well educated, industrious people from all over the world who are trying to make a better life for themselves then they had before.

In the past 30 years, he has lived in numerous different places like London, Vancouver (that is still in Canada, right?), Paris, San Francisco and Manchester. He also used to be a broadcast journalist. Sound familiar? He is an academic- by his very nature he lived everywhere and regardless of where he lived, he was in an ivory tower anyway. If he taught at UoT or York his world view would be identical but his students would be dumber. Bravo. I can say that because I got accepted to all three. $35,000 a year (in 1997) and they think they are smart? Go Mustangs.

If "residency requirement" is the key issue that bars Iggy from higher office, I am disappointed with Canada. More than 1/3 of the people who live in Canada were not born here, and 2/3 of the people left over have not lived in the same "community" their whole lives. We are a community of communities, with each one more disparate from the next. We are as affected by world issues as any place on the planet- if not directly, in our minds and hearts. Mr. Bissoondath would tell you that our unshared history has been vital to forming our collective identify of tolerance towards foreign ideas and culture in more than a superficial "culture fair" way. The fact that Iggy has lived in so many diverse and rich cultures is an argument as to why he is better suited to lead Canadians not the opposite.

The sarcastic way of articulating the opposite is "on principle, I am unable to support any leader that does not come from the North End of Ottawa Centre or the airport end of Ottawa South. I can't identify with Kanata and Orleans, let alone Vancouver or Halifax."

It might be true that he can't identify with the ordinary Canadian but that has nothing to do with not living here. Most PhDs and tenured professors of international renown can't identify with Canadians. I bet I could take the first Jeff Foxworthy fan I find in Macon, Georgia and drop him into either Belleville or Red Deer and he could find an army of people who would agree with him on various important debates, including the exhausting "tastes great"vs. "less filling" or a shared loathing for showers and the "no shirt - no service" rules at Walmart.

As best as I can tell, Iggy's biggest legitimate knock against him is that he isn't actually a Liberal. He supports the war in Iraq, let alone the continued military mission in Afghanistan. Pearson would not be proud. He also looks like a cross between John Kerry (also from MA, must be the water) and the Grinch who stole Christmas. He is the son of foreign aristocracy and as such is entitled to lead.

Ug. If Bill Clinton showed up tomorrow and declared his candidacy, I would support him despite the fact that he has spent less time in Canada then Iggy, or Iggy Pop, has. To be fair, Slick Willy has probably spent more time in Canada then our sovereign, the Queen of Canada has. Get it?

Ottawa Centre Left- it will be back after lunch

Bob Rae for Leader, maybe.

But Bob Rae (L - 2006) as a candidate for Ottawa Centre? Why not...

This is one of the more volatile ridings in play. Virtually unaffected by vote splitting, it has been won by a former party leader, a senator, and the son of a former Ottawa Mayor. It has famously not been won, twice, by a liberal insider and martin bag-man.

The riding is a lefty as it gets in this area, maybe the province. There is assuredly something in the water in the Glebe that makes them vote with their hearts instead of their property value. Senator Harb (L- Chretien) won this vote against upstart candidates turned Layton advisors and GreenPeace lobbyists and was one of the best riding men I have ever seen. This is particularly easy when your house is actually closer to the Hill than your riding office.

In the next election, there are three complicating factors that will contribute to this riding going Liberal. First, if Rae is the leader, he is a lock. Don't hold your breath, but it could be worse. As leader he would have his pick of the litter, so he would probably run at home in TO anyway. But other leaders, most recently Stockwell Day (C - the BC interior) in Red Deer, for example, let Bob Mills (C - I don't hate Kyoto) hold the seat.

Second, if this riding is home to the Green Party leader David Chernesko (G - An inconvenient candidate) and again, don't hold your breath that he will win because Elizabeth May (G - Bill Clinton's buddy, how close is your guess) is the Paul Martin to Chernesko's Sheila Copps. Regardless, even if he does win, it will have only a marginal effect, but would likely only pull votes away from the New Democrats. Those NDPers would not be the votes that Rae would be going after anyway. Rae courts the centre left, not the wacky left.

Third, someone is going to realize very soon that Marion's son is very popular in the union, and horribly ineffective as an MP. His job is to criticize the easiest piece of legislation to criticize in the world and he has been virtually silent- taking a back seat to NDP MP Pat Martin (NDP - Portage and Main, 50 below - Supposedly an NDP MP for Winnipeg Centre; in actuality he is a Conservative apologist who is never seen in his riding, but can be found rather easily in his cottage in BC).

Why Ottawa Centre? Well, parachuting is a non-issue. Despite "living" in the riding, Ed Broadbent (NDP - comfortable) was a parachute too. He taught at Queens and McGill and is really from Oshawa. Ottawa Centre is also not a riding that would be turned off by a slip in because almost the entirety of the riding's population is from somewhere else and that is not even likely to be somewhere else in Ottawa or Ontario.

And with few provincial employees, how affected was the riding from Rae Days, anyway? I got a few more days off school. Vote Bob.

License to IL

Dear Kim:

Congratulations on your most recent rocket test. I am inspired by the ability of your rockets to travel almost seven hundred yards. Considering that these rockets have a target of Alaska (a strategically important target) the significant strides you must make to reach that goal are a testament to the hunger that your people will endure in order to strike out against those capitalist king crabbers. The irony is delicious. Not nearly as delicious as you look like- the most recent photo I saw with your castro-esque fatigues and chia-head hairdo are to die for.

It is my regret to inform you, however, that despite your numerous requests for no attention whatsoever, dear leader, your military advancements are starting to annoy those to our south. As you can see, you and I share much in common as my current antagonist - the free trading, non-tariff barrier erecting capitalist dogs to your south monopolize (pun intended) most of my free time. Your southern antagonists and capitalist oppressors who wish to reunite families despite the impact of emotions on the Democratic Republic of Korea, while my southern oppressors are forcing me to carry an identity card when approaching their border. So lucky are your subjects knowing that they cannot know the oppression of an over-weight border security agent.

I have been provided with the authority to trade with you the living rights to numerous movie stars (like Matt Damon) in exchange for a promise from you to arrest your behavior and promise to seek no more "un"-attention. While it is clear to me that your Stalinist ways and military build-up is for the pride of the Democratic Republic of Korea, others feel that it is a show of aggression on your part. As if the Japanese have anything to fear from you when the nuclear behemoth Godzilla still roams free. The inevitable, and completely planned, nuclear event in Pyongyang that will create Jongzilla will be the turn that will forever cement your name into the Geiger counter of history.

Like you, I am lonely for the company of like-minded men. Unlike you, there is no race to succeed me and CIA operatives plotting to remove you in a very bloody coup (which is French for neck, through which all of my blood flows.) I long for your continued life, and suggest, for my own sake, that you focus your inexplicable intellect on providing your disciplines with sustenance which they can choose to reject in order to further the great leader's communist dream, rather than tempt them into stealing from each other.

With dying affection,

Atlas Huggs you, Dear Kim.

Silly Season, REDUX

The fundraiser was for the homeless shelter for animals. The repeatedly used the expression “euthanized” and at the end they auctioned off a fur coat. We aren’t in Kansas anymore.

The MC of the event was my favourite Cabinet Minister- and Rusty (C - Church/Gerrard) did a fine job. Someone must teach him that you don’t have to have your face pressing against a microphone to make it work.

That said, he told a long story about a hunting experience in his old riding. A current MPP got up to thank him for his speech and made a reference to Dick Cheney (R - Wyoming) and his hunting buddies, and how hunting with Rusty may lead to getting shot in the face. When topped off with a few allusions to sliding in the polls in the early Harris (C - Sensible) years it was comedy gold. Of course, there were only two people cackling in the back of the room, and I may have been one of them. Nobody else seemed to understand.

Silly season is well in hand.

I love Canada, but hate Canada Day

For me, Canada day happens when we win a big hockey game or we defeat separatists who are themselves trying to create a nation. Ironic, eh?

As a child, I was often excited at the idea of watching the crackling fireworks and the spit-shined luster of the Mounties on Parliament Hill. As I grew older, I noticed a great deal more was afoot on what we should most surely call anarchy day. I mean, no laws are actually enforced, right?

To be honest, what I see every year in downtown Ottawa is not truly in the spirit of patriotism, rather, it is the tacit acceptance of behaviour that would otherwise be illegal. Hundreds of thousands of people descent to within three blocks of where I live and they leave a huge mess. They come to Ottawa, revel in and around our gothic architecture and invest millions in the local transient economy. Why is that? On any other day of the year, that boorish temperament would be completely foreign. This year it went too far because someone peed on a statue. Puh-lease. It was bad before, and if they were wizzing on the monument dedicated to Canadian Women pioneers for democracy, it would be just as offensive to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to celebrate the birth of our nation with the same selfless vigor that I see in downtown Ottawa on the first day of July, but after some careful self-reflection, I realized that I was not celebrating Canada day per se. Rather, I was taking advantage of a collective dreamscape to act like a teenager, and selfishly get away with it. This unruly nationalist, one with whom the average Ottawan has seen on Canada day or photographed at the cenotaph, is full of life, full of joy, and loaded with Canadian spirit. I don’t have a problem with someone having a beer or three on Canada day, but it often takes much more then that to induce the “screaming patriotism” that would normally be found rooting for Manchester United.

The fact that Canadian nationalism is seemingly induced has always kind of bothered me. If not by the celebratory day, then by the spirits that accompany it. Are these men imitating a founding father, or (as I suspect) are they just acting like idiots? Most importantly, would the majority of these folks act the same way with a blood alcohol level below 0.08%?

The drunks I can at least hose down. The capitalist patriot is the one that really bothers me. I am not saying that providing services to those celebrating our glorious nation is anti-Canadian. Rather, I am being critical of those who are amassing obscene amounts of capital in so doing. On any other night, admission and a beer at a local pub or bar would be well under ten dollars. Canada day? Hah. They are just fueling the nationalism described above. I will admit that there are other capitalists who are being just as resourceful on the holiest of Canadian days. But there is profiting and profiteering, and the latter off of patriotism of others is morally repugnant. Water costs four dollars a bottle. Cheap trinkets cost even more. And I am sure they report every penny to the Canada Revenue Agency.

Perhaps Canadians have a maturity about them that extends beyond the superficial celebration of our roots on a daily basis, but can be collected annually and vented properly out of our systems until the next fretful summer. Somehow, however, I doubt that is the case. I noticed that on Canada Day, flags become much more apparent in our fair city then on any other day of the year. It is not interesting that more Canadians choose to put up a flag on their house on that day; it is interesting that many Canadians take them down the day after. Methinks that this manifestation of nationalism is a tad shallow, and ultimately is only done because it is fashionable.

I have found that Americans celebrate their nationalism on July 4th, whereas Canadians become nationalistic on July 1st. As a Canadian, I am often critical of over zealous American nationalism, but it has something that is surprisingly attractive: consistency. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer convenient nationalism to the fervent nationalism found in the south. God blessed America already, move on.

Of course, at the same time, people deface national monuments because a) they don’t know better or b) there are no guardsmen there to shoot them. The over-reaction of our lifetime is to create a police state around the cenotaph, but somehow I doubt that the tomb of the unknown solider in the U.S. would ever need a guard, despite it being there 24-7. Maybe, there is a benefit to reciting the bill of rights every day.