TriumphAnt

1. Recently I was driving to our local animal hospital to pick up another sack of vet-prescribed cat food for our feline trio, that apparently is “THE ONLY FOOD YOU SHOULD GIVE THEM OR THEY’LL SWELL UP AND DIE!!! THAT’LL BE $40 PLEASE.” But I digress.

I got to a red light and found myself sitting right behind a biker. And the back of his helmet was painted in a highly realistic way to look like the view you’d get if you were looking at the front of his helmet – a full face, wearing goggles, framed by the edge of a motorcycle helmet. The effect was Dali-esque in its surrealism. Imagine: first of all, you’re looking at a human face turned 180 degrees relative to the body on which it sits. Secondly, of course, as the rider turns his head from side to side, the face you see also turns and the surreal effect is magnified even more – because you just know a human head cannot possibly turn from that position, much less actually get there in the first place.

I was so mesmerized that, at the next light, I only remembered at the last second to brake, so intently was I staring at this helmet image.

I have this sick feeling that this biker one day will be involved in a crash (perhaps caused by a following driver staring intently at the back of his helmet) that will render him unconscious. A well-intentioned good Samaritan will happen by, see the unfortunate result of the accident and promptly wrench the rider’s head around 180 degrees to the way he thinks it should be.

OK, So I’m not entirely normal and I did grow up during the heyday of the Mad Magazine cartoons of Don Martin (“Egad! It’s Joe Fonebone! He’s apparently been run over by a steamroller! We’d better get him to hospital” * Flip * Fold * Flip * Fladdap… and as they’re rushing the neatly folded Mr Fonebone to the hospital, along comes a heavily bespectacled gentleman sporting a sweatshirt emblazoned with “Nearsighted Strongmen’s Club” who, of course, thinks the recently-pleated Mr. Fonebone is, in fact, a phone book. “Riiiiiiip!”) I guess you had to see it for yourself.

2. Mixed media: You can really tell that the media are already starting to get sick of their own election coverage. CBC radio did a short piece one recent morning about a local resident who woke up to find a Liberal party candidate’s sign had “appeared” overnight on the publicly-owned corner of his property. He is emphatic about wanting his neighbours to know he is not a Liberal party supporter. CBC injected a bunch of Twilight Zone background music in a successful effort to make the story sound even stupider than it already was.

And for those who craved something more than a simple on-air description of the sign’s embellishments (the homeowner in question had bracketed his corner's unwanted Liberal sign with two handwritten additions, one in English, the other in French, proclaiming, “This sign does NOT represent our voting intentions!!!”), there was the direction to “visit our Ottawa website for a photograph.” So the CBC’s paid staff use so far on this idiotic story? A reporter dispatched to interview the disgruntled homeowner, an accompanying photographer; two on-air personalities to banter about it and quite probably a webmaster to upload the photo. Talk (but please, just amongst yourselves) about a slow news day!

3. A lawyer joke comes to life. Remember the old riddle that goes, “What do you call 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? – A good start.” Well, it seems the American Medical Association is entertaining a motion that treats this as a directive instead of a joke.

At their Annual Meeting this year, AMA delegates might be asked to consider a little something called Resolution 202, tabled by one Dr. J. Chris Hawk III from South Carolina to something called the AMA's Committee B.

Ralph Nader points out in an article he has written for the website, “Common Dreams” that, if passed by the Committee, this resolution will proceed to the AMA’s House of Delegates:

"RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association notify physicians that, except in emergencies and except as otherwise required by law or other professional regulation, it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses."

Bottom line? If passed, it will no longer be a violation of a US MD’s Hippocratic Oath to refuse medical care to the lawyer – and his / her spouse – who might be representing someone suing you or one of your colleagues for malpractice, because the good Doctor Hawk has concluded that the tens of thousands (!!) of plaintiffs who have an action pending on any given day are directly responsible for the incredibly high cost of malpractice insurance.

Ralph calls it “chilling”. Yours truly is still too stunned to call it anything but unbelievable. (Of course, this is happening in a country whose President has just been revealed to be in possession of a carefully worded legal opinion that essentially places him above worldwide laws like the Geneva Convention when it comes to condoning torture by soldiers serving under him when he sports his “Commander-in-Chief” hat. So considering their role model, the AMA might just as easily be said to be right in tune with the times. O tempora, O mores)

4. From the Department of Urgently Needed Clarifications: Here are the first and last sentences of a report from AnaNova about the content of one brand of Belgian hotdogs. In between were a half dozen other short paragraphs, but it’s only when you hit the very last sentence that you realize the “OmiGAWD!” reaction you experienced at the start need not have been nearly so grossed out as it was: (FIRST SENTENCE: “Two directors of a Belgian meat wholesaler have been arrested after dog meat was found in hot dogs around Europe.” … LAST SENTENCE: “The Federal Food Agency in Belgium has confirmed the meat used in the hot dogs was intended for use in the dog food industry.”) So it’s meat FOR dogs. Not meat OF dogs. * Phew *

(Just don’t ask them why they spell the main ingredient of their canned soup line “collie-flower”.)

5. And last on today’s list – more than one tear has probably been shed for the following loss in St John’s, Newfoundland:

Mon, 14 Jun 2004 12:00:28
“Fire destroys St. John's fish and chips landmark”

ST. JOHN'S, NFLD. - The owner of Newfoundland's landmark fish and chips restaurant has vowed to rebuild after a fire destroyed the building on the weekend. The blaze broke out at Ches's Fish and Chips in St. John's Sunday afternoon. Both of the business's buildings were destroyed in the blaze. A third building was heavily damaged. A block of adjacent houses was evacuated but no one was injured. "It won't keep Ches's down," said Kathy Barbour, daughter of the late founder, Ches Barbour. "We'll come above this. It's not an easy thing, by no means, but we will survive this." Ches's opened in 1951 and has become a landmark in the city. It operates three other restaurants in the capital region. There is no official explanation for the cause of the fire yet, but police say it started in one of the kitchens. It's suspected a frying machine caught fire."

I’ve been there. Decor-wise, Ches’s was the quintessential greasy spoon. In fact, I'm not surprised to hear that a pot of cooking grease is being fingered as the most likely cause. I suspect some of their fryers still had residue of their 1951 inaugural fish-fry in them -- like those Ukrainian yogurt culture starter batches that are culled from the previous batch, and some of which are believed to go back centuries.

But it's what made Ches's so good. Unbelievably good, in fact, assuming your only expectation was for the best deep-fried fish and chips you’ll ever taste. The minuscule side cup of cole slaw almost always went uneaten (at least by me), and I suspect it was probably only added to the menu to assuage a grumpy out-of-town nutritionist who foolishly ventured into the fry-smoke aroma-rich eatery and threatened to blackball them in front of his whole convention if they didn’t provide something that was not deep-fried.

Ches’s cheesy arborite tables were each adorned with large shakers of salt and malt vinegar. They did give you a plastic fork, but hey! Firm fish and fries are finger foods. (Typographer! More “f”’s! And be phast about it!) Plates? Fuggedaboudit. They used re-cycled yellow cardboard pulp trays, made of the same material as the things you get at a Tim Horton's drive-by window to hold multiple cups of hot fluid. And those "plates" just soaked up the vinegar! I wouldn't be surprised to hear you could chow down on them after you'd finished your fish and chips! That’d sure please the Dietary Fibre Convention.

Hopefully, they'll go for recapturing as much of that as possible when they rebuild. Being business-wise common-sense Newfies, they no doubt will. Don't want to kill the goose that fries the golden fillet, after all. The last thing they want to do is to inject some uppity city-slicker accommodation like styrofoam plates or some such nonsense into their service.

No, Ches’s – like the phoenix – will arise from its own ashes, and probably will even have an opening day special on – ahem – smoked cod. Heavily smoked cod. Waste not; want not.