TriumphAnt

I’m not sure what’s happening here. Either I’ve missed a simile while growing up, or this actually represents an old simile updated for the new millennium.

Recently, there was a huge kerfuffle over Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams’ storming out of federal / provincial talks on “equalization”. In separate news conferences held to explain their positions, both the Newfoundland Premier and Prime Minister Paul Martin were standing up at their microphones whining about how each had been trying to contact the other unsuccessfully. Thing is, the microphones were placed back-to-back and just a few metres apart, which yielded the uniquely Canadian spectacle of two people almost within touching distance, each loudly protesting the other’s unwillingness to communicate with him.

But it was the analogy used in one article that I thought interesting: “It spoke volumes about the surreal nature of this federation that neither man considered walking up to his negotiating partner to tell him to stop acting like a big girl's blouse and get back to the table.” (National Post, October 27)

So is this an updated about-time-we-gave-the-other-gender-equal-time version about the badly overused comparative image of two manly men comparing their whatzits? And if so, just how the heck does “a big girl’s blouse” normally “act”, anyway? Anyone?

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New dribblings from my ironically-named Department of Irony:

The cancellation of two recent information-related projects at work has given me cause and pause to wonder. There was a general information session entitled “Knowing Our Business” that was to have been held in our plain-languagely named Learning Centre. A couple days ago, the easel-borne sign promoting the event was diagonally draped with an enormous, red-lettered banner, “CANCELLED / ANNULÉ”.

And recently in a mid-morning e-mail, we all dutifully received a message advising us that it is time to complete our annual Learning Plan, essentially a statement of hope (a) that we will consider broadening our skill sets beyond those used in our day-to-day jobs, for which the department provides some funding for course registration, and (b) that our supervisors will approve our choices.

By early afternoon of the same day, a follow-up message advised one and all that the Learning Plan has been cancelled.

(So, today's lesson is: well, I guess... people who are caught learning anything, especially if it involves Knowing Our Business, will be shot.)

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Mail, we got mail!

I was thrilled to hear from a couple correspondents following up my not-too-long ago whine about missing the point on the need for flu shots. As one regular reader noted, there’s a time lag between the incubation period of any disease, and the point where you actually display enough symptoms to realize you’re sick. The problem, of course, is you’re contagious during both periods. And as Tonstant Weader* argued, “I don't like the idea of passing on the virus to the very old or very young during the incubation period, when I don't know for sure that I'm going down with something, and am spreading germs all over the public transport system. I'll recover reasonably quickly, but there's the chance that others could be damaged or finished off by complications of flu.”

Tonstant Weader* also pointed out that while we might well be more modern in our methods of travel today than we were in 1918-9, we still travel much more numerously and faster than ever before in hermetically sealed tubes that recycle rather than vent our germ-laden exhalations.

But the zinger, I thought, was, “I think that someone should be making the point that if the Bush Administration can't protect its citizens from a relatively common virus, how in the blazes does it expect to shield them from terrorist-linked biological warfare? Someone did suggest yesterday that the mad goal of vaccinating the U.S. population against smallpox, and the costly business of building up a stockpile of the vaccine, meant that the flu vaccine had had to be outsourced. Anything in the nature of chickens coming home to roost pleases me.”

*...and why 'Tonstant Weader'? Well, it’s a gentle tribute to a lavishly well-read correspondent with a wit that often reminds me of a staple at the Algonquin Round Table (More information: http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/table.htm ), whose self-generated pen-name was “Constant Reader”, but who once noted, in a review of the latest treacly offering from AA Milne: "And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in The House at Pooh Corner at which Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up" - Dorothy Parker, 20 October 1928

Meanwhile, a second message from a regular reader added a new section to my growing list of examples of “irony”: “I thought it was pretty slimy (but what else is new?) of… Dubya to announce his intention to get flu shots from Canada, only about a week after he had explained why he outlawed the practice of Americans buying medication from Canada, by saying he wasn't sure Canadian drugs were safe… Most drugs Americans buy from Canada ARE MADE IN THE US. He thinks terrorists hang around Canadian pharmacies, contaminating the drugs… [and] all these people lining up for shots have stood there for days in the cold and rain.”

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So, is it too soon to be musing about a “Bush legacy”, as in “former” President George Bush and “What hath he wrought”?

In light of the seeds being sown by Secretary of State Colin Powell, perhaps not. How about leaving his successor President just what he needs – a brand new world hotspot? Here is a somewhat astonishing bit of “diplomacy” that was recently articulated by the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff while on a mission to Beijing (as reported in China’s “People’s Daily” online):

"During his recent visit to China, Powell explicitly said the United States would unswervingly pursue the 'one China' policy and is in opposition to any attempts for 'Taiwan independence,'" said Zhang. "We also noticed Powell told Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television 'Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation.'"

The article goes to outline why it might seem somewhat confusing to the mainland China government why they are still uncertain, despite the above apparent clarification, where the US stands on the really big China question: Is or is not Taiwan independent?:

“According to the communiqués signed on Aug. 17, 1982, the United States will reduce and eventually halt arms sales to Taiwan. In addition, its arms sales to Taiwan shall be limited to only defensive weapons.”

Overlooking the fact that, so far as we can tell, a shell leaving the muzzle of a cannon still seems unable to “know” in any meaningful sense whether it was fired for “offensive” or “defensive” purposes, the US’s China policy seems to change almost with the tides, or more appropriately perhaps – like the People’s… daily.

So here’s my prediction:

Once President Kerry has finally been able to define and enact an exit strategy from Iraq (How hard can it be?: “My predecessor was horribly wrong. We’re sorry and we’re outta here. Byeeeee!”), China will consider – correctly – that the US military is too weakened to embark on yet another mission of global police-forcing and will launch a massive naval and troop “exercise” in an area that the rest of the world will collectively consider to be “alarmingly close” to Taiwan. The “exercise” will culminate with an abrupt swing over to the Island, and before you can say “Zhang’s your uncle,” there will be half a million stalwarts of the People’s Glorious Army of the Revolution (I believe the Red Chinese Army calls that a “platoon”) ashore on Taiwan.

The Chinese government will claim (also correctly, if Mr Powell’s widely reprinted assertion is to be believed) that they are merely extending their sea-borne exercise to a land-based component on their own territory and fully intend to leave “in due time”, once the exercise is declared to be over.

And because there’s no oil under Taiwan, President Kerry will hem and haw, but in the end will merely express great regret and open negotiations with the Chinese (which oughta be a project on a par with the still-ongoing treaty talks aimed at bringing the Korean War – that’s the one where they actually stopped shooting at each other in 1953 – to a mutually-agreed armistice), aimed at righting the wrong just perpetrated on the free people of Taiwan.

Oh sure, there’ll be a nothing gesture from the Chinese offering compensation – graciously allowing the Taiwanese, for example, to go on happily pirating and re-selling badly copied movies and music from the West.

But the US will eventually decide that pursuing the recovery of what it will lose when Taiwan is suddenly home to the People’s Army just isn’t worth it.

And President Kerry can kiss the Taiwanese expatriates’ vote good-bye in 2008.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama will be watching with great interest. After all, it’s not going to take too much liquid Correc-Type to overwrite “our sympathy lies with the formerly free people of Taiwan” and make it “our sympathy lies with the formerly free people of Tibet” as the Chinese solidify their presence there, too.

So save your Taiwanese stamps. I predict they’re en route to becoming major collector’s items. Remember, you heard it here first. (Unless of course you’ve read “Wilson’s Ghost” by Robert MacNamara, in which case you heard it a couple years ago. Oh, and Tom Clancy’s “Executive Orders”… and Dale Brown’s “Battle Born” … oh, and come to think of it, “Heaven Lake” by John Dalton, which sets itself in the maelstrom of a US / China conflict over Taiwan, “Formosa Betrayed” by George Kerr… “Taiwan: Nation State or Province?” by John Franklin Copper… Actually, now that I think of it, everybody on the whole damned planet except the Bush White House has read about the diplomatic eggshells on which one has to tiptoe in dealing with the topic of Formosa / Taiwan with the creators of the Iron Rice Bowl.)

As Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau put it, after returning from a visit there himself a couple decades ago, he found his hosts “friendly but teeming”. And the US is in no position to mess with a nation “teeming” with anyone right now.

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And finally, your government at work:

Q: Doesn’t this statement from the Globe and Mail’s October 29th online edition just cry out, “Enough talk! It’s time to do something about it!”?

[ Social Services Minister Ken Dryden’s spokesperson Linda Kristal ] “said the meeting is part of a series of meetings between federal and provincial social service and social development ministers and its goal is to begin working immediately on action to improve child care. ‘He's looking for an agreement with all of his partners to work on this national initiative. They want to establish that they are going to work on a more long-term vision.’ ”

A. No.