TriumphAnt

Lovely, this…

I was reading a recent Globe and Mail article about a backpack that uses what the writer claims is an “ingenious” bungee cord and pulley system to redistribute the load with every step the wearer takes, either walking or running. Seems like a great idea, I thought. Then I hit this line:

“By hanging the backpack load from springy cords suspended from a frame, a 55-pound backpack like Ms. Slack's can be transported using the same energy required to carry a conventional pack weighing 48 pounds.”

OK, hands up – everybody who is capable of recognizing the difference between 48 and 55 pounds when it’s slung on your back. (For the record, I have not raised my own hand.)

= = =

Peace on Earth…

Why is there a shortage of good news from Iraq, one might wonder? In fact, if one is among the ever-shrinking minority of Bush supporters, one might well whine that the bad news seems to be the _only_ thing on which the media is casting its eye these days. Well, there’s a very good reason for that, and it’s very well articulated in an online article from the Columbia Journalism Review. (December 14, “The ‘Good News’ Chorus Sings On”, by Paul McLeary)

The author makes one very good point here…

“There's a reason the press dwells on the constant stream of car bombings, mass kidnappings, suicide bombings, the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi government, and the daily discovery of mutilated bodies dumped on the streets of Baghdad: These things are, in part, the reality of life in Baghdad, and to a lesser extent, cities like Karbala and Mosul -- the population centers of Iraq. In other words, imagine that New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. were engulfed by an endless cycle of bloody violence, and people were complaining that the media was focusing their energies there, while ignoring a new irrigation project in Kansas. Of course there's more happening in Iraq than car bombs and sectarian murder -- children are going to school, couples are getting married, having children. But the job of a journalist, in Iraq or anywhere else, is not to write about the 99 percent of things that function as they should. How do these "good news" stories in Iraq stack up against 70 civilians getting blown up in back-to-back car bomb attacks, furthering the spiral of civilian casualties?” …

and cites (perhaps with his cheek not entirely tongue-free) another US reporter who lived in the region for two years and makes a second very good point here:

“More to the point, as Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran noted in his excellent book about Iraq, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," there were times during his two years in country when a reporter would request to go with the military to a newly opened power plant or school, but the military would turn the request down, saying that if the project got too much press, the insurgents would attack it.”

It all reminds me of a classic bit from the comic strip Doonesbury at the height of the Watergate crisis (a long time ago – well, 1973-ish – in a galaxy far, far away) where then-White House press secretary Ron Ziegler is fielding yet another wave of negative questions from the press:

-- “Ron, does the President have any comment on the most recent disclosures in the Watergate case?
-- NO! Watergate! Watergate! What is the matter with you guys?! What is this senseless orgy of recrimination week after week?! I've already said all that I'm going to! So why don't you stop wasting both our time and ask me questions I can deal with?
-- Ron, what color shirt is the President wearing today?
-- That's better. Blue."

That’s what we need – more sartorial exploration and less investigative reporting from Iraq. I’m just afraid the answer to the question, “What are most Iraqis wearing these days?” would more likely than not be “bandages”.

Or shrouds.

- - -

If Rick Mercer can rant, and Dennis Miller (both before and after he became an unfunny pro-Bushite) can rant, then I guess I can rant too.

In the Globe and Mail on Thursday, December 14, a story about Michael Ignatieff noted that he has called on the Liberal Party not to let itself “split” over the issue of Afghanistan.

The reporter also noted that Mr Ignatieff’s unselfish call for total Party unity came at a “private” social event held to honour him, and to which organizers had invited only those MPs who had supported Ignatieff’s recent and, as everyone now knows, ultimately failed leadership bid. But most pointedly, they also had deliberately not invited the newly-elected leader of the Party – Stéphane Dion.

Well here’s a memo to the Liberals – it isn’t going to be Afghanistan that keeps you possessed of more cleavage than what’s down the front of Belinda Stronach’s shirt, it’s going to be stuff like this. I mean for heaven’s sake! The odour of carpet cleaner still wafts through the halls of the Montreal hotels where your stinking drunk youth delegates threw up the excessive gallons of “hospitality” offered in various candidates’ suites, and already the knives are out for Dion, wielded by Ignatieff supporters who just can’t seem to grasp the fact that they lost the war? And in the continuing search for a new benchmark for “irony”, one of the partygoers is cited as having said that Mr I (he of the perpendicular pronoun, as Sir Humphrey Appleby might have cast him) “wanted to ‘emphasize that he’s on board for the future of a united loyal party’.”

Just so long as it’s united behind, and loyal to, him, I think we can safely assume.

What is wrong with you people?

Here’s what I think. I think we need a new political Party in Canada. Oh I know, you’re thinking, well sure. After all, look how well the last major “new Party” creations – Reform-stroke-Alliance-stroke-Conservative Party of Canada, and the Bloc Québécois -- worked out when it came to bringing the country together; and so you can certainly be forgiven for being skeptical at the thought of yet another new-Party stab at telling the “traditional” Parties to go stuff themselves. But bear with me, because (a) I think I’ve got a couple good ideas here; and (b) it’s my blog so I can say whatever the heck I want.

So, let’s pause for a moment while we savour this brief musical introduction:

Lion:
“If I were King of the Forest, Not queen, not duke, not prince.
My regal robes of the forest, would be satin, not cotton, not chintz.
I'd command each thing, be it fish or fowl.
With a woof and a woof and a royal growl - woof.
As I'd click my heel, all the trees would kneel.
And the mountains bow and the bulls kowtow.
And the sparrow would take wing - If I - If I - were King!
Each rabbit would show respect to me. The chipmunks genuflect to me.
Though my tail would lash, I would show compash
For every underling!
If I - If I - were King!
Just King!
Monarch of all I survey -- Mo--na-a-a--a-arch Of all I survey!”

My New Party would begin with all those former Liberal supporters in the land who, really deep down, would genuinely like to vote for the Liberal Party platforms but really dislike how those platforms became subverted (and, for that matter, perverted) under the stewardship of Chretien and Martin, whose respective “ites” (i.e. Chretienites, Martinites) made defeating the other guy the first priority on their agendas.

It would include people who are small-l liberal in their thinking, but who hate being labelled “the radical left” – people with broad societal concerns whose boundaries range from their own bedrooms through their own backyards all the way to the edge of the fragile atmospheric shell that surrounds this little planet of ours – but who hate being labelled “socialist”. It will consist of people who can gracefully and appreciatively accept government funding announced either with a special announcement or as part of a larger overall package like a budget, without immediately railing, “IT’S NOT ENOUGH!!”

It will drag leader-loyal “ites” out to the parking lot and beat them over the head with hardbound copies of The Red Book until they are genuinely devoted first to the Party’s platform, rather than whoever happens to be wearing the “leader” hat at any given time. (Those who persist in calling themselves “Dion Liberals” or “Ignatieff Liberals” or “Whoever Liberals” will be vigorously marginalized, shunted to a distant place where they can be neither seen nor heard. If they still insist on a label, shall be called “The Ignorati”, in honour of Mr Ignatieff.)

(A late-breaking PS… Somewhere between first draft and this Baby Duck upload, Mr Dion announced he is naming Mr Ignatieff to be his Deputy Prime Minister. Now there’s a novel idea! Naming a rival who heads a pack of really angry sore losers to a senior position within the Party. After all, that worked out so very well the last time, didn’t it – when the Prime Minister named his chief rival to be Finance Minister – does anyone remember that?)

But back to my Party.

For a name, I’m not quite sure what would work best here. It would have to acknowledge some roots in liberalism – if only because to be a “small-l” liberal thinker these days is generally to be possessed of an ability to, oh, you know… actually use your brain when it comes to discussing policy and making choices. But it would have to eschew (in the sense “run speedily away from”) any link to Big-L Liberalism. At the same time, the name would have to make it clear that your membership is in support of the national platform, not the woman / man at its head.

And finally, I suggest that the Party logo be a Klein Bottle, because such a Party simply cannot exist in the real world. Not in Canada, anyway.

Hmmmm… a Klein bottle. Maybe… Yesss….. That’s it! This Party will be driven by the mantra: Regular Application of Logical Philosophy on the Hill.

Thus, I eagerly await the birth of the RALPH Klein Bottle Party.

- - -

‘Tis the season. To all of you, and to all of yours (let me channel Kathleen Harrison here: “And a Merry Christmas to you… in keeping with the situation… Bob’s your uncle!”)

AND a Happy New Year!

As for me, well around about this time of year I like nothing better to immerse myself in a crowded shopping mall, find a central point where just scads of people are rushing by, studiously ignoring the Salvation Army Christmas kettles en route to yet another “Early Boxing Week Pre-Christmas Blowout SALE”, their VISAs and MasterCards so hot in their pockets they’re imprinting scorch marks in their denim, straighten up and, at the top of my lungs, bellow out one of my personal seasonal favourites (and if I find someone willing to accompany me by banging on a nearby display of half-price Lagostina cookware, well that’s just a bonus): “Fairy Tale of New York”, written by Maire Brennan and most famously performed by those poster boys for good dental health and clean living, The Pogues:

“It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

They've got cars big as bars
They've got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It's no place for the old
When you first took my hand
On a cold Christmas Eve
You promised me
Broadway was waiting for me

You were handsome
You were pretty
Queen of New York City
When the band finished playing
They howled out for more
Sinatra was swinging,
All the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night

(chorus)
The boys of the NYPD choir
Still singing "Galway Bay"
And the bells were ringing out
For Christmas day

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

(chorus)

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you”

On a closer-to-but-still-not-there traditional note, if you’re looking for a huge pile of seasonal esoterica – a good lot of it hilarious, a bad lot of it groaners, some of it just plain out-and-out gross, and some nonsense that can charitably be called “wide of the mark” (for me anyway) – Miss Cellania is a blogger who regularly posts waves of material on a seemingly endless variety of themes. Her stream of Christmasing is here and if you arrive late, just scroll down to the entries tagged with seasonal titles, for example, “Letters to Santa”, “Christmas Links Volume… [whatever]”. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Or if you just want to look at cute little animals, a great many of them decked out in Christmas colours at this time of year, pop on over here.

So don you now your gay apparel ("Not that there’s anything WRONG with that!”), get out there and enjoy yourselves, damn it! Back in double-oh-seven, the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.