Random Word Wednesday IV

Here's the next Random Word Wednesday!  Let's see...  What do we have this week?  Brazilian fashion models, suicidal American abstract painters, British heretics (and no, I don't mean Lennon - we'll save that for another week), Turkish Sultans, the entire nation of Poland, and Muppets!  What an exciting pile of stuff that's bound to be compelling writing.  Thank you and enjoy!


1.  WINDING

I always thought that Ringo looked WAY too serious in this picture.  I know I couldn't keep a straight face wearing polka dots.

When I think of a list of albums in my head that I can put on and not once feel the urge to hit the skip button, that list is pretty small.  Let It Be is one such album, though.  There's something about One After 909 that I really dig for some reason, and I never, ever get sick of listening to Dig a Pony for some reason.  I think that's my favourite one.  I always thought that Long and Winding Road was kind of an anomaly on this album.  For some reason it just doesn't quite seem to fit right with the rest of them.  It seems like the conspicuous song in the album for some reason that I can't quite put my finger on.  That doesn't make either the song or the album any less good.  On the contrary, it adds a character to the album that wouldn't otherwise have been there.  Interesting song.  Great album.

2.  POLISH

A bird wearing a hat?  That must be the inspiration for the old Baltimore Orioles mascot.

Ah, Poland.  What a nifty little country.  Well, I guess it isn't little.  With 38 million people, it's bigger than Canada by a fair bit.  I kinda like that Polish eagle, though.  I always thought that was kind of weird, those coats of arms.  Whether they're Polish, British, or whatever, the head of the animal always seems to be looking off to the side.  In fact, it kind of looks more like an excitable chicken than an eagle, but I digress.  Oh!  Something else Canada and Poland share besides populations in the 30-million range, our flags are both red and white!  Though theirs is a bit more simple.  Just white and red horizontal bars, one on top of the other.  You know, it's funny.  The presidential flag has the eagle, but the national one does not.  Go figure.  Anyway, my grampa was from a farm outside Warsaw before he came over from the old country.  He said that the farm his family had there was so small that if there was a strong breeze and your horse crapped, it would fall into the next farmer's field.  I didn't 100% understand what that meant, but I more or less got the picture.  Viva Polska!

3.  ASSIGNING

Max, have you gone mad? A receptionist who can't speak English? What will people say?

Gisele Bündchen is a Brazilian fashion model...  Wait.  What?  Gisele Bündchen?  Kind of a funny name for a Brazilian fashion model.  That's about as Portuguese as Leonid Brezhnev.  What?  Oh!  Both her parents are German?  Riiiight...  O.k.  Now I get it.  I'll just start over again.

They'll say, "A wuma wa wa wa wa!"

Gisele Bündchen is a Brazilian fashion model and the wife of NFL quarterback, all-star, future hall of famer, and hero to some, Tom Brady.  After the Patriots lost to the Giants, a group of the players' wives were congregating together and Gisele stood up for her husband.  "My husband can not fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time. I can't believe they dropped the ball so many times."  Hmm.  So, I was listening to a sports radio show the week after the Superbowl and there was a conversation upon this subject.  Why does it always seem to be that after big games like this there always this necessary task of assigning one slob to be a hero and another slob to be a goat?  Why can't everyone just concede that it was a good game and the better team won through no fault of anyone on either team?  I mean, they fought all season, survived the playoffs, and punched their tickets to the dance.  They have no one to explain themselves to, nothing to apologize for.  You don't stomp all over the team that got you to the dance - you stomp all over the Colts!  ...like everyone else this year.  Ha!

4.  ENTAIL

Suleiman the Magnificent wasn't just magnificent for his empire's achievements.  Check out that lid!

Now, people are standing back and shaking their heads at Greece and their debt these days, but more than a century age there was another much larger, much broader state that was in its own public debt freefall: the Ottoman Empire.  In 1881 the Ottoman Public Debt Administration was formed.  It was a European-controlled organization that was established in 1881 to collect the payments which the Ottoman Empire owed to European companies in the Ottoman public debt.  Sound familiar?  To give you a picture of the broad scale of Ottoman debt, the "crisis" in Istanbul began in 1854 and the debt was not fully paid for until 1954, a few months shy of a full century later.  So, if you're wondering what these debt problems in Greece are going to entail in the long-term, just take a read into the debts amassed by the Ottoman Empire in the end to find out.  Very fascinating stuff.

5.  HERESY

I like my heretics at a nice medium with a splash of honey barbacue sauce.

And now for the sad case of Edward Wightman.  After attending school, Mr. Wightman started into a nice tidy little career as a mercer.  Business was good, but like many of us, he wanted to do something a little more fulfilling.  So, on top of his cloth business, he became a priest at the local Baptist Church in Burton, England.  Now, while a minister he bumped into the notion of "soul sleep" (a very Lutheran idea if I may say so myself), liked it, and adopted it.  That was kind of the first step here.  Now at the time, the early 17th Century, the despicable James I was in charge.  James was a hard ass Catholic king who later died because of the rebellion led by Cromwell due in combination to the hardness of his ass gross incompetence of his military leadership.  Until then, however, he was very strict on religious matters.  Mr. Wightman, though, was a bit of a loudmouth and a bit of a contrarian.  He rejected this and that notion of Christianity until he had his "Meh, whatever..." moment and rejected the trinity.  Well enough was enough.  He was arrested, charged with, and convicted of heresy, and sentenced to death by fire.  To this day, and probably forever more, Edward Wightman was the last Englishman to be burnt at the stake.

6.  ABSTRACT

That's my bedroom window in January - as depicted by Rothko.

Finally!  I get to write about Mark Rothko!  Oo, I love the guy.  He is by far my favourite abstract painter.  You know at a time where you had Rosenquist popping right off the canvas, , Lichtenstein taking a laugh at the industry, and Warhol being Warhol, there was Mark Rothko, slouching tall and thinking deep thoughts about gloomy things.  The above picture is one of the more... nice ones that I could find.  You'll find with Rothko, there were a whole lot of dark, coagulated blood reds in his works.  There was a lot of darkness.  A lot of darkness.  In fact, he insisted that his exhibits have low, low lighting as though you're walking into a dimly lit cavern looking at paleolithic art, because his art had something, that one thin string that connects all humanity together like beads on a necklace.  I can't say what that is because I don't think that anyone can.  It's not a thing but a feeling, and that's the feeling that you get with his art.  It hits you in a place where very few things get to you.  Ever.  You know, I throw the word "awesome" around a lot, but in this case I really mean it in the literal, real sense of the word.  Mark Rothko was awesome.

7.  PERSONALITY

Cool!  Her glass has a straw!  I didn't think press conference/important meeting water glasses had straws.

Just once.  That's all I ask.  Just once I'd like one of our heads of state to be involved in a sex scandal.  I mean, we had Vic Toews last week, but he's small potatoes.  Why is it that all of our prime ministers and governor generals have to be happily married people?  Why not have a single prime minister?  You know, one that's charismatic and has dates and romps around the town?  That'd be great!  But no, instead of Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky you get something more like Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from Dennis the Menace, and man is it boring.  You know, why can't we have a nice, good natured sex scandal?  You know, one where everyone comes out ahead - well, so to speak.  I mean, look at poor Monica here.  She's been demonized so much in America she had to quit selling her handbag line, end her television career after five episodes of Mr. Personality, and flee to London.  Well, I hope she's doing alright these days.  I wish her well and only the best.  And you know, if she's ever in Ottawa, Stephen Harper's image could use a nice fresh coat of sleaze.  You know, ruffle up his hair a bit, if that's possible.

8.  WINNER

Now if you look very carefully you can make out the guy with the camera just above his right shoulder.

Let's see.  The Pittsburgh Pirates, the Washington Generals, and Beck!  All three are famous because they are losers, plain and simple.  However, Beck turned the losing into winning.  After his breakout song 1994 "Loser" from the album Mellow Gold, he went on to win Grammies for Odelay, platinum many times over, and blah blah blah.

No, the real accomplishment here is that I get his work.  I totally get it.  You know, the first time that I had ever seen Jack Black was during the Sexx Laws video.  "I PICKED COTTON!" became one of my all-time favourite lines.  And I get it!  I totally understand the song.  Lost Cause is such a tear-jerker.  I mean, Paul McCartney couldn't do that song better.  Deadweight is absolutely brilliant, as well.  I'd totally dig my desk being n the beach.  I think that the common thread that pulls through all this diversity is something that I find in a lot of great musicians that do weird things, i.e. Beck, Tom Waits, (earlier) Beastie Boys, and so on.  There is this absolutely perfect pairing of medium and message.  How something is expressed is as important as what is being expressed, and that is something you don't see every day and ought to be respected.  And that makes him a winner.  Period.

9.  DUAL

U mad?  U jelly?

It's easy to criticize, but hard to criticize well.  Now these two have been in the business for decades providing dual trashings of the acts on the Muppet Show, raising criticism to an art form.  Statler and Waldorf are actually named after New York City hotels, the Statler Hilton and the Waldorf-Astoria.  In fact, in one episode Statler calls in sick and has his wife Astoria join the balcony instead.  I always found it, like, beyond interesting that they hate the show, trash it every chance they get, heckle like crazy, make Fozzie's life miserable, and yet they still show up every episode.  Every episode they're there trolling away from the balcony.  At first I thought, gee, why do they always go if it's such a poor performance and all they do is heckle.  And then I remembered why I like to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs so much. 

10.  DEVELOPER

See?  Potter's not all bad.  "NO DOGS ALLOWED". 

I thought about it for a minute and then decided ah, what the hell, let's go for it.  I work in real estate for my day job and you know what?  I've never, ever seen a real estate developer portrayed in a positive light in any medium.  Ever!  Let's look at the body of evidence.  "Ernest Goes To Camp"?  Nope.  "L.A. Noire"?  Nope.  "Avatar"?  Nope.  Oh, I know!  "It's A Wonderful Life"?  Nope.  "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy"?  Nope.  "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"?  Nope.  "Princess Mononoke"?  Nope.  "Godzilla Vs. Mothra"?  Nope.  "Leverage"?  Nope.  "Boss"?  Nope.  "Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland"?  Nope.  "The Raccoons"?  Nope.  ...  Now, I could go on here for a very, very long time here, but in defense of developers and development, it's not all bad.  I don't know why everyone makes them the scapegoat of every movie that they're involved in, but there's a lot of good in taking land and improving it.  Improving land and land value, municipal tax base, infrastructure, etc.  So, the next time you meet a real estate developer, think of the good they do and not just the caricature that you get on TV and in movies.

Random Word Wednesday III (on the Weekend!)

Good evening!  Given that I'm WAY behind on my Random Word Wednesdays, I hereby pronounce that it is Random Word Weekend to play catchup.  The first batch an interesting mix this time.  Here's a teaser: none of the words start with anything later in the alphabet than 'T'!  No zithers today, I'm afraid.


1.  Goody



Now them there are some genuine A1 lookin' shoes!


The origin of the phrase "goody two-shoes" is an nifty little one.  First off, the word "Goody".  A "Goody" is short for a "Goodwife" which is an old fashioned term whose modern equivalent is "Misses", but in a low social standing.  So, a poor, married woman.  Now, there is an old children's story dating back to 1760 where a "Goody" who only owned one shoe was absolutely thrilled because she managed to procure a second shoe.  Hence, she was now a goody two-shoes.  Everyone loves a happy ending!

2.  Algorithm

When I'm dead and gone, I wonder what cool stuff they'll depict floating around my head.

I have a huge respect for the great thinkers of the Arab enlightenment.  There were just so many brilliant people in the Middle East back then and because we have such a euro-centric viewpoint on everything, a lot of the oomph of what was accomplished back then in that part of the world.  Why, did you know that there are a whole slough of mathematical and sientificwords in English that have their roots in Arabic?  It's true!  Algebra, elixir, alembic, zero, algorithm...  Oh!  Algorithm!

Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was an absolute genius.  Born in Persia in 780 AD, he was one of the greatest thinkers of the Arab Enlightenment.  He produced work in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, and geography.  He is credited with several innovations, including introducing the decimal positional number system to the Western world, and was considered for a long time to be the inventor of algebra.  He presented the first solutions to linear and quadratic equations.  In fact, his major work, the Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing, proceeded in such a formulaic, well-defined, step-by-step procedure, that his name became the basis for the word "Algorithm" that we use today.  He also took Ptolemy's maps, recompiled them, systematized them, and made some serious corrections to them.  An all-around really cool guy.

3.  Tore

It looks so innocous in this picture...

On July 30, 1995 a plow wind tore through Oxbow, SK and the surrounding around midnight.  Wind speeds were measured between 100 - 150 kph and the damage in some areas was severe.  Grain bins were twisted up and destroyed.  The original steeple of St. Paul's United Church that had been there since 1909 was sheered off in the wind.  A portion of the Bow Manor Hotel was blown clean off.  A bunch of houses and businesses were damaged, if not destroyed, but very luckily no deaths or even serious injuries were reported.

4.  Funny

Never mind who he was at all, just think of the name for a minute.  Dangerfield...  Yeah...  That's bad ass.  That's at least as cool as Bond.  I'm gonna say it again.  Dangerfield...  Man, that never gets old.  So jealous!

Wait.  What?  His name was actually Jacob Cohen?  Really?  Huh!  That's weird.  I wonder if Leanord Cohen's actual real name is Rodney Dangerfield...

Wait.  What?  When he first started out as a commedian his name was Jack Roy?  Really?  Jack Roy?  Geez!  Look.  If I was gonna go out there and change my name, it would have to be something awesome!  Ricardo Sprocket.  Angus Nucleosis.  Jojo Kaput.  Jack Roy?  That's awful lame.  No wonder he changed it to Dangerfield.  Well, at least he was funny!

5.  Launch

Ladies and Gentlemen, Rock and Roll

On August 1, 1981 something happened.  Something huge.  Epic!  The launch of MTV!  And with the launch of station they showed pictures of the Apollo 18 launch and the moon landing (as pictured above).  Apparantly it was kind of a ragtag deal there to open.  The dudes there ("technician" seems way to technical for a production that was closer to the movie Wayne's World than Network) would switch VCR tapes between videos, and the screen would go black as they did.  I think that that just made it more awesome.  But now, more than thirty years and one full generation in, the question is not "Did video kill the radio star?" but rather "Did YouTube kill the MTV star?"  Time will tell, but one thing is certain: sending Rebecca Black and "Lana Del Rey" to the moon seems like a pretty good idea right now.  Newt!  Are you listening?  Got some colonists for you here!

6.  Interpreter

1936-2012

Yeah, I won't say much.  I'll be brief.

It almost seems like forever it's been that Don Cornelius was the interpreter of what was cool and what wasn't.  As the first host of the first television show, Soul Train, to primarily feature black music, dance, and culture in North America, he was a one of a kind icon and trailblazer.  Everyone was on the show, from James Brown to Elton John to The Fat Boys to B. B. King to Mr. T.  Just a landmark of popular culture.  He was found deadearlier this month of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and he will be missed.

7.  Crush



Like oranges?!  You bet I do!

 So, in 1911 Clayton J. Howell partners up with Neil C. Ward to create that zesty carbonated beverage that we have all come to know and love over the years, Orange Crush.  Well, centuries now, really.  Originally, the drinks actually contained orange pulp in them to give them that freshly squeezed feel.  Here's the kicker, though: though the pulp itself was natural, it was artificially added during the bottling process.  Nice.  Over the years, though, they got rid of the pulp and introduced a mammoth variety of flavours to its pantheon including, but not limited to, chocolate, ginger beer, nectar, pear, and delicious soda water.  Mmm...  I wonder what kind of pulp you could put in soda water...  Flecks of corroded pipe?  Things to ponder.

8.  Recursion

The first set of Matryoshka Dolls (aka. Russian Nesting Dolls) was carved in 1890 by Vasily Zvyozdochkin, a Russian wood carver, on a design created by Sergey Malyutin, a Russian painter, stage designer, and architect.  It is said that the two received their inspiration for the dolls from a doll from Japan that had made its way to Abramtsevo, an estate north of Moscow where a whole bunch of artists gathered to hang out, sort of like a Russian Greenwich Village.  Accounts differ on what exactly it was, but most likely it was a Buddhist nesting doll, similar in design but with fewer dolls inside.  The original dolls were a set of eight depicting a family from Mommy to little baby doll.  These days Matryoshka Dolls have many different designs from politicians, animals, and just about anything else you can make of and are still a very popular little nicknack the world over.

9.  Grant

That thing got a Hemi?

A German tank commander once said "any one of our tanks was worth 10 allied tanks, but they always had 11".  Meet the American Medium Tank M-3.  You know, when I look at this tank, it's really amazing.  When I think about the armaments that our armed forces use in this day and age (rusted out diesel subs and not that long ago Vietnam-era Sea King helicopters), it's astonishing to think that the M-3 was used in 1942, but was outclassed and replaced by 1943.  That's amazing!  It takes years to finalize a fighter jet production deal in 2011-2012, but within a year, a tank was obsolete in World War II.  That must have been just the most extraordinary time to be alive.  Anyway, this tank had two configurations.  The one pictured above was the M-3 Lee with the goofy looking gun off to the side there.  There was another version with a slightly less goofy design named the M-3 Grant, both being named after the opposing great generals of the American Civil War.  Most of the battle that they saw was in the desert in the North African campaign where they did a good job of chasing Rommel across the desert.

10.  Casual

Go left, up, right, up, right, down, right, up, right, down, right, down, left, head for the fruit, then finish off the dots.

Pac-Man, or Puck Man in Japan, was first released in Japan on May 22, 1980 (which officially makes it older than I am) and is considered the first "casual" video game ever made.  Since then, Pac-Man, Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde have generated over an estimated $3.4 billion in revenue, mostly from arcade sales, making it the #1 grossing video game of all time.  Take that, Final Fantasy VII.  I never liked you, anyway.  Wakawakawakawakawakawakawakawaka...

Laugh With, Not At

Boy oh boy!  Gee whiz!  Holy Dinah!  Saints be spared!  Lord love a duck!  Santa Maria!  Zowie, what a neat week this has been in Canada.  Why I haven't been so engaged in federal politics since...

What a coincidence!  "Small Town Cheap" is my middle name, too!

This week has been high drama and I've been glued to the newspaper, the internet (at home, at work, on my phone), and even Twitter!  *gasp!*  This is just absolute high drama and the editorial board here at Raccoon Inc. would be beyond remiss into total journalistic negligence if we didn't report on this. 

First off, I'll hit the rewind button a bit to start off the narrative.

Refoooooooooooooorm!

As a young lad growing up in rural, small town Saskatchewan, there was something just entrancing about Preston Manning.  Finally!  Finally there was a federal political party in the west that would stand up to all those big meanies down east that used all of our tax dollars to make Toronto look nice, pave the streets of Ottawa with gold, placate those insatiable Quebeckers (who, by the way, seemed to at once be Prime Minister after Prime Minister after Prime Minister and all the while threatening to separate), and bailout all those no-good pogey sucking maritimers.  Finally the west had a voice and that voice was Mr. Manning.

...however, is Preston's voice the one that I really wanted speaking?  The older I got, the more I realized that this probably isn't the best idea.  I mean, he was the son of a Social Credit premier of Alberta and ran as a federal Social Credit MP, but failed.  ...  Social Credit?  I didn't even know what that meant.  Why, the last time they were ever heard of was...

There are smiles, there are politician's smiles, there's Jack Nicholson's Joker's smile, then there's Vander Zalm.

...and after him the party was a burning wreck, never to be spoken of again.  Honestly, to me, I don't mind economic conservatism, and I even have the odd libertarian leaning from time to time, but social conservatism as a characteristic is something that I would not consider to be a defining characteristic what it means to be a Canadian.  I think that at that point I was old enough to realize just what "social conservatism" really meant and what all of its implications were because when you're a kid while you understand the "us vs. them" of "west vs. east", the nuances of the complex social issues involved are too much for a middling teenager to grasp.  But when I was old enough, it was then that I fell out of love with Manning and reconnected with my one true love politically, the original Prairie crusader...

"Humanity First" is not the worst political slogan I've ever heard.

And then I felt better.

But anyway.  Back to this guy.

Say, now there's a pretty good campaign slogan, too!  I LIKE IT!

You know, deep down, I have a lot of respect for Manning.  I may not agree with a some (read: a lot) of his social conservative ideas, but an elected senate, accountability, transparency, the reformation of our electoral system, and a greater respect for the rights and freedoms of the individual are all concepts that I can get behind.  I remember watching a Sun News (read: "news") interview between Michael Coren and Preston, and in spite of Coren's goading, Preston states nice and clear that the public is really more concerned about economics than social issues.  Furthermore the remedies for social issues lie with individuals to champion and not with the state, i.e. the state should back off and leave individuals to pursue their lives privately.  If there is a facet of conservatism that I like, it's this.

Now let's flash forward to this week.


MONDAY

On Monday the Conservatives tabled Bill C-30, or the Lawful Access Act.  The bill was sponsored by the one and only...

Geez, it's hard to find a picture of him smiling!  Although, after this week I can understand why.

...the Minister of Public Safety, hereinafter referred to as "Sheriff".  What the bill essentially does is, among other things, make it easier for the police to gather information from Internet Service Providers about their customer's IP address, name, address, phone number, etc., without having the process bogged down with the necessity of procuring a warrant as one has to now if one wishes to obtain this information.  So, the Sheriff tables this bill and the opposition pounces on it.  Like this:

"Snoop" is such a funny word.  Like "kumquat".  Or "nincompoop".

In response, the Sheriff, who is much closer to this...

The Honourable Member for Provencher.

...than this...

I suggest "feather touch".  Beep Beep Beep.  You have entered "POWER DRIVE"!

...on the subtlety scale by nature came out with this entirely consistent whopper in defense of the bill:

"He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

Gentlemen, start your engines.


TUESDAY

Well, there's a novel idea.  Let's call everyone who values civil liberties pedophiles.  That oughta win you some votes.  Actually, that's a great idea!  So great in fact that they rename the bill, get this, the "The Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act", which is the most asinine name for a law that I can remember, and that only pissed people off more until...


WEDNESDAY

...someone went and made a Twitter account.  #vikileaks30, to be precise.  Oops!  Looks like some mysterious crusader obtained a copy of the Sheriff's nasty divorce affidavits and posted some deliciously juicy morsels online for people to gawk at.  Although nothing listed on this Twitter account has been substantiated, neither has it been denied, which in my world means...

That's a big lock!

And the best part is that everything that was posted on the Twitter account was public record!  And now it's public knowledge!  ...  Well, I think that a lot of people came to the conclusion that the Sheriff was a total asshole, and while the divorce details were delightful to read through, it was pretty much an already well-known fact.  It's along the same grain that I really don't need transcripts of divorce testimony to prove the propensity for assholery of...

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ron Wilson.  He'll be here for another year.  Try the veal.

But on another level, the irony settles in that the government is ending the gun registry and forcing all the records to be destroyed because it's too invasive, ending the long-form census and abolition the never-used jail sentence accompanying it because it's too invasive and draconian while at the same time building more prisons and increasing the ability of the police to monitor and collect more information without a warrant.

Incidentally, there are just as many holes in the Government's logic concerning Bill C-30.

Ladies and gentlemen, something smells here.  Friends, the redeeming qualities of the Conservatives' Reform background are being sold on down the river now that there is a majority and absolute power is starting to push towards its inevitable end.  The Reform is over and the Conservation has returned.

THURSDAY

So now that the engines were started and revving, it was time to put this machine into gear.  Vic wants to know your secrets?  Fine.  #tellviceverything  I even joined in on the fun.

Hey @ToewsVic ! On the phone with the City of Saskatoon. I called instead of email so I better check in via Twitter. :) #TellVicEverything

So if you thought the Vikileaks was good, you ain't seen nothing yet.  People saying "Hey Vic, I accidentally deleted an email at work.  Can I get your copy?" and "Hey Vic, I'm thinking of having chicken for supper, but I guess you already knew that." and "Hey Vic, I smoked weed once in grade 11.  Please don't arrest me."  And on and on.  And it was all hilarious!  ...except that there was an inordinate amount of posts outlining bowel movements.  That was not so hot, but otherwise it's was great!

And this is the central point that I wanted to make tonight.  THIS to me is what peaceful protest really means.  People will try to sell you that this is sexy...

The original Sgt. Pepper.  Well, after the Beatles, of course.

...and this...

Sgt. Pepper: The Next Generation.

...and this, somehow...

Meet the brave souls of the NYPD: Fashion Police Unit, the unsung anti-heroes of the Occupy movement.

...or this...

Hey, man.  Yeah, like, I wanna forward my mail.  The new address is, like, General Delivery, New York, New York, or something.

.., but the reality is that it's not.  At least, I really don't think that it is.  Living in a tent in Zucotti park and getting in the police's face is cute and all, but I don't think that it's particularly helpful.  Honestly, it's kind of concerning.  You know, there's this whole culture of professional protesters that will quite often take a lot of pride in protesting, and they'll protest a great many things.  It's like I would say "Hey, I saw the Chemical Brothers in Toronto last year!  So awesome!", and they would say "Hey, I got beat up at the G20 summit last year!  So awesome!"  It kinda has the feel that the object of the protest is second to the act of the protest, and that's not cool.

Which is why I like this whole tell Vic everything thing.  So, tell me what Occupy Wall Street caused beyond a spike in tent sales and a few intimate acquaintances with some NYPD nightsticks.  Not much.  However, with the Twitter protest, there were people young and old, to the left and right of the spectrum in it by the thousands across the country.  Granted, it helps that Toews is an easily detestable character, but the protest had this feel to it that it was creative, smart, absolutely hilarious, and had a very pointed message: we do not agree with this legislation.  Who are we?  Everyone.  This is democracy at its finest.  This is non-violent protest at its finest.  This is how it should work.

Because unlike the Occupy movement, it did work.  The bill was pulled off the floor and hastily sent back to committee.  I'm going to say this again because it bears repeating and elaborating.  The Conservatives who enjoy a majority in the House and Senate, a Conservative Speaker, and a hand-picked Governor General and who have so far passed law after law with total impunity like greased lightning have been stopped dead in their tracks, pulled the bill off their majority floor, and are sending it back to committee for amendment.  If you can make this government stop dead in its tracks and throw it into reverse, you've won.  Big time.

Now, at the end of the day it was revealed that the IP address that the Vikileaks dude posted from was a House of Commons IP address, but that's neither hither nor yon because a) it doesn't prove anything b) the things posted were public record and c) IP addresses can be spoofed, so whatever.


FRIDAY

Gee, where have I seen this before.  Oh yeah.  The House of Commons.  Daily.  I tend to tune out mock outrage these days.

In response to the Twitter and Email protests against Toews, Baird leapt up and started blaming the NDP and calling them sleazy dirty trickers.  Ooooo...  This coming from the fake Irwin Cotler retirement sleazy dirty trickers.  I'm sure the NDP are shaking in their boots.  Never the less, the mastermind behind the Vikileaks bowed out gracefully lest any further unfounded blame be thrown around by the suddenly flailing government.  Andrew Scheer's going to look into this, but I doubt much more will come of it than did the Cotler dirty tricks.  Oh yeah, and Toews is still an unrepentant asshole.  Nice.

So, in closing, I'd just like to say my hat's off to that mysterious Vikileaks dude.  I wish I got to know them better, but nevertheless it must be said that as they vanish into the ether from whence they came they're leaving the Canadian government better, Canadian democracy better, and Canada in general is better for your act of well-timed defiance.  Screaming at riot police doesn't solve anything because under the riot gear it's an even bet that they're just as fed up at the same cause you are for the same reasons that you are.

Thank you for tuning in and have a great night.

Meteorological Music

With all of the funky weather lately, I thought I'd write something tonight with a meteorological theme.  So here are a list of classic songs that have to do with weather, the seasons, and cool stuff like that.

Autumn Leaves

Listen here.

Cannonball Adderley.  If that isn't one of the coolest jazz names, I don't know what is.  From Cannonball's 1958 album entitled "Somethin' Else" this song had an all-star lineup.  You know it's a good lineup that has Miles Davis as second string.

Best listening:  Later on in Autumn getting close to winter while walking down a tree-lined sidewalk.  There really needs to be a chill in the air, and overcast conditions are a bonus.  It is, in a phrase, a pleasant melancholy.


Stormy Weather

Listen here.

A tear-jerker if there ever was one, the late great Etta James belts out this gem.  If you hear this and you don't feel anything, check your pulse: you may be dead.  There are not many songs which capture heartbreak better than Stormy Weather, and not many singers who could relay that anguish better than Etta.  Truly a masterpiece for the forelorn.

Best listening:  July during a wicked thunderstorm.  You know how some thunderstorms are nice and refreshing, but some of them are sad, dreary, and depressing?  The latter is the storm we're looking at.  Nice and soft over good speakers while gazing longingly out the window and into the night.


Marshmallow World

Listen here.

Oh sure.  It's easy to be complimentary towards winter when your main hang out is, oh, I dunno, Las Vegas.  Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra laugh it up for everyone in this version of Marshmallow World.  While normally I would consider this a Christmas song, I think it's really more of just a straight good-natured, well-meaning winter song.  Winter doesn't have to be a miserable time of year.  Also, I can see what people saw in Sinatra, but I have no idea what Martin had that was that exciting.

Best listening: Before Christmas, I would say before it gets overplayed in malls, on TV, and everywhere else.  Preferably on a nice, snowy day with a temperature just below freezing and not a breath of wind.


April In Paris

Listen here.

I ask you, are their any cooler album covers than this one?  "THEY SAID IT COULDN'T BE DONE!" it boldly proclaims.  What couldn't be done?  A twenty piece accordion band!  This is one of those ideas that you can file under "this is crazy enough that it just might work".  Now, some people cringe at the thought of one accordion in a band.  Worse yet, two.  But what do twenty accordions sound like?  Like this performing one of Basie's signature tunes April in Paris, complete with a few "One More Time"s. 

Best listening: Everything about this song and this album is rather unhinged (did you notice the gorilla on the cover?) so I would say that the best time to listen to it is when strolling around outside in early spring on a gorgeous day when you feel the sun shining down on you after a long, frigid winter and you're just giddy with excitement that spring has finally sprung.


Moondance

Listen here.

You know, autumn is my favourite time of year.  A lot of people see it as the time of year where the world is dying around them and that it's going to be a long, long time before the world seems alive again, but I see it differently.  It's as much about renewal as it is death, and it can be as romantic as any other time of year.  The leaves look gorgeous, it's neither too hot nor too cold, and the kids are in school again.  Van Morrison sees this opportunity for romance as do I.

Best listening: October, of course, on a clear, crisp, quiet night.  Preferably not alone.


Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White

Listen here.

You wanna talk "swagger"?  Billy May (not Mays) and Les Baxter team up to give this classic some serious swagger.  From the trumpet feature in the second half of the song, to the arrangement as a whole, the song oozes bravado. 

Best listnening:The sun's shining, the birds are singing, the buds are opening, the first flowers are blooming, the snow's all gone for good and you're feeling ready to take over the world.  Either srutting or skipping is acceptable, but one or the other is mandatory.


Evergreen

Listen here.

They're broken up now, just within the last year actually, but Faithless has been putting together nifty tracks like this one since 1995.  Sometimes upbeat, sometimes haunting, always evocative this British group is as easy to listen to as any in the past twenty years.

Best listening: This song works best during the choirs of winter.  Pick the coldest day you can find, just the slightest breath of wind, at night.  A great song that embraces the hard core of seasonal depression.


 Summertime Blues

Listen here.

So what is it with bad ass 50's rockabilly heroes dying young?  While on tour in England in 1960, young Eddie Cochrane died as a result of a car accident at the tender age of 21.  So many great rockers died so young in his generation.  It's real sad.  As a sidenote, though, what do Cannonball Adderley and Eddie Cochrane have in common?  Album names.  Eddie also had an album called "Somethin' Else".  Who's the copycat?  Eddie, but not by much.  His "Somethin' Else" was released just a little over a year later in July of 1959.

Best listening: On a hot, muggy, sweaty day during the dog days of summer.  Especially if you feel like The Man is keeping you down.  And you gotta work late.


Blue Autumn

Listen here.

In keeping with the "blue" theme, here's something nice and chill.  The first two Autumn songs were pretty jazzy, so let's slow it fown with something a little more electric.  The song is Blue Autumn from Alpha's 2004 album Stargazing.   I tried not to make all of the autumn songs melancholy, but one couldn't hurt.  It almost makes a whole year of blue, actually.  Kinda sad.

Best listening: That point in time where summer's over and you realize that it's all downhill from here.  Everything's brown, cold, and there's no snow yet, trapped in seasonal limbo.


On A Sunny Day

Listen here.

So what we have here is the pairing of Alex Puddu, the the Italian, and Morten Varano, the Dane.  As an act together from 1997 - 2003, they toured the world with their brand of...  I dunno what to call this.  Disco.  Funk.  House?  Latin, maybe.  Rock?  House?  I dunno.  It's a little bit of everything.  It's a serious mishmash of styles that made for some seriously interesting tracks.

Best listening: Late spring, on one of those amazing days where you get through a few cold days, open the front door and feel the sun glaring out at you saying, "Don't worry.  Summer's right around the corner."


Midnight in Moscow

Listen here.

You know, Russia and Canada have a lot in common, at least as far as climate is concerned.  Midnight in Moscow?  Midnight in Edmonton?  Not much difference.  So as a closing hymn to tonight's list of seasonal songs, here's an instrumental from across the sea that speaks a common the common language of winter.

Best listening: Midnight on a cold night walking through a city street.  A mix of crunching snow, frosty breath, long blue shadows on banks of hard white banks that have had months to form.  Streets and sidewalks covered in a layer of thick ice, a sometimes gentle, sometimes unforgiving breeze gusting.  The moon plays a game of peak-a-boo as the clouds pass by on your way back to your nice warm bed.

Deal With It

THE IVORY TOWER

But beware.  We Quebecois are not all smiles and sunshine.

Senators.  Can't live with them and can't live without them it seems.  By now this week most people have heard about this man up pictured above, Mr. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, and I admit that this story is a particularly complex one, which is why the editorial board of Raccoon Inc. has decided to tackle this issue head on and see if we can just teast out some thread of sense to this not very sensible story.

First off we'll begin with the usual house cleaning.  Is there any faction of society that is more disconnected from the real world than that of the government employee?

I rest my case.

It has been my experience that the closer you get to Ottawa, or any nation's capital for that matter, the greater the disconnect from reality becomes.  Every day when you look at the press clippings statements get tossed around that sane, non-Ottawa people just dismiss as ludicrous.  Here's a good example.

Well, there's Van Loan yelling and pointing again.  I think he does it in his sleep, too.

Irwin Cotler's minding his own business when all of a sudden his constituents start getting calls that he's going to be retiring.  Well, he wasn't and now he's cheesed.  So, Van Loan fesses up that the Conservatives are behind the spreading of the rumour (or lie depending on how you look at it).  However, in doing so he states that the government's position on the dirty trick is that the government was just exercising its right to free speech.  Nice.  So if I send out a company-wide email to my employers saying that the Senior VP of the company's really into child pornography, I can just shrug my shoulders and say "Meh.  Free Speech.  Free Country.  Whatever."

Nuff said.



THE HANGING JUDGE

 

With this in mind as the prevailing Conservative attitude in Ottawa I present to you the words of Senator Boisvenu that touched off the controversy.

"Basically, every killer should (have) the right to his own rope in his cell,'' Boisvenu said. ''They can decide whether to live."

I'm looking for a murderer.

Wow!  First my right to free speech is defended and now my right to have a length of rope should I go to jail.  Well you can't say that the Conservatives don't have the poor and downtrodden on their minds.  Now, this is the kind of talk that I expect from some old-timers sitting around cups of coffee at a small town diner, but not a senator.  While the senator is, of course, entitled to his viewpoint, to be frank I didn't even know that the man even existed before he opened his mouth this week.  He was appointed to the Red Chamber just over two years ago, so to be fair this he's kind of a rookie at these things.  Here's a free piece of advice kid: don't say things that you will immediately be apologizing for.

Doug Ford: Like his brother, the unfortunate genetic result of a cross between Mike Holmes and Chris Farley.

I know, I know.  Rookie mistakes are hard to avoid.  For example, saying, "Well, good luck to Margaret Atwood, I don't even know her. If she could walk by me I wouldn't even have a clue who she is."  I could see how unavoidable that would be.  Or that “As far as I am concerned the TTC needs a complete enema.”  Hey, man.  Say what you mean and mean what you say, right?

THE VICTIM'S ADVOCATE

Man is nothing if not vulnerable.

On the other hand, Mr. Boisvenu is not just a crochety old senator.  There's actually much more to it than this.  In 2002, his daughter Julie was raped and brutally murdered.  I think that that is as much as any parent could hack.  From friends and family I have come to know that one of the hardest duties that any parent could ever be forced to do is to bury their child.

A mighty cold heart it can become.

People have become supervillains for far less motivation than what Mr. Boisvenu has had to endure, but rather than take up the mantle of supervillainy, he has done quite the opposite.  As a result of his daughter's murder, Mr. Boisvenu became the founding president of the Association of Families of Persons Assassinated or Disappeared.  According to their website:

"The AFPAD is a non-profit organization whose main mission is to overcome the isolation to which victims' families are subjected by developing links of solidarity between them and establishing bridges towards the necessary resources so they can access the information and tools necessary to reconstruct their lives."

It is difficult to argue against such a worthy cause.  I'm not going to do it here.  When you lose a loved one in such a way, I can only imagine how difficult it must be.  Even when you lose someone of entirely natural causes a piece of you dies along with them - that much I do know from personal experience.  The isolation, as well.  It's not easy and you can't do it alone, so to take your time and energy after such a loss and to utilize it in this direction is a remarkable thing.  Good job.  Well done.  The world could use more of these types of efforts.


HOWEVER...

Upon learning of Mr. Boisvenu's personal struggles what he had said makes more sense.  It's downright understandable.  It would be impossible to go through what he had to go through and not retain a certain amount of venom.  It is unavoidable that he would see a murderer with a different pair of glasses than anyone who has not been touched closely in such a way.  So before we go railing one way or another on the subject as so many other commentators have done, I would like to take a look at another angle.

Well, you can't fault him for not speaking his mind.  Or spleen.

According to NDP MP Pat Martin, who called Mr. Boisvenu an "asshole" for the record, threw out an interesting statistic.  "And 90 per cent of suicides in prison are in fact by hanging."  Now, I have no idea where he got this statistic from.  My gut says that he pulled it out of his ass and that it was not meant to be a factual statement.  Nevertheless, the recent rash of suicides in Quebec prisons is certainly noteworthy, and that was in fact what Mr. Boisvenu was refereing to when he made his statement, and that is a real statistic.

As someone who does have first-hand knowledge of suicide, and inspite of what Mr. Boisvenu has gone through himself, I must say that his statement hurt.  It did.  I'm not a murderer, but it still hurt.  Let me tell you what I think about this now.

Ride the lightning.

First off, two wrongs don't make a right.  On July 14, 1976 this nation made the enlightened decision to end capital punishment once and for all because two wrongs don't make a right.  We as a nation have accepted that to watch someone die, no matter the reason, is not a healthy thing for a civilization and that even if a murderer does not respect the life of another, we as a civilization do and will.  This is the tolerance that we show as a civilization that makes us great.

Secondly, to be an advocate for suicide in any form is not good.  It is an erosion of that same tolerance that we are famous for.  The logical leap is too far for me to jump between not advocating capital punishment while at the same time advocating suicide.  The message that you send is clear and unequivocal: my inability to kill you must not be mistaken to be your right to life.

If this is indeed his position, as I can only imagine that it must be, then I would suggest that Mr. Boisvenu spend more time rehabilitiating in the association that he himself created.


A RETURN TO THE TOWER

So the very next day, Mr. Boisvenu apologized for his remark as people were up in arms over the notion of complimentary lengths of rope being made available for patrons of the crowbar saloon.  The day after that, however, he had retracted his retraction. 

“The comments I got from 500 people, maybe even 600, said the media are exaggerating this.  Also, these people are saying, ‘What Mr. Boisvenu said, that’s just what people think.’ The people who wrote to me, the majority are victims.”



This meme never gets old, by the way.

So what the hell was the apology for?!  You don't go and apologize and then brag the next day about how right you were!  What are you?  Five years old?  Look, I have respect for what he has gone through, and I have respect for the work his orginazation does, but you can't have it both ways.  Either you're sorry or you're not, and it really doesn't look like you are after that.  So let me give you another brotip, sonny boy.  If you're not sorry, don't apologize.  Simple!

As a result of all this a criminal complaint has been filed stating that Mr. Boisvenu through his statements and actions has effectively been inciting suicide, which is not good at all.  I'm skeptical that the charges will amount to anything, but you never know.  In the end, I think that I would just chalk this up to a rookie that has a propensity towards running his mouth.  Maybe with a little time and experience he'll come to realize one of two things:

a) all life is precious and ought to be respected.

or

b) if you don't have anything smart to say, let the PMO say it for you.

And that's all the time we have for tonight.  Thank you for tuning in.  Until next time.