Sunday, August 13, 2006

Lazy Sunday random thoughts

SMILING JACK: Saw Jack Layton on Saturday at the Taste of the Danforth festival in his home riding. He seemed a touch lonely, having a drink by himself in the raised VIP tent above the masses, talking on his cell phone and greeting the occasional passerby. “Hey, there’s that guy, what’s his name?” remarked one person in the crowd. They did eventually guess Jack Layton, and not the Video Professor. On another note, the slouvaki was excellent.

SHHHHH!: Did I miss the memo where it was deemed acceptable to talk during movies? I generally see a movie at least every other week, and more and more people seem to have no problem jabbering away during the film. And not just kids, but adults. Today it was World Trade Center (good movie, emotional, no politics, just the story of two cops trapped in the rubble and their families), one guy in front of me took a call on his cell phone, and two people behind be kept talking, despite my SHHHHs! A comedy is one thing, but an emotional drama like this... shut the hell up already!

DIEBELED: Stephane Dion gets the Diebel treatment today and emerges unscathed. After last week’s Ignatieff piece, I was a bit worried when I saw it was Stephane’s turn this week. It was a good piece though, very in depth, I learned a lot I didn’t know about him and got a better sense of who he is. As a rum and coke man though, I hope he changes his mind there. Ted of Cerberus got big play in the piece with his analysis of the campaign fundraising numbers from last week (wonder if she’s read his piece on media bias…). Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen Ted’s full name on his blog before, did Linda out you Ted? :) Anyway, a good piece, except for the fact that she repeats the media myth of Bob Rae as a frontrunner.

CHOICES: Life is about making choices. So is being a leader. Stephen Harper choose to tour the Arctic instead of signaling Canada’s commitment to tackling the biggest health crisis facing the world today by attending the World Aids conference this week in Toronto. Apparently, he was afraid he’d be booed. This wasn’t about scheduling. This conference has been planned for years. He choose to be somewhere else. That’s not leadership. Stephen, you choose poorly. Bill Clinton will be there, he knows why it's important.

FRAMING: I like to keep CTV Newsnet on in the background when I’m at home doing other things, and as they went to commercial this morning one of the teasers made me pause. It was for a story on the new carry-on regulations, and it asked “Are we going far enough?” Not, are they right, or, are they going too far, but are they going far enough. That frames the debate in such a way that precludes a proper evaluation. And the subtext, of course, is be scared! Words are important. The Star has a piece today on this new culture of fear. The parable of the boy who cried wolf comes to mind. It seems some people are getting cynical.

QUESTION: OK, so I can’t bring a bottle of water from home onto my next flight, that’s silly, but whatever. Tell me why though, once I’m past security and at the gate, I can’t buy a diet Cherry Vanilla Doctor Pepper from the newsstand for my flight? Surely all materials in the secure area have been checked and deemed, you know, secure? Also, they’ll pry my iPod from my cold, dead hands.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey! Jakc has a much sexier moustache then the video profressor!

Anonymous said...

If they can’t get a secure supply of refreshments post-security, they might as well admit the gig is up.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps people just edto enjoy one of the nicest weekends we've had this year rather listen and/or to Jack playing campaign, gee I'm a good guy, politics.

Perhaps Diebel is getting so much critism that she's had to soften.

Perhaps the "fear" strategy is Harper using Bush's fear strategy.

Perhaps GI Joe, Commander-in-Chief, Photo-op Harper thought he'd get AIDS if he attended. It's not like he had a pressing meeting with a world leader. He could, as PM, arranged this northern trip anytime he wanted. It wouldn't have been so obvious if Harper had at least attend one of the several events that in some how happened to relate to gays and lesbians.

Perhaps Harper will apologize - not likely as he's never, never apologized for anything in his life.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, perhaps I should proof-read my comments before submitting them. Sorry for the errors.

Lolly said...

It is obvious that the "terrorists" have succeeded by putting terror into airline travel, and the resulting security screening people must go through before they board a flight. They didn't have to succeed in killing westerners all they have to do is put the fear of ultimately killing people that brings smiles to their faces.

One analogy that comes to mind was a comment I heard from a young history teacher visiting Canada from Washington State. When asked who won the battle of 1812. The Canadian said we did of course. The Teacher was astounded that we would think we won the battle of 1812 because the Americans won that battle from her take on history. This was the interesting part of the conversation, because "the USA didn't lose any ground" was her answer.

So, in that mindset, "the terrorists didn't kill anybody, but they gained ground by forcing the west to increase security for all airline travellers.