On the third day of Christmas

We semimythical coyotes may have mentioned a time or two that we are minor deities in a North American pantheon unrelated to Christmas. In fact, we predate it. That said, we ain't averse to Christmas presents. Specially the edible ones.

So. Picture my immense bafflement joy upon finding that some of my most valued friends had chipped in to buy me a thoughtful gift of a fluffy polar fleece blanket. As advertised on TV. With sleeves in it. One for each leg, actually. What were they thinking???? I gladly accepted it in the spirit in which it was given.

And imagine, if you will, my further mumblemuttermumble glee on Boxing Day, when I found - completely by accident - that they had been so conniving thoughtful as to order it specially custom-made, with my monogram on it. No hope of returning that sucker. I shall treasure it forever.

To my dear, dear friends who drunk-dialed the shopping channel at three A.M. searched high and low to find ol' coyote such a perfect gift, I just want y'all to know that it moves me so deeply, I'm already mulling how to return the favour next HannuKwanzaChristmas.

And don't go saying, "Awwwww, shucks, coyote, old buddy! Pish-tosh! Forget it! No need to go to all that trouble!"

I really want to. From the bottom of my grateful heart. And I know where you live...

Christmas Eve

Stocking Stuffers from Wilde's

The humanity...

With PM Stephen Harper's recent trashing of Jumpin' Jack Flash...



...the insanity of world politics and the built-in escalation of mutually assured destruction guarantees that some uber-competitive alpha dog type will up the ante until the world careens on greased rails into a post-modern wasteland completely lacking decent enforcement of U.S. copyright laws. And who might fill that role?

Vladimir Putin, of course. With an, ummm, impromptu rendition of the inimitable Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill:



The humanity! Oh, the humanity! My heart and large sensitive ears bleed... at least until the inevitable Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown notices are issued. Soon! Please...

Arms Free

There is driving hands-free, and then there is...

Warning: Cool people will be thrown from building

Credit: my keen-eyed nephew

Feet, however, are permitted

Alexandria, Ont., Nov. 21

The principal principle principle

Lately, I have noticed a disturbing trend in the language of the prime minister and his henchthingies. You know, the new-but-rapidly-aging trick with which, faced with any old screwup of their own making, they contrive to still appear (heh...) right, because their stand is based on "Principles".

This phrase is uttered in tones of finality. The kind that suggest that all things the PM labels as "Principles" cannot, must not, be questioned. By anybody. Because it's, you know, a Principle. Therefore Unassailable.

To the PM's fans, the term also implies pleasing undertones of moral discourse. Therefore even more Unassailable. One never negotiates Morality.

In a short time, the trick has become a trope, the new lazy-ass-all-purpose spin management tool over at the PMO. Splop a few random "Principles" into the speaking points on everything very arguably sketchy and/or dumb and, hey, presto, all butts are completely wallpapered clear up to the ethical ceiling. Which at this juncture, is, ummm, low.

My Oxford Big Word Thingy, Canine Ed.©®™, is an admirably clear (and massive) reference, but with two-odd dense pages of alternative definitions for "principle" ya know there's plenty of room for creative (and handy) misinterpretation.

Avowed principles - especially in politics, and especially among recent ruling parties, are not necessarily fundamental or immutable, or even true. They are ideas upon which policies are based. Sometimes pretty bad ideas. Even rotten ones. If you have a minute, you could look up "rotten" in the Oxford Big Word Thingy, Canine Ed.©®™.

I could, of course, have gotten all of this deplorably wrong. I am semimythically canine and fallible.

The prime minister could - and maybe would - logically argue that his principles can't be wrong. Because he has none left.

I don't get paid enough to create Google poems

* I don't get paid enough to deal with this guy!

* I don't get paid enough to fix it.

* I don't get paid enough to do this job

* I don't get paid enough to potentially get blown up by an IED and be away from my family for a year ($2250/mth right now), but I do it anyway.

* I Don't Get Paid Enough To Blog (2), I should know better then to do meta

* I don't get paid enough to even consider it.

* I don't get paid enough to explain this, but I promise twenty, thirty or fifty years from now, a house bought will be worth more than you paid for it today. You'd have to be stupid as a zombie to keep paying rent...

* I don't get paid enough to kiss your a**!

*You ruffle too many feathers, and at the moment I don't get paid enough to handle the stress of that kind of feather-ruffling on my front page with my name over the top of it.

* I would definitely take my tantrums elsewhere, but I don't get paid enough to.

* I don't get paid enough to be abused.

* I don't get paid enough to put up with the crap that people are giving me.

* I don't get PAID enough to spend as much time as you do here.

*I don't get paid enough to put up with a toddler that gives me bruises and bites the hell out of me every time he gets put in time out.

* personally, I don't get paid enough to be a judge for everyone in the blogosphere.

* I don't get paid enough to touch used panties, and I won't do it.

* I don't get paid enough to live in fear of being hacked by my fellow co-workers.

* I don't get paid enough to think.

The colour of poppies

A day or two ago, one of this city's newspapers rapped a local peace group's white poppy campaign for civilian war dead, disparaging it as "a bunch of hippies giving big group hug (sic) and hoping for peace." Editorial reaction elsewhere is nearly as churlish, leaning toward telling "the peaceniks" to butt out of the official red poppy drive. The Royal Canadian Legion is unamused. It apparently has the poppy copyrighted. And maybe poppyrighted.

One can find an individual veteran or two who sees nothing wrong with the idea, but most news seems to hold crankier quotes, working up a fine lather in the week before Remembrance Day. Discourse in this country has gotten impolite everywhere, not just in that asylum on the hill.

Canada's last veteran from that long-ago unpleasantness just died recently, but when I was a slightly younger coyote, there were still any number of people who had served in the First World War, living their lives. They dwelt on future walkers, wheelchairs and care homes rarely, if at all.

One, whom I happened across quite often as he hiked in the foothills near Calgary, was one of the most pacific men I have ever met. I don't think he ever raised his voice about anything. I do not recall that he spoke about his part in that conflict, either, except to mention that he'd spent two years at a sanitarium in southern Ontario, recovering from tuberculosis after the war ended. He also mentioned humourously, in passing, exactly once, how he and other soldiers in the trenches would amuse themselves holding cootie derbies and laying penny bets, after picking lice off of themselves to race up broomstraws. There wasn't much else amusing going on, obviously. He never spoke of war otherwise, and when others did around him, a quietly pained expression crossed his usually-happy face.

He always kept a red-flocked paper poppy pinned to the lapel of his topcoat. I, being a coyote, did not trouble myself as to why. But one who knew him told me he felt bound to honour his old comrades beyond November 11. And in the way it has with semimythical coyotes, the west wind told me even later that he had been invalided out of the trenches of northern Europe just at the end of the last miserable winter before the Battle of Passchendaele.

There's not much more to go on but supposition. But I think he may have been - by the simple good luck of nearly dying from tuberculosis at the right time - one of the few in his regiment to live after the generals ran it into the machine guns. And that he wanted, as long as he could, to carry the standard of their memory. On the unspoken evidence, he seemed to value civilian lives just as highly as military ones. I think he approved highly of peace. I rather suspect he would see no difference between white poppies and red ones. But then, we dogs are colourblind...

Maman walks The Line

You have no doubt heard news of the National Gallery's new acquisition, One Hundred Foot Line, planted of late on the foothills of Nepean Point.

I understand that, nominally, it represents a bare, limbless tree. With the right lighting (read: "brooding and dramatic") it's pretty spectacular. It is a tall pointy metal stick to be reckoned with, but not for wimpy, mild cirrus-cloud summer days. Yet I was also kinda jealous when the guys over at OttawaStart.com came up with the line: "A huge monument to sticking your tongue to a cold pole."

The other day, after each of us had wandered down serially to look up (waaaaaay up...) at it, Robin K. from Watawa Life and me had a lengthy philosophical discussion about the phenomenological and epistemological implications of really humongous public art.

Long story short, Robin said he still far preferred Maman, out front. He's cooler on stainless steel toothpicks. Or in his words, "Who wouldn't like a statue of a giant spider?"

About then, some semimythical idiot piped up thoughtlessly, "...but has no one considered how cool it would look if Maman was climbing that steel tree? Epic, in a King Kong on the Empire State Building kinda way! But more spidery and metallic…!"

It was at that fateful point that Robin fatefully uttered the fateful words: "Agreed! Send her up."

Genius.

About last night....

That'll do. As you were.

Vote. Just vote.

Y'know, it's been a long four years. You'd never realize it from reading all the crap I've posted here, but us coyotes hate blogging politics.

Unlike the mayor himself, who somehow always manages to word things so that he squirms away from taking any actual responsibility for anything negative that occurs on his watch, I blame Larry O'Brien. He has been so egregiously bad that something hadda be said.

Being a yapper, I said it. Now I'm nearly hoarse. Well actually, I'm still a coyote. For those among you who are not trained aesthetes, horses are bigger 'n dumber, kick ya in the slats when offended, and have way less awesome ears than coyotes. But I digress.

All I really want to say here is that Monday is municipal election day in Ontario. I really don't even care who the hell you vote for. Just vote. Because the way it's supposed to work is that the more people participate, the more representative are the decisions they make. Theoretically. If some schmucks happen to be elected - and schmucks very likely will be elected - at least they will represent everybody.

Tomorrow. Just vote. You'll make a very old, hoarse semimythical coyote very happy. I'm pretty sure after tomorrow I can finally shut the hell up about egregiously bad mayors and get back to my true calling: bloggin' mumumelons. Chasing your cat. Stuff that matters. It's time.

Lawn sign credit: firelarryobrien.com. In no way affiliated with the Elgin Street Irregulars, but some of us like their style.

Ghost of Past Election

I came across this sign a couple of years ago...

I wonder if the owners of the sign regret tossing it in the garbage?

Google Poem: Do we really want a mayor?

* Personally, I don't want a mayor who isn't willing to do the legwork to ensure that all of her/his nominators are in fact on the voters list

* I don't want a mayor or councillor who blames new people for the ills of this community.

* I don't want a mayor who is too scary to talk to.

* I don't want a mayor with a track record of over 80% failure in city hall. I've been in the damn #verizon store so much that I'm the mayor

* We don't want a mayor that goes by his opinion only

* I don't want a mayor who's going to get up on his soap box, shake his fist and “stand up for our city”.

* I don't want a mayor that show-boats with an Islamic extremist that believes suicide bombers and the execution of homosexuals are acceptable.

* I don't want a mayor that delivers "energy" and "renewal"

* pick whatever hackneyed adage or idiom you'd like but the reality is I don't want a mayor who will make me feel good

* We don't want a mayor that signs papers without reading them.

* They don't want a Mayor who insists on protecting the hills, air and water, and avoid big-time traffic increases.

* I don't want a mayor that waddles.

* They don't want a mayor that would have this bunch, or an essentially similar one, happier in their work. They want a mover and a shaker

* I don't want a mayor that sits back and lets the city go down the tubes to protect his buddy Longos feelings.

* I don't want a mayor that's going to drop dead half-way through.

* I don't want a mayor who says “I'M WORKING FOR U”. It's not difficult at all to type the other 2 letters to make the correct word.

A Big Yellow Taxi moment

This past weekend, the (almost former) mayor piled more, ummm, vision, into his "vision for Ottawa": (yet) another suburb, to be serviced by a ring road plowed through the city's green belt. It was at one and the same time a Big Yellow Taxi moment and a heartfelt cry for help. Involving emergency laser eye surgery.

Us coyotes can't help noticing that most of the mayor's recent vente speculative fictions involve the thoughtless trashing of the city's public open spaces: running electric rail along the Ottawa River Parkway; a Lansdowne Park deal that bobbled lands in the public trust into private developers' waiting hands, with a nifty side deal to carve big a new exhibition space out of the southern greenbelt; and now the ring road idea.

Now, the green belt has been eyed with avarice and intent by developer types for most of its five-decade run. To them, it is 20,350 hectares of prime open space ideally situated for plunking down any old building they care to name. If only they could get their frustrated mitts on it.

A lot has changed since a rather well-regarded city planner guy named Jacques Gréber suggested the idea in 1950, and it may well be in the public interest to revisit its whithers and wherefores. But I'm unconvinced that Mayor Larry is the guy to shepherd the process. He has already amply demonstrated a really unfortunate bias toward what us coyotes call "inappropriate development", along with a serious disregard for the niceties of due process, and an utter lack of intelligent consideration of consequences.

We coyotes, of course, are biased in an entirely other direction. You might say hizzoner's purported big picture schemes hit us where we live. Because, well, they do.

But the public open spaces that the city under this mayor has already dealt away - or wants to - are treasures. If citizens decide to give 'em up after proper debate, fine. But it should only be for the right reasons, and for a fair payback. Even, one might hazard, and I am aware of the irony of my using this word, as a part of a vision. If possible, one grander, more inspiring and more cohesive than badly focused pipe dreams.

At the very least, you'd better damn good and sure before you throw away something as scarce as green space in a city. Because if there's one thing us coyotes know, it's that once you pave paradise, it's lost. And as Joni sang back in her chirpier, more soprano-y days, ya don't know what ya got 'til it's gone.

ESI caption contest!

The prize? Not being thrown to the lions.

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2010-10-08

Venue: The Usual Spot

Present: The Chair, Conch Shell, Independent Observer (late with reasonable excuse) Coyote (late with no excuse)
Absent (with regrets, no excuse): 4th Dwarf, Woodsy
Absent (no regrets, reasonable excuse): Agatha
Guests: Harmony, Painted Stick

1. Oh, the irony

The Chair notes that this is the first ESI emergency meeting that both he and Conch Shell have attended in a long time and muses as to the coincidental absence of all of the other ESI members at this point. Given both the Chair and Conchie no longer corner the market on the whole “passive-aggressive” thing, the meeting moves on to other matters.

2. Whither the Usual Spot

Those ESI’s present and accounted for (ahem) note that the Usual Spot is less busy than usual and speculate whether the it has lost its hipness with the local denizens after more than a decade of holding top spot on the drag.

Harmony: It’s about time this place got bounced from its status. You can’t ride on your laurels forever. Much like certain blogs, ahem, this place is getting stale and dated.

Conch Shell: Where are the hipsters going, then?

Harmony: [redacted] seems to have the edge these days, though I think it smells like pee.

Chair: Has Coyote been marking other spots around town, again?

Discussion ensues about finding a new Usual Spot without much consensus.

3. Whither the [redacted]

Conch: Did you see where [redacted] is looking at wedding rings again?

Chair: I hope she knows what she’s doing? The last time didn’t turn out so well.

Harmony: Three-times the charm, I say.

Chair: Which means she has to go through all this for another full turn before she gets it right.

Conch: And she hasn’t even finished all the messiness with [redacted].

Debate ensues about whether one needs to race to the “three-times the charm” spot or does one pretend to make a go of it with all the interim relationships.

Chair: Some have managed to make it “two-times the charm”. Look at [redacted] and [redacted].

After a momentary pause followed by a chorus of laughter, it is agreed that we wish [redacted] all the best with [redacted] and move on to the next agenda item.

4. Whither the blog

Picking up on Harmony’s passing reference to “stale and dated”, discussion moves to the Ottawa blog scene.

Conch: I see Megan has decided to stop blogging.

Chair: I liked her analogy to breaking up. It’s so true. You have to know when to pull the plug. I also see that some anonymous commenter made a swipe at us along the same line.

Conch: Have blogs become passez in Ottawa?

Harmony: In Ottawa, more like passez-composer. Everyone tweets now. Even Zoom. If you can’t express it in 140 characters or less, it’s not worth saying.

Chair: Maybe CB radio will make a come-back. I think social networking needs to return to its roots. Plus it has a better lingo to work with.

Harmony: That’s a big 10-4.

Chair: Have you seen this blog? My question is, how come none of us are profiled in it? It claims to be a feature about strangers.

Harmony: Well, no one is stranger than you lot.

Conch: Someone should do an outreach. Maybe it’ll help re-brand us.

Chair: [in a CB drawl] The others may tell us to pull the hammer back on this one. May have to wait for the big 10-4 before we get to beat the bushes.

Chair breaks into the song “Convoy”, Conch Shell gets up and leaves. Shortly thereafter, the IO, Coyote, and Painted Stick join the group.

5. Whither the mayoralty race

Discussion ensues regarding the 20 fielded candidates to run the O-town’s city hall for next four years.

IO: Do we need adopt an ESI position?

Chair: I think Coyote has already. Or at least we know who he’s not likely endorsing.

Harmony: Me thinks Coyote doth protest too much.

Coyote: Doth you?

Harmony: Yeth

Chair: The bigger question to me is: who’s Coyote going to kick around come November? Things aren’t looking good for Lex Luthor.

IO: Jimmy Olsen better watch it. Coyote doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Coyote: I hang out with you lot.

Chair: We can only hope Andy Hayden makes a comeback.

IO: Duly noted.

Several motions get bantered back and forth on an official ESI position. In the end, we decide to defer any endorsements and order another round of drinks plus a shot of distemper for Coyote.

6. Other matters

The issue of PETA comes up in relation to Woodsy’s recent post. By unanimous vote, all ESI’s present support our intrepid photographer’s work and encourage her to continue to find similar subject matter for future blogging.

Having dispensed with the formalities, the meeting was adjourned.

Smells like diss-spirit

Like all canines, we coyotes are connoisseurs of the aromatic. And the strong whiff we whiffed in the environs of Hizzoner-the-mayor yesterday was the reek of sweaty failure.

The mayor had lurched off the high road he claimed he would stick to when he started campaigning, to diss 77-year-old opponent Andrew Haydon with the jibe that he was "past his best-before date".

Them darned gotcha media picked up on it, and by the evening news, His Nibs was making like a Maytag, trying to respin that infelicitous turn of phrase to mean only Haydon's ideas, not the man himself.

That the mayor was pissed about looking like a jerk (again) was self-evident. Whether he accepted that he authored his own misfortune was less so. He tried to force a smile as he twisted in the wind - but the TV interviews betrayed a flat, clipped voice, a hard glare and gritted teeth behind perfunctorily-curved lips.

With about two weeks left to campaign, he's transitioned from his usual baseless confidence into a muted desperation hallmarked, in about equal parts, by abortive Hail Mary passes and highly defensive-sounding damage control.

He still struggles to project a self-confident visual, but the invisible bouquet that cascades from him belies it. Somebody else, I might feel sorry for. Since it's Larry 0'Brien, I'm snappin' a clothes peg over my snout to block the growing odour of flop sweat. And as has been my habit for four years, rolling my eyes heavenward until election day and trusting in the, ummm, wisdom of crowds.

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

I chatted briefly with these three friendly turkey lovers before taking their picture.


I found it rather odd that the girls were promoting PETA in such tiny sexy outfits, but then I googled PETA images...

Google Poem Thanksgiving

* I'm just thankful that there are people that are trying to help me, and to those people I just want to say thanks for all that you do.
* I'm just thankful my clothes are fitting, because I am going to stay out of maternity clothes as long as possible.
* i'm just thankful i had a childhood to remember now that everyone has been taken over by everything that is just so unnatural.

* Sometimes I complain about all the things I need to do in my life, but really I'm just thankful I get tro stay at home with my sweet baby and that I have a work-at-home job and that I have THINGS that need packing. 

* I'm lucky and thankful that Mr. Hot is in my life

* I'm just thankful that I find meaning and connection from doing ordinary things... like taking care of my dogs.
* I'm just thankful it was me and not some defenseless old lady or something.
* I'm just thankful I was also given talents where I can show my stuff for being a good dancer.

* I'm just thankful that we do not get all the government we pay for!

* I'm just thankful the photos weren't out of focus (I definitely was out of focus..)
* I'm just thankful to have this opportunity. 
* I'm just thankful that you took the time to stand up and glorify the greatness we can be together.

* I'm just thankful that my daughter Kendall and our dear friend Ryan Lavery are not in jail for this crime.

* I'm just thankful that they won't be raising our taxes now that this wasteful boondoggle has been rejected.

* I'm just thankful Boras didn't get his claws on Chooch before we scr, er, negotiated that sweeeeet contract in January.

* I'm just thankful for guys like Edgar Wright, Duncan Jones, Danny Boyle (sometimes!)
* I'm just thankful that I got to use the coupon they advertised and that the people there, from the manager on down, are always so pleasant to deal with.

* I'm just thankful that I got wind of it before it was too late.


* I'm just thankful that the race officials acted so professionally and I wasn't seriously hurt in the crash.
* I'm just thankful that I can find the matches online and feed my burgeoning addiction.

* I'm just thankful it hurt. You know, cancer doesn't always hurt.

* I'm just thankful that I don't have to drive in the city, because I don't think I would make it!

* But I'm just thankful that people find it entertaining and, hopefully, thought-provoking.

* I'm just thankful she's finally stopped scribbling on walls, spreading lotion on every available surface and sneaking off to the middle of my bed for chocolate syrup experiments.

* Alright, basically I'm just thankful to them for not banning websites that I spend 80% of my virtual time on which includes Facebook, You-tube and Twitter


[*]

Who You Gonna Call?

Bed bugs are all the rage these days...

Should I ever need mattress protectors, I know what company to call now. But, I would certainly not want them parked in front of my house.

P.S. Don't forget to mouse over the photo...

Darkly dreaming of dirty work at the crossroads

One niggling issue with buying a brain is that it is - so far, anyway - only an aftermarket accessory. I expect that will change at some point, but at the moment, Mayor Larry's attempt to bolt on some kinda political savvy is hampered by the fact that his actual, own brain is still the one hooked directly to his mouth. Mouth-shooting neurons being as speedy as they are, he can say all kindsa crap before the hired brain can, ummm, hit the Emergency Crash Override button.

So it was, with the Ottawa Stun's editorial board yesterday. Larry blurted that he had a hard time not thinking, as unnamed "more suspicious people" apparently already have, that former regional chairman Andy Haydon's entry into the mayoral race was engineered by front-runner Jim Watson to bleed off Larry fans and cause his ultimate mayoral demise.

Apparently, any unelection event would so not be Larry's fault. Also apparently, Larry fans, while ummm, legion, can't tell two bald guys apart. I'll take a moment to point out to fiscal conservative types who might be duped by such nefariosity that Haydon, while indeed partly bald, is an actual practicing fiscal conservative who knows how to do that kinda thing successfully. He is also capable of pithiness. Unlike me. I just digressed again.

Larry's campaign manager, Robert Thompson was in there yanking the leash. But it musta have been one of those spring-loaded thingies I see on all the posher domestic doggies: you know, the ones that can unreel to about 10 metres like taut clotheslines, to trip ya up. The leasher can theoretically thumb a brake button to shorten the line, and head off the leashee's intemperate darts into heavy traffic or other disasters - say, an unfortunate roll in something really smelly and unpleasant - but would have to be damnably quick on the draw* to slow down His Nibs.

So it was only after the blurtage that Thompson managed to yank that leash and tell Larry to STFU and get back onto the media line script. Carefully crafted by someone who's not Larry. A new, improved Larry 2.0 indeed. Two, ummm, too, bad about that legacy code...

* Mental digression: some freakishly-quick gamer with years of practice on X-Box or Playstation controllers might have developed the lightning reflexes needed. But I doubt they'd have the interest.

How dumb am I supposed to be, again...?

I'm on a roll. While I sucked my paws over the state of federal politics yesterday, the incumbent mayor, in what I imagine he hoped was a display of charming candour, finally admitted out loud what sentient Ottawattamies have pretty much realized since their last municipal election-night hangovers hit: that his first half-term was a disaster cratered with "rookie mistakes".

Oh, that his nibs finally got anything even half right is fairly momentous. But us semimythical coyotes still find him charmless. Being played for a simpleton by someone who lacks the chops to do the job right does that to us... I digress. That phrase is getting to be such a trademark that I'm gonna put that on a baseball cap and market it. I digress again...

It may be that the mayor figured that if he copped to his record of awfulness, he could then, whenever after it comes up, do what spin doctors call "changing channels". This is saying, in effect, "I've already dealt with that, it's ancient news, now let's just move on and talk about what really matters. Which is anything but that.". Watch for it.

It was also the sort of calculated move that suggests the guy is temporarily listening to his store-bought brain instead of the winging it that is his wont. Polling at less than half the support of your leading rival apparently focuses even the most scattered mind. Oh, he fondly imagines himself as a big ideas guy, but he's just scattered.

And what are we to make of what David Reevely calls "Larry 2.0"? The things he imagines to be his latter-day signature victories - like flogging the very public Lansdowne Park to the first very private commercial developers that had the balls to just ask for it, whilst shredding due process - are, well, who he is.

Self-proclaimed 2.0 status aside, worrying signs of that problematic unselfaware hubris remain. The guy who thought he was going to ride into Dodge City and change things all by hisself didn't even know what he didn't know then. He has never grasped important nuances. Driving a city this size on a learner's permit is dangerous egotism. And he's still more than a little hung up on how important being a 'multimillionaire' makes him - in multiple statements. (Read 'em if ya have the stomach.)

It takes more than a bunch of hired mouthpieces who are all about an election-year surface wax & buff to change the fact of a man whose flaws are deeply embedded in his personality. Four more years of Larry has a very high probability of being four more years of the same, no matter what he - or the backroom - think they're floggin'.

"Smartest guy in the room"

We coyotes understand that reviewers of Stately Glob columnist Lawrence Martin's new book about Stephen Harper have latched onto the PM's venom toward small and large-L liberals as noteworthy.

It is, not because it's anything new, but because it helps begin to explain the current malaise in this country's political landscape. The fact that Conservatives' main rebuttal so far is to label Mr. Martin a "large-L liberal sympathizer", like that alone should fully explain and dismiss his findings, just underlines it.

The PM, portrayed by his fan(s?) as the "smartest guy in the room" is indeed a great one for convoluted trickiness. Yet uncompromising tactics ranging from within the pale to, ummm, less so, all aimed at, quote, "killing the Liberal brand", have done little but shoot up his feet, and the rest of the place. That's a problem, not just for his political fellows who lust after that elusive parliamentary majority, but for the country.

Us coyotes have seen plenty of smartest guys in the room screw up royally through lack of wisdom. I could get all semimythically pedantic here about the ginormous abyss separating "smart" and "wise", but just gimme that one for argument's sake. I'm busy making a point, here.

Which is that any political guy who's so heavily invested in the tenet that all other political stripes in a democracy are the work of the Antichrist, to be seared from the face of the earth with brimstone, is no friend of the nation. Kicking that warm, fuzzy little dream out to its (il)logical extreme, while no doubt heady to some party hacks, has little to do with democracy. Or the reasonable checks and balances on power that help sustain it. For the democratic experiment to remain on the level, conservative yin needs liberal yang. Or vice versa. We coyotes are hazy on eastern religious concepts. We come from someplace else.

The parliamentary democracy that has evolved over the better part of a thousand years works best when players are flexible. That means taking the time to understand other viewpoints, respect for those outside your policy hothouse, and seeing the good of the nation - and all the diverse people and viewpoints it comprises - as the big-picture goal.

We coyotes like to keep our yellow eyes fixed on the big picture. Ya kinda hafta, watching six millenniums' worth of evolving human shenanigans. It's that, or rump of skunk and madness.

One of that grande vista's truisms is that any one national leader seldom bears in huge ways on citizens' personal lives, unless he/she is truly, determinedly awful. Oh. And true awfulness can be attained by chasing partisan goals to the exclusion of everything else, including actual, considered governance. Considered governance which, one might think, would be the point of being a prime minister.

I'm just sayin'...

Court strikes down prostitution law...

...Tories react predictably

Original story here.
Zoom's cogent analysis here.

I went to International Talk Like a Pirate Day...

...and when I regained consciousness somebody had dressed me up in this goofy outfit. Next time, I'm sending Fourth Dwarf. He deserves it.

Varmints... and varmints

Full disclosure: Us coyotes are no fans of getting our fuzzy butts shot off. Especially by half-tons full of baseball-capped pseud cowboys, careening full tilt across the foothills, blasting merrily and often, with a astonishing range of rifles apparently all called "varmint guns". I gather that rural stop signs are often also varmints... I digress.

Another disclosure: Granny coyote used to excel at a very tricky high-speed dance that would lure drivers of such half-tons over big rocks that bent wheels, busted springs and punched holes in oil pans, while younger coyotes - hell, even passing jackrabbits - laughed our fuzzy butts off at safe distance. Granny was quite a joker.

Just so you know where I'm comin' from on this one. I have watcha might call an opinion about that long-gun registry the current government is so hellbent on, ummm, gunning down.

Really, the news a couple of days back that the US National Rifle Association was lending somewhat less-than-moral support to Canadian gun lobbyists was hardly a surprise, despite quick government and lobbyist denials. Their patented paranoid-nutbar brochure spiels about ill-defined freedom and the registry existing "so the police can come and take away all your guns in advance of a Nazi takeover" were cropping up here with tiresome regularity.

See, here's what I don't get. People drive cars, and need both operator and vehicle licenses to do so. Good idea, given that vehicles are, in the wrong hands and/or in the wrong situation, two-ton-plus weapons. As much as I enjoy hanging my tongue out the shotgun-side window into the breeze when Aggie drives me somewhere, I know they pack enough potential kinetic energy to kill.

Yet start talking about licenses for machines expressly designed to make enough kinetic energy to kill, and suddenly a bunch of people, many of whom ought to know better, start yelling "FREEDOMFREEDOMFREEDOM" at the tops of their leathery lungs. Yes, yes, yes, I know some weapons are useful tools for farmers and duck hunters too. A firearms registry does not make them any less useful to those who use 'em that way. Even supposing that gun ownership does equal freedom, freedom still equals responsibility. And registering weapons that blast big, irreparable holes in living organisms as a design feature is a reasonable, responsible thing to do in a civil democratic society, no matter what the hell the NRA, or anyone else, may yell at the top of their intriguingly well-rehearsed, very well-financed, voices.

That's the evil genius of the NRA - managing to conflate owning a gun with a big, hazy, near-undefinable motherhood word, using a withering barrage of fallacious arguments. The evil genius of the Conservative party is in playing politics with those acquired arguments, then preemptively accusing anyone who calls 'em out on it of 'playing politics'. And people call me a varmint!

As one of my coyote brethren from the Alberta days says, "Fallacious arguments during crooked 7-card stud seem to be all there are anymore..."

"Not finished yet" - Mayor Larry

Dear god. What could possibly be left for him to screw up...?

Annoying phrase of the day: Housing Bubble

Summer's end

Some weird summer, huh? I fell asleep on my boat in July drinking a beer, and when I woke up I was the mayor of Ottawa!

Oh, wait. Coyotes don't got boats. Or beers. So either I'm still snoozing and dreaming, or regretfully and regrettably channeling some other rather unreliable narrator...

Dear me. I seem to digress earlier and earlier in these little screeds. This time I derailed before I even nailed down a theme, which should have been something along the lines of, "We semi-mythical trickster types are mostly optimistic souls, happily anticipating our next LOLs." I mean, we always keep an eye open for rainbows. (Especially ones made of bacon. If you see one, lemme know care of this blog...) But some of the doings in this country in the past few months have left us feeling decidedly waterbowl-half-empty. -Ish.

However ya slice it, I've been left to ponder the murkier, bacon-challenged, recesses of the canine soul.

Now that we've steamed through the Labour Day Weekend, a municipal election looms, and that other unreliable narrator is busily re-spinning his sorry-ass mayoral record to make it resemble something a touch less disastrous.

And rumours of a federal election, as always, flit about like, well, rumours in Ottawa. To decide whether one will actually happen, you'd have to look into the mind of the PM. Just try not to look too long or deeply. It's icky. But he can pull the imperial prorogue gag only once or twice before the electorate gags, so we may be safe for a bit, yet.

The problem as I see it is that no politician at the moment seems capable of lighting the kind of fire that gets people enthusiastic and behind the cause. Any cause. There seem to be no causes except narrow minded, partisan jockeying for position. Meanwhile, political offices at all levels are begging for candidates with, oh, actual charisma, intelligence and ideas that embody an authentic zeitgeist, ethos or what-have-you.

Oh, us coyotes will probably watch - and yowl - anyway. We always do. But more and more, all we're really hoping for is to hang on for the appearance of the actual bacon - some kinda inspiration that we can buy into. Meantime, we're resigned to a long, nasty, ill-defined lumpy-cream-of-wheat kinda autumn...

Successful-looking guys on spiffy bicycles...

...even if they are impeccably turned out in natty, freshly-pressed office clothes, and even if they are riding one of those tall English limousine numbers, should probably consider not talking on their cell phones whilst they're riding up Elgin Street. During rush hour. With no hands. Through a red light.

While they do get minimal points for at least having the sense to wear a helmet during all of the above, I had to cover my eyes with my paws for a minute there. Us coyotes only enjoy anticipating violence of our own makin'.

I'm just saying...

Image: Courtesy Ski-Epic's Amsterdam Bicycles

Rabbit Ears

I am curious about these dainties that I saw in a window display today.



Do you tuck the bow into your pants/skirt, or let it stick out over the waist band?

Is this the fashion that will replace the whale tail?

I suspect that Coyote will like that I am claiming dibs on naming the look, "rabbit ears".

My biggest fear...

...upon hearing rumours last night that some poor, misbegotten, and likely well-muddled schmuck was apprehended sparkin' a, ummm, small puddle of undefined burning liquid on the sidewalk outside the Prime Minister's official residence at 24 Sussex, was that this obviously dastardly crime of national import would go unreported.

Whew! Glad that's been taken care of! (1) (2) (3) (...)

Now they can jug up said schmuck in a real prison instead of an unreported one. Or worse yet, instead of the mental hospital he most likely needs. Because now is obviously the time to get tough on crime...

Unless of course, it was Maclean's Magazine columnist Paul Wells... I'm just sayin'.

Alrighty, then! Let the judiciary commence with the important book-throwing formalities. Everybody else, back to your Sunday morning hangovers, crappy take-out coffees, and matching breakfast sandwiches!

Oh, hey, StatsFans!

The statistic I'm most urgently concerned about right now is a disturbing spike in the unreported proportion of Canadians that think Stockwell Day is an unreported bonehead.

Not that we coyotes would ever resort to ad hominem slurs ourselves, y'understand...

Going mediaeval on our asses

As a semimythical coyote, I recognise that mythical cosmogonies, including mine, may be internally consistent, yet correspond only roughly with what most people think of as reality. One side of the (mythical) line, I'm a totemic critter of some religious import. The other, I'm just a mouthy talking doggie with a sideline in eating your cat. Having had about 6,000 years' practice at being semimythical, I've learned to deal.

So it's with a practiced and critical eye that I watch the government attempt to build its own mythical cosmogony. You know, the one where empirical science never happened, and all must defer to the Prime Minister's gut. The one that spills out over the dinner-plate belt buckle he wears once a year at the Calgary Stampede, and tells him that basing decisions on actual facts is less desirable than just making crap up and calling it the truth.

Having had his mythical dogma (heh...) called out so often by the empirical facts on stuff like safe injections sites, mandatory sentencing, rising crime rates and blahblahblah ad nauseam, he's apparently started screwing over the people who collect these facts, such as Statistics Canada. Because nothing is more inconvenient than having your irrefutable gut feelings and cherished truthinesses shot to hell by your own government agency.

Give the guy credit. He and his base are doing their best to willfully ignore the entire Renaissance. You know, that insignificant 400-odd years when empirical science, ummm, evolved. Would they prefer the ignorance and superstition that came before? For an entire modern nation? How's that for going mediaeval on our asses?

As an over-opinionated quadruped with long experience in issues that rise when one's core beliefs reject the, you know, actual world in which you must exist, I gotta say: no matter how stubbornly you cherish that mythiness, sooner or later reality whacks ya upside the head. How's that for cognitive dissonance? And how ya gonna deal with it?

Item: 95+ to run for city council

Fair enough. We need some new faces in the electoral race. But if they all show up in the same teensy-weensy car, I'm leavin'...

Lug nuts and the census

So, even when faced with near-universal opposition, and even when the Chief Statistician quits in protest, the government has no problem trashing the mandatory census long form: "It's intrusive!!!! We're pandering to our loony fringe base, dammit!!!!"

So we coyotes will try to explain the issue in terms that make sense to the would-be defenders of this move, WHO ALWAYS SEEM TO FULL-CAP THEIR (OFTEN FURIOUSLY UNGRAMMATIC AND ANONYMOUS) FORUM COMMENTS: the lug nuts on that cherished Chevrolet half ton you use to earn your living.

Suppose your neighbourhood garage guys - call 'em Steve and Tony - say outta the blue that they want to replace all your lug nuts with Dodge lugs, because they think Chevy is arbitrary and intrusive for insisting on Chev lug nuts. Hell (they reason), Dodge lugs look pretty much the same, so no problem, right? Oh, and? Steve and Tony can pump gas, but neither's ever worked as a mechanic.

Would ya buy that, Durango? Nope. Because you, lug nut connoisseur that you are, know that Chev and Dodge lugs have different diameters, thread pitches and chamfers. Assuming they even sorta fit, those babies are gonna strip out, or leave wheel slop. Your wheels will come off, someplace inconvenient and possibly fatal.

There are a bunch of trucky things you could customize that, arguably, wouldn't wreck the ol' Silverado's utility: running boards, exhaust stacks, a big pair of them fine-looking chrome bull balls hanging off the trailer hitch. Dodge lug nuts, not so much.

Now, assume your pickup is a census. (It's a metaphor, Durango. Work with it.) See, reliable census information is Canada's business edge. Lotsa smart people rely on it to make sure the country as a whole can earn its living more efficiently. As every civilized country in the world aspires to.

A mandatory long form is intrusive, but a small price to pay for citizenship in this country you claim to love so much. Much like obeying stop signs at intersections. We work co-operatively toward common goals, unlike, say, those anarchists you hated so much at the G20. To do anything else is to court rump of skunk, and madness.

A voluntary long form is pretty much like Dodge lug nuts on your Chevy - doesn't match. Reading statistical trends properly makes tracking changes accurately over time really important. Even if you label the data you collect by the same name, changing the method you use to collect it means that you can't reasonably compare it with, well, anything that came before. The wheels come off. Just like that Chevy.

Now, I'm only a dumb coyote, so here are my questions: why would you trust an ill-fitting lug nut named Steve to change that? Why does Steve think some lug nuts are more equal than others? And why, if Steve keeps saying his opponents are unpatriotic and unCanadian, is it always him that seems hell-bent on changing this country, lug nut by lug nut, into something unrecognizable...?

Just askin'...

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2010-07-19

Venue: The Usual Spot
Present: 4th Dwarf, Woodsy, Aggie

1) Nobody blogging

It is noted that poor Coyote is carrying the blog and nobody else has blogged for weeks.

A: I would like to start again.

W: Me too, but I like to say “continue to blog”. It’s less negative.

4D and A agree.

A: Maybe using the camera is the key.

W: A picture with a couple of words is not so intimidating.

A: And maybe sketching...

Some discussion ensues about factors that limit blogging.

A: Then there’s perimenopause.

W: Or menopause, and 4D, how is your andropause?

4D: My andropause?

2) Vampires

A: Why are vampires so hot right now?

W: Because relationships suck?

Aggie groans. 4D pointedly does not.

A: Is it about gender power differences?

W: Huh?

A: In True Blood, vampires are an oppressed minority group, even though they are powerful beings. Like the white male narrative that they are now marginalized.

4D: Hmm. Maybe the Chair would like to come back to the blog as a vampire persona.

W: What is our official position on vampires?

4D: I don’t feel a need to have an official position.

W: What if Aggie and I do?

4D: [Shrugs and makes confusing hand gestures] Well... Why?

A: They seem to have taken on a cultural importance.

Some discussion ensues, but nothing is resolved on the vampire topic.

3) Coyote Carrying the Blog

A: Coyote is carrying the blog.

W: We should give him an award... Dinner and drinks from everyone else.

4D and Aggie agree and the motion is adopted by consensus.

A: Where is he?

W and 4D: It’s a mystery.

4) Back to Vampires

4D: Perhaps our official position on vampires could be reporting on who is not a vampire and who might be. For instance, our mayor Is not a vampire because he was captured on videotape outdoors during the day.

W: And we was married in a church.

A doesn’t seem to be fired up by this idea.

5) BOLO

A: Woodsy, how was Blog Out Loud Ottawa?

W: It was fun.

BREAKING NEWS: Conrad Black Appointed Head of Statistics Canada

Long census form records to be stored in his car trunk, never to be seen by anyone, anywhere, ever...