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.