Probably only coincidence

Inquiring coyotes can't help noticing how carefully all the government news releases, media stories and pundits have been pussyfooting around the suspicious confluence of today's two great television events: the fact that August 31, 2011 is the, ummm, drop-dead date stamped upon not only the Great Digitul Switchover, but CTV News anchor Lloyd Robertson's retirement from the 'lectronical firmament.



Both huge! Both televisiony! Has nobody but me connected the two? Even though they hover blatantly in front of us like giant hi-def bats, everybody is carefully pretending they aren't in the room.



(In related news, coyotes are mourning the loss of analog rabbit ears. Digital ones are practically inedible. I digress. Ahem.)



Anyway, it's probably nothing for torch-carrying global villagers across the nation to worry about. However. An ever more parchment-complexioned Lloyd has been calling late night TV bingo for so unnaturally long that even people that don't believe in the undead, openly call him "Count Floyd" to his face now.



So those of us attuned to the semimythical realms, while not feeling certain about this one (Call it a theory. Like economics. I digress again.) suspect pretty strongly that vampires, whom everyone knows cannot be seen in mirrors, may also be incapable of manifesting themselves on digital TV. So, perfect time to retire.



Ummm. Probably only coincidence. But I'm just sayin'...

No bull

As Ottawa's festival season winds down once again, we coyotes feel a gnawing emptiness. A summer of nonstop-festivals-up-the-wazoo is about to be displaced by another cold winter of festless discontent.



But hey! For reasons that may or may not become clear if you click this link, the Irregulars' hit counter has lately been roping in mucho action from Google Image searches for "testy festy pictures".



Since coyotes are ever curious - you could ask all the cats we've ever known just how curious, if any through sheer inadvertent carelessness remain unboiled - I naturally researched this oddity. You could too, the same way. I ain't linking up to all that NSFW WTFery here. We're a family blog. A really dysfunctional family. I digress.



Let us merely state that Montana's Testicle Festival, known among the glitterati as Testy Festy, features a whole lotta breaded deep-fried prairie oysters, and a whole lotta (on the photographic evidence, apparently also deep-fried...) participants scarfing the aforementioned and behaving, ummm, somewhat badly. I figure it's probably excess testosterone.



But hey! I also figure this kind of thing is just what Ottawa needs - worse-than-usual bad behaviour to light that long, dark tunnel between the end of this weekend's Ottawa Folkfest and 2012 Winterlude, sometime far, far in the frozen future!

Vigil

This morning, Canadian opposition leader Jack Layton died of cancer.



Many people will write more eloquently about this than I. Some already have.



But I'll add this: Layton was a human guy in less than humane times. He was clear that politics affects peoples' lives. He knew that good policy has to be good for everybody.



And somehow, even in his goodbye note to a nation, he remembered that we all need hope, love and optimism, and tried his best to pass them to us.



Hundreds came to the candlelight vigil honouring his memory on Parliament Hill tonight, and considered their candles, or the red maple leaf flag that billowed at half-staff on the Peace Tower, or the sky, or the eternal flame.



And at intervals, they sang, quietly yet firmly, O Canada. For Jack Layton, for themselves, for a nation. Some throats caught. Some eyes wept. There were long, thoughtful stares. Still, the song kept rising and rippling through the crowd like a current in still water. Down deep, some, I hope, were thinking about ways to change the world for the better...