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'...

$250K to transform 3 ? The RCMP needs us!

Y'know, this front page item totally arrested me (heh...) as I pawed thru this morning's Petfinder: the RCMP is set to pay $220,000 to send three deputy minister-level guys to counselling in Arizona, in hopes of transforming their organization, particularly its sliding public image. Factoring in travel, taxes, meals and booze, they'll likely sock out $80K to $85K to ship each warm body out for, ummm, transformational counselling. Which will then, of course, drip through the RCMP org chart like wholesome milk through a bowl of Grape Nuts...

I have no quibble with transformational counselling. What with tasers sizzling amok; questionable training; organizational arrogance and rot; PR stonewalling and BS*; and all-round not-getting-it-ness, the Mounties lately have been driving their spiffy squad cars in the PR ditch more often than not. They need to change.

What gripes me is the fact that we're outsourcing this lucrative gravy train ummm, serious and delicate matter, to US counsellors...

I mean, just yesterday, Aggie was saying that our long-term plans to (somehow) make tunza bux off this blog and never work again, were in serious peril. This story is karma!

I'd like to note that we ESIs are long-time experts in both personal and systemic transformation. For $85K a pop, I'm pretty sure we can offer the RCMP a competitive service. And it shouldn't stop at three guys. Oh, no. In fact, we recommend our comprehensive counselling package for all 25,000-odd sworn and unsworn members of the force.

According to my calculator, this rings up at a touch over $2 billion. Give or take a few bucks. Almost enough, I think, to keep us in the style to which we would love to become accustomed...

We have one condition: our fees are non-refundable. Because, while we, as professional counsellers, would do our utmost to create conditions for transformative change, it's up to the Mounties themselves to (heh, again....) cop to the responsibility. They've got to really want to change...

* Blue Serge...

Coyote's new identity

Oh, hi! Taste testing a new personal corporate identity. The old one is so two years ago. Waddaya think?

See, normally I'm a die-hard rabbit ears guy (They're deeelicious deep fried! Especially with homemade aoili for dipping! I digress!) but after a recent splash through the big dirty puddle that is cable TV, the US, ummm, news network with the canine name has not escaped my notice.

I'm amazed at what Rupert Murdoch accomplished by inferring (shades of Joe McCarthy...) that other broadcast and cable TV networks were a buncha suspicious pinkos. He staked out an underused extreme of the political spectrum and pushed the hell out of it with a clever mix of electronic jingoism, theatrics, bread, circuses, propaganda, vicious arrogance, demagoguery and outright lies. Painting a thin coat of faux (heh) news across the whole sorry edifice to (barely) legitimize the sheer extent of the nuttery was evil genius. Basically, a prefab crypto-religious cult has effectively tilted the entire US news industry's centre - already rightish - even further right.

So naturally I'm thinkin' we need something like it in Canada. Except that most of the news industry is already pretty right wing/business oriented. I mean, lately I read the grey, conservative Globe & Mail because it's the most balanced newspaper around. The local Petfinder, a former Southam jewel, retains a (dwindling) clutch of actual journalists, but years ago, in the name of Conrad-Black-style balance, threw select editorial & op-ed columns to a clutch of otherwise-unemployable righty hagiographers.

So given the rightside weight of things here, I'm going straight for the underused left. Huge shock, I know. I figure I already rant most of the time. May as well consolidate myself under a snappy new corporate identity, preach to the choir, build an empire, and sell lucrative broadcast ads. Lots and lotsa ads...

Huh? Whazzat? Whisper louder! Network TV is dying? Oh. Crap! Never mind! Back to Plan B. Watch for me on a certain blog near you. Same time, same channel. In an ever-changing cyberspace, some things dare to stay the same!

Yup. Photoshopped. Absolutely...

...but I dare you to prove it ain't, truthfully, an improvement on the original...