In the blood.

Repeating a Harper Majority Government (™,®,but especially ©...) mantra that already glitters with either the polish of hard wear or that sparkly Twilight vampire crap, the federal anti-labour minister has ordered Air Canada's flight attendants' union straight to a procedurally-sketchy Industrial Relations Board arbitration tomorrow. Do Not Strike. Do Not Pass Go. Definitely Do Not Collect $200.

She opines (again) that these people must not be allowed to hurt the economy. Probably better than when she opined that "cancer is sexy," huh?

"These people" took a 15 per cent pay cut back in the day when Air Canada was hurting, and are still starting out at a monthly wage that barely covers a so-so one-bedroom apartment in downtown Ottawa, never mind the food and utilities. Forget cable. Even basic.

But, hey! If you could afford that hookup, the new retrosoap Pan Am's success would prove that the job's glamour still totally makes up for the poverty, obscene shifts, and antediluvian management. Right?

Apparently it's okay for these people to hurt, as long as "the economy", usually limned as some kind of shadowy, all-powerful, yet strangely fragile third person, does not. This quasi-person must be protected with the kind of dumb, short-term union-shafting tactics that, down the line, inevitably will lead to bunch of (here's an economic term, for, ummm, trained economists...) pent-up demand. From labour.

It has apparently not yet dawned on too many Harper Majority Government (™,®,but especially ©...) types that the economy is made up of individuals. Like, say, flight attendants. And that if you pull this shit enough, they'll eventually get pissed enough to come back at ya.

About the first time Lisa Raitt started dropping legislative howitzer rounds on any union that even smelled like it might be thinking about a strike, she began to tell interviewers that she grew up in an old-school union family in Nova Scotia, that her affinity with labour was "in the blood".

Was it really only this past June that she could still pull that one straight-faced? At the time, the great grey Glob said she was "an awkward foil for critics portraying the Conservative government as an enemy of Canada’s labour movement."

To establish that article's background (and to launch my now-trademark digression, a full nine paragraphs late in my books...) one must note that its top photo is of Ms. Raitt, sportin' what looks, to my jaundiced yellow eye, suspiciously like a blue sweater, and, ummm, cuddling an expedient kitten.

In retrospect, that should have been the only tell that we really needed, to give context to her poker-faced claims to blue-collar cred...

The poll bounce from his NAC gig seemed like a gift... *

...but the Tory brain trust quickly realized that keeping their robotic client's piano forte front and centre in voters' minds was going to be trickier than it had first seemed... **

* You didn't seriously think we were going to let this one go that easily. Did you?

** It did, however, have certain advantages over "Vote Harper And We'll Burn the Blue Sweater Vest" and "Vote Harper Or The Kitten Gets It".

Tinfoil hats: a gut wrenching exposé

As avid, nay, militant exponents and proponents of tinfoil hats, especially in dire emergencies, we Irregulars have just gotten extremely distressing news:

Namely, that a buncha bright engineers from M.I.T. seem to have discovered that tinfoil hats do not protect your brain from zombifying, soul-sucking government and/or alien mind-control radio frequencies, but instead amplify them! (See the terrifying conclusion.)

Wait! This means that all this time when we thought we were laughin', and thought you were too - because you put on your tinfoil hat when we told you to, right? - all of us were actually under the influence of sub rosa mind-control rays, making us beleive things that were untrue. Evilly fostering, for instance, the illusion that our tinfoil hats were protecting us. And under that illusion, we were actually.... oh. Oh. Dear, dear me!

The very insidiousness of it all boggles one's (controlled) mind! Especially if one trusts engineers!

That we're all doomed over here, goes without saying . But hey. If we all just put on our soothing, comfy tinfoil hats, we'll never notice...

Warm Fuzzy Blues

Shortly before the latest federal election call, Canada's PM suddenly popped up in ads trying to show him up in his (ahem) best light.

Apparently I'm not the only one disturbed by the strained warm fuzzies of the infamous blue sweater vest, bringing out the warmth of his zombie-blue eyes and fetchingly setting off his Fiberglas® hair. I guess the idea was to tell us Steve is badly misunderstood, and the private man is really a charming, pinano-plunkin' family-dad type, not a robotic freak who can't smile for a TV camera without grinding his teeth to powder.

Apparently it has escaped spin doctors that Canadians are not voting for a private dad. They're voting for a public Prime Minister. This one's public performance has been that of a vindictive, over-ideological control freak who is not above the, ummm, occasional fib to gain elected office, or the occasional cheap partisan potshot once he gets there.

I'm disturbed by the contempt with which this warm fuzzy ploy holds voters. Apparently, a few weeks of stilted advertising should be enough to blot out all memories of the man's smirking yet paranoid performance in front of a minority Parliament he called 'dysfunctional' because: a) his own partisan maneuvering made it that way; and, b) it wouldn't do exactly what he wanted.

Coyotes may be fuzzy-headed - and largely missing from Elections Canada voter lists - but I don't believe democracies usually work that way for minority governments. Maybe, as cowboys from my old stomping grounds used to yell as they took potshots at me, I have shit-fer-brains. Or maybe the PM blatantly maneuvered into place for a quick potshot at a majority government before a global economic malaise, largely caused by a Neo-Con to the south that he seems to admire, starts to really mess up his electoral chances.

What baffles my fuzzy head about the PM's claims to strong leadership, is that his own tax cuts and benefits have been cosmetic pandering that - according to many economists, even conservative ones - are not good governance. What concerns me even more is the fact that top ministers in a pretty thin cabinet - Messrs Baird, Clement and Flaherty - all sat on the inner circle of Mike Harris' provincial government. You know, the one that not too long ago, about burnt Ontario to the ground on the basis of ideology. Warm fuzzies, indeed.

Blisterin' Blooz

Ottawa loves Buddy Guy, and Buddy Guy loves Ottawa right back. Guy is gettin' up there - he's alleged to have taught Hendrix & Clapton a thing or three - but as the saying goes, "Age and guile beat youth and speed every time". Specially when the old guy can still (selectively) play about six times faster than any of the hot young gunslingers in his band. He pretty much blistered the Tolex right off the amps and stacks. And if his playing hadn't, his patter surely would have. In addition to being the kind of soulful gutbucket blues player you won't hear every month, Guy is a veritable poet laureate of the profane anglosaxon monosyllable. I think his first word onstage was "Shit". I stand in dropjawed awe and admiration.

And speakin' of profanity, I have this to say to that ovine herd of smirking Junior Chamber of Commerce fuckwits who decided to celebrate their coming inheritance of society by firing up large stogies in the midst of a packed and gridlocked crowd, gassing about an acre of 'em just before the music started: You're inconsiderate, foul, (ob)noxious jerks. And your Stepford wives and girlfriends, who giggled at how cute you all looked, suckin' on reeking replacement dicks? Uglier'n bucketsful of smashed assholes. Every last one of 'em. Ummm, I think that pretty much covers it....

More than your line is dead

Message left on Chair's answering machine:

Hi, it's Mom…I tried to phone the cable company, but you know what, I think I’m gonna have to get you to do it for me because they keep saying things like "you pressed the wrong button"…I don’t understand what’s going on…and I tried and tried…and all I got was something like a zombie that was coming on…there was nobody there and they kept saying you have to do this and you have to do that…and I kept trying and I couldn’t get a person on the phone…so I’m going to need your help.