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!

"Um, what did you say was on the pizza exactly?"

The adventurous diner is in her element in Aguas Calientes, Peru

Oh. And one more thing:

Today's headlines blare that the erstwhile PM has alleged there was nothing sinister about him glomming cash-stuffed envelopes from sketchy lobbyists. No sir.

Based on the (highly Irish) tenor of some right honourable ummm, gentlemen's past testimony, the Oliphant Commission's lead counsel might wanna next ask the former PM if, by that, he actually meant he only used his right hand to handle them envelopes.

To make real sure this time, y'know, Dexter?

I'm just sayin'...

No whore like an old whore *

For a guy hellbent on preserving, what he seems to believe is a, ummm, statesman's legacy and good name, former PM Brian Mulroney has quite an approach.

A brief pause to declare biases: my visceral hatred of the man and every oily thing he's done or stood for, has raged undying from the time he started smarming the backroom boys back in the antediluvian era, to this day. We keep punting the bastard out of the headlines. Still he has the nerve to keep coming back and re-offending, already! He once took voice coaching to lower his timbre and sound smoother. Still my large, sensitive ears must instinctively fold themselves shut periodically, to muffle an undertone of nails on a blackboard. Just so ya know.

My distaste stems from a sleazy style and an unidentifiable substance. I possess the clamouring sixth sense that every smirk - and he smirked a bunch, back in the day - signalled (yet another) gleeful skate to the thinnest edge of propriety. He was always more about clinching the deal - any deal - than what the hell actually came of it. Just as long as he could beat his chest in public and brag in private about being the smart guy that made it happen. And he seemed to truly love putting one over on just about anybody, then justifying it in technical terms so narrow and specious that only he and hangers-on seemed to be able to believe they were in the true spirit of the thing. It wasn't about the good of the country, or even his party, or the power. It was about putting one over on someone. Anyone.

You see where I'm going with this. Every time the guy did something, somebody got screwed. They knew they'd been screwed, and resented it. Their last sight usually was of Mulroney skating away on ice so thin it crackled, thumbing his nose over his shoulder. Eventually, most of the country felt that way. He skated off again, ducking humiliation by handing over the party to a Patsy (actually, a Kim...) so that he could say he'd always led the Tories to majorities. Technically.

Since, he has acted to save what he regards as his good name, in ways that beggar the idea of a good name. It's a world where being called Right Honourable is everything. Acting right honourably, not so much. This time he may succeed again - it's important for him to appear to be a success in others' eyes - but only in technical terms so narrow and specious as to hollow out the 'win' utterly. His performance at the inquiry on the Hill this week has been vintage: tightly scripted, smarmy, blustering, self-congratulatory, even crocodile tears. Along with gratuitous digressions that attempt yet again to rewrite history and re-shaft old enemies. Even now, he thinks he can charm the country one more time with sins of omission, half-truths and hubris. Possibly he will. Technically.

But it has been a performance. The guy wants to be liked and well thought of, and has no idea why so many hate him. Even as PM, he made a deeply flawed dramatic character: grandiose, venal, over-eager to be loved, fonder of appearances than actual substance. And pathetic. He still is. And he still deserves no sympathy.

* A curiously relevant Mulroney quote... don'cha think?

Llama dramarama, part four: the mouth-watering conclusion

What better way to forget your troubles than a trip to stunning Machu Picchu? Unless, of course, the place is lousy with llamas and you happen to have a morbid fear of the ankle-biting Andean amblers.

After pointed accusations from Cedric ("You knew there would be llamas here, didn't you?!") and several lengthy apologies from me ("I will personally hand-wash your little red hat every night for the next month!"), Cedric calmed down and began to relax.

Especially once he realized no health-conscious llama would ever eat a centuries-old gnome with flat feet and wooden teeth.

Next we work on Cedric's fear of John Baird's hair ... Oh, right, that's my unending phobia ...