Feeling Funked Up

The past couple of weeks have not been happy ones for coyotes. After a series of events that would confound even the most optimistic contrarian among us, we have been reduced to sitting in the dark, sucking our frozen paws in what might be considered an anguished funk.

Why am I so depressed? I mean!

City buses are running around with HO HO HO on their route signs so they can whiz by you in the freezing dark, a topic Shorty has already raised in some detail.

The mayor, as some appalling cynic infamously predicted, now mistakes his erstwhile legal acquittal as a resounding endorsement of his term in office. Worse, he is flying trial balloons about running again, now that he's nearly finished his error-ridden first term of egregious cluelessness.

The current federal government's unprecedentedly aggressive campaign to prove that it can out-yell, out-lie, and out-sleaze all previous comers continues unabated. If possible, with a side-dish of fatally hobbled democracy.

Stephen Harper's Canada increasingly is being revealed as a wannabe-autocracy that only serves people who have the same shamefully narrow world view as he. The fact that people who think like him are still (Yay!)in a minority does not stop him from pulling Bush-administration-style dirty tricks, so he can pretend.

The prime minister has also heartily approved of the non-binding sorta-not-quite-agreement on global warming mitigation that came out of Copenhagen, which to thinking coyotes everywhere is pretty much a dead-certain sign -- emphasis on the 'dead' -- that the deal sucks for this small blue planet we share.

All of this relates to people elected by far less than a majority of the franchised voters, in each case. Weakening democratic underpinnings effectively gives control to people who are not necessarily entitled. And makes coyotes froth at the mouth. Not rabies! Just the soap I use to wash out my mouth after reading and commenting on what I see in the morning papers.

The increasing loss of daylight through December has really been the last straw. We semimythical coyotes get Seasonal Affective Disorder, too, people! So: get out there and celebrate the passing of the Winter Solstice. Days are getting longer again. And about bloody time. And start thinking again about the things that make democracy work. Like voting when there's an election. It's also about bloody time...

Image: Arctic solstice, by Eric Hoogstraten at Cambridge Bay Blog, Victoria Island, Nunavut

OC Transpo: Enough with the HO HO HO

Dear OC Transpo,

I am writing today to ask your drivers to go back to using the "Hors Service" display when they are driving an out-of-service bus.

When it is -19 and I have been waiting 15 minutes for a 14 Carlington and I finally see a bus coming, but it does not say "14 Carlington" on the front but instead says "HO HO HO - Merry Christmas", I am not filled with the gladness of the season. Instead I am filled with an emotion that leads me to say "Merry f-ing Christmas, to you too, OC Transpo."

Sincerely,
Fourth Dwarf

p.s. As an alternative to "Hors Service", I am also fine with "Ottawa Senators" because I don't much care for them anyway.

The lie of the land

Memo to Defence Minister Peter MacKay RE: Afghan torture

Sirrah:
You're still a wanker. But it appears that you're evolving into a more morally reprehensible one.

It pains nobody more than us to admit that, when you assert that you know nothing, you are not actually telling the truth. Because we'd really like to believe it. And god knows, you and your colleagues in the current caucus pretty much demonstrate, often and with vigour, that you truly do know nothing most of the time.

Unfortunately, in the matter of what you, personally, knew about the army handing Afghan detainees over for torture, as with many other assertions of moral superiority that your government has made in the past year or two, the fat is in the fire. The cat is out of the bag. The jig is up.

For future reference, ya might want to take careful notes on what I'm about to say. This definitely will be on the exam. Soon, I hope:

For politicians such as yourself - that is, a guy who lied his face off to get himself elected head of the former Conservative party, so he could hand it over to his current NeoCon lord and master to co-opt - plausible denial only really ever works, and usually only a teensy bit even then, when it's, ummm, plausible.

Plausibility vanishes whenever you open your mouth. Is that clear enough? Even for you?

Because at the moment, you're only twistin' in the wind, feeding extra oxygen to the kinds of flames that, sooner or later, will fry even those banned Quebec asbestos underpants that you guys persist in trying to flog to the Third World...

Nature speaks to PM on climate change?

Last night, we coyotes hunkered down in our La-Z-Dogs to TV news reports of a big-mother blizzard in our old stomping grounds.

Soon after, a semimythical puppyhood friend with whom I used to tear up the occasional poultry coop - just youthful hijinks, y'understand - sent along this shot from the local Doppler, saying, "If a random image of Jesus on a pizza can awe and inspire people, I figure a death's head can appear on weather radar by the same token. The prognosis is for blizzard conditions later tonight. But I'd have called this a blizzard 4 hours ago. Spooky."

The accompanying legend doesn't make it look like much snow, but keep in mind that this was just the buildup. And that it is in the nature of the place that, inevitably, a helluva wind came with it.

Being who we are, and of a semimythical, partly-animistic bent, we couldn't help but wonder, what with the Copenhagen world conference looming, if maybe, maybe, Ma Nature was sending a big-mother memo to id(iot)eologically-blind PMs with southwest Calgary ridings? Who think climate change is a 'socialist plot'....? Say, about fatally-misguided policies that support stripmining the Alberta tarsands, and damn all ecological consequences for living creatures?

Because, well, the death's head is centered directly over those particular PM's southwest Calgary ridings. I'm just sayin'.

Travelling incognito

Upon arriving at the airport in Bridgetown, Barbados, I noticed a sign informing visitors that camouflage is banned on the island.

I have concluded the reason must be one of the following:

1. The people of Barbados fear takeover by a camouflage-clad army of insurgents.
2. The country is populated by fervent hunters who may mistakenly shoot tourists disguised in camouflage.
3. Barbados has taken a firm stand against what is perhaps the most objectionable fashion trend of the decade.