A Muse Yourselves

I have been known to get grumpy with the ESIs over their whining about their missing Muse. I have been know to tell them to, "Get over it!".


Good news darling ESIs! You can now trundle on over to Images on Bank Street where it seems that you can pick out a new muse...

Let Bigfoot be!

The last day or two, I've seen an unfamiliar term. At least one media story has characterized the PM's treatment of international development sock-puppet minister Bev Oda as "Bigfooting".

Us semimythical critters have a circuit. We all know everybody else. I'm proud and privileged to say that back in the day I shared stages with "the" Bigfoot when we gigged psychedelic festivals at the height of his fame. Later, after the biz lost its innocence, went commercial, and the suits and beancounters and copyright grifters co-opted everything that was good and pure, Ol' Biggie took to the nostalgia tour circuit to keep hairy body and soul together. When I had backstage passes, I'd look for him in the greenroom and catch up over a complimentary sody pop or two.

Ol' Biggie was one of the true giants, an enigmatic prince of a guy who was talented beyond belief. It was perhaps inevitable that a fire that burned so brightly would start to consume itself. But even during his later, well-documented struggles with the dark, self-destructive downsides of early fame, he never lost his innate sweetness, his openness or his generosity. His subsequent choice to become a virtual recluse was one he took to protect himself, and one that nobody who knew him would begrudge. I don't even know how to find him anymore, really. But I'm glad he finally got clean and sober.

So, if Harper has the temerity to think he can ever authentically Bigfoot anybody, I say only this:

"Prime Minister, I served with Bigfoot, I knew Bigfoot, Bigfoot was a friend of mine. Prime Minister, you're no Bigfoot."

For Valentine's Day Kisses...

... don't forget to wear your prophylactic plastic lips. It's the height of flu season, people! These babies totally smack down Purell®ing your tongue after the fact, no matter what some of the dodgy-looking gentlemen hovering near those now-ubiquitous hand sanitizer dispensers (in the lobbies of better public buildings everywhere) might say.

And after you've made your sanitary smooshing preparations, and served your sweetheart a romantic Valentine's banquet, remember to get back to us on how you, ummm, made out.

Some of us are all ears. At least the parts that aren't plastic lips...

RNDP: The President's Choice for Valentines Day

I thought I'd finished with the Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm, but no, here's something new and revolutionary.

The President says:

Surprise your sweetie with an extra-charming Valentine’s Day - at home! Our PC® Dine-In Tonight™ soups, pastas, entrees and desserts are quick and easy, so you can spend less time prepping and more time with your dearest!

We would love to hear from any men who followed this advice. Please give us details of how well it went over.

When in doubt, mumble. Again.

Canada's minister for international co-operation ain't nicknamed "Bev Yoda" for nuthin'.

Whenever she wades deep into (another) ministerial bafflement about exactly what "international co-operation" might mean, she's a verbal Jedi. As she spouts the political equivalent of "I'm not the droid you want", her characteristic circular confusion fogs everything around her, all the way up to the already-tortured ozone layer.

Now, there's a theory out there that she's really a genius, hamstrung by her prime minister. He doesn't know tweet (or Tweet©) about international development yet micromanages it on the fly, pulling partisan pseudo-policy out of his ass ummm, thin air. Then he kicks her onto the public gym mat, to flip-flop gracelessly in defense of the indefensible.

But the evidence suggests the incompetence is her own. Under her, the Canadian International Development Agency is so knotted up by contradictory ministerial directives that it doesn't do much anymore. This may be what she wants. Or what her boss wants. That way he can declare CIDA, and/or her, redundant.

Bev Oda's latest misadventure involves somebody who, after all the relevant high-level civil servants signed a funding approval for an aid group called Kairos, scrawled a big, crude "NOT" into the official typed document to reverse its intent at the last minute. And incidentally, the labours of CIDA's own approval process. After which the minister signed it. Ummm, maybe. She's called it a routine decision ever since, up to and including the point where the parliamentary speaker said yesterday that he probably should censure her for lying about it. Except that he was so damn confused he couldn't. See what I mean? Yoda.

Why would a semi-mythical coyote in a paw-sucking midwinter funk rouse himself to rail about the deeds a lousy second-tier minister, when bigger battles loom? Because of what it shows. Her party's, and her leader's partisan manipulation of every area of government policy, and its arrogant disdain for due process is something previous governments took decades to get to. It ain't doing much for Canada's shredding international rep. Or for that matter, us at home. These guys want an election? A majority?

Thank you for listening, InterTubes. I shall now subside back into my Slough of Despond, until only my wrinkled, seasonally affective nose is visible. Other, bigger, battles later...