Eleven Synonyms for Defending “Traditional” Marriage
As an intelligent person, I can’t help but feel befuddled by American politics. And when the subject of debate turns to gay marriage, my bewilderment devolves into profane belligerence directed at the addle-pate bigots that the American people (in their infinite wisdom*) entrust in their governance. I am honestly flabbergasted that this debate exists in the first...
No Good News – Black is Back
Lock up your daughters! Conrad Black is back in town (Dammit, Séamus, I said cue Boys Are Back In Town)! Now that Conrad Black is released from prison and returned to Canada, the question of the moment is whether he can, or should, regain the Canadian citizenship he renounced in order to accept a...
No Good News – Iceland
(Bjork & Tricky, Bjork & Goldie, Bjork & Matthew Barney) Looking at Bjork’s choice in mate from then until now is like looking into a spiral of cascading intolerability. Yeah, I just said that Goldie is more tolerable than Matthew Barney. Need proof? UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I’m not going to tell you that I think that Goldie...
Science and Religion – Less than BFF
Science and religion are wholly and utterly incompatible. Today the religious ingratiate themselves with science at every opportunity as, quite rightly, they know they’ll look like quacks if they are seen denying basic science the way they used to. Deprived of their historical freedom to be pontificating tyrants disseminating ignorance, many have become yogis bending...
No Good News – Women’s Rights, Titanic and America
Well, I’m glad the Globe and Mail finally came out and said which member of Pink Floyd they prefer, even if it was in an editorial insisting that Argentina has no business in the Falklands. What year is this, anyway? I believe an argument is weak when it ends with “We always preferred David Gilmour...
Starbucks’ Ethos is My Ethos
Dear Starbucks, I love your coffee. While puffing away on my morning cigarette, your Pike Place beans skip caffeinated pleasantries across my tongue like a still pond on a bright spring day. I often wonder what I’m more addicted to – your coffee or nicotine? I know I need both to consider myself a functional...
Honest profane comedy, James Joyce, and jerking off
As mainstream discussions in print, blogs and on TV panels increasingly feature a class of people unfit to talk and write, I felt not just pleasure but sincere relief after seeing live comedy for my first time. It was local amateurs performing in the basement of a seedy little bar last week, and though I...
No Good News – The Penny
WOW. Something happened this week that managed to outdo Margaret Wente telling us her life is better than ours and Conrad Black saying he is a “guest” of the United States. Oh fine, here’s a couple of quotes from Canada’s finest wordsmiths to tide you over before I tell you what happened that was such...
The Homeless Problem
A British advertising agency, BBH, is piloting a project that has homeless people acting as wireless hotspots. Yes, seriously. The service costs two dollars per fifteen minutes of use and the proceeds apparently go to the vagrants, bums, and hobos themselves. While helping the homeless is surely an under-emphasized priority through most of the western...
No Good News – Gayish Penguins and Computer Dogs
They did it. African penguins Buddy and Pedro have been nesting and breeding “actively” with their female mates, the Toronto Zoo confirmed Friday in a statement announcing the birth of a penguin chick. I’m not sure what’s funnier: leading off the story about a baby penguin (chick is sexist) with “They did it” or the...
No Good News – Athiests and Spelling Bees
It’s true that I give the Toronto Star less of a hard time than other dailies, but that’s only because they can suck the interesting out of just about any topic you’d care to toss out there. Occasionally however, something in TorStar’s water gets to an editor’s brain and they let something through their airtight...
A Quick Remark About Generalizations
The other day I found myself arguing with a comrade about the conduct of the police during the G20. The argument was prompted by the 10-month prison sentence handed out to Leah Henderson, an organizer and activist scapegoated as the mastermind behind the violence and mayhem of that fateful weekend. How one, overweight-Canadian woman was...
