BumfOnline

One of my favorite quotes, from Mordecai Richler’s Barney’s Version:

No sooner did I hang up when Irv Nussbaum, United Jewish Appeal capo di tutti capi, phoned. “Seen this morning’s Gazette? Terrific news. Big-time drug lawyer was shot dead in his Jaguar, outside his mansion on Sunnyside last night, and it’s splashed all over the front page. He’s Jewish, thank God. Name’s Larry Bercovich. Today’s going to be a hummer. I’m sitting here going through my pledge cards.”

Now, consider the attention given to Greenpeace “spokesman” Mike Hudema, fresh off his innovative and completely un-idiotic stunt a few days back. You might remember Hudema’s crack team of environmental covert-ops who crashed the premier’s dinner by repelling from the ceiling and unfurling a banner which stated their goal to “stop the tar sands”. If you don’t recall (by either ignorance of the action or your inherent survival instinct’s way of avoiding stupidity), please refer to Rob Breakenridge’s suggestion that we no longer take seriously any further consideration of Greenpeace as a mature and responsible partner in the future of energy production in Canada.

Unfortunately, the Sun Media chain never got the memo. Not only did this venerable media institution prominently and seriously consider Hudema’s demand for an “independent public inquiry” over this catastrophic catastrophe (more than 22,000 people have perished in the Burmese Cyclone to date, by the way), but their top legislative hack in Edmonton goes one step further.

Neil Waugh, while ridiculing the Tory government of “putting a bad spin” on the situation, credits Hudema as a reasonable interested party whose advice we should all heed. He agrees that a public inquiry should be called immediately, even though investigators are still rummaging through the obviously confusing situation. But hold yer horses! Waugh also suggests that the government has failed in its duty because — wait for it — they were “not serious enough to get a search warrant and seize Syncrude documents to determine exactly why the scare guns hadn’t been turned on”.

You read that correctly. Waugh is ridiculing Stelmach for not dispatching government agents to rifle through the drawers of a private corporation as a result of several hundred waterfowl who landed on a tailings pond because someone, somewhere, screwed up. Eliot Ness must be weeping from above.

I would expect Hudema to call for such a measure — the kid’s an enviro-fascist meathead who won’t stop until we’re all driving the latest model of the Red River cart. It’s the “professional” journalists who ought to be embarrassed when they are licking their chops at any further environmental “disaster” which will allow self-righteous pontificating and increased sales of their stories.

For a group of people who spend most of their working hours chiding others about their so-called greed, they are sure making a lot of hay from this stupid little incident.

From Marvin Meyer’s The Gnostic Discoveries:

But what are orthodoxy and heresy? What is the source of the authority of the “orthodox” texts in the canon of scripture? From an historical point of view, orthodoxy and heresy may be understood as rhetorical constructs, as Karen King states, fashioned in the arena of political debate. Understood in this light, orthodoxy and heresy have little to do with truth and falsehood and everything to do with power and position. In a vote, the majority defines what is orthodox, and the minority is charged with being heretical. Among competing political factions, the dominant force dictates what is orthodox; those less powerful are designated as heretical. And the winners define the Bible.

Kate McMillan:

Got to hand it to those environmentalists - they have the media well trained. A few hundred ducks expire in a Syncrude tailings pond and it’s international news. The tens of thousands sliced and diced each year (in the US alone) by wind generators? Not so much.

Rob Breakenridge, telling it like it is — again:

The events of last Thursday evening would seem to have laid bare the choice now confronting Albertans: either we can have a serious discussion about the future of this province’s energy sector, or we can have a discussion that involves Greenpeace. Clearly we cannot have both.

The only way in which their rafter-dangling stunt might have been more juvenile is if their unfurled banner had been emblazoned with “Grad ‘08″ in giant black letters. At least then we’d have been spared the pretension and sanctimony.

I heard about this event on the radio last week, and I was actually imagining Ed Stelmach’s name spelled with the ‘$’ sign. Lo and behold, I was right.

And Breakenridge is also right when he suggests that the time to stop paying attention to the cheap tricks of Greenpeace fools when it comes to making real, tangible decisions on the future of energy supply.

Lack of communication, process initiated without consultation, regressive design, rushed approval — Anyone see a pattern here?

It doesn’t take a planning genius to conclude the approved alignment for the West LRT extension is a badly flawed design, especially in areas where the line will be elevated above residential communities.

What’s perhaps less obvious but becoming increasingly apparent is that the biggest flaw is the process itself.

It’s nothing short of outrageous that a 25-year-old-plan would be rammed through council’s first meeting last fall, after the October election. It was done so, despite the inexperience of four rookie aldermen and with zero public input. The newcomers, especially aldermen John Mar and Joe Connelly — who together represent every area of the new line — were given no chance to catch up on such an important file, though they’re working hard to represent their constituents.

Absolutely, this is outrageous. The idea of a west LRT has been around for at least three decades, yet as the city has grown and developed in ways unconceivable by planners circa 1970, the city leadership has held true to its 1970s design. Only now, with a mayor whose former constituency just happens to benefit from such a project, and who just happens to own real estate along the proposed route, an emergency has been declared by city council in order to rush the project through.

There has been no citizen consultation until the moment that approval must be met, meaning that stakeholders are held hostage to a procedure rather than allowed to participate in a decision which will affect the city for the next half-century or more.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, this is the mayor’s M.O. Whether it be the expansion of 16th Ave N or the new interchange at Elbow and Glenmore, His Worship has shown time and time again that what he wants, he gets, and does not let anyone stand in his way.

I encourage you to join up with the folks at Best West LRT, and speak up against this atrocity.

When I want to get ripped up, I have a few pints on a Friday afternoon with the boys, I have dinner with some more friends, and hope to sing a few at the karaoke pub near my place.

When Amy Winehouse wants to get ripped up, she does this:

1. Amy leaves home at 8.30pm on Tuesday night. She heads for a nearby pub frequented by musician friends.

2. At one point in the pub, Amy is handed what appears to be a joint of marijuana.

3. Emerging with Mick Whitnall, guitarist in Pete Doherty’s group Babyshambles, she visits a friend’s flat where she acquires a change of vests before heading for a nightclub.

4. At one point she emerges and tries to punch and headbutt a man in the street before buying the early editions of yesterday’s papers. While carrying the papers, a wobbly Winehouse runs into a lamp post.

5. Following the six-hour pub crawl, the 24-year-old drug addict breaks into her own home after losing her keys.

I don’t know who is more pathetic: Winehouse, or her degenerate friends who are going along for the ride.

Strike another victory for sexual liberation:

As a result of Britain’s high teenage pregnancy rate - the worst in Europe - many women are becoming accustomed to looking after their grandchildren while still in their thirties - and without any sign of a husband.

The new phenomenon raises questions about the social consequences of generations of children being brought up without fathers.

The majority of the women involved don’t regret having babies but some who became parents in their teens told a BBC documentary they wished they had done things differently.

Miss Bailee, whose daughter became pregnant at 15, and has an eight-month-old daughter, said: “I put Rickeita on the Pill as soon as she started her periods at 12 or 13.

“It wasn’t a case of giving her permission to sleep around but you can’t lock a young girl in her bedroom 24/7.

“When she became pregnant I was upset, because she’s very clever and I wanted her to go to college first and get a good job.

“I’d had her at 20 and it was hard. I had to buy everything second-hand or make clothes myself.”

Thomas Sowell has long ago covered the sexual education racket in the West quite well. In The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, Sowell relates:

As sex education programs spread widely through the American educational system during the 1970s, the pregnancy rate among 15- to 19-year-old females rose from approximately 68 per thousand in 1970 to approximately 96 per thousand by 1980. Among unmarried girls in the 15- to 17-year-old bracket, birth rates rose 29 percent between 1970 and 1984, despite a massive increase in abortions, which more than doubled in the same period. Among girls under 15, the number of abortions surpassed the number of live births by 1974.

[...]

Although sex education programs have been sold to the public, to Congress, and to education officials as ways of reducing such tanglible social ills as teenage pregnancy and venereal disease, many of the leaders of this movement have long had a more expansive agenda. [...] In short, however politically useful public concern about teenage pregnancy and venereal disease might be in obtaining government money and access to a captive audience in the public schools, the real goal was to change students’ attitudes—put bluntly, to brainwash them with the vision of the anointed, in order to supplant the values they had been taught at home. In the words of an article in the Journal of School Health, sex education presents “an exciting opportunity to develop new norms.”

I’m not into the conspiracy theories as much as Sowell—though he does have a point—and I’m not one to claim that sexual education should be taken out of school altogether. Learning the facts of human reproduction are important, especially when one hits puberty. (Why on earth a child before then ought to have to know about sex is beyond me, of course.) However, just because a child understands how their mechanics work doesn’t mean they should jump in the car and go for a lap around the speedway.

What was missing from my own experience in sexual education were the moral implications to having sex before I was psychologically mature to do so. I’m glad I was brought up in the church and was raised by parents who generally disapproved of sexual relations of teenagers, and although I’m probably still screwed up about sex (who isn’t?), at least I had that moral base upon which I would make my decisions regarding sex during my formative years.

The problem with leaving sexual education under the sole guises of the state is three-fold: First, you’re putting your trust in the government, and when has the government ever screwed up a social engineering project?

Second, in a secular nation such as ours, moral implications are only drawn to that of the lowest common denominator. We can all agree that murder is wrong, we usually all agree that vandalism is wrong, we have mixed feelings about different forms of illicit drug use, and there is a wide discrepancy among citizens for when a child may decide to take part in sex. I have my opinions, you have yours, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Therefore, in a government which tries to be all things to all citizens, it will usually opt for the path of least resistance, that being, we’ll try not to offend anyone by pushing any nosy morals in the mix.

Lastly, these are kids we’re talking about. They are seeking guidance, they need to know the boundaries, and they have to understand the consequences of their actions before they undertake them. A parent’s responsibility is to make sure their kid is ready to face the temptations of the world. While the church does help prepare these life lessons, it still falls to the parent to raise that child and prepare that kid properly.

To the woman in the above article who says that she can’t keep an eye on her child 24/7, I say raise your kid to take responsibility for herself before she goes out with her friends. Provide her with the moral tools so that when she does go off with her friends, she realizes that the choices she makes then will affect her for the rest of her life.

It isn’t going to stop teenage pregnancies or VD completely, but it’s better than letting a stranger teach the facts but not the lesson.

Whilst scrounging through the soon-to-be obsolete McNally-Robinsonon Stephen Avenue recently, I came across this interesting display in the music section:

Being a fan of music in general — and CanRock culture in particular — I couldn’t help but pick up this book and examine its contents right there in the store, mostly because I had no intention of actually buying anything that day.

Of course, being well aware of the overly nationalistic tendencies of our cultural cognoscenti, I knew to expect plenty of old-school Canadiana to dominate the listings.

And — boy! — was I right. There were no less than 8 Neil Young albums in the Top 100, including 2 in the top 3. In addition, there were 2 selections from the Band in the top 10, and a whole bevy of Leonard Cohen albums, all of which I have never heard and will likely never do so in the future.

What really bothered me, however, was the perhaps inevitable high status of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” by the voters of the list. I have known for years that this supposedly ground-breaking album is considered by many music aficionados to be among the greatest of all time.

To each their own, of course, but I just don’t get it. I own it, I’ve listened to it a few times, but I simply can’t get into it. Her songs are pretty, I admit, and she is a hell of a lyricist. Yet, her lilting singing grates on the ears about 3 songs in. The stories are incredibly personal, so much so that they tend to lose the universality which defines the lyrics of the truly great pop masterpieces. Her trills and wavering voice is unique, of course, but that style ultimately renders her songs almost completely unsingable by anyone else. I can’t abide a pop song if I can’t sing along with it, in theory or in fact.

I also have a problem with “Gord’s Gold”, Gordon Lightfoots seminal ‘best-of’ release ubiquitous in the collections of many Canadians. I own it, love it, but I cannot condone a greatest hits package within a Top Albums list. If it ain’t original, it don’t belong.

Outside of that, I was pleased to see Arcade Fire’s “Funeral” crack the top 10, as well as Bryan Adam’s “Reckless” given a strong showing. I’m also glad to know that the Lowest of the Low’s “Shakespeare … My Butt” and Our Lady Peace’s “Naveed” got mentions. I go against conventional thinking with my belief that Sloan’s “One Chord to Another” is far superior to their more acclaimed “Twice Removed”, but I do appreciate the Halifax quartet’s inclusion among CanRock’s pantheon. There were a few notable absences, including Sandbox’s self-titled debut, I Mother Earth’s “Dig”, or any reference to the great King Cobb Steelie.

Still, it is an interesting read, more so when you don’t have to pay for it, and should spark debate among lovers of modern Canadian rock ‘n’ roll.

Due to the certain vortexes in the space-time continuum, whereby a good friend scored tickets for last night’s game at the Saddledome, coupled with his pregnant wife feeling under the weather, in addition to my own being available at short notice, I was able to be in attendance at the greatest second season showing in Cowtown since the Flames knocked off Detroit in Game 6 of the second round of their 2004 run.

The performance I witnessed included an outstanding, character-driven comeback from a 3-0 deficit from less than 4 minutes into the game into a thrilling 4-3 victory, putting Calgary ahead of San Jose 2-1 in this opening round series. My larynx is swollen, my body tired, but I wouldn’t trade that experience for almost anything.

Except, perhaps, my marriage.

And, I suppose, the birth of my future children.

A few notes:

• Has there even been a more brutal yet clean hit in the playoffs since Brian Campbell coined the term “to be umbergered” in that Buffalo-Philadelphia tilt a few years back? Patrick Marleau has been terrific so far, and he’s tough as they come. But after getting plastered by Phaneuf and then completely demolished by Sarich, the man was stepping a lot more lightly for the rest of the game and, perhaps, for the rest of the series.
• Even superstars have a rough night, and kudos to Mike Keenan for getting the team composed after their dreadful start. He was right to pull Kiprusoff, and by showing confidence in his entire team.
• The most impressive late-season acquisition in this series (so far) is not Campbell coming to California, but Curtis Joseph. He’s old, he handles the puck like an off-colour joke at a church social, but he’s got experience and leadership enough to calm the team in front of him. I don’t think he deserved the first star last night (Sarich should have gotten it for his wrecking job on Marleau), and he didn’t have to make any Hollywood moves in the crease; still, he’s making Darryl Sutter look like a genius again.
• While I don’t necessarily disagree with Matt at Battle of Alberta that Thornton is not a “gutless, soft wuss”, though I do disagree with him that there are qualities which prevent him from being a big-time player. It has to do with style and flair: Thornton is smooth, quiet and dangerous; yet big games call for someone who don’t merely wrack up points, but do it in an inspiring fashion. A team can be lifted by a monster hit (like last night), an unbelievable save, a big fight, or a spectacular scoring rush. Think Ovechkin, Iginla, Phaneuf, Crosby, Kovalev, Pronger or even Marleau. They are exciting players with a penchant for the dramatic. Thorton has never really grasped this, and until he does, he will continue to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune.
• As I noted earlier, Nabokov doesn’t win games for his team, and last night was the obvious example. He was terrific in goal, but he had a 3-0 lead for the entire game and lost it in the end. He team failed in front of him, of course, and there were a few lucky bounces, but the greatest goaltenders find a way to hang on when it matters most, and Nabokov ultimately was responsible.
• Every line fielded by the Flames outplayed every line of the Sharks for the final 55 minutes. Case in point: with the game tied in the third period, Keenan had Eric Goddard and the 4th unit going against Thornton & co. Why? Because they were doing their job, clogging up the middle, disrupting lead passes, and supporting Regehr, Sarich and Joseph in their own zone effectively. When a team is firing on all cylinders, it shows the power of good coaching over any individual player, no matter how talented.

It’s a long series and San Jose will be back with a vengeance. However, you got to think that any team which blows such a fine start must have their confidence shaken horribly.

It might have surprised some people, but not this cat. The Sharks and Flames fought a close battle last night at the Tank, closer than the shot clock might indicate. In fact, while Kiprusoff turned aside 37 shots in the Flames’ 3-2 victory in Game 1 of the opening round, the scoring opportunities were much closer.

The Sharks were pretty good, particularly Patrick Marleau, though they were sporadic in their attack. The Flames also played an excellent road game, keeping the normally ballistic San Jose crowd out of the match from the get-go.

A couple of notes:

1) The weaknesses of Brian Campbell were evident last night. For one, the Flames defenders were not only watching for his Savardian Spin-o-Rama, they were waiting for it. He tried it a couple of times and was met head-on. Seems as if the ice got a lot smaller one when the regular season becomes a memory. For another, he was utterly incapable of winning a one-on-one battle with Iginla, as evidenced by what turned out to be the game-winning goal. He’s a great player, he can handle the puck and he is going to get his share of points, but it will take more than Campbell’s slick moves to get the Sharks a championship, let alone out of the first round.

2) Kipper’s better than Nabokov. There is no question. I like Nabokov, he’s a great goaltender, and he will rightly take home the Vezina. He can keep his team in the game and has a stable, cool head on his shoulders. However, I cannot remember an incidence where he had to win a game on his own. Of course, this might have more to do with the quality of teammates in front of him, but Kipper wins games almost all by himself on a regular basis. There are up to six games to go, but this difference might be all the difference needed to settle this series.

3) The Flames won this game more than the Sharks lost it. I thought the Teal played solid and tough and had plenty of chances. Their powerplay looked lethal, even if they didn’t get to capitalize. The Flames, on the other hand, still made a few mistakes and had to be bailed out by their goaltender. One might see this and suggest that the Sharks are the better team; I see this as the Flames won the game and still have room for improvement.

4) It was good to get Game 1 out of the way, but before this series started, I thought Game 2 was even more important. If the Flames had lost, then they would have needed to get back in the series; but if they’d won Game 1, the Sharks are almost guaranteed to take at least one game back in the Saddledome. San Jose has the best road record in the league and will be certainly looking to shut the crowd down like Calgary did last night. If the Flames want to win this series, I do believe that winning Game 2 is a must.

Other notes:

–> The Sens still suck, but the Pens were sloppy with their sticks and started playing Ottawa’s chippy game. If they want to win in 4 games, they will have to smarten up. Keep in mind, next round will be considerably more difficult for that young team.

–> Marty Brodeur is mortal after all. Look for him to rebound (with few rebounds) in Game 2.

–> Congrats on Joe Sakic on his extending his OT goal-scoring record to 8. I’ve always liked him, and I’ve never liked Minnesota. So I’m happy.