River-in-Egypt Alert

I just spent 5 excrutiating hours watching speeches by Romney (yawn), Huckabee (nice guy, needs a speechwriter), Rudy (you must forgive Homer....), and finally Sarah Palin (nasty good with the zingers).

And now I can't sleep. Shoulda known.

It was almost nostalgic to see them ranting on and on (and in Rudy's case at least, on and on and on...holy cow) about elite media, Hollywood celebrities, and left wing intellectuals (or as Dubya prefers , angry liberals). Nixon and Reagan would have been proud, George 41 probably felt right at home. And I'm sure it played very well in some quarters, and the narrative meshes nicely with the ringer that Palin and her family have been put through over the past week.

But it just seemed a little strange, I thought as I gave up with the tossing in bed, got up, grabbed a drink and booted up the computer, that these guys really seem to sincerely believe they can win the election by pissing on George Clooney and Maureen Dowd.

So I ask.

• Who sent the US Army into Iraq on false pretenses - left wing intellectuals, or the Republican gang of George W. Bush and John McCain?
  
• Who botched federal oversight of emergency programming post-Katrina - elite media, or the Republican gang of George W. Bush and John McCain?
  
• Who sat idly by while banks and mortgage brokers and securities regulators converted American people's homes into Monopoly money and flushed down the toilet - Hollywood celebrities, or the Republican gang of George W. Bush and John McCain?
  
• Do they really think they can get away with passing off America's problems on everybody except the guys who've been running the place for the past eight years?

Call me an angry liberal if you want. Personally I prefer left wing intellectual. Whatever. I'm going back to bed.

2 Things I haven't blogged about yet and should

1) Macca in Quebec City. He had me at hello (or, if you prefer, at "bonsoir les québecois!"). He had me tearing up by the second verse of "Drive My Car." He had me bawling with the opening notes to "All My Loving." It is impossible for me to put into words how emotional it was to be there, standing among the 250,000+ fans on the Plains of Abraham, singing along with the crowd as he performed what is quite literally the soundtrack of my life. I saw him in 1989 at the Forum and in 1993 at the CNE in Toronto, and had a blast each time but back then I was too young to really appreciate what the music meant to me then. But I get it now, and I savoured every moment, every perfect note, every miscue (Paul giggling his way through the first verse of "Lady Madonna" after reinterpreting the opening piano riff, for example).

2) More on carbon taxes. Probably best that I hold my peace on this one, for the time being at least. I said in my last post (in June!!) that what I really care about is the quality, and the honesty, of the debate on this issue in the coming election. Let's see how it plays in the coming weeks.

Today this little Canadian cares about...

...taxes. Carbon taxes. Income taxes.

A longer post later, but I was tickled to partake (this, by the way, is a more - shall we say - appropriate usage of that particular word than others I've heard recently) in a fascinating discussion on Andre Coyne's blog at Macleans.

This is exactly the kind of debate we need to be having right now.

This, on the other hand....

By the way...

Macca's still got it.

Oh, man.

Today this little canadian cares about...

...the American presidency.

Oh, the irony.

Anyhoo.

There are very good reasons for anybody who knows anything about American history to be excited about Barack Obama. Those reasons, frankly, are not my reasons. Not because the incredible historical struggle of African Americans - through slavery, segregation, racism and crippling poverty - doesn't resonate with me (it does, though admittedly not much more so than does the historical struggle of women, or the historical struggle of Aboriginal people in Canada).

My reasons, like those of most non-Americans standing on the outside looking, are much more basic and self-centered, and probably not terribly different than those of the majority of declared Canadian Obama supporters. I just want a break. From things like this. And this. And especially this.

That's all for now.

Re-boot...

Back again.

Been spending most of my time joining in the fun on the comment scrolls of macleans, which (according to my stats) generated a very small volume of new traffic to this forgotten, dusty site.

Not going to do the pro forma negligent blogger grovel this time (I think I've done it twice already). Too much exciting stuff is happening to waste time allowing in self-pity. The inspiration of the Obama candidacy down south. The prospect of a meaningful election, fought over issues that will define the future of our economy and the environment. The long-promised, oft-missed, and finally arrived (albeit in small steps) revolution of Canadian journalism via the web.

I want desperately to engage in this new world of interactive democracy and citizen journalism. I'm 29, I'm a professional with a marriage and a mortgage and life, and I care about what's happening. I sometimes feel terrific frustration at the things I can't/won't do in this realm due to the choices I've made in my professional life. I'm left to find ways in which I can engage without betraying my professional commitments. I promised myself early on in this blog experiment that I would walk the line. Thus far I think (hope) that I have. I'll do my damndest to keep it up. But that doesn't mean shutting up.

Did I mention...

...that, among other things, I happen to be of First Nations heritage on my maternal grandfather's side?

I mention this, because it gives me some rationale for linking to this.

To this day I have almost very little knowledge of what Grandpa's life was really like growing up. Not one to talk politics, I also have little idea what he would have thought about the residential schools settlement. Or what he would have thought about Archbishop Lavoie suggesting that the priests and laypersons who worked in those schools were victims of...long working hours.

I know what I think though.

I think somebody needs to do a little extra praying.

(btw I realize this post represents yet another departure for this magnificently disjointed and unfocused blog. Among other things it's not about hockey. Or Bouchard-Taylor. Sorry. Stuff happens. I'll get around to these items someday.)