My beloved Bug is five years old today. Because chihuahua puppies are teeny-tiny, they have to be at least eight weeks old before you can bring them home from any reputable breeder. We wasted not a moment and drove out to Milton to pick up the Bug on May 14th.
Before I even met my new best friend, the breeder sent me pictures of him as a wee blind baby:
He looked like a little peanut. I was madly in love before we ever made the drive out to get him. And once settled into the car with my new ball of stink on my lap, wrapped in a towel, the first words I said to him were “You have such a tiny little pecker.” Ever since that day, my Bug has peed like a girl.
Which is not to say he’s not fierce. While down on the farm in Kansas, he exercised his bossiness by yipping at the other hounds and frightening the chickens. Not to mention, you should see him snarl and thrash around with his Hillary Clinton chew toy. My Bug is a warrior!
He is also the sweet, furry little lump snuggled beneath the covers at night. He settles in against my ribs, or at the small of my back. I feel him breathe, hear him dream and smell him fart. He does the same for me. And when morning comes, his belly rubs are before all else - before the morning pee, before the first coffee. He wiggles and squiggles around on my chest while I rub his tummy, and then we get up to start our day together.
I’ve received a few emails about the link ad to the right of the screen. The one about cigarettes. One person reminded me that my mother died of lung cancer when I was still a child - good thing this busybody reminded me, because I had forgotten!
Look, I’m not Warren Kinsella, despite my affection for drinking, bad music, fucking around and pissing off my employers. Ok, maybe I am Warren Kinsella. But I’m not going to nanny you to death over your choices, and I don’t expect you to nanny me over my advertising.
The thing is, the guy who put the ad there paid me for it. He paid me in cash, not in cigarettes. That link on the side of my blog isn’t going to persuade me to smoke, and it likely isn’t going to persuade you either. But if you already smoke - and it’s frankly none of my fucking business if you do - you might be interested in the site he’s pimping.
There’s also an ad there for some kind of dick pills. I’m not terribly likely to take those, either (might be more suited to Warren, actually), but the ad is there in case someone is interested.
I don’t care if people smoke. I only care about me. And I don’t smoke. So please shut up.
On Monday, after a long and agonizing separation, I was reunited with my gorgeous, smelly, dopey, loving, devoted and delightfully silly best friend, Bug. For four grueling months I went to sleep without the comforting lump against my ribs that used to tell me Bug was asleep next to me.
At one point I panicked, thinking I would lose him forever to the forces of those who think they know what’s best. But I persevered, and I was rewarded with snout smudges on my glasses, obscuring the tears I was so desperately trying to not spill.
Here we are on New Year’s eve, with me having barely touched Girl on the Right for three months (many thanks to Art Lindsey for picking up the slack). Thing is, I haven’t been able to focus much on news and politics for the past little while. I’ve been busy just trying to survive.
This past quarter has been about life lessons for me. I left my right wing existence and was flung face-first into lefty-land. I went down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. And I learned some things along the way.
I learned, first and foremost, what my tax dollars have been paying for all these years. I’ve learned about what is essential (safe beds for abused women), and what is a revolting waste of money for political purposes (for example, paying women $10 each to go hold a candle for the victims of Polytechnique on December 6th is a huge WASTE of tax money, and a total mercenary practice).
I learned who my friends are - and who they aren’t. People I trusted to stand next to me left me to flail in my own shit, whereas people I would never have asked for help in the first place came through and gave me a second chance. I learned that someone I thought was weak and unwilling to stand by me in tough times was actually tracking me down from 10,000 miles away. He was my rock, day and night, until I stopped crying and started breathing again - that took about a month.
I learned that no matter what happens to me, I still have the capacity for laughter. Everything is funny if looked at from the right angle.
I learned that just because someone is a crackhead doesn’t mean they can’t be a friend or offer a shoulder. Or a bed.
I learned that the woman sharing her dinner with me had killed a child. The woman sitting on the other side of me was an axe murderer. Both were very pleasant people.
I learned humility while shitting in a room full of other women.
I learned that I’m not as bad off as many.
I learned that spite can give you the will to live.
I learned a woman’s place. Do not fight against deprivation of food. Do not fight against unlawful confinement. Do not fight against months of harrowing emotional abuse. The moment you fight back you will learn what real deprivation is. Just take the punch and say thank you.
I’ve learned that Sunnybrook hospital is useless in dealing with an overdose. Just sayin’.
I’ve learned that no matter where you are, no matter what you’ve done, God’s forgiveness can help you sleep at night. He’ll sit by you even when no one else will.
I’ve learned that social workers and outreach workers have, for the large part, been where I am. Not all of them - some are the weeping lefty bleeding hearts I’ve made fun of for the past six years. But some of them know exactly what it means to be afraid.
There are lessons I still have to learn in the coming year. How to stand on my own again is one of them. Another is how to reconcile being RightGirl with being this beaten down wretch. How to reconcile wearing pearls and $300 Italian shoes and carrying a $500 Coach bag while walking into and out of my safehouse every day. How to be middle class and homeless at the same time.
The main lesson, of course, is how to score a book deal out of the whole ordeal.
Happy New Year, everyone. I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Note. For those of you with either a) no sense of humor, or b) humor, but are totally scared of the shit that comes out of my mouth, this post is FUNNY. Funny, ok? Written in jest. Relax. Have a TicTac.
The last thing I remember was my third martini at my birthday party on October 2. This party was attended by dear friend Josephine and her hubby Dutch, who gave me a small Moleskine notebook. Moleskines are famous for having been used by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, who famously cut off his ear and then shot himself, and Ernest Hemingway, who blew his brains out and kicked off a string of suicides in the Hemingway family that probably isn’t over yet. For all I know, Hunter S. Thompson used one for his (pre-blog era) “Gonzo Journalism”. Thompsons’s ashes - the remains of his self-inflicted gunshot wound - were shot out of a cannon, as per his request, in 2005.
Today Josephine writes on Lumpy of children’s author Robert Munsch and his mental illness and thoughts of suicide. Though her article makes no mention of his choice of notebook to write in, I’m seeing a pattern here.
Geez, Josephine!I can take a hint!
Ok, off to write something more profound than this drivel.
On October 3 2009 from 12:00pm until 2:00pm, the Forest City Institute invites you to join us at Reg Cooper Square (behind City Hall) and let London’s city council and bureaucrats know it is time to end London’s decade of darkness.
“Inspired by the success of the TEA Parties in the United States, it’s time for Londoners — and all Canadians — to take a stand in the Forest City against the mismanagement of our money at any level of government, and inform Canadians on what the bureaucrats are really doing with our money.
“Come and join the Forest City Institute in Reg Cooper Square for music, great speakers, and a rally against high taxes, and tell the government to stop over-spending.
Come and hear guest speakers like Kathy Shaidle, whose last visit to our city spurred the Freeps’ smear campaign that actually helped sell out the event!
The crushing pain hit just before 10pm on Tuesday Wednesday (shit, I’m a tool - I don’t even remember when it happened!) night. I had been on a business-related call - nothing stressful - when I developed the headache with jaw pain. Figuring I was in for a migraine, but having tons on my plate to get done before bedtime, I got off the call and grabbed some Advil.My plan was to go lie down in the dark for 15 minutes or so, so ward off the headache.
By the time I returned from the bathroom and put my waterglass down, the pressure had started just beneath my breastbone. I lay on the bed, hoping it was indigestion. Within minutes the pain was so heavy I thought my whole ribcage would implode. My left breast and armpit ached, and I wanted to vomit.
I ran through the checklist in my head:
Head and jaw pain? Check
Lightheadedness? Check
Nausea? Check
Arm pain? No
Shortness of breath? No
Chest pain? FUCK YEAH!
Ok, that was enough indicators for me. Of course, by the time I had gone over this checklist, after waiting out some of the pain, 15 minutes had passed and the pain had dissipated, leaving only a bruised ache in my ribcage and left breast.
Regardless, I hit the ER at St. Mike’s. Here’s a tip to accessing timely care within the socialized Canadian system: Tell them you just had a heart attack. Holy crap, I’ve never been treated so well in a Canadian medical institution in my life! I wanted to tip the nurses or something.
EKG, ECG, XYZ (ok, I made that up), x-rays, blood drawn, wired for sound… All this within minutes of arriving.
Needless to say my little episode wasn’t fatal - this time. But it sure put the fear of God into me! To be clear, I did not have a full-on coronary. I had an attack of angina. At the tender age of 32.
I’m fine. I feel bruised, as if I’d been kicked in the chest, and I’m covered in that sticky glue from the pads - how the fuck do you get that shit off, anyway? - but other than that I’m fine. There will be a massive overhaul to my current lifestyle of salted margaritas (my family doctor has insisted I give them up in favor of low-sodium martinis) and white bread.
My cholesterol is fine, my blood pressure is fine, but this 60 extra pounds I’m hauling around in my ass has got to go.
That said, life continues apace. I try not to wallow when I’m ill, because that makes people hate you - there are already enough very valid reasons for people to hate me. So tomorrow I am off to The Mayor of Mitchieville’s annual blogger shindig. That is, God willing, if Arnie’s mum remains stable. She, uh, had a heart attack last week. Huh.
As Kathy says: “Who did they think they were hiring?”
Listen Nuge, I’ve been there. Not so very long ago I was hired by a start-up establishment to be my charming, mouthy, unfiltered self. They said they loved my product. They said they loved my edge. But once faced with it, they freaked. But the sponsors! they cried. You frightened Scott Ott away! they lamented (Because poor Mr. Ott is apparently the only person on the web that matters. Hmmm.). OMG! You said fuck!
Well, yeah. You know, seeing as I was hired to be RightGirl and not Captain fucking Kangaroo, I kinda figured you actually wanted me to be RightGirl. Oh, and you also weren’t paying me. So, uh, my intellectual property doesn’t change to your will for that particular dollar amount, bitches.
What I’m saying Ted is Welcome to the cool kids club. If they can’t take the Nuge, they shouldn’t have hired you in the first place. You don’t hire Howard Stern to read the traffic and weather. You don’t hire RightGirl for her politically correct diplomacy. And you don’t hire Ted Nugent to be a wallflower.
Ok, I know it’s the middle of June, and Christmas is six months away. But Albert Mouse was on my mind today. For most of my North American readership, Christmas is a time for Rankin-Bass specials on television, so I’m sure many of you are familiar with the image at left.
Albert Mouse is the little troublemaker from T’was the Night Before Christmas, who raises Santa’s ire by writing a letter to the editor stating that “All of Us” - the townspeople of Junctionville, NY - don’t believe in Father Christmas. Little shit. He nearly got Christmas canceled!
Was Robert malicious? No, not particularly. If he were malicious, Rankin-Bass might never have gotten the green light for the production, because Albert would have had a foul mouth, a chip on his shoulder, and would have called Santa a douchebag. He wasn’t malicious. He was merely burdened with too much booksmart and not enough soul. Albert Mouse was in fact a genius. However, he felt almost nothing inside. Life was only about facts and figures, never about human (or in his case mouse) interaction. Why interact with others when they won’t be nearly as smart as the people he could read in books?
If Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass created Albert today, he would be a computer wizard. He would speak and write in code. Instead of a letter to the editor of the small town paper, Albert would most likely have a blog. He would still be quoting Copernicus, and probably Darwin, too. He’d have Wikis, and would understand Linux (Do humans really understand Linux? Do mice?) He would be faithless. He would be cold. He would be as insulting to everyone who didn’t agree with him as he was to Santa Clause. More so.
Now, being a children’s holiday story, Albert Mouse was redeemed at the end by seeing the hurt he had caused to the people of Junctionville. He developed some emotion, and set about trying to set things right. Of course, he bumbled a bit in this respect, but his heart was in the right place.
In reality, it’s unlikely that anyone like Albert would ever see the error of his ways. He would always be more interested in his codes than in any relationship with a human being. Everyone else would be beneath him.
What sparked this little thought train? It’s kind of a long story. Regardless, we all know someone like Albert Mouse. They are the awkward geeks who develop cutting attitudes to protect themselves from the loneliness of rejection. They are the internet trolls who poison the conversations on forums and comment threads. They are the bitter neighbor who yells at children. They are the Holocaust Museum shooter. And by the end of the show, they still will not have redeemed themselves.
The other day a good friend of mine suggested I follow somebody on Twitter. Hmmm… well, I’m more apt to go for the suggestion of a friend than that of a machine. And besides, we had all been chatting up a storm together over on UStream (which I hate, by the way, lest anyone think I’ve sold out) earlier in the day.
The chick in question was funny, witty, pithy as hell - in other words, my kind of gal.
So I decided to look her up on Twitter and follow her as my friend suggested. We exchanged a few witty barbs to and fro, before the question of my politics came up:
“So, guess you don’t believe in gay marriage.”
Um… I didn’t quite know what to answer. No, I don’t, but not for religious reasons. I don’t believe in it because I don’t see a point to it. Every question that gay marriage raises can be answered with a contract. Be it a will, a living will, a partnership contract or even a civil union - marriage need never enter the conversation. But I didn’t say this.
Instead I said that I didn’t see a point in discussing it, and ruining a good time. I would prefer to talk to this woman about pop culture and art (she’s a brilliant artist, and I had lots of work lined up for her)… Her response?
“What’s the point of making small talk with ideological opponents?”
She then went on to completely lose her shit over gay marriage, conservative Christians (the friend who introduced her to me is far more of a devout Christian than I’ll ever be - go figure), and all things outside her sad little sphere. She revealed herself to be that saddest and angriest of all lefty creatures: The militant dyke.
Did I know she was gay going into it? Yes. Did I insult her? No. Did my very existence offend her? Yes.
And so it goes. People may accuse us on the right of being polarized, insular, bigoted, whatever. But do those selfsame people ever look inwards at their own side of the spectrum?
I was up at 7 this morning. Ouch. I have a bit of a busy day, finishing up some client work before heading out to take pics of Bush protesters, then rushing back to record Brass Balls Radio late tonight.
Speaking of Brass Balls Radio, about that $12 donation you meant to give us, but clearly forgot. Yeah, you can still do it (and Mark Steyn says you should!). Thanks. We just paid our hosting bill - the one BEFORE the Steyn show. It was expensive enough. I don’t dare to speculate how much the big one will be.
My article on California upholding Prop 8 has garnered a ton of comments over at Examiner. Feel free to add your own voice to the mix. (There’s a little technical problem with the comments being cut off after x-amount of characters. Sorry, please bear with us while we get it straightened out.) Finally a moonbat has admitted there’s no legal reason to prohibit polygamy and that it should be allowed. Go forth and opine!
I found something fishy over at Technorati the other day. No wonder it isn’t used as much as it once was. What a scam! Just because you’re AOL and you can buy links… Not cool. Bloggers (legitimate ones) put a great deal of effort into their babies. I know I do.
“On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county.” David Jones told FOX News.
“We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all,” Jones said.
A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited “unlawful use of land,” ordering them to either “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit,” the couple’s attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.
So much for the concept of:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I bet they voted for Prop 8.
Bloggers beware. A great article in the WSJ about libel chill in the ’sphere. Something many of my good friends know far too much about, sadly.
Civic gadflies and self-styled watchdogs who accuse local politicians and companies are getting slapped with lawsuits. People who post messages in chat rooms, online forums and blogs can be held liable for invasion of privacy or for making defamatory statements, which are damaging, false statements of fact.
Yeah, we know. Oh my, do we ever!
Ok folks, have a great day. I hope to get some good pics of raving moonbats from down in front of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this afternoon. I will be sure to post the best of them.
May 14th is a day of mixed emotions for me. Eighteen years ago today, right about this time of day (circa 10am), the phone rang. I was still asleep, having been late at the hospital the night before. It was a Tuesday morning, and I would have been in school if the world hadn’t been falling apart. My dad had taken the week off work, knowing what was ahead. But he didn’t answer the phone. He was out running errands, in a world before everyone had a cell phone. So I picked it up. I knew what the speaker would say before my hand ever snaked out from under the comforter. I knew who it was.
My cousin Joan, sounding weary having been at the hospital since about midnight:
“Come now. It’s time. How quick can you get here?”
I replied that we were on our way, without knowing that Dad was out of the house.
Still dressed from the night before, I hopped out of bed and ran down the stairs to tell Dad. “Daaaad!?”
He wasn’t there. But he left a detailed note, saying he would be grocery shopping from this time to that time, then stopping by his friend John’s house from this time to that time…. I checked the clock. Five minutes and he’d be at John’s. I dialed. His wife Patricia answered.
“Pat, it’s Wendy. Dad’s on his way over, but I just got the call. Don’t let him even get out of the car - send him home.”
“Oh God - ok. You ok?”
Ok? Hmm… define ok. I was running on little sleep, had forgotten that I was a 14 year old child while I ran a household and did evening shifts at the hospital downtown. In a matter of hours - possibly minutes - I wouldn’t have a mother. Maybe I already didn’t.
“I’m fine. Fine.”
After getting off the phone, I splashed some water on my face and let the dog out in the yard for a few minutes. It was a warm spring day, though a bit cloudy. As Valentine - our Doberman - did her business, my glance happened to land on the lilac tree at the back of the yard. I hated the house we were living in. It was loathe at first sight, but my mother was so enamored with the big lilac bush that we rented the house anyway. We had moved in the previous September, and she couldn’t wait for Spring to see the bush in bloom.
She never did, having been in the hospital since February 22 with the cancer that would kill her. The buds were just beginning to open that morning in May. The bush was still mostly dark purple with unopened blossoms; only a few specks of the pale almost-pink color of the fragrant open flowers.
Dad came home a few minutes later, and we hit the road, driving downtown as fast as our little K-Car would carry us (which isn’t that fast at all). Our speed wasn’t enough. We arrived at the hospital a few minutes after my mother died. It was too late.
Just like the lilacs bloomed too late for her to see them.
It’s something I try to keep, for my own mental health. There are very few parts of my past I cling to (The Cottage was one), and I do what I can to keep my ghosts at bay. So many ghosts.
Two years ago, around this time, I went into Montreal to attend the funeral of a longtime family friend. While there I could barely breathe. My appearance was brief - in on the train, attend the funeral, out on the next train. The thousands of memories - a childhood buried in assorted graves, the broken hearts, the faces of the people who witnessed my youth - Montreal for me is bloodier than a battlefield, and more haunted.
Not so long ago I wrote of the discomfort I felt at reconnecting to my long lost cousins. Although I’m a little more open to such things now than I used to be, it still discombobulates me. Arm’s length or further is where family belongs.
But what do you do when someone is sick? How do you turn your back or shrug your shoulders when someone might be dying? I will admit that there are some of them I wouldn’t flutter an eyelash for at their demise. This is not one of them.
Close? No, we were never close. I was only ever close to one cousin out of hundreds (that’s who I spoke to tonight), but we were friendly. We were at exactly the right distance to not cause the fear, discomfort and loathing that comes so easily to me where family is concerned.
Do I have a role in this act that is playing out 300 miles away from my Toronto dungeon? Is there a way I can help, and if so, do I really want to?
Want to? No, of course not. I’ve done the nursing and palliative care and cleaning shitty beds and bloody phlegm enough to last a lifetime, and I did it as a child. I’ve earned my respite. So “want” is a very inappropriate word to use in this case. Who the fuck wants to go through that?
However I feel compelled, for reasons beyond my understanding. Is this what they mean by family ties? The very concept gives me chills. I am not fighting the intrusion of family into my life - I am fighting my own willingness to allow that to happen. The protective me wants to carry on without knowing or caring. But some little (oft ignored) inner me would prefer to throw open the doors to these specters of the past.
The job’s a hot seat, and one dagger’s already out, but Michael Sabia didn’t look at all uncomfortable in his first public appearance yesterday as the new president and chief executive of the Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec.
Deftly fielding questions from reporters about his experience and suitability, most of them answered in serviceable French, Sabia said it was “an honour” to be chosen to head one of Quebec and Canada’s premier institutions. He said his goal is to stabilize and fortify the Caisse, with as first order of business a reassessment of its risk-management, investment and communication strategies.
The mad frenchmen of Quebec are worried that having an Anglo (and Anglophile) like Sabia atop the Caisse will dilute it’s unique Quebec-ness. If I were them I would be more concerned with Sabia’s track record of killing off floundering companies and then selling them for spare parts. There is nothing Sabia touches that doesn’t turn to ash - just check my Bell pension if you want proof.
Quebec needs to be a little less concerned about its cultural issues and a little more concerned about its economy. And as for those with money in the Caisse, now might be a good time to get it the hell out.
First, let me apologize for my server issues today. It’s all related to the events of the day, and the traffic coming in from Steyn Online & Five Feet of Fury. Shit happens.
Great days like today don’t happen very often, so let me try to get it all out.
As you know I began the day in Standing Committee for Government Agencies as the Ontario Legislature. Topic of discussion being the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal. Not the Commission, and not the Legal Support Center - the Tribunal. This is very important, since whatever question the OHRT chair was asked, he deflected by saying it was the remit of another faction of the Human Rights racket. Typical.
The Committee broke at noon for lunch and I hooked up with Kathy Shaidle and the other Cool Kids like Dr Roy and Rick McGinnis. We retired to the basement cafeteria, where I dropped Mark a note on where to join us. He later did, and held court to a passel of his adoring public. Those of us who were in the morning session briefed him about who he would be dealing with inside.
We went upstairs in time for the afternoon session, where Mark was due to speak. This much you already know from my BlackBerry blogging (which is a pain in the ass, by the way, and not recommended except in cases of dire Steynian emergency). Here’s the link to his transcript, thanks to Denyse.
When his part of the hearing was over, Steyn and his Steynettes (us aforementioned Cool Kids) headed out into the hall where he did a small media scrum.
After about an hour of idle chit-chat in which my back began to kill due to the heels I was wearing, I determined myself to be an under-represented minority (one of 4 women in a group of easily 20 men) and insisted we retired to the bar down the street. Our gaggle of right-wing news junkies walked a couple of blocks to an Irish pub aptly named Pogue Mahone. I had passed it earlier in the day, on my way to Queen’s Park, yet I couldn’t place why the name meant something to me. It was Mike Brock who reminded us that Richard “Bravest Man Warren Kinsella Knows” Warman has used the alias Pogue Mahone when he used entrapment on the Stormfront Website. Heh. And yet there all us haters sat having a beer (or in my case a very tasty dirty martini) with Mark Steyn, in a bar called Pogue Mahone. Poetic justice.
We were about halfway through our little drinks-and-idolatry session when I realized that none of us had a clue who t he man was sitting opposite me. Had he accidentally fallen into step with us and suddenly found himself in a bar surrounded by right-wing zealots? Or had he meant to join us and none of us had bothered to get his name beforehand?
Turned out it was the latter. He muttered his name - I didn’t really catch it at first, but I sure as hell placed it later on. Shy and in awe of The Steyn, he was pretty quiet. Whatever - it takes all kinds. Mark had to get to meeting back a Queen’s Park, so our gaggle walked him back to College & University. 99.9% of us piled onto the subway at that corner, but I planned to walk back to Yonge Street.
I turned around and there was “Mutter Something C-y Something Guy”. We began to walk back to Yonge, both of us in exceptionally good moods given the day we’d been having. He began talking more openly, and we decided to pop into Fran’s to continue the conversation. Blah blah Steyn rules, blah blah Conservative government, yada yada 9/11… the typical comfortable Toronto Conservative Underground conversation. He was great fun to talk to. We exchanged business cards and I finally knew his name. Not that my clearly-not-working brain processed the information, but hey - at least I wasn’t just calling him “You There” anymore. It was an improvement.
So, a couple of beers and a club sandwich later, my new friend tells me how he ran in the 2006 election against Taliban Jack Layton in the Beaches riding. Oh, right. I thought I recognized his name. Something… something about the guy who ran against Layton. What was it? Axe murderer? No, that wasn’t it. Something…
“Even my own brother didn’t vote for me! Then again, he’s a poster child for Canada’s liberal entertainment elite, so I didn’t expect him to.”
Something…
“Entertainment? Who…?” Something… the name…
“Yeah, have you ever heard of a band called Blue Rodeo?”
At which point I spritzed Diet Pepsi halfway across Fran’s.
Holy sweet tap dancing Jesus!
Heard of them? Every break up and break down for almost 20 years, every road trip, every solo bender with a bottle or three of wine… Heard of them? Have I ever heard of one of North America’s most prolific songwriters? Jim Cuddy’s voice is as much a part of my life as my own, or my ex-husband’s or my dog’s. My relationship with Blue Rodeo’s music has actually lasted longer than the relationship I had with my late mother, who was only with me for 14 years.
So yeah, that was my afternoon with Loftus Cuddy.
What a day, ladies and gents. What an awesome goddam day. I know I’ve posted this clip before, but it’s my favorite. It’s almost an anthem (though I never thought that part about my house being on fire would ever come true, till it did).
These Iraqi sisters are doing it for themselves. When other women would be at home breeding multiple baby martyrs in the name of Allah, these broads aren’t waiting around till their babies reach the bomb-blast age. After all, Allah is waiting. And now this lovely sex bomb pictured has been arrested for recruiting female suicide bombers in Iraq. And it seems it was run very much like a prostitution ring.
A woman accused of helping recruit dozens of female suicide bombers looked into the camera and described the process: trolling society for likely candidates and then patiently converting the women from troubled souls into deadly attackers.
The accounts, in a video released Tuesday by Iraq police, offer a rare glimpse into the networks used to find and train the women bombers who have become one of the insurgents’ most effective weapons as they struggle under increasing crackdowns.
In a separate prison interview with The Associated Press, with interrogators nearby, the woman said she was part of a plot in which young women were raped and then sent to her for matronly advice. She said she would try to persuade the victims to become suicide bombers as their only escape from the shame and to reclaim their honor.
As brainwashed as the Islamic ummah is, it would be very easy to convert these women into murderers for the sake of honor. After all, if your only other choice is having your father/uncle/brother kill you for adultery, then why not go out with a bang?
I keep looking at this old hag’s picture, and I can’t help but thinking of another famous Muslim woman…
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The last thing I remember was my third martini at my birthday party on October 2. This party was attended by dear friend Josephine and her hubby Dutch, who gave me a small Moleskine notebook. Moleskines are famous for having been used by the likes of Vincent Van Gogh, who famously cut off his ear and then shot himself, and Ernest Hemingway, who blew his brains out and kicked off a string of suicides in the Hemingway family that probably isn’t over yet. For all I know, Hunter S. Thompson used one for his (pre-blog era) “Gonzo Journalism”. Thompsons’s ashes - the remains of his self-inflicted gunshot wound - were shot out of a cannon, as per his request, in 2005.
The crushing pain hit just before 10pm on 
Ok, I know it’s the middle of June, and Christmas is six months away. But Albert Mouse was on my mind today. For most of my North American readership, Christmas is a time for Rankin-Bass specials on television, so I’m sure many of you are familiar with the image at left.
