Ontario labour activist Humberto DaSilva does a regular video blog at Rabble.ca called Not Rex. His latest post is an impassioned declaration of the values he will express at the ballot box on Monday.
While we’re watching Rabble vids, here’s Shawn Syms on the Harper Government’s record on LGTB issues.
Kind of like a battle of the bands, this event is organized by the Ness Creek Music Festival, the Gateway Music Festival and the Regina Folk Festival. At stake are slots in those three music festivals which are being held this year July 14-17 at Big River, July 22-24 at Bengough and Aug. 5-7 in Regina’s Victoria Park respectively.
Saskatchewan acts that have been invited to showcase their talent at Bushwakker Brew Pub tonight at 7 p.m. are: The Karpinka Brothers, Jeans Boots (pictured), Kinley, Tara & Yanina, Crestwood, The Hard Ramblers and Indigo Joseph.
From where I sit it’s been a pretty long 30 years or so. You could call it growing pains, I suppose. But when I was a kid, I certainly didn’t anticipate spending a good chunk of my adult life in a society mired so heavily in regressive attitudes, beliefs and actions.
If you’ve done any reading on evolutionary biology, you’ll know that scientists describe humanity as still possessing “Stone Age brains”.
When we lived in the Stone Age that was fine. We were few in number, possessed extremely modest technology (sorry, no, The Flintstones wasn’t a realistic portrayal of Stone Age life. I mean, think about it. That car Fred drove? The “tires” are freaking huge. And they’re solid stone too! Yeah, Fred’s muscular. But he could peddle his ass off and he wouldn’t be able to budge that puppy an inch, let alone whiz around Bedrock like he did).
Now, though, we number nearly seven billion. And we possess all sorts of powerful and sophisticated technology. We were smart enough to develop it. But we haven’t always exercised the best judgement in implementing it. That’s due, in part, to the continuing influence of Stone Age drives and thought processes in our lives.
Weapons are a prime example of the disconnect. Back in the Stone Age we had clubs and spears, now we’ve got nukes and other weapons of mass destruction. We’re still prone to tribalism, though, and war remains very much a tool of geopolitical engagement. Plus, we often still act on impulse and don’t always think things through. Thanks to our technology, the consequences of acting imprudently today are infinitely greater.
Put simply, I don’t think the answer to the challenge of our future survival lies in turning back the clock. During the five or so years the Harper government has been in power they’ve worked in many instances to reverse advances that were made during the ’60s and ’70s to promote equality between people and the overall collective welfare of humanity.
I know history tends to unfold in a pendulum pattern — a significant shift one way prompting a bit of slippage backward as people adjust (or at least reconcile themselves) to the new reality.
But in the United States, Tea Party extremists like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have advocated a return to the ”values of the Founding Fathers”. The mid-18th century, you mean? A time when women had no legal rights, it was permissable to own other people as slaves, infant mortality was through the roof, and all sorts of other stuff. Uh, guess we’re gonna just have to agree to disagree on that one guys. Same with living according to a strict Biblical code as the Christian Right (which is a major player in the Harper Conservative government) is working religiously to bring about.
I don’t know about you, but when I vote on Monday I’m voting for the future not the past.
Seen the polls lately? At left is a graph from Nanos Research’s nightly tracking and it has the NDP trailing the Conservatives by a mere five points nationally.
Look at that orange line. Rising up about to strike like a mighty cobra.
Meanwhile, on Nanos’ leadership index, Layton is actually 12 points out in front of Harper. All through the campaign, Harper has been ahead on that one by like 20 or 30 points — and that’s pretty usual because voters typically find it most easy to imagine a sitting PM as a leader. But now, it seems the leader of the hitherto always third-place NDPs strikes a more stately and competent figure in the minds of most Canadians than either the guy who’s actually been captaining the ship for the last three years or the guy who’s fronting the Natural Ruling Party™.
I almost feel sorry for Harper and Ignatieff. They’re having to eat a lot of you-suck pie this election.
1 WELL AT LEAST EVERYONE HAD A GOOD TIME Everyone’s talking about the heinously expensive, ritualized legitimization of a privileged couple’s future sexual congress. Even in Canada! And did you see Princess Beatrice’s hat?
2 I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FLIPPED OUT OVER THE GLOBE ENDORSING THE CONSERVATIVES It’s good to have friends, even if they’re all on this nebulous thing called the “Twitterverse” that out-of-touch Conservative voters don’t use.
3 JOHN GORMLEY SAYS JACK LAYTON IS “A NICE GUY, BUT” Here’s John: “Layton is also one of Canada’s most notorious political gadflies, flitting from one crazy left-wing issue to another, seemingly oblivious to either logic or the national interest.” So I guess we should all vote Conservative then, because charging deeper into debt and deficit over gazillion dollar fighter jets to defend us from China and building more prisons while the crime rate is dropping is “in the national interest”? Also, any party that hates public daycare and Planned Parenthood like the Conservatives clearly do is clearly not “oblivious to logic”, noooo. Well, Gormley, a former Conservative politician, has gotta say what John’s gotta say to lock down that women-under-35 demographic and… wait…
Oh, did you hear about that “packed mob” of NDP supporters on Saskatoon? Good thing Saskatchewan ridings are bizarrely constructed to sabotage urban voters by holding it hostage to the questionable agenda of rural Saskatchewan. Otherwise the NDP might elect a lot of candidates here. Phew!
So come on you guys! Vote for the Conservatives! They’re the really, really, rich people party! You want to be really, really,rich, don’t you? Well, vote Conservative and bags of money will probably show up in your mailbox!
4 ALSO, EVEN THE BLOC LIKES JACK Didn’t see this one coming. Probably won’t help the cause in Saskatchewan much but then again if we vote like a mob of creationist hillbillies no one should care what we think.
5 MEANWHILE IN AMERICA God is smiting Alabama because it’s a state full of un-Christian, racist, science-bashing Tea Party-voting homophobes–actually, he’s smiting the whole South. Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is attending the final launch of the space shuttle Endeavour today, and, oh wait, not today. Some tedious legal wrangling over stem cell research had a sane outcome. And to get away from the Washington Post for a minute, Talking Points Memo has a piece on Birther desperation. Ha ha, racists are funny.
6 IS MY JETS OBSESSION ANNOYING? SORRY. Here’s this morning’s Winnipeg/NHL report.
DAILY FOLIAGE REPORT:
I titled this post after the tags I chose to represent the events I’m highlighting today.
“Sex” for Taboo: Naughty … But Nice Show at Conexus Arts Centre is entirely apropos. The trade show, after all, is showcasing all sorts of products and services designed to help people enrich their sex lives. There’s even an adult film star in attendance signing autographs and posing for photos. (Monique Alexander, pictured at left.)
“Religion” as a tag to describe the Body, Soul & Spirit Expo that is also on today at Conexus is a little more problematic. But as far as tags go, the administrator of this esteemed blog is a bit of a tyrant. Recently, he issued a five page memo on the subject of approved Dog Blog tags.
When people posted before, they too often pulled a tag out of their butt so to speak to index the post for readers. But to make a blog search feasible you can’t have hundreds of different tags as then it’s virtually impossible to track anything down. Hence, the memo limiting us to a select number of tags.
Natural tags for the Body, Soul & Spirit Expo would be “New Age” or “Spirituality”. But neither is on the list, so I went with “Religion”.
Ordinarily, that would make for a pretty volatile combination. Religion, at least of the hardcore variety if you’ll pardon the pun, not exactly being that open to expressions of sexuality outside the norm (ie. hetero/missionary position/no birth control). But with its broader focus on personal growth and enlightenment, Body, Soul & Spirit Expo is entirely compatible with Taboo.
Both trade shows begin three day runs at Conexus today. For more info see www.taboosexshow.com and www.bodysoulspirit.com
As far as music goes, accordian provocateur Geoff Berner is at the Club tonight. Here’s video of him performing the Official Theme Song of the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Olympic Games. At O’Hanlon’s Pub, the Calgary indie rock band Deadhorse is playing.
Here’s a shot by Rosemary Barton that’s been making the rounds on Facebook of an NDP rally in Saskatoon today. I don’t have any other details (I checked the Star-Phoenix website and didn’t see anything reported) but the turnout looks pretty impressive.
I wanted to do a quick one tonight highlighting an election-themed cocktail. But in my research I discovered that Brent Bambury’s Radio Two show, Day 6, is way ahead of me on this. They enlisted Oliver Stern, bartender for the Toronto Temperance Society, to concoct weekly topical tipples starting back in March when the writ was dropped. Here’s the video of the first campaign cocktail, the Concession 75.
They also did one called the Elizabeth May #2, The Auditor’s General and The Health Attack. Enjoy.
I was weaseling around the information superhighway a couple nights ago (it can’t all be porn and wedding cake) and came across this deliriously cheery video from the launch of STV. It’s amazing stuff. Open up a yogurt cup or a pack of Soda Licious and check it out.
Incredible, right? The pep! The enthusiasm! The enthusa-pep! It’s all there in one big beautiful dorky package. It’s kind of hard to imagine a Regina television station in 2011 working on knocking out a silly song like this. Especially one with the weird sort of swagger that this launch video has. I mean part of the lyrics are STV proclaiming “you’re a part of us, we’re a part of you” like they’re indoctrinating people into the Children Of God cult. Their slogan was “Good Lookin’ STV” for goodness sakes. The balls on those guys.
I’m from Manitoba originally (/opens up umbrella for the inevitable shitstorm in the comments) so my interaction with STV was checking it out when I visited my Regina-based grandparents. I always had a lot of questions about their logo. What was the red stuff in the V? Strawberry jam? Werewolf blood? A delicious combination of both? It didn’t matter because there were sitcom reruns and syndicated programs of varying quality for my grade school brain to soak in.
It kind of bums me out that the station got absorbed into the Global television brand and ultimately lost most of the quirks that made it unique. Sure, all the local over-the-air stations have their distinctly Saskatchewan touches, but those touches aren’t as flamboyant as they used to be. It’s not just a Saskatchewan thing either. Winnipeg/Portage’s indie station MTN was gobbled up by CHUM in the 2000s and City-TV lost the majority of its soul after a couple ownership shuffles in the same decade. It’s cable that has to pick up the eccentricity slack.
Thankfully we still have the insane programming practices of Geoff Sterling at NTV holding things down in Newfoundland.
I’m not sure about ticket availability for this annual celebration of upscale food and drink as the event, which is wildly popular among local gourmands, typically sells out. Still, if you manage to score tickets Taste of Spring is being held tonight, Friday and Saturday night at Credit Union Event Plex (Evraz Place) beginning at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30.
Also on tonight and tomorrow night are screenings by fourth year Media Production & Studies students from the University of Regina. The screenings are being held at Rainbow Cinemas at the Golden Mile Mall at 7 p.m. each night. I’m not sure if there is an admission charge, but the student who contacted us said that some of the films contain mature content so parental discretion is advised.
Story here.
“The only party that defends the interests of the chrysotile industry is our party, the Conservative party.” -Stephen Harper
Chrysotile is a fancy word for asbestos. It was coined by pro-business lobbyists that want to keep the toxic product in circulation.
Well Mr. Harper, there are some things that nearly everyone agrees on. The fact that asbestos is toxic is one of them. For years the international community has begged Canada to ban the production and export of this carcinogenic monstrosity.
Harper’s hasty election promise is a clear example of putting profits before people and vote-pandering before common sense. The asbestos market is failing and the world should rejoice. Job creation is a good thing, but not when the risk to life is so abundantly clear.
Editor’s note: the following post contains ripe language and offensive imagery. Seriously it’s really bad. You shouldn’t read it.
Oh for eff’s sake. From the stupidest fucking article I’ve ever read in The Globe and Mail:
Only Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have shown the leadership, the bullheadedness (let’s call it what it is) and the discipline this country needs. He has built the Conservatives into arguably the only truly national party, and during his five years in office has demonstrated strength of character, resolve and a desire to reform. Canadians take Mr. Harper’s successful stewardship of the economy for granted, which is high praise. He has not been the scary character portrayed by the opposition; with some exceptions, his government has been moderate and pragmatic.
“Moderate and pragmatic”????????? I’m flabbergasted.
This come-stain of an editorial was spurted-out by the editors of Canada’s paper of record, not some dumbass redneck religious fundamentalist from Dumbolt who lost his virginity to a cow’s nostril.
I have sympathy for ignorant, cattle-molesting dolts who were deprived of healthy socialization and competent education because mom and dad used barn-based schoolin’ to teachify junior about cipherin’ and Jesus’ pet “dina-sars.” But for the Cognac-quaffing weasels running The Globe? I don’t think so. What a bunch of jerks.
What kind of cocaine and pill combo produces writing like this? Don’t the Globe’s editors know that Stephen Harper’s government has a zero-tolerance approach to drug use?
My god, the Conservatives spend five years stonewalling reporters and treating the media–including Globe And Mail journos, no doubt–with contempt and The Globe and Mail endorses them? Endorses the political party that’s writhing with religious kooks, misogynists, homophobes, anti-science freaks, red-scare paranoiacs and scandal monkeys, and The Globe And Mail’s editors think they should be given the keys to Canada again?
Are they insane?
What is it about the Conservatives that appeals to G&M‘s simpering, sniveling editors? Is it the Tories’ unsurpassed skill at engineering structural deficits that can be used to legitimize assaults on social programs? The military boosterism–F-35s are a stand-in for aging, bitter editors’ diminished members? Was it the trashing of Toronto with an incompetently-run G20 summit (“we’ll show those young hipsters!”)? The holy-roller-endorsed approaches to what charities and events get funded and what don’t? The childish “lock ‘em all up” attitudes towards crime? The complete antipathy to environmental vandalism?
The incoherent drug policy? The hostility and contempt for scientists and academics? Invites to secret sorority blowjob parties? What?
Are the Globe’s editor’s a pack of cocktail-circuit hyenas looking for affirmation and meat scraps from the most mean-spirited and arrogant Canadian political party of the last 20 years? Are they sleazy, grasping, avaricious, venomous quislings on the lookout for their next prestigious perk or appointment?
Is this calculated sucking-up? Or are they just fucking demented?
Are the Globe’s editors even paying attention to the alarmed reporting on this government in their own damn newspaper over the past half-decade?
This editorial is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever read in The Globe and Mail. It’s a real “fuck you” to those of us who accurately see Stephen Harper’s Conservatives as a dangerous band of lunatics bent on warping the character of this country into something selfish, suspicious and hateful.
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
Lots of exciting non-news today on the Winnipeg-gets-an-NHL-team file.
First, Winnipeg Mayor Sam “Giggles” Katz suddenly threw out this quote from seemingly nowhere:
“Do I believe the Coyotes are coming to Winnipeg – my answer would be no,” mayor Sam Katz said on Wednesday. “I don’t believe that. I believe the Coyotes will stay in Phoenix and they will do everything they can, because I happen to know some of the commitments that were made when they went there. And there were commitments that – if they were not fulfilled – there could easily be a lawsuit. So I think you have to start looking at some of the other potential franchises.”
Uh dude, you couldn’t have said that sooner?
So that’s it then, no Jets in Winnipeg.
In between hauls on faux Cubans and long, breathless slurps of 18-year-old single malt, the monied partners of Atlanta Spirit, the group that owns the Thrashers, are watching the action in Arizona very intently.
“They want to sell and they have no options other than Winnipeg,” a source close to the transaction told the Free Press. “They want the NHL to solve its issues in Phoenix and sell the team to (Matthew) Hulsizer so they can then sell to the group in Winnipeg.
“The NHL will let them sell. This market has failed once before and these guys have been trying to sell for years and no local group has come forward. They are desperate to sell and the Winnipeg guys are the only ones with money ready to go.”
All right then! Winnipeg hockey roadtrips stay on next fall’s itinerary. Unless Winnipeg doesn’t get a team. Then they will be cancelled.
Boy, you can just smell the behind the scenes scheming and scrambling, eh? Poor Winnipeg. Ha ha.
Oh, and Boston just won! Eat it, Montreal! (Yes, I prefer the Bruins to the Habs. Deal with it.)
As previously mentioned on the Dog Blog, the Pixies are playing Saskatoon this week as part of their two-years-and-counting celebration of the 20th anniversary of their 1989 album Doolittle. The Pixies play the album in sequence, as well as various B-sides from that era. I spoke with band members Joey Santiago and David Lovering for a story that originally appeared in the current edition of Saskatoon’s Planet S magazine.
Of course, both Santiago and Lovering told me things that didn’t make it into that story for various non-interesting reasons. Here’s what’s interesting out of that.
I asked guitarist Santiago what song he looks forward to playing the most every night.
Santiago: I like “Tame” because I’m just hitting that one chord, and I feel like a wiseass.
Santiago: I also like “La La Love You” because I just like to see [drummer] David [Lovering, who contributes a rare vocal perfomance to that song] suffer a little embarrassment. At the end, you know, Charles [Thompson, aka Frank Black, aka Black Francis] tends to milk it. He keeps going on and on and Dave has to sing until you see him sweating a bit.
Naturally, when I spoke with Lovering later that day, I had to ask him about it.
Lovering: It’s true! It’s all on me. Everyone in the band starts looking at me, and they try to get me to, y’know, feel uneasy. It does work. It’s usually at the end though, when it just breaks down. When it’s the chorus repeating, repeating and just the guitar going. That’s when they all stare me down.
I also asked Lovering which Doolittle song he most looks forward to each night.
Lovering: You know, I love playing “Tame”. But a nerve-wracking one is “Silver”. It’s a song that we never ever played live ever. It wasn’t until these Doolittle tours that we started doing it. The funny thing about it is, I’m only playing a floor tom; one hit, one hit every bar. So, one-two-three, one-two-three, it’s actually in 3/4 time. It’s all I do through the whole song and it is the hardest song I play. Every night, I’m like ‘oh no, here we go.’ But I pull it off. I’ve never had a failure, but every night I’m thinking about it. I just want to keep the time exact. It’s such a tough one to play so simplistically and keep time.
If the above headline appeared in prairie dog it would be shortened to two words. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which word would be deleted. But the article appeared in today’s Leader-Post. Here’s a link.
If you read the article, which is by Postmedia’s Jamie Portman, you’ll learn that after getting in a huge amount of hotwater last election for dismissing the arts as a niche area that ordinary Canadians didn’t give a rat’s ass about, the Harper Conservatives have rebuffed numerous opportunities in this election campaign to articulate their policy on the arts.
Last election, Harper went beyond dismissing the arts (which as a sector, Portman notes, now employs over 630,000 Canadians and represents 7.4 per cent of the GDP), he also essentially slandered artists by saying that they hobknobbed at rich galas where they whined about their funding. In Quebec, in particular, and in larger centres like Toronto and Vancouver, that earned him the wrath of artists and their supporters, and quite likely cost him a majority government.
This time around, the Conservatives have adopted a head-in-the-sand approach to the arts although their vow to conduct a strategic review of spending has raised concerns about what havoc a future Conservative majority government might wreak on the arts sector.
To close, here’s a link to an Exclaim! news report about a song on Regina pop-rock band Library Voices’ upcoming album Summer Lust called “The Prime Minister’s Daughter” that protests cuts to arts funding that were made by the previous Harper administration. There’s a second link at the bottom of the article where you can download the song and give it a listen.
1. WE’RE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, PEOPLE. The topic has been broached on Prairie Dog already, but I’m just so surprised at NDP’s great showing in the polls. Have we all turned crazy pinko? Or maybe more and more Canadians are looking at the options and deciding that a choice between Lizard Man and Lurch isn’t much of a choice at all. Who would have thought that being a recognizable human being would translate into political gold?
2. APPLE ISN’T TRACKING YOUR LOCATION, DUMMIES. IT JUST KEEPS TRACK OF EVERYTHING AROUND YOU. A recent discovery of a file on iPhones that stores user location data has touched off a brouhaha over privacy concerns. Apple would like to clarify, though: the file doesn’t record where you are; it just tracks all the cell phone towers and wi-fi hotspots in your area. Oh. That’s so different.
3. SHUT UP, TRUMP. The Obama administration, no doubt as sick of Donald Trump as the rest of us, published a copy of the President’s birth certificate. I’m certain that America will come up with further tests and trials for Obama to prove his American-ness somehow, but in the meantime, let’s hope that we’ll hear less about this nonsense.
4. THEY’RE GONNA SCRUB THOSE COALS UNTIL THEY SHINE. Yesterday, Minister Rob Norris announced the launch of a $1.24 billion ‘clean coal’ carbon capture project at the Boundary Dam power plant in Estevan. “This is a game changer,” Norris said, because sports metaphors are awesome.
The new system will capture a million tonnes of carbon per year. After the announcement, Norris and SaskPower CEO Robert Watson were so excited that they ran out and bought Escalades and they drove around and around and around and around and ate nachos. The end.
UPDATE: This one’s for Stu!
Well, as you can see, that dream came true.
I stumbled upon this article from the punditsguide.ca blog about how various websites that predict seat counts fare when compared to actual election outcomes. One of the big points of the post is how no polling site really gets it right so maybe they shouldn’t be trusted. Fair enough. However, of the sites it surveys, Ekos does a pretty okay job. Have a look at the numbers the punditsguide sites….
2008 election actual: Cons 143, Lib 77, BQ 49, NDP 37, Other 2, Green 0
Ekos predicted: Cons 136, Lib 84, BQ 51, NDP 35, Other 2, Green 0
As you can see, Ekos wasn’t that far off. The actual count varied from their prediction only by 18 seats all together.
So, just for shits and giggles (and accepting that I really shouldn’t be concluding that Ekos is especially competent based off one data point), with a week left of campaigning, what are their seat projections for the 2011 election? Well, as of April 26, this is how they see things….
(By the way, that chart is plucked from their seat projection pdf which you can download here.)
As you can see, Ekos is presently predicting the NDP for the official opposition. And by a hefty margin, to boot. And with the Libs holding enough seats to give the two parties majority control of the House. Yowza. I have never seen the federal NDP polling so well. This is Prime Minister Layton territory. I wonder how deep into Ignatieff’s craw that would stick?
Of course, we must remember support for progressive parties always collapses on election day. So goes the conventional wisdom. And at least some of that collapse can be traced to the fact that the people who may say they’re going to vote progressive end up just not voting — whether because of apathy or feelings of disenfranchisement or whathaveyou. Low voter turnouts hurt parties like the NDP the hardest.
So I guess we should ignore these anomalous polling numbers for the NDP seeing as, in this “Time To Lead” feature from the Globe and Mail website that I’ve recorded in a screen cap at right, we can expect to see voter turnout plummet to a new low this election. Sigh….
Wait, what’s that headline just above the “Time To Lead” feature? An unexpected record high turnout at the advance polls?
Oh. That is surprising. Very surprising indeed….
