Tears in Montreal - Original Song #whatevs

For Mohamed and Michel

Tears in Montreal (on the eve of Saint-Jean)

Tears in Montreal

On the eve of Saint-Jean

Mohamed Lamine Benredouane,

A stand-up cop, answering the calL

34, a pregnant wife and a toddler

Just 3

Now in the arms of Allah (Peace be with him)

Tears in Montreal...

Michel Mizrahi

Died shepherding others to safety

A father, a geandfather, a tailor

Now in the arms of his Jehovah

Tears in Montreal... 

A young man in a state

Of cultivated hate

Confused, Deluded, Determined

To strike out

With a cascade of bullets

Well that's what it gets you: Irredeemably dead

Ahhh!! I'm sick of crying!

I'm so damn sick of crying

Saint-Jean?! Where are you now, eh? Où es-tu ? Viens, viens-vite !

We could really use a new baptism right now.

On a besoin un nouveau baptème, 'stie !

 - 30 -

What a Father hopes for on Fathers' Day

Fathers are tricky business

Some of us love and revere them

Feel their presence in all we are as individuals, 

Or find ourselves bedamned by the weaknesses we see in them that have passed on to us;

That we must face within ourselves, to hopefully break the cycles that are hurtful

And to faithfully carry on those that support and boost us all higher

The choices we've made; how we've lived

Between self-sacrifice and selfishness

Did we disappoint our fathers or did we impress?

Push the family further?

Hold our own to maintain the legacy of the ages?

A legacy passed to us, unasked, and perhaps forwarded on to another generation,

As the legacy was so unasked of all generations past

Yes, tricky indeed

But may I say,

As a father, as a son and as a grandfather

What I want of my kin on Fathers' Day

What I hope for...

Is to know that my children, stepchildren and grandchildren feel safe and secure and confident

That they feel my love and strength

Buttressing them through every scary moment life forces them to endure

That whatever mistakes I've made,

They've understood there was no malice, no lack of belief in them as the fantastic indivuals they are

No moment of doubt of them in my heart

Ever

And that they can always know I am there for them

In my unbounded love for them

In any way I can be of help to them

With everything I have put forth into this world

It has all been for you

I hope it can be of use to you

You are all beautiful and important in the Universe

In ways you may never comprehend

And I am damn proud of you

Now don't worry about giving me any cards or shit

Just go on and keep kicking ass

(With love and respect for humanity, eh?)

PS: for those who, unlike me, have lost their fathers, Billy Bragg has you

Tank Park Salute

- 30 -

Smile, and Greet the Customer

That was the first line on the SOC (Station Observation Checklist) for the position of Cashier at McDonald's Corporation in the 1990s, when I was an Assistant Manager at the flagship Peel Street location in downtown Montreal.

Over a three-hour shift from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., a part-time crew member would be expected to perform this (and dozens of other high-energy and well-delineated tasks) around one to two hundred times (with expected vigor) for their minimum wage earnings, unquestionably.

There were pins to be awarded for high customer throughput, such as the 350 customers served (by the team) in a given hour. WOO-HOO!

We cherished those badges of honour - and we wore them proudly on our carefully ironed cotton/polyester lapels - like US Marines with their Purple Hearts.

Of course, we didn't have to shoot anyone or get maimed in the process, so weren't we the lucky ones!

After years of working my tail off (I was just bloody grateful to be working anywhere at all to pay the rent while slowly plying my way through an undergraduate degree at Concordia U.), I was eventually promoted to manager. With that came the responsibility of balancing the safe and all cash tills, as well as faithfully toeing the corporate line.

Why, I myself was scolded by senior management for failing to iron-in a proper crease in my shirt sleeves, ...once, but with God as my witness, never again!

The standard for presentation was high (even in polyester), and it applied to all employees.

If they arrived for work in an unclean uniform, or otherwise unkempt in any way, they could expect to be unceremoniously reviled by me, or any other manager, in front of their co-workers, and sent home without pay. No recompense for their transport or time spent; only shame.

For the majority, who considered themselves lucky enough to remain on the clock (that day, at least), they knew they'd dodged a bullet. And the other rules were automatic, starting with:

"Smile, and greet the customer."

* * *

Many years later (2013 if memory serves), over a dozen years after I'd resigned from McD's on the spot (more on that to come in future posts), my  step-daughter, at 15, would be hired as cashier at the Dorval, Quebec McDonald's franchise. The SOC, I noted at the time, was unchanged.

"They're telling me I have to smile but I don't want to smile at everyone," she protested. "Some of them are, well, ...creeps."

My step-daughter's smile lights up a room like a floodlight, just like her mother's. It doesn't just "show up" on demand a hundred-plus times a day; and especially not for minimum wage. I got that. She lasted there less than two weeks and when she told me she'd quit over it, I gained a new respect for her. It was a revelation to me, about our changing world. Bullshit is bullshit, and there's just no excuse for it - not anymore.

"No means no" meets fast food, essentially.

* * *

Sometimes I go to a McD's nowadays as a customer and I place my order on a massive touchscreen, or order through the Drive-Thru, and then someone very busily multi-tasking hands me my order.

They don't smile, generally, and I don't give a hoot one way or the other. But I wonder if the Cashier SOC has been updated, or if it still starts with:

"Smile, and greet the customer"

- 30 -

NOTE: No AI has been harmed in the creation of this post. It was just me. :-)

2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs

Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam only made it big because of the path forged by Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, the Pixies and Montreal bands like the Nils, the Asexuals and Three O'Clock Train.

(If you disagree, dear reader, I am happy to hear what you think in the comments.)

Strangely, I feel a real relevance of that to whatever I'm witnessing here with our Habs, even as they drop the second game of their third round series against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Regardless, the Canadiens' 25th Stanley Cup will not necessarily come to the most deserving Habs team; but the most opportune, when the stars align. It could be now (I really think it might), or it could necessarily be somewhere down the line. Essentially, school is still (and always) in session when you're coached by such a diligent student of The Game as Martin Saint-Louis.

20 years ago,...

Again in 2011...

2021...

Whatevs!

What my eyes see this year: our CH are playing toe to toe with the best.

And it's dawn, not dusk.

GoHabsGo !

Goin' South to North Carolina

(Sung to the tune of Hotel California. Apologies to the Eagles)

On a flight home from Buffalo

An eighth win in the bank

Rank smells from the equipment bags

To remind them of how Game 6 stank

Up ahead on the schedule

They saw an upcoming flight

Their play had steadied

Having fought hard to win

They had to brace for the next fight

There it lay 'midst the hog farms

And a million cowbells

And they were thinking to themselves,

This could be heaven or this could be hell

Then Marty lit up the torCH and he showed them the way

Those Forum ghosts have still got their backs

And you can hear them say:

"You're goin' south to North Carolina

Aaron Ward lives here

He might buy you a beer

Playing Round 3 down in North Carolina

Such a whale of a place

Such a tragic (coach's) face"

Their game is Brind-Amour twisted

Their fans make lots of noise

They got a lot of pretty flashy players

But none to match Suzuki's points

They got a pretty good goalkeep

But his team don't go deep

Canes can win a couple rounds every year

But they can never win three

Recall the Habs' '06 captain

Who'd beaten back cancer like a giant

Then Williams took out Saku's eye

Never fully regained his sight

And still those Forum ghosts calling from far away

Wake these Canes up in the middle of the night

Cuz this is the CH's day

Goin' south now to North Carolina

Justin Williams beware

An eye for an eye I swear

Xhekaj is comin' for you down in North Carolina

Such a whale of a place

Such a tragic (coach's) face

A kid named Sebastien Aho

Took Bergy's offer sheet

He wanted to become a Hab

But the Canes owner, he was piqued

So he matched the Habs' offer

Said: "Kid, you're my property"

"You can sign Bergy's offer sheet 

But you can never leave"

A kid named Kotkaniemi

Thought 6 mill sounded nice

And he found: "We are all just prisoners here

Upon our agents' advice"

And in Brind-Amour's chambers

They haven't played in two weeks

They shoot the puck from every corner of the ice

But they still can't win the East

#GoHabsGo

Love these Habs now

Love These Habs Now

(apologies to Mon Rovîa) 

Do you hear the Bell Centre roar?

Do you recall when you heard that before

Times ain't the same in the Atlantic

Got a bunch of teams juiced like hell

While the refs keep their whistles on the shelf 

 

Do you see the Habs compete

Fighting for every inch of that ice sheet

SFU can write them off as small and weak

But they battle hard cuz they ain't meek

Ain't gonna knock 'em off their feet

 

Love these Habs now

Show em' MSL 

Lindy's Sabres are playing on a heavy foot

And they're trying to keep the Habs down

But no they're never gonna push 'em around

 

They scored fast to start Game 3

But the pushback was more than they'd seen

Newhook and Dach and Slafkovsky

Outclassed the Sabres wicked clean

Showed 'em what it means to be a team

 

Did you see their captain Dahleen?

Norris hopeful, beautiful sheen

Cheap-shotting everyone he can find

Cuz he knows the refs know when to be blind

Man, that's a different kind of weak

Love these Habs now

Show em' MSL 

Lindy's Sabres are playing on a heavy foot

And they're trying to beat the Habs down

But no they're never gonna keep the Habs down

Did you see the scrum in Game 2?

Benson down prone all vulnerable

Mike Matheson protected him well

Union brothers, man, should be a tell

Love these Habs now

Show em' MSL 

Lindy's Sabres are playing on a heavy foot

And they're trying to beat the Habs down

But no they're never gonna push 'em around

 

Deep Playoff Run (apologies to CHappell Roan)

(Sung to the tune of "Pink Pony Club")

 

I know you wanted me to stay

Mired in the Atlantic division, out of Bettman’s way

And I heard Saint-Louis’s sage conseil

Where players on this Habs team are teammates all the way

 

I’m having wicked dreams

Of Habs supremacy

Oh, playoffs’ final round

I swear it’s calling me

Won’t make ol’ Bettman proud

It’s gonna cause a scene

He sees a Canadian team

I know he’s gonna scream

 

God, what have you done?

There are deep playoff rounds

Where Habs don’t belong

Yo mama, we’re having great fun

 

On the ice with FastLane

Where the CH belong all pushing for a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonnn keep on hoping for a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on cheering

Down at Brasserie CHerrier

I’m gonna keep on rooting for a

Deep playoff run, deep playoff run

 

Newhook scored, and jaws are on the floor

Tage Thompson in the bathroom spewing vomit at the door

Blackout zones; fans screwed throughout it all

Every night’s another reason why the Habs won’t fall

 

I thank my wicked dreams

Of Habs supremacy

Oh, playoffs’ final round

Are you that far from me?

Won’t make ol’ Bettman proud

It’s gonna cause a scene

He sees a Canadian team

I know he’s gonna scream

God, what have you done?

There are deep playoff rounds

Where the Habs don’t belong

Yo mama, we’re having great fun

 

On the ice with our hockey ghosts

It’s where we belong down in a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on hoping for a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on cheering

Down at Brasserie CHerrier

I’m gonna keep on rooting for a

Deep playoff run, deep playoff run

 

Don’t think of players left behind

Still love Price and Weber

You’re always on my mind 

And Gary, every Saturday

I can hear your lawyery drawl a thousand miles away, saying

God, what have you done?

There are deep playoff rounds

Where the Habs don’t belong

Yo mama, we’re having great fun

 

On the late Springtime ice

It’s where we belong down in a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on hoping for a

Deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on cheering

Down at Brasserie CHerrier

I’m gonna keep on rooting for a

Deep playoff run, deep playoff run

I’m gonna keep on hopin’!

Notes on a World of Flux

So... 

     Pierre Poilievre doesn't like fast trains that reduce greenhouse gas emissions over jet travel (and free up existing rail infrastructure for freight). And he's against taxing gasoline. And he wants more pipelines for O&G.

You think this he's stumping for O&G? Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Poilievre calls for federal tax holiday on fuel as gas prices spike / CBC News 

 ... 

      You won't be missed, François Legault, you Duplessis wannabe who refused to accept Quebec is as guilty of systemic racism as any continental collonial society:

Un dernier tour de piste pour Legault 

Another (final) day, another law to curtail Quebecers' Charter rights. What a piece of shit.

Que le CAQastrophe s'arrêter toute de suite!

 ...

     Finally, I think it's time to put pressure on Montreal-based, Quebec-subsidized GardaWorld to divest itself of its US concentration camp construction subsidiary.

How Montreal-based GardaWorld stands to cash in on U.S. immigration crackdown / CBC News

Jimmy Kimmel is 2025's WTC2

Any of you who were born after, say, 1990 might not get that reference.

For those who don't, when the first World Trade Center tower in NYC (WTC1) had a passenger jet horrifically slam into it on September 11, 2001, it at first was taken to be merely a terrible, one-off accident.

But as soon as the VERY SAME THING happened to the other twin tower, WTC2, just minutes later, we all knew this was no accident; and that whatever we knew about the whole damn world up to that point, it would from this point on be quite disquietingly different.

We have since relaxed a little bit on that front, but other nefarious developments have ensued.

A few short weeks ago, as with the attack on WTC1 (in this case, the goal of POTUS being: All Dissent Must Die), Paramount Pictures responded to what essentially amounted to a Cease and Desist order (yet of no greater heft than simply a reading of the tea leaves of the current US executive branch's communications team). It decreed the end of a multi-generational TV franchise known as Late Night, effectively silencing the most potent voice of dissent - that enjoys perhaps the greatest reach - and imbues itself with the most moral, intelligent, US-patriotic heart, Stephen Colbert.

Now, do either Colbert or Kimmel really have the same reach through legacy mass media as their contemporary online "influencers" and other web-based media personalities have with the youth demographic? Or with the people who can move the needle on the raw societal power that dictates whether a regime holds on, or gets toppled? I'm not sure, but I'm thnking that the late Charlie Kirk and his Super PAC Trump fundraising organization certainly did.

I called it over a year ago: American democracy is effectively dead, and a slew of alarmingly dubious subsequent SCOTUS decisions have since supported that hypothesis, sacrificing long-standing and hard-fought principles to the dictates of the current dictator, justice bedamned.

As a Canadian with friends and family tied to both our countries, it makes me very sad to realise this is where the USA is at. I can only presume that we Canadians must work hard and fast to extricate ourselves from this exploding meth lab from hell that is happening on the other side of the border.

Hoping beyond hope that I'm doomsayin' and totally chicken-littlin' and y'all good real American patriots who see the true-true of ths situation are still able to get yinselves outta it. (no disrespect; it's just how my old school-age buddy Doug McClelland - transplanted to Sherbrooke, Quebec in the 1980s from western Pennsylvania - would've said it.)

I hope yins're okay, Doug, wherever you are. Thank you for sharing your beautiful bluegrass Appalachian heritage with me way back when. Would that we could continue to share and prosper and understand each other across this long border with such ease and grace as you and I knew back then.

Peace out.

- 30 -

Thank you again, Mike Myers #ElbowsUp + which DC/Marvel Universe's Mark Carney is this anyway?

Frankly, it's pretty crazy. We only learned last Friday afternoon (June 27th, 2025) that the U.S. government is holding 55 Canadian citizens hostage, after the Canadian minister for Foreign Affairs, Anita Anand, had spoken to the Canadian news media (or at least, CTV news reporter Luca Caruso-Moro).

It was a full four days after the death of a 49-year-old Canadian citizen, Johnny Noviello, in an unidentified Miami detention center that is being used by the United States Department of Homeland Security (DOH) to temporarily house individuals scooped up extra-constitutionally by their ICE agents (a bunch more ragtag than any lackeys of a Captain Hook or b-grade comic book villain imaginable).

More than 48 hours later, and still an agnostic search through duckduckgo fails to return anything from the prompt: "around 55 Canadians ICE june 27" from any Canadian legacy news outlet beyond BellMedia-owned CTV News or the far less ubiquitous urbanews.ca.

So where-oh-where are all you reporter guys, eh?? Silenced on this for some reason? Too many senior newsroom staff on vacation, with a bunch of young, under-trained interns at the tiller? (Yeah, the only excuses I can come up with are all lame-assed).

- Whither CBC / Radio-Canada?

- Global News?

- LaPresse?

- journaldeMontreal et TVA?

- postmedia outlets (montrealgazette/ottawacitizen/calgaryherald +) ?

Take it from a guy who studied the history of journalism (and lived it for the past 40 or so years): In any other timeline, Minister Anand's revelation would be an all-caps STOP THE PRESSES bombshell that would capture the nation's attention, even when dropped late on a Friday afternoon going into a sorta long weekend during the vaunted "honeymoon period" all shiny-new Prime Ministers of Canada get via Unwritten Clause No. 42 of the How the Parliamentary Gallery Shall Behove Themselves to Behave Act of 1937. (NOTE for the unlearned: That is not a real Act, but a rhetorical construct - please spare whatever AI app you have at your disposal from attempting to square it with reality.)

Ahem,.. As i was saying, it was not so long ago that the unwarranted detentions of the "two Michaels" (Spavros and Kovrig, held as political prisoners by the Communist Chinese government) was the main focus of our Parliamentary newshounds, until the two were finally repatriated, amidst lacklustre plauditry from a press gallery that by then had tired greatly of the seeming omnipresence of Justin Trudeau in the role of Canadian Prime Minister.

Two (2) men then = HUGE STORY! Fifty-five (55) today? (at least, we think - it could be more or less, but nobody seems to be pressing the government on it...) NOT WORTH MENTIONING; NOR FOLLOWING UP ON IN THE NEXT TWO NEWS CYCLES !!

For me, this is a huge fail. Regardless of the "caving" on the DST without being able to show any progress whatsoever on Canada's griefs with regards to the US govt. failing to meet their own end of the accepted USCMA trade agreement, this is just a huge failure of Basic Governance 101: protect your citizens against foreign threats.

SIDE NOTE: Some, like my loving partner, @mmmanon dot bsky dot whatever it is (probably rhymes with Tom), have been steadfast in supporting the man whom Mike Myers entrusted to keep his #ElbowsUp for Canada, despite her concern that in practice, Mark Carney isn't really giving much of a shit about the deepening Bibi-led Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

Allow me to second her concern.

Now, let's take a step back. After all, Mark Carney did woo us in a time (scant months ago) when the prospect of a Pierre Poilievre, "What, me worry about Security Clearance?" Prime Ministership was seemingly inevitable, with its national hell-vision of a bloodthirsty, anti-abortionist, EEEEEEE-vangelical Kuh-Ristion Gun-Totin' ANTI-ANTIFA, pro-scuzzbucket Canada.

Is this some kind of "4D chess" our PM is playing here? Despite being in the good books of ESH (Evil Stephen Harper), is he, Mark Carney, actually the decent, caring guy we saw on the campaign trail? A guy who knows what he's doing, even while all recent evidence points to the opposite direction?

I sure hope so. Because usually, when one party concedes something substantial in a negotiation (like, I dunno, a multi-billion-dollar tax imposed on disgustingly-profitable net-based billionaire companies that suck their profits from starving Canadian content providers), it comes with a return. I understand our PM is perhaps better acquainted with hockey metaphors than RealPolitik, so hear this: If the Montreal Canadiens' GM Kent Hughes gives up something in a trade, there is a defined return. And if that return is unsatisfactory, the knives come out among the fanbase. A return of equal value, or heads roll. You know? Chew on that, hmm?

Dateline: Sunday, June 29, 2025...

With those 55 - shit, we don't even have an exact number, let alone the names - Canadians being held hostage like this, why give up the DST (and the expressed will of the Parliament of Canada that worked to make it law) for the mere pittance of being allowed to simply enjoin the MAGA lackeys about possible points of trade negotiation that this very government has proven time and time again they will only deign to respect at their own whim?! Why not speak up for those 55? You are the Prime Minister! This falls on you. It is your responsibility and no one else's. In case you weren't aware, Canada is counting on you. It should be obvious to a mega-brain like you.

You know? It is an outrage that this is the case, and it should be commanding your attention right now. Is your head too far up your investment managner/banker ass to see this?? Wakey-wakey!

It defies belief. I know Mark Carney hasn't been PM for very long, but he should understand that if there is one, sacred responsibility of anyone who is in that role, it is to be a steadfast champion of the citizens who elected them to that position. And that means ALL CITIZENS.

Big lesson: whatever genius wheeling and dealing Carney is doing dans les coullisses (behind the scenes), he absolutely CANNOT let something like this pass. Because each of those citizens - and shame on this government that we don't know the precise number of them - matter. The way all people matter. And today or tomorrow, if you don't call it out as completely unacceptable (because that is what leaders do, as your predecessor Justin Trudeau took to heart), GODDAMN you should learn a thing or two from him, even if he didn't go to Oxford and Harvard - next, it could be me. Or you. Or (heaven forbid) one of your children. Or my co-worker who is sent to the US head office on a business trip, but suddenly is snatched and taken away on dubious pretexts, like what happened to Ottawa engineer Maher Arar not so long ago.

Multiple Universes?

Unless... scenario 1: Carney is so cunningly shrewd none of us can see what he's ultimately up to, and we shall be forever grateful to him, upon realizing he is actually the Best PM Ever!, and (hey, just give him time), eventually we'll all be rich and Canada will be leading the world in humanitarian-grounded, indigenous-respecting, eco-friendly and forward-thinking prosperity built on unicorn glitter and a touch of inventive (but purely legal) Mark Carney™ accounting that even the most Capital-C Conservative minds will get behind.

Or... scenario 2:

We've been duped by a cunning, life-long capital-protecting wolf in sheep's clothing that will sell us all down the river to pad their own pocketbooks and secure their own upper-class family's future, damn the torpedos, full steam ahead and let the cards fall where they may. Pour me another Scotch, chin-chin.

I watched Mike Myers give a lengthy interview to CBCnews' Paul Hunter this evening. He was asked why he went out on a limb and made that "Elbows Up" TV ad, strongly endorsing Mark Carney during the election campaign. His answer: "Is (Carney) the Almighty? No. But is he the alternative? Yes." This summed up my own thinking upon having leant Carney my support.

DC has its "Infinite Earths"

Marvel has its "Multiple Universes"

And we Canadians are stuck in this timeline, which just might have itself a Jekyl & Hyde Prime Minister, using the moment to fool us all into working for our own collective damnation.

Or... scenario 3 (unicorn land):

On Canada Day, July 1st, 2025, PM Mark Carney welcomes home the "around 55" Canadians upon landing in Canada, free from their hellish ordeal in ICE ill-defined detention, for specious reasons that don't even give a crap about their rights as Canadian citizens. A victory that shows Canada that Mark Carney's got the goods.

That's the Universe Canada deserves to find itself in on this Canada Day, and I'll bet Mike Myers (as well as most Canadians) would be behind that, full-square.

Happy Canada Day!

Now: May the real Mr. Carney please stand up?

Make me believe in unicorns.

- 30 -

Sunday Congratulations

Congrats to Kelly Cup champs the Trois-Rivières Lions and MVP goalie Luke Cavallin, whose playoff numbers were killer. .948 save % and 1.53 avg.

Equal congrats to 18-year-old Summer McIntosh for obliterating the Women's 400-m world record by more than a full second at the Canadian trials.

Equal congrats and solidarity to every peaceful protester putting their lives on the line in the streets of LA to stand up for their fellow citizens, for their country's democratic norms and for the rule of law against authoritarianism generally.

All them fascists are bound to lose.

Courage!

https://youtu.be/SFPL97m2dsw?si=-9mS1fr5NiVoyiGk

The Habs have a fast Lane

(With apologies to the great Tracy Chapman)

We got David Savard

Blocks lots of shots

With his Stanley Cup rings

But his body’s getting old for defendin’

Can’t keep up with the young new wingers

Need to find talented young blood on the blue line

Somebody’s got to take care of it

So Hughes and Gorton got to work

And that’s what they did

We had a Weber once

And a Danault and a Lehkonen and a Toffoli too

And a Covid-shortened season

And a window to a playoff run

But Price’s knees had a problem

And Weber’s foot was totally finished

Somebody had to replace them

But Bergy had no answers so he earned a pink slip

Cuz I remember when we were driving

Driving for that Cup

Won three big series

Felt like I was drunk

Beating Leafs, Jets and Knights 

Put them in the rearview mirror

And I had a feeling 25 would come

And I had a feeling we could beat anyone

Anyone

Now we got a fast Lane

Skates like the wind

And dekes like a demon

He ain’t too tall or beefy

But he really knows what it means to be scorin’

And we got a Demidov

A young new stud with ridiculous talent

And we got Caufield too

And Laine and Captain Suzuki too

These guys are all just blooming

Best years ahead and no foreseeable limits

And Anderson and Gally still here

Not to mention Armia and Evans 

Now we got a Wild Card

And we can take Washington

Just like the War of 1812

And a new White House that’s fit for burning

And I have a feeling 25 could come

And I have a feeling we can beat anyone

Anyone

GO HABS GO!

[Next year!]

Canada Is

Canada is a sovereign country

Canada is a rich mosaic

Of equal, beautiful parts

Native and landed

Ruled by laws

Not men.

We will never succumb

#CanadaIs #no51stState

Hello Alphabet Overlords! Time to take stock

It's been over 19 years since I created this account, and I am grateful.

You have provided a platform that has allowed me to reach out to all the world.

This was a crazy idea to me at the time. Who was I to merit such a broad audience? As soon as I hit that big, beautiful Publish button, any tripe I felt like spewing out to the world was placed upon a platter, and thrust out to whomever might wander into it, be they critical thinkers of advanced schooling, or babes in the proverbial woods, ready to be led down any candy-strewn path I artfully laid out. What fun!

O what fun indeed.

How devilishly we could now bypass all the gatekeepers carefully put in place by governmental agencies designed to keep at least a second, accountable, pair of eyes between any silly idea I might have, and the masses of media consumers.

I quickly learned that despite having completed a BA in journalism and communications at Concordia University, wherein only third-year students got to dip their toes into opinion writing - with learned professors guiding our neophyte hubris into responsible conjecture, anything I posted here was at an even keel with anything anybody else felt like posting here. All any of us needed was an email address, free for the taking on (take your pick) hotmail, yahoo, gmail, aol, and many others. 

This was not normal; in fact, it was revolutionary. Before this platform existed, we had to either suck up to The Man (you must always capitalize the T and the M in that construction if you want to get ahead) and sell our souls licking enough bums to get up to the "column-writer" floor, or go punk rock to make our voices heard. And that required at least learning a handful of guitar chords and organizing a couple of people to supply a rhythm section and a PA.

So yes, thank you, Blogger (long ago acquired by "Do No Evil" Google, before they went public and eventually dropped that motto, because a little evil never hurt, right?) becoming Alphabet, much like Facebook and Instagram are now part of Meta, so it goes.

I recall in my 1988 interview with the Concordia Journalism heads, that I made a case for the need for journalistic copy to have entertainment value, in an age where television ruled and the general public was drawn more to the sensationalism and emotive reach of that medium than to the sanguine realm of the written word. 

Today, I seek the written word still in my news-hounding habits, preferring the written account on cnn.com or globaltv.com or aljazeera.net to their YouTube videos or snippets on other platforms. I have no idea how many of the Websites in this blog's sidebar remain relevant, and I actually prefer to keep it that way, as some kind of modern relic to a past that changes and folds in upon itself too quickly for me to even attempt to keep up. And our legacy news media are becoming increasingly degraded by money and foreign ownership by outfits with dubious and sometimes nefarious ambitions. They are prey to the behemoth of "lost eyeballs" to newer, online-only (and largely unregulated) media known harrowingly as "influencers" despite their needing no more credence to the title than the same access to online publishing as any of us have, disastrously.

Only the non-profit LaPresse seems to have found a model of online journalism that is sustainable, and that is likely impossible to recreate outside of Quebec's distinctly French-speaking media market bubble.

Looking back, I have certainly failed to garner much of an audience on this platform, as well as on my Twitter, Bluesky and Youtube accounts, perhaps because I lack the savvy and fastidiousness of others; or perhaps because I haven't kept posting regularly; never spent any money to buy followers; never sold out to Russian or other foreign interests; never said anything here that wasn't purely from the heart, or easily read off my tattered sleeve, as it were.

But today I am in a different mindset than 19 years ago. Today I worry that too few of our younger generations give any credence to the written word. It is so hard to convince my 11 year-old daughter or her older brothers and sister of the joy and growth they can experience with reading a goddamned book once in a while. Or even getting their news from sources that parlay the facts, eschew bias and refuse to "go to print" with single-sourced information they haven't yet corroborated. 

The editorial function is vital to keeping the general public informed without prejudice. And an ill-informed public has a crippling effect on democracy. And if we lose our democracy, we will live in a state of misery only past generations of Canadians, long since passed from this mortal coil, have known. I want better than that for my family. We must get everyone reading, and thinking critically, and demanding factual, second-source-verifiable information, before making a decision.

Today, I seek out these sources for reliable information:

juancole.com

aljazeera.com

bsky.social

therover.ca

thetyee.ca

ricochet.media

lapresse.ca (Quebecois French)

radio-canada and cbc news (avoiding much of the opinion stuff)

 

And do make a habit of reading books, gentle reader, always. I recently finished Sarah Kendzior's They Knew and Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and I am now in the throes of Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie. I am re-reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, who in particular, writes so beautifully it lifts me to heights I never before imagined. 

Again, thank you, Alphabet, for the platform. I hope I haven't contributed too much to the crapfest of stupidity, despite needing to be my own editor. As we say here in la Belle Province, c'est plat.

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The end of American democracy

[This ruling] ...creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now "lies about like a loaded weapon" for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation… The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune…

 

The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

--Dissenting opinion of SCOTUS Justice Sotomayor

 

Earlier today - Canada Day for us Canadians, now even prouder so than e'er before, given how much we tend to define ourselves in relation to our southern neighbors (you no longer rate the British "u" in this neighbourhood, bro") - the American republic effectively self-immolated.

 

As the British would say, that's a wash. As in, when Richard M. Nixon, post-resignation, said in the famous 1977 Frost interview, "When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal."

 

For my whole life, since learning US history from Saturday morning US of Archie cartoons on American network TV, I have been told of the sanctity of the U.S. Constitution. It used to matter. All pols used to declare their steadfast allegiance to that document, to its principles, above all else. But that's all gone now.

 

I'm talking about the whole American experiment with democracy. That thing that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams and James Madison and Alexander Hamilton and a few others got going back in the 18th century that was all built on the concepts of the Age of Reason and a Declaration of Independence.

 

Oh, it was a nice bit of theater for a quarter-millenium, but in the end, the concept of three co-equal branches of government fucked itself over. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States of America gave carte-blanche to completely immasculate itself to one of the two other branches (the Executive one, the President).

 

This is all a scam, of course, to help foster criminal immunity to Donald J. Trump, that rascal of rascals, who has crimed his way to the very top of an international crime syndicate masquerading as a government, as U.S. journalist and author Sarah Kendzior so bluntly ascribed this cabal of the omni-rich plutocracy/autocracy/kleptocracy (basically, if it ends in ocracy and isn't prefixed by "dem" you know you're one of the chumps on the outside looking in).

 

Meanwhile, the sometimes-coherent current President of the United States, Joseph Robinet (that means "sink faucet" in French btw) Biden decried this judgment as "a dangerous precedent… The only limits will be self-imposed by the president."

The presidency is the most powerful office in the world. It's an office that not only tests your judgment; perhaps even more importantly, it's an office that can test your character.

Because you're not only faced with moments where you need the courage to exercise the full power of the office of the presidency. You also face moments where you need the wisdom to respect the limits of the power of the presidency. This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each of us is equal before the law. No one is above the law - not even the President of the United States. But (with) today's Supreme Court decision on Presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all practical purposes, today's decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a President can do. This is a fundamentally new principle. And it's a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even and inclucing the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the President.

 

I watched this 73-second performance a few times while transcribing it. It leaves me more bereft than hopeful.

 

Like his steadfast support for the Zionist project of Israel in the Levant, where the worst proclivities of the ruling class render him a worldwide laughingstock while Netanyahu's racist and autocratic government continues its brutal assault on the Gazans and West Bank Palestinians in what will surely be seen in years hence as a classic and particularly heinous crime against humanity, Biden's outrage on this quintessential and existential crisis in the American project lands deflated of the gravity deserving of the matter at hand, regardless of how expertly-coined his comms team has so painstakingly crafted each word for his oh-so-forgiving teleprompter.

 

Ironically, it was just last year, just before the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, that the Israeli Supreme Court (as a branch of a governing structure greatly inspired by the American model) found itself forced to affirm its own sanctity within the political structure, thwarting the dictatorial impulses of the wily President. 

Like a good disciple of US President George W. Bush, Bibi knows well the self-preserving balm furnished by being a "War President" prosecuting an esoteric war of unattainable goals. Until All Terrorists Against the USA Are Completely Destroyed, meet: Until All of Hamas Is Completely Destroyed - in both cases, creating more enemies among the survivors with each coldly-calculated war crime. So to perpetuate the state of endless war, and the need to seek refuge in the Great, Strong Protector-Leader Who Will Keep Us All Safe™

(that is Fascism, folks. That scourge that cost some 61 million lives between 1937-45)

 

Biden obviously doesn't know what he is doing. On one hand, he is trying to uphold the concept of the integrity of the nation-state against naked aggression (Russia's invasion of Ukraine), while on the other, he unquestioningly supports the Israeli-Zionist cause as it follows the worst examples of Nazi Germany in dehumanizing the Palestinians whose only real crime is being in their way (of total domination of some of the most precious real estate in the world).

Carl Bernstein on CNN, earlier today: Multiple sources tell him that there have been at least 15 occasions in the last year and a half “where the president has appeared like he did at that horror show (his debate performance).” Bernstein reports that in the last six months sources have told him that there has been a marked incidence of cognitive decline. He says that his sources have gone to Ron Klain in the last year to express concern about the President losing his train of thought and not having the ability to pick up where he left off.

If this is the most powerful man in the world, one must ask, why does he appear so desperately weak?

 

As history shows us, it is the perfect recipe for an authoritarian with the very worst impulses to come up and assume power.

 

Biden must step down. Or the United States is over. And that leaves the world in a very unstable place.

 

 - 30 -

Further reading:

https://www.authoritarianplaybook2025.org/

Gaza genocide: We can stop this if we all push

Today in Montreal, the courts ruled in favour of the students camped out in support of the Palestinian people against the overblown Israeli government's genocidal response to the Hamas attack of last October.

McGill University had sought an injunction to forcibly remove them, but ultimately was thwarted by the Quebec Superior Court and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (ahem, Mr. Anthony Housefather).

When I was in school (alas, decades ago), I was introduced to the Clash and like them, I studied how the CIA destroyed the Chilean socialist govt of Allende (the Chilean 9/11) and what Nixon and his Sec. of State Kissinger did to Southeast Asia, Nicaragua (the Sandinistas), El Salvador and on and on, so I have no illusions of the USA being the good guys (but as Canadians, we are kinda' geographically stuck being their international lackeys).

In this case, with how events are spiraling out of control in the Middle East, it seems bigger. It seems like a real point of no return is happening here.

Anyway, I am currently reading a book called They Knew by Sarah Kendzior. She is a 40-something US investigative journalist and she has all the receipts about the corruption between Bibi, the Saudis, Modi, Putin, Trump, the UAE (and many other powerful US pols, Republican and Democratic), and yes, Stephen Harper and his patently anti-democratic, Orwellian-named group, the International Democratic Union, that is working hard behind the scenes to put autocratic dictators in power everywhere they can. 

Meanwhile, I see Egypt joining with South Africa in calling on the ICJ to prosecute Israel for genocide, breaking with a truce they've had with Israel since I was a little boy (also surely breaking former US President Jimmy Carter's 99 year-old heart - although I can almost picture him silently nodding in resigned accord).

But at the same time, we must be encouraged by these student protests.

When I was a young college student, I watched the Berlin Wall fall - the Iron Curtain as well -  and the pressure people all over the world put on the Afrikaaners, Botha and later deKlerk, to free Nelson Mandela and eventually end Apartheid in South Africa. 

Yeah, no way would you catch us playing Sun City.

Mandela's ANC was a "terrorist" and "communist" organization, as our news outlets pointedly reminded us at every opportunity. It isn't without irony that Hamas and Hezbollah are listed as such today. 

Now, they are both surely ruthlessly brutal in their methods (Hamas especially, as we saw on October 7, 2023), but when a people have been put in a position where they see no other way to survive, what else should one expect?

As even the untrustworthy Israeli government attests, the Palestinians in the West Bank (including their leaders) had nothing to do with the October attack, despite the fact that for decades, their physical environment has been forcibly shrunk. Lately, their homes have even being torched or stolen by Jewish "settlers" (at the pleasure of the Israeli justice system) with no recourse. 

Meanwhile, this current starvation and ethnic cleansing in Gaza is a Bibi-made horror. 

Essentially, Joe Biden is making this horror story possible with his almost maudlin, unwavering support of this Israeli government, sealed with the kiss of UN Security Council vetoes and endless shipments of bombs and arms. Clearly, Biden must stop Bibi and the Likud and the cabal of Kahanists and their other dehumanizing rightwing allies currently in charge of Israel, and he should have done so months ago.

So I made a small donation today to UNRWA to help alleviate the Gazans' suffering. And I put my moral support behind the protesting students, and I wish to remind you all that at least one time in my life, we witnessed a change that came about from the steadfast pressure common people put on South Africa to end Apartheid, and it actually worked.

And maybe, just maybe, we can do it again.

If we all push.

PUSH!

- 30 -

PS: please go to wikipedia.org or juancole.com or aljazeera.com or cbc.ca for supporting links not provided. Or better yet, get yourself some hard copies of what's going on now. The links might not last forever.

PS 2: shameless addition of self-aggrandizing video but hey, it's also a gol-dang catchy song: 

Keep your feet planted, folks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJoX95fK_N8

To the Honourable Anthony Housefather

Hello! I just donated to your riding association, although I happen to live in the PM's riding. I wonder what he is thinking?

I did this to reward your courage in standing up for the constitution and voting against inexplicable party lines on Bill C-13. I am no lawyer, but it does seem dubious for a federal law to cite a provincial law that is itself still under judicial challenge as a possibly unconstitutional piece of legislation. I hope this small gesture helps the Liberal party understand the folly of incorporating the dishonest, cynical Quebec language law into Bill C-13, which I was impressed to see you voted against. Meanwhile others in your caucus chose either to put water in their wine as they answered the whip, or step down (such as the honourable MP for NDG-Westmount, Marc Garneau).

I was born in Sherbrooke and now live in Montreal, with two children educated in the CSDM and a third (as well as a grandchild) educated in English school boards (in a half-half English/French curriculum). I have never lived outside of Quebec, yet have always felt less than fully welcome here, but also not quite at home in any other province I have visited - the classic anglo-Quebec conundrum, eh? I am afraid my French is good but not great. Meanwhile I am proud that my kids' French is as easy for them as their mother tongue. I imagine this is a similar story to others you have heard over the years, from more than a few of your own constituents.

Learning French to the level required for much of this province's employers' needs is a great challenge for so many Canadians who are also English-speaking Quebecers; we try to learn and understand and speak and use French well enough to fit in. We hope to not only find our place, but to thrive in this environment that is becoming more and more unforgiving to those who cannot claim to be fully francophone.

So the last thing we need is for Ottawa to abandon the vision of a bilingual country.

Proficiency in one of the two official languages (but not the other) must not mean lowered expectations from our fundamental Charter rights if it is the "wrong language" of the two for the province in which they reside. I appreciate that you get this, and that you are (bizarrely) alone in the Liberal caucus in trying to maintain the integrity of the Charter in this way.

I recall my own MP, Justin Trudeau, celebrating the Charter's anniversary in earlier years as LPC leader, and I am gobsmacked that today he doesn't seem to understand the importance that his own father - and every other preceding LPC leader since - had placed in the inviolability of the Charter.

The Charter is the culmination of everything our ancestors built to distinguish us as a polity and it should be revered across the land, full stop. Allowing it to be degraded, and legitimizing its degradation by enshrining a provincial law that brazenly and even seditiously undermines it, is an abomination to the document signed in 1982 by QEII, and puts us subservient to any lickspittle Canadian-opportunist to wriggle their way up from the muck, be they a Bloqist or a Pollievre.

I attach here a picture of my great-great-great grandfather, Norman Murray, taken somewhere around what is now Cookshire, QC. He was a Scotsman by birth, pushed off his ancestral land by British loyalists; he and others of my ancestors from Ireland, Scotland and England all found their way to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, not necessarily as Empire Loyalists, but as people hoping to find a future in a fair and just new world, where the weight of old grievances about heritage might be shed, in favour of building a fresh future in a new world of egalitarian hope.

He did just that. My whole family line did, in fact: McCallums, Hodges, Richardsons, Stevensons, Cowans and others that landed in the Eastern Townships in the 18th and 19th centuries. My wife is a French Canadian with at least one family name of Scottish descent, but raised bilingual and comfortable in both the English and French communities - or if you will, our common, unlabeled, community. My 9-year old daughter's best friend, meanwhile, is a Nigerian immigrant who is striving to learn French (his Mom too) and adapting in an environment that sadly tells him systemic racism isn't a thing in Quebec, at least, according to the Premier.

In short, I don't want my kids or theirs to have to bear labels that render them somewhat less free than their fellow citizens. Listening to you in the local media, I feel that inherently you know how to make this case within your caucus, in a way that escapes the criticism of being hyperbolic or alarmist.

I hope you know there are many more Montrealers and Quebecers that applaud you and hope that we can keep the Charter inviolable (and indeed, restore the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to its own original expression of collegial high-minded clarity), as all individual rights ought to be in a free and democratic society such as ours. 

To see our rights subjected to blanket use of the notwithstanding clause - used so cravenly by the CAQ in Bill 96 - is not becoming of a supposedly modern constitutional monarchy. And if the constitution part is left to the whims of any populist government that comes along, then all we are left with is the other part. Now, I beg your pardon, but I don't believe King Charles III is at all up to the task, leaving us with a political black hole of gravitational heft to suck us all into itself. So my contribution to your riding association is meant both as a thank you, and to foster a little more oxygen for the fire in your belly.

As the Honourable Clifford Lincoln said, "rights are rights." Mr. Trudeau, copied here, I know you have bravely stood up for many politically difficult but important principles, and for that I remain a supporter. But how could you forget the Charter!? Mr. Housefather is right on this one.

Godspeed!

Scott in Montreal

ADDENDUM 

Here on the 20th November, 2023, I now find myself rather at odds with Mr. Housefather - but on another matter.

Turns out he is a turncoat to justice, happy to make common cause with the fascistic Conservatives informed by their evangelical Christian doctrines that seek to bring upon the Apocalypse, and undermine the message of the Canadian Prime Minister, who is working to forestall genocidal treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza by the completely off-leash Israeli government under the criminal Netanyahu.

If Anthony Housefather had an ounce of integrity he would hold Netanyahu to the same smell-test as his own party leader.

The fact he has flown to Israel to support this criminally overblown, inhumane, response and its nakedly genocidal tendencies that level-headed Jewish scholars find they need to call out, leaves me heartbroken. What Hamas did on October 7 was absolutely horrific, but I don't want to live in a world where this overblown response from Israel is in any way justified. 

This is the 21st Century. There is no supremacy of any race, creed, religion or mother tongue.

Enough!+

E

FUCKIN

NUFF

- 30 -