Can't...Stop...Election...Spider...Senses...Failing

For all that I've tried to squelch the voices in my head, they won't shut up. Of course, it doesn't help that those voices are real. Yes, I'm not going insane, I'm just in a Canadian election where Steven Harper goes on and on and ON in that faux gentle, calming tone of his that just makes me want to leap up and throttle him. One wonders if he thinks he's hypnotizing his listeners (entirely probable) or just never mastered that human element called emotion (presuming he's an evil Vulcan from Star Trek V).

In any event, I'm officially dreading Monday night. Everybody's talking Conservative minority - even me. I'm just hoping for a narrow margin - say 114 - 110 with the rest over to the Bloc and the NDP. The advantage to living in BC is that I will go to bed with that knowledge. Whether I'll be able to sleep is another matter.

Then Tuesday comes the pain. And we'll sit back and watch the horror unfold in agonizing slow motion. There's always the hope, though, that the Conservatives will proceed to shoot themselves in the foot, over and over again, because of their finally-unfettered, long-frustrated enthusiasm to reshape Canada in their image.

What is that image, you ask? A bunch of aging white men with sycophantic younger white men with one hand in the literal and figurative cookie jar. Women will well-advised to run for the hills or hang out with the gays someplace secure.

Don't even get me started on the goings on south of the border - Cheney gets potty-mouthed all over the Senate (can I please spank him? please? I'll make it so that he WON'T enjoy it), and the United States Congress passes yet more laws to make it easier to prosecute and punish the scourge of American society - not terrorists or drug dealers, no - those dastardly purveyors of all things evil and sleazy: file traders and "pirates" (that was sarcasm, folks). Thank goodness for Michael Moore and Ireland.

If the Election Was a Reality Show

The debates are over. What a waste of time. Canadians were given the opportunity to see three aging white guys and one child recite slogans and berate each other with cheap shots like they were the next generation of Battling Robots. It was moronic. It was unrevealing. It was useless.

How’s about this? How about putting them all in a large room with a bar, a pulsing disco beat and a mirror ball and slipping them a tab of ecstasy?

They’d loosen their ties, white shirt flaps flopping like laundry day. They’d take a pull from their longneck beers, share a hastily rolled doobie, and start voguing.

Harper’s incredibly annoying, prissy, repressed demeanour would dissolve into a beaming, puffy, whitebread smile, and he’d finally say all the things that he’s been dying to say for months. It will be like the first bowel movement after a year of holding it in, and once he starts, he won’t be able to stop. Then, all his talk of cutting taxes and sticking it to the Liberals will be forgotten, and we’d hear something REALLY revealing.

“Oh, maaaaan. We are SO gonna take this country and give it a whole new look. No more of this gay rights crap. They can take what they’ve got and like it or lump it. Same goes for the women. (Swigs beer) I LOVE this song. I used to be such a great dancer. They told me not to do it, though…makes me look gay. Imagine that…me…look gay. Now Stockwell…Stockhell…Stockie…Stalker…heee…especially in that wetsuit. I’d like to see him on the dance floor in THAT. What? Nah. A guy can say that…doesn’t mean I’m gay. I mean, I’m not homophobic (drag from doobie). Just means I’m comfortable with my sexuality. Like…I can say that I think Stock is hot and nobody would think twice. I mean…he is, right? Women are always talking about it. Stock’s hot. Fills out a suit nicely. Great chest. Nice nipples, too…I seen ‘em. But it doesn’t mean I’m gay. 100% Canadian Beef…without the mad cow….HAW HAW HAW…we’ve even showered together, me and Stock, ‘cept he doesn’t like me to talk about it. And he definitely doesn’t want me to talk about the night we got drunk together. Said it never happened. Hey…wanna dance? I know you’re a guy, but hey…I’m comfortable with my sexuality.”

He’ll sway back and forth in that annoying, straight-guy-dancing style that says he’s not drunk/stoned/high enough to really let go.

Then the ganja will kick in. Another swig of beer. There’ll be a paroxysm of giggling.

Paul Martin will still somehow manage to look repressed. He’ll have that hangdog look of a man who’s spent the last thirty years in a mine. Then the floodgates will burst open like the Red River in springtime. “Fricking Chretien left me a land mine! ‘Your time will come,’ he said. I waited for 15 fricking years! I was a fricking miser with the budget so we could bring this country around. I played his fricking bad guy moneybags while he flew around the country looking apologetic saying he couldn’t afford any of his promises. Then, when he finally leaves…give me a drag of that, will ya…geez, this BC Bud is way better than what we had when I was young…(gasp)…good stuff…he finally leaves and Kablooie! Sponsorship. Of course I fricking new what was going on! Of course we were blowing millions of dollars! How could I not know! But that fricking Chretien left the fricking time bomb to blow up on my fricking watch. Gimme another beer, willya? Now look at that fricking Harper man-child shake his booty like some weirdo from Footloose. He’s gonna take it all, and what’s he done to deserve it? It’s supposed to be all mine and he’s gonna steal it out from under our noses. Where’s my beer? WHADDAYA MEAN I can’t have another beer? You’re the CBC. I pay your fricking SALARY. Do you want a job tomorrow or not???”

I’m sure he will say fricking until halfway through his second beer, at which time the inevitable and slight shift in his vocabulary only makes me smile.

Mr. Layton, leader of the NDP, is a different story. Methinks he’ll be well into his ecstasy high and nothing will stop him. He’ll be kissing everybody in the room, laughing with that ear-grating donkey-bray morphing into a shrill hyena cackle. Martin will wipe Layton’s kiss off with the crumpled handkerchief into which he’s started crying. Duceppe (yes, he’s there, he’s just claimed a corner of the dance floor of his own and won’t let anyone else join) will try to deflect Layton’s kiss into a “European” double cheek kiss, to no avail. Like a terrier, Layton won’t stop until he’s planted his moustache full on Duceppe’s lips, who will sputter like a Marx Brother having been duped by a rubber chicken. And when everything’s said and done, when the music finally stops, you’ll hear him shout one final epithet at Harper, who’s tried gamely to ignore him the whole night, “Well, F***, Harper…if no one else wants to go home with you, give me a try!”

That’s probably what we’d see. Yes – televise that for two hours and see how the election turns out.

Gilles Duceppe Pumps Iron???

Quelle horreur! During my lunch hour, I happened upon a Globe and Mail (okay, I nipped one off a counter in the Starblech/Timmy’s commons at the malloplex of choice – I think they’re for the use of the customers there, but it’s more fun to imagine myself a ne’er do well petty thief). In it was their coverage of the leaders’ debate last night and what should they discuss but what the respective politicos did during the day.

Duceppe, it seems, works out! Hmm, said I at the time, I’ve always thought he fills out his suits rather nicely. And then, WHAM! It hits me. I kinda think he’s hot.

Somebody save me.

Hate Law Lowdown

Okay – that’s enough. I’m tired of hearing about the new amendment to hate crime legislation being a shield for pedophiles. Beyond the ridiculous parallel between homosexuals and pedophiles (someone recently tried to define pedophilia as a sexual orientation using Black’s Law Dictionary, never mind that it is hardly a definitive source on this issue), has anyone taken the time to actually look at the legislation? I mean – is this really written so that it could be misconstrued to restrain religious speech?

According to the Criminal Code, Part VIII Offences Against the Person and Reputation, the legislation applies to people advocating or promoting genocide or inciting hatred against any identifiable group “where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” unless the statement is shown to be true, made in good faith to establish an opinion on a religious subject, relevant to public interest or made to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters that would incite hatred.

Sounds to me like the legislation is clear and won’t restrain the freedom of religion at all. Also sounds to me like the pedophile issue is a red herring. I mean – what different does it make who is the subject of the legislation? The point is – hate is bad and the incitement of such to the detriment of the public peace must be discouraged.

Christians who claim their mission is to bring the love of Christ to the world would do well to remember that.

If you want to look at the law, yourself, go to CanLII, Click on Canada Regulations and Statutes and enter "Criminal Code in the search form. Then click to the legislation. Or, if that doesn't get you right where you want to go, click here and here.

The End of Dissent in Canada?

I'm busy preparing for and attending class today (Saturday). But I've been mulling over events of the past couple days, and I'm already seeing a disturbing trend in Harper's Conservatives that reflects something that has happened in the U.S. in the past four years.

I believe Canada is unique in that we deal with deeply divisive and conflicted issues on the premise that it's okay to disagree - even with the government in power. The U.S., by reputation, was the world leader in allowing dissent, but the last four years have been a series of giant steps backwards, to the point where people are labeled traitors, cowards or worse when they don't adhere to the strict, Bush agenda. Were they to deal with something on the order of Quebec, I really believe they would have long ago broken out in more civil warfare.

But, if you want to see our future, look at how the Conservative Party conducts its campaign.

On June 9 at the all-candidates debate for Vancouver East, Conservative Candidate Harvey Grigg was heckled by someone in the audience. His response: "Sir, you can go home now, we've cleaned out your cage."

The statement itself is absolutely reprehensible (especially when you consider the 'heckler' was reputedly himself of Middle Eastern descent). But what followed was equally disturbing. Grigg's "handlers" pulled him away. When approached by reporters, they wouldn't let him speak.

Is this the future of our elected representatives? We vote for figureheads that sit dumbly in parliament and vote as they're told by they're "handlers"?

Of course, there's more than one way to squelch dissent. What if, rather than dragging the poor schmo who has the cajongas to disagree away from the spotlight, you just never bother to say anything to disagree with? Stephen Harper has discovered that Canadians aren't as universally fond of his social policies as at first he might have thought. So, slips of some of his cronies' tongues regarding abortion, equality rights and other social issues have opened some questions. How does he shut down dissent?

There's "Don't Speak to the Issue". This is characterized by the now-standard responses to challenging questions: "That's not what this campaign is about", "I don't think it's my place to comment on this issue", etc. Well, Mr. Harper, since it's clear you think your party will be ruling the roost for the next five years, how else are we to tell what will happen in the future?

There's the ever-popular - "Don't speak to the issue - mock the dissenter". This, of course, was the case when reporters began asking Harper questions in a press conference about the whole gay marriage/hate crime bill issue. When it was clear that the reporter was going to insist on an answer, the other Conservative candidates proceeded to try to silence him with mockery and heckling.

Yes - there can be no dissent if there is no room for debate to begin with.

Bright Vision for the Future

There's lots of talk about who's going to win this election, by how much and why. But the predictions start getting hazy when people discuss the aftermath. I am here to provide some clarity and give you a chance to buckle up...cause, folks, things are gonna get crazy after June 28....

Here's how I figure it will play - on the local scene, Liberal incumbent Hedy Fry will discover that gay Conservative candidate (and former Mouseketeer) Gary Mitchell released a CD about ten years ago and will succeed in getting it played in major markets in Vancouver. The voting public, revolted by its striking similarity to Wham!, will decide en masse that this is one alternative lifestyle it cannot abide and hand Fry yet another term.

West End Russian immigrants, however, take to the CD, adopt Mitchell as one of their own, and he becomes a celebrity DJ in underground clubs in Vancouver and Moscow. He's last seen trying to cut a duet record with David Hasselhoff.

Conservatives still get a minority government. Harper forms a coalition with Bloc Quebecois, but the only real policy initiative they advance involves building a wall down the centre of Toronto one stormy night in August, dividing it into West Toronto and East Toronto. Yuppies trying to escape Waterloo are shot on sight.

kd lang makes a pass at Conservative MP Cheryl Gallant (she who equated gays with pedophiles), who, in a rage of internalized homophobia, introduces a private member's bill declaring Vancouver's West End a gulag. Hedy Fry introduces a retaliation private member's bill getting the West End to secede from Canada. The Bloc, in favour of anything secessionist, supports the bill. The Conservatives, eager to increase their minority, support the bill. The Liberals, generally embarrassed by Hedy Fry, support the bill. The West End becomes the Kingdom of Davie. Hedy Fry proclaims herself king, but is toppled by the drag queens, who form a coalition government with clueless attractive straight twentysomething professional males who like being seen with gorgeous chicks and Starbucks.

Meanwhile, in what's left of Canada, there is a mass exodus of gays from Church Street in Toronto, resulting in a wave of boredom amongst city police who now have no one to harrass. They start chasing real criminals, leaving City Hall empty.

Wealthy Toronto dowagers, desperate for haircuts and gossip, begin to make pilgrimages to the Kingdom of Davie, and an international tourist boom is begun. The loss of the gay pride parade in Toronto - in part because of the secession of the KOD and in part because no one can decide which side of the Wall the parade should take place on - results in a vain attempt to revive the King of Kensington, but strangely, no one is in the mood to remember Al Waxman.

The arts take a nosedive. For lack of funding, the CBC switches to an all-reality show format, beginning with a variant on Extreme Makeover where Liberal politicians become neoconservative warmongers. Gordon Campbell desperately tries to get on, but misses his audition after an all-nighter in Hawaii.

Fox, in a fit of jealousy over the smashing success of the new, debased CBC, buys the network and replaces Peter Mansbridge with Rush Limbaugh. Mansbridge is lured by the Kingdom of Davie to serve as MC at the drag show at the Odyssey on Sunday nights. He is an immediate sensation and tourism to the fledgling nation triples.

Nationwide ennui sets in. Alberta and Saskatchewan don't change.

Scandal erupts when it's discovered that Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe tried to use government funds to advertise Quebec secessionism, and no one takes the contract. Harper puts his mother in charge of the investigation. She sends him to bed.

Official opposition leader Paul Martin, anticipating an imminent election call, criss-crosses the nation in a campaign blitz. Forgetting that he needs a passport to get into Davie, he is held up at the border and then thrown into prison with Hedy Fry in a special cell built on top of the Burrard Bridge. He becomes her beeyatch.

Cheryl Gallant disappears and rumours surface that she and Britney Spears are going to appear in a risquee video together. The nation braces for guest appearances on the Super Bowl Half Time Show. The headquarters for right-wing lobby group REAL Women spontaneously bursts into flames.

Stephen Harper tries to introduce a budget. A vote of no confidence is held. For the first time in history, the vote is tied - one to one (MPs having forgotten to show up, only the party leaders arrive - Martin being in prison and Duceppe being in the washroom fixing his hair during the vote). Speaker of the House, Conservative Vic Toews, votes for the opposition out of force of habit. The government falls. Harper goes to the Governor General Adrienne Clarkson to dissolve parliament, but she's a guest on a special Queer Eye for the Straight Guy being filmed in Davie. A new election is called, anyway.

Super Cool!!!

Apple has just announced their new line of high end G5's - topping out at 2.5Ghz, they are now liquid cooled!!!

Breathe...breathe...

(Sorry - I'm a geek...what can I say?)

Hatred, Freedom of Expression and the Power of Nonspecifics

For all that I like to eviscerate the Conservatives with their bumbling expressions of homophobia, you do have to take into consideration the validity of one of their fears: the fear that their expression of morality (especially in churches) might be restricted by this new iteration of hate crime legislation.

Christians simply don't want to be told that it's wrong to say gays and lesbians are going to hell. Ironic, isn't it? I mean, the whole fundamentalist stock in trade is in labelling behaviours good and evil and slotting in the appropriate Divine Retribution. But, the minute they run the risk of being told that what they do is wrong, they get themselves in a snit.

Okay, I said you have to take their fear into consideration, not sympathize with it.

The fact is, the right wing moral evaluation of homosexuality isn't going to be hate speech unless they start saying and advocating things that would be clearly beyond the pale - say, recommending the death penalty for "homosexual behaviour", or at least prison sentences. The same Supreme Court that recognizes our equality in the fabric of Canadian society is going to protect the freedom to say "love the sinner, hate the sin".

It's just going to make sure no one gets the two confused.

Today, we have an article in the Globe and Mail that quotes Vic Toews and Stephen Harper, saying they want to make sure hate crime legislation doesn't infringe on other people's freedoms.

"But I don't think we want those protections distorted into attacking people's simple beliefs on matters of religion..."

So, if an institution as sophisticated and clearly populated by intelligence as the Canadian Supreme Court could confuse hate speech with "simple beliefs on matters of religion", don't you think there's a problem? I mean, either these "simple beliefs on matters of religion" need to be reined in or we need to be conducting some fairly stringent intelligence tests on our judiciary.

No, Harper has no real reason to change hate crime legislation, he just needs the rhetorical leg up with his right wing fan base. And this is where he's learned a trick or two from George Dubya down south. Harper likes to say that the law needs to be "revisited". That the language is vague and potentially intrusive on religious freedoms. That something...he won't say what...needs to be changed in the law. And, by saying nothing specific, he keeps the door open to do whatever he wants come the day that maybe, just maybe, the Conservatives get a majority.

Because then no one can tell him that he's doing something he said he wouldn't.

I Hope She Gets Lots of Attention

Nothing like the taste of shoe leather, isn't there, Ms. Gallant? Now that you've compared gays to pedophiles and abortion to the beheading in Iraq, perhaps you'd like to give us your opinion on pay equity for women?

Just asking

...and He Just Keeps Going...

You've got to figure that the Canadian electorate is gloriously sick and tired of Paul Martin and the Liberal gang - and why not? Over a decade of majority - some would say autocratic - rule has allowed a great deal of corruption to spawn and grow over the years and people are sick and tired of feeling left behind while only a few receive the benefits of government.

But for all that, Harper and his gang keep making statements that frighten me to the core, and the polls don't blink. On the weekend, Conservative Cheryl Gallant made the statement that a recently-enacted amendment to hate crime legislation meant to protect gays and lesbians from hate crimes should be repealed. Her rationale? The law protects pedophiles.

Okay - let's think about this for a moment. Leaving alone the absurd notion that there's a rhetorical link between being gay and being a pedophile, let's think about what this law DOES. The starting point for all this is simply that violence - thuggery - is bad. It needs to be punished, and to whatever extent possible, prevented. The next step is that some violence is particularly egregious because of its severity and its origins in a hatred of "otherness" - other races, religions, gender and, lately, sexual orientation. Current social thinking is that this kind of hatred is particularly egregious - especially when it can so easily lead to the kind of institutionalized violence we've seen in Uganda, Iraq, Eastern Europe and, of course, Nazi Germany. So, for all that assault (and its relatives all the way up to murder) is punishable by the law, because some of these crimes manifest themselves in a heinous way by identifiable motives, the public should be put on notice that the expression of those motives - hatred - should be made illegal.

Voila. Hate crime legislation. Now, Cheryl Gallant can go off half-cocked and make goofball statements connecting sexual orientation with pedophilia because it is a myth that is still accepted by a large percentage of the population that is too afraid of homosexuality to be informed about it.

Of course, people are afraid to touch the pedophilia issue because it is so mired in evil. Who wants to be tainted by evil? But the fact of the matter is you don't solve the problem of evil by cheapening it with all kinds of false associations. Would the newest iteration of the hate crime bill protect pedophiles? Of course not! But here's a challenge I would throw at Ms. Gallant - do you believe that, because a person is a convicted pedophile, they are no longer afforded the protection of the state from thugs who would do them violence because of their record? How much better than a pedophile are you when you advocate unjust violence to their person?

...and yet the Canadian electorate doesn't seem to care that the Conservative Party has such an unthinking drone in their midst. Am I worried about nothing, here???

Next up - Hatred, Freedom of Expression and the Power of Nonspecifics