Furrians And Refugees

So, uh, Syrian refugees arrived in Canada this week, greeted by The Face Of Canada, Justin Trudeau (i.e. the prettier Stephen Harper). Then they were put in a hotel where there was a Furry convention...

... and good times ensued, because the kids are innocent and haven't been corrupted by Life, or Religion, or Politics, or anything else yet. They can just be.

Canadian Elections 2015: The Fix Is In

In years past, I would have followed the 78-day campaign on an almost daily basis, commented on it, shared my ideas, work towards change. Good change. Decent change. So many ''progressive'' website clamoring for change, working towards ousting Stephen Harper from his position as Prime Minister, and The Man obviously seeing His opportunity to take the power back... and leave the common man out in the cold again.

This is what LeadNow had to show people where the main five parties stood on key issues:

Even through this simplistic graph, you can tell the so-called Liberals are still the closest to the Conservatives on what they stand and promises they're making- and that's pre-election, when their motto is usually ''run on the left, govern on the right''.

The Liberals also usually have the press on their side, because half of their campaign money comes from the media, from Power Corporation (La Presse) to the big Ontario papers to the CBC. Their leader, Justin Trudeau, voted with Harper (despite his and his party's votes not actually counting because, as a majority, the Cons could get all their projects in anyway) a stunning 73% of the time. Which means they agree on 73% of issues at heart, and not for the least:

- C51 is a law that allows the government to spy on its people without warrants (and makes the Patriot Act look tame in comparison)
- the TPP stands to make us lose potentially all our jobs to overseas markets while sending all our (dirty) oil away, while ending regulations in many sectors of industry and farming
- they want to continue to push Canada away from peace-keeping military missions and instead send soldiers to actual war
- they give their friends cozy jobs and pensions and cut down on legislation in the sectors they tell them not to have any

Essentially, it's ''meet the new guy, same as the last guy''.

The other party thought to have a ghost of a chance at the beginning of the process was the New Democratic Party, who had formed the official opposition these past four years. Well, the NDP as a whole didn't do much at all. Ruth Ellen Brosseau took every opportunity to stand up and voice her opinion at the Chamber, despite it being for naught, and leader Thomas Mulcair tried to act as the voice of reason, every day, on TV, taking light stabs at both Harper and Trudeau. Hélène Laverdière did a nice job in the streets of downtown Montréal, but her impact in Ottawa was even more limited than Brosseau's. None of their other MPs had been ready to take on their job, and they all crashed and burned early in the campaign. They were a disaster waiting to happen, and it did.

While we're on the topic of ''same as the old guy'', I'd like to point out Mulcair's previous political record. On the provincial scene, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he'd been the lawyer for activist group Alliance Québec, nutjobs who compared the francophone provincial government to the Nazi regime on an almost daily basis.

Later, he became the environmental minister in Jean Charest's Liberal government (yep, he's of that school as well, and Charest was a former Conservative party leader at the federal level...), and while he can be praised for stepping down from his position in protest when the government tried to sell a protected mountain to condo entrepreneurs, he also oversaw the dumping of raw sewage by the city of Longueuil into the St. Lawrence river, an issue that came reflected in this election with Montreal having to do the same for a week while it underwent emergency repairs to its infrastructures.

Among the rest, two stand out the most. The Bloc Québécois once had an impact, and formed the official opposition a lifetime ago, in the 1990s. Unfortunately, they used to be the party that was most to the left and have now become a coalition of all sorts for people hoping for Québec to secede from Canada at pretty much all costs, including the one that comes with abandoning your social-democratic roots and moving towards the right on the wrong issues.

Look at that graph again, you'll notice they're still on the right side of most issues; but the xenophobic element that is a small minority of what they need to get their message across has become too loud a voice to ignore (à la Tea Party for the Republicans in the U.S. circa 2008), not realizing they need to include people of all creeds and origins and walks of life to make their dream of starting anew on a land where all are equal a reality. So, honestly, at this point, fuck them.

The Green Party may seem like the party who has Canadians' interests most at heart, but they'll be lucky to get five people elected. Why? Because although their leader, Elizabeth May, is absolutely delightful with her Maritime charm and honest-to-goodness good values that would make her the best grandma in the world, they don't have a platform, just pipe dreams.

GREEN! TREES! NO FOSSIL FUELS! PEACE AND HARMONY! - it's all fine and dandy, but no plans on foreign policy. No plans on defense - not even abolishing it. No plans on getting the economy back on its feet after Harper took a tar sands-sized shit all over it and deregulated the banks.

Which leaves us with a grand total of zero good candidates.

The lesser evil would still be Mulcair, because he's such a careerist that he'd have to listen to the will of the people when they protested his bullshit.

But no. The fix is in. The media have been on it since the very first week, shoving our ''choice'' down our throat: it's Baby Justin, or Evil Harper. Even though they're the exact same fucking right-wing sell-out puppet 73% of the time (that's not entirely true: Harper actually believes he's doing the right thing; Trudeau gets to that conclusion by thinking it's the ''lesser evil'').

They told us on TV, they told us on their front pages. They bought ads online and on billboards.

They gave us a face we didn't mind looking at, they gave us a name that still rings in English-speaking Canada. They even gave us Brian Mulroney's - a former Conservative Prime Minister - fucking endorsement.

And Canadians ate it up, all that chocolate-flavoured soft-serve bullshit dripping on their fucking chins.

And now I know why I've never felt entirely at home in that stupid, insane fucking country. Why I supported independence when it made sense. Why I moved to NYC. Why I always feel so damn alone.

The fix is in. It'll be a landslide. And it'll fuck us good.

Video Of The Week: Babes In Toyland

It was hard to find a video this week. I hesitated a lot. Today was the 25th ''anniversary'' of the Polytechnique killing, where one man murdered 14 women in a higher-education school in Montréal, in 1989. Because they were women, because he couldn't stand Equality.

Geneviève Bergeron (born in 1968), student in civil engineering.
Hélène Colgan (born in 1966), student in mechanical engineering.
Nathalie Croteau (born in 1966), student in mechanical engineering.
Barbara Daigneault (born in 1967), student in mechanical engineering.
Anne-Marie Edward (born in 1968), student in chemical engineering.
Maud Haviernick (born in 1960), student in materials engineering.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born in 1958), student nurse.
Maryse Laganière (born in 1964), school financial employee.
Maryse Leclair (born in 1966), student in materials engineering.
Anne-Marie Lemay (born in 1967), student in mechanical engineering.
Sonia Pelletier (born in 1961), student in mechanical engineering.
Michèle Richard (born in 1968), student in materials engineering.
Annie St-Arneault (born in 1966), student in mechanical engineering.
Annie Turcotte (born in 1969), student in materials engineering.

Fourteen women, most of which were to become engineers. Probably a lot of them would have been mothers. All with lives, families. In their 20s or early 30s. With some amount of time left to impact our society.

I tried to go with a soft song, something soothing. I thought of something political, with a direct message, clear.

But here's the thing, the way I look at it: 1989 in Montréal wasn't so bad in terms of equality, and it got better for a decade to include just about everyone by the turn of the millennium. BY LAW, and by obligation, on all fronts. In terms of rights and equality, not many had actual complaints, apart that things were slow at times (same-sex marriage eventually passed, and though pay equality was passed as law in the early-to-mid-90s, it still hasn't been made into effect completely even in government).

But it's been downhill for the last decade, so much so that 2014 feels like 1944, and it's like our parents' social gains from the 1960s and 1970s were for naught. And it didn't take a step back in more comfort to compensate for the loss of rights; equality was just stolen and wiped away.

And instead of looking at the bigger picture, everyone is just fighting their own little fight, looking at their own situation, trying to stop it from regressing too much (''I don't wanna pay fare on a bridge'' / ''the SAQ - i.e. voluntary tax on alcohol - is too expensive'') - but our whole social net is being taken away every day. Women's rights are under attack every day at the Federal level, with ''private bills'' regulating women's own bodies introduced my MPs narrowly defeated thus far but gaining support and traction, particularly in the places with the hundreds of missing and possibly murdered women, aboriginal and otherwise. (And every time I write or read a single sentence about these women, I think of the violence I witnessed in Winnipeg, and the bodies alongside the highways from Manitoba to Alberta, with vomit in my mouth and chills in my spine).

The government should be there to provide or at least help with 4 things when they take half our money from our pay cheques and 15% more on each purchase we make: health, education, infrastructure, and protecting (ALL) individuals' rights. If they can't, we don't need them and should be able to do what we see fit with that 65% of our money given back to us.

As usual, I digress.

The point is women's rights have stepped the fuck back way too much in the past decade, with the redneck-ification of North America. Anti-feminism and racism are back to levels I once thought would never be seen again - particularly the under-handed attempt at making women feel like lesser beings.

Granted, I see a lot of self-pity and victimization coming from their side, stuff I don't see or hear about when researching or talking to folks from the 1960s and 1970s - but a lot of it is warranted, and some of it seems like a crouch before delivering an uppercut. Or so I hope.

There is no reason in this day and age, on this continent - heck, on this side of both oceans - to not have human beings be equal in every single aspect of life. It goes for gender, it goes for lifestyle, it goes for race, it goes for tastes. As long as you're not impeding on someone else's rights, a human being shouldn't be bothered, attacked, or denied anything they have the right to have (food, shelter, respect, well-being, defining their relationship - or not - health care).

And so I went with Babes In Toyland, the punk band from Minnesota who fused feminism, punk rock and selling records the best, in my opinion, and with Bruise Violet in particular because it's from their superb 1992 record Fontanelle, co-produced by Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, and mixed by Skinny Puppy's Dave Ogilvie:



The song itself is less punk and grungier than some of their other stuff, but that's 1992 for you.

The Canadian Environment

There's yet a another petition making the rounds in Canada, asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper to not go overboard in allowing the complete destruction of our environment. It's a weekly occurrence, it seems.

He does not see the small picture, let alone the big one.

Whether (or not) federal elected officials prefer to support big businesses instead of the people who elected them and whom they represent is irrelevant.

The bottom line remains: if they allow anyone or anything to compromise our environment, we are all screwed. And not just Canadians. Pollution and devastation knows no borders, no boundaries.

Even the businesses who pillage nature to sell it back to us need it to not be a finite resource. That's in addition to biodiversity proving everyone its actual food sources. Basing decisions we know are wrong on some half-assed biased research is worse than just a skewed lack of vision, it's step-by-step suicide.

I mean, shit, right, the companies have proven for a long time that their profit-driven ways go in just one direction with blinders on, and always need us to protect them from themselves - not help them fuck the rest of us up more.

This is a fast way to get to a post-apocalyptic world, when ''I told you so'' won't mean anything anymore.

Darren Aronofsky and Leonardo DiCaprio took a trip to the Albertan tar sands earlier this year and came back with a troubling report. Once pioneers in progress and progressive views, and formerly the voice of reason on the international scene, Canada has become the laughingstock of the international community, particularly on environmental and scientific issues.

Ironic that the country who wouldn't let the U.S. back out of the Kyoto protocol now won't even come close to meeting its own objectives on the matter.

Saint-Jean-Baptiste

I mean, sure, I appreciate the effort, kind of. But, uh, maybe it lacks decorum and gravitas:

FYI: bridges are of federal capacity, meaning Canada, which owns Québec, manages these signs. Great Britain, which owns Canada, couldn't care less.

Kudos for the ''accent aigü'', thumbs down for calling the population a ''nagtioon''. Though, semi-funny. Like Adam Sandler and Rob Schneider asking if you ''like-uh the juice, eh, the juice is good, uhn?'' in classic episodes of Saturday Night Live.

Rob Ford: The Sequel

Yes, I know, I too was under the impression that his 15 minutes were up, that not only had we had a sequel (if the crack smoking was Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, then the odd behaviour and ''plenty of pussy to eat at home'' was surely Episode 3: Revenge Of The Filth), but that we were probably at the Police Academy 5 stage of his tenure by now...

Except we had all forgotten the essential rules of sequels: they not only introduce new characters to the cannon, but oftentimes also take place in new surroundings (Hangover Part II, Vegas Vacation).

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Rob Ford in Vancouver. Not only did he get a ticket for jaywalking, he also tried to get out of it by contacting the chief of police. That's right: he bothered the boss of the police force for a $100 ticket, because he's an entitled fucking asshole. And he did so at this classy establishment: a Shell gas station, situated across the street from the bar where he'd been drinking all night (though he was to have stopped drinking last Fall):

Video is available on Twitter and YouTube.

Which begs the question: is he ever not in a drunken stupor?

The Decline Of k-os

k-os' debut record, Exit (2002) was full of promise. I even went around praising his all-around talent for the music's production as rivaling Beck, and his lyrics and flow as ''eventually in the same league as Outkast''.

His second output, Joyful Rebellion (2004) still showcased his talents, but had a decidedly more old school vibe, relying less on k-os' knack for melody and creating music from various inspirational sources and leaned more towards classic hip hop.

But then it turned to insipid pop and un-researched music pretty fast, starting with 2006's Atlantis: Hymns For Disco and perpetuated with the sample-heavy Yes (2009) and this year's uneven BLack On BLonde.

And apparently, it's transpired to his live shows as well, as per The Gazette:

k-os, 1:30 p.m., Mountain Stage

And the award for Osheaga drama queen goes to… k-os.

The Toronto rapper is well past his prime. And his new album Black on Blonde – despite guest appearances by Emily Haines, Black Thought, Shad, Saukrates, and Sam Roberts – is a bit of a mess. So when he took the stage 20 minutes late, as the day’s first show on the mountain stage, there was reason to worry. He began to rhyme over an amped up Public Enemy sample, but stopped after a few minutes. “I can’t do this right now – I can’t hear myself,” he said. He threw his all access VIP bracelet into the crowd,and walked off the stage. Very rock ‘n’ roll, man, but it’s not going to win you any new fans. And next time, maybe skip the Blue Jays cap.

Jesus.

For a guy who performs in Montréal four times a year, perhaps he should have done his research a tad. When playing his own shows at Club Soda or Théâtre Corona, where his own fans - by definition a forgiving following - show up, sure, you can use your Canadianism as a factor for common ground, as much as ''supporting the local underground''.

But at a festival show, with a broad audience representing pretty much everything your usual crowd isn't - there's a difference between playing to a thousand folks who know your shit and 35,000 who've never heard it before - perhaps it'd be nice to take an hour out of your bubble and read about where you're playing.

Most of us will never cheer for the Blue Jays as ''Canada's Team'' for the simple fact that we had the Montréal Expos - Canada's first major league baseball team - and the way they were taken from us left such a sour taste in our mouths we were turned off by the sport altogether. So... Jays? No. NO. NO. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work in Vancouver so much either, with the Seattle Mariners basically playing in their back yard.

Also, though they don't go to your usual shows, 50% of the population wanted out of Canada altogether at any cost twice in the recent past - and would have won had it not been for shady politicking and backdoor money dealings the last time around, to say nothing of those who think it would be a good idea on paper but weren't convinced by the arguments brought forth as the focal points the last time. So even if the Jays had been Canada's team, it's like wanting Puerto Rico to cheer for the Washington Nationals.

And what's up with not trying to work out the issue with the sound guy? Any band who's played in a bar will tell you that 3 times out of 4 it can be worked out if you're clear on what you want. The other time you'll wish you had walked out - which he did - but he should have tried to fix things first. By showing little patience with the staff at the very first show of the very first day of Osheaga - kinks are bound to occur - he instead showed great disrespect to the thousands who had paid fifteen times the price of entry as the first edition 5 years ago so it could attract artists ''of his caliber''.

And that attitude of ''artist vs staff'' usually escalates throughout the day as one side becomes more defensive and the other reacts accordingly, which ultimately led to headliners The Cure having the plug pulled on them in the middle of their mega-hit Boys Don't Cry at 11:05 PM, instead of being given the chance to finish the song before it happened so that the crowd could at the very least go home with the illusion that it went down well.

Instead, here is the evening's score card:
k-os: 0
The Cure: 0
Osheaga: 0
the public: 0

And instead of it being a 4-way tie, it's a 4-way loss. With k-os proving to be the biggest loser.

Politics As Usual

Her hair makes it seem like she's stuck in the 1980s; her mind-set is more 1780. Her name is Dayleen Van Ryswyk and she was just dropped by the British Columbia NDP party for being a bigot an idiot a racist ''a true independent voice'', from a CBC news story:

Some of Van Ryswyk's comments took aim at First Nations:

"It’s not the status cards, it’s the fact that we have been paying out of the nose for generations for something that isn't our doing," reads one post on Castanet, an Okanagan area website. "If their ancestors sold out too cheap it’s not my fault and I shouldn’t have to be paying for any mistake or whatever you want to call it from my hard-earned money."

The posts also took aim at the French-Canadian community:

"Seems the only group of people universally hated around the world other than the Americans are the French and French-Canadians. The bigots are the French and not us," the blog reads.

"I’m getting so sick of having French stuffed down my throat. This isn’t Québec. It’s western Canada. We speak English here. Why are we forced to have it at our western Canadian-hosted Olympics?"

Well, because at the heart of Canada's language policy is that the country has TWO official languages, and one of them - French - was the language that pretty much populated Canada in the first place, as most people in then-Lower Canada were of French descent, and that's how things rolled. Over time, Canada's population did go from 65% French-Canadian to the present-day 25-30%, but as long as the Constitution isn't changed (wait, Québec isn't even in it, is it? Ha!), both languages have to be represented in international events - particularly in regards to the Olympics, as the IOC's official language itself is French.

If that's how she feels about minorities, it kind of makes you wonder why she even applied to run under the NDP - a party resolutely on the Left - banner, rather than the Conservative one...

And about ''paying through the nose'' for aboriginals for ''something that isn't your doing'', well, lady, the fact that you have a roof over your head and a Canadian passport, and you're enjoying the perks of running for office, means you are taking advantage of the British invading the continent and slaughtering the people who were already there, well, common decency - as well as International Law - dictates you take care of survivors of the attempted genocide. It's, literally, the least you can fucking do.

One More Reason To Be Ashamed Of Canada

Supreme Leader Stephen Harper has done it again - this time, withdrawing Canada from the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (examining solutions to the increasing droughts that have been spreading across the world and destroying valuable farmland) at the last minute, joining the ranks of... absolutely no one.

He shut down scientists just a few weeks ago, he's pushing the Alberta tar sands harder than Nino Brown did crack, he forgoes meeting Aboriginals who had walked 1600 kilometers to Ottawa (opting instead for a photo-op with a panda who will cost $10M yearly in rental costs to China...), has reformed unemployment benefits programs to make it a hassle and a pain enough to discourage folks from even applying for it... and that's just since the snow has started to melt. He's been in power for 7 years, and he's been that active for 6 of them.

The fact that he understands politics better than anyone before him - and plays it nastily with a mean edge, not just to further his ideology but also just because he loves kicking the shit out of those who oppose him - will ensure he remains in power for as long as he wants to. Not just that, but since he's muzzling his own ministers and deputies, he is fully aware he doesn't currently have anyone lined up to take his place as the face of the party when he does decide to retire, so he may hold on even after he's had his fun, just so that the country doesn't flow back to the center or - gasp! - the left.

We used to be the Voice Of Reason, internationally; the country that kept the peace in war-torn countries (until and/or after the U.S. went in-and-out, guns a-blazing), who would have everyone else listen when we spoke at the U.N., be it about poverty, economics, science, the environment, solving conflicts and bringing forth solutions to world problems that respected each country's customs, traditions and values.

Canada was fucking Gandalf, now it's barely Gollum, holding onto its precious fucking dirty oil.

In 2001, when it was time to go to war, Americans were saying that Afghans were ''retarded'', living in caves like it was 1647, uneducated barbarians; Canadians love saying how ''ass-backwards'' the U.S. is for neglecting education and health for economics, how the fight for equal rights (first women, then people of all races, now marriage equality, soon so-called illegal immigrants) seems like a constant through their history - well, folks, Harper is George W. Bush, twice as worse: instead of being a dumb redneck following God blindly, it's the smartest guy in the room and he's got no compassion for anyone. He wants to make us uneducated cavemen stripped of any rights, but only so his friends can use us as slave labour and get richer.

That beacon of hope, morality, soul and innovation once known as Canada not only died around the time I turned 5, its corpse has been raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to us all, so that we can, in turn, die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to our kids, so they too can die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to people in foreign lands who will then die, get raped, napalmed, pissed on, shat on, left to re-ferment, and fed back to the robots who will take their place on the factory lines.

In a desert land because desertification will have taken away all the farmland. Because who needs real food, anyway?

Smells Like Spring In Montréal

Students are back protesting against a tuition hike the current provincial government was elected to not let happen, and cops are back at charging them with useless, mindless violence.

The Montréal Canadiens are back at the top of the NHL standings...

I guess things are back to normal.

Funeral For A Friend

I went about it pretty quickly a week ago when I mentioned the upcoming destruction of what is still considered the Heart of Montréal on The Main, and the ''funeral procession'' in its honour.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention those who did it better, longer, and more heartfelt than myself, as I turned my emotions ''off'' of late and attempted to coast through the remainder of the year trying not to notice it passing, faintly hoping I'd be left alive in not-too-decrepit a state when it's all said and done.

The Gazette kept it real, instilling a historical horizon on the piece of street our Mayor is attempting to nullify.

And to think merely a year ago, the mayor fooled us into thinking we had won - and the expropriation/demolition had been cancelled... after quite a few Save The Main fund-raising events.

But the most complete reference guide to the whole ordeal can be found here. Blogging at its informative best.

How To Kill The Soul Of A City

I totally forgot about the Funeral Procession in honour of what used to be La Main - Montréal's Red Light district, the heart and soul of North America for the first half of the 20th century, where Americans would stock up on alcohol during prohibition, where jazz greats (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Muddy Watters, Charles Mingus and countless others) came to play and escape racism, where they made the best hot dogs (Montréal Pool Room, established in 1912), near the best smoked meat (Schwartz') in the world, and, of course, Café Cleopatra, one of the continent's first very openly drag-queen friendly venues (which also holds a regular female-dancer strip club on the first floor).

All housed in centuries-old buildings, set to be destroyed within the next few months after years of heritage groups, citizens, artists and tourism experts trying to get the madness stopped. And they still don't know what they'll erect in its place, all suitable tenants having elected to conduct their business elsewhere!

Luckily, photographer S. E. Amesse was there to take these pictures:

Costumes, a live orchestra - when artists grieve, they do it i style!

Look at how desolate the corner that made Montréal's reputation now looks:

Not only are our governments corrupt and crumbling, but our infrastructure, our buildings, nearly 400 years of history is going to the wayside for Disney-themed ''art'' neighbourhoods (Quartier Des Spectacles) and fucking condos. In the heart of fucking downtown. And our mayor is proud of himself.

It's as out of its place as pork sold in a mosque a fucking disgrace.

Video Of The Week: Northen Lights

After Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas and USA For Africa's We Are The World, Canadian artists of the 1980s also needed t voice their own worries about the situation of starving children, and Bryan Adams and a few associates (Bob Rock, David Foster, Jim Vallance, his wife Rachel Paiement of CANO fame, and Paul Hyde) penned this cheesy track and had Bruce Allen convince a veritable ''who's who'' of Canadian singers from all across the spectrum take part - from respected, political singer-songwriters such as Neil Young,  Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn, to the universally-acclaimed likes of Burton Cummings (The Guess Who), Geddy Lee (Rush), Anne Murray, and Joni Mitchell, pop artists like Corey Hart and Loverboy's Mike Reno, as well as the obligatory Québec French-language artists (Véronique Béliveau, Robert Charlebois and Claude Dubois).

All that talent, backed by Paul Shaffer, comedian John  Candy, Tom Cochran, Ronnie Hawkins, Kim Mitchell, Aldo Nova, actress Catherine O'Hara, Jane Siberry and countless others...

And yet...





This song came to mind as I witnessed the 27th, 28th and 29th straight late-night demonstrations (the last one which was violence-free) against the provincial government, where I heard my share of overhead helicopters on top of my house, police sirens, tear gas, concussion grenades, and saw an abundance of useless pepper-spraying and clubbing...

And the words came to me:

''If we could live together...''
''Don't you know that tears are not enough?''

Offended

You know what offends me? People who get offended by measly, useless fucking little things, for one.
''Oh, they're calling this politician ugly, it's sexism because she's a woman''. Except the same is often said about male politicians, and everybody laughs. Why the double-standard?

And why are people getting offended about the little stuff but find it totally fucking normal when politicians steal tax money, banks bankrupt people on false pretenses or companies lay off workers even though they're raking in millions in profits?

I have understood the precariousness of the human race for a long time and am willing to accept we wipe ourselves from existence by being greedy, selfish creatures hell-bent on milking everything we can get our hands on - including people - for all their/they're worth. Really. So much so that at some point, I'll just stop complaining and enjoy the show, beer in one hand, pizza in the other, watching all you fuckers kill each other.

And when you come for me, I may put up a fight, or I might not. Depends what mood I'm in, if I want to take you with me. 'Cause if I do, I'll fight tooth and nails and you'd best have a vehicle to hide behind, 'cause I'll come out swinging. If not, you'll have a real nice morning.

In the meantime, though, I'm hopeful of humanity, because in a week or so, Greece, France and now Germany have voted against stupid austerity measures; North America will probably follow. Cuba holds it own, as does Bolivia and Venezuela. The Occupiers will take back the parks, the People will be heard.

Maybe.

Oh, Captain, My Captain!

“Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say.Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.


This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move.”

Now, MY nation wasn't founded on that principle, at all, but my country/countries like(s) to borrow from the U.S.' worst traits and never the right ones, and we have a shot - just a tiny one - at taking some of the good, for once, and for that we must stand tall and not surrender.

The student strike against a tuition hike is now in its 13th week. The government have replaced their puppet Education Minister with another one who will not be going up for re-election, meaning they threw the old one under the bus to save their asses and hired a temp with nothing to lose to keep the Party's hardline against the future generations.


They need their regime of corruption to continue, as do their mob friends and their family members in the energy and mines industries, who they literally gave our resources to (see how Pétrolia found oil in Anticosti and now owns it); they need to look like they've won this, stood up to the greedy kids and ''kept society safe'', before they move on to another sphere of citizens and take their rights away. And steal their money - more than they already do.


Our education system, by the way, is self-sufficient and was set up to keep paying for itself forever, but as multiple governments took away from its profits/allocated taxes, bit by bit they replaced ''free'' with loans and, over time, by incorporating the private sector into it and cutting into services, made it a money-guzzling pit of corruption and greed - just like everything else they touch.


Just like in the United States (hello, Fox News), they have the loudest media on their side, of course, because huge corporations benefit from gifts while the public media get shat on their budgets cut for not following Party lines.


If we lose here, we will lose everywhere. If we win, we may motivate others to keep up the fight - I'm looking at you, Occupy.

My Mom Is The Best

I love my mom. We may not always see eye to eye, and that's one of the reasons why I couldn't live with her as long as my brother did, but in addition to always doing the best she could to raise us and give us everything we needed, she comes out with these simple, universal truths that she says in that smooth, soothing, calm Voice Of Reason that makes so much sense...

And last Sunday, while we went out for brunch for Mothers' Day with her boyfriend, my uncle, his wife, and my grandparents, the conversation slipped to current events - and the current student strike - for no more than ten seconds, as my aunt said ''I hope we kick Jean Charest to the curb in the next elections, with all the harm he's done in power''.

And my mom replied: ''Yes, and we need to thank the students for opening our eyes and acting on our behalves. They'll be the ones inheriting this polluted, crumbling, indebted world and will have to live with whatever we leave them, so they might as well shape it the way they want it''.

BOOM. End of conversation.

New Rules For Unemployment Will Create Poverty

While the Globe And Mail isn't usually Canada's most left-leaning newspaper by any stretch of the imagination, even it couldn't close its eyes on the Conservative government's recent budget provision which would force a worker on unemployment (EI) to accept work even if it doesn't correspond to their specific skill-set, even if it pays less than they are accustomed to (or can afford) or involves “conditions less favourable than those (…) recognized by good employers”.

As Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, said:

 I believe it’s more about a downward pressure on wages. This government is essentially saying unless Canadians lower their standard of living and lower their wage demands, we won’t be able to compete with China and places like that.

Nice. An official government policy that will turn into Law making Canadians even by going to the lowest common denominator. I have talked often about how Stephen Harper's cronies seemed to want Canadians to be slave workers to their rich friends' companies; now, they are instituting this as Law.

Imagine a CEO, paid a million bucks a year, big house, 5 cars - the whole deal. Loses his job, but it's only temporary, he's highly educated, highly regarded, has the right friends in right places, just needs a bit of time... being forced to accept a job as a clerk in a 7-11. Think that's a way to repay his mortgage? Of course not. He'll go from ''the 1%'' to ''the rest of us'' in no time.

Same goes for skilled workers, like plumbers, electricians, truckers... they risk losing their trades, licenses,  even their skill-set, and many professions risk if not elimination, at least a monopolization that would exclude many members in the short-to-middle run.

The Conservatives want power and money to remain in the hands of people they know, and no one else.

They even raised the age for receiving old age pensions from 65 to 67 (effective in 2023, after all their fucking friends will have received theirs...) and will diminish the amount provided, despite tons of research proving none of this needs to be done.

All of these measures, as well as re-opening the gay marriage and abortion debates, and the costly Queenification of the country is taking the country back 4, maybe 5 decades. And there's nothing anyone can do about it, because they have the majority at the House Of Commons.

We're talking about the same fuckers who cut $6.7B the National Film Board and $115M in the state-run CBC, but gave Quebecor Media $5.5B as a gift, presumably to keep spewing right-wing fake news on Sun News TV.

We're talking the Armed Forces Fan Club who managed to cut mental health resources for soldiers. I guess the message is ''if you don't die abroad, you're fucked''.

So the Feds want us dead or as slaves, and the provincials want us uneducated and poor. And yet, the Independence option remains below 40% in most polls, despite strong federalists Michael Ignatieff and Justin Trudeau being relatively open to it... hard to understand.

Need I remind these fuckers that in the Grande Scheme of things, mankind is but a blip on the map, a few thousand years in millions of years of evolution - and this particular generation, century even, is but a blip on mankind's time. We're pretty fucking meaningless, and yet there remains a bunch of assholes intent on fucking it all up for most folks instead of letting us enjoy the ride.

The current climate just cannot stand, and I wouldn't be surprised if stuff like the Victoriaville riot happened more often. Then again, wearing a mask - even a gas mask for protection from canisters and fumes - will soon mean 5 years in jail...

Death Of A Democracy?

By now, chances are you've heard about last Summer/Fall's Occupy movement, and probably this Spring's two-month-strong student protests/strikes. If not, look it up, it's a fine read, students refusing a hike in education costs, defying (provincial) Prime Minister Jean Charest daily, kind of helping us forget how corrupt his government has been - but kind of not, at the same time.

Well, the Québec governing party, the Québec Liberal Party (which, technically, on a left-to-right, liberal-to-conservative scale ironically falls strongly on the Conservative side - picture Mitt Romney leading a Workers' Party) was holding its general council in Victoriaville, far from the rumbling streets of Montréal, comfortably, in the countryside, in a town usually so peaceful they don't even have a jail there...

Well, tons of anti-Charest protesters made the trip, including - but not limited to - busloads of students. Well, as may have been expected, shit did, indeed, hit the fan, and a riot ensued. My crystal ball is hazy from the all the smoke and pepper gas used in the picture gracing this post alone, but I can't wait to see how the media will spin this and how it'll affect public opinion. It can go either way: they may convince people that students are to blame for this and have to be forced back into class right away - or they could realize just how many folks are dissatisfied with this sham of a government.

The cops are close to being in over their heads, stopping and arresting at least 3 buses full of university students on their way back to Montréal - on the highway! - most of whom will likely be accused of ''participating in an illegal demonstration'', which they will eventually be found innocent of, but will spend the night in Victo and will have to go back to stand trial; minor yet irritating inconveniences, worse for foreign students and those depending on financial aid. But they will have to go back for sure, because a non-appearance in court is equivalent to pleading guilty in the eyes of the law.

Amnesty International has already condemned our police force of mishandling the situation - how worse will they look on the international scene? How will this affect tourism in our city this summer? Will we warn tourists to stay in their hotel rooms after 8PM?

One kid lost an eye early in the conflict from a noise grenade to the face, another one did so tonight from rubber bullets, another girl got shot in the face with rubber bullets and had her jaw broken and lost teeth, one kid is in the coma. Half a dozen cops and a dozen protesters are hospitalized, many more were injured but returned home or treated on-site (one paramedic says he treated at least 20 on-site).

This government has lost its legitimacy a long time ago, this is just added, useless bonuses. The student thing? Over a few million bucks, less than the Liberals have handed out to their mafia friends and fundraisers since the beginning of the year. How much more violence do we need before we kick those fuckers out of office? Do we need a cop or a kid to die? Chicago 68? Los Angeles 92?

History will not be kind to you, motherfucker, if you let this fester any longer.

Video Of The Week: The Guest Bedroom

Sure, The Guest Bedroom were Video Of The Week a month and a half ago, but they're staying true to their word of trying to release a video for each new song on their upcoming EP/LP, and their songs rock.

This time, video artist Ryan Mounsey concocted a fairy tale with kings and wizards (and Toronto mayor Rob Ford), animation and analog images. Oh, and good music. Yeah.

Get Up, Stand Up

I wrote about protesting and demonstrating a short while back, and the loss of a Québec/Canadian spirit has been a pet peeve of mine for the past few Stephen Harper governments, at least. For some reason, despite what the surveys say - and one day, soon, I promise, I'll finish that text about my true feelings about market research in general - I was happy to see some blue flags at today's pro-student demonstration:

If all it takes is seeing one despot destroy 145 of history - well, he's destroying the last 50 and over-hyping the first 25 with his anti-French and pro-monarchy fixation, but you get the point - to open up the eyes of my fellow citizens of what was once known as New France, then it can't be all bad.

Then again, he's had a ton of help ''bring the free market into our daily lives'' from his provincial brother-in-arms Jean Charest, another non-majority leader who lives off dividing the opposition rather than servicing the population.

You may have heard Charest has planned to increase/unfreeze tuition fees, a means for getting more cash that has NEVER solved a budget crisis and always made higher education a means for the elite to remain amongst themselves. But honestly, that's barely the tip of the iceberg. As a people, we've evolved and are far removed from our French ancestors who used to chop off their leaders' heads when dissatisfied, but we're ready for our Maple Spring (works better in French, see below):

But we were 200,000 strong today, marching down the streets of downtown Montréal, telling all levels of government we weren't going to take their shit anymore. And we did it unmasked, so they can't say we're anarchist rioters, niche groups or anything but a Mass Movement. And like the Arab Spring last year, we'll be even more, even bigger if they keep wanting to shut us up. Because they can't.

They must be reminded that they're our mouthpieces, and if they won't do as we say, they can be replaced. We can't. Jail or kill us, and that's tax money coming out of the system, out of their rich friends' pockets, out of free enterprise. Out of their paychecks.

All they have is the police, who are starting to realize that the bigger our numbers, the likelier they are to injure their friends, neighbours, family members, their kids - by turning violent on the crowds.

We flood one street at a time with people, and then another, and another... until we have marched on all the streets, demanding equality, our share. Our society.

It's The Matrix, and we're rebooting it.