No, it wasn’t the fact of hispanics being rapists, or drug lords, or criminals; it was just those “democrats” coming across the border. Glad we got that over with.–zr
Continue readingAuthor: Dan Zorg
Zorg Report: Sarah truths
No, it wasn’t the fact of hispanics being rapists, or drug lords, or criminals; it was just those “democrats” coming across the border. Glad we got that over with.–zr
Continue readingZorg Report: Sarah truths
No, it wasn’t the fact of hispanics being rapists, or drug lords, or criminals; it was just those “democrats” coming across the border. Glad we got that over with.–zr
Continue readingZorg Report: Where he Was: and Where He Wanted to Be: Evan Solomon
No, folks expecting revelations, that’s just a catchy title riffing on his schtick, so move along. I think it’s fair to use his tag, though, since he used it, so shamelessly, to enrich himself. When the Solomon thing happened, I was so unsurprised, having been exposed to it so much
Continue readingZorg Report: Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat
First, it is amazing to me that anyone would be elected to public office and so instantly start sucking on the public teat as urgently and as vigorously as she did. Yes, I guess it happens, especially in entitled Conservative circles, and especially in Alberta ones, where winning the nomination to be a PC candidate is infinitely more important than anything you’ll ever go on to do afterwards. Christine knew that. I’ve worked in at least quasi-political circles, and I know how careful I and my colleagues were to avoid even the slightest hint of spending others’ money. But we knew people could come in and go over our files—Cusanelli, and her backer Alison Redford, clearly never had such thoughts on their minds—Redford wouldn’t have instantly begun building her sky-palace (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/alberta/alison-redfords-sky-palace-unveiled-but-as-humbler-meeting-rooms/article22731201/), once elected, if she had thought otherwise. Who knows, maybe Alison was just, as Christine suggested she herself was, a little dumb, and didn’t really “get” the rules. I suspect, though, that if you asked them, both Christine and Alison would react a little vociferously to the suggestion that they were somehow a bit slow on the uptake, on anything. Oh, I’m sure they aren’t. The evidence is in, well in; they knew exactly what they were doing, and if they want to prove, in a court of law, that they were just momentarily, serially, brainless idiots, then they are free to pursue their cases.
Further, Cusanelli’s sense of entitlement must go back to her family and her upbringing. It may be that she coveted the Tories and the lifetime pension it brings and is about to bring her, and it may be that her good family just kept supporting her. Good. But if I just got a new job, and I told my family, “hey, folks, we’re all going to Disneyland!! And I’ve kind of maybe got a meeting a little bit related to my new job while we’re there, but we can all go, and I’m paying,” you know what—do you know what—I’m going to say that again—DO YOU KNOW WHAT—MY family probably would have said, “er, Christine, can we afford this? It sounds fun and we’re grateful, but, uh, can we do this now? Maybe we can wait a bit and have a nice vacation sometime. . . .” But oh no, not Christine Cusanelli, and not her family. They were ALL eager to start sucking on the public teat like crazed maniacs. Thus, while I do not believe that all parents should always be made to take total responsibility for the actions of their children (even 30-year-olds), I do swell with disgust at Cusanelli’s family, who, if they did not know they were sucking money out of taxpayers’ wallets, at least allowed themselves to go along with Christine’s charade. They could say they didn’t know, but to say they didn’t know better would, once again, ask them to have to prove, in something like a court of law, just how it was that they so remarkably did not know better what pretty much most all normal working people in the world do.
For shame, for shame.
Zorg Report: Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat
Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat Oh well, I’ve had little to say on the Alberta election—who ever would, since governments change in Alberta in more or less the same way as they did in the Soviet Union or under the PRI in Mexico.
Continue readingZorg Report: Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat
Extreme Entitlement, Alberta Style: Conservative Christine Cusanelli Pounces on the Public Teat Oh well, I’ve had little to say on the Alberta election—who ever would, since governments change in Alberta in more or less the same way as they did in the Soviet Union or under the PRI in Mexico.
Continue readingZorg Report: Henein’s Law, Canada’s
Articling? A little bit bedraggling. Getting off accused rapists whilst promoting yourself on the web– –priceless. –zr
Continue readingZorg Report: Henein’s Law, Canada’s
Articling? A little bit bedraggling. Getting off accused rapists whilst promoting yourself on the web– –priceless. –zr
Continue readingZorg Report: Henein’s Law, Canada’s
A little bit bedraggling.
Zorg Report: Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had?
Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had? Abstract: Baseball has begun again. The Cubs have a new manager, by any estimation a fine man and fine baseball mind, Joe Maddon. They also have about seven top shortstop prospects. Can the Cubs go all the way in 2016 or 2017?
Continue readingZorg Report: Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had?
Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had? Abstract: Baseball has begun again. The Cubs have a new manager, by any estimation a fine man and fine baseball mind, Joe Maddon. They also have about seven top shortstop prospects. Can the Cubs go all the way in 2016 or 2017?
Continue readingZorg Report: Ferguson Jenkins: Best NHL Hall-of-Famer Canada Never Had?
April 2015 – Well, baseball is upon us again; “hope springs eternal” has given way almost already to “the boys of summer.”
He probably would have won about 360 (ok well, 320-325) with the Cardinals or Dodgers, say. Numbers kids doing graduate theses should study Jenkins’s numbers to see what a perfect, durable, 4-pitch pitcher he was. But caution: in the search for someone more metrical than him, they might never finish their dissertations.
It’s crucial to remember, here, that the Harper Conservatives have cut the NFB and will probably cut it again, within weeks of this post; the erasure of Canadian history, and its replacement with “values” (code: “mine: not yours”) is just one more reason for this post. When slaves were transported to North America, one of the first things slavebuyers did was try to break those slaves down, according to language, so that slaves from Africacouldn’t communicate with each other. The Harper government, using taxpayer money, is doing precisely the same thing, trying to break down national, shared, communal and family-generational institutions by breaking them up and degrading them so that they can be replaced with blanket media advertising propounding shared “Harper” values that will instill fear and greed leading to greater class separation and greater entitlements for the already entitled. If you were to say to me, “oh, come on, come off it, Dan, you’re way too cynical,” all I could say would be, “ok, how?” Watched the hockey playoffs and YOUR money being used by the Conservatives to promote themselves, lately? Dictators could only hope for such freedom and access to public money and airwaves.
2) Composure—about 22:00 and throughout the documentary, you see the reserved and guarded and mature nature of the black ballplayers, Fergie with Billy Williams in probably a hotel room. Players like Fergie and Billy and Cito Gaston came up through times when they had to stay at different hotels, eat in different restaurants, etc. That no doubt instilled a certain guardedness, maybe even a “secret code,” like the one Harper is trying to instill in us now—a sense that we’re not all humans, but that others are somehow less human than us. Anyway, it will strike anyone who watches Donald Brittain’s documentary just how much fun and yakkety-yak and haw-haw the white guys are having, while the black guys are all pretty business, at least off the field—they’ve got much more on the line, and that’s largely counter to any stereotypes, then or now. (If anyone wants to argue re: Ernie Banks, who we see briefly, then ok, let’s talk.) I could be wrong about this, but only a bit. You tell me. It’s a blog.
3) Expos—former champions, 1994. Jarry Park. 34:40 As the Cubs were (of course) collapsing, Ron Santo made it to first base on a walk. The following is his conversation with Ron Fairly, a man who had a heck of a career and played a heck of a lot of ball in Canada.
Santo: I don’t git it.
Santo: Damn right it is. Bad. Tough to hit, tough to field, tough to do everything.
–It’s a nice town, though.
Fairly: Oh yeah.
Zorg Report: Always Join a Club of Which You Weren’t a Member: Mike Duffy and the Senate
No-one seems to be all that preoccupied by the fact that a guy who reported on politicians for decades so desperately wanted to be an unelected one. I submit that that is a problem.
Key thing to remember about the Duffster, lest we all lose sight of it, is that the Duffster was a Hill veteran for years. He knew the ins ands outs, and the in-and-outs. He angled like an obsessed man for his appointment, even launching lawsuits against those he thought hurt his entitlement opportunities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Duffy). Now, you could say, well, Mike was just tired of being a journalist and wanted to get in on the real political action in a partisan way his “journalistic” profession had “technically” always denied him. I’d almost respect him for that—Mike Duffy waking up one day and saying, “Gee, I’m a Conservative, and I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to that cause.”
Zorg Report: Always Join a Club of Which You Weren’t a Member: Mike Duffy and the Senate
Abstract: Whatever happens in the Mike Duffy trial, let’s not forget one thing: Duffy watched the Senate for decades, and he wanted a part of it. Whatever might be said of his actions, or of the (comically alleged) hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most intimate inner
Continue readingZorg Report: Always Join a Club of Which You Weren’t a Member: Mike Duffy and the Senate
Abstract: Whatever happens in the Mike Duffy trial, let’s not forget one thing: Duffy watched the Senate for decades, and he wanted a part of it. Whatever might be said of his actions, or of the (comically alleged) hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil, see-no-evil members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s most intimate inner
Continue readingZorg Report: Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda Triumphs Again
Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda Triumphs Again Abstract: Fear and paranoia enabled the conditions and killing of the passengers on Germanwings 9525; in honour of the victims of that flight, and for all future fliers, sensible policies, that do not replace reasonable prudence with get-tough politically-expedient reactions and expressions of fear,
Continue readingZorg Report: Zorg Report 2015-03-27 07:56:00
Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda Triumphs Again Abstract: Fear and paranoia enabled the conditions and killing of the passengers on Germanwings 9525; in honour of the victims of that flight, and for all future fliers, sensible policies, that do not replace reasonable prudence with get-tough politically-expedient reactions and expressions of fear,
Continue readingZorg Report: Germanwings 9525 = Al-Qaeda Triumphs Again
Abstract: Fear and paranoia enabled the conditions and killing of the passengers on Germanwings 9525; in honour of the victims of that flight, and for all future fliers, sensible policies, that do not replace reasonable prudence with get-tough politically-expedient reactions and expressions of fear, nor place sole power in the hands of One person or agency, should be enacted.
Surely I’m far from the first (1000, 10 000?) people to make this simple point, but fear and paranoia and obsession with “security” appear to have led to another disaster and mass loss of human life. That the 9/11 attackers de facto created a policy that made much of the world place collective fates in the hands of one extreme or potentially wingnut person no doubt gratifies them immensely in their exquisite afterlives—surely such terror, or infidel reduction, was key amongst their goals.
The tragedy occurred because one pilot was allowed to stay in the cockpit, and prevent entry from anyone else.
I’m struck by how former pilots and aviation talking heads are expressing shock and amazement that pilots would do something so horrible, when of course there are many examples of pilots embracing their godlike roles and taking many lives other than their own into their hands not for professional reasons, but for their own personal use and/or destruction (Ethiopian Airlines 702 and Egypt Air 990 are a couple of recent examples amongst numerous instances). On CTV News, an “aviation expert” named Phyl Durdey offered: “You know, who would think that, y’know, an aircraft would be put into a descent by the co-pilot?” I can’t speak for Phyl, but I don’t care if there’s 4 passengers or 400—I sure wouldn’t want to be on board an aircraft if one of the pilots found out that, say, he was being canned, or his co-pilot was sleeping with his wife, or something. Phyl seems to attribute godlike non-humanity to pilots, and with reference to the black box in the German pilot’s head, Phyl’s views are terrifyingly ironic, indeed.
Or then there’s good ol’ Air Canada. One time, just after 9/11, I was coming home from the U.S., and it was one bizarre flight. The flight crew brought our food, late at night, and then disappeared to sulk, never to return. We all sat there with our trays for an hour or so, and then began shifting them into bulkheads and under seats and into the aisles and so on; the attendants weren’t coming back. This wasn’t prior to any kind of strike or major job action or anything. I still don’t know what was up. But what’s so chilling to think of now was how the Air Canada pilot (was he alone?) came on during that inky night at 35 000 feet or more and embarked on this long and incomprehensible diatribe about things in general. He invoked Christ (Preston—“Presto”—‘no government is good but if we just follow God it’ll be great!!’–Manning, seated a few rows behind me, was perhaps comforted, but I sure as heck wasn’t). The pilot talked about holidays and work and unfairness and so on, but I do remember he didn’t say anything explicit to explain what was going on behind him, as the flight crew basically vanished and refused to work. He definitely didn’t support them or explain anything. He really only referred to himself, not crew or passengers. But he talked religion and fumed and rambled disconnectedly as though he were playing a video game or poking a mobile device at the same time. I suppose he was—I hope he was. To be truthful, my most exact recollection of this flight was exchanging looks with my flight partner, looking up and around in the darkened cabin (I still have the beige mental images, to be sure), and just thinking to myself (praying?), “Christ, I wish he’d just shut up, because the longer he keeps talking and keeps working himself into this lather, the more dangerous it gets for all of us and the more likely it will be for all of us that something catastrophic could happen because of his distractedness and anger.” Only when he quit rambling, and nothing radical ensued, did I start to breathe easier. Thank goodness I didn’t have a heart condition and was flying, say, to see family for an almost last time—the Air Canada pilot’s irresponsibility could have caused a death in and of itself. Was there anyone with him? Maybe there was and it finally caused him to glance over and take a nod and settle down. Or maybe there wasn’t and he took advantage of his godlike moments to berate the world in general as we soared through the black night in his hands. Something like the Germanwings flight sure makes you recollect and ponder.
Well, as I say, the terrorists won again. A statesman once said, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” By fearing fear itself, and distrusting one another and enacting ludicrous policies that can put One and only One person in charge, we opened the door for One to perversely and inexplicably take the lives of others.
That’s right, 0 (until I stand corrected). But the world largely reacted with policies that insisted that One godlike person should take control, and that does reflect a lot of our yearnings, whether that One is a person in a uniform or a generalized kind of overlord agency (or obviously a religious proxy/prophet). And obviously the exact wishes of the terrorists.
I’ve never been fond of flying. I usually have to overcome physical and physiological fears and work my way into a kind of philosophical-mental zone. You know how they say that, when you’re about to die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes? I thought that was just a phrase—a believable phrase—but just a phrase. But I know it’s true because I’ve had that dream on airplanes and on airplanes alone—first pet, mother, etc. You never have dreams like that on the ground.
–zr
Zorg Report: Patricia Arquette of CSI: Cyber—Fat Because of Soda?
Patricia Arquette of CSI: Cyber—Fat Because of Soda? (Nothing important to read here, folks, so just move along, move along. Only rambling, but felt like jotting down something that was on my mind. . .people do such things on blogs. . . .) Standing in line at the grocery store
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