As We go Into The Weekend ...

With thanks to Karen, I am reposting a poem that she left in the comment section of an earlier post. Karen writes,

On Facebook I follow the goings on of a bear sanctuary in Ontario, and this morning they posted the following with a peaceful photo of two bears sitting together:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Another Guest Commentary From The Salamander

In response to a post I wrote yesterday, The Salamander left one of his trenchant and masterful commentaries on the myriad deficiencies of the Harper regime. So that it has a wider readership than a comment would usually garner, I am featuring it as a guest post. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did, replete as it is with excoriating allusion, simile, and metaphor:

.. always good to hear from Peter MacKay on matters that have somehow seeped or leaked through his stolid or squalid dura mater .. I'm certainly not the brightest knife in the drawer, so surely most of Canada is noticing that MacKay is about as useful as a paperweight made of dried fake canada goose snot.

Unfortunately, his snotworthy 'legacy' is blowing in the downdraft of imaginary helicopters, churned by stealth snow MacVehicles and about as blustery and bogus as that of Treasury Tony Clement and the late lamented zombified other Peter.. Petered out Kent .. our dear and caring environmentalist

Why everyone is piling on poor Pammy Wallin or Mikey Duffy.. when they are simply ornamental and plump red Alliance herring with wings and double chins is beyond me.. In the field of opportunity, the really plump turkeys are out there gobbling & strutting in plain sight..

Fantino would be a fantastic feast.. and his lovely mysterious PMO compadre Stephen Lecce too.. plus the red goatee robo dude from Alberta

Keith Ashfield is a complete documented disaster waiting for a journalist or Frankie James to fricassee

Kenney rhymes with and lives with Mummy .. enuff said

Baird is getting a free pass for being gay .. Policy wise he's a glib asshat bullyboy
with the ethics, courage, morality and usefulness of a leaky septic tank located near a lake

That leaves us with petro circus barker, stock broker, lawyer, millionaire energy pimp Joe Oliver, Flaherty.. and strutting master Stephen Harper, his zombie trolls in the PMO and, the electoral dataminers and lesser quislings and remoras that like Peter MacKay.. thrive on eating Stevie's easterner shite .. along with the dung beetle Flanagans, Jenni Byrne's, Arthur Hamilton's and REAL Women et al .. those paramours and pretenders of Canadian Western Values that stand up for a political party that is a holding tank for swimming mutating unsentient creatures that define political animal evolution in swine excrement excellence..

Deary me.. I hope I haven't been too hard on Peter Mackay..
but swapping this pimply arsed entitled poser off from Defense of the land and China, to Justice left me gasping at the poetic brilliance of Stephen and Ray Novak..
So why not shuffle Fantino to pro-China Environment too ? He's an expert at 'containment' after all

And .. how did American Tom Flanagan fall so far he never made it to Great White Ottawa Chief of Indian Affairs and related treaty exterminator/fumigator ??

My goodness .. !! We haven't even gotten to the closets at Sussex Drive..
Who's clothes are those.. in the Royal Harper walk in closets ? Incroyable !!

How all these so called Canadians line up against Canada and Canadians and defend the toxic tainted deceits of Torontonian Stephen Harper simply blows me away.. I really have yet to comprehend how a sniff or whiff of power makes creating, then eating .. shite, acceptable.. or leads to appearances on the front page of magazines

Hee Hee Hee

Despite the misspelling in the caption, I rather like this cartoon, probably for obvious reasons.



As well, you may enjoy these letters from Star readers who have an even less flattering view of Mr. Harper as it pertains to his northern junket, escaping the heat via prorogation, and his ongoing senate 'problems.'

My Second Surprise Today

Earlier today., I posted a brief piece on how, despite my reservations about Justin Trudeau's leadership capacity, I found his openness and honesty refreshing when it came to pot.

The second surprise I got today was the fact that he spoke quite candidly about his opposition to Quebec's proposed ban on religious symbols and clothing in public buildings.

As you will see see if you read the readers' comments following the first link, people are beginning to discern a difference amongst the three major party leaders, with Trudeau's assertiveness offering a sharp contrast to Thomas Mulcair's refusal to 'comment on something that has not yet been tabled' to the Harper regime's gutless 'it's a provincial matter' evasion of anything remotely representing a real stand.

A Friday Evening Thought

I came upon this excerpt of a much longer poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on Owen's blog this morning in his Daily Literary Quote section.

... Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
...

Imagine the world if we treated it with the reverence it deserves.

UPDATED: Let The Hysteria Begin

While I have real doubts about Justin Trudeau's leadership qualities, I have to give him credit for a degree of openness almost non-existent in politicians. While surely well-aware of the political consequences, he has admitted to smoking pot since he became an M.P. He said that he made this admission for the purposes of full transparency.

The response from the Harperites has been both swift and predictable, at a time when even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (see video below) are advocating handing out tickets for pot possession:

Justice Minister Peter MacKay said that smoking pot as an MP demonstrated "a profound lack of judgment" on Trudeau's part.

"By flouting the laws of Canada while holding elected office, he shows he is a poor example for all Canadians, particularly young ones. Justin Trudeau is simply not the kind of leader our country needs," MacKay said in a statement.

Meanwhile, you might like to read this AlterNet article that gives 10 frightening examples of why the 'war on drugs' is far too costly.

UPDATE: Many thanks to LeDaro for alerting me to this video, a discussion on Power and Politics about Trudeau's revelation. I couldn't help but note the short leash the party put Conservative M.P. Blake Richards on as he evades questions and only repeats points.

Constable Stefanie Trudeau

Given Sammy Yatim's tragic execution by police for swearing at them and holding a penknife, and the shooting in the back of the unarmed Steve Mesic in Hamilton, I suppose the 'mouthy' young man depicted in the following video was 'lucky' to be merely pepper-sprayed for his 'impertinence.' Nonetheless, the justice sytem in Quebec, after an internal police investigation, has ruled that there was insufficient context in the video evidence to charge the officer, Constable Stephanie Trudeau:

Quebec’s directorate of public prosecutions said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that 27 witnesses had been interviewed in the course of the probe into Trudeau’s actions that evening and they had concluded, given the “aggressive and violent nature of the protests,” that the officer had not used unnecessary force as defined in the Criminal Code.

“As a result, no criminal offence has been committed by the officer who was the subject of this investigation,” the agency said.

From my perspective, the video seems to offer a pretty full context, but hey, I'm a mere civilian with a bias in favour of free speech:



If you would like to see another video featuring Constable Trudeau's aggressive proclivities, click here.