The response to my fledgling blog among friends thus far has been positive which is important to me because they're probably the only ones reading this stuff. Hey dudes! Good times last night, thanks for putting up with me while I tried out my British accent. I think I was secretly channelling Oprah Winfrey's butt-hole as so compellingly characterized on South Park.My initial plan was to balance out the posts with an equal mix of world events, entertainment and Canadian interest stories so that it would read like a generalist magazine, like Maclean's for example. Heh heh! Check it out, as soon as our dollar hits parity no one is afraid to whip out the inflammatory imagery anymore. I must say though that mustache looks rather good on him. I'm also a big beret fan, they're so damn jaunty!
As I add entries however a pattern emerges contrary to my plan and in truth I've been censoring my content a bit because of it. The blog is focusing on America, particularly America's work in the Middle East, and even more particularly on the Iraq War.
The reason for this is something that required me to become honest with myself. The truth is I am deeply fascinated with the U.S. of A.; the role it's taken in the world, and how that role is changing their society. It's a truth that I'm not entirely comfortable with. For one, lots of the stories coming out of the U.S. these days are quite negative and I can easily see my commenting on them coming off as contempt or even hate. That would be not only bad but illogical. America is a huge and diverse country, either the third or forth largest in the world by area depending on who you believe and home to over three hundred million people - a great many of them from other parts of the world to begin with. It's too big to hate and quite frankly, there's tons I love about America. They're the best at a bunch of cool things and as far as people go they have some real gems, millions of gems in fact.
My second source of apprehension about this interest is that I'm a Canadian for crying out loud! What kind of wannabe finger-pointer am I turning myself into? I want to throw this level of passion into Canadian affairs - I really do - because it would be a great expression of the patriotism I feel towards my homeland. But you know what? It's just not there. I love Canada but I guess I'm not 'in love' with Canada. She's a great girl and those tits! Second biggest in the world baby... but she's a little boring though, which I guess is a by-product of stability. She likes to stay home on the weekends and day-to-day nothing much ever happens. How does that old saying go? Men want to marry the Canadas but until then we want to fuck the Americas. America is exciting, she's fucking crazy yo! She wants you to tool around in the convertible she just stole while doing lines off her guns - which unlike Canada's are silicone implants but they're still pretty spectacular in their own right.
Plus there is the fact that she's at war; a big, nasty, murky, quagmire of a cat-fight. We are living in history right now, that thing that seemed to happen a lot to our grandparents but seemed set to pass my generation right by. Why not become informed? How many times are in our lives are we going to learn about historical events by reading the morning paper? My best friend and I pulled suddenly off the road one beautiful morning and watched the second tower go down live, in real time. "This is it," my inner child voice told me as I watched, "this is what the end of the world looks like." I know the world is not ending but I also know that those towers haven't finished falling yet. The chapter is not yet complete.
So I guess the time came to own up to my dirty little fetish and come clean. In this blog I'll examine America and take notice of all the ripples it creates around the world. I'm not going to focus exclusively on the States but by the same token I'm no longer going to hold back posts because this will be my umpteenth Yankee Doodle diary entry. So with that and a newly revised mission statement that more accurately reflects the situation on the ground, here are some links...
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070920_100442_7900&source=srch&page=1
I think Maclean's is becoming consciously more sassy in hopes of increasing their circulation amongst the 'in your face' generation. In my opinion that image above doesn't really fit with the article attached but the story itself is bloody brilliant. The author's knowledge of the Iraqi people and their shifting alliances makes this a must-read if you're interested in the Iraq occupation.
If you want to read more about Iraq and the significance of its' cities with regards to Islam then Scott Ritter's paper is another good one. This guy was a former intelligence officer and weapons inspector so he has a raw, to-the-point style that's quite different then a journalist or academic. His insight and opinions are one of the intellectual foundations of the modern anti-war movement so he's always got something interesting to point out.
http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20070323_calling_out_idiot_america/
During the Petraeus Homecoming Extravaganza earlier this month the Democratic-friendly anti-war organization MoveOn (http://www.moveon.org/) took out a full page ad denouncing the general in the New York Times. This created wicked backlash and gave the Republicans a much needed target to lash out at and direct attention away from the war. Same old - same old so I didn't bother commenting on it but it just got a bit more interesting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/20/AR2007092001005.html?wpisrc=newsletter
The senate voted on condemning the ad and a great many Democrats supported the motion. It's a matter of dignity and propriety, right? You can't besmirch an army man even if he does completely cross the military/political line. One problem though, MoveOn has donated millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and they would therefore be justified in considering this vote to be a stab in the back. Some Democrats have not only bitten the hand that feeds them but they may have bitten it off completely. This might create a big change in the netroots and where they decide to give their money. Time will tell.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070920/people-kathy-griffin/
Finally something light and fluffy. I've never seen Kathy Griffen's show 'My Life on the D-List' but she's always been good for a laugh. In her Emmy speech she cracked wise about how so many people thank God for winning and this of course drew scorn from various religious groups. One line in particular jumped out at me.
"It's just not OK anymore to mock Christians and Jesus with impunity."
Take note unbelievers! The times, they're not just a-changing, they've done gone and changed! It's just not okay anymore and you can thank me for giving you the memo! Serious stuff, huh? I wonder what they'll do now that it's not okay? I'm hoping for crucifixion-lite; big staples instead of spikes to keep you up there without marring the flesh too much, something Don Rumsfeld would be cool with signing off on. You want to know what I think? I think these mild-mannered Christians are getting jealous of the wide birth Islamic fundamentalists get on account of them going ape-shit over comics and other forms of stoning-worthy nonsense. All this time those bible-thumpers have been doing that whole 'meek shall inherit the earth' shtick and the problem is nobody lives in FEAR of them anymore. Who wants that when you can claim the moral authority bust that lippy ginger-kid Kathy Griffen in the mouth for putting down the fucking Jesus! Can I get an A-MEN
Well how about a X-MEN?
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