09SEP01: “Once upon a time in Esquimalt, British Columbia”

The place where I woke up one Tuesday Morning in 2001

I was never a fan of mornings.
I knew that Tuesday morning would be no more different than Monday morning, except that it was one day closer to the weekend that I used to crave. Once with booze, tunes, women, girls, and more booze.
Given the type of person I was back in the day, I usually wound up with more booze. And there were times that I had to pay for the women.
But this was a Tuesday morning in September, as grey as the ship on which I served, tied up alongside at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, located just outside Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. And it was a day that was no different from the Monday that preceded it, nor should it be from the following Wednesday. Come to think of it: back then, nothing mattered but the weekend from a Tuesday point of view. I was there to get paid. And hopefully to get laid. Which, in my case, I had to pay for that privilege.
The only thing I had to do first was answer that alarm clock. She was an unforgiving bitch with a snooze button effective for only 3 minutes until she got vindictive with a louder blast. So I decided, “Fuck it. I’m up” and struggled to sit upright on my bed. I grabbed my pack of smokes and took out the first stick of the day, a ritual that was costly since a 20-pack of anything would run up to 10 to 11 dollars in BC at the time. But I was jonesing bad for that nicotine fix, because I knew that the day would be another crashing bore of training, teaching, training, dills, more training. I really didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, nor did I really cared about giving a fuck, but it paid for the smokes and the booze. And that was good enough for me.
It didn’t make matters any better that I was also a senior naval combat information operator on that boat. The naval reserve maintains 12 maritime coastal defence vessels, 6 per coast. Of the 6 in Esquimalt, 1 is set aside for refit and alongside training. My job consisted of ensuring that the kids under my control get familiarised with the equipment in the operations room and to get ready for work at sea. Honestly, I had no clue what I was doing, everything seemed a little over my head and I preferred to delegate the dirtiest of dirty works to my 2 senior Leading Seamen. Even though I was their boss, I always wound up partying with them on weekends, trying desperately to behave more sober than the minions. The end result , of course, was major fail.
After I lit up the first stick, I turned on the radio. The Victoria radio scene reflected the Zeitgeist of the 21^st century "Naughts" - either all poppy or all crusty. It reflected the city’s attitude which was that of the “nearly-wed or the nearly-dead”, reflecting on those who were close to being married, yet were eventually condemned to an unfulfilling existence, and those who were close to meeting their respective makers, yet were eventually condemned to an unfulfilling existence. A no-win situation if you were stuck on an island. Rather than deal with the vapid blathering of the morning pop-radio deejays, I opted for the tried-and-true CBC Radio 1.
Normally, on this station, there would be talk about politics, world events, local events, more politics and fluff pieces on home and garden care in the morning, with more of the same in the afternoon and in the evening. No matter where you are in Canada, there is always a CBC Radio 1 for news and talk and a CBC Radio 2 for arts and talk, all more or less homogeneous in content and ideology. In fact, the only thing that kept me from being a complete fan of Radio 1 was because their “unbiased” dial seemed to be turned  all the way to Loony-Left. Not that there was anything wrong with dippy hippy philosophy, but when someone would host a “serious” current events show, the last thing the the listener would want is an indoctrination. At least the news coverage was good.
Something was really wrong on that day. The news was centred around a couple of plane crashes, one in New York City, another one in Washington, DC, yet another in Pennsylvania. The first thing that came to my mind was that either some poor soul lost control of the craft then all shit happened, or that some idiot was trying to make some warped socio-political statement by ruining someone else’s day. The President of the United States at the time, George W. Bush, was ranting on how these people should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. He was either over-reacting or off his meds – back then, I thought he was a bit too unstable to be a world leader, but then I had bought into the previous Clinton Camelot spirit that consumed most of the 1990s. “Whatever”, I grumbled to myself on my way to take a much needed shower to shake off whatever cobwebs accumulated in my sleep.
When I returned to my room, the same news was still going on, but took on a surreal, yet disturbing tone. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were no more, and hundreds, maybe thousands of people were either dead or missing. More people had perished at the Pentagon in DC as well as in Pennsylvania. “What the fuck”, I grumbled to myself as soon as I went over to work onboard HMCS Brandon, the designated training ship at the time.
As soon as I stepped on aboard Brandon, I looked around. Normally, there would be people hanging around the boatswain’s workshop located near the sweep-deck usually before 8 am (or 0800 in Canadian Forces speak). But on that morning, there was nobody there. I went in, got the operations room keys from the coxswain, looked around and went to the main cafeteria to grab a coffee and steal a toast. Maybe there would be people in there watching the news and explain to me what was going on in the world.
As soon as I went into the cafeteria, I simply gave up on asking. 31 other people were asking the same questions, either to themselves, to each other or to me, ranging from the simple “Why?” to “Are we going to war?” Like a macabre broken record, the news channels showed one tower at the World Trade Center smouldering from the wound left by the incoming aircraft when a huge airliner drove into the second tower. Then a cut to the moment when the wounded Towers slowly went down like a house of cards. The first tower fell when I got up that morning, The second one fell minutes before I got aboard. And we were going insane. “This looks like fucking Hollywood”, I kept saying. “Master Seaman, are we at war?” “Dr.Dray, what’s gong to happen to us.” The only answer I could muster was “Standby. We’ll have something to do.”
One man, a boatswain Leading Seaman, didn’t share the same feeling of anger, confusion and fear. He was originally from Lebanon, and he made the cardinal sin of saying that the Americans finally had it coming. The ship’s electrician, a fellow Master Seaman, threatened to fill him in – a polite way of saying that he was about to beat the tar out of the guy. I had to step in an break it up. It turned out that the boatswain spent some time in refugee camps back in the day, hence his beef with the US as well as Israel. I explained to him that as long as he was wearing the uniform of a Canadian sailor, he was Canadian, and he had to tone down the rhetoric for everyone’s sake, including his own.
As I was watching the highlights and aftermath of this unspeakable act (the word “tragedy” is not strong enough to describe it), I tried to figure out who would be behind it. Gaddafi? Saddam Hussein? The Michigan Militia? Endless fingers were being pointed. Back then, the name Osama bin Laden didn't create that much of a wave. After all, he was just one of many semi-Messianic terrorist warlords who resorted to hit-and-run attacks on unprotected military assets worldwide. All I knew that these were simply brazen attacks on the most visible symbols of American power, even though nobody had figured out the Pennsylvania crash until later.
All of us lower-deck people sat glued to the television until 0930 when the coxswain reluctantly ordered us back to work. Up in the ops room, we struggled to get back to what was considered as “normal” – delegating, drilling, teaching, ad infinitum. But we were also talking about whether or not we would be the next in line. In one of the rarest moment of clarity, I explained to the kids that we were targets, that any lunatic with a boat could take out the West Coast Navy in one shot. In a matter of hours, we got mustered, briefed and told what was going to happen, which essentially meant that the base was going into lockdown mode. Everyone had to be searched going to and from the base, extra watches were to be conducted along the jetties to discourage sabotage of any kind, and we were to refrain from bringing in civvy guests for the next little while.
The events took me by surprise. I thought that the US was vigilant enough to avert incidents like what happed on that Tuesday morning. So did everyone. But the people who flew these planes never got the memo. Meanwhile, all the laissez-faire that we had taken for granted seemed to have disappeared. Someone was trying to kill us just because they could if they worked and trained hard enough. The reality of the “world’s longest undefended border” quickly faded into history and cross-border travel quickly became regimented, scrutinised and dissected, all because of Osama bin Laden and his band of merry, soulless Jihadists.
In the days following the event, I called up my parents, sister, friends, letting them know that I was alright. I was relieved that my relatives living Stateside were doing well. But I was on edge for the next couple of months mainly because I thought that things would devolve from bad to worse to utterly abysmal. Some people handled it better then others, I just wanted to get my drink back on.
But I never forgave bin Laden, nor his enablers, nor his followers, nor the apparent sight of Muslims cheering this “heroic” act of 9/11. I never forgave them for upsetting everyone’s expectations that the 21^st century would bring in peace in our time. Given the petty wars and pissing matches amongst nation-states and tribes alike, I doubt that there ever was a peace at the start: only respites, ceasefires and stalemates, punctuated by bouts of revolts, cold wars, jihads, coup d'états, assassinations and ethnic cleansings. The walls that we thought were broken down started to reassemble. There had been talk of Crusades and Great Awakenings, yet we as humans failed to realize that as a species that sit at the very summit of what is commonly known as the food chain, we are pretty much capable of driving each other to extinction based on petty differences.
It’s just to easy to say that we had all brought all this down on ourselves because of complacency, greed and pettiness, but it takes one individual with command of language and ideology to create a condition poised for an apocalyptic showdown. Osama bin Laden may or may not have been the mastermind of these tragedies, but as the bankroller of many successful terrorist undertakings, he was clearly the one who should've been held totally responsible for the deeds and their subsequent results and repercussions. Iraq, Afghan, Libya, Gaza and the West Bank… the list goes on.
So many other things happened on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The cleanup at Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers once stood, may be close to being complete, but nobody can, nor ever will eradicate the scars.
All I can remember afterwards was that life, for me, went on, business as usual, on the following Wednesday. Under all normal circumstances, it would’ve been a day no different from the Tuesday preceding it.

CHARLIE SHEEN, SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SUCK MY DICK!

Fuck that Charlie Sheen.

Fuck him up his stupid ass.

That whiny, self-centred, sanctimonious, spiteful little bitch is everywhere.

That overpaid twat shouldn’t bother me, but he does.

I am sick of his name.

I am sick of his face.

I am sick of his voice.

I am sick of his backpedalling, backstabbing, backbiting, hand-biting and bridge-burning every time he turds out a Tweet.

He thinks that he may be funny. He thinks that he’s still cool. He thinks that he can be a hit with all the ladies. He assumes that everyone will empathise and sympathise with his perceived plight.

He believes that he is owed an apology. He believes that he’s entitled to damages.

I don’t know about you, but he’s at least entitled to a foot up his backside.

When someone has talent and a good thing on the go, a rational mind would force that person to work hard on keeping them. I would call that the art of maintaining a personal status quo: whatever works, don’t fix; whatever is doable, do it right; whatever good is sown, reap and share the bounty.

If I had followed the blueprint set by my parents, I would’ve had Charlie Sheen’s job – or at least something resembling it.

I would’ve had the lovely talented wife, the beautiful children, lots of spending money, a roof over my head, a steady, guaranteed job surrounded by good people…

At this point, I’m happy with the last 2. I’ll be damned to let them slip away.

But all this money must’ve woken up a winning monster inside that Estevez kid.

Back in the day I would’ve love to dance with Al and Coco, and maybe bring Tina, Mary and Harry along for the ride, if Sid and Stacy didn’t mind. For some reason, I chose Al and Mary, then simply stuck with Al. Now I prefer Nico’s company – no Homo.

But old Carlos would rather dance with the thin white duchess and fuck everyone over in the process. What a winner.

He would take up a skanky pr0n h0 and tie and beat her senseless.

He has lost the confidence of his bosses, his wife, his kids, his mind and eventually his job.

All his interviews will not save his scrawny ass. All his Tweets will not redeem his tarnished soul.

For Sanity’s sake, Charlie Sheen must be destroyed.

He should be bound to a mountain face by heavy chains where raptors can feed off a pound of his flesh – only to be regenerated to be eaten again.

He should be prodded mercilessly by pitchforks wielded by enraged denizens of Chuck Lorre’s ancestral shtetl.

He should be fed to the tigers from which he stole their blood so he could live his winning lifestyle.

He should be set upon by trannies in whatever jail to which he may be sent.

He should be bound to a chair in a metal shack deep in the heart of Death Valley in the middle of summer and be forced to watch ALL his movies and TV shows.

He should be crucified to a burning cross.

He should be guillotined with a blunt, rusty blade.

He should be rolled in powdered sugar and then be left at the mercy of ravenous ants. Preferably in a remote part of the Amazonian rain forest.

He be sent on the next NASA probe heading to the Sun.

He should be sealed in Davey Jones’s locker.

He should be dressed as a pig, then air-dropped into the middle of Mecca. During Ramadan. Or maybe the Hajj. Same diff.

He should be burned alive.

He should be frozen alive.

He should be hanged, drawn and quartered, then have the remains in remand, then put back together. Repeat.

He should be fed to a volcano.

He should be fed to the Kraken.

He should be shot.

But most of all, he should just shut up, walk away and not come back until he can fix himself up and learn to live in the human race.

I hope he does that, because if he doesn’t…

I’m just going to ignore him.

"Quo ea vice magis idem est"

It's way too early to say whether the people-power overthrow of Hosni Mubarak was a good thing or a bad thing.

Should we celebrate the end of autocratic, kleptocratic rule?

Should we fear the rise of Islamic fascist fundamentalism at Israel's doorstep?

Should we hope for the best, and maybe betterment of relations within the middle East?

Should we pray for a truly secular Arab state?

I have some serious mixed feelings about these events that are unfolding throughout the Arab/Islamic world. On one hand, people in general have had it with the type of kleptocratic, oligarchical rule that benefits only those who hold the whip and makes everyone else equal under misery.

On the other hand, the very same people who oppose fascist oppression never studied the intricacies of Western Secularism that drive the (relatively) more prosperous democracies throughout the world. If someone were to spend a good balance of his life under regimentation, only to wind up thrust into a situation that he would have to think, live and work for himself, would he adapt?

And if he were to adapt to a world of free thought and free will, how long would it take for this person to master his life? Would he prosper? Would he relapse?

As an addict, if you were to deprive me of something on which I base my dependency, I would definitely be upset. You may have freed me of something that was destroying me but then how would I now justify my existence, my reason for being in this world and living this life? I could adapt to my new surroundings and get in touch with things that I have missed while I was using. I could find new interests and redefine my purpose in life.

Or I could find a new drug. I would not want to call it a relapse: I would prefer to call it a refocusing. The drug would probably be more dangerous than the one that you took away, but at least I would know that I could regain the sense or at least intense illusion of power, gratification, release and control through my usage. Many people would be disappointed or hurt by my relapse, but I would be more damned if anyone were to interfere with my comfort zone.

The reality is that there is no such thing as pure freedom. Due to the imperfections and randomness that exist in nature, we have to discipline ourselves in order to survive. There will always be a need to put a roof over my head and food on the table, therefore I have to work to pay for it. My freedom includes the right to go to work, get paid for my troubles, then go to the office to pay my rent and utilities. Hopefully I could have some cash left over so I could buy that leg of lamb that I've been craving for weeks. And definitely I wouldn't mind a week or two of vacation to decompress, recharge and regroup.

It was very hard to let go of the vices that landed me in destitution. I could've had a larger house. I could've worked at a better place for more money so I could afford the 100 Mb/s internet and that 52" HDTV so when I go and start playing Call of Duty: Special Ops I would revel in such awesome pwnage! But at least I am still above ground. And I'm always looking forward.

It was because of my vices that I got released from the military. I did my job well but my focus was messed up beyond belief. I had a tough time getting along with people because my mind was locked into getting the next high, drunk or orgasm. And then I realised that most of my life had been plagued by instant gratification, and I was enjoying and hating every minute of it.

Being under a dictatorship is almost like going through an addiction. Once you have a taste of it, you'll learn to despise it first, then tolerate it and eventually make it part of your being. Eventually, when you get freed from it, you have to figure out what to do next and take advantage of the lack of regimentation to which you were accustomed.

At this moment. the Egyptians are at this "now what" stage, the level at which addicts like me experience when the drug-of-choice would finally wear off with a slightly foul aftertaste, followed by a stark epiphany, looking around the wreckage of past misdeeds, abused relationships, lies and deceptions and the pain in its wake, then looking forward to a big blank void which represents freedom - one which limitless, and bottomless. Some people would make that big leap of faith while others hardened by experiences would stand at the ledge, forever debating and wondering if freedom is worth giving up that sweet vile hell that was the comfort zone.

I confess: I may have ditched the drugs, the drink and the debauchery, but the taste is still there. The newly "freed" Tunisians and Egyptians still yet have to experience withdrawal. And together at the edge we look into the bright shiny abyss.

TRUDEAU - oops... OBAMA WINS!(G-d help us all - Barack included...)

Who thought they didn't see it coming?

When a candidate works hard to woo the middle, s/he would eventually be crowned.

Truth be told - everybody lost.

McCain lost because he refused to back up his policies with a sense of resolve and urgency. He never gotten around, let alone bothered, to explain why the policies proposed by Obama were doomed either to failure or to severe scrutiny. Nor did he ever explain why his policies were better and more cost-effective in the simplest, least technical, terms. He failed the middle.

Barack lost because right about now he'll have to fugure out how to pay for all the goodies promised to the electorate. Sure... he looks great in a suit. He talks smooth. Yet he is beholden to the ideals of the modern day Democratic Party and the new-age "Liberals" from which he draws his insprations. Now, he beholden to the masses who cast their votes for and against him. Worse, he will be forced to walk the tighrope above those ravenous for results in order for him to deliver the agenda that he worked so hard to sell. For a bill still to be compiled and calculated, he failed the middle.

It's too easy to blame the "mainstream" media for the good/bad/ugly/fugly that permeated the campaigns. Many saw Barack to be the "Funky President" envisioned by the Godfater of Soul himself. Yes, Virginia... there is a difference between being funky, getting funky and smelling funky. And the sheeple who come to the trough, eat it up and take the innuendoes as gospel may yet grow to appreciate it in due time. Even the tabloid came to the attack when Palin (Sarah, not Michael) came on the scene, creating an outburst of PMS (Palin Malignment Syndrome), exposing the slightest of gaffes and simplest of shortcomings.

To their credit, Palin should've stepped up to the plate with more than a heartbeat and a smile. Most Americans were asking "Where's the beef" and she should've delivered. Yet when she failed to do so to the masses' satisfaction, the "mainstream" press would crucify her. It's easy to praise an unproven Messiah than respect a wisened Maverick, while the Rolling Stone was quick to crown the upstart the same way that Napoleon was quick to crown himself. The "mainstream" failed the middle.

In the end, when the dust has settled, there will be work to be done. As soon as it's done, the costs will be tallied, the cheques will be written, and the man who would be king will have a lot on his plate to divvy amongst those to which he would have to delegate, some of who have created crises that the previous ruler had to resolve, sometimes with pleasant results, sometimes with hideous outcomes. Eventually, it will be the novice's turn to work with the leftovers to create somthing that may appear palatable, yet distubingly familiar.

If he were to succeed and make things right, the middle may have won.

If he were to fail and create more new crises, then it would not be him who failed the middle.

It would be the middle themselves.

The Occasional Rant - Just Watch The Damn Video

Sometimes, even the bad guys need a break.


'No Values Voters' Looking To Support Most Evil Candidate

The shortest distance between 2 points is not always connected by a straight line.

Two years sober and counting.

Two years without gambling... okay - so I relapsed a couple of times but I'm doing fine.

Two years without a hangup, sexual, social, political or otherwise.

The problem about living post-addiction is that there always seem to be a tempting aftertaste of the drug of choice taken.

I miss the sharp sweetness of a double vodka and diet coke, the way it would hit the back of the throat and burn its way down the esophagus to the stomach. I miss the eventual buzz that it would induce, and the loosening of inhibitions and morals at any given party.

I miss the rush obtained by rolling two dice at the craps table at Casino Nova Scotia. The noise, the chaos, the anticipation that the right number would come up at the right time - would it be a deuce, double deuce or midnight? I miss the ritual and suspense involved with the roll, the many eyes of fellow desperate beings staring at me, praying that I wouldn't seven-out them of whatever hard-earned money that they would put on the table.

I miss all the orgasms that I have obtained, regardless of means, both legit and illicit. The adventure, the danger, the thrill of witnessing, ravishing and obtaining human flesh so that for one fleeting moment, the pain of reality would go away.

It takes but one taste to get you hooked. And that taste will never leave you.

The taste can redefine the way you look at the world, treat the people, spend the money and even read these worlds.

People would lie, cheat, steal and kill for its effects, its rush, its power and the illusion of empowerment.

I lived for the taste. I wanted more of it. I wanted to re-live the feeling of the initial rush every time I took it.

I spent a lot of money pursuing that first rush. I wanted that high to be more intense, more empowering.

Yet with every high, there is a crash, each one being worse, bloodier and more costly than the last.

In pursuit of the taste I had dug a hole so deep that the only way to get out is to keep digging in the faint hope that I could see light at the other end.

Even though I am enjoying sobriety, the reality of my life and the things surrounding it is no less easier. All the things that I had put off due to my drinking, gambling and whoring ways have returned to haunt me. Negligence has its price. Looking back becomes a habit, a sick perverse obsession. A part of me wants to reinvent the wheel when it comes to taking stock of what led me to my current situation.

I thought I could save the world. I thought I could change it. I thought I could be king in a short time.

But after years of living like a god, I started to realise that soon, I'll die like a man and be buried like everyone else, because I am no longer the wild and crazy kid that I thought I was - at least in my own fevered mind. With all the excesses and the resulting mayhem, in the wake of what seemed to be an endless storm fueled by want of immediate gratification, I emerged battered, bloodied, naked and in pain.

But I am not dead.

Not that I really wanted to live forever - I'm just too scared to die before achieving my full potential. There are too many things to do and accomplish for me to toss in the proverbial towel and cash out of this mortal coil.

Life is full of unexpected experiences, both good and bad. No matter what could happen on any given day, I am still standing.

Because of my sobriety and my willingness to pursue and healthier, more fulfilling life, I consider every day to be a birthday.

I don't miss the stupidity, silliness and hangovers.

I don't miss the losses and disappointments.

I don't miss the guilt and embarrassment and shame of the morning-after and the ensuing ruination of lives.

But most of all, I don't miss the taste, even though it will in my body, mind and soul until I take my final breath.

I have done enough sinning in my life. I have gorged enough forbidden fruit to make the vilest of men sick. I have bitten off more that I could chew and burnt so many bridges that I might as well take a deep breath and move forward.

My name is Jacques. I was, I am and always will be an addict, pervert, scoundrel, jealous bastard, wanton lover and romantic hater.

And I am still alive.

And these days, I never could have felt this great.

Thank G-d for the wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Oh... and by the way - I still love to create.

The Occasional Rant: Anything but THAT!

Dr. Henry Morgentaler may be an influential person.

He may have pushed the boundaries in the medical profession.

He may have given women the power to control their bodies and their lives.

He may have influenced changes in society and attitudes towards reproductive rights.

He may have succeeded in lifting the taboo off abortion.

But he does not, nor ever will, deserve the Order of Canada.

First... I don't mind a woman's right to choose. If she feels that she does not want this pregnancy, that all avenues that would help relieve her of the burden of raising a child have been exhausted, or that this pregnancy might endanger her life, then she is entitled to that right.

That being said, abortion is wrong. Period.

I'm not talking about the X-tian notion of the sanctity of life, although I do believe that life begins at conception. This isn't even about meddling with nature, although the concept of man playing God has irked me in more ways than one (see: bin Ladin, Hitler, Stalin, et al).

This is about dereliction of responsibility, the cheapening of morality and the abdication of accountability, and its effect on the collective mindset at the closing of the previous century.

If anyone had given any thought about their actions with regards to the sex act, if anyone were learned on the responsibilities involved, we wouldn't have to worry about abortions.

By carrying out the abortion, the woman who requested it has abdicated responsibility and accountability: it will always be "someone else's fault", "a mistake", "a decision that had to be made in one's own interests".

Just call me a pro-lifer for choice - abortion is wrong, plays God and messes with nature, but let the woman make the final call.

Dr. Morgentaler is not a villain. He is not a monster. He isn't even the Antichrist, let alone an anarchist. He is a doctor attending to a patient's needs.

But what has he done for all Canadians? What has he done for me?

Far from being humble, Dr. Morgentaler said this...

"I think it's a sign of recognition for all the work that I've done over the years and the sacrifices I've borne and the unjust sentence of imprisonment that I suffered," he said.

"I hope that Canada has set an example and that internationally, people in governments will respond to it."

Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada was just as modest...

"There's always going to be some division and controversy about him. Canada is the only democratic country in the world that has no law on abortion," she said.

"We set a good example for the rest of the world, and this Order of Canada further sets a good example because it sends a strong message that our society officially supports abortion rights and women's rights and we're not afraid to say it out loud."

Sadly, I don't see any point why Dr. Morgentaler should get this honour, at least at this time.

If this is Canada's way of saying that we are a progressive country, then something has gone FUBAR. The Order of Canada is not for Henry Morgentaler.

So there you go.

The Occasional Rant: The CBC fucks up... yet again!

May I have your attention, please?

For the past week, Canada's other anthem - one might even say that it's the most sacred Saturday night hymn - was at the centre of controversy.

The dispute centred on the theme song to the CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" (a.k.a. "HNIC").

Ask any Canuck about HNIC and s/he will tell you that it's one of the best shows to watch on a Saturday night in wintertime, showcasing the good, bad and ugly of the best game you can name.

Considering that hockey is Canada's unofficial state religion, any tinkering with rules, uniforms and even rituals would be considered worse than blasphemous. Even radical Islamofascism has some boundaries - as long as you don't insult the Prophet (PBUH), they're cool. Mess with anything that has to do with hockey, and you'll have one big fat Canadian fatwah (and Don Cherry) on your sorry hairy arse.

I've grown to accept the HNIC theme as part of the landscape and that of the CBC, who insinuated itself into the Hoser psyche as the purveyor of the game on ice.

Sadly, the theme's composer wanted to get paid a little more because of its popularity.

Considering that we are the amongst most taxed people in the history of Western Civilisation©, we thought that the CBC, a Crown Corporation, would be able to settle this affair accordingly. Right?

Sadly, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has long been a victim of its own paradigm paralysis - even though it sees itself as the protector of Canadian Culture™, the Powers That Be have no clue how to improve it's management and profitability. In its dispute with the composer's estate, it cried poverty. Towards the end of the week, the CBC decided to hold a competition on a possible replacement. Pathetic.

Enter the CTV, CBC's rival.

Right about now, this company pwns a goodly chunk of Canadian pop culture, from its own stable of radio and tv stations to specialty channels such as TSN, MuchMusic and franchises such as the Discovery Channel and MTV. (Yes... that eMpTy-V!) There was no doubt that one day, it might come to eclipse the so-called Mother Corp.

And earlier today, it did just that.

So what does that mean for the CBC? What does it say about the erstwhile, self-proclaimed guardian of Canadian Culture™?

Well... it's another great example on how a once-respected institution could get so bloated on it own sanctimonious arrogance and delusion that it could succeed in sabotaging its own attempt at retaining and maintaining the respect of its core audiences.

You might say that the CBC had committed a little social and public-relations suicide.

But that would involve competency, and in the end, it was the CTV that wound up pulling the trigger to finish the job.

And so, there you go.

Reverend Wright may be right...(but at least he should've worded it better...)

I'm not too much of a fan of American politics nowadays, mainly because the people that are running things - people of MY generation - may have lost the fine art of leadership.

This lack of leadership, and the confusion that it can create, is apparent when the Reverend Wright issued his "God damn America" sermon.

True - it has offended the conservative sphere is such a way that some are calling for his head to be served (examples here, here, and here).

Right about now - at the risk of permanently alienating conservatives, right-libertarians and anti-idiotarians everywhere even further, here is Rev. Wright's sermon (courtesy of the "Huffington Post")...



In context of this sermon, Wright has good reason why politics can alienate groups of people due to the whims of various leaders. In that context, people should have the right to rage against the machine.

Having said all that, Wright is still crying "Victim" in this sermon. As someone who is not a X-tian, this would upset God quite a bit.

Obsessing about the past can be a dangerous thing. Many people overcompensate their shortcomings or their trespasses by either starting wars (yes - even this current war!), engaging in addictions <puts hand up> or becoming an emasculated shadow of one's self. Continuous self reflection isolates you from the mainstream, prevents you from seeing the big picture and may even exacerbate the failures and errors that you have committed in the past.

If Reverend Wright wants to help the people, he shouldn't promote self-defeatism by laying blame solely on the oppressors - past, present, future. Playing the victim card politically, socially or racially can backfire and harm even the people you're trying to save.

The people are the engineers of their own successes and failures. By forever demanding entitlement, concessions and payback on the basis of victimhood, Reverend Dr. Jeremiah Wright may be cheapening the whole concept. That's the real crime of this sermon - not anti-Americanism, but constant self-victimisation.

Amen. Next...