Famous Tools V: Hillary Clinton

You'll all be thrilled to know that Harper Valley's back with her weekly Famous Stupid People contest. In celebration, here is installment #5 of my Famous Tools series.

Hillary Clinton, Tool #5 for a Reason. Five in fact.

1. This quote: "It's not over until the lady in the pantsuit says it is." For God's sake! There's a reason why these people hire fucking speech writers.

2. She stated she landed in Bosnia with her daughter amid "sniper fire" and that "there was no greeting ceremony...and we were basically told to run to our cars. That is what happened." Soon after she said this, a video surfaced revealing that she and Chelsea arrived in Bosnia to much fanfare and in safe, strikingly jolly-looking conditions. The pants of her pantsuit should be burnt to ashes by now, don't you think? Hm?

3. Canoodler Enabler. OK. No, what goes on in the bedrooms of the first couple is no one's business. But, her judgment around this issue speaks volumes. She is quoted as saying, "I'm not some Tammy Wynette standing by my man." Again, another pantsuit bites the dust. How many does she own? Perhaps she needs to wear a skirt or a flashy pair of capris for the rest of the campaign.

4. Her stance on NAFTA. It gets my goat when Americans complain about the raw deal they got with NAFTA. Let me just say this: YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE SHORT END OF THE STICK, OK? If anyone is, it's the Mexicans! So, Hillary, you have got to be kidding me. It's not working for y'all down there? Tough, isn't it? But billions of bucks in trade with China isn't the culprit at all, though, right? Oh, noooooooo. Clinton said in the Ohio debate: "we need to have a plan to fix NAFTA. I would immediately have a trade timeout, and I would take that time to try to fix NAFTA by making it clear that we'll have core labor and environmental standards in the agreement." Hell will freeze over before you change anything in NAFTA, Madame, and you know it. You did, after all, serve on the board of Wally World.

5. And speaking of Wally World, Hillary served on the Wally World board. "Buy America Program?" Uh-huh. See #4.

We Has Survisses? Reely? Heer? In Da Boonies?

Imagine my surprise when I accidentally discovered today that Trail has a branch of the CMHA.

I was beginning to think that my mental health services were limited to the local mental health clinic and the disability benefits program at The Ministry. I am happy to report that I am wrong, and that once again, the boonies are still teaching me that I shouldn't make assumptions.

Con Propaganda Update

Today my mailbox did not contain a mailing from a Con MP outside my riding. But, I did mail off three of the response portions of the previous mailings I received.

Bob Mills so thoughtfully sent me a flyer entitled "A little help. For all of us" last week. On the back, it said, "We all need a little help, sometimes. That's why Stephen Harper and the Conservative government cut the GST to 5%, delivered a transit pass tax credit, increased the Guaranteed Income Supplement Benefit." Etc. The referendum-type question on the mail in portion asked something like, "Do you support the government's efforts to reduce taxes?" or similar.

My response, sent postage paid, thank you very much: "A 'little' help is right. I'd rather see an increase in my monthly CPP payments than a measely 1% GST decrease."

This post contains a picture of another response I sent in. I did something similar on the third one.

Well, I feel a bit better, and it didn't cost me a cent. Go Canada!

I Haz Sproutz

Gardening Week One has completed, and here we have the shining star of my little project so far, the bean plants. They were very quick to sprout, and I soon realized that I didn't plant them deep enough into their containers and had to add some extra dirt. We live and learn. They are doing very well, and so far the cats seem uninterested. I hope it stays that way.

My basil, all three varieties of it (lemon, sweet, and Thai) are also doing quite well. Cilantro has also sprouted, though I suspect a cat has played with that as the two baby leaves are mysteriously on the dirt next to the sprout rather than on the sprout; you can kinda make that out in picture #3 here, which is as close up as I could take it and still have everything relatively visible. The catnip is also just, just starting to peek through.

Still no sign of the dill or chives I planted, but maybe they're just taking their time. The long-term forecast looks good for low, overnight temperatures, but I'm still going to wait at least another week before putting anything in the ground. I just don't trust the mountain climate enough at this point, and the last thing I want is all of my effort ruined by a late frost.

Poison Ivy

So, I finally get to see what this plant looks like up close and personal.

No, don't worry; I didn't touch it in any way and I don't have a nasty rash. But, this was just off my brother's campsite, which my dad and I visited yesterday. My dad did a small hike and came across a sign on the trail describing poison ivy. There was a little rhyme to go along with it:

"Leaves of three, let it be."

There you have it. Be careful if you're out tromping around the woods this summer!

More pictures from Syringa Creek here.

We Haz Blooms!

Here.

Book Review: Novel About My Wife

I hardly know where to start with this review.

The short story: fabulous book.

The longer story is far more complicated. Novel About My Wife, written by Emily Perkins, is the study of a marriage on the verge of the ultimate change: parenthood. It is also an alarming character study about how love can so wholly blind one half of a couple that devastation is the only outcome. As the flap says, this story is "about the need for escape and the perils of forgetting," but this a typical flap-like oversimplification.

Tom Stone is a writer coming to terms with the failure of his career. His wife, Ann, is expecting their first child and throughout her pregnancy seems to be in a prolonged phase of mania. They've just bought a house in a sketchy neighbourhood, and it's in desperate need of renovation. But there is something ominous within its walls, and it seems to Ann there is an impending sense of doom about it. She also believes she is being stalked by a local homeless man. Tom, overprotective and oblivious, hopelessly tries to keep things from - both literally and figuratively - falling down around their heads, and sells out in the process.

Both have big-time baggage, unsurprising for a couple barely forty, and it comes back to haunt them. Tom tells us in the first few pages that Ann will be dead by the end of the book, and the mystery surrounding how this comes about is compelling and chilling. Very carefully, Tom constructs a story about his wife in an attempt to explain the quintessential unknown: what is really going on in the brain of my spouse? At the same time, it seems he is using his writing to try to heal the trauma of the story's outcome. Perkins leaves just enough out to tantalize the reader by necessitating drawing your own conclusions from what's missing rather than what's there, which speaks to the overall theme of the narrative.

The writing is tight and Tom's voice is exquisitely tortured and cynical, yet comical. Perkins has a gift for descriptions like this one of Tom's take on his and Ann's poverty: "We had enough packets of pasta, cans of borlotti beans, tinned tomatoes and jars of pesto to survive a small Tuscan apocalypse. Tuna, you may remember from your student days, can be rendered interesting in multiple ways if you don't think about cat food. Brown rice bestows moral superiority for at least an hour."

This is a book to be savoured and read over and over again, each time peeling back a new layer of understanding. So, as such, it will be remaining on my shelf.

ReTorte Update

Kazakh Family Loaf, from the most excellent book, Beyond the Great Wall, now appearing over on the food blog.

Heat Wave

Here is our weather forecast for the upcoming long weekend. We're 2000 feet above Trail, so it won't be quite that hot, but still, I am looking forward to getting outside and reading on the lawn (with my SPF 30 sunscreen and sun hat) with my MP3 player going, soaking up those rays. I'm not a sun worshipper by any stretch of the imagination, but this has been one loooooooooong, cold spring. Hopefully after this weekend, I can get my garden planted, too. But knowing my luck, we'll have a frost just after I plant.

Edit @ 3:31pm: I am already sick of the heat, and am dreading having to go to Trail at all in the next three months.

This Isn't Hard. I'll Even Provide You With a Picture!

Today the SPCA called me to ask if I could do some fostering. I asked what they had available and was told "a lot."

Me: Um, like what?

SPCA: Well, I have a litter of 8 kittens. All are sick.

Me: Uh, no.

SPCA: OK. I have a momma with 3 kittens. They're all sick.

Me: Sorry, can't do kittens. I can do an adult.

SPCA: Oh, great! I have three or four adults, all sick.

Me (somewhat testily): What are they sick with?

SPCA: You know...Coughing, sneezing...

Me: Sorry. Can't do it. My cat has had the kennel cough vaccine but my roommate's cat hasn't.

SPCA: OK, well, thanks anyway.

The solution:
Picture from I Can Has Cheezburger.

(Is it me, or is that a really well-endowed cat? Probably me; I've never seen an unneutered male cat this close up before...)

Better

Actually, I nearly - very nearly - flunked grade 8 math. I wound up flunking grade 9 math, which meant that I had to take Math 10A, AKA "Dummy Math." It was humiliating, and the class was full of the most notorious reprobates and...um..."unacademic" students in grades 10 - 11. It was totally unbearable. However, I got an A+ in Math 10A and the teacher was confused as to why I was in the class. I told him I'd flunked Math 9. Second semester, into Math 10, AKA "normal math 10" I go. I can't remember what mark I got, but I did pass and not have to endure Dummy Math 11.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 8/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Garden Starting

Still too cold to plant outside, so I've begun most of my plants in little containers that I got from raiding the recycling bin. I started everything but the carrots, lettuce, marigolds, and echinacea. Hopefully by the end of the month, I can start putting stuff outside, but spring is mightily late this year and we're still waking up to frost.

The cilantro is in the big terra cotta pot. The package said it's difficult to transplant so I just decided to grow it in a pot. My roommate loaned me this one, and she's kindly allowing me to put the table of plant starter pots in her front window, which isn't in my space. It has great southern exposure so I hope the plants do well there.

Conservative Shennanigans - EXPLAINED!

OK, another email this morning from my MPs assistant, this one explaining why we might be getting propaganda mailings from MPs not of our riding:

"In order for the party to put out a mass-mailing across the country they must enlist the names of each of their MPs as they are only entitled to send out a maximum of 10% of each MP's total constituency in one mailing. For example, if an MP has 25,000 people living in his riding, then he can only send a mailing out to 2,500 people. So, if each MP in the Conservative caucus offers their printing allocation to the Party, then there name is added to the print material, but the material can end up anywhere in the country."

Ah-ha! This explains it. I'd wondered if it had something to do with budgeting. Still, I am going to keep sending back the mailers with snarky responses on them, just because I can and it's free.

Thanks to Mr. Atamanenko's assistant for replying to my emails and explaining things so well. It pays to open your mouth and ask questions sometimes, doesn't it?

Conservative Shennanigans - Redux

OK - another mailing arrived today, this one from (and I'm not going to even bother with the Cloak & Dagger stuff around these peoples' identities anymore; it's annoying) Bob Mills, Con MP for Red Deer.

Red Deer? Um, not even in my province!

So, I wanna know...Is anyone else in this vast country of ours receiving Conservative propaganda in their mail from MPs not of their riding? Please, let me know; I'm curious.

I spoke with my brother today, whom I share the mailbox with, and he said he's seen these before - and one was from an MP in Saskatchewan. He wasn't upset about it (perhaps I've too much time on my hands...) and said it was "just marketing, what can you do?"

I still think it's shifty and disingenuous.

So far, we have two MPs sending stuff to the NDP riding of BC - Southern Interior:

Rob Cannan (previously referred to as Mr. X or the neighbouring Con MP)
Bob Mills

I suspect I'll be adding to this list in the near future.

I took a picture of today's mailer with my response. I can send it postage paid, so why not?

Book Review: Jane Boleyn

Subtitled "The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford," Jane Boleyn is the biography of a little-known character in Henry VIII's court, written by Julia Fox, a Tudor historian.

The flap reads, "In a life of extraordinary drama, Jane Boleyn was catapulted from relative obscurity to the inner circle of King Henry VIII. As the leading members of the court became victims of Henry's ruthless and absolute power, including her own husband and sister-in-law, Queen Anne Boleyn, Jane's allegiance to the volatile monarch was sustained and rewarded. But the price of her loyalty would eventually be her undoing and the ruination of her name."

I've read quite a bit of literature on the Tudors and Henry VIII's tumultuous marriages, and if any of them included the mention of Jane Boleyn/Rochford, I cannot recall. That might be because not too much is known about her, and what is out there still "in extant" (a favourite phrase of the author's) was published long after Jane's death and was filtered through the political machinations of the times. Perhaps, if you are an esotericist, you might just find this an "electric account" of an obscure life, but I found it dry, verbose, and disappointing.

Indeed, Jane was Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law and one of Anne's main ladies-in-waiting. Jane married Anne's brother, George, but was from a very young age attached to Henry's court as one of Katherine of Aragon's ladies. When Katherine was discarded, Jane moved on to Anne's household and eventually lived to serve three queens beyond Anne in Henry's ludicrous cavalcade of wives. She certainly had a unique vantage point for this period of history, and the book does provide many insightful and fascinating details regarding Henry's personality and deeds, and is a meticulous account of Boleyn family ambition, which Jane was no doubt caught up in.

But as a biography of Jane Boleyn, I found it lacking immensely. The first two-thirds of the book focus predominantly on the Boleyns' rise to power and the fall of Katherine of Aragon. And while Jane was undoubtedly an observer in many of the events around Anne's rise and fall, the language Fox uses around Jane is very vague. We see a lot of "could have," "almost certainly," "if," "would have" and lots of phrasing similar to "although Jane wasn't documented as being there, she probably was, and if so, she would probably have seen/done/heard such-and-such."

Insufficient first-hand evidence in this book about such an obscure person is problematic. The lack of documents, accounts, or descriptions of Jane or her actions, much less her thoughts and impressions of events she witnessed, reveal nothing particularly interesting about Jane. This book feels like a lot of conjecturing on the part of Fox. It's educated conjecturing for sure, but it makes for a frustrating biography when there is little to discuss that is new or previously unrevealed, other than an author's bias. It's evident throughout the book that Fox is fond of Jane, but this doesn't seem like an effective biography of Jane's life. Fox seems to be using her book as away of refuting previous historians' opinions of Jane, and overall, Jane is more of a vehicle through which Fox explores Henry VIII's actions and Boleyn ambition. It isn't until after Anne Boleyn dies, in chapter 23, on page 201, that the story turns from the Boleyns to the next three queens Jane serves, and to the events which eventually bring about Jane's downfall.

And it didn't require an entire volume to discredit past historians' beliefs about Jane Boleyn; Fox sums it all up and adds her own take on things quite tidily in the epilogue, which was probably the most interesting part of the book.

Incidentally, not even a portrait or drawing of Jane exists today, and the cover art is a close-up of a famous painting of Queen Jane Seymour.

Conservative Shennanigans - CONFIRMED!

I just received an email from my MP's office regarding the conservative mailings I've been receiving in my mailbox! Here it is:

Dear WC,

Thank you very much for contacting Alex with this information. I will bring your e-mail to his attention at the earliest.

To respond on this matter, please be assured that you are not alone, as our offices both in Ottawa and Castlegar have received numerous calls, letters and e-mails about the Conservative mailing into the Alex's riding, all expressing their outrage.

With that said, I have taken the liberty of investigating this, and have found out that while the material has Mr. X's name and address on it, that it was a Conservative Party mailing, which means that the Party dumped this into our riding as a mass mail out.

I would like to emphasis that Alex is extremely disappointed that the Conservatives have sent a mailing into his riding where they attack and try to persuade. They have offered no facts on the issue and their tactics display their narrow minded opinions. Their "it's my way or the highway" approach to the issue leaves no room for a balanced a fair approach to drawing your own conclusions. Rather than inform and solicit your opinion, they have chosen to once again dictate how you should think.

If you so wish, please do not hesitate to contact Mr. X's office at _____ to voice your dissatisfaction with this type of blatant partisan material.

Again, thank you very much for contacting us.

Sincerely,

J. R., MA

to Alex Atamanenko, MP
BC Southern Interior

My response:

Ms. R,

Thank you for responding to my email in a very timely manner. I contacted Mr. Cannan's office via email a week ago now, and have yet to receive a response. I will send another email, however, now that I have more information.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has noticed this or who is a little ticked off about it. If this had been a regular Conservative Party mailing, or one from Mr. Z, I might not have been so annoyed. Yet, it seems disingenuous to me to send out a mailing that looks like it's coming from a neighbouring Conservative MP. It's bound to cause confusion and questions, and though we should all know who our local MP is, I wonder if this is an attempt to confuse those who might not understand our Parliamentary system or our local, federal-level politics. Also, I wonder if this is a deceitful means of garnering votes for Mr. Z in the next election.

Once again, thank you for responding.

Regards,
WC.

So, I am not the only one with concerns about this. I think misrepresenting yourself as an MP for another riding - which is what I interpret given that the neighbouring MP is sending stuff to this riding, not the Conservative Party in general and not the local Con candidate - is pretty sneaky to say the least. If enough people have noticed and been as annoyed as I have about this tactic, I can't see how that would benefit the Cons in this riding in the next election.

More Conservative Shennanigans, Part Deux

Well, the Con MP in a neighbouring riding never got back to me last week regarding propaganda mailings I've been receiving from him for a while now (story here), so I am going to send the following email to my actual MP, NDP member, Alex Atamanenko, and ask him what he thinks. I hope I receive a timely reply, though yes, I realize MPs are busy and that Parliament is in session.

Dear Mr. Atamanenko,

I am writing because, as a constituent living in Rossland, I am curious about why a Conservative MP, namely X of K Riding, is sending mailings to people outside of his constituency.

At least a few times a month I receive what appears to be Conservative propaganda in my mailbox. Most recently, it was a black & white flier entitled "Tackling Crime, Protecting our Children." It included a referendum-type question ("Do you support the Conservative government's plan to raise the age of protection to 16 years?") with YES or NO boxes to tick for replying, and then you could detach this and send it to X's Parliament Hill address. There was no indication on the flier what constituency X represents.

I am just wondering if it is common practice for MPs to send mailings to people outside of their constituency, and I wonder why we in BC Souther Interior are getting Conservative propaganda from a neighbouring MP in our mail.

Thank you for your time,

WC.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Cookbook Review: Beyond the Great Wall

Last night I cooked a huge meal for my family and roommate, with recipes gleaned from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's new and gorgeous book, Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China. The food was copious and pretty fabulous, with the dumplings being the most popular dish.

Go check it out!

Laugh of the Day

Someone is Among Us...

...But I don't think it's aliens.



There are a lot of hicks on weed here. I have no idea who these people are, but they must live in the trailer park.

Photoblog Update

Conversions appearing over at She Takes Pictures, Too.

We are having our first official thunderstorm of the season, so I should probably shut things down for a while.

(Photo: Rossland's historic courthouse.)

10 Egregious Sins: Harper/Con Version

Are we headed to an election? I have no idea, but I can hope, right? It's no secret and it doesn't take to much reading of this blog to figure out where I lean politically. But, if you can't quite come up with a conclusion, lemme give you a hint: I lean left. Exactly how left is between me and my ballot, and me and my ballot only.

My dad's a card-carrying Con. Don't get me started, OK? Yes, it gets "interesting" at some family occasions, but I love my dad and what he does on election day is between him and his ballot, and him and his ballot only.

But here are a few things the Cons have done, in no particular order, that as far as I'm concerned, are beyond the pale.

1. Cancellation of the Kelowna Accord. Way to go, Harper! Way to ingratiate yourself with the First Nations and those of us who believe the First Nations are being continually shafted by Canadian politicians!

2. Making an unelected dude a cabinet minister.

3. Cadscam.

4. Bill C-10.

5. Bill C-484.

6. The Shoe Store Project. (I blogged about this here.) This after shunning the National Press Gallery and starting to exert control over who asks him what at press conferences. Harper/Cons=anti-freedom of press. Period.

7. Tying into the above, we have the latest Con scandal, this one regarding exceeded a spending limit during the last campaign. But that isn't the least of it! They are also trying their damnedest to control the media with this issue, too, by excluding some of them from briefing meetings. From the linked article:

Party bars some reporters

CBC News and the Canadian Press obtained a copy of the documents before they were released Monday by an Ontario court.

Other media, including the Toronto Star and CTVglobemedia, received the documents in a private briefing from the Conservatives on Sunday in Ottawa, the CBC's Keith Boag reported.

When other media organizations, including the CBC, learned of the meeting, party officials scrambled to avoid them, switching hotels, slamming doors and scampering down fire exits to escape pointed questions from journalists who weren't invited.

Boag said CBC News asked to attend the briefings, but was rejected and told by party spokesman Ryan Sparrow that it was a "private meeting."

Reporters from the Canadian Press, Maclean's magazine and Canwest Global Communications Corp., along with others, were also excluded.

Giving some reporters a briefing before Monday's court release of the warrant gives the party a chance to shape the story, but it also creates the impression that the Conservatives need to spin it, Boag said.

What is this? It's bullshit, is what it is.


8. Extending the Afghan mission by demanding 1000 more NATO troops. By a whole 1000?! Let's just soft-ball the world there, Steve-O. 1,000 NATO troops is nothing and you know it.

9. The isotope fiasco.

10. Sticking his head up Bush's arse.

More Conservative Shennanigans?

I keep getting stuff in my mailbox from the Conservative MP in a riding neighbouring mine. This isn't the first time. From my recollection, I believe we get something at least a few times a month from this man, if not once a week.

Today's mailing is a black and white flyer entitled "Tackling Crime, Protecting our Children." It includes this referendum-type question "Do you support the Conservative government's plan to raise the age of protection to 16 years?" with large "YES" and "NO" boxes to check off in reply. Then you can cut it off and mail it in to this MP's Parliament Hill address, no postage required.

I repeat, he is not our elected MP here in BC-Southern Interior (this guy is), and he is not doing didley for anyone in this corner of the country.

So, why the mailings? Possible theories:

• Is it an honest mistake made by an office employee?
• Does he think we're a dumb bunch of hicks from the sticks who don't even know who their own MP is (i.e. is he trying to trick us)?
• Is this an unofficial gathering of information, or some type of unofficial referendum, that the Conservative Party of Canada is utilizing in order to gage the popularity of their policies, or potential policies, if the threat of a non-confidence vote becomes more and more imminent?
• Is he trying to drum up support for our new Conservative candidate (note the word CANDIDATE), this man?

It seems a little fishy to me, and if I were a constituent in the lovely Kelowna-Lake Country riding, I'd be a little ticked that my bucks are going towards any of these possibilities.

I have just fired off this email to this MP:

Hi there,

I'm just wondering why I keep getting bits and pieces in my mailbox from you when I'm not even in your riding. Today I got a flyer entitled "Tackling Crime, Protecting Our Children." I seem to get one of something similar to this each week, or a least a couple of times a month.

I live in Rossland, my MP is Alex Atamanenko, and my riding is BC Southern Interior. We are in neighbouring ridings for sure, but I have no idea why you'd be mailing things to people outside your own riding.

Thanks for clearing this up,

WC.

I have yet to receive a response, but it's early yet.

This Isn't Good...

I saw this article on Yahoo! this morning. Good God. I'm already at high risk for post partum depression, but now I'm even more unsure about whether or not to have children...

The Accidental Hike

Today I accidentally went on a three hour hike. Photos here.

I had intended on going for a one hour walk to the Old Rossland Cemetery in Happy Valley (rural Rossland, some farms & orchards, very pastoral). But, I must have taken a wrong turn on a clearly marked trail because I wound up in an entirely different spot than I was expecting too, and I went much farther than I wanted to.

I took the Cemetery Trail from the Old Mining School, thinking I'd come out at the Old Rossland Cemetery, or at the very least at the Mountain View Cemetery. After descending a windy trail for what seemed like quite a while, I thought, I've been to Old Rossland before and I know there is a more direct route than this... Farther along, I ran into the highway, between the Mountain View and Old Trail cemeteries. I was seriously annoyed because I'd unknowingly walked right by two cemeteries and now I knew I had come farther than I wanted to and that meant walking back farther than I wanted to.

But I did get to explore a cemetery I'd been meaning to for along time, so it wasn't a huge loss. I was just unprepared: no water, no bear whistle, not properly dressed, not wearing the appropriate footwear.

While stopping for a break at the mausoleum at Mountain View, I realized I'd walked right by this very building on my way down the trail initially and was unaware that I was near the cemetery at all and totally unaware that the nice stone building was a mausoleum. As I walked down, I was like, "Oh, what a cool, modern-looking house. What a nice yard." Yeah. I felt pretty stupid over an hour later when I was watching a group of mountain bikers hiking up the trail I'd just come down, from a bench outside the mausoleum.

According to The Daily Plate, I worked off over 1400 calories. But I am exhausted and achey and I had to have a bit of a nap just now. Next time, I need to take a map.

Saturday Link

If you are a UFO/alien abduction enthusiast, or if you just plain like to be entertained with clever material that has you busting a gut laughing hysterically, you will probably get a real kick out of this site: Are They Watching?

The videos are ridiculously hilarious and this guy's writing will have you pissing yourself with mammoth paroxysms of laughter.

New Blog

I've started a photoblog.

I haven't posted anything on it yet because I haven't taken many pictures, but I plan on filling it up soon.

The Hour: The T-shirt

First we had The Hour: The Mug, two years ago, sent to me by my good friend Red Jane. Then we had The Hour: Observations, the universe speaking to me via George, and last but certainly not the least at all, The Hour & MyUltimate George Experience.

Now, dear readers, I give you The Hour: The T-shirt.


I've been waiting 4 months to wear this shirt. Not only was I trying to protect it from getting stained by my day to day activity (uh, like cooking or eating), I also was trying to minimize cat hair, especially through Juno's shedding period. Additionally, I wanted to show this shirt off, and finally the weather is cooperating.

Back in Business

I haz kamra.

I am not going to discuss what I went through to get this, the price I eventually paid, or the make/model I settled for. In the end, this wasn't about the camera: it was about resolving an increasingly frustrating situation involving a complete stranger who had something I wanted/needed, something I could have gotten at the same price at a non-locally owned big box retailer. In the end, this was about getting my needs met while maintaining my dignity, self-respect, and composure.

In the end, Juno doesn't care; she hates being photographed no matter what the device. But, at least now I can once again share with you her utter indifference.

Boomer's Chronicle

Again, I must ask the perennial question: WTF is wrong with people?

If you haven't heard about Boomer the pet lion, I encourage you to read this.

Boomer is a six month old lion living as someone's pet on a native reserve. Boomer escaped yesterday. Boomer was caught this morning, but not after he'd caused a serious amount of disruption. They had to lock down the schools on the reserve yesterday, for God's sake!

As I was ranting in my coyotes aren't pets post, wild animals - and let's call a spade a spade, eh? a lion is a wild animal, not a kitty cat! - don't make good pets. In fact, exotic animals that have to be imported from their native lands shouldn't be allowed into the country to be pets as far as I'm concerned. That is within the animal's best interest, not taking it home to entertain yourself and your friends and give you bragging rights.

This isn't the first time something like Boomer's escape has happened. While I was living in Ontario, some fuckwit had a dangerous snake at home as a pet that escaped it's aquarium, and there was, as I recall, an incident with a tiger.

Come on, people. It's just not right.

Boomer is in the custody of Quebec's Ministry of Natural Resources right now, and they are going to look for a new home - probably a sanctuary or zoo or something. I'm glad to see the band chief doesn't want the lion returned to its owner, so the chief is collaborating with officials to find an appropriate spot for Boomer.

How about Africa? Or, is it too late, is he too domesticated now and unable to live in the wild? Possibly. Which is so unfair and tragic for that poor animal.