They Eat Pussy in Toronto, Don't They?

As bogged down as what I am these days in trifling, if not truly challenging, course work, I cannot resist it any longer: I must make the time and punch out a few words about some of the juicy silliness occurring around me in recent weeks.

First of all, let me just say that I was pleased to learn that Lisa Moore—arguably the province’s worst state-endorsed writer—lost out to another overrated say-nothing author at this year’s meaningless Giller Prize award. But wait—things actually go from bad to worse to just plain silly on the national literary front: it appears some young woman from New Zealand—complete with a heavy kiwi accent—has won the Governor General’s Award and the Man Booker Prize for her work of fiction. Apparently, Eleanor Catton was born in Canada almost thirty years ago and never set foot in this country again until it came time to pick up the prize money for her novel... about New Zealand. Priceless! I’m not sure if this is a case of Canadian political correctness being taken to a whole new level or a wonderful comment on home-reared talent! Either way, it’s unequivocally yummy.

A few days ago, just as I was about to submit an essay for a certain website, a news story began breaking about “ten Quebec teens facing child porn charges” after electronically sharing sleazy photos of their girlfriends. How can this be, I thought?!! After all, according to those perverted Harper Conservatives who relish prying into the private lives of us youth, teenagers are still merely children—not old enough to vote, drink beer or consent to sex. How can such ‘youngsters’ be charged for breaking laws that are supposed to be there to protect them in the first place? I mean, at 13 to 15 years of age, they’re simply not old enough to even know what ‘dicks’ and ‘pussies’ are, are they? Myself, I didn’t menstruate or even sprout a pubic hair until the exact date of my 18th birthday. Having recently turned 19, my mother is now teaching me how to spell ‘tampon’. In other words, isn’t this just a teensy bit hypocritical? 

It doesn’t matter to me if you’re 13 or 31. Anyone foolish enough—or mature enough, depending on how one looks at it—to transmit nude or sexually explicit photos of one’s self is asking for trouble of some sort. No sympathy from me. Furthermore, ten boys from Laval, Quebec alone is quite a high percentage, relatively speaking. It’s safe to say that underage porn is now as ubiquitous as marijuana usage—among so-called children themselves! Try closing those flood gates, Stephen Harper.

Speaking of sex and youth, would someone mind telling me the real reason why a report on the sexual exploitation of children (whatever constitutes a child these days, I’m not sure) in the province—complete with recommendations yet—has been officially kept from Terra Nova eyes for some two years? Is it because the bureaucrats’ definition of ‘exploitation’ is so broad that the government fears too large a segment of the population would feel targeted, thus defeating the purpose by reinterpreting the study as the work of elitists? It wouldn’t surprise me, given the singularly dubious examples from the courts cited by the CBC in their television coverage of this story. Is it because the government fears that too many of its own—police officers, social workers, the politicians themselves—might be fingered as sexual miscreants? This wouldn’t surprise me either—especially considering some of my father’s accounts of questionable activity among St John’s cops and youth workers in the late 1980s.

During his first year or two of university, my father associated fairly regularly with rock ’n’ rollers, burgeoning writers, truant teenaged vagrants and other bohemian types in the downtown area (there were one or two pubs in particular at the time which catered to such collective circles), and according to him a particular RNC officer would pay unofficial visits to 14-year-old hookers in the Pleasant St. area, and certain assigned social workers were known to take the same girls out on pub crawls, “looking for men”. One young girl was even known to call on the said Constabulary cop at the station, complete with her trademark black leather mini-skirt and red shoes on.

My father’s favourite story of such government-employee uncouthness stems from one summer night in 1989, when him and two friends were driving in the downtown area. After pulling them over for running a red light (which they hadn’t), an RNC officer detected the obvious reek of beer and Scotch whiskey. Despite the driver being most likely impaired, the officer sent them on their way with a laugh, on the grounds that they were “just a couple of young fellers cruising about downtown, lookin’ for a bit o’ pussy”. That anecdote set the tone for the officers of the day.

As for the question I rhetorically pondered in an earlier blog post, as to whether or not the three disgraced senators will be spending eternity in Hell (at least on a theoretical level), it appears that the prime minister and his whipped and bullied senate have foregone the usual process employing St Peter and company, and decided their eternal fate for them. Yes, Victoria, there is a God and his name is Stephen Harper. So it appears Senators Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have all been sentenced to eternal damnation—without senatorial pay for the remainder of the current parliamentary session to boot. Of the three banished senators, Pamela Wallin has been the most outspoken for some reason. Maybe she feels she has the most to lose. Whatever the case, it is needless to say that she is not a happy camper.

Their journalistic careers and legacies completely in tatters, Duffy and Wallin in particular have been forced to fall hard in hopes of appeasing the Canadian public and taking the heat off Stephen Harper. One can only hope that the dismissed Nigel Wright will finally open his gob and implicate the prime minister like he deserves. I mean, no one in his or her right mind actually believes that Harper wasn’t aware of such underhanded maneuvers—if not actually orchestrating them, do they? [Intriguingly, the CBC has been reporting these past few hours that the RCMP’s investigations indicate that Nigel Wright and Mike Duffy are seemingly guilty of criminal wrongdoing.  At the time of my writing, however, Dear Nigel still hasn’t pointed a finger at Harper.]

Speaking of underhanded maneuvers, you know, I can’t help but wonder if there weren’t some dark machinations at work in this whole senate scandal from the get-go. Not just in regards to the senators’ ill-gotten gains and fudging of the travel fund facts, but going right back to the appointments of media celebrities like Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin in the first place. I’m sure the most paranoid of conspiracy theorists have thought so from day one—there have been distant rumblings; but undoubtedly some of the more levelheaded people out there have been thinking the same thoughts, if not choosing to voice them. Might Prime Minister Harper have been looking for a couple of celebrity dupes to bring attention to the Senate and its questionable continued existence when he appointed the likes of Duffy and Wallin? Could they have been picked to use as pawns in an intentionally induced scandal which would provide an excuse to open public debate on the Senate and ultimately lead to its abolition?  I can’t help but consider the possibility sometimes late at night when I’m sipping tea and digesting the TV news coverage.

Thanks in no small part to Toronto mayor Rob Ford and the media sensationalism of his shenanigans, the heat appears to be suddenly off the prime minister and his exploits, however.

Ah, Rob Ford. Mayor Rob Ford. Yes, he’s something of a sexist slob and a bit of a prurient homophobe, but there’s still something I admire about the jolly drunken fat-man in question. I think it’s his 1970s style, and his unwillingness to acquiesce to the ridiculous dogmas at either end of the political spectrum, Left or Right. Mayor Ford is an old-fashioned, no-nonsense, centre-focussed populist politician. This is unusual in the eyes of us so-called millennials and even Generation Xers, but it was actually the standard for western politicians only a half-century ago. Such a middle-ground stance is popular with neither of the two types who dominate all three levels of North American politics today. In other words, the usual far-right bunch despise him because he drinks and swears too much, doesn’t pray in public, and refrains from prying ambivalently into the romantic lives of gays and adolescents. Simultaneously, the usual far-left bunch despise him because he swills fast food as he pleases, doesn’t resort to silly euphemisms for fear of offending virgin ears, and refrains from paying symbolic lip service to the city’s gay community.

So exactly why do I increasingly like this (seemingly) outrageous man, you might ask? Well, in all honesty, I think it has far more to do with the asinine hypocrites who are unfairly dragging him over the coals than his asinine self.

Who the hell do these self-righteous Toronto city councillors and assholes in the media think they’re fooling, pretending to be offended—“Oh my God! the humanity!”—by his blunt and unaffected language?! (Read about it here.) Would they have us believe that they’ve never used such expressions as “eating pussy” before? Would they have us believe that their children have not yet encountered such slang? (If they’re aged ten or older and unfamiliar with expressions like “eating pussy”, I’d be a little concerned!) If they’re so morally incensed by such street talk, then why are they also so quick to celebrate the sexist, racist rantings of contemporary hip-hop acts and purchase such albums for their precious children? Mayor Ford can’t quote what some nosey nincompoop alleges he has said without being attacked by his faux-indignant fellow councillors, yet apparently it’s okay for his critics’ children to absorb lyrics like, “Yo, nigger bitch / Suck my cock”. Now, that’s unsettling.

And did anyone out there see that idiot from the CBC questioning the children and teens in Toronto, asking their opinions on the “bad influence” of Mayor Ford? I’m only 19 myself, so it was particularly disheartening and insulting to see this prig addressing young men and women in their teens as if they were toddlers, constantly referring to them as “kids”.

And with the exception of finance minister Jim Flaherty, his ‘friends’ in the federal Harper government have done a really good job of ignoring him, haven’t they! Now why doesn’t this surprise me! Stephen Harper is such a prick, in fact, that he’s managed to twist his response to the uproar into an attack on Justin Trudeau’s grass smoking!

Speaking of Justin Trudeau, isn’t it just a tad bit hypocritical, the way in which his supporters tend to play down his admitted marijuana use while condemning Mayor Ford for his crack-pipe puffing? I’m betting that if Fat Robbie knocked off substantial poundage and got himself a hair transplant and dye job, it would result in a considerably better showing in the polls. It’s all about image and phoney mystique, people. The shallow among us love their star quarterbacks from the college football team—even when they hire ringers for exams and participate in drunken belching contests. In other words, Mayor Ford needs to get back to his roots and stop being an adult.

I think what I like most about Rob Ford is his ability to upset the elitist status quo of precious latte-slurping Toronto. I’ve never lived in Toronto, but I’ve touched down there briefly on my journeys abroad. From my perspective, contemporary Toronto is all visage: a politically correct paradise as envisioned and devised by a minority of far-left lobbyists and their asinine operatives on city council. These ‘movers and shakers’ (Ha!), it seems, represent the beliefs and ideals of only fifteen to twenty percent of the city’s population at most. Over time, the alienated majority have become increasingly silent and apathetic. (My mother insists that it’s been this way for the past two decades or so. An older Torontonian cousin of mine assures me that today’s Toronto has very little in common with the Toronto of the 1960s, ’70s and much of the ’80s.) As the mayor has pointed out, the majority of Toronto’s population—including many of his fellow councillors—have at some time or another partaken of illicit drugs, committed adultery, driven drunk, etc. This is something his opposing councillors and other critics would deny until they’re blue in the face. Rob Ford provides an excellent opportunity for such phoney critics to condemn the sins they’ve secretly loved to act. And like the stake-burnings and lynchings of old, attacks on him draw attention away from the attackers and their own ‘transgressions’. So if his questionable behaviour tarnishes or completely obliterates Toronto’s false image, then I hope Mayor Ford stays put until the entire world sees plastic Toronto as the silliest place on the planet.

Of course, a non-seceding Mayor Ford will also mean a politically castrated Mayor Ford now that much of his power has been dubiously appropriated. In fact, as I write this, Toronto Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly is talking with CTV reporters on television, showing off his newly stolen administrative powers. The usurping imposter looks like a smug son of a bitch—and no doubt a typically inefficient do-nothing schmuck. I hope the Fords are already digging for dirt on him. If you’ve seen him buying illicit drugs, driving drunk or nailing hookers, please get in touch with the elected mayor’s office.

As for those councillors who turn their backs to the mayor, well, I guess they simply want to get fucked in the ass or something.

Lately I’ve been thinking: you know, it was this Mohamed Farah character—whose motives, judging from his comments to the CBC, are vague at best—who started this whole media feeding frenzy, when he showed an iphone video of the mayor smoking crack to the sniffer-dawgs from Gawker, who in turn futilely raised money online to buy said video. This gives me radical ideas....

Why don’t we attempt to set up a fund—through Gawker, Kickstarter or some other site—to raise money to offer as rewards to those people out there who can provide us damning information on the dubious behaviour, past and present, of our ‘favourite’ self-righteous Conservative politicians who interfere legislatively with our private lives? The financially fraudulent Mike Duffys and the cocaine- and alcohol-impaired Rahim Jaffers are just the tip of the Tory iceberg, I suspect. Think about it: photos of the prime minister smoking grass thirty years ago... wife-beating back-benchers who are “hands-on” in teaching their daughters the facts of life... a former minister of justice up to his nuts in some heroin-addled underaged hooker named Baby Lips....

Hmmmm... Yummy!

I think I’m going to mosey on over to Gawker and maybe have a little chat. Let’s get this show on the road, people!

Morgentaler enjoying Heaven, Mike Duffy awaiting Hell: How some public figures deserve to spend 'Eternity'

Hello again, fellow culture lovers; it’s been a while. Some of you are probably wondering where I’ve been these past few months. Well, I merely decided to take the so-called Spring semester off; so I’ve been spending the summer catching up on my reading, writing a few essays for the underground journals, and following the recent political scandals in Ottawa, Toronto and elsewhere in the country. Mike Duffy... Pamela Wallin... Rob Ford.... Hmmm... yummy.

Given the ‘occupational suicides’ and retirements of a number of these public figures, along with the recent death of a prominent doctor, I thought this might be an appropriate time to discuss their future spiritual status in eternity.

Now let me make it clear from the start that I am an agnostic. In other words, I don’t believe the existence of a god or an afterlife can be proven positively or negatively at this point in history. Such a task is a scientific dead-end (no pun intended). Having said that, it brings me great pleasure to play God and make educated guesses in regards to their post-life whereabouts. It sends a message to those amongst them who are actual believers. I think more people should make a public practice of this. After all, most of these politicians, doctors and other public figures love to play God with our lives now, don’t they....

Dr Morgentaler, Angel

Let’s start with legendary abortion provider, Dr Henry Morgentaler. For decades, he fought for Canadian females’ right to choose, and subsequently brought an end to Canada’s antiquated abortion laws. Sadly, Dr Morgentaler passed away just recently, aged 90. I guess one could make a fairly reasonable argument that his desire to abort (reportedly) tens of thousands of foetuses was merely a psychological reaction to his losing both parents and his sister to the Nazis in Poland. However, regardless of his modus operandi—psychological revenge, female rights, sheer profit—it’s safe to say that he provided more of a service than an obstruction, ultimately. So I think it’s safe to say that Dr Morgentaler is snuggled safely in Heaven—probably discussing the dilemma of omnipotence vs altruism with the supreme deity.

Mike Duffy toasting his newfound political opportunities and the end of his journalistic integrity

Speaking of the deceased, former journalist Mike Duffy recently completed his slow occupational suicide, which he began some four years ago when he accepted a senatorial appointment from the Harper Government. It appears Senator Duffy liked to claim expenses as a PEI resident while actually residing in Ontario. When his expense claims—along with those of three other senators—were being investigated by the Senate Committee on Internal Economy, he applied for a PEI health card and requested that the process be fast-tracked in time for the audit deadline! The news media now hot on his heels, Duffy was soon hiding from his old CTV buddies in places like hotel kitchens (where else?). In light of all the negative press, Duffy soon agreed to pay back the ill-gotten monies, but refused to accept responsibility for fraud on the grounds that the Senate rules and forms were not clear. In fact, he even expected the Prime Minister’s Office to pick up the tab! Soon the PMO’s Chief of Staff, Nigel Wright, was writing a personal cheque of $90,172 to cover ol’ Duff’s restitutionary damages. Needless to say, this sort of action was completely against the rules. Subsequently, Nigel Wright resigned as Chief of Staff, and is being investigated by the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner of Canada. As for dear ol’ Duffy, he resigned from the Senate Conservative caucus and is being investigated by the RCMP. (Maybe his son can help in the investigations; he’s a Mountie, apparently.)

So what does all this amount to? Fat Mikey is essentially dead and gone as a journalist (and politician) before he even gives up the ghost! No journalistic immortality or political legacy for Greedy-Guts Duffy! Yes, it’s truly astonishing what some ignorant ol’ duffers will sacrifice in order to save a few dollars. As a result, Hell’s barbecue pit is being prepared for Duffy. Ol’ Blubber-Guts won’t be chowing down this time around, however. This time, it’s his soul that’s the main course—for eternity.

The demon who is waiting to devour Mike Duffy

It may be a similar story for Pamela Wallin, another journalist who has committed occupational suicide after accepting a senatorial appointment and subsequently claiming dubious travel expenses. As Rex Murphy has pointed out, however, Ms Wallin did not go into denial-and-conspire mode á la Mr Duffy. Instead, she owned up, paid back the fraud sum, and subsequently resigned Senate Conservative caucus. Considering the fact that Ms Wallin built a sizable portion of her journalistic reputation on her time spent at the less Harper-friendly CBC, it is possible that her legacy might not suffer like that of CTV stooge Duffy. In other words, it looks like it’s purgatory for Wallin upon her death.

Is this the face of a woman we can trust?

The soul of Toronto mayor Rob Ford, on the other hand, is being protected from an eternity of hellfire, owing mainly to a combination of his low-mindedness and the benefit of the doubt. The Lord takes pity on the stupid and addicted, apparently. Actually, Ford appears to have good intentions in many regards, and has exhibited some of the better characteristics of old-fashioned, no-nonsense right-wing politicians. But he also has a reputation for drug and alcohol excess; so when word got out this spring that a video of him smoking crack cocaine from a glass pipe had surfaced, and that the Gawker website was attempting to raise the asking price of $200,000 in order to obtain it and air it publicly, most of us who gave a damn weren’t surprised at all.

Of course Ford immediately went into denial mode, and was soon dismissing the media (as usual) and ditching members of his staff left, right and centre. The police, it turns out, had been investigating the alleged video before the media had even broke the story. As part of a raid on two rival drug gangs, they also searched the home of Muhammad Khattak, one of the men standing with Ford affront an alleged crackhouse in a photo supplied to Gawker and the Toronto Star. The alleged crackhouse, the story goes, is the residence of a friend of Ford’s from their high-school days. As well, another man in the photo, one Anthony Smith, was killed in a Toronto street-shooting back in March. Lovely. On top of all this, the seller of the alleged video has fallen silent, and the money raised by Gawker has been subsequently donated to various charities.

Mayor Ford, hanging with his homies

Did Mayor Ford find enough money and brains to purchase the video himself? Did the video even exist in the first place? Questions, questions. Personally, I couldn’t care less how much crack Rob Ford smokes in his spare time, provided he doesn’t come across as a hypocrite by introducing policies to “crack down” on illicit drugs. So, for now at least, Mayor Porky is safe from Hell’s flames by virtue of his dumbness, police ineptness, and sheer luck.

Vic Toews: The face of pure evil

Finally, let us examine the case of former Justice and Public Safety minister, Vic Toews, who resigned from politics earlier this month to spend more time with his excuse for a family (pity his ‘family’, I’d say!). I think this sack of shit is an open and shut case, frankly. This is the ignorant, evil man who said that Canadians are either with the Conservative Party or with the child pornographers (What’s the difference?). This is the man who was in favour of internet surveillance, reflecting a view that all Canadians are terrorists and child abductors. This is the man who raised the age of consent from 14 to 16 while actually getting tougher on adolescent crime. (If you’re old enough to get charged with a crime, then you’re also old enough to vote, drink booze and screw.) As a result, Toews should be a particular target of hatred for teenagers like myself. It’s obvious this man deserves to spend eternity with a hot poker up his rectum. Toews is now 60 years of age, so Satan is no doubt preparing a deep hot pit for him, while the demons are drooling to gnaw his legs off. In the meantime, I hope young people across Canada terrorize him on a nightly basis, and his young son grows up to despise him and disown him. This creep deserves to never have another good night’s sleep, and then be sentenced to spend eternity screaming out in pain from the very bowels of Hell. Good riddance to evil swine!

The demon who awaits Vic Toews’s passing...

Anyway, that’s my take on such eternal matters and how they reflect on Canadian public figures. I hope everyone’s enjoying the summer—everyone who deserves to be, at least. Now, back to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness....