I’ll reference the unspoken and unpopular because it’s what
I do here sometimes on my own forum. Wives of ex-politicians, ex-politicians,
and politicians have no business on the stage of the Grammy’s unless they’ve
won a Grammy for their contributions to music. Music is an escape from the
tedium of political drama and hence the preeminent event should not become
theatre for those who possess a larger agenda outside of the realm of music. It’s
one more reminder of why I’ve cut my cable chord.
There would have been individuals in the audience with a life-long commitment to their passion for music who had never gained a whiff of that stage having been overlooked by The Recording Academy despite much success and hard work toward their craft. Society has unfortunately been overrun by elitists with special entry back stage passes who need their ego stroked at every turn. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Michelle Obama. On the contrary, I find her to be articulate and warm with generosity in her heart. This was simply not her place.
I’ve put these three C’s together because alliteration wasn’t
foreign to any of these three. My biggest miss for cancelling cable has been the
celebration of athletic feats through language. There was Bob Costas’
deployment of vocabulary atypical of the arena but succulent to the scholastic.
Mary Carillo triumphed with unrehearsed back seat colour laden with one- liners.
Howard Cosell’s deliberately slurred maligned characterizations injected fodder
for the fortunate fans of Wide World of Sports.
Costas is in the news because of an opinion in the face of
the sports machine. He’ll retire after a good run and his legacy will be
steeped in his affinity for the formidable phrase fitting to the forum (okay, I
can do alliteration too).
I have no idea what happened to Mary but her charisma simply
shone through the TV.
Although young as an admirer during the Cosell years, I remember Cosell as an obvious stalwart in and industry critical to extracting entertainment value from sport. There were the Muhammad Ali interviews and the Monday Night Football mantras such as “he could go all the way”. As a boy, it became evident that there was eloquence in sport beyond finesse on the field. In spite of having snipped the cable, my sense is that the market and mystique of midfield monologue has now left the broadcast booth. Was Cosell’s opinion that ex-athletes were not best equipped for the microphone correct? I suspect yes with exceptions. ���F�z�Q4 �h
What I like about Browns Social House: It’s friendly and has high padded bar stools with foot rests. It has properly controlled climate. Décor not overly imposed by big screens. Happy hour. Four dollar draught. Quick service. Reasonable prices. Did I say that? Square bar accommodating for socializing. You’re not there just for the booze, right?
While much focus has been on the driver of the Humboldt bus
crash, it’s become evident that an insidious behavioural pattern of distraction
while at the wheel is underlying the cause. Although it was a flapping tarp and
not a cell phone, every single driver who owns a smart phone and is compelled
to jump to its chime indicating the latest facebook notification should take
heed. Speaking to passengers is distracting, changing CDs is distracting, and
soothing crying babies is distracting. Some minds may be better equipped to
deal with distractions than others but should you really be assigning yourself
the confidence to multi-task while at the wheel when one misstep can lead to a
life-long occupation of guilt.
It’s certainly easy to judge this man responsible for the
deaths of these Humboldt teens but hypocrisy given one’s own behaviour is
peculiar.
In addition to the driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, law
enforcement and the regulatory framework of the transportation industry must
also answer to this event. We put doctors in this country through seven years
of training and a driver of a transport truck through three weeks, if that. Mr.
Sidhu may have lacked training in how to
properly secure a load. Our justice system is structured in such a way that
police tend not to put resources where they believe that the probability of
conviction is low. I postulate that in the minds of law enforcement, the
process of obtaining the necessary evidence to charge a suspected distracted
driver is not worth the application of resources and hence this matter is at
large with you and I witnessing distracted drivers in metropolitan centres
daily.
If the financial penalties were materially strong and the
justice system had the practical powers to enforce, we could actually make
headway toward significantly reducing this problem.
