So Marco Rubio (remember the guy with the small hands), the new Secretary of State, suggests that what Trump meant was that Palestinians could move temporarily until the U.S. pours American treasure into cleaning debris and rebuilding so that then the Palestinians could come back home to livable conditions. That’s quite the offer and set back for the U.S. taxpayer. Trouble is that Donald Trump is a proven liar. You see….that’s one good reason in an of itself why you don’t elevate a guy like him to a position of political power. Imagine what these people must be thinking given what they’ve been through!
Articles of Impeachment are now being drafted yet again for Mr. Trump – this time in near record time having taken back the Office of the Presidency. Congressman Al Green is citing “ethnic cleansing” for suggesting that the U.S. move them from their home and taking “ownership” of their land. It was a nice job of oration amongst a near empty Congress today while city streets are filling with protesters.
Finally those Canadians with financial and social stature have come to the table wholeheartedly to denounce Trump. If it’s taken you this long….we needed you in 2014/ 2015. We needed you to speak out emphatically that a man of deviant morals and conduct unbecoming of political party leadership could not ascend to a position of political power. However; most of you were mute. You didn’t want to ruffle feathers. You didn’t want to leave any kind of perception with others that you empathized with his policies and that you could rationalize his character in favor of Republican ideals. You may have been fearful of retribution. I say this emphatically now if you were mute – shame on you!!
Shame on you if you bought into some conspiracy theory about the “deep state” without presenting proof. Shame on you if bought into his lies and deceit. Shame on you if you were so naive that he had nothing to do with the Capitol attack on January 6th, 2021 especially in lieu of his conduct on that day and a reference to a vigilante group of whose name he was familiar. Shame on you if you thought that all women alleging sexual assault conspired together for financial gain by falsifying claims of sexual assault. Shame on you if you discounted the 3,500 – 4,000 lawsuits for which he or his companies were cited in lawsuits as standard practice for business. Shame on you if you believed that he had every right morally to withhold presentation of his tax returns upon request given a quest for the Presidency. Shame on you if you had normalized in your mind a fabrication of Barak Obama’s birth records. Shame on you if you normalized a a man with a tawdry record as his 2016 campaign manager. Shame on you if you had watched episodes of “The Apprentice” and had not picked up samples of his character flaws. Shame on you if you hadn’t surmised that bankrupting companies would correlate with mismanaging a government. Shame on you if you were indifferent by his indifference toward Russia invading Ukraine. Shame on you if you believe that the fabrication of real estate’s market value is an innocuous clerical mishap in the context of a loan application. Shame on you if you believe that paying money to a pornstar in order to conceal a perceived character flaw is all good campaign practice. Shame on you if you believe that engaging in acts of deceit is what can be expected of a Presidential candidate.
Now Donald Trump near the date of his second inauguration has appeared before the media handling a question about whether he would annex Canada by force. Imagine that. Here we are. Canada’s relationship with the U.S. has been severely damaged by the imposition of tariffs and the abrogation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. He is referencing Canada as a “failed state”.
A Complete Unknown was released on Christmas day 2024 and it’s getting four stars out of five across the internet. As a guitar player myself, naturally I’m interested in the evolution of Bob Dylan’s early days so here I sat in Calgary’s Chinook Theatre for the 4pm Tuesday cheap seat.
Imagine being tasked the role of an eccentric who plays guitar but you don’t play guitar. You go to work and this is exactly what Timothee Chalomet had done very well in my opinion. He would have looked to the charisma or lack thereof in Dylan while researching his character. This of course was the most intriguing aspect of the movie for me. If you are familiar with Bob Dylan, you know of his monotone raspy delivery while being succinct in words. Bob Dylan has not been awarded a Nobel Prize in literature because of unpurposeful rhetoric. It is because of a capacity for drawing meaning from few words.
Critics may claim that plot was lacking but the appeal is in the persona. That is, that character who sits in the back corner of a bar with sunglasses on hoping to catch a nugget of inspiration from a mysterious fellow musician he had just met.
The volume of work is extraordinary and young ones bred on rap and raves stand perplexed by the intrigue but weren’t exposed to the political and social rawness of summer ’68. Folk was culturally more relevant then when metaphors were moving and norms had been evolving. This movie provides an imaginative glimpse into what it might have been like when a creative young man questioned values and tradition through song.
Time well spent in my opinion….but heh – I play guitar.
Half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills. Accounting firm MNP has been watching an “insolvency” metric a claim that it is up 8 per cent in Q4 2024 vs Q3 2024.
Why is this? Let me postulate.
Acquiesce to desires of spouse despite financial condition.
Fly the world in faith. It’s one segment of society where statistically we’ve improved. It’s never been safer to fly partly because of absolute attention put on “internal controls” having learned lessons from past accidents. This isn’t to say that those controls can’t be compromised when parties have self interests to serve. I think the Tenerife disaster was monolithic in producing necessary regulation. If I recall from an episode of “Mayday” or something similar way back…..the attitude of the most senior pilot of one of the two planes and the circumstances surrounding events produced the kind of impatience and poor decision making which culminated with the collision. The thing about life is that nothing is for certain despite man’s good intention and effective execution. We can all look to recent events whereby expectations were met with far differing results.
Naturally, we go about our business and take a plane when the need or responsible desire arises. We are aware of the privilege and we play by necessary rules. There is a bigger chance of getting struck by a vehicle while walking to work than there is of dying on an airplane. Pilots have check and balances every time they walk into a cockpit. The driver of a 4×4 pick up truck unsettled by matters at home and potentially distracted by a phone is a much bigger risk.
However; at times like this when we learn of an air disaster, it gives us pause to reflect on the delicacy of life and how none of us are immune from one very bad move from another. Despite some obvious cocooning arising from the pandemic and otherwise, all of us look to adventure in some way, shape, or form as a means to elicit happiness. Unfortunately, a price can be paid via risk in the quest for adventure. It’s a price which keen happy hungry humans are rightfully willing to pay and we honor those lost in pursuit.
