At Home in Hespeler

The last time I wrote an In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario post, it was about Rahim Jaffer’s plea from impaired driving and possession of cocaine to careless driving. One commentator took me mildly, and fairly, to task:

In Dalton McGuinty’s Ontario… Dalton McGuinty, OPP, rahim jaffer

“You appeared ungrateful, ungracious and downright rude,” Ms. Parrish told the Mayor …

Politicians acting badly Carolyn Parrish, George Bush, Hazel McCallion, Hurricane Hazel, Paul Martin

I remember seeing a news report back on April 12, 1980: some young fellow from British Columbia, who had an amputated leg due to cancer, was beginning a run across Canada. His goal was to raise money for cancer research, and awareness about cancer. He had the modest goal of raising one dollar for every Canadian. Twenty-four-million dollars. It wasn’t a news story, it was a human interest story about a young man nobody outside of  Port Coquitlam BC had ever heard of. Terry Fox dipped the toe of his shoe, attached to a metal leg, into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Newfoundland.

Three months later Terry Fox hobbled up Queen Street (Hwy. 7) in Brampton in his own unique way. Thousands of people lined the route, including a sixteen year old produce clerk at the nearby Food City. I should have been working, of course, but nobody was. If you wanted customer service that day, you were going to have to wait while the young sensation ran past. He was no longer unknown, and he was well on his way to far exceeding his goal. Awareness and money were very much raised.

Six weeks later it was all over. Terry Fox ended his Marathon of Hope that began thirty-years ago today in Newfoundland. This time it wasn’t a human interest story, but the lead news item: Cancer had returned to Terry Fox, the Marathon ended by the side of the road in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

In the classic hero narrative, there is always a journey the hero must take, a quest. Part of his journey is a descent into hell, and then a return, a rising to greatness. Losing his leg to cancer as a teen, it’s not hard to imagine Terry Fox’s descent, and thirty-years ago today, 21-year old Terry Fox took his first, tentative, soggy steps on his rise to greatness: a true Canadian hero; a remarkable young man; and a breathtaking journey.

history Hero, Newfoundland, Port Coquitlam BC, Terry Fox

and the living is easy.

The signs are all around. The Masters is over and, thankfully, Tiger Woods didn’t win. The magnolias in bloom at Augusta always remind me that my own magnolia will bloom in the next week. The garden, in fact, is in half bloom this afternoon, the beginning of a summer of colour and flavour coming out of the very ground I own.

But summer really starts when those boys of summer get around to throwing a baseball in anger, hitting one with authority. Tonight, the 5-1, first place Toronto Blue Jays return to the Wok by the lake to begin the 2010 home season.

Go get em boys, and thanks for bringing summer with you.

Baseball Baseball, Blue Jays, Masters, Tiger Woods

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Singer Ricky Martin, long rumoured to be gay, last week announced he was… gay.

In a statement on his website, Martin said week:

I am proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man. I am very blessed to be who I am.

No real surprise, I can’t listen to Livin’ La Vida Loca without feeling gay, never mind singing it every night.

Sixteen year old singing sensation/tweener heartthrob Justin Beiber commented to People magazine this week about President Barack Obama mis-pronouncing his name at Beiber’s first visit to the White House last year:

He messed up my name, but I give it to him. He’s not (the) age category I sing to. He’s not “one less lonely girl”.

I would have preferred if he had said, “Dude. You can pronounce Netanyahu, but you can’t get Bee-ber? Put it on the teleprompter and get it right next time.” However, the “it’s more than I expect from some old, square guy,” routine that he went with was good too.

Life and Style magazine has gone undercover to find out, which Hollywood big shots have big shooters. The big men about town, in no particular order, we hope, are: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, David Arquette, David Spade, Jamie Kennedy, Brian Austen Green, Jaret Leto and Andy Dick.

Noticeably absent from the list is any of those Hollywood loudmouth types (DiCaprio excepted) like Sean Penn or Matt Damon, proving once again, guys with big dicks don’t have to go around acting like they have big dicks.

From the Department of Segues I never thought I’d use: speaking of Penises (penisi?), Mutt Lange’s ex-wife (a very quiet guy if your ever looking for one) Shania Twain is back in the public eye, causing millions of penisi world-wide top thump around in excitement, “I was in a very deep, dark slump, and I needed to find a way to get myself out of it,” Twain told People, causing thousands of those penises to explode.

Malcolm McLaren (1946-2010) – In 1976 Malcolm McLaren took a band he was managing and replaced first the bass player, then added a singer. The singer, who would audition for McLaren miming to an Alice Cooper song wearing an I hate Pink Floyd short (the words written on after the fact), changed his name to Johnny Rotten, the band to the Sex Pistols. They would stay together two years, scandalising Britain with their celebration of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee with their version of God Save the Queen (She ain’t a human bein’).

The Sex Pistols broke up on their first American tour, and McLaren would go on to break up Adam and the Ants, and regroup them as Bow Wow Wow and Adam Ant. He also had a lengthy music career of his own, begining with 1983’s Duck Walk.

McLaren died this week, aged 64, after a battle with the rare form of cancer, malignant mesothelioma.

Fluffernutter Adam ANt, Andy Dick., Ashton Kutcher, Barak Obama, Bow Wow Wow, Brian Austen Green, David Arquette, David Spade, Duck Walk, God Save the Queen, Jamie Foxx, Jamie Kennedy, Jaret Leto, Johnny Rotten, Justin Beiber, Leonardo DiCaprio, Livin’ La Vida Loca, Malcolm McLaren, Matt Damon, Mutt Lange, Netanyahu, Ricky Martin, Sean Penn, Sex Pistols, Shania Twain

Listening to the adult contemporary station on the drive into work today (not my choice of station, I was a passenger). Here was the top stories, in order:

Tiger woods says he’s sorry.

Twenty-five men dead in a mining accident.

Sigh.

Media doesn't matter

Rex Murphy occasionally is way off base, such as his clobbering a few weeks ago of Christopher Hitchens, which had the gross effect of sounding like Murphy was not too upset about a bunch of pedophile priests, but dear God!, don’t you speak ill of my Pope.

This week in the National Post he has a go at the Human Rights industry in Canada, and knocks it out of the park:

…By some crude osmosis, or just from the luxuriant carelessness of our pampered lives, we have overturned one of the great concepts of all human law. The concept of human rights, as experience and history inform us, is protection from the state’s power, not oversight, interference and punishment by the state’s power.

The core concept of human rights is the protection of the irreducible safety and dignity of the individual from the massive and arbitrary power of the state. Not, the state wandering in, with its apparatus and procedures, its boards and tribunals into the doings, or speech, of the individual…

Be sure to read the whole thing.

human rights, pimply minions of bureaucracy Human Rights Comissions, Human Rights Tribunals, National Post, Rex Murphy