The pen

 Bob Dole was all I could think of when I watched the presidential debate.  There was Biden, waving around a hand with a pen stuck into it.  That's what Bob Dole did because his was withered:  Stuck a pen into it.  Why did Biden do that?  Made him look crippled and weak.

But he needn't have worried about a pen because Biden was decimated in the debate anyway.  He looked and sounded confused, giving answers that had nothing to do with the question.  The "moderator" was a disaster.  Clearly biased, he sanctioned Trump to Biden's favour, but it did no good.  Biden was a disaster.

But lo and behold!  This morning, the media all said Biden won the "debate"!?  That's how one-sided the media is (are?).  Don't know why I sat there for 90 minutes, but I did.  What did surprise me was Biden's telling Trump to "shut up" and referring to him as a "clown".  Whatever you think of Trump, and I don't think much, no duly-elected president of the United States should be spoken to like this.  

One thing is sure, with Russia and China vying to take over the world -- and I mean the entire world -- I would not want Biden to be the one standing up to them.  He can't.          

While the rest of us......

 .....are stuck at home climbing walls and chewing on furniture, Trudeau has permitted a thousand refugees to waltz into this country willy-nilly.  Why?  Because they will vote Liberal.  All you need is an address and photo ID and you can vote.  Obviously, you can tell I am not in favour of this approach because I believe one should have to be a citizen to vote.  But that's not the Liberal way, as we all know.     

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The other photo I'd like to share reflects one of my many pet peeves:

To think that 'The Globe and Mail' and Elizabeth Renzetti don't know the difference between " 'til ", as in "until" and "till", as in where the cash is kept!  How The Globe has fallen.  And in a headline, no less! 

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I had this published in 'The Calgary Herald' today:

Universal, subsidized daycare was first promoted when I hadn't yet had my first.  I had a very good job in Toronto at Du Pont of Canada and wanted to start a family, so at a company cocktail party, I gingerly approached Bob Richardson, then president, and told him I thought in-house daycare would be an innovative benefit to provide employees.  I envisioned wonderful and widespread publicity about how progressive and forward-thinking Du Pont was, a trail-blazer etc., etc.  He actually snorted, scoffed, turned on his heel and rudely walked away.  Obviously, he had a wife at home who handled all the bothersome stuff such as annoying children, so didn't give a rat's ass about women who wanted to keep advancing in their careers.  

Somehow, thanks to a hodgepodge solutions, ranging from grandparents to neighbours, to live-in nannies, to daycare, to after-four programs -- you name it -- I managed to keep working while raising two children and two step-children.  This is where I remind you that B and I supported nine people:  Ourselves, four children, two delinquent ex's -- one of whom we actually had to pay monthly! -- and a nanny.

So, to all you women using child-care as an excuse to sit on your well-educated asses, I say:  I'm not buying it. 

  

Unreal!

 How can this harridan and harpie be Canada's Governor General?!  How can a fat hag and shrew such as this represent Queen Elizabeth, our Head of State?!  

To see her sitting there with her hideous hair unkempt, hanging in strings with grey roots, in an all-white outfit was outrageous.  She is under investigation for workplace harassment and abuse and she decided to wear white, as in "purity"!?

Didn't even watch the bullsh-t Speech from the Throne because its inane and meaningless blabber would have put me in a worse state than I am just having seen Payette in a brief clip.  

I told you she would be a disaster.  I was right.

 

Another gem

 As I have said, whenever my ego tempts me to drift into sort-of thinking I might be a half decent writer, I read another brilliant column by Cathal Kelly of 'The Globe and Mail' and despair.  He is ostensibly a sports columnist, but weaves so many other threads into his work I just love to read him.  

Today's offering is a perfect example.  Reading a congratulatory ad from Rolex to Bryson DeChambeau, who'd just won the US Open Golf Championship, I said to B, "That's the thing about golf.  Someone can just come out of nowhere and steamroll all the so-called greats."  No sooner had I said it when I lighted upon Kelly's column, which was all about this guy, his triumph and golf.  

Entitled "Golf's regular Joes are on the way out," it starts out with this:  "If you break golf down to its basics, the attraction is that any slob can play it.  Generally speaking, 'playing it' means 'playing it poorly', but that is also part of the appeal.  Everyone's bad at golf.

(Note:  I have always said that the problem with golf is you can't hit the ball.  The physics are off because the ball is too small and the club too long.  Just too hard to hit it big and in the right direction in the same swing.  Full disclosure, although I have tried, I discovered this law of physics early on and thus don't play.)

"Regular golfers love telling you how bad they are at it.  (This also happens to be a sneaky way of letting you know they have a bit of spare cash and a lot of spare time.)  Another note:  Like snooker, hence the expression.

"Golf?  'You should have seen me shank it on the fourth tee.  Hit two cars.  One was moving.  Along with darts, billiards and bowling, golf remains (sort of) democratic because whatever John Daly can do without embarrassing himself, you can too.

"Then Bryson DeChambeau shows up.  DeChambeau is built like a brick plinth.  His biceps bulge out of his polo shirts like wheels of cheese.  Most pro golfers have been gym-fit for a few years now.  Blame Tiger Woods.  His transformation, by the way, coincided with a spate of back injuries."

The column continues with so many gems I lost count.  "DeChambeau doesn't attack the course.  He grievously assaults it.  His approach off the tee doesn't emphasize ball placement.  Instead, DeChambeau hits the ball as hard as he can with little care for where it lands.

But listen to this:  "It is an article of golfing faith that if you don't hit fairways, you can't win.  DeChambeau just walked into golf's temple and started flipping tables."  Who writes like that?  "If long-ball golf isn't as entertaining to watch (and it isn't), seeing the likes of McIlroy trying to frame his own looming obsolescence as an affront to the game's hallowed traditions certainly is.

Talking about other pros, Kelly writes, "They looked average -- middle-aged, somewhere between paunch and fat.  There was, and is, something joyful about a sport that still featured a few people -- not a lot, but a few -- who looked like the great horde cheering them on.

"The only message lesser aspiring golfers will receive from DeChambeau's success is, 'Get big.  Get good.'  Prepare for a generation of bulging DeChambeau clones at the lower pro levels and in US college programs.  The swole bros will be arriving soon enough in the PGA."

And that's why Cathal Kelly works for 'The Globe and Mail' and I toiled in the trenches of the business press at Maclean Hunter.  I have to add that had I not resigned and moved to Ottawa with my then-husband (RIP), I might have risen a tad higher.  When I left M-H, I was already writing book reviews for 'The Financial Post' and making up horoscopes for 'Miss Chatelaine".  Two of my colleagues stayed and became stars in the Globe and Maclean's.  Who knows!?  A writer at heart, I cannot stop putting pen to paper.  Thank heaven for my blog.      

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Read a shocking story this morning about a woman named Debralee Chrisjohn, of the Oneida Nation of the Thames near London, who died while in police custody.  Apparently, she was running around the streets, high on meth, trying to jump into moving cars and generally causing mayhem in the public thoroughfare.  Naturally, the police picked her up and put her into a cell until she came off her high.  Problem was, she died there of a heart attack.  

But the real issue here is that one of the officers who put her in the drunk tank was charged and found guilty of negligence-causing-death and has been sentenced to 12 months in jail.  That's an abomination, in my view.  The woman was basically committing suicide in public, but for doing his job, this guy's life has been ruined.  Only 39, Chrisjohn had.....wait for it.....sit down......11 children and three grandchildren!!$%**%$$##!!  So here we have a mother of upteen children running around London in the middle of the night, high on meth, putting lives at risk and the policeman is charged?!?!?  

Anyone who has 11 children and lives on a reserve doing drugs is at the very least irresponsible, and at the most incompetent and unfit.  And the habitually-outraged Perry Bellgarde-Cindy Blackstock gang say native children should be left with their people.  Those poor orphans, what will be their sad fate?  More of the same, I fear.

Another thing that wasn't meant to be

 John Turner, now "the late", wanted B to run for the Liberals back in 1975, when Turner had decided to move to Vancouver.  He wanted B to take his seat in Ottawa/Carleton.  B turned him down because he knew his then-wife would not have been a political asset.  She was a snob, didn't like people and had a perfect knack for putting them down and making them feel less-than.

So, along with not continuing to play drums with 'The Quarrymen', B didn't enter politics. 

But Turner recognized quality and was the guy who nominated B for a Rhodes Scholarship back in 1961, when B was at Sir George Williams University in Montreal.  But politics being what it is, a Quebecker won.  Nevertheless, the "booby" prize was a Liverholm Fellowship to the London School of Economics, which B won.  It was the 'Swinging Sixties' in London, when B met The Beatles and hung out with Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.

Not a bad booby prize was it!  

Not what they intended

 Just as rabid feminism encourages misogyny, so this whole "Black Lives Matter" movement is fostering racism.  I mean, I live in Calgary and have never noticed racism -- and not because I am a Caucasian.  My life overlaps with people of all cultures from different countries and frankly, it is not an issue.

But city council has made it so.

Instead of dealing with Calgary's many issues, Mayor Nenshi and council members have dithered away countless hours debating gun violence, "systemic" racism and sexual identity.   They've even found time to probe a controversial religious-symbols law passed by another province!

Here's a bulletin:  Gun violence and murders are all drug and gang-related.  Your average, neighbourhood residents are not shooting each other, but, no, we have to have a commission to look into this.  It's obvious!  Do you really think the police will step in to save a drug dealer in a gun fight with another drug dealer and die for their efforts?  And, by the way, let's de-fund the police while we try to deal with crime.

It's all ludicrous.  Nenshi should be tackling the rotting infrastructure in this cow town, not debating and promoting racism and apartheid.  The problem is that he is an ethnic himself and sees things through his personal lens.  Now we have more anti-racism groups looking for racism wherever they can.  This woman wants to de-fund Calgary police and is heading a new organization to do so.  Insanity reigns!  And Nenshi supports her!   

   

Unrecognizable

 Wondered who was being interviewed on TV and finally realized it was Jane Fonda!  Whoa, too much face work there, Jane.  She looks as if she's in the witness protection program, for Gawd's sake.  A while ago she said she had sworn off plastic surgery and just wanted to look her age and be proud of it.  Guess that went out the window.  Here she is.  She's 82, by the way:

Speaking of Hollywood, now the Oscars have embraced the BLM movement.  But in a ridiculous way.  Apparently, to be eligible for best picture, all entrants must have signed an inclusion standards contract that ensured a certain number of people of colour occupied all positions in the film they are entering -- from stars to crew.  How ridiculous can you get!?  In other words, regardless of the movie you're making -- even if it is a period piece about Caucasians -- you have to have black and/or ethnic actors, actresses and crew in it.

This has gone waaaaaay too far.

    

The Emperor

 That's what Trudeau is now.  Before the investigation into allegations of Payette's abusive behavior towards staff has even begun, he has pronounced her an "excellent" governor general, adding that she's not going anywhere.  

The arrogance is breathtaking!  The GG's office is the responsibility of the Privy Council Office, so where is Clerk Ian Shugart on this?  Nowhere.  Add the fact that the PCO reports to Parliament through Trudeau's childhood buddy Dominic Leblanc and we're not going anywhere.  The shameless PM is literally thumbing his nose and flouting every rule there is in a parliamentary democracy.  His contempt for the institution has reached new heights.  But I fault the opposition for not calling a vote of non-confidence.  That's also flouting parliament.  Singh doesn't want one because he knows he'll get fewer seats next time 'round and O'Toole hasn't got up-to-speed -- even though the Conservatives have tons of money.  And as for May and the Bloc, they're not even worth mentioning.  

Payette's abusive conduct and Trudeau's support of it are a direct insult to Her Majesty.  It is unconscionable.  The tragedy for our kids and grands is that he'll get in again.  It's all in the numbers and the GTA will vote for him, so will the ethnics and all the illegal cue jumpers who brazenly cross the border and so will the Francophones.  Canada is truly lost -- especially with that ludicrous Freeland in charge of the public purse and Butts, the delusional lunatic whose "green" agenda ruined Ontario and pushed hydro rates through the roof, pulling the strings.      

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Here's a question:  Why do people answer a question with so many unnecessary words?  "What day is it?"  "So, I want to say, I mean it's Tuesday," is the response.  That's seven superfluous words.  What's up with that?!

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Sad to see The Raptors have "Black Lives Matter" on their shirts.  Just stick to dunking baskets and banking your millions.  I'd like to know how many of them have put their money where their shirts are and sponsored a few black families?  Exactly.