Golf is fairly unplayable. Firstly, the ball is too small and the club too long; the physics determine that you can't hit it. Looks like Rory McElroy proved that theory when he pooched the British Open last weekend. Tiger Woods also had to face that annoying reality when he left the tournament after only one round. McElroy was supposed to walk away with it, but a young Australian came along and snatched victory from the jaws of Rory's defeat. That happens a lot in golf. The sure thing collapses and an unknown glides in to hoist the coveted claret jug. Frankly, I hope Federer doesn't return to Wimbledon "one more time", as he has said, and become a slinking-away Woods. That would be sad.
Don't get me wrong, I admire the dogged determination of golfers who, against all odds, keep swinging away hole after hole, summer after summer for years and years. Personally, my favourite hole is the 19th -- one I used to enjoy when we lived in Ottawa and were members of the beautiful Royal Ottawa. B would head out to hit and bang away on the back nine, while I would enjoy a refreshing beverage on the verandah awaiting his frustrated return.
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Quebec's ridiculous new language laws, which now impose even stricter bans on English, is just another example of how the province is determined to turn itself even more into a ghetto. It also ensures as few people as possible will want to emigrate there. Limiting yourself and your children to just French means they have no chance of succeeding anywhere else where English is the dominant language. I put it all down to an inferiority complex by Quebeckers. They feel less-than, so they dig in and enact new cudgels with which to bang the hated English over the head. An old friend, who lives in Montreal, said, "Nancy, every Quebecker is a separatist." I believe him.
Immigration is also a pretty predictable thing: People go to where their kith and kin live. That means that Vancouver and Toronto will continue to attract mainly South Asians and Blacks, Vancouver will attract Asians and South Asians, and Montreal will restrict itself mainly to French-speaking Haitians. I know, I know, this is just a lot of ballparking on my behalf, but it's basically true. All that means that, try as every civic politician might, housing costs will just keep skyrocketing and urban crowding will keep ballooning. As for building new housing? A myriad of building codes, which brings in a lot of money, and NIMBYism will see to it that builders don't bother.
Yep, there's really no answer to that one.
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Doug Cuthand, who I had previously thought reasonable, has joined the screaming hoards demanding the the Pope's head over the "grievous and murderous" residential schools which, he claims, destroyed thousands of lives. He erroneously blames a 1493 Papal Bull, which declared a pope infallible, as the reason no pope can apologize because presumably no pope has ever been wrong. A pope is infallible in all things ecclesiastical and Catholic, but not in secular matters. Cuthand doesn't seem to understand this, so yes, the pope can apologize, but how far he can go will depend on what the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops will permit him to say.
Angele White, head of the Indian Residential Schools Survivors* Society, seems to believe the pope will be arriving arms loaded with cheques. She is demanding more than apology and we know what that means. She wants compensation, which is spelled "money". The pope will not be coming with cheques. Richard Gagnon, who runs the Conference, will be the guy deciding where Pope Francis goes, what he says and how much money is doled out. So, Angela, don't hold your breath.
* Why are there no graduates, only survivors?
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And didn't we all laugh in disgust as Trudeau castigated Hockey Canada for how it covered up the sexual assault and rape of a young woman by eight "unnamed" players. That's taking the pot-calling-the-kettle-black to new heights! Trudeau, a guy guilty as (lucky-for-him, but not) charged, has the nerve to call out Hockey Canada for covering up the very crimes he himself has been accused of! Speaking of disgust, I am repelled that the mainstream media -- mainly the financially-compromised CBC -- never reports on Trudeau's own sordid past.
The "unnamed" players aren't because guess what? A bunch of them are currently playing in the NHL! This should have been a police matter from the get-go, not an internal "investigation", payout and coverup. These were crimes, but how could society even think of destroying the hockey careers of these fine, upstanding young citizens? Society should, but it won't.
In this case, the players aren't named, but in the case now in court against ex-Vancouver Canuk Jake Virtanen, he is named, but the woman accusing him of rape is not -- the opposite of what is happening with the Hockey Canada fiasco. I've never understood these arbitrary decisions? Remember the case of the female NDP MP who named and accused a fellow MP of sexual assault, thus destroying his career, marriage and life before he was even charged, let alone convicted! In that case she was also protected, but the MP named and ruined -- even though she admitted she had willingly had sex with the guy!!
Frankly, I give up!
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