My teenage years with Matthew Perry's Mother

Suzanne Langford, when I knew her, with Pierre Trudeau.  She was his press secretary.

Suzanne Langford was my best friend throughout high school in Ottawa, Canada.  We both went to Lisgar Collegiate Institute from 1960 to 1965.  

She is the mother of Matthew Perry.

We had the most fun back then!  We double-dated, snuck into the sand pits with our dates for an illegal, midnight swim and made our own outfits -- some with décolletage a little too daringly lowcut.  We laughed 'til we cried.  We listened to Françoise Hardy and thought we were the most sophisticated teenagers ever.

She has two older brothers, John and Stuart.  Stuart was the funny one, with a constant and well-timed quip for every occasion.  I suspect this is where Matthew got his own talent.   

Suzanne was scouted by the Eileen Ford modelling agency in New York and moved to start an exciting career.  She graced the cover of a number of fashion magazines and that's where she met Matthew's father, John Perry.  Theirs was a whirlwind romance and they wed in 1968.  I was her Maid of Honour and she gave me a beautiful, engraved silver bracelet to mark the occasion.

At her wedding, I met John's brother, Tony, and began my own whirlwind romance.  He was a musician and singer with 'The Serendipity Singers' and used to fly me to New York, where we'd hang out with people like Neil Diamond and Peter Paul and Mary at local clubs.  My relationship with Tony didn't pan out, but those were heady days!

When she became pregnant with Matthew, I was the first person she called.  When he was born, I was again the first person she called after her parents. 

Her marriage to John ended after a couple of years and she moved back to Ottawa for a while.  That's where she met TV journalist Keith Morrison, her husband of more than 40 years.  They went on to have four more children.

When she moved to California, we lost touch.  But we got together again a few years later in Ottawa when her father, and then her mother, died.  The laughs continued.

I just wrote her a long letter about everything.  I don't know if she'll reply, but I wanted her to know I am still here after 56 years.  I am still her friend in her time of tragedy.  

Matthew with his father, John, and his mother, my friend Suzanne, above.  Suzanne and Keith, upper photo, on their way to identify Matthew.  My heart breaks for her.

Rest in peace, Matthew.  Your struggle over, as is the years-long anguish you have put so many loved ones through, including your Mother.

  

Another Indigenous pretender

Buffy, not Indigenous afterall.

So, now it comes out that Buffy Sainte-Marie is not Indigenous.  She is Caucasian.  What a shocker that is!  Buffy, who has spent her entire life trading, dining out, making a career and morphing into a native, isn't.

It's a lot easier to claim Métis status, because all you have to prove is a connection to, and acceptance by, that community.  But unfortunately for her you also have to have a genetic ancestral connection, which Buffy doesn't.  So, even measured against that nebulous and subjective criteria, she misses the mark. 

Apparently, she was born in Stoneham, Mass., in 1941 to Albert and Winifred Santamaria.  That name sounds Spanish, so she changed it to "Sainte-Marie"; her background may also account for her swarthy complexion.  

While she may have been adopted into the Piapot clan when she became famous, that doesn't make her Indigenous.  In fact, one of her brothers threatened to expose her lie a number of years ago, but backed down when she threatened to sue him and falsely claim he had molested her as a child.

I am adopted and growing up knew I wasn't Welsh, as my father's heritage was.  Having adopted parents who were English and Welsh didn't confer that on me -- anymore than Buffy's false claims to be Indigenous make her so.  Turns out I am as Irish as they come; DNA confirmed it. 

Doubling down on her lie, Buffy has issued a statement saying she "knows who she loves and where she belongs", but she doesn't deny the latest, well-researched documentation about her origins because the proof is irrefutable.  'W5' travelled to her hometown and interviewed the official town clerk, who produced her birth certificate in authentic black and white for all to see.

What an insult to the thousands of genuine natives who have held her up as a beacon of their heritage.  What an insult to her millions of fans.  What an insult to artists like Inuit Susan Aglukark, with whom she recorded an Indigenous duet.  Everyone's been duped while Buffy made millions!

She is what real Indigenous people call "costume Indians", with all her beads, baubles and feathers.  "They tend to go overboard with their outfits when they are not really native," said one Indigenous spokesman. 

I wonder what the half-native Tanya Talaga, who has also appropriated full native heritage herself, will have to say in her next rave?  Watch this space!

(Note:  Tanya today gave Buffy a hall pass, saying we need to love each other and support each other's "truth" because of all the "intergenerational pain" we're forever mired in.  Of course, this would be Talaga's position.  She writes on, and claims, all things Indigenous, all while being half-Polish herself and raised in downtown Toronto -- not on a reservation.)

Here we go again

Now, 17,000 Lebanese with dual citizenship -- i.e., Canadian citizens of convenience -- have registered to be evacuated out of Lebanon at the expense of you and me.

The last time this happened was in 2006, during the Hezbollah/Israeli war, when 15,000 were flown out to the tune of $100 million!!!

This is unconscionable.  Why should the rest of us pay for Lebanese/"fake Canadians" to be flown out of their chosen homeland?!  This is wrong on so many levels, but Bill Blair -- our hapless minister of defence -- said we'll be ready to get them out.

This is the country you chose; now face the consequences.

Why?!  Why did they all run back there after the 2006 danger subsided?  Because they're not Canadian at all.  They're Lebanese through-and-through and should suffer the consequences of deciding to leave Canada for a dangerous powder keg of a country right next to Israel.  The people wanting to be flown back are not tourists, by the way.  They own homes and businesses and reside there fulltime.

According to Canada's ambassador to Lebanon, "This will be the largest evacuation in Canada's history."  And the most expensive!

They should all have had return tickets in their pockets for just such a situation.  But no, they're again demanding Canadians pay for their stupidity.  You watch, no sooner will we fly them back than they will all return again.

We are such suckers. 

Predictable

As I said in my previous blog, that friend who didn't have the common courtesy to pick up my lunch tab every now and then, as thanks for driving her around, has dropped me.  Unfortunately, she doesn't have the objectivity to say, "You're right, I was being thoughtless.  I'll take you to lunch next time, my treat."  Can't do it.  Is this because in her mind that would make her a charity case?  Probably, but from my perspective, she is a charity case because I am the one doing all the work.

A thing of the past with this friend.

I have also dropped another fb "friend" because she deleted an informed, objective comment I made about the Israel/Gaza conflab because one of her friends is married to a Jew.  Really?!  This person is evidently a uninformed supporter of Israel.  Not posting a comment because one of her friends might be hurt is just dumb.  That's the problem with so many people:  They are ignorant and don't plan on changing. 

As I have said, listen to Noam Chomsky or Gabor Maté -- both Jews, by the way -- and the scales will fall from your eyes about what's really going on in Israel and Gaza.  Don't ever think I am a supporter of terrorism, I would just like to have an informed exchange with other like-minded persons who understand the history of that tormented region.  

And one more thing:  Lest we forget who's running Canada's foreign policy, it's Katie Telford on Israel, because her husband is Jewish and she runs Trudeau, and Chrystia Freeland on the Ukraine because she is Ukrainian and is a co-puppet master of Trudeau.  Mélanie Joly?  She might be foreign minister, but the other two are running that sh-t show; she's just trotted out to show up.

______________________

If they're English, they're gone

But what I really want to talk about today is Quebec's ludicrous edict to double university tuition fees for out-of-province students.  Talk about deepening and hardening the ghetto that province has turned itself into; this is simply a losing, counter-productive strategy.  But Legault can't see past his own parochial, paranoid nose and insecurity about the French language.

The joke of it all is that a recent survey found that more than half of all francophone students tested failed a French-language grammar and spelling test.  More than half could not correctly write their own mother tongue!  What does that tell you?  

'Globe and Mail' columnist Marcus Gee had a great piece yesterday about this mess.  "The government of Premier François Legault is telling these students:  Stay home, we don't want you.  More to the point, he is saying:  We don't want your language."

On the other hand, Quebec taxpayers fund the difference between what a student pays and what the real costs are, i.e., much higher.  This difference is funded by the Quebec taxpayer, not the taxpayers of whatever province or country from which the student hails.  In other words, Quebeckers are heavily subsidizing these foreign students, so why not make their tuition higher?  That's Legault's rationale and, looking at it like that, it makes sense. 

Quebec's Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge said that listening to foreign students, "Express themselves in English on a daily basis threatens the survival of French."

(Note:  From a personal, anecdotal point of view, I am fluent in French, yet every time we have gone to Montreal -- at least once or twice a year forever-- and I have spoken French to a server, he/she has immediately switched to English when my slight accent gives me away as an Anglophone.  That was simply to insult me, but it's an indication that even native French-speakers are helping subvert their language by speaking English.  So, it's not Anglophones disrespecting French, it's Francophones.)

B and me being snubbed by a French server in Montreal

But I digress.  My question is, why does Quebec even need a Ministry of the French Language in the first place?  Says Gee, "If the language is so weak (it isn't), slapping a tax on young Anglos from Calgary and Hamilton is not going to save it.

"Quebec nationalists always say theirs is an open, forward-looking movement.  They insist they are not looking to exclude anybody.  Everyone is welcome in the 'New' Quebec.  Then they slam the door on innocent young people who want to come study in Montreal.  

"And all because someone didn't like hearing English on Saint-Laurent Boulevard."

Sadly, that's what's become of a once-magnificent destination.  It's now a small-minded, ingrown-toenail province with no future for anyone except Francophones who want -- or have -- to stay trapped there because their English is poor.  Apparently, they've missed the chapter about how English is the universal language of business.

This guy doesn't mince words.............

Here's an interesting look at Joe and Jill Biden, from 'The Catholic Register':

*Again, if you are politically correct, don't read this 'cause it isn't. I don't subscribe to this publication, but an American friend of B's does and sends them him regularly; now and then I cut and paste.

__________________________

"October 19, 2023 

  

"On October 14, President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden addressed their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender friends at the Washington Center in the nation’s capital. It was one of the most dishonest, pandering exercises imaginable. It was nothing short of a love fest. 

  

"Lady Jill bemoaned how 'LGBTQ individuals' apparently can’t walk school halls 'as their authentic self.' This was the first lie. 

  

"Any person who subjects himself to puberty blockers and chemical castration—in a vain attempt to deny his authentic self—is living an inauthentic life, strewn with psychological and physiological problems. They need our help, not our condolences. 

  

"Armed with her Ed.D.—it is a degree in administration, not research—'Dr. Jill' is opposed to conversion therapy, thus has this 'pro-choice' activist decided to deny people who have made the wrong choice the opportunity to make the right choice. Her husband outdid her, calling conversion therapy a 'cruel practice.' 

  

"The president celebrated 'LGBTQ youth' for being 'among the bravest people' he knows, not saying what the source of their bravery is. Rebelling against nature and nature’s God? 

  

"Similarly, he did not offer any examples of LGBT people valiantly defending the 'equal rights and dignity of all people.' It would be helpful to know when and where they have come to the defense of Catholics. 

  

“ 'We’ve made human rights for LGBT around the world a top priority in our foreign policy.' This may explain the many foreign policy failures of this administration—if they spent as much time on military preparedness as they do on 'pronoun workshops' for the Pentagon, we wouldn’t be in such a pickle. 

  

"Moreover, by what right do Americans have to tell Africans—Biden singles out the Ugandans as not cooperating with his LGBT agenda—how they should think about sexuality? This kind of cultural imperialism is what breeds contempt for America abroad. 

  

"Biden was right to say to transgender persons that they were 'made in the image of God,' but he was negligent in not saying that attempts to butcher their sex is an affront to this verity. 

  

"The Biden administration recently said that foster parents who object to their adopted children 'transitioning' to the opposite sex should not be allowed to do so, and that their children should be taken from them if they resist. Therefore, we know what he meant when he said he wants to 'protect kids in foster care.' 

  

"There are hundreds of state and local laws on the books banning teachers, therapists and others from usurping the rights of parents by seeking to entice their children to 'transition.' Biden should be hailing these laws; instead, he sides with the child abusers, calling the laws 'hateful.' 

  

"Biden said his LGBT policies respect many rights, including 'the right to free expression.' False. By unleashing the 'pronoun police' to ensure that the right words are used to describe the transitioners, he is denying free speech rights to employees. 

  

"He is even more off base when he complains, without offering one iota of evidence, that families are being 'terrorized' and doctors and nurses are being 'criminalized' by those who oppose his LGBT policies. No one is being terrorized, and the only doctors and nurses who are in danger of being 'criminalized' are those who refuse to cooperate with his agenda. 

  

"Perversely, Biden’s support for the Equality Act, which he said needs to be passed, would force Catholic doctors to perform abortions and sex-reassignment surgery. In other words, he is the problem—not those who disagree with him. 

  

"Biden trotted out the old canard about the tragic death of Matthew Shepard, saying he was 'brutally taken from us.' He was, but the homosexual was not killed by gay bashers. 

  

"A gay reporter, Stephen Jimenez, initially thought Shepard had been killed by anti-gay bigots, but concluded otherwise after his investigation. He spent 13 years interviewing more than 100 people with a connection to the case. What he found was startling. 

  

"Shepard was killed by two drug-addicted homosexuals, one of whom was a sex partner of his. Shepard was a gay, street-walking prostitute who tested positive for HIV at the time of his death. He was addicted to crystal meth and heroin and was known to deal in meth. Indeed, his gay assailants were after his stash when they assaulted him. In other words, it wasn’t redneck homophobes who killed Shepard—it was drug-addicted homosexuals just like him. 

  

"It is one thing for Mr. 'Devout Catholic' to laud the LGBT crowd; it is quite another to lie about his reasons for doing so."

_________________

Well, at least there's no doubt as to where Bill Donohue stands on this subject.

 

Truth and other inconveniences

I often think that's my problem:  I am a truth-teller and not too many people want to hear it.

DNA is the ultimate truth-teller, which is how I discovered who my birth father was after 47 years of believing it was another man.  This discovery was a revelation to me and to my newly-found five sisters and two brothers.  But, it didn't pan out as I had hoped.  Two of my sisters want nothing to do with me; one sort of does, but the other two appear thrilled to learn of my existence.  As for my brothers, one is dead and the other is MIA to his entire family.  Happily, I am still in touch with one of my sisters, Maureen -- the other mistake at the tail end of the line; she is the youngest, I the oldest.

My five sisters.

_____________

Another truth I am finally telling is about a friend with whom I used to swim regularly, until she got brain cancer and became disabled.  When we both lived in Calgary, we used to meet regularly for lunch.  Now that I live 25 minutes up the road in Cochrane, we still meet for lunch, but I have to drive it both ways because she can no longer drive.  I also have to drive her home, which is in the opposite direction to where I live.  Now, this is a couple who both had good, high-paying jobs, which has landed them with HUGE pensions; they also only had one kid.  We, on the other hand, supported nine people for many years.     

Here's my peeve:  She has never picked up the tab when we meet; common courtesy tells me she should now and then.  Afterall, I am the one using the gas and subjecting by 23-year-old car to extra wear and tear, so one would think she'd have the courtesy to cover my lunch every now and then.  But she never offers and is always clear with the server about two tabs.

So, it'll probably be bye-bye to this friend when she reads this blog.

Reality bites, but I am OK with it all.         

Don't ya love....

How not to be credible

...getting advice from women who have never earned a cent of their own money?  In my world, to be credible, everyone has to earn his/her own keep.  Otherwise, be quiet and certainly don't give working women your opinion about anything, thank you.

B has an old friend from 45 years ago who chimes in every now and then, as she did on fb the other day, with an opinion about working and motherhood.  This is a woman who was raised by a rich doctor, married a rich lawyer, divorced him and got a hefty settlement and child support, and then married a rich real estate mogul who left her a few million when he died.

Of course, the millions weren't enough and predictably she took his son to court to get more.  Didn't work.  Nevermind, she still has oodles enough to live in a swanky condo in downtown Toronto.  So, hey, no one's getting out the pity pot for this perpetual lady of leisure.

The biggest laugh is to hear her go on about how liberated she is and what an example to feminism she represents.  As I always say, women are their own worst enemies -- and that applies to several, well-educated, non-working, Texas "Real Housewives of...." I have met in Houston.

They are basically camp followers, like the working women who followed the railway workers in series like 'Hell on Wheels', only richer.  

My advice to young women?  Don't take up a seat in an expensive institute of higher learning and then marry, only to pop out a couple of kids and sit on your gilded asses for the rest of time.  It's just not right.

p.s.  My rules also apply to female members of religions that discourage wives to work.  Having them at home, bearing as many children as they can, gives their husbands all the power and disenfranchises them financially.    Like these women:

Mormon wives, a good example.

As I said when I married the first time, "There is no way I am going to ask any man for $5 for a pair of nylons."

And I never have.