Rapunzel, Rapunzel....

...let down your guard.  But she didn't.  Katie Telford stuck to her non-story of non-answers when she appeared yesterday before the Commons Committee looking into whether the Chinese government interfered in the Canadian election and whether a large donation to the Pierre Trudeau Foundation came with Chinese strings attached.

Of course, both are true.  You can bet the Chinese interfered in a number of important ridings to put their candidates in.  And you can also bet that the numbered company that made the donation was mainland-China-owned.  In fact, so twisted and entangled was the source of the money, that when caught, the foundation didn't even know to whom to return it!

One of the main reasons Chinese Canadians so fear the Chinese government is that many have family still living there, the members of which are at risk of retaliation and intimidation if votes don't go the right way in Canada.

Trudeau claiming he has "absolutely nothing to do" with the foundation named after his father is patently ludicrous.  I mean, come on.  His own brother was a founding member, for Gawd's sake, until the heat became too much and he quit.  At least that's what I have gleaned, but not sure if he remains involved.  At any rate, the whole foundation is a cesspool of Trudeau inbreeding and chicanery.    

After pushing and pushing to get Rapunzel Telford to testify, opposition members of the committee finally succeeded.  This, of course, goes against the Parliamentary principle of ministerial responsibility and accountability.  As Trudeau's chief of staff, she is exempt, as are all political staffers.  So what were they expecting to get out of her?  She has absolutely no accountability in the mess.  The guy who needs to be grilled is her boss, Justin Trudeau, but he is still trying desperately to slither out of calling a public inquiry on the whole tangled tale -- a clear indication that there is much to hide.

Here's my prediction:  Trudeau will trigger an election in the Fall before he has to call the inquiry and the whole thing will blow over.  Afterall, MPs will be on summer vacation back in their ridings, so there will be nobody around to inquire into anything.  But what should really worry every Canadian is that Trudeau will get in again and the corruption will only increase.

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But a word about Rapunzel's hair.  When I was working, professional females were expected to have tidy hair.  Telford's is unbelievable!  How can she appear before a house committee looking like that?  I thought I'd stumbled onto a twilight zone episode of 'The Real Housewives of Parliament Hill'.  My mother would be turning in her grave if I had come from the office with my hair hanging all over me like that.  The words "harridan and harpie" came to mind as I watched and those are not descriptors with which any professional woman wants to be tagged. 

"God, I hope you don't go into the office in some of the outfits you wear over here," sniffed my late Mother when I arrived for a Sunday dinner in an outfit I had thought very stylish and au fait indeed.  The same would have been said of my hair, had I worn it like Rapunzel did yesterday.

Ah well, that's how out-of-it I am these days.  Sigh.....Rapunzel's tower -- akin to Telford's Ivory variety:       

Doesn't necessarily follow

When someone commits suicide, everyone blames it on mental health, that they're disturbed.  I don't agree.  I think some who commit suicide are perfectly normal, but have issues they can't face.  Doesn't mean they are crazy.

I have been thinking about this lately because our tennis club is asking members to donate to a mental health fund in memory of someone's daughter who committed suicide at age 19.  I knew the daughter and she was not mental, in my view, but the parents immediately jumped to a mental health issue because she committed suicide.  I don't think parents can bear the thought a child might have killed him/herself because they were deficient parents, so they blame it on mental health.  Is that their cop out?  Josie must have been crazy; we were not bad parents.  And they weren't!

Simply put, the parents weren't deficient, but the child couldn't cope. Josie just left this world.

I had a brother who committed suicide when he was 33 because he was gay and his lover of many years was getting married so the latter would not be cut out of his family's vast fortune.  But John was not crazy, not in the least.  And my parents were great parents.  No one was mental and no one was a bad parent.

I believe mental health and suicide should be separate issues.  Maybe some who commit suicide are crazy, but not all.  And not all people who are mentally ill commit suicide.  The two don't necessarily go hand-in-hand.  In my brother's case, his suicide was perfectly logical:  He could not bear to live while the love of his life got married and left him.  I get that totally.  

Anyway, these thoughts have been circulating in my mind since we got the email about contributing.  I hesitate because of my brother.  He was not crazy.  Do I donate automatically suicide/mental health fund?  Maybe, in support of my brother, I won't.

  

       

As usual, I don't get it

After Stephen Harper moved out in 2015, no one has lived at 24 Sussex.  Why?  Because it is rodent-infested, dangerous and unfit for human habitation.  Built in 1867 by lumber baron Joseph Currier, this magnificent property on the Ottawa River remains the official home of Canadian prime ministers since its designation as such in 1950.

This is a disgrace.

The reason for the neglect is because after Harper, no prime minister wanted to appear profligate and frivolous upgrading it to code.  Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine the Americans letting their White House wither and slither into wrack and ruin?  You can't because it would never happen.  

But some untoward things do go on in the Excited States of America.  Take Biden's trip to Ireland today.  He's over there having a Ceilidh with his Irish relatives on the taxpayer dime.  Apparently, he didn't even take his secretary of state, just a bunch of family to visit cousins and other distant relatives.  Oh, he'll toss in a couple of meetings with officials to mark the 25th anniversary of the peace accord, but basically it's an excuse for a rousing kitchen party.  

Just a note about who engineered the Belfast De-commissioning Accord in 1998.  It was Canadian General John de Chastelain, a gentleman I had the honour of being seated next to at a dinner of the Royal Commonwealth Society (B was chair at the time and I made the request.  Granted.)  Google him, he is extremely accomplished and a wonderful and fascinating dinner companion, who gave me a behind-the-scenes look at the machinations that went into that historic agreement.

But back to official residences.  Remember a few years ago, when taxpayers poured $11 million into upgrading Harrington Lake to code?  His Majesty King Trudeau II demanded this.  He also decreed that a backup "cottage" be built next door to the tune of $2.5 million.  The official reason given was that he needed a place for official guests, but as I understand it, the only "official guest" who stays there is his wife.  Apparently, they are secretly separated and she demanded her own place, else she'd go public with the sorry state of their marriage.

This vanity project trumped 24 Sussex and that's just wrong.  Estimates are that re-building it would cost $41 million, so why not do it?  Why did we instead pay for Sophie Trudeau to have her own digs?  We shouldn't have, but we did and I put it down to votes.  Had Sophie spilled the marital beans, Trudeau would have skidded further down in the polls and that simply could not have been allowed to happen.

So, we upped Harrington and continue to shell out $20,000 a month there for security, upkeep, snow, ice and -- yes -- pest control.  Harrington Lake:

Anyone still voting for this scandal-ridden, multiple ethics-infractions man should hang their collective heads in shame.  But guess what?  He'll get in again because there are enough undiscerning people who will ignore it all and put an X beside their local Liberal candidate's name.

Sometimes it's hard to be married to an economist because you realize just how screwed Canadians are with this gang.  

Affirmative Action strikes again!

Canada's National Gallery is in hot water again -- thanks to the antics of a few previous and current directors.  It all started four years ago, with the appointment of Sasha Suda as director.  During her three-year term, Suda's goal was to transform the gallery, which she did, but mostly in a bad way.  After smashing and careening around for three years left, right and centre, she left.

When I was working, I coined the phrase "FUFO", which stands for "F-ck up and f-ck off" -- something I saw all around me in my various jobs over many years.  Apparently, that's what Suda did and all I can say is 'good luck' to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she has crash-landed.  Here's Suda:

Only 38 when appointed, the youngest director ever, Suda bulldozed her way through our gallery, firing staff and creating chaos as she "re-engineered and reimagined" every nook and cranny.  I mean, that's what you do when you're 38, right?  You bulldoze, re-engineer and reimagine.  Her staff put it another way:  She was described as driven by dogma and mantra.  In other words, "woke-ism" run amok.

An Order-in-Council appointment, i.e., by Parliament (actually our "feminist" PM personally ordered this), such terms are for five years, but Suda jumped ship after just three.  Apparently, the bedlam and pandemonium she was generating were too much for her. 

I blogged the mess her successor, Angela Cassie, has made of the job (see, "Chaos", Jan. 28, 2023), but a new series of documents, released under Access to Information, reveals much more about the havoc Suda and her possé wreaked.  The minute she took over, Suda turned the entire running of the gallery over to consultants -- the principal one being the NOBL Collective out of California for "strategic planning work".  Yep, you read that right, Suda handed the whole mess over to an AMERICAN company based in the land of fruits and nuts!  How ludicrous. 

When the tally for NOBL came in, Canadian taxpayers had forked over $632,500 to create chaos.  My question is, why would the gallery's director -- hired to run the place at an exorbitant salary -- hire someone else to do her job?!  Wasn't that what she was supposed to do?

For an explanation, you have to look at who hired the feckless Suda.  It was Françoise Lyon, chair of the board, and vice-chair Anne-Marie Applin.  Google them and you'll get a clue as to why they went for Suda.  Both young and very woke, these two are not what you want hiring people to curate historical, national art.  

Suda's first job was to "decolonialize" the collection, whatever that means?  Her successor, Cassie, recently doubled down, saying, "Our new vision, to create dynamic experiences through the visual arts, not only means adding new points of view to our collection, but also embracing new ways of doing our work."

In other words, we're going to fire people and keep spending money on consultants.  Cassie's mantra was....wait for it...."Sensing, Vision and Bet Making".  Neither you nor I could make that one up, but consultants are very good at bamboozling their clients.  Eventually, the documents reveal, the scope of NOBL's work became all-encompassing, as they laid out plans and timelines for, "Defining the museum's values and crafting its change narrative."  Complete bullsh-t, which also included a lot of "blue-skying".  Cassie even turned over all-staff meetings to NOBL to actually chair and run.  Whaaaaaat??!!  

The result?  A strategic plan entitled "Transform Together".  

Next it was time to hire yet another consultancy firm called 'Elevate' and hand it a whopping $352,200 to develop a "JEDI" (cute) working group which would work with even more consultants "as needed", attend staff meetings and assist with the "onboarding" of new staff.

Have you ever heard such nonsense?!  Again, shouldn't all that be Cassie's job?!!!  Not to be left out in the cold, NOBL elbowed in again with a new plan that would focus on, "engaging in productive, courageous conversations".  This meant charging another $15,000 to deliver a four-hour, team-building workshop for the seven members of the gallery's senior management committee.  

What would this include?  "Development experiences that would feel like an opportunity to slow down and set staff up for success."  Slow down to succeed?  How does that work?  Elevate countered with yet another contract for a coaching program described as a "deep dive for senior leadership and management who wish to develop and practice critical inclusive leadership skills and the development and delivery of a suite of inclusive workplace training modules."  Whew, I'm out of breath just typing that one!

Well, I never.  What, pray tell, was senior management doing during all these coaching, leading, succeeding and engaging sessions?  Good question!

I could go on, but you get my drift.  Oh, and by the way, who was the minister in charge of all this mad consulting and to-ing and fro-ing?  Why, none other than the wondrous Mélanie Joly, of course!  Another of Trudeau's phenomenal "feminist" appointments. 

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Note:  No, I am not a misogynist.  I want equally-qualified women to be given the same chance to apply for a job as men, but I don't want a woman to be given a job just because she is a female, or parachuted over more-qualified male applicants.  

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Speaking of being parachuted into a job, next time I'm going to comment on the 5,000-page report on the mess we call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Brenda Lucki's star performance.  Look out!         

As the runway gets shorter....

...sh-t happens, as the great philosopher Keith Richards so wisely says.

"Do you work for TJ?" I asked a woman, as she was putting a vacuum and other cleaning supplies into the trunk of her car at our neighbour's a few years ago.  Yes, she told me.  

Divine intervention had struck again!  She was his cleaner and I had just finished a demented rant while vacuuming, cleaning, doing laundry and cursing a blue streak about these never-ending hair shirts we had to wear.  We had just moved to Calgary (grandchildren) and I had not found a house cleaner -- something I had always had when working.  Me, before The Hand of God intervened:

Note:  A word about why my cohort still ended up schlepping a vacuum or pushing a mop.  We were raised by mothers who didn't work outside the home.  Problem was we married men whose cohort was also raised by a mother at home.  Result?  Our husbands were used to seeing their mothers do all the domestic chores and expected their wives to be the same -- regardless of the fact that our "Women's Lib" cohort was also out working and bringing home serious bacon.  

Wrong.  That's why I have always hired "wives".  To prevent divorce because here's a bulletin:  Resentments are always spelt "Divorce". 

Anyway, back to how I met my current "wife", Maritess, who has been working for us for six years.  Initially, she came every two weeks just to clean, but as the runway shifted, I began to realize I needed more wife in my life.  Now she comes every week and does:

• The cleaning
• The laundry
• The garbage, and
• The grocery shopping

This Spring, I also plan to have her deal with the garden and the garage; she's already tackled the basement.  Oh, and did I also mention she has five kids of her own?  I only raised four.  She is a superwoman and instead of curse-cleaning, like I did, she actually sings and smiles as she works!

She is Filipino and in that culture they know how to clean.  They also look after their own parents and even though her Mother lives in the Philippines, Maritess went back to help her when her father died.  When she came back -- much to my great relief -- she sent her husband over to deal with family matters.

In our culture, we warehouse the elderly.  I remember my Mother sitting me down and saying, "Nancy, I want you to promise that when I get infirm, you won't have me live with you."  Whew, was my selfish reaction.  But that's our culture and I plan to operate the same way when we get beyond the pale.  

Anyway, a big shout out to my wonderful wife!  Maritess happily at work:   

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Just a word about the great Bill Burr.  Have been binge-watching him and if you want to know how my brain really works, listen to Bill.  His wife is Black, so he gets a lot of hall passes on that file.  Love the guy!  

            

Why??!!

....are we still going to the moon?  Fifty-four years after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first landed there and danced the hornpipe in the barren dust, we're still going there.  

I don't get it?!  I was on a plane flying from Ottawa to Toronto that day in 1969 when the captain came on and announced they had landed.  Wow, we all cheered and clapped!  I actually thought that was the beginning of something.  But it wasn't.  We just keep going and going and nothing happens?!

Except a lot of people get rich building spacecrafts and related paraphenalia over 54 years so man can fly around space and send satelites up hither and yon, but to what end?  I'm still waiting and wondering!

The latest gang to float away is on Artemis II and includes one measly Canadian, Jeremy Hansen.  The media coverage today about this guy suggests it's a HUGE deal, but when asked what the mission was, this is what he said:

Whaaaat!!??!  They have no clue why they're going or what they're going to do when they get there.  Oh wait, they're not actually going to land on the moon, they're just going to orbit it a couple of times and fly back.  Gawd!!  What's this boondoggle costing?  I can't even bear to google it.  Someone interviewed another ex-Canadian astronaut, Roberta Bondar, and she actually said, "Well, they're going to try to stay alive for starters."  That's what she actually said!!  Apart from that objective, nothing.

Reminds me of the relatively new sport of "Cheer" -- something I hadn't really heard of in Canada.  Used to be that cheerleaders cheered something, you know, like a team.  I was captain of my high  school squad back in the day and apart from fleeting, localized glory, it was no biggie.  Now, however, Cheer is an entity on its own competing all across North America, no team affiliation required and no actual teams to cheer on.

Cheer has certainly has morphed from what my little Lisgar crew of six brought to the gridiron.  The Dallas Cowgirls have nothing on the skill and athleticism of these girls:

But back to Jeremy.  Naturally, Canadian journalists are all agog about the thrill of little old Jeremy being part of the crew.  A Canadian, they all gushed!  Wow, we're so proud!  Again I ask, why did not one of them question the reason for these multi-billion dollar boondoggles into the void?  Pretty shoddy work, in my view.  

Here's our Jeremy, left, and his buddy fist-pumping their mystery mission:

There's enough stuff messed up on this planet -- the one we're in the process of destroying.  Is the plan to zoom up and wreck the moon too?

Naturally, the crew consists of the usual, prescribed ethnic and gender posse:

It's all so senseless, unless, of course, you are Dick Cheney making fistfuls building the hardware at Haliburton for the jaunt.

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Just a word about grammar, sorry, but I have to.  Why do people say, "If I would've......I would've....."  No, it's, "If I had......I would have......"  Drives me nuts!  Here's a perfect example from a report on the deplorable conditions at 24 Sussex -- "would have occurred" -- arrrrrgh!

Also drives me mad when people forget there are three parts to every verb, as in "Ride, rode, ridden", or "Strive, strove, striven."  When I hear people say, "I had rode, or "I had strived...." I get crazy.  These mistakes are ubiquitous and I don't like them.  The above is a perfect example from a report on horror that is 24 Sussex.  Sigh...........

    

    

A publicity stunt

That's what Alvin Bragg is up to indicting Trump.  He is an elected state district attorney -- something we don't have in Canada, where ours are appointed -- who ran on arresting Trump, but when elected, he saw that the statue of limitations on the charges had run out and put the matter aside.  His base went ballistic, so he "trumped up" something else and went ahead.  

The reason he postponed the arrest was because he has been in intense negotiations with CNN, Fox and NBC about the arrest "show" -- will he be put in an orange jump suit?  Sent to Rikers?  Given the public perp walk?  Maybe all of the above, but this is clearly Bragg's  big moment -- his place in history.  The Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and other previous arrests were simply a run-up to the big one.

This is what I have gleaned watching 'America's Untold Stories' with Mark Groubert and Eric Hunley.  Groubert is one of the smartest, most well-informed journalists I have ever heard.  There is no detail he doesn't have a bead on.  He does his research and backs everything up with facts and details -- often very obscure (google him).  The media goes on about how Bragg has sued Trump more than a hundred times.  What they don't mention is that every one was either thrown out, or defeated.  Bragg didn't win one.

And he won't win this one either.  

With apologies to all who blindly hate Trump -- and I may or may not be one of them, that's not what this is about -- I am sorry American politics and the law have shrunk to this low.  Canada's leadership is no better, I'm afraid.  Trump's arrest will only boost his brand.  That's an undeniable fact.