Canadian Politics: All Hail the Conservatives!

Last week, Canadian Heritage Minister, James Moore, nominated to that position in the hopes of mending fences with Québec's cultural scene, among others, failed a pop quiz where he was asked to identify not only Québec cultural icons, some of them internationally known, but also famous Anglo-Canadian artists.

If this is unacceptable for someone holding a cultural portfolio, his colleague, Federal Science Minister Gary Goodyear, wins with his unwillingness to aknowledge he believes in evolution.

All of this puts a new spin on a funny video done by some Québec artists during the last federal elections, which I humbly contributed to spread among Anglo-Canadian medias by adding subtitles...



I don't consider myself particularly intelligent, so it emphasize how frustrating it is to have idiots run my country.

Smash Talk

Montreal lives and breathes hockey. Some, as it happens often when fanaticism borders obsession, dare to call it a religion.

A religion with blasphemy, vilification and false idols.

Hockey Montreal gets in an uproar after a few losses. Hockey Montreal always speculates about the next trade, what should the coach and the general manager do, what can be done to bring the Saint Graal home. What Hockey Montreal would be without these rumours and assumptions?

It's in that setting and spirit that the following story takes place.

A friend of a friend (Given the number of times I've read this rumour today, I need to stress out this part: I AM NOT THE PERSON WHO DID THIS), an incorrigible prankster, grew tired of the neverending speculations of the "connaisseurs" and decided to act on it. He picked an english-sounding name, Tim ******, opened a free email account and contacted a sports talk-radio host that sometimes doubles as a journalist. He sent the following email, in broken french (translation in english, when needed, follows in italics):

From: Tim ****** [mailto:tim******@live.ca]
Date: Tue. 2009-02-03 3:00PM
To: Michel Villeneuve
Subject : CKAC Sports

Message :

Bonjour M.Villeneuve,

Je suis plafinicateur financier pour son famille Richards. Étant un partenaire d\'affaire avec le G***, (Brad Richards père), j\'ai été contacted samedi pour connaître les lois fiscales au Canada pour son fils. G*** m\'a dit son fils sera trade à Montréal et qu\'avant de canceller sa non-trade clause, de verifier la fiscalité au Canada. J\'ai regardé le dossier de Matt Niskanen, un american pour les Dallas Stars.

Merci

(Hello Mr.Villeneuve,

I am a financial planner for the Richards family. Being a business partner of G*** (Brad Richards' father), I was contacted Saturday to research Canadian fiscal law for his son. G*** told me that his son would be traded to Montreal, and to verify fiscality issues before he waved his non-trade clause. I also looked at Matt Niskanen files, an American-citizen playing for the Dallas Stars.

Thanks)

Mr. Villeneuve's reply:

Subject: RE : CKAC Sports
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 3:47:56PM -0500
From: michel.villeneuve@********
To: tim******@live.ca


Comment vérifier l'exactitude de vos propos ?
(How to confirm the exactness of your claims?)

Here, the prankster goes full throttle with a simple, yet daring plan. He already looked up Brad Richards' bio to find his father's name, he just needed to get a number from a web-based phone directory:

From: Tim ****** [mailto:tim******@live.ca]
Date: Tue. 2009-02-03 4:00PM
To: Michel Villeneuve
Subject : RE: RE : CKAC Sports

You can call G*** Richards

at: 902-***-***

Merci

Oh, wait, there's a missing number!

Subject: RE : RE : CKAC Sports
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 4:12:10PM -0500
From: michel.villeneuve@********
To: tim******@live.ca

je n'ai pas le numéro complet de monsieur Richards
(I don't have Mr. Richards' full number)

"Honest" mistake.

From: Tim ****** [mailto:tim******@live.ca]
Date: Tue. 2009-02-03 4:15PM
To: Michel Villeneuve
Subject : RE: RE : RE : CKAC Sports

sorry
902-***-****

Of course, Mr. Villeneuve, as a competent journalist, needs to verify the info. He calls the given number, and replies to "Tim":

Subject: RE : RE : RE : CKAC Sports
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 4:44:34PM -0500
From: michel.villeneuve@********
To: tim******@live.ca

this is a recording machine. I will try to speak to mr Richards but it's make sense.

Why the Stars let Brad go ?

To my knowledge, "Tim" didn't reply. Seems that this was enough for Villeneuve to cancel his planned programming for the radio show he'd host later that day, and focus entirely on speculations surrounding this credible "news item".

Serious and professional journalism at its best.

Most sports medias didn't take the rumour seriously, but many message boards debated the story and some sports websites spent time covering it, as shown here and here (with many more examples in french).

The rumours about Brad Richards being traded to Montreal will be old news by tomorrow, yet, the priests will keep preaching their gospel.

Time to go pray at the rink.

Obama's Inauguration: As Seen Down There By Someone From Up Here

Here's another translated Pierre Foglia column, originally published in La Presse's Saturday Edition, January 17th 2009. Sad, Sad Song (Greensboro)Winter is a little bit here as well. They are not used to it. You should see the lady of the Bed and Breakfast, wrapped like an Eskimo when she went to open her hardware store – she owns a hardware store in the neighbouring town. You’re going seal hunting, Anne? We left at the same time, but I was heading towards the countryside, I was going to Annie Lee’s, who is Anne’s housemaid. Black, obviously. It’s written in Obama’s book, in Dreams from My Father, page 45: “...black women come to white people houses to wash their laundry or clean their houses. Blacks are there without being there, indistinct presences, silent.” Indistinct and silent, that’s exactly Annie Lee. Housemaids are not people that give great interviews. I know them well: my mother has been a housemaid all her life and, thinking about it, she was a little N!gg3r too, my mom, more than Obama’s mom anyways. So, I was going to Annie Lee’s, a few miles from the Bed, by the countryside that used to be cotton-filled, now dug with aquaculture lakes where catfish are raised. We are in the Catfish Capital of the World. Annie Lee, I started to wheedle her one morning while she was working at Anne’s. Beautiful floor! You’re doing it on your knees? Then, another time: you have kids? Seven, she said. Then I saw her hesitate, recount mentally. Huh, eight she corrected. I don’t know if this explain that but, when she got married at 17 years old, she already had two, one when she was 14 and one at 15. Curiously, the man with whom she lives, Dayton – they don’t have kids together – hesitated as well over the same question: six? Huh, seven. No, wait: eight, I have eight! This detail says that this is not the same Blacks as usual. No Black reporters, no Black artists, no Black cabbies, no Black Presidents of the United States. Southern Blacks, like there is not even in Obama’s books. In Obama’s books, Blacks are all urban. Here, they are still in the cotton fields, even if there are no more cotton fields. I’ll say something terrible: they are still slaves even if there are no more slaves. Sad, sad song. They are on long broken country roads, many in trailers. Not Annie Lee, who lives in a big 18-rooms house on three or four acres of wooden land, a horse in a pen, walnut trees behind. Told like that, it sounds like a “Country farm for sale in a charming setting”. Not at all. A tinkered hovel, not a dump, but not far, with car carcasses and old tools lying on the ground here and there. Dayton wasn’t there. He was hunting, at the end of the property. Come for dinner tonight, invited Annie Lee, Dayton will be there, and there will also be Jasmin, my grand-daughter. When I returned during the evening, Dayton proudly showed the deer he killed that morning, hung by its legs to a tree. Half was already missing, given to friends. His first deer of the year. There was a lot of firsts, that day. I was the first White invited to their table, but it wasn’t race that made the biggest difference. You won’t believe it: It was religion. I had questions prepared, one about religion that I asked first, to get rid of it: You’re a Baptist? Yes. You? Huh, me? Huh... I’m nothing. Oh I shouldn’t have. He came back to that all night long. Nothing? How is it possible? You’re the first one I meet. He even said at one moment: I really am in shock. Well, you didn’t go out much! But he did. He worked for 15 years in Detroit for GM. He used heroin long enough to see terrible things, but apparently never as terrible as an atheist. He wouldn’t let it go all night. We were talking about something else, he would bring it back suddenly: Who makes the day? Huh? Huh? Who makes the night? Why are you getting up in the morning? Would you believe it, old man, I get up in the morning to go interview creationist N!gg3rs. I just thought it. In terms of civilities, it went rather well. Dinner was decent, chicken with beans, the sweet potatoes mash pie was amusing, we drank tea. The grand-daughter, Jasmin, who is huge, didn’t say a word. Annie Lee, not much either. It was between Dayton and me. A messy interview. Anyways, I would have done my column with everything else, as I always do. Still, I was really destabilized by two...what shall we say? Two holes in the conversation, two abysses that opened abruptly below my feet. First abyss: Italy. He asked where I was from. I said Italy. I saw to his face that neither he nor Annie had the slightest idea of what I was talking about. Italy? I could have said Moldavia or Tatarstan. The second abyss was when Dayton cell phone rang. Instead of a ringtone or a little tune, we heard the voice of a TV announcer on the election night: The next President of the United States...Then it cuts, and on a rap rythm, Ho-Ho-Ho-Bama, bam-bam-bama... I jumped on that one. I said: It’s an incredible victory. For once, Blacks voted together, said Dayton. And a few Whites too, I added. We don’t care about Whites. We just needed Blacks to hold together. Oops friend! We have a little number problem. You are just 12%. How come 12%? We (the Blacks) are in majority in this country. I was flabbergasted. I didn’t imagine this misinformed, disconnected misery to be that culturally, socially disorganised. Sad, sad song. Like many Whites, I knew of racism only its folklore, not its real effects. All night, by my fault, we never got out of the folkore. My booklet was full of folk notes. How was it when you were a kid? Tell me, N!gg3r. Tell the white reporter, tell, so that he could make a little Erskine Caldwell, maybe a Steinbeck of himself. And the N!gg3r to tell: can’t drink at the same fountain as Whites. Can’t go out with a White woman. Can’t go to the same school. Can’t sit in the front of the bus. Can’t pass by the front door when we would deliver something at the White’s houses, or to be paid for a job. And the Ku Klux Klan? Tell, N!gg3r. Tell to the white reporter a few horror stories about the Ku Klux Klan. No said Dayton, I didn’t witness horror stories with the KKK. There was a KKK chapter here, we knew them, it was just like another social club, ordinary racists. Whites don’t know anything about Southern ordinary racism that holds the Southern Blacks to the bottom and keeps them there. Marching for rights doesn’t matter. Tell me, Dayton, what did change in your relations with Whites between now and then? He never heard about Italy, he doesn’t know how many Blacks there is in the United States, but on this, he has encyclopaedic knowledge. What changed? Everything. And nothing. What changed is that they don’t treat us like shit. What didn’t change is that they think exactly like before that we are shit. What didn’t change is that everything is organized exactly like before so we remain shit. You think Obama can change that? I don’t know. You know what you should do? Greensboro’s largest employer is a fish factory, Heartland Catfish, where every aquaculture farm in the region delivers their catfish. You should visit it. And what would I see? Everything. I went. Fishes are transported by tank trucks to the factory, a chute dumps them on a conveyor where they go, open mouths, towards mechanical knives that will thread them alive one by one, to finish, at the end of the chain, in bins filled with ice. All along the path, workers sort, remove the slag, cut with frightening speed fins that were missed by mechanic knives. You know, the theatre of Japanese cooks? This, but eight hours a day. Workers often cut their fingers. Straight cuts. There is 150 of them on the chain. Apart from a few Latinos, all of them are Black. The factory is a freezer, below the freezing point. Water everywhere. Earning $6.25 an hour, 40 hours, $250 gross at the end of the week. The few Whites in the factory are foremen, accountants, shipping managers. The same work structure than in the cotton fields before the abolition of slavery.

Harper's words and Dion's reaction

Here's Prime Minister Stephen Harper allocution to the nation.

And here's Coalition Leader Stéphane Dion pre-recorded, but delayed reaction. (Warning: It hurts, on many levels)

I've read that the Liberals are pissed. An angry, anonymous Liberal said "Dion looked like the opposition leader of Zimbabwe".

"Someone should be fired, full stop" said Liberal blogger Warren Kinsella.

Or maybe someone should just resign...

Ambivalences

I'm not quite sure where I stand in regards to the current political crisis in Ottawa.

If I don't really like Harper, didn't vote for him and was upset by his decision to cut funding to political parties, I'm also not sure I want to go on the slippery slope that would be this idea of a coalition between the three parties of the opposition.

It seems like there's not enough precedents, and that it seems to give way too many powers to the Governor General. And if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that I'd be more than happy to get rid of any symbol of monarchy in Canada.


The Governor General of Canada, "Her Excellency The Right Honourable" Michëlle Jean.

It's not about the Bloc Québécois supporting the Government: First, I used to be a sovereignist (a separatist for my anglo friends) and even if I'm not sure it's a wise idea anymore, I do remain sympathetic to the cause. Many opponent to the possibility of a coalition must remember that the Bloc was democratically elected and fulfill its role givinf a voice to the Québécois population that elected them (A majority of Québécois are for a coalition government). Second, the Bloc's leader, Gilles Duceppe made clear he didn't want to have any ministry for his party, they offered to support the coalition for a limited time, and under conditions, so there wouldn't be any "separatists in the government".

It's not about the NDP. I voted orange and share most of their ideas and values, and I'm not surprised that they could form a coalition government with the Liberals and the Bloc. If the NDP is a little more left-leaning than the Liberals, they are very similar in ideology to the Bloc, Québec independance notwhitstanding, and the Liberals would make sure that they govern center-left, as almost any Leftist party would do.

It's about the Liberals. If I did respect some decisions made by the Liberals while they were in power, I've never been a big fan, and even less of actual, but demissionary party leader Stéphane Dion.


The leaders of the three opposition parties, Gilles Duceppe, Stéphane Dion and Jack Layton.

Here's the problem: How could a revoked leader that keeps the job in the interim, while the Liberal party elects his successor, could become Prime Minister? And how his replacement could pretend to have any legitimity, not having been chosen by the people and, probably, the result of a controversial decision by the Governor General?

Because that's the other main issue: The Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, has to follow the government's decisions, unless there's a vote of non-confidence. The Harper government wants her to prorogate Parliament to delay the non-confidence vote, an action she, according to traditions, she has no choice but to accept. But the opposition wants her to refuse the prorogation, claiming the government lost the confidence of parliament. The problem is, it hasn't happen yet, since we need a vote to confrim such an accusation.

So where do we stand? An affront to democracy, or an affront to democracy?

For more information on what's at stake:

David Frum's National Post column.

Globe and Mail article: The Governor General's options

Prime Minister Stephen Harper December 3rd address coverage on CBC.

New York Times article.

On a sidenote, I find this image very funny, with the Bloc Québécois light blue colours included in a Canadian maple leaf symbol...somewhat ironic(but not at the same time, since maple trees grow in Eastern Canada, from Nova Scotia to Southern Ontario, passing by Québec, and are absent from the rest of the country, dominated by the conservatives...):



_____________________________________________________

Mumbai Blues

My thoughts to the victims and their families.

And here's an interesting article on the topic:

Is this the Age of Celebrity Terrorism?

Dr Paul Cornish, Head, International Security Programme and Carrington Chair in International Security, Chatham House

Quite apart from the scores murdered and the hundreds injured, what the Mumbai terrorists really wanted was an exaggerated and preferably extreme reaction on the part of governments, the media and public opinion. In these terms, the attackers received as much attention as they could possibly have hoped for, and the Mumbai outrage can only be described as a very significant terrorist success.

The attack received saturation coverage in the world's media from the outset. Almost within minutes, television screens showed harrowing scenes of pools of blood where people had died or been injured, hotels ablaze, Indian army snipers firing at distant targets, and CCTV images of the attackers. Especially disturbing, hostages and survivors reported that certain nationalities had been identified by their passports and taken away for execution.

No matter how obscure, every detail of this multi-point, sustained attack was soon being pored over by terrorism experts, trying to fit the carnage in Mumbai into one template or another. So the speculative and often tendentious questioning began. What were the 'tactics' of the terrorists? What weapons did they have (reporters seem to love the way 'Kalashnikov' rolls off the tongue), and where could they have got them? How much planning and preparation would have been necessary for a 'military-style operation' of this sort? Who were the terrorists - where were they from (Pakistan? Were some of the gunmen British?), and what did they want? Who was the 'mastermind' behind the attacks? And did the attacks have the 'hallmarks' of an 'al-Qaeda-style' operation; was it all part of the 'global jihad' against the West?

This is precisely how terrorism is meant to work. The terrorist's action must always be complemented by the target's reaction in order to complete the scene. How the attack is carried out, and what is done to whom, matters no more (and often rather less) than the way the attack is received, and the impact accorded to it. The impact has indeed been instant and extensive, reaching into the worlds of politics, business and even sport, and on all levels - internationally, regionally and nationally in India.

But for all the horror of the Mumbai attack, there might have been much less to it than first met the eye, and a hasty and exaggerated response might have played more of a part, and given more meaning to the attack than it should. Nobody appears to have heard of the Deccan mujahidin - perhaps because they have never existed. Perhaps it wasn't so difficult after all to plan and execute this attack: small arms and hand grenades are not hard to find; boats are scarcely specialised equipment; and Mumbai is a vast, open city with more than enough soft targets. Perhaps we don't know enough about where the perpetrators are from, because they could have come from almost anywhere? The terrorists were willing to show their faces on CCTV: was this suicide for martyrdom (as in New York and Washington in 2001, and London in 2005), or suicide for celebrity (as in Columbine in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007)? And perhaps so little is known of the terrorists' cause, because they simply didn't feel the need to have one.

The attack in Mumbai was obviously planned - but 'military-style planning' (whatever that means) is probably not necessary for the mass murder of unarmed and unsuspecting civilians going about their business in crowded railway stations and restaurants. This could also have been a plan which had a large gap where 'mission', 'cause' or 'vision statement' ought to have been. But no matter; the terrorists might have assumed, quite correctly as it happens, that the world's media and the terrorism analysis industry would very quickly fill in any gaps for them.

The character of modern terrorism is widely understood to have been shaped by a mid-nineteenth century idea known as the 'propaganda of the deed'; a strategy for political change in which the message or cause is contained within, and expressed by the violent act. In a novel twist, the Mumbai terrorists might have embarked on 'propaganda of the deed without the propaganda', in the confident expectation that the rationalisation for the attack - the 'narrative' - would be provided by politicians, the media and terrorism analysts. If so, then Mumbai could represent something rather different in the history of terrorism, and possibly something far more disturbing even than 'global jihad'. Perhaps we have come to the point where casually self-radicalised, sociopathic individuals can form a loose organisation, acquire sufficient weapons and equipment for a few thousand dollars, make a basic plan of action and indulge in a violent expression of their generalised disaffection and anomie. These individuals indulge in terrorism simply because they can, while their audience concocts a rationale on their behalf.

Welcome to the age of celebrity terrorism. The invitation to the world's D-list malcontents reads as follows: no matter how corrupt your moral sense, how contorted your view of the world, how vapid and inarticulate your ideas, how talentless you are and how exaggerated your grievance; an obsessive audience will watch your every move and turn you into what you most want to be, just before your death.

Is Canada Becoming a Digital Ghetto?

Good question!

Here are three things that suck about being Canadian right now:

1. Last week the CRTC sided with Bell against a group of small Internet Service Providers who want to offer their customers unthrottled connections where what they download is their own business and not subject to interference.

2. In last week’s throne speech the Conservative government renewed their intention to “modernize” Canadian copyright law. Their effort to do so last session was Bill C-61, a woefully unbalanced and retrograde piece of legislation that led to the greatest citizen backlash to any proposed bill in recent memory. Yet there has been no indication from new Industry Minister Tony Clement that a much-needed public consultation will take place. The best he has offered is the possibility of a “slightly different” version of the bill.

3. Twitter has just announced that they are killing outbound SMS messaging in Canada due to exorbitant and constant rate hikes from Canadian cell providers (former Industry Minister Jim Prentice vowed to get tough on SMS price gouging, then backpeddled). Cell phone rates in Canada are among the highest in the world, and the result is that mobile penetration is pathetically low and that emerging new cultural platforms like Twitter are being hobbled.

This growing list of backwards policies is already creating a sense of digital isolation: Canadians can’t stream the videos Americans stream, download the files Americans download, remix the media Americans remix, or tweet the way Americans tweet.

With the election of Barack Obama, digital culture in the U.S. hit a tipping point, where a robust online public sphere proved itself capable of changing the world. Meanwhile, here in Canada we’re approaching our own tipping point, where a series of ignorances and capitulations threaten to turn our country into a digital ghetto.

That's Why it's Called Evolution...

Why the KKK is disappearing, apart from being blatantly anachronistic?

Because they kill their recruits during their initiation ritual.

The funniest part: She was supposed to go back to her home state to recruit more people!

I'd like to quote local Sherrif Jack Strain:

"The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind, I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

Nice try guys, what about quitting now?

History in the Waiting...

A Quebecker in Chicago's Grant Park tonight:

"It's a rock show ambiance. It's like waiting for U2! Everybody's wearing Obama t-shirts. When you get to the park, in the streets around, there's a lot of items for sale: t-shirts, buttons, CDs of Obama speeches. Everybody smiles! But security is very, very present. I had to go through four checkpoints, showing my ticket, my ID, they searched me, went through the metal detector...

(...)

Every US flag you'll see on TV, wavered by the crowd, was given by the Obama campaign."

McCain Upsets the Maverick Family

As translated from Montreal's La Presse


AGNÈS GRUDA
La Presse

Not easy to hold a name that becomes a political or social slogan. After the upset caused by the French Bougons against the European country's adaptation of the famous Québec TV series, it's now the American Mavericks who are protesting against the use of their patronym to describe the political style of the Republican candidate John McCain.

John McCain likes do define himself as a "maverick"; a sharp-shooter, a free man with independent thoughts. He is an "absolute maverick", as Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin dared to say during her debate with democrat counterpart Joe Biden. according to the New York Times, she said it at least six times.

What is a maverick? The word entered the American political lexicon thanks to Texan Sam Maverick who, at the beginning of the 19th century, went against the flow by refusing to brand his cattle. Since then, the word is used to describe people who are not afraid to voice their opinions, despite all odds and no matter who is against them.

But a grand-daughter of Sam Maverick thinks that John McCain doesn't deserve to hold to her family name to promote his candidacy.

"How does he dare to say he's a maverick when he voted for Bush in 90% of cases?" outrages Terellita Maverick, an 82 years-old lady that we contacted in San Antonio, Texas.

"The word inspired by our name describes someones without owner or master. It is not the case of John McCain", added Mrs. Maverick.

Maverick or not, John McCain won't be able to count on the vote of this retired teacher, who is resolutely democrat. "I will vote for Barack Obama, absolutely. He will win, the future is ahead of us" she exclaimed.

The abuse of this noun derived from the name of a Texan family was, of course, not missed by Barack Obama's campaign. "He was so independant that he almost always voted with Bush" constantly repreated the democrats. A maverick can have a boomerang effect...

Being Racist Against a Nation is Okay... as Long as They Are Not a (Free) Nation

This is low, wrong and in the end, the accuser is guilty as well! (But there's actually no crime, at all! Not even anything morally reprehensive!)

Since when working with a Palestinian ACTIVIST and SCHOLAR is a bad thing?

Be it McCain or Obama, since when being Palestinian is a sin? Should we all put them in a huge reservation or concentration camp?

Oh yeah, true... they already are!

When You Have Friends Like This...

McCain's vietnamese torturer supports his campaign.

Crazy World...

Strangely enough, this might not help Obama WITHIN the USA...

Politicunts: Canadian Elections, Part V

In the spirit of the Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart, and by recent news that they are invited to not answer questions from national media journalists, here's a flowchart I've done to help Conservative Party candidates when they are dealing with the medias:

(click on image to enlarge)

The Secret Lives of Hasidims

I'm straying away from politics today to offer another newspaper translation. I read the column a few days ago and promised myself to translate and post it, but the rare sight of a hasidim jew enjoying Monday Night Football in a sports bar on St.Laurent street convinced me to get on it ASAP.

Rima Elkouri is a La Presse reporter and columnist. She writes a lot about city life and the various cultural communities and minorities one will find in Montreal. I always loved her stories and topics.

I also have an insatiable curiosity for hasidic jews that goes back to my teenage years in the suburb of Boisbriand, where an important isolated community of hasidims live. I previously wrote a post referencing them.

Here's my translation of her very interesting paper on a "hasidic superwoman."

The Secret Lives of Hasidims

Rita is a woman as strong as she his private, who raises her seven children in the Mile-End. But we could have the impression that it's on another planet. Rita is a hasidic jew, and she respects to the letter the precepts of her religious movement. This does not stop her from having opinions on life, on the world. With one week to go before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, our journalist visited her on her balcony.

"It's okay with you if we sit on the balcony?"

"It's perfect."

Rita is my hasidic jew neighbour, well, almost. We are neighbours without actually be. Even if I see her almost every day on her balcony, even if we walk the same sidewalks, her universe is for the most part alien to mine. Our lives are skimming on each other without really touching.

On a summer night, while she was sitting on the balcony with her daughters, I introduced myself to my neighbour and asked if she would accept to open her door to me. Her immediate neighbour, who has known her for a long time, had already probed the terrain for me. Rita had a shy smile. I felt that she was too polite to say no, too modest to say yes. She first said she was not the kind to spread her life on the public place. But after a few hesitations, the mother of seven finally decided to meet me. "Come back in two weeks", she said, explaining that her daughter would be giving birth within the next few days and that she would be too busy to receive me during that period.

That's how I ended up in front of Rita's door on a Monday morning. I was a few steps away from my home. Yet, I felt like I was at a foreign country's border. In the land of "sirs with round hats", as observed on a saturday morning by my 4-years-old son while seeing a hasidic man wearing his traditional sabbath fur hat. A secret country that issues very few visas to foreign tourists.

I rang. It's the 7-years-old son that opened the door. In his "Sunday best", wearing the kippah, his payots neatly smoothed. I asked to speak with his mother. "One moment", he said. The house was busy. A teenager with long red hair came back to talk to me. "It's the baby's circumcision today, she said in a low voice, in english. Mom is asking if you can come back Tuesday or Wednesday."

I said I would come back. "I wish you a good day", politely said the young girl before closing the door.

The next day, I had an appointment with Rita at 2:30PM. She appeared on her balcony wearing a navy blue tunic with blue and pink stripes. She was wearing opaque stockings and a gray headband. A make-up free face, glasses sitting on the nose. She unfolded two chairs.

Inside the house, the newly circumcised newborn was crying. "Is it because of the circumcision?"

"No! said Rita with the reassuring tone of a grand-mother that has seen a lot. It's a baby that was already crying a lot before. But he has been affected for sure. He will get over it!"

An elderly man, black hat and white beard, exits the house while saluting Rita. "It's the rabbi that did the circumcision. He came to make sure everything was alright."

Hasidic Superwoman

I spent two afternoons on Rita's balcony talking circumcision and breastfeeding, man-woman relations and hasidic marriages, of the contrast between her community and the society surrounding it, the silence of the ones and the curiosity of the others, of good and less good neighbourood, of tensions and temptations.

While talking, Rita appeared as a pragmatic woman, a strong character, who is not afraid to voice her opinions. A mother hen and a watchful neighbour that knows all the neighbourhood gossip. A kind of superwoman as we see more and more in the hasidic community, reconciling work and big family. Conservative to the nails, yes, of course, but on many levels more open and respectful than I first thought. A secret woman, also. Rita's name is not Rita. It was out of question to talk about all these subjects while revealing her name to the public. I could have insisted. But I was afraid I would lose my visa.

Rita is 43-years-old. She is the mother of seven children, but in fact, she had eight. One of her firstborn twins died when she was 5 of a chronic lung disease. "She had her last sigh sitting on my knees, she says, the voice strangled by emotions. Sixteen years later, the wound still hurts. She suffered so much that I tell myself that she's better now. This is my consolation", she says in a low voice.

Children are Rita's whole life. Her firstborn, already married, is 21-years-old. The youngest one is 3-years-old. Between the two, there is a 20-years-old daughter, also married, 14-years-old twins (a boy and a girl) and two other sons, aged 11 and 7. "They bring me so much happiness. When I hold my 11-days-old grand-kid, it just makes me want more" she says, moved.

She recalls, laughing, that time when she was transporting her kids in her triple stroller that she called her "tchoo-tchoo-train", non-jewish neighbours stopped her to say: "You know we admire you?" Why? she wondered. For Rita, there's nothing more natural than having a children swarm around her. "Is there any other way to live?"

Respect the Other's Culture

Born in Israel, Rita landed in Montreal while she was very young. She always lived in the Mile-End. Her mother was from Romania, her father, from Poland, both were Holocaust survivors. She teaches yiddish and religion. Her husband too. "For me, the two only options were either to work as a secretary for a religious person or to teach. It was the only way to respect the Jewish calendar."

There was a time where it was almost impossible for a majority of hasidic jews to pursue college or university studies. Because in an inward-looking community where man and woman live parallel lives, mixing sexes is not encouraged. But since 1985, upon a request by the Ministry of Education, Marie-Victorin Cégep administers college level programs offered in Montreal jewish schools. That's how Rita's older daughters both got a college degree as youth education technicians without ever stepping in a real Cégep.

Even if non-jews always talk to her in english, Rita speaks french well. "Before, I was shy to speak french. I can't say that I master the past perfect! But I tell myself: 'We live in Quebec. We want to be respected. If I want my culture to be respected, I must respect the culture of others.'"

Love Behind Closed Doors

I talked for a while with Rita of what she refers as the "invisible border" between
her community and the rest of society. On both sides of this border, there is a lot of misunderstanding. She remembers a conversation she had with a man who addressed her in the bus. He started talking about the Outremont hasidims, about the fact that they buy more and more houses in the neighbourhood. Rita answered that houses were for sale for everybody and that, if people didn't want to sell them, they didn't have to. The man kept going, saying his hasidic neighbours were not saluting him, she tells. "Did you try to salute them? asked Rita, who has a personal rule to say hello to everyone that wants to salute her, jews or not

That said, it's important to know that, inside the community itself, there is strict rules regarding the conduct between men and women. You can't salute anybody, anywhere. "Men can't socialize with women that are not in their immediate families. Myself, if I meet my son-in-law, I can't say hello. It's a question of modesty.

Even between husband and wife, modesty is required. You can't show emotions. You can't hold hands on the sidewalk. Let's not talk about kissing in public. "Love is lived behind closed doors. There's even couples that won't sit on the same couch if their kids are there.

Keeping Children Away from Temptations

The cocoon voluntarily created by hasidic jews is linked to their need to perpetuate an heritage which rules are numerous and rigid, says Rita. "To keep children away from temptations, it must be that way. It has all to do with our beliefs. It's not because there is something negative with the others.

What are those "temptations" she refers to, by the way? It goes from consuming pork or non-kosher food to premarital sex. "It's so common that we have no choice but to protect our children, says Rita. My 11-years-old son saw his two sisters become pregnant. He doesn't know how they became pregnant, but he knows it happens right after being married."

Rita tells me how embarassed she was when her children heard a man on the street refer to the mother of his children as his girlfriend. "They asked me a ton of questions. I told them he just called her that way..."

At the same time, she makes sure to explain to her kids that rules that apply to hasidims do not apply to all. "When my children ask me why the neighbour drives his car on a Saturday, I explain that the neighbour was not born jewish and that he's allowed to drive his car on sabbath."

Despite everything, Rita has always allowed her children to play with the neighbours. The electric car that she won in a contest, every little kid that wanted, jewish or not, was allowed to try it and push the invisible border a little further.

The worst, according to Rita, would be to have a kid that would turn his back on the community. There's more and more, she says. "For their parents, it's worse than if they were dead."

TV Forbidden

To maintain the cocoon undisturbed, it's impossible for the majority of hasidim to be exposed to TV, radio or internet. You never listen to the news, then? "People that want to listen to the news do it in their car."

It's also out of question to risk eating non-kosher food at the neighbours' place, as sympathetic as they seem to be. "Even if we are served only fruits, if those fruits have been cut with a knife that was used to cut pork, we have a problem."

What kind of problem? What happens to someone that eats a non-kosher fruit? A rational question in an universe that is not. "We are born in this tradition and we believe it, simply. If it happens, there is a terrible feeling of guilt. We tell ourselves that we were not cautious enough. We feel that our soul has been spoiled and that we will need to atone our fault. If not, we'll be punished. And if you sin voluntarily, there is hell."

How does Rita see the future of her expanding community in a society that looks so different? Even if she is conscious that tensions exist, Rita believes in peaceful cohabitation. Live and let live. It's out of question to impose hasidic rules to society, she says. But it's out of question to abandon her heritage. Hence the invisible border, that intrigue some and irritate others. It doesn't mean that we can't talk. "I wish that people would ask me more questions!"

We can talk. We must talk. But we can't be friends? I asked Rita, while guessing the answer. She looked puzzled. Then, philosophically, she answered while looking in my eyes: "If there is 26 rocks in front of us and that there is 25 on which we can't walk, how can we do it? There is too many differences in our respective lifestyles. And who can say: I am strong enough to resist temptations?"

I left Rita with her cauldrons and her kids protected against "temptations". I went back on the other side of the border, a little less ignorant but as curious. I will need more than one visa to discover the secret of my hasidic neighbours.

Canadian Columnist Pisses Off the American Right, Fox News Leads the Charge

Fox News, and all conservatives on this continent, the Canadian equivalent included, are pissed about this column:

The Alaskan who went 'outside'
Heather Mallick

I was born in a northern Canadian settlement so small it was accessible most of the year only by a Bombardier, a sort of huge military tank built for passengers. It was like a transport plane, a big iron bulb with caterpillar tracks. I swear we had a paddle-steamer for supplies in the summer.

Take that, Sarah Palin. The place was six times smaller than Wasilla, Alaska, the town that birthed John McCain's strange vice-presidential "soulmate", as weird as that disconnected eerie smile that floats on his face as he stands next to her.

My credentials are solid; Palin cannot out-hick me. Until I fled at 18, I never lived in a northern town of more than 12,000 people. My towns were full of Sarah Palins. These types are fine, such as they are, until they leave town and turn fraudulent. They label themselves "the salt of the earth". It's when they try to make that a qualification for a greater glory that things turn unpleasant.

I never claimed a higher moral standing for coming from a great big empty on the map. Small towns are places that smart people escape from, for privacy, for variety, for intellect, for survival. Palin should have stayed home.

Canada has lots of hockey moms. They're called Fran and Nancy. They have cruel haircuts and their voices shake the rafters of the rink as their rink-rats play. How can I translate the hearty, jollying-along Palin for British audiences? She's a working class Joan Hunter Dunn. It's those volleyball shoulders and field-hockey thighs, the energy, the bullying, and the utter self-confidence in every lie she tells.

Salt-of-the-earthers don't lie! But Palins do. I watched Palin last night, my mouth open, my eyeballs drying out, my hand making shaky notes. I read them aghast.

Did she really joke, "You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick."?

Did she just blow kisses to the audience?

Did she just say, "We need to produce more of our own oil and gas. Take it from a gal who knows the North Slope. We've got lots of both."?

Yes, she did lie about billion-gallon slurps of oil and gas available for Americans to blow, about her support of Alaska's notorious pork-barrel "bridge to nowhere", about which particular citizens will see tax increases under Obama (only the richest, and she knows that).

She also lied when she slobbered over small-town folks (an American version of British farm life, except British farmers have a point). The granite honesty of hicks is a cliche, a fantasy, a meme of American life, as much as the working-class solidarity of Tony Blair was in 1997, and where did that get anyone?

But most of all, she lied about the north and the virtues it supposedly confers on citizens. Canadians watch this with horror. To us, Alaska is the back of beyond. Americans feel the same way. Alaskans are a bunch of Ted Stevens, that enraged screaming old senator who explained that the internet was not a big truck, it was more like a "bunch of tubes". He was arrested and charged with taking bribes, but handily won the August senatorial primary.

We love our own north to the point of covering our eyes and humming as it melts (yesterday the BBC headlined the collapse of Canada's ice shelves; Canadian papers and websites missed the story) but Alaska is different from our north. We share a 1,500-mile border with a frontier state full of drunks and crazy people, of the blight that cheap-built structures bring to a glorious landscape. Canadian firms invest billions in the place and mine its ores. One hundred thousand Canadians visit Alaska every year, and we like to pass by in cruise ships. But it never goes further than that. Alaska is our redneck cousin, our Yukon territory forms a blessed buffer zone, and thank God he never visits. Alaska is the end of the line.

Palin got her first passport last year. (Americans didn't need a passport to enter Canada until recently). She seems to have visited us precisely once, not surprisingly since Alaskans regularly refer to the rest of the world as "outside". We are so foreign to her, this woman who might become US president.

What is native to her is smugness, her certainty that what's good for Wasilla is good for the world in all its infinite variety. It's a variety that Palin will never begin to grasp.

Since it was released in the US, she was subjected to various death threats and message boards were flooded with reactions, insults and the usual and repetitive anti-Canadian ramblings, which are sometimes funny.

Let's agree she went too far, and there's a fair share of "redneckness" on the Canadian side of the border, but the core of the subject remains; Palin is not "presidential", vice or not.

Also, the right has to stop using the small-town values as a symbol of virtue. Small towns are fled by people who can't share the town's "core" values because they would never fit in, being marginalized for being different.

It's not that the values themselves are fundamentally wrong, just that the population is smaller, the jobs variety more limited, hence limiting the diversity of lifestyles, and, by extension of point-of-views and values. Therefore, ending with a more uniformed, one size-fits-all set of values, it kicks the "odd ones" to the "wicked life" of the cities, where sheer population size and actual diversity in lifestyles, jobs and origins will allow people to find others that share their views and interests.

There's nothing basically wrong with city virtues, the same way there's nothing basically wrong with small town ones, but neither can pretend to any actual form of moral high ground. People will be people, no matter where they are from, no matter where they fit best, for better or for worse.

Poll Suggests Conservative Lead Softening

As you can read here, the Conservatives are, for the first time since the beginning of the campaign, below 100% in the vote intentions...

Politicunts: American Elections, Part I

I really like McCain. His hypocrisy, lies and dirty campaign gives a lot of material for dumb blogs like mine.

And the great thing, I don't even have to modify a iota of what he says to make it outrageous.

But Richard Hétu, a french-canadian journalist who is LaPresse special correspondent in New York always have interesting tidbits on the US presidential campaign on his newspaper's blog. Here's a video debunking some "facts" stated in various McCain ads:

About a Cunt

You probably noticed that I have been using the word "cunt" quite often in the last few days.

You are cunting right.

Well, it's partly because I just noticed how vulgar, obscene and blaphemous it is to say such a word in the english-speaking world.

Well, actually, according to sources, mostly in North America.

Therefore, I decided to use it as much as possible, but never in the actual context where it would actually be offensive.

But John McCain did so:



Cunt-acular!

Politicunts: Canadian Elections, Part II

Continuation of my new series on election coverage, Politicunt. Which, "honours" already obnoxious/stupid/indecent political comments and articles. (The original articles are available by clicking on the title links). The second edition covers the upcoming Canadian election.

Harper apologizes for 'tasteless' bird-excrement attack ad on Dion
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
CBC News

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper offered a rare apology to his rival Stéphane Dion on Tuesday for an online campaign attack ad that featured a bird defecating on the Liberal leader, which Harper called "tasteless and inappropriate, yet hilarious."



The ad appeared to deflect attention from the Liberals' Tuesday launch of a website aimed at revamping the image of their, at times, bookish leader, where he is shown reacting to the Two Girls One Cup video.

The Tory web page, which was active until Tuesday morning, featured an image of "Professor" Dion at a school blackboard, followed by puffin flying over his head and dropping excrement on Dion's shoulder.

The puffin was mentioned last year by then-leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff as a potential mascot for the Liberal party because the "noble" birds "hide their excrement", in what many took as an awkward reference to the sponsorship scandal.

After selecting Dion, the Liberals instead chose the ostrich as their mascot.

When asked about the site, Harper said he had seen it late last night after receiving an email from a friend, but had been assured by his national campaign manager that it was promptly taken down from the party website and uploaded on youtube.com and funnyordie.com

"We're shitting enough on the Liberals without getting into that kind of thing. Bestiality is not a conservative value. Let's keep it to a human level!" Harper told reporters at a campaign event in Winnipeg.

The Tories said the bird was created by an overactive web designer and not noticed by his parents. While the puffin is still flying on the site, it is no longer defecating on Dion, who said he accepted Harper's apology.

"He went far too far today and he had to apologize," Dion told reporters outside his campaign bus during an unscheduled stop in Napanee, Ont., to empty the bus' septic tank

"I accept the apology, but this is the topping of the turd when it comes to their decade-long "shitting-on-liberals" campaign." he said.

For her part, Green Party leader Elizabeth May called the puffin ad a reminder of the importance of guano in some ecosystems and said she hoped Canadians would remember her.

"Well, here's a story where our party can actually get involved in the debate, well not THE debate per se, but I mean the race, and yet talk about our platform. I think it's the first time it happens in a media other than our website. By the way, we've got fifty hits yesterday! I was checking the stats while rewriting some HTML codes and I was so pleasantly surprised!"