A quick look-back at 2013 — Part 1
Charter Affirming The Values Of Secularism And The Religious Neutrality Of The State, As Well As The Equality Of Men And Women, And The Framing Of Accommodation Requests. (28 words if I counted correctly)
About me, and politics in 2013
I started the year with a pneumonia remnant, a stomach tube through which I had been fed since May of the previous year, and which would finally be coming out around mid-month. We celebrated my 65th birthday with a nice, little bash and by the time of the party* the tube was gone. Not eating solid, regular food for as long as was the case with me (around nine months) can and did do a number on one’s taste buds and it wasn’t really until the end of February, beginning of March, an additional six weeks about, that the food I was eating regained its original appeal for me and I began to enjoy eating once again.
*Party took place in January, 2013, and a swell time was had by all combatants.
Not only that but you cannot go from no food to a complete former menu in one fell swoop. You start off with soup, ice cream (yeah…but not so fast), mushy liquid shit like puddings and yoghurt, stuff like that. Gradually, you are re-introduced to your old diet. It took weeks for Coca-Cola and I to resume our love affair.
Spent 2013 writing my blog and an autobiography. As far as my website goes, I started doing my JuicyLessonPerDay on September 9th and haven’t missed a day yet except for Saturdays, which I take off. This is Lesson #94 in a series of about three hundred and twelve fairly lengthy (at least one thousand words each) JuicyLessons for an entire year. Quite an ambitious task, n’est-ce pas?
I remember a lot of political shit from this outgoing year when, hopefully, none of the following idiocies will be repeated: TBO’s (The Big Onion’s) Mayor Bobbie Baby Ford, the Senate Scandal and its impact on Stephen Harper and the Conservative government, the charter of values (see above) in Quebec with its cast of characters including Pigmier P. Marois, Bernard Drainville and by far the most dangerous of the lot, Jean-Francois Lysee, not to forget the peanut gallery composed (of the mentally decomposing) Jacques Parizeau, Bernard Landry and Loserian Bouchard.
Down in the States, who can forget the government shutdown over, among other things, the funding of the Affordable Care Act aka ObamaCare, Ted Cruz, the Tea Party and a whole slew of Republican assholes, wealthy white males in a nation populated increasingly by non-whites, empowered women and immigrants and other minorities who wouldn’t deign to even spit on those same rich white folk, folk like Mitt Romney. Doesn’t it seem like more than thirteen months ago that Romney blew his bid to become the U.S.’s forty-fourth president?
The home of the brave and of the insensitive.
Fucking Americans who sometimes deserve more shit than what they get, but at others they deserve less, much less as is/was the case regarding the trade of Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988, making 2013 the twenty-fifth anniversary of what has become known over the years as the “trade of the century” that started sending shock waves, beginning at Dedmonton, the epicentre, and reverberating far and wide across this great land.
They stole Wayne Gretzky, Pocklington fucking sold out. Bye bye Alberta. Hello Hollywood. A boon for the Excited States, a bust for Canada, so it was said, so went the party line, just lying/laying there for the taking.
What else? Oh yes, tragedy at Lac Megantic, an exploding train and forty-seven dead so close to home, a hurricane kills hundreds in the Philippines, bye Michael Applebaum hello Denis Cordere and David Desharnais still with the Canadiens regardless of the Cordere prescription for success, the Charbonbeau Commission, corruption in construction, the mob and one dead Rizzuto last year, arguments over pipelines, a year since Sandy Hook elementary (twenty-six deaths including twenty primary school-age kids).
Justin Trudeau, Thomas Mulcair and the four I couldn’t bring myself to make mention of before: Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and the fourth crook, Liberal Sebator Mac Harb, who did the right thing and resigned thereby removing himself, apparently anyway, from the spotlight while waiting, like those other three liars and losers, for the cases against them to be heard. Not to forget the infamous Nigel “I think I’ll” Wright my friend, M. Duffy, a ninety-thousand dollar cheque to cover his illegally-obtained expense money and Stephen Harper who has managed to come out of 2013 not smelling like the piece of sh*t that he actually is and let’s not forget that fact.
American National Security Agency spying revealed by the actions of Edward Snowden, ex of the NSA now living, in exile as it were, in Russia as that icon of the open mind gets ready to host the Sochi Olympics which are just under two months away and Canada gets ready to defend the record fourteen Golds we won during the 2010 Games held in Vancouver, including one in hockey. Imagine how many times we would have heard and would be hearing about that record fourteen Golds if the Americans had won them instead of us.
A brand new and what looks to be a Pope relevant to the modern age – If a homosexual embraces God, who am I to judge (this person), he asks – terrorism around the world including in a Kenyan mall where over sixty people ended up dead, Santa Claus, Lev Tahor, Newt Gingrich, Peter Mansbridge, Darren and Jen Hedger … on TSN, PTI starring Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, black-out at the Super Bowl won by Baltimore as well as championships for the Boston Red Sox (World Series), the Saskatchewan Green Riders (football’s Grey Cup), the Lebron-led Miami Heat (basketball), and the Chicago Blackhawks who have to be favoured to repeat in hockey. Congratulations are also in order for all soccer and cricket national and international champions. Let’s hear it for the Montreal Canadiens of the soccer world – ManU as well as a shout out to Lionel Messi and a baby bottle for Ronaldo to suck on, the fucking big baby, although there has been some improvement in his behaviour on the pitch lately.
The trial of George Zimmerman over his murder of Trayvon Martin, the birth of a royal son for William and Kate, as well as the the passings of Nelson Mandela, Richie Havens, Margaret Thatcher, Jean ‘Edith Bunker’ Stapleton, Patti Page, Joe Weider, Hugo Chavez, former NYC mayor Ed Koch, James Gandolfini, the American journalist Helen Thomas, American actor Marcia Wallace, funny man Jonathan Winters, authors Doris Lessing and Tom Clancy, and journalist-talk show host David Frost who got the disgraced President Richard Nixon to admit on national television that he believed that when the American President does something, it is not illegal!!
An explosion during the Boston Marathon, sabre rattling from North Korea and at least two visits to that rogue state by American folk hero and rogue himself Dennis Rodman, civil wars in Syria and the Sudan, to mention just two sites of physical conflict in 2013, the arrest on a murder charge for Aaron Hernandez, and racist remarks by cooking maven Paula Deen.
And that’s all I got. PICTURES TOMORROW
Enjoy your Boxing Day.
Peace out.