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Scribbling Madly Off in All Directions...because my mind tends to wander. |
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| Be warned: I have a sense of humour which I've been told is a little odd, and my posts tend to be long-winded because it's generally quite some time before I figure out how to say what I want to say. Oh, and while I do try to keep the angst toned down in public, I do have a slight tendency towards depression; it's (thankfully) beginning to fade now as the more optimistic side of my personality kicks in again, but I may lapse from time to time, and such lapses may be reflected in what I say here. Feel free to skip these entries if you like. That said, welcome to my little corner of the internet. If I already know you, it's good to see you again; if we've never met before, it's nice to meet you. =) |
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| Oct. 26th, 2009 @ 12:06 pm Culinary Experimentation | |||
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Listening to: When I Come Around (Green Day)
My first attempt at white sauce has not so much produced white sauce as a gloppy grey goop. Ah, well—at least it's tasty gloppy grey goop!Definitely a lot better than my very first foray into the world of cooking anything that wasn't scrambled eggs and toast, anyway. I was twelve years old when I did my first cooking experiment—for some reason, I thought that seafood and beef broth would go really well together, especially if I used crushed chili peppers and that spice mix that tasted so good with chicken and turkey. Now that is a mistake that I'll remember for the rest of my life. ;) |
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| Aug. 26th, 2009 @ 09:32 am It's a lovely day outside and I'm too tired to enjoy it. *sigh* | |||
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Mental state:
We had Banshee neutered yesterday. It was definitely a long time coming; he's six years old. Since he of course couldn't have any food the night before the operation, I brought him out to camp—that way, we wouldn't also have to deprive the other cat of her evening meal. Unfortunately, this meant that I had to wake up at 5:00 AM yesterday, which left me a bit short on sleep—these days I generally don't wake up until about 6:30. I slept well last night, but I'm still a little drowsy! I've never caught up on lost sleep particularly well. just a little sleepyListening to: She Caught the Katy (Taj Mahal) As for Banshee, he came through the surgery all right and is now practically up to all his usual mischief, except that he doesn't bother the other cat anymore, which I'm sure she appreciates. I think he's still a bit angry with me, though; anytime I enter a room, he leaves it. Still, perhaps he'll have forgiven me in a couple of years. :p |
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| Aug. 15th, 2009 @ 10:12 am Good news for a devotee of tea. :) | |||
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Mental state:
I've always thought there was something soothing about a good cup of tea, especially after a long day. According to some researchers in London, the "English panacea", as it has sometimes been called, really is more soothing than you'd expect something which contains so much caffeine to be—"a cup of tea really does help in a crisis". amusedListening to: Jelly Car Song 1 (Matthew McCarthy) |
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| Aug. 13th, 2009 @ 05:43 pm Perhaps I should select my viewing material more wisely... | |||
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Mental state:
I made a BIG mistake last night. I was out at camp with no neighbours and only Banshee (the younger of my two remaining cats) for company. So what do I decide to watch on my laptop after supper? amusedListening to: She Caught the Katy (Taj Mahal) The Blair Witch Project. Now, I hadn't seen that movie in almost eight years, so perhaps I can almost be forgiven for that lapse in judgement. I'd forgotten why I'd thought it was so scary the first time (and, before this, the last time) I saw it; it's a movie that demands more of its audience than "just sit and let me spoon-feed you the horror". If you watch it with that mindset, it'll be one of those movies that are so bad, they're funny. But if you let yourself get drawn in, if you don't fixate on the lack of blatant violence and obvious murderers and see these things as a reason to mock the film, it can be downright frightening. At least, that's my experience of it. Incidentally, I tend to eat supper rather late. By the time the film was done, it was about 11:15-ish at night and I was ready to go to sleep. At some point in the middle of the night, Banshee knocked over a pile of boxes I've got in my room (no, not preparation for leaving the place permanently, though they'll be handy when the time comes—it's just that I don't use that bedroom for anything but sleeping, so it tends to double as a storage room) and one of them landed on my head. I remember flashes of the dream I'd been having—it seems to have been a pretty bad nightmare—and between that and the sudden noise and impact of cardboard on my forehead, for the first time in my life I woke up screaming, which must've scared Banshee pretty badly because when I turned on a few lights to see what he'd done that had resulted in the cardboard box hitting me in the head, I found him cowering under my bed. He came out eventually, but it was quite some time. :) |
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| Jul. 30th, 2009 @ 12:05 pm More Water Troubles | |||
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Mental state:
So yesterday morning, I turn on the tap to pour a glass of water and find nothing coming out but air. This is hardly a normal occurrence these days—the water pressure still hasn't been that great and I'm still showering at Dad's apartment, but it's been usable otherwise. We had no water all day, so my mom called the guy who owns the property that the well's on to see if he's been having problems, too. frustratedListening to: Up an' Adam (VIctoria Police Pipe Band) It turns out that he's had a new well drilled and he hasn't checked up on the old one in over a month because he isn't using it anymore. I am really not liking this guy. Because he refused to pay his share of the repairs for the old well before he was done renovating his house (he wasn't living there at the time), we had to haul huge amounts of water from Dad's place and from the public well at Second Line and Goulais Avenue every day for about a year and three months. My hands have suffered as a result—although they're a bit better these days, there are still days when I wake up with them stiff, swollen, sore and weak, and most of the time I can't even carry heavy grocery bags in them anymore without paying for it afterwards. Maybe that's partly my fault, since I insisted on doing the lion's share of the work because my mom has a bad shoulder, but I have a feeling that these injuries will be with me for the rest of my life, and it's hard not to blame it on the person whose apathy meant that for a long time I was stuck constantly putting more stress on my fingers than they were designed to withstand. So now we're stuck with the unpalatable options of being hooked up to the city water system (I think that "city water" tastes disgusting—I can taste the chlorine, for goodness' sake) or drilling a new well ourselves, which would be horrifically expensive. Staying on this well really isn't going to be an option for much longer—the well itself is owned by both us and this other guy, but when all's said and done, the property surrounding it isn't ours, and it's unreasonable to ask someone who isn't using the darn thing to keep repairing it, even though he and my dad won't let us in on the secret of how to deal with it on account of our "simple lady minds" (thank you, Sarah Haskins). Lovely, eh? *sigh* |
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| Jul. 16th, 2009 @ 08:02 pm A Budgie's Taste in Music | |||
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Mental state:
I was puttering around the house this evening (got a bit behind the housework...oops) and had my iTunes music collection playing in "shuffle" mode—I've got such a huge variety of music on there that I think I've forgotten half of what's there. (When my iBook bit the dust and Mum bought the MacBook for me, I used a backup of my old iTunes collection to form my present music collection, and of course I've added to it since then.) Anyway, I was putting things away in the living room when "Happy Boys and Girls" by Aqua came on. The budgies went haywire. I then proceeded to play the rest of the album ("Aquarium") for them, with similar results for most songs. I guess they just like the noise. *grin* amusedListening to: Dr. Jones (Aqua) Who would've thought that a pair of birds would be so fond of cheesy 90's techno music? *Ignores the fact that, by virtue of having bought "Aquarium", she has shown that she, too, likes cheesy 90's techno* |
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| Jul. 14th, 2009 @ 07:43 am Quiet Weekend | |||
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Mental state:
On Friday, I took myself, the budgies and my two remaining cats out to camp. Although Proud (as usual) travelled quietly, Banshee, true to his name, howled all the way there. He hates car rides. Still, he forgave me for the indignity of being locked in a cat carrier within a few minutes of being released once we got out there; despite the noise, I think I'll bring them both out there again because once they'd settled in, they both seemed quite content with their change of scenery. The birds, of course, endured everything without complaint. Actually, I think they enjoyed the destination, if not the trip; they were even more active and vocal out there than they normally are at home, and that's really saying something. :) calmListening to: Rubber Biscuit (The Blues Brothers) It was good to get out there for a few days. For obvious reasons, I hadn't slept well here on Thursday night, and no matter how upset I am I always sleep well out at the lake. That was true this time as well, though I have no doubt that having the cats out there helped. There's just nothing quite like curling up in a warm bed with a purring cat and a good book. I think I'm handling Peepers' death a bit better now. I still occasionally tend to start crying at odd moments and it's still a bit jarring to see that only two cats have been pushing me around on the bed, but it's not quite as bad as it was. Make no mistake, I'm still grieving—but it's not as bad as it was, and I'll take that for now. |
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| Jul. 9th, 2009 @ 12:59 pm Further Update: Cat | |||
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Mental state:
The vet just called. They can't help. Apparently she's been hiding her trouble for longer than I knew, and she's so far gone that the only humane thing to do now is to have her put to sleep. I admit that I'd suspected this. That's why I've been so upset. devastatedI'm going to call Jordan and Mum to let them know, and then I'm going to call the vet to tell them I'm coming down. I wish this wasn't happening. |
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| Jul. 9th, 2009 @ 12:31 pm Update: Cat | |||
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Mental state:
Well, this morning Peepers (I was fifteen years old and more than a bit silly when I named her) refused both food and water and she could hardly stand up, so I called the vet's office where her appointment was set for next Wednesday to see if I could get someone to see her earlier. They told me that they were too busy today, but gave me the name of tonight's on-call vet (which, coincidentally, is the same place where we had her spayed in 1998). I called them up, and they told me to bring her in; they probably won't get to actually take a look at her until this evening unless someone this afternoon cancels their appointment, but at least somebody will see her today.  upset but a bit hopefulListening to: Discworld Main Title Theme (Keith Hopwood and Phil Bush) I just hope that this isn't too late. I am grateful, though, that I was able to get her there and that, since there isn't exactly anyone to drive us right now (Mum's in T-Bay until the 21st), once I get into the driver's seat of a vehicle the calmer, more logical side of my personality automatically takes over. Maybe the knowledge that driving is one of the most dangerous activities in which a human being can participate gives me an incentive to calm down out of sheer self-preservation. Maybe I'm just fooling myself and I really was subconsciously hysterical all the way to the vet's office. Either way, though, as soon as I sat down I felt myself becoming calm, which can't have been a bad thing. Anyway, it's out of my hands now. I must admit to feeling some measure of relief; she's in the hands of competent people now. If they can help her, they will. If not...well, I won't pretend that I won't be upset, because I will be. But we've been able to give her a good and happy life, and we've enjoyed eleven years with her. Mostly what upsets me is that one of my furry friends is suffering right now and as it turned out, I couldn't do anything on my own to help her. I hope that the vet can. |
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| Jul. 7th, 2009 @ 01:46 pm My Poor Cat... | |||
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Mental state:
The veterinarians in this town are such lovely, compassionate people. NOT! frightened and sadOne of my cats seems to be starving herself. She still drinks a lot of water and she still eats, but she only eats a very small amount of food and when she does, it looks like she's being very careful, as if it was hurting her to do it. Yesterday I called all the vet clinics in the city and described her condition, and the earliest that any of them were willing to see her was NEXT WEDNESDAY. Whether or not there's something seriously wrong with her (and the first vet I called told me that this could be a sign of something bad, to say the least), she's certainly suffering. That it's gone so far has to be my fault. I'm such a bottom-of-the-barrel, idiotic, brainless world-class MORON. I should've noticed her problem awhile ago—she's always been very thin (it's been a running joke that she's "all fur"), but lately I've actually been able to feel her bones. I was so stupid, though—I didn't notice that she wasn't eating as much as she used to until she stopped accepting the cat treats (dental plaque control and hairball control) that she and the other two get every evening. Then I noticed that she didn't visit the food dish as much as she used to and that when she did, she didn't eat as much as she used to. Now my cat may be dying and it's all my fault because I didn't notice in time. But that no vet would see her, even under circumstances like that—I literally felt the world drop out from beneath my feet. I hope she lives long enough to see the vet and that whatever's causing the problem is treatable. It's my fault that she may not, of course, but even so I wish that the waiting list wasn't so long. I am so close to crying right now. I'm worried and sad and scared and so many other things right now that I can't even define half of them. The most dominant thing that I'm feeling right now is guilt. I should've noticed it sooner. I should've known to call the vet a long time ago. I should've been more aware of what my cat was doing—and not doing. Another living creature, one I love, is suffering right now and IT'S ALL MY FAULT. And nobody's willing to help me to help her until next Wednesday. I can only hope that it won't be too late. And maybe I should stop griping and being such a self-pitying twit and be grateful that the waiting list wasn't six months long. |
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| Jun. 26th, 2009 @ 10:02 pm Writer's Block: Environmental Confession | ||||
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Mental state:
cheerfulListening to: Intellectual Boys (Coco Love Alcorn)
The first thing that comes to mind is that I do a lot of driving. It's an unfortunate necessity; I live too far away from everything except an overpriced golf course (even the nearest bus stop is a half-hour walk away from home) to be able to get anywhere any other way in any reasonable time frame. Not only that, but sometimes in the summer I'll put the car's air conditioning on for a few minutes to take the edge off the heat because I find it difficult to concentrate on driving if I feel like I'm baking to death. |
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| May. 13th, 2009 @ 11:18 am Would You Like Some Milk On Your Medication? | |||
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Mental state:
So apparently Cheerios are a drug. Or at least they would be, if the claims that General Mills makes on the box (lower LDL cholesterol, treat and/or prevent heart disease) are an intended use of the product. amusedListening to: We're In This Love Together (Al Jarreau) Frankly, I'm laughing at both sides—I'm laughing at General Mills for going so far with their assertions about this product, and I'm laughing at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for asserting that these claims constitute an intended use for a bowl of cereal. :) |
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| May. 4th, 2009 @ 08:49 am These Things Happen... | |||
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Mental state:
The alternator on the car quit on Wednesday as my mother was on her way down a hill—she tells me that she was actually able to coast into the parking lot at the place where she was going, then get the car running for long enough to pull into a parking space. The car had to be towed over to the Toyota dealership (we've got that car on a lease agreement, so any servicing has to be done there), and originally we were supposed to have the car back by Friday, but since we don't have access to public transit and we live so far away from most things that a taxi would be prohibitively expensive (more than $20 each way every time we needed to go somewhere), they lent Mum a courtesy car.( Read more... ) amusedListening to: Stand By Me (Playing for Change) I think that after this, I'm going to be keeping a travel bag in the trunk of the car containing a change of clothes and shoes, a hairbrush and a toothbrush; that way all I'll need to buy next time is toothpaste and deodorant! |
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| May. 2nd, 2009 @ 03:06 am Losing a Place I Love | |||
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Mental state:
Warning: this is going to be a long one. sad and restlessListening to: Top Deck in Perth (The Victoria Police Pipe Band) See my user icon? It's part of a photo that I took late in the morning of my twenty-fifth birthday. There was a heavy fog that morning; walking around, I felt almost as if I could easily get lost if I strayed too far from the section of road that, some thirty years earlier, my maternal grandfather had helped to clear when some inconsiderate people kept blocking the "real" one. When I made my way down to the lake, it was so calm and so still that it was very much like a large mirror, reflecting the sky above and the thick fog which still lay across part of it to such an extent that it was almost impossible to tell where the sky ended and the lake began. At present, the camp where I had stayed the night before is owned by my mother's sister. I have many happy memories there; I learned to swim in that lake, and I've been staying overnight there since I was a small child. My aunt and uncle don't go out there very often, so in the last sixteen years my aunt has let my mother and I more or less have the run of the place, and we've been taking care of the electric bill and paying for whatever costs we incur on the phone (which, by the way, don't generally amount to much). Since I got my driver's license I've frequently gone out there when I needed to go someplace to think, get away from the heat of summer (there's usually a nice breeze off the lake, and even when it's hot out there, it's still cooler than it is in town) and once I even had my mom drop me off out there to recover from a nasty cold that jumped on me when I was already down because I'd had a particularly exhausting week. I couldn't have wished for a better place to recuperate, and I think it went faster because I was out there. I've always even slept better out there for some reason. Lonely Lake has always been a place where I could find peace, so perhaps that's why. But after this year, I'll never be able to see it again. ( Read more... ) |
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| Mar. 31st, 2009 @ 02:01 pm *Eyes Bug Out* | |||
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Mental state:
Three months...? Oops. overall, quite pleasedListening to: Oor Ain Fireside (Simon Fraser University Pipe Band) I've been well, and I hope that everyone who reads this has been, too. This hasn't been a good year for me with computers so far, though I feel intensely spoiled in regards to my access to technology to begin with. First, early in January the hard drive in my two-year-old MacBook failed, apparently beyond repair, and I haven't been able to find a suitable replacement for it; other damage (unfortunately not covered under warranty because it was the result of my clumsiness) made this an unpalatable solution in any case, because it's not clear how much longer the computer would work even with a new hard drive anyway. Then, the iBook that the MacBook was intended to replace two years ago (oops) finally quit for good around the 16th. (I'd been able to resurrect it a couple of times, but this time it doesn't look like I'll be able to get it working again without Very Expensive Professional Help, and even then it's far from being certain.) So, that's the bad technological news—but shortly after my iBook died, my mom surprised me when she ordered me a new MacBook, which I didn't think we could afford. Our financial situation isn't as worrying as it was a few months ago, but we're still being careful (not, I think, a bad thing) and I'm still looking for work, so you can probably see why it was a bit of a shock. It's a nice machine, though (lots of storage space and 2 GB of RAM, which is almost four times what I've been used to using), and she had Apple pre-install Final Cut Express on it, knowing my penchant for video editing (I've done a few X-Files vids and one for the Matrix trilogy). That's been fun to play with so far, and as I said, I feel extremely spoiled. And I've kept fairly frequent backups of my information, so I didn't have to worry about having lost more than three iTunes music purchases and a couple of days' worth of writing which I've managed to reconstruct and even improve upon. Besides that, life's gone on pretty much as it has for the past few years. The cats keep my mom and I amused, and I've been able to talk to my brother more often, which is nice. Things are going well with both my choirs and though I'm still feeling more than a little quiet lately, the more social side of my personality's starting to kick in again. (I love it when that happens—I'll always be an introvert at heart, but that doesn't mean that I have no interest whatsoever in social interaction.) I've even been feeling a bit more energetic lately. So, not bad in general. :) |
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| Dec. 23rd, 2008 @ 11:29 am Fractured Christmas Songs... | |||
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Mental state:
*snickers* amusedListening to: The Holly and The Ivy Of all the trees The Holly and the Ivy Peace on earth and mercy mild, Hark The Herald Angels Sing Silent Pennfana, holy Pennfana. Silent Night |
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| Dec. 22nd, 2008 @ 03:56 pm Random Thought | |||
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Mental state:
Ever notice that the people who tell you that you don't want to step on any toes are usually the same ones who wouldn't think twice about dancing a jig on yours? slightly annoyedListening to: The Fire Truck (John Powell, "Evolution" soundtrack) |
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| Dec. 16th, 2008 @ 04:45 pm *headdesk* | |||
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Mental state:
My mom—a nurse—had a couple of friends (also nurses) over for tea this afternoon. One of them was continually extolling the virtues of Gastric Bypass surgery. aggravatedListening to: Johnny English theme - Salsa Version (Bond) Can we say "trigger"? *grumbles* If I hadn't already eaten my lunch by the time Mom's friends came by, I'm sure I'd be fighting the impulse to starve myself for the rest of the day. As it is, I'm just incensed that someone who should know better because she's a health care professional has been spewing this tripe about how wonderful the surgery is for the |
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| Dec. 6th, 2008 @ 11:12 am Quiz Results | |||
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Mental state:
I admit that I like doing online quizzes. Unless the results are extremely off-base, they don't often tell me anything that I wasn't expecting to see, but it amuses me anyway. This morning, I stumbled upon a "Rate My Life" quiz, and I thought that the results were quite interesting, to say the least. contemplativeListening to: French Suite in E-Flat Major (J.S. Bach) The quiz rates your life based on your mind, physical health, spiritual life, relationships with friends and family, your love life and your finances. There's also an overall rating for your life, based on the scores given for each of the categories. What I found so interesting, though, was the apparent assumption that there are certain standards for each category that everyone has to meet or their life doesn't quite measure up. For example, I have a small but wonderful circle of friends and a larger circle of pleasant acquaintances, and I'm perfectly happy with that—but because one of the ways in which the friends/family category is scored is the size of one's circle of friends, I was advised to make more friends, because apparently everyone needs a large group of friends to be socially fulfilled. I never understood that idea myself, though; I may not have many friends, but I know I can count on the ones I do have, which isn't exactly a terrible thing. And then there's the "love life" section of the quiz. I was told, Your love rating is a measure of your current romantic situation. Sharing your heart with another person is one of life's most glorious, terrifying, rewarding experiences. Your love score is very low, indicating trouble. There is love out there for you. Seek the advice of wise people on how to go about finding it. Do not lose hope. It simultaneously amuses and disgusts me that there's an assumption that everyone who takes the quiz who doesn't have a high score in the "love" category must be desperate for a wonderful romance. The truth is that I'm not looking for a romantic attachment at this point in my life. It's not that I've lost hope or any of that rubbish—it's just that I don't particularly want a romantic relationship. I've simply got too much personal stuff to sort out first, and to enter into that kind of relationship now wouldn't be fair to me or to whoever the other person might be. The "body" category contained pretty much what I expected to see. "Eat right and exercise", commonly known as a code phrase for "LOSE WEIGHT!!!!!" is there, and of course some of the advice for people whose score wasn't unusually high for that category assumes that such people must be lazy, unhealthy eaters who don't get any more exercise than lifting the channel changer or walking to the kitchen for another round of pop and junk food. If I weren't feeling better about myself now than I have in the past couple of years, I think that reading those comments might have triggered another of my lapses into starvation-type eating-disordered behaviour. I refuse to comment on the score I received for my financial behaviour, save for that it was better than I thought it would be. (Not that either my score or my behaviour is terrible—it's just that there are things that are still a sore point with me, not least the fact that I've been unable to find a job in the teaching profession thus far.) The score for my mental health was encouraging, to say the least. And the "Spirit" category was a particularly pleasant surprise, though when I checked the advice given by other people who scored high in that category, there were a few comments which stated that Christianity as the One True Right and Only Way to develop a fulfilling spiritual life. Most of the comments were much more inclusive, though, and the overarching theme seemed to be "figure out what your best path is". (Makes sense to me. But then, as I've noted before, my spiritual life hasn't been anything even approaching "conventional" by pretty much anyone's standards since I was about fourteen or fifteen.) There was one comment there that almost broke my heart, though—it was from someone who "recently deconverted from Christianity", and it was filled with so much bitterness and hate towards their former faith that even though I no longer identify as a Christian in any normal sense of the word (singing in an Anglican choir quite aside, the best way to describe my present spiritual path is probably something like "Eclectic and Somewhat Bewildered Christo-Pagan"), I wondered what had happened to that person to fill them with so much hostility. I know that I left the Roman Catholic Church years ago for reasons that are similar to some of the ones this person has for leaving whatever denomination they came from, but except for a brief period in which I would probably have been bitter anyway (my maternal grandfather had just died and the Catholic priest who officiated at his funeral was one who I'd always disliked because he always seemed to be smug about being a priest), I didn't think of the faith I'd left in such angry terms. I suppose that to me, the kindness of the people I've met has outweighed the often bloody history of the religion. That doesn't mean I'll ever entirely go back, though I do realize that the fact that I sing in an Anglican choir might somewhat undermine my credibility as a Pagan, but it does mean that I still have some measure of respect for Christianity and for the people who it has helped, regardless of the bigotry and boneheadedness still displayed by people (usually men) in the upper levels of various Church hierarchies. Eep, didn't mean to go off on such a tangent there. Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts about this quiz. I know that I came off as being more than a little critical of it, but despite that, I thought it was an interesting little exercise. |
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| Dec. 2nd, 2008 @ 03:36 pm Thoughts about Current Canadian Politics | |||
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Mental state:
Beware—this post won't be particularly unified. It's just a collection of thoughts I've had over the past few days as Canada's federal government gets itself—and the rest of us—deeper and deeper into an unfortunate situation. contemplativeListening to: The Fire Truck (John Powell, "Evolution" soundtrack) Anyway. This isn't the first time that I've been thankful that even if the Conservatives ended up back on top, at least they have a minority government; Harper doesn't seem to want to admit to the fact, but I'd hoped that it would limit the damage that he could do to Canada. Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten that he is Canada's Prime Minister who has a minority government and not the Imperial Royal High Grand Dictator that he seems to want to be. Did he and Flaherty really think that the other parties would just sit quietly and watch while they could enacted measures that would completely bankrupt everyone except for the Tories themselves? Did they really think that there would be no outcry when Flaherty announced that they were simply ignoring the recession and doing the budgetary equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" instead of actually coming up with a plan for dealing with it? I swear, it's almost like they wanted to put themselves into a position where the other parties could declare that the Conservatives had lost the confidence of the House of Commons. And now they're acting like it's such a big surprise and betrayal for everyone else to have called them on their BS in the most noticeable way possible. I've noticed that the Conservatives' biggest defenders are the ones who say that "Canadians have spoken, and they chose Harper for Prime Minister". Um, no, that's not quite the way it went. 62% of us actually didn't choose Harper, and the unfortunate thing is that the 62% was split among three other parties. All that this says is that we didn't really choose Harper, he just got a bigger percentage of the votes than the others did and therefore got back in by default, the same way he was elected in the first place. Now, I'm hardly the first person to have observed this, but I think it's quite interesting that Harper's position on coalition governments has changed in the past four years. After all, this time he's the one at risk of losing power, and everything that he and his cronies have been doing in the past few days to try to do some damage control smacks of desperation and panic. But how can they discredit the opposition when they themselves have already been so thoroughly discredited? There are people who still believe that they're Canada's best choice, but from what I've seen, those are mainly the people who accuse anyone who leans even slightly to the left of being a "commie". By the way, you'd think that those people would be able to come up with better insults than that. Or maybe not; I've never seen much real creativity from most of those people. (Well, the ones I've met, anyway.) But really, it's like they think that the best way to shut someone up with whom they disagree politically is to accuse them of being a communist. If there's logic there, I don't see it. And I don't get why so many of those same people are insisting that a coalition government means that Canada's going to be led by separatists. It doesn't; the Bloc Québécois have agreed to support the Liberals and the NDP. There's been no indication that the Bloc will have much, if any, more power than they did before even if we do end up with a coalition government. All this fear-mongering can't possibly be doing anyone any good. There's no perfect solution to this situation; the Conservatives have apparently become as corrupt in two years as it took the Liberals a bit less than eleven years to do when they were in power, if not more so; keeping them in office would be a manifestly Bad Idea. And a coalition government is hardly ideal either, because it could fall apart in so many ways. And nobody can convince me that it's a good idea to call yet another election less than two months after the last one. Gods, what a mess. |
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