Canada: A Trainwreck in Progress

Maybe it's just me, but lately Canada seems to be well on it's way to becoming a dystopian banana republic. Let's see, we've only got one political party--oh sure, you can say "what about Stephen Harper and The Canadian Alliance or Joe Clark's Progressive Conservatives”, but let's get real, both these guys currently have about as much chance of becoming Prime Minister as Bill Clinton does of landing that headmaster job at a Catholic girl's boarding school. Sure it’d be fun to see, but let's face it, not gonna happen.

So that leaves us stuck with the Liberals and, god help me, Jean Chrétien: A man who carries with him all the statesman-like dignity of a malfunctioning Disneyland animatronic. The sheer eloquent of this man’s oration more than makes up for his fact his face is apparently working a split shift. Oh fuck it, who am I kidding, every time I hear this guy talk, I think, this is a man that deserves his own animated series or at the very least: an action figure ("now with realistic rictus grin!"). He sounds like he should working a trap line or fixing snowmobiles somewhere in northern Quebec, not running a country.
Which leaves me wondering, whose brilliant plan was it to send Mr. Chrétien around the world to try and promote trade with Canada? And what are other countries left thinking after a speech from this guy?

"Well, in Canada we do da lumber ting and we do also do the oils. We ave many tings to offer”

They’re probably left thinking they can sell us consonants, because obviously if this man is any indication, there’s a serious shortage of them in his homeland. And if that’s not enough, I was just reading in the paper that George Bush is making fun of him. Things are pretty bad when a man that can be outsmarted by snack food thinks your leader is the fuck up.

It used to be the government was relatively harmless. Sure they’d always try and force feed you Canadian content, a dish that's typically about as appealing as plate of refried bat guano and packed full of the kind of intellectual nourishment you'd find in a carpet fiber soufflé, but you could tolerate Nick and Relic; the way you'd indulge an elderly Aunt with dementia, or feign interest in a close friend's particularly ugly offspring. And yeah, there was always that little matter of them taking half your paycheck, but come on, they were using it for good stuff, like free medical care for everybody and F-18 fighter jets to help keep our military strong.

Of course, that was twenty years ago. Welcome to the year 2002. The government is still helping themselves to half your paycheck, but now nobody knows what they're doing with the money. It sure isn’t going into healthcare. If you were to wake up tomorrow and find you needed heart surgery, you'd have to wait for a year--camped out front of the cardiologist's office like some pimply faced kid waiting on tickets for the next Star Wars installment. But hey, maybe you’ll make it. Stay calm, remain motionless, don’t exert yourself—and start throwing back the aspirin and the fish oil like you’re Keith Richard’s Eskimo cousin.

It’s also pretty obvious that the money isn’t being spent on the military, one need only look in the National Post to see a picture of one of our brave infantrymen ready to ship off to Afghanistan: armed with his Future Shop radio, backpack from Mountain Equipment Co-op, his white winterized tent and my personal favorite: forest green camouflage fatigues; an ensemble that should render him near invisible in the arid Afghan deserts. Give me a break, our guys look more like the paintball team from Kinkos than any elite fighting force I’ve seen.

But hey, we won the hockey game and really, when it comes down to it, isn’t that matters? Who cares that buying a book off Amazon.com now mean taking out a second mortgage; that American tourists will soon be buying Canadian strip malls to bring home as souvenirs for the kids or that Mexico is starting to talk about moving it’s factories up here to take advantage of our cheap labor. There’s no brain drain—all those professionals flooding south are just going on vacation—for a really long time. And besides, Americans are all fat and their streets are riddled with crime. Here in Canada firearms are registered and woe be it to those who even think of robbing a bank or breaking into your house without the proper paperwork.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love this country and I think I now know what’s missing in our nation’s capital: a grassy knoll and a book depository.
Of course I certainly don't condone violence—at least not without the proper paperwork.

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Rantings of An Unexplodedscotsman
http://www.unexplodedscotsman.com/
Short stories. Rants. Things better left unsaid.

Men are from Mars

Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? Well, here's a prime example offered by an English professor at an American University. "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person next to them. One of you will then write the first paragraph of a short story. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on, back and forth.
Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking and anything you wish to say must be written on the paper. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two English students:
Rebecca - last name deleted, and Scott - last name deleted.
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STORY: (first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
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Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-head he spent one sweaty night with over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
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He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth - when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, any television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
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Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!
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This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic, semi-literate adolescent.
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Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh shall I have camomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F*CKING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such air headed bimbo who reads too many Mills & Boon novels.
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A*****e.
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B***h.
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Wanker.
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Slut.
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Get f*****d.
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Eat s**t.
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F**K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!
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Go drink some tea - whore..
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Two thumbs up for Jason C's suggestion for a new title: Missiletoe

Oh yeah. If you didn't already know, you might want to bookmark www.unexplodedscotsman.com
The sites finally got a real domain name, and bookmarking it will help you find it if I decide to start hosting it somewhere else.

Hey kids, just a quick message to let you know, if you haven't already figured it out, that I'm going to start posting less. That's the bad news.
The good news is the stuff that I'm going to be posting is going to much longer (1000 words +). I want to start cranking out something like a bi-monthly column--mainly to create something of a portfolio.

That's not to say I can't or won't post the odd thing here and there, just that's it's not going to be a daily thing.
Stay tuned.

Think I've got an idea for a super hero. How's this: The Karmic Avenger. He just hangs around watching television, smug in the knowledge that those that do evil, will eventually get theirs; as people are generally their own worst enemy. Where do I apply for a cape?

I'm actually pretty happy about the whole way I handled the deadbeat roomate issue. God help me, I've become a grown up--at least in this regard.
Don't worry, I promise not to sell out completely. *g*

Coming soon, Healthy Home Invasions: The Short Story: a 5000 word tale based on the wildly popular flash fiction piece (well, those who read it liked it anyway) of the same name. Coming soon to this web site. In the mean time here's the flash fiction version one more time.

Healthy Home Invasions

No matter how many times we do this, it never gets old. I’ve got butterflies—big amphetamine-soaked monarch ones—ricocheting off the walls of my stomach. My legs tremble and occasionally twitch; my mouth is flooded with the sweet metallic tang of adrenaline; heart’s battering the back of my sternum like a Golden Gloves champ working a speed bag; and my pulse, it’s booming large and loud in my head, impervious to the rumblings of the Econoline Van’s diesel engine and Phil’s ever-present sonic assault—currently NiN’s “Sin”.

There are five of us and we’re ready. I mean really ready. A year of doing this has transformed us into a well-oiled machine; we’d put most SWAT teams to shame. Phil’s wheelman, Jason the navigator. I cover ingress, usually by way of a ThunderBolt MonoShock—essentially a one man battering ram. Kel and Tyler handle the initial rush, dropping the victim with AdvancedTaser M-Series pistols: compact tasers that use compressed nitrogen gas to launch small metal probes on wires. On impact they cause uncontrollable contraction of all major muscle groups; the result being the victim goes down hard and stays down, before they can do anything stupid—like dial 911.

The van squeals to a stop. I pull back a long ragged breath and roll down my balaclava. Showtime! The back door flings open and I charge up the front steps like a rocket-assisted Brahma Bull, hitting the door full out—driving up with my legs and back, lineman style—and it not so much opens as implodes, disintegrating into a cloud of splinters and plaster and carrying me stumbling onto the floor of the entrance way. I scramble to the side and Kel and Tyler blast by, vaulting up stairs two at a time. Pulling myself to my feet I hurry after them, cresting the top of stairs just in time to see them dispatch the victim: a male about 30 years old and grotesquely overweight, rolls of fat from his belly completely obscure the top of his food-stained boxers. He’s still standing in front of an open fridge, drumstick in hand, looking very much like deer caught in a semi-truck’s headlights. He opens his mouth to say something just as Kel’s taser goes off with a serpentine hiss—twin probes plunge deep into the side of a massive man breast before emitting that now familiar bug zapper sound. He falls headlong into fridge, sending condiments and cans of Pepsi skittering across the kitchen floor. A quick check to make sure the house is secure and we’re ready to go to work.

We work in teams of two, lugging in a Lifecycle™, an elliptical cross-trainer, and a Bowflex™ machine. Tyler stays up in the kitchen, keeping an eye on the victim while emptying his fridge of everything unhealthy—which is pretty much everything. The front door is quickly replaced with a close match from the van and we take turns bringing in duffel bags loaded with Myoplex™, Zone™ bars, and whey protein. We’ve got provisions to feed the victim for at least sixty days, and that’s likely how long it will take to make things right.

Think of this as an intervention; we’re here to save you—from saturated fat and artificial flavoring; from fast food drive-thrus and convenience store cookies, from snack crackers and greasy takeout food. We work using the squeegee kid business model—you don’t ask for our services, don’t even get a choice—, but when we’re done you’ll happily pay our fee. We’re here to save you, to save you from…yourself.

Today's observation: I've observed a number of cases in the last year of a strange variation of schadenfreude (a malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others)
It's similar, but it seems to involve taking an aspect of your life that you're unhappy with (say being single or getting into the IT field), convincing yourself that it's actually a very good thing, and then taking that belief on the road; doing your best to convince the people around you that your choice is the best choice for them.

The best analogy I can come up with is buying a Lada (a known lemon car) and then talking all of your friends into buying the same car in an effort to reaffirm your bad purchase.

Is there a word in German for this as well?