Boo! Guess Who!

Oh please, CTV, give me a break

Tonight CTV showed the English language municipal election debate between Mayor Gerald Tremblay and his challenger, ex-Mayour Bourque.

The debate was set up as follows:
60 second introductions for each
3 segments where each candidate addressed a given issue for 1 minute and then both candidates debated the issue for 4 minutes
60 second closing remarks

Now, Tremblay and Bourque hate each other. If we didn't know that before, we knew it after the French language debates where they basically ripped each other apart. CTV, knowing this, pitted them against each other in the 4-minute debate segments. Of course, they yelled at each other.

Now, I just saw Stéphane Giroux "recap" the debates for the 11:30 news. Basically, he said that, unfortunately, the debates degenerated into a personal yelling match. His tone of voice let us know that he was oh so surprised that this happened between two mayoral candidates. Come on! Give me a break. You guys knew this would happen. Bill Haugland and Mitsumi Takahashi, CTV anchors and debate moderators, could barely keep a straight face!

Then, night anchor Tarah Schwartz invites "political analyst" Robert Libman to evaluate the debate outcome. Robert Libman is an ex-provincial and municipal politician. So...not really an "impartial" analyst. Anyway, he got on there and said he was "surprised" that Tremblay responded to Bourque on that level and that he should have played the part of the statesman. Well, I commend Tremblay for being real about this. Look, I am sick of wooden politicians giving us lip service. Show me how you feel. Bourque had the audacity to stand up there and talk about wanting to be the "people's mayor" in front of Tremblay who actually kicked a criminal's ass to save a student. Tremblay had to say something back. It's better than anything Libman ever did and it's better than Bourque hitting on me and Sabrina Sextina during the last municipal campaign.

Anyway, this is about CTV. The next time you want a gentlemanly debate don't pit two arch enemies against each other in an open forum designed to create strife. Or, don't act like you didn't expect or even desire it.

Festival du Nouveau Cinema

So last Friday (Oct 21) and Sunday (Oct 23) I went to the Festival du nouveau cinema with La Française (who has to propose a better name for herself because typing "La Française" is getting tedious).

We saw two films: Vers le Sud at the Imperial Theatre and I'm Ugly but Trendy at Excentris.

Vers le Sud

Vers le Sud is set in 1970s Haiti. It is the story of 40- and 50-year old white women find a place in the hearts of young Haitian men. Their own societies having deemed them past the age of attraction, these women with their open hearts, legs and wallets take solace in their summertime positions atop the Franco-Caribbean food chain.

The real story centres around Legba, the Haitian man at the hearts of two of the women - Ellen the agelessly beautiful yet haughty Wellesley professor and Brenda the midwestern divorcée. Through Legba we see the dual faces of 1970s Haiti - the sun soaked paradise it provides for weary Westerners and the culture of fear it creates for everyday Haitians terrorized by Baby Doc Duvalier's brutal dictatorship. Legba's life seems leisurely, even carefree, as he freeloads off these wealthy, vulnerable women who seem almost innocent in their solicitation of his services. Indeed, even Legba's childhood is sexualized by the naive Brenda who has returned to the island after three years dreaming of a reunion with her nubile erstwhile lover. Ellen relives life at its most youthful peak as Legba strokes her ego and her sanity with his hand everpresent in her wallet.

Yet, writer-director Laurent Cantet turns the film on its head when he rips Legba from the sweet serenity of the beach and drops him back into the urbanity of the Haitian city. Here we see the poverty that lies all to close to the lip of the sea by which Ellen, Brenda and their French-Canadian friend Sue forget the realities of their own lives at home. Paradise for one is hell for another and along with Legba we live in fear of talking to, defying or loving the wrong person. As the fear surrounding Legba rises, other curtains fall and the ladies of leisure by the sea show us new faces. Ellen, no longer the stoic, practical, sexual realist shows her pain, her desire and the real nature of her relationship with Legba - one where he did not take advantage of her, but she of him in pursuit of his love. Brenda loses her naive face and morphs into a crazy, cold personage who seeks only to numb her own reality. Sue, the sightly prejudiced, heavy-set lady whom Ellen sometimes mocks, shows her tender side when Legba goes missing. Our notions of who has taken advantage of whom become blurred and our sympathies are realigned. The conclusion is one that would surprise some, confirm what others know and redefine what the Caribbean means to the revelatory denizens of today.

I'm Ugly, But Trendy or Sou Fea Mas Tô na Moda
Directed by Denise Garcia, this documentary about the Brazilian funk music arising out of Rio's City of God started out like a typical rap video, morphed into an expression of feminism, took a turn at the civil rights movement and finished on an upswing of hope. At the end, the viewer is left with one memory - the infectious funk beat.

Like any slum, the City of God gets a bad rap despite its being filled with many more good, creative people than bad. The film opens with a group of young men engaging in an impromptu rap session pitted against a boot stomping beat. We soon move to Deise da Injeçao leading us around the impoverished City of God, begging shy artist after shy artist out of the shadows and into the light of the camera made more intense by the heat of the sun. The women languishing in the shade wear "booty shorts" and tiny tops. The men wear oversize white tank tops and baggy pants. The scene looks just like the average Snoop Dogg video, except in Portuguese.

The movie centres around Deise "da Injeçao" Tigrona, DJ Marlboro, the wildly popular Tati Quebra-Barraco and girl group Gaiola Das Popozudas - the stars of the funk carioca or Brazilian funk movement. Brazilian funk is a mix of Miami Bass (think 2 Live Crew), brazilian drum beats and sometimes highly politicized rap lyrics performed by highly sexualized young women and men. At first, seeing these women gyrate wildly before voracious crowds, one is left with a negative impression of the scene. It seems too ghetto, too wild, too sexual. It seeminly panders to basest of human instincts. As we visit the artists in their modest, okay almost desolate, homes in the City of God, and as we listen to their struggles for equality in a deeply divided Brazilian society governed by wealth, class, and race, our opinion changes. We hear their pleas to have their creativity, their form of release legitimized as a cultural benefit by the Brazilian government. We feel their pain as they are marginalized and hidden deep within the City of God. We see young girls taking control of the sexuality and defining when and where they will be seen as sexual beings. We see older women lamenting the absence of a strong, highly female, creative movement, which they think would have helped them to become more knoweldgeable, more free. We see men who appreciate these women, who sing and dance along to lyrics chastising absent fathers for their irresponsibility and advising women to consider their health first. The very pregnant Tati takes the stage and we cut away to three young women who declare Tati their hero, who explain how she empowers them as women looking to do more than survive in the City of God. Slowly, the lyrical content takes centre stage and DJ Marlboro tells of seeing scenes that belong in modern-day Baghdad. One young fan tells of daring to attend a funk show outside of the City of God. Rio's more affluent, more judgmental citizens express their displeasure with her choice by spilling water out of their windows and onto her head. Never, she exclaims, never would people behave so badly in the City of God. The real savages are revealed. We follow DJ Marlboro to Europe where, like Josephine Baker who fled the US for France in search of acceptance, the Brazilian funk movement is received with great enthusiasm and acclaim.

In the end, we get a good picture of the origins of the funk movement and an orientation to the problems that Rio's poorer citizens face. I would highly recommend this film. It teaches you something, it softens your demeanour in the direction of justice and the funk carioca is just plain fun.

More Natural Products

What to do...what to do? I'm a huge fan of natural products...buuuttt...I'm not sure about Lunapads. Yes, yes I'm referring to the blessed event of menstruation.

Men. I know, I know. Just...just move on. The ladies and I need to talk.

Ladies, you know how it is. Having your period isn't the most convenient thing in the world. Yes, yes of course, I love having my period. Yay! Yay, as an indication of no pregnancy. Yay, as an indication of general health. Yay, as an indication of the general ability to have wonderful, disciplined, children with all kinds of broughtupsy. I sooo appreciate having my period.

That being said, it's not the most comfortable situation in the world. It can be messy if not properly tended to. One's period has the tendencdy to remind you that it's there at the most inopportune moements. Sometimes it peeks out from where it's supposed to be hiding, all red and stuff. Hello...know that I'm here and that I've come to say hello to all friends, family and total strangers on the back of your pants. Sometimes, it's with a little twinge in the tummy area...or...or maybe a huge gut-wrenching cramp that extends from the pit of your bowels to the lower muscles of your upper legs. Yup, it definitely doesn't want you to forget that it's there.

So...sometimes sopping it up before it can reveal itself with massive cotton cylinders or suppressing its voice with all-powerful prescription pills is just so tempting, so necessary. I just can't imagine washing out these pads all day all night.














Or, I can't imagine reaching in there to stuff in and pull out these little cutie pies all day.












I mean, what am I supposed to do, stand in a public restroom washing out this stuff in the sink while I raise my eyebrows in apology and shrug my shoulders in embarrassment to fellow lady patrons of said public establishment? Would you wash out your underwear in general in a public place?

I am all for this particular natural product, but until I can find a way discreetly to cleanse said natural product, unfortunately, I am unable to partake of this movement.

Men, you may now stop plugging your ears and singing the Flinstones theme.

Kisses,
Laurelle

James Bryan @ Le Swimming

So Sabrina Sextina and I decided to stop by the James Bryan/Moka Only show at Le Swimming this past Saturday night. James Bryan, also known as Milo from Prozzak and James McCollum, the guitarist from the Philosopher Kings, has a new album out with his solo act, James Bryan band. He's got two more to be released in November with Prozzak and the Philosopher Kings so I decided to don my roving rock reporter persona to bring you, my non-existent readers, the scoop!

The fabulous Ms. Sextina popped round my place at about 6pm so we could begin the requisite "oh what will I wear" ritual. Sabrina wore a black strapless top to emphasize her absolutely enormous chest (yes, she will kill me for saying that) and I wore a top that is currently too big for me, but you can't tell in the pictures. It sparkles. I like it.

After fooling around and wasting time, we left my place at about 8pm hoping to arrive right at 9pm for the opening of the club. Yes, Sabrina and I are getting old and we want to get to the bar, sit down and enjoy the night. Once upon a time we took our naps at 9pm so that we could get to the club by 1:45am in time to rule the dance floor. Now, we actually hoped that James Bryan would go on first so that we could go home early. Well, he didn't go on first. A nameless rap band went on first. Let me take a step back.

We got to the club at about 8:45 and discovered that Le Swimming was still closed. Since we were feeling a bit peckish, we went down the road to Café Republique for some waffle potatoes which is a pretentious way to say we had some fries. At about 9 something or other, we decided to head back to Le Swimming and situate ourselves for the show. As we approached the doors, we noticed two men and one woman located outside in a haze of putrid smoke. Umm...since when did it become acceptable to smoke pot outside in the street? This is exactly the kind of thing I like to point out to those who think we should legalize marijuana. "It doesn't hurt anyone," they say in their idiotic, whiny little voices, "It's less harmful than smoking cigarettes." Umm...hokay...but, uh, it stinks and it's smoky. Usually, people aren't mindful of their nasty habits and I know that if marijuana gets legalized the idiots of this world will subject me and others to their most foul undertaking. It's not even legal and these three dolts decided that they should fumigate the entrance to the club with their smoke. Heh. Thanks a lot three idiots from in front of the club, now we stink just like you do. Well, imagine our shock when we discovered that two of the three idiots were the opening act to the opening act. I guess they have a name, but their garbled attempt at "rapping" was such that all we heard was "RDP" and "pop pop pop," which I suppose is meant to imply that in RDP (commonly known as Rivière-des-Prairies) there is some kind of imagined gang warfare. So, being that they are a nameless group, I'm going to call them "RDP Pop Pop." Now, while I'm not a huge fan of gansta rap I do like some of what has been released. Unfortunately, RDP is not Compton, California. There is no gang warfare there. RDP Pop Pop would notice that if they weren't high. Secondly, listening to this group was like looking at a copy of a copy. Sorry, RDP Pop Pop, in my opinion DMX, Ludacris, Cam'ron and Wu Tang Clan already did it better. See...I feel bad because Sabrina and I thought that the three putrid idiots from the front were with Moka Only. We assumed that they were his friends who had come to smell up our lovely town with their rotten joints. Well, colour me embarrassed. How judgmental of us. Our mistake, they were not with Moka Only. Now, before RDP Pop Pop's set, we were subjected to some very bad early nineties R&B (and one good nostalgic song - Jody Watley's "Looking for a New Love.") We also falsely put that onto Moka Only. It wasn't Moka Only's fault, it was RDP Pop Pop's fault. I guess they thought they were being old school. It isn't very old school to subject our poor innocent ears to the sounds of Klymaxx, nor is it old school to recycle the RZA's beats during your set. Moka Only, I'm very sorry that we attributed the train wreck that is RDP Pop Pop to you. From now on, we shall judge you based on direct evidence rather than assumptions.

Anyhoo, the next act on, the actual opener, was Soyastereo.


Soyastereo sounds like Jamiroquai mixed with something...I want to say Hoobastank but I'm not sure that I actually know who Hoobastank is or what songs Hoobastank has released. Anyway, I'll stick with Hoobastank for now. Soyastereo weren't too bad. They are obviously a local band. Most of the audience was theirs. The place was packed for them. Soyastereo's set consisted of many covers (like Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity) and one song that I didn't recognize. I now think it is this song called Chocolate Eyes. Good for them, I hope they do well. I think that Soyastereo is funky and they could do well, they just need to tighten up their set and their look. They look a little too generic, except the drummer who was too cool for school. I like that.


Next up was the James Bryan band. Actually, James was milling about before the show and we had a little chat about the future of the Philosopher Kings (I'm a roving reporter you know). It seems to be common knowledge that the Philosopher Kings' new album will be released on November 15th, but, did you know that the will be touring in December?? Huh, huh, didja know that? Well, if you didn't you heard it here first. Sabrina and James and I had a most lovely chat and an even lovelier show.

Sabrina Sextina is a pretty serious Philosopher Kings fan. As a result, she forced me to go see James Bryan on Canada Day. Hey, the show was free in honour of our great nation's birthday (they paid me to say that.) What would Canada Day be without free shows? It is actually mandatory in Montreal or we'll riot. I swear to you, we riot if we don't get a certain number of free shows suring the summer. Don't test us. You'll regret it. We also saw Jesse Cook that day. In the rain. Anyway, as it turns out, James Bryan ain't too bad. You can hear his music here. I tend to like genre mixes like James does - rock with a african, latin and jazz influences. He played that night with an abbreviated band - himself on guitar, the singer Alessa and the percussionist David...or Wilson, I'm not sure which.

The band was tight and sounded like it was at full strength. They played a bunch of songs from the album including the jazzy Beautiful World and their remake of Bizarre Love Triangle. Sabrina won a free CD because she correctly knew that they had done this remake. Well done, Ms. Sextina!

Finally, Moka Only took the stage.


Moka Only is a sometime member of Canadian rap act Swollen Members. According to one of their songs, Moka Only always brings it home. Unfortunately, we didn't stick around for the show, we went to Bar Rouge to visit our friend Irwin, who is a bouncer at the club. But, uh, sorry Moka about the earlier misjudgment. Won't happen again.

Now, on a sadder note, we found out that Le Swimming closed yesterday.


Le Swimming is a great place to listen to rock music and play pool. Unfortunately, we never really hung out there, but it's a nice, friendly place. We took some pictures with the bartenders, one of whom has a great tattoo sleeve, but uh, I'm going to have to confer with Ms. Sextina before they go up. She might kill me if I put anymore pictures of her on my blog. She's anonymous that way.

In the end, a good time was had by all. Le Swimming, we'll miss you. James Bryan, see you in December.

Katrina, More of the Aftermath

Note: If you don't want to read all of what I have to say, at least scroll down to the bottom and click the link.

I suppose for some people this is old news. For me, this still hurts and I have nothing whatsoever to do with this disaster. Oh, I know that there are hundreds of thousands of other disasters happening across the planet - in Pakistan for example - but I'm thinking about this one because people in North America tend to see themselves as more fortunate than other people - even over other people in advanced industrialized democracies.

I like to point out that as fortunate as some of us are, some others of us are struggling. In my opinion, most of the people affected by Katrina were struggling in the first place, and then they were left behind and treated like old trash that the country was happy to see washed away so they wouldn't have to clean it up.

Yeah, yeah, we can drop our change into collection cups, we can even send substantial cheques to the Red Cross, but temporary attention to a permanent problem won't change anything. When your educational system is designed to promote some above others, there is a problem. When your national myth promotes leaving others behind as you claw your way to the top, there is a problem. When the size of your wallet determines the power of your vote, there is a problem. When the colour of your skin determines the size of your wallet, there is a problem. Donating money to the same old stagnant institutions is not going to solve the problem. Solve these problems with your heads. Change your everyday behaviours to give everyone a chance at the life you enjoy. This isn't a zero-sum game. Everyone can live well. The idea that there can be a pretty high minimum standard of living isn't communist, it's human.

Anyway, please read Operation Eden.

The Poetry Vault

From December 5, 1997:

What do I know and should I tell?

Unsure in my stability

Lending no calm to shaking

Trees

Shake!

As I pass along

Both sides

Balancing on a tightrope

I must concentrate

I must concentrate

See nothing else

But this tightrope

So taut

So tense

So fragile

Yet strong enough to hold me

I hope

Don’t let me fall

Don’t let me fall

All I see is you

Tightrope

Black is all else

The crowd cheers

I hear naught

They need me to complete my task

To help them

They need me to make it

For them

If I fall I die

What will they do?

I can’t fall

©

Stop Pulling my Water you Silly Eclipse!

Well, as promised, I've done some research into lunar eclipses. I'm not going to get into the mechanics of it since this is about my recent weird feelings and heightened senses.

To recap, Depeche Mode, my friend not the band, told me that on October 17th there was a lunar eclipse. She is very knowledgeable about astronomy and astrology. She offered this up as an explanation for why I have been having revealing dreams, why some people have been picking at me in that resentful, jealous way, why people have been pissing me off in general and why I have been experience a heightened sense of smelling evil.

This is what I uncovered:

According to NASA and other sources, on October 17, there occurred a partial lunar eclipse. A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon passes through the Earth's shadow. As seen from the moon, the Earth would be blocking the Sun resulting in a solar eclipse. As seen from Earth looking towards the moon, the moon appears to be partially darkened - fading into the night sky.

This guy makes connections between eclipses, both lunar and solar, and a heightened sense of self-awareness. He believes that now is the time to prepare ourselves for changes in our lives, to accept that we must let go of certain people in our lives and aspects of ourselves in order to make room for what is yet to come.

Now, if you read through my posts in the last week, you'll see that I've been antsy. Hell, I've even tried to email someone I've recently been getting to know a rant about feeling like I should be receiving some "answers" in the most nebulous sense of the word.

And, as you may also have noticed, I'm smelling people. I'm like a wolf suddenly. The smelling of less than sincere human beings is only the half of it. I usually have very heightened senses of smell and hearing but this is ridiculous. It's like I'm hearing conversations in Nepal or something and smelling people's fear. Okay, slight exaggeration but you get my drift.

I'll tell you this, there is a connection between a woman's menstrual cycle and the moon. If you're a woman, you know that this is true. You also know that you go through a series of emotions and feelings as you move through your menstrual cycle. Some cycles are better than others in this way.

It's a little known fact that I'm sitting on a book project about listening to your body or what some people call instinct and intuition. Today, I'm listening to what mine has to say.

The Lunar Eclipse

Okay, I just spoke to Depeche Mode, my friend not the band, and she says that there has been a lunar eclipse recently. Depeche Mode is a wealth of this kind of information. I'll investigate the effect of this potential lunar eclipse and come up with a suitably academic thesis for my recent physical and psychological state.

Until later...

The Sour Smell of Eeeevillll

Well, I'm not sure how popular this post will be, but I think I can smell evil people. Really. I'm really starting to believe this.

Yeah, yeah. You think this is crazy. Crazy things aren't crazy if you realize that they sound crazy when they really aren't the result of actual craziness. So settle down.

Okay, maybe evil is too strong and loaded a word, so for the sake of compromise let's say I can smell people that aren't very good for me and potentially many others. Hey, people believe in the unfalsifiability of organized religion and that's a real implausibility. I'm gathering physical evidence here...read on, you'll see.

Here's the background story:
A few years ago when I was living and working in London, England, I worked alongside an interesting fellow for a couple of weeks. He was hired as a temporary presentation specialist, someone who helps investment bankers prepare presentations meant to win hundred million and billion dollar deals. At the time, I had just segued out of equity research and into the more creative side of investment banking, if there is even such a thing. When doing this work you don't have your own computer. You just jump on to the nearest available computer. This is because people are in and out of there all day and all night. Presentations for investment banks are prepared 24 hours per day - it never stops until the presentation is done and there is always another one to prepare following on the heels of the former.

The first time this guy sat next to me I almost fainted from his scent. This isn't a non-hygenic body odour scent. This is your own personal pheromonal scent - your signature if you will. The scent was overwhelming. I couldn't breathe. Nausea overtook me. The bile rose in my throat. It was like having to vomit the substance of nothing. I wanted to expell the feeling of foreboding that rested within me.

That time I just stuck it out until I was able to leave the building for the night. The next time I couldn't take it, I just up and moved.

Joseph! That's it, his name is Joseph! Joseph was alright to talk to if you could keep the unfortunate expulsion of bile from decorating his face. Other than the pheromonal warning, there was nothing unsusual about him. He was a normal, even conventionally attractive man.

Then came the three week Christmas/New Year's break that the bank so generously offered its employees (a generosity and understanding of the value of personal time that doesn't seem to apply to North American branches).

After the break, Joseph didn't turn up for work. No one had heard from him. Suddenly, one of the managers with whom I was close came to me and mentioned that she had received a call from the CID - the Criminal Investigation Department. The CID is responsible for investigating murder, drugs, fraud and the like. Your typical Law and Order fare. The CID were looking for Joseph.

I KNEW IT! I SMELLED HIM OUT!

In the past, I had "smelled" this kind of thing, but until you have enough experience with something you don't realize why a certain person or a certain something upsets you a priori. I have learned and I am still learning to trust myself in these kinds of situations - to trust that primal instinct that tells you when something is right and wrong in the intangible sense.

Well, it's happened again. This morning, in the class that I am auditing, a classmate who I have never seen before sat beside me. And he smelled like he wasn't very good for me or for others. I immediately turned my head and began breathing into my hand, using it as a filter. I tried to press my nose into my cup of coffee. I tried to ignore him. Nothing worked - that metallic, sour taste infected my tongue and I have no reason to ignore its telltale sign.

I won't allow him to sit near me again, but I will remain aware.

Scared? You shouldn't be...

Kisses,
Laurelle

Le Cirque du Québec

Woah! I mean, I knew that there were a couple of circuses in Quebec and maybe a couple of circus schools here and there, but who knew that Montreal and Quebec were such bastions of circusness?

Last Saturday night I went out with a couple of friends or six to dinner (report to be mutually masticated soon) and then we met up at Copacabana on St-Laurent with about 15 more McGill-related peeps. Let me clear up right now that the Copacabana that we went to is just a normal bar with tables, chairs and the pitchers of beer that I never go in on since I don't really drink and not the sleazeball, salsa-dancing pickup joint on de Maisonneuve.

Right. Now I've got a classmate named Bethany who is really adorable and really interesting. She used to work on the Current and she's always doing something interesting. That night she was meeting up with another group of friends later on, a group of circus performer friends. We proceeded to fantasize about how wonderful it would be to live in your own creative fantasy world all day. Painting, drawing, going to dance and movement class, working out to increase your strength so that you can perform daring stunts, practicing piano for 2 hours per day. Yup, sounds like the life I'm looking for - let me add that in my life my books sell millions and my paintings sell for thousands and I am also a great and well-travelled philanthropist.

Anyhoo, this conversation prompted me to look into the state of circusness in Quebec. Lo and behold, we're overloaded with circus schools and circuses in general.

From, ecole-de-cirque.com, here is a sampling of the circus schools:

Association de monocycle de Québec
Centre de formation Barry
École de Cirque de Québec
École de cirque de Verdun
École nationale de Cirque
Géronimo
Trapezium

And here is a sampling of the circuses based in Montreal/Quebec:

Cirque Du Soleil
Cirque Éloize
La Tohu

And finally, Saturdays at 10pm on TV5 there is a show called Saltimbanques, which features many Quebec-trained circus artists.

The question is, what does all of this circusness say about our fair city or la belle province? Are we so artistically-inclined/silly that we merit this much circus activity? Are we crazy and so our normal art ends up being circus appropriate? Are we really melancholy so that we mask it with circus antics? Maybe you, fair reader, have a appropriate suggestion so that I might decide whether we need praising or saving.

Save the Rich People First?

Is this for real? Who the hell is Neal Boortz? This guy is a total idiot! The link to the diatribe below is in the title above:

BOORTZ: OK, I've got an insensitive thought, folks. There's a news story out there -- there's a news story out there that rich people got some sort of an email notification of the terrorist threat against the New York subway before poor people did. OK? They're making a big deal out of it. Let me see if I can find it on the Drudge Report here. Let's see. There's a guy strangling a goose. That's a pretty good -- that's a pretty impressive picture. It's something about bird flu. So he's got this goose and he's just wringing its neck. You can -- oh, who tipped off the big shots? OK, now here's the story. And it says, "The Homeland Security Department launched internal probes yesterday into whether its officials tipped off friends and relatives to a possible subway terror plot days before average New Yorkers were alerted." So the real gripe here is that it seems that some wealthy people got notified of the terror plot before the great unwashed, before the others. Now, the Daily News in New York has a headline: "Rich got terror tip." Rich got terror tip. OK, let's get logical about this, folks. Let's play logic with this. This is as it should be. OK? If we are faced with disaster in this country -- let me ask you this, OK? You just be logical. Get all of the emotion out of this. Get all of the emotion out of this. But if we are faced with a disaster in this country, which group do we want to save? The rich or the poor? Now, if you have time, save as many people as you can. But if you have to set some priorities, where do you go? The rich or the poor? OK? Who is a drag on society? The rich or the poor? Who provide the jobs out there? The rich or the poor? Who fuels -- you know, which group fuels our economy? Drives industry? The rich or the poor? Now if you -- all of a sudden, somebody walks up to you and says, "Hey, Boortz listener. You're gonna have a -- you have to make a choice. You're going to -- we're gonna move you to another country. And you're just gonna have to make your way in this other country. We have a choice of two countries for you. In this country, people achieve a lot and they are wealthy because of their hard work. In this country, people don't achieve squat. They sit around all the time waiting for somebody else to take care of them. They have children they can't afford. They're uneducated. They can barely read. And the high point of their day is Entertainment Tonight on TV. Which country do you want to live in? The country of the high achievers, or the country of sheep, the country of followers?" You know what you're gonna do. I don't see what the big problem is. I just don't. I mean, if you -- who do I want to save first? The rich. Save the poor first. Then, when everything's over, where are you gonna go for a job? OK, hey, if I get a tin cup, can I sit next to you and sell pencils too?

What kind of thing is this to say? I don't even think that I can comment at length about this ridiculousness. First of all, this guy talks about not wanting to live in a country of sheep, but believing in this stupid capitalist dream - one aspect of it being that the farcical idea that the rich people and the worthy people are one and the same. This stuff about "saving the rich" is the best way for this idiot to demonstrate that he should under no circumstances be told about any impending terrorist attack. Die, follower, die.

Cultural Oppression

Every morning I have a pretty lengthy conversation with my mum about everything under the sun. Lately, our conversations have centered around making your own choices and throwing off the various yokes of oppression to which we have been subjected. I always tend to think about this kind of thing, but I have been considering this issue at length lately because I last week's conferences centered around globalisation.

In brief, globalisation has occurred due in large part to ease of travel/transportation, global media and advances in technology. A more and more global media and immigration has created common cultural tastes artistically, socially and politically. As nations we face cross-border environmental problems that require collective solutions and capital mobility - moving money across borders - has increased. All this means is that things like talking on the internet, cheaper travel and ease of shipping goods across borders has made us feel closer to people outside our national borders. Sometimes, and increasingly so, we feel closer to people living outside our national borders.

So, this morning my mum and I talked about the arbitrariness of cultural ties. In our view, and that of several academics I suppose, cultural beliefs and traditions are complete constructs. They don't exist in reality - meaning we have invented them so they are no real basis for association. Living in an immigrant country, like Canada, you see young people struggle between honouring their old cultural ties and allowing themselves to develop and express their new cultural identities. Sometimes, it can be overwhelmingly difficult to satisfy the expectations of your cultural group AND your own conception of what it takes for you to be happy.

Dating, relationships and marriage tend to really bring this out. In Montreal, I think we tend to see this especially with our Italian and Greek communities, who can be very insular. A lot of my friends, who are from or culturally tied to countries like France, Ireland, and Portugal, end up in passionnate and intense relationships with Italians or Greeks. These guys eventually feel pressure from their parents and the cultural community at large to break off the relationships and find a nice Italian, Catholic girl, or a nice Orthodox, Greek girl. From what I have seen, this creates a tumultuous and painful existence for these guys. You can see the stress on their faces as they struggle between casting off old, restrictive cultural expectations to pursue their own senses of who they are and taking the externally peaceful road and trying to find a culturally acceptable mate just to maintain good familial relations. When they take the second, externally peaceful road they end up wrought with inner turmoil. It's very sad to see - the forlorn looks on their faces as they wistfully observe the lives they feel they were meant to live from afar, the adjustments in their physical demeanors where they carry themselves more wearily, like battered and humiliated soldiers who once believed so strongly in the dream that they had been sold only to realize that they were bound by chains from the very start.

Meanwhile, the women feel stilted, arrested as they try rationally to explain away the irrationality of the decision. It's hard for some people who instinctively don't feel cultural pressure (those who are able to brush it aside and go forth forging their own paths) to understand when someone to whom they felt so connected succumb to constructed and artificial cultural rules. The question that always arises from this experience is - what are they afraid of, what is so threatening that they allow themselves to be controlled and fall into line in this way? What is holding them back?

The answer upon which we always seem to settle is fear, self-imposed fear, the imagination of what could happen if you turn off onto an untrodden path. Let me switch gears and express this another way. That I went to Yale is often a source of fascination for other people. There is nothing you learn at Yale that you don't learn at any other university. When I say this people can't believe me. They act as if I was given some secret mystical knowledge during my stint there. Believe me, there are no secret mathematical formulas that they give out in your acceptance package. They say - well, you got it, it's hard to get it, how did you get in? I applied, they accepted me. No special effort was made other than to ask Yale for the application, fill it out, get reference letters, pay the application fee, and send it back. That's it. What I then tell them is, 95% of the people who don't get into Yale weren't rejected, they just never applied. If you don't apply, you can't get in. What stops perfectly smart people from applying? Fear - the fear that they will be rejected from such a "hallowed" institution. It's the same thing with relationships - people fail at them largely because they are afraid to go after what they really want. They settle for what looks good on the surface so that other people won't think that they have failed? But, when does failure hurt the most - when other people think you've failed but you personally feel that you've succeeded? Or, when other people think you're a success but inside you know you're a fraud because you've failed yourself based upon your own expectations, dreams and ideals?

I think I'll leave you with that for now. Kisses.

More Natural Products

Okay, one more. I recently bought the Ojon Restorative Hair Treatment. Far be it from me to pimp out other people's products, but this is another all natural product and apparently the products are being shared with the indigenous peoples who harvest this hair oil.

I have never had crappy hair, but now my hair is super soft and super shiny. I realize that this sounds like a ridiculous advertisement, but I'm just trying to spread the knowledge. I have tried countless cheap and expensive hair treatments, shampoos and conditioners. My search is over, this is it.

I actually cut my hair frequently because I can't stand the sight of a split end. Thus, my hair is usually a strict shoulder length, sometimes a little shorter. Recently, I let it grow a little longer - it's just past my shoulders. Now, I will let it grow - much to the joy of fellow long hair-ite Sabrina Sextina.

Be prepared to pay a fair price for these products. Again, apparently there is some decent profit sharing happening here.

Washing Machine Nuts

Ok, apparently people in Europe have started using washing machine nuts, imported from India, instead of traditionally toxic laundry detergent. I must call upon my friends in Europe to check this out for me.

Apparently, all it takes is 4-5 of these nuts in a bag in your washer and your laundry comes out just as clean as using regular laundry detergent. These nuts can be reused several times. Thye are completely biodegradable, don't cause allergies and don't create pollutants so, you can use your laundry water to water the garden, for example.

I've only found sites in French, here and here, which is fine for me and most everyone else that I know, but a select few of you will have to rely upon your superior search skills to suss this one out further. If I find anything, I'll post it. Here is a wiki about it.

So far, they don't seem to be available in Canada, but fortunately La Française's mother sent her a few and she has kindly agreed to report back to us about the effectiveness of this natural product.

People and their Big, Stupid Mouths

You know, sometimes I don't think that people really pay attention to what they're saying to others. Sometimes, they can say something to you that is really, really stupid. They'll question you about your life, when really you're just making do with what you've been given. Obviously, if you had different circumstances available to you you'd make different choices, but given the situation at hand, you do the best that you can. So, when people start to push at you and question you about things that you really can't change, even though you'd like to change them, it can really affect you and stay with you for days. Sometimes, I think that people don't understand that I son't have a magic stick. I can't correct everything with a wave of my wand, for them or for myself.

A night of TV without Cable

I don't know what's wrong with me today, but despite the fact that I got a lot done this morning, I feel somewhat under the weather. I had a big old nap this afternoon and when I woke up, I only had the strength to grade four exams and then flop down in front of the TV - except that I have no cable. This means that I have to scrounge around for something to watch.

I think that cable TV is pretty useless. It is a huge time waster and isn't worth the cost. I could go out to another dinner with friends with the money for even the most basic package. However, when you're actually looking to waste time for once, it becomes somewhat of a liability (yes, even with my beloved Internet mere moments away). I had no good books in the house and I couldn't concentrate on anything academid, so, TVland it was! On my TV I get about 3 Canadian channels in English, 4 Canadian channels in French and 3 American channels (ABC, FOX, PBS) that are really fuzzy but workable in desperate times. Right now, PBS is on but I actually watched one of the English Canadian channels - Global. What did I watch? The Apprentice: Martha Stewart.

Yeah, yeah. Never mind the actual content of the show. I won't watch it again unless I get sick every Wednesday but watching it triggered a little pet peeve of mine. On these Apprentice shows, there are two teams of about 8 people. Each week someone gets chosen project manager and is designated the leader on that week's task. Each week, someone from the losing team gets fired. This week, the woman who led the losing team triggered one of my pet peeves: managers who can't do anything except manage. Let me preface my comments with the fact that I have only seen this one show and so I don't know if in previous weeks she was actually useful. Now, have you ever worked with someone who thinks that they are so creative, organized and efficient, except that they are not any of those things? This woman was it. She had her team brainstorm about ideas for 6 hours and then they could barely buy the things they needed for the task because the stores were closing! The next day, she doesn't think that time management was the reason that they lost the task. And the entire time she maintained this demeanor of "I am an executive and I shall present myself as such." Lady, you're not an actress so the presentation of an image just isn't enough. She wasn't fired, but she should have been.

Right, so really this is about people who present themselves to be something that they are not. They are only well versed in the art of deflecting the blame. They show up in the correct colour and cut of business suit. They speak in the correct manner. Their hair is correctly done. Really, though, they are huge liabilities. They can't offer anything of substance, not even some "go team" spirit. They worry excessively about themselves and the state of their careers.

A few years ago, my mum cared for a woman like this. She was a retired insurance executive who had focused her entire life on her career without developing any aimiable qualities. Apparently, she was a horror. She wanted her kleenexes folded just so and reused twice. She watched the fridge like a hawk - and not in the regular "I'm elderly and I lived through the Depression" way. Please note that I'm not making any comment upon her gender. This could have been a man as well. I'm just saying that she didn't cultivate any sense of community (which doesn't need to be a family in the conventional sense). These "managers" only know how to watch people like hawks and tell them off when they've done something wrong. They can't help anybody do something right. They can't help anybody feel better about themselves.

You see this a lot in older male executives as well - especially middle level type managers. Often, they have neglected cultivating close friendships and find themselves alone and cranky, feeling used and discared in their old age. They only order people around and they haven't learned to compromise with others, to give of themselves or to humble themselves and admit that they need company/help or what have you. I think that Hollywood has idealized this grumpy old man type, but I don't think that it is endearing.

Beware, young men and women. Beware. Don't abandon the chance to cultivate real friendships, and importantly real romantic relationships, just to appear sucessful to everybody else. It could bite you in the behind later on.

Just an Emotional Day

Well, I guess I've had an emotional day today. Tuesdays usually end quite emotionally for me since I've started watching Law and Order: SVU, but today's sense of emotion goes far beyond that. I ran the gamut today - glee, sadness, angry disgust, satisfaction.

The day started slowly. I usually win the race against my alarm to open my eyes for the day and today was no exception. Groggily, my eyelids fluttered as I tried to shake the life back into my body. I can take no more than five seconds of my alarm ringing. Once it goes off, I quickly turn it to the radio setting and listen to the morning show on CBC Radio One until the half-hourly jingle passes enough times to let me know that it's now or never and I get out of bed. It doesn't take me very long to shower, change and get ready. Usually, I manage to ingest a few crumbs of something starchy and swallow half a cup of ginger, rooibos or ginseng tea then leave a half hour before the class that I am auditing. Always, I contemplate not going. Always, I am relieved that I have gone in the end. The professor, Michael Hoover, is engaging and clear. He always manages to give us a good story or two - a hefty and marvelous feat for a class in advanced statistics.

After class I went over to the building where I give conference. Since I am usually early for conference, sometimes I stop by the bulletin board to check for interesting events and offers at McGill. Really, it's a time waster. Today I saw the ad to the left. I don't know if you can read the ad, but it is a plea for a pet adoption. Gigi is a 7 month old pitbull mix. She is slightly afraid of men because she lived in a violent home where a men kicked and beat her, his wife and his kids. Due to her breed she was marked for death at the SPCA but someone saved her. Now she is looking for a home. If you can take her and you are a loving person, call 514-523-5052. I don't know these people, I just saw the ad. I would take her, but I can't. I don't have the space and Dundee, the cat and friend with whom I live, would be furious. Looking at Gigi's face, I really feel for her. She doesn't deserve to die. She deserves love, as we all do.

Today, I led my Tuesday conference session for the second time this semester. I don't know if everyone feels this way, but I take my teaching responsibility very seriously. I hate academia. I don't know if anybody realizes just how much this environment bothers me. As a teaching assistant, I feel that my duty is to make sure everybody understands the material and can analyze or critique it to the level of an A student. In general, and definitely at McGill, the prevailing attitude dictates that most students should feel like failures, that we should allow them to fall by the wayside because that is where they deserve to be. Only an artificial of 10% deserve to give the rest of the world the impression that they are distinctly better than everybody else. This disgusts me and I try as much as I can to counteract it. I beg my students to give me clear, precise explanations and stringent analyses and more often than not my conference sessions are demonstrations of this request.

The subject was Cosmopolitanism and one of the articles used John Rawls theory of a just society to make the case for open borders in a global age. The article assumed that the reader already understood the theory. I started the session by explaining the theory and I am so happy that I did because the class started off on the same footing and we had the most incredible, well-reasoned, well-challenged discussion. I hope that tomorrow's sessions unfold in the same way, and that the sessions yet to come can be just as engaging. They understood the issues. They understood why liberal rationality is Western-centric and how to challenge that notion. They questioned the idea that individual freedom should prevail over the common good. Most of them being "westerners," they struggled with a newfound sense of responsibility even as they continued to covet their own personal freedoms. Still, I am sad that I have had to grade them so harshly on the first midterm. I am considering revising muy thresholds and raising all the grades. Right now, the median is hovering at about 69% (B-) though the average is a 70.2%. I think they deserve at least a strong B.

After leaving conference I walked west along Sherbrooke street and passed McGill's main gates where the most striking images crossed my eyes. The Pakistani Students Association was collecting donations for the earthquake relief effort and explaining the extent of the devastation over a megaphone. Alongside them was a mainstay figure at the McGill gates. For over a year a middle-aged man has been picketing the gates with a sign espousing anti-Semetic and anti-gay propaganda. Everybody ignores him though once in a while someone stops to ask him why. I haven't asked him why yet, though I want to do so. I just need to be in the right mood because I don't know what he will say. Based on his sign, I suspect he had a bad experience at the Jewish General Hospital. I gather he has gone through some great pain and looked for a convenient scapegoat. At least, I hope this is the case. The Pakistani students didn't seem bothered by him outwardly, though I'm sure they wondered the same thing. I hope he doesn't cause too much harm or ill will. I am sorry that he might.

I rushed home to meet my mother since she had agreed to drive down from the suburbs to collect a piece of cheesecake that I had make with my very own hands. It's one of my things, experimenting with cheesecake that is. This one featured a ground cherry coulis. It made me happy that my mother would go out of her way just to sample this latest concoction. Maybe that is an attestment to the quality of my cheesecakes. Or, maybe she just loves me and thinks it prudent to show her support. Maturity has taught me to acknowledge that while the former is probable and true, the latter is the primary reason that she comes. I give my cheesecakes away piece by piece. The painter who will repaint my bathroom this week got one too. I hope he liked it too.

After grading a few more exams, I went to meet my dear friend Floriane at the gym. On my way there as I walked along the main downtown strip, I noticed that someone was driving alongside slowly and trying to signal me from his car. I absolutely hate, and I mean hate, when this happens. I've often wished that something terrible would happen to these guys that seem to think they can snatch me up off of any random street corner since I have nothing better to do, nowhere to go and noone to meet. Wy should he whistle and hiss at me as if I am some sort of dog who will respond to any call? I realize that I consider these scenarios in the most negative light possible, but so would you after all these years of living this groundhog day of a scenario. A note to these men who call out to me, signal me, follow me or who have the audacity to reach out and touch me at all. I see you. I have always seen you. I see you the entire time that you are acting out this ridiculous charade. I do not want to speak with you and I resent you for interrupting a perfectly pleasant reverie. I see you but I pretend that I do not. I ALWAYS wear a walkman, sunglasses and oftentimes a hat. I do this to preserve a sense of anonymity but if you do notice me, know that I have noticed you too, in the negative sense. This probably upsets me so much because I have had great difficulty moving past these shallow expressions of appreciation to find something more true in love and romance. I feel simultaneously invisible and noticeably threatening. This causes people either to pursue me relentlessly like an animal or to make concerted attempts to break me down in some way - to reduce me general sense of self-importance. It won't happen. I feel fine either way but, having a wonderful group of friends who see me multifacetedly, I wish only for one more person to see past the ceramic toy sitting on the crystal shelf. There is a human being in there, please respond to me as such. And so I carried this sense of disgust for ten more minutes until I got to the gym. Dear Floriane showed up mere moments later and the negative feelings slipped away. She is self-confident, secure, smart and uncomplicated in the good sense. I never need be at the ready around her and that is calming. My friends do a lot to soften the rough edges of humanity and help me maintain a humanitarian outlook on life.

After a pleasant workout, we did some light grocery shopping and then I came home to grade some more and I ended the evening by watching SVU. It was sad. People on message boards have disparaged the last two episodes and I disagree with their disdain. Despite my internal ly emotional rollercoster of a day and despite the general turmoil of the episode, I end my day knowing that I am lucky, supported, happy and that I am on the right path to doing exactly what I want to do with my life.

I hope you're happy too.

Good night.

Kisses,
Laurelle

The Howling Winds

The winds have been circling my home. Their voices wail and I don't know if they have a message for me or if they have been sent to put me at ease. They have made themselves known for many weeks now and I have become accustomed to the sound. Tonight, they sounded fearful. I slept and they infiltrated my dreams. There was a spirit of some sort. Usually, it took the form of a small, but vicious animal. We challenged each other. I taunted it from behind a window of glass, which I held firmly closed at all times, perhaps an indication of my inherent fear of its power. It engaged in showy displays of its power, daring me to come outside and face it unrestrained. I stayed behind my transparent, but tangible barrier, yet continued to challenge it with my eyes, with my intention. Now, the howling of the winds have taken on a different meaning. I don't know if I should trust them, if I should let them in. What once seemed like a mutual exchange of sentiment now seems like a challenge and a potential threat. I long for the winds to calm their voices and leave me be. What could this mean?

Curious Attractiveness

A few years ago, back when I thought that American "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" would be as scary, nail-biting, difficult and exciting as the original British "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," Sabrina Sextina and I watched the celebrity version on the phone together one night.

Now, for those of you who have only seem the American version, let me tell you about the British version. It took FOREVER for someone to win 64,000 pounds and it was treated as an important event and reported in the papers. I saw a full season of it, and by the time I had left England no one had yet won the million. Chris Tarrant, the host, is the one who created (as far as I know) and perfected the catchy line "is that your final answer" except that he didn't spit it out at every opportunity like Regis Philbin does. He used it to freak out the contestants. This worked because the questions were really, really hard. Frighteningly hard. For example, a typical question looked like this:

Q: What is a stive?
a) a fishing implement
b) a cobbler's grinding tool
c) a sharp weapon
d) a collection of dust

Yeah, what? A stive? Huh? That was generally my response and I am excellent at these things. On the American version I saw an approximation of the following question:

Q: Who appeared on the Mickey Mouse club?
a) Amerie
b) Hilary Duff
c) Christina Aguilera
d) Jessica Simpson

Oooh! Was is Xtina or Jessica! Close call...but since I wasn't in a coma in the recent early millenium years, I know that our darling Xtina got her big break on the Mickey Mouse club. Scary question! I immediately called the hotline to become a contestant knowing full well that I would breeze right to the million with these questions. Normally, I would never appear on a game show, but this seemed like a no-lose situation. Naturally, my dreams were dashed. Canadians were not permitted to enter.

On the British version, people rarely got to 1000 pounds. On the American version, it seemed like a given.

Anyway, back to celebrity Millionaire. Appearing on the show that night were two generally unattractive guys: Drew Carey and Norm McDonald. Most contestants needed questions even easier than the Mickey Mouse one exemplified above, but, these two received different questions. Drew Carey won the fastest finger near the beginning of the show and went on before our old SNL favourite, Norm. At first, he got super easy questions, but he answered them so unhesitatingly that they slowly introduced more difficult questions until he finally lost in the hundreds of thousands. Now, Drew Carey comes across like an overweight, nerdy, smart-aleck interested in strippers. Once we realized that he was pretty smart, he started to seem unique and misunderstood. In short, sexier. Not SEXY. But, sexier. Norm McDonald was a different story. He became HOT.

Norm acted like an idiot throughout the show, totally screwing up the fastest finger question every time. After everyone else had gone and he was the only one left, they gave him the following fastest finger question (since he insisted on doing it):

Q: Put the following letters in order:

a) O
b) R
c) N
d) M

Surprise, surprise. NORM got it right! At first, Regis treated him like an idiot. But, Norm answered each question without hesitatingly. He didn't even use any of the "aids" (phone a friend, 50-50, ask the audience). Suspiciously, the questions started to approximate the questions of British caliber. Still, Norm answered each one as if the response were obvious. His hotness slowly increased in Laurelle and Sabrina's eyes! As he got to the hundreds of thousands, Regis started to badger him into using the aids. He used them simply as a formality. He never needed them. People, he got to the million. The question was something ridiculous like at which club did some president or other politician prefer to golf. Crazily, Norm gave an immediate answer at which point Regis bullied him for at least five minutes before he finally gave up and decided to take the money rather than gamble for the million. Really, Norm answered yes to a diatribe unimaginatively filled with "Is that yer final ansah?"millions of times. Finally, the one time that Norm says, no, maybe it's not my final answer, the lights come up and they reveal that, awwww, he was right, but nice playing with you. Cheaters. And that money was for charity.

So, to sum up. ABC = cheaters. Norm/Drew = sexier than before. Smartness = hot.

Why did this little anecdote pop into my mind? Well, I was up late grading and the Drew Carey Show came on TV. Of course, the TV was on mute so I didn't have to listen to the arbitrary use of laugh track. I just let my mind wander away and here it landed.

Hi Alex! Fancy Meeting You Here!

I can't use my usual spookyvision anonymous technique on this one. You need to see how much I love this fantastic new addition to our world. I ran into my adorable and sweet nephew Alex Petrovic today! He's only three weeks old, awwwww. Mamica Mel and baka Dusanka were taking him on a walk. He cried but I calmed him down by rubbing his tummy. We love each other!!

I love him! He smells so good. His nose is so cute! ADORABLE!!

He belongs to them: Crazy Serb parents

I'll definitely be ready for one of these in five years! Wait, seven years. Sigh, it depends.

Update: Take That Big Tobacco! The Class Action Lawsuits Begin

Yay Quebec for being opportunistic enough to jump right in there with a lawsuit!

CBC News: More bad news for the Canadian tobacco industry

In an interview Friday, McCarty said Imperial's liability insurance would only cover an "insignificant" portion of any legal judgements.

He said when the U.S. industry settlement was reached seven years ago, "cigarettes were a buck a pack. So what they did is increase the price of their product to pay for the settlement over 25 years. We don't have that option. Our cigarettes are already nine bucks a pop."

What I love is that companies like this make contradictory arguments. One one hand, they love talking about the market, i.e., there's a market for cigarettes or we wouldn't be able to sell them. On the other hand, they freak out when influences on the market threaten to raise the price of their goods. I'm sorry, but government regulation on cigarettes essentially is the cost of compensating Canada for elevated Medicare costs resulting from the product, so that isn't an artificial increase on the price. In the US, they don't have universal healthcare so people absorbed their own costs of smoking. That's one reason why cigarettes were cheaper in the United States. So, Imperial Tobacco, your price is $9. If you pass the costs of a lawsuit on to consumers, the price will rise and demand will fall. Suck it up. Understand that demand is dropping for your product. You have no right to sell the same amount of cigarettes at a low price over time. That's the way of the market.

McCarty wants to rally support from the other so-called "sin" industries, saying British Columbia has carved "a dangerous path" by assuming it can take on an industry "by passing a special law allowing it to sue them. Today it's tobacco, tomorrow it could be anybody. It could be the fast food industry, alcohol, junk food, gambling."

No, Imperial Tobacco, no it could not be anybody. It could only be somebody who sells a dangerous product and/or mislead the public about the risks of using said product. So, I doubt Canada will sue Le Chateau for having shabby, overpriced clothes since the risks of buying from them are exasperatingly clear. Nor will anybody sue Aldo shoes for their shoddy products since, although it wasn't clear at first, it takes only one or two shoe purchases to realize that their shoes totally fall apart after a couple weeks of normal use. Also, buying crappy clothes/shoes doesn't leave long lasting negative effects on one's health. Nor does it permanently impair one's fashion sense, thank God for that.

Black Tanya Gets to Know Me

I have a friend named Black Tanya. She doesn't know that I call her Black Tanya, but I know three Tanyas and so I give each one of them a nickname when talking to other friends to keep them straight. In fact, Black Tanya isn't the only black Tanya that I know, but I couldn't possibly call the other Tanya, Black Tanya (the other Tanya is very religious). The nickname, Black Tanya (how many times can I write that?) is a tribute to Black Emmanuelle, the series of erotic movies developed in the late 70s and early 80s starring Laura Gemser. We here in Quebec would see these and other erotic films late at night during Bleu Nuit, which would come on late on Saturday nights on TQS. Everybody, but everybody, watched Bleu Nuit. Sabrina Sextina and I have spent much time reminiscing about the best of the Black Emmanuelle films: Emmanuelle et les filles de Madame Claude. Actually, Sabrina Sextina looks a lot more like Laura Gemser than does Black Tanya, but Sabrina Sextina already has a nickname.

So, Black Tanya, you always send me these emails and now I am answering it for all the world to see! Here, my dear friend, and only because I love you so, is the latest installment of "Getting to know your friends."

1. IF YOU COULD BUILD A SECOND HOUSE ANYWHERE, WHERE WOULD IT BE?
I'd have to buy a first house, but it wouldn't be in North America. And if it was, it would be in the country, rather than in the city.

2. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING?
Underwear. Pretty, pretty underwear. Not bras, panties.

3. THE LAST CD YOU BOUGHT?
Kanye West (both of his CDs) in order to provoke a spike in sales after he said that George Bush doesn't care about black people. In fact, I don't think George Bush cares about anyone outside of his personal circle, so screw you Women, Blacks, Jews, Steel Workers, Southerners, North-Easterners, Blue States, Red States and everyone except Condoleeza Rice. Oh, wait. She's black. And I think he is screwing her too. Update: DM points out that NNDB has the Condi calls Dubya "husband" on their page.

4. WHAT TIME DO YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
I usually get up between 7am and 9am no matter what. This morning, I awoke at 7am.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE KITCHEN APPLIANCE?
My handheld blender thingy.

6. IF YOU COULD PLAY AN INSTRUMENT, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Well, Black Tanya, as you know I already play guitar and piano, but I wouldn't mind taking up the saxophone or the violin.

7. FAVORITE COLOR?
Usually red. Right now, aubergine.

8. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, SPORTS CAR OR SUV?
Sports car. And by that I mean an actual sports car. This one will do:






9. DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE AFTERLIFE?
Yes. Oh yes I do.

10. FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOK?
Ahh...what a toss up. Let me list a few:
Sing a Soft Black Song (apparently out of print except on my bookshelf)
The Adventures of Fathead, Roundhead and Squarehead (ditto above)
One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (I read it all by myself!)
Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret and other books by Judy Blume
This Can't be Happening at McDonald Hall and other books by Gordon Korman
The Bobbsey Twins (the entire series by Laura Lee Hope)

11. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SEASON?
The Fall, commonly known as "autumn." Let's be frank, I like the clothes for this season.

12. IF YOU HAVE A TATTOO, WHAT IS IT?
Oooh. I do have a tattoo. How many of y'all know that? Black Tanya, did you know that? It's written in Tibetan. Not telling you what it says!

13. IF YOU HAD A SUPERPOWER WHAT WOULD IT BE?
I would take the power to freeze that Piper Halliwell has on Charmed. Unfortunately, Sabrina Sextina thinks that I would abuse that power. I so would not!

14. CAN YOU JUGGLE?
Something tells me no. Wait, I can juggle many tasks at once.

15. THE ONE PERSON/PEOPLE FROM YOUR PAST YOU WISH YOU COULD GO BACK AND TALK TO?
My Auntie Jane. She died dude. I acted really crazy at the funeral - they removed me from the church. Is that bad? Actually, I still talk to her.

16. WHAT IS IN THE BOOT OF YOUR CAR?
What car?

17. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE DAY?
I guess I'd have to pick my birthday, since I'm forced to pick something. Did you mean day of the week? I guess I'll pick Thursday.

18. WHICH DO YOU PREFER, SUSHI OR HAMBURGERS?
I think I prefer sushi. It depends on my mood.

19. OF THE PEOPLE YOU WILL EMAIL THIS TO, WHO'S THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
No one, unless they reply in the comments section of this post.

20. WHO'S THE LEAST LIKELY TO REPLY?
Everyone, since I have requested no replies.

21. WHO DID YOU RECEIVE THIS FROM?
Geez. I got it from you, Black Tanya!

22. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FLOWER?
I got some cool orange flowers the other day. They were nice. Oh, and a couple weeks before that I got some other white flowers that were quite nice. I don't know the names of flowers. My mum does though.

23. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MEAL?
See http://mutualmastication.blogspot.com/.

24. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY?
December 13th. It's my favourite day, right?

25. WHAT CELEBRITY DO YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON?
None. Well. I'll say the following (but they have to be in character):
Benjamin Bratt as Detective Rey Curtis on Law and Order
Julian McMahon as Cole Turner on Charmed

Wait...I'm an idiot. I'm changing my answer to Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Broken Sword.

So, Black Tanya, when we meet next week you'd better be prepared, 'cause I'm quizzing you. Love ya babe.

Kisses,
Laurelle

Depeche Mode Fights Breast Cancer!

Ha! Gotcha! I'm not talking about the band Depeche Mode, but my friend Depeche Mode (DM) who had a part in organizing CIBC's Run for the Cure, which took place yesterday in downtown Montreal.

DM's booth was called Harmonie and was dedicated to educating men, women and younguns about breast health. Two nurses manned the booth while DM oversaw its operation. On display were prosthetic breasts, which the nurses used to teach people about performing monthly breast self-examinations. DM ordered four kinds of prosthetic breasts: male, female, adolescent and geriatric. Yes, geriatric. Note the elongated prosthetic breast in the picture at right. The droopy one. That one is the geriatric one. This is the one that I used to practice examining a breast. The nurse seemed horrified and kept reminding me that I was practicing on an elderly breast. Listen, droopy elderly boobs are completely natural. We must accept that our breasts will become this way as a part of the aging process. No! No! I don't want those breasts! Okay, this isn't about my desire for eternally perky breasts, this is about running for the cure.

Thousands of people turned out for the run. I always get verklempt when I see people getting together to support others in difficult times. It really warms the heart. Being the proud new owner of a digital camera, I decided to snap a few photos. You know how the drill goes: you snap a photo, you look at the display to see what you've got and then you look up again. So, I snapped a few photos. Snap, look, up. Snap, look, up - whoa! Who's that? Who do I see but our very own Gilles Duceppe, leader of the Bloc Québécois, a large federal political party. Awww. How nice for Gilles Duceppe to participate in the run. I mean, I'm sure it wasn't just a photo op. Well, he was walking and not running but a lot of people do that. Except...he was dressed in a business suit. Not a casual business suit, but the kind of suit that one wears when one reveals one's new economic plan to the national business council. Did I mention that it was 24 degrees Celsius in Montreal yesterday? Inadvertently, I managed to snap a picture of this fine occasion.

Yup, that's a black business suit all right. Way to look stodgy and disingenuous, Gilles. There were other politicians participating in the run, he wasn't the only one. Mayoral incumbent Gérald Tremblay participated as well decked out in GoMontreal propaganda. I saaw him. At least he was wearing sweats. Did I mention that Mayor Tremblay saved a citizen from a robber. I think I did. It's in the archives. If not, I'm sure I'll mention it in the future. The other mayoral candidate, Pierre Bourque, hit on me and my friend in front of Mont-Royal metro one day. This was during the last campaign. He was campaigning at that very moment, but very graciously took the time to sleaze it up a bit. How professional.

Anyway, at least one million dollars was raised for breast cancer and as far as I could see, a good time was had by all! Thanks DM for a great time!