I am still feeling so-so. I saw an interesting Major League Baseball game the other day between the Houston Astros and the San Francisco Giants. Nice work by Houston, scoring all those statistical improbabilities, aka runs, in the fifth, I believe it was. One was hit by Jose Altuve. Justin Verlander is amazing as a pitcher. As a human being he is still a fucking perp, but as a pitcher, he is a superb technician. Kinda like a Terminator, good at what he does, with no human qualities.
I am also following the Golden Knights in the National Hockey League Stanley Cup Playoffs. I have been impressed with the Golden Knights from some time now, since TSN 690's Me Eric Macramalla interviewed owner William P. Foley, a West Point graduate who served in the United States Air Force before becoming a lawyer and a successful businessman. In that interview, Mr. Foley said something to the effect of demanding excellence and tolerating nothing less than success, and he recounted how he had former US Navy SEAL Ryan Zinke, currently Secretary of The Interior, come in and give his players a talk about teamwork. The Golden Knights have been doing rather well. No book has been written about exactly why they have been doing well, but it would not be unreasonable to think that at least one such book is in the making.
Having an interest in sports is dual-use technology for me. Not only are sports FARsuperior to "reality TV" (except, of course for the shows of former Famousplayer Gordon Ramsay), but listening to sport radio and reading books about sports also reinforces what I have learned over a lifetime about interpersonal relations, management and the role of chance/luck/caprice in life. If you read Sir Alex Ferguson, Bruce McLaren, Pat Riley, Vince Lombardi or Chris Nilan's books, or if you read books about Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors, the Tampa Bay Rays, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Leo "The Lip" Durocher and Billy Martin, you will find a lot of what professional résumé specialists call "transferable skills."
And, now, for something that does not work anything like the Las Vegas Golden Knights. This would be...you guessed it...Québec.
This week, the Parti Québecois (a Richard Spencer/Mark Collett/Mike Enoch-style white nationalist party that differs from the Coalition avenir Québec only in the sense that, like YouTubes mope white nationalist Jean-François "Gaspesie" Gariépy, think they personally should be in charge), shat out their immigration ban---err, I meant "immigration policy." Basically PQ Ayatollah Lisée, blonde and blue-eyed, famous for wanting immigrants from Bordeaux instead of immigrants from China who speak perfect French, wants to force immigrants to live in Gaspesie (Québec outside or Montréal.) This easily applies to Québec as a whole, but, for thems unfamiliar with Gaspesie, let me give you the short version. Find versions of Deliverance, The Klansman and Honey Boo-Boo dubbed in French, and you will have an almost exact idea of what Gaspesie/Québec is like. I qualify this with "almost" because most dubbing is done by REALFrenchmen, who are NOTHING AT ALL like Gaspesians. Comparing a Gaspesian to a REALFrenchman is exactly identical to comparing Larry the Cable Guy to the Duke of Devonshire. In other words, Lisée wants to put all immigrants on cattle cars and ship them into what is in the running for becoming 2018`s phrase of the year, "shithole country." Reminds me of Stalin and the GULag.
Not to be outdone, François Legault of the CAQ, in a desperate "Look! I'm REALLYnot a racist despite my immigration ban!" move, announced a new candidate for his party yesterday. A candidate who is an immigrant. Here is what she looks like.
Blonde, blue-grey eyes...sure, François, sure! [sarcasm]With an "ideal immigrant" candidate like that, who in their right mind would ever accuse you of being a Richard Spencer wannabe[/sarcasm]?
Now, to be fair, our boy François did indeed issue a boilerplate condemnation when some of his bully boys attacked the offices and employees of a media outlet this week. He almost sounds like he genuinely means it and he almost got away with it...except when one remembers that Goebbels did the EXACT same thing with Kristallnacht, encouraging "spontaneous," as opposed to Party-organised, demonstrations.
Then there is the big indaba about Canada/Québec's nominee being rejected by la Francophonie, which is supposed to be this G7 clone of the French-speaking world. Ordinarily, this would be of no interest to me. However, Gaspesian media have taken to saying that la Francophonie is "the premier French language institution on the planet." This is what the legendary, one and only, Fred Reed calls "deliberate cant." THE premier French-speaking institution on the planet, one so renowned that even places and people who have never even heard of Québec are intimately familiar with it, is the French Foreign Legion. Instead of whinging about losing the Francophonie, which is a Davos-like orgy of overpaid (by the taxpayers) talking heads basking in five star hotels, Québec and Canada should, if they want to maintain the charade that they have any connection whatsoever to "French," simply send all francophone ossifer candidates to do five years in the Legion before being considered eligible for a commission in the Canadian military. For one thing, this will knock the Gaspesie out of said candidates and replace it with REALFrench (as in goodbye "OSTY DE COWLIS DE TABARNAK" and hello "condition sine qua non" and "Compris. Terminé.") For another thing, forcing francophone Canadian ossifer candidates to serve five years as enlisted in the Legion would also be consistent with Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel T. M. Datchko's paper calling for ossifers to first serve as enlisted before becoming eligible for a commission.
This may sit well with Canadian politicians, but I doubt the CAQ and PQ would go for it. Here are two videos from France 24 on the Legion.
The French Foreign Legion, you see, really does not give a fuck about the colour of your ass, just so long as you have the right attitude and abilities, while François Legault and Jean-François Lisée care more about the colour of immigrants' asses to an obsessive extent, so much so that one is tempted tell them to watch a shit-tonne of Seymore Butts videos and get it out of their system.
And now, for something that actually works despite having the appearances of a FUBAR. You see, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley recently banned wine from British Columbia and cut off Alberta's oil supply to British Columbia because British Columbia refuses to allow her pipeline on their territory. British Columbia's Premier, John Horgan, belongs to the same party as Notley, the New Democratic Party. The NDP is generally against oil, so Notley appears to be violating party orthodoxy by pushing oil. Horgan seems to be violating party orthodoxy by daring to oppose a fellow party comrade.
So it seems. There is an alternative explanation. That explanation is that both Notley and Horgan are among those rare politicians, like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik of New York's 21st District (Plattsburgh and the Adirondacks), who put constituents before dogma and ideology. When constituents triumph over doctrine, dogma and ideology, that is generally a good thing for democracy. Notley listening to her constituents is not a good thing for the environment, but it shows that she is not wedded to ideology.
And, now, I want to end with a couple of plugs.
I first heard of this group on TSN 690. They are called Hockey Helps The Homeless, and they raise money for homeless people by hosting hockey tournaments featuring National Hockey League players and ordinary civilians.
McLaren alumni Sergio "Checo" Perez is collecting money for the victims of the recent earthquakes in Mexico through his foundation.
Puerto Rico has been devastated by Hurricane Maria. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has set up The Empire State Relief And Recovery Effort For Puerto Rico.
On the subject of Puerto Rico, Los Angeles Chef José Andrés has set up an organisation, called World Central Kitchen, to help feed the hungry, not only in Puerto Rico, but in other bad-off places in the world. Please donate or help if you can.
I also want to plug the Patreons of a couple of superb folks. First, there is Jordan Owen, superb musician and content creator. Then, there is Sunny Megatron, Sex Educator and Podcaster. And there is also director extraordinaire and podcaster Holly Randall. They are, all three, highly entertaining to watch. They have the charm and magnetic charisma of The Kylie Ireland Show podcast of a decade ago, starring the legendary, one and only Kylie Ireland and Eli Cross.