'bout the only thing going halfway right in my life right now is the fact that The Famous beat Saint Johnstone 5-1. Otherwise, I feel like shit, as in I seriouslyand physicallyfeel like shit, and I just learned that one of the medical specialists treating me has decided to fuck off and retire, without passing on patients' records to a successor.
So, fuck it! What better time for a whingefest of a blog entry? My situation as described above is not entirely unrelated to one of the main topics of this entry, Québec's Provincial elections to be held a week from today. For those living in Ulster, this would be like elections for Stormont. For those living in Glasgow, this would be like elections for Holyrood. Fo' thems living in New York, this would be like elections to Albany, except that they are unicameral, and the leader of the winning party gets to be Governor, instead of having an entirely separate race for that position. In Québec, the Governor is called the Premier. In Ulster and Scotland, the Governor is called the First Minister.
Also, for those living in Ulster, Glasgow and New York (as well as Canada outside of Québec), Québec elections will hold an interest whose value can be best numerically described as the exact midpoint between +1 and -1. So, regard this, as with all other matters Québec, as a case study in primatology, only with critters a lot less cute than the ones you see on Nature. I mean, consider the following. Google "Debbie Lynch-White" (who despite the name is considered a "pure laine" ("100% Aryan") Québecoise, look at the photos that come up (with safe search ON to protect your ocular and mental health), than contrast these photos with the ones you find when you Google (with safe search off) "Sandra Julien," "Marie-Pierre Castel", "Brigitte Lahaie," "Laure Sainclair," "Clara Morgane," "Ingrid Rouif," "Angela Tiger," "Sandra Richefort," and "Melissa Lauren."
That, in a nutshell, is the difference between Québec and France, between "Je me souviens de mes origines françaises!" and "OSTY DE COWLIS DE TABARNAK!" on one hand and the French Foreign Legion and Garde Républicaine on the other.
So, what is the link, the jurisdictional nexus, between my current ill health and the ongoing, soon-to-be-over-so-we-can-all-whinge-about-something-else Québec elections? All parties, including the alt-right white nationalist parties of François Legault and Jean-François Lisée (the only difference between the two being that the former is anti-union while the latter is bought and paid for by the unions), the ruling Liberals, and the social justice jihadist Québec Solidaire (whose Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois turned the Province into a gigantic riot zone in 2012), are making all kinds of promises to reform health care. Some promise to pour more money into it. Some promise to make health care workers behave themselves. None of these promises are worth the Charmin the promissories used that morning.
Québec does not have health-care problems per se. Québec has a UNIONproblem. Pass right-to-work and at-will laws in Québec and the scum who comprise 80% of Québec health-care workers learn the concept of "SIR, YES SIR!/À VOS ORDRES!", and Québec's health-care problems vanish overnight. You will notice that I said that 80% of Québec's health-care workers are scum. This is not because 80% of Québec's health-care workers work in the public sector. Québec private health-care workers as a general category are, in my experience, as scummy as any of their public sector counterparts. No, the 20% of Québec health-care workers who are not scum are the specialist physicians. It is easy to tell a specialist physician from a family/general practitioner and other health care worker in Québec. Specialist physicians wear the uniform (lab coat, collared shirt, tie, Class A slacks, socks and shoes), have behind them on their office walls abstracts of papers they co-authored in English, speak English and are practically indistinguishable from Foreign Legionnaires in their professionalism. Québec non-specialist physicians and other health-care workers are unilingually Gaspesian (they think "OSTY DE COWLIS DE TABARNAK!" and "BOIN LA-LA!" somehow consitutes "French," and it would take a super-specialised neuropsychiatrist with access to a gamma ray emitter of the calibre of CERN to disabuse them of this delusion), run around in violation of the grooming standards and half-naked, and are case studies in what the DSM-IV refers to "inappropriate display of affect."
Two elections ago, white nationalist leader Legault made big noises against the unions. That was when he knew he did not have a hope in hell of winning. This time is different, which is why Legault is picking on Blacks, Muslims, and English-speakers (who compose, at best, that quarter of the population that would never vote for him anyway), instead of proposing right-to-work and at-will laws.
At this point, it looks like Legault is going to win. Some have said the fact that the media have constantly shown him to be ignorant of immigration matters (as in he showed his ignorance several days running when reporters asked him how long it takes to become a Canadian citizen and what is the sequence of steps involved therein) hurts Legault. These some are in the media, and their American counterparts said that someone who believed that Muslims in New Jersey cheered on 9/11 could never become President.
More important is Liberal leader Phillipe Couillard's fuck-up of last week when he said that a family of four could live off of $75 for vittles per week. This sounds a lot like "Let them eat cake." If Couillard's electorate were REALFrenchmen, yes his highlighting Legault's and Lisée's aping of Richard Spencer would win him the election. The problem is that 6 out of 8 people in Québec share Richard Spencer's ideology, even though they have never heard of Spencer himself, just like Legault (who is just exploiting Spencer's ideology because it is popular in Québec) apes Ayn Rand while never having heard of Rand herself, while doing so by channeling his nastiest Gordon Gekko, tarnishing Rand's good name. So, Couillard was going in trying to convince 6 million white nationalists that white nationalism is bad. Now, he just shat in the punchbowl by asking them to behave like real Frenchmen (as in the Foreign Legionnaires and other French troops in the Sahel and Guyanna who eat far less well than does the average Gaspesian while operating with helmet, body armour and 300 lbs of gear at 46 degrees when half-naked Gaspesians bitch and moan when it is a mere 30 degrees outside.)
Phillipe Couillard, you see, is not one of the "Je me souviens de mes origines françaises!" ("I remember my French origins!") crowd. He does not have to be since he is the real deal, as in he is French by biology. His mother was from France, which means, that, unlike the vast majority of his party, rivals and consituents, he is not the product of familial multitasking. This is evident in the fact that Couillard speaks Nice, Normal Person French with complete sentences while Legault is a manic, histrionic narcissist who can not speak a single sentence without either getting enraged (see the debates) or breaking into a cavalcade of "Boins" and "La-las" (the Gaspesian equivalent of "uh..." and "ummm..." gibberish.)
Couillard's fatal mistake was that he took the "Je me souviens de mes origines françaises" fraud at face value, that he genuinely believed that, deep down in the their hearts, Gaspesians actually want to be good Frenchmen instead of remaining the Tribeca street vendor knockoff Frenchmen that they actually are. That Gaspesians want to be Tribeca knockoffs instead of REALFrenchmen was demonstrated directly and indirectly last night in this dumbass talk show by this failed police reporter named Patrick Lagacé.
Lagacé directly demonstrated this fact by yelling at a guest, a young pure laine ingenue running for the first time who wants to change the world, that Québec does not want her because Québec is, in Lagacé's very own words, "consumerist." Say what you want about the Imperial Guard at Krasnyi, the Foreign Legion at Camerone, Verdun, Bir Hakeim and Dien Bien Phu, and today's Legionnaires and other French troops in BARKHANE, HARPIE and TITAN, but, unlike Lagacé and the rest of Gaspesie, they were not and are not consumerists.
Lagacé indirectly demonstrated this by his jack-offedness of recent years. You see, he was this police beat reporter. Then it came out that the police were listening in on him Lagacé was all outraged, which shows the dangers of being unilingual and of thinking that Québec is the centre of the universe. If Lagacé had been intelligent enough to read Dick Marcinko, he would have known that, in the 1990's, No Such Agency was already placing listening and other surveillance devices into each and every piece of commercial communications equipment being manufactured. If Lagacé actually knew what the fuck he was reporting on, he would have figured out that No Such Agency would have been only too glad to share their tricks with Québec law enforcement, since this would give them a means to furtively surveil goings-on north of the border.
After his immense and traumatic shock that the Montréal municipal police were using technology pioneered by No Such Agency to listen in on him, Lagacé quit the Big Boys scene and became this real life Finder of Lost Loves with Maria Orsini on state television. Now, he does a Rob Black imitation on this cheap-ass public access Sunday night talk show. Lagacé is the blond, clean shaven dildo making all the wild hand gestures at the left of the screen in the vid below.
Now, compare Lagacé's clownassery with the seriousness of a REALjournalist and a REALFrenchman, Jean-Marc Tanguy, a regular contributor to RAIDS.
M. Tanguy may be in violation of the grooming standards while Lagacé is not. This is insignificant. You see, M. Tanguy reports on the French Special Forces and on French law enforcement...not from the comforts of France but by going along with them to the bad bush, where growing a beard is a good idea since it reduces your chances of Brand-X making you for European. Lagacé only unwittingly adheres to the grooming standards, as in he is not old enough to buy his first razor.
What is significant is that M. Tanguy has been reporting on the French military and law enforcement agencies for decades now. Were these decades all smooth and easy sailing? I am sure they were not. However, unlike Lagacé, M. Tanguy stuck to his beat and did not run away like a little bitch to become a minstrel show comedian at the first sign of trouble.
THAT, in a nutshell, is the difference between France and Québec, between the real deal and the loud-mouthed poseurs.
I must also disclose, at this point, that M. Tanguy most likely never heard of Québec, much less of Patrick Lagacé. This is completely understandable, acceptable and normal. Many people in New York also never heard of Québec or Patrick Lagacé. I do not know if Lagacé ever heard of M. Tanguy. I doubt Lagacé ever heard of GIGN or RAID or the BRIs. If he had, perhaps he would have written openly about what an embarrassing shit show Phillipe Pichet and UPAC are compared to REALFrench police. Then again, perhaps not, since doing so would have underscored the picayune nature of what Lagacé was reporting on. M. Tanguy, you see, recently wrote a book on GIGN. He has written several articles in RAIDSabout the French National Gendarmerie and the French National Police. Near as I can tell, M. Tanguy has never written a single article, much less a book, on any Québec police force. This could be because M. Tanguy has never heard of Québec. It could equally be because Québec police, and Québec as a whole, are so gaw-damned embarrassing as wannabe Frenchmen that M. Tanguy shudders to even think he shares so much as a written language with this species.
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.