short uncle sam visit

I drove down to Buffalo last night to pick up my daughter and her boyfrined. They had flown into New York from Iceland and then on to Buffalo via JetBlue. I bought her JetBlue tickets after I found out that a direct N.Y.C. - Toronto flight cost three times (yes, that's correct: THREE TIMES) as much as a N.Y.C. - Buffalo flight. If the difference were a hundred bucks, I wouldn't have bothered with the drive down. But for this kind of a "price differential" (as car salesmen like to say when they "service" their customer) - I would have been a fool not to drive.

The immigration check going in is pretty rigorous: not impolite but certainly thorough and aggressive. Everything after the immigration check is a breeze and a pleasure. Customer service is invariably excellent, smiles abound and "no problem, hon" is the most frequently heard catchphrase. As I was waiting for my daughter to emerge from the gate, I asked one of the passing passangers which flight she was coming from. She stopped, smiled and told me before waving and walking on. Not twenty seconds later, a lady approached me, again with a beaming smile, and said: "I could not help but overhear you asking about the JetBlue flight - my daughter is coming in from Kennedy on that flight and she just called me to say they're deplaning". I thanked her and two minutes later my daughter and her boyfriend were running towards me.

Whenever I go to the States, I always get the same feeling: people are more polite, customer service is incomparably better and most of all, most folks seem to just plain enjoy life! There is some of the same attitude in small towns across Canada (thought not as effusive) but definitely none in stuck-up, rushed, sour, holier-than-thou Toronto. I cannot count how many people in this city I've talked to who feel they are somehow "superior" to the Americans. I have never understood what that superiority was about. We may be building an opera house and have marginally less snow than Buffalo but what else? Paul Martin as Prime Minister? Dalton McGuinty as premier? Is that what we feel superior about? The sense of community is all but gone here. Our waterfront is horrible. Our transit is rapidly going to seed and road rage, sidewalk rage and mall rage are all the rage. If there are grounds for any kind of feelings of superiority - I can't see them. I, for one, love visiting the U.S., despite the post 9/11 border rigor.

roy in the sunshine

I can't believe it! I can't believe I've waited this long! I can't believe I've waited this long to get a CD player for my car!! I've resisted and mumbled excuses, fixing the car, buffing the car, spoiling this 15 year old brat like a 15 year old brat. 250K clicks and still runs fine. But until today it only had the original Honda stereo system with decent speakers and a cassette player. So, finally, this morning I took it the car audio people round the corner - Belrose Car Audio (when they get a webiste, I'll publish it here because they're great) - and for much less than I had recently paid for minor brake work, they put a spanking new Alpine system in my dashboard. The operation was painless and took all of 25 minutes. I passed my time pleasantly, reading the Toronto Sun's coverage of our new Minister of Social Development, Belinda Stronach, a.k.a. B.S.

I paid up, hopped into my car and slipped in a CD. It was one of my own CD's so I didn't get too, too excited. But then I ran home, grabbed a Roy Orbison compilation (well, I also grabbed jazz favourites Stan Getz, Chet Baker and Kenny Burrell in case you're wondering whether I'd parked my jazz snobbery at the door!) and ran back down to the car.



All I can say is this: if you haven't experienced a gorgoeus, sunny spring day, driving with the sunroof open and "Only The Lonely" blasting on your speakers - you haven't lived. I was able to hum along to OTL but when "Walk On" came on (get the hankies ready), I cried. I mean, come on:

Walk on, don't turn around
Walk on, to higher ground
Take the love we shared together
Keep it in your heart forever
Don't forget me
Oh baby walk on....

(and now THE KICKER!)

If you ever loved me, baby, WALK ON

The last words sung in Roy's signature operatic high tenor, punctuated by the equally characteristic
ba-ba-ba-bum of tympani and strings. The amazing thing about Roy Orbison's ballads is that they have pathos but are never pathetic. No matter how seemingly overblown the arrangement, Roy's keening voice and heart-torn pleas always ring true. If you listen at full volume, with sunroof open, digging every single db out of your new system....I gotta tell you, it's pretty blissful.

Even made me forget about our political bombshell from yesterday. Belinda Stronach and the screwy machinations of the Liberal Party are but insignificant ephemera. Sunny days in the spring and Roy Orbison on a new car CD player are what the good stuff is made of.

quote from cicero

And since I started quoting Marcus Tulius Cicero in my last entry, here's another Cicero speech fragment - very pertinent to the Belinda affair:

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared"

Mike Kohler used this quote on another blog and I couldn't help but use it here too. The ancients knew it well: There's nothing new under the sun!

quo usque tandem, belinda

How much longer must we endure the farce of our Liberal government? How much longer will these clowns abuse our patience and our money? How many more Belinda Stronach incidents can we take?
For those of you who don't live the Great White Waste of Time, a.k.a. cA-nA-dA, here is a short synopsis: the governing party is called the Liberals (probably because they steal taxpayer money very liberally) They have been implicated in numerous huge scandals, none bigger than the money laundering schemes and brazen thievery, now investigated by Judge Gomery (see one of my previous posts) Mainly because of this scandal, the government is now teetering on the brink of collapse. They need every vote they can muster in order to pass the upcoming vote of confidence. So what do they do? First of all, they delay the vote as long as possible to make sure that cancer stricken Conservative MP's are unable to attend (and anyone who wants to pretend this is not the case should go immediately back on their medication) Then they try to woo a few Conservative MP's from Atlantic Canada, essentially claiming that if their government falls, the Atlantic region will wither and die (read: it will receive a few billion less in federal money, collected mostly in Ontario and Alberta) If I were an Atlantic Canadian this would offend me enough not to vote Liberal ever again - this claim amounts to no less than a declaration of dependence, as if the Atlantic provinces were unable to function without Uncle Ottawa's constant propping up! Now, the cherry on top: the Libranos have managed to entice a Conservative MP, Belinda Stronach [but try THIS Belinda for a WAY better website], to cross the floor in exchange for a cabinet position. Belinda, in her usual profoundly principled manner, immediately accepted the generous offer. That the Libranos have no principles does not surprise me. But I am surprised at the brazen chutzpa exhibited by an MP who only a few short months ago campaigned FOR THE LEADERSHIP of the Conservative Party, no less and then squeaked in during the last election by a very slim margin. What the heck is she thinking? If I were a voter in Newmarket (Belinda's riding), I know what I'd be thinking: baby, you'd better look for a safe riding next time around because in these parts, you're toast!

And so the saga continues. It now seems unlikely that the Conservatives will have enough votes on Thursday to bring down the government. I am not unduly worried, though, because the nauseating stench emanating from the Gomery inquiry will eventually turn enough stomachs to force an election fairly soon.

I am worried, though, about Stephen Haraper and his ability to survive Belinda's stab in the back. He is basically a decent guy, I think, but someone who is stodgy and wooden and not able to arouse any kind of passion in voters. I don't mind, my passions are aroused enough by the nefarious machinations of the Liberals and I would vote Conservative if Mickey Mouse was their party leader. At this point in time, I'd vote Green before I'd vote Liberal. What is astounding to me is that is that our masses of Ontario champagne socialists don't get it: there is a perfectly untainted party on their side of the street (the NDP) which they could vote for, or the above mentioned Greens. But NOOOOOOO.....Ontarians will continue voting Liberal till hell freezes over (judging by temperatures today, this could happen soon, though!)

Quo usque tandem, Belinda et Liberalae, abutere patientia nostra??