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Category Archives: politics

Yann Martel vs Stephen Harper


Yann Martel has attempted to join Annie Proulx in the prestigious circle of successful novelists to publicly crawl up their own asses on the internet. So outraged that Stephen Harper’s government didn’t increase arts funding enough (they didn’t cut it or keep it the same, mind you, they just didn’t Sangariā increase it enough), and didn’t stop the gears of parliament to acknowledge his precious self, he launched a petty, idiotic crusade against Harper. Apparently, he plans to send letters and books to the Prime Minister until the man stops doing his actual job of running the damn country and sits down to work his way through the reading list Martel has assigned him. Good luck with that, Yann.

His essay from the Globe and Mail has got to rank as one of the most elitist, arrogant, clueless things I’ve ever read. Certainly, ever read from someone I formerly respected.

Do we count for nothing, you philistines, I felt like shouting down at the House. Don’t you know that Canadians love their books and songs and paintings? Do you really think we’re just parasites feeding off the honest, hard work of our fellow citizens? Truly I say to you, there are only two sets of tools with which the rich soil of life can be worked: the religious and the artistic. Everything else is illusion that crumbles before the onslaught of time. If you die having prayed to no god, any god, one expressed above an altar or one painted with a brush, then you risk wasting the soul you were given. Repent! Repent! But I have no talent for spontaneous prophecy. Besides, guards would have landed upon me like football players and I would have been hustled out, bound for Guantanamo Bay.

Thank-you, state-subsidised millionaire Canadian novelist, for saving us from becoming soulless automata. No, your sacrifices have not been in vain. Is it too soon to start calling you Yann “Book Jesus” Martel?

project censored


Censored-SnipYou know, I generally (but not always) fall to the left on most social and political issues, but frankly, sometimes that makes me pretty embarrassed about the company that would imply I keep. Case in point: Project Censored, which claims to compile the stories the mainstream media censors.

Let’s leave aside the fact that they don’t supply any actual evidence of censorship, and every single item they list is a beloved leftie cause — I’m sure these people have read their Chomsky, and thus have the magical insight that allows them to detect how “structural forces” are causing censorship before there’s any need to actually, you know, censor. And, of course, only left-wing issues ever need to be censored. Duh. But are all of these stories even underreported? The number one “censored” story is about the US battle over network neutrality. It took me roughly twelve seconds to find 22 mentions in the New York Times alone, and Google lists over 2 million occurrences of the phrase “network neutrality”. Clearly the censors (sorry, I mean “structures”) have not been doing a very good job.

At #18 we have “Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story”, about the massively overreported, widely debunked, BYU conspiracy theorist Steven E Jones. The real underreported story? “Every Other Physicist on Planet Thinks Steven E Jones is a Nut.” #24 tells us the explosive truth about Dick Cheney — he has connections to Halliburton and (get this) stands to profit from them. If only the mainstream (sorry, I mean “corporate”) media had ever made any mention of this whatsoever!

Okay, okay, now I’m just getting sarcastic. I think some of the other stories may really be underreported, though not because of censorship. But really, as an actual thinking person, why should I trust an organization with the same commitment to fairness and balance as Fox News? Just because I happen to sometimes agree with them?