Red Tuesday At A Senator's Game

Tonight it was Red Tuesday. The Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals squared off in a game in front of thousands of our military and the stands were full of people wearing red to show support for the troops and their families.

Sitting in some pretty fine seats, I managed to get the ceremonial puck drop on video. General Rick Hillier had the honours and to his right (left of video) is Karen Boire and Lisa Miller, the two Petawawa women who started Red Fridays. I had no idea this was planned when I bought the tickets, but considering I took the original Red Friday video, I felt honoured to be at this game.

I apologize to the two women on Rick Hillier’s left (right on video) as I did not catch who they were. If anyone knows, please drop me a note.

The two on Rick’s left are Karen MacEwan and Debbie Potter, whose husbands are serving in Afghanistan the military. (I hope I spelled those names correctly. I could not for the life of me hear the sound on the video until it was uploaded, thus the “moment of silence” remark. But it’s working now so enjoy)

Click the video ONCE to view it on this page.

If the above video did not display for you, try clicking the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Q5KnurN9Y

Hounddog Won't Get My Money

When I heard that the movie Hounddog was going to have a scene which 12 year old actress Dakota Fanning acts like she is being raped by her father, I got sick to my stomach.

I know that incest and child abuse are topics on TV and in the movies all the time, but to portray the video of it is crossing a line I don’t think has been crossed before and I for one will not support the movie by watching it, renting it, or giving it the liberty of being played on my TV when it comes out on Pay TV.

The issue of incest/child abuse can be portrayed just fine without filming a rendition of it. I can only think of one reason this scene would be shot and needless to say Roman Polanski comes to mind.

Michael Coren says it best:

Then they’ll sit back and look smug and caring and enlightened when moral and religious types argue that it’s emotionally and sexually unhealthy to use child rape as a form of titillation for witless audiences.

Some have argued that it’s fine because Fanning’s mother was present during the ordeal and approved of her daughter’s work.

Oh, well, that’s OK then. After all, there has never been a neurotic mother of an actor child in Hollywood, living her life vicariously and enjoying the money and glamour of being mum to a star.

It really is extraordinary that the same sort of people who routinely attack traditional parenting and vehemently oppose even mild spanking are so supportive of a mother’s right to allow her 12-year-old child to behave in such a manner.

Frankly, any criticism will only encourage the chattering classes and inflate still further their sense of self-righteous paranoia.

A child here, a moral code there, a broken generation somewhere else. Doesn’t matter, as long as you’re the centre of attention at a fashionable party.

Virgin Movie PhotoWhat makes the last statement by Coren so valid to me is that Deborah Kampmeier, the director of Hounddog has credits in two movies to date and both are themed around some sexual act.

Her first film, Virgin, is about girl who finds herself pregnant without remembering having had sex so she concludes that she is carrying the child of god.

I guess Kampmeier has discovered that sex sells in our society. Either that or she had a really screwed up childhood that we are will hear about when she writes her memoirs in a decade or two.

Obesity Doesn't Care If You Can Play Mozart

From this article:

An online petition to the Government of Canada, signed by more than 35,000 people, says the credit is unfair and places a higher value on fitness than on music or visual and dramatic arts.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts urged the government to include a variety of arts activities, including music, theatre and visual arts, in the tax credit.

I don’t think these art critics get the intent of the tax credit, but this raises quite an interesting conundrum.

The arts tend to be championed by the left. Tax cuts tend to be championed by the right.

Hmmmmm…..

H/T to Clear Conservative Thought

CBC's Air Farce – A Truly Biased Farce Of A Network

On New Year’s Eve I recorded the CBC Air Farce special entitled 2006 The Year of the Farce and took a leisurely look at it the following day. Holy Biased Humour Batman!!

I watch Air Farce and have for years but I don’t think I have ever seen them this lopsided in their humour. I can understand a few extra ribs at the party in power but this New Year’s Eve 60 minute special was ridiculously slanted.

By my rough count the ratio of jokes poking fun at the four parties was as follows:

Conservatives were made fun of about 25 times
Liberals were made fun of about 4 times
Dippers were made fun of once or twice
BQ were not made fun of at all

Is this what politically incorrect humour has become? Of those 25 or so jibes, 20 of them were aimed at Stephen Harper with 3 (and possibly 4) attempting to tie him to George Bush, 2 aimed at his weight, 3 or 4 aimed at painting him as anti-gay, and even one pro-life comment which floored me because never have I heard Stephen Harper make any pro-life remark.

Again, I want to emphasize, I usually laugh along with Air Farce. But this blatant slanting against the current Tory government is simply not a fair indication of politics in Canada. In a year when the Dippers had a policy convention and the Liberals had a leadership convention, there had to be some prime targets for humour that simply did not appear in the show.

What gets my goat the most is that even in two attempts to start ribbing Dion and Layton, the humour gets twisted and both times Harper ends up taking the punchline on the chin.

I really think the CBC ought to readdress the inequality in their political humour.

To view a 10 minute assessment, click the video below once:

If you cannot see the above video, try clicking the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlBfNvndrx8

ADDENDUMGerry makes a great comment below. I, myself, have commented to the Air Farce crew how disappointed I was at their biased New Year’s Eve special and encourage you to do the same by clicking this link.

Ottawa Bloggers Gathering – Some New Faces In The Crowd

Tonight’s Ottawa Blogger gathering (my third) at Marshy’s in Nepean seemed like a good time for all. The conversation primarily stayed political and topics that came up ranged from Income Trusts to Quebec as a Nation to Mark Steyn’s book to Hugh Segal to David Dingwall to makework government programs getting cut to the Income Splitting session on parliament hill this coming January. Sara will do her darndest to make that one well known and I will do my best to attend since it directly affects my family.

Their are two pictures below of the 9 of us who attended this one.

On the left side we have Paul O., a frequent commenter on this blog and a few others. This was Paul’s first venture out. Paul has a blog but we are going to have to bribe him with a beer to get the URL. Next is Victoria, a very politically minded non blogger who hopes to have a blog up and running by Christmas. Listening to many of her views, I would say she would get a good ear from BloggingTories. The next one down the table is yours truly. A hefty 30 to 40 lbs more since I quit smoking. Time to cut out the ribs and wings and get a few salads under my belt. And bringing up the anchor position on the left side is OttawaBlogger mainstay Victor, the Phantom Observer. Victor has been to every one of these that I have been to and is well known to the Blogging Tories and the Red Ensign Brigade. As usual, he had his patented fedora.

On the right from the front of the table moving backwards we have Nikki, a politically minded friend of Sara who is right beside her. I noticed that like many of the female blog crowd, she had some good strong views on topics and it was nice to have her speak her mind. As we all enjoy, some disagreement in the discussions always makes it interesting and fun to debate. next we have Sara. You might know Sara from A Choice For Childcare. Sara is making a lot of headway pleading the case for single income families and stay at home moms and doing a great job of it. Next is Shameer of ShamTheToryMan. Shameer has quite astute at both Canadian Politics and American Politics and I learn something new from him everytime we sit down. He has also been to every one of these meetings that I have attended. Beside him is Matt from A Step To The Right. Matt is always smiling and we discovered that like many other right leaning bloggers, we are both reading Mark Steyn’s book right now. Beside Matt is his girlfriend Jenn who seemed to enjoy herself. I think her and Matt are a bit down as they just lost one of their two cats. (Maybe they can adopt a new one from the Harpers!!)

Ottawa Bloggers November 25, 2006

Ottawa Bloggers2 November 25, 2006

We were all disappointed our friend Brent Colbert didn’t make it out, but apparently Brent was the recipient of a surprise birthday party this evening. I think if the planners had told him he couldn’t make the blogger gathering that it would have ruined the surprise so we forgive him… THIS time!! Happy Birthday Brent!!

It was great getting five new faces out to this gathering. Hopefully YOU will come attend the next one.

Bundy/Simpson/Griffin Syndrome – The Doltery Of America's Dads

Macleans magazine had an article about this subject back in early October, but I just recently found the link.

It elabourates on how the father figure has either been removed from many shows (due to financial aspects) or downgraded to a very small or even rarely recurring part of a tv show and how in shows where the father is present, he is often portrayed as a fool that gets no respect from his family or his peers.

Remember the TV dads controversy? A recent theme in journalism has been the bad image of fathers on television. Pundits like John Tierney of the New York Times and Ray Richmond of The Hollywood Reporter wrote articles complaining that fathers are, in Richmond’s words, “the last subculture in America whom it is permissible to bash and malign with impunity.” What did networks do in response to the complaints? Cut out fathers entirely.

I think the two shows that started this lack of respect were Married With Children and The Simpsons. But the torch is carried on.

Meanwhile, many of the returning shows are the ones that helped create the image of the “doofus dad”: shows featuring a fat oaf with no good advice to give his kids, and a beautiful wife who really ought to take the kids and leave. The networks have brought back Jim Belushi on According to Jim, Mark on Still Standing, and animated insensitive guys like Peter Griffin on Family Guy and Homer on The Simpsons. On other shows, like Gilmore Girls, there’s no father at all, and the kids don’t seem any worse off for the lack of one.

Is it too much to ask to see more fathers like Ward Cleaver and Mr. Brady?

Goofball dads abound in commercials as well. (The one that immediately comes to mind is the Oatmeal Raisin Crisp guy). I, myself, now call this cereal Goatmeal Raisin Crisp thanks to him.

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes…

Eva LongoriaEva Longoria recently made the following statement:

“Everyone on Wisteria Lane has the money of a Republican, but the sex life of a Democrat.”

However, as many on the right side of the political spectrum know, the Desperate Housewives actress has it all backwards. David Frum’s piece in last Sunday’s edition of the National Post has some great information that should shed some light on the darkness of bank accounts and bedrooms.

Over the past 15 years, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have emerged as the party of upper-income America. In 2000, Al Gore beat George Bush among the 4% of voters who described themselves to exit pollsters as “upper class.” In 2004, John Kerry won nine of the 10 richest zip codes in the United States.

We all know John Kerry, a Democrat, has married only the richest of the rich. So the idea that Republicans are the ones with the money is slowly falling on the wayside.

Addressing the sexual side of things, David Frum continues:

As for sex — well, it turns out that it’s Republican (and especially Republican women) who have it more often and better. The two strongest predictors of Republican affiliation in America are (1) marriage and (2) church attendance. These are also the strongest predictors of female sexual satisfaction. The authoritative 1995 University of Chicago survey Sex in America found that conservative Protestant married women were the group most likely to report that they “nearly always” orgasmed during sex. Married women of all religions were almost twice as likely as unmarried women to describe their sex lives as “extremely satisfying.”

Wow!! I always knew that sex between Republicans had to be better because Republicans tend to care more about OTHERS. It is too often the “Me! Me! Me!” attitude of Democrats that would lead to the wham bam thank you ma’am.

The same caring attitude that leads to the above statistics are about to be released in a book by Professor Arthur C. Brooks of the University of Syracuse called Who Really Cares. Here is another snippet from David Frum’s piece which I highly urge you to go read. You will feel better about being politically to the right.

Consider for example this one fundamental liberal/conservative dividing line, the question “Do you believe the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality?” In a major 1996 survey, 33% of Americans gave the liberal answer, “yes”; 43% gave the conservative answer, “no.”Those who gave the conservative answer were more likely to give to charity than those who gave the liberal answer. And when they gave, they gave much more: an average of four times as much as liberal givers.

Correct for income, age and other variables, and you find that people who want government to fight inequality are 10 points less likely to give anything at all — and when they did give, they gave US$263 per year less than a right-winger of exactly the same age earning exactly the same money.

So there we have it. Those on the right side of the political spectrum are not the richest, have better sex and are more generous when it comes to charities.

Who would have thunk it?

H/T to my friend Sandie for this one.

Dr. Marla Swings And Misses On Stem Cell Research. CTV Strikes Out.

I guess we can now conclude that the CTV is pro-embryonic stem cell research.

Earlier this month, the CTV received Strike One and Strike Two on their understanding of stem cell research. Today, on Canada AM, they received Strike Three.

What bothers me most about this strike is that it was by their heavy hitter, Dr. Marla Shapiro. She visited a stem cell research clinic at the Ottawa Hospital here in my city and in the piece they showed a photo which they described as “EMBRYONIC stem cells that COULD lead to a cure for Parkinson’s” and then they immediately flip to a woman who has had her life dramatically change for the better due to ADULT stem cell therapy.

As this website has pointed out on several occasions, there has not been a single succesful therapy or cure discovered via EMBRYONIC stem cell research. The successes are all attributed to ADULT or UMBILICAL stem cell research which are two types of research I fully support.