Neil Crone - Enter Laughing

Does this just make too much sense?

 First semi-large storm of the season is en route, even as I type these words. Should make for the usual circus tomorrow morning on the roads.  I don't have to be into Toronto until 11 am, but I'm willing to bet the carnage will still be waiting for me even at that late commute.  I really, really wish Ontario would follow Quebec's lead in the mandatory snow tire legislation idea.  It just makes very good sense.  Ever since moving up to this neck of the woods and undertaking a sometimes two hour commute, I've made sure both of my vehicles have always been outfitted with a good set of snows each winter.  And I'm convinced it makes a huge difference.  In my seventeen years of driving up here I've been in exactly one moving collision.  And that happened when a Kamikaze pilot in a 75 Oldsmobile with more rust on it than the Andrea Doria, decided to take me out by making a left turn directly into me in an intersection.  Even then, I was able to steer with enough traction to turn a potentially nasty head-on into a reparable glancing blow. And I drove home.  He, on his balding all-seasons, kept skidding, like a curling rock, into a light standard.  

I understand why a lot of folks balk at purchasing snow tires.  They're not cheap.  Neither, of course, is car insurance and even a hospital stay.  So wouldn't it be a nice gesture if the government, in it's wisdom, offered an incentive by way of a rebate perhaps, to get us all on board with this thing.  Or does that just make too darn much sense?  Maybe all of the MLA's have stock in State Farm.

My little secret...

Went out for a walk last night.  It was the first of those truly lovely 'winter' evening walks.  Crisply cold, still and with a few flurries of snow drifting their way earthward.  My little town is a very good one for walking through on those nights.  Very quiet.  Most of it's inhabitants either cozily ensconced in front of the boob tube or, probably, at the arena, patiently watching offspring through the glass.  Inevitably, and I do the night time walk a lot, it's just me and the dog up and about.  That's one of the reasons I like to wear my cowboy hat when I walk at night.  There's nobody to point and giggle.  Still, I like my cowboy hat.  It's warm and keeps the snow off my face.  Plus, I confess, especially when I've sparked up my pipe and am strolling along, collar up, sweet blue smoke drifting lazily up in my wake,  it makes me feel vaguely like the Marlboro Man.  Lung cancer and saddle sores aside...what guy doesn't secretly want to be the Marlboro man?  But the operative word is 'secretly'.  And that's the best thing about night walks.  It's dark.
 

Sport can make a human out of you.

 Interesting article in the Star today profiling the dramatic rise in violence and racial slurs in minor hockey.  Instances were cited of everything from homophobic name-calling, to the use of the word 'nigger' (I refuse to use the simpering and politically correct 'n' word...nigger is one of the ugliest words on the planet and when some idiot throws it at someone we need to talk about it) to physical and vocal threats aimed at officials.

What this is, as far as I am concerned, is a dramatic rise in the level of cowardice and a dramatic drop in the level of intellect.  Sport, at it's best, combines the very best of who we are.  Courage, integrity, spirit and intellect.  And there are still areas of competition where those virtues are lauded and encouraged.  I loved watching my youngest sons summer Rugby League games.  A lot of the kids, hyped on the macho aspects of the very physical game, were eager to take it into the popular arena of trash talk and dirty play. The refs, however, wouldn't let it go there.  I can't tell you how many times I saw these fantastic old English and Scots guys stop a game completely and lecture the 'lads' for as long as it took, about the virtues of playing hard as gentlemen should.  And the kids got it.  

We had the same thing when I wrestled competitively.  You shook hands before and after a match and your opponent was respected. Dirty play got you a one way ticket out of the competition.  

Hockey needs this and it apparently needs it as soon as last week.  I don't understand how a player who calls a black referee a nigger can do so and only receive a three game suspension.  How about do that and you never play in this league again?  All of this crap can be fixed very easily,  It just takes a little teeth and courage on the league's part.  And parents should be demanding it.  All children who play sports should come away from the experience much fuller and better people for it. They should be learning not just puck handling or dribbling or running skills...they should be learning about patience, respect and compassion.  They understood this many years ago. They weren't just kidding when, in the days of old, people talked about sport 'making a man' out of somebody.  It can do that.  Maybe we should modernize it to say that sport can 'make a human' out of somebody.  

Another slow news day?

 Wow! Newsflash! Meredith Baxter, famed Mom from Family Ties comes out today, at the age of sixty-two, and declares herself a Lesbian.  Everyone got that?  Good...so, make the appropriate and vital changes to your own lives that that news will undoubtedly necessitate and move on.  Sure glad we got that cleared up.

Another slow news day???

Milt Schmizzler...where are you???

 Okay...this may sound like rampant flip-flopping but it's really time for everyone to get the hell off of Tiger's case.  As I hope I made very clear in my initial post about this whole ridiculous episode, I'm all about a level playing field for all of us.  You break the law, you answer to the law.  Period. Celebrity or no, we are all accountable. But as far as personal, family matters go...that's completely off limits.  This guy has made a bad choice or two and he is trying to deal with it in-house.  I applaud that and he is absolutely entitled to that.  But the press are not going to drop this until he basically flagellates himself on the 18th green of Augusta on national television.  Climb off, would ya?  When are we going to get over this prurient, titillation over watching the mighty fall from grace?  I've met and worked with a large number of "celebrities" and I'm here to tell you folks...they're not any different from any of the rest of us.  Some of them like to think they are...but they're not. They come in all flavours too.  There are smart ones and stupid ones, nice ones and cranky ones, moral ones and immoral ones, greedy, generous etc. etc.  

I guess it's a slow news week.  Or maybe we're all just bored to tears. Or maybe it's something darker. Maybe people simply love to tear down those who do what they cannot.  Think this would be any kind of a story if, instead of the best Golfer the world has ever seen, it were Milt Schmizzler, unranked duffer from Brampton? Of course not. 

Let the guy go.  Enjoy his work on the golf course and leave it at that.

Day of dichotomy...

A day of vivid dichotomy.  I spent the better part of the afternoon in a funeral home; the visitation for a lovely young woman, Lindsay Bolger, who after a brilliant five year battle, succumbed to her brain cancer this past week.  And as beautiful and uplifting as the tribute(s) to Lindsay were...and there were many, everywhere...and as much kindness, love and support as there was...and it was enormous, one cannot help but be aware that, at the end of the day, a family has lost a daughter.  The enormity of that is forever.  My own parents, I know, have never fully filled the hole that the death of my brother left, some twenty-seven years ago.

Contrast that with the joyous email I received from another dear friend just an hour or so ago.  Diagnosed with lung cancer this past summer, worried to death that it may have spread, uncertain about his future and that of his wife and daughters, he was delighted to report that the hospital had called him to let him know that his last battery of tests showed him clean as a whistle! The relief was palpable, right through the computer screen.  In the words of his very happy wife...'Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus'.

And this, I suppose, is the yin and yang of life.  In the midst of one persons depthless sorrow, another is having the day of their life.  I guess that's also part of the thrill and the wonder of it all.  Another reminder to, as Warren Zevon so aptly said, 'enjoy every sandwich'.  Hope your day was great.

 

Tiger will walk...

 I must say the latest broohaha surrounding Tiger Woods and his wife Elin has me grinning a bit.  This one does smell just a tad.  Worse than a pair of old golf shoes. Let's do the math...2:45 in the morning.  No air bags deployed.  Angry, vengeful wife possibly smashing car with cheating hubbies 3 iron. Hmmmm?  How do we spin this? I'm just saying.

You know what?  I really could care less what is right or wrong with their relationship. Or whatever happened here. They're people, for God's sake.  None of us, after all, should be throwing stones...or pitching wedges. What gets me is the incredible double-standard that the law seems to apply in the case of celebrity.  I laughed out loud when I read that State Troopers...and these are the guys that would sooner shoot you as look at you sideways...had come to the Woods household twice to get some much needed answers regarding his car crash, and twice they were told to go away and come back later.  And they did!  Can you imagine somebody like...oh, I don't know...you or me pulling that kind of a stunt.

"Sorry officers, I'd love to answer your questions guys, but I'm kinda bushed.  You wanna come back in a week or two?"

Yeah.  We'd be chewing on floorboards with our arms halfway up our backs.  But Tiger is Tiger.  Just like Wayne and Janet were Wayne and Janet...and O.J. was O.J.  Although luckily O.J. was just so stunningly stupid that even the cops couldn't turn a blind eye anymore.

It's a ridiculous but it's reality...money talks and, mark my words...Tiger will walk.

A sign of the end times?

Daniel J's point is an interesting one and alarmingly enough, one that I agree with.  (Isn't that one of the signs of the end times?  DJC and I agreeing?)  The sickening reality is, there's not a lot of immediate profit to be made from caring for the sick, weak and disenfranchised in this world, be they human or animal.  I was reading in this morning's paper about the U.S. imminent decision to ramp up troop strength in Afghanistan by another 30,000.  The war in Afghanistan will be costing that nation upwards of 6 billion dollars a month.  Are you featuring that number?  6 billion per month!  That's almost as much as Bill Gates makes.

After watching and wondering and reading for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that I am not a supporter of what we're doing in Afghanistan.  I think our hearts our in the right place, no question, and some good is happening no doubt, but it's an inefficient even wrong approach and it's costing too many lives.

Think of what that 6 billion/month might be doing in a part of the world that already has the infrastructure to really make strides.  Strides in education, health, research...the list is endless.  With that kind of money the U.S. could afford to give every one of it's citizens the best education in the world.  And what is the upshot for the rest of the planet when all of those minds are suddenly fully potentialized?  Then, I think, you might really find some solutions to the problems in the rest of the world. I may be wrong. I'm not over there where it's all happening.  I'm just wondering how realistic it is to try and force a 16th century tribal culture to suddenly embrace 21rst century democracy.  

 

The fur is flying...

 Wow. The fur is flying at the Toronto Humane Society today.  The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals raided the THS and have laid a whack of charges against five staff members, including President Tim Trow.  The charges range from Conspiracy to commit an Indictable offence (that one raises the eyebrows a tad), Cruelty to Animals and Obstruction of a Peace Officer.  Yikes.  

I'm not at all sure what's been going on down there but it can't be good.  Mind you, I think the THS has also been handed a virtually impossible job to do.  How do you look after the thousands of unwanted animals that stream into that place on an hourly basis, with what is, I am sure, a woefully inadequate budget? Have you paid a Vet bill lately? Perhaps a massive overhaul is due.  And perhaps while they're re-thinking the mechanics of how to help all of these animals they might re-think some of the toothless laws in place that allow irresponsible pet owners to foster these problems in the first place.  It's not a stretch to say that I've met more people I didn't like than dogs I didn't like. And I'm sure there's a special place in hell reserved for anyone who abuses an animal.  It would be nice to see the energies of what are two essentially important agencies spent not attacking one another, but in really safeguarding the rights of animals.

Say it isn't so!

I was sitting down to a bowlful of chili tonight amidst a crew of my sons friends.  Somebody got going about the 'Ma-na Ma-na' song from the Muppet show.  This then led to a comment from someone about how the Cookie Monster had been updated, slimmed down and politically corrected to become the Veggie Monster.  I was aghast.  I sat for a full minute, chili slopping from my shocked, open maw.  NO.  This could not be?  Not Cookie Monster too?  Without even using a napkin, I flew to the computer to google this obscenity.  Thankfully it was and is only a rumor.  CM has, in the interests of making children and parents more aware of a very real and horribly disturbing childhood obesity epidemic in the states, had his caloric/cookie intake reduced somewhat.  He is also enjoying a more balanced diet of fruit and veggies as well.  All good.  I've no bone to pick with any of that.  Just don't ever take away the cookies. Wasn't it Patrick Henry who said "Give me Oreos or give me death!"?  Is there anything, this side of breast milk, more seminal to childhood, more comforting than a plate of cookies? That's still where I go when the clouds roll in.

I am immensely relieved to report that the reports of the death of Cookie Monsters cookies, are highly exaggerated.  Jim Henson would be spinning in his grave if that ever happened.