Category Archives: Censorship

Nineteen Years Ago in Spy

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That’s nineteen. Not Ten Years Ago in Spy. Yes, it has been that long. Feels like it when you really think about it, don’t it? Especially if you’re reading Graydon Carter’s magazine now.

I’m stealing this because not only is it a precious jewel plucked from the greatest glossy setting of the last century, but also because it is a perfect demonstration of the Canadian character; not only the policy here elucidated, but also the urge to explain our passive-aggressive policies in a manner half apologetic, half ironic. In fact, every truly Canadian action is undertaken in a spirit half apologetic, half ironic, and that includes looting and burning the White House: we were, after all, only knowingly referencing the burning of York. Always following the lead of the bloody Yanks, that’s us.

Anyhoodle, here it is, a letter to Spy in the January, 1990 edition, from the benighted, but polite, dominion of Canuckistan.

Dead Asleep

Dear Editors,

As an ex-flight attendant for Air Canada, I can tell you that whenever the Grim Reaper made his way through one of our cabins, the procedure was a little different from Delta Air Lines’ [“Bound for Glory: What Happens When Your Last Stop Comes Before the End of the Line,” by Jay Blotcher, September]. We still notified the family and had the plane met by an ambulance, but we didn’t just leave the deceased for dead during the flight.

Maybe it is just the Canadian way, but we were basically told to lie and pretend that the passenger was not dead, only ill. It seems the airline though if we ran down the aisles screaming “Oh God, he’s dead, Gloria!” the passengers would become alarmed and subsequently be too afraid to visit the in-flight duty-free shop. So we were told to vacate the seat beside the deceased, put a fake oxygen mask [they HAVE those on planes? I am becoming alarmed] on him, turn his face toward the window and cover him with a blanket. (So he wouldn’t get cold?) The rest of the flight would be spent offering the dead man drinks and complimentary earphones [which Air Canada now no longer offers, even to living passengers] to continue the charade.

The thing I could never understand was that a flight attendant was expected to sit beside the body for landing. It’s not as if they expected you to date the guy afterward or anything, but really…how can a corpse have anything but a safe landing?

(I wasn’t with the company very long and never personally had a passenger die on one of my flights; however, there were quite a few I wanted to kill.)

Annie Game

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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Sunday Night’s Alright for Fighting

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What the hell, there’s nothing else to do.

If nothing else, you can see the value Twitter adds to the world of flamewarring: instead of hitting Refresh, Refresh, Refresh and waiting to see if your opponent has updated his blog/left another comment on yours, Twitter now enables people to make asses of themselves in realtime!

It all started…with this innocuous little post:

So far, so what? you’re probably thinking. Well, nothing. It’s just a link to some video of a fluffy white doggy trying to stay upright on a slidey plastic surface with four doggie shoes on.

And it ended like this:

And in between, now sadly deleted on MM’s part in the Slow Sunday Night on Twitter version of the missing 15 minutes from the Watergate Tapes, there was this:

@MortgageMark I wouldn’t either. That’s just cruel; saddle shoes are SO last year!

@raincoaster mellow out my friend

@MortgageMark I work for Shoeblogs LLC. I take these things seriously!

@raincoaster Listen, my son’s girlfriend bought them as a gift. We tried them on once. Don’t really care what blog you work for, suck it up

@MortgageMark “Suck it up?” Great people skillz, dude. I was JOKING. Chill thyself!

@raincoaster “dude” I guess my people skills aren’t that great. Just kidding, they’re fantastic ; )

and, after the above was deleted, this from me:

@MortgageMark If you trust your people skills, why don’t you apologize instead of just deleting those tweets?

Some things go without saying, you know what I’m sayin’?

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Christian Bale the Dance Remix

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What could be more perfect? It’s Christian Bale‘s pottymouthed rant from last summer, remixed and set to a bouncy dance beat. Positively Beyonce-worthy! Click and enjoy, but make sure your boss is either not around or stone deaf first!

via thelondonblog

If, by chance, you can’t stop till you get enough, there’s another one with original lyrics at HolyMoly.

Faceless!

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Faceless on Facebook, faceless on Twitter, faceless on WordPress, on Gravatar, on OpenID (which, it must be said, I’ve never gotten to work anyway) in fact, faceless anywhere is a powerful statement, especially in an increasingly-overpopulated world where everyone wears their MySpace pruneface at all times, lest they be caught on CCTV looking humdrum.

Just ask Anonymous.

With that in mind, here’s your chance to make a powerful statement and reflect on the importance of cultural expression and how much a part of your life it is, whether you think of yourself as a cultural creative or not.

From NativeEarth.ca:

Faceless

It only took 2 days for our “Faceless” facebook group to reach close to 2000 members.

Here’s what it’s all about:

This is a roll call to all people who believe that Arts and Culture is a part of their lives and is important outside of the political spectrum. This is for artists, families, parents, friends, co-workers, relatives, enemies, neighbors, acquaintances, to all people who enjoy the arts and culture of this country and feel that it must be nurtured and cultivated. We need to send out a message to our politicians to let them know that there are more of us than they think and congruently that we are not going to vote for any person or party that plans to cut funding to arts and culture in the impending election. This is for all of us; people from all sides of the political landscape. This is not about what party you belong to, but how you feel about arts and culture in this country.

So on Monday September 15th (the first day of Parliament) we want you to do one thing. It’s very simple. It will only take a small amount of your time. About the same amount of time it will take to cast your vote for the candidate you feel best represents what you want.

This is it: We would like you to leave your profile picture blank for the day. Use your faceless profile picture as a symbol of the loss of identity Canadians will experience if funding to the arts is cut.

Be a catalyst for change and put your best face forward on election day, but on Monday September 15th leave it blank and send a message so that we can count how many people have joined the fight.

signed

Olympic Scandal: Faux BoJo, or No?

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Boris Johnson waves the Olympic flag or IS it Boris Johnson???

Another Olympic scandal tops the headlines this morning as it is revealed that, in a substitution reminiscent of the opening ceremony’s switched songstresses and faux fireworks, London Mayor Boris Johnson did not, in fact, attend the closing ceremony at all, but instead was replaced by a sophisticated computer-generated animation.

Bojo gone Olympics, or is it really so?

This shocking swap was insisted upon by the Olympic organizers, who had substantial reservations about Mr. Johnson‘s ability to accept and wave the flag without falling down, offending several of the participating nations, or fatally wounding a spectator in a misguided, yet historically correct, attempt to re-create one of the bloodier Olympic events of the Classical Age. After all, the Mayor’s track record is a very public one indeed.

Bojo in typical mode

The artificial Boris was, in fact, a compromise reached between the organizers and the British delegation. Originally, the Olympic ceremony management had planned to simply replace Mr. Johnson with a more attractive, dramatically-trained, lip-synching version of the same type.

Cary Elwes would do in a pinch. He could pinch me any time!

It is understood that many in the Mayor’s own office have approached the Olympic organizers for permission to continue to use the replicant back home.