Well guess what? You are!
Here, via Fark, is some beautifully ironic video of America’s Premier Pedo, former (resigned in disgrace) Representative Mark Foley, talking about tracking down online pervs who are after America’s children.
Just like he is.
“If I were, uh, one of these sickos, I’d be, uh, nervous with America’s Most Wanted on my trail.”
Is there something in the Ontario water that causes this? Is it that the radio sucks so badly? Is it Cheeveresque or O’Neillian fear of the family tensions that play themselves out more confrontationally in conversation than in silence?
Why does everyone in Ontario enter their house, remove their shoes and, before even taking off their jacket, turn on the television?
And what is the last thing they do every night? Read a bedtime story to their children? Hit the singles chatroooms? Enjoy a snifter of brandy and a wide-ranging discussion of the physical substance of the various ranks of angels? No.
They turn off the tv.
If there was something we used in Vancouver this much, we’d just have it on a timer or a motion detector, although given the propensity of people to become motionless in front of a television, perhaps that wouldn’t work. Yeah, they could use some of these morning shows to immobilize the enemy, particularly now that the Geneva Conventions are considered unconventional for Americans.
Timer, timer is better. On at 7am, off at midnight.
I have a couple of friends who came from the West but who now live in Ontario, and they, too, have succumbed to this bizzare and disturbing fetishistic behaviour. This, plus the fact that I haven’t the slightest hint of it and my gene pool basically sloshes up and down the Ottawa Valley for the last three hundred years like water in a bowl, is what convinces me it’s something environmental.
And you can bet it’s not the quality of the broadcasts. After two days, that possibility has been thoroughly ruled out.
Now, maybe it’s something in the air of BC, but we out there have a marked tendency to passive-aggressiveness of an almost pathalogical order. Would we ever tell you off? No, perish the thought. Would we see you every day for drinks after work and brunch on Sunday and tell everyone in our running group how much we hate you?
You bet. Much more polite.
So I have developed a unique coping system for visits from Ontarians. You always try to make the place nice for your guests and show off the many ways your town is different from where they live, so that they go home with the definite sense of having actually left home in the first place.
So the first thing I do is I hide the remote.
Now, are they not a lovely couple, in a May/December way? But not so lovely when you realize it’s also in a child/progenitor way.
Say hi to Bruce McMahan, McMahan’s Furniture heir, former PaineWebber and Bear Stearns honcho and current (clock ticking) chief of McMahan Securities. She’s Linda Marie Hodge McMahan Schutt, PhD (Psych, natch; draw your own inferences), and executive vice president of marketing for Argent Funds Group LLC and McMahan Securities.
You’d think the Westminster Abbey nuptuals of such a pair would rate a brief mention in the Times, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong.
See, she’s his daughter.
And that, my friends, is the difference between the Times and the Village Voice. (via Fark)
In court papers, McMahan denies that he ever had a sexual affair with his daughter. But he doesn’t explain how his and Linda‘s DNA turned up on a vibrator that Linda‘s husband uncovered in her luggage. McMahan also hints that Linda may not be his biological daughter, despite a DNA test he paid for showing with 99.7 percent probability that he is her father…
Then, on September 13, as this article was being
prepared for print, all five lawsuits were settled on undisclosed terms. As part of the settlement, a federal judge in San Diego sealed the files of the California lawsuit and took the rare step of wiping out any record that the lawsuit had ever existed.
Through McMahan‘s L.A. public relations firm, the parties sent a statement to New Times, describing the matter as a mere “family dispute,” and alluded to taking legal action if this newspaper published this article, which is drawn from the information in the court cases that McMahan has gone to such lengths to hide from public view.
If you’ve ever thought about reading Kathryn Harrison‘s The Kiss, I’d advise you to skip it and just check out this bizarre and twisted tale. It trumps Harrison‘s subsequently-repudiated memoir on every measure that counts: more laws broken, dodgy Dubai dollars, a posh wedding (Westminster! Abbey!), private spas, everyone involved seems to have had more marriages than Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor combined (with the exception of the blushing bride. She really was Daddy’s girl), incriminating videotape, a vast fortune, lawsuits galore, Eastern European mail order brides, and, if I may remind you, DNA-encrusted sex toys!
What’s not to like?
Yes, it’s the well-beloved classic from the Arrogant Worms, as enacted by a group of landlocked Canuckistani teenagers. These guys are evidently so Saskatchewani that they can’t even find a puddle to use as a backdrop, and make do with a playground and some barns instead. All in the adaptive, piratical spirit of the original, it must be admitted.
The Last Saskatchewan Pirate
I used to be a farmer and I made a livin’ fine
I had a little stretch of land along the CP line
But times went by and though I tried the money wasn’t there
And bankers came and took my land and told me fair is fair
I looked for every kind of job, the answer always no
“Hire you now?” they always laughed, “We just let twenty go!”
The government they promised me a measly little sum
But I’ve got too much pride to end up just another bum
Then I thought who gives a damn if all the jobs are gone
I’m going to be a pirate on the River Saskatchewan….
Arrrrrgh!
Cause it’s a Heave! Ho! Hay! Ho! Comin’ down the plains
Stealin’ wheat and barley and all the other grains
It’s a Ho! Hay! Hi! Hay! Farmers bar your doors
When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shores
Well you’d think the local farmers would know that I’m at large
But just the other day I found an unprotected barge
I snuck up right behind them and they were none the wiser
I rammed the ship and sank it and I stole their fertilizer
A bridge outside of Moosejaw spans a mighty river
Farmers cross in so much fear their stomachs are aquiver
‘Cause they know that Tractor Jack is hiding in the bay
I’ll jump the bridge and knock them cold and sail off with their hay
Cause it’s a Heave! Ho! Hay! Ho! Comin’ down the plains
Stealin’ wheat and barley and all the other grains
It’s a Ho! Hay! Hi! Hay! Farmers bar your doors
When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shores
Well Mountie Bob he chased me, he was always at my throat
He’d follow on the shoreline but he didn’t own a boat
But cutbacks were a comin’ and the mountie lost his job
So now he’s sailin’ with me and we call him Salty Bob
A swingin’ sword, a scull ‘n’ bones and pleasant company
I never pay my income tax and screw the G.S.T. (screw it!)
Prince Albert down to Saskatoon, the terror of the sea
If you want to reach the Co-op, boy, you gotta get by me!
Cause it’s a Heave! Ho! Hay! Ho! Comin’ down the plains
Stealin’ wheat and barley and all the other grains
It’s a Ho! Hay! Hi! Hay! Farmers bar your doors
When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shores
Well pirate life’s appealing but you don’t just find it here
I’ve heard that in Alberta there’s a band of buccaneers
They roam the Athabaska from Smith to Fort McKay
You’re gonna lose your Stetson if you have to pass their way
Well winter is a comin’ and a chill is in the breeze
My pirate days are over when the river starts to freeze
I’ll be back in spring time, but now I have to go
I heard there’s lots of plunderin’ down in New Mexico
Cause it’s a Heave! Ho! Hay! Ho! Comin’ down the plains
Stealin’ wheat and barley and all the other grains
It’s a Ho! Hay! Hi! Hay! Farmers bar your doors
When you see the Jolly Roger on Regina’s mighty shores
That about sums it up.
In an interview with Baba Wawa on 20/20, Terri Irwin has said that she will not release the video footage of her husband’s death by stingray. This article comes from the BBC, via Trenchcoat Chronicles.
“What purpose would that serve?” she asked presenter Barbara Walters in an interview with US programme 20/20…
His wife … insisted his death was just a “stupid” accident – “like running with a pencil”…
The 42-year-old mother of two said her late husband knew he would not live a long life.
“He’d talk about it often,” she said. “But it wasn’t because of any danger from wildlife. He just felt life could be dangerous.”
As I said before, the wishes of the dead are to be respected, but not neccessarily obeyed. The film belongs to Terri Irwin and the film company, and it is their right to decide what happens to it.
Here is the tribute speech to Irwin by his daughter, Bindi Sue, who has her own television show. He was actually getting footage of the stingray for her when he died. She’s already stated that she has no intention of giving up on the show, but considers it carrying on the family legacy. Those are big boots to fill, kid, but judging from this it looks like you’re off to a good start.
raincoaster 