Godzilla! And on McSweeney’s, no less.
He must have a much better agent than I do, the bastidge! Even though I am consumed with jealousy, I shall graciously extend the Squid tag to Godzilla, as he is just so frickin’ cool. His Lizardness is Honorary Calamari Grande.
June 8—Confused today about my place in this world. Am I the protector of Tokyo or the destroyer? Sometimes I just don’t know. I’ve smashed more than my share of buildings, but I’ve also vanquished a ton of other monsters. Therapist suggests these vanquishings have more to do with me staking my claim to my territory and with feelings of vulnerability when challenged than with playing the hero role. Must remember to stop putting off smashing of therapist’s office building. Also, mixed reactions of Japanese add to confusion. Which is it—”Oh, no! Godzilla! Run!” or “Thank goodness, Godzilla will save us from Rodan”?
June 9—It’s my weekend to have Minilla. The divorce still hits me pretty hard, but these weekend visitations are always uplifting. Of course, I always get some crap from Helen on Mondays about my parenting methods. “I don’t approve of you teaching him the fire-breath attack at such a young age, and I definitely don’t approve of you stomping on his tail when he couldn’t do it right away.” Will she ever understand that Mothra isn’t going to wait until a certain age to attack? That kid needs to be ready now.
via Kitsilano, James’s Up in Ontario blog, to be specific. Seems that old church/state separation idea doesn’t go over big with the bigwigs at the Times Colonist. Visit the site to read James’s take on it, along with the original article, plus the breaking news from Sean Holman.
A snippet from Up in Ontario:
Smith wrote a column raising questions about the value of visiting some well-established Victoria tourist destinations and suggested some alternate, free attractions. Tourism industry representatives sought and got a meeting with the Times Columnist publisher, Bob McKenzie, and a day later Smith was sacked.
Now, a commenter on Up in Ontario has objected, saying the story had no place being published at all, as it was an opinion piece. It may or may not have been slanted, but the Times Colonist is no stranger to slants and, as I pointed out, if the tourist attractions are overpriced, that in itself is news. If free attractions that are interesting are available, that, too, is news. And the decision about whether or not a story belongs in the paper rests with the editors, not the local business capos.
As was put very well by a journalism prof on Public Eye Online:
In an interview with Public Eye, associate professor Klaus Pohle, a specialist in media ethics and newspaper management at Carleton University‘s school of journalism, said it wasn’t surprising publisher Bob McKenzie declined to comment on the situation, explaining “I would be totally embarassed to admit” to cancelling such a contract just after meeting with “the vested interests in Victoria…It’s a terrible conflict. A terrible conflict. And it sends a terrible message – not only to the journalists at the paper but to the other media and the readers and the advertisers. It sends a message (to the advertisers) that I can interfere anytime. And that’s a very, very dangerous situation to be in.”
Sure Victoria is a small town, but it’s got at least two horses, and so is too big to be indulging in these Pottersville-type shenanigans, particularly in a CanWest Global publication. Or are they planning to take this strategy national?
Okay, they may well be soft numbers, but I like them soft OR hard. I love them for what’s on the inside.
The twelve thousand additional readers the statcounter has given me since yesterday.
Okay, I know there’s a bug. I know twelve thousand readers is a big jump, a big change, a big responsibility. All I want to know now is, can I keep them?
I’ll feed them and water them and take them for walks…pretty please, WordPress, can I keep them?
raincoaster 