In this hectic world, often we don’t have sufficient time to connect the dots between seemingly disconnected stories that flicked their way through our collective consciousness. To help bridge this gap, say hello to Connecting The Dots, where I’ll endeavour to bring together and seemingly disparate stories into a contextualized, cohesive whole. Or I’ll just slap together tangentially related stories and wrap up with some grandiose closing sentence. Either way, let’s go!
Blame it on the oil. Everyone else does. An American environmental group is urging tourists to avoid Alberta since, y’know, the oilsands are super-icky. Their video, featuring sludge-trapped ducks and scary bar graphs, actually seems like it’d be effective in dissuading folks from visiting the wildrose province. But if those images don’t work, may I suggest an alternative deterrent message? “Come to Alberta… if you want your RV charred, your car stolen and your bodies to go missing.” And if neither of those work, just show them this:
That oughta set ‘em straight.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité… or, “when words are just words”. Today is Bastille Day, commemorating the storming of the Bastille and the dawning of the French Revolution, which would usher in the era of “liberty, equality and brotherhood” on which the Republic is purportedly based. Just make sure Muslim women living in France don’t hear about it, or they may start questioning why they’re now no longer allowed to wear certain garments in public.
Putting the “man” in Mansbridge. I guess I’m not the one connecting the dots here, as plenty (including the Globe & Mail’s Norman Spector, with an unnecessary amount of MotherCorp-hating snark) have already commented on the fact that, soon, two of Canada’s three nightly national newscasts will be anchored by women. In case you’ve been hibernating (or, rather, estivating) for the last week, CTV’s Lloyd Robertson has stepped down, to be replaced by Lisa LaFlamme, while Kevin Newman’s old chair at Global will soon be filled by the repatriated newswoman Dawna Friesen (who, based on the over-lit photos I’ve seen, could have had a good run as a villain on 24 if the whole journalism thing didn’t work out for her).
Rightly or wrongly, much emphasis has been placed on the fact that LaFlamme and Friesen are, y’know, women — in the same way that Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer got the “ooh, look, a girl!” treatment when they were named to their posts years ago. So, in a way, we’re once again following our southern neighbours… and that terrifies me, for the following reason: it seems as though one of the hosts from America’s Got Talent is on tap to replace Larry King.
Yeah. You know what that means? As soon as Mansbridge retires, say hello the new host of CBC’s The National: Leah Miller.
When everyone’s a criminal, no one’s a criminal. Whoa man, you just blew my mind. The Toronto Police Service has released photos of the (alleged) douchebags who (allegedly) destroyed parts of the city during the G20 summit. You know, the guys who were (allegedly) such sniveling, cowardly fuckheads that they (allegedly) hid behind masks and scarves, using “black bloc” tactics to wreak havoc that caused the massive police crackdown on Sunday. That crackdown wherein police (allegedly) deprived a bunch of peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders of their civil liberties for hours on end.
Also, Omar Khadr’s “trial” is set to go ahead on August 10.
I’ll let you connect the dots yourself on that one.