Segacs's World I Know

Archive for the ‘Canada eh’ Category

Fuck the moronic thugs who decided that setting police cars on fire and smashing store windows was an appropriate Saturday afternoon activity.

Fuck Stephen Harper and the Conservative government for thinking that hosting this summit in a major urban centre was an appropriate use of over a billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Okay, rant over.

The Toronto Star has a photo essay from this weekend. Sometimes, pictures really do say a thousand words.

Team Canada wins Gold - Vancouver 2010

It was the shot heard from coast to coast – Sidney Crosby’s overtime goal to win this hockey game 3-2 and secure the record-breaking 14th gold medal for Canada.

A fitting feather in the cap of what have been incredible Olympic games. And they couldn’t have scripted it any better. Perfect photo finish.

A moment, to salute all our  Olympic medallists.

Now, let the celebrations begin!

We’ve now won 10 gold medals, which – at the moment, anyway – is more than any other team.

Our athletes are impressing the hell out of everyone, on the skating rink, the ski hill, the hockey arena, the bobsled track, hell, even the curling rink. (Is curling even a sport? Debatable. But we are pretty damn good at it. Even if the Norwegians have those awesome pants. But I digress.) The figure skaters have captured our imagination, from the near-perfection of Moir and Virtue to the inspiring courage of Joannie Rochette. And of course, in hockey, our women have claimed gold, while the men have just advanced to the finals against the USA on Sunday, with tonight’s nail-biter of a 3-2 win over Slovakia.

Everywhere, the red and white waves, crowds burst into spontaneous renditions of the national anthem, and the entire country from coast to coast has come together to cheer on our Olympians.

Has there ever been such a display of Canadian patriotism in recent history? Not that I can remember.

The Olympics had a controversial staging, a rocky start, and endless debates over cost overruns, podium pressure and everything under the sun. But leaving all that aside, it’s been a pretty incredible couple of weeks. And I have to believe that this has done a lot to buoy pride in the red and white in this country of ours, which, you gotta admit, is really fucking awesome.

There are two more days left in these Olympic games. Whatever happens – in the hockey finals or elsewhere – I’m really proud of our athletes and our country. Go Canada Go!

The biggest attraction at the Olympics? Stephen Colbert, who’s been on site all week.

He and Michael Bublé sang their unique take on the national anthem. He’s done mock tryouts for events. He cheered on Shani Davis of the US speedskating team (which he sponsored) when he won his gold medal. He’s getting more press coverage than some of the top athletes. AP has called him “his own Olympic event“.

I’m not sure which is funnier: Stephen Colbert on his game, or the legions of people who don’t seem to understand that it’s satire.

The Olympic opening ceremonies will stand as a shining example of where creative-by-committee will get you. As best as I can figure, someone at some point must have had a cool creative concept for this thing. But then it got watered down by layer after layer of bureaucracy until we ended up with… well, I’m not quite sure what that was, to be honest. Other than boring as hell.

But, we all know Canada is much cooler than the lame-ass CBC-heritage-moment crap we saw tonight. Way to represent.

So, here’s my top five list of things that they could have done to better showcase what Canada is all about:

5) Joe, from the Molson Canadian commercials. That watered-down imitation preacher guy was just stealing from his material anyway. I mean, Zed, not Z? If I were Molson, I’d sue.

4) A 3-hour Arcade Fire concert. Yes, believe it or not, we have musicians who are more recent than Bryan Adams. How about getting some of them on stage?

3) The Canada-USA gold medal game from Salt Lake City. Get the teams back for a re-enactment. Or, hell, just show video footage on a big screen.

2) Festivals from coast to coast. A medley of acts from everything from the Montreal Jazz Festival to Toronto’s Caribana to the Calgary Stampede.

1) Cirque du Soleil… we friggin’ invented it, why do other Olympic games get to use them and we get some random dude faking flying while held up by wires?

Forget SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder); what we’re really suffering from collectively as a nation is VDS: Vacation Deprivation Syndrome.

And it hasn’t gotten any better, either. Us Canadians are still among the most vacation-deprived people on earth, ranking dead last among 40 countries studied in terms of the amount of vacation time that the average worker is entitled to receive.

I think I need to move to Finland, France, Lithuania, or Brazil.

Here’s Jane Taber in the Globe and Mail, on Harper and prorogation of Parliament:

In an interview on BNN yesterday, the Prime Minister suggested that prorogation gives him the opportunity to do the serious business of the nation without the distractions of democracy – Commons committees and having to answer those pesky questions from opposition MPs in Question Period.

Yeah, that annoying democracy. Makes it so gosh darn hard to govern when you have to actually, y’know, answer to people.

Air Canada has been directed to offer nut-free zones on its flights by the CTA, in response to a complaint filed by a passenger with severe nut allergies.

As much as I sympathize with people with nut and peanut allergies – and yes, you know who you are – I have to wonder, isn’t this a little bit like offering non-smoking areas on flights? I mean, everyone’s breathing the same recycled air everywhere on the plane, right?

I also have to wonder, does “nut-free” refer only to the food, or will slightly-crazy passengers and crew have to change seats, too?

The CRTC has approved a broadcasting license for English Al-Jazeera in Canada:

I first blogged about this back in 2003, when media monitoring organisations were sounding the alarm about the virulent antisemitic content being broadcast on Qatar-based Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language station on a daily basis, under the guise of news. The English affiliate doesn’t have quite the same level of bias – certainly, not that much worse than we see regularly from, say, the CBC or the Guardian, or on the other side, from the likes of FOX news. If there’s a demand for the service, and the content doesn’t cross the line, then I have to stand in support of freedom of information.

Besides, this is 2009. Anyone who wants content can get it, regardless of the CRTC’s decision. This decision is really only about whether satellite providers can charge for it, or whether people will have to access it online or through other methods.

I still haven’t forgiven the CRTC for all those years without HBO, though. Segacs to CRTC: this ain’t over, bitch!

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.