1 MAY STOMPIN’ TOM GO TO HEAVEN, AND MAY THAT HEAVEN BARE A RESEMBLANCE TO A SUDBURY SATURDAY NIGHT When I was growing up, Stompin’ Tom Connors was like Johnny Cash –- someone we could easily mock without understanding where he came from, without understanding we were mocking a part of ourselves. But he sang about regular, working people, something that’s lost in the age of Beliebers. Here’s his final message to his fans, here’s a cool Huffington Post article about how an immigrant learned about the real Canada through Stompin’ Tom’s work, here’s a link to what I think is his best song – written for the CBC in 1972 for a television show (Mothercorp won’t let me embed its videos) and well … read on.
2 PICKING A FIGHT ON THE WAY TO A VENEZUELAN FUNERAL Stephen Harper should learn some manners before it’s too late.
3 NOBODY LIKES STEVIE, EVERYBODY HATES STEVIE, HIS POLITICAL CAREER IS GOING TO THE GARDEN TO EAT WORMS When The Great Pollster comes to rank Stephen Harper, let it be said that every major newspaper in Canada save the Toronto Star endorsed this jerk in the last election. The news is not just that it’s a three-way race: the news is that the Cons are in free-fall everywhere except Alberta and Saskatchewan and the Liberals, with no leader and no money, are nearly tied with the ruling party.
4 MERCY FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE It’s interesting to watch Tom Flanagan try to rewrite history, in this case, trying to explain away his statements that people watching child porn should get treatment, not jail, after he once said that people who watch child porn shouldn’t get persecuted by the state. See, the whole point of the Calgary School is that they think people should be free to do what they want, no matter who they hurt –- whether it’s the economy, the environment or, in this case, child porn. So what if someone’s life or someone’s civilization gets destroyed? They have a need to be satisfied.
(BTW, the guy who did the video of Flanagan spouting off about this is an activist with Idle No More — a sign that they may have gone from a talking circle to a real and true force that has the means to oppose Harper, rather than just resort to theatrics.)
5 MAYBE THE REGINA CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOARD WANTS THEM TO DO THE LINDY HOP INSTEAD I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so I don’t understand what the Harlem Shake is, let alone what would cause it to freak out a principal of a Catholic high school. (I’m sure the college of cardinals electing a new pope will get right on it.) But Riffel’s student council president got fired by the principal after telling a reporter why he didn’t understand why the principal banned it. Dean Wormer would have been proud. I wonder if Scott Woloshin is any relation to Kelly Woloshin, who was the Carillon’s sports editor in the early 1980s …
6 PIT THE POOR MALE PORN STAR I feel sorry for James Deen. How would he have known that appearing in a movie with Lindsey Lohan would have been a bad career move?
YOUR MUSICAL MOMENT OF ZEN Any other time, I would have instead used this photo I found on Twitter of Olivia Newton John and Billy Bragg together. (According to Olivia’s feed they sang a duet on something called The One Show recently. It’s the late show on BBC One, naturally). But the death of a Canadian icon calls for something else.
[James Brotheridge here. I think Rosie’s video got lost somewhere along the way. In place of whatever he had in mind, here’s another tribute to Stompin’ Tom, courtesy of Prairie Dog writer Mason Pitzel’s Facebook page.]
