Manitoba Liberals Receive Glowing Report From The Black Rod

(First, a moment to explain today's headline.

Glowing: like the bright red (Rouge?) left post a damned good spanking.

Report: Like a gunshot, the 'crack, crack, crack' of a Rod across one's backside.

A Glowing Report. Get it?

I'm quite clever, right?)

Clever is a trait shared by many children who act out in order to receive some good old fashioned negative intimacy from their parents. Watch as the mind of the love-starved child crafts a platform of shenanigans in order to keep the tough love flowing their way. Berate me, shake me, spank me. Notice me. Validate me. Its clever, non?

Negative intimacy is better than no intimacy at all, sometimes. Sad, but true.

So watching the Black Rod get up all special on a Sunday morning to show little Rod Rouge some love, Black Rod style, has actually left me somewhat doe-eyed and calm. I got my fix. I feel validated. Its good.

And yet...

I remain unsatisfied.

It wasn't a great effort. The Rod did not rise as high, nor fall as hard, as Blue and Orange do so often inspire.

I mean, check it:

Senile Grandfather? Creaky old Jon Gerrard? Dude (s), ten bucks says Grandpa Jon runs and swims laps around you. Twenty says you already knew that. Weak sauce, sir (s).

And picking on the Other Justin? Are you going to kick my puppy next?

Hollow. The report rings hollow.

Except for the Ghost part. Now there you have something, Father (s). Let me push it a little farther, if you please.

Allow me to speculate that, of the 12 - 20% (just like 120,000 - 200,000 out of a million, no big deal) virtually none of them expect favours from the big red machine. Why? Well, as you point out, the Grits run neither the Province nor the Country (and Sam ain't likely a closet Liberal, but who knows, right?)

So I'm going out on a limb and saying that the entire block of Gritty support is from folks who honestly believe that Jon & Co. offer something we need. I'll creep a little further down the branch and name that something: good, clean governance. From the middle. For everyone, and not just someone's buddies.

And those questionable characters who hang like dirty moths around a power lamp? Hmmm... they seem to have left the building, right? That's part of the evisceration you speak of, right?

Now, on the planet I live on, this gutting of the buddy system is considered a good thing. Indicates to me a return to trustworthiness, purity of purpose, honesty, integrity. Old fashioned stuff we once believed in, back in the good old days. Before things changed.

Now-a-days we (the royal we) don't seem to desire the best for our Province. We are resigned to wallowing in the muck of partisan my-buddies-first politics, and watching as the buddies fight it out in a screwed up electoral system. We didn't just set the bar low on the integrity hurdle, we took the bar off and threw it on the ground. We aren't even asking them to jump over it to get to the power room any more.

Don't bother, just walk on in, all stinky and dirty. Everyone's doing it, right?

Funny thing is, we don't ignore the stink. I mean, that would be the polite thing, and we are still Canadians after all. Naw, we point at Stinky and say, 'hey, caught you being stinky again'. Like that is some big surprise, that political pigs-at-the-trough stink. Great bloody headline, "Extra: Stinky Stinks Again!" Big scoop!

Unacceptable. This state of affairs is unacceptable.

Albert Camus wrote about such unacceptable circumstances in The Rebel, right Father (s)? He said (I'm paraphrasing), one will rise in opposition not to usurp the position but to negate it. Not to spin a revolution turing back to the same start, but to foment a rebellion against it, to destroy and replace with something better.

Hmmm... you know what, Father (s)? I think I'm that kind of rebel.

You do not need to fear me, Father. Hey, take my offer, it still stands. Rate the candidates, pick your best pick.

In fact, why not rank them in order of preference? Like, oh, I dunno... like a preferential balloting system the Liberals are pushing for Manitoba? Wouldn't that be fun?? Couldn't we just have fun together for once...?

Or you could keep on pointing at stinky, exclusively.

No big deal, i guess.......

(... and don't think I didn't notice not a single bold in the middle of a paragraph Sunday. Its a good book, eh?)