I just found this article that says that some well known people were spies.  One of them is Moe Berg.

I know that they mean the Baseball player.

But I like to imagine that they mean the singer/songwriter from The Pursuit of Happiness.

Can you picture him as a spy?

Hey! Did you hear that Stephen Harper’s Tories have cut another arts program?

Its true!

Recently the entire PromArt prgram was axed.  PromArt was a program via Foreign Affairs that enabled Canadian Artists to travel abroad and give them a world showcase.  Some examples might be a band nearing their breakout point travelling in the UK, or a dance troupe like Les Grand Ballets Canadiens de Montréal being able to travel abroad.

But not any more.

"Certainly we felt some of the groups were not necessarily ones we thought Canadians would agree were the best choices to be representing them internationally," said Anne Howland, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson.

Pressed for an example of those who failed to meet such a requirement, Howland cited a Toronto-based experimental rock band.

"I don’t even want to say [their name] on the phone," she said. "Holy F, that was one that was flagged."

She’s talking about internationally acclaimed Toronto band, Holy Fuck, a band pretty much recognized as one of the best Canadian indie products in a long while.  Sadly, Howland is using them as a scapegoat here.  Holy Fuck is not the reason they are cancelling the program.  They’re giving reasons that some people who received money were partisan or political, or didn’t reside in Canada.  But that’s not a reason to cancel the program.  Clearly the people who received the money, qualified to apply for the program (because its not like you can get this kind of funding without going through a pretty rigorous application process).  That doesn’t mean that you cancel the program.  You take a look at your qualifying criteria.

But the Harper Government doesn’t do that.  And this isn’t about money.  This is the same tactic that was used to justify the tax credit changes under Bill C-10: its censorship of things that Harper and his cronies don’t like.

I notice that conservative paper the National Post has weighed in on the issue with an opinion piece.  Its a highly partisan justification of the decision to axe the program.  They cover in some detail the “abuses” of the program: people that they feel shouldn’t have gotten money (again…they clearly qualified for the program, so its the qualifications that are the problem not the program itself).  But here’s the thing that really pisses me off in the article:

If Canadian artists produce world-class art, then it will be noticed on the world stage — with or without government assistance.

Written as someone who’s never been an artist.  To get noticed on the “world stage” with “world class art” one needs to take your art onto the “world stage”.  I don’t know any artists that can do that without funding.  Its not possible.  No matter how good the art is.  If you can’t get it in front of an audience…its not art.

Here’s hoping our opposition parties finally find their balls and bring down this government in the fall.

You know, I don’t usually give lunatics like the Westboro Baptist Church “air time”, because seriously, they get enough publicity, which they absolutely don’t deserve.  But today, I cannot help it.   The WBC…those are the happy people behind sites like godhatesfags, godhatescanada and godhatesamerica (no links because they really don’t deserve the linkage).

They’ve been in Canadian news because of their plan to protest the funeral of Tim McLean, the poor guy who was stabbed and beheaded on a Greyhound bus on the way to Winnipeg.  Why are the protesting this funeral?

From CTV.ca:

Although no member of the group ever met McLean, they claim he lived an immoral and godless life, just like all other Canadians.

And my favourite part:

On Friday, [Shirley] Phelps-Roper [ daughter of the founding member of the Westboro Baptist Church] said her group will not be stopped from getting its message out, even if only one member makes it to McLean’s funeral. “Don’t worry. It won’t matter how many people there are. When they get the signs up, they’ll (get) the same raging, screaming response,” Phelps-Roper said.

Of course.  Because the bible is very clear on how much hate is a part of God’s message.  Oh wait.  It isn’t: You must love another as I have loved you (John 15:12).  Its pretty clear that the WBC is only interested in getting publicity for themselves.  Why else would they be calling the media every time they want to stage one of their hateful protests.  If only the media could bring themselves to just say No thank you.  You aren’t worth the ink.” [I realize saying this that it applies to me as well, since I'm writing about them.  But then, its rage that gets me writing on the topic this morning, so perhaps the journalists who give them press have the same reason].

The article ends with:

They have repeatedly called the U.S. a “fag” nation, a phrase Phelps-Roper told CTV.ca applies well to Canada.

If Canada is a “fag” nation…well, the truth is, I’m ok with that.  At least I’m not a screaming, raging psycho who’s trying to traumatize and already traumatized family at their son’s funeral.

The title of this post could refer to me.  Last week, when Jess and I were heading down to watch the screening of Behind Closed Doors, we walked down a really steep hill on our way to the movie theatre.  I commented that if we were to walk up that hill on a regular basis, it wouldn’t be long before we started to get in good shape.

Well, tonight we went up that hill for the first time since we talked about it.  It was as difficult as we first thought it would be.  This particular hill is quite steep, and it was a good workout.  I admit that I was short of breath at the top, but I do think that if we do this on a regular basis, we’ll be in pretty great shape.

The picture above is the sign of one of my favourite restaurants: The Golden Gate - better known as the Goof.  The Goof was one of the first Chinese restaurants in the area, and the food is really great.  The place got its nickname from its sign.  For many years, the neon sign you see above had several letters burned out, so that all that was lit was:  GOO F.  The name stuck.  I’m almost sad that the sign is in good working order these days.

Great.  Now I’m hungry.

So, the other day I happened to post a picture of Jess that was not very flattering. It was a very honest moment, but it wasn’t one in which she looked her best.  And she called me a jerk for posting it.

And punched me in the arm.  Not hard.  But that wasn’t the point.

So I wanted to make it up to her, by posting a picture of her that shows her looking quite good.

There.

I have, in the past, been something of an olympics junkie.  In past years, I have sat up and watched a lot of events, some of which (I admit) I didn’t really care all that much about.  I’ve sat watching equestrian events and who knows what else, into the wee hours of the morning, just because the olympics were on.  I’ll admit: its worse with the winter games.

This year, however, I don’t have a television.  This makes it difficult for me to stay up trying to watch the olympics live…which is probably healthier for me.  It does leave me at a loss, however.

Fortunately, the Wired How-To wiki has a list of ways to watch online, which will allow me to feed my irrantional need to watch the olympics, without having to find places to go to do so.

One of my (many) favourite podcasts the Moth Podcast.  The moth is an event where people get up and tell stories, usually true stories, without notes.  It can be quite engaging.

Today’s podcast was a story told by Neil Gaiman.  Gaiman is an engaging storyteller (as shown by his wonderful readings of his own books and stories).

I highly recommend his Moth story for fans of his work.

Yesterday Jess and I went out to watch the Dark Knight.  First thing we did was wisely go to get our tickets.  We had wanted to see the film in IMAX, but the show we wanted to see was sold out.  The next available show was 7PM, which would have had us wandering around for over 4 hours waiting to see the movie.  I figured that was a bit much, so we got tickets to a non-IMAX showing.  Then we went for lunch at a new-ish Japanese place on Queen West.

I don’t know if it was a downside to all the hype, but I left feeling…a bit let down.  Not that the film wasn’t good: it was.  But it didn’t blow me away.

Heath Ledger was excellent as the Joker, and personally I think that character should just be put on the shelf and considered done.  I don’t think anyone else could ever create a better Joker.  His joker was truly insane and terrifying, and I don’t think anyone else could ever create a better interpretation.

After the movie, Jess and I walked for a bit.  It wasn’t too hot out and Jess wanted a coffee, so we went in search of a Starbucks that was open on the holiday Monday.  We did not want to go to the one at Queen and John, which is always annoyingly crowded with teenagers.  So we walked East.  We were psyched out by one that we saw from a distance at Bay and Adelaide, which looked like it might be open till we got to it.  We walked along Adelaide towards the one we knew would be open at King and Yonge.

As we passed the Fairweather on Adelaide, Jess stopped in her tracks and started walking towards the window.  I thought that she spotted a dress in the window that she liked.  I knew I was wrong when I saw her move to the side of the window.  She wasn’t looking at the dresses.  She was looking down.  She was looking at the lights.  She wanted to see what kind of lights they were using in the window [She’s studying theatre tech, so she comes by the curiousity about light being used honestly].

This is Jess realizing that she’s been busted looking at the lights in the window. 

She’ll hate me for posting that, but it was too hawesome to leave out.

Doing a search on google for “Canadian Dollar” gets you the following relatively unhelpful result:

I totally LOLled.

(found via Google Blogoscoped)