Left-over

     I'm not surprised Joan Crockett won her seat in Calgary Centre last night although the Conservatives should be maybe a little worried it was only by a few hundred votes, with the Liberal in second. She got a not-so whopping 37% of the vote in an election where 27% (according to CTV) of the eligible actually voted. So, I'm not sure which is worse, Conservatives gloating that they won an election where 73% of the population chose not to vote or the lives lost in Afghanistan fighting for democracy?Because obviously many of you couldn't care less about democracy in your own country. Well, my fellow Calgarians and Canadians if you want to leave elections to a minority voice I guess you get what you deserve. I suppose you're all too busy texting and driving, or are maybe afraid of making choices? Why don't you text your friends and ask them? I guess I'm really feeling middle-aged these days because the young people I know seem self absorbed and flippant and the elderly people I know also seem self absorbed and flippant and racist, homophobic and out of touch from reality. Unfortunately it is mostly the latter who exercise their right to vote, and is likely their exercise for the day too! Yeah, sorry, a lot of old people I know have had their day and their say. While reading about US Presidents I learned that shortly after Richard Nixon's inauguration in 1969 there were no living Presidents, he was alone on the stage and free from any living conscience of past administrations. It's because in those days people used to have heart attacks or cancer with their cigarettes, martinis, and skirt chasing. Now we have a generation of Baby Boomers and older who take care of their health and thus things change a lot more slowly! I have elderly people in my life, maybe you do too, they think cute things like Black People are merely slang words or women should be forced to carry babies they don't want or the gays just haven't met the right girl yet and should just go back in the closet, women should not have careers (probably to take of those babies they had no choice over) and many don't have the internet because it's so expensive. OK, well the ones I know don't have internet but people tell me many elderly are on the internet in increasing numbers these days, surfing porn and getting scammed by Princes in Africa. They are so out of touch I'm certain it's the elderly who are watching Two And A Half Men, I think this show is potty mouthed filth which is the first time I have ever agreed with a 7th Day Adventist! Well, someone is watching it, no one I know is, I prefer my filth with actual swearing on a Cable channel! I agree whole heartedly with Tina Fey who recently said "If I have to listen to one more grey-faced man with a two dollar hair cut explain to me what rape is, I'm gonna lose my mind." She was speaking on women's reproductive rights and certain Tea Party candidates such as Todd Aiken who thinks rape is the will of God and a gift to womankind.  I too am getting very tired of Grey-faced men telling all of us what morality is, or the state of the economy (that they soley have benefited from), or that Obama will lose the election, hmmmm so many of them were soooo wrong on that last one!!!
     Anyway, if I can bring this back to Canadian Conservatives, one need not be an actual old person to be a grey-faced man, one could just be a bloviating charlatan like Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto who was recently the victim of his own stupidity and then blamed the "Left-Wing Media" for his downfall. I'm not getting into the conflict of interest charge here what I find out of touch is blaming some mythological left-wing. I hear and read this stuff everywhere, apparently if you do not agree with the self appointed right-wing twitterotti you are either a "leftie", "paleo-liberal" or a "Lie-beral" my goodness! Why are some so willing to call names? I guess it's because they don't have an argument or enough words in English? Well, my Canadian Neo-Con friends you should be paying more attention to the American media right now after the Obama victory. Instead of trying to define your opposition you should define yourselves lest ye become the Republicans as led by Mitt Romney. So many of the right-wing pundits are scratching their heads and wondering why they lost so many votes, as if only appealing to rich white men was, well, only appealing to rich white men in an America where more and more people are Hispanic, Women, Gay, and Underemployed, who knew!?!?!?!? Mitt Romney allied himself with the biggest bloviating entrepreneurial charlatan of them all, Donald Trump as well as religious driven anti-abortion candidates and the handsome, faster than a speeding bullet, Ayn Randian, Paul Ryan. They were defining themselves narrowly, as only a churchy party for the rich and it didn't work! Beware, Canadian Neo-Cons! Pssst, did anyone tell you that being a "Neo-Con" went out with the George W. Bush regime? Oh Canada, always 10 years behind the rest of the world! The Conservatives had better start doing some soul searching because I cannot see their policies "winning" in our society that echoes American society more than any other on the planet. This heavy-handed Omnibus, ram it through the Senate without due process stuff is going to wear on Canadians some day. Let alone the abortion talk, remember when the Minister for Women, Rona Ambrose voted against abortion rights? Or how about the ever expanding budget deficits? From more incarceration to the F-35's they appear increasingly out of control budget wise, not a Conservative value. In fact they seem more concerned with spending money to monitor Jason Kenney's image in multicultural newspapers,the War of 1812 and other poto-ops to be seen as anything but an expensive propaganda machine. Maybe if you weren't so concerned about people liking you and swindling a few hundred people in Calgary to vote for a  skitzy Wendy Malick-type character, and actually governed openly and honstly and fairly you could ease up on the media machine. Imagine me, an apparent leftie arguing for openness and honesty?, hey I thought that's what you guys were supposed to be all about? Your problem will become, like the Republicans, you don't know who you are, the "left" is all about inclusion, civil rights, expanding civil rights, war if necessary not as Neo-Con leverage with public opinion, caring for the planet we live on and not denying science, we know who we are and what we stand for, the Conservatives are as empty and devoid of substance as Rob Ford's charge the media is against him. No, you do it to yourselves. If only a fresh young charismatic leader could persuade enough young and minority folks to vote next time, nahh, it's never happened anywhere you stupid leftie!