Conservative MP Barry Devolin's aide sounds off on global warming

Global Warming - can 1500 scientists be wrong?
This is a letter received from Douglas Smith, a PhD living in Carnarvon, Ontario.
It concerns a staffer at Conservative MP Barry Devolin's Lindsay, Ontario constituency office.
Mr. Smith was concerned about the staffer Peter Taylor's somewhat rigorous thoughts about global warming.
The following is verbatim from Mr. Smith, who by way of full disclosure, has run for the Green Party in the past.
Mr. Devolin, for the record, said in an Echo article that Peter Taylor's views do not reflect the views of the party or his own thoughts on Global warming.
What follows is Mr. Smith's verbatim transcript.

On December 18, 2009 around 9:30 AM, I left my phone number with the receptionist at the Conservative Party constitutency office in Lindsay, requesting that Mr. Peter Taylor return my call. Mr. Taylor serves as an office assistant to Barry Devolin, Member of Parliament for the federal riding of Haliburton/Kawartha Lakes/Brock.
Earlier in the day I had learned from a trustworthy source that Mr. Taylor was quite open in voicing some extreme right-wing notions about the politics of climate change. Being curious about the beliefs of Mr. Devolin’s assistant, I recorded his return phonecall, which extended from 11:30 AM till noon-hour.
A complete transcript of our phone exchange follows. A copy can be made available for verification purposes.
Even a quick scan of this transcript raises serious questions about the mental tenor of at least one employee at Mr. Devolin’s constituency office. Exactly why has Mr. Devolin hired a fanatic to talk offensive balderdash to his constituents? If this is not as Mr. Devolin would like it, then surely some vigorous consciousness-raising is in order.

PT My name is Peter from Barry Devolin’s office. Would Doug Smith be there, please?

DS Doug Smith is speaking.

PT How can I help you, sir? You called and left a message for me?

DS I did. I’m a constituent, a somewhat concerned constituent, speaking from the Carnarvon area…It would seem from the national press that a good deal of shame has been brought upon Canada because of our attitude or response to the climate crisis.

PT Which climate crisis?

DS The climate crisis that’s occuring on this planet.

PT What is the crisis?

DS Well, I’m sure you’re aware of the details of it…The crisis has to do with the fact that the earth is warming due to anthropogenic sources.

PT Says who?

DS Says the majority of the world’s scientists.

PT They just did a report that said they were lying to each other, that international group, and they have just been doing cover-up, it hasn’t been proven at all…Six hundred years ago they were growing wheat on Greenland and there were no SUVs back then. So global warming has nothing to do with man…Climate change is better true, and nothing that humans could ever do would ever change the climate. Now, if we’re talking about pollution, I would agree with you, we should do our best to not pollute the environment.

DS So it’s your attitude that additions of CO2 to the air don’t affect climate?

PT Actually it’s needed by plants. Plants take in carbon dioxide, sir, and they convert it into – they use it in the photosynthesis process. Why would you want to decrease the carbon dioxide in the environment?

DS Because if you took the case of oxygen, for instance, if you increased oxygen, your lungs would burn up. Obviously there are optimum levels…

PT The oxygen levels were higher a few thousand years ago.

DS What I am saying is, if you continue to increase them, eventually your lungs will ignite.

PT You’re talking about oxygen, sir. Are you saying we should cut down trees? That’s ridiculous too.

DS Well, we do cut down trees, don’t we?

PT But sir, climate control has nothing to do with what’s happening in Copenhagen. Copenhagen is just a transfer of funds from rich nations to poor nations. And who makes the money but Al Gore by selling cap-and-trade tax credits. Because if you went on your assumption, what caused the global warming when the Vikings were growing crops on Greenland? If you can answer me that question, then I’d say, yes sir, we could do something. And when the Vikings did something to Greenland. And it’s obviously not true. There’s been periods of heating and cooling across the world over the last thousands of years.

DS Are you prepared to accept that the rapid heating of the earth…

PT There’s no “rapid.” It’s not proven. It’s flawed science.

DS Who are you listening to?

PT Who are you listening to?

DS I’m listening to the twelve hundred scientists who represent the International Panel on Climate Change.

PT There’s not twelve hundred scientists. If you investigate it, there’s just a few of them. They’re all politically driven. Any scientists that do have a true message are shut down by liberal-leaning universities that they work for. Anyway, I’m saying it’s hogwash, and there’s lots of articles out there, sir…And there Senate reports. Senator Imhofe of the U.S. Congress has come out and said it’s a plot. Al Gore’s movie, “The Inconsistent Truth”, whatever it is, the flawed hockey-stick argument, it’s shown to be bogus.

DS Isn’t that Senator employed by the oil-and-gas industry?

PT He’s done a whole report on climate change, showing how bogus it all is.

DS A lot of people say he’s the biggest…

PT They’re the ones on the other side of the issue. They want your tax money to give to the Third World countries, supposedly. Do you want to be controlled by the UN, or do you want a sovereign nation of Canada deciding our own future?

DS I understand these are your points of view, but what does Mr. Devolin feel about it?

PT I don’t know what Mr. Devolin feels.

DS Has he ever expressed himself on this subject?

PT I can get him to write you a letter, but that’s the truth, sir.

DS Are you his parliamentary representative?

PT No, I’m just an assistant in the office, who’s well informed on the issues.

DS Well, you don’t seem to be well informed, but you certainly have some strong attitudes.

PT Well, sir, I’m not informed on left issues, but I do know what their arguments are.

DS It doesn’t have to do much with the left. It has to do with whether we are going to survive here on this planet, or not.

PT Do you think that by making a few changes and giving more money to the UN is going to solve it?

DS I don’t think a few changes are called for. I think rather radical changes are called for.

PT What are the radical changes you’re asking for, sir?

DS We are going to have to decrease our use of a lot of internal combustion engines rather quickly.

PT China’s not going to do it, and India’s not going to do it. They are developing nations right now. And Africa’s not going to do it. Canada is insignificant in terms of 35 million people compared to 5 billion on the earth.

DS Doesn’t it concern you that Canada produces more greenhouse gas percapita than any other nation in the world?

PT That is a bogus statistic, sir.

DS Does your Prime Minister represent the oil-and-gas industry, or does he represent the people of Canada?

PT He represents the sovereign nation of Canada, sir.

DS To what extent are we sovereign if we have alligned with the United States forces?

Pt We’re not aligning…

DS The Prime Minister just said that he was pleased to announce that Canada has aligned its forces with those of the United States. To what extent do we remain sovereign?

PT Well, I disagree that we have aligned outselves with the United States.

DS Well then, you would have to disagree with the Prime Minister. He just announced it in Copenhagen.

PT There is a lot of politics involved, even for our Prime Minister who is having to posture…Look at the Kyoto Accord. People signed it and did absolutely nothing, because it was a worthless piece of document.

DS Well, Canada actually rescinded its agreement…making Canada a criminal in terms of the world’s eyes.

PT That’s what I’m saying! Criminal to who? To the UN body, who is a bunch of corrupt communist socialists who are trying to take your money.

DS There are no communists left on the face of this earth.

PT What about the South America dictator?

DS He’s not a dictator. He’s an elected representative of his country.

PT It’s a communist country, sir!

DS It’s not a communist country. There’s a large capitalist bloc.

PT He’s a dictator!

DS He’s not a dictator, he’s elected.

PT Pardon me, sir, but you don’t know what a dictatorship is. If you go down and look at these countries…

DS Have you lived there?

PT I have, sir.

DS You’ve lived in Venezuela? Well?

PT Have you?

DS No, but I’ve been in Guyana, and I know what it’s like to live in a country that isn’t socialist. That’s right next door, by the way.

PT They’re taking your money and they want more of your money.

DS Who’s they?

PT The UN!

DS I’m not being taxed by the UN.

PT Hillary Clinton announced that’s she going to raise – who’s paying 100 billion dollars?

DS Well, if it actually even happens. That’s politics too, don’t you think?

PT I think it is. It’s a lot a rhetoric, sir. But who gets the money? It’s the guys like Al Gore, who sell you the tax credits.

DS Al Gore is already a rich man, so why would he want more money?

PT So he can power his house down there in the States. It’s the only house you can see from space, I’ve heard.

DS I betcha that’s not the case, because Bill Gates has a bigger house than he has.

PT Well, Bill Gates earned his money by selling you and me internet connections, and we have a choice. But Bill Gates is different. Do you know the difference between Bill Gates and Al Gore? Al Gore is selling government, more government to you. Bill Gates is selling private enterprise. You can buy or not buy his product. You have a choice.

DS Actually, Bill Gates has tried his hardest over the last decades to enforce a monopoly, so that I can’t buy another product.

PT You can buy Coca-Cola if you choose to or not. You don’t have any choice with taxes…

DS Fortunately the United States intervened and broke up Microsoft, so that I do have a choice. It takes the government to police these characters, don’t you think? That’s why we have anti-trust legislation.

PT I agree. But what we’re talking about at Cohenhagen is not free enterprise, sir. The raping of governments and taking over power by these unelected officials in Copenhagen.

DS I think Harper was elected, and wasn’t he present in Copenhagen?

PT He’s going over to sign the agreement to make everyone feel good and look good because we’re trying to save the planet. And sir, the planet doesn’t need saving.

DS It’s not the planet that needs saving. It will continue to wheel through space for an eternity. It’s probably the life that exists upon it, the thin biofilm…

PT The Vikings, you still haven’t answered my question.

DS The vikings have nothing to do with it.

PT We were covered in ice a few thousand years ago. What caused the warming?

DS Because of the Milankovitch cycles, which are very, very long term…

PT What heated it up, the sun?

DS Yes, the sun.

PT It wasn’t people using hair-spray?

DS You’re babbling. You ask me a question, then you start to babble. If you want the answer you will have to wait a second. There are long-term cycles called Milankovitch cycles, which can be predicted, they are geological in nature, and they have to do with the relationship of the earth to the sun…

PT You used one word I will contest with: predicted. They can’t predict the weather on Friday.

DS I’m not talking about the weather. I’m talking about the climate through thousands of years of geological time, and these effects can be predicted. Likewise, there are short-term blips of heating and warming. That’s natural. Every natural phenomenon has a cycle to it. But what is most, most alarming…

PT It’s all made up.

DS Actually it’s not. They record the cycles through cores in ice and…

PT It’s all baloney science. They’re just making it up. You know, when I went to school these same scientists were saying that we were cooling.
Now they say we’re warming.
DS Don’t you think that science advances, that it deepens its knowledge, and improves its techniques?

PT Read the counter-arguments. There are two arguments…

DS Well, there is data on the one hand, and there are people who make arguments on the other.

PT Well, obviously the Prime Minister doesn’t agree with you.

DS What do you mean to say?

PT He’s duly elected by the people.

DS And what does he think?

PT Well, he doesn’t agree with you.

DS What does he agree with? He already said at Copenhagen that all Canadian’s should be concerned about the climate crisis. Are you differing with the Prime Minister on this matter?

PT I guess I do on this one.

DS Why? Because you don’t have any evidence. You just have prejudices.

PT I don’t have any evidence? Neither do you, sir.

DS You see, I do. But I’m not going to give it to you over a five-minute phone-call. Obviously, it you would like to sit down and pass and swap articles, we could do that. If you have the qualifications to test who actually…

PT You know what would be the real test. Ten years from now, if we haven’t seen the death of the world and we’re not dead.

DS Well, I don’t think that’s very prudent. The idea is to intervene before the cycle becomes impossible to restrain.

PT Intervene how? You can’t control the Indians or the Chinese do, and the other three-and-a-half billion people…

DS We start with ourselves. We are going to have to start with ourselves. You know how? Impose a two dollar tax on gasoline and see what happens. That’s going to change things quite a bit, isn’t it?

PT We’ll become a banana republic…We’ll all be on bicycles. Maybe that’s the way you want it, for all I know.

DS I just want to quote you what the Prime Minister said in Copenhagen. He said, and I’m quoting, “Canadians of all ages and in all regions share a profound interest in contributing to effective global action on climate change.” So I’m asking you, how is the Progressive Conservative government contemplating these things, and what is Mr. Devolin prepared to do with regards to the economy and society in this area, in order to bring about the change that the Prime Minister is asking for.

PT I guess he’ll get that same question in question-period when government resumes in January.

DS I’m wishing that you would pass this question on to Mr. Devolin in the hope that he would have something clear to say.

PT I’m sure that they will have a release, and you’ll read about it soon.

DS Are you at odds with Mr. Devolin on this issue?

PT I have no idea. I’ve never talked to him about it.

DS You haven’t!

PT No, sir!

DS Well, why wouldn’t you? Again I’m quoting the Prime Minister that “it’s a matter of profound interest to Caanadians”.

PT I’m profoundly interested, too.

DS Of course, in the other direction.

PT Exactly.

DS Well, it seems that you’re coming from a position of almost total ignorance…

PT Your point of view.

DS The actual fact is that you have to in the final analysis acknowledge that some people know more than you do, as duly recognized senior scientists in their field. And if there is near-unanimity amongst them, and actually a convergence of opinion…

PT What about the unanimity of the scientist who disagree with you?

DS The scientists who disagree are in…

PT Because you write them off, just like I’m writing you off. It’s a political issue.

DS Now, you don’t really want to write someone off who has a PhD, while you sit there as a staff…

PT …grants…money…

DS I’m not getting paid by anybody.

PT I know you’re not, but all the money in terms of science - they’re getting grants from schools…

DS Why shouldn’t schools give grants to people to do research? How else do you do research?

PT I’m telling you to watch where the money goes and what they study.

DS So if you look at money going into Senator Imhofe’s coffers from the oil-and-gas industry, what do you conclude?

PT That’s baloney.

DS It’s not baloney. He has to publish the data. He has to, as a representative of the United States Senate, publish where his contributions come from, and if he gets $250,000 from the oil-and-gas industry, what conclusions do I draw, based on what you are saying about people who receive grants?

PT So does Obama. He gets money support from the oil-and-gas industry.

DS Of course.

PT That’s not the argument.

DS Well, that is the argument. You say, if you get money from somebody, you follow the money. So I followed the money. Now you say that’s not the argument. What is your argument?

PT The truth is, the climate has always been changing, and nothing we do is going to affect it.

DS Well, we’ve already affected it, so that is actually not the truth. The scientific consensus is that we have affected it anthrogenically through the release of CO2 and other carbon dioxide-like matter into the atmosphere. You can sit there and try to refute that, but you have no solid evidence whatsoever that’s not the case.

PT Toronto is a warmer place now because…

DS What has that got to do with the price of cheese? We are talking about the climate of the earth. Local experience is one way or the other, but if you want to, talk to an old fellow how he used to drive trucks across the lakes loaded down with wood, but they don’t do that no more because there’s not enough ice to carry it off. So talk to the old fellows, and they will talk to you about what is called…

PT Are you going to call industry down and say we’re going to live in tents?

DS We don’t know what we’re going to do, but we have start talking like there’s a problem first of all, and develop a consensus around that, and not let deniers who have very little evidence on their behalf take control of the press and occupy political parties, and begin…

PT You better be careful or they’ll start taking your tax payers and squandering it away on these conferences and giving it away and filling their own pockets.

DS Well, I know where a lot of my money goes, and it goes right to your own representative, who has a very fat salary.

PT Well, that’s true. Government is expensive.

DS No, I’m not talking about governing expenses, I’m talking about keeping our representative in Ottawa in the style to which he is accustomed.

PT Every Liberal and Conservative, they are all paid the same.

DS We can talk about the cost of government, and I know that Stephen Harper has tried to reduce the scale of government, while at the same time allowing large private industries to establish the mandate and direction of policies in Canada. And I think we have to recognize just to what extent the oil-and-gas industry is…

PT It’s making money! If we didn’t have an oil-and-gas industry, Alberta would be in a lot of trouble. They’re the only one paying in. We’re all have-nots. We’re all getting the transfer money from Alberta.

DS We would all have to lead decent lives and stop tearing off the face of this earth. And do you know where that gas and oil is going to go?

PT Where?

DS The United States. That’s why they’re building the pipeline.

PT Why don’t we sell it?

DS We can’t, because of the proportionality clause in the NAFTA. We have to supply the United States as much percentage-wise as when the agreement was signed. We can’t go back on that, otherwise we get invaded.

PT Who told you are running out of gas and oil?

DS Who told me we are running out of gas and oil? Haven’t you heard the news? The International Energy Agency has said we’ll reach peak oil by the year 2020.

PT Well, we’ll have an alternative then.

DS What kind?

PT I don’t know, sir…And the sky was falling, and the chickens were running around, and you know what? The same alarmists today – What are we going to do. You know what? Free enterprise will figure it out. And we will figure out how to drive our economy, sir, without the government intervention. Because when the government gets involved, it’s called communism and socialism.

DS Free enterprise has already created the mess in Alberta, where it’s screwing up an area the size of England to extract oil from the tar sands, leading to a vast pollution problem on the Athabaska…

PT And your problem is? Why?

DS Because my fellow humans are suffering, or going to suffer, as a result of it all.

PT Fellow humans!

DS How would you like to be downstream of that mess? Would you like to live on the Athabaska River?

PT I wouldn’t like to live near the Pickering Power Plant, either, but that’s my choice. That’s the freedom of choice of every Canadian.

DS A lot of folks don’t have freedom of choice, or they prefer to stay where they were born and live with their families and with their neighbours.

PT Well, there you go!

DS Well, I’m not going anywhere. I’m telling you that they’re faced with a wall of pollution coming down on them.

PT I’m glad you’re so concerned about them out there.

DS Because I’m a fellow human being.

PT Well, don’t drive your car.

DS I don’t.

PT You take a bicycle?

DS No. Most of the time I don’t drive my car, is what I’m saying.

PT There you go.

DS 99% of the time I don’t drive my car.

PT Most people have no choice. They’ve got to go to work. They’ve got to keep their lives going, and everyone is doing the best they can to do it.

DS No they’re not. Obviously you’re not doing your best, because you are a denier. You’re offered an argument, which if you had an open mind and somebody supplied you with the scientific details, you could not refute it. You do not have the ability to contest the scientific data, so you listen to a couple of oddballs on the margin, who scoff at science…

PT Now just wait a minute. You’ve insulted me. How do you know how much education I have?

DS Because you sound like you don’t have any. Because you’re quoting oddballs. You’re not proceeding in a rational state. You have a set of prejudices that you’re voicing. You are unable to point to any literature that can support your points of view. You’ve chosen to go with a bunch of kooks and oddballs at the very margin of science, and you take their point of view holus-bolus without looking at the consensus argument.

PT Do you have a PhD?

DS Yes I do.

PT That’s what it sounds like.

DS I’m sorry about that. I wish I could act like an ignoramus. But you know something? Canadians like to draw averages. So there’s somebody who knows something, and there’s somebody who’s ignorant. You know what the difference is, if you draw the average between the two?

PT What?

DS A half-wit. Goodbye.

PT Bye.

A Mom's gift at Christmas

You will forgive Sharon Middlehurst for hugging Scotty Morrison so hard.
And you will understand her tears, when you hear the story of a miniature hockey stick, emblazoned with an extraordinary autograph and a Toronto Maple Leafs logo, and how it made its way to Haliburton from Toronto and the Hockey Hall of Fame.
How it made this Christmas so very special for a mom, who must now stand strong in the wings and watch as her son, chief warrant officer Chris Rusk, boards a plane for Kandahar, Afghanistan in January.
Poignant, because Haliburton resident – and hockey Hall of Famer – Scotty Morrison, along with Leafs greats Ron Ellis and Paul Henderson all conspired to bring that unique hockey stick here to Haliburton, so a proud mom could give her son something extra special for Christmas this year.
The tears came mixed with smiles as Sharon Middlehurst, known as the quilt lady in the Highlands, stood in the meeting room of Community Care Haliburton last week, with volunteer coordinator Brigitte Gebauer and Morrison.
Tears of joy blended with a mom's love, amidst a constrained and contained celebration, because this particular gift comes with a price. It comes coincident with the attendant worries of a mother who must shortly bid her son goodbye as he trudges off to war.
Etched on Middlehurst's face, a mother's fears, infused with a smile and gratitude – and those tears.
And you will understand immediately just how much Middlehurst loves her 47-year-old son, regimental sergeant major Rusk of the 2nd Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery based at Camp Petawawa.
You will understand that even at 47, a son is still that little boy who skated on the backyard rink; who refused to eat his vegetables; and whose eyes lit up like an earthbound comet every Christmas morning.
And yes, that same Sgt. Maj. Rusk whose hulking presence fills a door today, is still that 13-year-old boy who was so unbelievably proud of a miniature hockey stick he received at a hockey camp, 35 years ago. A stick signed by everyone's boyhood idol, Paul Henderson.
Paul Henderson, hero of hockey's iconic '72 summit series between Canada and Russia.

Henderson, the player who like a latter day David, laid out the rumbling Russian bear with one quivering dart to the back of the twine, as seconds clicked to deadlock.

Warrant officer Rusk will be shipping out for Kandahar shortly.
It's a worrisome time for any soldier's mom.
Understandable then that Middlehurst was so focused on making this Christmas extra special for Rusk.
"Chris, when he was 12 or 13 went to hockey school one summer, and Paul Henderson gave each of the boys an autographed miniature hockey stick," says Middlehurst. "We've moved several times since then, and the stick has gone missing, and we've looked and looked, but we just can't find it.
"And I know that he [Rusk] still looks for it when he comes home, and I just thought, he's going to Afghanistan in January, and I wanted something special for Christmas for him. And I thought, 'if I could just give him another Paul Henderson stick,' and then all of a sudden I remembered, 'Scotty Morrison lives up here.'
"And you know, well, it was just incredible. I got the number from Hilary [Elia, a Community Care support worker and co-organizer, with Gebauer, of the annual Scotty Morrison Charity Hockey Tournament] and she assured me that he'd be happy to do it."
So Middlehurst phoned Morrison and left a voicemail. He was in Calgary visiting family at the time, but as soon as he got back he responded to Middlehurst's message.
"He phoned back and he said, 'I'll get you that stick,' and it was just so wonderful," says Middlehurst. "It just seemed like an impossible thing, but Scotty made it happen."
As she recounts the story, the tears again welling in her eyes, she stops just long enough to give Morrison another great big hug.
Morrison, who spent a long and illustrious NHL career as referee-in-chief, VP officiating, and later as chairman and CEO of the Hockey Hall of Fame, was self-effacing as ever, and loath to take much credit. He simply said that the stars just seemed to be aligned on this one.
"We really lucked in, because when I phoned Ron [Ellis], he said 'I'm meeting Paul this weekend,'" says Morrison. "And we were going to get a Hall of Fame stick, but we found that Chris was a Leafs' fan so we decided to use a Toronto Maple Leafs stick instead."
Morrison explains that Gebauer happened to be in Toronto recently and offered to pick it up. "Everything just seemed to work, because she was in the area and she just dropped into the Hall of Fame last week and picked up the stick and brought it back here to Haliburton in time for Christmas."
Middlehurst stops for a moment thinking about what this will mean for her son.
"He's got 29 years in [the military]," says Middlehurst. "He was 17 when he signed up, and he's done so well. So much training. He's been away from home for six months now, and he'll be in Afghanistan with the provincial reconstruction team for nine months. He's been presented with the Governor General's Award of Military Merit.
"He really believes in what he's doing, and he's done so well, I'm just so proud of him."
She says that this gift will mean a lot to Chris, but really, when you see that sparkle in those eyes, you can't help but succumb to a niggling notion that reinforces the old saw: "Better to give than to receive."
In this case, it's case closed.
"It was something, because I had second thoughts after I left that message on Scotty's phone," laughs Middlehurst. "When I left that message, I phoned a friend, and said that 'Maybe he'll think I'm nuts.'"
And in the end, that's what Christmas and giving's all about isn't it?
Leaving it all out there - on a tortured limb - for the ones you love.
And now, leaving the real perspective on this tale to Paul Henderson, no mean wielder of dreams himself.
Henderson left a wish for Chris on the autographed stick.
"To Chris – Keep safe my friend – Paul Henderson."
He signed it for Chris, but it stands as a message to all our troops, from one warrior to all those other warriors, out on that cold foreboding Afghan ice.
"Keep safe."
Twitter Terrance with story tips: terrancegavan at Twitter.com

Tiger, Tiger bum and blight – blather, bunk and blunted plight

Tiger, Tiger bum and blight ... you go son ... go fly a kite
By Terrance Gavan
Tiger, Tiger, fess-up tonight, find reprieve, shed some light.
Geez, Tiger, what the hell kind of mid-life crisis have you embarked on, for crap’s sake?
I’m guessin’ that there’s more, much more limping legless from that closet of detritus that you’ve been packing with salty dreams, fantasies and high def models.
Time for a junket to a sweat lodge Tiger.
You have now joined the hosanna chorus.
You’ve thrown your swoosh hat in the ring with the likes of Mel Gibson, a veritable string of horn dog senators and congressman, Jimmy Swaggart and all those prattling and sexually compromised preachers.
Ah, Tiger, Tiger, I think you might, need a preacher of your own tonight.
Find a pulpit, confess, connive and canoodle.
Cram ten years of transgression into one glorious, grandiose and grandiloquent sound bite. Cry, plead cajole.For god’s sake be sure to have your wife and kids in the background.
Channel your inner Flip Wilson. Tell the world: “The devil made me do it!”Better yet. Find Bill Clinton.
Ask him what the “meaning of is is.” Ah pundits, poets, preening power brokers and popinjay press. Climbing all over this one like rats on a pork bone.
Tiger, Tiger quite a sight, knockin’ spikes by firelight.
I’m actually quite happy to see Tiger on the spit doin’ a slow naked roll with the Heinz BBQ sauce splattered liberally over the appropriate parts of his anatomy.
And I’m especially impressed by Jesper Parnevik, who had the cohunes and ticklish temerity to come out and say what a lot of golfers were probably already thinking.
To wit: hey Tiger methinks the lady doth protest un-much; and she should have clobbered you with a driver instead of that true temper three iron.
Fore!
Ah Tiger, after all that practice you still can’t keep yourself out of the water (fire hydrant) or the woods (that lovely pruned Elm) and you still don’t have the slightest idea about what old Earl (your dad) was trying to say when he told you to go forth and act like a man.
And no Tiger … men do not make a habit of cruising Vegas hot spots for 23 year old cocktail waitresses, nor do they prattle, pound pattered pavement, and piss around New York with inveterate 32 year old Hungarian sports groupies.
Shit, that’s Donald Trump’s shtick.
Crunch the numbers Tiger. Just how much shit, spit and shineola do you really want to bring to this buffet?
Ah Tiger, Tiger burned the wife, find some solace, get a life.
To be fair, Parnevik did introduce his former nanny Elin to Tiger and he’s probably feeling some gut wrenching guilt from Tiger’s betrayal of a young woman who is by all accounts a dedicated wife and mother.
Word is out that money has already slid from Tiger’s vault to Elin’s pre-nupped cash and carry. Ah, would this really be a story if the lawyers weren’t scrambling for their 15 per cent.
Ah Tiger, Tiger, crumbling knight, pal-i-mony follows spite.
This is just another case of cognitive dissonance run riot. The notion that if I’m doing well, and I’m mega wealthy, I must be a pretty darn good guy.
It’s called a rich sense of entitlement and I think what Tiger forgot, is what some philosophers know only too well.
Power corrupts and absolute power creates moral ambiguity.
And moral ambiguity in the hands of snooty, self-aggrandized spoiled brats leads to … hmmm, what’s the word? Oh yes, diddling.
Hey Tiger, hearken the Amish.You know what they say, don’t you?
Sex is the gateway sin … leads to dancing, coffee and internal combustion engines.
Ah, Tiger, Tiger snickered slights, lookit’ Phil, a shining light.
Yes, not only has lefty Phil Mickelson handed you your butt on the course, he has also, by standing so bravely by his wife throughout her chemotherapy treatments, gained the moral high ground. Go Lefty go!
Now, there’s talk about you and Oprah hopping into the bright sublime of a Harpo shine.
The thought of Tiger and Oprah mooning, mincing and meekly mopping the ratings with an hour-long dipsy-doodle into some transient modality just brought back my lunch.
Oprah, do the world a favor for Christ’s sake.
Crumple up your ego and go find a real cause.
Ah, Tiger, Tiger ugly sight, leaking blood on Friday night.
I hear you won’t be banging clubs, uprooting small shrubs and abusing the f-word in your own tournament upcoming in a couple of weeks.
Tell you what Tiger.
I’m really going to miss those fist pumps, that iconoclast’s smirk, the thousand mile stare of the self-absorbed egoist, and I’m especially going to miss the base, boorish banter emanating from your Kiwi caddy, the rude, rumpled and randy Stevie Williams.
Ah, Tiger, Tiger naughty sprite, do me a favor … go fly a kite.

Hypochondria and my dog Billie Jean

My dog is exacerbating my hypochondria
Victimized again by Rev. Donald Francis Gavan
By Terrance Gavan
I am a confirmed hypochondriac.
I blame it on my upbringing and I pin it specifically on my uncle, the Reverend Donald Francis Gavan.
Gav was wildly cognizant of every working part of his slowly discombobulating body.
A chronic worrier.
A serial hypochondriac.
Now the medical definition of the disease states that:
“A person who has hypochondriasis, a disorder characterized by a preoccupation with body functions and the interpretation of normal body sensations (such as sweating) or minor abnormalities (such as minor aches and pains) as portending problems of major medical moment. Reassurance by physicians and others only serves to increase the hypochondriac's persistent anxiety about their health.”
The Reverend Donald Francis never actually took these minor complaints to his doctor.
He did however bring it constantly and continuously to his rather large extended family in Ottawa.
He was a constant presence at Saturday and Sunday Gavan family dinners.
His own hypochondria was enormously and prodigiously enlarged when confronted by other people’s maladies.
He was a “hypochondriac chart topper” taking extravagant and almost Rambo-like zeal in medical one-upmanship
If you had a cold … Uncle Don had the Asian Flu.
If you had shin splints … The Rev had a torturous ankle condition from a “pre-existing wartime injury” that “flared up” in hot humid conditions; or extended cold snaps.
My mother had three major coronaries.
The Reverend Donald would visit regularly.
Inevitably he would leave the hospital with mysterious chest pains, shortness of breath and shooting pains down his right arm.
By the time we reached the car - having watched a procession of emergency room victims pass by in various states of disrepair - Father Don would be limping, wheezing, and wiping rivers of sweat from his forehead.
“My arm’s swelling up, I have a migraine, I think I’ve got a bad case of Denghi Fever, let’s get the hell out of here,” Gav would say, sprint-limping like a gut-shot Ostrich to the car.
I happened to mention one Sunday that I was doing some research on the rise of smallpox on the African continent.
I swear to God, Gav popped his head around the corner of the kitchen.
“Tell me about it,” says Reverend Donald Francis. “I have these huge red welts around my abdomen and my joints have been sore as hell since last Tuesday. Smallpox eh? Have you got any reading material that I can take home tonight?”
Understand that we all loved Father Don.
We just wondered a lot about his almost manic preoccupation with disease.
He smoked about three to 15 packs of cigarettes a day.
Never once did I ever hear him complain about an allergy to smoke, or some concern that his habit may be contributing to a lowered life expectancy. His own hypochondria never extended to his own forlorn lifestyle choices.
The medical profession calls this “whistling past the graveyard.”
I call it ironic, because it was lung cancer that finally swept the good Donald Francis off this patch of green in the late nineties.
My own hypochondria I attribute directly to the Reverend Donald Francis. Rampant and derelict access to the Internet and all those dastardly self-diagnosis sites doesn’t help either. And now I have an itchy problem with my dog Billie Jean.
Some time ago I read an article about the canine’s ability to sniff out disease in humans. It said: “Already dogs are used to warn of epileptic seizures, low blood sugar and heart attacks, although whether they are detecting changes in smell or physical behavior is still unknown. And, while they may not be able to perform CPR, some canines do know how to call 911.”
I am now fully tuned in to my dog’s first-alert warning system.
If she takes an inordinate interest in my feet, I am off like a shot to Haliburton emergency services.
“What’s wrong,” Triage Person will ask.
“I’m not sure,” I reply, “but my dog Billie Jean seems to think I may have a pre-existing ankle problem. Maybe run a battery of X-Rays and set me up for a Cat Scan?”
My preoccupation with Billie’s moods has increased exponentially over the past two years as I do further research on canine diagnosis via my hi-speed Googler.
I am stretching the patience of the very solicitous Triage Person at Haliburton General.
One day last week Billie stared unblinking at the top of my head.
Fearing the worst, I bolted for emergency.
Triage person sits looking at me with that perplexed and haggard look of the long-suffering soul.
“Terry, what now?” says Triage Person.
“I don’t know, but Billie’s thinking brain aneurysm, and I’m guessing we’ll be wanting a full PET scan,” I say, tapping the top of my head which produced a hollow Bongo-Congo sound. “Oh and she was licking my hand … what do you think? Carpal Tunnel or arthritis?”
She points me to my doctor.
My doctor, Marcia Welby MD, is a no-nonsense practitioner, and she is not quite as patient or understanding as Triage Person.
“Terry, I want you to quit bothering Triage Person,” says Dr Marcia.
“Billie Jean is not clairvoyant and dogs do not have a license to practice medicine in Ontario. Oh, and I want you to put a block on Web MD on your Internet,” says Marcia.
We have come to a grudging agreement.
I limit my Triage Person visits to one or two per month.
But just in case … I am currently teaching Billie Jean to dial 911.
She’s apparently a quick learner.
Last month I got a bill from my long distance provider.
Did you know that a random call to the Australian Outback comes in at $165 per hour?
Billie Jean is giving me a migraine.
I think.

Parasailing first person screed

Popping for a silly-sally sail in the clouds
Parasailing is a blast - but watch the after effects
By Terrance Gavan
If you’re not a parakeet, and you’ve never flown, well this is about as close as you’re going to get.
Clicked into a huge yellow and white parachute with a happy face logo.
About 350 feet above the shimmering depths of Lake Kashagawigamog you can’t hear much at all.
You certainly can’t hear the low rumble of the Ski-Mazing Water Sports tow-boat hundreds of yards away.
After a hiatus of 14 years, Craig Bowker and Ski-Mazing Water Sports are flying high in the Highlands sky once again.
Bowker says the winch boat is an option that is 100 percent safer than the old beach launch method of parasailing.
“You used to hear crazy stories from back in the eighties when parasailing started,” smiles Bowker. Today says Bowker, the winch lets you out off the platform slowly and then reels you back in on the return.
Bowker offered two scribes from the Voice a flight and we jumped at the opportunity.
And Bowker is right. Safe, reliable and courteous, and one heck of an adventure.
But be forewarned.
Pick your flight partner with care and consideration.
Once you’re up there, well, you’re there for a while.
I found out the hard way.
It’s quite quiet up there; except for the low drone of co-rider Mark Arike, who convinced me to take him along for the ride on this tandem flight.
Two minutes into the flight, I finally convinced Arike that he didn’t have to maintain a ‘death grip’ on the hanging straps, holding us into our canvas seats.
Freaky Arike let go of the straps. But he continued to have his arms in the air, in the old “stick ‘em up” pose. You know, just in case he might need to grab hard onto the reins again.
Another minute of watching him in full rigor mortis mode, I convinced him to summon his inner Jack Nicholson.
“Mark, look at me,” I yelled from behind, on the tandem two-person set underneath the parasail.
“Do a Jack … Do a Jack!” I screamed waving my arms and flapping maniacally like a wounded ostrich on a Jonathan Livingstone Seagull Peyote trip.
“What’s a Jack? For chrissakes!” screamed Arike, who was trying to relax, but was obviously growing increasingly ambivalent about my proffered advice.
“Jack Nicholson you great feathery dolt!” I screamed.
He glanced back to stare at me, like I had just descended from Mars.
The eyes were wide as saucers, the look unyielding and non-comprehensive.
I recognized it immediately.
Altitude sickness compounded by winded thrust.
The wind at 350 feet was undoubtedly whistling through the empty spaces between those floppy ears.
He screamed at me: “Jack Nicholson, what?”
I began flapping my wings even harder, trying to jog that unfertilized noggin back to life.
“Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack!” I screamed, arms flapping willy-nilly just like Jack did on the back of that chopper sitting behind Dennis Hopper in that old sixties anthem to the road.
“Easy Rider! Easy Rider, you great disenfranchised boob!” I screamed still flapping my wings.
“Easy What?” screamed Mark, just another young whippersnapper, with no touchstone to reality or great movies borne from seminal literature.
“Easy Rider, Easy Rider the film, you clandestine moron!” I scream over the gusty wind that moves us over a sandy beach far below.
“Have you never read Jack Kerouac, you illiterate scoundrel?” I ask.
“Jack Shellack?” screams Mark. “What are you talking about?”
I gave up.
“Just flap your wings, you sullen excuse for a pundit,” I beg, over the windy, blue-tinged slipstream.
And my god!
He takes the cue.
He says: “Oh you mean like this! Wheeeeeeee!”
“By George I think she’s got it!” I exclaim.
He looks back and I see the eyes glazing over once again.
Damn literary references.
“Never mind … it’s just Shaw and Pygmalion you great goofus … forget it … keep flapping you great speckled bird,” I scream, failing to footnote Ian and Sylvia Tyson.
And we are both of us, under the smiling happy face on the large parasail flapping like Jack.
Flapping mad as we glide gently from one end of Lake Kashagawigamog to the other.
Trust me folks.
If the smile on Arike’s face is any indication, this ride is well worth the trip to Ski-Mazing Water Sports headquarters - right beside the Wigamog Inn on Wigamog Road, off County Road 21 just west of Haliburton.
As we winched safely back down to the platform – but only after the thrilling toe drag in the water – Mark was still flapping madly.
Just like Jack.
After we were back on terra firma Mark asked me about Easy Rider – and Jack Kerouac.
I pulled one of my old dog-eared copies of On the Road from my glove compartment and last weekend I gave him a DVD of Easy Rider.
I got an interesting phone call from Mark last Saturday night.
“Terry love the book,” said Mark. “Question; what’s peyote?”
I told him to Google Carlos Castaneda.
Haven’t seen hide or hair of Mark in two days.
He’s not answering his Blackberry.
I’m giving him another 24 hours.
Then I’m calling in the tracking dogs.
Just in case he’s metamorphed into a “Spirit Wolf.”
Or, worse - a Trickster Raven.

The day the bridge blew up in Halcyon

When love of a dog sets logic aside
The day the bridge blew up in Halcyon
By Terrance Seamus Gavan
Lest you get the wrong idea.
It’s important to know that Paddy Baldurson is a dog lover.
It’s also important to know that Paddy Baldurson has an eclectic view of the world.
I first met Paddy back when I was a young reporter with the Halcyon Packet and Times in the Manitoba Interlake.
Paddy was a 74-year-old seed farmer and very involved in local politics.
He was a former Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Reykjavik and he was like me, half Irish and half Icelandic. When I first arrived in Halcyon, in 1988, my hard knock editor Lorne Bjornson told me to get to know Paddy. Said he would be a great contact for local news and rumor.
Well, over my five years with the Halcyon P and T I did get to know Paddy Baldurson very well. But we seldom talked politics – or gossip.
Mostly we talked dogs. And we had many rollicking discussions.
Paddy was never without at least three dogs in tow. He ran a kind of rescue mission for Black Labs out at his ranch.
No matter how many dogs you meet in a lifetime, one always stays with you.
Paddy’s old collie/black lab cross Mel – short for Melancholy – was such a dog. Mel was the personification of her name. Paddy had taken Mel in when she a very young puppy. She came from abuse, was left on an open Manitoba Highway during one of those prairie Nor’westers that seemed to drop onto the bald prairie from right out of the Siberian Gulag.
That was back in 1974 and Paddy figured that Mel was about a year old.
For the first two weeks Mel was wary of everything and showed all the classic shyness of a dog who had been abused. Paddy had a way with dogs and it didn’t take long for Mel to come around.
“One night she came up and put her head on my lap, and she looked into my eyes with trust, love and just a wee touch of melancholy,” smiled Paddy. “Only one name would fit after that. Melancholy she was and she’s been Mel to this day, the best dog I have ever known … and I’ve known a few in my time.”
Mel became, over the years, the Halcyon town mascot. Paddy loved high school sports and he and Mel became a fixture at football, track meets, basketball, volleyball and hockey games.
In the spring of 1991 Paddy flagged me down and I pulled in off the highway into his yard. Mel was lying in the shade and she looked up, but after two futile efforts to rise, she just wagged her tail in greeting. Spunky went over to see her and she licked him on the face.
Paddy was crying. I knew what was happening.
“I don’t think I can bring her to the vet to put her down,” said Paddy, biting back tears.
“Can I do anything?” I said, the tears coming as I rested my hand on his huge shoulders that were shuddering now through the tears. Paddy just sobbed and shook his head. I went over to stroke Mel’s big black head. She licked me, wagged her tail, but couldn’t rise. Her breathing was shallow. She was 18 or 19 years old and she was fading, but she wasn’t in pain.
Two days later, on July 1st, I got the call. It was Paddy. “Mel’s been sleeping for 18 hours, but she won’t let go,” said Paddy. I said I’d be right over.
I wasn’t prepared for the sight that greeted me in the yard. Paddy, had Mel dressed in a flak jacket, which was rigged with 5 sticks of dynamite and attached to what looked like an alarm clock trailing wires. I had heard various stories about Paddy and how he had been involved at Camp X with spymaster Bill Stevenson in the Muskoka’s during World War 2. I knew he had a blasting license because he had been hired by the RM to manage some tricky demolitions’ work from time to time.
“I can’t bring her to the vet,” said Paddy through tears. “This is all I can do for her now. Will you help?”
I remember nodding and setting off on what was to be our last journey across the Viking River and up to Jardosson’s Bluff on the edge of Paddy’s home quarter. Paddy had Mel wrapped in her favorite quilt. We put her in the back of his trailer attached to the hitch of his Yamaha 4-wheeler. She was in a coma sleeping peacefully.
We went across the old and rickety Landmark Covered Bridge that straddled the Viking River. It was built in 1866 and there was fight on to restore it.
We got to Jardosson’s Bluff, overlooking the blue-green expanse of Lake Manitoba. Paddy laid Mel down in the alfalfa fringe of the Oak bluff. And then he set the timer.
He nodded and said “Five minutes.” We both said a short prayer and drove slowly back to the old condemned covered bridge.
We were half way across the bridge when for some reason I looked back. And there was Mel, at full gallop across the prairie, risen like some dynamite-infused Lazarus from that coma.
I tapped Paddy on the shoulder. It didn’t take long for the two of us to realize that Mel, miraculously metabolized, was now coming at us like a smart missile. “Holy crap!” said Paddy, quickly checking his watch.
We arrived at the other end of Landmark Bridge just as Mel was entering. We stopped at the far side of river bank. Paddy was counting down. “nine, eight, seven …”
And out came Mel, like a bullet and right at us. “Three, two, one.” The explosion was deafening and both Paddy and I were lifted off our feet and lay flat on our butts in the sweet smelling alfalfa.
I felt a nudge. I looked up only to find mel, big brown eyes staring quizzically right at me. Then I was immediately accosted by Mel’s tongue, licking my face with delight.
Paddy and I looked down the bank at the sight of the Landmark Bridge slowly crumbling into the Viking River. Mel was too busy cavorting to take much notice of the noise or the destruction. The flak jacket had apparently slid off in the middle of the bridge.
The insurance paid for the historical restoration of the old Landmark Covered Bridge.
It’s the only covered bridge in Manitoba and it’s a big tourist attraction.
No one in Halcyon calls it by its historical moniker.
Around Halcyon the old restored landmark is known as Mel’s Big Bang.
Mel was rejuvenated, and enjoyed a remarkable six months of mobility.
She passed away peacefully with her head in Paddy’s lap, in front of a roaring fire on Christmas Eve 1991.
And every Canada Day since 1991, there’s been a huge fireworks display in the meadow surrounding Mel’s Big Bang on the shores of the Viking River.
Proof enough for me: that sometimes it’s better to go out with a whimper … not a roar.

Michael Jackson - he loved kids to broken bits

“Everybody deserves lovely words,” Shepardson says. “Say lovely words.”

Obits glumly render all that is morally abysmal to flowing elegic
If y’ain’t got nuthin’ nice to say – don’t say anything
By Terrance Seamus O’Gavan
I admit to be a little peeved by the onslaught of valedictions that cascaded and caromed off the pinging walls of the Fifth Estate, in the wake of Michael Jackson’s untimely demise.
It’s almost as if we’ve forgotten - in our unbridled haste to plop another elegeic log on the funereal pyre – Mikey’s questionable predilection for sleeping with children.
Yeah, I know. Thriller. The Moon Walk. Storied legacy. Rock n’ Roll genius. Yada-yada-yada. I get it.
And yeah, I know, I know. He was never convicted.
Quick refresher.
In 1993, Jordan Chandler, a minor, received an out-of-court settlement for $20 million from the estate of Michael Jackson. The allegations of sexual impropriety poofed into the billowy clouds above Neverland. Jackson was charged formally in 2003, and faced more child abuse scrutiny in 2005. He moonwalked out of the courtroom.
Should we be surprised? Never. Not in Neverland, where childhood angst is lost midst the windrows of rides, Nintendo, Elephant man remains, hyperbaric chambers, and the toy-stocked “special room.”
Way too often, in celebrity trials, we’ve seen the scales of justice tipped in favor of that imposing wheelbarrow full of newly serialized Benjamins.
Jackson stated in a documentary with British journalist Martin Bashir that many children, including Macaulay Culkin, his younger brother Kieran, and his sisters had slept in Jackson's bed.
Y’know, I can forgive a litany of sins. But not this one. This is the biggy. It’s the one that has 35-year-old men and women torn to waking, bathed in cold sweats.
They still remember the trauma of that betrayal when they were 4 or 5 or 6 or 7.
No, the life of a child is too precious. An adult should never barter fame, power or a seat of influence to harm a child.
The whiff of serial child endangerment lingers around Michael Jackson. I never trusted him after the payout in 93, and the Bashir interview cemented that gut-ugly feeling.
The fact that Michael never expressed an iota of remorse, and sought to quash all interference through his battery of legal aid and that access to hush money just makes it worse.
And try as I might. I can’t jump on the bandwagon.
And I am totally flabbergasted at the number of people who rushed to the many available microphones and cameras proffered last week in the wake of Mikey’s untimely death.
But I understand it. Good music. A Rock legend. I get it.
Talk of the kids just spoils the nice buzz.
And, we are all taught from an early age not to speak ill of the dead.
Jan Shepardson operates a eulogy writing web service called www.lovingeulogies.com. She offers advice for the passing, or parting shot: “Everybody deserves lovely words,” Shepardson says. “Say lovely words.”
This long and flowery bouquet is not unprecedented.
Remember Adolf? Whooooo, boy. Now that guy knew how to party.
Do you perchance recall the long, flowing verbal semaphores that came-a-twinklin’ when they pulled gentle Adolf and wheezy Eva from that well-stocked bunker in Berlin back on April 30th 1945?
Glorious eulogies. Flowered elegies. Rousing verse dripping from all available nooks, crannies and corners. Say what you will about Hitler, but the trains ran on time.
“Ah, Adolf,” wrote his good friend, drinking buddy, and fellow world traveler, Ernest Hemingway.
“Remember the parades? Those marvelous mass meetings in the squares?” wrote Papa.
“Adolf brought us the pageantry. The goose-stepping phalanx of misanthropic palace guards, the tanks – god those tanks were beautiful - the long, long, long speeches. The pogroms, the genocide, the nihilism that literally tumbled from every inch of that scrunchy little man. To look into his eyes was to stare into the deep, dark depths of Nietchke’s abyss. God, I can hardly believe he’s gone.”
And Winston Churchill, Adolf’s counterpoint and contretemps, his bon vivant alter ego, on hearing the news of Adolf’s bunkered demise was heard to say: “I cried. Poor Adolf. Legacy, accomplishment, curriculum vitae. The body of his all-encompassing, grasping and overarching work. Compelling, awe-inspiring and visually stunning! The Volkswagon Beetle, those planes, those ships, the Bismarck, those unguided rockets, those glorious nights in London, cooking dinner in the dark – always in the bloody, goddam’ dark - that popping prance with the Polish Cavalry. Bloody Hell! The Swastika, and those lovely concerts in the park! Adolf, you lovable, overmedicated, megalomaniacal, little sociopath … goddamit’ you little shit! We’ll miss you.”
Too much?
Heloise, that eloquent etiquette diva says nay! Never too much when it comes to propping up the bygones.
“We will be dead too, one day,” says Heloise “And in death … do we not deserve kindness?” Ah, sweet Heloise, insight, oozing from every polite, proper and ponderous pore.
Okay here goes.
“Hi Mikey, sorry you’re gone. I had a chat with St. Peter and I’m afraid it’s a thumbs’ down. Anyway … I have it on good authority from Janis Joplin that there is a huge band down under. She says the acoustics off the canyons on the River Styx are ‘friggin’ mind-numbing.’ Kinda’ like the Demarol I guess. Love the shoes, the hat and the glove. And the songs. Except Ben. Rest in Peace, Michael.”
“Everybody deserves lovely words … Say lovely words.”
More important than the lovely words?
The children.

Twitter and tweet ... prologue and dog

Twittering away on the field of play
Pro athletes finding solace in short course discourse
By Terrance Gavan
I just checked my Twitter account.
I count 18 pro athletes and 22 sportswriters and columnist among my rapidly expanding Twittering list of friends.
I am following Canuck hoopster Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, Chris Bosh, Shaquille O’Neal, Lance Armstrong, Terrell Owens and swimmer Michael Phelps.
Steve Nash just twitted me the other day. He scored a guest shot on the popular HBO series “Entourage.” He also gave a detailed 140-character – the Twitter maximum - account of his vacation in Brazil. Lance Armstrong peeped vaguely about the wheelie goons from the drug-testing police in Europe. Shaq tweeted Kobe well in the NBA finals.
Do I need to know all this?
I follow Denver sports columnist Woody Paige, get tweets from my old friend, and Globe and Mail columnist, Jeff Blair, and I also follow tweets from New York Times sports.
Twittering is all the rage in professional sports today. It’s creating some dilemmas. For every real Shaq or real Steve Nash there are the imposters.
Recently someone set up a fake Tony La Russa account. La Russa is the manager of baseball’s St Louis Cardinals. The bogus Tony Tweeted this under La Russa’s name: “Lost 2 out of 3, but we made it out of Chicago without one drunk driving incident or dead pitcher” — that, an obvious reference to the deaths of two Cardinals pitchers since 2002 (Darryl Kyle and Josh Hancock) and La Russa’s own DUI incident two years ago.
I can’t help it. I smiled, a bit. What can I say, I like the sophomoric turn of phrase. Tony was not amused.
La Russa sued the San Francisco-based company for unspecified damages for harming his reputation and causing emotional distress. The suit was settled a few weeks back when Twitter agreed to pay La Russa’s legal fees and to make a donation to his Animal Rescue Foundation.
Which brings us to the LPGA and their commissioner Carolyn Bivens who said in an interview last week that she “encourages” players to use handheld devices to post content on social-media Web sites such as Twitter or Facebook during tournaments, even if it runs counter to golf etiquette.
Bivens said she would “love it” if players used the social media site Twitter.com to connect with fans during their rounds. Paula Creamer, a leading light on the LPGA tour rejected the notion outright.
Creamer says she is aghast at the idea and called Bivens “an idiot” for even suggesting the use of Twitter mid-round.
How do we know this?
Well Creamer told the world and her followers all about it on a recent post to her “Twitter account.”
“I will not be twittering in my round,” Creamer, who’s ranked third in the world, wrote on her Twitter page shortly before teeing off for a tournament last weekend. “It should not happen in any sport. The players have already told the tour no way.”
Begging the question. “Is Paula hitting irons, or ironies?”
I have my own brush with Twitter limelight.
It happened last week.
Tony Kornheiser a co-host – with Michael Wilbond - on ESPN’s popular Pardon the Interruption sports talk show, manages PTI’s Twitter blog. Kornheiser has a lot of time on his hands since his ouster from the third seat on ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Tony’s spending a lot of his off-hours Tweeting. He often asks for input for the PTI show.
But Tony also takes time for some non-sequitur meanders.
Lately it’s been raining in Washington. A lot. This has caused no end of problems for his dog Maggie, who apparently does not like to go out in the rain.
How do I know this? Well, Tony is tweeting … about Maggie.
“My dog didn’t go out again today. More rain. She simply won’t go in the rain. Might have to toilet train Maggie!” tweets Tony. “She puts her head down on the concrete, digs in her paws, and won’t budge. I’d tug at her, but she’s 14 and I’m afraid what might happen. It’s supposed to rain for two days, so she’s bound to go in the house.”
I tweeted back, warned Tony about the dangers of kidney disease in old dogs, the need for regular bowel movements and then I tweeted a suggestion for a trail of bacon bits from his porch to the backyard bushes.
Today, followers of Kornheiser’s PTI Twitter blog and I all shared some tweeted joy. “Hey my tweety peeps … Maggie went doodooo in the rain! All thanks to my Twitty friend terrancegavan, a.k.a. The Gavball. Big props to bacon bits, Maggie unfurled, and the Gavball.”
That hit went out to PTI’s 50,000 plus followers.
I now have friend requests coming out my ying-yang.
I am a full-fledged celebrity in Twitterland.
Steve Nash Tweeted me from the set of Entourage.
“Hey Gavball … nice job with Maggie. My dog Phoenix used to fetch the paper. Now he’s taken to ripping it up into tiny pieces. Any suggestions? Steve.”
I wrote back. “Hey Steve. I read my paper on line … now can we interest you in a jump from Phoenix to Toronto? Where you can reunite with your old National Team buddy Jay Triano and bring an NBA Championship to T-Dot?”
From Steve?
Nothing yet. Steve couldn’t comment even if he really, really wanted to. It would constitute tampering and go against strict NBA guidelines.
The trouble with Twitter?
All feathers, no substance.
And my mailbox is filling up with dog questions.
Anyone know what to do with a Labradolly who likes to twirl from the living room drapes?
It’s driving Tiger Woods and his interior decorator crazy.

Kris Draper please quit whining

Crosby passes off the allegations of “snubbery”
Detroit’s Kris Draper all whine and no cheese
By Terrance Gavan
I grew up in Ottawa, listening to General Grant on CFRA radio’s morning drive show.
He had a little motto that he recited at the end of every show.
“If you win say little … and if you lose say less.”
So. In the spirit of the Good General’s signature sign-off.
“Shut up Kris Draper!”
That would be Kris Draper, the yawning maw of the Stanley Cup losing Detroit Red Wings.
That would be Kris Draper, the social conscience and etiquette convenor of the National Hockey League.
That would be the same mealy-mouthed Draper who roundly criticized Sidney Crosby for snubbing many Wings’ players - including captain Nicklas Lidstrom – by “refusing” to shake hands at the end of Game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals last Friday at the Joe in Detroit.
Dear Kris: Kindly pack up your bags, unpack your clubs, head out onto the links and leave your junk at the door of the Joe. Oh, and shut your cheesy yap.
We don’t want to hear that mealy mouth whining, and that harpy’s scrunch about Sid The Kid.
And by the way Kris.
You lost. So just please shut up.
Draper says he has every right to criticize.
Lidstrom was up front of a handshake line, followed by the alternate captain Draper, congratulating many of the new champions while waiting for Sid the Kid.
“Nick was waiting and waiting, and Crosby didn't come over to shake his hand,” Draper told an Associated Press reporter a couple hours later as he was leaving Joe Louis Arena. “That's ridiculous, especially as their captain, and make sure you write that I said that!”
The AP guy did as he was told, launching a firestorm of rebuke, rebuttal, righteousness, and rectitude.
I don’t recall how many Detroit players’ hands Crosby shook after the game. I do know he did take time to commiserate with Johan Franzen. A second period Franzen hit put Crosby out of the game. If Crosby was going to snub anyone it would have been Franzen.
I’m assuming that Franzen didn’t apologize for the hit. I’m sure Crosby didn’t expect one.
And Sidney Crosby isn't apologizing to Draper or anyone else for unintentionally failing to shake hands with some Detroit players after winning the Cup last Friday evening at the Joe.
Crosby said that he didn't realize the Red Wings were leaving the ice before he joined the handshake line.
After that game seven 2-1 victory Crosby was rushed to several live TV interviews by NHL personnel, hugged some teammates and was handed the Stanley Cup by commissioner Gary Bettman.
And so Crosby was celebrating when Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom, alternate captain Kris Draper and some other key Red Wings players skated off the ice and to their dressing room.
Big deal.
Crosby himself estimates he shook hands with about half the team, including goalie Chris Osgood and coach Mike Babcock, who congratulated him on his leadership ability.
That wasn't enough to satisfy Draper.
Again. Big deal.
Crosby finds any suggestion that he would intentionally avoid shaking hands a little disingenuous.
“It's the easiest thing in the world to shake hands after you win,” said Crosby, in a TSN story.
“I really don't need to talk to anyone from Detroit about it," Crosby said Sunday. "I made the attempt to go shake hands. I've been on that side of things, too, I know it's not easy, waiting around. I just won the Stanley Cup, and I think I have the right to celebrate with my teammates.
"On their side of things, I understand if they don't want to wait around."
At 21, Crosby is the youngest captain to win a Stanley Cup, but he is an avid follower of the game, its storied history and its entrenched traditions. He would never intentionally stoop to snub. Draper on the other hand stomped some sour grapes into a sublime mash with his stilted and mealy allegations.
“I had no intentions of trying to skip guys and not shake their hands,” Crosby said. “I think that was a pretty unreasonable comment. The guys I shook their hands with, they realized I made the attempt. If I could shake half their team's hands, I'm sure the other half wasn't too far behind. I don't know what happened there.”
And that explanation, from Crosby should be enough for Draper.
“I have no regrets,” added Crosby, already at 21, wise beyond Draper’s years. “I've been on both sides of it, and it's not fun being on the losing end. But it doesn't change anything. You still shake hands no matter what.”
“Nobody respects the traditions of hockey more than Sidney Crosby," team vice president Tom McMillan said via AP News. “It was a young team celebrating its first Cup and some of the guys might have been a little late getting into the handshake line.”
And while we’re talking apologies.
Exactly how many toe-to-toe confrontations went on in the course of this very exciting seven game Stanley Cup hockey series?
About time for Brian Burke, Don Cherry, Michael Farber, Gary Bettman, and a host of other pro-fight cognoscente, to apologize to “real” hockey fans in general for continuing to insist that, “fighting is, was, and always will be … part of the game!”
Please, fellas. Do me a solid. Take a look at the viewing totals for a series conducted miles removed from the milieu of the junkyard dog and brawler mindset.
And the next time you wish to spout generic about the efficacy of fighting in the game of hockey. And how much we need it.
Do me a favor and a Draper.
“Shut Up!”

Nuisance Bears and life in the country - The Highlander Rants

Nuisance Bears and life in the country
A chat with Smokey, Yogi and Boo Boo
By Terrance Seamus Gavan
A recent cottage country meeting outlined the depth of a recurring problem.
Bears are running wild, rampant, and free here in the Highlands.
And that has a lot of people very upset.
It’s taking a huge toll on the gentle psyches and genteel sensibilities of many residents and cottagers in the area.
All down to “nuisance bears.”
What are nuisance bears?
Well, nuisance bears are those rumbling ursine garbage scows that interfere with our god-given right to enjoyment of the assorted natural wonders flung so haphazardly and luxuriously here in the Highlands.
Bears who brazenly wander through the woods and into “our yards” with alarming regularity.
Bears who show utter contempt for “no trespassing” signs.
Bears who exhibit a blatant disregard for our innate property rights.
Hungry bears with an alarmingly excellent sense of smell.
Bears who are able to discern, from 5 or 6 hectares, the dusky aroma of last night’s salmon steak on a Weber Hot Blast 4000 Super Grill.
How dare they. Pesky bears.
Many people in the Algonquin Highlands have seen these bears.
I know. I’ve heard the complaints. Numerous complaints. At cottage meetings. At council meetings.
“It’s uncivilized,” says one cottager, Jake Usurper. “Bears running around like they own the woods! Just who do they think they are?” Jake Usurper says he’s done the due diligence.
“I keep phoning the bear line over to the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) and they keep telling me that bears often wander this time of year. Wander, shmonder. I fought in two wars, I paid for this property, and I own a lotta’ guns,” says Jake, who says that locals may have to contemplate a “thinning of the herd.”
“I moved here five years ago to enjoy my cottage, the wilderness, and all of nature’s rich and bounteous beauty,” says Jake, 75, a transplanted Oshawite. “These damn black bears are ruining my retirement.”
I phoned the MNR hot line in Sudbury.
I got a recording.
“Thank you for phoning the Bear Aware Hot Line. Your call is important to us. The MNR appreciates your input … but all of our operators are currently running around the woods, willy-nilly, and chock-a-block, looking for endangered species, invasive fishies and the elusive Sasquatch. If you’re calling to report a black bear sighting, press one; if a black bear is interfering with your yard work, press two; if a black bear ate your dinner, press 3; if a black bear is doing short laps in your Jacuzzi, press 4; if black bears are ruining your retirement – Jake! Put that bloody rifle down! Now! Thank you for calling the MNR Ursus Horribilis hot line. This call may be recorded for quality purposes.”
It’s all very confusing. When I’m confused I go to the source. Last week Smokey Bear was in town for a photo op and presser.
I tracked him down after the press conference.
“Smokey, why are your brethren bears terrorizing the citizenry in the Highlands?” I asked.
“They’re hungry,” said Smokey.
“But surely Smokey, that cannot excuse the blatant trespassing, disregard for property, and the increasingly hostile reaction to incursive civilization? For instance, you seem to do all right, how do you manage to feed yourself?”
“Look, I’m on a full-ride government-sponsored expense account … so it’s like salmon, filet mignon, shrimp, caviar, and all the Big Macs I can manage, 24-7, especially during fire season,” growled Smokey. “It ain’t so easy for some of the brothers down in the deep, dark woods … Look, if you want the real skinny from a scavenger’s perspective I’ll give you a number of a good friend of mine,” said Smokey.
I dialed the number and the phone rang twice.
“Hello, Yogi Bear’s residence,” said the voice at the other end. I recognized it immediately –a nasally blast from my Hanna-Barbera past.
“Boo-Boo, is that you?” I asked, incredulously.
“Yes, how can I help you?” said Boo-Boo.
“Wow,” I said. “Look I was given this number from Smokey Bear up in Canada. He said I could get some answers about why bears are encroaching on our summer playgrounds, stealing our food, gutting our garbage, and generally making our lives miserable up here in cottage country.”
“Oh yes. We’re great friends Smokey, Yogi and I,” said the Boo-Boo. “But hey, the nuisance thing, that’s Yogi’s territory, and I’m afraid I have some bad news,” said Boo-Boo.
“Why, what’s wrong Boo?” I asked.
“Yogi’s in rehab,” sighed Boo-Boo. “Ranger Smith checked him into Betty Ford for the 60-day Pic-I-Nic Basket Withdrawal Program. It’s all my fault. I’m a classic enabler.”
“You’re being a little hard on yourself Boo-Boo,” I said. “I think you’ll find that like any addict, Yogi will have to step to the plate, own his addiction, make amends, stay off the pork-chops, and move on with his life.”
We talked for a long while. Boo-Boo brings Yogi five quarts of elderberries every day.
“The counselors at Betty Ford are very kind and understanding,” said the Boo. “They’re slowly weaning Yogi off the hard crack of that soda pop, hot-dog and deviled egg diet. It’s hard. People don’t realize how easy it is to become addicted to the fast fix of a free lunch, a leftover pizza or an apple pie.”
Boo has set up the Yogi Foundation, a not-for-profit agency dedicated to eradicating the nightmare of bears on cake.
So Highlanders. It’s up to you.
Make your donation, care of Boo Boo Bear, at beardespair.com.
Send a Highlands’ bear to rehab.
Do it for Yogi.

Memories from the suicide line

When in doubt – go for the big laugh – and a Newfie joke?
Did you hear the one about the two drunks walkin’ down the railroad track?
By Terrance Seamus Gavan
I was listening to some vintage George Carlin on the weekend.
He has a one-liner about crisis intervention workers.
“If you work on a suicide hotline, and you’re feeling just a little depressed one morning. Do you phone in sick?”
The answer is no. Because that work on the phones, when you get right down to it, is more important than any little thing currently meandering through your tight and pampered prism. So unless you wake up with a sudden urge to head to the roof of your high-rise apartment building and “try for the double line” – another George Carlin jive and jump (and album cover) on the big exit – you should just probably suck it up, brush your teeth, have an espresso, go on in and answer the phones.
“Hi, Suicide Line, my name’s Terry, and before we get started, do you have any Lottery tickets in your wallet that you haven’t checked yet? Cos’ y’know, life is good, and it may already have gotten better.”
I used to work the midnight shift three times a month at the Ottawa Distress Centre back in the mid-70s.
I was dillydallying around St. Pats College and Carleton University plodding through an undeclared year of liberal arts.
They put the young volunteers on the midnight shift. Back then, the Ottawa Distress Center was grossly under funded and we worked out of a ramshackle old building in the old Byward Market District.
The Ottawa Distress Center was not a suicide line per se, but the midnight shift did get the lion’s share of the “one and done” calls. It was before call display, and if we had a “live one on the dead line” who was fading fast from an overdose we were authorized to have the call traced, and once traced, we also had the authority to dispatch an ambulance. We had to phone poison control just to make sure that what the person took was actually gonna’ kill him. The centre got charged for all ambulance calls. It was all tied to the bottom line.
I got a lot of overdose calls. And if the person was fading, I traced, I dispatched. I once sent an ambulance and squad car to a house where the man had ingested a fifth of Jack Daniels and 10 packages of Ex Lax. I didn’t know what he had taken, hadn’t checked in with poison control, and I was listening as the cops and paramedics broke down the door.
I heard some swearing. A cop grabbed the phone. “Hey Terry?”
“Yes, that’s me, how is he?”
“He’s fine. He took Ex Lax Terry! EX LAX! Capiche? He’s doin’ just great, got a dumb grin on his puss. We’re all covered in shit! Thanks for the call out buddy!” Oops.
A Monday night 2 a.m. and I’m alone at the Distress Centre. A call.
It’s a young woman. She lives across the river in the Gatineau area. Her name is Jennifer, she’s 32 and has three girls sleeping upstairs in their large home on 10 sprawling acres. Her husband, a lawyer, is overseas on business.
“I have a gun, Terry,” she says, the voice a far off drift. No affect. Just statement.
“Is it loaded, Jennifer?” I ask.
“Just doing that now,” says Jennifer. And I hear the unmistakable sound of bullets being pushed slowly into the chamber of a revolver. “Click, click, click.”
I ask her why.
“I don’t know Terry. I just know it has to end tonight,” she says. I know that it’s too late for a call trace. I’m all alone. And I can hear in her voice a quiver, and that unmistakable rumble of despair. The kind of despair that rises like a tide from the abyss of a heart, too close to the breaking.
The training kicks in and I ask about her kids, upstairs sleeping. I need names. They are Suzy, Janie and Sarah, 3, 5 and 8. I remind Jen that they will be the ones to find her in the morning.
“It’s better for them if I’m gone, and in time they’ll understand,” says Jennifer. I hear the spin of the chamber. “My husband taught me how to shoot this thing,” says Jennifer. “Truth is, I really hate guns.”
And right there. I heard something in her voice. An affect. And I abandoned all the training.
“Can I tell you a joke Jennifer?” I ask gently.
“A joke? Why not,” she replies.
I continued. Breaking all the rules for a suicide call.
“A couple of Newfie hunters are at a truck stop diner when one of them grabs his chest and falls to the floor,” I begin - my own chest pounding. “He’s not breathing, his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy runs to the diner’s phone and calls emergency services. He gasps to the operator: ‘My friend is dead! What can I do?’
“The operator, in a calm soothing voice says: ‘Just take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s really dead.’ There’s silence; then a shot is heard.
“The Newfie comes back to the line. He says: ‘OK, now what?’ ”
It seemed like an eternity, but I know it was only 3 seconds. Jennifer starts to laugh.
“Very nice, Terry,” says Jennifer. “I’m unloading the gun and I’m going up to kiss my three daughters good night … but not goodbye.”
“And the number I gave you?” I asked.
“I have it here on the pad and I’ll call the Shrink in the morning,” says Jennifer.
A month later at the Distress Centre desk, a note addressed, “To Terry.”
I opened it.
“Dear Terry – Seeing the shrink. The gun is gone. Life is better. OK, Now What? Jen.”
We pass a lot of signposts in our journey.
I come from a long line of Irish humorists.
My fallback philosophy?
“When in doubt … go for the big laugh.”
Sometimes it’ll keep you off that double line.
OK. Now what?
(Special thanks to Aunt Lorraine, the Reverend Donald Francis Gavan and my pops, who taught me to slay my demons with laughter.)

Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean - in bad taste?

Governor General Michaëlle Jean … a whole lotta’ heart
Beware! Oscar the Cat is on the prowl!
By Terrance Seamus O’Gavan
There’s blood on her lips.
There’s blood on the ice.
A Hannibal slurp.
And it’s gone in a trice. (Inuit Ode to Governor General Michaëlle Jean)
Our lovely Governor General Michaëlle Jean put Canada on front pages across the world last week when she delved into an “ethical” dish of raw seal heart in Rankin Inlet.
It was touted as a show of solidarity and support for an ancient Inuit rite.
Many more cynical pundits and backbench wailers viewed it as a photo op to gain support for Canada’s much maligned sealing industry, which has been taking some heavy handed cranks from the European Union, Bob Barker, and Brigitte Bardot of late.
Of course, Inuit sealing for sustenance, and the hard banging, head-denting annual seal cull are two entirely different entities. Is Michaëlle Jean that slick?
I’m thinking that she’s no naïve waif, and she had some idea that her delicate and tasty meal might serve as a superbly crafted photo op for People for the Ethical Treatment of Maritime Seal Bashers.
Whatever. The picture of Michaëlle Jean, hands and lips blurred red with seal’s blood created quite a stir.
Buddhists cringed. People for the ethical treatment of animals (PETA for short) barked, mooed, baahed, roared, and whined. Rex Murphy, our loopy goofy Newfie, stuttered, moaned and groaned about the fate of his poor seal thumping Newfie brethren and their god-given right to earn a living.
Four words Rex. “Better schools and Microsoft.”
My God, to hear him prune, preen, and pine, you would think that poor old Rex made his living bumping baby seals on the head before leaping from an ice floe in the North Atlantic to the greener less crimson pastures of the CBC mother ship. Rex held a CBC Cross Country Check Up show about “Bloody Queen Jean” on Sunday.
People phoned in and applauded Michaëlle Jean’s intestinal fortitude. Rex corrected them. “Ma’am t’anks youse’ for calling, but it was da’ heart, not the entrails. T’anks fer’ da’ call. I’se da bay dat builds da boat. Next caller please.”
Rex, that adopted son of a Newfie cod-kisser, makes no bones about his own views on everything seal.
“Pussy-walloped, cod-duffers and ham-handed politicians … is killin’ dis’ here livliehood, my lovelies. Good on ol’ Michaëlle Jean. Chewin’ on dat bloody heart, fer’ da’ good of dem’ sealers from Dildo and Come By Chance! Arrrgh!”
Rex knows Newfoundland. He knows, unlike many of those unenlightened politicos and businessmen - who are attempting to drag Newfoundland into the 19th century - that Newfoundland’s future rests not with technology, call centers, universities, and offshore oil, but rather with the lovely, free-flow of the annual seal slaughter.
“It was delicious,” said Jean.
I’m no Buddhist. But I’m thinking we may have to punch a hole in the paradigm.
The animals are not dumb. And I’ve read Orwell’s Animal Farm.
Just last week an article in the Globe and Mail entitled, “Amateur researchers seek Spot’s sixth sense,” caught my eye.
It contained the story of Oscar the cat. Oscar was adopted by a Providence R.I. nursing home’s Advanced Dementia Unit. Oscar made headlines when it was revealed that he seemed to sense when a patient was about to die.
In more than 25 documented and recent cases, Oscar, normally very aloof, snuggled with an elderly patient, who invariably died within an hour of the cuddle.
Doctors blame it on some extrasensory biochemical reaction. “Oscar just seems to know,” said Dr. Hunter Kevorkian, (no relation) a staff doctor at the Providence Institution.
I’m thinking that their cause and effect exemplar might be a little skewed. Does Oscar know? Or does Oscar, nudge, nudge, and wink … KNOW?
Oscar might be an avid reader. Oscar may have seen Planet of the Apes. He might like to peruse the New York Times on occasion. He might have seen a picture of Michaëlle Jean, fingertips and lips smooshed crimson with the blood of a poor defenseless seal. Oscar might be getting a little tired of this feckless slaughter.
Oscar the Cat. Hospice healer? Or Serial Killer?
I reached 95-year-old Billy Bob Golightly, a Providence Dementia Unit patient, by phone last weekend.
“Oscar tried to snuggle up to me late one night, and I threw him off my bed,” said Billy Bob. “I know what that durn’ cat’s up to. Sixth sense my buttcheek! That cat’s the second comin’ of Hannibal the Cannibal!”
Billy Bob immediately took affirmative action.
“My nephew brought in my old Remington twelve gauge and my trusty blue heeler hound Baskerville,” laughed Golighlty. “Haven’t seen that cat in three nights.”
Oscar has left the building. Headed for god knows where. A serial killer on the prowl?
A wise whispered word to our crimson-tinged princess Michaëlle Jean.
Alert the staff at Governor General’s House on Sussex Drive in Ottawa. Do not, under any circumstances, feed any stray cats.
And Michaëlle. Do look under your four-poster Queen-size bed before closing your eyes for the night.
Oh, and … meeeeoooowww!