So of course I joined

So I’m on Facebook these days, like everyone else. I never got into myspace, or any other social networking thingys, mostly because I’m not 15 years old but I do enjoy the Facebook. You can post your profile, connect with old friends, upload pictures, have discussions, and join groups.

And that’s where I found what is, as of this morning, my favourite group:

If 25,000 People Join This Group, Greg will get a tattoo of Bruce Frisko.

For those of you unlucky enough to not come from the Maritimes, Bruce Frisko is a regional news anchor, effectively the Ron Burgundy of Maritime television news. I have no idea who Greg is or if he even means it, but there wasn’t really a question of not joining.

The Most Hated Family in America

Louis Theroux is a British/American broadcaster who has made a career out of interviewing unusual people from the fringes of American society. He started out on Michael Moore’s TV Nation programme where, for example, he’d interview Avon ladies selling make-up in the Amazon rain forest and the Ku Klux Klan and various other neo-nazi groups. One such group believed that, when Jesus Christ returns to Earth, all races would be divided up and sent to live on their own planet. If you were of mixed-race, well, there were planets for that, too, apparently. Some strains of fundamentalist Christianity believe that races are not supposed to mix together and the Rapture will release us from the torment of having neighbours who look different.

Anyhow, Theroux’s latest project is to live with “The Most Hated Family in America.” The family in question is The Phelps. These are the people who picket the funerals of AIDS patients, victims of gay-bashing, and lately, dead U.S. soldiers. Why? Because God hates them and they’ve made it their duty to remind people of this at every turn.

Theroux explains:

What we’re trying to do in the documentary is look at an activity that is so antisocial, so strange, so futile and at its worst, so cruel, and we’re saying “Why? Why do that?”, especially when you seem to be, for the most part, kind and sensitive people. We’re exploring what is cruelty, trying to explain how something that really does very often just amount to cruelty could be perpetuated and passed down in a family. Why would nice people do such horrible things?

It sounds like a fascinating documentary. It’ll air on BBC2 but no word as to whether it’ll ever show up on TV screens in Canada.

Battlestar Galactica: Crossroads Part II.

Spoilers ahoy!

Well, it could have been worse. It could have been “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies.

I, for one, welcome our new Autonomist Overlords

At the request of Mare who, for some reason, comes here for the cogent analysis of Quebec provincial politics, I have a few thoughts on the current political landscape.

I think the ADQ did as well as they did for a few reasons:

• There is, like anywhere else, a strain of conservatism and reactionary politics in much of the province. People don’t like paying high taxes to paternalistic governments.  Dumont has capitalised on this quite well.
• He’s also exploited what I think is a bit of media creation on the issue of “reasonable accommodation.” I think of these issues as the “Who gives a shit?” issues. Does anyone seriously care if the owner of a Cabane à Sucre makes provisions for 200 Muslim visitors? Or if a girl covers her head while playing soccer? Well, the tabloids and the shock jocks do so they turn it into some kind of foreign assault on “traditonal” culture.
• Dumont also successfully exploited what the most astute political analysts refer to as Jean Charest’s “shitty premierness.”
• Dumont also successfully exploited what the most astute political analysts refer to as Andre Boisclair’s “shitty leaderness,” although personally, I think he represented the better direction for the PQ. Maybe he arrived too soon.

I don’t believe the ADQ success and the PQ’s poor showing last night represents any kind of death blow to the sovereignist movement. I think after a few years in opposition, the ADQ’s inexperience will show and their support will dwindle down to its true core.

Charest would probably be wise at this point to start a plan of succession and hand the reins over to someone else, perhaps even somebody voters like, as that seems to be key in winning elections. It’s also a fair bet the PQ are going to want a new guy as well. But again, I think Boisclair has the right approach, but perhaps he wasn’t the guy to present it.

I read somewhere that Quebec tends to create generational political parties and that this is the end of the PQ generation in the same way they ushered in the end of the Union Nationale. But I doubt it. The idea of an independent Quebec is too strong for the PQ to be sent to the political margins. That’s why it’s fairly likely that although I think the ADQ will be a force for some time, this particular election is a one-time thing.

And now that I’ve written all that, I will be invariably proved wrong.

Mario & Preston

Tomorrow, Quebeckers go the polls to elect a new provincial government. The governing Liberals may be sent back with a slim majority, or a fragile minority. Or the Parti Québecois could get a minority government. Or the Action Democratic Quebec (link has video with sound) could surprise everyone and take this thing.

It’s an interesting election in that nobody can predict which way it’s going to go. The reasons for this can be put squarely on the feet of the ADQ. Since 1970, Quebec has had effectively two choices at the polls: federalist Liberals or sovereignist PQ. The ADQ now offers a third choice – one that is to the political right of the Liberals and neither explicitly federalist nor sovereignist. Its leader, Mario Dumont, a former Liberal who campaigned for the ‘YES’ side in the 1995 Referendum refers to himself as an “autonomist,” primarily concerned with Quebec issues but without the bother of separation.