I know this is a sucker's game. Spouting off about what is published in the local paper is like shouting invective at the TV. Once they've got you mad, they win. So we put them on ignore. They become background noise. I've gone from buying three daily papers in the 90's down to buying NONE .... my tally is three editions of the Vancouver SUN in ten years. Just think of the trees I've saved, and the thousands of display ads I wasn't exposed to. Since my wife has left Chinese newspapers laying around, that explains why our house is full of stuff from Chinese owned shops. If whitey wants to sell us furniture he better advertise in the "non traditional" media.
That said, I Googled the current flap over Ann Coulter's invitation to speak in Ottawa. Just a few days ago I read a snotty, intimidating email (on display below) which a kook hackademic in Ottawa (Francois Houle) shot across Ms. Coulter's bow. His snot-gram caused a little buzz on the Net. That was his plan. Pre-emptive engagement. I guess it was too much to be hoped that Ms. Coulter would appear, stand her ground, and when Houle provoked her, kick the sissy boy in the nuts. Instead her event gets cancelled. Sissy boy wins.
Googling for an update, what do I find but today's colour splash on the VEE SUN page? Seven... count 'em, 7 photos of the lady smeared with good 'ole Canadian mud. "right-wing U.S. firebrand"... "Ultra-conservative", Blah, Blah, Blah. Coulter is best selling book author, but the SUN runners don't read books. They settle for Google search and double click on pages which promise to put bullets in their gun. Scrape and reshape pre-chewed nuggets of tasty invective. The Sun steals a car, does a drive-by, hides the gun for the next hit... and calls that journalism. They give Coulter the Sarah Palin treatment, and the public is well served?? Not!
Die Ann Die! What to make of the SUN pasting seven photos of Ann Coulter on their wall, like a collection of WANTED POSTERS. Wanted for expressing a non-conforming opinion.
This is the snotty email that Francois Houle launched in a pre-emptive strike against Ann Coulter's invitation to speak in Canada. Mr. Houle is the stereotypical Canadian sneak - the smiler with a knife, grunting and sweating as he cowers in the bushes for his next victim. "I therefore encourage you to educate yourself.." wrote Houle. Huh? "How many fingers do you see now Winston?" "Two? No Winston. In Canada that's three." If you like this, you will love Houle's email to Stephen Harper, critiquing the Tory Blue Paper addressing the Crisis in University Funding. "... I draw your attention to the Globe's editorial on the sixth quarter of the Ninth Three-Year Plan."
Dateline Toronto: March 1987 - A group of pod people swarm a university student who holds a dissenting view on foreign affairs. This is what was planned for Ann Coulter in Ottawa. This is what constitutes political "discussion" in the Canadian mobocracy. I have research binders filled with crap like this. Anyone who has read Nineteen Eighty-four will recognize this as a Canadian variant of Orwell's Two Minutes Hate.
What should Canadians worry about more - the rise of an intrusive Post 911 Orwellian police state, or the tenured hacks on university campuses who do the heavy lifting for the Thought Police? Remember the immortal words of Clarence Darrow - "There is no such crime as a crime of thought: there are only crimes of action." If you are willing to condone the public gagging of a woman who is law abiding, then why not just send your kids to an Iranian university? In Iran they will be taught to lynch or stone the non-conformers. Houle is not on record for denouncing Islamic fascists. That takes balls, which he ain't got.
POST TOUR UPDATE: Rex Murphy devoted his column to Coulter today. What startles is that he took the opportunity to take a shot at Michael Moore, making him the leftist foil to Coulter. "Both are agile in their approach — Moore being the slickest of slick pseudo-documentarians, a foil to Coulter’s Don Rickles conservatism. Absolute and deliberate attack on the preciousness of political correctness is Coulter’s main game, and she plays it with vicious relish. Guileful shaping of documentaries lambasting capitalism, and posing as an outsized champion of the little guy is Moore’s self-assigned beat, one he’s walked to fame and fortune since Roger and Me.
It doesn’t take much courage to be Michael Moore. For a while anyway, he owned near hero status with the activist base (and some of the leadership) of the Democratic party. He charms the trendy minds of the glitterati. I dare say there’s a statue, complete with candles and incense, of Michael Moore in Sean Penn’s living room."... Read his column (here).
