Shut Up And Listen 45

I Don’t Need Them And I Have A Hard Time Respecting Those Who Do
The topic this week, kiddies, is drugs.
	Did you know that I get asked all the time whether or not I use drugs, and since I don’t, why the fuck not?
	“You should, man. You want to be a writer and all that, right? Weed could help you write. Open your mind up to different things.”
	In the most not arrogant and conceited manner possible, I will say this: I do not need anything to help me write. I’m doing quite well on my own.
	“I mean, look at all the great writers who used drugs, man.”
	While it is true that many artists have used drugs to help them write, I find it hard to respect them quite as much as those who don’t. I mean, while doing all sorts of weird drugs, you could write the most amazing thing ever, but was it you who wrote it or the mind-altering chemical? Because that’s what most drugs are (the illegal ones is what I speak of) mind-altering. How else would you explain the argument that it will help me write stuff I wouldn’t write otherwise?
	Thing is, I am by all rights, a cerebral guy. Not meant in a “I’m so smart” manner, but in a way that means “I value brains over almost everything else.” Because of this fact, why would I want to take things that give me less control over my brain?
	“You’re still in control, you just see things differently.”
	Oh, like how EVERYTHING is the funniest thing in the world and I can’t control my laughter at it all? I would believe that people are in complete control of themselves while high if I didn’t see them do things that they wouldn’t do while not high.
	The funny thing is that these arguments seem to be more for their benefit than convincing me most of the time. Trying to rationalize, eh?
	And honestly, my grades are important to me. I want to get good grades, so I can get into a good University, so then I can get a good education and then get my teacher’s certification (I would add something about being a writer, but don’t need good grades to write). And I can only think of one person I know who gets good grades and smokes up (and she is barely keeping those credits because of too many absences—guess what she was doing while skipping).
	The part that pisses me off is that I try not to judge them. They want to do that, fine. With the exception of one person, I don’t try to tell them to stop or anything. I’ll make an occasional joke, sure, but I won’t do that whole “drugs are evil and so are you” bullshit.
	But they will do it to me because I don’t smoke up. Same with alcohol. I don’t drink and apparently that’s bad.
	I have seen the future and it is drunken, doped-up pigs.
	(Quotes provided by many of my friends who have said that to me. I would credit a specific one, but they’ve all said it—the ones who smoke up, that is.)

I Hope The Transvestite Wins
I love politics, I really do. I love Canadian politics even more.
	In the current race for leader of the Canadian Alliance party, there are five candidates: former leader Stockwell Day, MPs Diane Ablonczy, Stephen Harper and Grant Hill, and a drag queen from Toronto named Enza Anderson. Doesn’t that fact make you want to move up here to Canada and join the Alliance party just to vote for “her”? 
	Without “her”, the party leadership race would most likely be a run of the mill, ordinary political race—which would be just fine with me, but this is much better. In what other race can a phrase like “Jean Chretien needs a real man to stand up to him, and I am her,” and not be grammatically incorrect? “She” said that in a debate of sorts in Chatham (about half an hour away from where I live—although I wasn’t there personally) with Day, Ablonczy, and Hill (Harper had a prior engagement).
	The evening was not all that exciting. The topic of the evening seemed to be how Stockwell Day sucks, which he does. His campaign seems to be fight the elitists in politics and the media. You know, the people who want him to fail, and therefore, made him fail as leader of the Alliance party. 
	What he fails to see is what he really is: a hack. It is not anyone’s fault he made mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake as leader of the Alliance party but his own. Everyone except for him seems to realize that. Every single one of his opponents has essentially said that (not quite in a manner as frank as mine). But apparently they are the elitists too. Even the cross-dresser.
	Anderson is funny, I think. “She” is trying to shed the Alliance party’s image of being a “shelter fir closet racists, bigots and homophobes,” which by all rights, it is. I’ve heard what most Alliance representatives say and it can often be construed as racist, bigoted, and homophobic.
	But what makes me laugh the most are “her” high aspirations: she doesn’t just want to be elected leader of the Alliance party, and then Prime Minister, but after that, “she” hopefully wants to be leader of the world.

Real People
Monday night—I think Ontario finance minister, Jim Flaherty’s bid for leader of the Ontario branch of the PC party, and the job of being Ontario’s Premier just fell apart. He said something that will knock him out of the running within a week. Troy will appreciate this comment a lot:
	“The federal Department of Health delivers healthcare services to aboriginals. All the provinces have the responsibility for delivering healthcare services to real people in real towns, hospitals, doctors, nurses,” Flaherty said.
	If you didn’t catch his ignorant and racist comment there, read it again. With me? Good.
	He essentially called Natives not “real people.” I can’t recall a more racist and ignorant statement made by a politician in such a public manner. He said this right to a reporter.
	Of course, people were all over this piece of shit within minutes. The Assembly of First Nations immediately called his comments racist and ignorant.
	  Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton said, “This is very clearly Jim Flaherty trying to appeal to what I would call the core Reform-Canadian Alliance kind of supporter, vilifying First Nations, attacking native people as a way to get votes on the right-wing fringe.”
	Flaherty’s campaign spokesmen said, “There’s nothing to apologize for.” And then that everyone was misinterpreting the statement, which is of course, standard damage control in a situation like this. Blame the people who heard/read what you said instead of admitting you said it and were wrong.
	The idea of trying to get into power on a racist ticket sickens me and I hope this man loses by a landslide.

The Secret Police
A London artist named Farhang Jalali was investigated recently because of a painting he has done. The painting was inspired by the events of September 11 and is peaceful in nature. Apparently, someone reported that he made an anti-Bush comment while driving a cab, which was later proven to be impossible, as he wasn’t working at the time. The American Secret Service investigated the remark with the aide of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police). They interviewed him, took pictures of his art, searched his apartment.
	Jalali left Iran 13 years ago to avoid the Islamic dictatorship that was there, and has lived in Canada since 1993. He appals violence and terrorism, and has been treated as a criminal because of it. The painting they took specific interest in, when looked at in parts could be construed as pro-terrorism, but that’s when you look at like one corner of it and ignore the rest. It is meant to be seen as a whole, as it is thematically linked.
	My favourite quote from the story though was by RCMP spokesperson Constable Paula Rogers, when she said, “Whenever an individual makes an allegation against someone in the United States of the profile that the president is, the Secret Service will come in and do an investigation to see if there is any viability.”
	I wonder if I’ve qualified yet?