Shut Up And Listen 56

Corruption Abound In City Hall!
“I’ve had it with all of you!” was the battle cry of London Mayor Anne Marie DeCicco yesterday while meeting with city councillors for three hours. It was a closed meeting, but that yell was heard through the walls.
	The sickness grips me but I shall continue forth. The only thing that feels good to me right now is sipping orange juice from my red mug-like glass, listening to very loud music and reading Hunter Thompson. And writing. The sickness is really only a mild headache, a very sore throat and the occasional need to blow my nose. Yesterday my voice was altered because of my throat and today I could barely speak for two hours after awaking. But today is Saturday and that means work. I briefly checked my e-mail while at the library earlier today and all the other columns are ready for me to read, format and post. But my deadline is later than theirs. My deadline is five minutes before I switch from laptop to PC for internet access. But it’s three in the afternoon and I don’t go to the PC until around ten. Lots of time to bash every politician in Canada, eh?
	So, there is trouble at city hall because of a strike, a city manager and huge overtime pay. Last summer, city workers went on strike, so the higher ups had to fill in for some of the middle management jobs and such so the city didn’t die. The strike went on for 28 days and some people walked away with almost a hundred thousand dollars for the overtime pay. They made more with the extra work for those four weeks than their actual salary.
	Of course, the taxpayers want answers, so city hall blames the then-city manager Jeff Malpass. Why not, he made almost as much as the PM last year for his role as temporary city manager. Personally, I think the people in power are just trying to pass the blame onto this guy. Not saying he’s innocent, but I don’t think he’s the evil mastermind behind it, who did it all single-handedly. 
	I don’t know if anyone’s touched on this before, but the strike lasted for 28 days and some people in city hall made huge salaries while is went on. There was a period of time where the city wouldn’t negotiate. Was that because people just wanted to make money? Could be worth looking into.
	I know if I was making a thousand bucks a day (maybe more) that I could be persuaded to make the strike last an extra couple of weeks. Maybe need a new car or that vacation to Florida come winter. 
	I really haven’t been paying attention too much to this because, well, I don’t care. City hall is full of morons anyways. Their top priorities are building a new arena in the middle of downtown where there’s no parking, something about some suite called the Box that they get to use (but apparently most of them don’t use it, wink, wink), and other dumb shit. The only good thing to come out of city hall is Chip Martin’s Sunday column about it and even that isn’t THAT great.
	Times like this I wish Sean Twist had won that council position he ran for.

Image Is Everything
The Prime Minister is getting two new planes for around a hundred million dollars, and people are angered by this. When it comes to appearances and style, you all know that’s all I’m about. The President has Air Force One, the VP has Air Force Two, and the Prime Minister should have Canadian Air Force One and Two. Ours is a world of appearances and if Canada wants to be taken seriously, its leader has got to be travelling in style. Not like our education or healthcare systems could use a hundred million dollars. Hospitals aren’t sexy, but planes are. Planes are like cars, but bigger, faster, and better. You got a plane and you’ll have to be fighting off the ladies.
	I can see the future of Canada and it is: Jean Chretien, Pimp Minister. The members of his cabinet can be his hoes. MPs are henceforth known as Parliament Playahs. 
	Canada: playin’ it straight up since 1867, yo!

The Alliance Party Isn’t Full Of Homophobes . . . Wait, Did You Say Alliance Party? I Take It Back
The Alliance party’s brand new leader, Stephen Harper has demanded that one of his MPs apologise to a Liberal MP who when answering questions was told to “Go ask [his] husband” but the Alliance MP. Harper told her to apologise yesterday, but on Thursday the party officially said they saw nothing wrong with the comment.
	Trying to shed that homophobic image is hard . . . especially when you are homophobic.

Where’s My Fucking News?
So, on Tuesday morning I was stopped from watching my news because a person whose greatest accomplishment was shooting out the current Queen of England’s funeral was on. Every morning I tune in at five-to-seven to watch Paper Cuts on Breakfast Television, but not on Tuesday. Pissed me off royally, it did. Because funerals are great TV, you know. A funeral is more important than giving people the goddamn news!
	Okay, so I’m still pissed off a little.