I am writing this while the Conservative party is in their last desperate throes of downright dirty canvassing. One can only assume that the corporate powers have thrown together a lot of last minute dough to inundate the public with in the eleventh hour. Commercial after commercial is an attempt to badmouth the other two main leaders.
I for one couldn’t care a less if Jack Layton was at a massage parlor. Massages are almost always done while one is wearing only their birthday suit with a strategically placed sheet/towel over top. Does that make us a criminal? Being at the wrong place at the wrong time doesn’t make someone a criminal either. I would really like to know the political affiliation of the cop that found it worthwhile to dribble this bit of gobbly gook out to the media. Besides being in contempt of his oath, this person is really stupid. It is insulting to think that anyone with any brains would actually care.
This negative bashing is the worst kind of campaigning. It is the number one contributor, in my opinion, to the dismal voter turn out this country has been experiencing. People want to vote on what the party is going to do, not on what the other parties failed to do according to some skewed version. It is insulting to the Canadian people. Come to us with facts and figures and you have our attention. Come to us with whining and you have lost us before the first whine gets full swing. It is arrogance that always leads negative campaign slants. Honesty walks a different path.
I hope that more youth voted. I hope more seniors voted. I hope more people shut off their regular shows and turned to the debates and news to educate themselves on who cares about what matters to them. I hope that there is change because what we are doing is not working and I hope somewhere in there, you got to catch a piece of the royal wedding.
It is simple stuff like the wedding of British royals that makes us remember people and dreams. Prince William and Kathryn Middleton tied the knot in a way that only Britain does. The royals have evolved. They give each of us a glimpse of grace and elegance, class and pageantry. We all need to remember there is more to life than the economy. Britain deserved their day.
It was weird to end the weekend with news of the death of the ultimate terrorist. Osama bin Laden was killed at long last. His death is a vindication of sorts, a message that there is justice in democracy. Obama did what Bush couldn’t. Bush flew the bin Laden family out of the U.S. after 911. Obama brought an end.
Life has a funny way of making us re-evaluate. One little week had death, closure, new beginnings, new hope and new dreams packed into it. None of it came in a tidy package waiting to be opened, but rather in a buffet of introspection. It was a historical week in so many ways. It is week 18 for our paper, week one of a marriage, the last week for an evil man and a week of chips falling where they may. One whirlwind week can change a lot. I hope you were paying attention.