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Written by KYLE STOREY, Citizen satff
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Wednesday, 03 December 2008 |
Just when I thought the closest I was ever going to get to smiling was when I passed gas, the people at the polling station at Austin Road school actually managed to penetrate this heart of coal.
My wife has been incapacitated by a recent injury and getting her down the stairs and into the car was a feat of Herculean proportions. Getting her into the polling station was a non-starter, but the city’s website mentioned the fact polling people would come to your car if the need arose.
When we pulled into the parking lot at the school, it was clear these folks had their hands full.
So I was a little uncomfortable asking the people running the poll to come out to the car so my wife could vote. I felt like, you know, a pain in the backside.
And while that’s probably precisely what I was, the people at Austin Road bent over backwards to make sure she got the opportunity to exercise her democratic right -- and, in the process, kept repeating how happy they were to see we’d made the effort to get out and help select the city’s new mayor and council.
For folks who were up to their elbows in voters, and would be for most of the next nine hours, I was struck by how helpful and gracious everyone was.
H H H
Just when you thought election fever had finally passed, and we could look forward to something enjoyable -- like flu season -- the federal politicians are at it again.
Just how dumb do they think we are?
First, the opposition tries to tell us the terrible Tories are threatening the future economic well-being of our country by not addressing the current financial crisis in their latest missive on the economy, when, in fact, what the opposition parties were really whining about was the Conservatives’ intention to cut off taxpayer funding of political parties.
Then the Tories try to make us believe the opposition is only threatening to topple the government because of said cuts. And the entire mess is completely unnecessary and self-serving on the part of the three opposition parties.
What the Tories forgot to tell us was how cutting taxpayer funding of political parties was completely self-serving on their part, and a great political ploy to bankrupt everyone but themselves.
Oh, and in the process, virtually eliminate any hopes for parties like the Greens.
You can be excused if you think the only thing that ever comes out of the mouth of a politician is horse-hockey.
In creating this Machiavellian madness, Stephen Harper may have done in five minutes what those on the other side of the political spectrum have been unable to do for the past five years -- unite the left.
H H H
A joint (pardon the pun) operation between the Canadian military and the British Royal commandoes in Afghanistan yielded an IED factory (improvised explosive device), 24 barrels of homemade explosives, numerous anti-personnel mines, a motorcycle rigged with explosives, several 107-mm rockets, small arms, weapons and ammunition and 500 kilograms of hashish.
And you wondered how the Taliban was able to find so many willing recruits.
Kyle Storey is a Citizen associate news editor.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 03 December 2008 )
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