Chez PLJ

At least someone is having fun during the Canadian election. It’s the Prime Minister’s head speech writer, Scott Feschuk, and he’s keeping a blog.

It’s great silly fun, mainly light-hearted banter, but with some interesting stories along the way, like why you should never miss the motorpool (second entry). Or inner sanctum stuff, like the internal mood in the plane after the Tories made hay of the Scott Reid remark (very bottom entry). Or the time he cleaned out Paul Martin at poker.

More open than you’d expect, especially compared to the rest of the pack. Sadly, the NDP is probably too earnest to keep one of these. The Tories do have a blog of sorts, but predicitably it’s just an anonymous, vitriolic, partisan mouthpiece.

I just searched for and bought the Pogues’ song “Fairytale of New York” (in my view one of the best Christmas songs in recent years) from iTunes. Mucho yuletide-y goodness for 99¢ and one of the all-time best Christmas song opening lines:

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank

You can discover all sorts of surprises—both good and bad—when you use iTune’s Search function. For me, one of the worst was this version of “Fairytale”. (For those without iTunes, in short: The Irish Tenors. Ouch.)

Chalk one up for the good guys… Today a U.S. district judge ruled against (more like annihilated) the Dover, Pennsylvania school board who tried to force “intelligent design” into their Grade 9 biology classes.

The judge’s 139-page decision is here, and if it’s not quite of the sheer literary quality of the City of Toronto’s Bellamy report, it’s a remarkably straightforward (not too much legalese) and lucid retelling of facts: starting with a backgrounder featuring the history of creationism vs. evolution in the US courts; all the way through the machinations and outright lying of the born-again board members to push their agenda through. I was just shaking my head at details such as:

…there arose the astonishing story of an evolution mural that was taken from a classroom and destroyed in 2002 by Larry Reeser, the head of buildings and grounds for the [board]. At the June 2004 meeting, [teacher] Spahr asked [board member and creationist] Buckingham where he had received a picture of the evolution mural that had been torn down and incinerated…. Buckingham responded: “I gleefully watched it burn.” Buckingham disliked the mural because he thought it advocated the theory of evolution, particularly common ancestry. Burning the evolutionary mural apparently was insufficient for Buckingham, however. Instead, he demanded that the teachers agree that there would never again be a mural depicting evolution in any of the classrooms and in exchange, Buckingham would agree to support the purchase of the biology textbook in need by the students.

But we probably shouldn’t get too cocky about winning this one; in the judge’s conclusion:

…this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board…to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial.

That is, these people were stupid. This won’t always be the case (though one hopes it will be).

Yesterday was a rare night of babysitting (yay Grandma!) so we headed out for a festive evening spent with the improv whizzes at Bad Dog Theatre on the Danforth. There a cast of seven (plus a piano player) improvised loosely through the Dickens story, asking questions of the audience and using their suggestions such as:

Where does Scrooge work? (A petstore)
What affliction does Tiny Tim have? (Narcolepsy)
Who beat out young Scrooge for the Employee of the Month award at Fezziwig’s? … Peter!

That’s right, our own Peter got hauled up on stage and asked a few questions (what’s your name? what do you do? do you have any pets? what are their names?) before getting regaled with an instantly-composed song about said topics. Though Peter actually made the actors skip a beat when he answered that our goldfishes’ names are Sid and Nancy and that Sid’s full name is Sid Fishious.

Wonderful work by all, including two other audience members: one dragooned into being the hands of Mrs. Cratchit; and a teenaged, very “whatever” Ghost of Christmas Future.

The show is a total hoot and it changes every night; and at $12 a head it’s cheap at twice the price. Catch it quick, since there are only three shows left (December 17, 19 and 26).

Got this card from the Suzuki-Campos household a few days ago; it still makes us laugh every time we look at it.

For non-family: Those are Jon’s cousins Tamo and Midori, as toddlers and now as teenagers. In both shots they are sitting in the family rescue sled, which doesn’t quite fit two anymore.

Must get to Japan someday: until we do enjoy this movie of an escalator at the Hakkeijima Sea Paradise.

(Whoops, it’s been awhile since we’ve transcribed any of Jon’s stories. Here’s a couple. —L)

My Mommy and My Daddy are Different

I love going home because mommy and my daddy laugh. It is funny. They are going to have computer. I love going downstairs with them to do some spelling. I like going to play games on the computer. I am going to play Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat. I love my mommy and my daddy. They love me. I hug my daddy and kiss my mommy because they love me.

Jon

The Winter

It was cold. I love throwing snow balls. I like going outside in the winter to go tubogning. I am going to the house to get warm. I love going to the snow to go looging with my mom and dad. We go fast when it’s windy.

Jon