No letters this month! Great! I much prefer it when I don't have to answer your insipid, stupefying questions anyway. This way I get to use this space for what I really enjoy: rambling on and on about nothing in particular.
Topic 1: The near-quarterly UCC
So you may or may not have noticed that new issues of the UCC are being released at increasingly greater intervals. There are several reasons for this, including:
Topic 2: The Olympicsand most importantly,
- being awash in despair
- too busy watching trampolining at the Olympics
- the guy I keep locked in my spare bedroom that I usually force to write this stuff isn't feeling well since the hobbling incident
- can't stop thinking about Regis Philbin
- the contempt I feel for my readership.
A lot of people are perturbed by Canada's lackluster performance at the Sydney Olympics. They debate whether poor funding is to blame, or just bad luck, or lazy athletes, etc. I don't see what all the fuss is about. Who cares if we're any good at running around a track or jumping over sticks? I say leave that stuff to the lesser countries and let's concentrate on what being Canadian is all about: looking down our noses at the Americans. We'd get a gold in that!
Topic 3: Trudeau
The outpouring of emotion following the recent death of Trudeau was
at first a bit disconcerting. It's great that so many people felt
an attachment to this controversial and once-powerful man, but it seemed
somewhat unnatural for so many to be reduced to tears by a man whom most
had never met and a good number probably couldn't even remember.
It was like some kind of mass-hypnosis was taking place. Then I realized
that people were not grieving so much for the man as for their own personal
losses, whatever form they take. Thinking about Trudeau forces you
to think about death and the past, two subjects which can be quite depressing
even on their own. Put them together and you've got the perfect recipe
for getting thousands of people to break down in public displays of grief.
And while ostensibly they were grieving for Pierre, they were really grieving
for their own wasted chances, lost youth, or dead relatives.
So does that make the display any less genuine? Of course not.
You don't think we'll be lining up for four hours when Mulroney goes, do
you?
Copyright 2000 The Upper Canada Chronicle