Just in case you haven't heard of it, Meetup is a site that coordinates meetings in cities around th world, on scores of topics. One of the topics is, or course, graffiti - haven't had enough for a meeting yet in Ottawa, but if you're interested, check out the next one at
No, not to hire someone to sit on the couch like Homer Simpson and watch TV, but a professional handyman. Got the flyer in my mailbox, I wonder if they looked at all the chores to be done outside. Like painting the fence. But maybe that's a project to be shared with friends.
And of course, for the inside chores, there's always dial-a-wife, unfortunately for me based in Australia. They do have rather strong ideas of a woman's place down under (oops) as we all saw in the town of Porpoise Spit. OK, they're not all like that, some do manage to break out of the mold and show some individuality.
We used to wait, perhaps with terror or at least with concern and apprehension, for the next big World War. But then we were sidetracked by a continuous series of "conflicts" and "police actions".
And now even those are pushed to the back pages of our minds, force-marched out by all those wars that have been declared to put the (moral) right spin on the latest windmill we're tilting against. So many of them now that being at war has become a trivial term.
Latest is the War on Weight. Up-sizing your fast food order is no longer acceptable, but rather something you will need to whisper furtively over the counter. As if the latest Happy Meal prizes were condoms, as part of the War against STD's.
But I digress, back to all these terrible fat people. There is a concern that we have gone so far as to demonize fat, as part of the battle to make being over-weight morally evil and irresponsible. However, it may be dificult for most North Americans to find somewhere to stand to finger-point at "them". As Pogo has said (with help from Walt Kelly), "we have met the enemy and he is us".
And don't even get me started on the War on Terror (too late). A local writer, Kate Heartfield, had an article in a recent edition of the Ottawa Citizen, asking for one last war- A War on Our tendency to Abuse the English Language. She pointed out that when we say "the war on terror' we really mean to say "the war on terrorism". But putting that aside, that even a war on terrorism is absurd. It's a tactic, not a country or a group.
Interestingly, this American War on Terror(ism) was started by Reagan, as part of the Iran-Contra affair. Which ended up bungling the launch of the war, and forced the US to halt, or at least delay, the offensive.
The convenient thing about declaring you are at war with something is you get to bend the rules of civil liberties. Maybe the Liberals in Canada need to declare a War on Sponsorship Scandals and then cancel all further public hearings for reasons of National Security. Being at war and all. Then let's see how many of these whistleblowers will run the risk of being declared unpatriotic and sent to Syria for interrogation.
In the meantime we can keep watch on the current terror alert indicators, which are of course not political but a scientific measure of the current average terror level American's are (or should be) feeling.
Today's level is ....
Click on it for more info.