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Minorities
Jan. 24th, 2006 10:53 pm
High temp today, here: 2. Dewpoint then: -4. High dewpoint: 0.
High temp today in TO: 5. Dewpoint then: -4. High dewpoint: 0.
Low today on the balcony: -3.2. High: 1.3. Currently: 0.2.
Bit of snow today. Still the rapid cycling--it's got to be murder on the pavement and the rocks--though it seems like weeks now, maybe even before Christmas, since we've been below normal. (It's record cold in Europe--the pool of Arctic air is tilted over to the other side this year.)
OK, so, I was a bit off, though how well the Conservatives didn't do has surprised, if not shocked, just about everyone. I, uh, did pretty much nail the NDP, at least. I think we all underestimated the insanity of Quebeckers. Could be the end of the Bloc. And oh the ironies of history: the old Mulroney coalition coming back together under the leadership of an original Reformer. Hey, you don't need to be a Distinct Society if you get to act virtually like an independent country anyway. As for the Greens, I haven't seen the riding-by-riding results from BC, but overall, they do look stalled, and I, like, I suppose, a lot of other people, am starting to wonder what exactly the point is.
I'm surprised turnout was up, too. Maybe the trick is to keep having elections, keep people in the habit.
I was relieved when Martin said he was quitting the leadership. Not because he's an exhausted brand (though he is that), but because so much respect has been lost over the last couple of decades for the idea that your party--or, for that matter, the whole system--is bigger than you. (The decline of the idea of ministerial responsibility is part of that.) When I was a kid, after that kind of result, he would've resigned as a matter of course. It says something about him that he did it even though it's no longer a matter of course, and it says something about the political culture that it seems to have surprised so many people.
If the Liberals know what's good for them, Tobin will be their next leader. It won't be Ignatieff. I'm afraid it'll be McKenna. I can't believe Bob Rae's name is still coming up.
Yeah, no evening redness in the West at the end of Beloved. Actually, I'm not sure what's at the end of Beloved. You know, there's ambiguity, and then there's just talking to yourself, and Morrison crosses the line a couple of times in this book ... but just a couple. (I've never managed to makes sense, at least not to my satisfaction, of the ending of Blood Meridian, for that matter. Something to do with pointlessness, I guess.) Beloved's schoolteacher is much like BM's Judge, though he gets much less stage time. In Beloved, it's the innocent (but who is innocent?) stand-in for schoolteacher who takes the hit, rather than making it. But who is innocent? There is redemption, but there is no innocence--or if there is (Halle, apparently, is innocent), it gets crushed. So, not so far from McCarthy, maybe.
Two striking themes: pride and ressentiment (which turns the town against 124), and freedom through the free sale of labour.
Why doesn't House learn that his first two theories are always wrong? You have to hand it to them: they've come up with something even more formulaic than Law & Order. I used to like Law & Order, a lot--but it was the characters; it's always the characters. Homicide started to die when it wasn't so much about the characters anymore.
High temp today in TO: 5. Dewpoint then: -4. High dewpoint: 0.
Low today on the balcony: -3.2. High: 1.3. Currently: 0.2.
Bit of snow today. Still the rapid cycling--it's got to be murder on the pavement and the rocks--though it seems like weeks now, maybe even before Christmas, since we've been below normal. (It's record cold in Europe--the pool of Arctic air is tilted over to the other side this year.)
OK, so, I was a bit off, though how well the Conservatives didn't do has surprised, if not shocked, just about everyone. I, uh, did pretty much nail the NDP, at least. I think we all underestimated the insanity of Quebeckers. Could be the end of the Bloc. And oh the ironies of history: the old Mulroney coalition coming back together under the leadership of an original Reformer. Hey, you don't need to be a Distinct Society if you get to act virtually like an independent country anyway. As for the Greens, I haven't seen the riding-by-riding results from BC, but overall, they do look stalled, and I, like, I suppose, a lot of other people, am starting to wonder what exactly the point is.
I'm surprised turnout was up, too. Maybe the trick is to keep having elections, keep people in the habit.
I was relieved when Martin said he was quitting the leadership. Not because he's an exhausted brand (though he is that), but because so much respect has been lost over the last couple of decades for the idea that your party--or, for that matter, the whole system--is bigger than you. (The decline of the idea of ministerial responsibility is part of that.) When I was a kid, after that kind of result, he would've resigned as a matter of course. It says something about him that he did it even though it's no longer a matter of course, and it says something about the political culture that it seems to have surprised so many people.
If the Liberals know what's good for them, Tobin will be their next leader. It won't be Ignatieff. I'm afraid it'll be McKenna. I can't believe Bob Rae's name is still coming up.
Yeah, no evening redness in the West at the end of Beloved. Actually, I'm not sure what's at the end of Beloved. You know, there's ambiguity, and then there's just talking to yourself, and Morrison crosses the line a couple of times in this book ... but just a couple. (I've never managed to makes sense, at least not to my satisfaction, of the ending of Blood Meridian, for that matter. Something to do with pointlessness, I guess.) Beloved's schoolteacher is much like BM's Judge, though he gets much less stage time. In Beloved, it's the innocent (but who is innocent?) stand-in for schoolteacher who takes the hit, rather than making it. But who is innocent? There is redemption, but there is no innocence--or if there is (Halle, apparently, is innocent), it gets crushed. So, not so far from McCarthy, maybe.
Two striking themes: pride and ressentiment (which turns the town against 124), and freedom through the free sale of labour.
Why doesn't House learn that his first two theories are always wrong? You have to hand it to them: they've come up with something even more formulaic than Law & Order. I used to like Law & Order, a lot--but it was the characters; it's always the characters. Homicide started to die when it wasn't so much about the characters anymore.
