Way back when, I wrote the music column for my friend Christine Renaud’s express and upfront magazines, dedicated to “art, entertainment & life” in Prince Edward County. This review is very typical of my style at the time (or lack thereof!). I really can’t be arsed to edit it.

Remember Robert Plant’s “Tall Cool One” video, with its Robert Palmer-esque disinterested, robotic models lip-synching for Plant’s studly big eighties hair? Me neither. Even Zeppelin fans ignore it. “Tall Cool One” does have one saving grace (for me, at least) – a backing vocal by Kirsty MacColl, who sings the relentless chorus line, “Lighten up, baby, I’m in love with you.”

Kirsty was the daughter of songwriter Ewan MacColl (“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Dirty Old Town”) and backing vocalist for Tracey Ullman, Morrissey, The Pogues and Talking Heads, among others. She wrote songs for ABBA chanteuse Frida and picked the running order for U2′s The Joshua Tree, produced by her then-husband Steve Lillywhite. (She said later that the tracks are ranked in order of her preference. Clever woman – the first three have become rock classics.)

Kirsty is replaced in the “Tall Cool One” video by vacant-looking models. Of course she is. Kirsty had too much character, was too real to be commercial, despite her five near-perfect pop albums. She was beautiful but chubby. She was brilliant live, but shy and suffered from stage fright; she never went on tour. Her covers of songs by The Kinks (“Days”) and socialist folkie Billy Bragg (“A New England”) gave her bigger hits in the UK than her own compositions, though Ullman took Kirsty’s girl-group soundalike “They Don’t Know” to the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic. She was beloved by musicians but largely unknown to the listening public, especially in North America. where fans mostly know her perennial Christmas duet with The Pogues, “Fairytale of New York.”

Before her untimely death, Kirsty released Tropical Brainstorm, her first studio album in seven years. While the previous Titanic Days was her “sad divorce album,” Brainstorm is exuberant: uptempo and optimistic music paired with Kirsty’s witty and wise lyrics. The sound is a fusion of Britpop and the Latin sounds of mambo and samba. Since 1991′s “My Affair,” Kirsty had worked with Latin musicians and Cuban charities, and sadly she was killed in a boating accident off the coast of Mexico, one of the locales that inspired her music, so full of life.

The good humour and warmth of Tropical Brainstorm starts with the lead track, an ode to the relaxed Cuban character, Mambo de la Luna, continuing with the hilarious “In These Shoes?” (covered by Bette Midler and featured in an episode of Sex and the City), “Treachery,” a tables-turned song about stalking an unsuspecting fan, and “Here Comes That Man Again,” a risqué, comic tale of online shenanigans with a Dutch pornographer. Other highlights include the soccer saga “England 2 Columbia 0″ (when it comes to love, Kirsty knows “how those Columbians feel”) and the playful “Us Amazonians,” about a back-to-nature South American matriarchal society. Brainstorm closes with “Head,” a jazzy, sax-y piece as smoky as Kirsty’s late-night, husky voice.

In my store, “Tropical Brainstorm” has become a secret weapon: we play it both to raise our spirits and, I admit, because every week we manage to make a few converts. Good for business, but besides, Kirsty’s fans are known for their dedication to foisting her under-appreciated talent on all. Brainstorm is a rare thing, an end-to-end good listen that puts a smile on everyone’s face. It is, to quote “Alegria,” purely, simply, an album of “happiness and joy.”

First published winter 2003.

I was raised by prudes who never gave me “the talk.” I grew up in an uptight, WASP suburb and traded it in for a redneck farming community. I learned nothing about sex. And I’m gay.

I’m pretty damn sure the nation’s 12-to-16-year-olds can learn what an orgasm is without turning into rapists. Or into me, for that matter.

That narrative presupposes the inevitability of a polarized left-right dichotomy; in other words, it’s natural and normal to have large social democratic and conservative or Christian democratic parties alternating in power, perhaps allied by necessity (as in Great Britain) with a small, squeezed, and increasingly insignificant centrist third party. Canada isn’t different; Canada is just late. Our 2011 happened a hundred years too late.

I still don’t buy it. However attractive the theory might be to political scientists, journalists, and geeks like me, I don’t believe for a nanosecond that Canadians base their votes on an understanding of 1920s British politics. If anything, Canadian politics fit any pattern less now; what marks federal elections since 1993 has been voter volatility, not predictability.

The thing is, I’m right and I’m wrong – right in theory, wrong in practice. I’m convinced that we do a disservice to the electorate by framing politics as win or lose, us versus them. The NDP used to rail against this polarization, although now that they’re one of the two leading federal parties, the narrative suits them just fine.

But realpolitik tells me that, no matter what the ideal, we Liberals have to face the unpleasant reality that we’re destined for a lifetime in third place unless we learn how to play the game (again). Even as we reject a left-right narrative, nevertheless we must frame federal politics as us versus them – the pragmatic, moderate Liberals against the ideological extremes of the CPC and NDP.

Thus I’ve accepted what every poll, every study suggests is true: people don’t vote for policies, they vote for leaders and parties.

In terms of repairing our damaged brand, our efforts haven’t yet paid off, but I think (I hope?) that we’re on the right track. Liberals, on the whole, have been remarkably upfront about the challenges we face. So far we’ve mostly just talked the talk; there’s still too much internal cliquishness, still too much reliance on politicians, provincial executives, and directors who were at the helm for the disasters of 2008 and 2011. We haven’t fully reformed, but at least no one’s suggesting (anymore) that if we were just better Liberals, we’d win.

The leadership is trickier. There are still too many Liberals looking for a saviour-leader, for the next Trudeau (and mostly, these people seem to favour Trudeau as the new Trudeau, which is unfair to both Pierre and Justin). We’re used to choosing our leaders from a talented pool of experienced caucus members and former cabinet ministers, but that pool is increasingly shallow. I respect our MPs, but I do not believe that we should choose our next leader necessarily from their ranks.

Why not? Well, it doesn’t fit the narrative of a party seriously competing to win in 2015.

I’ve thought long and hard about this. I’ve watched Bob Rae as interim leader, noted the good and bad press, observed our MPs in the House, seen how the Tories will frame the debate with Rae at the helm. (They’ve plotted this for years, by the way; during prorogation, my then-MP, Conservative Daryl Kramp, was clearly issued talking points about Rae’s record as premier.)

I was a Rae supporter in 2006 and 2008. For that matter, I’ve meandered politically along the same path as Rae – I was a Liberal first, a New Democrat in 1990, not a New Democrat by the mid-nineties, and now, again, a federal Liberal. That’s not a coincidence; Rae’s conversion changed my perception of the Liberal Party.

But now, a decade later, I can only come to one sad conclusion: Bob Rae won’t be my first choice for the permanent leadership of the LPC.

I just don’t think it will fly. Against a seriously crappy interim NDP leader, we gained a little ground but still ended up in third place. Then the NDP picked, frankly, the strongest candidate they had for the leadership and immediately we were back to May 2011 levels of support. Why would those numbers change simply by transforming Rae from interim to actual leader? Our next convention will be essentially meaningless if the end result is exactly the same.

I always assumed Rae was, well, not absolutely forthright about not running for the leadership, and while I don’t believe that the national executive should prevent his candidacy, I know how this will be perceived by many members. Will they cease to be Liberals? Probably not, but it’s entirely possible that a large group of Liberals will sit out the next election cycle if it can’t rally around a fresher, newer leader than Rae.

We can’t afford another 2011. If we’re earnest about contributing positively to Canadian politics and, ultimately, government, we need to unite the party, not to reward the last man standing after all others have faltered.

For a year now we’ve taken comfort in our belief that we punch above our weight in Parliament, that Rae’s experience and ability make us equal to the NDP in the House, and as credible an alternative. But it’s not true. Rae is a good debater, yes, but our team has become somewhat ill-mannered in the House. We’re loud. We heckle. When the NDP speaks, even when we agree, we ignore them. (Of course, they do the same to us, and that’s why I don’t like it.)

We look old, frankly, and that’s not just because only two of our MPs were first elected last year. Even our younger MPs seem dated compared to the CPC and NDP caucuses. Let’s not be naive; those parties look like the face of Canada in 2012 and we look like the remnants of the class of ’93. I don’t believe we can portray ourselves credibly as fresh, new, youthful, or innovative if the face of the party is a former provincial premier first elected federally in 1978.

It just isn’t enough to present a progressive program based on well-meaning moderate policies: if we can’t sell our leader to the masses, we aren’t going to win or even retake the Official Opposition. A Rae administration might well resemble Chrétien’s – socially liberal, fiscally prudent, capable of brokering interests effectively – but as Chrétien clearly understood, you can only worry about government if you’re able to win an election.

I believe that, instead of rejecting the “leadership narrative,” if you will, we need to steal it back. We need to be more clever than our opponents. It may have taken Jack Layton seven years to become Jack Layton, but he started out as a newcomer to the federal scene – as did Harper, as did Mulcair – and I just don’t see how we can market Rae similarly.

Of course, I realize that Rae’s supporters constitute the single largest camp within the party, and I did hesitate (for four months, in fact) before writing this post, for a few reasons. I’ve always tried to steer clear of factions; even for internal positions, I tend not to endorse unless I know someone well. I assumed I would make clear my feelings about the leadership when I declared for a candidate, not before the race has begun.

I also don’t want to make an enemy of Bob Rae or anyone who supports him. Rae got me into politics in the first place. When my old EDA hosted Rae for a fundraiser, I insisted on making the introduction (and I do have a funny story from when Rae was my prof at U of T). I like Bob Rae a lot, and if he is chosen as our next leader, I won’t defect, I won’t quit, and I won’t sit on my hands. I’m no expert, and no one can predict how election dynamics affect outcomes (cf the NDP in 2011). I’m not writing off my own party if it picks a leader who isn’t my first choice…and note that I wrote first choice.

Plus I’m in it for the long haul. I’ve thought about it, and I just don’t see myself as either a Tory or a Dipper. If those were my only options, I’d probably quit politics.

I also hesitated because I know my party’s tendency to infighting and I would be aghast if anything I said or wrote damaged the Liberal Party. But I also feel that the only alternative is to whisper conspiratorially in backrooms or be, heaven forbid, one of those “anonymous Liberal sources.” My goal is not to undermine my leader or my party. But we’re supposed to be a new, open, democratic Liberal Party. We’re the only party that allows supporters, even if I’m not sure we know yet how to engage them.

We’ve also actively rejected the notion that the next leader will be chosen “by consensus,” like Ignatieff was. There is too much risk that party members will buy into the press narrative that Rae’s leadership is inevitable and the next convention will be another coronation, not a contest; I worry that Rae is too similar to Dion and Ignatieff to fend off Conservative attacks, too well-known to appeal to moderate centre-left voters, especially in Ontario.

Ultimately my concern is that, under Rae, we’ll become very comfortable as the third party and, well, let me put it this way: I didn’t sign up as a Liberal to become a New Democrat.

Mom did housework well until the end, but she never really cared about it. She had more conveniences in the 70s and 80s than I do now: dishwasher, microwave oven, laundry, cleaning lady. Our house was never a showpiece, unlike Aunt Joan’s, but it was clean. Clean enough, anyway.

Besides the obligatory card, all my mother really expected from Mother’s Day was to not have to cook, perhaps, and that her father wouldn’t wake her up by phoning during her nap. “Charlie” had no sense of time or frequency of calls near the end.

The nap would be a sound one, hopefully, with a few dogs on her, on the couch or beg, on dog beds surrounding her. I do that, too, but more with the cats. Somehow animals know that Mom and I will put up with intrusive companionship.

It’s hard not to feel sad on days like today. It’s not just that I miss Mom, and clearly never really got over it; it’s that I miss my family, even if in retrospect it seems more like the idea of a family.

It’s that weird adult sense that home is where I am, not a place to visit, and it’s the memories, of course – not of special occasions but everyday memories, the banal details of home and belonging that you never realize you’re going to miss so much.

Although far from being, say, a Judy LaMarsh, Fairclough did mention after her stint in government that the male ministers treated her, well, like a woman – the Progressive Conservative cabinet’s resident knitter whose delicate sensibilities might have been compromised by the necessity of actually thinking about politics.

But that’s okay, because everything has changed. Women are equals in politics now, right? So Fairclough’s most famous quotation is a relic of our past?

If a male member of Parliament says anything foolish it is forgotten the next day, but if a woman does it, it is repeated endlessly, right across the country.

Except, in politics, in 2012, the sexist dinosaur is anything but extinct, as this statement by Tory MPP Rick Nicholls shows:

We now know that, despite attempts to deflect, [...] the assorted Ornge stories are connected to a long list of Liberal insiders. Liberal party president. The Premier’s right-hand man, Don Guy. Senior Liberal staffer Jennifer Tracy. Warren Kinsella’s squeeze, Lisa Kirbie…

Wait. What?

I know Lisa Kirbie, if not well. She and I were involved in the same association at different times, but I’d heard about her from my mentor, Bob, and sought her out at the Vancouver convention. For that matter, I found Warren Kinsella, too, because we both had a personal beef with my CPC MP.

What I haven’t really followed is the l’affaire Ornge, and I have zero intention of making any comment on it; that’s not my point.

To paraphrase what Lisa Kirbie herself said in a letter to the Speaker of the Ontario Legislature, she’s a grown woman with a professional and political resume that she can defend without any reference to her romantic partner. It is beyond insulting – it is egregiously sexist – to suggest that Lisa is some sort of shrinking violet who needs her man to get her a job.

Also, would it be okay if we weren’t talking about someone’s “squeeze,” but instead if a member had suggested that a non-white individual got his/her job because of affirmative action quotas? I mean, really, no.

You can’t attack private individuals in the legislature, period. I guess someone wasn’t paying attention when CPC MP Daryl Kramp tried the same trick in the House of Commons on, wait for it, Warren Kinsella. Um, hi, you can’t do that, cf parliamentary tradition in every Westminster democracy. Private individuals can’t answer you back in the legislature, you know.

Coming soon after federal NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen’s somewhat odd proposal that decorum in the House would improve if the Speaker, you know, did his job, it would be entirely appropriate for the Ontario counterpart, Speaker David Levac, to give all members of the Ontario legislature – Liberal, PC, & NDP – a stern talking-to about professional conduct, and while I might not throw actually Gloria Steinem in Nicholls’ face, the Speaker could strongly suggest that Nicholls rephrase his comment in lieu of a highly doubtful apology.

I know so little about MPP Nicholls. I hadn’t even heard of him until today, to be honest. I guess I could mock his apparent delusion that Tim Allen is the best speller in the world, but that would be a personal attack (and I’m not even an elected member). But seriously, there’s precious little information about Nicholls online besides his official Queen’s Park page and a defunct website so I really have no idea what motivates the man.

Perchance he’s somebody’s squeeze, or some other insulting archaic bit of lingo.

One quirk of Maltese politics is that the two-party system is essentially a fact of law. Back in 1981, the Labour Party won a majority of seats with a minority of votes. This is politics as usual in Canada; in Malta, it led the Nationalist Party to boycott Parliament. Now the system allows for top-up seats so that the party that wins the most votes is ensured a majority of the seats.

Currently the Nationalists have a one-seat majority because of this arrangement; in 2008, they won 31 seats, Labour 34, so the PN was allotted four top-up seats as they had “won” the election (very narrowly, with 49.3% of the popular vote against Labour’s 48.8%, a difference of under 3,000 votes).

A single backbencher, in theory, can bring down Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s government. Last year, divorce finally became legal in Catholic Malta under a Christian democratic government after PN mavericks (notably Jeffery Pullicino Orlando) voted with Labour on the issue and campaigned in favour in the subsequent referendum. But that wasn’t a matter of confidence.

Now MP Franco Debono may well be the cause of a spring snap election. Debono is in favour of two opposition motions to censure Home Affairs minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici and EU representative Richard Cachia Caruana and has threatened to withdraw support for the budget, set for a May 9 vote in the House. That date isn’t an accident; the government is trying to shame Debono by holding a confidence vote on the 25th anniversary of the 1987 election that returned the Nationalists to power after sixteen years in opposition. They have formed the government for all of two years since.

When I was last in Malta I became obsessed with kazins, the clubs or bars run by political parties. The idea of a small village in Canada having Liberal, Conservative, and New Democratic bars is just so outlandish, yet in Malta it seemed perfectly normal to shoot pool surrounded by portraits of past prime ministers. The photo is of the Labour Party’s kazin in Valletta (note leader Joseph Muscat’s typically grinning goatee-d mug on the billboard). If I were running a political party bar, I’d want it above a store called “Bliss” too.

Based in Auckland, the Herald has NZ’s largest newspaper circulation and a slew of political commentators ranging from former Alliance president Matt McCarten on the left to, say, former Act MP Deborah Coddington on the right.

I appreciate the content, still, reading the Herald is akin to reading the Times for Irish politics – not exactly a progressive editorial voice, but a professional media outlet with a well-organized website and lots of grist for the proverbial mill.

To some extent, the Herald’s political coverage reflects trends in NZ politics over the years – they sway in the breeze a bit, in other words. Certainly the Herald was friendliest to Labour when Helen Clark was PM and the National Party was hapless, while it’s currently, shall we say, well disposed toward the Nats who have governed since 2008 under PM John Key.

I think it’s fair to say that the Herald favours centre-right politics overall, and sometimes the appearance of bias is painfully obvious.

Having led the polls with majority support consistently for months, years even, the National Party dropped to 49.5% in the latest Herald Digipoll. “Poll shock,” the Herald breathlessly reported. Oh my good lord, the Nats have lost support and are now, what, still more popular than any other government in a Westminster democracy? Give me a break.

Suddenly the Herald was chock full of stern articles talking about the “surge” of New Zealand First (wow, what a surge – up to 3.7%!) and the scandalous possibility that the Nats wouldn’t win a majority on their own or with their preferred coalition partners.

The worst of the scaremongering came via David Farrar, who runs NZ’s most popular blog, Kiwiblog, and is described by the Herald as a “centre-right blogger” (translation: has worked for four National Party leaders). No surprise, that, though one wishes Farrar would admit to having an agenda. It’s okay. Most of us do, though few of us write for the country’s leading newspaper.

Farrar’s recent column, “What a Labour-led coalition might look like,” is laughable. Farrar supposes that there is a “small swing” to Labour (which, please note, lost support in that same poll) and makes assumptions that are by no means certain or even plausible: that NZ First reaches the 5% hurdle, that the Green, Maori & Mana parties would back a Labour government, that Peter Dunne loses and John Banks doesn’t take Epsom.

Oh come on.

Granted I’m not a big Winston Peters fan – to my mind New Zealand First represents the worst sort of populism, serving Peters’ egotistical need for attention every three years – but objectively, 3.7% being less than NZ First won in 2008, it will be tough for them to reach the hurdle. Even if they do poll over 5%, Labour didn’t exactly have a fun time when it last let Peters into cabinet and Peters has ruled out working with Labour.

The Greens are always considered to be a natural coalition partner for Labour, especially by the Herald, despite evidence to the contrary: that when Labour won its substantial minorities under Helen Clark, the Greens did not go into coalition with Labour. And it’s silly to suppose that the Maori Party, which currently supports the National government, would suddenly, capriciously, without logic or reason switch to supporting Labour, its major competitor for the Maori electorate seats.

As for the Mana Party, the idea that Hone Harawira can work with his erstwhile Maori Party colleagues – or anyone – is laughable. (Am I the only one out there who thinks Hone is the new Winston Peters of the left?)

Farrar’s highly questionable poll and seat distribution analysis aside, his suppositions about the composition of a Labour-Green-Maori-Mana-NZ First cabinet reaches heights of laughable hysteria. My hands-down favourite paragraph:

Gareth Hughes could become the Climate Change Minister entrusted with making sure New Zealand is the world leader on reducing climate emissions. Greenpeace’s target of a 40% reduction by 2020 would need around one third of the dairy herd to be euthanized over the next nine years.

Oh. My. God. If you vote anything but National (or United Future or Act), the Greens are gonna KILL ALL THE COWS!

I suspect Farrar of having another purpose in envisioning this nightmare coalition scenario, snuck into in the column’s last paragraph:

So as we head into the final fortnight before the election, a Labour-Green-NZ First-Maori-Mana Government may become a viable alternative to National winning the election. It will be MMP politics at its best. The more parties you need to agree to govern, the more consensus you get – right?

This election, Kiwis are also voting in a referendum to keep or ditch their country’s Mixed Member Proportional electoral system that has been in place since 1996, and despite polls showing majority support for retaining MMP, Farrar is, in a roundabout way, bricking us over the head with the notion that first-past-the-post would prevent all those pesky five-party leftist coalition governments (that exist only in Farrar’s imagination).

How wonderful it would be for Farrar and his ilk to have first-past-the-post back with a twenty-point spread between National and Labour. Canadians may recall the result of the 1984 federal election when the Tories won 50% of the vote and 75% of the seats, and because of its smaller size, NZ’s first-past-the-post results were once even more lopsided – that’s why voters opted for MMP in the first place.

I’m in favour of keeping MMP in New Zealand, though I prefer a ranked ballot – less kind to smaller parties, but helps to prevent wasted votes and avoids splitting MPs into two groups, electorate and list, along with it the perception that list MPs are beholden to their parties, not the voters.

I really don’t like the MMP exception that allows a party to gain list seats without reaching the 5% hurdle if it elects a single MP in an electorate. Why? It makes no sense to me. A party that fails to reach the hurdle yet elects a single MP should have, well, one MP. In 2008, Act won list seats with fewer votes that New Zealand First because of Rodney Hide’s win in Epsom – not that I was upset to see NZ First out of parliament. Still, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and all that.

Farrar’s scaremongering seems even more inappropriate when one considers that John Key and the National Party aren’t indulging in the same rhetoric. Key is a reasonable man, for a Nat, and has done the expected in having a cuppa with John Banks to indicate his tacit support for Banks to win Epsom, thereby bringing Act (and former National) leader Don Brash into the legislature as well – working the system to produce the most stable result for a continuing National-led administration.

It’s not the result I’d prefer but I respect Key for being calm, cool, and collected, and for not insulting our intelligence like certain centre-right bloggers out there.

I can’t be dead certain, but I’m pretty sure John Key has avoided, at least, spurious claims that the Greens take their marching orders from Greenpeace HQ or that the Greens are gonna KILL ALL THE COWS.

Whatever. I’m not that fond of cattle anyway.

Because I have a reputation as tacking left on foreign affairs issues, because I’m skeptical about military intervention, because I find patriotism and jingoism abhorrent, I’m often accused of not supporting our troops. But then the Conservatives regularly imply that all of us non-Tories don’t support our troops so at least I’m in good company with the majority of Canadians.

My views on the military were largely shaped by my dad. He and I have been mostly at odds for a lifetime – we’re just too similar in temperament to get along – and I certainly don’t agree with him on all politics. Domestically the man makes no sense; he voted for Preston Manning and Mike Harris but loathes Stephen Harper, thinks Bob Rae is our nation’s saviour but favours Tim Hudak over Dalton McGuinty.

Dad’s views on foreign affairs are equally complex. My father joined the navy to pay for school and as a student, he automatically became an officer, and if I have to hear the story one more time about how officers drank better liquor than the enlisted men, I’m going to scream.

Anyway, Dad had a good time looking out for Russian subs in the Pacific, and never had anything bad to say about the navy. To this day he keeps up his Legion membership. He signed me up as well, and I certainly didn’t mind vowing not to be a fascist or communist, nor did I object to promising to protect Queen Elizabeth because as far as I know no one’s out to get her, but if they were I’d be seriously not okay with it.

Both Dad and I have a healthy respect for Canadian history and tradition. Of course we think our fallen dead should be remembered, it’s just that we don’t think support for the men and women of our military, past and present, gives us or anyone else the right to wrap it all up in the flag and disparage intelligent discourse with dumbed down sloganeering.

We hate the saying, “If you can’t get behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them.” His sister has it in bumper sticker form, which drives my father batty. I find it offensive on several levels, and I think that it shows a lack of understanding about war that amounts to disrespect for Canadian values and our troops’ sacrifices.

The right can spin it like a top and it’s still indefensible. Clearly the sentiment is aggressive, even violent in its implication that the proper punishment for those who don’t support the military (the meaning of this left conveniently vague) is to harm them.

Personally, I think Canada treats its soldiers poorly. Collectively we praise the sacrifice made by the service of men and women to whom we’re unwilling to pay a living wage. If we treated our enlisted better, their ranks would include fewer disadvantaged groups (linguistic, regional, economic). And we really don’t like talking about how much it messes with their heads to be subjected to horrible situations and conditions, further compounding the problem.

In that sense, I’m certainly on their side. But I think it’s disgusting that the punishment for a soldier convicted of possessing child pornography isn’t jail but a demotion, so am I anti-military now?

Similarly I think some wars are just and others unjust, so I suppose I should either be shot or commended depending on whether we’re discussing WWII or Iraq.

Look, I’m a moderate English Canadian. I was raised on “In Flanders Fields” and venerate Allied war heroes. I was taught that being the aggressor is wrong, that we are pro-little guy and anti-bully, and that we should go to war for our democratic rights, including the right to free expression without oppression.

I find it disrespectful to encourage violence on Remembrance Day, and it’s disingenuous to do so in a public forum then claim that this day is sacred and solemn and should not be political. In my opinion, it is offensive to suggest that anyone, even our worst enemy, should “get in front of” armed soldiers on this day on which we commemorate an end to hostilities, and perhaps mourn the death of the now one-hundred year-old dream of a war to end all wars.

I have no problem reconciling my support for the men and women serving in our military, those who have served, and those who have given their lives because our country asked it of them, with my political beliefs, and I’m sorry but “if you can’t get behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them” is a political statement, and an antagonistic one at that.

Frankly, I don’t like killing, period, and I don’t believe soldiers do, either. That slogan is borderline bloodthirsty in a way that doesn’t jive with what every solider has ever told me: that he or she wants peace, not war.

After all, what did McRae single out for praise in his famous poem? He praised the larks, brave enough to sing over the din of the battlefield, and to me, the larks represented what McRae and all the others fought for: a way of life in a society so free that even in the darkest times, our right to express ourselves bravely prevails even if “scarce heard amid the guns below.”

Had I written the aforementioned would-be post, I would have included a second viable option: encouraging a member of the opposition to run for Speaker, sort of like, well, this news item on Frank Klees (Progressive Conservative, Newmarket-Aurora), a member of the opposition who’s decided to run for Speaker.

I would have preferred a defection because that would have been much more fun. My favourite candidate (everyone else’s too, I’d guess) was Elizabeth Witmer, because I think she’s the last Red Tory left in Ontario and she must cringe every time she thinks, “I serve in caucus with Randy Hillier,” but alas, no, Witmer stays in as Tory health critic.

What irks me is that some news outlets are reporting that, should Klees become Speaker, the OLP would have a majority. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s not accurate. Should Klees win, there would be a 53-53 tie in the Ontario legislature; however, as we saw when federal Speaker Peter Milliken voted in favour of the Paul Martin minority government, it is an established principle that the Speaker always votes for continuance of the legislature.

So, as I see it, Klees as Speaker would be obliged to vote in favour of the government on a tie vote on matters of confidence and supply, but would be free to oppose other government legislation, the defeat of which would not cause the government to fall. In other words, it’s still a minority of one, only one Tory sits on his hands for money bills like the budget, confidence motions, etc.

It’s partly true that I like this idea because of its inherent Machiavellian appeal – Klees refused the shadow cabinet jobs he was offered, which seems to signal internal PC dissent – but our previous era of CPC minority rule federally suggests defensible reasons for the Ontario Liberal MPPs to stand aside in favour of Klees.

First, Ontario has voted three times in a year (municipal, federal, provincial in that order). Enough already. Give us a few years of stability. The electorate is annoyed. Turnout is down. Party workers are exhausted and some of us are trying to rehabilitate our reputations, thank you very much.

Second, during its half-decade as a minority government, the federal Tories rarely sought consensus. Instead Harper and crew practised political brinkmanship by gambling that one or another of the opposition parties, usually the Liberals, would so not want an election as to give them a free pass. That’s not leadership – it’s playing games.

Speaking of, both Hudak and Horwath demonstrated ably why they lost the provincial election by their antics after E-Day. It didn’t matter what approaches McGuinty made to the two other party leaders; it would never be enough for a meaningful agreement. Contrast to Peterson and Rae after the 1985 vote. Whether or not he actually wants to work with the opposition leaders, McGuinty seemed to do what’s right in opening up a discussion that Hudak and Horwath dismissed out of hand.

Look, I opposed the McGuinty government openly on a few issues in its second term, but really, the PC and NDP campaigns were crappy. Somehow the NDP managed to lose a quarter of Jack’s Ontario supporters between May and October while Hudak pulled a John Tory and, instead of letting McGuinty’s OLP defeat itself, the PCPO came out of the gate offending many with all that “foreign workers” gabble.

The PC campaign was truly an example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and I’m slightly amazed that Hudak still has a job. My point is, neither opposition party has a mandate for bringing down the government right now.

Oh yes, I know that the Liberals won a very narrow plurality of the popular vote, but the federal Tories have drummed into us for years their mantra that if you come first, you’ve won, no matter what the numbers, so the PCPO can’t really fall back on the minority argument and it’s not like they could feasibly form a coalition with the New Democrats. (Anyway, remember what Harper taught us: coalitions are evil.)

But I’m not giving the government a free pass either: my fear is that McGuinty will use those Harper-ish brinkmanship tactics in seeking to prevent his government’s fall, rather than a more positive goal of seeking consensus in a minority parliament. The PCs are intransigent as always but I still want to believe that Grits and Dippers can get along if they try.

Anyway, if I were Premier McGuinty I’d three-line-whip my members into not standing for Speaker. The previous (and rather good) Speaker, Steve Peters, retired at the last election, so it’s not as if this would kick a standing Speaker out of his chair. Besides, renegade Tories sometimes make excellent Speakers and, uh, future Liberals (Gary Carr, I’m looking at you).

***

In all the excitement (it isn’t really that exciting) surrounding the race for important post of President of the Republic of Ireland (it isn’t really that important), I totally forgot about the by-election in Dublin West to be held on the same day, October 27.

The by-election was caused by the sudden death of former minister and deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, Brian Lenihan, Jnr. Lenihan was last elected back in February on the fifth count without reaching the quota and until his death was Fianna Fáil’s last surviving Dublin TD.

Nominally the seat should be Labour’s to lose, according to the general election results, as Joan Burton was elected on the first count with her running mate Patrick Nulty – Labour’s candidate in the by-election – losing to Lenihan on the last count.

Back in the day, Dublin West reliably voted in two Fianna Fáil TDs but of course this is a by-election, so Ireland’s single transferable vote system operates like an Australian alternative vote instead, and anyway, all those old rules and assumptions were thrown out the window with FF’s decimation, right? (But if that’s the case, why does Seán Gallagher look dead certain to win the bloody presidency?)

Dublin West’s other TDs are the Socialist Party leader, Joe Higgins, and Fine Gael minister Leo Varadkar. It would be a blow to the coalition government if anyone other than Ethne Loftus (FG) or Nulty should end up winning the by-election.

I suppose it’s possible that sympathy for Lenihan might boost Fianna Fáil’s vote, but I doubt it, and it’s not like when Lenihan himself ran to succeed his deceased father – the Lenihan family was approached but declined to run one of their own to replace Brian Jnr.

If there is a substantial increase in the FF vote, I’m blaming it on Gallagher’s Trojan Horse run, but my money’s still on Labour to win despite a few bad poll results, with an outside change that Socialist Ruth Coppinger takes it based on recent polls showing smaller parties (including the United Left Alliance, of which the SP is key part) on a whopping 22%.

Over the years the attitudes of politicians and journalists toward social media have changed, for sure. I remember advising a certain MPP and cabinet minister to get on Facebook (baby steps!) and being told, no, the leader didn’t like social media because “we can’t control the message.” Well, duh. Seeing that same MPP with a Twitter account by the time of the 2011 election made me chuckle.

Meanwhile, Canadian news junkies can follow a plethora of journalistic accounts, from news feeds and national columnists to local reporters and satirical accounts. It’s not all Kady O’Malley tweeting from committees or David Akin‘s dull lists of spending announcements anymore!

But there are many politicos and journos who still miss the point about the etiquette of following back.

I probably follow 200 news-related accounts and a similar number associated with elected members and political parties. Bear in the mind that, while in the grand scheme of things I’m utterly unimportant, I am a former riding association president at both the provincial and federal levels and a weekly columnist for two Sun Media papers read by tens of thousands weekly.

So who follows me back? My party leader? No. My MPP? Sorry. My mayor? Afraid not. My MP? Nope. As for journalists, two prominents and none others, plus my former editor.

The highest elected official who does follow me back is, in fact, Daryl Kramp – the Prince Edward–Hastings MP outside whose office I once organized a large protest that he didn’t like one bit. (Ah, prorogation…good times.) The funny thing is that Mr. Kramp and I have interesting and worthwhile exchanges now, largely because of Twitter. Even if we’re destined to be adversaries, we have found a way, at least, to chat amicably.

I’m not bitter, just a little annoyed that people I respect seem to not grasp fairly simple concepts about social media etiquette.

First point: social media is social. You’re not talking to yourself; it’s a conversation. I view following as merely a tacit agreement to acknowledge that one is open to dialogue with another person. When my own elected representatives merely broadcast, it does make me wonder how eager they are to hear from constituents online or in real life.

Similarly, when I see journalists only following other journalists it reinforces the perception that they exist in a professional little bubble, failing to adapt to a world of news that is now, to a greater degree, shaped and spread by citizens.

Susan Delacourt follows me back. Ann Douglas follows me back. These are journalists and authors who are known to and respected by many, and I don’t assume they hang on my every tweet (though both do sometimes notice my blather, which I certainly appreciate).

My second point is that following back does not imply the need to pay attention to an account. I follow many accounts that, on any given day, I won’t notice unless they are “amplified” (to use the Klout term) by tweeps I know and trust.

See, Twitter has this magic feature called lists. If you’re able to set up an account, you can set up a list, and by all means, don’t put me on it. You do realize you can follow thousands of accounts but, using either the Twitter site itself or a more sophisticated client application like HootSuite or TweetDeck, narrow your focus to a mere handful of users…right?

I tend to have more sympathy with the journalists because they manage their own accounts. Still, I know of at least one nationally known political journalist who follows every account that mentions him then immediately unfollows, leading me to believe that he hasn’t realized he can just look at any unprotected Twitter feed without having to follow the account first.

Didn’t your editor force you to attend the sort of social media seminars I use to give? There are real estate agents in Picton with more social media know-how than a Maclean’s columnist, apparently.

Sometimes it does get downright insulting. The other day the Toronto Star‘s lead Twitter account begged for Facebook “likes” and I suggested – politely, I thought – that if the account would be courteous enough to follow me back, I would “like” the paper’s page…which it did, and which I did, except that the next morning (because I do check daily, yes) I noticed I’d been unfollowed. Rude. There goes your “like,” guys, though of course I’ll still read Delacourt’s blog. Hey, Star, you should consider asking her for social media advice sometime.

As for politicians, I know how politics works, and each and every one of them has a staffer or volunteer who could manage their Twitter accounts. There’s really no excuse. If you happen to be a politician and you’re reading this post, here’s what you say: “Loyal staffer, please log in to my Twitter account and follow back the ‘real’ accounts, then set up a list of [50, 75, 100, whatever] accounts that relate to my work, y’know, my colleagues, journalists, news feeds, then plug it into my [laptop, phone] because I really can’t be bothered. Cheers.”

I’ll do it for you. No, really, I will.

In Canadian politics and journalism we have apparently accepted social media as part of the job, and I confess that when I see sloppy Twitter etiquette it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in either profession. Haven’t we had enough shouting from the rafters? When your social media read like your election pamphlet, you’re just doing the same thing twice, and you’re missing the point about – and failing to benefit from – what the medium offers.

I would go so far as to expect most politicians and journalists to reply to mentions that are worthy of comment. That might be too tall an order for a party leader, but if one backbencher can reply to me and still get his job done, the others have little excuse, and journalists are supposed to know how to distinguish between useless information and an interesting point…right?

And if you don’t think it’s a valuable use of your time, why did you bother signing up in the first place?