DIARY
Who wants to watch ‘Reefer Madness’?
by Robert LaFrance
Memories, like
attention spans and some body parts, are amazingly short.
This afternoon I
was ‘oot and aboot’ and listened to six or seven people complain about the hot
weather - the sweltering, uncomfortable, sizzling, scorching, boiling, red-hot,
baking weather – and was taken with how their memories of last winter seemed to
have faded.
It reminded me of
the question: “What have you done for me lately?” How could anyone who has a
television or radio possibly forget areas like PEI and the southern corners of
NB which seemed to have a major snowstorm twice a week. It was only day before
yesterday when the last snow on PEI melted into the streams. One parking lot in
Saint John was still covered with snow in late June, and they are just finding
cars buried in Moncton.
Possibly by the
time this column appears all last winter’s snow will have melted and there will be
room for more, if you get my point.
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On to other short
subjects (it’s too hot for essays) one thing I am quite tired of is every
public official in Canada quoting ‘privacy concerns’ every time they want to
hide something from the public, and their saying they can’t comment because
“it’s before the courts”.
I smell scam, but
at least it has temporarily replaced that old saw ‘liability’ as an excuse for
not doing anything about anything. They can’t say or do anything or they might
get sued. It’s part of the larger disease called WATV – Watching American TV,
where everybody sues everybody for everything.
To give some
credit to Stephen Harper, I will say that up to this point in his election
campaign, he has not resorted to this scam when asked questions about Mike
Duffy and Nigel Wright who, by the way, must be thinking that his cheque for
$90,000 was the most expensive $90,000 he ever spent.
But let’s get off
that subject. It’s before the courts and an invasion of (my) privacy.
NOTE: The day after this column appeared, Stephen Harper, on the campaign trail (wherever that is) refused to answer a question because it was "before the courts".
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Speaking of
things that are mine, I have noticed in the past 67 years that everyone’s
opinion seems to be worth a whole lot – except mine. When I say I like the
green colour of the pillows on the couch, I’m overruled, and when I suggested
that we paint the garage blue I’m shouted down. When the kids were small, I
suggested we buy a Volkswagen beetle and we did actually try one out. We could
fit the two of us and 1.7 kids, but the last 1.3 of them just couldn’t fit in.
“How about a nice
Hank Williams song?” I suggest now and then. Sure, I am told, as long as Hank
Williams plays the bagpipes and wants to talk about Scotland 24 hours a day.
Such is life. I shoulda been a consultant, or an expert. Everybody believes
them even though they are talking pure Male Cow Manure.
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Every once in a
while we hear about someone who does things for other people and doesn’t accept
any thanks. Usually those guys don’t live long because Satan or his surrogate
doesn’t like altruists.
Lenny B.
Robinson, who was either 48 or 51, depending on which news network you listen
to, spent the last few years of his life dressed as Batman and entertaining
sick kids in hospitals, mostly around Maryland.
He had customized
his car to look like the Batmobile in which he drove to meet kids and try and
cheer them up while they had to stay in hospital. They were always happy to see
Batman.
Late Sunday
evening, August 16, he was driving along Highway I-70 in Maryland when his car
broke down. Another car pulled in behind him and kept on the 4-way flashing
lights. Batman was looking under the hood when another car, zooming along with
a driver who was apparently blind, struck the second car in the back and drove
the Batmobile right through Batman, who was buried as Lenny, Good Guy.
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With so many jurisdictions
in the U.S. now legalizing marijuana, a lot of people here in Canada are now
thinking about it. The states of Colorado and Washington are coining the tax
revenue and, in one of the most ironic twists I have heard in quite a while, I
find that Mary Jane taxes are paying most of the shot for building a new police
station in Denver, Colorado or Belflour, Washington - one of them places.
Perhaps TV
networks should start playing the 1936 movie ‘Reefer Madness’ in which pot
smokers are portrayed as crazed killers. All the stoners knew it was a fake
though, because nobody ever got hungry.
-end-
