U Is For United Nations

Muppet Supervillain Holds Planet For Ransom; World Leaders Squabble

The search continues for muppet fugitive Fred Johnson, aka Fat Blue, since the recent threat by the convicted murderer to destroy the world if his arch rival Grover is not executed. RCMP officers continue to hunt for the criminal, who escaped after a US Marshal plane crashed across the border in southern Alberta.

Johnson, who had loveable muppet Elmo murdered and framed Grover for it, has eluded authorities in the weeks since the crash. Old friends and associates remain shocked by the turn of events that saw Grover exonerated. Reached at their home on Sesame Street, bickering couple Bert and Ernie spoke to reporters.

"Fred was C-list at best," Bert remarked. "They only brought him out when they wanted someone for Grover to annoy. He never had his own storyline, and I'm sure that had to get to him. Muppets do have egos, you know."

"That's right, Bert," Ernie agreed. "Now, how about you join me and Ducky in the tub?"

Cookie Monster was found spending time with Oscar the Grouch. When asked for their comment, Cookie Monster began chowing down on Oreos. "Om nom nom!!" he said, the mouthful of black and white cookie and cream obliterating the clarity of what he was trying to say.

"That's what I mean, Cookie!" Oscar gruffly declared. "That mother****er Fred went and killed off Elmo. Sure, you know that everyone here would have liked to get rid of the little red menace, so I can't blame him, but framing Grover for it? **** that, mother****er!" When this reporter asked Oscar if that was the polite thing to say, the grouch sneered, and replied, "**** you!!"

Asked for his comment, the enigmatic Beeker had this to say: "Mee... meep. Meep. Mee. Mee. Meep!! Meep!"

Grover himself remains in seclusion with his girlfriend, protected by federal officers in an undisclosed location.

Meanwhile, world leaders have been gathering at the United Nations in New York to discuss the crisis. The President of Iran took the podium and launched into a half hour long tirade. "I blame this on Israel!" he thundered in Farsi at the beginning of his rant. After listing dozens of grievances against the Israelis that had nothing to do with the threat, he concluded, "We must stand together as one planet under my benevolent and absolute rule and drive them out of Israel and back to where they rightfully belong. In the Upper West Side! Oh, and forget anything I said about absolute rule. I haven't implemented that part of my plan yet."

The American President spoke too. "You know, we must never negotiate with terrorists. That's what this muppet Fred Johnson is. You don't make threats about destroying the world if you're not. He wants us to execute an innocent man... er, that is, an innocent muppet. Or he says he'll destroy the world. I ask the leaders of the world, why should we even think he's capable of destroying the world?"

Talk show blowhard Rush Limbaugh was quick to criticize the President. "You know, this is just typical! Typical of this godless liberal who thinks he's the President. This is not a time for calm and reasonable discussion! This is a time for a call to action! For doing without thinking! Well, my friends, I have had it! It's time for us to rise up and take back our country! One country, under Rush, divided into God fearin' and gun totin' good Americans and traitorous Commie liberals."

Right wing dominatrix and self absorbed snit Ann Coulter had her own remarks on the issue at hand. She spoke to a gathering of reporters in New York. "If it comes down to the life of one left wing socialist Marxist muppet versus all of the people who buy my books, well, I know where my loyalties lie. Give me Grover's location. I'll kill the muppet myself. And his girlfriend. Then we have no more problem. See? Problem solved. In the meantime, check me out at my new website MistressCoulter,DominatrixoftheTeaParty.com. And don't forget to read my new book, Liberals Want To Eat Your Children."

What of the man in charge of the hunt for Johnson? Lars Ulrich, the legendary RCMP Inspector, is hard at work tracking down all leads in the Alberta foothills. Reporters gathered at a detachment to speak to him, finding him heading out with his men. "I haven't got time for this," he said as he tried to pass through.

An entertainment journalist stepped in front of him. "Lars! Lars! Kip Bannister, Entertainment Tonight! Are you in that uniform shooting a video? And where's the rest of the band?"

Ulrich glared at the man, and then at the other reporters. "Is there some sort of school for entertainment reporters that suck out their brains? Are they all this stupid?" His glare returned to Bannister. "Listen, dimwit. Are you listening? Good. I am not that Lars Ulrich!!! Now do the world a favour and jump in front of a train!!!"

Surprisingly, the Inspector passed by him rather then strike him. Bannister looked around, confused. In the experience of this reporter, it's a common problem for entertainment journalists. Then Bannister made his second mistake of the day by speaking again. "So does this mean you've had a falling out with the rest of Metallica?"

Ulrich stopped. He turned, walked back, and threw a punch, connecting with Bannister's jaw, knocking him to the ground. "Drop dead, jackass!" the Inspector said, delivering a swift kick to the ribs before walking off with his men.

Winterlude: Celebrating The Best Season

It's that time of year again. February brings Winterlude to Ottawa and Gatineau for three weekends. The thinking up here being that if you can't beat winter, celebrate it. The opening weekend is done, and the crowds were out. I thought I'd do some blogs on it during the festival, and so this is the first one. I am taking pictures, though these aren't mine. They're lifted from other sources. I'm still using film cameras (disposables, at that, damn you camera for dying on me!).....

Things started on Friday with fireworks above the Ottawa River. I wasn't there; I was off doing a bit of cross country skiing. This time I managed not to have any near-collisions with a deer.

The Rideau Canal is the centrepiece of the festival. Over seven kilometres in the heart of Ottawa are cleared  for skating, and people take advantage. It is, in fact, the world's largest outdoor skating rink.

Finally, on the first weekend, there are the ice carving contests. More pictures of that in the coming days, but for now I thought I'd leave you with these. First off, the tools that are actually used to get the job done might include these:

It starts off with chainsaws, and from there ice carvers work their way down to saws, chisels, sandpaper, awns, and whatever other piece of equipment might come to mind. Incidentally, that includes irons.

The Green Bay Packers Versus...Who's The Other Team Again?

It's that day again. Super Bowl Sunday. The pregame festivities are already underway down there in Dallas, the game's still a few hours as of this writing, the half game show's undergoing final run throughs, Janet Jackson's nowhere to be seen, and around countless televisions, a Super Bowl party is underway. Lots to eat for hours on end, lots of loud yelling at the television, lots of is that friggin' ref blind??? still to come, lots of commercials, lots of hype and glitz.

And I could care less.

Full disclosure: I'm not much of a sports fan. I like hockey and baseball, I understand how the game is played, I can enjoy a game, but I don't follow them religiously, as many do. I don't like football. I don't see the point of it, never have and never will. It's boring. It's slow and tedious. It seems to go on forever and ever. And yet in towns in America, thousands of people will come out to see a high school football game. Why? It's a mystery.

And of course for some reason millions of people want to watch a bloated, overrated, dull final game of the season. Maybe it's the game itself. Or the half time show (note to musical acts: jamming with other musicians tends to come off looking really awkward; you're not supposed to have that many overinflated egos on stage at one time). Maybe it's just the commercials. Super Bowl ads tend to be creative. At least they are in the US. Canadian broadcasters insist on using Canadian ads. So we have to rely on web links for something like The Force. That's a fairly creative commercial,  and a funny one, and thanks to Norma for letting me know about it.

Still, what's the point to the whole thing? Hours and hours and hours of pregame chatter, meaningless yakking from former players who took one too many hits to the head, or drunkards who are having tailgate parties, or commentators who are already plastered. I don't know. The pregame must be an ordeal for anyone foolish enough to sit through it. Maybe the booze helps.

This came from today's Non Sequitur, and it gave me a laugh. And the thing is, you could do all of this in the time it takes from start up to finally kick off....

Well, to those of you who are settling into watching the mindless game in the hours ahead, I shake my head in dismay. You're welcome to it. To those of you who will keep the TV on to watch that cheesy abomination called Glee afterwards, I ask... why do you like the equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard?

And by the way, if you're about to point out the pointlessness of the sport so beloved by so many Canadians, that being curling, you can save it. I hate that one too. And no, I can't explain the rules. It's a mystery.

Blood Feud, Or How To Deal With People You Don't Like

"In time we hate that which we often fear" ~ William Shakespeare

“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”  ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

“He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere.”  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Now who's Mom and Dad's favourite kid? Who's da man? Not you, twerp!" ~ Cain, after killing Abel

Blood feuds. They've come down through history and literature, examples of vendettas that by far transcend a minor disagreement. The Capulets and the Montagues. The Earps and the Clanton & MacLaureys. Jean Chretien and Paul Martin.

In recent days, the name Hatfield has come up, which, of course, is one half of the infamous Hatfield and McCoy feud. We've all heard about it at one point or another, but beyond that, how much do we really know about it? Not much, unless you're a local historian or a member of the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The place: the Kentucky and West Virginia border. The time: 1865-1891. The two families lived along the border, and the Civil War was a dividing factor. The first murder victim was a McCoy who went off to fight for the Union. Years later, ownership of a hog provided the excuse for the next wave of violence. From that point on, with legal fights, political connections, forbidden love, and escalating hatred on both sides tossed into the mix... you had the perfect recipe for trouble.

It became a national story. Governors had to call out the militia to stop the violence. Massacres were committed. People died. Trials were held. The Supreme Court was pulled in. Men were executed or imprisoned. And finally, in 1891, the families called a truce to stop the war. In fact, in 2003, the family descendants signed a peace treaty.

The feud still has its legacy today. It's a strange source of tourism for the area. People come to West Virginia and Kentucky to see feud sites and artifacts. A recreation area has been set aside as the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.

 And the families themselves live on.  The metal band Bobaflex features two McCoys. On the other side of the equation, the singer Julianna Hatfield is, well, you guessed it... a Hatfield.

It's astonishing, that hatred can run that deeply between two families. One wonders if the Hatfield and McCoy descendants were looking at each other during that treaty signing, thinking, your great great uncle killed my great grand daddy.

What might it have taken for the old animosity to rise up to the surface?

"Granny! Jimmy Hatfield pushed me!"

"That damned Hatfield! Get my gun! I always knew you couldn't trust a Hatfield!"

Rumors that fictional character Jack McCoy of Law & Order is a McCoy are entirely unsubstantiated. Though it would explain his self righteous tirades.

Adventures Of The Prognosticating Rodent

And so it was that one early February morning, the groundhog woke up to the sound of his alarm clock. He turned it off, sighed in dismay, and looked at the calendar. The second of February was marked, and the rodent shook his head, wondering why he kept human calendars when he preferred to sleep all winter long, and who among his friends had come into his burrow and set his alarm clock. He would have preferred to sleep until May.

He got out of bed, sauntered down the passage, and there at the entrance he found the passage blocked with snow. Digging through, he reached the outside. And what did he see? A blinding snowstorm. Oh, the hell with this, he thought. I'm going back to bed until July.