the blog quebecois

My sister Margo is a lovely woman who is going to kill me for this if she ever finds out about it, which is why I'm trying to keep the readership of this blog at a minimum. (It's working!)

She had an unfortunate habit as a three-year-old, though, of defying superior logic (mine, or occasionally my parents') by racing into her bedroom, ripping off all her clothes, and racing back to confront her tormentors, her tiny little girl fists balled in impotent rage.

As an argument, it's irrefutable. How do you argue with a naked, furious child?

You can't, so you laugh. Uproariously.

Which would send her off to her bedroom again to toss around her clothes and emerge . . . well, emerge again.

Once you've taken off all your clothes, you've kind of exhausted your rhetorical ammo.

Which comes to mind in the continuing saga of the Dixie Chix. (Yes, I know I'm misspelling it, but it looks c00ler, d00d.) A quick recap: Natalie Maines of the Chix announces at a concert in the UK that she's "ashamed" that George Bush is, like her, a native of Texas.

OK. A lot of Texans and others decide to not buy Dixie Chix CDs, concert tickets, etc., because they're not exactly thrilled that Natalie is, like, from Texas, either.

I'm not an expert on marketing or anything, but it doesn't strike me as a wise strategy to completely piss off your natural audience to try to win Brownie points among the Britterati.

I've only seen the Chix once, on Austin City Limits, and they seemed to be -- if Nashville slick -- at least acquainted with the roots and ethos of the hardscrabble bluegrass and swing traditions that nourished them and eventually gave them a very comfortable living.

Too bad they utterly forgot that.

So we've had a few stumbling apologies: "I was just kidding, sort of!" "We completely support the troops!"

Whatever. I find it noteworthy that the Chix have lately unrolled their new PR campaign, on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, naked and proud. (Hi, Margo!)

I still can't figure out how to direct links to my server, and the original photo is, frankly, more trouble than it's worth to chase down, but you can see a small copy of it here.

Nice. I for one would like to see more of the nekkid Chix, preferably without the USDA meat chart markings.

I could also do without Natalie Maines, who has that deer-in-the-headlights stare of some creature caught snorkeling through illegal fields of clover.

Oh, puleeze.

I'm watching Jay Leno interview Reese Witherspoon or whatever the hell her name is, and they're off into that standard comic riff about how awful it is to travel on commercial airlines with squalling infants and owly seatmates and lousy food.

Nobody -- no one -- at that level of creature comfort travels with the swarming masses. They either have their own Learjet or they slap the AmEx platinum card down to charter it.

Not that I begrudge them that. If I had the simoleons, I'd be doing exactly the same thing.

Just spare us the jokes, please, about how grim it is in the economy section of United flight #255. We know already.

It reminds me of Oprah Winfrey babbling on about how much she'd like to buy a bicycle that she liked. So buy it already, you bloated billionaire.

Martha Stewart gets all sorts of grief for being a snob; but then, she's never pretended to be anything otherwise.

It's faux populists like Winfrey, Leno and Ross Perot who give money a bad name.

I was unsettled, as were a lot of people, by the deaths of Johnny Cash and John Ritter yesterday.

Cash's death is something I've occasionally thought of for the last couple of years. I'd known he was in poor health and I think the loss of his wife a few months ago was a blow from which he never recovered.

I'd already mentally written his obituary ("Johnny Cash, one of the true originals of American music, and one of America's yaddayaddayadda . . .")

Which would all of it have been true. Surely there was no more seminal moment in popular music than that early Sun Sessions confluence of Elvis, Johnny, and Carl Perkins.

The death of John Ritter was, frankly, shocking. I won't pretend I was a fan -- I think I saw Three's Company about twice, and I was probably more mesmerised by Suzanne Somers' boobs -- but I'll give him his due as a very good comic actor, and I'll infer from his long career that he was a professional who showed up on time, knew his lines, and didn't lock the door in his trailer every Thursday and throw a screaming hissyfit.

That qualifies as gentlemanly behaviour in Hollywood (and more importantly, with its insurers), and he seemed an unaffected, likable guy.

Godspeed you both.

Joshua Treviño, who also blogs as Tacitus, put up a piece on his personal blog last week about squiring actress Ashley Judd around South Africa on some humanitarian mission. Very funny, but his previous employer saw it and started making grumbly noises about something or other with the implied threat of a lawsuit, so Joshua took the post down.

I had clipped this part of it, intending to link to the piece:

Now, let me remind the reader that we were in bloody Africa. There are many lovely things about Africa, and especially about South Africa. Still, continent-wide, the standard for a good day there is pretty set:

# Do I own nothing?
# Is my flesh rotting?
# Do I have to sleep near or on feces?

If you can answer no to all three questions, you have had a good day in Africa!

I feel somewhat qualified to comment on this, having spent two years in Bamako, Mali in West Africa (my father, an accountant at CN Rail, was lent out to CIDA for one of their foreign-aid projects). Apart from the bugs, I loved it; but let me tell you, there's a lot of truth in those questions.

Update: Will the wonders of the Internets never cease? Someone copied Joshua's post and put it up on Free Republic. Read all about his encounter with the vacuous Ms. Judd here.

(It might just be my browser, but the piece, at least as it appears on FR, is lousy with this -- Ó -- character replacing quotation marks.)

Canada ranks third in the world at creating annoying personalities, falling behind only the United States and France. Our country's smugness and self-righteousness are world-renowned, and our isolated and state-sponsored media produces an abundance of vacuous, self-regarding talking heads. Annoying people incubated in Canada have gone on to annoy millions of others around the world. We should be proud of our leadership in this area, but I feel our country is instead at best apathetic, and at worst, ashamed.

Yes, it's that time of year again. The leaves change color and fall; the children prepare to return to school; Bruce at Autonomous Source hosts his perennial search for the Most Annoying Canadian. Get on over there and nominate your favorite. I haven't made up my mind yet, but that cop banging at the door wanting to arrest me on some stupid morals charge is starting to be a very strong contender.

Reputedly the last time The Beatles were photographed together, in August of 1969 at John Lennon's house in Tittenhurst. (I thought that "Tittenhurst" meant one's brassiere was too tight. I'm not an expert, though.) More pictures at this Flickr set.

Apart from Lennon's apparent allergy to lawn mowers, what strikes me about this is how freaking big George Harrison's head is. It's beginning to scare me.

Entertainment Weekly:

...one memorable scene from "Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing" shows the singers watching a news report on President Bush's reaction to their infamous on-stage comment. In the report, Bush says ''the Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind,'' adding, ''they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out. You know, freedom is a two-way street.'' After watching this footage, Maines then repeats the president's comment and says, ''What a dumb f---.'' She then looks into the camera, as if addressing Bush himself, and reiterates, ''You're a dumb f---.''

Stinging riposte, that.

I wasn't surprised by Natalie Maines' initial remarks. She radiates a certain porcine self-absorption that does not testify to her having thought through big issues, probably because she might suffocate when she forgot to breathe. I noted at the time that the other members of the group -- Emily Robison and Martie Seidel -- were curiously quiet.

I was inclined to think that even if they didn't disagree with Maines' sentiments, at least they had the sense that this was going to be potentially a career-killer.

How wrong I was. After the bottom fell out of some of the US dates on their latest tour, the Chicks added some stops in Canada, prompting the CBC to do a 15-minute interview with them on the national newscast. Because, as we know, the mission of the CBC is to "tell Canadians' stories to each other." Or something like that.

The interviewer was Carole MacNeil, if I recall; and let me tell you, it was an estrogen-powered gigglefest reminiscent of your average slumber party (minus fixing each others' hair) with Robison and Seidel handily winning the Uh, Duh karaoke competition.

I take it all back, Natalie. You truly are the "brains" behind The Dixie Chicks. For whatever that's worth.

Via Mitchieville

Stone-cold sober as a matter of fact:

Elton John has said organised religion should be banned because it promotes homophobia and turns some people into "hateful lemmings".

"I would ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it," the singer said in an interview with the Observer newspaper on Sunday.

"Religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it is not really compassionate."

Mark Steyn relates this anecdote about the Rocket Man:

No royal scion could get away with carrying on like Sir Elton John. Taking tea on the balcony of his Italian hotel suite a few years back, he became discomposed by the wafting breeze and screamed at the room service waiter, "Can't you do something about this f---in' wind?"

"She's lost it," sighed a member of his entourage. "She's finally lost it."

No, Elton, only God can control the weather. Of course, there are those who think that the government can control it, but they tend to be even more delusional than you.

So far as I know, I'm the first and only researcher to look into this topic; of such vital interest that I'm surprised it hasn't attracted more attention. Or government grants. (Hint, hint.)

Specifically, what I am looking at is the intersection of the set "Craziest Rock Stars" with the set "Rock Stars Who Have Set Themselves On Fire." Using "Michael Jackson" as a control I created a Venn diagram which illustrates the close -- nay, incestuous -- relationship of the two groups.

Clearly more study (and some government grants would be nice) of this phenomenon is required. Did I mention it has potential ties to Global Warming?

Hint, hint.

Back to the trees, Keef!

She lives!

Paul McCartney's estranged wife Heather Mills yesterday insisted she still loved the former Beatle, despite divorce proceedings which have turned ugly in recent months.

She said she would never recover from her relationship with McCartney, 64.

"I will always love Paul. He is the father of my child but I just have to move on and deal with it.

And she's . . . hungry!

But Mills, 39, also said in a separate interview that securing a divorce deal with McCartney was like "getting blood out of a stone".

The more observant of my readers will have surely noticed that I've had nothing to say about the imminent incarceration of Paris Hilton. I haven't done a search of the blog, but I don't think I've ever written anything about her.

Part of it is that I can't work up the required schadenfreude. (The other part is that all the hot-chicks-behind-bars jokes are already taken.)

But give her credit where it's due. She's parlayed her modest talents into a modest career in acting and singing and into accessories like clothes and perfume. She's a shrewd-enough businesswoman that she realizes that celebrity for its own sake has a short shelf-life.

Also, she's refrained from inflicting her (no doubt moronic) political opinions on the rest of us. For that, she gets bonus points.

Entirely by accident, I recently came across a page that compared another beautiful, famous woman to Paris Hilton. (Alas, the page is down now, so I had to find other sources.)

She stands to inherit more money than Miss Hilton could ever dream of; but instead of hitting the Eurotrash party circuit she went to school, majoring in drama and eventually becoming well-known in improv comedy circles. She's never been a major target of the tabloids, probably because she's been happily (as far as I know) married since 1987, with two kids.

She went on to become one of the stars of an iconic TV show, the residuals from which alone should ensure that she'll never need a penny of Daddy's money.

And she's refrained from inflicting her (probably moronic -- hey, she's in showbiz after all, and her husband definitely qualifies as a moonbat) political opinions on the rest of us.

Who is she, you ask? You ask, I deliver.

(More information on her at Wikipedia.)

I had seen this picture of Jayne Mansfield before, but it was cropped to show her alone. Maybe because an unamused Sophia Loren, Evil Eye ablaze (I hope I, or rather Google, got the translation right), detracted from her charms.

Doing a bit of research, I found it was taken in 1957, at the Romanoff restaurant in Beverly Hills. Apparently Mansfield was notorious for these publicity stunts. At left, another photo from the same encounter.

He's put a lot into it, and it's all very tasteful, except the stripper poles.

There's a new house on the market.

More pictures here.

Via grow-a-brain

Jimmy Carter in a letter to sister-in-law Sybil (widow of brother Billy):

Lamentably, I killed your cat while trying just to sting it. It was crouched, as usual, under one of our bird feeders & I fired from some distance with bird shot. It may ease your grief somewhat to know that the cat was buried properly with a prayer & that I’ll be glad to get you another of your choice.

I called & came by your house several times. We will be in the Dominican Republic until Thursday. I’ll see you then.

Love, Jimmy

Idiot. Bird shot is a rather poor choice to "sting" a cat with. Rock salt I could see (and in nothing bigger than a .410-gauge); better still a Super Soaker with half-a-cup of ammonia or bleach added to the water. Further story here.

Animation via grow-a-brain