Poppy U Lar

Take away the veneer of glory. War hunts in horror. On November the 11th , 2009, Canadian Remembrance Day comes again. In this year, 95 years after the outbreak of the First World War, the Royal Canadian Legion's Poppy campaign continues. The campaign contains important values in a simple symbol. Remember them.

More than a symbol, I first wore the poppy as a Cub Scout at a ceremony on the dirt floor of a town hockey arena. Artificial ice didn't exist. The whole town seemed to be inside that place, at that ceremony. Many of the surviving veterans, militia, cadets, police, and volunteer firemen assembled there. The only exceptions, those who were on shift in the local pulp mill.

Sorrow swam in everyone's eyes. While poppies for me represented all those who gave their lives, in the eyes of the war veterans the poppies also meant individuals, buddies, and friends. It meant that they were physically free from the horrors haunting. It symbolized neither victory nor defeat, political leanings, racial bias or shopping. A poppy represents soul to soul far beyond the clutches of time.

Over the years, I witnessed the Legion Poppy ceremony many times on Remembrance Day and at individual funerals. One individual ceremony given to my father contained that Poppy Ceremony. Of the whole funeral, that is the only scene that sticks in memory. A lot of people liked and respected old Ziggy. I knew this. But the poppies were special for they were from his companions, co-workers, and men of his generation who shared a necessary horror.

The Poppy Ceremony is extremely simple. Friends and colleagues wear a poppy to the funeral. At a certain point they line up and one by one they approach the coffin and places his/her poppy into a special pillow. The last member places their poppy, picks up the pillow and presents the poppy filled pillow to surviving family members.

And through two decades after my father's passing on, each funeral used fewer and fewer poppies. In the early part of this century, there was only about three poppies in the pillow to be presented to the widow. This thought also occurred to surviving Legion Members. One can tell.

As one ages in Canada, that poppy so cheap to buy, so easy to wear, haunts in wealth. Now like those survivors I stand with memories of those people, friends and other souls lost to duty. Of course those souls are not only soldiers involved in the Afghanistan conflict, but police, firemen and volunteer heroes who gave their lives to make Canada and the world just a little better place.

Bananada!

Welcome to the new country of Bananada. Half Canada, half Bananas, now merged. Let's fire off straight ahead.

David Miller and his scurvy piratical gang of councillors, jacked up the TTC Fares, increased the garbage collection fees, skimped on hundreds of maintenance infrastructure repairs, all the while claiming poverty. The province, jacked up the automobile fees, harmonized sales tax which is simply a scam to get a massive increase of taxpayer savings.

The province whistled into massive debt. Its government agencies spend money in personal needs for every privileged board member. Hospital Board Members use their contacts to step way ahead of the cues and shortages to get immunized then pretend that they are actually vital to society.

Now if you didn't have the brand name Canada attached to all these shananigans. Ignore the name Canada just a moment...... Out of the mind?

Okay, now put all that together. You would think this is a tropically deconstructed country government by privilege and elitism. Just a like a banana country.

Kinda figured

In a post a couple of posts ago, I postulated obtusely that the maker of the Canadian H1N1 vaccine decided there was more money in exporting vaccine. Apparently, this was true. Too true.

Of course they had a ready excuse at hand. Every pharmaceutical company usually does. The excuse was that they didn't have enough little bottles or the little bottle fillers was too slow.

This wasn't the same excuse they used a couple of weeks ago when the company implied that there was production problems in producing the actual vaccine. And you knew that was a fishy excuse, like consider the sources. One source was the pharmaceutical company and the other source was politicians. This a fertile ground for fibulations and verdant truths.

So the company cheerily exported the "surplus" vaccine despite the fact that there were grievous shortages and delays in the immunization process. The company's name is Glaxo-Smith Kline, headquartered in the United Kingdom and in the past subject to investigations including, tax fraud, billing fraud, misleading advertising and other deceptive practices. So diverting vaccines from a contractual commitment is not outside its moral compass.

And to further the Canadian H1N1 mess, apparently the Calgary Flames jumped the vaccination cue lines and had a private clinic for its staff, players and families. Now this is not surprising. What is surprising is that they got caught.

The province of Ontario to top off the scandals with their boondooglingaling at the medical record E-Health followed this up with poorly run flu snot clinics. Only the critically vulnerable people first, children, young women and upscale businessmen types. Yes, Medi-Can a privately operated health clinic on York Street in the downtown core of Toronto was supplied with 3000 doses for the well healed and totally unvulnerable.

Kinda figures.

No straight lions please

At John Innes Community something. It is a lion. In Toronto. For no reason. There must have been a reason. A squirrel sits. Its a male lion. Of course, this statue may have nuts. I didn't check. And I won't check.

Hot off the presses

As promised by the webbrain. These are shots of the fire that savaged the interior of the Mirch Masala. Incidently, Mirch Masala apparently is Hindi
for Hot and Spicey.

Now this is just across the street from where I live... sort of.
I will be tracking the progress of the renovations.
It is an evil reason naturally.
I am rather put off by the prolongationatinjg of the Fred Victor Centre.
They had a fire months ago less damaging than this little stove topper.

Anyway back to this fire.
After perusing the interior pictures I have come to the conclusion about how the fire became started. In fact this is a surprise even to me.

You see it had its roots in the sound system buried in the ceiling.
The people who owned it previous to the present owners, embedded a sound and stereo system in the ceiling. The installer was a Russian immigrant who did some electrical work, on the cheap for cash.
Now I couldn't help noticing that the Ruski would join connections with electrical tape only. The present day power connections require turrette connectors and then wrapped in electrical tape.
Of course this is by the code, just the code ma'am.

But then no one asked me.
I spoke directly to the City of Toronto Fire Inspector guy.
That man is useless. He asked me nothing.
As a result. He got nothing.

The fire was an accident sort of. It would not have occurred if the cheapo former owner of the business had employed a proper certified and trade electrician.
Zit,.... Zit..., Kerpoof.

Strange though. The bar did not have a fire sale on the beer or liquour.

Local pub succumbs to fire

Pictured here in happier times, the Mirch Masala suffered from a burn out. This used to be the Navaron. It went through owners.

Around 5:30 AM I awoke to the sounds of shattering glass and the smell of burning building. I looked up the street in ponderment. But saw nothing. Nothing I say.

No one got injured. The fire started when the place had been closed for the night.

At 11:00am this morning one of the ragingest piss tanks in the whole city shook his head. "A great tragedy."

Moral of story: Remember coat with camera in vest pocket.

Happy Birthday XX

Halloween emerges tomorrow. The celebration of the perverse and evil explodes into the dear hearts of children baited by the galloons of candy from strangers. People hide their faces. Hide their personalities. They think.

Lets put it this way. I don't like Halloween. It is also the birthday of my ex. ex. girlfriend. I think. Well its when it is celebrated. Here's a picture of downtown Toronto... The horror.