Hypocrisy and Hyperbole, or What Pissed Me Off This Weekend

So Morrissey has cancelled his Canadian concert tour in protest of the cause-du-jour, the seal hunt. Not only is this a ridiculous move which hurts only his fans, but he humiliates himself further by comparing the seal hunt to the Holocaust. I’m almost embarrassed to own my Smiths cds. While I don’t necessarily think that bashing in the skulls of animals is a terrific undertaking, I understand that this is a complex issue that is not just about cruelty to animals; it’s about indigenous peoples’ right to livelihood and custom, it’s about government regulation, it’s about poverty and employment, and maybe even about Canadian sovereignty. Morrissey goes on to make the hyperbolic statement that Canada is, next to China, the cruellest nation in the world. Hmmm. Isn’t his country helping the U.S. occupy Iraq? So killing humans is better than killing seals? What if we gave the seals guns? Would it be okay then?

Viva Hate, Meat Is Murder, and pass me the steak sauce.

I think Morrissey pissed me off even more than the insulting simplicity, implausibility, and obviousness of the emotionally manipulative movie Crash, which I endured on Saturday. Ouch, I still have bruises from being repeatedly hit over the head!

Later this week I want to take in some hopefully-better cultural CanCon, namely the play Earshot at Tarragon Theatre, by Morris Panych and starring Randy Hughson. Did anyone reading this see Earshot? Hopefully they don’t cancel the run to support those poor little seals…awwww. They're way cuter than those Iraqis, right Morrissey?

In weirdness more local, a man died in a fire in the bathroom of a Tim Horton's near Yorkville today. Allegedly, he'd been about to bomb the place, and the flash fire was accidental. Did his actions have anything to do with the coffee chain? Protesting the company's going public? Or was it a more arbitrary choice of location? What is going on?!

A scary weekend indeed.

Tough to choose a song for this post. I guess it will, pun intended, have to be
DISAPPOINTED by Morrissey

Cheers.