PONDERABLE
Why doesn’t NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman appropriately punish the NHL’s dirtiest and most dangerous player, Washington’s Tom Wilson? And isn’t his abdication of responsibility bound to encourage the return of goons to the game?
WHY I’M HARD ON TRUDEAU
Almost every time I criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau I get complaints, sometimes lose followers, and am asked why I’m so hard on him. There are three reasons. First, I think he’s a narcissistic, despotic, dissembling, virtue-signalling, intellectual lightweight with little or no judgement, who’s never earned anything in his entire life, but rather has had everything handed to him on a silver platter because of his last name, which if it had been anything other than Trudeau no one would ever have heard of him. Secondly, being the gift that just keeps giving, there’s rarely a week during which he doesn’t provide at least one opportunity for me to make my case. Finally, I’m a political junkie.
HOW I BECAME ONE
The conversation around our dinner table was occasionally about politics and I became interested in the subject when I was about seven years old. I also often joined my friend Lou McGuire’s family for a snack of biscuits and molasses, during which politics was sometimes discussed, always informatively and interestingly. My mother was a Conservative and my father was a Liberal. I don’t know for sure about my six siblings, but I suspect it was probably an even split. Even though my parents’ political beliefs were deeply rooted, and they were never shy about promoting and justifying their respective positions and their opinions of candidates, the dinner-time discussions never evolved into arguments, which meant that at an early age I actually learned a lot about different political philosophies. We had three newspapers and a couple of magazines delivered to our house, and I began devouring every political article I could find, which turned my interest into fascination and extended it to US politics. I still read about politics every day, and watch almost as much political coverage on TV as I do sports. On that point, in 1967, in possession of an all-access pass which I obtained from one of the delegates, I attended the Conservative leadership convention at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, and surprisingly came away realizing that I had enjoyed it almost as much as the NHL playoff games I had watched in the same building. I still thoroughly enjoy watching leadership conventions on TV.
A BAD WEEK FOR TRUDEAU CABINET MINISTERS
This week, at least three federal cabinet ministers had to reverse positions or be bailed out by the prime minister: health minister Patty Hadju for inappropriate comments about COVID-19 vaccines; heritage minister Steven Guilneault for his ridiculous spin on the egregious attack on freedom of speech in Bill C-10; and defense minister Harjit Sajjan for his continued bungling of the Vance sexual misconduct allegations. Hadju has been a disaster since day one, Guilbeault clearly didn’t realize what the implications of Bill C-10 were and is definitely in over his head. The pathetic Sajjan continues to add to his ballooning reputation as the worst cabinet minister in Canadian history. But Trudeau obviously feels they are all worthy of keeping their jobs. See what I mean about his judgement and that he’s the gift that just keeps giving?
THE HEIGHT OF BUREAUCRATIC IDIOCY
The Toronto District School Board has filed a $90 million lawsuit against the Toronto Fire Department, the Toronto Police Services Board, and the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office for alleged negligence and breach of duty after a Toronto school was destroyed by fire in 2019. All of the parties to this suit are fully funded by taxpayer money. Only the private-sector lawyers involved can benefit from this.
BASEBALL CHANGES NEEDED
The archaic baseball scoring rule requiring a starting pitcher to complete five innings in order to be credited with a win needs to be changed. Considering that a starter can be charged with a loss if he faces only one batter, the rule never made complete sense. And given that in today’s game a starter going five full innings is almost as rare as complete games used to be, it’s even more ridiculous. A requirement of three innings seems appropriate.
Also, if Major League Baseball is serious about speeding up games they’ll enact and enforce a time limit between pitches, and as I’ve mentioned here before, a limit of three throws to first base per runner.