TVFP on Margaret Wente

 

 

From what we can tell Ms. Wente is pretty much what she says she is in her defence of Carol Wainio’s well documented blog Media Culpa revealing plagiarism and dodgy journalistic practices: ‘gee I’m sorry, but no way I’m falling on my sword because Carol Wainio is, you know, out to get me. Besides I’m right in the sense of the big picture. So go away.’

Well who knows and we don’t really care, the intelligent steadfast work of Carol Wainio notwithstanding. Carol Wainio and thoughtful, dispassionate, well intentioned people like her are pretty much irrelevant. That is, as they say, a cryin’ shame.

As we see it isn’t whether or not Margaret Wente disgraced the fifth estate, but whether or not you like her. That’s what we’ve gleaned from the Twitter stuff and other media comments. Margaret Wente suddenly and ironically to the commie pinko left is the new garbage.

(That is a reference to the 2009 Inside and Outside worker strike that pissed off the electorate and like the freaky meteor that gave us the cannibals in Night of the Living Dead, eventually brought Rob Ford to the mayor’s office.)

The public persona, whether you are a politician, a journalist, a bureaucrat, a tycoon, or whatever has been reduced to a popularity contest. So the idea is, you can survive anything if you are popular. For the most part the above have figured it out. You just have to have the right numbers, say 35 or 36 percent if you are Stephen Harper. Whether or not Margaret Wente's career goes up in smoke has nothing to do with integrity or intelligence. She has the numbers she stays. She doesn't she's gone.

As well our ur take on it at TVFP: for the most part JOURNALISM wakes up every morning and has a shower. It evacuates its bowels. It puts on a layer of deodorant and another layer of scent. It brushes its capped teeth, combs its coloured hair and puts on a clean pair of underwear.

Margaret Wente and, for that matter those two Titans of Journalism, Lorrie Goldstein and Sue Anne Levy, as well as so many others, the run of the mill  (there are some notable exceptions of course) smell so nice. They are people you’d be grateful to stand next to on an over crowded streetcar on a day when the humidex is off the chart.

www.jimread.ca

 

Queen Victoria on the Parti Quebecois

As you are well aware TVFP enlisted us to write a semi-regular column from Heaven on personal hygiene and beauty issues. We were delighted by the opportunity. We heartily encourage you to drink a demi-tasse of your own urine every morning. This will produce the most wondrous effects. It will improve the suppleness of your skin, shrink corns and produce a lovely oblong stool with perfect regularity.

Now about the French in general. How can you take a race of people seriously who worship a fungus, put a cream sauce on everything and consider Jerry Lewis a comic genius.

There are however, serious issues afoot in Canada, the village of small huts. You see we were there at the beginning. There was a lot of behind the scenes discussion about what to do with the French. 

An advisor to Sir John, who shall remain nameless, suggested you  ship them all to Louisiana, but apparently that had been tried and it didn’t work. Another suggestion was simply to cut out their tongues, thus sparing you their dreadful mangling of the English language.

 

In the end nothing was done and now here you are, the country is awash in poutine and you’ve got another go round with the Parti Quebecois. It’s your own fault.

Our suggestion would be to fence them in and charge them a toll every time they go to the mall or Florida. It would solve the national debt problem.

On a lighter note you might thank your lucky stars that you don’t live next to the Irish. They are a bestial race at best. Paleontologists continue to look for the missing link. We think they merely have to set foot in Dublin. Next to the Irish the French appear positively angelic.

 

 

Attila the Hun, in his much discussed review of Jim Read's The Big Smoke Blues wrote: ficken Ich mag diesen Kerl.

 

The Big Smoke Blues

 

 

The Death of Mary Dowser Update

 

Recently TVFP reported that the ever aromatic Mary Dowser had died. Reports surfaced that she was abducted in an engineless cardboard sedan during a Luis Bunel movie shoot in Kiev during the Euro 2012 Futbol tournament. Later the cardboard car was reported to have surfaced in California. We have new information:

 

Our sources in Kiev, Ukraine, a real sinkhole of a country, report that the engineless cardboard sedan was yellow. The name of the Luis Bunel film was Lost and Found in an Effortless Beam of Post-Modern Light. Senor Bunel wrote the script in conjunction with the notorious masterbater Salvador Dali. That’s all we know on the Ukraine front except that it is a real sinkhole of a place, worse than Florida.

On the Clara Kappelhoff front Ms. Kappelhoff reported to police that a yellow cardboard sedan was spotted in a field of horses and appeared to be competing with the equines for grazing space. Ms. Kappelhoff was apparently alcohol and drug free at the time of the sighting, just after dawn on a recent Sunday or maybe it was Monday morning. She wasn't sure.

That brings us up to date. Unfortunately we have not discovered the whereabouts of Ms. Dowser's remains, which leads us to believe she was tossed into an arborist's tree branch shredder machine and disposed of in an land fill site in England. Somewhere around Reading.

Martin Frobisher has written to us from Baffin Island: dear TVFP, I know something about looking for things. If I was looking for Mary Dowser I’d look in Reading. Sooner or later everything shows up in Reading. Television for instance, that showed up in Reading, as did the Internet. My guess is that if she’s riding around in a yellow cardboard sedan, she’s headed for Reading.

Other readers of TVFP have written in to us on the fate of effervescently fragrant Mary Dowser:

Queen Victoria writes: How does one know that the woman is dead? There is no evidence. If she is dead she’d smell rather foul, one thinks. Perhaps you need to hire a dog.

William Lyon Mackenzie writes: You stupid German cow. There is no known occurrence of anyone in our galaxy surviving a kidnapping in a cardboard sedan. There is even less evidence to support survival after a yellow cardboard sedan kidnapping, that is to say less than zero. In German that is uber zilch. Of course she’d dead and by foul means and that is what stinks, mum.

Susanna Moodie writes: where is Reading?

Eric the Red writes: Sveeden.

Louis XIV, the Sun King writes: L'anglais putain sont une douleur dans le cul ne fait aucun doute à ce sujet.

Brian Boru writes: Is iad na Béarla rás dÚsachtach, níos measa ná Gearmánaigh fucking.

Betty Crocker writes: Does anyone know the national dish of Sveeden?

St. Augustine of Hippo writes: Ingrid Bergman, but I've never met her. There was an age difference.

 

 *

Recently Ronald Reagan was asked to comment on ‘Heart Simple’, the heart rending, uplifting story by Jim Read. Mr. Read's story was influenced by the Gustave Flaubert piece, Un Cœur Simple.  Simple in Mr. Read’s usage also a refers to homeopathic medicine, in this case the ancient and undying remedy of love. President Reagan observed: well friends the story was written by a guy from the point of view of a gal. But what a gal!

 

Heart Simple

 

 

 

Canada's Dirtiest Companies

The Parkdale Liberation Front’s Bureau of Statistics is publishing a shocking expose on the leading filth producers in our country. These are Canadian businesses that have no downstream conscience.  In plain speak, CRIMINALS. You’ve probably seen them at a charity soiree, tanned, smiling, fashionable  .  .  .  .

TVFP was privileged to receive an advance copy of this damning report.

Damning Report

The PLF takes the position that any enterprise that creates a material product has a moral obligation to minimize the environmental impact of that product not only in the manufacturing process but also as the product makes its way downstream. For instance the Big Oil companies that are pillaging Northern Alberta are poisoning the downstream habitat. This is, in our view and in the view of the PLF, a criminal act, a kind of stealth genocide. Big Oil’s biggest toady is Stephen Harper.

Uncle Joe

As Uncle Joe once said, a hundred deaths is a tragedy, a million is just a statistic. The scale of habitat degradation in this country surpasses Stalin’s gulags. In fact it is too vast to believe. We revert to statistics. Well we would if Stephen Harper hadn’t cancelled the empirical based, scientific investigation that allows us to make informed, rational decisions. From now on your health and welfare will be guided by ideology. And God said let there be light.

Sub-Section

One of the sub-sections of the PLF expose deals with the fast food industry, specifically in Parkdale. Until this year our village was unblessed with the presence of that paragon of mediocrity Tim Horton’s. Now, at the corner of Jameson and Queen, the successful brand has built a flagship store. Not surprisingly Tim Horton’s coffee cups and other packaging began appearing in Parkdale streets, lanes and lawns.

Privatizing Garbage Pickup

The PLF in their ground breaking report on the Dirtiest Companies in Canada recommend further privatization of garbage pickup. As readers of TVFP may or may not know our porcine, flatulent, no show at Pride Days Mayor, has privatized garbage pickup west of Yonge Street. The PLF report recommends that garbage pickup should be further privatized across the city. Dirty Companies like Tim Horton’s should be required to police an area around their stores equal to one city block. The PLF estimates that, by requiring fast food chains to take responsibility for their downstream pollution, the city would save about 11 million dollars per year in solid waste costs.

Sound familiar?

Testimonial

Famed Canadian Hockey legend Howie Morenz had this to say about Jim Read's stories: the first time I picked one up I couldn't put it down. It was hell trying to tape my stick.

www.jimread.ca

TVFP on Big Tobacco

Big Tobacco manufactures, markets and sells a product that kills its users.  Tobacco also kills innocent bystanders with second hand smoke. Tobacco related illnesses are a major strain on our health care services. For instance the care and treatment for Tobacco related diseases siphons money away from the treatment and cure of childhood illnesses.

As the demographic shifts and one generation dies off Big Tobacco is forced to search for  new customers amongst teenagers and in third world populations.  Outright prohibition of Tobacco would simply create a larger black market and empower a new criminal element.

However when countries seek to educate and limit the spread of this lethal product Big Tobacco complains to the courts (as in Australia) that their intellectual property rights have been infringed.

The interesting thing (to the cynics at TVFP) is that if you wanted a poster industry for BIG CAPITALISM look no further than Big Tobacco.

When we listen to the business elite laud the BIG CAPITALIST system we look over their shoulders and notice that the system, like tobacco, is killing its users.

When we are lectured by political toadies on the need to free our industries from regulation in order to assure year on year growth, we look over their collective shoulder and see the smoldering ruins of a once bountiful landscape.  We see peoples poisoned by the relentless pursuit of profit.

When a wide eyed tenured academic points out that the wealth created by BIG CAPITALISM has provided us with freedoms and a life style unmatched in the history of man we look over his shoulder and see melting glaciers and new deserts arising and the drifting masses of the starving.

We at TVFP advocate that all products, like tobacco products, be required to reveal their lethal impact on the health of our individual planet, our one and only home.

For instance on the dashboard of your sleek new car we would like to see a picture of the devastation caused by the Alberta Tar Sands along with a note on the rising levels of deadly toxins in the downstream habitat.

Cars can kill.

As well landfill sites are filling up with millions of discarded cellphones. Toxins from these abandoned phones leaches into the ground water.

Cell phones can kill.

BIG CAPITALISM CAN KILL


Visit Jim Read's Website here.

The 2012 London Olympics vs The Infant Mortality Rate

Infant Mortality Rate is defined at the number of deaths of children under one year of age per thousand live births. The IMR is a key indicator of a nation’s economic, political and moral health. For instance after ten years of foreign involvement in Iraq the IMR remains essentially the same at 41.68

When planning your next winter getaway consider Mexico, a capitalist democracy with an IMR of 17.29 vs Cuba, a communist dictatorship with an IMR of 4.9

How do the top Olympic medal winning countries compare:

                                                     IMR

USA                                               6.06
China                                            16.06
Russia                                           10.08
Great Britain                                   4.62

The United States of America, despite its fading military power, its corrupt democracy, its predatory business elite continues to be all things to all people. However with a 41^st over all IMR in the world there nothing here to wave the flag about. This is a nation that is becoming the sweatshop destination of choice. The IMR rating would seem to support the sense of a country in serious decline. Not even close to being an elite nation. No chance to get there.

We at TVFP take the rather cynical position that in a country with a population of over a billion individuals a low IMR is not particularly desirable.  However with a IMR ranking of 99 amongst the nations of the world this Olympic powerhouse is definitely an also ran.

Russia is the dipsomaniac in the Olympic Room. At 65^th in the world the ineffectual transition to democratic capitalism has clearly gone off track. Not in the same league as China in manufacturing athletes but with a better IMR rating it is still running with the pack of mediocre nations.

Great Britain at 29^th in the world and despite having a German cow for its head of state as well as a bobble headed Prince and Duchess, seems to be doing some things right. Remember this is the nation that brought genocide to Ireland and child labour to Manchester. Unfortunately the country is run by the slash and burn school of economics. Our guess is that Britain at 29^th in the world is just treading water. Chances of achieving elite nation status marginal at best.

Canada:

Canada is number 35 with an IMR of 4.92. Canada like the US suffers from ineffectual leadership.  In developing countries our industry icons are denounced as guilty of genocide. The country is rich without really having to try. That is to say it isn’t so much a nation as a bucket of maple walnut ice cream. The Americans love maple walnut ice cream, so do the Chinese. We have lots of maple walnut ice cream so we’ll be okay for now. If you are a native Canadian you are fucked in any kind of term, well unless you own a casino or a lot of RPGs. If you live down stream of the tar sands your food sources have already been compromised.

We are not really good at innovation or just about anything that doesn’t involve a shovel or a chainsaw. We have a lovely Charter of Rights and lots of nice freedoms, but that is because we are rich and not because we are rationally inclined to progressive policies.  Tommy Douglas notwithstanding Canada’s  modestly progressive social programs have the look and feel of an afterthought. Canada looks good because of our geography vis a vis next to the US and that has pretty much been the excuse. With Steven Harper setting the agenda, no chance of getting to elite nation status.

The Elite

IMR under 4.0

Monaco

Singapore

Bermuda

Sweden

Japan

Iceland

France

Italy

Spain

Finland

Anguilla

It must be said that of the ten elite countries one is now owed by a corner store across from the old Reichstag run by an Libyan immigrant named Youseef. One is on financial life support from the EU, another is on the verge of an economic coronary. It’s difficult to think of Monaco, about as large as a nascent pimple on the rump of France, as a nation with its philandering Prince and reluctant bride. As for Singapore, Bermuda and Anguilla, like Monaco much too tiny. On the other hand they have spent there bounty wisely. Good for them. That leaves Sweden, Japan , France and Finland. Sweden has Elin Nordegren, Japan has seaweed, France has Zidane Zidane, we’re not sure who Finland has. We at TVFP are taking Sweden.

 www.jimread.ca

MARY DOWSER IS DEAD

TVFP regrets to report that the ever fragrant Mary Dowser has died. Mary Dowser was a championship typist, TVFP correspondent, intrepid adventurer, intimate friend of Che Guevara, Hugh Firmin, Don Juan and Thomas Beckett. She was a friend to various Native American divinities such as Coyote Boy, Quetzachotl and Great Manitou. In a past life she was Mary Driscoll an Irish girl who escaped the English genocide in an coffin ship out of Cork. The indefatigably odoriferous Mary Dowser will be sadly missed.

The awesomely aromatic Ms Dowser was last seen forcibly abducted into a red Toyota Tercel outside a hotel in Kiev where she was covering the Euro 2012 futbol tournament for TVFP. Our sources discovered that the car was a cardboard cut out and that it was a prop for a film by Luis Bunel the famous surrealist director. When TVFP queried our sources on just how a person could be abducted in a cardboard car we were stymied. The investigation lagged, then it stagnated, there were mosquito larvae on the surface of the investigation. Enter Clara Kappelhoff.

TVFP Mary Dowser appearances, in chronological order:

Ted's Parkdale Kitchen

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in Parkdale Part I

Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in Parkdale Part II

Changes at THE VIEW and Mary Dowser Reports

An Important Announcement and Mary Dowser Reports from the Yucatan

Occupy Toronto / Mary Dowser on Don Juan

The Wizards of Parkdale

The Don River Sold to the Saudis / Mary Dowser Returns

The Return of Mary Dowser: Kapitalism for Kids

Mary Dowser Reports: The Masters and IBM, A Good Fit

Mary Dowser Reports: Cannibalism for the Middle Class

The Mary Dowser School of Business Education

MARY DOWSER KIDNAPPED

TVFP New Security Features / Mary Dowser Update

Mary Dowser Kidnapping Update

Ms. Kappelhoff is a respected and much loved Hollywood actress from the 50’s who, along with famous leading man and cross-dresser Roy Scherer Jr. made several frothy romances such as: Pillow Talk and Lover Come Back.

Ms. Kappelhoff is a life long supporter of the Republican Party of Mitt (The Twit) Romney and Sarah Palin and, like her equally blonde and iconic European counter part the French sex kitten and racist Brigitte Bardot, a committed animal rights activist.

Two days after the abduction of Mary Dowser Ms. Kappelhoff was reported to have complained to the Carmel-by-the-Sea Police Chief that a cardboard cut-out of a Toyota Tercel driven by a female in her late twenties, slim build, medium height, with a sepia tone orchid on her left shoulder, had been interfering with her horses. Carmel police, upon investigating, discovered suspicious one inch wide tire tracks around the equine enclosure.

Other famous people who live in Carmel-by-the-Sea:

Roy Chapman Andrews
Nora May French
Ira Remsen
Charis Wilson

STAY TUNED FOR MORE ON THE MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF MARY DOWSER

Maeve Binchy on Jim Read

Maeve Binchy recently deceased and beloved Irish writer has written to TVFP from the other side: Jim Read is an iconoclast and a bit of a rogue. He is handsome in a rough bog Irish sort of way. His short book Dispatches from the Belleisle is a remarkable achievement. As James Joyce said of Ernest Hemingway's A Clean Well Lighted Place : he has reduced the veil between literature and life, which is what every writer strives to do. It is masterly. Indeed, it is one of the best short stories ever written  .  .  .  Ms. Binchy goes on to say, I get the same feeling when I read one of Jim Read's short stories.

Dispatches From the Belleisle

Follow this link to the Jim Read website to sample and purchase Dispatches from the Belleisle and other terrific stories for an eBook retailer near you.