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Adresse Symphonique
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Disclaimer: this post can be broken down into hundreds of tid-bit sized twitter-formatted mini-posts but I don' t recommend it.
Above
The new Montreal Symphony Orchestra Hall. Ok, maybe there are a few finishing touches still in the works. 
Royalties
C2 (that's for Charles and Camilla) were in town Tuesday as they had menaced announced they would. "Were in town" is much of a word for a flash visit lasting barely eight hours. They visited the Biodôme, the Cirque du Soleil headquarters and the Montreal office of Quebec's Premier who, talk of a coincidence, just happened to be there. The exchange was cordial and conducted in French. It consisted mainly of said Premier giving the Royals some Québec-made cultural stuff, of which a set of DVDs of some of Quebec's best films (about 10 - hey, when it comes to the Royals, money's no object!) and Camilla looking on with a barely veiled WTF? look hardly better than the one of her husband. I'm not sure she understands French, or maybe she does and that look is her natural, who knows. When they were in Ontario, I saw a delicious old lady on one of their TVs (maybe CBC) who was saying to the reporter that she had found Camilla much less ugly in person than she had thought she would be. You can't invent this.
The set included C.R.A.Z.Y. which if I had been there I would have strongly suggested to Charles to have his Harry cutie-pie of a son to vision in good company (mine, ideally ). But I wasn't there of course. I was working to help pay the salary of the zillion police officers who were on overtime around the Black Watch Regiment building, at a stone's throw from my said workplace, and which was the King-that-may-never-be's last pit stop before leaving what must have been one of those days he'll not care to remember.
All in all, the whole visit was pathetic. As expected, since people had been told that no one would be able to come close to the couple, just about no one showed up for the three first events, besides a few old ladies from Westmount. Then again, the truth of the matter is that even if the whole province had been invited, just about no one would have shown up anyways. Royalty here is not a big seller. For the fourth event, a visit to the Black Watch Regiment of which Charlie is Colonel-in-chief, it was another story. Royalty opponents and independentists had announced they would greet the Prince with polite but unequivocal signs and shouts about his not being welcome here. They were there indeed, about 200, so much that the scheduled 17h00 arrival of the Cs had to be postponed until after 18h00, the time for the anti-riot police squad to push the demonstrators away from the vicinity of the building, and the Cs staying in hiding in their limo somewhere. When they did arrive, they got in by a side door.
After finishing work at 18h00 i decided to go see if anything was happening, although i thought probably not since it was already about an hour and a half past 17h00. The Royals may even have already left. When I got there, there were still about 100 demonstrators, well ok, attendees, cause hey, I've seen more violent demonstrations. The anti-riot cops and the federal agents, on the other hand, outnumbered them. It really looked ridiculous. Like using a 20 pound mass to kill a fly. There was a man from the south shore with his bicycle (a federal civil servant who worked nearby but on leave that day) so I talked with him for a while. I had previously inspected, well screwed around, the whole area which had been closed to all traffic. People regularly came out of the adjacent metro (Place-des-Arts) or coming on foot from their job or whatever or on bicycle and faced a wall of police telling them to take a hike in other pastures (aka a few streets detour). They were not necessarily amused. Many of those were asking me what was going on. No one knew anything about Charles being there and usually couldn't care less once they knew. This includes residents as well as visitors to the city. I had noticed that there was a lane behind the regiment's building and I was pretty sure they'd use it to evacuate the Royals. But while I was talking to the man I mentioned earlier, demonstrators were eventually tossed away enough to not be in view of the Regiment's building's entrance and the vast majority of them left. At around 20h00 (I had nothing to do) there were only maybe twenty or thirty demonstrators left, scattered in three or four packs on the sidewalks. One of them kept playing the first measures of the Beatles' Revolution on a loudspeaker, once in a while. The street was for all purposes now empty (besides cops), and there would be no reason why Charlie and wife would not come out of the building to board a limousine and leave. For half an hour now, people had been coming out of the building, which suggested that this moment was near. In the meantime, three aging English-speaking women had arrived and were standing next to me. One was saying how this was terrible (no one there) but that she, at least, would applaud him. The police, on the other hand, had started a bunch of manoeuvers with their vehicles, blocking the street uphill and on Président Kennedy on the left and right of De Bleury, suggesting that the Prince would indeed come out using the main door on De Bleury, and continue downhill (it's a southbound one way) to catch highway 720 and from there to the airport, which would be the most logical and shortest way. It was a trap, of course. I should have known and followed my first instincts. While everyone (well the few people still there) was expecting the limo to pass in front of them, everyone saw on the right a convoy of about 15 vehicles rushing out of the lane I mentioned before and heading eastbound on Président Kennedy (the airport is westbound). They were leaving (fleeing) like rats. I saw all the disappointment in that English woman's face. I told her that I couldn't care less about monarchy but that I felt «terrible, terrible, terrible» (for her) about the whole situation. And I really meant it. She replied something about it being the fault of the demonstrators (who were nowhere to be seen anymore at that point) and an anti-riot police officer nearby nodded in approval. I replied, «This is Montreal». Yes, this is Montreal, not Islamabad. We had here in 1995 a referendum whose results in most countries on this planet would have turned into a bloodbath. We can talk to each other. We can hack people who think differently on quintessential issues. We don't espouse violence. We have no lessons to take from anyone on this.
The next day, at noon break, I went to inspect the premises. There is hidden behind the Regiment's building a large commercial parking lot, accessible by both De Bleury St and the lane I mentioned earlier, giving on Président Kennedy. I learned two things from this: first that the demonstrators were a bunch of amateurs for not having seen the obvious, and second that this amateurism rendered the heavily-handed police intervention even more ridiculous.
Next time some rats come here, I'll follow my instincts. Catching fleeing rats on camera is sure a nice prospect. I must say though that I didn't expect to stay there that long (not knowing about the late arrival of the Cs) and it was very windy and cold and frankly I didn't feel like standing alone for an indefinite period of time just waiting for a hypothetical event to happen.
Still the same, when you are a king-in-waiting and act this way, I mean hey, shouldn't you stay home? Or go elsewhere? What did this guy come here for, anyways? He sure didn't come to meet his future subjects. If he wants to see the Cirque du Soleil, they can be seen all over the planet. Maybe not in the UK, but that's "their" problem. When it was first announced that he would come to Quebec, i almost posted that I felt kind of sorry for him, in the sense that he's about my age, a nice and honest guy with ideas and interests which matches ours (environment, etc), but stuck with an eternal mother and strange family. Now I think he's just an insignificant wimp. And not only is Camilla ugly, but she walks like a toad.
 19h03 - A bunch of dangerous foaming at the mouth activists being valiantly controlled by our fine police officers, wearing anti-A(H1N1) protective gear over their faces. The Regiment's building is the one with two rows of small windows topping its entrance.
The dangerous escalation towards violence:
 19h06 - If you look closely, you may find one or two dangerous activists in there. What do you mean "where?" I said "closely", didn't I?
19h29 - As you can see on this pic, the dangerosity of the situation has evolved to a level which is barely containable, and weren't for our brave police officers courageously putting themselves in the way of the huge menace, gawd knows what would have happened.
 19h53 - The situation has now become explosive. The crowd of demonstrators can barely be contained. The Prince is obviously in great danger. Emotions are running high. (if you count 20 police officers for one demonstrator, don't change your glasses. They are still working just like new).
19h40 - The rats-exiting lane is on the right, in front of the SUV and the two chicken(*) buses (this is Ave Président Kennedy). I should have stayed there but I returned at the corner of de Bleury where the red light is, because I truly thought they would use de Bleury. I was had, like everyone else there. The good part is that I am rarely had twice. Now I know their tactics.
(*) the French (from France) call cops "poulets" (chickens). We in Quebec call them "boeufs" (bulls). Why? Search me!
My little trip in royal insignificance had at least the merit of letting me have a first glimpse of the newly inaugurated putting into light of the Musée d'Art Contemporain. There is an ongoing multi-year project for the main venues and cultural buildings of the Quartier des Spectacles for each to adopt its own light signature, in addition to the common red sidewalk spots I've mentioned before. The reddish lighting in the upper portion is animated.
Vengeance
The State cold-bloodedly killed another person this week. This time it was the Washington sniper. I don't understand this thing about having some people in an adjacent room acting like voyeurs behind a one-way glass, as if it rendered the act more acceptable. As if it wasn't them who were killing the guy, a job sub-contracted to the State. They can't look at the guy straight in the eyes, face to face? One of those mentioned afterwards that the executed showed no remorse. I mean, how naive (best) or dumb (worse) can you get? People who run around shooting others at random for kicks or whatever have long ago left the realms of responsible thinking. They are elsewhere. Our world, which they don't give a damn about, is not theirs. And most of the time, not even knowingly.
State-sponsored executions, like it's done in the United States, is nothing but vengeance. They can wrap it up with lots of fancy excuses and rhetorical twists, it stills remains killing someone in cold blood. Period. A very unChristian move, if there is. But some Americans are not yet near being bothered with such inconsistencies. One other "witness" didn't bother with such excentric circumvolutions, and bluntly told a reporter it was an eye for an eye. At least one who'd get my vote for being honest.
They're going to kill another one, if the prosecution lawyers have their way. It's that dirty-looking presumed mastermind behind the preparation of the 9/11 attacks. This killing would add ridicule to vengeance. These terrorists, because of a religious kink, believe that being a martyr for Islam will bring them eternal felicity in a paradise loaded with young crisp virgins. Failing is their most dreaded fear. This guy failed. He knows it. Every morning when he wakes up in prison, he curses himself for still being alive and not up there with the others, and even more, in a situation where he can't even ever have a second try. But his life has brightened these last days. Those he wanted to eradicate will be the very ones who'll make a martyr out of him. When time comes to get his chemical shots, this guy will walk to the table smiling like there's no tomorrow, and those in the little room will be left with their tooth for a tooth to chew on, forever.
The United States is the only country of the developped world which does not provide medical coverage for all of its citizens. It is also the only country of the developped world which still executes its citizens. Some are working very hard to make the first one obsolete. On the other hand, there's not much movement to be seen as per the second one goes.
Cashing in
So there' s a movie out there about the world ending in 2012. Like it did in 1000 for remembrance. And also in 2000. (I wonder what those dimwits did with the tons of food they had stashed in survival bunkers - hey, the ensuing unbalance in consumer demand may be what spurred the recession, who knows? ).
After all these recent years mingling with Americans, maybe I'm starting to catch the entrepreneurial spirit after all. I mean, am I the only one to have seen all the golden opportunities to sell our new doomsday fans everything they absolutely need to pass a wonderful and trouble free Armageddon?
Cashing out?
Coming back from Marché Jean-Talon this afternoon, i noticed a sign about new business hours at the visual center (optometrist/glasses peddler) at the corner of Châteaubriand and Bélanger. These new hours are: Monday to Thurday: 09h30 to 18h00. Friday, Saturday, Sunday: closed.
So it seems that 100% of the people who have a daytime job are excluded. Hey, I've seen brighter commercial moves. 
Winterizing
Pedro is back to the warm comfort of his winter quarters. He's starting to get a little old, and is whitening here and there. Like me.
Winter? Where?
It's been raining all afternoon. This means it's not snowing. That's good enough for me. The farther uphill the white goo starts to fall down on us, the better it will be. I don't ski.
This did not prevent me from going to Marché Jean-Talon, where I had nothing really urgent to buy. I guess this routine of going there every Saturday in late afternoon just before closing time is stamped in my genome.  Anyways, going there via Jean-Talon St, I saw about three dozen umbrellas of as much many colors and designs. I wish I could have asked all of them to stop so I could take a pics of them. Then I could have made a collage out them and sell it for 45 million dollars. Mine would go for 2 million more than Andy Warhol's "200 American dollar bills" because contrary to him, mine would feature beautiful colors. I did see one black only umbrella, however. It was mine. 
Reminiscing Mexico Ciudad
We had a smog alert here on Thursday and Friday. I'm pretty sure today's never ending rain will get rid of it as fast as the daily late-day rain storm in Mexico City in summer gets rid of their pollution. It's in winter that the thermic inversion pollution problem is the worst in Mexico, when those daily outpours are rare. Pollution is called "contaminación" in Mexico City, rather than "polución". I like the word. Says what it has to say.
This is what the sky looked like when I went to work on Thursday. Usually, those kinds of emissions are seen in the dead of winter, when it's very cold outside.
Addendum re: above pic
The Palais des Congrès is immediately on the left, the Complexe Guy-Favreau (a federal building and an apartment complex) is on the right and the Church belongs to the Chinese Catholic community (this is in Chinatown). The upfront earthen area is loaded with flowers in summer and is the northernmost part of the esplanade bordering that side of the Palais des Congrès (it used to be a flat fountain but it was turned into a garden this year). The street passing in front of the church then forking where people are walking is rue de la Gauchetière, and heads into Chinatown where it becomes pedestrian. I pass there every morning going to work. The trees on the esplanade are fruit trees (crabapples I think) and in Spring it's beautiful. When i took the above pic, I was standing about where the girl is standing in this other pic taken in May 2008.
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Rue St-Hubert - 2009.11.06
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
Adios Halloween, Willkommen Christmas.
Allergy warning
This post contains traces of U.S and Canada bashings.
Honey, have you seen the Wall?
Zillions of pages, paper and virtual, hours and hours of documentaries on TV, radio programs in the last weeks and today, and live programming on this day, about the anniversary of the bringing down of the Berlin wall. Lots of falsehoods also, like Ronald Reagan having been the key player in the happening of this event. He was not. Gorbatchev was. And John Paul II (and the Vatican), who started undermining the Soviet system from the moment he became Pope in 1978. A system which must it be reminded, was already crumbling at the seams everywhere. And also the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan, after a disastrous ten year war (food for thought here). And, as mentioned in an article I read recently, the 1986 Tchernobyl catastrophe and the impact it had in showing to the Soviet apparatchiks all what was going wrong in their system. And the Hungarian government having opened its own borders with Austria, not long before, forcing the hand of East-Germany. The USSR had become a complicated political entity, not one which one single person could decide singlehandedly of its orientations and get away with it. The USSR was not the USA. Gorbachev was not Bush.
Reagan was your typical binary person who assessed everything as being good or evil, and who thought military might was the only way to solve international issues. When he went to Berlin and challenged Gorbatchev to "Bring down this wall", he made a nice spectacle for Westerners, Americans in particular, but he did not impress anyone on the other side of the wall. At that point, the system as it was then was already doomed and Gorbatchev knew it, hence his attempts to salvage the furniture with the perestroika and the glasnost. Salvage the furniture may not be the correct way to call it. What he was trying to do was rather to ensure an orderly exit from the communist regime. One of the main reasons the wall was still up when Reagan played cowboys was that there was a blinded idiot as head of government in the German Democratic Republic, Honecker, who had been refusing for years to understand the basics of realpolitiks. Elsewhere in the Soviet Union, many were ready to move.
This week, Radio-Canada's reporter in Moscow, who lived 15 years in Poland before immigrating here, and speaks five languagues fluently of which Russian, managed (after a year trying) to have an exclusive interview with Mikhaïl Gorbatchev. It was conducted in Russian.
Link to the interview
For those who understand either Russian or French, part 1/2 of the video is an historical putting in context. The interview as such is in 2/2 and can be skipped to directly.
For the others:
Alexandra Szacka: Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, do you feel any pride reminiscing what happened on that November 9th?
Mikhail Gorbatchev: I would tell you yes. I'm proud. It was certainly one of the most crucial issues for the whole world, and we discussed about it with Helmut Kohl, the German chancellor, in June 1989, during one of my visits. Reporters at the time wanted to know if we had adressed this subject, and of course yes, and when will the reunification of Germany happen they were asking, and we were both answering "in the 21st century". It was still very difficult. We already had in the USSR the perestroika, the glasnost, pluralism of political opinion and market-based economy, the new externals affairs policy and liberty. Afterwards, there was a chain reaction in many East and Central European countries. Only the East Germans were remaining alone, like plaque-stricken.
AS: One month before the fall of the wall, you have attended celebrations in East Berlin.
MG: I was invited but I hesitated to go. Passions were already boiling there, but we finished by going as an East European delegation and it was a good move. I discussed three hours with the East German leader Honecker, and I gave a speech during the celebrations. The situation in East Germany was deteriorating, I sensed it but it seemed to me that Honecker, him, was not sensing it. I saw him when we witnessed a night demonstration, during which resolute young and middle-aged people were carrying torches and shouting slogans in favor of reunification. The Prime Minister of Poland, Mieczysław Rakowski, asked me: Mikhaïl Sergueïevitch do you speak German? I answered: I know enough to understand those cries and to read those placards. He tells me: But it's the end? I answered to him: Yes, it's the end. We have seen the last act being played under our eyes.
AS: The night of November 9th, 1989, have you slept?
MG: I slept. I slept. Because the process was already under way. We had already assimilated it. We were seeing well that the process was evolving according to a scenario different than what we had expected. In 24 hours, three million East Germans left us.
AS: Were you conscious at that moment that it was the end of an era?
MG: Yes, it was the final period, the last breath of the Cold War. We were being told, now guys, it's time to leave. It's time to reflect on a new world order. Yes, the new world order.
AS: When in 1987 in Berlin President Ronald Reagan launched his famous "Open this wall Mr Gorbatchev", what did you feel?
MG: (grins and shrugs his shoulders) Nothing in particular. It did not particularly impress me. What was new for us in what he was saying? Yes, the wall had been erected, but maybe the time had come to bring it down. We knew that the man who was in front of us had been an actor, and it was a scene he was playing in front of us. (part 2 between 3m09 and 3m50 - worth it just to see his face)
AS: You once said that the fact of not using force in 1989 in Germany permitted to prevent the third world war. Do you still think so?
MG: It's hard to say what catastrophe could have happened if we had intervened. There was in Germany almost half a million of our men armed to the teeth. It was the most important concentration of arms and best-trained militaries, the tanks and the nuclear weapons, there was a whole arsenal, and I think that if we had given the order to intervene, it would have been a grave error which could have led to a catastrophe. A catastrophe of the scope of a new World war.
AS: The current Russian-American negociations about disarmament, in what measure are they important for Russia and the United States? According to you, what should Russia do?
MG: Since our first meeting with President Reagan in Geneva, I have kept the same opinion: nuclear war is unacceptable. There will be no winner. Then let us ask ourselves: why a nuclear war? To destroy the planet?
AS: Do current negotiations on the reduction of nuclear arsenals have the same importance as the ones you conducted twenty years ago?
MG: They are very important. In the current world context, there is a real danger that terrorists may use nuclear arms because they are stopped by nothing and willingly accept to confront death. The kamikaze mentality is: I die, but the others die with me. It is therefore unacceptable. Up until now, the decree on the total ban of nuclear tests has not been ratified. The Americans didn't support it. Today, this question of non proliferation is brought back to attention, and it is an important one because there are now forty deliquent countries in nuclear matters. Iran for instance, which gives us all a lot of concern.
AS: According to you, during those twenty years, on the nuclear level, who conducted itself better, the United States or Russia?
MG: I think the United States are more guilty. During the same period of time, USSR has known perestroika, Russia was living modernisation, we were preoccupied by something else. But the responsibility also lies on Russia. Putin and Medvediev talk about it. Russia is ready to renegotiate the agreements. And the arrival of Obama is a chance, not only for America but for us all. By his stances, Obama has reanimated all the processes which were stopped: negotiations on nuclear arsenals, new world order, and the fact that he understands all this, that he treats us on an equal level and that he does not impose a unipolar world, it's very important.
AS: Lately you have criticized a lot the state of democracy in Russia. In what way can the lack of democracy influence negotiations, and relations, between the United States, the West, and Russia?
MG: The Douma, the Russian parliament, does not contribute to democracy. It destroys it rather, and that's very dangerous. We cannot solve important matters without the participation of all political sectors. Where has pluralism gone?
AS: Do you thing Russia is advancing just the same?
MG: I would say there has been a slowing down., but as I say to the Americans, you have put 200 years to build your democracy, and you would want for us to do it in 200 days. Yes, we are more talented than you, but not to this point, really.
AS: Thank you, Mister President.
MG: See you!
AS: See you!
I was reading in my week-end paper an article from the Le Devoir correspondent in Paris who was writing about a recent conversation he had with a former East German dissident whom he had met when he was in Berlin in 1989. This person was mentioning how Gorbatchev was subjected to heavy pressures from the military back then, and how things could have gone very wrong if he has not resisted.
Mikhail Gorbatchev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 for his contribution to the end of the Cold War. There was no co-recipient. Maybe the Pope should have been there also. His trips to Poland were very mediatized in the decade prior to the collapse, but much of his action was undercover, including the Vatican financing Solidarnösc. But there is one person who was not there because he had no business there, and that's Ronand Reagan. To my knowledge, the U.S. is the only place on this planet where some people believe Reagan played a key role. There's a good reason for this and one which I don't care to expand upon except to say that as I am writing this here sentence, it's 09h48 in the morning of November 9, 2009, exactly twenty years after the most important event of the last part of the 20th century and on all News channels here and on TV5 World it's live coverage from Berlin. On CNN, it's me myself and I, as usual: commissioning of USS New York («a living memorial» it was written on the screen), the Texas shooting, some Washington DC terror I didn't get (there's so many shootings in the US one loses track), tribute to heroes (dead militaries; always heroes, dead militaries). "What we're working on segment": selling gold, the Texas military base, Ida, H1N1 virus for kids. And then, two minutes, two, where people were asked to send videos, emails, pics, about basically their current emotions about the event. Gas-pedal-in-the-floor trivialization. Political analysis, social analysis, interviews with key actors, documentaries, putting in historical context how both Germanys fared afterwards, how's life now in East Germany, the Wessies and the Ossies, their complicated relations then and now, stuff finally we have been hearing and listening to here for days and days? Sweet fuck all. What counts is to permit the John Doe's to express their feelings and stage a zillion photo ops of the physical wall, including a fake one in California. The rest is apparently of no importance. How can you know your planet if your media doesn't tell you about it. Especially the part of it which isn't yours... Oh, they just started to talk about it on CNN. With what? Bring-down-this-wall-Reagan. And a clip showing Angela Merkel. About 45 seconds. And a Reader's Digest style report (another 45 seconds) about the quest for liberty (with arm and hammer pics), and a report about where pieces of the wall can be found across the world, but only mentioning American places, plus in someone's pocket (?), and other trivial information. Quintessential news and information, if there is. When other televisions produce and air two-hour special documentaries where they try to cram in there the most information they can, leaving some on the side by lack of time, CNN crams it all in three mini-clips which they balance to your face before returning to business as usual, talking about the real important things, like murderers, financial screwers, Romney (has-been or to-be), heroes (always military the heroes, but I think I'm repeating myself), the market (financial the market), underwater mortgages (?), and dead Americans abroad (Irak, Afghanistan, anywhere, make your pic, but always Americans; others die too, but it's not newsworthy material for CNN). But the most appalling of it all is that the others (FOX et al) are worse. In some way, maybe they don't care to expand too much one the wherefors and the whys of the Berlin wall. After all, the US has its own Walls not even in the closet, like the one put up on the Mexican border, and that other one, even more scandalous, set up by the US-heavily supported Israeli government (I say government but we all know there isn't much protest in Israel against it, right?). Oh, they just showed Reagan-tear-down-the-wall again. Who wants to bet on the number of times they will show it before the day is over? I'll start the bets with a conservative 10. Oops! Another one in less than five minutes. Let me make this 20, will ya!. [..] Hey! another one! I'm signing off from CNN until further notice, before I throw a shoe at my television set.
In a way, with his last minute cowboy speech when most of the work had already been done, Ronald Reagan tried to steal Gorbatchev's and the Pope's place in history. It was pretty lame, if you ask me.
I have read often, and still believe, that the Russians were fundamentally people who wanted peace, including during the Cold War, contrary to the United States which is one of the most belligerent countries on this planet (this cult of the military which is daily business on Ameriacn TV is pretty special to say the least). There is a good reason why I think this way about Russians. What the Russian people suffered in the Second World War was akin to martyrdom. Twenty-one million Russians died during that war, and of those, thirteen million six hundred thousands were civilians. Do you know how many American civilians died in WWII? seventeen hundred. Canadian civilians? Zero, like in zilch, nada. Ok lets put this in numbers: 13,600,000 vs 1,700. If we talk about the military, Russians lost seven and a half million. That's twenty one million all together (not counting the wounded). The total casualties of both military and civilians of both the U.S. and Canada does not even make a half million and that includes the Japan front. Russians KNOW what war on their own soil is all about. Americans don't. That's why they went beserk on 9/11. If this event had happened in Moscow instead of New York, it would have been a whole different ball game. When I say Americans, I include Canadians in there. We live in a cocoon. We've never been invaded. We've never suffered from hunger and cold, deprived of the very basics, under siege. We don't know what it's like to have foreign soldiers killing us, raping us, stealing our food, our land, our liberty. If the Russians hadn't done the sacrifice they did, and by the same token forcing a disproportionate number of Hitler's troops to deploy on the eastern front, never would the Allies (those from the West) have won on the other front. It was not the allies who entered in Berlin. It was the Russians. I don't know if it was arranged to be so, but they surely deserved it. There surely was an equivalent of Eisenhower leading the Russian troops. Do you recall his name? I don't. Do you find this normal? I don't.
Since we're at it, why not mention the 20 million Chinese who died under similar circumstances during WWII, of which 16,200,000 civilians. That's now 41,000,000 (them) compared to less than 500,000 (us).
I don't have much respect (a euphemism) for Ronald Reagan, a star-wars-loving happy-go-lucky jelly-bean eating sugar daddy for a nation where the majority of its people carburates on simplistic explanations and fairy tale heroes, and whose personal testosterone was the US military might. I have much respect for Mikhaïl Gorbatchev, a pragmatic, who had his eyes in front of the holes and not in his holster like the other one, and who can be credited for preventing the collapse of the Soviet regime from turning into a major world catastrophe. And also for John Paul II, who I disagreed with totally as per spiritual matters go, but who used his office and prestige to undermine peacefully the Soviet regime through his home country's Solidarnösc, where it all started in the late seventies. One day, history will do them justice. It already does in fact. Everywhere else except where we know it doesn't.
While working on this post, I stumbled by accident on this article by Serge Truffaut, from the editorial team of Le Devoir. It was published on Friday June 11, 2004, in the wake of Ronald Reagan's passing. What I'm talking about above does not date from yesterday:
«Today, Americans will underline the memory of Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States. Having died less than a week ago, this man who stood out by his joviality, even his good nature, is the almost exclusive subject on many television networks. Saluting this man is legitimate. But by making a statue out of him, proclaiming his being the single gravedigger of communism, a step has been taken. Which? One of rudeness towards Mikhaïl Gorbachev.
When comparing Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter, his immediate predecessor, one is struck by the constant optimism of the first, the permament relaxed attitude with which he approached every matter. In this respect it contrasted greatly with the studious austerity that Carter had brought to the White House. He also distinguished himself, even more importantly, by his allergy to taxes, his desire to downsize government and finally by his willingness to counter react to Carter on everything that was related to relations with the Soviet Union.
Having just took office, Reagan awoke Sovietologists that Carter had put to sleep by pursuing a policy of cooperation with Moscow. He took advantage of the commitment of the Russian army in Afghan territory by blowing on the fires of pitfall. With his contacts in the Kremlin, his attitude was all in conformity with his famous remark that the Soviet Union was the empire of evil. However, making him the great architect of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a rather annoying shortcut, and dishonest. Especially that the role of Gorbachev was hushed to the point that we are obliged to highlight the following surprise: those experts, those American witnesses are engaged in the delights of ... revisionism!
Nonetheless, if we rely on the work of American historian Martin Malia, professor emeritus at the University of Berkeley, California, Gorbachev took the reins of power inhabited by the following belief: the Soviet system which he had inherited was ineffective, doomed. In this regard, it should be noted that a particular accident has played a catalytic role or rather convinced that Gorbachev had to promote all-round reform of the Soviet empire. What accident was this? Chernobyl, in April 1986.
It was after this catastrophe that Gorbachev will press, with an unexpected ally in the person of John Paul II, the fraternal parties of Eastern Europe to release the communist bridle. On this front, the American historian Malia said: "The desire to put pressure on them and to counter his own conservatives within the Soviet Communist Party explains the daringness of Gorbachev's policy towards the East block countries. In the wake of his encouragement, the Hungarian Communist Party put on hold its leadership role. Barbed wires at the [Austrian] border were dismantled. Comes the crucial moment.
Which one? "What triggers the flood, according to the U.S. expert, was his [Gorbachev's] visit to Berlin on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the German Democratic Republic." Before the assembled crowd, he said to Erich Honecker, the pure-bred Stalinist leader of the country, that "life sanctions those who are late." These words, Gorbachev pronounced them on October 7, 1989, one month before the fall of the Berlin Wall. One month before the collapse of the grey dictatorships.
It is understandable that when a country decides to write history using forceps, its inclination to create its legends is quite strong. In this case, there was a misunderstanding: it is indeed to Gorbachev deserves the credit for having staged the end of the Soviet Block. Reagan was an actor in it. Period.»
It is remarkable that what was in this 2004 article has been confirmed by Gorbatchev himself in the interview I posted above. And it is also now well known that after those celebrations in Berlin one month before the fall, East Germany, alone in its corner, had no choice but to come to the conclusion that it was over, especially that Gorbachev had made it clear that they wouldn't support them militarily. It expected to announce some openness in November. But it was by a sheer accident that one of its Ministers, coming back from a trip, was handed a note to that effect at a press conference and, misunderstanding the timeline, announced that it was in effect immediately. Asked by reporters in disbelief, he confirmed, yes, immediately. When East-Berliners rushed to the checkpoints to check this out, they were greeted by soldiers who didn't have a clue of what was going on. But contrary to what many believe, there was no immediate outpourings. People were afraid that if they went to the West, maybe they would't be able to come back. It took a few days before really large movements of people started. The rest is history. A lot of the above, I learned or was reminded of in our different media.
I just saw a bunch of young children tearing down a mock wall made of styrofoam at the Reagan memorial (somewhere in California). They are obviously too young to have anything if a clue of what the Wall was and how it got down. They sure will obediently believe that Reagan was the man who brought it down, not because they are twits, but because it's gonna be the sole and only information they'll ever get about the Wall. This whole staged event was a disgrace. There was even this man putting back in place some pieces that the kids had broken down. The Wall is not something you trivialize as if if was a reality show or an amusement park.
Ignorance is the fuel of indoctrination. Anywhere. Everywhere.
Footnote: Indoctrination and propaganda are sisters. Have you ever wondered why I keep talking of Radio-Canada when I talk about our French language public radio and television system, while I talk of CBC about the English language one, and why Radio-Canada does not refer to both as it should logically do?
CBC stands for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In French, its equivalent is the Société Radio-Canada. They are joined at the very top by common management but below are independent organisms, although sharing technical resources. The Société Radio-Canada was known for years as the SRC, as the other one is known as CBC.
After the 1995 referendum, the federal government started a propaganda program which namely distributed zillions of Canadian flags (not the minis, the 2 x 3 foot ones) to anyone asking for one, plus investing zillions in supplying funds to what have you activities in Quebec (only) provided that the recipients splattered the word Canada and Canadian flags all over the place (this became the sponsorship scandal, the largest in Canadian history, because lots of government friends got a huge lick on the lollipop). Following this school of thought, it was decided by the federal government that using SRC was not stressing enough that it was paid for by Canada (Quebecers are so stupid) so they forced it to be renamed Radio-Canada so Quebecers who did not know it would do so now, and for those who knew to be constantly reminded of it.
Isn't that great? Give Canada, if people don't want to buy it. Goebbels would have been admirative.
Addendum: I happened to sneak on CNN just when the dominos started to fall down. The woman anchor butted in the current programming and immediately switched to Berlin. The satellite signal froze on them right there. «What a bummer!!» she cried out. How revealing! That was the only thing CNN was interested in. The show. The magic moment. What in pornography they call the money shot. The rest, they couldn't care less. Except in this case, it was a very bad case of coitus interruptus. The main moment of the day and they blew it. She looked like an idiot. It made me feel good. There is a justice after all. They had put their cameras (or had feed from German cameras) right next to and almost indecently close to the starting dominos (for the money shot no doubt), it was raining and the image was all blurred when it came back. It was so close with no points of reference that it seemed like it could have been taken in any big city slum. It reminded me of those porn flicks where they show close ups so close it doesn't mean anything anymore (erotically).
Needless to say, in a matter of seconds I was on RDI where for a long time there was beautiful coverage in vivid colors from far away cameras showing the whole area, the domino wall, the large crowd and all the beautifully lit buildings around, among them the Reichstag and since it filmed from a distance, no appearance of rain. And to be frank, it was almost post-orgasmic.
Orgasmic weather
It's incredibly nice outside and has been all day, and yesterday also. This afternoon my outside thermometer reached a little over the 20C mark which for this time of year is three times above normal (around 7C). There is a slight caressing wind. Just gorgeous. A little cooler forecasted for tomorrow, but still very nice. No Ida here. We're very fortunate.
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Chiesa della Madonna della Difesa
Scènes de Montréal - Montreal Scenes
Above
Church of the Madonna di la difesa in Little Italy. Canadian historical monument. I posted some pics before but the light was so beautiful yesterday afternoon that I couldn't resist taking additonal pics of it.
Warranty
This post is guaranteed 100% bash-Canada free.
Warning
Picture-heavy post.
Freak day
Friday, I've bought stuff I usually never do. First, besides a litte yogurt with some clementine morcels in it and which I had lovingly prepared before leaving home, I hadn't brought anything for noon break lunch at work so I went to the supermarket at the Grande Place level and bought some salad plus a small piece of camembert cheese and a bag of mini pitas to eat with it. They are about the size of the priest version of a Catholic host (wafer), but much more puffy needless to say. Pita bread is nothing transcendental to start with, but these smaller ones undid it. Tasted about nothing. The reason I bought those pitas is that they don't sell small breads (buns) by the unit at that store and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck with a leftover of supermarket bought buns.
Then in the evening, after supper (dinner?), I had a rage for something sweet. Something I usually take care of, when it shows up, by eating ice cream. I had none, and no pastry or cookies or anything of the sort. Since I also needed milk, I went to my corner supermarket to buy both. I never buy anything pastry-like in supermarkets because it's always made with bad ingredients. They had these bags of Madeleines and although there was no butter in them (an essential ingredient imho) but rather some vegetable stuff, the overall nutritional value wasn't that horrid so I decided to buy one (hey, a craze is a craze). After all, there's a first for everything. On the bag, it was marked "The Madeleine is excellent at breakfast and as a snack. With its tantalizing perfume this tender little cake has a distinct shell-like form.". Now let's be clear: if Marcel Proust had had this kind of Madeleines served to him by his mommy in his childhood, À la recherche du temps perdu would probably never have been written and Marcel would not have been buried eventually at Cimetière Père-Lachaise. The only perfume that exuded from those Madeleines was a strong odor of deceit, tempered I must admit by my knowing in advance it would turn out to be so.
Oh, did I forget to mention Étienne? Ah, Étienne!... Étienne!... Étienne! He must be a college or university student cause he only works evenings. While I was putting my stuff (the one I was buying ) on the running mat, he was lifting up his pants which seemingly kept falling down on his knees. An omen? 
Pink day
Yesterday I went for errands at Marché Jean-Talon and in Little Italy. The only thing I really needed was safron. And not even right away. I just happened to notice that I had only one dose left. If there's one thing I dread besides being caught with my pants down is being caught with no safron when preparing risotto milanese. They have those handy individual packs of powdered safron (the real thing, priced accordingly  ) at Milano's. And to my knowledge, there's no other place in Little Italy which carries them. Pack should really be called packlet, since they have a net weight of 0,125 grams, or for Americanites, a whopping 1/230 of an ounce.
Safron in Italian is "zafferano". Now, isn't this one of the cutest words there is1 or what?
Speaking of cute, on my way back, i saw this cutest young cat which when i wanted to photograph it, instead of running away like they usually do, just came towards me like if we had known each other since kindergarten. I know cats, i've had loads of them, i know this one saw me as a food provider and nothing else but if ever i can't travel anymore and can get a cat, i would like it to be like this one. It's probably one of those bastard stray cats. Those are often the best cats there are, once you adopt them that is.
Ok, the shopping bag is somewhat large to house three microgram-sized packs of safron. Don't ask.
Before I stumbled on the cute cat, I stumbled on cute pink. Pink notes that is. Someone amused his/herself and passersby by the same token, by posting little thoughts on sign-posts at streets corners in the area (Little Italy). Things like this is why despite all the drawbacks, I feel so good living in a big city.
«Above all, not to think like them.»
(I don't know if the words are context oriented - aka the Hummer)
«What was it again you told me?»
«You piss me off. But still the same, I love you.»
?
(above missing?) «Write me a poem on the next sign-post...»
«Hey, tomatoes are on special at the market: first stand on the left after entering.»
«Do you hear the voices?»
«Watch your shoe lace.» «*Gee, thanks, it's so nice of you! I almost fell over!»
(side note: the owner of the blue car should also check his car shoes)
«And breathing, have you thought about it??»
«I LOVE YOU!!! (to be repeated 100 times, yelling)»
(1) - I know, it should be "there are". I take liberties.
Dream day
Today, I went again to Marché Jean-Talon. I needed a "miche à l'ancienne". There is no English word for "miche" (you can take my word for it, I checked), so let's say it was an "old-style large round loaf of bread". When I was waiting in line, I clearly saw that my loaf was there, waiting for me. Unfortunately, a very unconsiderate woman with a heavy south-American accent and who was in line right before me, literally stole my loaf (ok, she paid for it, but just the same... she could have taken the "miche quignon" or the "miche de campagne" which were described to her by the clerk and were both 3,00$ but no, she just had to make a smartalec of herself and buy MY loaf, which costs 4,00$). I tell you, boys and girls, there's no respect anymore for the aging farts of this world. So I bought a "miche de campagne" which I don't usually buy because it has whole grains in it, and what do whole grains make you do? yup, they make you fart.
Elsewhere while I was at the Marché, I was passing in front of the Latino taco stand (and store behind) which I've posted a pic of recently. Alongside the hand-written menu, there was a hand written piece of cardboard where it was marked "Tamales de Oaxaca". Oaxaca is of course the state in Mexico where I've been to every winter exept last for the past ten years. I couldn't resist asking the man there «¿Estan Oaxaquenos?» (Are you [plural] from Oaxaca). This of course is a total no-no. There are two verbs for "to be" in Spanish, one for temporary states (like being sick say) which is "estar" and the other one for permanent states (like being an asshole) which is "ser". I should have asked him «¿Son Oaxaquenos?». When I'm months without speaking Spanish, I get totally rusted. I hate that. I would need to go down south and stay there for about six months. That would put some linguistic sense in my brains. 
But however brief my little encounter with them was, it gave me the opportunity to dream a few minutes about the Pacific and the warm weather and those nice people who live down there. And it was free.
No comment
Wal-Marting.
Worried
I've felt weird a few times in the past hours. Comes than goes. I hope I'm not catching that H1N1 thing-a-magig for fuck sakes! 
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Lifetime