The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
You can always tell, in the world order, what the irrelevant countries Ñ going downhill Ñ are as opposed to those who are important. While Dubya Bush, thought of as a moron by the higher minds in the chattering classes, is across the water apologizing to 'Old Europe' and trying to revive the Atlantic Alliance, the world's most serious magazine, The Spectator of London, devotes its entire front page to the ominous headline: Goodbye England. It's about the death of fox-hunting. While in Canada, the headlines are about our Queen boycotting her twit son's wedding, the major issue is Parliament being braced for a two-week debate on the pressing issue of same-sex marriage. This is the season of some remarkably good movies Ñ The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, Sideways. Almost as good is Kinsey, the tale of the mild-mannered obscure academic from dull Indiana who told an astonished America about sex. Among Dr. Alfred Kinsey's supposed findings were that an estimated 15 per cent of the U.S. population were homosexual. Recent autopsies of his historic research reveal that a large majority of his interviews Ñ supporting his findings Ñ were done with male prisoners in penitentiaries; their predilections being well-known. Also, as this excellent movie shows, the aloof academic found the delights of being bi-sexual, while Mrs. Kinsey Ñ the most tolerant wife in the history of the world Ñ put up with it, because she loved him. Back to Ottawa. Recent and more accurate polling tells us that less than five percent of our society is gay (whoever stole the word homosexual?) or lesbian. This scribbler, as has been previously mentioned, has gay and lesbians friends, a bank manager, a member of the Senate, a good journalist. All of them despise the goofy charades like the annual Gay and Lesbian Parade in Toronto where jock-straps and topless ladies are deemed to be so trendy that even the last mayor of the city sat on a float spraying water. See 'All' P.# Con't from P.# I would bet next month's rent that there are more vegetarians in Canada than there are gays and lesbians. And yet Mr. Dithers' Parliament is going to waste two weeks of our tax dollars on a debate which turns Missus Bloggs in Moose Jaw into despair? Go figure. X XÊX AND ANOTHER THING Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, who invented 'gonzo journalism,' died this week on his Colorado farm. He was 67. Hunter was loved by all of us in the trade because, once on the Richard Nixon presidential campaign, he was lied to by the Nixon press secretary Ñ which pressÊsecretaries are hired to do. This was in Florida. He went up to the flack's hotel door, and set it on fire. One day, the scribbler was a co-host on Vancouver's first private TV station, CKVU, along with Laurier LaPierre later a Senator in Ottawa, and the lovely Pia Southam, then married to the heir of the newspaper fortune. We invited Hunter to come up to our two-hour live suppertime show. With high pay. We went out to Vancouver airport to pick him up. Hunter, cleverly, on leaving Denver airport, had noticed two nice 16-inch hunting knives and purchased them. On arriving in Vancouver, he of course was arrested. He was also blistered, out of his tree. Having retrieved him from the cops Ñ the program just an hour away Ñ Pia raced him to his hotel to sober him up. She checked him in at the Bayshore Inn, assisted him to his room, turned on the shower to cold, pushed him into the bathroom and slammed the door. He took the shower, with only one problem. Forgot to take his suit off. The program was not a success.ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ X X X QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The English take the breeding of their horses and dogs more seriously than they doÊ their children." Ñ Princess Michael of Kent, in an interview with a German newspaper. XÊÊÊÊÊÊ XÊÊÊÊ X ANDÊ A BLAST FROM THE PAST Regarding this week's Martin/McKenna confusion on Dubya's missile defence, Attorney-General Bobby Kennedy at the Diefenbaker-era Cuban crisis, told the White House cabinet, "In times of trouble, Canada will give you all aid short of help."
