Down with the bottom feeders VII

Sadly, this typist was busy typing yesterday and was unable to join Coral Clad and her Deep Seas Trawling Moratorium friends for their protest against the Canadian government's refusal to support a moratorium.

Word has that they took to the streets with their placards and eminently reasonable arguments against hoovering the seabed of its life and vitality.

They are trying to get the ear of Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn who has closed his ears to their arguments. He has said Canada will not support a proposed international moratorium on the trawling of the high seas. In so doing, he has parted ways with Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Norway, the United States, The Gifted Typist and influential central Canadian blog Reject the Koolaid who have all come out in support of the ban.

Coral Clad and her friends fear that sea habitats and marine life are being destroyed by bottom trawling. They want Canada to support a United Nations vote for a moratorium in December.

Even fishermen are in favour of a moratorium. In the Chronicle-Herald, Wayne Eddie is quoted as saying that to get 100,000 pounds of fish by trawling, a fisherman must throw 750,000 pounds of unwanted species and refuse overboard. "I’ve seen them floating on the water for miles."

Time is running out. The Gifted Typist encourages other typists to email Loyola Hearn to protest his decision against the moratorium.

The Cheddar chronicles: indecision

As you can see from the fine feline specimen in this picture, I am a cat. Being a cat entitles me to certain privileges. We meow, we purr, we lick, we roll about on the floor and we sleep in the glorious sunshine for hours on end. And being a cat allows us a another privilege, too. It is the privilege of indecision.

I spend a great deal of time in a state of indecision on the matter of whether I wish to be in or out of the house. I often find myself sitting by the back door willing it to open so that I may go outside. And once outside, I will turn around and sit on the back step willing that same door to open again so that I may go back inside.

Sometimes I'm not out for more than two minutes before I decide that it is time for me go back in again. And when I'm in, I may very well change my mind within 90 seconds and decide to go back out. This cycle can repeat itself anywhere from five to 35 times in one day, depending on the weather.

The reason I do this is as simple as the whiskers on my face. I am a cat. This is what cats do. Need I say more? Well yes, apparently. You see, I am owned by a human who does not comprehend this aspect of my feline nature. Being a human, She cannot accept that I should go outside with no sense of purpose, or that I should return with the same lack of purpose.

What I'm beginning to understand that She is the one with the problem, and that I, the cat, am merely fulfilling my biological destiny to be indecisive and without purpose. And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go. I need to find Her so She will let me out again. And then She will have to let me in again. We're going to have a busy evening. Goodbye.

Favourite hanging preposition quote

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

- Sir Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister

Homework is evil

The idea for a homework halloween costume was conceived by a seven-year old boy who has developed early-onset intolerance to homework. Unfortunately there are no cures or drugs available for homework.

But you can dress up as homework and warn others of this terrible scourge. So committed is this child to spreading the message on the horror of homework that he wore the costume to the school halloween party where he confronted teachers, vice-principal and principal.

Word is that they laughed, but it was a nervous laugh.

The homework costume was executed with the help of some foam, one-sided carving blades, contact cement, paint and an all-nighter pulled the child's father.

Jack-o-lantern told to give urine sample

An 200lb-jack-o-lantern has been asked to provide a urine sample by the International Federation of Jack-o-Lanterns, throwing into doubt its participation in Halloween events on October 31.

Officials were alerted to the pumpkin's size after an informant saw a post on this blog entitled "Pumpkin on steriods." The informant reported it to the federation.

If the urine sample comes back positive, this jack-o-lantern may face disqualification from Tuesday night's events.

The jack-o-lantern has made no comment, but the jack-o-lantern's lawyer has given a statement that the jack-o-lantern has "never knowingly" taken drugs to enhance its size, weight or scariness.

The typist who posted the pumpkin-on-steriods piece said that the words "on steriods" were deployed to accentuate its abnormal size and were not meant to imply any illegal drug taking activity.

"I was taken out of context," the typist said. "I hope the anonymous informant will be happy if the little trick or treaters are deprived the thrill of seeing this spectacular jack-o-lantern on Halloween night."

The large gourd was transformed into a jack-o-lantern after a spot of messy surgery in the driveway. The jack-o-lantern is reported to be doing well and looking forward clearing its name before halloween night.

Pumpkin on steriods

This 200 lb+ pumpkin-on-steriods appeared unceremoniously on the front step of this typist's house a couple of weeks ago. (See the beer bottle to the right to get an idea of its size.)

It arrived with no prior warning, no calling card or previous invitation to drop around sometime for a nice cup of tea.

I "ooohed" and "ahhhhhed" and said "what on earth are we going to do with you?" And the pumpkin-on-steriods just sat there and looked up at me as if to say: "I'm a pumpkin. It's halloween. Don't make me have to tell you what to do with me."

So, let the carving begin. Stay tuned for the transformation to jack-o-lantern-on-steriods.

Words that should be banned: yummy mummy

A Yummy Mummy is a young, hip, sexually attractive mother or mother-to-be. A Yummy Mummy is stylish, thin, well-off and brand aware.

They model themselves after celebrity Yummy Mummies who can be seen on websites such as babyrazzie.com. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kate Beckinsale and Angelina Jolie are models of Yummy Mummyhood. Other Yummy Mummies include Victoria Beckham and Britney Spears, proving that the Yummy Mummy notion of beauty is not based entirely on the classic definition of beauty.

Yummy Mummies do not allow pregancy to make them large or lumpy. Yummy Mummies do not wear spit-up stains on their designer tunics. Yummy Mummies do not vomit in the early days of pregnancy because that would make them Vommy Mommies and we couldn't have that. Yummy Mummies never appear pale, wan and exhausted after a bad night with baby.

Yummy Mummies have websites and Life Network TV programs and Yummy Mummy Clubs that talk about the Yummy Mummy lifestyle which involves style, fashion and accessories such as cute babies and beautiful children. Pink features prominently, as do SUVs.

Yummy Mummies are rarely single moms living in public housing. Yummy Mummies do not take the bus or shop at food banks. Yummy Mummies do not have loser boyfriends who sell drugs and disappear for weeks at a time.

Yummy Mummies must look hot at all times, not to mention fit, happy and young, regardless of age. They purchase fitness apparel, Yummy Mummy survival guides and go for Yummy Mummy spa weekends with other Yummy Mummies. Yummy Mummies deserve to be pampered. Yummy Mummies are "so, like, toootalleee, faaab" about their Yummy Mummy lifestyle.

Let us dignify the English language by banning the term Yummy Mummy.

Favourite home-decorating quote

As a rule, your ceiling should have twice as much paint as your hair

PJ O'Rourke, American satirist and anti-leftist

Spiders 'n Webs II

Some images don't fade away. I stumbled upon this collection of dew-crested spider's webs in a country field one morning in August.

Above, tiny ballroom mirrors twinkle in amongst hundreds of webs in the grass. The bottom half of each droplet reflects the morning sun to give a pattern close to perfection.

Below, beads of dew are suspended on a spider's invisble silk thread. These images didn't make my Spider's n webs post but they merited a post of their own.

A market harvest

A highlight of this typist's recent Montreal weekend was a visit to the Atwater Market. The place was heaving with the autumn harvest, outdoor stalls piled high with tidy arrangements of fresh fruit and vegetables. Above is a crop of hot peppers, their skins warming in the morning sunshine.

And here are future jack-o-lanterns, or pumpkin soup, depending their buyer.

Vitamin B never tasted so good.

And this profusion of mums is hard to resist

The Cheddar Chronicles

Hello. My name is Cheddar. Yes, Cheddar. You may ask why an intelligent-looking black-and-white domestic longhair bears the name of orange cheese. Well, I too have wondered.

First off, let me say that I am not named for the orange cheese. I am called after Cheddar, the English village where the cheese was invented. And if you're thinking "no, I'm afraid that still doesn't make sense," then you are not alone. It doesn't make sense.

I was not born in Cheddar. I have never lived in Cheddar. I have not visited nor have I any wish to visit Cheddar. I do not even like cheese.

So why am I called Cheddar? Well, you see "They" used to live in the English village of Cheddar. And in their widsom They decided that They wanted some small token of Cheddar in their lives. So I, the intelligent domestic longhair, get slapped with the ridiculous name of Cheddar.

This rather undignified photograph shows me tolerating the games the "Little Theys" play with me. The Little Theys thought I would look cute in a blue beret with a pink feather sticking out the top. Please refrain from laughing as I have my pride.

More chronicles of a long-hair, long-suffering domestic feline in the days and weeks to come.

Down with bottom feeders VI

This just in. The influential Central Canadian blog Reject the Koolaid has announced that it is throwing its muscle behind the moratorium on deep seas trawling.

RTK, long known for its work on softwood lumber and escalator croc attacks, has joined the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Brazil and The Gifted Typist in supporting the campaign to stop bottom trawling in international waters. The practice is a home wrecker for fish habitats and corals on the ocean floor.

The Gifted Typist is thrilled to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with RTK, Coral Clad, marine scientists and responsible nations on this issue. Conservative Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has said he will not support the morratorium which will be put to to a vote at the United Nations in December.

Mr. Sinclair

We won't refer to the late Lister Sinclair as an icon or a renaissance man. He did not like these words being used to describe him. He was a broadcaster, playwright and a public intellectual. In Canada he was widely known as the host of the CBC radio program Ideas.

Lister Sinclair died this week at the age of 85.

Born in India and raised in England he brought a sharp intellect and world view to the topics he explored, everything from the arts, to mathematics, geography and global politics, big and small.

This typist spend many evenings hunched over the keyboard with Lister Sinclair's gentle radio voice in the backdrop. For years, I wondered why they always introduced him as Mr. Sinclair. I wondered if he had a first name. In a funny way, Mr. Sinclair seemed a title befitting the man. And it still is.

He was a model for what public broadcasting can be and should be. He will be greatly missed.

Down with bottom feeders V

Who says that the good people of central Canada aren't concerned about the oceans and the issue of high seas trawling?

The Gifted Typist's campaign to for a moratorium on this distructive practice has brought interest from friends at Reject the Koolaid. Based in Quebec and Ontario, this group of commentators has long advocated on the softwood lumber issue.

Now the fine folks at RTK are directing traffic to Gifted Typist posts on deep seas trawling.

The Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn has said he will not support a moratorium on deep seas trawling when the United Nations votes on the issue in December. In doing so the minister is parting ways with US, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, Brazil and The Gifted Typist who have all called for the moratorium.

This typist, Coral Clad and all the folks at the deepseas.blogspot.com thank RTK for their attention to this cause and hope for their official declaration of support.

Visit RTK now, and make a pitch for their support.

Favourite quote from a drama critic

"They should have cut the third act and the throat of the child."

Noel Coward reviewing the West End musical Gone with the Wind, starring child actress Bonny Langford.

Words that should be banned: domestic dispute II

Sadly, we are forced to revisit one of our most serious cases of WTSBB.

Three people were shot to death in their house in a Montreal suburb in what police have described as a domestic dispute.

The victims were Alice 10, her sister Iva 17, and their mother Mila, 40. They were shot in the head with a handgun.

Father and husband Dragolube Tzokovitch, 41, is on life support with a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police suspect that the case is a triple murder followed by an attempted suicide.

If a man walked into a restaurant, a sports facility or a mall and shot three people in the head, would we refer to the crime as a restaurant dispute, a sporting facility dispute or a mall dispute? No. We would call it a restaurant massacre, a sporting facility shooting, a mall slaughter.

This typist doubts that domestic dispute would be the favoured term if a son were to shoot his father in the head.

So why do police and the news media insist on diminishing the deaths of women and children at the hand of their father or husband by referring to the act as a dispute? Are they suggesting that the crime is less serious or tragic by using a term that is less potent? I don't think so.

Why not call it a domestic massacre, a domestic slaughter, a domestic murder?

How many of these tragedies will it take before police and typists in the news media find a proper dictionary and word more befitting the gravity of this crime?

A moving poem

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Down with the bottom feeders IV

Where's Loyola?

Last Friday, the Canadian Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced that Canada would not support an international moratorium on the destructive practice of trawling the ocean floor.

But rather than standing before the cameras, microphones and notepads of the news media to deliver his message, the minister issued a statement. Minister Hearn was not available for interviews because the statement was issued on the Friday afternoon before the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend when most people are enjoying the harvest and not following the news.

The following week when the CBC radio news program The Current covered the issue, the minister was again unavailable for interview.

This typist has yet to see or hear Minister Hearn put his face or voice to reporters' questions on this issue. Does the minister realize that this sends out a mixed signal.

If he stands firmly behind his decision not to support the moratorium - against the stand taken by the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Norway and Brazil who are supporting the morartorium - then why won't he come forward and talk to us?

A cynic might say that Minister Hearn's media managers have advised him against appearing on camera or on live radio to say he is against an international moratorium on high seas trawling. A cynic might say that this would look bad on Minister Hearn who is a member of a minority government that could fall at any time.

So come on Loyola, show your face on this one, talk to us, prove the cynics wrong.

Monster fossil find? Sorry, you're too late

News of a monster fossil find in the Svaldbard Archipelago north of Norway has come as a great surprise to this typist.

Scientists have discovered fossilized skeletons belonging to predatory creatures described as long-necked reptiles resembling a mix of tortoise and snake. Other finds include large-headed and short-necked reptiles.

One gigantic skeleton, nicknamed The Monster, is said to resemble a sea lion with a crocodile skull in the front. It has dinner-plate-sized neck vertebrae, and a lower jaw with teeth the size of bananas.

Well, all I can say is where were these scientists when this typist was doing the singles bars in her twenties? Because I can assure them that the population of male predatory reptiles fitting these descriptions was in great abundance.

Some had fish-like scales and a thick covering of slime. Others were coy and sneaky, not to be trusted. Some were slow and fat-necked with sub-epsilon intelligence quotients, while many, curiously, were in fact invertebrates.

I often wondered how a reptile with no backbone could stand at a bar drinking beer after beer, expecting to attract a female? Who knows? Perhaps they were really just fossils.

Down with bottom feeders III

This typist was very disappointed to learn that Canada's minority Conservative government has refused to support a moratorium on deep seas bottom trawling.

Just days after President George Bush threw his muscle behind this cause, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn announced that Canada would not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, Norway, Brazil and The Gifted Typist who have all called for the moratorium.

Bottom trawling, a fisheries practice which has been compared to forestry clear cutting, is endangering fish and coral habitats of the world's oceans, according to scientists who study the oceans.

This typist can't help but notice how this case brings together the two similar words of "conservation" and "Conservative" and the irony of how polar opposite the two definitions are in matters which concern the environment.

Coral Clad and her friends in the High Seas Trawling Moratorium group are gutted by this decision but still hopeful that the United Nations will vote in favour of the moratorium in December.

Perhaps Fisheries Minister Hearn would like to hear what people think. After all, he is still a member in a minority government which could fall at any time.

Favourite Monday morning quote

Start every day off with a smile
and get it over with.
W. C. Fields
-US actor (1880 - 1946)

Old words that should be brought back: swive

Today we begin a new series: Old Words That Should Be Brought Back.

This series addresses the imbalance created by our Words That Should Be Banned Series. If you take words away from a language, then you are duty-bound to give back.

And so, I give you our first old word in this series: swive.

In the 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue "to swive" is defined as: to copulate.

Middle Ages scribe (they didn't type back then) Geoffrey Chaucer brought us "swive" in The Manciple's Tale of his Canterbury Tales when he wrote "For on thy bed thy wife I saw him swive."

What Chaucer's narrator is doing here is breaking the news that someone's wife was getting into a little bit of the old rumpy pumpy with someone who was not her husband. Furthermore, the person who was not her husband was swiving the wife on the bed of the husband.

And who said the Middle Ages were boring?

This typist thanks a very learned typist for offering up "swive" for this series.

Eastern epicurean extravaganza

In the summer, this typist put down the keyboard and escaped to Prince Edward Island to indulge in a memorable gastronomic extravaganza. In the starring role was the Atlantic Canadian lobster. They may look like insects, but crack one open and you have nectar of the gods.

And then there were the very succulent Malpeque oysters, raw of course for the taste of the sea.

This Galician tapas treat Pimientos de Padron also featured prominently. This is the dish famously drooled over by writer and foodie Calvin Trillin in Gourmet Magazine, November 1999. Eat your heart out, Calvin.

And finally dessert, the full moon rising through the grass of the Northumberland shore. There was no room for anything else.

Down with bottom feeders II

There have been some exciting developments in the global campaign for a moratorium on high seas trawling.

You may recall this typist's roadside encounter with the lovely Coral Clad who raised my consciousness on this matter with a wave of her placard in early September.

Well, we now hear that US President George Bush has got the message and is calling for an end destructive fishing practices, such as unregulated bottom trawling on the high seas.

The president has pledged to work with other countries and international organizations to "eliminate unregulated destructive fishing practices that jeopardize fish stocks and the habitats that support them." He called for the enhancement of sustainable fishing practices and and end to destructive fishing practices, such as unregulated bottom trawling.

And last week New Zealand announced that it would work with Australia to seek the support of other nations for an immediate moratorium on high seas bottom trawling.

This will come as very good news to my friends at the High Seas Moratorium Now campagin. With the help of people like Coral Clad, they have been been posting pictures of people, famous and not so famous, to their website. All are calling for an end to the trawling of the ocean floor.

While heartened by this international support, Coral Clad and her High Seas Moratorium friends are anxious for Canada to join New Zealand, Australia and the United State in their call for a ban on high seas trawling.

Contact Canada's Fisheries minister Loyola Hearn to discover if Canada will support the ban on high seas trawling.

Words that should be banned: domestic dispute

Today's words: domestic dispute.

When a man is charged with murdering his wife and four children, it is called a "domestic dispute."

The man in question, a Mr. Michael Simmons of North Charleston, South Carolina, allegedly entered the home of the family and shot the victims with a handgun on Sunday, October 1. He then tried to drive away.

The children's ages were 6, 8, 13, and 16. The mother was 39.

This typist felt that that the term "domestic dispute" might have understated the crime somewhat. So, I consulted my Oxford Online Dictionary.

Domestic, used as an adjective is defined as:
1 relating to a home or family affairs or relations.
2 of or for use in the home.

Dispute used as a noun is defined as
1 an argument.
2 a disagreement between management and employees that leads to industrial action.

Nowhere under the terms "domestic" or "dispute" did I find the words "murder wife and four children with a handgun." In fact, I did not see any reference to killing, shooting, or conducting oneself in a violent manner.

A domestic dispute occurs when two occupants of the same household argue over who should take out the garbage or tidy up the dishes after supper. Sometimes domestic disputes can occur over issues of an emotional nature. A domestic dispute can even lead to divorce.

But does dispute denote murder? In war, are soldiers killed in military disputes? No.They are killed in an ambush or attack. Sometimes it is a slaughter. But when a man shoots his wife and her four children, the act is reduced to a dispute of a domestic nature.

What a pity that the typists in the media and law enforcement institutions choose to diminish this crime with their ill-choosen words.

Lost in translation

This Miyaco faux '50s leather handbag was purchased in Montreal this past weekend.

Its virtues as a handbag are obvious from the photograph, but they get somewhat lost in translation. That said, the typist who did this Cantonese-to-English translation has done a job far superior to anything this typist could have done from English to Cantonese.

Here is the translation:
Peng's Keyuan leather production limited company was found in 1996. which focus at leather producing and selling. Our product is designed for white gets who are young energetic and characteristic. Our product with the brand of miyaco such as suit, take, leather belt, travel bag, silver bag etc., has become The favour of those consumer with fragrant personal status and we also win reputation in the business line. With successful Management Peng's keyuan company with muti Material, muti-series, and muti-species, production scale. Now it has more than 100 chain stores in USA, Russia, France and middle east region a sales net all round the world.