This is a regular segment every Friday in which I search for the most beautiful photographs on the internet, and post them here for your enjoyment. This week we have one reader submission. You can see previous weeks by clicking on the WordPress tag. If you have a picture you think is suitable for Friday Photography, you can contact me: rphl_lxndr at yahoo dot ca
Location: Crimson Lake near Rocky Mountain House Alberta. Photographer: Robert Cox [reader submission]
None. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. They have obdurately refused to comply by the rule of law which this government says it upholds. There isn’t even any justification for it worth listening to. None whatsoever.
A Federal Court ordered the government on June 4 to return Abousfian Abdelrazik to Canada within 30 days of the ruling, and said had 15 days to come up with a plan on his repatriation. What we are witnessing here is the executive branch of Canada refusing to abide by the judicial and legislative system in which it forms a partnership as the government that rules over it’s citizens. This isn’t an instance where a person is facing serious charges before a military tribunal, such as Omar Khadr. This isn’t an instance where the person has committed crimes or murder, such as Ronald Allen Smith. This isn’t an instance where the person has even been found to be an associate of terrorism or crime. The RCMP and CSIS have publicly exonerated Abousfian Abdelrazik of any wrongdoing.
This is your government refusing to abide by the laws of it’s own country.
Abousfian Abdelrazik had a plane ticket to return to Canada today, paid for by independent Canadians [wouldn't have cost the government a red cent], which would have taken him through the United Arab Emirates to his home in Montreal. But Mr.Abdelrazik wasn’t allowed on the plane, because Mr.Abdelrazik was not issued a passport by his own government. In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Section 6 it reads:
Mobility of citizens
6. (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada.
The executive branch of this government is derelict in refusing to abide by the constitutional rights of one of it’s citizens, by the Charter rights of one of it’s citizens, and by the legal and legislative authorities that guide it.
The Foreign Affairs minister Lawrence Cannon refused to answer questions about Mr.Abdelrazik in the House of Commons today, showing a contempt for both Parliament and for Canadians. He wouldn’t even get up out of his chair. The only statement made by the government today, was by Daniel Petit, the junior justice minister, who said that they would make a decision at an “opportune moment.”
The opportune moment has come and gone. If the government refuses to abide by the rulings of it’s own judicial powers, or by the constitutional rights that protect Canadian citizens, then truly the documents that defend our rights as citizens aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
David Letterman apologized on his show on Wednesday night, for the controversy surrounding his remarks about Sarah Palin. Well, he didn’t actually apologize about his sexist remarks involving her appearance, or the inference that her daughter is promiscuous, or even to Alex Rodriguez for involving him in the tastelessness. No, in fact his version of an apology was to explain, in a rather condescending and lecturing tone, that he would never make jokes about an underage girl, and that he had made a mistake in believing that the daughter who had attended the baseball game with Governor Palin was not 18-year-old Bristol, but 14-year-old Willow.
What I suppose strikes me most about his non-apology, is that he seems frustrated and exasperated by the need to give an explanation at all. His tone is as if he is annoyed he even needs to explain why it’s appropriate to make fun of the elder daughter and not the younger one. It’s almost as though he quite literally can’t understand why some people would be offended by the concept that a joke about a political figure’s daughter is already across the line, but he does seem to grasp how people under 18 should not be inferred in sexual jokes. 18-year-olds, on the other hand, are apparently completely fair game:
These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping, or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. [laughter] I don’t think it’s funny! I would never think it was funny. I would never put it in a joke. Here’s where you draw the line. Yes, maybe these are questionable because the girl who was, excuse me, but was “knocked up”, [laughter] is now 18 years-old. So the difference there is 14-years-old and illegal age… ok, now I can’t really defend the joke. I agree. Unpleasant, ugly. But I would never, never think that it was funny to use a 14-year-old girl as a joke like this for God’s sakes.
Were the jokes in questionable taste? Of course they were! [laughter] Do I regret having told them? Well, I think probably I do. But you know what? There are thousands of jokes I regret telling on this program [laughter]. Would I do anything to advocate or contribute to underage sexual abuse or misconduct? Absolutely not. Not in a thousand years. Look at me! Do I look like I’m trying to make trouble? [laughter]
Here’s what’s disgusting about his response in front of the safety and security of his sycophantic laughing and clapping audience. Does he apologize? No, he doesn’t. Does he actually say the words “I am sorry”? No, in fact he doesn’t even come close. What he does do is continue to justify, create excuses for, and defend what he did as a misunderstanding.
I don’t think David Letterman intended to make fun of the statutory raping of a 14-year-old girl. But he did say that it’s entirely appropriate to refer to a sitting Governor of Alaska as a “slutty flight attendant” [you've come a long way, baby]; he did say that it’s entirely appropriate to make fun of her 18-year-old daughter who got, excuse him, “knocked up” [the first time in the history of the human species that has happened to the daughter of a conservative]; he did say that what he did was “unpleasant” and “ugly”. But here’s what he’s not saying. He’s not apologizing to the Governor, or even really mentioning her at all. He didn’t apologize to the elder daughter, the intent of the joke that she’s promiscuous simply because she had a child out of wedlock. He didn’t apologize to the younger daughter either, since all he did was explain it was a misunderstanding. Look at the text again.
He explains away the controversy by making light of the fact that he’s told thousands of jokes he regrets telling over the years. Do you see the deflection there? Do you see what he does by minimizing it as merely being part of his job to tell jokes in poor taste? What was necessary, and what was appropriate here was an unequivocal apology, probably best read from a teleprompter so he would leave nothing out, including the words “I am” and “sorry”. Instead he decides to fly by the cuff of his pants, and falls miserably flat on his face, making him look worse than he did before. When Michael Richards famously appeared on David Letterman to apologize for the “n-word” standup routine, Letterman milked that fiasco for all it was worth in late night humour. But when the shoe is on the other foot, he offers a hollow and spluttering justification of it just being another of thousands of jokes he’s made in poor taste that he “probably” regrets making.
What Letterman needs to do now, is to go before the press, make an unequivocal apology from a prepared statement, and make it clear that jokes involving the family of politicians and celebrities has crossed a line that has led to a dangerously shallow and immoral level of debasement of both women and children.
