The Rye Diary » Rants

Obama and the 56 yard field goal

Tom Henheffer — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:08:55 +0000

FOOTBALL

There’s 3 seconds left and we’re down by two. A 56 yarder is our only chance. Obama’s our kicker. But the thing is, if he misses and we lose, its 100% our fault.

We allowed it to come to this. Its because we started out slow in the first, the O line was sloppy and gave up sacks. Our QB couldn’t hit the recievers, and we didn’t improve much as the game went on. And things were bad before the game. We are the coaches that weren’t strong enough in practice and didn’t lay down the fundamentals. We’re the linebacker that’s always out clubbing and showing up hungover. We’re the management that doesn’t give the team what it needs. Instead we’re concentrating on whether or not we can jack up the beer prices fifteen cents.

I figured I'd show Tom Brady getting sacked because I hate the Patriots. Sue me.

If Obama makes the kick we don’t even win, we just get a chance to win. And after this game comes a lot more. If we don’t make changes we’ll be in the same situation, one play left and an almost impossible kick to tie it up. We keep letting this happen and we’re not making the playoffs.

Understand what I’m saying? We’ve been irresponsible. And I don’t just mean Americans, Canadians, Britons, those oft-retreating French, everybody (and not just in the west). We’ve been putting self interest ahead of common interest, getting drunk at clubs and jacking up beer prices instead of concentrating on the game and doing what needs to be done. We’ve been sloppy players in the game of life. Now its the end of the fourth quarter and we’re losing. Obama’s stepping up, and we’re asking him for change. But Obama is nothing but the kicker. He can keep us in the game, but he can’t carry the whole team. We need to get responsible. We need to plan ahead, make sacrifices and work hard. We need to make the changes so we don’t have to rely on a kicker to always save us in the fourth. And we can’t blame him when he misses. No one can consistently hit a 56 yarder.

Plus his middle name's Hussein. You really want to trust a kicker named Hussein?

Oldboy?!! Jesus Christ

Tom Henheffer — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:13:20 +0000

Oooh look at me, I'm a family friendly box-office draw.

Alright, this is my first real blog post. This is supposed to be an archive of my journalistic works, but movies are a passion of mine, talking about them is kind of journalistic, and this has to do with movies. For anyone that hasn’t heard (or isn’t as much of a film Geek as I am), my subtly conveyed frustration in the title is over the Stephen Spielberg directed, Will Smith starring, Oldboy adaptation. It is going to cause Park Chan-wook (the director of the original) to roll over in his grave. Yeah he’s alive but this travesty has to have given him a heart attack. I suppose Mr. Park probably gave the rights to Spielberg, and that pisses me off too. Maybe it was purely the author of the graphic novel the original movie was based on, I don’t know how these Hollywood things work.

I had heard that Park said he would never allow his movie to be made again, because a remake could never be as perfect. And it won’t be, because Park’s work was perfect. The hallway scene? Incredible, I mean one take! Children of Man had nothing on that (although that movie was also sweet, and very underrated). Say

A suicidal guy shot himself, cause' the main character didn't want to stop him. Think Big Willy Style'll do that?

what you want about Oldboy’s twist ending, but it was ballsy and, unlike… let’s say Lone Star, well earned. The movie fit perfectly in Park’s vengeance trilogy. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance were almost as good. They didn’t have the Hollywood structure Oldboy did (altough it’s content was far from Hollywood), but they were still brilliant (and very underrated) films. No point in going into the plots of them, but suffice it to say that everyone should check them out.

So now to bitch about Spielberg and Smith. Well, frankly they both suck lately. Will Smith was great as the lovable diamond in the rough from down home Phillie, when he was the Fresh Prince. But his goofy charms have worn off since he’s become a bat shit-insane Scientologist with an, “open marriage.” C’mon Will, uncle Phil would not be happy about the whole boning-other-chicks-but-my-wife’s-cool-about-it thing. I guess he’s an alright actor, but as far as I can see he’s never made anything particularly interesting, Men in Black didn’t expand the human consciousness, Hancock was as bland as plain toast and, well, fuck the Pursuit of Happyness (ah, I get it, you used y instead of I. Cunt). He will not be able to pull of the emotional, tortured role Oldboy demands, although I’m willing to bet that role will be dumbed down a bit by the director.

And that brings me to Spielberg (catch that segue anyone?). Yup, he’s made some incredible movies. Schindler’s List? Incredible, even if a lot of film professors disagree. Indiana Jones? Fell in love with them as a kid, every single one is a favorite (I’ll revisit this statement). Jaws? Kicks ass, plus it had Roy Schneider in it. But jaws has a drawback. I mean, I can’t solely blame it for creating a culture where Hollywood gets away

He takes out, like, 50 henchmen using the back of a hammer. Violently. I don't think Fresh Prince'll step up

with making every goddamn movie for 14 year olds, but Spielberg created the blockbuster. Just one other point. He made Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Not an Indiana Jones movie, it sucked too hard to be in that trilogy. Just like Star Wars one, two and three (God George Lucas blows) . I know it’s been said a million times but aliens? Fuck. And Shia LeBeouf? Think of it this way. If Short-round was the series’ Jar-Jar Binks, Shia LeBeouf is Hitler. But still, I admit that Munich was a good movie, Saving Private Ryan certainly had its moments, and Spielberg produced Letters From Iwo Jima, which was fantastic (although that was because of Clint Eastwood).

What it comes down to is this. Spielberg and Will Smith put together do not smell of Schindler’s List. They don’t smell like Close Encounters of the Third Kind. They smell like Minority Report, they smell like Jurassic Park 3. They smell like a big box office grab, going in with critically acclaimed material and focus grouping the ever-loving shit out of it until it has the artistic merit of drunk frat-boy puke.

To paraphrase a fictional character (well the guy who wrote the fictional character); if they’re releasing a remake of a classic, go see the goddamn classic. This is what’s ruining the movie industry. If the new Oldboy does well, even if it’s very well made and doesn’t sodomize the original story, … well I’m not going to do anything except get more pissed off, and maybe write a second real blog post.

Douche.

Harper never had a Goddamn mandate!

Tom Henheffer — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 00:08:17 +0000

The official lesser of two evils.

It’s true, he never had a legitimate right to rule.

A majority of Canadians did not elect a minority Conservative government, despite what the party line has been saying. It’s a bald faced lie. Why? Because an overwhelming minority of Canadians (36.7%) voted for them, and a huge majority voted for leftist parties (62.4%). Know what that means? It means Canadians don’t want a far right party in charge for Christ’s sake.

And Harper is far right. In the past the difference between the Liberal and Conservative parties have been fairly negligible, generally they’re both centrist. But Harper is taking it to a new level. As far as I can tell he’s an Adam Smith loving Neo-liberal, he wants a small government.

But I’ll dig into the conservatives later. First I need to say this; A coalition government has a much more legitimate mandate to rule than the Cons. In a Canadian system it doesn’t matter which party gets the most seat, the person who gets to be Prime Minister is the one who has the most support in the house. Canadians elected a majority of left-leaning MP’s, and (say what you want about this being a power grab) its time that they stick up for what we want. Stephan Dione might not be the best leader, but the fact is that as parliament stands right now, he has the most support. As such, under our electoral conventions, he has the right to rule.

So, on to our current PM. The biggest problem I have with Harper? Business regulations. Notice what a de-centralized, de-regulated market has got us recently? Yeah, exactly. I just hope a coalition government is smart enough to ensure markets can’t get so ridiculously out of hand. Not to mention the other bullshit Harper’s come up with, cutting massive amounts of funding from woman’s and homeless shelters, (the homeless shelter in Fredericton is in serious trouble thanks to that, which could see people thrown to the streets just as winter starts), his insanely strict laws that will try 14 year-olds as adults, and cutting a bunch of money from arts programs (which was just a dick move to make him look like a man’s man who hates those artsy fags; too bad it backfired and cost him Quebec in the last election). But I could go on for hours about how much of a jackass Harper is.

Now, I’ll admit, this idea of forming a coalition government is coming at a bad time. Frankly, I think they should have thrown out Harper at his throne speech and be done with it, but I don’t know what people would have thought about that. But you know what, this might not be such a bad time. Yeah, there’s the economic crisis, but a new government can probably implement a budget almost as quickly as the one in power now. The thing is, the leftist parties had to stop legislation Harper wanted to introduce. Removing the right to strike from public-sector unions? That is fucking terrible. But you know what is much, much worse? Killing public subsidies for political parties.

Sure he's a douche too, but these guys deserve a bit of power after all these years

As far as I’m concerned, that would have crippled the legitimacy of our political system. Why? Because it would destroy the Green and NDP parties, essentially making Canada a two party system. The polls show Canadians want those extra parties, and our democracy would not look the same without them. We sure as hell wouldn’t have universal healthcare without the NDP. You’re living in a dream world if you think parties don’t need money to get votes, and without public subsidies, those two parties would be totally broke.

And another thing, this subsidies cut would have given the Conservatives a huge advantage over the Liberals(The Conservatives are way, way better at fund raising, so they don’t really need the public subsidies). This was an extremely thinly veiled move by Harper to secure his power for a very long time, by using very sneaky and underhanded methods. He did it at the start of his second term in office, because he figured by the next election people would have forgotten about it. Well guess what you asshole, the plan backfired.

When Harper heard the coalition was coming he couldn’t back peddle fast enough. Now I think taking shots at a politician for flip-flopping is a ridiculous thing to do. I believe, that like all reasonable people, politicians have to re-think their positions as situations change and new facts come to light. But this is different. Harper’s a fucking crook who got caught with his dick in a warm apple pie. So, as far as I’m concerned, this threat of a coalition is perfect. Say what you want, it saved Canadian multi-party democracy. Even if it doesn’t wind up happening, I’ll be happy simply because they stopped Harper from getting his nuttiest legislation through the house.

Oh, and by the way, if the fucking Canadian Labour Congress, our countries biggest union, is coming out against the Conservatives, then they’re probably doing something pretty fucking wrong. Wrong, like cutting back to keep a surplus. That’s fucking retarded, that is literally doing nothing to help the crisis, which means it’ll only make it worse in the long run. It’s just trying to keep up appearances for the public so they think nothings wrong. Jesus Christ that pisses me off.

One last thing. There is nothing wrong with this coalition government forming, it’s totally legit in the political system we have and follows all our conventions. But if Harper tries any shit like suspending Parliament to avoid the no confidence votes (which that demagogue asshole is planning on doing), that is fucked and goes way over the line. Sure this coalition talk is coming at a bad time, but suspending Parliament would make it take waaaaaaay longer to address the financial crisis. It’s even worse if he asks the Queen to sack the Governor General so she can’t appoint a new PM. Harper, you cuntwad, That goes against the wishes of your people and against all the checks and balances of our political systems. Oh, and shut the hell up about the separatists. Yeah, separatism is bullshit but they’re not going to have any real power in this government, so quit being a dick.

He wants to eat that cat.