Highlights of Life

I see the irony… but does anyone see the gravity?

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2006/08/29/harper-sitcom.html

So apparently the Prime Minister of Canada flew into Saskatchewan to film his sitcom appearance. He played himself (the PM), and gave an interview to a gaggle of actors playing media reporters. Meanwhile the true group of reporters that gathered to interview the PM were left “cooling their heels hundreds of meters away”…

Oh what irony. The Prime Minister of Canada will spend time to be interviewed by fake reporters, but actually goes out of his way to avoid the real ones. Ironic.  Or maybe thats the reality he wants…

I just can’t picture George Dubya Bush appearing on a sitcom. Somehow, it seems the presidential role holds more gravity and seriousness than the Prime ministerial role.

What a shame that PM holds his role so lightly. I just hope he doesn’t blow away in the wind.

Stephen Harper on TV sitcom???!!!

So today, I noticed in the paper that Stephen Harper, the PM of Canada is going to be appearing on a TV sitcom as himself. Here is a link to one article about his appearance:

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2007/03/07/3710293-cp.html

uh…. The last time I checked, the Canadian taxpayers’ monies were to be used to for salaries of federal employees who served Canada. Can someone please tell me what part of the Prime Minister’s job description includes acting on a tv sitcom, and memorizing script lines???!!!

I just hope that Mr. Stephen Harper has decided that his 2nd career shouldn’t be done at the taxpayer’s expense, and hopefully took an upaid vacation day for furthering his acting career.

I try not to get too idealistic about politics, and certainly understand that making it as an end-all, be-all solution to all the world woes is simply futile. However, for the many dollars the PM gets paid every year, every month, every day, every hour and every minute, I would think he would at least try to use his time to better the welfare of the general Canadian. But the acting stint only seems to benefit Mr. Harper himself, namely name recognition, increased propaganda and increased fame.

Perhaps, just perhaps… Mr. Harper should spend more time in front of the cameras that can actually question his actions (i.e. infront of journalists) and that are more relevant to his job description, rather than doing this one-way propaganda in this sitcom. From what I understand, he has clamped down on press conferences to keep a tight reign of control on media portrayal of himself as well as his party. I wonder what he is so afraid of? I thought democracy was about questions and answers. Even George Bush, with all his grammatical blunders and sometimes brain infarcts seems to be undaunted by the press.

http://www.law.ualberta.ca/centres/ccs/Current-Constitutional-Issues/

Freedom-of-Expression—Current-Sub-Issues/

Freedom-on-the-Press-and-Prime-Minister-Harpers-Media-Policy.php

What is the federal Canadian government coming to? All glory and not guts. He talks about decreasing federal deficits, and then spends his valuable time memorizing script lines and going to a set of a tv show to do some acting. Well… hopefully his body guards also took unpaid vacation days as well for protecting him while he was acting. We won’t even get into the issue of his chauffeur.

Perhaps he got his script mailed to his home residence (thereby not occupying any valuable federal resources), and didn’t spend time reading his script, and simply drove himself to the acting studio (without a chauffeur), and didn’t have any body guards to protect him, and didn’t use his cell phone or blackberry during his acting stint (which of course the taxpayers are paying for as well).

Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Stephen Harper has some sense of work ethics…. and actually thought that appearing on a tv sitcom actually helped out the average citizen? Yes, and maybe I was just born yesterday.

Ah… I’ll stop ranting now. grrr.