First of all, I would just like to say that I was very glad to see The Departed emerge victorious during last weekend's Academy Awards as Best Picture and Best Director for Martin Scorsese. Well deserved.If you've noticed a break between posts, it has everything to do with the other stuff I keep myself busy with in my other life. I'm actually the campaign manager for a campaign of which I will not mention here. Ask me on March 9.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming Spring session of the Alberta Legislature. Just as I was excited when Alberta Liberal Leader Kevin Taft announced an aggressive legislative agenda in the face of the "Conservative oppositon" as Taft called the Stelmach Tories, my good friend Duncan seems just as excited about Stelmach. It should be interesting to see how the session plays out. Rookie Premier, rookie Ministers, new dynamic within the Tory caucus. Power politics at play. Does the opposition smells blood? All-party committees? Two upcoming by-elections!
Will Alberta be raised to the level of legislative democracy shared by such beacons of democracy as the Republic of Vanuatu and the Federated States of Micronesia? We shall see.
Also, on another note, municipal politics are heating up in Edmonton as Councillors and Councillors-to-be are buying new walking shoes and warming up their campaign engines for an October 2007 election...
When did we begin awarding celebrity impersonators with Academy Award nominations and wins? It occured to me this year when the King and Queen won that the critics and members are going gaga over mimics and apers. Where did the original performance get lost? I did some thinking and recalled that last years leading actor for Truman Capote won over Edward R Murrow. In 2004, Ray Charles beat out Matthew Barrie, Paul Rusesabagina, and Howard Hughes. Back further, Hurrican Carter, Larry Flint, Ghandi, have been nominated.
ReplyDeleteBest actress has had QE2 and June Carter as winners over the last two years and Virginia Woolf and Erin Brockovitch and QE1 in recent memory. Even the supporting categories have performances that are recognized as personalities or caricatures of them. Eddie Murphy’s first nomination for portraying James Brown while Catherine Keener was Harper Lee and Cate Blanchett won with her potrayal of Katherine Hepburn.
Is this a surprise to anyone else or have I just not been paying attention?
Vanuatu? I think that's one of the countries vying for the title of "first nation to disappear from rising sea levels", isn't it?
ReplyDeleteMy prediction for the session: Taft and his fellow "Shadow Conservatives" will be taken down a notch or two (especially on the whole democracy thing) when Dan Backs gets up the nerve to come out guns a-blazing in the media.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Spring Session...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200703/211071361F065-A1D4-BF0B-9CC60C864A6C83C3.html
He should have won for Goodfellas, thr departred was just OK. It was his "I guess it's time we let him win one" moment. Kinda like Pacino in Scent of a woman.
ReplyDeleteThe minute Dan Backs steps in front of the microphones is the very same minute all Albertans understand why he was kicked out of the Liberal caucus.
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