A meandering brain dump
For whatever reason, today I don't feel like posting on an actual topic. Either my head is too full of stuff that just has to get out quickly, or I'm just too tired to organize my thoughts into coherent posts. Now that I write that, it is most likely the latter - child #2 has had a cold this week and all of our sleeps have suffered from it. Anyway, I thank you for your forebearance and forgive you if you decide to leave without reading further.
I guess another reason my thoughts wax and wane today is that I am going through a kind of "attention transition". As the national political scene settles down and the threat of a quick election fades with the BQ and Tories forming an unholy alliance of sorts, my attention is drawn once again to international issues. And being Canadian after 12 years of Chretien-Martin isolation, where foreign policy really was used as a lever for business access and little else, philosophical wanking has taken the place of actual involvement. I am now typing with one hand.
On foreign policy, my hope for a Harper government is that we do become a more international nation. He has certainly made overtures to that end, though by pissing on Kyoto he has also made some early missteps. I'm sure I won't agree to his version of internationalism, which will tie us ever more tightly to American foreign policy, but at least he aknowledges we share the same planet with these other bipeds, a fact that appeared to slip by Chretien and Martin as they chased balanced budgets and spent 8 years patting each other on the backs for having found it. I'm OK with having to say "sorry" to the rest of the world after Harper's tenure as PM - at least he'll have reintroduced us to the planet.
Naturally, if Stephen Harper confuses the terms foreign policy and military, as has been done in recent years all too often in the US, I am prepared to eat every single syllable in that paragraph. I have a sneaky feeling after our recent discussions on Afghanistan, that verbiage might well become part of my diet in the near future.
Oh well.
I guess another reason my thoughts wax and wane today is that I am going through a kind of "attention transition". As the national political scene settles down and the threat of a quick election fades with the BQ and Tories forming an unholy alliance of sorts, my attention is drawn once again to international issues. And being Canadian after 12 years of Chretien-Martin isolation, where foreign policy really was used as a lever for business access and little else, philosophical wanking has taken the place of actual involvement. I am now typing with one hand.
On foreign policy, my hope for a Harper government is that we do become a more international nation. He has certainly made overtures to that end, though by pissing on Kyoto he has also made some early missteps. I'm sure I won't agree to his version of internationalism, which will tie us ever more tightly to American foreign policy, but at least he aknowledges we share the same planet with these other bipeds, a fact that appeared to slip by Chretien and Martin as they chased balanced budgets and spent 8 years patting each other on the backs for having found it. I'm OK with having to say "sorry" to the rest of the world after Harper's tenure as PM - at least he'll have reintroduced us to the planet.
Naturally, if Stephen Harper confuses the terms foreign policy and military, as has been done in recent years all too often in the US, I am prepared to eat every single syllable in that paragraph. I have a sneaky feeling after our recent discussions on Afghanistan, that verbiage might well become part of my diet in the near future.
Oh well.
