Dear Margaret Wente,

So I woke up the other day ready for a leisurely morning with my coffee and The Globe and Mail. And then I reached your interview with Tom Flanagan and my peaceful morning was ruined. As I read your words, my anger mounted. After just a few paragraphs I knew exactly where you were heading. I've been reading you for years, Margaret Wente. Quite often, you make me shake my head in disbelief, like when you say worries about rape on college campuses are overblown. But, as Bill Maher is fond of saying, I try not to live in a bubble. I'm a Lefty, yes, but I try to see the merits in both sides of an argument. So I'll admit you're an intelligent woman and that once in a while you make a good point. But not this time. This time you went too far.
In discussing what Tom Flanagan calls The Incident, his lecture at The University of Lethbridge last year which proved to be career ending due to his comments about child pornography, you refer to the native activists who recorded his statements as "unusually hostile" and "out to get him". Not once do you suggest they might have legitimate reasons to be angry with the man who opposes the rights of First Nations, who recommends taking tribal lands out from under the protection of treaties, and who referred to the residential school system as "visionary". You know, those residential schools with their policies of forced assimilation and attempts to, as Stephen Harper himself put it, "kill the Indian in the child"? There's a documentary called We Were Children which depicts just how visionary those schools were. But no, any anger or hostility Native Canadians feel for this man must be irrational and unwarranted. And how very hostile and underhanded indeed to ask the man a question based on his own prior statements and then to video his response. Boy, they sure tricked him!
The controversial statement Tom Flanagan made was that he disagrees with mandatory jail time for someone who has a particular taste in pictures. You say that you think he has a point, and how silly it is to incarcerate someone for carrying "an obscene Japanese comic book". Anyone who disagrees is dismissed with "But most people aren't interested in the fine points". But it seems to me that it's you, Margaret Wente, who isn't interested in the fine points. And the fine points are: to have a "taste in pictures" means you are interested in those pictures, which means you are an audience for those pictures, which means you contribute to the demand for those pictures, which means you help provide the financial incentive for someone to supply those pictures, which means you're complicit in the production of those pictures. Which means you're complicit in the harming of a child. Get it? Make no mistake, that IS the point. Those three words that Tom Flanagan uttered, "taste in pictures", which you so conveniently left out of your article, are what is so troubling and problematic and deplorable. I know what you're going to say, Margaret Wente. You're going to argue semantics. The headline of the video was "Tom Flanagan okay with child pornography". You say, "He said no such thing". He didn't? Tom Flanagan said he's not okay with the act of creating the pornography but he's okay with admiring the results. They're "just pictures". Yep. Semantics.
Does he have a right to say it? Yes. Do I defend his right to say it? Yes. He also has the right to face the consequences for saying it. Free speech means not facing jail or a firing squad, but it doesn't mean free of consequences. Never has and never will. Tom Flanagan is now peddling a book and lamenting the loss of free speech in the internet age. Don't you find it funny that this is coming from the man who once called for the assassination of Julian Assange? Tom Flanagan deserved the firestorm. The ideology behind his comments is harmful and potentially dangerous. We're not talking about some politically incorrect uncle making everyone roll their eyes at Thanksgiving dinner. We're talking about an influential man, a professor, a man who had a role in shaping national policy. Do I relish the fact that this has happened to Tom Flanagan, evil Conservative puppet master? You bet. Am I surprised it happened? No. Look at his brothers in the US Republican Party. Their continual foot-in-mouth comments about rape prove that these older Conservative males have a staggering lack of sensitivity and common sense. They are also proving that they are deeply out of touch with the times.
Ah, the times. Gone are the good old days, eh Margaret? As you say, "Twenty years ago, there would have been no story, no incident. There were no cellphones to capture casual remarks, no YouTube to post them on". Yes, wasn't life better when it was easier for someone to say and do harmful things and the average citizen had no way of capturing the incident digitally and sharing it? I know Tom Flanagan thinks so. Donald Sterling and Cliven Bundy, too. And I guess you as well, Margaret Wente. I'm shaking my head. Yet again.

Sincerely,
PC

Dear So What Have You Been Doing All These Years,

What a rude little fucking question you are. Wrapped up in sincerity, I know your true meaning. How dare I not have a husband, child, or mortgage when I have blown out more than 40 candles on my cake. I see it in your eyes. I know what you really mean. And so I'll tell you, So What Have You Been Doing All These Years. I've been learning. I've been wondering. I've been searching. I've been having my heart smashed to smithereens. I've been bewildered and crushed and confused and clueless. I've been stupid. I've been impulsive. I've been brave. I've walked away.
I've been trying. I've been grasping. I've been disappointing. I've been failing. I have failed so many times I've lost count. I've crawled under rocks and hidden myself away. I've put myself out there and paid dearly for it. I've been lied to and lied about. I've been betrayed and rejected and misunderstood and thrown under the bus. I've been self-absorbed and self-conscious, hurtful and selfish. I've been the worst human being in the world. And I've been one of the kindest. I've been yearning, pleading, searching, begging. I've been grasping and holding on for dear life. I have hoped. I have despaired. I have whimpered and rocked myself to sleep. I have roared and I have bitten. I've been weak. I've run away.
I have misunderstood. I have gotten it spectacularly wrong. I've been a human being, in all its splendour and all its misery. I've written a few pathetic lines. I've written a few wonderful lines. I've prayed to God. I've stopped believing in fairy tales. I've wanted to end it all. I've been an optimist. I've been angry. I have blamed. I've forgiven. I've been chastened. I've been growing and becoming and getting back up. I've been finding myself. I've been finding my voice.

Does that answer suffice?

Sincerely,
PC

Dear Fellow Canadians,

Okay guys. Simmer down. Yes we just kicked momentous butt at the Olympics. Yes we won an obscene amount of gold medals. But let's try to maintain our Canadianness. We're supposed to be the humbler gentler nation, remember? So enough with the gloating posts on Facebook. That's not us. There was a reason we kids slapped Canadian flags on our backpacks when we travelled through Europe. As soon as the locals discovered we were Canadian, not American, their smiles deepened. Their eyes softened. It was magical. We need to hang on to that goodwill, Fellow Canadians. Yes we're a nation only recently cured of a longstanding inferiority complex. Yes we've come into our own, finally emerging from the massive shadow of our southern neighbour. But we can't let it go to our heads. Otherwise there will come a day when American kids are slapping their flag on their backpacks, fearful of being mistaken for arrogant Canadians. I don't want to live in that world, people! So simmer down!


Sincerely,
PC

Dear Disillusionment,

I've just gone from re-watching By The People: The Election of Barack Obama, the documentary which captures so wonderfully the hope, excitement and optimism of that historic time in 2008, to watching War on Whistleblowers: Free Press and the National Security State. What the hell happened?
You really know how to twist the knife, Disillusionment. Barack Obama promised change. He promised transparency and an end to the Machiavellian tactics so disgustingly utilized by the Cheney, I mean the Bush administration. But Obama has gone after more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. These whistleblowers had legitimate concerns, legitimate reasons to expose what they exposed. But they were prosecuted and put through hell. By Obama! How could this happen?
The first inkling that Obama was not going to be what people wanted him to be, in my opinion, was his inclusion of Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner in his administration and his re-appointment of Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Charles Ferguson's excellent Inside Job outlines exactly why these moves were so troubling. Then there was the disturbing revelation of the continued mass surveillance of American citizens by the NSA, which we only know about thanks to Edward Snowden, whom the Obama administration has, of course, charged with espionage. And now there is the question of drone strikes. Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars is, well, you've done a heck of a job, Disillusionment. We used to chant Yes We Can. The future seemed so bright. What happened?


Sincerely,
PC

Dear Rob Ford,

The jig is up. No one is as moronic as you've been pretending to be. This is obviously a highly sophisticated and perfectly executed plan you and your cronies have dreamed up. You've got your eye on the future and the inevitable book deal, movie/TV rights, and road show a la Charlie Sheen that will undoubtedly materialize. And I say, why not? You're playing us for your economic betterment and isn't that what capitalism is all about? So way to be, man. Way to be.

Sincerely,
PC

PS - I'm right, right? I mean, I have to be right. Merciful heaven, please tell me I'm right!

Dear Art,

The other day I was remembering the first time I fully grasped what you are capable of, Art. It was in University, in one of Dr. Embry's lectures. He was a theatrical man, with lots of rolling r’s and flourishes of the hand. Each lecture was a monologue and Dr. Embry performed with eloquence and passion.
This particular class, when he walked into the lecture hall, a graduate student dimmed the lights. Dr. Embry began to speak of the Pre-Raphaelites and their desire to break away from the gloomy works of their day in favour of beauty, truth and light.
He then lowered his head slightly and Rossetti’s sumptuous Venus Venticordia suddenly appeared on a giant overhead screen.
Then Dr. Embry spoke about Rossetti’s relationship with Elizabeth Siddall, the milliner’s assistant who became his muse, and then Beata Beatrix appeared in all its glory.
Dr. Embry paused for a moment, letting the picture speak for itself, then raised his eyes
to the ceiling and recited a bit of Keats:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

After a dramatic pause, Dr. Embry spoke of Rossetti and Siddall’s love for each other, their passion and jealousy, her death from an overdose of laudanum, his despair.
Then he lowered his head and delivered a one-two punch as Millais’s Ophelia appeared on the screen and the sounds of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde began to float through the room.
There were a few snorts from my classmates. But I was enthralled. This was Art. And I've been under your spell ever since.

Sincerely,
PC

Dear You,

I saw you yesterday. If only I hadn't. If only you hadn't been late for work. If only I hadn't stopped for a peppermint mocha. Then I could have kept on believing in fairy tales. I could have kept on believing that you were away traveling or getting well or finding yourself, but planning on one day, at some time, coming for me, coming back to me. I could have kept on believing that the silence from you would be broken, that it didn't mean what it so obviously did. But I saw you.
There you were, just as you always have been. There you were, not away, not coming for me. I saw you. I saw someone who had managed to get rid of something he didn't want, like an outdated cellphone or a bit of trash. It's a plot twist I had foreseen and been so afraid of, but when it was actually happening I managed to plop myself down into a different story, a happier gentler one, and pretended it was ours. But there's no avoiding the real story now. At least I know how it ends.


Sincerely,
PC