Laytonology

What a Sun TV man is posting at his personal blog:

Friday, August 26
Details on the music, readings, and eulogies for Jack Layton’s funeral
by DavidAkin on Fri 26 Aug 2011 01:41 PM EDT
Eulogies from Stephen Lewis, Karl Belanger, and Mike and Sarah Layton; music from Richard Underhill, Lorrane Segato, and Steven Page and other details of Jack Layton’s funeral.
more »
The Bells of Parliament Hill ring out for Jack Layton
by DavidAkin on Thu 25 Aug 2011 11:09 AM EDT
This just in, the music programme today on Parliament Hill as Jack Layton final few hours lying in state in the foyer of the House of Commons:
Today Dr. Andrea McCrady, Dominion Carillonneur, will be playing the following program to commemorate the late Honourable Jack Layton, Leader of the Official Opposition.
more »

Might Mr Akin be being ironic?
Update: The conclusion of a piece byKevin Libin at the National Post’s “Full Comment”:

The crass exploitation of Jack Layton’s death

When columnists in this newspaper dared to crash the public shiva for Layton with controversial critiques of his deathbed letter or plans for his state funeral, they were vehemently attacked as insensitive and disrespectful to the dead. But there’s a point where publicly advertising your sympathy while calculatedly drawing attention to yourself looks awfully insensitive and disrespectful, too. Imagine if a company like Trek bicycles marked Layton’s passing by issuing press releases expressing grief, while advertising how much he enjoyed pedaling their durable, light, fast, and fun-to-ride two-wheelers. Or if Sleeman offered a public consolation while asking us to take comfort in the fact that his living years were made that much sweeter by the extra body and clean finish of their Silver Creek Lager. Even if there was some truth to the claims, we’d have no trouble recognizing them as crass exploitation of the man’s death for promotional purposes. When activists and non-profits spike their eulogies with commercials for their pet causes, the tactlessness may be slightly subtler. But it’s there, just the same.

Upperdate: Even one of the Ottawa Citizen’s house progressives, Janice Kennedy, can’t take it no more:

…A great deal has been embarrassingly over the top.
Hordes of sobbing strangers on the street, a questionable state funeral (with full television coverage), Imagine pealing out from the bells of the Peace Tower – all this reflects little but a collective popcultural desire to bathe in the waters of emotional excess.
To defend, as some experts have, this mass outbreak of recreational grief as appropriate because the public “knew” Jack is charitable, but awkward. Unless you know the deceased as family member, colleague or friend, you simply don’t know him on a level personal enough to permit full-bore, teardrenched grieving. “The nation’s grief,” as media call it, is manufactured…
Not only does the post-mortem hyperbole do nothing to honour Layton’s name or memory, it cheapens it, turning it into something so grotesquely untrue it becomes laughable…

Tee hee.
Uppestdate: Mr Akin keeps crankin’ em out:

NDP organize “celebrate Layton’s life” events across Canada
by DavidAkin on Fri 26 Aug 2011…
Sun News Network will have live coverage of Jack Layton’s state funeral from Toronto beginning at 1400 ET Saturday. But if you can’t make to Toronto (or to your TV set), the NDP have posted a list of places where well wishers and supporters will be gathering across the country.
“This Saturday, in communities across the country, people are coming together to watch Jack Layton’s Celebration of Life, live from Toronto. From St. John’s to Victoria and from Terrebonne to Courtenay, these large and small communities will have the opportunity to celebrate the life and honour the work of the popular New Democrat leader. Here is a list of events we have heard are taking place across Canada tomorrow…”

Beyond Uppestdate: Publius summarizes:

The Layton Lamentations
The Cult of Jack Grows and Grows!
Scenes from the mourning:
Christie Blatchford fails to genuflect to an idol of the age
All this for an innocuous piece on Jack! Do recall the Leftist vitriol that flowed at the death of John Paul II. I doubt the writers of those slander pieces received a fraction of the hate directed at Ms Blatchford. Then again JP II was only a Pope…
There we have it. Dippers, Canada’s reality impaired community.

76 Replies to “Laytonology”

  1. Aren’t Mugabe and Chavez coming to say a few words? And what about Fidel and whoever is heading up the Taliban these days. They have lost a good comrade here.
    Imagine there’s no commies ….
    It isn’t hard to do
    No more wasteful spending
    No more unions too
    Imagine!

  2. A friend remarked:
    ‘”In keeping with Layton’s wishes, the program ends with a chance for those assembled to write down something they will do to make our world a better place.”
    My entry:
    I will endeavour to see to it that governments the world round will: 1. Reduce the price of food. 2. Reduce the price of liquor. 3. Widen the roads. – Brendan Behan.’
    Mark
    Ottawa

  3. It seems like overkill to me. That is way too much mush for one corpse. Doesn’t matter if he was a famous corpse, it is still way too much mush.

  4. “Canada’s princess Dianna…” Sigh – he looked so damn good as a princess, especially the tiara!

  5. In keeping with Layton’s wishes, the program ends with a chance for those assembled to write down something they will do to make our world a better place.
    Oh I will, I’m going to continue voting conservative, someone has to try to save Canada!

  6. I’ve heard it suggested that Toronto rename an expressway to the Jack Layton Parkway.
    Glad I live in Calgary. Would hate to have to try to avoid the thing.

  7. I almost drove off the road this morning when the poofter with the fake British accent from CP proclaimed Jack “our Princess Dianna”.

  8. I asked a Jack Layton fan to come up with a list of Laytons accomplishments , as CBCpravda always refers to them as “his many” , he couldnt name one. he said there must have been some as a city councillor , I said I doubt it as he seemed to be mostly in opposition to everything.
    I suggested the defeat of the Liberal party, he agreed, but I cant see that would be one CBCpravda would have listed amongst “his many”
    how long till the death certificate is in the hands of the public. Cancer or Sinister.

  9. “In keeping with Layton’s wishes, the program ends with a chance for those assembled to write down something they will do to make our world a better place.” *
    WHAT a grade three exercise—that I’ve always avoided like the plague.
    Such an empty, “Look at me. Aren’t I caring?” gesture somehow seems quite fitting, though, for the Layton circus that just seems to go on and on . . .
    * Have these lefty, smarty pants actually thought through the logistics of this? Are the 2000 plus folks in the hall supposed to email in their thoughts or drop little pieces of paper in some receptacle on the way out—THOSE would be somewhat practical—or are the participants going to have to take two hours to get out of the building in order to actually write something in some book(s)?
    To think that we’re then going to have to endure “The best of the tributes”.
    Imagine. Indeed.

  10. Personally, I think Layton would be ok with “crass exploitation” of his death. His only regret would likely be that he wasn’t the one doing it. If there was every a camera/microphone whore, it was Jack.

  11. Yes, cal2 – that’s the key point. In all this adulation, I’d bet that if you asked ALL the weepers and mourners exactly what Layton had accomplished – 95% would be unable to come up with a single item.
    It’s easy, in politics or the seminar room, to pontificate about utopian ideals; it’s particularly easy when you are NOT the government, and don’t have to insert the economic and societal structure to make those utopian words ..actual and real. Layton has been in that position all his life. So, he can have an image, rather similar to Obama, as a Man-of-Rhetoric. We are, perhaps, quite fortunate that he never gained the power to make his fantasies actual.
    As for the NDP becoming official opposition, that was less due to him – than it was to the implosion of the Liberals – a political party that has long ago lost an identity and reality finally caught up with its Lack of Clothing; and the view of the Quebecois that its Bloc Party was not ‘getting the goods’ out of Ottawa, namely, more and more and more money. They switched – but certainly not for any federal agenda or even for the work of the NDP in that province but for a socialist agenda and ..more and more and more..money.
    However, his death was, in my view, a tragedy. To have reached such heights, no matter how empty the platform on which his NDP stood, how fragile it was…was quite the feat. And to be struck down barely four months from that day- that’s hard.
    But, he doesn’t merit the adulation – since, he accomplished, well, nothing, other than rhetoric. And a lot of his rhetoric was reprehensible (its anti-military); and ignorant (his views on the economy).
    And – don’t forget – his Coalition was the most vicious attack on our democracy in, I’d say, the history of this nation. Harper saved us from this but boy – it was a near thing.

  12. http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1045539–how-to-say-goodbye-to-jack?bn=1
    Get tickets for the funeral
    By the time you read this, it may be too late — about 600 tickets to the funeral are reserved for the public, and are being granted to the first in line at the King St. W. entrance to Roy Thomson Hall.-Toronto Star
    …that is so tacky, that’s hillbilly selling tickets to see their two headed goat. You just know there will be people selling front row seats to see Layton laid out.

  13. For me, it’s not so much that there are a number of folks getting incredibly maudlin over the tragic death of a man far too young to die, but rather that the media and all of those same maudlinites are insisting that I also get maudlin, or be condemned for not being properly maudlin. As with everything from the left, they insist on imposing their arrested development on as many innocent people as possible.

  14. A Mephistophelian Account of Jack Layton with God in Heaven
    Jack Layton was standing before the judgement seat of God to argue his case. God had to decide whether Jack would spend eternity in heaven or in hell.
    God: “Jack, I’m a little confused – at your State funeral presided by Gay clergy they played John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, which proclaims ‘Imagine there’s no heaven, and no religion too.’ And John Lennon once boasted to the press: ‘The Beatles are more popular than God!’ I feel rather slighted by it Jack – do you or do you not believe in God, and if so, do you really believe the Beatles are more popular than I Am? Also, John Lennon changed his surname to honour the atheist Vladimir Lenin, who your NDP followers are rumoured to worship. And is Olivia Chow your ‘Yoko Ono’ or something? Sorry Jack, I guess I’m rambling now because I’m so upset…”
    Jack: “Well God, I’d love to discuss your problems with you over a friendly beer and a relaxing massage because I can tell that you are upset, but unfortunately there are no bars and massage parlours here in heaven because of your old-fashioned rules against vices. Anyway, the greedy capitalist Harper Government conveniently ‘forgot’ to give me a bag of Canadian taxpayer money to spend up here.”
    God: “Sorry that I get emotional and irrational at times Jack, and I can’t condemn anyone for their earthly vices which nobody here misses anyway because nobody seems to need vices in heaven. I just want to know why I should let you stay in heaven in the first place – just answer a simple question in the affirmative and you’re in, dude, and I’ll try to get you some Canadian taxpayer money to spend here: Do you really believe in Me?”
    Jack: “Yes, I really believe in Me! And since I have answered your question affirmatively I have the right to remain in heaven eternally, unless you have lied to me. The first thing I propose is a change of Government in heaven — you’ve been in power for too long, God, which is why you are less popular than the Beatles. I think you should permanently yield your omnipotence to me and to my NDP followers still on earth.”
    God: “Wait Jack, you twisted my words! – That’s not what I meant when I asked, ‘Do you really believe in Me?’ I wasn’t talking about demagoguery – I was referring to the condition of your soul!”
    Jack: “Too bad God, I tricked you into feeling guilty and lowering the bar for entering heaven, and now you are stuck with me or you are going to look like a liar. And if you do not allow me to take charge here then I just might organize a coup against you in coalition with my friends from hell who have come before me: Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Lennon…”
    R.J.

  15. This gong show is nothing more than an NDP/socialist infomercial. It is pathetic, but then the left does immerse itself into the cult of personality. That is big part of the reason they often stuff their heros….like they did with Lenin, Stalin, Mao and even Evita (they screwed that one up).
    “A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.[1] Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships. The sociologist Max Weber developed a tripartite classification of authority; the cult of personality holds parallels with what Weber defined as ‘charismatic authority’.
    A cult of personality is similar to hero worship, except that it is established by mass media and propaganda. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of religious or non-political leaders.
    While the cult of personality generally applies to the enhancement and promotion of a political or religious doctrine, it stands to reason that it is also asserted in everyday situations where popularity is used to advocate conformity to philosophies and lifestyles, even products and attitudes by way of peer pressure and herd mentality.”

  16. Comparing Layton to Princess Diana is interesting: after all, there were three in the Coalition as well!

  17. It appears they have missed “L’Internationale” in their program. Just an oversight that I’m sure will be fixed prior to the infomercial.

  18. Bumper sticker politics, bumper sticker funeral. Would someone please sharpen a wooden stake, and well… you know,…end this farce.

  19. There is a reading from the Qu’ran (or however the hell you spell it) in the programme. Any true Christian would not want that in there….good grief…

  20. and music by Lorraine Segato (Parachute Club, HAHAHAHAHA) and Steven Page (from Barenaked Ladies)…celebrating Canadian mediocrity, even in death!!!

  21. one last point….upon remembering the stupid Parachute Club video from the 80’s (Rise Up!), OF COURSE they are Dippers! Even without hearing the crappy music and JUST LOOKING at them, you can tell!
    snicker.

  22. CTV yesterday was talking about naming streets after Layton, putting up statues, naming parks, etc., etc.
    Sounds like North Korea un Kim Jong Il, or Iraq under Saddam Hussein (until the mobs defaced all the statues.
    Just for fun, I think conservatives and libertarians should take a different tack and try to outdo the demagogues on the Left. Let’s start demanding “Jack Layton” week, name a constellation after Layton, replace Christmas with “Laytonmas” to commemorate his birth. I wonder how far the left would actually go?!

  23. You just know Jack Layton would be thoroughly loving all this if he was still around. Somewhere in the universe, Mr. Peanut is tapping his cane with glee.

  24. Soccermom, did you know that Lorraine Segato is married to Stephen Lewis’s daugther, Ilana? I don’t know the how of Rise Up, but the why is, apparently, that it’s the NDP theme song.

  25. (that is so tacky, that’s hillbilly selling tickets to see their two headed goat.)
    I would rather go see a 2 headed goat !!

  26. I enjoyed the irony in particular from one of my local broadcasters (CP24 Toronto… owned by CTV) in which one of their reporters outside city hall commented how one of Layton’s lasting legacy was wanting more people, particularly younger Canadians, to get more involved in the democratic process…
    …while behind the reporter, at the wall of chalk written condolences for Layton, appear a Cuba’s flag.

  27. *hung a Cuban flag
    (and sorry for the other grammatical errors… half turned in my chair and typing)

  28. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/jack-laytons-final-resting-places-revealed/article2143821/?from=sec431
    Jack Layton burn to ashes and buy in 3 places like chineese athesim method
    like chineese budism or hindo
    weired
    so and also this is not give the way how and why reason for his death in future to do future test on his remain body too
    again this is weired too. to cover up future investigate reason of his death I guess
    No doctor come forward to explain reason of his death yet!!!!!
    who care!!! any way!!

  29. No doctor come forward to explain reason of his death yet!!!!!
    who care!!! any way!!
    Uh oh. ‘OK’ is making sense. Where’s my meds? Did I die?

  30. ” try to outdo the demagogues on the Left. “
    Good idea Ricardo.
    I think that first thing tomorrow morning,I’m going to flush a layton.

  31. I would like to respond to ET’s comments. Yes, he is to be congratulated for helping destroy Canada’s natural governing party, but even on the campaign trail, it was clear that the man was very ill. The NDP needed Jack Layton, the icon, to pull off their feat of becoming Canada’s Loyal Opposition, but I am constantly surprised at the many people who actually thought he would make it to the Fall session of Parliament. And after his press conference when he announced he was stepping aside to “fight cancer”, he looked like he was “dead man walking” already.

  32. I find the carrying on by the NDP distasteful in the extreme. However in the perverse NDP world view no one individual is greater than the ’cause’. Thus it is perfectly acceptable in the NDP mind to use the death of an individual to advance the cause instead of honouring the deceased individual. I suppose it is my belief in the individual ahead of the cause that makes me say of the NDP and their “Layton funeral shenanigans”. EWWWWWWW!!!!!! Tacky

  33. johanne – I don’t think that Layton destroyed the Liberals. They imploded on their own.
    They had long ago moved into a sense of a supreme entitlement to power, and had abandoned any pretence of offering policies and programs to the electorate – as realities and not just empty rhetoric. Instead, they bought votes – whether via the infamous Sponsorship, or via multicultural grants to immigrant balkanized groups or via special deals with companies, via the public service unions and etc.
    Then, the Liberals made the grievous error of freezing themselves into a fictional sense of ‘what is Canada’ that was valid only in the 1950’s and earlier.
    A Canada based only around Quebec and Ontario; one that ignored, totally, the demographic and economic rise of the West – a rise which Trudeau attempted to halt. This total blindness to the demographic and economic changes within Canada – meant that their policies remained locked into that Quebec-Ontario dominance and entitlement…and…eventually, Reality trumps Fiction.
    So – the Liberals imploded all on their own doing. Had zilch to do with Layton.
    As for Layton’s health, since I did not follow the election campaign – I cannot comment on his medical state, but, I do commend his Will To Succeed.
    This isolation of a government from the people

  34. Harper in a shrewd move, coopted the Left indignation, however in the process, reduced the meaning of a State Funeral to mere drivel.
    A state funeral for a 3rd rate hack for the unions made a mockery of the event.
    The Quebec tour by the NDP reduced it even further. Now when I think of Layton, it’ll be a clown in BOZO boots and orange hair being in an exhibit in the BLOC-NDP circus!
    Step right up, see our latest joke!
    Future non-PM/GG families would do well to forgo the “State Funeral”, and advise the government of the day that their Lost One “Deserves Better”!

  35. If they do this for Talaban Jack…….what will they do for Castro…..a real commie/socialist?????///

  36. So, my comment about Nycole Turmel having the temerity to read Philippians 2 at the circu … I mean, funeral is caught in the filter.
    In it (Phil. 2), homage is made to J.C. before whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.
    What would the NDP know about that? They and their ilk have deep-sixed any mention of the Judeo-Christian God in our schools and the public square.
    I think it will make me sick.
    Soccermom, doesn’t that just take the cake?!

  37. Metropolitan Community Church? Is that where one goes to confess after visiting a Community Clinic?

  38. Ezra, with Saint Jack as a bobble-head icon, the Halleluiah Chorus, and then Ezra in a bright orange, shoulder length, flip wig—in his chat with Michael Coren—was, like, WAY OVER THE TOP: just like the Dead Man Talking spectacle of Jack’s body’s last week here on Earth.
    Mississauga Matt, where are you? Ezra’s no-holds-barred push back at the demented “Jack in the Box Show”—CBC, in particular—was hilarious. Yes, it was Monty Python disrespectful—after the SNN’s really respectful and sincere tributes to Jack last Monday—but just what the demented, partisan exploiters of Mr. Layton’s death deserve. Rhetorical question: Do these people have no shame?
    For Jack, the human being made in God’s image: “Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord. And may light perpetual shine upon him. May he rest in peace.”

  39. Layton I simply don’t care that much about. Trudeau was a far larger figure with a far larger legacy, and a far smaller funeral. I still hope to one day pay my respects at his grave, (about 24 beer ought to produce enough ‘respect’). For Layton, if he was buried in the vacant lot just down the street I couldn’t be bothered.

  40. Yes, lookout.
    Let’s put things in perspective. Nearly all comments about Jack Layton at the beginning of the week — on conservative blogs, that is — were sympathetic to both Jack’s family, friends, and colleagues.
    As the progressives upped the ante through the week, turning Jack Layton’s death into an outrageous spectator sport with money changing hands (viz the Broadbent Insititute), our comments became more critical of what the NDP were turning Jack Layton’s death into: a circus.
    I am still feeling very sad for Jack’s family and friends and that he died so young and within reach of leading the Official Opposition in the HoC– but I wish to heck the NDP had boundaries within which to contain all the craziness of the past few days. A little decorum would go a long way.

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