In all of the furor over Emerson, Stephen Harper has been very calm and subdued in his response. His new minister seems all alone in facing the fury of his constituants and a press working overtime to push fallout from Paul Martin’s campaign strategy onto his doorstep.
Now, I’m just an artist in Saskatchewan, and not no fancy schmancy insider pundit on the Hill, so you’re best to take everything I say with a grain of salt. But nonetheless – events over the last few days in the Canadian body politic keep taking me back to my days as a kid.
There’s no way to sneak up on a gopher colony – they have sentinels posted watching in all directions, so I’d walk onto the pock-marked prairie in plain view. The alarm whistles would echo in an overlapping series of piercing blasts, and dozens of rodents would fly across the prairie and dive to safety underground.
I’d lay downwind in the short dry grass where I could sight as many holes as possible within range of the .22, and quietly listen to the meadowlarks for a while.
Then, after a minute or so had passed, I’d whistle.
Like a gopher, that is.
And wait for the heads to poke up.
There is lots of reason to be cautious about China. Massive corruption in the banking system should sober up anyone thinking it’s a better bet than the USA – which I think will outlast the Roman empire, now that there is a concerted fight to push back the left.