As the Stanley Cup playoffs have unfolded this year, I have been really annoyed by something. I don’t know if this is something that has happened in previous years; it may just be that the Canucks haven’t stuck around in the playoffs long enough for me to notice. Though I am quite pleased to be living in the country that I do, I am a devout internationalist. It is bad enough that I have to sit and listen to both the American and Canadian national anthems before the puck drops. It is worse that this year they have been bringing out members of the armed forces and veterans from the Iraq and Afghan wars to honour them during these national anthems.
Given that both of these wars are extremely controversial in both countries, you would think that the NHL might want to hold off on promoting them. In Canada, the majority of the population has been opposed to the wars for a very long time. In the United States, the Iraq war has been unpopular for sometime and support for the Afghan war has been steadily declining.
Comrade Ted Grant used to joke that religion isn’t the opiate of the masses, professional sports is. Perhaps the NHL has become a little more conscious of their role in society.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Don’t Eat the Chilli!
When I was just out of high school, I worked at a certain fast food restaurant that shall remain nameless to prevent my ass from being sued (let’s just say this restaurant was named after a little girl with freckles and red pig tails). I was only able to tolerate three weeks of such a backwards workplace before calling it quits, but it was enough to teach me to stay well away from their chilli. There were many things there that would make the average customer turn green, but nothing topped the stomach-churning power of the chilli-making process. In fact, in the three weeks that I worked in this cess-pool, no less than two employees had to leave the room to vomit while making the chilli.
This particular fast-food chain takes pride in serving their burgers hot off the grill. This means that they have to anticipate how many burgers will sell in the next fifteen minutes or so, in order to have them ready to serve. Well, we can’t all be perfect and quite often there are either too many or too few burgers on the grill. When a burger is cooked and left sitting on the grill so long that it can no longer be served (and this is left up to the discretion of the kid manning the grill), it is put into a little drawer at the side of the grill labelled “Chilli Meat”.
Now you probably suspected that the meat for their chilli came from old burgers and aren’t too horrified yet; you just wait. The little metal drawer at the side of the grill is not actually heated, but picks up a lot of warmth from the grill. Here these burgers sit for hours and hours until the drawer is full, in their own little cave, the perfect temperature for their microscopic hangers-on to breed.
When this bacteria-infested drawer cannot fit another burger in it, they are all transferred to an oversized freezer bag and put into the walk-in freezer. You of course write the date on the bag and put it at the back of the rotation, so when making chilli you use the oldest bag first. Here we encounter the second problem: at the restaurant that I worked in we made chilli meat twice as fast as we made chilli. The store had been open for only two years, which meant that the bags of meat we would take out for chilli were already a year old. I don’t even want to think about what happened in other, more established locations. By the time they were ready for use, the meat was so freezer-burnt that you wouldn’t know what was in the bag or how long it was there if it wasn’t written on the front.
From there, we took our bag full of year-old, over-grilled, bacteria-infested, freezer-burnt hamburger patties and put them into a giant pot of water. They were boiled for several hours, I don’t remember how long exactly, until they were no longer recognizable as burgers and the pot resembled something the texture of chunky oatmeal.
Now the next part was not for the faint of heart. This is the part where people were often unable to keep their revulsion from escaping up their oesophagus. The next step was to take a long-handled potato-masher and crush any chunks that remained. When the lid was lifted off the pot, my god the stench was unbelievable. I have walked through some of the poorest slums on the planet, with garbage and human waste piling up in the streets and rats eating the remains of other rotting carcasses, but I have never in my life smelled anything so fowl as the contents of one of those pots of chilli meat.
When all of the remaining lumps have been crushed, the rest of the chilli ingredients are added. A couple cans of beans, a large bag full of green and white cubes that are supposed to be frozen vegetables, some tomato sauce and of course the chilli seasoning. Make note, the bag said chilli seasoning, not chilli powder. I don’t know what was in that mystery bag of flavouring that could make this slop taste like chilli, but it was about three cups of some neon-orange powder. From there, it was just a quick stir and a simmer away from being served.
Every word of what I have written above I swear is true.
This particular fast-food chain takes pride in serving their burgers hot off the grill. This means that they have to anticipate how many burgers will sell in the next fifteen minutes or so, in order to have them ready to serve. Well, we can’t all be perfect and quite often there are either too many or too few burgers on the grill. When a burger is cooked and left sitting on the grill so long that it can no longer be served (and this is left up to the discretion of the kid manning the grill), it is put into a little drawer at the side of the grill labelled “Chilli Meat”.
Now you probably suspected that the meat for their chilli came from old burgers and aren’t too horrified yet; you just wait. The little metal drawer at the side of the grill is not actually heated, but picks up a lot of warmth from the grill. Here these burgers sit for hours and hours until the drawer is full, in their own little cave, the perfect temperature for their microscopic hangers-on to breed.
When this bacteria-infested drawer cannot fit another burger in it, they are all transferred to an oversized freezer bag and put into the walk-in freezer. You of course write the date on the bag and put it at the back of the rotation, so when making chilli you use the oldest bag first. Here we encounter the second problem: at the restaurant that I worked in we made chilli meat twice as fast as we made chilli. The store had been open for only two years, which meant that the bags of meat we would take out for chilli were already a year old. I don’t even want to think about what happened in other, more established locations. By the time they were ready for use, the meat was so freezer-burnt that you wouldn’t know what was in the bag or how long it was there if it wasn’t written on the front.
From there, we took our bag full of year-old, over-grilled, bacteria-infested, freezer-burnt hamburger patties and put them into a giant pot of water. They were boiled for several hours, I don’t remember how long exactly, until they were no longer recognizable as burgers and the pot resembled something the texture of chunky oatmeal.
Now the next part was not for the faint of heart. This is the part where people were often unable to keep their revulsion from escaping up their oesophagus. The next step was to take a long-handled potato-masher and crush any chunks that remained. When the lid was lifted off the pot, my god the stench was unbelievable. I have walked through some of the poorest slums on the planet, with garbage and human waste piling up in the streets and rats eating the remains of other rotting carcasses, but I have never in my life smelled anything so fowl as the contents of one of those pots of chilli meat.
When all of the remaining lumps have been crushed, the rest of the chilli ingredients are added. A couple cans of beans, a large bag full of green and white cubes that are supposed to be frozen vegetables, some tomato sauce and of course the chilli seasoning. Make note, the bag said chilli seasoning, not chilli powder. I don’t know what was in that mystery bag of flavouring that could make this slop taste like chilli, but it was about three cups of some neon-orange powder. From there, it was just a quick stir and a simmer away from being served.
Every word of what I have written above I swear is true.
Friday, April 9, 2010
NDP Mobilizes for Anti-Campbell Demonstration
Well, I have to give the NDP some credit. Yesterday I received a phone call from the Leader of the BC NDP, Carole James. As the recorded message from the leader of the opposition began to play in my left ear I thought, “Here we go again. Here comes the pitch… ‘Gordon Campbell is so bad and we need money to stop him.’” Of course, no NDPer would blame me for this assumption. After all, I can’t count the number of recorded messages and pieces of junk mail I’ve received in the last six months asking me to donate money to the party. Invitations to high-priced dinners, parties for the tasting of fine liqueurs, fundraising galas and plain old guilt trips, all have made it into my mailbox and then my trash can.
But the expected pitch never came. Instead, Carole James asked me to join her at a demonstration against government cuts being held at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday April 10th at noon. I couldn’t believe my ears. After all, I have been relentlessly criticizing this exact leader for years for only going to the membership when she wanted some cash. I write snarky comments on facebook complaining that they only ask for my money and not my time. And throughout the anti-Campbell movement Carole was always lurking somewhere around the back of the demonstration trying not to be seen. Something has changed here.
Maybe Carole has finally realized that the real strength of this party is its grassroots and a real leader can win by mobilizing them. Maybe she has been browbeaten by the higher ups in the labour movement. Maybe she just woke up one morning and realized that the last seven years have been pretty dismal and it is time to try something new. Whatever the reason is, it is a breath of fresh air. And if this signals a new change in direction for the NDP, there might just be some hope for us yet
I’ll be there at the demonstration - and I might just send them a cheque.
But the expected pitch never came. Instead, Carole James asked me to join her at a demonstration against government cuts being held at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Saturday April 10th at noon. I couldn’t believe my ears. After all, I have been relentlessly criticizing this exact leader for years for only going to the membership when she wanted some cash. I write snarky comments on facebook complaining that they only ask for my money and not my time. And throughout the anti-Campbell movement Carole was always lurking somewhere around the back of the demonstration trying not to be seen. Something has changed here.
Maybe Carole has finally realized that the real strength of this party is its grassroots and a real leader can win by mobilizing them. Maybe she has been browbeaten by the higher ups in the labour movement. Maybe she just woke up one morning and realized that the last seven years have been pretty dismal and it is time to try something new. Whatever the reason is, it is a breath of fresh air. And if this signals a new change in direction for the NDP, there might just be some hope for us yet
I’ll be there at the demonstration - and I might just send them a cheque.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Tell Gordon Campbell that Corporations Should Not Be Allowed to Vote!
Last December, Premiere Gordon Campbell appointed a Local Government Elections Task Force that is looking into a number of issues around municipal elections. One of the things they’re discussing is giving corporations the right to vote.
Governments in British Columbia have long been bought and paid for by corporations. I suppose it is only the next logical step to allow a corporation to actually cast a ballot. But why stop at municipal elections? Corporations could vote in any election! Hey, why not give them the right to run in elections too? Maybe one day McDonald’s will be Premiere! Imagine the cabinet… Minister of Forestry, Weyerhaeuser, and don’t forget the Right and Honourable Minister of Fisheries, High Liner!
What’s that? Some of you little peons on the loony left think it’s a bad idea to give corporations a ballot? Well maybe you should explain that to the Task Force:
localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca
You could also pass the message on to Gordon Campbell himself:
Gordon.Campbell.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Governments in British Columbia have long been bought and paid for by corporations. I suppose it is only the next logical step to allow a corporation to actually cast a ballot. But why stop at municipal elections? Corporations could vote in any election! Hey, why not give them the right to run in elections too? Maybe one day McDonald’s will be Premiere! Imagine the cabinet… Minister of Forestry, Weyerhaeuser, and don’t forget the Right and Honourable Minister of Fisheries, High Liner!
What’s that? Some of you little peons on the loony left think it’s a bad idea to give corporations a ballot? Well maybe you should explain that to the Task Force:
localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca
You could also pass the message on to Gordon Campbell himself:
Gordon.Campbell.MLA@leg.bc.ca
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