A PROUD DAY IN LEAF NATION.

When it comes to professional hockey and the world built around it, obedience to orthodoxy tends to rule the day. Hilarious caricatures of swaggering chauvinism like Brian Burke and Don Cherry are held up as hockey’s most cherished personalities.

So anyone else see Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Wade Belak on TSN responding to reporters wanting to know how Leaf players felt about a new movie entitled “Breakfast With Scot” whose main characters are two gay men (one of who is supposed to be a retired Leaf) trying to raise a (possibly gay) kid in a homophobic society? How many other NHL enforcers do you see suggesting that critics of the film “get with the times” and comparing the struggle against homophobia to the civil rights movement and women’s suffrage? How many other NHL teams do you see giving their stamp of approval to a film that flies in the face of professional hockey’s traditionally moronic values? The answer is of course: none. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the many reasons why - despite the fact that MLSE is indeed a most laughable and pathetic ownership among laughable and pathetic NHL ownerships - the Leafs rule. It’s called character.

We are Leaf Nation: Fragile. Inconsistent. Generally disliked and above all: righteous.

Posted by Jesus H. Chris on November 17th, 2007 in Commentary

Elsewhere

Dominion Interview – Erin Empey, guitar hero of Canada's best living punk band, The Rebel Spell, moonlights as a journalist. Here, in the soon-to-be prestigious Dominion magazine, she asks Chris such penetrating questions as "when are you playing Vancouver?". Wait, there's more (although i just noticed that my comments about Afghanistan, The Vancouver Olympics and the Stephen Lewis Foundation got left on the cutting room floor. is there no justice?! will i never be heard?!?). Watch for a potential Propagandhi/ Rebel Spell onslaught in Western Canada this fall. (06/12/09 by Jesus H. Chris #)
Perspective – Film-maker and journalist John Pilger offers some perspective here to those of us who don't spend their entire lives under siege by one of the powerful militaries in the world. (06/11/09 by Jesus H. Chris #)
Fire the Boss – Noami Klein gives a quick round up of recent developments in the world of worker control. As global capitalism shits the bed (as predicted), perhaps it is time to look a little more closely at ways of organizing workplaces. but what do i know, i just work here. (05/20/09 by Jesus H. Chris #)
At Least Somebody Seems to Ghent it… – Belgian city plans veggie days. (05/12/09 by Jesus H. Chris #)
When the credits finally… – What do Oprah Winfrey, Anthony Robbins and Chris Hannah all have in common? No, it's not that we're all multi-millionaires. Close, though. To find out you'll have to watch the documentary Food Matters, a film by James Coluquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch, nutritionists turned filmmakers. It's a very interesting look into human health and our food/ medical systems. Keep a keen eye on those credits if you wanna have a good laugh! (04/08/09 by Jesus H. Chris #)
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