Blue Like You

Archive for March 16th, 2007

Susan Delacourt of the Star explains that while Harper’s French is perceived to be better than Dion’s English, Stephane is making progress:

Over the past few weeks, Dion has been actively using English more and has already shed some of his difficulties with pronunciation. When talking about his “three-pillar” political platform, for instance, it no longer comes out as “peelers,” much to the disappointment of comedians and pundits who had fun with the nickname for strippers.

Dion is spending a lot of time with his English tutor:

“She’s helping me to catch the music of the language, where to put the intonation. It’s a complete mystery for me,” Dion said. “What I understand is that you (English-speakers) have that by instinct more than by rules.

I can only speculate that the Dion household didn’t worry too much about ensuring that little Stephane was encouraged to learn and speak English. The mother-tongue and the motherland were likely all that mattered.

However, if he is actually successful in his remedial homework, it may end up being a liability. His fractured English was the only thing preventing me from falling asleep during a speech.

Sometimes you just have to wonder.

Our Supreme Court seems so progressive and forward-thinking in areas of social engineering like same-sex marriage, abortion and swingers’ clubs, yet so slow in others.

I’m a little late to the party here, but Sandy has been doing a great job with this story about the McGuinty government’s incredible arrogance and abuse of power regarding their efforts to prevent court costs associated with fighting parents of autistic children from becoming public knowledge.

And I may have to change my opinion about the Star after reading this opinion piece and the following statement:

The government’s stonewalling is indefensible. Openness should be the rule in the public sector, not the exception. Premier Dalton McGuinty and his ministers have apparently forgotten that government information does not belong to them or their bureaucrats, but to the citizens who vote and pay the bills.

Wow! Dalton, you’ve got to know you’re really out to lunch when even the Star disagrees with you.