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6.19.2002 by Forrest, every Wednesday.


Terry Barton




Someone I know recently travelled to Colorado and asked a local what they thought would happen if the culprit of the giant forest fire were found. The reply was “They’ll be lucky to get away with their lives”, said with a smirk. Well, introducing the lucky one. Forest Service agent Terry Barton has now redefined the meaning of incompetence. While out enforcing a fire ban, this hopeless romantic had the bright idea of burning a letter from her ex in a handy campfire site, which she figured would be a safe place. It would be for someone with half a brain, but that’s where she went wrong. Somehow, she failed in the difficult task of stamping out a burning piece of paper, and decided to flee the scene on foot, leaving her van to be consumed by the inferno and parked incriminatingly at the epicentre of the fire. Wow.


Ontario Ministry of Health


Jesus, finally after several years of sadistically undersupplying MRI and CT scans from their inefficient monopoly, the Ontario government gets the right idea; let private clinics supply the scans and bill the government. No more 7-month waiting lists, or people paying 500$ for a scan in New York or Quebec. Of course the
fear-mongers started ranting at the mention of the word “private”, but this is just plain silly. By improving the efficiency and service of our one-tier system, this switch actually discourages the two-tier system that was developing because of people getting fed up and paying for scans elsewhere and in off-hours. Not only that, it’s the same principle used for X-rays and doctors’ practices, which works just fine.


The Aspers


Ever since Conrad Black sold his collection of dailies to these inbreds, journalistic quality and independence across Canada have gone straight down the drain.  Reading the Citizen these days is kind of like taping together a few pages from the Liberal Party Newsletter, the Jerusalem Post, and your local community centre newsletter, you know, the one whose headlines are about cats getting rescued from trees, celebrities marrying the cousin of someone who lives in you neighbourhood, and upcoming garage sales.  Now, with the firing of Citizen publisher Russell Mills, they’ve eliminated any shred of doubt as to what they think of editorial independence.  Sadly, in most of their markets, the Asper-controlled papers are the only readable ones, and so people aren’t inclined to vote with their wallets.  It seems like now would be the perfect time for those other media empires to enter the local-daily business.  You know, like Torstar, Bell Globemedia, or the Tangmonkey Group.


The White Stripes



I had gotten really disillusioned with the radio lately; it seemed like I couldn't listen for a half hour without hearing at least three songs by Nickelback.  Ew.  It was to my delight, then, that they started playing Fell In Love With a Girl on the local radio stations every five minutes over the last two weeks.  Mmm… Old-school punk, except with good production/mixing/engineering (but not of the “Look at us we sold out to the man” variety), attention to detail and fun lyrics.  And two-piece to boot!  When this song comes on, I can scarcely resist the impulse to crank the volume and bang my head vigorously, at the great peril of other motorists – although the results of severe bad-radio-induced psychosis might have been even worse.  Let’s just hope that they don’t play it frequently enough for it to get annoying and condemned to one-hit-wonderdom.



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