RIP Kathy Shaidle

Just yesterday, not quite a month since we asked you to support Kathy Schaidle and those who care for her, came the sad news that she had entered a hospice. The merciful end came quickly, for which thanks be to God. Here is the notice, copied from Blazing Cat Fur. 

Kathy Shaidle 1964 – 2021

Following a tedious rendezvous with ovarian cancer, Kathy Shaidle has died, wishing she’d spent more time at the office. She is relieved she won’t have to update her LinkedIn profile, shave her legs, or hear “Creep” by Radiohead ever again. Some may even be jealous that she’s getting out of enduring a Biden presidency.

Kathy was a writer, author, columnist and blogging pioneer, as proud of her first book’s Governor General’s Award nomination as of her stint as “Ed Anger” for the Weekly World News. A target for “cancel” culture before the term was coined, she was denounced by all the best people, sometimes for contradictory reasons.

Kathy did not lead a particularly “full life,” her existence having been comprised mostly of a series of unpleasant surprises. Her favourite corporeal pleasure was saying, “I told you so,” which she was able to utter with justification multiple times a day. A bookish movie-buff and agoraphobic homebody, as a child Kathy (as per the Roz Chast cartoon) “always preferred the little couch ride on the merry-go-round.” Yet Kathy managed to acquire a reputation for mouthiness, a side effect of her bullshit allergy.

Contrary to cliché, Kathy did not conduct herself with particular "grace", "dignity" or "courage" in her final months. She didn’t "bravely fight on" after her cancer was pronounced terminal. All she did was (barely) cope, and then only with assistance from her generous employer, and some energetic and selfless friends whom she’d somehow managed to acquire over the years, much to her astonishment. 

Of course, the greatest of these was her stalwart beloved of over 20 years, Arnie, with whom she is now in the ultimate long distance relationship. They can all finally catch up on their sleep.

Donations can be made to the Dorothy Ley Hospice, Toronto.

All of us at Walt Whiteman's World pray: requiescat in pace.

Fundraiser for Kathy Shaidle

Regular readers know that Blazing Cat Fur is one of Walt's favourite blogs, and the source of many good memes and photos reposted here. The mover and shaker behind BCF is Kathy Shaidle. She is one of the most incisive, witty, and fearless writers on the scene today, never shrinking back from standing up for freedom, even when the Left-fascist lynch mobs tear after her. Here's a photo of Kathy, taken some months ago in New York City, when she was in better health. 

Kathy doesn't look like that now. She is suffering ovarian cancer and is now in palliative care. She is still fighting hard and we hope she will be with us for as long as God allows. She is doing well and has homecare nurses and a doctor attending. 

This comes at great cost, only partially covered under Canada's socialized health care scheme. If you can help with a donation, Kathy and those who care for her would be greatly appreciative. Please click here to go to the "Kathy's Fundraiser" page on Blazing Cat Fur, and make this part of your Christmas giving. 

And please join us in prayer for Kathy and all the others -- including one near and dear to Walt -- battling cancer. Some will recover, some not, according to God's will. But God always hears the petitions of the faithful. The power of prayer is great, sometime miraculous.

UPDATE ADDED 11/12/20: Walt is pleased to note that this post has had more click-throughs in one day than any we've put up in the past couple of months. I hope all those who go to BCF will feed the kitty! And if you're sending a message, please tell Kathy that Walt sent ya!

Amazing headline on "Five Feet of Fury" blog!

In "What does Walt read?", Ed. told you about some of the blogs I read regularly. One of them is Five Feet of Fury, written by the amazing Kathy Shaidle, who, to judge by the pic at the top of her blog, has described herself very well in the title.

Reading her blog today, it occurred to me that angry young women can get away with writing a lot of stuff that angry old men can't. What makes me think so? The lead post on FFoF today is about the circus masquerading as a trial of Jian Ghomeshi. Who he? A former CBC Radio personality who got sacked when some of his ex-girlfriends went to Inspector Knacker with stories of his predilection for "rough sex". That was what he called it. The cops call it "sexual assault".

Kathy's opinion is that Mr. Ghomeshi's "female 'victims' sounded like -- it pained me to agree with the guy -- bitter ex- or wannabe girlfriends. (As you had guessed: None of these “victims” called the cops after these “assaults,” some of which dated back over a decade.)" What headline does Kathy give to this piece? "My NEW Taki’s column — Ghomeshi-quiddick: The trial of the cunt-ury!"

Amazing! I couldn't get away with that. Could you, Ed.? [No way. Ed.] I can imagine what would happen if a male writer used the c-word to refer to a female. Accusations of sexism, summonses to appear before a "human rights tribunal", followed by banishment from the lamestream media pending the completion of remedial sensitivity training. Such is the politically correct world in which we live. That, by the way, is the gist of Mr. Ghomeshi's defence.

What does Walt read?

Ed. here. It's been a while since we dipped into the virtual mailbox to answer readers' questions. Chris P. Bacon, of Wynot NE poses a rather obvious question -- so obvious that no-one ever asked before. What blogs [Chris asks] does Walt read? Here's a half-dozen.

It should be rather obvious to regular readers of WWW that Walt follows internationally published author, free speech advocate and general curmudgeon Mark Steyn. Mr. Steyn's blog is called Steyn Online: The One-Man Global Content Provider. His writings have been the subject of numerous ill-founded complaints to various "human rights" tribunals, and have been quoted with approval right here on WWW. Steyn Online often has links to the author's radio interviews, worth listening to. And he's a fan of hockey and Frank Sinatra. What more recommendation do you need?

Another free speech advocate Walt admires is Ezra Levant, a Canadian lawyer, journalist political activist. (Not all activists are of the left!) As publisher of the now-defunct Western Standard magazine, he was hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed. Click here to check out his blog TheRebel.media. Lots of video here, including The Ezra Levant Show, featuring... well, DUH!

Another blog which features terrific video rants is The Remnant Newspaper, which actually began in 1967 as a newspaper for traditional Catholics appalled by the "reforms" of Vatican II. Under the editorship of Michael Matt, it has evolved into a fine online blog for faithful Catholics and others concerned about the demise of the Church and Christian values generally. The Remnant often features "The Mike and Chris Show", in which Mr. Matt and Catholic lawyer and author Christopher Ferrara dissect the latest follies of Pope Francis and other "religious leaders". Walt gave you a sample just last week: "Luther's Revenge: The Surrender of Pope Francis".

Speaking of Christian values, Walt recommends Blazing Cat Fur, which is not just about the Catholic Church, but about the interface between Christian values and geopolitics. The current landing page features articles on British Columbia First Nations (read: Indians), Muslim terrorism in Belgium, and a woman's warning to Missoula MT residents about the “civil unrest” they might be facing should the Obama administration’s plans to plant foreign migrants in the town go through. Warning: lots of advertising on this blog; use your pop-up blocker.

And speaking of fur... take a gander at Five Feet of Fury (geddit?), written by Kathy Shaidle. Ms Shaidle shares Walt's tendency to retweet good stuff from other sources, and repost interesting videos. Her blog covers much the same mix as WWW, without the religion. On February 4th she featured "What Mark Steyn said about Muslim migrants — months before Paris, Cologne".

Finally, and still speaking of fur, we have Small Dead Animals: the Roadkill Diaries, the very creative work of Catherine McMillan, a sometime photographer and artist from (it says here) Delisle, Saskatchewan. Lots of politics here with a nice admixture of arts, culture and criticism of the meeja, as in the following quote from "Captain Capitalism":

Perhaps I've been inoculated against political news coverage.
Perhaps I've just gotten older and, thus, wiser and can ID BS when I see it.
Or maybe my most recent book made me even more disdainful of what the commoners consume.
But as I watched Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer cover the recent kerfuffle between Trump and Cruz, Hillary and Bernie, not to mention their representative mouth pieces, my mouth dropped not because of what they were saying, but because all of them:
The politicians
The spokespersons
The interviewees and
The CNN staff
treat you people like genuine f*cking idiots.

If you're tired of reading the same old liberal bullshit, written by the same old liberal elites and published in the same old liberal lamestream media -- if you're tired of being treated like a genuine f*cking idiot -- read some or all of these blogs. And keep reading WWW too!