Guy Lafleur speaks his mind about P.K. Subban

Poor Len Canayen here. Walt has asked me to take a "work break" from my summer vacation to say something about the possibility that my beloved Montréal Canadiens might get rid of my less beloved P.K.Subban before his no-trade clause kicks in at the end of June. (See "Snoop Dog vs P.K. Subban... next year???" WWW 4/6/16.)

Not a word, not even a rumour has emanated from le Centre Bell following stories in Canada's Postmedia that the Edmonton Oilers were putting together a package with which to tempt Habs' GM Marc Bergevin. My own speculation is rooted less in inside knowledge than in wishful thinking.

But there's one positive to be taken from the Canadiens" dismal season. At least people -- even diehards like the cheerleaders at the Montreal Gazette -- are now willing to concede that something has to be done with the alleged defence star. Either trade him or find a way to make him put the team ahead of his own self. See "Parsing the Montréal Canadiens end-of-season press conference" WWW 14/4/16.

Some suggestions along the latter lines were made by one of the last of the legendary Flying Frenchmen, Guy Lafleur, who cast a few pearls on his way through le Centre Bell yesterday to the annual Prix d'excellence Guy-Lafleur. Richard Labbé, writing in La Presse, summed up M Lafleur's advice to his former team as follows:

Si le Canadien veut se remettre à gagner, il doit ajouter du punch offensif, et peut-être aussi demander à P.K. Subban de baisser un peu le ton.
My stylish translation: If the Canadiens want to regain their winning ways, they have to add some offensive punch, and maybe also ask P.K. Subban to tone it down a bit.

What follows is my version of the words attributed by M Labbé to M Lafleur. I hope neither of them will mind. If you want to read the version originale, click here.

These things take time. I'm certain that the Canadiens organization realizes that it's necessary to make changes to arrive at the quality of play we're seeing at the moment [in the Stanley Cup finals]. It's necessary to be patient, and not make changes just for the fun of it. We've heard the recent rumours. Is P.K. going to be traded? He's a very talented player, but no-one knows the answer.

A flamboyant guy like that, in our time, I think he would have been taken a hit with a stick behind his head! He would have been put back in his place quick enough!

Every player has his way of getting himself up for a game. P.K.'s the same. But me, I don't know. It seems that in his place I'd have found another way without annoying the others....

I was with Yvan Cournoyer in the corridor of the Bell Centre before a match, just before the warmup. P.K. was there, talking really loudly, hyperactive. I thought he needed some Ritalin! And Yvan looked at me and said, "Lucky he didn't play in our time. He wouldn't have hard the nerve." But he's like that.

He likes the glamour and playing to the crowd. He's made like that. But for me, it's not that which is important. What's important is to get into top shape before the September training camp.

Will P.K. Subban still be in Montréal when the Canadiens' training camp opens in the fall? Will he learn to control himself and remember that he's only one guy out of two dozen? Will he stop being himself? Tune in tomorrow when we hear Marc Bergevin say [We're out of space. Ed.]

VIDEO: Pope Francis honours Hollywood lefties

On Monday Walt shared with you "6 ways Pope Francis promotes political liberalism", an excerpt from an article by Christopher A. Ferrara which you can read by following the link in my post.

Mr Ferrara's article was written before the latest egregious example of Francis the Humble's pandering to the liberal elites. I refer to a ceremony held at the Vatican on Sunday in which the Pope bestowed his "Olive Award" on three Hollywood stars -- George Clooney, Richard Gere and Selma Hayek -- who are all activists in the promotion of environmentalism, gender ideology, gay rights and suchlike liberal secular humanist claptrap.

One of these paragons of virtue claims to be a Buddhist. The other two are apostates -- lapsed Catholics -- or, I should say, not just "lapsed" but actively anti-Catholic! Listen to what The Remnant's Michael Matt has to say about them and about why the Pope is taking a leading role in destroying our Western Christian culture.

SHOCK! Scott "Dilbert" Adams endorses Clinton!

Yes, folks, you read right! Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has been accused for lo these many months of being an apologist for Donald Trump. (In reality, he's just been calling attention to the fact that, no matter what you think of his politics, The Donald's powers of persuasion are awe-inspiring.) Now Mr. Adams has apparently made an amazing about-face, with a surprise weekend endorsement of the Once-and-future First Lady.

But... here comes the spoiler alert... Mr Adams says, in his blog, that endorsing Hellery out of concern for his own physical well-being. Click here to read his reasons, as posted in his blog on June 5th. Walt suspects that he had his tongue stuck firmly in his cheek when he wrote it. If you want my opinion, here it is.

6 ways Pope Francis promotes political liberalism

The following is excerpted from "The Undertaker Pope: A Brief Study of an Infallibly Politically Correct Pontificate", an article by Christopher A. Ferrara, featured in The Remnant Newspaper.

In the fourth year of his pontificate, Pope Francis continues to deliver regular payloads of explosive off-the-cuff remarks that delight the media and shock the Catholic faithful....

For Francis, "magisterium" and "what I think" are one and the same thing. What Francis thinks -- and speaks incessantly -- generally serves the ends of political liberalism and state power while confirming the Church’s post-Vatican II demotion to a mere religious constituency under the secular sovereign. Witness, for example:

· Francis’s warm relations with socialist dictators;

· his lauding of pro-abortion and pro-“gay” politicians;

· his abuse of the papal office as a platform for globalist environmentalism (thus advantaging the same transnational corporations he professes to deplore);

· his refusal to intervene in opposition to the legalization of “gay marriage” because “the Pope belongs to everybody, he cannot enter the concrete, domestic politics of a country. This is not the Pope's role”;

· his demand -- flatly contradicting his professed abstention from domestic politics -- for universal abolition of the death penalty (while declining to demand the abolition of abortion), open borders in Europe and America, and policies of environmental regulation and wealth redistribution;

· his conspicuous failure to identify government policy, particularly in socialist countries, as a primary cause of the poverty he attributes entirely to the greed of the wealthy.

Not even during a post-conciliar epoch marked by the generalized surrender of churchmen to the zeitgeist have we seen a Pope willing to serve as the veritable pontifical undertaker at the funeral of the Church Militant, glibly reciting a few last words at the graveside in superficial remarks to reporters that he insists are "magisterium".... How is it possible that a conclave could have placed such a spectacularly unsuitable man on the Chair of Peter?...

I propose no answer to the question. Only history will provide the answer. Meanwhile, however, one can only wonder whether the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the elevation of Cardinal Bergoglio to the papacy are in some mysterious way related to the unexampled recklessness of his reign, so pleasing to the world that sings his praises.

Snoop Dog vs P.K. Subban... next year ???

Poor Len Canayen is having a longer-than-hoped-for summer vacation. But he's keeping his eye on all things Canadien (as in Canada's Team) and noticed a small announcement buried deep inside La Presse.

Seems like the Habs' alleged defenceman, P.K. Subban, knows that knowledgeable hockey types have seen through his act, and has decided to try his luck on the basketball court -- basketball being a game more suited to folks like him. As a warm-up, his PR people organized a friendly match between him and Snoop Dog [Who dat? Ed.], which was to have been held a week from today as part of the "Juste pour rire" ("Just for laughs") festival.

Note the tense there -- "was to have been held". The squib seen by Poor Len announced that the duel has been postponed until... wait for it... the summer of 2017. The official reason given is so that they could stage the event in the Bell Centre, and get bigger names, thus bigger crowds. As well, 2017 will be the 35th anniversary of "Juste pour rire" and the 375th anniversary of Montréal. Makes sense, eh.

Poor Len discounts the notion that the postponement has something to do with the uncertainty of Subban's future with la Sainte Flannelle. Less than four weeks remain until the no-trade clause in his contract kicks in. Stay tuned.

LGBT... what next?

For half a century we've wrestled with what to call people who are, errr, non-white. That adjective encompasses a range of hues, from "tanned" through yellow and red to brown and finally black. So we called black folks "black", and that was a problem because of "shadeism" which placed octaroons above quadroons above mulattos and so on. (In fact you don't hear any of those words any more.)

Besides, there was something pejorative about "black", or "dark-complected", not to mention "darkie" (as in toothpaste) or the N-word. So some genius came up with "African-American", which for most black Americans was as ridiculous as calling us white folks "European-Americans". And so we went back to "persons of colour", which sounds a lot like "coloured" to me. I don't know which term is politically correct now, and I don't care.

The same nomenclatural problem exists with people we used to call "queers". Not so long ago, that was pejorative term, right up there with "fairies", "faggots" and other quaint expressions we used -- yes, I admit it -- to describe homosexuals. But then the homos embraced the Q-word, as in "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" And so Q was added to LGBT, as in "the LGBTQ community", referring to the alleged 10% of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, and/or otherwise queer.

But apparently five terms isn't enough for the proponents of aggressive gender ideology. The concept of "gender fluidity" -- today I'm a guy but tomorrow I might feel like a girl, or vice versa -- led to the addition of "2S", which stands for "two-spirited". It's not your physical gender, you see, but how you feel about it! Don't be surprised if Barack Hussein Obama stretches his pro-LGBT bathroom laws to include those who feel like "the other sex"... at the moment.

Would LGBTQ2S be the end of it? As recently as this January, I thought so, but I was wrong. (Lifetime pct .984.) Now the PC police have told us we can drop the "Q2S" -- perhaps because "queer" is still a loaded word and "2S" is just stupid -- but add an "I", which stands for "intersex". Seriously...

"Intersex" is how the Australian Department of Health refers to people whose sexual characteristics don't fit neatly into the "male" or "female" categories. Wikipedia tells us such people "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies. Such variations may involve genital ambiguity, and combinations of chromosomal genotype and sexual phenotype other than XY-male and XX-female. Intersex people were previously referred to as hermaphrodites, but the term has fallen out of favor as it is considered to be misleading and stigmatizing. Since 2006, intersex traits have controversially [sic] been described by medicine as disorders of sex development."

So there you have it, folks. "LGBTI" is the latest politically correct term for people we used to call "queers". Remember that as your city/state/province/country/whatever celebrates Gay Pride Day/Week/Month/Year/Whatever.

Further reading: "Cardinal Wuerl decries 'aggressive gender ideology'", Catholic World News, 2/6/16.

"Lifestyle challenges" lead Canuck cabinet minister to resign

Meet the Honourable Hunter Tootoo, Member of the Canadian Parliament for Nunavut and Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard... until Monday, when he resigned his cabinet position and from the Liberal caucus to seek treatment for addiction issues, after what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called "a very difficult situation".

This is not really big news, not even in the Great White North (shown clearly in the picture). Over the last three decades almost 40 Canuck cabinet ministers have had to resign for personal and/or professional reasons, including controversies and scandals. Often, they weren't gone forever, just sent to purgatory for a while and then rehabilitated. Having been in a similar position himself -- not a cabinet position, just in the position of having to quit to avoid being fired -- Walt wishes Mr Tootoo a speedy recovery.

Mr Tootoo's problem with the evil drink must surely have been exacerbated by the challenging lifestyle of a parliamentarian. As Canada's Global TV news site puts it, "Life on Parliament Hill, with its parade of free meals and wine-soaked networking events, can make it difficult for even the most stout-willed politicians, staffers and journalists to avoid overindulging at the best of times." Yes, that's what it says on the landing page, as the lead for a story headed "Parliament Hill cocktail circuit creates lifestyle challenges for MPs". Walt is bemused by the juxtaposition of that story with the advertisement immediately underneath.

Maybe if the brewers and vintners and distillers stopped advertising the stuff, people wouldn't drink so much? Yeah... right....

Footnote: Non-Canadian readers may think that "Tootoo" is an unusual name. Not so in Nunavut. Lots of Tootoos up there, including one -- Jordin Tootoo -- who now makes his home in New Jersey, where he plays for the NHL's Jersey Devils.

Another footnote: Never heard of Nunavut? You'll hear it described quite accurately in the excellent video embedded in "Advice on moving to Canada (in case Trump wins)", WWW 27/4/16.

Yet another footnote: Did you think "lifestyle challenges" related to gender identity? John Baird is no longer in the cabinet or even in parliament, having resigned suddenly and mysteriously a couple of years ago.