Not on the news this morning - Rob Ford.
You know where things are at when not hearing about Rob Ford is a bad thing, because something worse supersedes it.
Tensions continue to mount between East and West over the Ukraine. I keep remembering the chat I had with an intelligent Russian man in April while in Germany for the commemoration of the liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
He was convinced that Russia was in the right, carefully protecting itself from an expansionist West that, through NATO, was increasingly creeping up to Russia's borders and presenting a real threat. This fella thought that Putin was playing his cards strategically, defending Russia's interests from countries like ours.
Of course, that's not how we feel. We don't see Putin as a tough-minded leader keeping seas of troubles from lapping at our shores.
Then there's the worsening conflict in Israel/Gaza. Frankly, there are no white hats or black hats in the Middle East - there are victims, threats, long-standing grievances and all kinds of foreign intervention. The only real solution there is to change human nature, or better yet, to really embrace the core tenants that bind the Abrahamic religions together.
A hard thing for the aggrieved and righteous to do.
Especially when politics comes in to play. As troublesome as the conflicts overseas may seem, they're not on our shores. And hey, there's something to being engaged with a war or two that may make a good political narrative here at home.
After all, who would you trust to be a war-time president? The kid with the flowing locks who loves China, the mad man in the beard or the tough-minded leader keeping seas of troubles from lapping at our shores?
Whether Harper makes it to the next election remains to be seen, though it's clear he likes being the boss. It's also clear that, in all Parties, there are folk who look at everything on the landscape for its tactical value. That means somewhere, someone is gaming out the advantage and disadvantage of differing positions and levels of engagement on international conflicts.
Which, of course, involves military equipment (which we can't afford) and boots on the ground (something in dwindling supply, before considering the morale of our troops and the increasingly offloaded costs of taking care of them).
Not that this matters, though, because Canadians have been told and readily accepted the notion that we're a consumerist society - we buy stuff, pay as little as possible and leave everything foreign in the feds' hands. We're not about to sign up for a conflict in which we may have to sacrifice anything.
Heck, in increasing numbers, we can't even be bothered to keep our democracy alive.
As Canada becomes more increasingly polarized between those whose lives carry on as they have (positively) and those whose lives have been dramatically changed, worsened, reduced, the only consistency are those who've lived with the short end of the stick for far too long. Their voice is growing as it's bolstered by those who used to have more and are starting to look for coalitions of their own.
Meanwhile, youth are becoming more organized, more vocal and more demanding of a society that doesn't leave them worse off than their parents were. Some of those parents may think the kids are whiny complainers, but a lot of them are looking to youth as champions of the solution, not bearers of the problem.
Maybe it's always this way - conflicts and powder kegs. I'm sure there are those who will say things are always the same, pay the rhetoric no mind, we will always carry on as we have.
As I get my family ready for another challenging week, I can't but wonder.
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