It ProudToBeCanadian.ca Quote Of The Week Award time. Please remain calm.
As promised, I’ll give you the nominations as well as the winner this time.
Here’s nomination number one:
It’s from Doug Giles, from our Columnist section in his “Pucker. Release. Pucker. Release.” column of October 16 2005, in which he said this as he tried to explain to losers how to become an even bigger loser:
To become proficient at puckering up to the posterior of others, stand in front of the mirror and pretend that someone just told you something completely ridiculous. Or that you just saw something that is atrocious—either politically, culturally or ecclesiastically.
Now, instead of actually saying or doing anything about the situation, simply bow and pretend to kiss the person’s (or the party’s) backside. In addition, you may want to roll over and wet yourself. Definitely do not stand up, or speak up, or rile up, or throw up, or toss empty take out food containers at the TV or even roll your eyes or do anything that would remotely suggest that you think whatever you saw or heard is complete and utter horse dooky. You must, you can and you will erase from your psyche every ounce of common sense and courage to get to that coveted place of being a blank and soulless slate.
That’s a large quote, which our vast judging panel doesn’t like too much, favoring one or two lines normally, because they have more important things to do.
Here’s another entry. It’s from Paul Jackson’s October 16 2005 column called “Right march” in our Columnist section, about his coffee with Stephen Harper. It’s Stephen Harper talking:
“I hate leaving these guys in power even a day longer,” he says.
“This isn’t just an incompetent government. It’s a bad government. A government that steals and misuses the taxpayers’ money on a massive scale.”
That fits our size format much better. And it’s really to the point. Judges happy. But yearn for more.
It turns out that shockingly, it’s yet another quote from our Columnist section, which doesn’t happen every week (honest). This week our Columnist section is very quotable, is all. I promise next week we’ll pick it from outside our Columnist section in the name of equality.
As we often do, to establish context, let’s take a quick boo at the sentences leading up to the winning quote, from Barbara Kay’s column called “The Crying Game”, which has mainly to do with Svend Robinson and his crying game:
When pressed to reveal details of his “youthful errors” (He was 30-something while using: Is that still “youthful”?), Boisclair petulantly demanded: “What more do you want from me than a confession?”
Behold the moral zeitgeist summarized in just 10 words.
See, she likes ’em short too.
But she has more:
Svend is feeling similarly cocky: A poll in his riding had more than half the pollees reporting that the ring theft would “make no difference whatsoever.” Why? Because triumphant appeals to the heart—don’t judge me, feel my pain—have come to trump the expectation of meaningful consequences.
Which is only baiting us. And then she pulls this out—a description of so many Canadian liberals—and the winner of the ProudToBeCanadian.ca Quote Of The Week Award for October 16 2005:
Sentimentality—not, alas, a banned substance—is our national marinade. Extended immersion tenderizes our analytical faculties into mush in the presence of fulsome sentiment.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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