Some species eat their own young. So do some political parties. The Republicans in the U.S., and the Greens in Canada, are both currently engaged in devouring themselves. It’s too early to predict what will be left of the former. But it speaks volumes about how little is at stake in Canadian politics that the Greens are tearing themselves apart not over anything domestic but over the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Especially odd since neither Jewish nor Moslem Canadians tend to vote Green anyhow. 

I like this about Canadian politics. It’s almost as if the only thing at stake is how to cook steak, about which even vegetarians are encouraged to weigh in. Think of Canada, if you will, as a pretty much all white village in upstate Vermont. When the crime rate doubles it’s because rather than just one, two bikes were stolen this year, though of course both were immediately recovered. My neighbours are all double vexed. No one gets a bill even for a month in hospital. And what the news channels report as an ‘atrocity’ is that some wooden crosses have deteriorated on some paupers’ graves. 

I’m cherry picking, of course. Or would were it not July, and so just a tad late in the season for cherries. But they were especially good this year.

Categories: Editorials, Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask