Today began similar to that of any other Sunday, I woke up, had a big pee, then turned on my radio. Just in time to listen to the Ongoing History Of New Music. It’s an hour of “stories” about bands and music I, either, once followed or, in a more recent context, couldn’t care less about. For what it’s worth, it’s usually quite interesting.
But today’s episode was quite the exception to the rule. It was about the band U2 and, of all things, their “business savvy.” Could there be a less interesting topic on a more irrelevant bunch of goof’s, Alan? I’m being serious. And I hear I’ll soon have yet another album of theirs to dread. And it’s being released this Tuesday? Shit. Yet one more thing I don’t need or, more fittingly, will never benefit from knowing exists.
I’m so grateful I spend conscious energy avoiding circumstances where I might come across having to hear such crap…
Anyway, as I’m sure you could well guess, I promptly switched stations, in time to catch CBC Radio One’s hourly news cap. It is worthy of mention, for little other reason, than it’s the anniversary of the “ousting” of the elected Haitian “government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”1 It was 5 years ago today Aristide’s rule “was destabilized and then overthrown […] by the US, France and Canada, which ushered in a terrible wave of political repression and an ongoing UN occupation.”2
And what was so interesting, was the CBC, usually semi-keen on pointing out others “hypocrisy,” made absolutely no mention of the inherent problems with said “overthrow,” Canada’s complicit involvement in said event, or, what I can’t recall (sorry), the current suffering of the Haitian people. How strange. Must have been a simple oversight, right?
What, I find, is most relevant to the CBC’s omission is the Harper Government recently announcing plans to cut funding to the CBC by some $62 Million dollars? “Putting that institution into a crisis.”3 Therefore, I think, it’s safe to say the CBC not calling into question the Canadian Government’s role in Haiti could, at least, be a little suspect. Don’t you?
That is, of course, assuming they ever have…
UPDATE: This entry was written and posted yesterday, the 1st of March, and on account of matters out of my control, and my sloppiness, it appears to have been posted today. I had to wait until my host sorted out some hardware issues with a “file  server” and my site was down for some time yesterday. Preventing me from posting anything. Plus the Coordinated Universal Time stamp of my website was set an hour ahead of what it should’ve been. And I wasn’t able to post until 11:15 last night, therefore my web server understood it to be 12:15, today. My bad. It’s all fixed now.
- 1 & 2 ZSpace Commentary, Haiti, February 27, 2009
- 3 “Rae Slams Torries Over CBC,” Toronto Star, February 28th, 2009