Take a deep breath and appear normal

Welcome back
We must be getting near summer...the crazy season is already underway. The oil is still in the Gulf...Parliament is even more insane than usual....but hey we've got FIFA soccer (or football as they say across the pond).
You gotta laugh, right? It's hard to believe that there's anything funny about the oil nightmare but this comes pretty close: Great BP parody
As President Obama fights harder and harder to make BP own the spill - financially - he knows that politically it doesn't have to make sense in order to be damaging. Hence his four visits to the Gulf and his televised speech from the Oval Office tonight. He has a lot riding on this.

G20 Oil Spill?

There's got to be a lot of concern at Toronto's G20 headquarters about a possible 'oil spill' [real or 'just for fun'] in that 'lake' they are constructing in the media centre. Can you imagine?! They'll have to frisk every reporter going in for any lighter fluid or WD 40. Wouldn't it just be just too tempting for some journalist to be sitting in a Muskoka chair, next to the 'lake' and doing a 'throw' to their camera reporting live while the water burns in the background? If Rick Mercer, or one of Jon Stewart's or Stephen Colbert's 'reporters' are allowed in, it'll be a done deal, mark my words.

So what about the $1 billion security bill for the G8 and G20? My gut reaction is that, if nothing goes wrong (fingers crossed) it will continue to be labelled as a 'waste'. If something does happen, then demands will be made that it clearly wasn't enough! A lot of people forget that while the G8 leaders were meeting in Gleneagles, the London subway bombing took place. Coincidence? I think not. So we all have a stake in getting this right.

The government could be doing a better job of telling Canadians what the money is being spent on, that's for sure. There is, however, only one thing worse than spending too much money on security...and that is not spending enough!!

Bloody Sunday Inquiry Report
After 12 years and $300 million, the Report of the Inquiry, led by Lord Saville, into the 1972 'Bloody Sunday' massacre in Northern Ireland has been finally released. It was great to see the reaction of Prime Minister Cameron, who nailed it beautifully by saying, "what happened on Bloody Sunday (when 13 were killed and 13 were injured) was unjustified and unjustifiable.....you do not defend the British Army by justifying the unjustifiable." Well said! As I was born about 14 miles from that site in Londonderry, I have a particular interest in it. I view it as putting in place one of the essential pieces of resolving "the troubles". Without justice, peace has little meaning. Congratulations Lord Saville and all who worked hard to achieve this difficult, but necessary, reckoning with the past.

Here it is. It makes fascinating reading: Bloody Sunday Inquiry Report

Or if you don't have time, then read the lyrics to U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday or watch this video of U2 singing their song. Check out how they looked back then: U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday



Attention all Podcasters and Content Creators

I will be speaking this Friday night, June 18th at the Podcasters Across Borders Conference at the Fourth Stage of the National Arts Centre at 7:30 p.m. They've got a great lineup for their conference this weekend. Check it out here: http://www.podcastersacrossborders.com/

Until next time.....take a deep breath and appear normal.