The Absurdity Of Censorship

     Everyone has heard about the controversy over the rewriting of the books by Mark Twain. Because the dreaded "N" word was used in the tales of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the books have recently been redone using different words. instead of the "N" word, slave was used. Instead of "Injun Joe", it's now Indian Joe. Just plain ridiculous if you ask me. Now comes a new round of absurdity.

      In 1985, British rock group "Dire Straits" came out with their biggest hit, "Money For Nothing". Since it's release, it garnered the following ...

• Billboard #1 single September 21 - October 5, 1985


• 1986 - Grammy for Record of the Year


• 1986 - American Music Award for Record of the Year


• 1986 - 9 MTV Video Music Awards

     The song was used for everything from the theme song for the WWE wrestling to MTV and has even been parodied by Weird Al Yankovich.

     Now more than 25 years later,  some over-sensitive woman from Newfoundland lodged a complaint  with  the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council  and had the song banned from airplay. Why??? because of 1 little word. Faggot.

     What the hell is wrong with people that they can ban works, whether art, music or video, based on the complaint of 1 narrow minded individual? There are a lot of things that deserve to be censored but a song that's been around for over 25 years is just plain ludicrous.

     If you disagree with the censorship of Money For Nothing, then let them at The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council know. E-mail Ron Cohen at ron@cbsc.ca or phone him at 613-233-4607 ext.#14

     To protest the air-play ban, here is Money For Nothing by dire straits. Uncensored.

A Letter To Hamilton City Hall

Dear Hamilton City Council

     Every week, it seems I am reading or hearing about what council is trying to do for the betterment of our community. And sadly, every week I am left with the same sour taste in my throat over some of the most ridiculous crap I've ever heard. The people of Hamilton elected you to help our city grow but what I've heard in the last few months is doing nothing but tearing our city apart.

     I was just made aware of a Spectator article concerning the change of venue for  Festival of Friends  and cannot for the life of me wonder why you would agree so fast to the decision. The article states that the festival is growing too big for the park. BULL####. There is plenty of room for the festival to grow at Gage Park. If everything was spread out a little more rather than trying to keep it all huddled around the bandshell, there would be no problems with space. The area by the King St. entrance closest to the delta for example had nothing there. More tents, rides or whatever could have been set up there with very little problems. There was a wide open field between the bandshell and the fountain that had virtually nothing there save for maybe 2 or 3 stalls. What should have been there was something like, oh I don't know, how about a dunk tank where people throw balls at a target and hopefully drop a councilor into a tank of Hamilton Harbour water.

     I used to go to Gage park for the festival every year since it began. I took my sons there and eventually my grandson. But if the festival ends up in Ancaster, I'm afraid that visits to the festival have ended for our family.

     There are a couple of other items that should be addressed, like the stupidity of an LRT in this city when the HSR is a load of crap, water mains that are forever in need of repairs, some of the worse streets in the province, exorbitant taxes which cause an endless number of store vacancies in the core. But that's all I'll say about those. There is one subject I can't ignore. The stadium/Ti-Cat fiasco.

     When Fred Eisenberger was mayor, he tried to push through the West Harbour area for a stadium. Shemp Howard could not have made a dumber move. There was virtually no access to highways and street congestion would have been a nightmare to say the least. Then there was the option of a stadium on the east mountain. Good move. Put a stadium way out in the boondocks where a lot of the fans can't get to it. Next came the area near Longwood Road. Problem with that is it would have had Hamilton taxpayers paying for it until Hamilton gets an NHL franchise (and we all know the likelihood of that happening). Now there is talk about the stadium being built in Burlington and the Ti-Cats playing there. Here's a little newsflash for you....

     If you people would get your heads out of the sand, especially a couple in particular I refuse to name because when I do I get nauseous, you will see that Confederation Park is the best possible site for a new stadium. It is close to the highway, it is close to hotels for overnight fans, it has great visibilty, local transit (as good as it is) isn't that far off and could be modified to accommodate games and it wouldn't cost nowhere near what the Longwood Road site would cost. I can't understand why a few think it's a bad site unless there are other plans in the works for something there like maybe a hotel or such thing.

      The more I think about it, the more I think that as tax payers who voted in the men and women on city council, we are as much to blame for our city degrading as it is. After all, if we hadn't voted in the same people as the last election (well except for Eisenberger) things might have been a little different.

          Signed......One Disgruntled Hamiltonian.

A New Year, A New Start

I've had to deal with a few major issues concerning family matters over the last couple of months (particularly 2 deaths in the family) so I really didn't feel like doing much posting on here. It's a new year now and time to get on with things.

Starting tomorrow, I'll post as much as I can. It won't be every day but the gloves are coming off over local issues, Doltin Dalton, as well as a few others I have in mind. So hang onto your asses cause the ride's just getting started and it could get bumpy.