12 April 2007

Belinda's list of things to do...learn to knit???

My witty knitty friend, t sent me an update on my "favourite" Canadian politician. Maybe she plans to taking up knitting and get over to a SnB night. Is there one in Aurora?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good thing she's in Canada, cuz if she was here, she'd be one of your proteges for sure!

Anonymous said...

For those not in the know about why Blechy Belinda is our "favourite" politician ... here's some context:

Pasted from the Ottawa Sun (okay, so not a high brow paper, but it's what i found online. Waddya gonna do.)
t.

Headline
Barb needles local knitters

Belinda Stronach's use of the K word an insult to 'pretty dynamic bunch' of yarn masters

By EARL MCRAE

The nation is still waiting for Belinda Stronach's apology for her vicious, uncalled for slur against those who knit. Not one slur, but two.

The pampered, privileged, millionaire princess wants an apology from Peter MacKay for allegedly referring to her as a dog in the House of Commons.

Never mind Peter MacKay -- you, Ms. Stronach, get off your royal buns right now and show you have what you say he hasn't, and apologize to the knitters of Canada and the world.

"She did us all a disservice," says Nancy Moynihan. "It was an insult."

Nancy Moynihan should know, she's president of the Ottawa Knitting Guild.

She's referring to two comments by Stronach, one the other day in the MacKay dog-dissing dustup when she said: "Why does this government insist on being so disrespectful of women? Is that because it would prefer that we simply shut up and stick to our knitting?"

Now, one could say that Stronach's knitting knock was simply playing off MacKay having told NDP leader Alexa McDonough several months ago to "stick to her knitting," and that Stronach has nothing against knitting, but wait -- this isn't the first time Stronach used knitting as a metaphor that women who knit are old-fashioned, non-feminist, and don't have a life.

In her recent biography by Don Martin, she responds to a question on her sex life with: "Let's face it -- I don't sit home on Friday nights and knit."

Knit? Why not just "I don't sit home on Friday nights," Belinda Stronach?

Why the K word as a metaphor for social doofus? Tell us, Ms. Stronach, have you ever knitted? Just asking, ma'am.

Nancy Moynihan has a proposition. She's inviting you to the next monthly meeting of the Ottawa Knitting Guild. It's Nov. 20 at Woodroffe United Church, 7 p.m. You might learn something about knitting and the type of people who knit. You might even want to join, $25 a year.

Nancy Moynihan, 51, married, mother of two, university graduate, knitter since the age of 7, owner of a company that designs and manages data bases:

"We have 130 members, including a few men. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, business people, as well as retired people. They range from teenagers to some in their 90s. Knitting has been viewed as non-masculine, and a socially outdated thing for women, but knitters are with-it people who've been known to meet in bars, drink beer, and knit. Belinda Stronach would find we're a pretty dynamic bunch."

So, there you are, Belinda Stronach. In the future, lay off the knitting references, okay? One can knit and still have a sex life.

Talking of insults, one wonders how fast the fragile Ms. Stronach would have melted in self-pity had she been the MP who once said to Winston Churchill in Parliament "Winston, you are drunk?" with Churchill firing back: "Indeed, madam, and you are ugly, but tomorrow I'll be sober." Or when he rebutted Lady Astor's "If you were my husband, I'd feed you poison" with: "And if I were your husband, I'd take it."

Churchill's retorts didn't railroad his great career, and when it comes to insults, how about you, Ralph Goodale, Liberal House leader, who spluttered about MacKay's supposed dog reference: "After depicting a woman as his dog, how can the minister of foreign affairs pretend to promote women's rights in Afghanistan or anywhere else?"

You were a Liberal MP in 1997, Ralph Goodale, but we don't recall you leaping to your feet with an attack against your party colleague Doug Young, the defence minister, after he rose in the House and called the hefty Reform MP, Deborah Grey, "more than a slab of bacon."

You didn't ask how your defence minister could possibly condone large-size women in the Canadian military if his mindset towards such women was "more than a slab of bacon," as in M-o-o-o-o, as in cows, which I would suggest is a genuine insult towards women as opposed to a dog in that a cow is dopey-looking and slow-moving while I've seen some pretty nifty, classy, upscale dogs that I, personally, would be proud to be.

If you, Ms. Stronach, weren't such a bawl baby, and made of stronger stuff with a sense of humour, you would have countered the alleged MacKay dog reference with: "You got it right, Peter, I'm a high-class Lhasa Apso."