This moment in time.

Dear faithful readers,
Assuming that some of you, and by some of you I mean likely all of you, and by all of you I mean one of you, are out of the country at the moment, I thought I'd fill you in on the newsworthy activity on this side of the world.

First thing's first. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a Russian author, and political dissident passed away this Sunday. The headlines are now a blur severe looking Catholic priests and jowly bearded men holding candles out of respect. This is fascinating not only because the author of The Gulag Archipelago managed to survive communism, the reign of Stalin and live long past the official terrors of the KGB, but also because a writer was given what amounts to a state funeral and that it was attended by hundreds.

Second, Paris Hilton is running for President of the United States. Well not exactly, but she did release a campaign advertisement where she refers to John McCain as "white-haired dude", and outlines her new hybrid energy policy that involves both incentives for new energy saving technologies AND off-shore oil drilling. John McCain later endorsed this plan as much better then Barack Obama's. Sigh.

Finally, Vince Li, the man who brutally murdered and cannibalized a total stranger on a Greyhound Bus last week, begged a Manitoba courtroom to be killed yesterday. The recent Chinese immigrant, who came to Canada on the federal skilled workers program in 2001, had spent time in a psychiatric institution. The police report that Li had drafted several resumes for various degrading positions at international chains such as Wal-Mart and McDonalds. The day before the murder he sold his brand new laptop for $60.00. I can't help but wonder if he was at all conscious or totally detached from reality when the incident occurred. From the evidence in this article, he seems to have undergone a severe form of culture shock, and honestly, I'm not terribly surprised. Hopefully this tragedy will force Canadians to reevaluate how we treat new immigrants. I want to do something with this story. I feel a Dennis Tourbin style painting coming on.

oh well.
jt