Enter Stage Right hands out its awards...
The Earth is Flat Award A celebration of the inane, insipid and asinine... web posted September 20, 1999 I've always like England. Might be because of all of those movies which showed her soldiers doing some amazing things, whether Lawrence of Arabia, Zulu or The Charge of the Light Brigade. But England, like many other countries, has fallen pray to heavy government interference in people's lives. Take, for example, platform shoes. An investigation at the British Standards Institution (BSi) is being held into the fashion craze for platform shoes following the first recorded death blamed on a pair of shoes. In Japan last month 25-year-old nursery teacher Misayo Shimizu suffered a fatal skull fracture after toppling from her five-inch high platforms. David Lazenby, BSi director of standards, said: "This epidemic of killer shoes has already claimed one life and injured thousands with Baby Spice and Naomi Campbell already falling victim. "It is clear that when it comes to fashion shoes, style and size matter." Lazenby said that over 200 000 people have already been treated for shoe-related injuries each year in the UK. He emphasised how the problem is a very real one for the fashion world and today's youth. Platform shoes, some of which are 10-inches high, set the pace during the 1970s glam-rock era. Their popularity revived when the Spice Girls paraded their lofty footwear to the nation. English girls in their teens and even younger around the world followed the trend despite the much publicised falls from grace of famous stars. Baby Spice Emma Bunton sprained her ankle while running from a television studio in her platform trainers and catwalk queen Naomi Campbell fell off her eight-inch heels while modeling in a Vivienne Westwood catwalk show. Current footwear guidelines relate mainly to whether or not the shoe can withstand normal wear and tear. There are no guidelines on heel height, nor any suggested age restrictions. Never fear, where there is a government office there is new regulation! A BSi spokesman added: "We will look at possible height restrictions and recommendations on the shoes themselves or packaging that people under a certain age should not wear them. "Of the total number of accidents involving shoes around 10 000 every year relate to high heels or platforms, so this is a very serious issue." Very serious indeed. Ah Hollywood. Even a conservative author's words will be twisted. I speak of Tom Clancy, noted founder of the techno-thriller genre and author of Red Storm Rising, Clear and Present Danger, among other novels which appeal primarily to men. And conservatives. Could you imagine Bill Clinton using force against an actual enemy of the United States? Thought not. Paramount is working on the movie version of Sum of All Fears, in which radical American Native Indians and Arab terrorists explode a nuclear weapon outside of the Super Bowl as pay back for sins both real and imagined. Well, it would be about American Native Indians and Arabs, but they apparently vote Democrat. See, Paramount is planning on changing the villains of the novel into something more politically correct. Right-wingers. "We are examining changing the bad guys into members of the extreme right wing in America," says director Phillip Noyce. Noyce also states that the premise of the novel is something he believes will happen someday. Hopefully it's in a certain California city. As Public Enemy once sang, "Burn, Hollywood, burn." web posted August 30, 1999 "The FBI may have used a very limited number of military-type CS gas canisters on the morning of April 19 in an attempt to penetrate the roof of an underground bunker 30 to 40 yards away from the main Branch Davidian compound." -- FBI spokesman John Collingwood, August 25, 1999 Hey, it only took six years. On August 25, the FBI finally admitted that their agents fired "potentially flammable devices" near the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas on the very day that it just happened to burst into flames and kill more than 80 people. Yuppers, after years of denying it, the FBI admitted it fired two CS gas canisters at a concrete bunker in a pit outside the wood-built compound on April 19, 1993. Of course, in this case the canisters bounced off the roof of the concrete bunker and landed in a puddle...and several hours before the fire started. Whew! For a second I thought the FBI was guilty of some sort of malfeasance. In response to the admission, Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh ordered a full inquiry into the circumstances under which military-type tear gas canisters were fired. Freeh assigned 40 FBI agents to the internal review and ordered everyone at the Waco scene re-interviewed. Of course, the FBI continues to deny that it fired any shots that day and rumors that a covert U.S. military unit -- who's uniforms are virtually identical to those of the FBI emergency response teams -- actually used Waco as a live fire exercise. You know, the kind of thing illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act unless the president himself gives approval. But hey, at least the FBI came clean on the grenades right? Right? Time to watch Waco: Rules of Engagement again... web posted August 23, 1999 Are you black? If you are and you live in certain parts of Africa, your life means less than a white European's...at least that's what the Canadian government is suggesting with some recent decisions. I say this because the Canadian government will go so far as to join a military campaign against Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic to stop him from harming residents of Kosovo -- who are white -- but invite to Canada for a conference the leaders of Togo, Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Burundi, who are accused of heinous human rights violations against their citizens -- who are black. Section 19 of Canada's Immigration Act denies entry into Canada to "persons who are or were senior members of or senior officials in the service of a government that is or was, in the opinion of the minister, engaged in terrorism, systematic or gross human rights violations or war crimes or crimes against humanity." However, Canadian Justice and Foreign Affairs officials met recently and decided to circumvent that law by using a section of the Foreign Missions and International Organizations Act which allows these "leaders" to come to Canada with full diplomatic immunity. Normally they would be arrested at once for their alleged crimes against humanity, but with the exemptions, they can walk around Canada freer than any of their citizens are. Collectively, the leaders of these countries are responsible for the murders, tortures and jailings of tens of thousands of people, something which apparently is not much of a concern to Canada. That shouldn't surprise anyone, however, as Canada has joined the rest of the world to suckle at Chinese teats while that country's leadership butchers its own citizens. Canada too deals with Cuba, another nation which does not respect the rights of its citizens. Of course, all of these people are minorities as well. I'd like my government to answer this question. Is a the life of a minority less important then the life of a white person? Judging by their policies and behavior, it would appear that way. Welcome to Canada. There is an old Serbian proverb that says vinegar in freedom tastes better than honey in slavery. This award is meant for events and people Enter Stage Right considers to be positive. web posted September 20, 1999 Thanks to farmers, the Saskatchewan Party managed to deal Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow and his socialist New Democrats a serious blow in that province's recent election. Romanow's NDP went from a substantial 25-seat majority in the provincial legislature to its first minority government since 1929. The vote gave the NDP 29 of the province's 58 seats, the Saskatchewan Party 26 and Liberals three. The NDP's popular vote fell almost 10 per cent from what it was in the last provincial election in 1995. In fact, the Saskatchewan Party won slightly more votes at 39.4 per cent to the NDP's 38.7. Despite public opinion polls that consistently showed the NDP with a double-digit lead on the Saskatchewan Party, a third straight majority was still up for grabs a full two hours after the vote-counting began. But the rural-urban split revealed a deeply divided province. The NDP was on its way to victory in 26 of Saskatchewan's 29 city ridings and the Saskatchewan Party was poised to grab 24 of the 29 seats up for grabs in the countryside. The Saskatchewan Party, contesting its first election, won support for its aggressive pledge on tax cuts and its call for improvements to the province's deteriorating roads. Congratulations! Have someone you want considered for the Earth is Flat Award or the Vinegar in Freedom Award? Email ESR with your candidates! |
|
© 1996-2025, Enter Stage Right and/or its creators. All rights reserved.