... It had been obvious for two years that the honours and awards staff that administers these matters were rabid in their ambition to remove me, and I publicly referred to their ambitions in this regard as “orgasmic.”Excellent column, Conrad!
... I quickly realized that these prancing figurines in the governor general’s entourage who manipulate this honours system did not wish to be confused by the facts.
... I in fact resigned, but gave David Johnston the opportunity to do the right thing — not accept the advice to withdraw my honours, which he was free to do — if he wished. I correctly predicted that the bobble-headed worthies of the official snobocracy called the Advisory Board of the Order of Canada would nod the herald chancellor’s sanctimonious misinformation on to Johnston.
... Government House issued a statement that was in fact, false, as I had already resigned; presumably to inflict as much irritation and affected consequentiality as possible. (The Privy Council issue, of which I had no notice whatever, was at least consistent, and was so insultingly communicated by Johnston’s own email, and in the name of the prime minister, it was almost piquant.) [Question: Why is the GG sending email in the name of the PM? The GG doesn't work for the PM, does he?]
... Perhaps the most eloquent of the very large number of [supportive] messages I have received was signed “Tim”: “F–k ’em.” Good thought, Tim ...
"One should doubtless keep an open mind...though open at both ends, like the food pipe, and have a capacity for excretion as well as intake." -- Northrop Frye, 'The Great Code'
Monday, February 3, 2014
Conrad Black: The Governor General is a weasel
Or words to that effect. Conrad Black is mightily pissed at the way he was treated by the Order of Canada bureaucrats and the Governor General in particular:
Were I Conrad, I would not wish to be in the company of those who have received the Order of Canada, because since several years ago it became meaningless awarding it to some of the most vile neo-marxists one can find. Like the Nobel Peace Prize it has become something good people should avoid.
ReplyDeleteYes, something like:
ReplyDelete"I wouldn't want to belong to any group who had them as members".
Conrad Black has never even been charged with a serious criminal offense in Canada It puts us on a very slippery slope were we to take the court decisions of foreign nations as reasons to remove Canadians from our own Order. The question soon becomes what foreign court verdicts do we accept, Mexico, Iran, South Africa, Russia?
ReplyDeleteSome Canadians already argue that certain US court decisions are unjust, so who decides which ones are proper?
This further politicizes the Order, not a good thing IMO.
Black is a brilliant writer,and a self-made success story of the old school, so it has always puzzled me why the man is so obsessed with "honors" like "Lord So and So etc.," and the O of C.
ReplyDeleteHe must be an extreme Anglophile.
I wouldn't give up my Canadian citizenship if they offered me King of England.
I think Black's renunciation of citizenship came about as a contest of personalities between Black and Chretien. Chretien was being a vengeful prick and Black a prideful stuffed shirt. I doubt that it had anything at all to do with Black's feelings towards Canada except that he probably felt he'd get his citizenship back under a less spiteful regime. He's never stopped being 'Canadian' and his 'renunciation' was a forced formality.
ReplyDelete