venerdì, novembre 04, 2005

Roméo Dallaire

Reading Shake Hands with the Devil, or trying to amid all the reefer and thesis-revision-procrastination I've been extremely occupied with this week. Impressions:

1. Citizens of developed countries need a shock collar to go off when something insupportable is happening. As I read about the apathy and cheapness with which the Rwandan abattoir was tolerated, of course "Sudan, Sudan, Sudan" pulses through my brain. 1994, all this went down? What were you doing in 1994? 'Friends' or the 'Simpsons'? 2005 now? Reality television and reefer?

Ah, don't listen to me. If you scraped me down before my morning shower you could bottle the residue and call it hash oil. I don't know what to do, besides push for Canada's military budget to be increased so our foreign policy can be an actual policy instead of, you know, making everybody think we're really great by sending a bunch of under-equipped soldiers to Afghanistan. You know our 'tank commanders' in fact command battalions of jeeps? But hell - if we signed the anti-land mine pact, then land mines don't exist anymore, right?

The Cold War is over. Mister Mister to the south isn't going to take care of us anymore. In fact, he wants our stuff. Maybe he'll leave us alone if we throw daisies at him and say, 'You're baaaaaaad!'

Again, don't listen to me. I still can't believe the government stopped paying for me to be able to see stuff without lowering my tax burden, so I don't know where all that magical money would come from. But I would have been tempted to vote for Stronach for reasons besides those blue, blue eyes. Mmmm. Which leads me to impression two:

2. Roméo Dallaire is dreamy. The way he manages to make a moustache look good aside - even though I've never seen anybody besides Tom Selleck pull that off before.

Strong moral drives, so strong you don't even know they're morals anymore, are dreamy. Incredible adversity and trauma being an impetus for action instead of passivity is dreamy. I don't think I've ever been involved with a man with even the same species of moral fibre. Just a long line of hedonists with acrobatic moral codes, and none too few boys who have looked into my 36 C or Ds or whatever and saw their mommy. This is my fault though. Too much reefer, too lazy, too prone to be enamored of whoever is being reefer-y and lazy on the couch next to me. And you know what? He’s never been Roméo Dallaire.

Anyways, how revolting, all the way from Rwandan genocide to my retarded emotional life. This is why everybody hates North Americans. C’est toujours une histoire de cul avec moi, that’s the real problem. If Michelangelo wasn’t interested in sculpting it, I haven’t been able to concentrate on it for more than a few hours.

4 commenti:

Lady ha detto...

that's it - i'm getting you a date with Roméo Dallaire for your birthday.

i think Canadian Peace Keepers should have a huge reserve of daisies so that whenever they can't do anything, they can at least make the bloodshed prrrty.

weeee!

in 1994 - we were in grade 10 or 11 or something. we were doing then what we do now - getting stoned and drunk and watching way too much television.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Oooo, maybe I'd become Madame Générale Melita Roméo La Spliffe-Dallaire. Then I'd get some respect. Except from Belgium, but here's what I think of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger

Why don't you stop watching television? It's dumb and you're smart. I used to watch it CONSTANTLY and I don't miss it now, besides the Daily Show and BBC World News.

Emlyn ha detto...

What, you don't know if you're Cs or Ds? I thought that's the kind of essential info all women would know about themselves. Then again, I'm drunk right now, so what would I know?

And yes, though Dallaire carries off that mustache mighty well, I'm fairly curtain there's many a voice within the CDN military itself that would question his morale authority in writing a book like 'Shake Hands With the Devil' (which must be, from my time at Chapters, along with Paris 1919, one of the most-purchased books never read by those who bought them. Whether Treaty of Versaille or Rowainian genocide--not exactly Christas 2004 reading, you know?)

Oh, and 1994? First year of university. I was confused and an unthinking as a kangaroo pub still mewling withing its mother's pouch.

Mistress La Spliffe ha detto...

Ya, maybe we should keep to life-affirming crap like "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" so we can save Chapters grad students the trouble of a book return transaction when things get heavy.

But seriously. Tens of thousands of lives saved in impossible cirucmstances without jeopardizing too many Canadian lives, since Canada didn't see fit to send anybody except him and an aide-de-camp. So what are these voices in the CDN military saying? And are they saying it with as many malapropisms as you? Because that would be hilarious.