Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Post number 100; a little fun

“Tories 'represent renewal' says McFadyen”

This was the Free Press headline our teacher brought to school.

"Your assignment", the teacher said, "is to pretend you are journalists and research whether this headline is true or not".

"You have one hour".

"This is great", I proclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to be a journalist”.

"They always walk around like they know everything, so they must be important".

As I started thinking about the task at hand, something just didn’t seem right about that headline.

For one, this is not what I had heard my dad tell my mom about the Tories.

He always said that diversity for the Tories meant being of Scottish descent rather than of English heritage.

I didn’t really know what that meant.

"England and Scotland are far way places", I thought. "My dad must be wrong".

For one, McFadyen himself looks pretty young.

"If Hugh is saying that they are the party that best represents Manitoba’s diversity, it must be true", I concluded.

"Politicians wouldn't just make something up would they"?

But before I buy this line hook, line and sinker, I should probably do what the teacher told me and do my own research.

"Now I'm being like a real reporter", I thought.

And so, I sat down at the computer.

"If a party was going to renew itself", I told myself, "what better time than at election time".

So I googled the Tory election class of 2007.

First was Rick Borotsik and Blaine Peterson.

"They don’t look that old", I thought.

I proceeded to read that one had been a Mayor of Brandon, an MP and an MLA.

"WOW! That’s pretty impressive".

"But I imagine you can’t be that young, if you’ve had the time to do all of that", I realized.

The other was a farmer.

"Well that’s an honourable profession, working the fields and feeding the world".

The next two I looked up were Stu Briese and Ciff Graydon.

"They both kinda of look like my Grandpa", I said out loud, "but they seem really nice".

They were also farmers.

"There sure are a lot of farmers in this party", I said.

Then I randomly looked up other MLAs, since the class of 2007 seemed pretty small.

Len Derkach, Larry Maguire, Peter George Dyck.

"More old white men and more farmers".

"5 more minutes", the teacher yelled.

Great, just enough time to see if the NDP class of 2007 is as bland and boring as these bunch of Tories.

5 comments:

  1. What your teacher neglected to tell you was that the headline was only a representation of "what might" be in some alternate universe. Further, your teach also failed to note that wistful wee-Hughie suffers from a chronic and debilitating case of T.O.O.O.A. (Talking Out of One's Ass) Syndrome. Until a cure is found for this horrific affliction of the orifice, I would suggest that you disregard the import of any future stories that involve the words 'wee-Hughie says'!

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  2. Snow,

    Math exercise. What's the average age of the PC Caucus compared to the NDP Caucus?

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  3. @ Uncle Joe
    Funny you mention that. I thought about calculating the average age but gave up because not all their ages are published.

    In all fairness, the Tories are likely only slightly older than the NDP. There are quite a few grey hairs in the NDP as well but at least a few of them are under 45.

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  4. Holy shit! Wow...the people representing farmers are farmers and the people representing city-dwellers live in the city.

    Who feeds you?

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  5. @ Sam.

    Is this a trick question? I'm pretty sure it's all those old Tory farmers that feed me. I think that was pretty clear from the post.

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