Current events--a surreal journey

Surrealism stretches time and space out of shape to achieve its effects. Some recent headlines and commentary suggest that we indeed live in a limp-watch universe.

Little Boy Blue:

Police chief says handcuffing unruly child, 5, was 'premature'

It's the use of the word "premature" that takes this to another level entirely. Premature by several years, one might say. Time dilation, as in The Persistence of Memory, has clearly occurred.


"Look, Ma, no Hans":

Danish navy heads for Hans

Reading further, we discover that one ship will "try to reach" Hans Island/Hans Ø later this month. (I have my antiwar sign ready: "No Blood for Ø!") Is this an imaginary place, after all, that no one ever really explores except in the mind, like Prospero's island? Has anyone here actually visited Hans?


Inflated head:

I'm like Gandhi, Mandela and King, pot crusader says

No, Mr. Emery, not even close. What have you been smoking? Your head is expanding, dripping, filling up with sugared almonds and apparitions. You are like ants, and ruined architecture. Please do not speak any more or you will tear the canvas.


Meme infection alert:

"[Y]ou'll never see a president of the [BC Teachers' Federation] reading Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's Little Red Book."

A comment from Gary Mason, decrying the recent BC Court of Appeals decision granting BC teachers their political freedom.

This meme has been around for awhile:

It's freakin' 1933 germany [sic], all we need is brownshirts carrying little red book manifestos, marching arm in arm to complete the picture.

And:

When the Liberals turned Kim Campbell from Prime Minister to punchline, they waved a little red book of promises.

Now, as we all know, the Little Red Book was originally a "thoughts of Mao" primer for the masses, waved in approved frenzied fashion by 'Red Guards' (students) during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the mid-sixties. Nothing to do with Nazi Germany, nothing to do with the Liberals, either, whose Red Book was actually rather big. But now, Stephen Harper's Little Red Book? That takes us into completely uncharted mental territory. The mind boggles, and my watch just slid off my wrist.