Fuck Mondays 4: Jack Layton Dies
I’m not very political for an assortment of reasons that will probably come up at some point in an argument between Scott and I. However, even based solely on the fact that he’s posing with a pint of beer at Cage aux Sports in a vintage Habs hockey sweater I think Jack Layton was a pretty stand up Canadian. Fun fact: I found that photo by Google Image searching “Jack Layton Awesome”. It was the 5th image result. There’s another image of Jack Layton lower in the article that didn’t show up in that image search, but trust me, it is equally awesome.
Jack Layton passed away this morning losing a battle to cancer at age 61. He had been diagnosed over a year ago and just a few weeks ago stepped down from politics. In an interesting American’s take on Jack, check out Greg Proops’ podcast “The Smartest Man in The World” episode that he recorded in Montreal: Beavers.
Jack Layton was the leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party or NDP as its called on the mean streets of Canada. The first leader of the NDP in the 60s and 70s was Tommy Douglas who was voted once as the greatest Canadian of all time for inventing medicare. Thanks Tommy. Those are some big shoes to fill Jack.
If you can’t tell from our love of the Habs, this site is run out of Quebec (Montreal specifically). Quebec has this thingwhere it wants to separate from the rest of Canada. It wants to do so so much that there is a federal political party who has a goal of separating from the country. Spellcheck has just informed me twice that I have no idea how to spell separate, but you’ll never know, thanks spellcheck. Anyhow, this past election, Quebecois seemingly got sick of this notion and instead voted NDP in 59 of 75 ridings in the province. This was almost tantamount to the province collectively deciding that it no longer wanted to separate. Or at least, not right now. As an anglo in Quebec, this is a pretty big deal to me, since I like being Canadian. Just one of many reasons Jack Layton was awesome. Another reason is right over there where he’s dressed up in a StarFleet uniform in the early 90s. In case you’re wondering, yes, he was a politician at the time of the photo. In case you’re wondering why that uniform fits so well, he had it custom fitted. His wife has one too.
(Olivia Chow) and Jack had them custom made by a tailor. “Very form fitting,” she said. And they even had the special beam-me-up badge affixed to them.
Awesome. He will be missed.
My original topic for this post was guys wearing girl jeans. It pisses me off. I’m sure I’ll write about it again sooner or later. This weekend, as I mentioned in last week’s Thursday 9to5 (illustrated), was Scott’s bachelor party. My body is still in a slight state of revolt against me. I totally should’ve taken today off work.
Trek Photo: http://www.flickr.com/people/scotteh/
Habs Photo: http://davvesfaves.tumblr.com
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