Thursday, May 21, 2009

Fire, brimstone and bitumen

In a bizarre attempt to garner some media attention, the environmental movement south of 60 sought divine intervention this week, when they mobilized a group of Alberta Quakers to make a pilgrimage to the Athabasca oil sands.

Guess what? The Communist Broadcasting Corp. in Yellowknife were eager to inform us of this “revelation.”

Joslyn Oosenbrug, the latest host of Breaking Wind, the CBC morning show, interviewed the representative of the Quakers about the ethics and morals of providing northern families a decent living.

The script was obviously written by Green Julie, the Sierra Club's bingo caller and the chief propagandist for the O’Reilly Foundation for Northern Poverty. The questions were leading and obviously anti-oilsands. For instance, the reporter continually asked the Quaker if she thought the oil sands were “the devil’s work.”

Things seemed to be going along well enough until Ms. Oosenbrug strayed a few times from the script and actually called the bitumen resource “oil sands,” rather than the erroneous “tar sands” terminology preferred by environmentalists. Even the woman from the Quakers started referring to them as “oil sands.”

You could hear Green muttering in the background of the studio.

“It’s TAR SANDS, you idiot!”

After the third mention of “oil sands” you could hear screaming and an obvious scuffle taking place in the studio.

“Julie…NO!”

Loud thumping sounds, a crash, a few expletives screamed and then silence followed.

After about thirty seconds of dead air, you could hear panting and then this:

“Yea….those of you not written into the book of life shall be cast into a lake of flaming tar,” the breathless voice snarled into the microphone.

“This is Green Julie reporting, CBC news, Yellowknife.”

4 comments:

  1. After working briefly at that sorry excuse for a news station, I can say that besides CBC Yellowknife's fearless court reporter Richard Gleeson, that place is nothing but a bastion for hacks who prostrate themselves to the likes of Dennis Bevington, the Sierra Club, global warming fear mongers and anybody else with a government grant to gripe and complain anytime the real world attempts to drag the NWT into the 21st Century. Residents of the territory deserve better.
    P.S. I think it's safe to say that you're a full blown curmudgeon.

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  2. Anon,
    You're the second person to suggest that I'm not "Burgeoning."
    I had the impression that a curmudgeon was an older person, but not according to my Oxford. Maybe I'll X out the "Burgeoning" in the title. I really only just liked the way the two words danced together.
    I'm also a fan of Dicky Gleason. Court is a tough beat, but he does a good job of it, without adding the sleaze that "Geraldo" Sellick brings to everything he touches.

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  3. Do we really get to vote on the name of your site? I like "Burgeoning Curmudgeon", but if we're crowdsourcing the name, I think we should have some fun with it.

    I also think it's funny that people think you're so curmudgeonly. I've always thought of you as a fairly gentle fellow in person. A gentle fellow with strong opinions, yes, but still, not a guy who's particularly difficult to get along with.

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  4. Naw...I think I'll keep the name, but I'm considering putting a big red X through the word Burgeoning. :)
    You're right, I am easy to get along with, I just have a low tolerance for people whom disagree with me (idiots).

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