The photo montage for "Canadian cuisine" on Wikipedia is kind of embarrassing

"A small sampling of Canadian foods. Top to bottom, left to right: Montreal-style smoked meat, Maple syrup, Peameal bacon, Butter tart, Poutine, Nanaimo bar"

Yep, that's what we eat. That, and Vachon cakes.

Not really. The problem is that most of our cuisine west of Montreal is not greatly differentiated from the American food on the other side of the border, so we're stuck referencing things our southern cousins would consider quirky. And, of course, we love our "ethnic" food that the later immigrants brought.

Fortunately, Quebec and Atlantic Canada have more distinctive culinary traditions. (So does Aboriginal culture in the north and elsewhere, but it hasn't found much of a mass market outside of the ingredient contributions of corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, squashes, etc.)

Don't give up on Ontario and the rest of the provinces, though. We just need more history to happen.

A brand worth dying for?

Branding junk food as bad for you is a common trend these days, but a customer tucking in to a "Double Bypass Burger" coincidentally suffered a heart attack right in the Las Vegas restaurant.



According to Wikipedia,

The establishment is a hospital theme restaurant: waitresses ("nurses") take orders ("prescriptions") from the customers ("patients"). A tag is wrapped on the patient's wrist showing which foods they order and a "doctor" examines the "patients" with a stethoscope. The menu includes "Single", "Double", "Triple", and "Quadruple Bypass" hamburgers,[1] ranging from 8 to 32 ounces (230 to 910 g) of beef (up to about 8,000 calories), all-you-can-eat "Flatliner Fries" (cooked in pure lard), beer and tequila, and soft drinks such as "Jolt" and Mexican-bottled Coca-Cola made with real sugar.[2] Customers over 350 lb (160 kg) in weight eat for free if they weigh in with a doctor or nurse before each burger.

Eater  recognizes the possibility that this was a ("incredibly sad and evil") publicity stunt, and adds that the man is reported to have survived.

Owner "Doctor" Jon Basso told FOX5 he felt ‘horrible’ for the man.

“Tourists were taking photos of him as if it were some type of stunt,” Basso said. “Even with our own morbid sense of humor, we would never pull a stunt like that.”

(He added that there have been a “variety of incidents” at the restaurant, but this was the first full-scale coronary.)

Let's hope the staff get medical training along with their uniforms:

By the way, February is Heart Month.

Jamaica's fear of a gay island rears its ugly head in PSA ban

Jamaica has a problem with gay people. At least, that's what I've thought since Time Magazine called it "The Most Homophobic Place on Earth" in 2006 because of the shocking amount of violent hate crime committed against homosexual men and women there (and which, it claims, is often ignored by police).

Male homosexuality is still a crime in Jamaica, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Surprising, from the country that gave us Bob Marley's "One Love"? Ironically, some point to the new generation of Reggae performers as the problem:

Jamaica's popular culture has a strong tradition of music, particularly reggae and dancehall. As a consequence performers are high profile, either (depending on perspective) seen as influencing popular opinion or reflecting it. Artists such as Buju Banton, Bounty Killer, Beenie Man, Vybz Kartel, Mavado, Elephant Man, Sizzla, Capleton, T.O.K., Anthony B and Shabba Ranks, write and perform songs that advocate attacking or killing gays and lesbians.

Apologists argue that these artists are simply championing Rastafarian values in contemporary reggae music by recording material which is concerned primarily with exploring Rastafarian themes, such as Babylon's corrupting influence, the disenfranchisement of ghetto youth, oppression of the black nation and their abiding faith in Jah and resistance against perceived agents of oppression. Homosexuality is enmeshed with these themes.

One of Beenie Man's songs contains the lyrics: "I'm a dreaming of a new Jamaica, come to execute all the gays." Lyrics from Sizzla's songs include: “Shot batty boy, my big gun boom” (Shoot queers, my big gun goes boom)."A Nuh Fi Wi Fault" by Elephant Man rants: "Battyman fi dead!/Please mark we word/Gimme tha tech-nine/Shoot dem like bird".

Wikipedia goes on to point out that The Canadian High Commission in Jamaica requires "performers who wish to tour in Canada to sign an Entertainer Declaration that states that they have read and fully understand excerpts from the Criminal Code of Canada, Charter of Rights and Human Rights Act and "will not engage in or advocate hatred against persons because of their... sexual orientation."

Yeah. It's that bad down there. And in that context, you will surely not be surprised that this ad by JFLAG, about acceptance, has been refused play on Jamaican television:



The Jamaica Observer reports (with the unfortunate headline "Blow to gay ad - TVJ rejects J-FLAG’s PSA"):

"The PSA, which features former Miss Jamaica World and Miss Jamaica Universe Christine Straw and her gay brother Matthew Straw encouraging Jamaicans to show love to their family members and friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, was launched last month. J-FLAG was hoping to have the PSA aired on national TV this month.

However, Television Jamaica (TVJ), one of the island's major television stations, says it will not be carrying the PSA at this time, citing concerns about the structure of the announcement, among other things."

Broadcasters cited complaints from church groups. Associate pastor of the Tower Hill Missionary Church in Kingston, Mark Dawes, gives a typical comment:

"As innocuous and as innocent as that public service announcement might appear, it is part of a wider plan by militant homosexuals to gradually desensitise Jamaicans to homosexuality, so that homosexual behaviour and practice can become mainstream in Jamaica."

Fortunately, the internet is less afraid of catching the ghey than Mr. Dawes...

Tip via Joe My God.

F'd Ad Fridays: The "DP" Street Team sells more than they bargained for

"I'm a pervert he's a pervert she's a pervert we're a pervert wouldn't you like to be a pervert too?"

"DP" is supposed to be for "Dr. Pepper". But in the mind sewer that is the Internet, it means something else.

(To put it as politely as possible, Wikipedia's disambiguation page for "DP"includes "Double penetration, a variant of group sex".)

Via Adland

See You Next Tuesday, on Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is causing a stir today with its decision to feature on its main page an article about the traditional name for the main street of the red light district in medieval British cities: "Gropecunt Lane".

Now, I'm sure I've bruised eyeballs and shattered innocence by even dropping the C-Bomb in historical context, so to prevent further injury, all further references to the offensive word will use the obscure Chaucerian spelling "queynte".

As someone who deals with words in a professional manner, every day of his life, I look at our language's most offensive words with a mixture of curiosity and amusement. Why is queynte such a big deal? People use every possible crude euphemism for the male equivalent in work situations pretty frequently; when clients aren't around, the F-Bomb can be dropped without a second thought.

But queynte remains taboo, even in civilized boys-only discourse. Drop it in mixed company, and you're over the line. Drop in in front of my wife, and I sleep on the couch.

But will this ever change? Will popular culture and mass media defuse the C-Bomb?

As far as I'm aware, nobody dared say "Hell" on TV until 1967 when Captain dropped it at the end of "The City on the Edge of Forever". Twenty years later, the "Bitch" and "Bastard" frontier was crossed in primetime in a very special episode of Moonlighting. Since then, pretty much every other taboo word has made an appearance in the North American mainstream... except queynte.

The British islanders are a little less shy about it, as anyone who has seen movies like Trainspotting will attest. (If you click the link, be ready for a carpet-bombing of various naughty words.)

As a writer, I realize that words lose their power in overuse, or simply fall out of favour. The term "swive", once a shocker, is now meaningless. "Damn" was once written "D__n" because of its religious implications. (And, of course, "Taking the Lord's Name in Vain" is now as common as using "like" as a placeholder in casual speech.)

So, is the Wikipedia article the beginning of the end of queynte's power to shock and awe? And what new crudity will take its place?

My spellchecker and I will be keeping watch.