When did people lose their sense of humour? How did satire expire? As this video shows, Bob Dole and Saturday Night Live both had a sense of humour about themselves in 1996, making fun of Dole’s presidential defeat and Norm MacDonald’s impersonation of him. When Dole died last week only one side had retained their sense of humour. And it was not @SNL.

Nursing a nasty heroin addiction as the band starts recording, Lennon is starting the slow-motion breakdown that leads to his later incarnations as Ghandi, Gene Vincent, Randall McMurphy and finally martyred Jesus figure. He can’t concentrate on anything for more that a few minutes. He wants Phil Spector, the Rasputin of rock, to produce the album. He wants Allen Klein to mange Apple, their creative company. He wants Yoko to sing. Eventually it all gets to be too much for the other Beatles.

The new reality is class— a generation of educated guilt-ridden whites, many in the knowledge, government or media industries. Their Woke opinions are like the electric cars, private schools, summer cottages, pink pussy hats and other trappings they accumulate to cement their superior status. The distinctive feature of the new journalism— entrenched by the Trump tenure— is to flatter these people by punching down on lesser educated whites for their gullibility and lack of class consciousness.

Had Martin Luther attended the failed Glasgow COP26 conference he would instantly recognize the similarities to the Reformation (and probably be nailing his theses on the door of Al Gore’s limo.) Like the 16th-century Church these UN climate priests of holy Gaia hold your almighty soul over the rotisserie of guilt. If there’s a more corrupt hustle than selling indulgences to heaven it’s selling relief from climate catastrophe.

Like Bill Murray’s character Phil Conners, I was destined to live the same time over and over till I got it right with the people I met in Calgary. Replacing Toronto/ CBC data in my brain with an appreciation of the people I now met took time. Not everything in Calgary was perfect. Not everything from Toronto was worth abandoning. But I found myself liking the authenticity of the West, the determination of the people to pursue a goal, the long line of purple mountains to the west as my plane would bring me back after assignments. (Nothing can make me like the weather.)

Winsome Sears sketched a different America from the racist one loathed by limousine liberals in Hollywood and New York. “We can live where we want, we can eat where we want. We own the water fountains … I am living proof. In case you haven’t noticed, I am black, and I have been black all my life, but that’s not what this is about.”

If Woke virtue were a stock it would be running neck-and-neck with Tesla (currently valued at $1 T.) And virtue logic says that you, the unvaxxed, must protect me, the pious, by taking needles like a junkie when told to do so by Joe Biden, who can’t remember Long Beach, Ca., is where all the container ships are.

The city of Calgary this week elected the first woman mayor in its history. This is a source of great satisfaction to those locals who cringe at Calgary’s image as part buckaroo/ part bitumen cowboy. The fact that Jyoti Gondek is of Punjabi origin only deepens the sense of accomplishment for the urban elite of Calgary. “Look what we’ve done, world! Woman! Punjabi! Now we can hold up our heads in polite society.”

And fear is the point. Making people afraid of their past is part of that plan. The Obama Left has advanced their agenda this far and fast by instilling dread into people who still believe there is fairness in the system. But for those on the Left who insist that— in spite of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot— socialism has never had a fair trial, any means at eliminating opposition is permissible. And encouraged.

When was the last time you heard Justin Trudeau or president Joe Biden suggest dropping weight to lessen the burden on healthcare? The last time would be the first time as they have been mute on lifestyle adaptions to clear the logjam created by obese in ICUs.

If you were looking to sum up just how hollowed-out the Canadian dream has become under Trudeau and previous Liberal governments, the China file might suffice. The brazen kidnapping of Michael Spavor and Michael Korvig-- after Canada put Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou under house arrest pending extradition to the U.S.— is the most public sign of how Canada is now a non-entity globally.

The question is what happens from now until the Liberals have a new leader and reach again for a majority in about two years to lessen the NDP’s influence on them? How will the West react if Trudeau goes ahead with plans to hem in the energy industry and expand the powers of a centralized government?

As Orwell noted, one of the first things totalitarians do to gain control is to pervert language till it is unrecognizable to the average person. Like a devalued currency a devalued language signifies nothing. Hence, “Freedom is slavery. War is Peace. etc.” Before long people give up on trying to express truth and submit to the etymological tyranny.

While the federal leaders’ debate excluded discussions of foreign policy— even as Canada’s Afghanistan meltdown made headlines— we could be sure that the climate-change hustle was going to get plenty of oxygen. The people who ride E-bikes and have Tesla chargers in their garage made sure of that.

In the Covid-19 crisis the West has sought a vaccine-powered happy ending where everyone goes to heaven but no one dies. As we see now, a more realistic end game— that conceded some death and hardship— was needed for a satisfactory ending. What produced the former and actively suppressed the latter was China.

The writ has dropped and Canadians now have the head-to-head matchup they’ve wanted. Conservative Party of Canada leader Erin O’Toole versus Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private union that includes everything from auto workers to TV workers. Expect fireworks.

This climate double-dose will be levered as truth serum against the hapless Tory leader Erin O’Toole whose job it is to tell Canadians (in the words of René Levesque) to “take a valium” on climate. Fat chance Facebook’s twenty-something censors ever let him challenge their sacred climate doctrines.

The Covid fear crowd has no intention of surrendering easily— or admitting the terrible damage they’ve inflicted by their draconian societal controls. All because they won’t answer a simple question: How much is too much?

Where does the latest Covid-19 flip-flop leave the hundreds of millions who were led to believe that vaccines were the end goal, the secret sauce to end the pandemic? And how in good conscience can they continue the barrage attack on those who decline the vaccines so far? In a week of imponderables this might be the most perplexing. How does a society do this to itself? And who now has authority to speak for the public?