FIGHT CLUB

Fighting is exciting and brawling is enthralling, but at some point it begins to threaten the game. It is, after all, baseball, hockey, football we really came to see.

Ottawa these days has been a classic bench clearing brawl:

·         Five Senators were under investigation by the Ethics Commissioner; now the entire Senate is being audited and all Senators are suspect.

·         The Prime Minister’s Office is at the centre of an RCMP investigation.

·         The Prime Minister’s right hand man, Nigel Wright, was forced to resign for inappropriate, perhaps criminal behaviour.

·         Justin Trudeau has been charging charities $20,000 to speak at their events and, allegedly, skipping votes in the House of Commons to do it.

·         Opposition Leader, Thomas Mulcair, is alleged to have run several stop signs and hassled a cop.

·         Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, with six of his friends, stayed at the official residence of Canada’s High Commissioner to Great Britain for eight days while on vacation in England a while back.

·         The other day I heard a private citizen claiming that he watched from the gallery as one of the Conservative MPs played Angry Birds in Question Period. I mean the video game, not the actual game he presumably thought she should have been playing.

Thankfully Parliament is taking a break for the summer and giving the dust a chance to settle. We might hope that the substantive issues will continue to be investigated and the nonsensical, diversionary issues will dissipate. And, while they’re vacationing, I hope their mothers might take them aside and share with them a pearl of wisdom like this one my mother shared with her wrangling children. It’s a cautionary tale every child should know.

THE DUEL

by Eugene Field

The gingham dog and the calico cat

Side by side on the table sat;

'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)

Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!

The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate

Appeared to know as sure as fate

There was going to be a terrible spat.

(I wasn't there; I simply state

What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

The gingham dog went "Bow-wow-wow!"

And the calico cat replied "Mee-ow!"

The air was littered, an hour or so,

With bits of gingham and calico,

While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place

Up with its hands before its face,

For it always dreaded a family row!

(Now mind: I'm only telling you

What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)

The Chinese plate looked very blue,

And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"

But the gingham dog and the calico cat

Wallowed this way and tumbled that,

Employing every tooth and claw

In the awfullest way you ever saw—

And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!

(Don't fancy I exaggerate—

I got my news from the Chinese plate!)

Next morning, where the two had sat

They found no trace of dog or cat;

And some folks think unto this day

That burglars stole that pair away!

But the truth about the cat and pup

Is this: they ate each other up!

Now what do you really think of that!

(The old Dutch clock it told me so,

And that is how I came to know.)

Perhaps, when Parliament resumes in the fall, no one will show up. Wouldn’t that be nice?