Chrystia Freeland resigned from Cabinet today, so Canada has lost its minister of everything. Trudeau apparently wanted to replace her at Finance (con quien?).
I’ve been kind of lukewarm about Freeland for a while, but I’m quite taken by her resignation letter and by her timing. I've been wanting to yell "You Go Girl!" all morning.
The letter has serious “you want to fire me? I quit!” vibes, which seems appropriate given that Freeland told us all we were in a vibecession because she couldn’t bring herself to use the “r” word. She’s only resigning from Cabinet and not from her seat, but the jokes about Disney Plus have already started.
She left this morning and the Fall Economic Statement is supposed to be delivered this afternoon. I bet the Department of Finance Canada is having fun today.
It’s not clear whether the statement will be delivered as scheduled or who will do it. Even if the statement is delivered, I’m sure who ever does the delivering will be overwhelmed with questions about Freeland.
In passing, it has long bugged me that Trudeau and his senior ministers have all had the same elocution lessons. Are these lesson part of mandatory training? The specific manner of speaking, which I’m going to call Trudeau-speak, started with Trudeau but I’ve noted that Freeland and Anand also use Trudeau-speak when delivering statements.
Trudeau-speak is slow and sounds patronizing. It’s definitely something that they put on because when the same people answer questions off the cuff, they sound much less irritating. Perhaps, now that she’s free from the shackles of Cabinet, Freeland will abandon Trudeau-speak and rediscover how to speak like a normie?
Such exciting times call for a sandwich.
Overnight, the South Korean President declared martial law. It feels like everything is collapsing, which makes it a good time to have lunch. I had a handful of decaying mini tomatoes, some bacon and some old bread, so I decided to make an open-faced sandwich.
The result was surprisingly tasty.
We watched a Nazi propaganda movie last weekend. Given that fascism is back in fashion, is it inappropriate to admit that the movie is quite good? I think that I might prefer it to the 1997 blockbuster.
According to the Wikipedia entry for Titanic (1943), the director was arrested and later found dead after he disparaged the German army.
The film is technically impressive and quite gripping. While there are touching moments and love is evoked, the film is mainly about how English and American greed is to blame for the sinking of the Titanic.
The film opens with an interesting depiction of the stock market and the White Star Line's stock price is practically a character in the film. John Jacob Astor and Sir Bruce Ismay are depicted as villains: Ismay for forcing the Titanic to go too fast in order to break speed records and lift the stock price and Astor for trying to sink the stock price so that he can ruin Ismay and buy the stock up later on the cheap.
The hero is a fictional German, Herr Peterson, whose warnings about icebergs and the ship going too fast are unheeded by Ismay and the Captain.
The film can be streamed on Kanopy.