Five feet of fury
On the topic of transformations, my own “evolution,” into a “backward racist redneck freak from Jesusland” (thanks to whoever said this first), continues passim. An old pro in the art of being abrogated, I’ve been on some sort of “no fly” list for æons now, and from a recurrence of jackhammers in Castle Maynard (the building in which the High Doganate is housed), I suspect the NKVD is everywhere. As the author of a prize essay on, “The Use and Abuse of Paranoia,” a long time ago, I have learnt to turn my persecution mania to advantage, and as I write, have hatched a scheme to fetch more milk for my tea — and tea bags, if necessary — even under Batflu conditions.
Let me take this moment to honour Kathy Shaidle, my fellow Canadian Catholic paranoid — now beyond the reach of the cancel culture. She died of ovarian cancer on Sunday. She is going back to a family plot in her native (and despised) Hamilton, Ontario; and under a stone that she had inscribed with her motto. It is, “GET OFF MY LAWN!”
I met Kathy around September 11th, 2001, when I was still a “mainstream” in the birdcage liners, but “reaching out” to the new world of bloggers, of whom most of my fellow journalists had not yet heard. That was also about the time Kathy was transforming, from an “anarcho-peacenik,” into a “Relapse” — to Christian faith, Western Civ, and cultural antideconstruction.
We were defenders, in those days, of “Bushitler” and other unpopular causes; until less popular came along. Another of her self-descriptions was, “Five Feet of Fury.” A graduate, too, of Lupus Erythematosus, she was a very merry little person, with a delightfully sharp, can-opening tongue. By now, among the legends of our Arctic Right, she was rounded up with Ezra (“The Rebel”) Levant, Kate (“Small Dead Animals”) McMillan, and Mark (“Global Content Provider”) Steyn, in pioneering lawsuits by Canada’s Human Rights Gestapo.
From my own encounters with Press Councils and the like, and being successively driven out of seventeen newspapers, I could appreciate the suspects’ patience. For, “the process is the punishment” in each case; and soon as one suit is disposed of, another one sails in from Left Field.
God bless and keep Kathy. I’m sure He has already been told that she is politically incorrect, and independently minded. Also, both funny and sincere. I’m just trying to imagine her, dressed as a little angel.