Dear Human Resources Department.
My name is Rocco de Giacomo, and I am a published poet, blogger and personal essayist. I have always been a fan of your newspaper and I am very interested in becoming a full-time editorialist on your staff. Please note that the National Post is the first website I visit in the morning and the last one I read before I turn in after a long day. I believe, after many years of reading your opinion columns, that I have what it takes to make great contributions to your team. Did I mention that I am a fabulous team player?
To be honest, the idea of acquiring gainful employment at your publishing enterprise is a recent one, but make no mistake, yours is the only newspaper in Canada that I have wanted write for. Although I am also a fan of the editorials in The Globe and The Star, their columns seem so bland, without an ounce of punch. For my part, what interests me is anything strident, combative and totally from the hip, so to speak. In other words, a man talks about a cure for cancer: snore city; but if he beats up the whole orchestra, I’ll read it! And nothing too involved or complicated! I hate it when things get complex – that makes my head hurt!
As I said, my decision to join your ranks is a recent one. Though thinking about it, it must have been brewing in the back of my head for a while. I remember reading Barbara Kay’s piece on male circumcision, “A painless, live-saving surgery” – Ouch! Just kidding; it’s painless! Anyway, there’s a part where she says that though circumcision is known to reduce sexual pleasure later on in life, in her opinion this is a good thing because it would reduce male promiscuity and make them more inclined to stay in long-term, meaningful relationships. Well, I have to tell you, when I read that, I thought to myself “hey Rocco, wouldn’t that have been a fun and easy thing to write? Just punch in whatever comes to mind and blammo! Paycheque!” Then there was the time when I was reading a column by Rex Murphy – host for the government–funded CBC Radio, commentator for the government-funded CBC Television, and an all around self-reliant SOB who would never take a dime from Big Government! Well, he had written an column entitled The Heroism of the Unsung Self, and in it he reminisces about the Canadians of old, and how tough and rugged and independent they were and how if we could only get these lazy bums off the government teat – my word, not Rex’s! – they’d toughen up and be able to build a boat with their bare hands like some old guy he knew back home. Well, gosh. I read that and I was like “hey Rocco, the boss just gives you a blank cheque and a Dell laptop and says ‘have at her, hoss’. Awesome!”
But what really made me shout “sign me up!” was this week’s column by Tasha Kheiriddin, The welfare state isn’t pleasing anyone, where she theorizes that all these government programs have made Canadians politically apathetic and spoiled, and if we could only scale back Big Government, then all these welfare-collecting couch potatoes would be forced to get off their butts and get involved! A phenomenal theory and thank God Tasha said “screw it” and posted that bad boy before she did any fact-checking. If she had, she might have learned that the Netherlands – a far better example of a nanny state than Canada – has a voter turnout of 75%, while the US – the Grand Poobah of small-government states – has a turnout hovering around 40% (Canada’s turnout is smack-dab in the middle, around 60%). Now, having to take that into consideration would have spoiled everything. I tell you, you can always count on facts to throw a monkey wrench in all the fun.
And that’s what I like about you guys: you don’t let facts get in the way of opinions, proudly born and raised in the gut.
So how about it? Could I have the honour of joining your team? I’ve even got some column ideas in mind. How about something like “We’re All Addicted to Big Government”? The whole government-as-illegal-drug angle? Or how about something a little more subtle like: “Occupiers should pack up their tents and go home.”
Well jeeze, I know Lorne Gunter has already got dibs on those titles, but tell you what? How about me and him arm wrestle for them, the way editorial columnists used to do it back before the whole researching and fact-checking thing?
Looking forward to hearing from you.
ps What’s with having no capital letters in your headlines?