Author: Rocco

5. A child named Adolph Hitler Campbell will spend another year developing into a social outcast.

As New Jersey News reports, he’s already having problems with bakeries, in that many have refused to put his name on their birthday cakes. His father’s explanation for giving his son such a moniker is that people “need to accept a name. A name’s a name. The kid isn’t going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.” Well thank God. I’ve heard of people trying to act out their political views through their children (vegan babies, for example), but what kind of social life can they expect for him? (Hitler’s here! Let’s get this party started!) Poor Adolph won’t be alone in his misery because he also has a sister named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell. You’d think their father, Heath Campbell, could be a little more subtle. Though neighbours needn’t worry about having a Klan family next door because while Heath often wears jackboots around his New Jersey ‘hood, he says he’s fine with his kids hanging out with black people. Das Jew den, on the other hand…
 

4. Pandas will continue their valiant struggle against existence.

Here is an animal that refuses to eat anything but one type of bamboo. Not bamboo in general, but only one kind of bamboo. As well, this animal is currently uninterested in sex. Of course if a male and female, after much wining, dining and dirty videos, decide to please the thousands of animal rights activists and tear one off, it has to be at the right time of year for any positive results. If all the stars align and the female gets pregnant, she will have twins and promptly throw one of them away. Excuse the pun, but isn’t this called whipping a dead horse? Pandas have quickly become the Terri Schiavos of the animal world. If situations like this teach us anything, it’s to know when to stop meddling in the natural fate of others.

3. Poets will continue to be lousy and little.

2008 showed us just how puerile, cliquey and fractious the community of Canadian poets can be. If we’re not complaining under our breaths about the old, grant-hogging dinosaurs awarding themselves what little prize money there is for the art form, then we’re openly protesting against the juvenile and unseasoned poet talented enough to garner something like the Governor General’s Award. At its climax, this protest devolved into online, tabloid-style mudslinging against poet Jacob Scheier whose only fault was that he lacked the clout which usually keeps such pettiness to a mere murmur. At our best, Canadian poets are something to be seen and heard. At our worst, as we have seen this year, we are nothing more than a flock of seagulls fighting over the same French Fries in the back of a MacDonald’s.

2. Further integration with the US will solve all of Canada’s abstract problems.

Bush isn’t out of office yet, but Canadian integrationalists have already started writing their articles advocating their one continent, one currency, one culture agenda. Over the last eight years such a concept wasn’t at all palatable to Canadians, but with media-friendly Obama soon to be president, these dreams of unification are beginning to resurface. Frank Graves, in today’s Globe and Mail, rehashes an age-old argument that Americans already see us as one of them and Canadians are just being narcissistic in thinking that we any different. In 2009, more arguments like this will be made: Europeans can’t tell us apart anyway; Canada is nationally rudderless; Canadians don’t have much of a culture or history; our economies are already joined at the hip. So, why not unify? Well, to begin with, we ARE different, even if we don’t take Quebec into account. And secondly there is no need for an irreversible, real-world solution to a problem that is both abstract and trivial.
 

1. There will be unrest in the Middle East.

I know it’s a stretch, but like many of today’s Evangelicals, I’ve got this funny, prophetic feeling about that part of the world…so send me money. Lots and lots of money.