Or is it? I don’t really know that much about Ottawa. I’m not from here. This is one of the ruined buildings you see from the Chaudière Bridge. Booth Street.

I looked up the bridge on Wikipedia. It leapfrogs across several islands: Chaudière, Victoria, Philemon. I’m pretty sure the abandoned buildings belong to Domtar. And they used to be part of the Eddy match factory.

Ha! I remember Eddy matches. My dad used to carry them around in his shirt pocket to light his smokes. They were called Eddy Strike Anywhere matches, and my dad would indeed strike them anywhere. Usually on the underside of tabletops. I think they’re against the law now.

Local poet and writer Rob McLennan knows quite a bit about Ottawa. He’s written a book called Ottawa: The Unknown City, and he posts photos and info about Ottawa places on his facebook pages.

I’ve never met McLennan so I’m not one of his facebook friends, but the album of photos is open; it’s at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49476&id=518921687.

The Senators

Here is my annual hockey commentary:
Oh, brother! What a bunch of losers.

Liberal leadership

Probably Ignatieff, although his reptilian smile is starting to creep me out. I prefer Bob Rae but I don’t think people will forgive him for Rae Days. (But I do.)

I don’t know anything about the other guy, Dominic LeBlanc. But knowing the Libs and how they like to focus on spite and bile and warm feelings of “anybody but that guy,” I suspect he has more than an even chance of coming up the middle like Dion did. So he had better be good.

But I’m still predicting Ignatieff.

Favourite blog post of the moment

What a concept!!

Nik, a portrait painter, asks James to explain his government’s complicated scuttling of the portrait gallery. To demonstrate his bona fides, Nik includes a portrait of James.

It’s good too. I love Nik’s portraits.

The Election, part 2

I’m actually feeling kind of sorry for Stéphane Dion. He seems like a decent guy but he is completely at sea in the world of big-time politics, where he is savaged daily by that bully Stephen Harper.

I blame the Liberal party for tossing him into this lion’s den. They spent their leadership convention playing “Anybody but that guy,” a game that invariably leads to some amiable non-entity like Dion winning by default. (See Joe Clark.)

Too bad Dion is so starved for charisma as to be unelectable. Thanks Liberals! I’m sure a Harper majority won’t be THAT bad.

I have never voted Liberal but the winner of this thing is likely to become prime minister at some point. That’s why I’m interested.

I think Ignatieff, the #1 contender, is a heck of an orator and his speech was really well-written. I think he wrote it himself. It was really good.

Bob Rae, #2, presented himself as the anti-Ignatieff. He didn’t have a speech and he didn’t use the podium. Not a bad approach, and he almost pulled it off, but he stumbled a few times. It’s hard to improvise a whole speech in front of thousands of delegates and on national TV. And not much of it was in French.

The others, Kennedy and Dion, are also-rans who don’t have the firepower to beat Harper. They are well-meaning second-raters. But one of them could still make a run up the middle.

That run up the middle business is kind of disturbing. It’s based on an “anyone but that guy” attitude that makes delegates turn to candidate #3 on later ballots. That’s how the profoundly second-rate Joe Clark became prime minister. That way leads to Kennedy or Dion, and a lot more of Stephen Harper.

I think Bob Rae would be the best leader. He is more grounded than Ignatieff, and far more experienced. His speech wasn’t as good, but it’s possible that Ignatieff, for all his oratorical brilliance, has no ability to govern. Who knows? We haven’t had a chance to see him try.

I want Rae to win but I predict it will be Ignatieff. I think if one of the second-raters makes a successful run up the middle it will be bad news for the country.

The results of the first ballot won’t be known until midnight, and I doubt if I’ll stay up for it. I’ll read about it in the morning paper.

Back here in Ottawa

Hey Lar? That’s “remuneration.”

Reminded today that he ran on a platform of lower salaries and no tax increases, O’Brien changed his mind and coughed up the loot.

I have a feeling we’ve elected a really dumb guy to be our mayor. Is it too late to get Alex Munter back? Maybe we could get an annulment.