Broken Body, Broken Dream: The Faint Promise Of Child Transitions

“Just simply by saying we will never accept natal males in women’s spaces, well, it is their son that we’re talking about. And they’ve told their son that he can get himself sterilized and destroy his own basic sexual function, and women will accept him as a woman. And if we don’t (accept him) there’s no way back for them and that child. They’ve sold their child a bill of goods that they can’t deliver on…” — author Helen Joyce

One of the frustrations for those following the Hunter Biden story or the Justin Trudeau agitprop is why, after their reckless claims have been proven incorrect they— and their media pals— do not retract the stories, apologize and promise to do better.

Even as the first-hand evidence accumulates that Hunter Biden and his father ran an international influence racket for millions of dollars— contradicting their persistent earlier denials— Biden loyalists like MSNBC Joe Scarborough and the New York Times/ Washington Post refuse to acknowledge their error and cover the story as they did the Donald Trump impeachments.

The epitome of this hubris occurred when neither the Times nor the Post returned their Pulitzer Prizes after their stories of Russian interference in 2016 turned out to Hillary Clinton election dirty tricks— aided by the FBI, DOJ and CIA. Nor did the Pulitzer zealots ask for their prizes back.

In Canada, Trudeau’s repeated falsehoods (murdered babies in residential school cemeteries) and ad hominems (truckers are racists and anti-science) remain uncorrected by a stream of media and communications types who still portray him in heroic Sunny Ways, plunging into hostile crowds with his rictus smile. And an audience that is fine with giving away free speech and information.

They even manufactured a claim that someone in Belleville hurled an anti-semitic insult at Trudeau, who is not Jewish. [This absurd claim recalls Woody Allen spoofing his own neuroticism in “Annie Hall”: “I was having lunch with some guys from NBC and I said, ‘Did you eat yet?’ and [they] said, ‘No, Jew?’ Not, ‘Did you,’ but ‘Jew eat? Jew?’ Not ‘Did you,’ but ‘Jew eat?’” To which Tony Roberts replies, “Max, you see conspiracies in everything.”]

Part of this mania is the slavish devotion to an “expert culture” of psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, says influencer Theo Jordan. They exploited two waves of Milllenial kids “raised by helicopters and friend-parents who are now obsessed with safetyism and willing to subordinate themselves to the elections of others. Not just willing, but excited to…”

Many on the Left have pushed their hand too far to retreat now. Here are the actors from Disney’s new Woke Snow White describing their new “reality”. “It’s not 1937. She’s not gonna be saved by the prince and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.” But they’re running into a wall.

Helen Joyce (Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality ) sees these apostles of the trans movement being stymied by feminists who want no part of trans men appearing in their orbit. Thus, denying their promise to their sons that they’d be accepted. Leaving the parents with no room to backtrack. “So those people are going to be like the Japanese soldiers who were on Pacific islands and didn’t know the war was over. They’ve got to fight forever…This is another reason why this is the worst, worst, worst social contagion that we’ll ever have experienced.”

Not every intimidation tactic is so blatant, says Joyce. Sometimes it is the power of silence in organizations and businesses, such as when a single employee becomes the parent of a trans child. Their struggle, no matter how misguided, casts a pall on everyone else who wishes to speak out. “The entire organization gets paralyzed by that one person. And it may not even be widely known at that organization that they have a trans child. But it will come out, people will have sort of said quietly, and now you can’t talk truth in front of that person, and you know you can’t, because what you’re saying is: “You as a parent have done a truly human-rights abuse level of awful thing to your own child that can not be fixed.”

It is the same for Climate extremists who are currently having the vapours because July gets very hot in North America. (Note: The percent of the U.S. to reach 95F (35C) through July 23 continues at a record low 43 percent, down from 90 percent in 1931.) They are blanketing media with claims that the current drought conditions in Arizona or California or Saskatchewan are the result of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere.

Just Stop Oil, with its wealthy trust funders and complacent scientists, has convinced media like CBC and politicians like John Kerry to join their crusade. The end goal is to win acclaim and influence for their Luddite Cause, citizenship badges for their jackets. (And an expense account for Kerry.) Critics who show that temperatures have been as high and sustained in the past— when there was no extra CO2 in the atmosphere— are dismissed as paid lobbyists for Big Oil.

Again, there seems to be no humbling these prophets of doom when confronted with contrary data. They insist that today’s heatwaves are ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change. Here’s Kerry dismissing science in favour of approval by “96 presidents and prime ministers”. Backed by gullible Wine Moms and Boy Scout progressives, they proceed on destroying the fabric of society with alienation and intimidation.

One of the drawbacks for climate extremists is the lack of first-hand experience. Unless they confuse weather with climate they have nothing approaching the experience of trans parents. The bulk of their dogma is instead pushed not by anecdotal evidence but the tsunami of media Armageddon stories, the wild-eyed Al Gore doom documentaries.

But the effect can be the same in groups where a fellow employee or colleague is the parent of a child who, after a little Greta Thunberg brainwashing, is now glueing themselves to art works or climbing hydro towers. Sympathetic to the parental connection to these deluded agents of agitprop, the people around them will self-muzzle anytime the issue comes up, afraid of a ballistic rant from the parent of the Just Stop Oil foot soldier.

Censorship is a problem. But as we now see in dealing with a small number of committed radicals, self-censorship may be far, far worse.

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Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his new book with his son Evan, was voted the fifth-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His prize-listed 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx

Bruce Dowbiggin

www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN Award-winning Author and Broadcaster Bruce Dowbiggin's career is unmatched in Canada for its diversity and breadth of experience . He is currently the editor and publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster website and is also a contributor to SiriusXM Canada Talks. His new book Cap In Hand was released in the fall of 2018. Bruce's career has included successful stints in television, radio and print. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster for his work with CBC-TV, Mr. Dowbiggin is also the best-selling author of "Money Players" (finalist for the 2004 National Business Book Award) and two new books-- Ice Storm: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Vancouver Canucks Team Ever for Greystone Press and Grant Fuhr: Portrait of a Champion for Random House. His ground-breaking investigations into the life and times of Alan Eagleson led to his selection as the winner of the Gemini for Canada's top sportscaster in 1993 and again in 1996. This work earned him the reputation as one of Canada's top investigative journalists in any field. He was a featured columnist for the Calgary Herald (1998-2009) and the Globe & Mail (2009-2013) where his incisive style and wit on sports media and business won him many readers.

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The Most Dangerous Man In Canada: Emmanuel Goldstein Reborn

Bruce Dowbiggin / 2 days ago

Lather, Rinse, Repeat: Recycling Coaches In The NHL

Bruce Dowbiggin / 1 week ago

Jerry Came to See The Babies. And They Walked Out On Him

Bruce Dowbiggin

The Most Dangerous Man In Canada: Emmanuel Goldstein Reborn

Published on May 26, 2024

Bruce Dowbiggin

Emmanuel Goldstein was once an important member of the Party but became a traitor. Although he was sentenced to death, he escaped and formed the Brotherhood, an organized body of rebels committed to the destruction of the Party and the party’s way of life.— George Orwell, 1984

For Canadians who think that rising commodity prices, carbon tax increases and corruption of the federal government are their biggest concerns, we have news for them. If you listen to the bien pensants of Canadian media, the greatest threat to the nation is Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Just sample the ad hominems aimed at the man who has a 20-point lead in polls for next prime minister. “Pierre Poilievre is pretending he doesn’t know how his job works because it makes it easier” (Globe & Mail). ”Why is Pierre Poilievre so angry?” (Macleans) “Canadians deserve better than this nonsense… There’s a difference between passion and churlishness” (Hill Times). And this barb from Liberal member/ House Speaker Greg Fergus’ event :“Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives propose reckless policies that would risk our health, safety and pocketbooks.”

Even the compliments are back-handed. “Canadians don’t seem to hate Poilievre like they used to: Widely despised upon winning the leadership, Poilievre is now winning ‘preferred prime minister’ polls” (National Post). No wonder floundering Liberal leader Justin Trudeau just keeps the hits coming at Poilievere. “Are we a country that looks out for each other … or do you go down a path of amplifying anger, division and fear?” Scary, kids.

Look, partisanship comes with the territory in politics. Nastiness, too. Even in Canadian political coverage. Fine. But this welter of Poilievre loathing comes in the wake of a decade of collective Trudeau amnesia from the self-appointed keepers of the flame in the fourth estate.

Listening to a recent podcast featuring three bonafide Canadian establishment media grandees gave us a hint into what has been remembered and what has been forgotten. It doesn’t matter which three (I’ve admired all three at one time or other.) . They’re now largely interchangeable in their complacent attitude of Keep Calm & Vote Justin. .

The first— and perhaps most significant— thing you get from listening is the blithe acceptance of politics-as-usual in the time of Trudeau the Younger. The collapse of the old order of doing business in Canada since PMJT was elected in 2015 is never discussed in Ottawa’s polite company. Canadians’ distrust in their authorities the past decade is all so much conspiracy talk.

Specifically, there is a black screen where the Truckers Convoy should be. Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley’s found that “there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires”. ( Ultra vires = actions beyond the scope of the law.) In a rules-based society this condemnation of the extraordinary suspension of civil order in February of 2022 would have forced a change in government— if not a self-examination of society.

But, white-washed by the purchased media, Trudeau’s abrogation of the rules of civil society was made to disappear after Justin waved his regal hand. Which made what happened during Covid— the closure of society and the criminalization of dissent— inevitable. You’d think forcing citizens to take an untested vaccine at the risk of losing their job, their freedom, their health (now known to have been dangerous to many) would be preeminent in the discussions.

Nah, it’s all about Pierre the Petulant. The panelists discussed Poilievre as a divisive force, a threat to the Ottawa orthodoxy. None mentioned that the PM, who condemned his own voters as genocidal at the U.N. on the strength of rumours alleging murdered native babies, might have to reckon with his patented falsehoods. No, Trudeau is treated as if he’s Mitchell Sharp.

Blithely dashing off such bias-as-fact CBC’s news writers arm their listeners with information that doesn’t compute in a world that doesn’t work. (CTV News, once a sober option to CBC, is now running a close second in hysteria. CTV hosts regurgitate Hamas death tolls that even the New York Times acknowledges are highly inflated. )

The tell in media complicity is the repeated use of “climate change” as undeniable fact or the “religious right” as a substitute for extremist movements. Echoing politicians who wouldn’t know El Niño from the El Mocambo, highly respected commentators enforce the late-‘90s ban on any scientific skepticism of King Charles or Al Gore as weather wack-a-doodles. Condemning the faithful as conspiratorial (unless it’s Islam) targets a large chunk of Poilievre’s base.

This casual bias is also easily found in your garden-variety CBC Radio newscast. The feckless announcer refers to Ireland, Spain and Norway recognizing “The State of Palestine”. There is not today nor has there ever been a state of Palestine. Palestine was a British imperial construct until Yasser Arafat conjured up this faux-state. Until the 1960s, the people of this region held Jordanian passports. But out goes The State of Palestine to the ears of a gullible nation.

This reinforcement loop is epitomized by the craven re-naming of Toronto squares and roads associated with Henry Dundas and universities named for Egerton Ryerson. A noisy clique pounded home their blatant falsehoods about Dundas and Ryerson through the media portal. Now panelists who should know better pass on the lies as if reading from a restaurant menu.

There are also prerequisite references in newscasts to hot weather elsewhere in the world being attributed to Climate Change by “experts”. Is that Al Gore Climate Change? Michael Mann Climate Change? Greta Thunberg Climate Change? The one where celebrities make predictions that don’t come true but CBC neglects to fact check?

And don’t get us started on #LGBTQ issues which are spoken of on CBC with reverence while Christian churches burning is just the price of doing business with Poilievere. Needless to say that all this agitprop has hardened into casual panel talk by people who used to know better.

How did Poilievere get so hated in the first place? The general public has only recognized him the last year, so any previous impressions were shaped by the PMO and the water carriers they own in the media. When reality met Chrystia Freeland’s mythology, the public was baffled at the gap between the pictures painted for them and reality.

But, being Canadians, most just shook their heads and muddled on. The Left has learned to adjust to that old line, “When the fact becomes legend, print the legend”.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin— Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/

Bruce Dowbiggin

Lather, Rinse, Repeat: Recycling Coaches In The NHL

Published on May 25, 2024

Bruce Dowbiggin

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you do not know, the world will tell you.” Carl Jung

As long as you’re willing to re-locate frequently the job of NHL head coach has a fair degree of job security. Even when you get fired it seems there’s a ready appetite in some other town for a skill set you have just failed at.

Latest evidence that failure has an I and U in it: Having canned Sheldon Keefe after a lengthy (note: sarcasm) five years at the helm of the Toronto Maple Leafs, club management scoured the bushes to find former player Craig “Chief” Berube, who has previously hung his coaching shingle in Philadelphia and St. Louis, where he won a Stanley Cup as an interim coach.

Chief wasn’t the glamour name (we were praying for Bruce Boudreau.). If the idea is how do the Leafs motivate their four mega-millionaires, he’s more like Mike Babcock than Sheldon Keefe. He won’t look at players’ cell phones, but he will give them that old-time religion. Knowing Chief from his Calgary days we’d say he can probably take the Toronto fishbowl.

(For those with long Leafs’ memories Berube was part of a famous trade in 1992 to which we devote an entire chapter in our new book Deal With It. He went west to Calgary while Doug Gilmour headed east to Toronto in the massive 10-man trade. While the Leafs “won” the trade, only the maligned Gary Leeman and journeyman Jamie Macoun won Cups– for teams other than Calgary and Toronto.)

But we digress. Sometimes it seems that NHL teams would rather lose with a known commodity than win with someone bold and unconventional behind the bench. While almost 30 percent of NHL players are European there have only been two European heads coaches, none in the past 20 years. Why? NHL owners are risk averse. And the league is a fraternity of forgiveness for guys you played junior with.

A brief ramble through the 2023-24 coaching roster shows several peripatetic bench bosses, led by the inimitable John Tortarella, who wore out his welcome in Vancouver, Tampa Bay, NY Rangers and Columbus before Philly curiously decided he had something left to offer. Let’s also not forget Lindy Ruff, who was pink slipped in Buffalo, Dallas, New Jersey and the NY Rangers— and now has been resurrected in Buffalo as a “fresh voice”.

Some retreads are getting results. Peter Laviolette has the Rangers into the third-round of the 2024 postseason, after gigs in Carolina, Philadelphia, Nashville, Washington (pause for breath) and the NY Islanders. Paul Maurice, currently guiding Florida in the playoffs, has had two stints with Carolina, plus Toronto and Winnipeg. Peter DeBoer, whose Dallas Stars are odd-on faves to with the 2024 Cup, has also coached Florida, San Jose, New Jersey and Vegas.

You want more? Rick Tocchet was head coach in Arizona and Tampa Bay before getting the perch in Vancouver. Travis Green, newly hired in Ottawa, has previously been found wanting in Vancouver and New Jersey. We could go on.

The king of the coach-for-life carousel is the just-retired Rick Bowness who finally called it a day in Winnipeg after the Jets were eliminated this spring. How long has Bones been knocking around? He was the coach of the expansion Ottawa Senators in 1992, one the worst five teams ever by NHL standards. Wonderful man who also spent stints as an assistant in cities in 30-plus years around the continent.

There are more. Sitting in the green room, polishing their pregame speeches are the well- travelled Boudreau, Dallas Eakins, Gerard Gallant, Todd McLellan, Claude Julien and Mike Yeo. Heaven forbid someone might still ask one of the Sutters to saddle up again. Brian (St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Calgary), Darryl (Calgary, L.A., Anaheim, San Jose and Calgary again) and Brent (Calgary, New Jersey) have been perennial NHL coaching prospects for decades.

So take, heart, Sheldon Keefe. Joining Keefe in looking for a rebound job are Scott Arniel, Jeff Blashill, Jeremy Colliton, Kevin Dineen, Phil Housley, Kirk Muller, Davis Payne, Todd Reirden, Joe Sacco, Brad Shaw, Geoff Ward and Trent Yawney. Good company.

Don’t cry too hard for these coaching candidates. Unless they have years left on contract (Keefe has two) most wait out the time between head-coaching stints by accepting assistant-coach positions. The ranks of assistants contain a second tier of talent, also ready to go at a moment’s notice.

There are a scant few who’ve hung on in one town. Jon Cooper has been in Tampa since 2013, a Methuselah stint in today’s terms. Rod Brind’Amour has managed to avoid the chop in Carolina since 2018. But the reality is that, since the start off the 2023-24 season alone, there have been 13 head-coaching changes in the NHL. Go back to January of 2023, and 19 of the league’s 32 teams have changed coaches.

Which brings us back to the original idea: “Is there no one in international hockey who knows anything?” We won’t profess to be coaching talent scouts, but the idea that no one working outside North America can meet the job description better than some— if not most—of the coaches mentioned above beggars the imagination.

One final note: If you’re looking for an explanation of the coaching carousel and its recent frequency, look no further than Gary Bettman and his salary cap obsession. By forcing a hard cap on teams he’s concentrated the money— and the power— on a few players per team. When a coach is pitted against his stars it’s a no-win proposition.

The Leafs stars used their power to get Babcock fired. And it’s been repeated on other teams. While Keefe didn’t lose his Core Four he also couldn’t get them to win in the postseason. For that he got the chop— and a premium place in the next coaching carousel.