Forget everything you thought you knew about justice. Because there is a place where the most fundamental and time honoured ways of western civilization’s human rights traditions mean nothing. In this place where evidence is immaterial, they don’t let facts get in their way. Here in this place, the written word has no significance unless that word was written by people from this place. It's a wizardly place, where a paintbrush within the same stroke can paint you a different colour than it paints me. It is a place where punishments are doled out at the whim of self-appointed crusaders that have with righteous indignation coronated themselves the Judge, the Jury and Executioner.
What are those fundamental rights? One would be the right to face your accuser.
Where in all of mankind's free world could such an unholy, Godforsaken place exist?
Have you opened a newspaper lately? Probably not I'm sure and this true story will give you less reason to want to, anytime soon.
This story is in part of a small business operator, a sole-proprietor, who has been operating his business for over 30 years. He obtained his city license on October 13th, 1978. He has never run afoul of the law. He has always demonstrated courtesy, compassion, integrity and honesty towards his clients. Clients which have run the full gamut of society from the sinfully rich to the painfully poor, the physically impaired, the brain injured, the homeless, including battered women, clients from shelters to reconciliating couples and families, doctors, lawyers, professors, celebrities, the great unwashed and yes, even several nincompoops. Covering an area from Windsor to Montreal and from Niagara falls to the Bruce Peninsula.
The remainder, is how you and I have been the subjects of attempted brainwashing, using propaganda, for years by people who think they know better than us and people who are nothing more than shut-ins living dark, cloistered existences with cats. Whose only non-assisted connection to the outside world is via telephone, yet they still have the audacity, void of empathy, to pontificate their dogma on how the world should function.
This is a full, factual account of firsthand experiences with a local newspaper that had had been publishing the advertisings of this sole-proprietor everyday for 20 years. It is also an account of what this newspaper did to the proprietor after he answered a telephone call from them while driving home from work one cold, rainy night in November, 2007. It will happen again, to you or a loved one. Don't take it sitting down.
The succeeding story was written, not on purpose, in the first and third person by Pat Canini. That would be me. I think I have developed a slight personality anomaly after answering the telephone for dozens of years with, “Hello, Pat and Mike.” You can call it a- tic. I am hoping that that might explain the first and third person conundrum. I confess I am not much of a writer because I have only been picking up and moving refrigerators, colour TVs and microwave ovens for a very long time. But I have picked up a couple of words here and there too. And I know that Hemingway in a letter to Fitzgerald in 1934 wrote, “...you have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously.” Well, this is my first serious writing and I’m going to show you where it hurts. I hope it's not confusing and you enjoy the read. I hope too, you take full advantage of up to three free man-hours of moving help PAT and MIKE are offering. Please e-mail PAT and MIKE for details.
THE STORY...
For generations mothers have known that sunlight is one of the best disinfectants. Recently, after turning over rocks on reports published in a Canadian newspaper from Hamilton, Ontario I inadvertently shed sunlight on the slimy, infected things that were lurking beneath in darkness. You will be tickled and horrified at my discoveries.
In one hand I discovered that people at The Hamilton Spectator claim the Spectator is built with straight lines, as in fair and accurate. So I've been told by their gods of print. In the other hand, I discovered that clever minds claim the Parthenon was built with no straight lines. Yet, the Parthenon has been standing for some 2,500 years. The irony is The Hamilton Spectator has started crumbling in less than 165 years. An indication that this is indeed happening was their recently forced to announce job cuts. (My sincerest condolences to the families involved because I know too well the pain of having The Hamilton Spectator pull the carpet out from under you.) You might say, “But wait! Those are different type of lines.” Read on, you will see that the difference is only superficial. The “lines” are both related to building a stable, lasting structure.
The following may sound like a labyrinthine concept but I assure you it is not. To appreciate what I am about to tell you, you must first understand that when you stand on a set of railroad tracks, which are straight lines, and look at them out into the distance the lines appear to converge. They don’t look straight. The lines of the Parthenon’s columns (marble) were built not straight, so when viewed from the human level the lines do not seem to converge. The eye, fools the mind into thinking the opposite, that the lines are straight. It is an optical illusion that works well. Thus, the Parthenon is built with no straight lines. However, the underlying truth is that the lines that really mattered, the lines of force, are still straight, true and in harmony with gravity. So, gravity has allowed it to remain standing for millennia.
The lines of The Hamilton Spectator’s columns (words) are built to look straight too. When viewed and read from the human level however, the eye of the thinking mind can’t fool the observer into believing this optical illusion. The gravity of this situation is that there is no harmony among the readers, the buyers and the advertisers. Thus, the collapse begins. You must understand gravity is blind but unlike a blind man it can not be fooled. If the lines that matter are not true and straight, as in fair and accurate too. Gravity or the gravity of the situation will eventually suck you into the abyss. In either engineering or publishing it matters greatly. I will be showing you real examples from The Hamilton Spectator of lines claimed to be straight, that are anything but.
If you would like to see the extent to which the overall structure of this newspaper has crumbled, have a look at the share price of their mother ship Torstar. As of March 5th, 2009 their share price when compared to their July, 2007 value is down approximately 82%. Their dividend has recently been cut in half and on Feb. 26th, 2009 their captain, CEO Robert Pritchard announced, and I paraphrase, “See'ya, got'ta go, my socks are starting to get wet.”
This is all happening while the lovely and talented Ms Sandra Lennox, “La fromage grand” of Advertising, makes the calls and the decisions to discontinue certain advertisers claiming it is, “...in the best interest of our readers.” You may interpret this as saying, “We’re guarding our readers.” What she foolishly does not understand is that her best interest should be directed to the shareholder and the editor’s best interest, directed to the reader. This is called the separation of Church and State. Do not be fooled however, that separation only exists at the editor's convenience. In other words, “You can’t play in my sandbox if I don’t like you, to hell with the shareholders.”
The new CEO is sure to have “kittens” when he/she realizes the caliber of their staff.
“That decision was an easy one due to the response from readers,” adds Suzanne Zandbergen, “un plus petit fromage,” same church, same pew. Does anyone really think Suzanne was going to think for herself on this one? Fear of job loss certainly unites expendables.
By use of her word response, Ms Zandbergen most likely means complaint.
The legitimacy of which were not considered in the least by anyone involved. That would have required personality and thinking outside the box. An arduous task when all are concerned about their job and not rocking-the-boat.
For my money, the hemorrhaging of jobs I mentioned indicates their readers aren’t showing too much interest anyway. So who cares if you’re shooting yourself in the foot by ridding a long term advertiser. Not the CEO, he’s bailing out. Makes you wonder then, who is running the asylum? No-o-o... it couldn’t be the lunatics.
It is too precious, at this point, not to share with you an excerpt from a poem of one of my favorite poets, D. H. Lawrence.
O the stale old dogs who pretend to guard
the morals of the masses,
how smelly they make the great back-yard
wetting after everyone that passes.
The following is not quite as eloquently stated as Mr. Lawrence's poem but my late, dear father was known to say...
"Be careful when you urinate against the wind or you might get it back in your face."
I never quite understood what he meant by that, until I witnessed a newspaper doing it.
Assuming Lennox’s and Zandbergen’s decision had nothing to do with a certain advertiser [me] recently referring to their department as coffee-clutches (I play with words, klatches, but I really mean, clutches). I will venture to say, to make a call like they have, they would have to believe that their readers are nincompoops, and need protecting. Think about that, next time you spring for a Spectator.
As for the responses from readers, they were conjured by The Hamilton Spectator's ACTIONLINE stories, save one. It doesn't take a professor of psychology having to tell us that if we drop big, fat, juicy worms on hook, line and sinker into the lake (Read: Big, fat stories.) we're going to catch... fish. (Read: Slack-jawed, mouth-breathing reader.) Granted, the type of fish may just be a sheep-head or sucker but that doesn't matter to ACTIONLINE. Because you and I should never know that this is the type of ACTIONLINE reader these responses were squeezed out of. As easily as roe is squeezed from floundering carp. I’m talking borderline personalities here and ACTIONLINE presents them as expert witnesses.
With a promise of enlightenment, ACTIONLINE has been taking the dimwitted amongst us to the cleaners for years.
Flawed too, is the one complaint exception I mentioned. When it is examined intelligently, without ulterior motive, it has no merit other than showing the complainant must also be a dimwit and should never be allowed to agree, or sign anything without their counsel present.
The Hamilton Spectator claims ACTIONLINE is written by Al MacRury.
MacRury, as I interpreted, was described by his editor, to me and others present, as a legally-blind, shut-in.
I can not make this stuff up you know.
What is not apparent to Lennox, Zanbergen, and many others, is that this is the type of reader MacRury’s column attracts. (Here comes the sunlight.)
MacRury’s readers make complaining a sport. It is their pastime. It might be their only recreation. The facts mean nothing to them and obviously, MacRury too. They in fact may be the nincompoops Lennox is concerned with protecting. Now you know, please keep this in mind as you read.
A recent sporting trend I have noticed in ACTIONLINE is that some of Mr. MacRury’s complainants have never even used the services they complain about.
But that does not stop Mr. MacRury from using the wannabe-consumer-activists-reader as fodder to fill his column. A fact is, that in a recent column (Actionline, July 17th, 2008), MacRury wrote about a picture framing shop and his own indignation, complaining in his own column about this business whose services he had not used and knew nothing about. He was afraid to name the business. So in effect he disparaged every framing gallery in the area. Thanks, Mr. MacRury! I suspect he knew how asinine he sounded but went ahead nonetheless with his story.
I suppose that that is what a columnist has to do when his readership base is falling into an abyss, concoct your own story and put yourself into it. So much for the number one rule of journalism, "Never be your story."
At a hearing held on Oct. 23rd, 2008 in Toronto (Where MacRury's editor described him as a shut-in.) MacRury tried justifying the purpose of writing that column as an attempt to provide his God given knowledge to readers. So none fall victim to thievery, I suspected.
Speaking to MacRury’s justification for that report I say, “Bull manure.” The shop owner referred to in his column must have yanked MacRury’s chain and he tried to teach her a lesson, which I know is not below him. He certainly rubbed her nose in his job status in the article. It is very nice, I’m sure, to have a personal soapbox to throw your formidable weight around on. Read the article, decide yourself if I'm off base. Just click on the date for the article, Actionline, July 17th, 2008.
Make sure to note the [fair and accurate] line, “All it required was new glass and a chain to hang it.”
With this statement MacRury minimizes the job he wants done, is blatantly showing his righteousness in trying to win over readers and that he thinks he's justified.
In truth, there is not much more you can do to a picture frame. With just slightly more effort on the shop owner's part she would have been manufacturing a totally new frame. Only a completely unreasonable buffoon would think that by leaving a cheap flea market item with a shop that that would be enough collateral to satisfy the shop owner to trust you to come back and pay her for performing some $60 worth of unrecoverable work on it.This is especially true when you consider you have never been in her store before. But only a bigger, unreasonable buffoon would use a position held at a newspaper to criticize her for trying to protect herself from such vulnerabilities. But only the biggest buffoon would allow these unwarranted criticisms to be published!
MacRury mentioned "sentimental value" in this column. I will spare you my thoughts on that right now. A hint though: When it comes to business, “Sentimental, Sympathy, Syphilis and Sh!t” should all be words in the same column in a list of synonyms.
There is one more issue on the picture frame story I want to tell you about. In MacRury’s constipated way of thinking he asks, in analogy, “Can you imagine taking your car to the garage for repairs and being asked to pay the full amount up front?”As if this gives some justification for his pompous arrogance towards and his criticism of the shop owner.Let me burst his imaginative bubble for you.
When you bring in a $5,000 car to have $500 worth of work done to it, there will be no problem needing a full, or any deposit. Now, try to bring in a $500 car to have $5,000 worth of work done to it.
There will be a big problem for you needing a deposit!
MacRury brought in the $500 car for the $5,000 repair to the framing shop, in a manner of speaking. He can’t see it.
How can such a long-in-the-tooth columnist be so ignorant of such a simple fact?
This man has been trying to tell you and me how to be smart consumers for twenty years. The Hamilton Spectator has been letting him. He has been failing miserably. I think his column should be canceled.
Isn’t it bad enough that we have to separate Garbage Day into a variety of neat little piles? Do we have to separate the garbage in our newspaper too? Isn't that the job of that very decorated editor Poling; to separate the garbage at the source for us?
Like the lady in the framing shop, I too in my career of moving had several hardheaded type of consumers to deal with. They too tried minimizing their requirements. Most of the present reader are excluded of course. One type that keeps recurring is the one I ask, “Do you have any appliances, sir?” They will undoubtedly answer, “No... except for a frig, a stove, a washer and a dryer...and oh yeah, a freezer.” Tongue-in-cheek I return with, “So the only appliance you don’t have sir is a nuclear reactor?” My next question is usually, “Will you be using a credit card for your deposit?”
Thank goodness for all those mild mannered consumers a la MacRury that only want this world and the next, for nothing.
If I have opened your eyes just a little on this consumer affairs columnist, Al MacRury, and what The Hamilton Spectator allows him to get away with you will have an even more profound revelation on what you are about to read.
What will blow-you-away and split your gut with laughter is knowing that MacRury’s employer, The Hamilton Spectator, does exactly what MacRury criticizes the framing shop owner of doing. That would be the heinous crime of asking to be paid upfront, in full, for services to be rendered. (More sunlight.) Why doesn’t MacRury write about his own employer in the same sunlight when he states, "Never prepay full cost of goods and services?" Myopic, I suppose.
The facts are always a bitch when they work against you, aren't they?
This might be a fine time for us to turn our computer mouse east and chant that Hamilton Spectator’s mantra, “Fairandaccurate...Fairandaccurate...Fairandaccurate.” Please watch your back.
Let me shift gears now on consumer affairs columnists.
Over the years I have noticed a disproportionately large percentage of consumer affairs columnists targeting and criticizing movers. Sometimes justifiably. This, may be because most everyone loves a free lunch, especially a consumer affairs columnist. In most cases, no lunch is freer or safer than beating on a mover, justification being of inconsequential importance. To explain why I think movers are used as the choice whipping boy and a free lunch for many columnists, I will use an analogy.
Suppose you hung up three piñatas and called one, “Death” the other, “Taxes” and the third, “Movers.” Now take anyone who has ever paid for a mover, don’t blindfold them but give them a club. Which piñata do you think they will smash first? I think so too. It is easy to hate movers after the fact. It is almost mandatory. The Spectator never even had a category in Reader’s Choice for Movers until Pat Canini pointed it out to them. Ask them, "Why?" Now that they do have the category, ask them to show you the sickly number of votes it takes to win the honour. Then figure out if your family is large enough to turn the tide. You will then realize just how dubious an honour it is. Remember I spoke about attempted brain washing. Don't let their smoke and mirrors get into your eyes.
Why The Hamilton Spectator didn't have the category in the first place is most likely because movers are the lowest hanging thus easiest picking fruit for a consumer affairs columnist who won’t or can’t do the legwork or homework. How are you going to find a reader that likes them? The free lunch comes in because movers usually take their lumps quietly for fear of bad press, wrongfully or rightfully. (Have I introduced myself yet?) Now if you are inclined, see how many of MacRury’s columns in the past 20+ years had had movers as the object of his affection. Lots, will be your answer. I am sure however it will be a long time, if ever, before MacRury writes about another mover without first finishing his homework.
A peculiarity I have noticed about MacRury’s Actionline column is that he has never told a complaining consumer, “You don't have a legitimate complaint and this is why.” This is of course up until recently and after the time that he had written about Pat Canini and PAT and MIKE. For what it's worth, Pat Canini’s diatribe may have finally inspired MacRury to look at clouds from both sides now. Or maybe the overwhelming preponderance of facts are finally starting to get in his way. Because he has changed his M/O since confronting Pat Canini. Ouch! Those facts, again.
Hi. My name is Pat Canini, and I’m 30 years older than I feel on evermore rarified occasions. I have always been extremely jealous and protective of my privacy. There are no sinister reasons. It is my birthright and I am entitled to it. Let me explain myself with a quote.
“The Italian people are called ‘Children of the Sun.’ They might better be called ‘Children of the Shadow.’ Their souls are dark and nocturnal. If they are to be easy, they must be able to hide, to be hidden...” (D. H. Lawrence, 1916)
My birthright was recently a target for a business editor and his henchman in a muckraking report that had had little, if any, resemblance to business issues.
I remember being taught that during the last century another people’s birthright was targeted by someone else and his henchmen. Viruses are hard to eradicate too.
This is my story. Its purpose, to show what can happen when you piss-off a self-anointed, prima donna, newspaper columnist who can’t see the forest for the trees. Really can't see the trees either. I also want to highlight some crucial facts that were so conveniently omitted from the biggest epic MacRury has ever tried to write. An attempted epic about PAT and MIKE and Pat Canini.
I’m going to introduce you to yellow journalism. I didn’t know what that was but like most things, I found out the hard way. To put it into a nutshell, yellow journalism is a term used to describe a publication, usually a newspaper, that has assumed their readers are semiliterate nincompoops so it will publish ridiculous stories with outrageous headlines to appeal to the largest number of mouth-breathing, newspaper readers and buyers. It is muckraking reporting. It is analogous to someone waving a rattle above a baby in a crib to get the baby’s attention. This might be an oversimplification but it makes my point.
Yellow Journalism actually worked and it worked well when Hearst and Pulitzer were trying to corn-hole each other. That was more than one hundred years ago or so. People for the most part then were those semiliterate nincompoops. Obviously, with this newspaper having a weak pulse, there might still be some around. Otherwise, it would have flat-lined already.
Ask yourself, “Do you want this kind of newspaper in the community?” I don’t. I’m sure you’ve heard the cry, “Freedom of the press.” Well this is the cry for, “Freedom from the yellow press.” Although of late, newspapers are performing an exquisite rendition of lemmings culling themselves. I still want to make sure there is room left on their coffin so I can hammer a final wooden stake into it. But I will surely be trampled to death from the rush of people with their own ideas, holding their own wooden stakes.
Think of the environment and the trees we will be saving from that day on.
From my perspective the wake is long over due. But an encouraging sign of the train wreck ahead was the announcement on Feb. 24th, 2009, of the imminent death to 7% of the Spectator’s aforementioned jobs. In regards to that announcement I say, “Cutting fraudulent advertisers is one thing but cutting legitimate advertisers on account of personal smear campaigns is a sure, slow and painful death for the remaining jobs.” In the end those unfortunate souls can blame Al MacRury too.
If you listen carefully, that sound you hear is Gutenberg laughing in disbelief at newspapers practicing this principle.
Who in the world is Pat Canini?
Well my parents had hopes I would grow-up to be a doctor or lawyer. But to their chagrin, I got a small truck in 1975 and started to help people move. This is an old photo of the first move I ever did for someone, it was May 1975.
So now, for 34 years, I have been personally helping people and people’s families, friends and neighbours move. It has been no big deal. At that tender age I was just a boy and a truck, and by the word personally, I mean physically. I was there myself grunting through every... last... one... of those moves. That would be many, many, many hundreds of moves. Hundreds more than thousands of moves. I think that in Ontario, if not all of Canada, perhaps even the world there has been no one else that has physically been on more moves, moving, than myself. I have completed more moves than MacRury has written columns. This is not a boast. It is mind-boggling for me to even see this in writing. Pat Canini needs his head examined. “Too late,” he has been told.
With my eventual partners I became known as PAT and MIKE. That was over 23 years ago. Throughout those years, minus some minor technical renewal date issues, I have been fully licensed, registered, inspected, dissected and insured. My G.S.T. Number, a tax we have in Canada, is in fact one of the first numbers in the series for when the G.S.T started. Oddly enough this registration number has never had a renewal date issue, it is forever. A contention, that I have maintained, is that Registrations be in effect until deliberately terminated or the governing bodies should send out a renewal notice, with fee, every five years or so. Neither is done. For the record, taxes have always been collected and paid, as required by law, for the good of my country and community. In other words everyone gets a receipt and everyone pays their share.
The telephone number for PAT and MIKE has also been the same for over 20 years. It has always been registered to Pat Canini. That same telephone number, since the beginning, has and is being advertised in the white and yellow pages of many telephone books in southern Ontario. For those of you that are interested, it is one of the first cell phones and yes, I've got a great plan now.
When I started with CANTEL a cell phone was a very rare, prestigious and expensive business tool. I used my cell phone to give my customers an exceptional quality of mobile service. My first cell phone (July 18th, 1988) cost over $2500 and 50 cents per minute to operate. It was not then, the toy of ne’er-do-wells, crack-whores or their assistants. It was a new tool I used to provide the then unheard of, live mobile service to clients. They never again had to suffer an answering machine’s message. Customers when they called always spoke and still speak to Pat Canini, live. Add to that the facts that I have always been bondable and shower daily many customers often offered to adopt me. Quoting an old rocker I say, “...ain’t hiding from nobody, nobody’s hiding from me.” This is contrary to what Mr. MacRury would like you to believe.
I offer the preceding information as testament to my longevity and stability in business, my honesty and the fact that I truly love to help people in their hour of need. But like Galileo in 1611 was attributed as saying to the university he taught at, when it asked why he wanted to be payed (from a Brecht play) he replied, "I like to eat..." Well, PAT and MIKE like to eat, too.
You can easily read how MacRury's yellow journalism contort and distort these facts, if you can’t already imagine, by clicking on my links to his stories. And not to be cruel but also read what a blind shut-in's vision is of what our world should look like, in these same stories.
I have had an engineering diploma since 1975 and was certified as an engineering technologist in 1976. There have been and still are many career options available to me and all involving less physical labour. I say this not to be a braggart because I am actually quite disappointed with my limited education. I say this only because I want you to know I choose to do what I do because I love to move and as a perk, I save a fortune on gym membership fees. But please don’t call me a Mover.
Now a little philosophy according to Pat Canini.
When you use a mover for the first time you’re taking a chance. If you use that mover again, you are saying, “He was gentle with me and I liked it enough to callback for more.” The ultimate compliment you can give me is a callback for more service. Many customers of PAT and MIKE have done just that. (When I refer to PAT and MIKE feel free to think, Pat Canini, because he is the rose by any other name who you are hiring.) Some families have used PAT and MIKE, perhaps even abused PAT and MIKE, many, many times.
I feel in my career thus far the most highlighted, complimentary callback happened two decades ago. Let me introduce a former customer of PAT and MIKE’s. I am sure you will warm up to him. I first met him on August 4th, 1989. The day I moved him the first time and charged him $162.00. It was my truck, filled up once. That original transaction is shown here.
This customer, I thought then, was a sharp, handsome and intelligent man. “Thanks.” I said to him after PAT and MIKE finished. Let me now step up to July 12th, 1990. That same sharp, handsome and intelligent man calls me back to move him again. He liked me, I guess. This time he was charged $197.00. Please view that original invoice from 1990. More time was involved. The customer smiled, shook my hand and he again seemed happy and again I thanked Mr. Sharp, Handsome and Intelligent man.
So who was Mr. Sharp, Handsome and Intelligent man? He was none other than Alastair (Al) MacRury, freshling writer for the consumer affairs column in The Hamilton Spectator, called ACTIONLINE. As it turns out, I was myself a freshling advertiser in that paper at that time. I'm now thinking, “Nice, I'm in there like a ‘dirty-shirt-in-the-wash’.” I don't know if it was a direct result of making Al happy in that period but over the years PAT and MIKE was hired by The Spectator, by more of their staff and by family members of their staff, etc...multiple times. These details are all corroborated in tax records. I was walking on that sunshine I mentioned earlier.
Since those frolic filled days with Al, the Typhoons of Time have peeled and blown away many pages from my social calendar. To those counting, that would be some 228 pages, at a month per page.
It's now Nov. 26th, 2007 and having dragged my sorry ass out of bed earlier and finished my day I am now driving home in a torrential downpour. It is 6:26 pm and my cell phone rings. I answered, “Hello. Pat and Mike.” It was Al again. He gave me no telephone courtesy but gave the impression that he was looking to concoct a tale of consumer importance on why some shrewd woman who had contacted him was recently charged some $400 to move her mother. Though as I discovered later, she had already admitted to MacRury that she was told days ahead of her mother's move what the charges would be and she had her completed and signed contract to prove it. However that detail and its significance didn't light-up anything for MacRury. I concluded he was either blind with rage at me or he had no idea or didn't care what a contract meant because he was desperately looking for material to write about. (Remember his reader's abyss.) He might as well been asking me, "Why isn't the moon made of cheese?" for the amount of sense he was making to me during that call.
At this point I would like you to know that I only like to answer questions that are asked with avuncular condescension. (That means like an uncle would talk to you.) Not with the Roman Inquisition type of condescension. (That means like your family jewels are being squeezed in a vise.) I don't think I'm too different than most of us.
I was stunned that Al didn’t recognize who he was trying to bark at. It had only been some 20 years since we were shaking hands. I tossed it to the rust-of-age-syndrome. Many months after Al’s latest telephone calls to me I was again stunned to learn that he had had a much bigger problem than just a little rust between his ears. A problem I suspect Al's been carefully keeping from uncovering to his readers. For how long I don't know. Al certainly didn’t have this problem when I knew him as Mr. Sharp, Handsome and Intelligent man. Normally I wouldn't think to reference someone’s challenges, if it wasn’t material information. I have been told I have more empathy than most. I have also been known to become a blubbering idiot when I see the salmon struggling to get upstream. (I cry for the fish.) To clarify, I'm not telling you this to generate sympathy for anyone. Al and I both know where to find sympathy. That would be in the dictionary between the words, shit and syphilis, and just as useful, as I mentioned earlier. It is being told because I think that this problem has given Al a big chip on his shoulder and he’s not going to let anyone, particularly a mover, knock it off. This chip is obvious to me from reading Al’s emails, from the way Al spoke to me on the telephone and how he spoke at a subsequent hearing in Toronto I dragged his ass to. Let alone from the obvious giveaways in his column.
Before my story continues I want to apologize ahead of time to every reader but primarily to the physically impaired people that may be offended by the following because it is not my intention to disparage any of your challenges. I know too well, that but for the Grace of God, there go I.
If and when it comes down for any of you to move in Southern Ontario, please remember Pat Canini along with PAT and MIKE will do everything that can be done to see that you may receive a full government subsidy for your move. Including discounting our rates. This is Pat’s commitment to you. Just call and ask.
The following may not be suitable reading for all visitors.
Ask yourself, would it make sense or be fair to ask a paraplegic to show you how to dance the tango? How about asking a deaf mute to give their critique on Puccini’s opera? How about this following one then? Would you feel confident with the knowledge you obtained from reading reports a visually impaired and legally blind man gives you about duly signed and executed contractual business transactions from third parties he was not party to? I need go no further I’m sure.
Why then, in the name of Joseph Pulitzer, has The Hamilton Spectator been using a blind man to produce a consumer affairs column and not informing their readers about it? Is it that sympathy thing again, or is The Hamilton Spectator stuck with labour laws? They certainly had no problem in showing 7% of their other staff the door. Makes me wonder.
Yes, if you've been reading ACTIONLINE in The Hamiton Spectator you have been reading the writings of a person, who like I said earlier, not only can't see the forest for the trees but can’t see the trees, figuratively and literally. I am saddened and very sorry to inform you that Al MacRury, in his own words, has only 4-5% of his vision remaining in his left eye. He did not mention his right eye. But judging from the pinball-like entrance he made on Oct. 23rd, 2008 to the Ontario Press Council (OPC) hearing in Toronto, even with the guide of his business editor, Jim Poling, I concluded the man is blind. At that meeting Jim Poling’s own words said, “Al is legally blind.”
That is the sad tragic fact that I wish did not have to be part of my story. But it is a crucial part that has been undisclosed for too long and I feel that that secret alone, The Hamilton Spectator has been keeping under wraps, raises enough doubt to hang dark clouds of suspicion over this newspaper, its management and anything they publish.
Anyone thinking I’m being too cruel, please understand the following adage, “He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones.” And also my own adage, “People say an elephant never forgets but an Italian makes an elephant look like it has Alzheimer’s.”
My point being MacRury forgot that in the past he hired PAT and MIKE, twice, at the same, contracted moving rate that The Hamilton Spectator's editor let MacRury hatch and publish stories, unjustifiably, criticizing those rates. Rates that were fine not only once, but twice, for the cheapest man I ever met. (That Magic Paintbrush Tool again, remember, same stroke different colour.)
Pat Canini didn't forget. But The Spectator's people, bothered not, to disclose that egg on their faces. Where PAT and MIKE come from, people call you "A Big, Fat, Phony" when you do that.
To continue...
If a thousand more moves could help get Al his vision back, I would start today working to help him. But this is not about my empathy or compassion. My story is about truth, and the facts that make the truth, true.
The truth is, I know little about psychology but I know a bit more about human nature. This is why I think Al has a chip on his shoulder. Because he is a blind man, he will not admit it but he has something to prove to you, to me but most of all, to himself. I’ll be damned if he is going to prove it on Pat Canini's back.
The fact is, had The Hamilton Spectator been forthright with its readers, myself formerly included, and disclosed Al's real condition. His phone calls to me would have been more fruitful for both of us. And I think he would never have written his columns in such a one sided and derogatory manner. Why? Because I would have forgiven him for sounding the pompous, arrogant, self-important man he sounded like to me on the telephone and would have talked with him. Had I known about Al’s impairment, I would not have made the comments I directed towards him in subsequent emails. In simpler terms, I gave him a hard-on because he wasn't very nice to me on the phone. That's my nature.
MacRury's nature, to the challenges I presented to that intoxicating ounce of authority, he thinks he wields, as the big shot consumer affairs columnist, in a floundering newspaper that seems not to realize the anachronism he projects onto its image, was to slam me the best he legally could, in an attempt to put me out of business. An immature adolescent would do that. A professional investigative reporter would not.
When MacRury does not get his way, teaching you a lesson is his other way. He has tried doing it to others. But I’m the first to call he out on it. So no, I’m not being too cruel. I'm just giving as good as I got.
The following is a copy of an email MacRury cc’d me on Dec. 10/07. Though he sent it direct, I figure he did not want to give me the emails of those he sent it to.
"Told Pat that I am doing another column.
As I keep stressing, he has ‘issues’ and I intend to avoid being dragged into his web. Dealing with the truth and reality is obviously a major problem for him. I suppose he is in a tight bind and likely will have trouble staying in business.
Al"
Many months after that email, it turned out, from information I gleaned from Jim Poling at the OPC hearing, that Al is basically what some would call a "shut in." Poling confessed that, "Al is in a room by himself and in some respect that makes Al his best investigative reporter because he has plenty of time to make phone calls...though Al does not have incisive discovery..." "Wow!" I said to myself, "White slavery at its best."
Al started speaking at the OPC hearing by saying, “There are not many like me in Canadian journalism...” I think he was referring to blind scribes.
I agreed with him because until the OPC hearing I thought all the blind scribes were either in Egypt translating hieroglyphics or dead and buried in the catacombs of Rome.
I was both surprised and dismayed to learn from Al how he gets his work done. It seems a lot harder to me than moving. He uses some very hi-tech equipment to read to him consumer complaints, type his stories, dictate his phone calls, word recognition readers, etc... He didn’t say anything about voice recorders but that might be an issue for another time.
I was dismayed because I came to the realization that all of the technology that Al uses to function as normally as he can, is not worth a dime, when the evidence is a dog-eared, handwritten piece of paper or he has to pick the right “Canini’s” land-telephone number and address from long lists on his computer's screen. Even to understand a jpeg attachment to a email, he can't do it on his own. There's no wonder why I was being ignored. My evidence was invisible to him.
For MacRury anything that doesn’t follow his computer’s protocol is from an undisclosed location.
As much as I think he would like to, he can’t blame Pat Canini for that. But it seems The Hamilton Spectator has let him.
To have a Free Press you must also have an Ego Free Press.
When you have a gentleman pounding his chest expounding the virtuous fact that there are not many like him in Canadian journalism, a Free Press goes down the toilet.
“It just goes to show that you can’t believe anything you read in the papers.” (W. R. Hearst, Jr. 1991)
“Churchill often professed disgust for and distrust of the press. He was fond of saying one couldn’t believe anything he read in newspapers.” (This was Hearst Jr. talking about his friend in the 1950's)
Do you think you can believe anything more in newspapers today than you could since Churchill?
With dirty little secrets put aside for now, let me show you some examples that may help you answer that question.
The Spectator, June 10th, 2008, headline, “Carney ready to chop rates, again”, “It’s a no-brainer, but what comes after today’s 25-point drop?"
The truth was Mark Carney (The Bank of Canada's big cheese) never dropped the rates that day or any reasonable length of days thereafter. I hope not many of you went to renegotiate your mortgages that day based on The Spectator's fair and accurate reporting.
There's more, the best is still coming.
The Spectator, February 23rd, 1999, headline, “The Mover from Heaven,” this mover charges between $1300 and $1700 to down size a senior, the truck is extra.
The Spectator, March 30th, 2000, headline, “Personalized Service Helps Seniors Handle Move,” this is the same mover as in the 1999 report.
The Spectator, February 27th, 2006, headline, “Getting a Move On,” again, this same mover in all these reports is now charging between $3000 and $4000 for the same services for seniors as in 1999.
But what is ultimately the most irresponsible display of apathy from an editor that I have ever seen, is that The Spectator is actually calling this, a good thing.
Forget about the fact that this same mover has been highlighted at least three times in The Spectator with accolades printed on the equivalent of three full pages for charging up to ten times more than PAT and MIKE would ever dream of charging. And forget about the fact that probably the only way that this could have happened in a Free Press, would be if it's not. Then you will appreciate where the funniness (peculiar) comes in.
The Spectator, December 4th, 2007, headline, “Moving firm takes clients to the cleaners.” That alleged trip to the cleaners for this senior including all materials, truck and taxes cost this client $427.18. The “moving” firm in question was PAT and MIKE. The paltry-sum referred to by Pat Canini was in comparison to “The Mover from Heaven,” 2006 charges of between $3000 and $4000 for the same scope of service.
So what is my point?
On one hand, my point is a publisher, an editor and a cat-fur laden reporter must all be ignorant of the fact their newspaper trumpeted accolades to what you and I know is the real trip to the cleaners, that sticks it in hard and deep, to our seniors then breaks it off to the tune of four grand.
On the other hand this newspaper then pulls off the journalistic equivalent of, “The Three Faces of Eve,” by calling an invoice for some $400, from a well established business, that this newspaper hired and helped establish, "a trip to the cleaners." This is a sad commentary on the thinking prowess of the chiefs involved with this rag. The only logical explanation is that some people from The Hamilton Spectator think we are all morons and forgot about the gruel they fed us in the past, claiming it to taste like fair and accurate porridge. I showed them how I forgot to renew my subscription and it seems many others are following suit.
There are two questions you should be asking yourself at this point.
Question one is, “Who is the 'Mover from Heaven' in bed with at this newspaper?”
Question two is, “How long has The Hamilton Spectator and Al MacRury been playing me for a fool?”
I don't know what Mr. Poling’s (Business Editor, Spectator) criteria is in considering who his best investigative reporter is. What I do know is that you need vision functioning like a laser-drum scanner to present Pat Canini's type of detailed and factual investigation. If, that is your objective.
I have basically already said, "One of the fundamental human rights we enjoy by living in Canada is the right to face our accusers." Nowhere is that basic right more debauched than at the hand of some consumer affairs columnists.
The Spectator, Dec. 13th, 2007, headline, “Column, complaints axe advertising.”
It struck me again as peculiar when I consider the vast number of people I have moved over the years that Mr. MacRury would centre this column on the only responses he managed to squeeze out of these following readers of his, Sharon Dern, Ken and Bonnie Dailey and Mike Masney. Frankly, I’m surprised MacRury wasn’t able to pick much plumper fruit from all those low hanging branches. That tells me one thing, you like me, you really like me. I like you too.
I have already offered my general thoughts on MacRury’s readers. At the risk of offending, some more, I will now like to get specific.
Sharon Dern hired PAT and MIKE to help her move on August 20th, 2007. PAT and MIKE was not her first choice. She confessed her first choice had walked out on her after arriving. She had until the end of that August to move a full three bedroom house. If what she said to Mr. MacRury, which was, “I could not wait to get rid of them. They were filthy and dirty and their truck was falling apart.” was true. Why would she not slam the door shut on PAT and MIKE and call someone else? Just like she claimed to have called PAT and MIKE after her fist movers walked-out. She had plenty of time. The answer of course is because it was not true: That we were filthy and dirty when we arrived at Dern's. What was true is she was asked to sign for a $600 deposit, as she claims. That however is not “signing a blank VISA,” as MacRury's fantastic story claims is done. In the end, after Sharon Dern had bought the boys and me drinks, she was charged $584.06. Please remember this is a three bedroom house. What do you think the “Mover from heaven” would have charged if they hadn't walked too? That is.
In terms of the truck. It was, and is, an all aluminum vehicle, so it had no rust and most likely never will. For those who may not be aware, an aluminum vehicle does not rust in a traditional sense. This means that there is nothing to give a person a visual cue, that this vehicle would be, "Falling Apart."
At Dern's point in time, it was and still is 100% road worthy. The truck had been inspected by the Ministry of Transportation and passed, biennially.
In my opinion, Sharon Dern would not know the difference among a good truck, a bad truck and a hardboiled egg, if she were to squat on all three. She didn’t strike me as a person who would have cared about or noticed a truck as long as the job was done, which it was. I’m suspect as to how she might have been asked, leading questions, by MacRury. MacRury is not a stupid man. He knows, by now, which buttons he has to push, to claim he is only reporting what people are saying about the current object of his affection. Only a fool would not know, when there are no prying ears, or eyes, how easy it is to massage statements out of willing drones. A person would be held in contempt with this technique in a court of law. But in a newspaper, the Popes’ your uncle, use any technique you have to to fabricate a story, the Popes' not watching, or listening. Most definitely not reading.
Dern is the classic example of a MacRury reader making a recreational sport of complaining. Dern only complained for the first, and only time, but only after MacRury’s Action Line came out. This was four months after PAT and MIKE helped her move. Was Dern stewing all that time?
Boredom must be the pits for Sharon Dern.
I see some awful things in this business.
You can't blame a sewer man for getting your shit on himself if you hired him to clean out your cesspool, that is, unless there is something very wrong with you.
I can produce three affidavits testifying to these facts, without having to call upon any estranged spouse or those unfortunate people that moved into Dern’s former residence. Dern is one of those ignorant people who think they live in a vacuum, and evidence can’t touch them. I would like to tell her to keep enjoying those twinkies, with her eyes closed.
Moving on (no pun intended) to those fine folk, Mr. and Mrs. Dailey, I truly wish them my best.
PAT and MIKE helped them move way back on December 8th, 2005. I wish I could help them again with their choice of reading materials. At least what I can say about the Daileys is that they went through hoops to try and accuse PAT and MIKE of atrocities before they read MacRury's column. In the end they were shutdown because they were the authors of their own, imagined, misfortune.
Carrying a grudge for so long can’t be good for anybody.
The Daileys always remind me of the story of the wife who gets caught, red-handed, murdering her husband and at her trial, she begs the Judge for mercy, because she is a widow.
I think that that case, if held in front of Judge MacRury, would bring a suspended sentence.
The Daileys had the choice of three sizes of truck, which they were welcomed to view and pick, at anytime for weeks prior to their move. Over the telephone, they chose the least expensive one, which is of course not the largest one. But it was more than adequate for them with two loads. Until the last minute before they signed their contract, PAT and MIKE was prepared to have a larger truck brought in for them. The only drawback for them, besides more cost, was the thirty minutes it would take to arrive. In their angst they said, “Forget it and start!” PAT and MIKE forgot it and did. But not before a signed agreement. No payment was taken from them on that day. Only an authorization was obtained. It is called banking records and it is why their complaint had no resolution. Because they were complaining about their own ignorance and are still, and are still asking the Judge to feel sorry for that ignorance. They shot themselves in the foot. I still don’t blame them for trying. They were nice people, but dense. They should give it up and blame who they're real angry with. Those lazy-good-for-nothings that only helped them when it was too late to save them money.
Remember the few nincompoops I mentioned?
Mr. MacRury, himself, must have recently had a profound revelation through his dealings with the labyrinthine concepts of Pat Canini. Concepts such as, reading a contract, understanding a contract, signing a contract, then having the contract completed and paying for the contract. Otherwise there is no other way to explain his recent understanding, to the point that he must write, in his June 5th, 2008, column, “Well, you should always read any contract or agreement before you sign it...” and “You have an obligation to know what you are doing.” He certainly did not understand this dogma in December, 2007 when he was criticizing PAT and MIKE. We have to assume of course that his June 5/08 statements were not analogous to the theory of, a 1000 monkeys, a 1000 typewriters and a 1000 years, randomly coming up with the novel, War and Peace. You never can tell. Though again, I’m going to credit MacRury with trying to look at the clouds from both sides now. But I can’t help but think that that must have been as difficult and painful for MacRury to write as passing a kidney stone the size of a walnut.
The problem with giving him that credit however is that it makes every complaint he wrote about PAT and MIKE null, void and senseless. Think about it. Unless of course that Wizard MacRury is using that magical paintbrush again.
Prior to MacRury writing about PAT and MIKE he has never, that I've seen, put the onus on consumers to be responsible for anything but complaining. Myopic comes to my mind, again.
There are two ways to help a consumer. You can give them a fish, or you can teach them how to fish. MacRury has only been giving fish.
I would like you to know my contracts are called, “AGREEMENTS.” Before he wrote about PAT and MIKE, MacRury had never associated the words contract and agreement in the same sentence. Because I think he never understood that between both sets of letters is the word, “BINDING.” He seems to like my choice of words.
He used my word Piñata, twice, as he tried beating me with his pen.
Mr. MacRury’s third complaining reader is Mike Masney.
Now Masney admits he has never used the services of PAT and MIKE/Pat Canini or had had more than an alleged phone conversation with someone, somewhere at sometime. Yet Masney claims to have been astute and noticed a red flag. Perhaps, been clairvoyant, would have been a more accurate statement.
Let me share with you the only Mike Masney that I've ever spoken with.
Mike Masney was a loud-mouthed, hotheaded, drunk with assault charges in his background when Pat Canini knew him. I'm sure he still is. On the night of February 9th, 1996 Masney took the liberty to clock me with a sucker punch. I, after shaking off the blow and restraining myself, had Masney charged with yet another assault. The end result being that Masney was forced to pay Pat Canini $800 in restitution for his troubles. Masney has been trying to even the score ever since.
MacRury helped him get some points in by not bothering to do his homework and corroborate Masney's rantings.
Here is a letter from Masney's lawyer on the restitution payment. My better half and I went to Florida for a week with the money.
The question you should be asking yourself now is, "How can a publisher allow an editor to let a columnist produce and use quotes from basically, lunatics from an asylum, as fair and accurate reportage without so much as stepping outside and looking to see if the lunatics have taken over the asylum first? Then allow the queen bee of advertising to disbar one of the longest running advertisers based on the columnist's hurt ego, all the while the paper sailing ever closer to oblivion. Because he is handicapped?
Oh, where is my Queen of Hearts when I need her?
I can’t help wondering what MacRury would have written if a reader had called him and said, “It was PAT and MIKE that killed the Kennedys.”
In MacRury’s column dated January 22nd, 2008, he writes of a woman that claims, despite being a little afraid of this mover, felt compelled to warn others of his double-billing practices.
I don’t think anybody knows 100% who MacRury is writing about here, except him. But if it was who I think it was. I would like to face this accuser and ask, “Why did it take four months of compelling before you opened your pie-hole?" and, "Was the 15 seconds of fame worth it?”
If it was who I think it was, judging from the used barnyard sized condoms that had to be kicked out of the way to move furniture, "I doubt very much if some wiry moving help would have evoked a blink from you.
And, if you were a little afraid, it was because someone else saw how you lived."
If it was who I think it was. I would say that, "Double-billing would be an unusual complaint to keep under your hat for such a long time. Because double-billing is terrible, against the law and a credit card company would always reverse the charges, into your favour."
I am aware of this because I have had several of my own personal credit card transactions credited back to me. I was double-billed.
I have been a merchant Visa, Mastercard and AMX business operator for about 20 years. During that time there has never been a reversal that has gone against Pat Canini. You can read into that that complainants were F.O.S. That is a short form for, "FULL OF S**T."
Everyone of PAT and MIKE Sunspaces’ and Pat Canini’s clients know that charges consist of Labour and Materials. Just like most everywhere else. Clients must accept, with their signatures, both parts on the Agreements before any charges accrue.
If you are illiterate, you should always have counsel present when signing a contract or agreement.
If you are just fat and ignorant, you should loose weight and then always have counsel present when you sign a contract or agreement.
Either way, I can’t tell who or what you are, because for one, I like bovine figured women. I can only tell if you’re drunk. And as I mentioned earlier, then walk out on you.
However, the fact remains that if you are agreeing to a fully disclosed binding contract by putting your signature on the bottom line. You can’t claim to be an ignoramus after the fact, if you didn’t claim to be an ignoramus, before the fact.
And anyone who takes your side on the issue is a bigger ignoramus, still.
It warmed the cockles of my heart to see MacRury finally understanding this primordial consumer duty and actually write about it on June 5th, 2008. You see MacRury was blind to this consumer duty back in 2007 when he was writing about Pat Canini. It took Pat Canini to shake the cat fur off of him so he could see this.
Then again, maybe he was just talking to Mr. Dennis O’Sullivan, also with the Spectator. This gentleman knows the power of a fully disclosed and executed contract, and has never been afraid to tell his readers what it means.
MacRury has tried milking his stories, dry, about PAT and MIKE and Pat Canini, by trying to highlight the most insignificant details he could magnify under his scrip-reader. Details such as, PAT and MIKE vs. PAT and MIKE’s Moving vs. PAT and MIKE Sunspaces vs. Pat Canini vs. Pasqual Canin vs. 3068 vs. 3058 vs. C V O R vs. 4500 kg vs. 3000 kg vs. Puslinch vs. Hamilton vs. Windsor. These are all moot, straw-clutching points and PAT and MIKE agreements have all pertinent and correct contact and government required information printed conveniently on one side, the business side, of all agreements.
MacRury ultimately works for Metroland Media Group Ltd. They call themselves Metroland for short. MacRury's first name is Alastair. He calls himself Al in his column. PAT and MIKE Sunspaces calls itself PAT and MIKE, in the paper. NO BIG DEAL.
To add the word “Sunspaces” the Spectator Classifieds would charge Pat Canini an extra $1200 plus per year in advertising cost. Pat Canini would charge that extra cost to his clients. That would be a BIG DEAL.
When life has dealt you a hand that requires you to enlarge details to the Nth degree to visualize them, molehills will always look like mountains.
I have mentioned I have empathy for the unfortunate. I also have compassion for the unfortunate. But that is not going to hold me back from demanding that a Publisher tell their Editor that you can’t ferret out the truth with a seeing eye dog - Or am I being too Machiavellian? Then again, I may be the biggest nincompoop here with myself being an owner of Torstar shares.
Having followed MacRury’s column for as long as I had, might also make me one of those nincompoops I spoke about. Still, I have never seen MacRury attack a subject (Pat Canini) with such vehemence and for so many columns. Grave desecrators have received milder press.
I have given some thought as to: Why?
Reason one that I came up with is that I called him a mediocre writer. How in the world was I to know this man is blind when he and his employer keeps that information a secret from me and every other trusting reader? Looking back, the word mediocre then becomes an accolade, doesn’t it?
Reason two is deeper. In the only two telephone calls he made to me before publication, on November 26th and 27th, 2007, less than 18 hours apart, he thought he could make me jump for him. He claims to have asked me some questions that I knew he had the answers to at his finger tips. But that would have required extra work out of him. When confronted with this information at the OPC hearing Mr. Poling (MacRury's editor) offered, in MacRury's defence, the eloquently spoken and convenient doctrine of, “the separation between Church and State.” In other words, just because the Advertising Dept. has all of Pat Canini’s information, Poling and MacRury are separated from it. But he did not elaborate as to why that separation wasn’t wide enough to keep MacRury from contacting the Church of Advertising and tattle-tailing on Pat Canini, resulting in having the ad pulled.
To teach someone a lesson, MacRury doesn't seem to mind the extra work of having to pick-up the white cane.
MacRury's bloated ego got his knickers in a knot over those two phone calls because Pat wouldn’t jump for him. So he wrote and wrote, trying to destroy the lives of good, hardworking men, with innuendo.
Unfortunately, like his vision, he failed too. It's that hard-on thing I mentioned. As for the lesson. It's egg on his and his editor's face.
MacRury never asked to meet with me. I would have. In retrospect I know why he never asked. He would had had to give away his secret, and do some legwork. Not a small task for a gentleman of his enormity. Remember, legwork he does only to teach others a lesson.
He bothered me at a time I should have been enjoying dinner with family and he spoke as if he was talking to street-trash. He wrote unverified and unverifiable insinuations, regardless of any OPC decision. Insinuations such as my home in Puslinch, Ontario being nothing more than a post office box.
I present my property assessment for Puslinch.
Insinuations that I have been operating under the radar for twenty years because his disability wouldn’t let him search the, “Expired Registration Of...” data bank.
I present my first registration from 1986.
Insinuations that I’m operating in the underground economy because I offer a cash discount to clients. That is not a tax discount.
He didn’t back anything up with anything, but innuendo.
This is a copy of my renewal for business insurance, 1993.
This is my first business license, 1978 and a vintage cartage license, 1989.
If you could not pass a background check. You could not get a license to do what I do.
MacRury made a stink about me only being registered as of May 2006.
Here I present the previous five years, 2000 to 2005. Check out what the ministry calls us. (bottom right corner)
Al’s tactics remind me of another gentleman, who curiously, had the same first and last letters of MacRury’s name. He also used innuendo in trying to blacklist and destroy people and their lives, under the guise of helping the masses.
That gentleman’s name was McCarthy. I know, please hold your applause until the end.
All the withheld information in the preceeding documents is available but you have to be able to see it and you have to be able to pay for it, at the source.
I have had and have enough licenses, registrations, certificates, inspections and history... that anyone can hang me the moment I do anything wrong. This is the reason for all the paperwork, so that I could be hung, if needed.
It has been over thirty years since I obtained my city license and I have never given anyone so much as a piece of thread to hang me with. But if I did, a blind newspaper man is going to be the first person on earth that is never going to see, nor understand what it was.
We should all feel the same way about this, otherwise we run the risk of letting some waning reporter, his desperate editor and their floundering newspaper turn anyone of us into a sacrificial lamb with the garbage they need to write, publish and try to shove down our throat, claiming this one tastes like news. When in reality it is only some invalid's lame-flavoured opinion. And all the while, the newspapers are giving each other in-house awards and high-fives for their journalistic excellence while scribes fantasize they just finished covering the front line of WW2 with, "Man bites Dog" story.
Please excuse me now, I think I have made myself sick.
Thanks, I feel better.
A lot of people after getting slammed by some newspaper reporter will just rollover and lick their wounds. I roll over too, but in my case, it's so that that newspaper reporter can give a long, wet, tongue-licked kiss to my chocolate starfish. And if he can’t find it, because he can’t see it, he can sniff around for it.
There. I think I looked under all the rocks.
It was about a year after MacRury’s stories about PAT and MIKE were published that I was at the annual outdoor Grey Cup party good friends of mine have at their home. Sometime during halftime, out of the blue, a guest turned to me and said, “... and you [got] a good name I hear.” I looked at him for a second, then asked, “Do you mean like David Milgard?” I could hear the one cog in his head labouring through a revolution as he slowly absorbed my reply. A shudder ran from one side of his face to the other side of his other face. It corrugated his lips into a Cheshire grin. Then poof, he vanished, nothing left behind but a moronic grin. Another nincompoop I thought. If anyone does see him again, tell him I do have a good name. It's Pat Canini, don’t forget it.
I hope you have some idea as to how good that all felt and I hope you enjoyed it. Now I’m going to go look at pretty things and thank my Maker for blessing me with the gift for doing so. I want to thank you all very much for reading this monstrosity and please remember that that newspaper on your front porch helped kill a tree. Was anything in it, worth it?
God bless you all and don't ever stop fighting the oppressors. See you on moving day.
Pat, from PAT and MIKE.
