Is this fake news?

Took my usual Saturday jaunt into town yesterday to visit The Korean and pick up my copy of Canada’s national newspaper of record, because I’m eager to keep up with the latest outrages of the president elect, don’t you know. And there is no finer place to stay abreast of said outrages than in the pages of Canada’s newspaper of record.

Is this because there is nothing newsworthy afoot in Canada? Maybe, although I see where Justin has made himself newsworthy just for saying nice stuff about the recently departed dictator of Cuba.

The Korean had bad news for me; the Globe and Mail is sold out.

Shit! That only happened once before, and that was when I had an exceptionally late night on Friday and didn’t get into town for the morning paper till six in the evening. Understandable.

So I drive to the other Korean variety store at the far end of town. Sold out there too!

Double shit! Can there be that many people in Wiarton willing to shell out over five bucks for the Globe and Mail? As a last resort I head for the non-Korean variety store. I try to avoid that place if possible. It’s part of the global chain that’s made some grasping Quebecois genius into a billionaire for consolidating the world’s variety stores. They seem to keep two and sometimes three sullen min-wage staffers behind the counter at all times. I guess that’s so they can spell one another off while they take turns updating their Facebook status. Or maybe they need two to spy on each other to prevent pilfering.

Give me a cheerful Korean family behind the counter any day. The only employees you ever see there are their children. A typical four year old Korean kid already knows how to work the till and make change, and accurate change at that. which is more than you can say for the typical min-wage high school graduates who work at the other place. I don’t know how they get around the child labour laws, because the only other people who get away with putting children to work are the Amish, and in their case it seems to be a religious freedom issue.

Anyway, they’re goddamned sold out of the Globe and Mail too, and all this before noon on Saturday. And by the way, I think Alain Bouchard should take a page out of Fast Eddie Burkhardt’s management playbook when he decreed that only one employee was required to operate a train, because otherwise they’d just be distracting each other. Hey, if a single person can safely steer a hundred tanker Bakken bomb across the country, why does it take three to sell slushies at a corner store?

Thoroughly disappointed and doomed to reading the day’s news on my laptop, I wracked my brain for an explanation for all three variety stores being sold out of the same paper on the same day. I guess there’s just a lot of folks in town who wanted that paper as a keepsake to commemorate Castro’s demise.

Reading around the world wide web ‘o bullshit I found out about this new phenomenon known as “fake news.” Apparently this is a nasty conspiracy hatched by Putin and his henchmen to rob our free and democratic Nations of Virtue of their freedom and democracy. And it’s working!

That’s why Trump is the president elect! Yup, fake news peddled by Putin’s minions cheated Hillary out of her turn in the Oval Office, and that’s how great civilizations are brought low.

It was while researching this fake news phenomenon that I chanced upon this remarkable video of CNN big Christiane Amanpour. In the past I’ve always thought CNN’s so-called news was as fake as anything out there, but apparently not. Amanpour pretty much confirmed that professional journos are all that stands between our civilized society and a totalitarian state like our allies Egypt and Turkey. In fact, it’s the professional journalists who are our first and last line of defence for preserving something she calls “American values.” While she didn’t spell out what those might be, she did mention that they’re America’s number one export.

Did you get that? America’s values are an even more valuable export than American guns, bombs, and bullets! Who new?

She also confirmed that it was indeed Putin’s fake news that got Trump elected. No evidence required; it’s just one of those “facts” we all agree on, like the previous bullshit about values being America’s most valuable export.

I don’t know what to think. I mean, does anyone really expect us to trust CNN to tell the truth? For my money, I think that old grouch Paul Craig Roberts has a far truthier take on fake news than does Christiane Armanpour.

Then again, his website has been officially designated as a fake news site. I read that on CNN.