the daily snivel

  From the Department of No! They'd Never Do That!

Here in Ottawa, Crown (federal) lands are managed by the National Capital Commission (the "NCC"), which is a Crown corporation chartered with the responsibility of keeping our parks, heritage buildings, monuments and recreational pathways a source of national pride. It has helped with the city planning for generations, emphasizing a Greenbelt through the city, and organizes major festivals in Ottawa, including Canada Day celebrations (held on July 1) and Winterlude. In recent years, it's also been under a lot of pressure to run a profit.

In preparation for this past Canada Day, the National Capital Commission was renting out information booths to organizations interested in informing the public about their activities and goals during the festivities. One non-profit group, the Canadian Renewable Fuel Associations, had reserved an information booth at Major's Hill Park (near the Parliament Buildings). Their spokesman, "Corn Cob Bob," was ready to make an appearance to promote the use of ethanol to reduce airborne pollutants. Unfortunately, Shell Canada, a major oil company and a sponsor of the celebrations, decreed that the alternative-fuel mascot wasn't welcome, and insisted that the NCC revoke their right to participate in the Canada Day Celebrations. And revoke it they did:

CBC NEWS – The National Capital Commission has apologized for banning an alternative-fuel mascot from its Canada Day celebrations at the request of a major oil company.

...

The association had secured an information booth at Major's Hill Park through the NCC, which had even offered a 50-per-cent discount on the usual fees.

But last Wednesday, the commission called to cancel the arrangement after pressure from Shell Canada, a key sponsor for the Canada Day celebrations in the capital.

...

"They said they were very sorry but they said one of their major sponsors had indicated there was a conflict between the message that we were promoting and their company's interests," he said.

Teneycke says the NCC shouldn't be in the business of caving into corporate pressures and curbing free speech.

...

The NCC called Monday afternoon to apologize to the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association, and invited the group to attend next year's Canada Day celebrations.

A Shell spokesperson said the company's arrangement with organizers meant it had exclusive rights when it came to fuel products.

I like the NCC's approach of the deathbed confession. They get to screw the environmentally responsible non-profit group, keep the big bucks from the gigantic petroleum corporation, and still pull off a presto-chango face-saving turnaround days later when no one cares any longer because the party's been over for days.

So, who's more to blame: the wretchedly callow development commission that would do anything for money so long as it doesn't upset its sponsors, or the monstrous corporate behemoth that sweats hydrocarbons and pushes the aforementioned callow commissions around with meaty fistfulls of dollars in the first place?

Remember, kids: hybrid cars, biodiesel, clean energy, and ethanol blended fuels make oil companies scream. You know what you have to do. 

  The Leader is good, the Leader is great. We surrender our will as of this date.

Across the street from my beloved legal clinic (where I spent the bulk of my law school years and now the bulk of my summer as a graduate and an employee) is a humble vegetarian restaurant that is universally known by all who attend the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law as "the cult place." Inside are a number of willowy young women in saris who serve (admittedly delicious) vegetarian cuisine with a serene smile and glassy eyes. The restaurant itself is festooned with prints, photographs, and quotations from the Leader of the order, Sri Chinmoy. He is depicted performing great feats and a source of great compassion, and no doubt has a great following of... eerily content young, slender, white girls.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a blog entry by a writer based Chicago who writes about another creepy restaurant that also credits its good food and serene bliss to the Leader:

... Over the speakers, his music played. On the tables, the plastic insert holders usually telling of drink specials contained instead copies of his paintings, abstract art pieces which, to my untrained eye, looked like thick globs of powder blue paint covered by tangerine blobs of paint that looked like Goldfish crackers. The painting was entitled "Forgiveness" and had a loosely-drawn pen illustration of a bird next to the handwritten title.

Chinmoy, Chinmoy, Chinmoy, and the occasional frilly pink sari. Fliers in between the salt and pepper shackers announcing when the next meditation would be taking place.

If I didn't know better, (and I don't) I'd say this was a cult restaurant, the only cult restaurant I've ever seen. I looked carefully at the diners. The restaurant was crowded, and they all sat around chatting animatedly. Nobody was creeped out, so I could only conclude that either they'd all been eating too much Inspiration Soup or I'd been living in the suburbs for too long.

The veggie wrap I'd ordered was tasty, but not tasty enough to shake that weird cult vibe the place had going on ....

It describes my own feelings about our own cult place perfectly. I confess, I had their vegetarian potato skins there once (with a friend who dug into hers and proclaimed -- "Look! I found a Leader bean!") and they were dee-licious. Even so, I've rarely braved it (the exact number of times I've attended being three in as many years), even though I probably am not in danger of assimilation, given that I am definitely not a young, impressionable, slender white girl. I'm sure they mean absolutely no harm, but still -- what serene sect of enlightenment and compassion and total devotion to a loving, messianic leader ever does?

When you think you may be in a cult restaurant, you probably are.

Is there a Sri Chinmoy divine enterprise in your town? Please let me know in the comments. 

  Obligatory Bar Admissions Course update

I feel I had to mention that, once again, I passed my last examination for the Bar Admissions Course, which was civil litigation. What's more, I passed the exam with a stunning 92% -- 49 correct answers out of 53. It's important to emphasize that the exams that followed the professional responsibility module (which was fairly challenging, requiring a lot of reference to the Rules of Professional Conduct, the Solicitors Act and the Society By-laws and written in short answers) are open book and multiple choice, but that said, I've been told that some 200 people out of all the law students writing it in Ontario managed to fail the real estate exam, so clearly it's possible to screw these things up. Still, I'm officially at the point where I'm not freaking out about these things any longer (though in fairness it's hard to say I ever did freak out about them).

On the other hand, we'll see if the Dark Lord of Irony causes me to now fail the criminal law exam on Wednesday as the consequence of my hubris.