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| Canada's First Lady: Sophie Gregoire Trudeau is a stunner who first caught GSL's keen eye during Kate Middleton's recent triumphant Canadian tour the Den featured here. With the extensive International scrutiny always put on American leaders, we thought we'd get in on the act and train our sights on a few Foreign leaders...especially those All The Big Names fawn over.... |
We think Georgie-Porgie may have been on to something.
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| Prince George knew something was amiss the moment he deplaned in British Columbia. |
This is when he smelled the rat...
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| "Oh hell no Prime!" is exactly what that Royal body language is saying. Prince George knows a schmuck when he sees one and knows as long as he's in knee pants he needn't put on a false front. |
...and then we saw this. Is it a Canadian tradition for the PM's wife to spontaneously break out in song during Martin Luther King Day Celebrations?
...then this. These two have a terminal case of Media Hollow. You can see how their love of spotlight triggers a smarmy persona deluded with a mistaken sense they are charming.
...but nothing could have prepared us for this...
Now a few personality quirks are natural but we sense a tone deaf quality that is already manifesting itself in Affairs of State. The PM's ridiculously effusive eulogy for the murderous dictator Fidel Castro may be a telling indicator as his honeymoon ends and difficult controversial decisions lie ahead. It doesn't appear Mrs Gregoire Trudeau will provide a helpful sounding board at home.
You know if that PM gig doesn't work out, The Den thinks they'd make a fab Lounge Act like Steve & Eydie back in the day...GSL just knows they'd knock 'em dead at the Winnipeg Holiday Inn-Airport.
Treat youself to a deep dish of Steve & Eydie Retro Schmaltz below:
***Oh we are well aware of our future POTUS's many shortcomings and they are rightly given saturation coverage (though oftentimes without The Den's illuminating context and precision) worldwide but also keep your eye on these telegenic media darlings.
Fidel Castro was a family friend of the Trudeaus. He spoke respectfully of the man, not his policies, upon learning he died. I don't see how that supports "a murderous dictator." Harper praised the late king of Saudi Arabia upon his death and no one heard a peep about that and if that isn't a murderous regime, what is? And of course, we all know Cuba was an utterly perfect paradise before Castro kicked out the mob, the CIA and a lot of the people who kept the country poor. I don't support everything he did but as someone who has visited Cuba several times, included right after he allowed Canadians into the country, I have personal knowledge of how things used to be there. Decades of American propaganda have some of the world believing everything he did was bad, and that is simply not the case. Flawed? Yes. A complete monster? No.
ReplyDeleteWelcome VG,
DeleteHere is the official statement from your PM
http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2016/11/26/statement-prime-minister-canada-death-former-cuban-president-fidel-castro
To refer to him as merely 'controversial' does a real disservice to the families of his political opponents he murdered. The Cuban emigrants and refugees were literally dancing in the streets in Miami when his death was announced and they had firsthand knowledge of his oppression and brutality. I'd argue Castro kept his people far more destitute than the crowd that preceded him even if similarly exploitative.
I knew a group of unsavory characters who were regulars of the same bar and went to Cuba twice a year (via Canada as it was illegal for Americans to go) on a cigar run and they'd return boasting virtually any girl was willing to sell herself for "clean towels and soap" or other small luxuries so desperate their plight.
VG,
DeleteHere is the Washington Post's Editorial on Fidel Castro's legacy as many reasonable people consider mass executions and mass internment of homosexuals merit a description a bit beyond "flawed" or "controversial".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fidel-castros-terrible-legacy/2016/11/26/0659042c-b3de-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html?utm_term=.bf437f2d882a
Just checking in to say I hope your holidays were WONDERFUL, and I'VE MISSED YOU!
ReplyDeleteHope you're staying well and warm, and enjoying this marvelous season, and you're welcome at any and all tables at our house---grown-ups and company and family, and especially the funnest one---the Ganjin table, where all us kids hang out.
Thank you Darling Rachel and GSL always gets himself seated at the 'fun table' so I'd be getting bibbed up with the Ganjins.
DeleteI'll bet you also have a few fond memories of Steve & Eydie!
I seem to be doubling down on the comments today---to explain the sobriquet: I am ganjin (always spelled by me with a lower-case as I sign things, for my weird penmanship creates of it a hastily-scribbled sort of gibberish-logo). The name was ascribed by the third GRAND, as a slight mis-speak of what I just THOUGHT I wanted to be called.
DeleteThey tell me I'm the one and only---even GOOGLE seems to concur. Eight GRANDS and Eight Greats, and so say they, as well.
And yes---much love for the Lawrences and their love for each other and for music.
r
Castro was a couple figure as were most politicians. So I find the whole adulatory and condemning tones both a bit severe. He was a dictator who did what those egos do - but oddly he also paid for free education up until the PhD level with free healthcare and one of the lowest infant mortality rates. SO I abstain judgement and prefer to continue having a healthy disregard to most politicians. Including Trudeau.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about the rest - it is a matter of taste if you like first couples pandering to the press and doing yoga poses. He does have good hair so credit where it is due. But Ceta was selling out the Canadian people. There was too much fine print to read of course but Trudeau just gleefully flew over to sign away a lot of control when the EU said they told the Walloonians to be quiet. Scary stuff.
meant to say castro is a complex figure
DeleteThank you Naomi and I see your points and Castro truly is a 'controversial' 'flawed' figure that excites Right vs Left passions. Still after the hysterical rhetoric aimed at Trump over private comments sometimes many years old with publications like Huff Post actually making editor's notes that he's racist, homophobe, misogynist over some impolite words often out of context and many actions/witnesses demonstrating/stating he is none of those things then to see Castro who actually rounded up political opponents and executed them en masse and rounded up homosexuals and interned them for being who they are...well it is a bit rich to see people calmly describe Castro as complex, controversial, or flawed.
DeleteBoth Rideau's have fab hair and The Den will have Georgie-Porgie run our London desk soon as he's out of knee pants.
should be Trudeaus have fab hair
DeleteOh I get his past completely- even as a uni student I didn't have cheap Guevara posters on walls. But it's interesting to see the political schism in the reactions to his death. The UK are still not letting us know who they're sending to the funeral! It's sensitive stuff.
DeleteI saw that very awkward minute od silence Prince Harry was forced to stand for during his Carribean Tour...Obama not going to funeral I now see.
DeleteDearest GSL,
ReplyDeleteI see there is still a vacancy open for the Den's Chief of Protocol (hint: It's Mrs. Grégoire-Trudeau and never First Lady).
My Dearest CD,
DeleteIn above vid during Trudeau's schmaltzy Steve & Eydie impersonation, the PM introduced his wife as "Canada's First Lady of Song" so GSL, as always, is on solid ground though we desperatrly need your CofP Holiday mistletoe guidance.
I ask you, what is going on with all these world leaders? Do make your prediction now, who will win in France next spring?
ReplyDeleteMy Dear Jill,
DeleteA proper assessment of France isn't possible without GSL's spit-shined boots on ground. The 4th Estate is in receivership worldwide holding no sway only preaching to ruling elite choir from Globalist hymnsheet.
You can stick a fork in the EU.
GSL, when are you going to do a post on why the stock market keeps going up. It's very exciting to me. That's my jewelry money. Also, saw that your Favorite English Actor Hugh Grant got a Golden Globe nomination for 'Florence Foster Jenkins'. You must be over the moon. Ha.
ReplyDeleteMy Dear Jill,
DeleteAll the experts were in near complete agreement re Brexit/Trump couldn't happen as it's just Neanderthal racist/misogynist backlash against the enlightened elites that if ever came to pass would cause calamitous global economic collapse and anarch. UK doing just fine post Brexit, 53% of white women voted in a "Misogynist" who by the way will have more women in his Cabinet than any POTUS ever after having the 1st Woman Campaign Mgr to run winning campaign and yes the Trump Rally has the Stock Market surging despite the Oligarchs (Amazon/Google/Facebook/Apple) shitting bricks over Anti-Trust concerns. Trump delivered on his campaign promise re Carrier now staying and now expanding US investment ..after Obama mocked him for it. The Taiwanese company Foxconn CEO (who assemble all the iphones) stood next to Trump in the Tower grinning like a starstruck schoolboy as he informed a distraght press gaggle that his company was now going to invest $50 Billion in US creating 50,000 additional jobs. Consumer Confidence is at a 9 year high.
You may get tennis elbow swinging your paddle at Sotheby’s and Christies for those Queen of Sheba jewels your stock gains can now underwrite.
Hugh Grant and the Washington Press Corp are in desperate need of a GSL administered ass-whippin'.
GSL, where is your post on the upcoming inauguration? I had a laugh reading your comment re my tennis elbow from swinging my paddle at Sotheby's. Hilarious! Now that you mention it, I will check my stocks in just a minute! BTW, just saw 'Florence Foster Jenkins' and I hate to tell you this but I think Hugh is getting an Oscar nom for Best Supporting Actor. He and Meryl were great together.
ReplyDeleteMy Dear Jill,
DeleteI've been busy as a North Woods beaver of late and my best friend, The Good Doctor, decreed Monday night GSL shall attend The Inauguration and had me standing before his tailor for formal wear fittings Monday night 9pm apparently unconvinced of my being presentable otherwise. Alterations conclude tonight prior to our Hammer Lane power sweep via Den Cruiser Thursday Zero Dark Thirty as nary a Chicago-to-DC seat avail by Air Transport. I was able to secure very last hotel rooms in our usual Dupont Circle locale within high-steppin' range of White House, Natiobal Mall, et al. Not sure where we'll wind up for Friday/Saturday night but Good Doc, Scion of The Magnificent Amberdons, has his people on it...gave Good Doc my word not to get fresh with Melania or Ivanka...but Kellyanne Conway may not be so unlucky...
should be Magnificent Ambersons
Deletealso National Mall...apparently Russians hacked auto-correct
Deleteby the way Jilly-Pie, GSL was just telling our Naomi recently of the superb FFJ with near perfect performances by Hugh Grant & Meryl Streep.
Delete