This is my 12th column for SEE Magazine — a landmark, to be sure — which seems like as good a time as any to do one of those half-baked odds ’n’ ends columns about different topics with no common element. When I wrote for the Examiner, I called them “Nobody Asked Me, But ...,” and they were hugely popular — at least with me, because they were a lot easier to write. Now that I’m writing for an alternative paper, where the use of what used to be called obscenities (do they even exist anymore?) is allowed, I am now free to cut loose, free from the constraints of bourgeois community standards. I feel so liberated!
So buckle up, folks, for the first edition of an occasional column called “What the hell?”
(Yes, I am aware I can get much more, shall we say, descriptive in my language. But I’m more of a 14A kind of guy, as opposed to an 18A or an R.)

More Blasphemy
In Afghanistan, a journalism student named Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for blasphemy. By Afghan standards, this is progress; he was originally sentenced to death.
What the hell?
Kambakhsh’s crime — sorry, that should be “crime” — was downloading an article from the Internet that questioned some of the tenets of Islam, and then bringing up the offending points in class. Now, we’ve all been in a class where we’ve wanted to hang some incessant loudmouth, but c’mon.
I’ve long been a supporter of our efforts in Afghanistan. It’s easy to forget that Afghanistan was home base for the 9/11 terrorists, and much of the Western world joined in a coalition to oust the Taliban from power. Unlike the fiasco of Iraq, it can be argued that the Afghanistan war was, and still is, justified. But good Lord: we’ve lost 97 Canadian soldiers — I pray that number does not rise between the time I write these words and the day they go into print — and have spent some $18 billion on the war effort. Can someone tell me why are we sending people to fight and die for a country that sentences people to jail or death for blasphemy? What a terrible insult to the memories of Canadian soldiers who died in that Godforsaken hellhole, and the tens of thousands of Canadians who died in the world wars.

Bottles And Cans
The province has upped the deposit on bottles and cans to encourage more people to recycle, while giving hobos a much-needed boost in income. As well, they’ve added milk containers to the deposit-return system. Beginning next year, milk cartons will have deposits of 10 cents for a litre or less, 25 cents for anything over that.
Who exactly was asking for this? Here in Edmonton, we can put our milk cartons into the recycling system. It works great, but apparently not all Albertans are as advanced as we are. So now, on top of the pop cans and beer cans and juice boxes and sundry other containers than now take up 75 per cent of my garage space, I now have to add milk containers — sour, smelly milk
containers.
I have three sons who drink a fair amount of milk, as long as it is mixed liberally with Froot Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cap’n Crunch or all three together. We go through a lot of milk, and adding milk jugs to my recycling pile means even more trips to my already overburdened bottle depot, meaning more frequent and even longer lineups at bottle depots. And there is nothing the average citizen loves more than going to a bottle depot.

Sheriff Eddie
Premier Ed Stelmach has been throwing money at crime lately.
What the hell? Who appointed Eddie Sheriff-in-Chief?
Stelmach has made a big deal about attacking gangs, spending millions on specialized gang units and other big-ticket initiatives. Stelmach is big on crime these days. Listening to a milquetoast like Stelmach doing his Dirty Harry impression was one of the comedy highlights of the year. Interesting, isn’t it, how Stelmach is making all major announcements these days? Could it be that Eddie knows his lugubrious Solicitor General, Fred Lindsay, or Alison “I Cut My Own Hair” Redford are so weak that even he looks dynamic
by comparison?

Posting Bond
Did you hear the one about the terror suspect who was ordered deported from the country, went underground, was caught, then released?
Seriously, this is true. A guy named Baljit Ram was identified as a member of a banned terrorist group back in 1998, and was ordered out of the country. He ignored the order and continued to live in Canada until he was stabbed near Surrey on Sept. 30. The RCMP discovered he was the subject of an outstanding deportation order, and they handed him over to Canadian Border Services commissionaires.
You know where this is going, don’t you? Yep, he posted a $5,000 bond, and was released.
Again I say: What the hell?