Every year the Mayor delivers a State of the City address to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. And every year a transcript is published on the Internet. So, of course, given that, as usual, our invitation to the event was lost in the mail, we went looking for the Mayor's address on the Web. Imagine our shock. This was the State of the City address? It was a measley five paragraphs long. It read as if it was cribbed from a city travel brochure. It looked like the Mayor dashed it off at the last minute on a sheet of toilet paper while sitting on the crapper. Winnipeg is great, it's got a zoo, and some American stores, and (a white elephant, aka) a human rights museum, said Mayor Sam Katz. And there's some theatres, and restaurants, and a convention centre and "optimistic spirit." Okay? Gotta run ... According to reporters, Katz padded his delivery with extemporaneous comments about frozen water pipes, a pledge by Kins
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.