SIGHTINGS



Canada Newspaper Columnist
Mocks Sightings.com
Barrett Has Her Share Of Cyberfame
The Calgary Herald - FrontPage
 
Monday 14 February 2000
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/stories/000214/3591704.html
(Note - Heh...Mr. Stockland lists, verbatim, a number of our Headline stories in his commentary below. Too bad he doesn't have the professional ethics to give proper site attribution, let alone to apparently bother to read...and attempt to objectively evaluate...the extraordinary material in the articles he lists. His mind is made up...don't bother him with the facts! He notes: "Out of Body, Not Out of Mind" as "(my particular favourite)" Well, Mr. Stockland, that 'particular favorite' of yours comes from that trashy tabloid institution known as BBC News...)
 
 
 
No one knows for sure where former Alberta New Democrat leader Pam Barrett went on that recent out-of-body experience in her dentist's office.
 
Wherever it was, she blazed a trail through cyberspace. A report of Barrett's experience has been posted on a Web site with the headline "Leading Canadian Politician Resigns after NDE (Near Death Experience) In Dentist's Office."
 
Quibblers might point out that, as leader of a two-socialist caucus in the Alberta legislature, Barrett was hardly a "leading Canadian" anything. But such stickling for accuracy is made moot by other links sharing the Web page with Barrett's tale.
 
Stories available to curious browsers include (I'm not making these up):
 
- "How Microwaves Can Beam Voices Directly Into the Brain"
 
- "UFO Shoots Beam at Four Boys"
 
- "Multi-Witness UFO Sighting Over Hollywood"
 
- "Is the Bank of England Hiding Billions in Cuban Gold?"
 
- "MSG -- The Deadly Mouth Aphrodisiac"
 
- "Alien Invaders are Stealing Our Brains"
 
- "Out of Body, Not Out of Mind" (my particular favourite)
 
Figuring prominently in such tabloid wackiness is probably not quite the way Barrett imagined her political career would end. But, what the heck, it gave her 15 minutes of cyberfame. It beats a trip to the dentist. Well, most trips to the dentist, anyway.
 
If Barrett had managed an astral travelling side-trip into the Crystal Ballroom at the Palliser Hotel on Friday, she might have considered another come-back. She would have heard Premier Klein praising her to the skies during a fund-raising luncheon for Calgary Currie MLA Jocelyn Burgener.
 
"I didn't agree with anything Pam said, but she was always honest," Klein effused for several hundred members of the city's Tory power crowd.
 
The premier added he always knew where he stood with Barrett. This made her much more enjoyable as an opponent than Liberal leader Nancy MacBeth who, he noted, comes with her own evil "twin sister" named Nancy Betkowski.
 
"You have Nancy MacBeth here and Nancy Betkowski over here. She says one thing as Nancy MacBeth and another as Nancy Betkowski," Klein said acidly, referring to his former Tory colleagues' celebrated changes of party and name.
 
At least when Barrett returned from her out-of-body experience, she didn't bring back a clone.
 
(snip)
 
- - -
 
Only people who look dull ever get into the House of Commons, and only people who are dull ever succeed there. - Oscar Wilde
 
Dictators always look good until the last minutes. -Thomas Masarykhe
 
Copyright © 2000 Calgary Herald New Media



 
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