It's 2010. Do you know where your politicians are?

Some two months ago, Dalton McGuinty, the premier of Ontario, was pressured by religious conservatives to back down on his proposed changes to the sex ed curriculum. Around the same time, the federal government refused to fund abortions as part of a global maternal health care initiative. In recent months, the federal government has also slashed the budgets of several feminist groups, including Status of Women Canada.

For Marci McDonald, these events would point to the invisible and alarming influence the Christian right holds over Canadian politics, as is made clear by her new book The Armageddon Factor. And although the book does not refer to these specific events, the cultural context McDonald is referring to ought to be resonant to Canadian readers.

As McDonald refers to her book as a “wake-up call” to the influence of the religious right in Canadian government, trigger-happy critics of the book may dismiss it as fear-mongering—and acceptably so. McDonald introduces readers to some of the sleaziest and most abrasive social conservatives, including Faytene Kryskow (a right-wing Christian activist), who claims to regularly hear the voice of God and encourages her followers to throw “prayer bombs” at Parliament in hopes that MPs consider adopting their pro-life and anti-gay politics. Others include a Baptist minister who prophesizes that the Canadian government has three years to reverse same-sex marriage legislation or be condemned to hell, as well as the founder of Crossroads Television, David Mainse, whose sons were involved in a Ponzi scheme south of the border. McDonald reveals a number of thread-thin links between these figures and several members of our current government. All in all, many of these cases may lead naive readers into making a guilty-by-association verdict about our current government. To be honest, the book certainly didn’t pique my interest in voting Conservative anytime soon.

To McDonald’s credit, however, the book carries a more important non-partisan message. By going straight to the sources of the Reform movement and Canadian social conservatism, The Armageddon Factor does for all voters what Food Inc does for health freaks. We are inclined to question where our politicians’ ideas and beliefs are coming from, and, in what I think is the most important question posed by this book, what is becoming of our country’s separation between church and state. Although McDonald devotes most of her focus to the religious right, she does give a page to the religious left--a movement she finds equally troubling for reasons I won’t elaborate on lest I spoil the book for you.

The other pearl of wisdom to take away from this read is that our federal government holds a lot more power than we’d like to think. Probably one of the most common assumptions made by disillusioned voters is that it doesn’t matter which way you vote—all parties effectively do the same thing. McDonald deftly quashes this mistaken belief through the case of the current party, uncovering funding cuts, donations, and court and senate appointments, most of which can be traced back to the demands of some of the nastiest religious conservatives. Agree or disagree with their politics—the point is, there are people speaking up whom most Canadians would consider to be distastefully radical.

Political agenda aside, The Armageddon Factor reminds us of the importance of a healthy political conscience in a time when our naiveté renders us pliable.

Glee: A guilty pleasure ends its first season

Like a president’s scholar doing MDMA for the first time, Glee ran through the latter half of its first season without a clue as to where it was going. Loose ends were whipped recklessly around, characters were starved of motivation for their actions, but there was a whole lot of music and a whole lot of glitter.

Sadly, the show has started in recent episodes to be driven by its theme-of-the-week instead of any plausible conflict or character development. “Theatricality” seemed to frame an entire episode simply because the producers wanted a few Lady Gaga covers. While “Funk” was supposed to reveal Vocal Adrenaline’s jugular (because they’re “soulless automatons” and can’t understand funk), it never really played out into the plot, which essentially remained idle.

With the plot idle, the characters were left to lounge around and stew in their own stereotypical portraits.

Apparently bored with Kurt dropping fashion references, the writers decided they’d make a painfully ridiculous plot arc in which he thought he’d turn straight, date Brittany (ugh), and sing John Mellencamp.

Meanwhile, Artie had a dream in which he was magically abled, a scene that may or may not have been made with the purpose of showing viewers that Kevin McHale doesn’t actually need a wheelchair to get around.

Mercedes had what (I think) passed for serious body issues, to which Quinn could apparently relate because, you know, when you’re pregnant, the stigma doesn’t come from being pregnant, but from being fat!

I like to call Glee’s approach to casting and representation “diversity management.” The othered characters serve the purpose of either a) creating identitarian conflict or b) making New Directions look inclusive and attractive to as many different viewers as possible, all without having to give any of these othered characters any depth. Meanwhile, Rachel and Finn continue to hog the spotlight.

In the season finale, Olivia Newton John, playing herself, ironically refers to New Directions as “tokenistic.” Is this a sign the writers realize their show has representation issues, and intend to rectify the problem? I sincerely hope so.

How Sue sees it

The too-cruel-for-school gym teacher with the bureaucracy inexplicably on her side was, really, what hooked my interest in Glee initially. Interestingly enough, Sue Sylvester was the one aspect of the show that kept my faith alive throughout its dismal second half. And sure enough, she delivered.

I frequently found myself saying, “There isn’t nearly enough Sue in this episode!” What relatively little of her that was shown, however, really turned Sue Sylvester on her head. One might make the argument that it’s a little too much to show Sue Sylvester sulking in bed or at all expressing her true feelings, but, ultimately, the dulling of her ego amounted to one of the most crucial (if not the only) plot developments in the second half of the series.

By pairing the word “dull” with Sue Sylvester’s ego, I don’t at all mean to suggest her career as venomous queen of one-liners is nearing its end. She continues to deliver a decent share of hair-related insults and politically-incorrect zingers:

“You have enough product in your hair to season a wok.”

“I might buy a small diaper for your chin, because it looks like a baby’s ass.”

And, of course, my absolute favourite this half of the season:

“Your hair looks like a briar patch. I keep expecting racist, animated Disney characters to pop up and start singing about living on the bayou.”

Now that Glee has been renewed for another two seasons, a big and bright future looms. Here’s hoping our president’s scholar starts making more good life choices. Either way, the music will continue to be catchy, and Sue Sylvester will continue to be vile. I’m afraid to say those two things alone are enough to keep me watching.

Thank the devil for guilty pleasures.