Naheed Nenshi, Canada's first female Muslim mayor of a major city, recently won an award that until a Canadian mayor had won it, nobody had ever heard of.
To change the subject completely, do you know who Claire Martin is? If not, here's a quick video of her smarming with Peter Mansbridge.
Claire Martin is the annoying little† weathergirl who had the misfortune of following the legendary Bill Matheson, perhaps the greatest weatherman of all time. It was actually the start of the downfall of the once great CITV, which has some roots in the ongoing leftward swing of parent company CORUS (and Global, their TV property).
Anyways, Bill Matheson in 1995 was awarded the title of best forecaster in the world by the International Weather Forecaster’s Festival in France. It was an impressive cap in his roster, not that Edmonton needed more reminding of his awesome-ness. Sure, we'd never heard of the event before, and never even thought Bill had been nominated in the past, but it was pretty awesome he was considered the best in the world, right?
Claire Martin won that same award three times.
Let that sink in. Claire Martin was apparently three times the winner of an award that Matheson only won once.
It's a reminder that these events are more politics than successes. It's no different, really, than Halle Berry winning an Oscar because no black woman had ever won and she's a really good actress and that must be a good performance, because we needed a black girl to have a good performance. Which brings us, of course, to Nenshi. What are the politics of the organization that awarded him his little princess tiara?‡ Well, they require all mayors to abide by a code of ethics. Okay, sounds good enough. Wait, what ethics are they talking here?
Article 4For those who don't know what that means, here are some of the cases where this organization believes that when push comes to shove, Nenshi is on the side of the United Nations. If true, it should be evidence he needs to be removed from office, not given an award.
Mayors shall be free to oppose any laws of their cities and nations where such laws contravene the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Related: Montreal the "2nd best city in the world" even though they have serious corruption problems and their economy is in the pisser.
† No, literally little. I met her once, and was amazed to find that she was about 4'11" and uglier than sin when you didn't have a crew of makeup artists polishing her up.
‡ I bet you thought I was joking.
