WHAT'S HARPER SAYING?

In October 2007, when announcing his government's new national
anti-drug strategy in Winnipeg, Stephen Harper said, "We are up
against a culture that, since the 1960s, has had at the minimum not
discouraged drug use and often romanticized it, or made it cool.

"My son is listening to my Beatles records and asking me what all
these lyrics mean. I love these records. I'm not putting them away.
But we have to change the culture."

One must ask if Harper was really serious. We can only imagine the
conversation at the Harper household after the prime minister took his
son to last weekend's Nickelback concert, where singer Chad Kroeger
spoke to the audience about "an ounce of magic mushrooms and joints
being twisted up."

Perhaps even more interesting would be when Ben Harper discovers his
American folk-rock namesake and asks Dad what his song Burn One Down
is all about.

T.J. MEEHAN,

Kingston