Today’s post may come across a little disjointed, I write this under distress. You will understand as you read.
Lexi was originally found running on a highway in Tobermory by my friends Mike and Rita in June of 2011. They collected her and drove her back to her then owner’s house and according to Rita, whose opinion I do not doubt, he was a complete asshole. He did not have enough time for a dog like Lexi and she would run away at every opportunity. Because he was stupid, he was frustrated with her and said something to Rita along the lines of “she can’t be trained, if you’re so smart, you take her”. And Rita did. And that is how she came into my life. Andre, the best man at Mike and Rita’s wedding and eventually my best man, adopted Lexi. We were living together at the time. Randomly one day we did not have a dog, and then the next we did. One of the very first things she did, while I was taking a nap on the couch, was chew the toe off my slides. We got her some toys the next day.
Lexi saw all open doors as an opportunity to run, something Andre and I found out on Canada Day of that year after she took off and we had to go up to Downsview to collect her from Animal Control. We decided then that we would treat Canada Day as her “birthday”. Eventually she got better, but both of us, on multiple occasions, had to run up the street hollering for her to stop and come back. Recall was not one of her strong suits.
When she came to us she had obviously not been trained to walk. She strained at the leash so hard she nearly choked herself unconscious whenever she would see a squirrel. Cesar Millan (the Dog Whisperer) was popular at the time so I got a book by him to help train Lexi. Most of the things we saw him do on TV I could never get to work, but a backpack with a couple of cans of club soda really helped. After a time I reduced the cans to just two, and eventually none as the mere act of putting on the backpack made Lexi know it was time to focus on the walk and not on the squirrels.
Andre moved in with his then girlfriend/now wife Anne the next year (I think). Somewhere in all this Lexi got the nickname “Lexicon”, which was fitting, as Andre is a linguist. Lexi would stay with me whenever he went on vacation or away on business. She was comfortable at the house and with me. In 2014 Andre and his new bride and their new son were given an opportunity to move to Australia, an opportunity that could not be passed up. I inherited Lexi in the summer of 2014. Somewhere before Andre left for Australia we took her to a farm where they raise sheep and goats and train border collies for herding. She tested alright, but the best part was watching her play in the deep snow with the other dogs. Lexi LOVED to run hard.
She also loved to play hard. Throughout her adult life she weighed anywhere between 44 and 48lbs and loved to wrestle with dogs well above her weight class. Her favourite play pal of all was Toby, the neighbour dog. They would chase each other and wrestle in the backyard for HOURS.
Everyone whose dog is not an asshole thinks their dog is the sweetest. I am no different, but my dog might very well have been. In all my years I have never met as gentle and sweet a dog as Lexi. Any child could have pulled food right from her mouth and she would not have moved let alone growled. She was a part of my wedding and all the children had a great time playing with her that day, and even though she was exhausted by them, she remained steadfastly patient. She would bark an average of three times a year. You read that correctly. Lexi did not bark. She loved the snow, and in winter she liked being let out into my parent’s backyard to lay down in the snow as though she was a Husky. The first winter she lived with me, the temperature did not rise above -25°C for the entire month of February. I nearly froze my fingers stiff at the dog park but she loved it. We would leave her in the backyard for as long as she wanted, she would let us know she was done and ready to come inside by barking…once. One solitary bark to let you know to come open the door. It was always surprising, it would take your brain a second to realize what you just heard because her barks were so rare.
Just as popular as laying in the snow was laying in the grass of the front lawn when I was gardening, and digging a hole for herself to lay in and keep cool when I was working in the back garden.
Her least favourite thing was loud noises. I write this the weekend of Victoria Day and there are lots of fireworks going off outside. She was terrified of fireworks, thunderstorms as well. When I still lived at my parent’s house and there was a big thunderstorm Lexi would come and wake me up and we would “take refuge” in the safest place in the house, the living room. She on her bed and me on the couch. If I got up to make myself a cup of tea she would follow and would not settle until we were both safe in the sanctuary that was the living room.
Her favourite things were running fast, wrestling with other dogs (especially Toby) peanut butter filled Kongs, and pizza crusts. When we would order pizza Lexi would recognize the smell and stay close to us, knowing that eventually she would get a crust. When I mean close I mean she would follow you to the kitchen when you got up to get another piece or top up your drink.
It was only late in her life I discovered how much Lexi loved the beach. The last time she really ran was last year at Woodbine beach. I let her off the leash in the dog park and she was so happy she went for as hard a run as I had seen her make in years. It make me a little sad inside though, because it showed me how old she had gotten. That was late last summer. This last month or two she had been getting slower and slower, and when I would give her her vitamin in the morning I would quietly remind her she had to at least make it to the autumn, so we could get one last summer at the beach. Sadly it was not to be.
It started with her seeming to be very stiff, having difficulty getting up the stairs to our apartment. This escalated to where she would cut all our walks short, sometimes only making it as far as the corner to pee and then return to the apartment. I thought it was just some arthritis acting up as it had in the past and with a course of anti-inflammatories she would be as right as a fourteen year old dog could be. I was wrong. I had to carry her up the stairs not because her hip hurt, she had difficulty getting up the stairs because she did not have the energy to make it all the way up. She did not have the energy because she had cancer and was bleeding internally. I took her to the vet this last Tuesday to get the aforementioned anti-inflammatories and after an examination the vet told me that…I cannot remember exactly. Just that given in what state Lexi was in, she was amazed that Lexi walked in and out of the clinic under her own power. And it was more merciful to put her down than to let her die (most likely later that night) of internal blood loss. There was no warning, no time to prepare myself, or take her for one last trip anywhere, or buy her her own pizza to devour. It was her time.
Lexi made me a better person. More understanding and patient for sure. Dogs do not spend their lives worrying, they live in the exact moment they are in, and that is something I would try to remember when life got a bit hectic. I would take Lexi for a long walk and just try to exist in that walk. Look at the trees, let her take long and luxurious sniffs at everything without rushing her. Eventually my subconscious would figure out what the solution was or at least how to approach the cabal of problems that I was facing. These are the gifts dogs give us without even knowing it.
Goodbye my sweet girl. I will miss you forever.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I maintain most of the things people believe are a conspiracy can be explained by an understanding of science and engineering, a complete set of the facts (which is not often available), and/or basic logic. Examples! The earth is not flat, Eratosthenes figured out the earth is a sphere (or close to it) over two thousand years ago. NASA stopped going to the moon after Apollo 17 because it was apocalyptically expensive, and their point had been made. They had, in no uncertain terms, won the space race. An ambitious blogger could go down a list of conspiracy theories (here is a handy one) and debunk them one by one, but those who believe would never allow their opinion to be rebutted so it is pointless to argue, and that is not why we are here today. Instead we are here today to possibly ADD one to the list.
Note: I do not stake my worldly reputation, such as it is, on this theory. I am not a live or die by beliefs (at least not beliefs of this variety) kind of guy. But ask yourself if this idea does not make at least a LITTLE sense. It is not so unlikely when you connect certain dots and accept that some specific people do not operate with the same moral compass I like to believe most of us do.
Ready?
Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef, author, and creator and host of compelling travel documentaries was found dead of an apparent suicide in his hotel room at Le Chambard in Kaysersberg on June 8th, 2018.
I suggest that he did not commit suicide. He was killed either at the behest of, and/or for the benefit of Harvey Weinstein.
For those among my tens of thousands of weekly readers who do not know, for decades Harvey Weinstein abused his power and position in Hollywood to blackmail young actresses into performing sex acts with him. If they spurned his advances or even spoke about it, he would have them removed from projects he oversaw or used his influence to get them removed. It was a case of you either let Harvey have his way with you, or he would destroy your career before it ever took flight. You can read more about it here.
There were whispers and rumours of Harvey’s vile behaviour, it was not a particularly well-guarded secret, but he was so powerful in his industry he managed to keep it from becoming a problem. Until October of 2017. That is when the New York Times and the New Yorker reported on more than a dozen women accusing Harvey of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Depending on who you ask, this was either pivotal in setting off the #MeToo movement, or added fuel to its fire given the other high profile sexual misconduct cases were in the news that year.
For multiple decades Harvey thought he was above the law, and when these reports came out he did not run away, he went on the offensive. He hired private intelligence agencies Kroll and Black Cube, as well as private investigator Jack Palladino to spy on and influence (blackmail/threaten) his accusers, as well as a number of reporters who were investigating him. That part is important.
In November of 2017, a group of over 80 women who accused Harvey of harassment, assault, and rape, released a list of over 100 alleged instances of sexual abuse. That group was led by Italian actress Asia Argento. That part is also important, because in 2016, Ms. Argento and Anthony Bourdain had started a relationship, and when Harvey’s misconduct became public, so did Anthony’s contempt for Harvey and his enablers. Anthony was not a person who seemed particularly shy, and he did not hold back when asked about Harvey or those who did and/or would protect or defend him.
Unlike others in the entertainment industry, Anthony was not easily shut up as the normal threat of the destruction of his career did not work because his career was not reliant upon the film industry/Hollywood. He was also difficult to blackmail, because if you have read any of his books you know that he was quite candid and honest about his failings and ugly parts of his past, like his previous drug addiction.
Anthony was about to be a big thorn in Harvey’s side. How do you get someone to shut up about you when you cannot use your normal methods of bullying and blackmail? You have them assassinated. Granted, not the first thing that comes to mind for most people, but given his history Harvey was obviously under the impression that the rules of a civilized society did not apply to him, so it is not necessarily out of character for him to entertain the notion of doing the illegal/immoral thing and actually having his ‘enemies’ killed. Again, most people do not have this option available to them, but remember when I said he employed the private intelligence agency Black Cube?
Black Cube describe themselves as a “select group of veterans from the Israeli elite intelligence units that specializes in tailored solutions to complex business and litigation challenges.” Which is a nice way of saying they provide spy/intelligence services to very rich people and organizations. Meaning that if you need information on your enemies, or need them undermined in some way, and you have the money, their personnel and services can be acquired. And that is exactly what Harvey did.
At the behest of Harvey and his team, Black Cube are accused of collecting information on dozens of people, compiling psychological profiles with their personal or sexual histories in order to contradict, discredit or intimidate Harvey’s “targets”. Not satisfied with victimizing them once, Harvey hired private spies to undermine the testimoney of and/or intimidate his accusers so he could victimize them again. Many of the people who work at Black Cube are former agents in the Mossad so they know their business. Besides being a top shelf intelligence service, anyone know what else the Mossad is famous for? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? If you said assassinations, you get a gold star.
The Mossad is famous for the public assassinations of those it deems enemies of the state. The most famous series of assassinations are those related to the murder and kidnapping of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. There was even a movie made about it by Steven Spielberg called Munich starring Eric Bana. It was a good movie. There are many others. Swedish nobleman and diplomat Folke Bernadotte might have been the first. He was on a mission as a United Nations Security Council mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947-48 when he was assassinated in Jerusalem by a paramilitary group overseen by a future Prime Minister of Israel. There was the mysterious ‘disappearance’ of German rocket scientist Heinz Krug in Munich in 1962. More recently there was the assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Click here for a list of people assassinated (as far as the world knows) by Israel. It is MUCH longer than you think, and that is only the ones that are confirmed and/or known about.
Harvey clearly believed he could intimidate and blackmail his accusers and that he was untouchable, above the law. Then when things got dicey, he hired a firm whose skill set (like the intelligence agents it employs) is to discredit and undermine those whose accusations would threaten Harvey with incarceration. That same firm is staffed not just with intelligence agents, but agents from specific organizations that are (among other things) famous for assassinations.
I do not consider it that much of a stretch to believe that in a fit of panic and frustration Harvey blurted out “why can’t we just kill him?”, and someone on his team said “sure thing, we could make it look like and accident, or suicide, whatever you want”. And given how skilled and experienced those agents are, I do not think making it look like a suicide would be all that difficult for them.
As I said before, I do not stake my worldly reputation (such as it is) on this idea. I am not an Alex Jones type, I will not be making a career of creating or spreading conspiracy theories. Anthony Bourdain’s suicide seemed to me just too convenient. The timing was too good. He reached a large audience and could be very influential, and just as he began huffing and puffing and was about to help blow down Harvey’s house, he committed suicide? A bit coincidental no?
An immoral mindset, motivation, the financial capabilities, and appropriately skilled personnel were all available to Harvey. My hypothesis is sound.
I could be wrong. I could be looking for answers as to why someone whose work I enjoyed for many years would do such a thing and not want to accept that the truth is the truth. But think about what I have written above. I do not think it is as outlandish as it might first seem.
Before I go, an addition. In the paragraph where I mention how Anthony had a go at people who enabled and/or defended Harvey there is a link to an article where Anthony mentions Hillary Clinton and her relationship with Harvey. That sent me down another rabbit hole. Did you know there is a Clinton Body Count Conspiracy List? That is some interesting reading. I wonder if she hires private firms like Harvey or if she just gets the CIA to do her dirty work?
P.S. The paranoid part of me was concerned that I might be right. What if I was? What if I was and the fact I had figured it out meant that some former Mossad agent would be pissed because I figured it out and now he was going to come and make me disappear? Or do to me what was done to Epstein? But then I remembered I have single digit readers, so the chances of this being read by ANYONE at Black Cube or the Mossad is slim. Also the chances of me being right, those are slim too.
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Posted in Uncategorized, Commentary on Public Affairs | Tags: anthony bourdain, assassination, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, harvey weinstein, hillary clinton, history, hollywood, sexual assault