{"id":13602,"date":"2015-02-20T16:00:44","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T21:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=13602"},"modified":"2015-02-20T12:35:05","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T17:35:05","slug":"the-light-side-of-a-tight-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2015\/02\/20\/the-light-side-of-a-tight-situation\/","title":{"rendered":"The light side of a tight situation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13612\" style=\"width: 196px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2015\/02\/220px-Pat_Martin.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13612\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13612\" alt=\"place holder http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pat_Martin \" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/files\/2015\/02\/220px-Pat_Martin-186x300.jpg\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-13612\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pat_Martin\">Pat Martin<\/a> was a carpenter and trade unionist before being elected to the House of Commons in 1997. (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pat_Martin#mediaviewer\/File:Pat_Martin.jpg\">2009 photo<\/a> from Wikipedia, Creative Commons.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Sometimes politics rivals fiction. At best, this generates <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/pat-martin-says-tight-underwear-led-him-to-leave-seat-during-vote-1.2963294\">news stories that are far more fun<\/a> than the usual partisan bickering.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patmartin.ca\/\">Pat Martin<\/a>\u00a0is a Member of Parliament who represents Winnipeg Centre for the New Democratic Party. Martin left his seat during a vote on Thursday, which is frowned upon. A question was raised as to the validity of a vote cast that way, which prompted an unusual explanation. (Be sure to watch the MPs beside and behind Martin as he justifies his behavior.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"450\" height=\"253\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CKmPqm8aaMk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Was it a case of a pressing wedge issue? Or a quick-witted use of &#8220;does anyone really want to go there?&#8221; humor to deflate a potential problem?\u00a0Either way, it worked well enough to save his vote.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/a-brief-twitter-rundown-of-pat-martin-s-tight-underwear-issue-1.2963442\">CBC collected relevant Tweets<\/a>, including this quip &#8220;&#8230;our official opposition. They can&#8217;t pick underwear, why should we let them run the country?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Discussing the incident afterwards, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/politics\/pat-martin-left-vote-because-his-underwear-too-small-1.2244268\">NDP leader Tom Mulcair told CTV&#8217;s Don Martin<\/a> he was laughing so hard he was having trouble breathing.<\/p>\n<p>The best excuses are, at least, plausible. The press wasted little time in fact-checking this one, as can be seen in <a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalpost.com\/2015\/02\/19\/ndp-mp-pat-martin-almost-loses-vote-for-leaving-seat-because-discount-underwear-clearly-too-small\/\">this from the National Post<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Although Mr. Martin\u2019s tale would appear to be a tongue-in-cheek ruse to fend off a nitpicking inquiry from the government benches, the Ottawa location of the Hudson\u2019s Bay Company is indeed holding a 50% off sale for men&#8217;s underwear.<\/p>\n<p>All across Canada, in fact, the department store is hosting a \u201cbuy one get one 50% off\u201d sale on various styles of Jockey-brand boxers, briefs, boxer-briefs and even \u201cmen\u2019s no fly bikini\u201d briefs.<\/p>\n<p>Depending on store location, the undergarments are generally available in sizes ranging from small to extra large.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A nimble (if cheeky) display of of quick thinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes politics rivals fiction. At best, this generates news stories that are far more fun [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,15378,20,15379],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13602"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13622,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13602\/revisions\/13622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}