Go Danny!

I love Danny Williams. Let me say it again: I love Danny Williams. He's going after the prime minister again, and I love it.

I've never seen any NWT politician stand his ground the way Danny does. Instead, we get a lot of talk about "working together" and a lot of nervousness that someone will take offense to something we say. Danny took Sir Paul McCartney on during the seal hunt, and now probably has the highest approval rating of any Canadian politician. Danny took the Canadian flag off provincial buildings a few years ago during a dispute with the former prime minister over offshore oil royalties. (I don't think this needs to be said, but I will, just for the sheer joy of it: a few weeks later he got a better royalty formula and an advance of $2.6 billion.) That's when I got my "Pink", which still hangs in my office.

The Pink is an unofficial Newfoundland flag. It gets more attention from my co-workers than anything else I've hung in my office, including the autographed picket sign. Some say it's a separatist symbol, but I don't think of it that way. Local legend states that it comes from an attempt to unite the Anglican and Roman Catholic residents by putting a pink banner (for the rose of England) and a green banner (for Ireland) together with a bishop's white handkerchief. Supposedly, the white symbolizes the Cross of St. Andrew, the patron saint of fishermen. I think it's much more likely that the bishop's handkerchief was white so it would be easier to bleach clean, because I'm not sure that it's much better to imagine that he was blowing his nose on something he considered a symbol of St. Andrew.