Baddest man in the whole damn town

I've been looking around for things to reassure myself that Christmas in Vienna is not going to be as sad as I'm afraid it might be. The latest of these is the fact that stores and supermarkets have (so far) not given themselves over to playing the same annoying Christmas songs over and over from the beginning of November. Instead, they've stuck to the usual bizarre array of old-to-newish, mostly American tunes that I haven't heard in ages. Today's installment was "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", which was then - not unpleasantly, I might add - stuck in my head all day.

Reassuring thing #2 is that there is a guy right outside my residence selling teeny tiny Christmas trees, one of which I will soon purchase and install in my room, undoubtedly in slightly crooked fashion. Then I can decorate it cheap-student style, with popcorn strings and construction paper chains! Amanda, if you're reading this, we're going to make popcorn strings and construction paper chains while you're here. I'm afraid you have very little choice in the matter.

Would you mind if I told you how they do it in Austria?

Alternate title: Reading facebook message boards can be hazardous to your health

Who knows how Canada's constitution works? It's not always me, but I can assure you that it is definitely not 95% of the pissy 18-year-olds who've chosen to share their indignance with the world via the message board of "I'm against the Liberal coup d'état".

Firstly...ok. I know that anyone who's reading my blog already gets this, but OH GOD STOP CALLING IT A "COUP". This is a coup. This is a coup. This is a coup, too. What is happening in Canada is a peaceful, legal, perfectly constitutional response to a Cabinet that has lost the confidence of the House. Furthermore, it's already happened in Canada, both officially and unofficially. Everybody take a breath.

While you're breathing, try to think for a moment about your response to the term "coalition government". I saw an awful lot of "look at Italy and Israel!!!! Coalitions are doomed to failure!!!!!1!!" And I suppose you have a point, Mr. "Jack Layton is a Communist" of St. Albert Catholic High School, especially when you consider how much more Canada has in common with Israel than with Sweden, Ireland, Germany, or any other of the numerous stable, peaceful democracies listed here. I hear Switzerland is a real hell-hole these days - good thing those train tickets to Zurich are refundable.

I'm going to talk about Austria for a minute, since its the only country that I've had the good fortune to live in under a coalition government, not to mention during an election of same. I'll be the first to admit that Austrian politics fall on the "kind of messed" side of the (democratic) political spectrum. Full disclosure: in the past two months, the following things have happened.

• An election occurred, after the previous coalition government split following disagreement over Austria's level of involvement in and committment to the EU
• 16-to-18-year-olds, voting in their first election in Austrian history, overwhelmingly tilted to the far-right, leading to a minority parliament with representation from the center-left (29%), center-right (26%), far right (18%), batshit-crazy right (11%), and green (10%) parties
• Immediately following the elections, two of the major parties (center-right and green) changed leaders, seemingly overnight
• The overly-tanned and immensely-popular-in-certain-circles leader of the batshit-crazies died in a car accident, leaving his 28-year-old protegé/best friend/rumoured lover to take the helm
• After considerable soul-searching, the leader of the center-right party rejects appeals from the far right to form government, and instead reaches out to the leader of the center-left
• They take their sweet-ass time coming to a consensus on policy and cabinet positions, leaving plenty of time for the newly-minted Saviour of the Batshit-Crazies to resign his party's house leadership, take a week to think about it, and then quit politics altogether to make a movie about his deceased mentor/maybe-boyfriend and weep publicly
  
• The leader of the center-right gets cold feet, and publicly submits "10 Important Questions" to his would-be coalition partner. He NEEDS ANSWERS! One of the questions may have been, "do you like me or like like me?"
• The center-left guy answers the questions the next day in a national newspaper, and the government is formed in the next week. The leader of the center-left (Werner Faymann) is the new Chancellor, Joseph Proll (center-right kingmaker) is Vice-Chancellor, and Cabinet positions were split evenly between the parties.

Austrian politics are not without drama. However, there are some things that they are without, namely negative advertisements, fear-mongering, and childish name-calling. Coalition governments are the norm in Austria, and people accept that for them to work, for the most part, everyone has to play nice. The discussion that went on during the campaign, and during the post-election playmaking was...discussion. There were no viral marketing blitzes, no cross-country rallies, nothing that had a "-gate" appended to it. The parties' platforms were laid out in the newspapers, even the free, tabloid-style ones I read on the train to practice German.

I don't mean to paint Austria as an idyllic, post-partisan dreamworld - it's not, and there are issues. The point is that there has come to Europe a sense that government consists of everyone who has been elected to it. That perhaps MPs should think of governing before they think of securing their legacies. That perhaps agendas should be discussed and revised, rather than imposed. That perhaps everyone in Canada should relax and think about things before screaming about socialists, separatists, and not-a-leaders (oh my!).

And while I'm thinking about it, someone should tell Stephen Harper that, while I'm holding in my Nelson laugh in the spirit of cooperation, a bully is not the same thing as a leader. Leaders talk to people, leaders inspire, leaders take counsel, and above all, leaders get shit done. Something about living in glass PM residences and not throwing parliamentary maces...? Man, I can't wait to see what happens.

Oh yeah, and Austria also has proportional representation. Just in case you were wondering.