h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Rhinoceros Party of Canada - A Brilliant Achievement in Utter Stupidity - A4355822
Author: DogNamedTruman - U1585430

The Rhinoceros Party of Canada was truly brilliant, as outlined in this entry.

Hi DogNamedTruman

Okay.. this really happened, then? Forgive a poor teenager who, despite being Canadian, has never lived in Canada. I know I'm sounding incredibly ignorant.

Bearing in mind the fact that I've not heard a great deal about this 'party', your introduction could sort of explain it for the people who haven't really heard of it. Something like 'Although it may sound incredible, the Canadian 'Rhinoceros Party' served to liven up politics during the General Election of xxxx.' I'm making that up, of course. As I said, I have no idea what I'm talking about. It might be nice to have something like that instead of just jumping in with your opinion.

Talking of your opinion, you can't have one in the Edited Guide. Sorry mate, that bit will have to go. <./>Writing-guidelines</.> explains it better than I can. Subeditors-Style will tell you that you ought to do away with the title and introduction headers at the top and just jump straight in to your introductory paragraphs. And you can also regulate your paragraphs by not indenting them and encasing them in tags. <./>GuideML-Clinic</.> will show you how.

Although those aren't content suggestions, if your entry looks pretty and conforms to the various stringent Edited Guide guidelines, it's more likely to be picked for the EG eventually.

All that's remaining is for me to, seeing as you must be Canadian, extend an invitation to join F19585?thread=252800&latest=1, the conversation known as "Should Chief Gordon Lightfoot Reinstate the Saskatchewan Rhinoceros Hunt? Who knows, maybe this is the explanation of that question, which I've been searching for for almost a year. Or maybe I'm just being inexplicably stupid again. Sorry, I'm in a really, really weird mood right now.

wow! absolutely the funniest and most interesting thing to hit peer review since February 5, 2005.

I'm now thinking of taking up Canadian citizenship so I can avoid the new impending draft and vote for these jokers.

Reality based, off the wall, amusing, well written...what more could one ask for? Brilliant...three thumbs up.




From Wikiapedia:
The Rhinoceros Party of Canada, also known as the Rhinos, was a registered political party in Canada from the 1960s to the 1990s. Operating within the Canadian tradition of political satire, the Rhinoceros Party's basic credo was to "promise nothing", although in fact they often promised outlandishly impossible schemes designed to amuse and entertain the voting public.

The Rhinos were started in 1963 by Doctor Jacques Ferron, "Éminence de la Grande Corne du parti Rhinoceros", a famous separatist writer. In the 1970s, a group of artists joined the party and created a comedic political platform to contest the federal election. Ferron (1979), poet Gaston Miron (1972) and singer Michel Rivard (1980) ran against Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in his Montreal seat.

The party, which claimed to be the spiritual descendants of a Brazilian rhinoceros who had been elected member of São Paulo's city council in the 1950s, listed Cornelius the First, a rhinoceros from the Granby zoo east of Montreal, as its leader. The party claimed that the rhinoceros was an appropriate symbol for a political party since politicians, by nature, are "thick-skinned, slow-moving, dim-witted, can move fast as hell when in danger, and have large, hairy horns growing out of the middle of their faces."

A4214666

For a (now defunct) New Zealand equivalent.

Matt

Here's another entry worth linking to

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A778025

the biography of Screaming Lord Sutch founder of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, Britains equivalent of the Rhinos.

Thanks for the kind comments and helpful suggestions.

Actually, I'm not Canadian. I've never been to Canada for that matter.

I just find the Rhinos rather interesting.

How interesting! See how we assume things... I assumed that because I'm Canadian and hadn't heard of the Rhinos, that you must be... Slly me. Anyway, nice entry!

Heartwarming that some folks remember, and uphold, the true purpose of politics.

A good entry, Dog.
The only objection I have is the 'utter stupidity' in the title.

Where do I donate?

xantief

Edited to fit standards and helpful suggestions.
Thanks again for the comments and critique.

I love fringe parties in elections, especially the surrealist ones. People who object to them and say they are an abuse of the democratic process, (and I have heard people say this,) are frankly fools and have no idea what the democratic process actually means. If people want to wear silly clothes, call themselves something daft and stand behind govenment ministers whilst they lose their deposit, then so be it. That is, after all, their democratic right. Those who have a surrealist or satirical message also point out that our political systems are by no means perfect and require attention to sometimes be drawn to the stupidity of the major parties by oddball means.

My favourite ever candidate stood against John Major in the Huntingdon constituency in the 1997 (?) UK General Election. He called himself Lord Buckethead, King Of The Grebulons, and appeared for the announcement of the result wearing a huge black cape and an enormous tube over his head with a porthole in it, like you would see in an old-fashioned diving suit. He was quite the daftest thing I have ever seen at an election, especially since his cape took up about half the stage by itself, meaning that the rest of the candidates had to bunch up on one side, and managed to poll about 175 votes from somewhere. He had registered as Lord Buckethead, but he had registered his party as 'King Of The Grebulons', so when the results were read out the returning officer called out 'Lord Buckethead', and the commentator had to whisper "king of the Grebulons" as if he really was. At least John major was gracious enough to shake his hand afterwards.

Then, of course, there's H'Angus the Monkey, the mascot of Hartlepool Football Club, who stood for mayor of the town as a humourous protest and accidentally got elected.....

Small update. Thanks to YalsonKSA for the new info, I could only find a story on the monkey.

I love this entry.

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Awsome.