The new next one

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 11:03 AM - 21 Comments

Don Martin anoints Lisa Raitt.

Ms. Raitt has attracted a lot of attention as the fastest rising star in Stephen Harper’s cabinet, showing polish under nuclear attack in the House of Commons and poise for speaking without a script while not talking herself into any trouble.  If she spoke decent French, there’d be legitimate buzz over the Toronto lawyer’s leadership potential.

And yes, the ability to deliver a 30-second answer without reading from notes is now considered both noteworthy and commendable.

'This is a sad commentary on Parliament'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 5 Comments

A Parliamentary investigation into the listeriosis outbreak goes nowhere.

A mother decides to try out silence

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 1 Comment

Seventeen years ago, the American novelist Anne LeClaire gave up talking to people for two days each month. LeClaire is married to a fisherman and they have a son and a daughter. At home, she ignores phone calls and won’t talk to her husband. When she’s out, she shows people a card that says “I Am Having a Day of Silence.” Now, in a new book, Listening Below the Noise, A Meditation on the Practice of Silence, LeClaire reveals the hurdles and rewards of her “silent meditation.”

She was an unlikely candidate for an oath of silence. “The concept was alien to my personality. In high school, I was once given three detentions in a single study hall because I found it impossible to sit through 40 minutes without talking to the girl next to me.” The idea to stop talking struck her while she was walking on a beach. A disembodied voice told her, “sit in silence,” and, oddly, the voice didn’t frighten her, she says. “For some reason, it did not cause me to panic or question my stability.” And “No, I didn’t think I was being sent messages from heaven.”

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Can We Stop Calling It "Cartoon" Network Now?

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:53 AM - 10 Comments

The Cartoon Network in the U.S. hasn’t really been a cartoon network for some time, but now they’re making it official by moving into the production and airing of live-action reality shows and other live-action fare:

Cartoon Network announced it’s making a move into live-action programming, with six reality projects and two scripted shows in development…

—“The Othersiders,” described as a reality adventure series following five friends who explore potentially haunted locations in search of evidence of paranormal activity;
—“Survive This,” a show that challenges teens to overcome fears and develop survival skills by testing their endurance, wit and self-determination;
—“Destroy Build Destroy,” in which two teams build something from debris in a construction zone, then demolish the losing creation;
—“Head Rush,” a game show in which kids compete while on amusement park rides;
—“Dude, What Would Happen,” in which kids seek answers to over-the-top questions such as, “Dude, what would happen if you attached 350 helium balloons to a sumo wrestler?”; and
—“Bobb’e Says,” a viral video clip show starring Bobb’e J. Thompson.

One of the scripted live-action series is “Unnatural History” (working title), an action show about a teen with martial arts skills who returns to the U.S. with his parents to attend an American high school.

When CN showed a Looney Tunes marathon at the beginning of the year, some people held out hope that this might mark a return to the network’s roots as an animation channel, but it was just a false start; the network feels a need to re-brand itself as a ‘tween network to compete with Disney, Nick, and that new boy-centric network that Disney is starting up. It’s not the first time this network has re-branded itself; it previously moved from being primarily a vintage-animation channel to serving two niche audiences: little kids by day and college stoners by night (Adult Swim).

The only real significance here, especially since we don’t get CN in Canada, is that it’s another example of how re-branding is arguably even more important to cable channels than branding. Or, to put it another way: don’t get too attached to the specific brand or mission statement of a network, because the moment they see some other channel beating them, they’ll introduce a ton of new, unrelated programs into their lineup.

The silence of the Canadian lambs

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 90 Comments

If you missed the CRTC hearings the other week, don’t worry. The exciting plans to annex the Internet to the cheerless wasteland of CanCon enforcement were justified under the usual refrain of Trudeaupian boosterism: we have to create space for Canadians to tell their own stories.

Personally, whenever I hear that line, the only plot twist I’m in the mood for is: “And then I woke up, and it had all been a bad dream.” But, assuming you’re of a more indulgent bent, the question then arises: why do Canadians have such difficulty telling their own stories?
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Newsmakers: Entertainment Ed.

By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Departures

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Comebacks

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: The Usual Suspect — Mom

By Lianne George - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Mergers

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:25 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Winners

By Duncan Hood - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Where not to eat in Shanghai

By Jacob Richler - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 4 Comments

Picture this: to one side of a rectangular white plate you find a seared escalope of foie gras, perched like a table top on legs of stuffed dates standing upright, and sprinkled over top with ginger julienned as thin as thread. At the other end of the plate there sits a small salad composed of baby greens tossed with a Japanese-inspired apple-based vinaigrette. Booze-soaked raisins and blanched chopped celery are scattered here and there, along with a generous drizzle of a citrus-based reduction. And all this has been put together for you at considerable expense in Shanghai, China, at the Whampoa Club, in the incomparably spiffy Three on the Bund.

Sizing up the confusing dish after a first bite I am reminded strangely of a time and place far away: Toronto, circa 1982, when fusion was the rage and everyone was into foreign, Asian flavours, even as interpreted by local white chefs who had never travelled any closer to the South China Sea than say, Spadina Avenue—like Greg Couillard for example. But this time the culinary kaleidoscope was pointed the other way.

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Newsmakers: Feuds

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:15 AM - 0 Comments

Beyoncé vs. Etta James

First Beyoncé played R & B legend James in the movie Cadillac Records, and then she sang James’s hit At Last at Barack Obama’s first inaugural ball. James declared that Beyoncé would “get her ass whipped” for singing her song, and Beyoncé defied the threat by singing the exact same song at the Oscars. James has said her comments were just an example of her “comedian kind of attitude,” but now she may have to add, to quote the title of her Grammy-winning album, Let’s Roll.

Winnipeg vs. Ottawa

In what wordplay lovers everywhere called a “cold war,” the two cities spent the winter fighting over who had the longest frozen skating rink: while Ottawa’s Rideau Canal used to hold the official record, Winnipeg got the Guinness World Record book to confirm that its frozen river trail was longer. 

Shepard Fairey vs. AP

Last year, Fairey picked up an Associated Press photo of Barack Obama and turned it into the “hope” poster, the most famous image of the presidential race. This year, AP struck back, claiming Fairey violated copyright by just adding some red and blue to it. If the news service wins, it will make it virtually impossible to base a work of art on an existing photograph. And if Fairey wins, might he face a lawsuit from Obama for violating his copyright on the concept of “hope”?

Lily Allen vs. Perez Hilton

Twitter used to be such a peaceful place, and then these two showed up. The pop singer and the gossip blogger took their long-standing feud to the popular text-message website, where Allen posted such one-liners as, “God, you’re like so obsessed with me” and called Hilton a “lonely, bitter old queen.” At least this is healthier than what would happen if these two met in person. 

Canada Geese vs. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger

After the super-heroic pilot managed to land his plane safely in the Hudson River, experts examined the jetliner and found the remains of Canada geese, suggesting that a swarm of Canadian birds might have been responsible for the crash. It gives new meaning to the term “downed plane.”

Stephen King vs. Twilight series

The prolific horror writer doesn’t appreciate the non-violent, un-horrific vampires of Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling Twilight series. King declared that Meyer “can’t write worth a darn” and compared her to another popular but bad writer, Earle Stanley Gardner, of Perry Mason fame. Meyer’s legions of teenage-girl fans were furious and posted angry comments. Nobody seemed to care that the comparison was unfair to Perry Mason.

Hilary Duff vs. Faye Dunaway

When the former Disney Channel star got cast in the remake of Bonnie and Clyde, Dunaway, who starred in the 1967 classic, remarked: “Couldn’t they have cast a real actress?” Duff replied that most of her fans don’t know who Dunaway is and added, “I might be mad if I looked like that now, too.” The only way for Dunaway to get her revenge would be to star in a remake of Lizzie McGuire. But Duff had better watch out: anyone who’s seen Mommie Dearest knows that Dunaway usually gets her revenge on younger, brattier women.

Steve Coogan vs. Courtney Love

The British comic and former Love lover was asked about the affair on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson. He put two fingers in his mouth and replied: “If I had a gun right now I would put it in my mouth,” a reference to the suicide of Love’s husband, Nirvana star Kurt Cobain. Now Coogan is in trouble with angry Nirvana fans who don’t like him making light of their hero’s death. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Newsmakers: The White Album

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

The blizzard began with Michelle Obama’s creamy Jason Wu confection that completed a top-of-the-wedding-cake tableau with the tuxedoed new President, and continued, days later, with Anne Hathaway’s Grecian glam at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. At Washington balls and on Hollywood red carpets, white is hotter than red, fresher than black. And for good reason: the luxuriously impractical hue assures the showstopping entrance enjoyed by brides on their big day. Plus, no shade better shows off every hour logged with the trainer—especially when it’s shiny as the beheaded Valentino that Jennifer Aniston wore to the Oscars, which, at five kilos, itself provided a workout. White demands and rewards impeccable craftmanship, as illustrated by Marisa Tomei’s amazing homage to New York’s Chrystler Building, and it’s the brand new antidote to doom and gloom. Like Penélope Cruz brandishing her Oscar, it shouts: “This is my big day”—even when everyone else is wearing it.

Click here for the gallery of dresses.

Newsmakers: The White Album gallery

By macleans.ca - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:05 AM - 0 Comments

Newsmakers: Arrivals

By Lianne George - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of March 24th, 2009)

Fiction
1    THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND  POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY  by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows  1 (10)
2    THE KINDLY ONES  by Jonathan Littell   2 (4)
3    THE SWEETNESS AT   THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by Alan Bradley  5 (6)
4    THE BELIEVERS  by Zoë Heller   (1)
5    THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON    TATTOO by Stieg Larsson  7 (25)
6    HANDLE WITH CARE   by Jodi Picoult   3 (3)
7    Fall by Colin McAdam    9 (2)
8    OLD CITY HALL  by Robert Rotenberg    4 (3)
9    THE ASSOCIATE by John Grisham    6 (8)
10    CUTTING FOR STONE by Abraham Verghese    8 (2)

Non-fiction
1    OUTLIERS by Malcolm Gladwell    1 (17)
2    THE THIRD REICH AT WAR   by Richard Evans  (1)
3    HOUSE OF CARDS by Wiliam Cohan   (1)
4    THE CELLO SUITES   by Eric Siblin 5 (2)
5    THE ASCENT OF MONEY by Niall Ferguson    8 (17)
6     ANGELS AND AGES   by Adam Gopnik 6 (7)
7    THE YANKEE YEARS   by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci  4 (7)
8    ANIMALS MAKE US HUMAN by Temple Grandin   2 (6)
9    THE INHERITANCE  by David Sanger   3 (5)
10    LORDS OF FINANCE  by Liaquat Ahmed    10 (2)
 
LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Northern blight

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 4 Comments

Readers of Iqaluit’s Nunatsiaq News might know that when Maclean’s released its annual crime rankings last week, Canada’s most violent region was absent from the list. Iqaluit, Whitehorse and Yellowknife, the biggest cities in the three northern territories, with a combined population of around 50,000, are too small to figure into the roll, which ranks Canada’s 100 largest cities. Yet crime data from Statistics Canada are shocking. Whitehorse had a homicide rate 355 per cent higher than the Canadian average in 2007 (the most recent StatsCan data available). The rate of aggravated assault in Yellowknife was more than 350 per cent higher than average. And Iqaluit recorded an aggravated assault rate 1,033 per cent above the Canadian average. Its rate of sexual assault is more than 1,270 per cent above the average—and, according to the RCMP, climbing.

The north’s violent crime wave, much of it sexual in nature, defies easy explanation. Still, there are clues. For starters, there’s simple demographics. “Nearly two-thirds of all crime is committed by young men between the ages of 15 and 29,” says Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University; 56 per cent of Nunavut residents are under 25 compared with 16 per cent in Canada as a whole. The population of Iqaluit—the country’s fastest-growing capital—has roughly doubled to 6,800 in the decade since it was chosen capital of the new territory and people flocked to new jobs in government, construction, the service industry. Parts of the N.W.T. and Yukon have also boomed, thanks to new resource-extraction projects. And boom towns, as Fort McMurray, Calgary and Vancouver have learned, see increases in crime, violence, and drug and alcohol use (which fuels most northern crime, according to the RCMP).

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The quality of clarity is not strained: Liveblogging the ruling from Justice Oliphant

By kadyomalley - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 8:55 AM - 5 Comments

Check back at 9:30 to learn the fate of Team Mulroney’s request for “clarification and direction” on the standards of conduct that the judge will consider when the inquiry finally gets rolling next week.

9:11:47 AM
So I should probably warn you all up front that this is likely to be a very short hearing — well, by ITQ liveblogging standards, that is. As far as I know, the judge will deliver his ruling, and then adjourn pretty much right afterwards, although I guess he probably gives counsel the opportunity to respond, if they should so choose. I always forget that this isn’t a committee, and as such, isn’t bound by House procedural rules — you know, like giving notice before tabling a motion, that sort of thing. I’ve no idea whether Team Mulroney would be able to appeal his ruling on the spot, but I suspect not.

Anyway, the tiny but mighty media contingent is growing – we even have an international component today, in the form of a reporter from der Spiegel. I know! Canada’s back, baby!

9:20:12 AM
Guess who else is back? Karlheinz Schreiber! Actually, he was here at the last meeting too – good luck keeping Karlheinz away when there is a journalistic petting zoo for the feeding – but I didn’t notice til I was packing up to leave. I know, terribly shoddy observational skills by the liveblogger.

Meanwhile, the other lawyers are starting to trickle in — annoyingly, we’re behind them so I can’t really check nameplates to remind myself of their respective parties. This is probably the last day when it will be this cosy and informal, however – next week, the witness parade.

9:27:41 AM
Three minutes to go! Are we excited yet?

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Fine art and howitzers

By Alex Shimo - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 1 Comment

The heads of a rabbit and a rat, sculpted in bronze, have been at the centre of a diplomatic furor in recent weeks. The animal heads, about 250 years old, were about to be auctioned off as part of Yves Saint Laurent’s estate, a sale that was first condemned by the Chinese government, then sabotaged by a collector who made the winning bid but refused to pay, saying he had acted out of a sense of Chinese patriotism. Indeed, the sculptures symbolize a moment of humiliation in China’s history: they are part of a set of 12 taken from the emperor’s summer palace after Anglo-French forces burned and ransacked the building in 1860. Beijing has claimed the moral high ground, saying the bronzes are part of the birthright of the Chinese people and should be returned. But where are the others? Five are missing, two are owned privately, and the remaining five—despite Beijing’s high-minded indignation—are in the hands of a secretive Chinese state-owned munitions manufacturing company that has flouted U.S. laws on arms trafficking and has come under intense worldwide criticism for fuelling human rights abuses.

Founded by the Chinese army, and run by the elite in the Communist party, Poly Technologies—which has interests in real estate as well as manufacturing and mining—has arms trading offices in several unstable or despotic countries including Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan and Burma. It has faced worldwide criticism for its arms trading on several occasions, most recently for dealings with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. In April 2008, a 15,000-ton freighter loaded with Poly’s guns and ammunition was anchored in the port of Durban. Its final destination was Zimbabwe, and with many human rights experts worried that the cargo would be used against Mugabe’s opponents, South African dockworkers refused to unload the arms. The freighter left South Africa, but the fate of the weapons remains unclear. China promised that the ship had gone home. Other reports, however, say it headed to Angola, and the arms were then transported by air to Zimbabwe.

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B.C. traffic deaths fall by a quarter

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 1 Comment

B.C. is reporting a stunning 26 per cent drop in traffic fatalities this year over last, according to the Ministry of Public Safety. The RCMP was quick to take the credit, attributing the “unbelievable” plunge to “strategic enforcement,” which included crackdowns on street racing, seat belt non-compliance and impaired driving. But since none of these strategies is new to 2008, the RCMP’s claim is a bit hard to swallow. The more likely cause for the drop in fatalities is twofold: record-high gas prices, and the dramatic downturn of the B.C. economy in the second half of the year.

No other provinces have yet reported their 2008 statistics. But the Ottawa-based Traffic Injury Research Foundation reports that 25 U.S. states are also showing double-digit decreases in traffic fatalities. Indeed, the decline in B.C.—which, in an Angus Reid poll, led the country in turning to bikes and public transit when gas prices rose—is larger than in any U.S. jurisdiction. The largest decline in the U.S. was in Virginia, which reported a drop in fatalities of 20 per cent.

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The lengths to which my colleagues will go to get rid of me for a few days …

By kadyomalley - Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 6:26 AM - 46 Comments

Hey, remember that whole send-ITQ-to-the-G20 campaign that Colleague Wells started  a few weeks back? Well, the results are in — and all I can say is: Wow.

You people are amazing. Remind me not to get on your bad side.

Anyway, I’ll fill you in on all the details of you can expect from ITQ’s first transatlantic adventure as soon as I get more information, but for the moment, let’s just pause and appreciate the whee! factor here – because this is going to be so much fun.

Kenney on campus

By Mitchel Raphael - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:52 PM - 31 Comments

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney spoke about human rights and terrorism at the University of Toronto at an event co-sponsored by the Jewish student group Hillel and U of T’s Campus Conservatives.

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Do your share

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 11:50 PM - 17 Comments

Mike Wallace responds to the parliamentary budget officer’s latest projections.

“I believe part of the issue facing Canada and the world is we need some of the positive stuff. And when the positive stuff does come out it tends to get discounted immediately,” he said. “I myself purchased two cars these past two weeks. I am doing my share. I think there’s some good news stories. It’s not great news, don’t get me wrong.”