Abortion doctor gunned down in church

By macleans.ca - Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 6:14 PM - 1 Comment

Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who became a centre of controversy in the U.S. for performing late-term abortions at his clinic, was shot and killed Sunday at church. The assassination took place shortly after Tiller arrived at his regular church; a suspect has been arrested. Tiller’s clinic was one of the few in the country that performed late-term abortions, and became a regular target of protests and attempted prosecutions. He had already survived one assassination attempt, in 1993, when he was shot in both arms.

The Wichita Eagle

Oh yeah, well, I sleep under a seal skin duvet. So there.

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 3:33 PM - 19 Comments

Adrienne Clarkson is unimpressed.

“I’ve eaten raw food here since 1971. It’s nothing new to me, okay?” Clarkson told The Canadian Press this weekend. Both women were attending an arctic gathering hosted by Clarkson’s husband John Ralston Saul. ”I have a lovely seal skin coat. . . I’ve eaten raw food since 1971 – and there you are.”

'It makes us sad. More people will die.'

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 3:17 PM - 8 Comments

Though obviously not as interesting as whatever Pierre Poilievre last said, Geoffrey York reports from Africa on Canada’s dramatic, but quiet, withdrawal from the continent.

In the fall of 2004, when Paul Martin was prime minister and Irish rock stars were chattering ceaselessly about the need to help Africa, Canada raised the flag on a shiny new embassy here in the capital of Malawi. It was the culmination of a warm and close relationship that has sent $440-million in Canadian assistance to the small republic wedged between Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique in southeast Africa over the past 45 years.

Optimism was in the air. Malawi was making progress – it was holding democratic elections, its farm output was improving dramatically – but it was still one of the world’s 10 poorest countries, heavily dependent on foreign donors. And Canada was one of the most faithful of those donors.

Today, the mood has soured. In late September, barely five years after the opening, a small band of diplomats will watch morosely as the Maple Leaf is hauled down and the embassy closed for good. There has been no announcement, nothing but a discreet notice buried deep in a government website, unnoticed for weeks. One diplomat in a nearby country called it a “stealth closure.” With staff at the embassy (technically a high-commission office, as both countries are in the Commonwealth) prohibited from talking to the media, Canada seems to be sneaking away in the night.

A decisive, patriotic Canadian, able to deal with tough economic times

By Paul Wells - Sunday, May 31, 2009 at 2:59 PM - 34 Comments

By a hefty margin, that’s how Canadians outside Quebec seem to view Stephen Harper, at least in comparison to Michael Ignatieff. (The numbers are, by and large, reversed in Quebec, where the Conservatives are comically unable to reverse their momentum — but where the Liberals would gain perhaps a dozen of the 60-odd seats they need to form a government, if the recent horse-race polls bore out.)

To say the least, it seems significant that Harper’s greatest margin over Ignatieff (still outside Quebec) is on whether each leader is seen as “a patriotic Canadian.” Harper’s margin there is 34 points, nearly double his next-widest margin. Those ads seem to have succeeded in popping Ignatieff squarely on the snoot. But have no fear, Liberals: I hear the leader and his entourage are preparing to spend another two weeks vigorously threatening to do something about it all.  If you mess with me, I will mess with you until I’m done, just as soon as I start.

Here’s an email I received three days after the Conservatives started airing the Just Visiting ads:

Continue…

Because it worked so well for Prime Minister Dion

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 1:14 PM - 31 Comments

Adam Radwanski laments that Michael Ignatieff’s side isn’t sticking closer to the high road.

The Conservatives have frequently and not undeservedly been accused of dumbing down this country’s political debate. It bears noting that not once but twice this week, Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals didn’t just dumb down debate – they actively played dumb.

When keeping it partisan goes wrong (IV)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 1:11 PM - 31 Comments

For what it’s worth, Marlene Jennings, the lone black MP in the current parliament, would prefer you avoid using the term entirely.

“As a Black child growing up, I was called all sorts of pejorative names based on the colour of my skin, including the ‘n-word’ and ‘tar baby’ – and believe me, it was hurtful,” said Ms. Jennings. “I am offended by Mr. Poilievre’s insensitive remarks – and I know leaders in the Black community across Canada feel the same way.”

Some Hon. Racists

By Andrew Potter - Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 10:26 AM - 42 Comments

This is the final week of the spring session of the House of Commons. Apart from all the responsible-government business left to wrap up, it is the last chance before the summer break for our parliamentarians to accuse one another of being racist.

Ahh, parliament, where nothing ever changes. The above passage is the lede to a column I wrote three years ago.  

Is Pierre Poilievre a racist, some are asking?

Pierre shouldn’t be too concerned — if history is any guide, getting called a racist by your colleagues is more or less a rite of passage in parliament; everyone gets accused of it eventually. 

Anyway, I’m with Kady – Pierre is probably guilty of nothing more than being an ignoramus.  But when it comes to being a member in good standing in the House of Commons, that’s clearly no serious impediment. 

"Smothered under journalism"

By Andrew Potter - Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 9:56 AM - 3 Comments

I love this passage:

At least, cut off from the irritations of literary London, he was free to grapple unencumbered with the new novel. “Smothered under journalism,” as he put it, he told one friend, “I have become more and more like a sucked orange.

That’s from a nice piece about the writing of 1984, from the Observer.

When keeping it partisan goes wrong (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 12:06 AM - 45 Comments

John Baird defends his protege. With irony.

Transport Minister John Baird, who is also from Nepean, called the Citizen to defend Poilievre vigorously, calling the whole issue “gotcha-politics taken to the extreme.”

“This is partisanship run amok,” he said.

Can I see your passport, Mr. President?

By Steve Maich - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 8:22 PM - 13 Comments

C’mon. Did we really expect one of them to say something unkind?

About 5,000 people paid between $100 and $200 for a ticket to “A conversation with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton,” today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and every single one of them came hoping for at least a little jousting on foreign policy, or taxes, or even just a taste of old-fashioned partisan ribbing. But no. The only jokes were self-deprecating. The only disagreements were measured and respectful. “I have a different take on that” was about as pointed as it got.

To be fair, Clinton undercut the confrontational atmosphere right off the top. “You imagine this is a 21st century version of the Roman Coliseum. You expect us to attempt to devour each other. Frank McKenna (the moderator) will attempt to meet your expectations. We’ll do our best to thwart them,” he said. Continue…

Weekend Viewing: CLUELESS

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 6:34 PM - 1 Comment

As mentioned in an earlier post, a TV version of Clueless (one of my favourite films of the ’90s) was part of ABC’s TGIF lineup in the 1996-7 season. Amy Heckerling, who wrote and directed the movie, created the series; she had originally conceived it as a TV show idea, so it wasn’t tough to transfer the premise to series form: a beautiful, smart but superficial rich girl striving in her own clueless way to become a better person. Alicia Silverstone didn’t do the series and I can’t blame her (yes, her movie career fizzled out after being doused with Batman & Robin, but she was a movie star at that time). Dan Hedaya also declined to reprise his role as Cher’s father, and was replaced by Michael Lerner. Paul Rudd and Brittany Murphy didn’t return as Josh and Tai; the parts were recast, but they both made guest appearances in the first season as other characters. But many other cast members from the movie played the same parts in the series: Stacey Dash, Elisa Donovan, Donald Faison, Twink Caplan, Julie Brown and, in the show’s biggest “get,” Wallace Shawn as Mr. Hall.

The TGIF lineup in 1996-7 may have been, creatively, the best ABC ever fielded on that night: the first season of Clueless, the splendid first season of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and a strong season (its fourth) of Boy Meets World. Oh, and Family Matters, but Urkel is always Urkel. But the following year, ABC shook up its lineup, in part (it seemed) because they wanted to favour shows produced by its new partner, Disney. So ABC lost interest in keeping Clueless on. Paramount, which produced the show — here we see the development of the vertical-integration model we’re stuck with today — picked it up for its UPN network, but with a big budget cut. To save money, Shawn and other regular teachers were dumped; Lerner was replaced by a cheaper actor, some of the characters from the movie were replaced with others. The biggest problems with the UPN re-tool, though, were simply that a) Heckerling was no longer involved, and b) On the lower budget it couldn’t replicate the candy-box, fairy-tale look of the original movie, which was a big part of its charm. It ran two more seasons on UPN, but the ABC season, while not as good as the movie, was the best of the series. At least all three seasons had the catchy theme song, a song so right for the show that when I first heard it, I thought it actually had been in the original movie.

This is the Clueless TV pilot, from the ABC airing — it starts with a plug for TGIF.

Pilot, part 1

Pilot, part 2

The CUPID Curse

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 4:56 PM - 4 Comments

Here’s how things have gone down:

- Paula Marshall got a reputation as a “show killer” because she starred in a lot of bombs like Cupid.

- Last season, she finally landed a lead role in a show that got renewed for a second season: Gary Unmarried.

- Asked to name the person who would inherit Paula’s mantle as Show Killer, Destroyer of Shows, I decided that the best candidate is Sarah Paulson, who has starred in several shows that bombed: Leap of Faith, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip… and the very season that Paula beat the curse, Sarah starred in a bomb called… Cupid! (Yes, she had a recurring role in the second season of Deadwood, but many show killers have managed to land small or recurring roles in non-flops; Paula Marshall had a recurring role in the second season of Spin City.)

From this we can draw only one conclusion: there must always be one Show Killer in the land, and the vessel for the transference of Show Killer status is Cupid. Who will play the female lead in the inevitable third version of Cupid, and thereby be doomed to wander the networks until Jay Mohr can save them?

Of course all of this, like the very idea of a “show killer,” is mistaking luck (an actress happens to be unlucky in the shows she gets) for destiny. But arguing over whether something is luck or destiny is what the Cupid franchise was all about. Which just proves that it’s destiny!

But now we know what Sam Raimi’s next movie will be: a casting director denies a role to an old gypsy woman and is cursed to star in a remake of Cupid.

Limbaugh’s Overkill

By John Parisella - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 4:50 PM - 28 Comments

To many opponents of Rush Limbaugh, this title would be an understatement. In recent days, however, Limbaugh has made it a personal crusade to attack the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and has gone as far as labeling her a racist. You couldn’t find a better illustration of a pot calling a kettle black

Other conservative voices in dire need of media exposure, like Newt Gingrich, have echoed those sentiments. Just yesterday, a former Republican presidential candidate, Tom Tancredo, claimed Sotomayor was part of a group he characterized as the “Latino KKK.” And so it goes. The hard right has decided to make this a make-or-break case against the Obama administration.

The overkill may be beneficial in a way. Reasonable conservative voices are now emerging. Joe Scarborough, from MSNBC’s Morning Joe show, has written an article and a book outlining his vision of a GOP revival. Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times and former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal have begun to trace the outlines of a message to counter Obama. This can only help quell the current Republican disarray and shift the focus toward policy and issues rather than personal attacks and character assassination. It is timely if the GOP has any hopes at making gains in next year’s mid term elections .

A more center-right Republican opposition could make Obama a better president down the road. We saw in the primaries and the campaign that Obama performs better when attacked on issues and policies. But the Republicans should not be fearful; it can only broaden their appeal to independents and new constituencies if they make their case forcefully and in a respectful manner. A return to the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and a modernized version of Reagan is the best course for making a comeback. Scarborough, McCain, Charlie Crist of Florida, and Bobby Jindal represent the type of conservative who can cross party lines and make the GOP competitive again. Rove, Cheney, Limbaugh and Gingrich deal in divisive politics that the American people rejected last November. They are voices of the past. At long last, we may be seeing a return to robust debates about ideas with this latest Limbaugh overkill. It was about time.

Prime Minister Hulk Hogan

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 4:26 PM - 21 Comments

While everyone’s contemplating the etymology of various Br’er Rabbit references, note the phrase Pierre Poilievre used immediately before.

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we have a leader, a real Canadian leader.

This, you might not realize, is a sly reference to one of the more effective American campaign ads of the 1980s. Clip after the jump. Continue…

Preston Manning on science, competitiveness and innovation

By Paul Wells - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 4:11 PM - 22 Comments

The Reform party’s founding leader gave a lunch speech at a Public Policy Forum event on Wednesday. Everybody was talking about the speech afterward. A few university types were surprised that Manning was as thoughtful and well-informed on these shiny techy subjects. A few Reform veterans and even one or two of the reporters in attendance weren’t surprised at all.

Iggy in a chair

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 11 Comments

The Globe interviews Michael Ignatieff, with all sorts of random, jumpy cuts so you won’t get bored.

Bankruptcy isn't bad news for everyone

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:53 PM - 1 Comment

Though some bankruptcies are quick and easy, others are complex—such as some are predicting the impending restructuring of GM will be. The more complicated the process, the longer it takes—and the higher the bill for paper-pushers who see it through. As Slate writer Daniel Gross explains, the lawyers and accountants who are overseeing the reams of bankruptcies currently underway stand to make a small fortune: Lehman Bros.’s unraveling is expected to add up to $1.4 billion, and experts have projected the cost of GM’s bankruptcy to be close to $1.2 billion.

Slate

One more reason to floss

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Getting rid of gum disease alleviates the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, shows a study in the latest Journal of Periodontology. When gum infection and inflammation was cured, researchers found that patients suffered less pain from severe arthritis, which is also an inflammatory condition. In fact, after patients improved the health of their gums, their joints were less stiff in the morning and fewer joints were swollen. One researcher concluded: “Good oral health improves the overall health of an individual.”

Science Daily

When keeping it partisan goes wrong (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 54 Comments

“I don’t think I should have used that word and I was wrong to do it.”
—John McCain, March 16, 2007. 

“Mr. Speaker, that honourable colleague is a man with whom I have had disagreements but for whom I have respect. On this occasion though, I cannot believe that he would attempt to inject that meaning into that expression. He clearly understands that my reference had absolutely nothing to do with the one that he implied. I have worked hard to represent people of all backgrounds and I have always done so in a spirit of tolerance. My reference to the term ‘tar baby’ was a common reference that refers to issues that stick to one. The leader of the Liberal Party has taken this position. It has stuck to him, and now he is having difficulty explaining himself on that issue. For him or for his House leader to inject racial politics in order to distract from that is the worst kind of base politics. I would encourage them to apologize for it.”
—Pierre Poilievre, responding to Ralph Goodale’s point of order after QP today.

The entirety of today’s discussion after the jump. Continue…

Drama In Comedy, and Vice-Versa

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 2:38 PM - 1 Comment

A TV writer death of note: Mickey Ross, part of the Nicholl/Ross/West team that ran All in the Family, The Jeffersons and Three’s Company, died Tuesday at the age of 89. Ross and his writing partner Bernie West (who played the dentist/songwriter in Bells Are Ringing) were, like Nicholl, in their 40s when AITF started; Norman Lear believed strongly in hiring “old” (by comedy-writer standards) writers for his shows. But while many of Lear’s shows don’t hold up today, the first five seasons of AITF, which were mostly written and/or produced by Nicholl, Ross and West, hold up extremely well. A lot of writers on the Lear and Lear-style comedies deluded themselves into believing that their work was inherently important because it dealt with big issues; the head writers of Maude, Bob Schiller and Bob Weiskopf, used to talk about how much more profound their show was than Mary Tyler Moore or The Odd Couple. But almost any AITF script written by Nicholl or Ross and West is a lesson in how to put character and character relationships above everything else, and how the best laughs come from lines that draw on our knowledge of character. Their work on The Jeffersons (which they created) and Three’s Company (which they developed and ran after Larry Gelbart’s original pilot was rejected) wasn’t in the same class, but those were basically joke-based shows, and they wrote for what the shows required.

Their episodes of AITF also, I think, helped go a long way toward showing how TV could break out of the episode-by-episode straitjacket that it had been in. As I’ve said repeatedly and monotonously, most shows in the U.S. were either strictly standalone episodes (outgrowths of the anthology series, which was often considered the ideal form of series television) or soap operas (which were viewed as a lower form, in part because they were serialized). All in the Family wasn’t a soap, and it wasn’t a limited-run series like the British show it was based on, and it wasn’t really serialized — but the characters grew, and they changed, and they found out things about each other, and the writers didn’t just forget about everything that had ever happened between these characters in the previous episodes. When Lionel Jefferson (in a script by Ross and West) confronts Archie about his bigotry, talks about how his attitude to Archie has changed over the years, and finally addresses Archie by his first name for the first time in the series, it’s a memorable moment that could not exist if these characters did not have a past. In this we see that AITF, along with Mary Tyler Moore and its evolving relationships, wasn’t just the ancestor of the modern sitcom, but perhaps even more of the modern TV drama.

When keeping it partisan goes wrong

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 2:13 PM - 71 Comments

As Kady notes, things apparently got a bit uncomfortable during QP this morning. Here’s the full extent of Mr. Poilievre’s comments. Emphasis ours. Continue…

GM to get a bailout from Magna

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 1:51 PM - 0 Comments

Opel, the European branch of GM, is set to sell 20 percent of its shares to Magna International, a Canadian-Austrian car parts and assembly company. The deal is meant to save Opel from collapsing after GM’s bankruptcy in the US and a projected 1.5 billion euro loss this year. Magna will be paying $2.3 billion dollars worth of bridge financing for the deal. The company is in close talks with Russian automaker Gaz, and is hoping to turn a profit by gaining access to the Russian market. Magna’s bid is hoped to minimize job losses for the 50,000 Opel employees in Europe. The deal should be approved by the German government later today, beating out a proposed merger between Opel and Fiat, the Italian automaker.

The New York Times

Hey, remember late 2004?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 1 Comment

Back to the previous Conservative opposition’s demand for objective analysis of the national finances. Here is the NDP’s second question today and the current Conservative government’s response.

Ms. Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan, NDP): Mr. Speaker, in the election the Prime Minister said we would have no deficit. In November, that changed to a small surplus. In January, that changed again to a $34 billion deficit. Now the Conservatives are admitting to the largest shortfall in Canadian history. The finance minister has changed his numbers so often that no one is confident that he knows what he is doing. For the good of the country, will the Prime Minister agree to turn the books over to the Parliamentary Budget Officer for an honest appraisal?

Mr. Ted Menzies (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, CPC): Mr. Speaker, the answer to that is no. We have a very competent finance minister who has done a great job of leading us through the outcome of a worldwide recession. In fact, we have put $29 billion, almost 2% of the GDP, into the economy as stimulus money this year. We care about Canadians. We are helping Canadians. We are there to help industries that are struggling. We are there to help those who are unemployed.

Hey, remember the early 80s?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 1:12 PM - 14 Comments

Back to yesterday’s QP. Specifically this answer of the Prime Minister’s.

Mr. Speaker, the record of the Liberal Party is this: Liberals got this country into deficits when borrowing was at record levels, and then when recession came, they were cutting the unemployed and raising taxes right in the middle of a recession, something this party will never do.

For as long as the current Conservative government has been in power, it has found convenient excuse in the various failings of the “previous Liberal government.” But here is an entirely new standard for historical reference. Continue…