How Christopher Buckley blew it

By Barbara Amiel - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 13 Comments

I talk to my dogs but, though a lot of enthusiastic tail wagging takes place, I’m not blind to the observation of William James that they have no more understanding of the delights of literature and music than I do of the rapture of bones under hedges or smells of trees and lampposts. They belong to a different universe. I’m aiming to get two more: a rescue kuvasz next and then perhaps a Caucasian ovtcharka.

These are not breeds to turn over to dog walkers or leave to idle in the kitchen, unless you are aiming to become that mythical old woman who dies and is eaten up by her pets. They are work if owner and dog are to happily survive. “Industry is the enemy of melancholy,” William F. Buckley said, and when I last visited him in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., shortly before his death, he had a new puppy creating havoc, was so ill he could hardly remain vertical, yet was still writing marvellous prose in his final book on Ronald Reagan. Inspired by this, on the level of mole to mountain lion, I find my two kuvaszok and writing deadlines leave me little time for elegant woe.

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A modest 'Proposal'

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 2:07 PM - 3 Comments

Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock in 'The Proposal'

Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds seem oddly cut out for each other. Both occupy the lower echelon of Hollywood’s A-list. Neither is a superstar, and both are viewed more as celebrities than as serious actors, forever stuck in the kind of mediocre studio pictures that vanish from memory long before the awards season. It’s hard to say who is the bigger star. Bullock is 12 years older than Reynolds, and at 44, she’s precariously close to the expiry date for Hollywood actresses who are not Meryl Streep. Reynolds, a Canadian famous for being Mr. Scarlett Johansson, may be in his prime, but he has the perennial posture of a young actor still looking for his big break.

Every high-concept romantic comedy is a kind of arranged marriage, not just between the characters but between the actors—a sham romance that has to turn into a real one. And no matter how derivative the formula, it requires a crucial element of novelty, something haven’t seen before. The Proposal is literally about a sham marriage, between a high-powered bitch of a book publisher named Margaret (Bullock) and her slavishly devoted executive assistant, Andrew (Reynolds). You can almost see the story writing itself on a cocktail napkin: let’s take the Meryl Streep character in The Devil Wears Prada, give her a male executive assistant, then contrive a romance that forces him to be the boss. Continue…

'He never did desire an election'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:55 PM - 18 Comments

Glen Pearson mounts an explanation of the Liberal leader.

Mr. Ignatieff took something of a drubbing in the media this week and it shows. He never did desire an election, yet there were many advisors around him constantly explaining the key strategic advantage for bringing the Harper government down. He has aged years in a week. He is not like many here, never having fed on meals of political machinations. The media accused him of “electioneering,” but there isn’t an opposition MP in the House who honestly believed anything could be negotiated out of Stephen Harper.  The PM’s way is hardball, 24-7, and he would crush you if you flinched. And so Michael Ignatieff attempted to stay in the game, believing he had the cards in his hand to finally make Harper himself back down. It seems to me he did, and that he got concessions that no one thought he would. Many question the substance of those concessions, but the truth is that at the beginning of the week nobody gave him much chance.  Now he is older, wiser and, I fear, wearied for his efforts. But he has always said to me that Canadian citizens didn’t want an election. Judging from the emails coming in, they did right by him and he can take some comfort in that.

And you will know us by the trail of indifference

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:54 PM - 27 Comments

So I was watching a lot of Newsworld earlier this week – what with all the political intrigue and my ongoing hope that my children would see me gazing with keen interest at that ad for the walk-in bathtub and think, hey, Father’s Day – and I’ve come to the conclusion that two things ought to be said. So I’m oughting to say them.

1. This is Don Newman’s final week on the brooooadcast but his network has done only slightly more than the sum of jack and squat to mark the occasion. Instead of counting down to Don’s farewell, hyping his role and achievements as an institution in Canadian political life and celebrating his 340-year career as a talented broadcaster, probing interviewer and Continue…

The thick of it

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:51 PM - 4 Comments

Chris Selley mourns for the original idea of Michael Ignatieff.

Perhaps he has designs on radically altering the Canadian landscape once he gets his majority, and figures the old guard knows better than him how to get it done. I’m not sure he’s right about that, but if that’s his theory, he might want to start lobbing some of those alterations into the public sphere for discussion. If anything makes me suspect he’s back in Canada simply in pursuit of power, or to cement his place in the history books, it’s not the Conservative attack ads or the fact that he uses the word “I” a lot. It’s his stunningly smooth transition into the idiocy that is Canadian federal politics-as-usual.

Not on the radar

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

For most people, flying is an act of faith. Take a seat, place your trust in the skill of the pilots, the quality of the aircraft and the diligence of those who maintain them, and shut out thoughts of anything less than a happy landing. But tragedies such as the as-yet-unexplained June 1 crash of an Air France Airbus A330 into the sea off Brazil, which killed 228 passengers and crew, crystallize all our old fears. And they occasionally highlight things few travellers had ever previously worried about. Like the fact that transoceanic flights disappear from radar a half-hour after clearing land, leaving air traffic controllers to only guess at their whereabouts for large portions of the voyage.

In an age where your cellphone can track your location—and that of your friends—within a couple of feet, and your car’s dashboard navigation system can plot every twist, turn and rest stop of a cross-country trip, it seems inconceivable. But while airline pilots know their aircraft’s location thanks to satellite GPS, that information isn’t always readily available to those back on the ground. Traditional radar can only reach about 320 km offshore because of the curvature of the earth. And the wide expanses of the ocean make it difficult for planes to share their position. Radio coverage can be patchy, depending on distance and weather, and transmission via satellite is too costly for constant use. (Air France, like many carriers, gets bulletins from on-board computers about mechanical issues that crop up during flights, so it can be ready to fix them once the plane lands. In the case of Flight 447, those messages—sent directly to the airline’s headquarters—were the first, and as it turned out only, indication of trouble.)

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Less sexier by the day

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:23 PM - 0 Comments

The CBC’s Leslie MacKinnon files a necessary review of the medical isotope situation.

Hope for Zimbabwe’s hellish jails

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 2 Comments

Conditions within Zimbabwe’s prisons are so horrific that the International Committee of the Red Cross has stepped in. The Swiss-based organization announced last Friday that it is distributing food to 6,300 inmates and has set up therapeutic feeding programs for the severely malnourished. The help can’t come fast enough. On March 31, an undercover South African documentary titled Hell Hole showed emaciated detainees in rags. And the prison system is so overcrowded that the diseased and starving are forced to share cells with healthy prisoners. So many were dying that the bodies were crammed into makeshift mortuaries.

Lucky prisoners get one meal a day and salty water. Roy Bennett, a leading opposition politician who is now deputy minister of agriculture in the coalition government, was noticeably thinner after being freed on bail in March after a few weeks behind bars. He called his detention, on banditry and terrorism charges many believe were politically motivated, a “harrowing experience” that “I don’t wish on my worst enemy.” While he was in jail it took authorities up to two days to remove five bodies. A Zimbabwean newspaper reported that more than 50 per cent of the inmates in one prison died in 2008.

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The Great Innovation in Toilet Paper, Or, The Light Green Revolution

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:14 PM - 13 Comments

Todd VDW asked my opinion on the ads for the “Comfort Wipe,” which promises to be the Snuggie for people with strong stomachs. It’s a product that, essentially, allows you to insert toilet paper (or “tissue”) into… well… what Kramer called “that area,” without getting your hands too close to your own disgusting, unclean body. Have a look.

I guess this is more useful than the Snuggie; at least it has an actual use that can’t be directly duplicated by stuff you have lying around your home. But the ad seems to shatter one of our few remaining social taboos. It’s OK to talk about toilet paper on television, but most toilet paper commercials understandably shy away from talking about where the paper goes, let alone how it goes in. There’s something a little horrifying about a commercial that discusses it in such graphic detail. But maybe that’s just our neo-Puritan morality talking. This commercial could well be the next step in human freedom: the freedom to talk about sticking mail-order products up your… no, sorry, I can’t say it. I haven’t reached that stage of enlightenment.

The big question that several people have posed, and which the commercial fails to answer, is: what happened in the 1880s to revolutionize the use of toilet paper? According to Wikipedia, toilet paper (in the modern sense) was introduced in 1857. So what was the great 1880 leap forward in the ability to insert… no, I still can’t say it.

Why remake a perfectly good movie?

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

Hollywood loves to cannibalize itself. Every summer, the studios plunder past glories with sequels, prequels, reboots—and remakes. The most shameless of those ruses is the remake, which makes a virtue of unoriginality. It begs the question: why remake a perfectly good movie? Usually the motive is crassly commercial—to reproduce a proven hit for an audience unaware of the original because it’s too old, too obscure, or in French. Sometimes a remake is an auteur’s arty homage, such as Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot facsimile of Psycho (1998)—or, more perversely, Michael Haneke’s shot-for-shot American clone of his own German-language Funny Games.

Like sequels, remakes tend to be inferior to the originals. Prominent stinkers include star-driven vehicles like Swept Away (Madonna), Get Carter (Sly Stallone), The Nutty Professor (Eddie Murphy), Vanilla Sky and War of the Worlds (both with Tom Cruise). But some are classics in their own right—most famously The Wizard of Oz, which was a remake of a silent movie, and The Magnificent Seven, a western based on Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai. Then there are the customized knock-offs of genre films by classy directors, like Brian De Palma’s Scarface, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

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The burden that is democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 6 Comments

John Mraz makes the humbling comparison.

Canadians don’t want an election, to be sure. Yet the act of voting should not be perceived as an onerous task, but an enlightened right. As the son of a Czechoslovak émigré seeking refuge from tyranny, I was raised to value my enfranchisement. Spending several minutes, or even hours, going to the polls, is a privilege, not a burden.

As we empathize with the Iranian people in their pursuit of such simple freedoms, Canadians should remind themselves that true suffering is not be found in the narcissism and gamesmanship of our political theatre, nor even in the tired partisan invective and deplorable tactics sometimes used across the board. True suffering is not having your vote counted.

Hans Wilhelm Berg 1931-2009

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 2 Comments

Hans Wilhelm Berg was born on June 10, 1931, to Wilhelm and Maria Berg in the Free City of Danzig, a Baltic Sea port that is now Gdańsk, Poland. The family—Hans was the oldest of four kids—soon moved to Schneidemühl, Germany, where they ran a stationery shop. Membership in the Hitler Youth was mandatory, and Hans joined the paramilitary group (which by 1940 numbered eight million) at age nine. He “hated marching, so he got into flying,” says daughter Susan. Banned from building powered planes after the First World War, Germany had focused on gliders, which use rising air to propel flight. For Hans, soaring was freedom. Says son John, “He was totally alone in his element.”

By early 1945, Russian forces were approaching Hans’s town. One afternoon, he climbed to the top of a church and saw their tanks, painted white to blend in with the snow. Once home, he “went hysterical,” says Susan. The next morning, Schneidemühl was evacuated. (It soon became Piła, Poland.) With his mother and siblings—his father had been drafted in 1942—Hans travelled west by train, settling in Ulm, Germany. After the war, jobs were scarce, but Hans, then 14, found an apprenticeship at a bakery in another town. While he revelled in creating a product, he said disparagingly that “by noon, it would be all gone,” says daughter Barbara. A few years later, he returned to Ulm, and learned cabinetmaking instead.

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Michael Richards is "a new man"

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:31 PM - 0 Comments

Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, says that his former Seinfeld star Michael Richards is “a new man” after his racial-slur incident two years ago. Richards recently taped a guest appearance on Curb Your Enthusiasm playing himself (as part of a reunion of all four Seinfeld regulars), and David was impressed by how much nicer he has become since ruining his career: “He used to be very angry and bitter. He’s completely different now. You can see it, and he can feel it. I’m very happy for him.” Whatever happened to David’s rule of “no hugging, no learning?”

Reuters

Econowatch

By Steve Maich - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments

After worrying for months that confidence would never return, now financial gurus find themselves dealing with an overabundance. For the past several weeks, experts and authorities have been doing their best to dampen optimism, and step on a few of the celebrated “green shoots” that have dominated the discussion on Wall Street since March. There was Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, last week warning that this recovery is still weak and fragile. “We shouldn’t underestimate the scale of the challenge,” he told a gathering of business leaders and academics in Montreal. Not to be outdone, UBS surveyed central bank managers around the world who collectively manage US$5.5 trillion in assets and found they are highly skeptical of the idea that we’re in the late stages of this economic slump. They expect interest rates to stay grounded for at least six months and consider rising unemployment a huge and continuing threat.

But for those who make their living swapping stocks, bonds and contracts, none of that skepticism matters as long as momentum remains in their favour. Consumer confidence is up. Stocks have been rising for four months now. Long-term bond prices have begun to fall. Commodity prices are recovering. And all of this is happening despite the fact that economic activity is still feeble.

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Growing pains

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:29 PM - 1 Comment

Douglas Bell suggests we figure out this minority government business.

And as to Steele’s contention that the country’s best interests can only be served by a majority government… Well, if my aunt had wheels she’d be a trolley and the chances that any party’s going to get to 155 are just about that good. At some point, we’re going to have to grow up as a nation and learn to accommodate regional and ideological differences so we can move the bus from A to B. Otherwise, somebody’s going to do it for us.

Liberals demand apology from Alberta minister

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:28 PM - 4 Comments

Iris Evans, Alberta’s finance minister, said raising children properly requires one parent to stay at home. She added that a lack of good education for young Canadians causes mental illness and crime. She made the remarks at a speech to the Economics Club of Canada in Toronto. David Swann, Alberta’s Liberal leader, is demanding an apology, calling Evans’ remarks “truly outrageous,” and saying they reveal “her contempt for the sacrifices made by hard-working Alberta families.”

CBC News

Maclean’s article on Iris Evans (How did Alberta’s budget chief learn to manage money?)

Iranians protest for fifth straight day

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:27 PM - 0 Comments

Thousands of supporters of Mir Hosein Mousavi, many of them dressed in black, have crowded into Tehran at a rally to mourn the death of protesters. According to media and Twitter reports, Mousavi was present at the rally and addressed the crowd. Meanwhile, Iran’s ruling Guardian Council have invited opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai to a meeting on Saturday to address a total of 646 complaints filed by the three candidates. “This will enable them to raise issues and points they wish to discuss with the members of the council, and also provide a direct contact with the candidates,” said an Iranian official. It’s not known whether the men accepted the invitation. The Council has already said it would consider a partial recount of the votes, but won’t annul its results.

BBC News

Times of London

Al Jazeera

An exhibition of books that don’t exist

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Using the resources of the Invisible Library blog, which lists hundreds of non-existent books mentioned in fiction, a group of London artists plan to mount a show featuring 40 of the imaginary titles. Sort of, that is: the “illustration collective” INK announced that “working with bestselling writers and novelists, as well as high-profile cultural and musical figures, the opening or closing pages of these 40 empty books with illustrated covers, will be penned in advance of the exhibition.” But visitors will be invited to “sign out” the partially-written books and add their own chapters and ruminations to them. INK is hopeful that “by the close of the exhibition, the once blank pages of each book will be enlivened with imaginative poly-vocal stories.” They haven’t announced yet which books have made the cut, but it may be the only chance P.G. Wodehouse fans have to peruse—or create—any of the works of Leila J. Pinckney, author of Heather o’ the Hills, Scent o’ the Blossom and 138 more novels “whose titles,” Wodehouse noted, “are lost to posterity.”

The Guardian

Sniff your way to weight loss?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:21 PM - 2 Comments

A range of new products promise to help dieters sniff their way to weight loss, the New York Times reports. Available since last summer, Sensa granules can be scattered over food, and are supposed to make people less hungry by enhancing taste and smell, signaling the “satiety centre” of the brain until appetite-suppressing hormones are released. “Every time I touch a piece of food, I pour it on,” said Wendy Bassett, 34, who says she’s lost 30 pounds after using the product since February. Other products include SlimScents, aromatherapy diet pens filled with fruity or minty smells; a peppermint spray called Happy Scent; and a vanilla-scented Aroma Patch, worn on the hand, wrist or chest. “Eighty per cent of what you perceive as taste is actually smell,” said Christopher Adams, a molecular biologist who plans to offer a nasal spray to curb appetite by blocking smell. “The hypothesis is that if we can alter your sense of smell we can make food less palatable, because the hedonic effect—that is, the pleasurable effect you get from eating chocolate—won’t be there.” In one study, 3,193 patients were given aromatic inhalers, and inhaled whenever hungry while keeping normal diet and exercise routines. They lost an average of 5 pounds a month. Even so, some experts question the products’ effectiveness. “There’s been a theory around for a number of years that if you saturate your sensory system that you’ll not be as hungry,” said Dr. Richard L. Doty, the director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. “There needs to be more research done.”

The New York Times

How has Michael Ignatieff's decision not to bring down the government influenced your impression of him?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 12:19 PM - 26 Comments

An ITQ poll: Stick a blue-ribboned fork in it …

By kadyomalley - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:56 AM - 20 Comments

I know, I know — you’re all going to scold ITQ for being so darned cynical, but it’s hard to see how this leaders’ panel/working group/subcommittee on employment insurance is going to be able to cobble together anything approaching a consensus – let alone a common policy – on reforming the current system.

I mean, within minutes of the official announcement, the PM had all-but-categorically dismissed of one of the key Liberal proposals –streamlining regional qualification levels. Meanwhile, Michael Ignatieff had already announced his intention of filling one of his three allotted slots with his senior policy advisor, Kevin Chan — who, ITQ readers will recall, had been a similarly senior advisor over at PCO until last January, when his decision to leave the public service for Team Ignatieff so aggrieved one Senior Government Official that he all but accused him of smuggling state secrets to the enemy.

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The Yankees are coming

By Sean M. Maloney - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 4 Comments

The U.S. Chinook helicopters from Task Force Wings’ 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, clawed for altitude as they departed from Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Maywand district of Kandahar, jammed with American, Afghan and Canadian soldiers. Apache gunships pulled tight turns above, deterring any nearby Taliban from engaging the force. The crews from a detachment of Canadian M-777 artillery pulled the canvas covers off the barrels, checked their ammunition and prepared to drop smoke or high-explosive rounds. The female gunner in one of the Chinooks, her faceplate painted to resemble a pair of bright red Rocky Horror Picture Show lips, tested her machine gun with a few short bursts. Her partner, with a smiling Japanese demon painted on his, did the same. In minutes, the aerial force swooped low over the Dasht, a prairie-like area in Maywand district west of Kandahar city, and made its run into western Zharey district just as the sun came up. Involving one of the largest air assault operations in Afghanistan since 2003, Canadian-commanded Operation Jalay was on.

The Chinooks flared in to the landing zone, and the troops poured out as the rear ramp dropped. The helicopters lifted off, showering the troops with dust and rocks. Shouted commands got the soldiers off their feet, loads adjusted, and moving out of the open as quickly as possible. Further east, Canadians from 3rd Battalion, the Royal Canadian Regiment, led by Lt.-Col Roger Barrett, crossed the Arghandab riverbed on foot, while an armoured force from the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) pressed in from the north. The sudden, three-pronged attack shocked enemy leaders. Instead of engaging the Canadian and American force, the insurgents went to ground and tried to get out of the area on foot, abandoning their weapons and caching their equipment—leaving IEDs behind which later killed three personnel.

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Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Phelps gets smoked

At the Santa Clara Grand Prix in California last Sunday, Vancouver’s Brent Hayden finished the men’s 100-freestyle race in 48.44 seconds, a meet record, beating eight-time Olympic gold medallist Michael Phelps by a full half-second. “I was really excited,” Hayden told the Canadian Press. “Michael is such a great competitor and every time I get up and race him, it’s such an honour.” Phelps—newly mustachioed, and recently back after a three-month suspension by USA Swimming for getting caught smoking marijuana on film—won two of his four races at the meet. “I’m ready to go home and sleep in my own bed,” he said.

Here’s your visa, Mr. Rae. You’re not welcome.

Last week, Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae was turned away at a Sri Lankan airport, allegedly for being a Tamil Tigers supporter and a “security risk”—and an Ontario resident may be to blame. According to the Toronto Star, Irangani de Silva, a Sri Lankan expat who lives in London, Ont., wrote an opinion piece in the June 8 issue of The Island, a major Sri Lankan newspaper, in which she counselled Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona to revoke the visa that had been issued to Rae for a three-day visit. She also denounced Rae for having suggested in the Commons recently that Canada ought to look into human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan officials over the course of the bloody 25-year civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the Tamil minority. “We are sure that [Rae] will return with a damning report on the government of Sri Lanka and push for war crimes investigations, publish media reports that there is discrimination, etc.,” de Silva wrote. Granting a visa to Rae, she said, was an “act of foolishness.” In Sri Lanka’s state-owned Daily News, the anti-Rae vitriol continued after his departure. One columnist argued that Rae is pandering to the large faction of Tamil expats he represents in Canada “who are not just vocal but openly violent in their support for the cause of terrorism in Sri Lanka.” In his statement, Rae called the charges made against him “absurd” and “a lie, pure and simple.” Continue…

Truth in advertising

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 11:26 AM - 18 Comments

Vic Toews may or may not want the people of Provencher to believe Michael Ignatieff has no time for Ukranians. Conservative backbencher Tim Uppal used a members’ statement to raise the same allegation in March. A not disinterested blogger, writing for the National Post, did likewise in February.

For the record, Dan Gardner debunked (link fixed) this more than three years ago. Our John Geddes did likewise a week later. And when the National Post editors reviewed Blood and Belonging earlier this year they didn’t even see fit to note the allegedly scandalous passage in question.