Studio Audiences And "The Milk Trick"

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

Earl Pomerantz has a post about one of my favourite subjects: the role a studio audience plays in a show, and the difference between how an episode plays in front of the audience and how it plays on TV.

Some episodes play better in front of the studio audience than they do on TV, sometimes because the best jokes were funnier to people who were actually physically present, but sometimes because the need to edit a show down to length will necessitate a choice about what to cut: the big laugh moments, or the bits that led up to those big laughs (and “set them up”).

One of the things that interests me about this choice is the idea that showrunners can focus too much on the moments that got the biggest laughs from the studio audience. They want to keep all the jokes that got huge laughs. But many of those jokes won’t play as well at home. And they wind up with an episode that feels like a string of disconnected jokes, most of which aren’t even that funny. This description could apply to many bad sitcom episodes (and even weak episodes of good sitcoms):

What then do you cut? You cut, or at least cut down, the exposition and the continuity. Also at risk are the underpinnings that set the comedy up. What happens then? Duh. The funny parts, less carefully prepared for, are no longer as funny.

“Editing for time” also hinders the natural flow of the storytelling. Struggling to retain the comedic highpoints, the episode can evolve into a compilation of “greatest hits”, becoming choppy, and losing its shape. An episode once deemed “better than perfect” can, when finished, feel disjointed and ultimately unsatisfying.

That’s why it’s sometimes better, in the editing process, to be willing to lose some of the big jokes in favour of maintaining the story flow; not only will the episode be more satisfying as a whole, but the big laughs (when they do come) will come organically from the story, and will therefore actually make people laugh at home.

Episodes, lacking those time-stretching “big laughs”, tend to play more smoothly in your house (and better than they did in front a perhaps attentive but less vocal studio audience.) Though admittedly less hilarious, there’s something rewarding about a story that takes time to connect the necessary story dots, from its premise, through its complications, to its natural, though hopefully surprising, resolution. Consciously or unconsciously, it’s an ultimately happier experience.

(I personally think this applies even more to a conventional sitcom than it does to comedy in general. Whatever I think of Family Guy, it can get away with being, as Cartman says, “one random joke after another,” because it usually doesn’t pretend to be anything else. But a regular sitcom has to get most of its laughs from the story, whatever that story happens to be. And if the story isn’t coherently told, it will not be funny to those watching at home.)

Maclean's Interview: Arianne Cohen

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 21 Comments

When Brooklyn journalist Arianne Cohen was a five-foot-three eight-year-old, her classmates nicknamed her Amazon Ari. Her pediatrician told her she was going to be “taller than the president,” who at the time was not every little girl’s role model: a six-foot-one Ronald Reagan. Now 28, Cohen stands proudly at six foot three. Her new book The Tall Book: A Celebration of Life from on High is the definitive guide to the tall experience: the unexpected trials and benefits that come with height, and why tall people have higher salaries, IQs and life expectancies than the rest of us.

Q: How do you define tall? I’m five seven. I thought I was tall.

A: Height is relative. Generally, you’re considered tall if you’re in the top 20 per cent, but functionally, if you’re towering over the people around you, you are tall.

Q: You say this is the book you always wanted to read growing up. What do you mean?

A: Height has really defined every aspect of my life, from which sports I participated in to who I dated to what I wore—because I couldn’t wear most clothes—to even what profession I ended up in. There’s been tons of research done on height and tall people but it was all tucked away in different corners of the world. I really wanted to create a bible for tall people—one book of foundational knowledge to really paint a picture of tall culture, because there really is a culture but it has never been written about.

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Tehran's butcher goes to work

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:25 AM - 2 Comments

Iranian jurist Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran’s general prosecutor, has been put in charge of interrogating jailed protesters and opposition members involved in demonstrations against the rigged June 12 presidential election.

Mortazavi played a direct role in the torture and murder of Canadian Zahra Kazemi while she was in Iranian custody in 2003. I wrote about Kazemi’s murder in detail after traveling to Iran in 2004 to secretly meet with Iranian democratic activists who were jailed with her. That article can be found here.

EKOS/CBC: Man, those voters are a volatile bunch, aren't they?

By kadyomalley - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:25 AM - 48 Comments

CPC 34.8/LIBS 32.6/NDP 14.3/BQ 9.0/GRN 9.3
Well, the latest CBC/EKOS numbers are out, and – as foreshadowed by last week’s results, it would seem to be bad news for the Liberals, who have fallen behind the Conservatives for the first time in months.

Here’s what EKOS pollologist-in-chief Frank Graves has to say:

The Conservative Party has edged ahead of the Liberal Party after months of lagging behind, according to the latest EKOS poll, released exclusively to cbc.ca. The Liberal Party and its leader, Michael Ignatieff, appear to have paid a price for threatening to take the country to the polls this summer. EKOS’ daily tracking shows that they nose-dived after making the threat last week.

Although the Liberals may have recovered some of that ground once they made a deal with Prime Minister Harper to avoid an election after all, it has nonetheless been a bad week for them. At the same time, the Conservatives are benefitting from rising optimism about the economy among some Canadians – those affected more directly by the economic news or stock and real estate markets than by the labour market, which continues to deteriorate.

The Liberals may well recover from this short-term political setback,” said EKOS President Frank Graves. “At least that has been the pattern of the last six months when purely political events have rocked Canadians’ voting intentions.” “More hopeful for the Conservatives and worrisome for the Liberals is the rising optimism on the economy, which is clearly behind some of the movement back to the Conservatives from the Liberals in recent weeks. This might have the makings of a more enduring trend.” The principal movement in this most recent poll took place in Ontario. For several months the Liberals have enjoyed an advantage in the province, often reaching into the double-digits. Now, they are neck-and-neck with the Conservatives in Canada’s largest province.

Honestly, y’all, I just don’t know what to make of these numbers — I mean, yes, it does appear to back up the contention that Canadians were, to put it mildly, some ticked by Ignatieff’s brief but lively foray into electoral brinksmanship – but if that’s the case, why the extreme slumpage at the end of the week, when the danger had passed, and the Liberals — having backed down two days prior — were voting with the government to pass the last bits of the budget bill while counting down the minutes til the House would adjourn for the summer? As for the Conservatives, with the exception of that weird one-day plunge last Thursday, the determinedly upwards trendline has to be encouraging, but if – as Graves suggests – it’s mostly to do with the economy, doesn’t that mean any such gains could be wiped out in the future by a weeks’ worth of less-than-cheery headlines? And what’s behind the apparent flatlining by the NDP?

Over to you, commenters. Thoughts, theories, wild speculation?

Singer-songwriter Joel Plaskett recommends 'Twilight' by William Gay

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

“It’s a really haunting story about a couple of teenagers who discover their dead father wasn’t actually buried and the local undertaker has been up to no good. A chase through the  backwoods of Tennessee ensues and I couldn’t put the book down until it was done. It’s a dark tale that’s beautifully written. The language brings to mind Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner but this book occupies its own terrain. A southern Gothic fairy tale that you shouldn’t read your kids. The picture of William Gay in the back of the jacket is kick ass.”

Plaskett released his latest album, Three, in March.

Tweets we'd all like to see

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:22 AM - 37 Comments

Early Monday morning, from his hotel room in Toronto, Perez Hilton – a man who gained Internet fame for scribbling naughty bits on photographs of celebrities – sent what is now likely the most famous series of tweets in the brief history of Twitter: “I’m in shock. I need the police ASAP… I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding.”

First of all, I enjoyed the fact that although Perez was apparently suffering immeasurable trauma, he took the time to correctly spell out will.i.am’s name with the periods in all the right spots. Accuracy counts when pleading for the prompt response of law enforcement (and attention).

Second, while it is wrong to wish violence upon anyone (obvious exceptions: John Mayer and whoever invented “hiking”), I was raised to believe it is not quite as wrong to appreciate a devastating left cross delivered in the name of karma.

More important, the episode got me to thinking: what other tweets would we all enjoy seeing from celebrities?

Chastity Bono: “OK, it’s on. Now what do I do with it?”

Rush Limbaugh: “Just got the news from my doctor. Who knew laryngitis could be permanent? Oh well, at least I can still blog and – owww, my fingers!!!”

Kate Gosselin: “You think the divorce episode got big ratings? Wait until everyone finds out Continue…

Moving on up

By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 3 Comments

It was a favour, dressed up as a snub. When the United States cut a deal last week to send four Muslim Uighurs from Guantánamo Bay to Bermuda, it did so behind Britain’s back—not out of spite but compassion. Washington’s tin ear for Commonwealth protocol may be legendary. But even it knew London would bristle at being cut out of the loop on a matter of national security. Bermuda, after all, remains a self-governing protectorate of the United Kingdom, which means foreign governments doing business with it are supposed to give the mother country courtesy calls on issues that might carry foreign policy implications.

But as the former detainees roamed the beaches of their new island home, it became increasingly clear that Uncle Sam had spared Britain a massive diplomatic headache. The Guantánamo Uighurs are part of a Muslim separatist movement hailing from China’s far northwestern territory, which Beijing treats as a terrorist threat. Any country that took them in risked diplomatic or economic recriminations from China—though by all accounts the men posed negligible risk. By the weekend, senior U.S. officials were confirming that they had deliberately kept the transfer deal with Bermuda secret, providing the U.K. with some much-needed deniability.

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A plea from Wall Street: Don't hate us

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:11 AM - 2 Comments

Wall Street has hired pollsters, lobbyists and PR firms to try and improve its image and counter the populist backlash against bankers. The effort, which is costing about $85,000 a month, is being spearheaded by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. It represents about 600 Wall Street firms, including big players like Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. that were beneficiaries of taxpayer bailouts. The group says it needs to embrace change and accountability to counter the “widespread skepticism about the industry’s commitment to this needed change.” Along with reaching out to the media, it will also lobby in Washington. “The mess is so big that we all have to work together,” said the minutes from one meeting, which were obtained by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg.com

What if Ahmadinejad had a party and nobody came?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 1 Comment

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – recently “re-elected” – hosted a party to celebrate his victory last night. But in a sign of the deep divisions even within Iran’s political establishment, almost two thirds of the 290 invited parliamentarians didn’t show up. The current upheaval in Iran is unprecedented in that the divide is no longer between the ruling elite and the people, but also within the political establishment itself. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has the support of former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, and as their collective snub of Ahmadinejad suggests, some 180 parliamentarians as well.

BBC News

Comet caused Tunguska burst, study shows

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:06 AM - 0 Comments

Scientists at Cornell University have finally confirmed the source of a mysterious explosion that levelled 2,000 sq. km of Siberian forest in 1908, showing it was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere. “It’s almost like putting together a 100-year-old murder mystery,” said lead researcher Michael Kelley, noting that previous theories had ranged from comets to meteors. “The evidence is pretty strong that the Earth was hit by a comet in 1908.” Reports say that after the explosion, called the Tunguska Event, the skies shone brightly for several days over Europe. His team concluded those bright skies were the result of noctilucent clouds—night visible clouds made of ice particles, the highest in the Earth’s atmosphere—created by the massive amount of water vapour spread by the comet’s icy core, caught in swirling eddies that caused the clouds to form thousands of kilometres away. Scientists are working to understand how the water vapor travelled so far without scattering, which conventional physics would predict. “There is a mean transport of this material for tens of thousands of kilometres in a very short time, and there is no model that predicts that,” Kelley said. “It’s totally new and unexpected physics.” They believe it’s related to counter-rotating eddies with extreme energy; once the water vapor got caught in these, it could travel close to 300 feet per second.

ScienceDaily

Porn comes to the iPhone

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:03 AM - 0 Comments

For $2 you can access pornography on your iPhone. The iPhone application, called Hottest Girls, includes “2200+ images of topless, sexy babes and nude models.” It is the first time Apple has allowed pornography into the iTunes App Store. There is a choice between Popular, Asian, Blonde, Brunette and Swimsuit. With an option to rate the pictures, Apple has activated crowd-sourcing feedback, steering future updates to improve the app. iPhone pornography was given the green light because the new 3.0 software has enabled application age restriction – an alert asks if the user if over 17. Click yes and you’re good to go.

Wired

Mitchel Raphael on who Don Newman will miss

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 2 Comments

Somebody at Stornoway is out of sorts

Michael Ignatieff held a media garden party at Stornoway, his first since becoming Liberal leader. The Etobicoke Youth Jazz Orchestra from his Toronto riding provided the music. The party was supposed to go from 6 to 8 p.m., but when it started getting chilly, Ignatieff’s wife, Zsuzsanna Zsohar, invited the remaining guests into the house, where media folks stayed chatting with Iggy in the living room until 10:30. Zsohar’s and Iggy’s feisty feline Mimi was jumping all over the place. (She even jumps in Ignatieff’s cereal when he has breakfast.) The couple had got their second cat, Eric, the day before the bash so Mimi was in a bit of a huff. Stornoway’s chef, Josh Drache, calls Mimi “an evil cat.” Zsohar served biscotti in the living room, and, despite her jumping, even Mimi got a nibble.

Who knew our Senators were that fit?

Vancouver Conservative MP John Weston had several politicians, sports coaches, and Laureen Harper gather in front of the Peace Tower as part of his initiative to get MPs to invest at least “20 minutes 10 seconds” twice weekly in fitness activities. The amount of time is connected to the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. When Conservative Senator Nancy Greene Raine told the crowd that 80 per cent of senators already had some sort of fitness regime, a few gasps were heard. Labour Minister Rona Ambrose brought her dog Luna to the event. When Peter Stoffer tried to pet the pooch, Ambrose warned the NDP MP that Luna hates men. But Luna liked Stoffer for some reason. As the group did a walking lap around the Hill, they passed AIDS activists dressed in black-and-white-striped prison uniforms protesting the criminalization of HIV transmission, saying it is the only potentially fatal pathogen being treated this way. The AIDS activists were supported by NDP MPs Libby Davies and Bill Siksay as well as Liberal MP Hedy Fry. Before the AIDS protest had wrapped up, another group of demonstrators arrived with effigies of Stephen Harper and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as the two leaders were meeting on the Hill for trade talks. The Uribe protesters’ music was so loud it drowned out the AIDS activists.

Luckily Don Newman ignored his CBC bosses

CBC Newsworld Politics host Don Newman will soon retire. He arrived on the Hill as a Globe and Mail reporter during Pierre Trudeau’s first government. He was the first print reporter to have a tape recorder. “I was laughed at and ridiculed both by broadcasters and by colleagues in the print press.” He has no plans to be a politician, although he notes his former fellow broadcaster Mike Duffy, who is now a senator, always had an interest in the upper chamber. Notes Newman, “I am very happy for him that he finally got where he wanted to go.” Newman hasn’t voted in a federal or provincial election since 1972 because he covers them. “I do vote municipally. I kinda know who is running for council. I vote for the school board although I have no idea who they are.” When CBC got the Newsworld channel, Newman was told by his bosses not to waste his time on it. They later admitted they were wrong. “I knew Newsworld was going to be a big success because Brian Mulroney would phone me personally on the commercial breaks.” Will he miss wearing makeup every day? “No,” says Newman. “But I’ve had a wonderful person [Joan Hodgins] who has done my makeup since 1993. I will miss her company every day.”

What’s Martha Hall Findlay wearing?

Toronto Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay was spotted wearing a sealskin ribbon she got from the government of Nunavut. Her Liberal colleague Anthony Rota, who has the fur industry promotion organization Fur Harvesters Auction in his northern Ontario riding, says he plans to get similar ribbons for all the Liberal MPs.

Upon my arrival at the gates of hell…

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 12 Comments

Red Devil: Ah, Mr. Potter, so good to see you at last.

Andrew Potter: Hey, whoa. Hell? What did I do to end up here?

RD: Let’s see [leafs through file]… no criminal record, honoured thy father and mother… not much coveting of neighbours wives… hmm. Very odd.

AP: There has to be a mistake.

RD: Posssibly… oh wait, here we go. No, no mistake. It seems you went to see Transformers 2.

AP: Yeah, sure. It sucked.

RD: Yes, but you apparently went on purpose. At a theatre where Up! was showing at the same time. And on a night when you had any number of better things to do with your time.

AP: Well, the first Transformers wasn’t too bad.

RD: Yes, and you saw it twice.

AP: Ok, but I was drunk the first time.

RD: I’m sorry, that’s no real excuse. You see, the problem isn’t that you saw this or that movie. It’s that you seem to like the films of Michael Bay.

AP: God no. He’s a joke.

RD: Yet you saw Pearl Harbour.

AP: On an airplane!

RD: And The Island…

AP: Yeah, that was a mistake.

RD: … and The Rock, and Armageddon, and both Bad Boys films. It seems, Mr. Potter, that you have seen every movie Michael Bay has made.

AP: …

RD: How many times have you seen The Godfather? Don’t answer, we already know that it is zero. Did you  know it’s masterpiece? Obviously not.  In fact you’ve seen more Michael Bay movies than you have films by Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorcese, Woody Allen — I could go on. But I won’t, since you’re due at the screening room in ten minutes.

AP: The screening room?

RD: Yes of course, we may be in Hell, but we’re not complete barbarians. You’ve been assigned to spend eternity in your own private theatre.

AP: Great! What’s showing?

RD: [Leading the way] Do I really need to tell you?

Godfather loser, Hollywood legend

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 2 Comments

John Cazale is one of the greatest actors you’ve never heard of. Most people draw a blank at the mention of his name, until they hear he played Fredo in The Godfather, and then there’s a flash of recognition—oh, that guy! Fredo, the sad-eyed loser of the Corleone clan, left an indelible impression, but Cazale came and went as one of Hollywood’s unknown soldiers. He never won a film award or was nominated for an Oscar. When he died in 1978, at 42, he had appeared in just five features. But those movies—The Godfather Part I and II, The Conversation, The Deer Hunter and Dog Day Afternoon—rank among the masterpieces of ’70s American cinema, with a collective tally of 40 Academy Award nominations. And Cazale is their one common denominator.

More than three decades after his death, this unsung talent is now being hailed as one of the most brilliant and influential actors of his generation. Those doing the hailing include Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Gene Hackman and Meryl Streep, who all worked with Cazale. Their opinion is seconded by younger actors who never knew him but cite him as a crucial influence, notably Philip Seymour Hoffman, Steve Buscemi and Sam Rockwell. These testimonials are part of a remarkable new HBO documentary titled I Knew It Was You, which is showing this week as part of the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.

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This Week: Good news/Bad news

By macleans.ca - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Face of the week
Ricky Barnes reacts to his missed birdie putt on the final hole of the U.S. Open. Lucas Glover (right) went on to win the tournament.

A week in the life of Gary Bettman
The NHL commissioner has had a hectic few days. At the NHL awards in Las Vegas, he addressed player representatives irked by a falling salary cap, shaky franchises and dubious TV deals. Good news came Monday when Chicago businessman Jerry Reinsdorf confirmed plans to bid on the Phoenix Coyotes. But within 24 hours, Bettman found himself trying to broker peace between the two feuding owners of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Oren Koules and Len Barrie.

GOOD NEWS

Shifting sands
Rising petroleum prices have pumped new life into the Alberta oil sands, and that’s good news for Canada. Yes, pricey oil makes for expensive fill-ups. But Canada needs oil-patch jobs, and with a $50-billion deficit, our government needs the tax revenue that oil sands generate. Moreover, plans to renew the North American auto industry are predicated on the development and sale of smaller, fuel-efficient cars, so pricier gas may prove to be the industry’s friend. If these twin engines of our economy—energy and auto-making—get running again, everyone benefits.

Aiming high
A sweeping proposal from Egypt has the potential to raise talks between Israel and the Palestinians to a new and promising level. Under Egypt’s plan, an end to the blockade on Gaza would be followed by a prisoner exchange between the two sides and the formation of a Palestinian unity government, ending Hamas rule in Gaza. The deal includes safeguards to ensure aid isn’t appropriated by militant groups—a major roadblock to reconstruction efforts in Gaza. The approach may appear ambitious, but it addresses a persistent impediment to deals between Israel and the Palestinians: no sooner have you resolved one irritant than another raises its head, shattering the agreement you’ve worked so diligently to reach.

Ugghh!
Tennis is cracking down on screamers and grunters, and thank goodness. Up-and-coming star Michelle Larcher de Brito was told in advance of Wimbledon she could be docked points for the prolonged shrieks she makes when hitting the ball. Occasional grunting may be unavoidable in a sport where a powerful stroke wins games. But tennis legend Martina Navratilova was right to label the excess noise “cheating, pure and simple.” If Martina could win 18 Grand Slam titles without moaning on every shot, the lesser lights can do without it, too.

Cold comfort
After 300 years of Danish rule, Greenland reached a new self-government agreement this week with Denmark, setting the stage for eventual independence. The move brings decision-making on governance and natural resources closer to Greenland’s 58,000 inhabitants, and may indirectly benefit Canada. Ottawa had been at odds with the Danes for years over Arctic sovereignty, and the more Copenhagen loosens ties with Greenland, the more tenuous its Far North claims become. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we’d much rather deal with a pragmatic neighbour than with its distant and nostalgic European parent.

BAD NEWS

Price of war
The Department of National Defence is straining Canadians’ patience and credulity by refusing to release the estimated future cost of its mission in Afghanistan, citing security issues. DND has already said that annual costs in the conflict are topping $1 billion, so how does releasing the projected spending on the conflict in 2011-2012 help the Taliban? More likely military brass censored the information to bolster the security of government, which has already signalled it will pull troops out at the end of 2011. If a change of heart is under way, Canadians have earned the right to participate in the debate. We have faced up to the real costs of the mission: the deaths of 120 soldiers and one diplomat. We have a right to know the price tag. We can handle it.

Pluck o’ the Iris
Iris Evans, Alberta’s forthright finance minister, knows something about raising kids. The former nurse and one-time minister of children’s services raised three sons through financial difficulties. So when she offhandedly remarked that good parenting requires one parent to stay home (at considerable financial sacrifice, she noted), she knew of what she spoke. Evans was expressing an opinion, not setting government policy, but you wouldn’t know it from the outrage. She offered grudging regrets, saying she “would have preferred not to have initiated the debate.” But we’re glad she did, and she owes no one an apology.

Picking your battles
French President Nicolas Sarkozy fell into a familiar trap this week when he labelled burkas “a sign of debasement” and declared them unwelcome in France. Time and again, Western politicians have fuelled Islamic anger by fixating on the personal choices of Muslims rather than what really matters: respect for the rule of law and basic civil rights. Fortunately, Sarkozy counted among the few leaders in Europe who responded forcefully to election-rigging in Iran and the brutal suppression of pro-democratic protestors. That’s the kind of intervention Muslims can use.

Ain’t that American?
Several cities in the U.S. have cancelled Fourth of July fireworks this year because of tight budgets. Regrettably, and perhaps unintentionally, at least one Canadian town has stepped into the void. Officials in Kenora, Ont., located near the U.S. border in the province’s northwestern corner, have decided to bump their “Canada Day” fireworks to Saturday, July 4, saying they hope to boost attendance by drawing in the weekend cottage crowd. Shrewd perhaps, but not wise. No one would consider moving Christmas, so why Canada Day?

The things he could teach our kids

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 7 Comments

We are in the last days of the season for commencement speeches, the annual rite in which famous and successful people urge graduating students to follow their hearts, live their dreams, change the world, hug everyone, floss daily, be nice to kitty-cats and, oops, sorry we went and broke the global economy just as you were preparing to look for work. Enjoy destitution!

The truth is that graduates don’t need to be bombarded with well-meaning but dubious expressions of optimism: that’s what wedding vows are for. What they need is practical advice they can actually use in their lives—real wisdom based on real experience, preferably stated by those who know the taste of disappointment. (Note: the “taste of disappointment” can be acquired through one’s own personal failures or by licking the poster for the movie Wolverine.)

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Radicals vs. Buddha

By Adnan R. Khan - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment

The irony is as thick as the dust clouds sweeping over the ramshackle Pakistani market town of Takht-i-Bahi. At the hilltop ruins of a first-century Buddhist monastery, Ikram Ali, a local university student, is in the middle of explaining what it is that attracts him to the UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site’s grassy knolls and quiet quadrangles when automatic gunfire rips through the serene vales and gullies. “It’s peaceful up here,” he’d been saying just a few seconds earlier, scanning the horizon in the direction of the Swat Valley. “You can escape all of the noise and stress that goes on down there.” The volley of bullets erupts just as he points down toward the town. A group of villagers can be seen scrambling for cover under a grove of trees. The exchange is brief, lasting five minutes or so, after which the villagers resume their routines. Ali watches the scene with mild amusement. “That kind of thing happens every day around here,” he says with a Buddha-like calm.

Across a wide, fertile plain to the north, the black mountains of Malakand Division, including Swat, stretch across the horizon. There, ruins of another sort are a dominant feature—the products of weeks of war that have gripped the Swat Valley and its environs. But up in the hilltop monastery in Takht-i-Bahi, none of that seems particularly relevant. Here, young couples, otherwise forbidden from even speaking to one another, huddle conspiratorially in the shadows of meditation halls, or walk casually through what were once monks’ residences. None of them can tell you much about the prolific history of Buddhism in Pakistan and the role Buddhism once played in bringing peace to a region perennially beset by violence. They can tell you little about Ashoka, the third-century BCE emperor of the Mauryan dynasty of India, who, after witnessing first hand the killing fields of his army’s expansionist campaigns, converted to Buddhism, banned war, and spent the rest of his life actively promoting a Buddhist-inspired program of peace and brotherhood. His story reads like a life lesson in pacifism. The prosperity his empire enjoyed after his conversion is legendary. Some of that legacy remains in Takht-i-Bahi, in the quiet, contemplative moods of people like Ali who come there to clear their minds.

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Gold doesn’t come cheap

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 2 Comments

It was the spring of 2007, early days for the elite, little-known band of amateur athletes known as B2ten. Barry Heck, a Calgary merchant banker, wasn’t sure what to expect. He had, as requested, assembled a group of civic-minded Calgary business leaders to hear a pitch. The star at the breakfast meeting was Jennifer Heil of Spruce Grove, Alta., a gold medallist in mogul skiing at the Turin Olympics and, not insignificantly, a commerce student at McGill University. Also there was her coach and boyfriend, Dominick Gauthier, and J.D. Miller, a Montreal-based consultant in banking, mergers and acquisitions, and a friend and mentor to both. The three are the heart, soul and brains of B2ten, an organization they founded to shake up amateur sport funding by connecting Canadian business leaders with Olympic-level athletes—not as sponsors but as donors and mentors. The “B” stands for a business approach to investing in performance. That day they gathered on behalf of Helen Upperton, a Calgary bobsled pilot with huge promise. Heck recalls Upperton was nervous, and then she began to speak.

“I need a bobsled. I need a mechanic. I need runners,” says Upperton, recalling her shopping list two years later. As a private equity guy, Heck is pitched business plans every day. “The first question I ask myself in any pitch,” says Heck, “are these the right people? Check the box. Are they passionate? Check the box. What’s the value proposition? Well, it’s easy to see the value proposition here. [Upperton, sliding with an outdated sled, finished fourth at the Turin Games, 0.05 of a second off the podium.] Is there a chance of success? Can I make a difference?” Check, and check. The meeting lasted 40 minutes. “That’s the pitch,” says Miller. “You get a tax receipt, but nothing else in return. You don’t get any rights. You’re doing this because it’s the right thing.” Er, check—and cheque.

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Harper inches ahead of Ignatieff for first time in months

By John Intini - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:34 AM - 10 Comments

After lagging behind the Ignatieff-led Liberals for months, the Conservatives have regained the lead, according to the latest EKOS/CBC tracking poll. Nationally, the governing Tories now command 34.8 per cent support—a two per cent jump since last week. Meanwhile, the Liberals fell to 32.6 per cent, a 1.1 per cent drop during the same period.  It was “not a good week at all for the Liberals,” says EKOS president Frank Graves, who notes that the drop could represent a “short term political setback.” Still, the numbers have to be discouraging for Liberal party strategists, who were just starting to get used to being out in front. Meanwhile, the NDP is down 2 per cent, and currently sits at 14.3 per cent – its lowest standing in over a month – and the Bloc Quebecois is up slightly with 9 per cent.

CBC

Remembering Roméo LeBlanc

By John Geddes - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:31 AM - 0 Comments

The impressive biographical arc is what stand out in Roméo LeBlanc’s obituaries. Farm boy rises to be press secretary to two prime ministers, cabinet minister and finally the first Acadian governor-general—all after having passed on attending law school so he could work to support his hard-pressed family.

Beyond his compelling personal story, though, a couple of other elements strike me as worth mulling as we look back at LeBlanc’s remarkable career. I’m interested in how he functioned as what was sometimes called a “regional minister,” and, before that, in his role during the October Crisis.
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Newsmakers of the week

By Lianne George - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

Arnold’s extra pair
In the spirit of partisan pranks-manship, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently sent a metal sculpture in the shape of bull testicles to California Senate President Darrell Steinberg—a metaphorical reminder of the bold budgetary decisions required by the state’s lawmakers in the face of a US$24.3-billion budget shortfall. Unfortunately, the joke fell flat. Steinberg, who is a Democrat, returned the sculpture to its sender, along with a note stressing the seriousness of the situation. In fairness to the governor, sources told MSNBC.com that the testicles were sent in response to a gag gift Steinberg sent to him—a package of mushrooms—after Schwarzenegger called the Democrat’s budget proposals “hallucinatory.” But the sculpture was apparently too much coming from a man who once called Democrats “girlie men.” When asked why so serious, Steinberg’s spokesperson told reporters, “We’ve got more important things on our plate right now than to waste any more time on such trivial matters.”

Too much information
On Monday, Canada’s Information Commissioner Robert Marleau resigned unexpectedly, only two years into an ostensible seven-year tenure. He was in the process of reforming the country’s access to information laws, which have come to be routinely subverted by secretive government officials. Only one day earlier, Marleau was quoted in a Toronto Star article decrying the whole system. When the Access to Information Act was introduced in 1983, he told the reporter, “we were amongst the leaders in the world.” Since then, he said, “It’s been the same song and dance, no effort by any government to have this legislation or these processes keep pace with time, change and technology.” The reasons for his hasty departure only 24 hours later, he told media, are “entirely personal and private.” Continue…

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of June 23rd, 2009)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Econowatch

By Steve Maich - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

On a day when the Canadian stock market plunges by more than 450 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbles by 200, it’s a tough sell to suggest that we need to start planning for the economic recovery. And yet, there was Joaquín Almunia, economic and monetary affairs commissioner for the European Union, urging all OECD countries to start preparing exit strategies for this downturn before it’s too late. “We cannot afford to get out of this recession creating big imbalances that will be the origin of the next crisis,” Almunia said.

No doubt he’s right. Over the past year, governments have pumped unprecedented mountains of stimulus into the global economy. Major banks and corporations have been bailed out, propped up and nationalized. Interest rates have been slashed to nothing. That may have averted the worst-case meltdown scenario, but it presents a lot of daunting questions as the world begins to pull out of this tailspin. Trillions of dollars in cheap money is currently sloshing through the economy. Will the system be able to soak up all that excess capital before it triggers runaway inflation? Now that governments have committed themselves to massive deficit spending over the next few years, can lawmakers find the political courage to rebalance their budgets in time to avert a massive distortion of the debt markets? Continue…

What to ‘see’ in Ottawa this year

By John Geddes - Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

There was a moment in 1982 when basic black briefly didn’t seem to be the coolest thing a punk rocker could wear. Punk was fading that year, at least the brand that surfaced in the late seventies, and goofy eighties rock was rising. But in a last full-throated yelp, the Clash put out what would be their final record, Combat Rock, and Joe Strummer, the London band’s peerless lead singer, started showing up for concerts in camouflage. Strummer died in 2002, but his ’82 camo pants, incredibly, have survived. When I came upon them in the new Camouflage show at the Canadian War Museum, a not very new wave of nostalgia crashed over me.

Don’t imagine a baggy army surplus. Strummer’s camouflage trousers look to have come by way of Carnaby Street. They have the same skinny, nearly cigarette-cut profile of the noir denim he was more typically photographed wearing. It didn’t matter if they didn’t look all that authentic: by the time Strummer discovered camouflage, as the museum’s fascinating exhibition demonstrates, its connotations had long since crossed from army to art to fashion. If his pants were meant to convey a fighter’s toughness, they mostly managed to be (pace, unreformed punkers) unthreateningly hip.

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