The times, they are a changin'

By Paul Wells - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 4:00 PM - 67 Comments

Windsor Star, Sept. 24, 2007:

With at least 25 new arrivals from Florida’s illegal immigrant population claiming refugee status at the Windsor/Detroit border over the weekend, local politicians are stepping up the campaign to have the federal government take action to stem the flow.

Federal New Democrat MPs and local Liberal members of the provincial legislature have added their voices to a chorus led by Mayor Eddie Francis, demanding the Conservative government do something about the sudden influx of hundreds of Mexicans claiming refugee status here….

MPs Joe Comartin (NDP — Windsor-Tecumseh) and Brian Masse (NDP — Windsor West) have written a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, federal Minister of Immigration Dianne Finley and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier, asking that the government take action to help the city with the financial strain of hosting the claimants.

In addition, they are requesting the Department of Foreign Affairs meet with U.S. authorities to demand action be taken to discourage the northern migration, through a public information, advertising and media blitz aimed at correcting misleading information among illegal aliens in the U.S. that Canada is open to them.

“We’re supposed to be good neighbours,” said Comartin, referring to apparent U.S. indifference to the situation. “They scream about us being lax about security on our side. It’s hypocritical to not try and prevent people from leaving the U.S. with no rights to status in Canada.”

NDP communiqué, today:

OTTAWA – The number of Mexican tourists visiting Canada in May dropped by 25 percent from a year earlier, an alarming decline that will only accelerate because of the new visa requirements imposed this week, said New Democrat Industry and Border Critic Brian Masse.

“Mexicans spend over $300 million a year in Canada, and yet this government chose the height of tourist season to impose new rules on Mexican visitors,” said Mr. Masse. “Mexico one of the top six countries whose residents vacation in Canada. This is yet another example of how the Harper Conservatives have failed to help the struggling tourism industry in Canada.”

Masse and Comartin’s 2007 letter to the prime minister, which was provided to me by a government source, said the influx of “hundreds and potentially thousands of Mexican nationals” making refugee claims “has the potential to become a nation-wide problem at all border crossings.” Masse and Comartin said it was “crucial that in cooperation with American authorities that the Canadian goverment conveys the message that Mexican economic refugees will not be allowed to stay in Canada.” It did not call for visa requirements for all Mexican visitors. Still, the tone — outrage in every circumstance — is familiar.

“Corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction”

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 3:43 PM - 0 Comments

Britain’s Vetting and Barring scheme, set up to protect schoolchildren after two girls were murdered by a janitor at their school, will cast its net wide when it comes into effect Oct. 12. All individuals working with children in schools will need to sign on to a new database, at their own cost of $130 per person. A prominent group of children’s authors and illustrators, including some of the top names in publishing—Philip Pullman, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake—have refused to register their names. Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy—which includes the enormously popular The Golden Compass—described the Home Office policy as “corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction.” He said: “I’ve been going into schools as an author for 20 years, and on no occasion have I ever been alone with a child. The idea that I have become more of a threat and I need to be vetted is both ludicrous and insulting. Children have never been in any danger from visiting authors or illustrators, and the idea that they should be is preposterous.” Despite he fact no school official contacted by the media could recall an author ever being left alone with a single child, the government is so far refusing to budge.

The Times of London

People at risk

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 3:40 PM - 17 Comments

Rumour has it swine flu came to St. Theresa Point, in northern Manitoba, with a Catholic priest who visited Mexico in March. He flew directly into the tiny First Nations community, locals say, leaving one week later because he was so sick. Whether that’s how the H1N1 virus landed at the reserve or not, one thing’s certain: by early May, many residents there were very sick. The virus spread like wildfire to neighbouring First Nations communities.

In the global H1N1 pandemic, Canada has been disproportionately hit. Our national infection rate is now 24 per 100,000 people, significantly higher than Mexico’s, which is nine per 100,000, or that of the United States, which is 11. Even so, “the raw numbers alone aren’t helpful,” says Alan Davidson, associate professor of health studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. To address the problem, he says, “we have to have an understanding of who’s being affected.” Continue…

Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout, Sears Tower?

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 3:34 PM - 0 Comments

Okay, everybody’s making that joke in relation to the re-naming of the Sears Tower. And yes, as has been pointed out elsewhere they might theoretically be naming it after the Willises from The Jeffersons, or even Willis O’Brien, who created the special effects for King Kong – it’s a way of getting him to (posthumously) switch his allegiance from the Empire State Building. But come on. We all know what this re-naming is really about.

Week in Pictures: July 9th – July 15th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 2:49 PM - 0 Comments

Garry Arthur Brooks 1945-2009

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 2:20 PM - 3 Comments

Garry Arthur Brooks was born in Sussex, N.B., a dairy town northeast of Saint John, on April 17, 1945, to Emery, a serviceman, and Ruby, a homemaker. A middle child, he enjoyed helping others even as a boy: he shovelled his teacher’s walkway after blizzards and, when neighbours holidayed, cared for their milk cows. But when Emery’s job with the Dominion Stores supermarket chain brought the family to Saint John, 12-year-old Garry tired of school, preferring to count the Irving Oil trucks as they lurched past his classroom window and to play hockey with friends (Garry manned the goal). Among the girls who watched their games and dated the players—Garry, ever the helper, taught many of them to drive—was Heather Bingham, daughter of the local grocer. “He’s always been awfully really nice to people,” she says. “That stuck out.”

At 17—indeed, as soon as he could, so much did he dislike school—he enlisted, becoming an infantryman in the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment. Army life took him to CFB Gagetown, then to Germany. On his return, he asked Heather out. Seeing a different suitor at the time, she declined, but Garry was persistent. She discovered his preferred pastime only after marriage: “He loved to work,” she says. On off days he took jobs mowing lawns, laying sod and—his real passion beyond the American Hockey League—working machines. In 1967, he was travelling with the Canadian Forces Centennial Tattoo when Heather bore a son, Darren. Yet his military service was not all pageantry: there were peacekeeping tours in Cyprus and, in 1970, time in Montreal during the FLQ crisis. “He was,” says Heather, “a trained killer.” Continue…

A state of terror

By Michael Petrou - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 2:10 PM - 5 Comments

When a Maclean’s reporter reached Somali journalist Abdi Ahmed Abdul on his cellphone as he walked back to his home through the streets of Mogadishu, he quickly ended the call, apologizing later that evening by explaining that it would not be safe for him to be heard speaking English by members of al-Shabab—the Islamist militia that controls much of the country and whose leadership has been linked to al-Qaeda. “I am scared,” Abdul said. “If they see me talking to somebody in English, I’d be in danger. If anybody is speaking in English, they think he is a spy. It means I am passing information to foreigners, what they call Christians or infidels, people they don’t like.”

Abdul lives near one of the main markets in Mogadishu, a place he calls a “stronghold of the Shabab.” He asked that his real name not be printed. “If they read this, they will come and look for me and blow my brain up.” His family has fled twice to other parts of the country. He’s considered leaving himself, but is now afraid to try. Continue…

Why do you leave the one you love?

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 175 Comments

To mark Dominion Day (as you’d expect a squaresville loser like me to call it), the New York Times asked 11 Canadian expatriates to write on “what they most miss about home.” The cutting-edge funnyman Rick Moranis riffed on toques and beavers and the lyrics of God Save the Queen, raising the suspicion he’d simply recycled his beloved Dominion Day column of 1954—which is not just environmentally responsible but very shrewd given New York Times rates for freelance contributors.

But thereafter the expats got with the program. The musician Melissa Auf der Maur, after years in the “American melting pot,” pined for “the Canadian mosaic.” But the great thing about the Canadian mosaic is that it engages in “a national conversation about literature like a big book club,” so the bookseller Sarah McNally said she missed “the pride and simplicity of a national literature, which probably wouldn’t exist without government support. We even have a name, CanLit, that people use without fearing they’ll sound like nerds.” Continue…

'(500) Days of Summer,' a rom-com remix

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:49 PM - 6 Comments

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in '(500) Days of Summer'

Sometimes a summer burns its way into your brain through a perfect pop song that you can’t get out of your head—a song that forces you to fall in love, then slowly drives you crazy. Or a perfect lover who does the same thing. Or a combination of the two.

For a movie, (500) Days of Summer is a lot like a pop song, a catchy tune that’s indie-cool yet warm and cozy—a pop song by Feist. In fact, it’s about a guy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) driven crazy by a girl who is a Feist type, and slightly out of his league—a cool, dark-haired rebel with bangs and a come-hither look—a girl called Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel. And just to hammer home her specific sense of style, inevitably Feist’s Mushaboom lights up the soundtrack in the third act. Continue…

Nurse Jackie is the new Hot Lips

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Nurse Jackie is the new M*A*S*H, which may or may not make Edie Falco the new Alan Alda. Liz Brixius, who co-created the dark comedy about a drug-addicted but dedicated nurse (running on the Movie Network), has said that she wanted the show to “hit that M*A*S*H spot.” She told Maclean’s that the creators wanted to pay tribute to that and other 1970s shows like All in the Family, TV that reflected the mood of a nation “being crippled by inflation and still at war with Vietnam.” We’re ready for a show in that ’70s style, because our era is just as depressing as the ’70s.

The influence of M*A*S*H is most obvious in Nurse Jackie’s setting and format. They’re both half-hour shows about hospitals, where some of the stories are played for laughs and others are played seriously (some storylines are both serious and comic). The two shows use humour as a release valve for people in high-pressure situations; the point, Brixius explains, is that “they develop a sense of gallows humour” in response to the “tragedy and absurdity” of their environment. When Jackie gets revenge on an evil patient by flushing his ear down the toilet, it’s a more violent version of the tricks Hawkeye used to play on the villains—poetic justice for pay cable. Continue…

Central Europe tugs Obama's sleeve

By Paul Wells - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:36 PM - 33 Comments

Twenty-one two Central and East European politicians of a certain (largely mid-90s) vintage, including eight former heads of state or government (including Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Mart Laar) and six former foreign-affairs ministers, write a letter to Barack Obama whose message can perhaps be summed up as, “Hey! Look over here!”

Key message elements:

• “Our nations are deeply indebted to the United States.” These countries have not merely felt that debt in the abstract, they have worked to pay it off: “We are Atlanticist voices within NATO and the EU. Our nations have been engaged alongside the United States in the Balkans, Iraq, and today in Afghanistan.”

• But — you knew there was a “but” coming — it’s getting a bit quiet at the other end of the line. “Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, however, we see that Central and Eastern European countries are no longer at the heart of American foreign policy…. Indeed, at times we have the impression that… many American officials have now concluded that our region is fixed once and for all and that they could ‘check the box’ and move on to other more pressing strategic issues.”

• “This view is premature.” Obama (and, well, Wells) may be willing to look past last year’s ugliness in South Ossetia and Abhkazia, but for these countries that have historically paid the price in blood for being on Russia’s border, it’s not so easy. “Many countries were deeply disturbed to see the Atlantic alliance stand by as Russia violated the core principles of the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter of Paris, and the territorial integrity of a country that was a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace and the Euroatlantic Partnership Council — all in the name of defending a sphere of influence on its borders.”

• The nub of the problem, as these 21 22 see it: “NATO today seems weaker than when we joined. In many of our countries it is perceived as less and less relevant – and we feel it. Although we are full members, people question whether NATO would be willing and able to come to our defense in some future crises.” Continue…

The brewing fight for pet-free flights

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 15 Comments

When Air Canada banned pets from aircraft cabins in 2006, pet owners were furious. But many say the airline’s recent decision to reverse that ban was a bigger mistake, as it puts pets ahead of people—and may even put lives at risk.

As of Canada Day, dogs and cats can travel with their owners on executive or economy Air Canada flights, as long as they’re in pet carriers that fit under the airplane seats. The plan, which was recently announced as part of Air Canada’s “renewed commitment to the customer” initiative, allows pet owners to register their pets 24 hours before the flight, as long as they pay a $50 or $100 fee. Continue…

A happy side effect

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:18 PM - 0 Comments

Here’s a happy side effect of the osteoporosis medication known as zolendronic acid (Reclast): it reduced the death rate in patients who received the yearly injection by nearly one-third. Researchers at Duke University found that within 90 days of having hip surgery and getting the treatment, there was a 28 per cent reduction in deaths among patients. What’s more, there was 35 per cent less chance of another fracture. The scientists say they don’t know how the medication affects mortality. What is known is that hip fractures can precipitate death within a year, often from cardiovascular problems, infections or cancer. The researchers will be looking at how zolendronic acid, which affects the immune system and inflammation, may help stave those illnesses off. Interestingly, the medication did not help patients who lived in a nursing home before they broke their hip, or who had severe cognitive impairment.

Science Daily

Mapping the brain’s role in fatigue

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 1:16 PM - 0 Comments

Does the brain play a role in how hard we can exercise? Until recently, the New York Times reports, many researchers would have said no—muscles tire because of biochemical reactions, like getting too little oxygen, or too much lactic acid or calcium. But the brain does seem to be implicated in muscle fatigue. “We know that people speed up at the end of exercise,” Ross Tucker, a researcher with the Sports Science Institute of South Africa, told the newspaper. If biochemical changes in the muscles “caused muscle failure, this would be impossible at the end, when these changes are at their greatest levels.” The brain, it seems, tracks fuel in the muscles and the body’s core temperature. As the amount of fuel drops and the temperature rises, the brain realizes a “danger zone” is approaching, and sends fewer signals to the muscles to contract, so they become more feeble. Researchers in England have shown that rinsing your mouth with a sports drink can mitigate fatigue. In the study, eight cyclists completed a difficult time trial on stationary bikes, while their heart rate and power output was measured. They swished liquids in their mouths, some of which contained carbohydrate, a fuel; others were just flavoured water. By the end, cyclists who rinsed with carbohydrate drinks (and spit them out) were significantly faster. Using an MRI, researchers found areas of the brain associated with motivation were aroused when the carbohydrate drink was swished, leading them to assume that group of riders sensed they were getting more caloric fuel, so the brain instructed the muscles to work harder.

The New York Times

Rwandan jailed for lethal trap

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 2 Comments

It has been 15 years since the grisly mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda’s Tutsis shocked the world, but the UN is still trying to hold the killers accountable. Late last month, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced Callixte Kalimanzira, 56, to 30 years in jail for genocide and incitement to commit genocide.

Kalimanzira was Rwanda’s acting interior minister during much of the 100-day atrocity, during which hardline government Hutus killed an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. According to the judgment summary, in April 1994 he “personally encouraged” Tutsi civilians to take refuge at Kabuye hill (near Rwanda’s second city of Butare), “promising them protection.” Then, on April 23, he arrived at the hill with Hutu soldiers and policemen. “The Tutsi refugees had successfully repelled attacks with sticks and stones until that day, but they could not resist bullets,” the summary reads. Thousands were murdered. Continue…

On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate how your city is run?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:29 PM - 27 Comments

U.K. town pays cash for lost pounds

By Julien Russell Brunet - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:20 PM - 1 Comment

In a bid to fight back against Britain’s exploding obesity crisis, a town in Essex is trying a novel approach: it’s going to pay people to lose weight.

Starting in September, Basildon’s Pound-for-Pound pilot project will reward each of its 100 volunteers with a £1 ($1.90) shopping voucher for every pound of weight they shed. Before-and-after photo sessions will document their progress, and the volunteers will get advice on how to best lose weight. At the end of the program, the participants return for a weigh-in, where they can cash in their weight loss for financial gain.

Similar programs have been used successfully in the U.S., but this project is the first of its kind in the U.K., where the adult obesity level is 24 per cent, the highest in Europe. Basildon in particular has an adult obesity rate of just under 26 per cent, the fifth-highest rate in Britain. Continue…

Long live the king of pop

By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 1 Comment

Despite the shimmering gold coffin and the weepy eulogies at Michael Jackson’s memorial service, it marked the beginning of another chapter in the King of Pop’s reign. No matter what people say about Jackson’s life, there is only one way to characterize his death: right or wrong, it was among the biggest public funeral spectacles in history. More than 20,000 fans, relatives and friends assembled inside the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, and another 6,000 watched on a Jumbotron next door. Tens of millions of people held vigils in streets, malls, living rooms, movie theatres and office cubicles around the world, many crying or waving signs proclaiming, “Michael Jackson Lives.”

No one could have imagined this outpouring of wild emotion to Jackson’s sudden death on June 25 of cardiac arrest, possibly due to a prescription drug overdose. A dozen fans so overcome with grief they attempted or committed suicide. The ghost of Jackson apparently spotted in a posthumous video of the Neverland ranch. Rumours that Jackson’s comeback tour—50 concerts at the O2 Arena in London, which was supposed to start on July 13—will proceed with him appearing in hologram form. Even Jackson’s Facebook page reflects how death has boosted interest in him: it’s gone from 80,000 fans to more than 6.4 million. That’s 20 new fans a second, making him more popular online than anyone else, even Barack Obama. Continue…

Swine flu chronicles

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 2 Comments

The photograph says it all: Melissa Auf der Maur, Montreal’s grunge princess, laid up in bed, feverish and surrounded by pills. The daughter of legendary Montreal journalist Nick Auf der Maur, the musician and photographer now turns to scribbling about her battle with swine flu. “A week into my shortness of breath, it really hit: a roller coaster of fever spikes. Over the course of 48 hours, my temperature went from 95 degrees Fahrenheit to 101, and back again.”

The Mark

Mother and son from Toronto die in Iranian plane crash

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:59 AM - 0 Comments

Two Canadians died in a plane crash in Northern Iran that claimed the lives of 168 people on Wednesday. Torontonians Nana Antasyam, a 35-year-old piano teacher, and her three-year-old son, Edward Khachik, were on the final leg of a trip to visit Antasyam’s mother in Armenia. It would have been the first time Antasyam’s mother met her grandson. Iranian authorities are investigating the disaster, which occurred shortly after takeoff. They found two the three “black box” flight recorders, but both are heavily damaged.

CBC News

CTV News

Coming to terms with the reality of China

By The Editors - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 19 Comments

Almost a year ago, Maclean’s published an essay by controversial former Canadian diplomat and entrepreneur Maurice Strong in which he passionately defended his adopted home, China, from those who would criticize its authoritarian regime. He lauded the government’s move toward a “socialist market economy” and said that Western engagement and understanding would inevitably lead to more openness and respect for human rights in the Middle Kingdom. “The Chinese will be much more influenced by our example than by the uninformed and hypocritical content of so much of our criticism,” Strong wrote. And in so doing, he summarized the prevailing sentiments among much of Canada’s political and business class: more support for China will inevitably make them more like us.

This week, Martin Jacques, a journalist, academic and author of the new book When China Rules the World, provides some sober (and sobering) second thought. In recent years, it has become accepted as a given that China’s rapid economic growth will allow it to eventually eclipse the United States as the world’s pre-eminent financial power. But Jacques says this shift in influence will certainly go far beyond commercial heft. It will bring profound and, in many respects, unwelcome changes to Western culture. The ruling classes in China are not interested in adopting foreign values like racial equality, human rights and political openness. Rather, they are dismissive—and in some cases outright hostile—to many of the political and cultural touchstones that we take for granted. They view the world as a hierarchy, with China at the top and the rest of the world representing various degrees of inferiority. Continue…

We’re proud of our troops, but it’s time to bring them home

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:25 AM - 1 Comment

In 2002, only 20 per cent of Canadians were opposed to the mission in Afghanistan. But that number has climbed to 54 per cent, according to an EKOS poll commission by CBC. The strongest opposition exists in Quebec (73 per cent), while 42 per cent of Albertans continue to back the mission. Support was also divided along gender lines, with more women in opposition. Another recent poll, conducted by Ipsos Reid, showed that–despite general resentment of the mission–82 per cent of Canadians are “proud of the men and women who serve in Canada’s Armed forces.” That’s up from 77 per cent two years ago. The Ipsos Reid poll also revealed that 52 per cent of Canadians say that the mission should end as planned in 2011. “People are expressing the view, to a majority, that it’s time to bring the men and women who have been serving, home,” said John Wright, senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid.

CBC News

Ottawa Citizen

Woman to swim length of mighty Skeena

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:23 AM - 1 Comment

Here’s a fundraising marathon you don’t see every day. Ali Howard, a 33-year-old chef who lives in Telkwa, B.C., plans to swim the entire length of the Skeena-a silty, rain-swollen and cold-beast of a river that starts in the plateau country of northern B.C. and winds its way through 610 km of mountain and forest to Prince Rupert. Howard plans to wear a dry suit, a flotation device and, quite wisely, a helmet. She says she was inspired by the story of a Slovenian man who swam the length of the Amazon. There are no piranhas in the Skeena; it’s best known as one of the world’s premier salmon rivers. But anyone who has seen it knows this is no minor undertaking.

The Vancouver Sun

The mother of Canadian science fiction died

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 11:22 AM - 0 Comments

Known as the mother of Canadian science fiction, Phyllis Gotlieb, the novelist and poet died yesterday in a Toronto hospital. She was 83. Her first novel, Sunburst, was published in 1964. Gotlieb won the Aurora Award for Best Novel in 1982 for A Judgment of Dragons. Her last novel, Birthstones, was published in 2007. She is survived by her husband, three children and four grandchildren.

CBC News