Bank of Canada: Recession is over

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 1:24 PM - 19 Comments

The recession is over, according to the Bank of Canada. In its quarterly report, the Bank of Canada predicted that the economy would bounce back from the shrinkage it has seen since the last quarter of 2008, growing by annualized rates of 1.3 per cent in the July to September period, and three per cent in the fourth quarter. The news however wasn’t all rosy: the report says the up-tick in unemployment will continue.

CBC.ca

This is why we can't have nice things

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 1:17 PM - 14 Comments

In inadvertent tribute to Michael Jackson, Glen Pearson plays the man in the mirror card.

Yet something has altered between citizens and their government, and while citizens have been quick to condemn politics for their feelings of isolation, perhaps they have failed somewhat in themselves to reach the lofty heights Martin hoped for. I understand that a politician shouldn’t even venture close to such an assertion, yet I don’t see how we can find a better place when blame is leveled exclusively on politicians alone – it is a two-way street and there must be work done on both sides. That is being undertaken by both politicians and citizens, but not at enough of a critical mass to change the system.

Citizens have changed, not just in their pessimism but in the sophistication they bring to that cyniscism. The average Canadian today is far more cosmopolitan. With more information than ever at their disposal, they learn more quickly the flaws within the political system. Yet, like the politician, they exist at two different levels. Citizens might not compost much, yet they know of the steady decline in rain forests and the challenges inherent in climate change – something their forebears would barely have known. But their acts don’t match their knowledge. They want their children to have a top notch education yet often refuse higher taxes to pay for it, much as they do with healthcare.  Political representatives live a similar kind of dual existence.

The pointy finger of blame

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 1:06 PM - 18 Comments

This interview is a few months old, but it just showed up on YouTube and it contains perhaps the funniest sentence the Prime Minister has ever uttered: “Well, I don’t know that I want to be pointing fingers of blame.”

No, never. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.

Nearer the end he also refers to the necessity of “American leadership” in the world. Which, in Mr. Harper’s worldview at least, might count as an endorsement of Michael Ignatieff, no?

Maclean's Interview: Warren Moon

By Colin Campbell - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 3 Comments

Warren Moon quarterbacked the Edmonton Eskimos to five straight Grey Cups before going on to a 17-year career in the National Football League, retiring in 2001 at the age of 44. He is the only black quarterback in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He recently published a book, Never Give Up On Your Dream.

Q: You’ve said that playing in the CFL was one of your greatest career moves, but it must have been tough showing up in 1978 after winning the Rose Bowl with the University of Washington but getting no interest from any NFL team.

A: It definitely wasn’t a goal of mine to have a great college career and then go to the CFL to play. My dream had always been to play in the National Football League. But I also looked at the CFL as a great opportunity for me to keep playing football and to develop my game. I never thought I would have as much success as early as I did in the CFL and I never thought I’d enjoy it as much as I did.

Q: A lot of people in your situation would have been bitter about being ignored by the NFL.

A: I was disappointed, but so much disappointment had happened to me even before I got to that point, like the fact that I had to go to junior college to prove that I could play quarterback before I could go to a major college. Even in high school, my sophomore coach wouldn’t let me play because he didn’t think I could play quarterback. I understood rejection early and as I got older I just accepted it a little more and said, this is the way it’s going to be. Continue…

Why I doped

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:27 PM - 1 Comment

It doesn’t get much more raw than this. Jim Parque, a former pitcher with the Chicago White Sox, has written a brutally frank op-ed piece for the Sun-Times which provides a fascinating glimpse at the pressures that drive an athlete to juice. This is no José Canseco tell-all, with the author revelling in his own notoriety. Parque was a journeyman showing a certain amount promise when he shredded his shoulder in 2000; he turned to human growth hormone to rescue his career. He indulges in a certain amount of self-justification, but the forces Parque describes sound real, and if sports leagues are really interested in stopping doping, they should pay attention. “My career was shattered, and I had no real-world job skills,” Parque says. “What was I going to do? I had a family to provide for, a young daughter to raise and no future. For those of you who think all baseball players make bank, the media concentrates on the large salaries marquee players make. Trust me, if I was good enough to make that upper-echelon salary, I would have said, ‘See ya,’ but I needed baseball for my family and for myself. Work harder, you say? Take vitamins and get in better shape? Did it, and I was rewarded with pathetic Triple-A stats, a fastball now in the low 80s and an average high school curveball.”

Sun Times

I Heard That!!!

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:25 PM - 0 Comments

Les Lye, the comedic actor who created an ensemble of characters for the Canadian television show You Can’t Do That on Television – a surprise hit internationally in the 1980s – has died this week in Ottawa at the age of 84.

Popwatch.ew.com
CBC.ca

'Why am I here?'

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:18 PM - 0 Comments

Dutifully covered by Kady, video of Abousfian Abdelrazik’s opening statement to the press this morning is available in two parts, here and here.

More from Paul Koring, Joanna Smith, Terry Pedwell and Andrew Mayeda.

Vanity Fair edits Sarah Palin's resignation speech

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:15 PM - 3 Comments

Sarah Palin’s resignation speech was hardly eloquent so Vanity Fair decided to let its team have a go at it and shape it up to its “publishable” standard. Executive literary editor Wayne Lawson, along with representatives from research and copy departments took a stab at Palin’s speech.

Vanity Fair

Parents encouraged to tell on each other

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:12 PM - 2 Comments

One misbehaving child is all it takes to disrupt an entire classroom. So in the U.K., lawmakers are pushing to give parents a way to force problem kids to shape up: the license to complain about parents. Home school agreements, which require parents to sign on to support homework and discipline, are already in place at many schools, but the education bill would make these mandatory. And if a child’s persistent bad behaviour gives other parents reason to believe that a mom or dad isn’t holding up the agreement, they would have the right to report them to the local education authority. The complaint could then be used as evidence in courts seeking to impose a parenting order.

BBC News

Taco Bell chihuahua dies

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:10 PM - 1 Comment

Gidget, the Chihuahua best known for her Taco Bell advertising campaign and line, “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” died from a stroke on Tuesday night. She was 15. Those closest to Gidget say, however, that her legacy will live on in her work. In addition to her position at Taco Bell, Gidget appeared in a commercial for the ‘90s edition of Trivial Pursuit and played the mother of Reese Witherspoon’s dog in Legally Blonde 2. “She made so many people happy,” says Gidget’s trainer. She charmed millions of North Americans without ever saying a word.

People.com

Too meaty for marriage?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

Ninety-one per cent of the 60,000 men who participated in the 2009 Great Male Survey (commissioned by Montreal-based Askmen.com) said they believe in the institution of marriage. But it seems that belief is not strong enough to withstand a few extra pounds. Almost half of the survey’s respondents (48 per cent) admitted that they would consider dumping their partner if she put on weight. David Stevens, a single guy from Edmonton, is one of them. He said he’d probably bail on a relationship if a girlfriend gained 30 to 50 pounds. His rationale: health implications, of course. And the fact that Stevens is, by his own admission, “kinda superficial.” Canadian sociologist Anthony Synnott, however, suggests that men take a look in the mirror before doing anything drastic. “Most North Americans are (overweight) and about one-third are morbidly obese,” he notes. “In any event, 50 percent will probably get divorced anyway, fat or no fat.”

Vancouver Sun

Shawn Atleo is new First Nations chief

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:02 PM - 0 Comments

B.C.’s regional chief Shawn Atleo will be the next national chief of the Assembly of First Nations. The vote was decided Thursday morning, after eight ballots. Although Atleo did not get the required 60 per cent of votes, the election was decided when his opponent, Perry Bellegarde, conceded defeat after more than 12 hours of debate. Atleo has pushed for more economic development within the First Nations community: “We know economic independence is political independence, economic power is political power.”

Vancouver Sun

Mitchel raphael on the NDP MP who got bubbly from a Tory

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 2 Comments

Poet laureate a traitor?
Pierre DesRuisseaux is Canada’s fourth parliamentary poet laureate. At his April inauguration ceremony, his predecessor John Steffler had only two words for him: “Good luck.” The post is part-time with a $20,000 stipend and up to $13,000 in travel expenses. “The job consists mostly of having [media] interviews,” says DesRuisseaux. So far he has not written one poem. Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella has asked him to write a piece commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Canadian navy. DesRuisseaux is not obliged to write any poems if he so chooses—his job description says only that he “may” do so, and may also do such things as sponsor poetry readings and advise the parliamentary librarian—but he has asked Kinsella if he could get onto a navy ship for inspiration. Most people in DesRuisseaux’s native Quebec are not accustomed to poet laureates. “It’s mostly an English tradition. It is not a good thing to be the poet laureate in Quebec. It’s not very sexy.” Some in Quebec, he says, call him “a traitor.” But “I consider [the post] an honour.” DesRuisseaux is hoping other politicians will call him and utilize his services. “I think I have some power but it depends on the seriousness of the politicians. Do they take this post seriously or not? This is a question I ask myself. They are mostly interested in other subjects.”

Bev Oda’s jazz moment
Cabinet ministers Rona Ambrose and Bev Oda, who are seatmates in the House, spent a short vacation together in Niagara-on-the-Lake. They went for dinner at the Peller Estates Winery Restaurant with the area’s MP, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. When Ambrose got up from the table she saw NDP MP Joe Comartin, who was there celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary. Ambrose joked to Nicholson, “Your critic is here.” She then sent champagne to Comartin and his wife. Oda and Ambrose also caught a jazz festival at the Hillebrand Winery and saw musician Paul Novotny. The first jazz CD Oda ever got was Novotny’s but she was too shy to meet him. Ambrose dragged her over to say hi. Continue…

The Hidden Victims of the Space Race

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:43 AM - 1 Comment

With the recent 40th anniversary of the moon landing and the attendant talk about whether America should go back to the moon, I think we need to remember that this is also the 50th anniversary of one of the saddest events of the space race: a man’s beloved girlfriend went on a trip to the moon, and he found that she could no longer communicate with him except through high-pitched beeps. He thought individual beeps might mean “I love you” and “I wanna kiss you,” but he didn’t know for certain. Finally he discovered that his woman had deserted him and was fooling around with some space cat she met on the moon (it is not specified whether this was a fellow astronaut or a person who actually lived on the moon). Plus she also fools around with a satellite, showing the heartless mechanization of the modern era: we don’t care if we’re with humans, aliens, or machines.

So before we talk about going back to the moon, let’s remember the enormous human toll this took on people in the ’50s and beyond.

Bad cartoons, really big bucks

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 6 Comments

Badly animated ’80s cartoons are taking over Hollywood. G.I. Joe: The Rise of COBRA, opening Aug. 7, is the latest movie to have its roots in a cartoon that kept children occupied on Saturday mornings and weekdays after school. We’ve had the two Transformers movies (which owe more to the ’80s cartoons than the toys), and studios are developing films based on The Smurfs, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and even Hong-Kong Phooey, about a kung-fu-fighting dog. These shows reused animation over and over, and censors forbade them to show any violence. But they have a bigger audience than cartoons that were good.

It seems like the more poorly animated an old cartoon it is, the better it sells. Warner Brothers ended its series of Looney Tunes DVDs, but announced plans to market more episodes of Saturday morning cartoons like The Herculoids and The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. It’s become common for fans and writers of such shows to refer to them as classics, arguing that they deserve to rank with prestigious, well-produced animation. On Shout! Factory’s DVD of the G.I. Joe cartoon, head writer Ron Friedman tells us that the good guys’ fight against poorly voiced baddies from COBRA is symbolic of “the Greek ideal of democracy.” Cartoon history is being rewritten before our eyes, with G.I. Joe and He-Man as the classics and Bugs Bunny or Disney cartoons as forgotten rarities. Continue…

In Dan Brown’s shadow

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:33 AM - 0 Comments

Publishers and booksellers are bullish about a fall season most consider one of the best in memory. Between August and November, bookstores can display novels by, among others, Thomas Pynchon, Margaret Atwood, Pat Conroy, John Irving, Dave Eggers, Philip Roth, Barbara Kingsolver, and even Vladimir Nabokov (dead these 32 years)—should they have shelf space to spare, that is, from their crates of Lost Symbol copies. But it’s not just the spectre of Dan Brown that troubles some in the book trade. For New York literary agent Ira Silverberg, the thrill that comes with seeing all the warhorses released at the same time does not make the practice any less financially perilous. “It gets us excited, but the big question is, will people buy that many books?” Silverberg asks. “What’s unfortunate about that is, it’s a short season! All these books are coming out in three months, and there’s overlap in their core audiences. Also, these are hardcover books– at 25 to 30 dollars! That’s tough.” Pressed to find something positive to say about the quality of books on offer, Silverberg did not opt for graciousness. “Look, you want an enthusiastic statement? I think it’s fantastic that there are so many great writers coming out in those months. I think it speaks to our cultural activity as a people and the fact that these publishers, many of whom are douchebags, have not totally forsaken literary fiction.”

The New York Observer

Eric Amber says he's sorry

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:29 AM - 52 Comments

Via Pat Donnelly at the Montreal Gazette, here’s Eric Amber’s (bilingual!) letter of apology for, well, you know:

To whom it concerns,

There has been much media activity in recent days that began with an email that I sent to the theatre’s mailing list. Les Sages Fous were upset after receiving an all-english message regarding Zoofest programming as part of the Just For Laughs festival.

I reacted inappropriately to their request to receive emails only in French and for this I would like to apologize. However, I would like to explain that I did so not simply due to this one response, but rather because I often receive a disproportionate amount of negative feedback whenever I promote English events that are hosted at Theatre Ste Catherine. Continue…

Bin Laden’s son probably killed

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:28 AM - 0 Comments

US intelligence officials say it was dumb luck that Saad bin Laden was at the strike zone in Pakistan’s tribal areas earlier this year, as he was not of a high enough rank in al-Qaeda to be specifically targeted. However, he is believed to be the mastermind behind several bombings in Saudi Arabia and may have been his father’s pick to one day take over the terrorist organization. Officials are still waiting for DNA confirmation, but say they are “80 to 85 per cent,” sure that Saad was killed.

The Guardian

Activity improves kids’ sleep

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:28 AM - 1 Comment

Parents have long known it to be true: active kids fall asleep faster at night. In a new study of 519 children, the BBC reports, researchers have shown that for every hour of inactivity, kids need three minutes longer to fall asleep. What the children did while sitting still was irrelevant: whether they watched TV, or read a book, made no difference. What’s more, children who took longer to fall asleep behaved just as well as the others, shows the study in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. Most kids fell asleep within 45 minutes; those who fell asleep faster, slept for longer. “As short sleep duration is associated with obesity and lower cognitive performance, community emphasis on the importance of promoting healthy sleep in children is vitally important,” the researchers wrote. “This study emphasizes the importance of physical activity for children, not only for fitness, cardiovascular health and weight control, but also for sleep.”

BBC News

Wiping the slate clean

By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments

A clerk at municipal court in Terrebonne, Quebec, is facing fraud charges related to allegations he deleted 335 convictions from a database in exchange for money. Benoît Jean is alleged to have gone into the database and changed a judge’s verdict in traffic-related cases in order to prevent people from losing their driver’s license. According to La Presse, the case is entirely unprecedented. The city uncovered the ruse last summer and claims it lost some $60,000 in fines, which it’s now moving to collect.

La Presse

Obama, Gates and the Media's Sparkly New Thing

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:16 AM - 6 Comments

Update: Tapper has been defending himself and the coverage of the issue on his Twitter feed. He makes some good and fair points, particularly this one: “You can’t judge our [ABC's] coverage of health-care reform on ONE story.”

It happens a lot: someone gives a press conference to talk about various big issues, and the thing that gets the most attention on TV the next morning is reply to a tangential question. The coverage takes the form of sentence-parsing, taking a particular word that was used and debating what it meant. In this case, Obama’s health-care press conference last night prompted very little discussion about health care, and lots about his comment that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” in arresting Professor Henry Louis Gates.

James Poniewozik has a very good post about why one off-the-cuff comment got so much more coverage than the actual policy stuff. It boils down to three things:

1) Health care has been covered for weeks now and it’s boring. The Gates comment is something new. As ABC’s Jake Tapper (one of the great bi-partisan hacks of our time) put it, “it’s the NEWs not the OLDs.” In other words, once something has been in the news for a while, it’s no longer important, or at least interesting.

2) Obama’s comment on Gates, being off-the-cuff and mildly controversial, was more interesting than his repetition of his previous health-care talking points.

3) The Gates comment is really about big issues that are important to people, and therefore the coverage is not a distraction from anything at all. This is Tapper’s argument, which he made at one point with his patented brand of self-justifying self-righteousness: “funny, media gets hammered (rightly) for often avoiding topic of race in US…and yet…” In other words, the U.S. TV talkers shouldn’t be criticized for turning the entire morning’s coverage into a discussion of one adjective; they should be congratulated for finally covering the topic that those mean liberals wanted them to cover all along.

An additional reason is that the U.S. media is very sensitive to charges that they’re too favourable to Obama (they were not similarly sentitive to equally justified charges that they were too favourable to Bush in 2002-3, but never mind) and by changing the subject to something he didn’t plan on, they prove that he’s not controlling their agenda. In other words, the President called this press conference so we would cover what he wants, but we’re instead going to cover what we want.

Whether it would have helped or hurt the President if they’d covered his health-care statements, I don’t know, and that’s hardly the point (obviously, whether the media is doing its job has nothing to do with whether its coverage helps or hurts the President). But the instant switch in focus demonstrates once again the extent to which the Washington-based media — the “Villagers” as they’re often called these days for their insularity — treats everything as kind of a game. A press conference is a game: if the President makes a gaffe or says something that can be read as controversial, he loses and the networks win. Issues are valuable primarily for their novelty, at least the way Jake Tapper sees it.

U.S. political coverage, especially on TV, sometimes seems like it’s done by people who are bored with issues — since they’re not personally affected by most of them — and assume the audience is equally bored. This, incidentally, may help explain why Rush Limbaugh and some of the Fox News pundits are so popular: their shows frequently focus heavily on real issues. Limbaugh certainly doesn’t think his audience is bored with the health-care issue; he thinks that they’re really interested in opposing Obama’s health-care plan and they want to hear every day about why it’s evil and socialistic. (Of course, he’ll also presumably be talking today about how Obama hates cops and is in league with Gates to destroy America, so there’s a place for that too.) It’s odd that Jake Tapper frequently gives the public less credit than Limbaugh or Hannity do.

New clip of Heath Ledger’s last film unveiled

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

Wired has a new clip of Heath Ledger in The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus; the actor died in 2008, partway through production on the film (Ledger’s role was taken over by Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, who play new transformations of the character). Director Terry Gilliam is set to discuss the film, and air more clips, today at Comic-Con International.

Wired

The deep sea comes to a computer screen near you

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 11:07 AM - 2 Comments

Come August, the ocean floor off the coast of British Columbia will be home to roving robots, bright yellow 13-tonne titanium power nodes, 800 km of fibre optic cable and more. By then, Canada will have beat the U.S., China, Japan and Taiwan to the deep sea in the 21st century equivalent to the space race.

Led by the University of Victoria, NEPTUNE promises to be the world’s largest and most advanced ocean observatory. The team of computer scientists, engineers and ocean scientists behind it is currently wrapping up the final installation of the site infrastructure and expects to have a stream of deep-sea data flowing to the surface by the end of the year. Continue…

German civil service chock full of spies

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 1 Comment

Between the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, scores of East Germans were tortured and intimidated by the Stasi, arguably one of the most repressive secret police agencies in the world. So last week, when it was discovered that roughly 17,000 former Stasi agents are still working as bureaucrats, many Germans were horrified.

The revelation was made by the respected Financial Times Deutschland newspaper, which noted that thousands of Stasi were hired or kept on in Germany’s civil service despite routine background checks. Organizations representing those harmed by the secret police, such as the Victims of Stalinism, are calling for the removal of any former agents from high-ranking positions in the government. Some politicians and civil rights activists also want new background checks and a full investigation of the civil service. Continue…