Weekend reading: George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

By Paul Wells - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 7:16 PM - 137 Comments

This essay had a huge influence on my thinking when I first read it as an undergraduate. In it, Orwell uses, and admits to using, the word “nationalism” very loosely — it could apply to any movement or group to which people can apply blind loyalty or irrational contempt. He wishes people would notice their own “nationalisms” and attempt to correct for them:

The emotional urges which are inescapable, and are perhaps even necessary to political action, should be able to exist side by side with an acceptance of reality. But this, I repeat, needs a moral effort, and contemporary English literature, so far as it is alive at all to the major issues of our time, shows how few of us are prepared to make it.

Of course in today’s political debates in Canada, Orwell’s warnings are as relevant as they ever were anywhere. I know a lot of people I wish would read Orwell’s essay — people who find themselves forever making excuses for one party or faction, while forever dismissing the excuses of another. But of course Orwell’s point is that it’s easy to point out the other guy’s biases without recognizing your own. So I try to find, or even better to avoid, instances in my own work where Orwell would recognize a “nationalism” and smile a sad smile of regret.

My Favourite Halloween-Themed Cartoon

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 6:38 PM - 3 Comments

I think it’s Chuck Jones’s “Broom-Stick Bunny.” I think I have a real fondness for Halloween stories where trick-or-treating turns disastrous, whether it’s for Bugs in this cartoon or Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me In St. Louis (one of the few movies that portrays kids playing old-fashioned Halloween games, where they literally try to be evil). It is kind of a spooky concept.

The “Witch Hazel” character had already appeared in an even funnier cartoon, “Bewitched Bunny,” where she was voiced by Bea Benaderet. By the time they made this follow-up, Benaderet had quit doing voices for WB (she did most of the female characters in the ’40s and early ’50s), so in “Broom-Stick Bunny” she was replaced by June Foray, who did a great job. (Foray was never able to match Benaderet’s work as Granny in the Tweety cartoons, though.)

But Foray had already used a similar voice for another character called “Witch Hazel,” in the Disney Halloween cartoon “Trick Or Treat.” Jones told Foray that Disney couldn’t sue because Witch Hazel is an actual product, so nobody owned the name. Anyway, here’s another Halloween cartoon adventure, Donald Duck and Witch Hazel in “Trick Or Treat.”

Also, via the excellent Chuck Jones blog, here are some layout drawings Jones made for the end of “Broom-Stick Bunny” (they were for the animators, as a guide to how the scene should look; at his best, Jones’s Continue…

George W. Bush unplugged

By John Parisella - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 6:18 PM - 25 Comments

Call it a motivational series or a legacy-burnishing tour: President George W. Bush has been on a cross-Canada speaking tour conveying the lessons he learned over the course of his eight years in the White House. He governed through some of the most challenging crises in U.S. history and has been using the events to explain and defend the policies he implemented during those tumultuous times. Furthermore, his speaking tour serves as a prelude to the book he intends to publish next year. With Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld soon to publish their own accounts of the Bush years, it will be interesting to see if Bush’s view of his tenure differs in any substantial way with that of his collaborators. Historians and critics will surely have a field day parsing through the interpretations.

For the sake of full disclosure, I should note I acted as moderator for last week’s stop in Montreal. The event began with a speech by Bush and was followed by a conversation on topics related to his remarks and his overall presidency. It was not meant to be a substitute for a journalistic interview nor was it intended to be a debate on some of the more controversial aspects of his presidency. The segment with yours truly lasted approximately a half-hour and covered, among other topics, the events following 9-11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his view of the future of the Republican Party, and his own assessment of his achievements and shortcomings. Time being short, some topics like the financial meltdown and Canada’s role in the world were not covered.

Continue…

Heckling, H1N1, sexism, politics, poor taste and an apology

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 5:04 PM - 24 Comments

Chris Selley considers Carolyn Bennett’s week.

There is, of course, a legitimate debate to be had over how, when and to whom Canada is rolling out the H1N1 vaccine. But it is not and will not be conducted in the House of Commons. If anyone in there actually thinks his party is favoured over any other by this incredibly unedifying sideshow — heckling and hooting and sexism allegations and body bags — he’s dreaming.

Closed for business

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 4:58 PM - 3 Comments

“Don’t panic,” he says. As Alberta’s Health Minister Ron Liepert speaks, Calgary’s vaccination clinics are so overwhelmed that by noon all five of them have closed for the day, to reopen tomorrow, and the province risks running out of vaccine by next week. “By late next week, we’re done,” says Liepert, whose rhetorical repertoire appears to lack any soothing balm. As the Calgary Herald‘s Jason Fekete reports, Calgary’s Richmond Road Diagnostic Treatment Centre closed at 9:50 a.m. after a crowd in the neighbourhood of 3,000 people waited for inoculations. The Avenida Village mall clinic attracted thousands to a queue that reached out into the streets. “We’re closing down clinics today because we can’t keep up,” says Liepert. Could things have been handled differently? Liepert tackles the question head on. “Absolutely. I’m not going to sit here and say it was perfect.”

Calgary Herald

This odd existence

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 3:35 PM - 8 Comments

The Prime Minister and the Premier of British Columbia participate in a perfectly natural exchange of gifts. (Note: video does not include mitten-related discussion.)

This and more at the burgeoning Beyond the Commons video archive.

Canada’s representative in Kandahar on Afghanistan's "acid test" and what we're doing there

By Michael Petrou - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 3:02 PM - 2 Comments

Ben Rowswell, Canada’s representative in Kandahar, spoke at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies this week. Here’s a rough summary of what he had to say:

The second round of Afghanistan’s presidential election, to be held November 7, is an “acid test” for the country’s democratic development. Citizens of failed states tend to approach the first election after the fall of a dictatorship with a lot of hope. But instability is typically resilient, and by the time the second election comes around cynicism flourishes. “It’s not just a question of who’s going to be in office, but if the system of governance itself worth pursuing,” says Rowswell. “We’ll see which the Afghans pick. I think the verdict will be mixed.”

Rowswell says that for many Afghans outside Kandahar city, the government is just an abstraction. It has very little impact on their lives. Of those Afghans who did vote, many didn’t believe their ballots would have any effect. However, despite the extensive fraud during the first round, Rowswell says the fact that a runoff has been forced may strengthen Afghans’ support for the democratic process. “To have a president forced to go to a second round by institutions he doesn’t control was a surprise for Afghans. The lesson they are taking from this is that maybe their votes do count.”

[I’d argue here that it wasn’t Afghanistan’s electoral institutions that forced Karzai to agree to a second round, but rather his international allies and backers, primarily the United States, who turned the screws and forced Karzai to give in and admit the sham of his apparent first round re-election.] Continue…

Blessed hindsight

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 3:01 PM - 11 Comments

Bit late to this, but here is Michael Ignatieff’s interview with Canadian Business.

CB: The NDP and the Liberals pushed for a stimulus plan. Now everyone’s complaining about the deficit. So what would you have done differently?

MI: Tighter fiscal control between 2006 to 2008, strategic investment in things that make us more productive, and competitive and strategic infrastructure investments that ought to have been made are only now in the pipeline. And a clearer sense, beginning in 2007, when the economic situation went south, of earlier corrective action. We would have enhanced the gas-tax transfer to all municipalities. That would have gotten the money out infinitely faster. The numbers we’re running are, not much north of 12% of infrastructure investment has actually gone out the door.

The other thing we would have done very differently is strategic investment in places that make a difference. All across the country, people want Vancouver and Halifax to be working more efficiently; they want the borders to be working more efficiently. That strategic spine of export infrastructure, we would have named that as a priority of investment. The other thing is much more robust and energetic effort, beginning in 2006, to build our export performance in China and India.

Week in Pictures: October 23rd – October 30th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:57 PM - 0 Comments

A happier Halloween

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:28 PM - 6 Comments

At the request of Mrs. Harper, the Globe’s cartoonist mocks up a second jack o’ lantern stencil of the Prime Minister, helpfully demonstrating the great difference between Angry Stephen Harper and Joyful Stephen Harper.

Mother urges protection for coyotes that killed her daughter

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:06 PM - 9 Comments

The mother of Canadian folk musician Taylor Mitchell says her daughter would not have wanted the coyotes that killed Mitchell to be put to death. The 19-year-old died on Tuesday after she was attacked by coyotes while on a hike in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park. The statement by Mitchell’s mother was in response to a recent announcement that the pack of coyotes that attacked her daughter would be killed. Calling her daughter a “seasoned naturalist” and “environmentalist,” the elder Mitchell says her daughter “wouldn’t have wanted their demise, especially as a result of her own. She was passionate about animals, was an environmentalist and was also planning to volunteer at the Toronto Wildlife Centre in the coming months.” Taylor’s producer, Michael Johnston, said the girl had a promising career ahead of her: “Musicians saw in her the rarest of the gifts—an ability to sing not only from the heart, but in a way that transcended her age and experience and became something universal.”

CNN

Tories launch gun registry ad blitz

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:04 PM - 23 Comments

Ahead of a vote that could bring an end to the hotly debated federal gun registry, the governing Conservatives are running radio advertisements in select ridings, hoping to put pressure on potential swing votes. The ads, running predominantly in rural ridings, encourage citizens to call and e-mail opposition MPs whose support would help the government pass a private member’s bill that calls for the gun registry to be discontinued. Opponents have long decried the gun registry to be expensive, ineffective and an inconvenience for hunters. But this week Toronto police chief Bill Blair publicly called on the government to maintain the registry, citing its importance to police forces.

The Canadian Press

Toronto Sun

Canada's terrorist "folk heroes"

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM - 12 Comments

According to Canada’s top spy, CSIS head Richard B. Fadden, Canadians are suckers for terrorists. In a speech to a conference of about 300 security and intelligence specialists in Ottawa, Fadden said “those accused of terrorist offences [are] often portrayed in media as quasi-folk heroes.” The kid-glove treatment of terrorist suspects was especially prevalent in the case of the Toronto 18, Fadden said, with the accused often being portrayed as bumbling, misguided youths. The CSIS chief further argued the tension between anti-terror security measures and individual freedoms is exaggerated by a “loose partnership of single-issue NGOs, advocacy journalists and lawyers.” “It is a peculiar position,” he said, “given that terrorism is the ultimate attack on liberties.”

Ottawa Citizen

2012 Are you ready?

By Brian Bethune - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 2:00 PM - 66 Comments

Even though there are still three years to go, give or take a few months, before the end of civilization as we know it, Hollywood has decided to cash in now with 2012, director Roland Emmerich’s $200-million love letter to special effects. Perfectly reasonable plan. After all, millions worldwide believe that cataclysmic destruction—or, just maybe, total spiritual transformation—will commence as soon as the millennia-old Mayan calendar grinds to a halt on Dec. 21, 2012. In either case there won’t be any Ferrari dealers, cocaine suppliers or anyone else to lavish the film profits on. And, for true believers, there’s every motive to go for the gold now. That may have been the thinking of Richard Heene, when the father of six-year-old Falcon concocted the Balloon Boy stunt. “Heene believes the world is going to end in 2012,” according to his friend Richard Thomas. “Because of that he wanted to make money quickly, become rich enough to build a bunker or something underground, where he can be safe from the sun exploding.”

Our friendly neighbourhood star going supernova may be the only destructive touch missing from 2012. The official trailer for the movie, which opens on Nov. 12, has earthquakes, tsunamis and super-volcanos. Whole cities slide into the ocean, and an aircraft carrier, tossed like a child’s toy, lands on the White House. Religious imagery is even harder hit: the dome of St. Peter’s rolls over the faithful; in Rio de Janeiro the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer crumples to the ground; and a lone Buddhist monk (an ecumenical touch, perhaps) is swept away as a wave crashes over his mountaintop shrine. What brings on this Götterdämmerung is barely hinted at in the trailer; according to early reports, it’s not much clearer in the film itself. Continue…

MUSIC: Some Recordings Worth Hearing

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 1:38 PM - 0 Comments

I still like CDs. (It seems weird that CD collecting is a nostalgia habit while LP collecting is a growth industry, but that seems to be where we’re heading. I grew up in the CD boom era, so I tend to prefer them to vinyl. And as for downloading, I just can’t quite bring myself to enjoy the idea of not physically owning something.) But whatever format you use to feed your music-listening habit, there are still some worthwhile classical recordings being released. Some thoughts on a couple of recordings I picked up recently. (Also: yes, the Beatles mono mixes are better than the stereo mixes, because, well, the stereo is just a mono mix split into two and divided between speakers. That’s the way a lot of pop was mixed in the ’60s, because nobody cared about stereo outside of classical.)

- Haydn, The Creation, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, René Jacobs. I look forward to any recording by Jacobs, the countertenor-turned-conductor. There’s been a very mild critical backlash against Jacobs, because of his tendency to add things to the 17th and 18th-century pieces he records. In particular, critics get annoyed by the way he encourages the piano continuo player to improvise and comment on the action. But what I like about him is that a) he’d always rather be anything except boring, and b) He always tries to bring out the dramatic values in anything he conducts. That’s extremely important in Haydn’s oratorio, which one of Jacobs’ singers (in a making-of DVD that accompanies this boxed set) describes as “cartoon music,” with the orchestra constantly portraying the animals, water and even the state of non-being (the prelude is the “representation of Chaos” before the world was created). A conductor who tries to keep the music from sounding goofy or corny will just make it sound boring. Jacobs, like Leonard Bernstein in his great ’60s recording of this same piece with the New York Philharmonic, isn’t afraid of the extra-musical associations, like the bronx cheers from the trombones representing the beasts of the field.

If anything, Jacobs’ recording isn’t quite as vulgar or extroverted as I was hoping; maybe it’s the small size of the orchestra and chorus (Haydn preferred the piece to be done by large groups) or the sound balance, but sometimes the effect isn’t as powerful as other recordings, like Bernstein’s (the first recording, not his relatively boring remake) or the recent period-instrument versions conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock (on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi) and Andreas Spering (on Naxos). But Jacobs gets good work from his soloists, as he usually does — as a former singer, he knows how to get the best of singers — and encourages them to ornament their music more than most singers do (it was expected that singers would add things whenever the composer wrote a repeat). And there are some bits he does better than almost anyone, like the pizzicato chord after God says “let there be light.” (It’s weird to think that so many conductors could get this simple chord wrong, but many of them either bring it in too soon or make it sound too weak and indecisive — and when a chord literally represents the word of God, it had better sound strong.) The piece itself, of course, is wonderful, a celebration of the world, nature, and finally of love and pleasure between human beings (the fall of Adam and Eve is dismissed in about 20 seconds; what Haydn really emphasizes is that the world is a great place to be, no matter where you are). Here’s an excerpt from the 23-minute documentary that is included with the set:

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.3783126&w=560&h=340&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

- Brahms, Symphony no. 3, Orchestre Revolutionaire Et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner. Gardiner has been performing and recording the Brahms symphonies on period instruments (there has been one other period-instrument Brahms cycle on record, by Roger Norrington; it’s out of print) and filling the discs out with Brahms’s choral works, both his original pieces and arrangements of songs by others. This certainly makes for more varied and interesting discs than the ones that are filled out with overtures or something. (Brahms only wrote two overtures and one set of variations, so most conductors just use those, over and over, to pad out a CD.) This new recording of Brahms’s best symphony — the shortest, the most concise, and the most powerful — is the best in the series so far. The first two symphonies, while well done, didn’t offer a whole lot that you can’t get from the many previous recordings; the period instruments don’t add that much (since instruments in Brahms’s time weren’t all that different than now, except for some of the brass instruments). But Gardiner does have something to offer in 3 that most conductors don’t. Brahms marked the first movement “allegro con brio,” the same tempo marking as the opening movement of Beethoven’s fifth. Yet for some reason, almost every conductor takes this movement quite slowly; it’s one of those traditions that doesn’t make a great deal of sense, since a slow speed makes the movement sound a bit heavy and plodding. Gardiner actually bothers to do the first movement at a speed that sounds like “allegro con brio.” It makes the first movement more passionate-sounding and creates a better balance of moods within the whole symphony; the second and third movements are both kind of slowish, so with the traditional tempo for the first movement, the whole symphony sounds like it proceeds at the same speed. The main choral fill-up, Nanie, is one of Brahms’s most attractive choral pieces, and Gardiner’s chorus, the Monteverdi Choir, is one of the best in the business.

Fun with maps (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:56 AM - 3 Comments

Another interactive map to explore, this one with pretty colours.

Casualties of the book price war: readers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:43 AM - 1 Comment

What looks like a simple price war between Amazon, Target, and Walmart over a handful of bestsellers, writes attorney and bookseller William Petrocelli, is really a fight over what you get to read. At the prices these behemoths are charging, they’re selling those books below cost—i.e. predatory pricing, a means of driving other booksellers out of business. Whatever that means to their fellow chains, the first victims will be actual bookstores, and the next readers. These types of disruptions in how books are sold or distributed has a profound effect on what publishers decide to publish in the first place. Think of the book business as a giant funnel, in which millions of authors are trying to reach tens of millions of readers. The image is a telling one, because the literary life of America has to go through two very narrow choke points: publishing and bookselling. Both have become more restrictive in recent years—a few large publishing conglomerates and even more concentration at retail. The chain stores had been doing their best to squeeze out the independents over the last 20 years or so, and now they in turn are being squeezed by the mass merchandisers. So how does a new author break in? It’s never been easy. But buyers for independent stores tended to cancel out each other’s mistakes; no single error in judgment could sink a prospective literary career; when the system is dominated by a small handful of powerful buyers, their decision can make or break a book.

The Huffington Post

From CTV to the NAC

By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:33 AM - 5 Comments

Much-loved CTV journalist Rosemary Thompson leaves the Hill to join the National Arts Centre as their communications director. She held a farewell bash at Ottawa’s watering hole Brixton’s. Below is Thompson with her daughter Jasmine.

Transport minister John Baird.

Continue…

Men who stare at movies

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:17 AM - 2 Comments

If you’ve come here looking for George Clooney, I owe you an apology. In this week’s issue of the magazine, a page promoting highlights on Macleans.ca promised an Opening Weekend review of The Men Who Stare at Goats, which stars  Clooney as a whacked-out U.S soldier trained in paranormal powers. But we were jumping the gun. The movie doesn’t open until Nov. 6, so you’ll have to wait a week. Mea culpa. But I’d like to blame this scheduling dyslexia on the screwy way the film critic racket works. What happens is we’re force-fed All The Important Fall Movies in first few days of the September binge called the Toronto International Film Festival. Crazy. Then we wait for them to come out so we can tell you what we think of them. That can take weeks, months, or in some cases, years. Sometimes we toss off mini-reviews during the festival, but we’re generally too busy gorging on movies to stop and think about them, or even keep them straight. Also, distributor etiquette requires us to hold our fire until the film’s commercial release.  I guess I was so keen to review The Men Who Stare at Goats that my mind was playing tricks on me. Like the soldiers in the film who try to train themselves to walk thorough walls and move objects with their minds, this trigger-happy critic was trying to will George Clooney’s goat movie to come out a week early. Or at least that’s my story. So check in next week for the review, and in the meantime if you want a hit of the real George, sharing the red carpet with real goats at a swanky TIFF party, go to a previous blog in which I ask Mr. Clooney, politely, to stop stalking me and messing with my head: Men who Stare at George Clooney.

Parity party

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:12 AM - 27 Comments

Once again the dollar is flirting with parity, and once again everyone is very excited about it. Why? Objectively, there is no more significance to the dollar being worth US100 cents than any other value, except that 100 is a nice, round number.

Yes, it means the Canadian dollar is worth as much as a U.S. dollar. But so what? The only reason anyone pays attention to this is because they have the same name. If we were to call our currency something else—I have long favoured “the pelt”—then the mere fact that on any given day, between one currency being worth more than the other and the reverse, their values happened momentarily to coincide would attract little notice. But because they are both called the dollar, it gives rise to the entirely occult belief that the two ought naturally to be at par, the approach of which is celebrated as if it were some kind of cosmic convergence. Continue…

When moms get flu shot, babies benefit

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 11:09 AM - 0 Comments

Pregnant women who are vaccinated against the flu will have bigger, healthier babies that are less likely to be premature, according to a new report that shows influenza vaccines protect pregnant women and their babies after birth. Researchers hope this will encourage pregnant women to get the vaccine. “We are talking about one vaccine protecting two individuals,” Dr. Marietta Vazquez of Yale University told reporters. “Maybe if they are not getting vaccinated for themselves, they will do it for their babies.” Pregnant women are especially vulnerable to the flu because their immune systems are suppressed so their body doesn’t reject the fetus, which also presses on their lungs. Currently 6 per cent of swine flu deaths have been among pregnant women. In the study, which started in 2000, U.S. researchers looked at some 350 pregnant women—157 who got the flu shot and 195 who didn’t. “Flu vaccine given to women during pregnancy is 85 percent effective in preventing hospitalization in their infants under 6 months of age,” the team wrote in a statement.

Reuters

'We had a good plan'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 9:45 AM - 59 Comments

In a speech at Carleton, Stephane Dion reflects.

Dion understands that the fear people had of his carbon tax is what hurt him the most.

“We had a good plan, Canadians ended up being afraid of it. The conservatives came with attack adds against me … [Stephen Harper] invested a lot of money in this… People were convinced that [the carbon tax]… was a fiscal change, we did a poor job to explain that their income tax would be cut by 10 per cent,” he said. “Now people are stopping me in the street everywhere telling me that they thought it was a good plan.”

But Dion is still confident, comparing his situation to the first time women tried to get the right to vote. “It’s not because we have a ‘no’ the first time that we have to stop … I met the minister of the environment of Sweden and I asked her how come in your country whatever the government does, is much more than [what we do],  she told me it wasn’t the case at the beginning but it is the case now.”

This week: Good news/Bad news

By Michael Friscolanti - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 1 Comment

Face of the week
Champagne shower: Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Jayson Werth celebrates after his team earned a spot in the World Series

A week in the life of Danielle Smith
Last week, the former journalist and broadcaster won the leadership race for Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance Party; this week she’s hoping to win over Albertans. After a brief appearance at the provincial legislature on Monday, Smith set out on a cross-province tour to drum up support for her fledgling party, which is seeking to uproot a majority Conservative government. According to a recent poll, 18 per cent of Albertans support the Wildrose Alliance. Continue…

What if we'd brought him back?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 61 Comments

The government reports its legal tab in the case of Omar Khadr to be $1,335,342.37 so far.

Investigating another matter entirely the other night, the CBC’s Terry Milewski put the cost to keep a prisoner in Canada at $100,000 per year. Air Canada seems to offer daily flights from Cuba for approximately $400.

So, in case you were wondering, for about the same amount of money, Mr. Khadr might’ve been flown to Canada and imprisoned here for 13 years. He arrived at Guantanamo almost exactly seven years ago. So if he’d been returned immediately at that point, at least under this imaginative scenario, he would presently be due to serve another six years and scheduled for release in 2015.