Fort hood shooter paralyzed from the neck down

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 2:23 PM - 5 Comments

The lawyer for Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, the army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., has announced his client is paralyzed from the chest down and doctors believe his paralysis will be permanent. In an interview, John P. Galligan told the Washington Post that Hasan fell asleep in a hearing in his hospital room on Saturday that lasted about an hour. “When I’ve spoken with him, he’s coherent, but your ability to have any meaningful exchange with him is limited in time and subject.” Hasan, who has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder, will remain in confinement until his court-martial, a date for which has not been set.

Washington Post

Margaret Thatcher back at 10 Downing

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:19 PM - 0 Comments

The veneer of civilization was looking mighty solid as Margaret Thatcher appeared at No. 10 Downing Street today—her old residence from her days as PM—for the unveiling of her official portrait. Frail but still subtly indomitable as she greeted current PM Gordon Brown, Thatcher is very much alive, despite the news that Canadian Transport Minister John Baird disseminated around Parliament (about his recently deceased cat, also named Thatcher) not long ago. Unlike in Canada, where even prime ministerial interlopers like Kim Campbell and Joe Clark get immortalized in oil, then hung on the Hill, the Brits are more circumspect. Only two 20th century PMs have paintings on display at No. 10:: David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill. Thatcher becomes the third.

The Guardian

"I screamed, but there was nothing to hear"

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:14 PM - 4 Comments

A Belgium man misdiagnosed as being in a hopeless vegetative state for 23 years was in fact conscious, though he had no way of letting his doctors know he was suffering. Rom Houbens, a martial arts enthusiast and engineering student, was paralyzed after a 1983 car crash. Three years ago, he was correctly diagnosed after a re-evaluation of his case showed his brain function to be almost normal. Houbens, who remains in constant care facility, recalls waking up after the accident: “I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he says. “I became a witness to my own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak with me until they gave up all hope.” Now able to tap out messages on a computer screen, he calls the proper diagnosis his “second birth.” Neurologist Steven Laureys, who led the re-examination, believes there are many other similar cases of misdiagnosis around the world.

Telegraph

Officially ugly

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM - 2 Comments

Torontonians have always had a hunch the thing was ugly. Now, that inkling has been confirmed. This week, the new addition to Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum earned 8th place in Virtualtourist.com’s rankings of the “World’s Top 10 Ugly Buildings.” According to the tourism website, the “Crystal,” as Michael Lee-Chin’s ultramodern glass structure is called, leaves many “troubled by the incongruity to the original, more traditional museum that sits directly beside it.” The world’s ugliest structures were the Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore, Md., followed by the Zizkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, and “The Beehive” in Wellington, New Zealand.

CBC.ca

Moral vacuum in theatre 3

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:04 PM - 3 Comments

Twihards: the Vatican has its eyes on you. This week, the Catholic church slammed New Moon, the latest installment in the Twilight series, calling it “nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message.” In particular, Church spokeman Monsignor Franco Perazzolo attacked the film for its occult imagery, describing New Moon’s many vampires and werewolves as a “moral void more dangerous than any deviant message.” The criticism of Twilight follows similar anti-pop culture crusades by the Church in recent years, such as its condemnations of the Harry Potter series, which allegedly glorifies witchcraft, and the “anti-Christian” bent of Halloween celebrations.

National Post

'The Canadians saw with their own eyes'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:04 PM - 16 Comments

A former Afghan prison warden talks to Canwest.

Some Taliban prisoners who were transferred two or three years ago to Sarpoza Prison by Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security bore signs that they had been tortured, the former warden told Canwest News Service on Monday. But Canadian soldiers went to great lengths to try to ensure that prisoners who they had detained and handed over to the NDS were not abused, said Abdul Qadar Khan Popal.

“At the time, John, from the Canadian side, was looking after prisoners that were in NDS custody and was always complaining to the NDS because the prisoners had told him they were tortured,” Popal said. “He tried to bring them out of NDS custody and into Sarpoza as quickly as he could because he understood the situation.

“The Canadians saw with their own eyes and asked the prisoners if they had any complaints. The Canadians minded very strongly when the prisoners complained and advised us not to mistreat anyone. The explained to us about human rights and told us how to treat prisoners, especially political ones.”

“Big Bang Machine” set to go online

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 1:02 PM - 0 Comments

The so-called “Big Bang Machine,” otherwise known as the Large Hadron Collider, is expected to soon start delivering information on the origins of the universe, moving to full power by next year, according to a project leader. Yet the world’s largest particle collider might not hit top speed until 2011, physicist Steve Myers said of the machine, which sits across the Swiss-French border at the CERN research lab. The $10 billion experiment, which involves scientists from around the world, was relaunched this weekend after an accident over one year ago brought it to a crashing halt, just nine days after it started. According to Myers, particle beams were sent around the 27-km tunnel on Friday, and everything went smoothly. The machine was created to discover how the universe was formed after the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago. In previous experiments using an earlier collider, scientists produced energy close to that of the Big Bang. They’re hoping the Large Hadron Collider will help resolve what anti-matter is and whether the theoretical Higgs boson particle, which is thought to give matter its mas, really does exist.

Reuters

“Tribal awakening” redux

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:42 PM - 0 Comments

In an echo of the “tribal awakening” in Iraq, in which the United States armed and funded independent militias willing to fight against al-Qaeda, American and Afghan officials are now supporting non-government Afghan militias that have taken up arms to defend their villages against the Taliban. The strategy helped quell the insurgency in Iraq in 2007 and 2008 and America is hoping the trend will spread to the Taliban’s Pashtun heartland in the south and east of the country.

NYTimes

Get rid of that centrepiece, let’s eat

By Jessica Allen - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:39 PM - 0 Comments

The Roman Emperor Elagabalus knew how to entertain: he lined his banqueting rooms with solid silver couches, served peacock tongues and flamingo brains, and let loose his pet lions during dessert, just for fun. At the end of the night, guests were sent home with a party favour, like a eunuch, or a four-horse chariot. Times sure have changed since the third century. Today the dinner party is an endangered institution. At least that’s what Zora O’Neill and Tamara Reynolds think. The two food bloggers are determined to revive the art with their new book, Forking Fantastic, which offers menus, step-by-step plans, and tips for novice party throwers and experienced, unflappable hosts alike. And don’t bother getting out the good linen and the centrepiece. “All of these superficial things,” they argue, “have nearly driven dinner parties to the brink of extinction.”

It’s a shame, because we’ve been congregating with food as the focal point for thousands of years. As Margaret Visser writes in The Rituals of Dinner, in many cultures, “two people do not feel they can talk in a friendly way with each other unless they have first eaten together.” And the dinner party is flagging in an age in which our senses are inundated with all things food-related. In fact, the picture-perfect dishes on TV and in glossy magazines may be part of the problem, says Reynolds: “Everybody thinks, ‘I can’t have people over because it won’t be perfect.’ ”

O’Neill and Reynolds, who met while working at Prune restaurant in Manhattan, started out hosting Sunday night dinners for friends five years ago. Soon friends were inviting other friends, until invitations became so coveted the pair made a rule that only the first 20 people to respond scored a seat at the table, albeit not necessarily an actual chair: early events saw cinder blocks topped with pillows. Emily Post it’s not, but these two do know something about entertaining: since 2003, they’ve served dinner to nearly 1,800 friends and strangers, each of whom arrives with only a bottle of wine and $35. O’Neill and Reynolds encourage would-be hosts to break the old rules, like not serving something you’ve never prepared before. When else will you have the chance to cook a leg of lamb that serves six? And for heaven’s sake, don’t start scrubbing floorboards and cleaning the bathroom before company comes over: just make sure you have toilet paper, and take that bra off the doorknob.

The authors are following the lead of comedian Amy Sedaris, who derailed the decorum train in 2006 with her lavishly illustrated book, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. Sedaris, more famous for her stints on David Letterman than as a hospitality expert, concedes that her way “may not be the proper way, or the most traditional, or even legal.” But her thesis, if one can call it that, is bang on. She believes that when you invite somebody over for dinner, what you’re really saying is, “Hello, and I like you.”

It sounds simple, so why aren’t we saying it? Sara Angel, former editor-in-chief of Chatelaine and a consummate host, says the real problem is people don’t know how to cook anymore. Angel and her husband, who grew up in households that frequently entertained, cook for friends once a week. Having three kids forces them to entertain at home, otherwise “we would never see our friends.” Her secret? A big freezer in the basement. By tripling recipes, she’s always got a cache of prepared meals waiting for company. Angel knows about mishaps: “This is my horror of horrors—and I’m going to sound like a total Jewish mom here—but one time we didn’t have enough food.” They ran out of monkfish at portion No. 6. There were eight guests. Plates were collected back from the guests, and portions redistributed. Crisis diverted.

Tom Earl’s tip: buy, rather than make, labour-intensive ingredients like demi-glace or preserves at food specialty shops. The veteran waiter, who’s worked for Susur Lee and Mark McEwan, feeds his friends so brilliantly they surprised him with a cheque for nearly $1,100 so he could buy a bigger dining table and more chairs. Earl, 46, prepares as much as he can in advance. At a recent gathering, he made a seared scallop appetizer to order, and while everybody ate, his pre-made individual chicken pot pies (decorated with each guest’s initials on top) baked in the oven.

Above all, the pros insist, relax. If a dish doesn’t turn out, there’s always pizza. “I just love it when people eat with their fingers and lick their fingers,” Reynolds says. “I think it’s the hottest thing.”

Magazine cover of the week

By Paul Wells - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:38 PM - 6 Comments

The cover line translates strictly as, “But what is happening to him?” and perhaps more loosely as, “So what’s his problem?” The editorial, by Franz-Olivier Giesbert, laments the French president’s “rain of projects, min-reforms, mini-measures…a sort of legislative bulimia.” The headline on the edit is “The Spanking Syndrome,” because apparently Sarko’s latest brainstorm is to ban spanking.

Canadian romance: girl meets coat

By Joanne Latimer - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:38 PM - 1 Comment

“I was a first-year student at the Université de Montréal when my aunt bought me my first designer coat—a forest-green Hilary Radley with a princess waist and gold buttons,” sighed Montreal stylist Alexandra Mélançon. “It was warm and exquisite. I’ll never forget it.” It’s the classic Canadian romance: girl meets coat. When that coat is a Hilary Radley, women get emotional (ask around). But Mélançon’s nostalgia for her coat is tempered by her professional opinion of the Hilary Radley line. “Her coats used to be more tailored, more fitted, more design-oriented. But several years ago, they became bigger, more puffy, as if to please the mass market. They lost their edge.”

In a bold move to disabuse people of this notion, Hilary Radley is back at the drawing board, literally, directing the day-to-day operations of her iconic label. “The buck stops here again,” said Radley, sitting in her Sherbrooke Street atelier in Montreal, looking stunning in a recycled mink sweater and Prada pants. This fall, Radley ended an 18-year licensing agreement with Utex Fashion Group, a Canadian outerwear manufacturer, and signed with the Levy Group. “It was a hard decision to leave Utex, but a new team came in, they downsized their designer division and it was time to re-address the business,” clarified Radley, touching fabric swatches of alpaca boiled wool in colours with names like ink and clay. “You need to keep the label consistent. You need to be vigilant about the brand.”

Noah Stern, president of Levy Canada, is eager to have Radley keeping watch. Some years ago, “Utex and Hilary decided to take Hilary out of the design process,” said Stern. “We saw a change in the product and the price came down. It went off its core message. They decided to part ways, and now she’s poised to reclaim the label.” Utex Fashion Group claims the split was amicable. “We decided to focus on the mass market,” explained Marian Gurberg, whose family started Utex in 1943. “Designer labels require better quality fabric and trim, more time and facilities. We had to pull back and refocus. Did the lousy economy help? No.”

The Hilary Radley brand still has a firm hold on the better U.S. department stores, including Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, and Ogilvy in Montreal. “Her use of textured fabrics and luxury fibres such as alpaca is very appealing to our guests,” said Jeff Binder, VP and divisional merchandise manager for coats at Bloomingdale’s. “The brand sells well for us. For the current fall season, we purchased about 20 styles.”

Radley spent the last four years travelling extensively—including treks in the Himalayas, three trips to China, and seven trips to Europe last year alone. “But I never considered myself retired. I still went to the shows in Paris and Europe,” explained the designer, whose coats have been spotted on Hilary Duff and Meryl Streep, among others. “I’m just thrilled to be back.” So are her fans. “You can’t underestimate how influential Hilary is,” said Claude Laframboise, editor-in-chief at LOULOU. “She put Canada on the map for outerwear. She brought the designer concept to the masses—sort of a designer democracy. Girls and women of all ages were proud to say their coat was a Hilary Radley.”

To understand another key to her success, talk to redheads. Radley, who is a dark strawberry blond, is a favourite among that group because of her devotion to shades that suit their colouring—like the forest-green princess coat that suited Mélançon’s strawberry curls. “Oh, we can always count on Hilary Radley to have dark greens in her collection,” confirmed Monique Lessard, merchandising director for accessories at Ogilvy, where they do a brisk trade in Radley’s wrinkle-resistant gabardine twills and taffeta polyacrylic raincoats. “Hilary is a ginger at heart,” enthused redhead Alison McGill, the editor-in-chief at Weddingbells and owner of a burnt-red, ankle-length boiled wool Radley coat. “She understands that colour and drama are paramount. She makes bold coats that work with our colouring.”

Aside from the ginger contingent, is Hilary Radley still the coming-of-age coat for women in Canada? “Absolutely,” says Montreal writer Juliet Waters. “At the age of 21, I bought a classic Hilary Radley duffle trench at Holt Renfrew with money from my first full-time job. It made me feel like a young woman set for a life of stable affluence. Twenty-five years later, I’m still not stable, but I just found a perfect camel hair coat with chocolate pinstripes by Hilary Radley at a second-hand store for six dollars. I have arrived.”

Firefighters, liver cancer, and Trudeau hits the dance floor

By Mitchel Raphael - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:32 PM - 7 Comments

What A Girl Wants was a fundraiser for the Canadian Liver Foundation, which included a fashion show and Ottawa firefighters. Below, Justin Trudeau has a dance off with Kenzie Potter from Conservative House leader Jay Hill’s office.

One of the organizers Annette Martin (centre), wife of National Post columnist Don Martin, with Labour Minister Rona Ambrose and a firefighter.

Continue…

The exit strategy is success

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:28 PM - 16 Comments

Wisdom from John McCain:

Setting exit dates from conflicts such as Afghanistan “defeats the entire purpose of sending people over there,” according to United States Senator John McCain, who said Monday that establishing security is paramount for success in the country.

McCain, who spent the weekend at a security conference in Halifax, told CTV’s Canada AM that the primary goal of warfare is “to break the will of the enemy.”

However, with the Canadian mission scheduled to end in 2011 and the Dutch and the British threatening to withdraw troops if President Hamid Karzai doesn’t take steps to tackle rampant corruption, militants know all they have to do is hang in until the pullout dates.

“If you announce that you’re leaving after a certain period of time, then of course you have the opposite effect on the enemy, who decides they’ll be there and they’ll just hang around until you leave,” McCain said.

More:

U.S. Senator John McCain says military exit dates and exit strategies in Afghanistan should not even be discussed until NATO gets the upper hand in its fight against Taliban militants.

McCain told the Halifax International Security Forum on Saturday that “success” in the war-torn country is the way out of the conflict.

“The exit strategy is success,” he said. “It’s when you succeed and start to draw down.”

I seem to remember certain Canadian politicians saying much the same thing, once. But there were statesmen then…

Ditching the pill for good

By Kate Lunau - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 12:22 PM - 33 Comments

Teresa Lambert was 15 years old when she first went on the pill. Her family doctor, she says, talked up its benefits: “She said my skin would be clear, and I’d know when my periods were coming.” At the time, it sounded “great,” she says, but 10 years later, she’s feeling differently: the 26-year-old recently went off the pill, and says a lot of her friends are doing the same. “I didn’t want to be taking something that altered my body any more,” says the Calgary native, who now uses condoms instead.

Lambert isn’t alone. While the pill remains one of the most widely used methods of birth control in Canada—only the condom is more popular—a growing number of women are feeling ambivalent about it, or ditching it altogether. In fact, oral contraceptive prescriptions in Canada levelled off in 2008, reports pharmaceutical industry analyst IMS Health Canada. Health care workers are seeing a growing demand for non-hormonal methods. Spurred by concerns about their health, the environment, or even frustration with family doctors, who sometimes seem to push the pill as a modern-day cure-all, Canadian women are looking for other options.

In this age of organic produce and yoga studios on every block, it’s no surprise that a growing number of women don’t want to take hormones every day. Yet a spate of recent studies left some, Lambert included, doubly concerned. In April, U.S. researchers announced that birth control pills seem to impair muscle growth: in 73 healthy women aged 18 to 31, those who weren’t taking oral contraceptives gained 60 per cent more muscle mass than those on the pill. Birth control pills typically contain a mix of estrogen and progesterone, the “pregnancy hormone,” says Steven Riechman of Texas A&M University, one of the study’s authors; the results could be due to the fact that, “when you’re pregnant, you’re not building muscle, because you need to reserve resources for the fetus.”

To prevent pregnancy, the pill suppresses ovulation, which is why Emma Lind, 28, avoids it. “I consider ovulation to be my most powerful time,” says the Ottawa resident, who uses condoms. “My skin clears up, I’ve got lots of energy, and I’m physically present.” Before this fertile phase, a woman’s estrogen and testosterone levels peak, causing a spike in libido, says the University of British Columbia’s Dr. Jerilynn Prior, scientific director of the Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research. In women who take the pill, hormone levels stay relatively flat.

It isn’t just a woman’s sex drive that might be affected by the pill; experts speculate it could even impact their taste in men. In a recent paper, University of Sheffield researchers concluded that women on the pill don’t show the same preference for more “masculine” features—like dominant behaviour, or competitiveness—that ovulating women do. What’s more, they’re less likely to choose partners who are genetically dissimilar from themselves. (When genetically similar couples have children, it can cause health problems for the baby.) Though the reasons aren’t fully understood, it seems that men respond to a woman’s cycles, too. Prior cites a surprising study in lap dancers which found that, right before ovulating, they got the most tips.

For Lind, the environment was also a factor in her choice of birth control. Synthetic estrogens from the pill, as well as those naturally produced by our bodies, are passed through human urine, ending up “in the sewage treatment plant,” says Vance Trudeau, a biologist at the University of Ottawa. Trudeau’s work has shown that, when these estrogens find their way into the ecosystem, they can turn male frogs into female, a result that Lind declares “scary.”

How to explain the pill’s lasting popularity? For one thing, it’s effective: about 98 per cent, if used correctly. In spite of the wide range of birth control options available to Canadian women, from the contraceptive ring to the patch, women stick to the condom and the pill, notes a recent report from the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada.

That’s partly due to a lack of familiarity with other methods: health care workers are often “more comfortable talking about the pill,” says Dr. Amanda Black, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study, and lack the time to walk a patient through several other options. Even so, many women increasingly lack patience with this. “I’m amazed how many contraceptive devices there are out there that you just don’t hear about,” says Toronto resident Emily van der Meulen, 32. Meanwhile, “you go into a university washroom, and every second ad is for the birth control pill.”

As women look for other options, the intrauterine device is making a comeback: the Mirena IUD, for one, releases small amounts of hormones directly into the uterus, levels that Black says are almost undetectable in the bloodstream. But several women told Maclean’s that, when they approached their family doctor about being fitted for one, they had to be referred to another doctor. “Not all doctors are comfortable putting them in,” Black agrees. “Sometimes there’s an extra step that isn’t there with the pill.”

Of course, that’s not the only reason the pill is prescribed. It offers benefits beyond pregnancy prevention, she adds, lowering the risk of endometrial and ovarian cancer. (Some studies have suggested an increased risk of breast or cervical cancer, she notes, but more research is needed.) It’s often prescribed to treat everything from menstrual cramps and acne to hirsutism (excessive hairiness).

Not all women, though, are happy to take hormones to treat what they see as perfectly natural conditions. Stephanie Bialik, a 25-year-old Calgary-based writer, was prescribed the pill at the age of 13 to help her heavy periods; looking back, she wonders if it was necessary. “I wasn’t really used to my cycle, or how it felt,” she says. She’s not taking the pill anymore.

The pill does have some side effects, Black notes, but most of them—like headaches, nausea and bloating—are simply a “nuisance,” and will soon go away. Indeed, millions of women take the pill today with good results. Prior agrees that most doctors would advise women to “take the pill and not worry about it,” but she takes a slightly different view. “There’s an emotional identity attached to achieving your own menstrual cycle, and being able to read your body,” she says. “When you’re on the pill, it’s the doctor who’s controlling your cycle. You don’t own it.”
Since going off the pill, Lambert’s been watching her own body change: “I always had really clear skin, and now my skin’s breaking out,” she says. “It’s not awesome being 26 and having acne, and trying to figure out your periods.” Even so, she says, “I’m glad I’m doing it.”

When first we practiced to deceive

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:58 AM - 75 Comments

The Star’s Rosie DiManno reminds us of a rather salient point:

… Few of those clawing at their faces today in angst and shame over who-knew-what-when-generated hysteria with regard to mistreatment of Afghan detainees have paused to recall how this mess originated.

It’s because Canada picked Afghans over Americans as front-line allies…

Given the toxic view of American forces – no matter that the horrific mistreatment of Iraqi detainees was, at least in terms of supporting evidence, limited to specific rogue units in one notorious facility – it was clearly decided, by who knows whom, Canada could not put detainees in such soiled hands, despite the U.S. being this country’s closest nation-friend.

Someone bought into the dubious premise that the entire American military was not to be trusted and that Afghan wardens, Afghan guards, Afghan officials, were preferable partners in the disposition of detainees, although the only remotely up-to-Western-par prison facility was at the American base in Bagram.

And who was that someone? A Globe editorial reminds us:

In hindsight, the Liberal government of Paul Martin may have been naive in taking the initiative to press for the transfer of detainees to the Afghan authorities, rather than continuing to hand them over to the armed forces of the United States. At the time, Canada was worried by the prospect that Afghans captured by Canadian soldiers might end up in the limbo – or worse – of Guantanamo, Cuba. The government of Afghanistan, having been recently democratically elected, appeared to be a more promising and appropriate recipient for Afghan citizens.

Oops. But can you blame them? Remember the brouhaha over that photo, splashed across the front page of the Globe and Mail, of Canadian JTF2 commandoes shepherding Afghan prisoners for transfer to the Americans? That was in early 2002, when Jean Chretien was prime minister and Art Eggleton was the minister in charge of offering up confused, misleading answers to Parliament — a post later occupied by Gordon O’Connor and now by Peter MacKay.

So the tangled web goes back a ways. As A. Columnist wrote at the time:

But let’s remember why this was an issue in the first place. Mr. Eggleton’s startling revelation, that members of the Joint Task Force 2 commando unit had captured several enemy fighters nearly two weeks ago, was only newsworthy because it contradicted the Prime Minister, who had been saying publicly that no prisoners had as yet been taken. The Prime Minister had said this in order to make the point that the question of what should be done with any prisoners our forces might happen to come across — whether they should be handed over to the American forces, or to some other body — was “hypothetical,” and that as such he was not obliged to take a position on it.

And the reason the Prime Minister took refuge in this non-answer was because he did not wish to confront critics within his own party, who have worked themselves up into a state over the Terrible Wrong that would be committed if Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were to be delivered into the hands of the Americans…

New York I love you

By Andrew Potter - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:52 AM - 6 Comments

Saw this badassmobile drive through the West Village yesterday. Seriously, wtf:

What happened to those 130?

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:50 AM - 0 Comments

The government has long maintained that to disclose the number of detainees transferred by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan would violate operational security, but a government source now tells the Globe that approximately 130 were transferred during the first 14 months of combat operations in Kandahar.

In June 2006, when news broke that Canadian soldiers had twice intervened to prevent the execution of prisoners, a spokesman for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission told the Canadian Press that about 30 percent of prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities were abused. CP’s report of June 2, in its entirety, after the jump. Continue…

Canadian Forces knew

By macleans.ca - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:44 AM - 6 Comments

According to Gen. Walt Natynczyk, Canadian soldiers on more than one occasion refrained from handing over prisoners to Afghan authorities, fearing they might be tortured. The federal government has admitted it pre-empted prisoner transfers once in November 2007, but Natynczyk told an international security conference in Halifax over the weekend that wasn’t the only time. Natynczyk’s confirmation that Canadian troops were aware Afghans were being mistreated was bolstered by the release of a report prepared by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission documenting nearly 400 incidents of torture in the country, 47 of which occurred in Kandahar, where Canadian troops are stationed. “Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are common in the majority of law enforcement institutions,” the report’s authors wrote in April 2009, “and at least 98.5 per cent of interviewed victims have been tortured.” Still, it remains unclear how many torture victims were apprehended by Canadians. While initial reports suggested as many as 600 prisoners were transferred to Afghan authorities by Canadian troops, a government source tells The Globe and Mail the figure may in fact be closer to 130. Through Defence Minister Peter MacKay, the federal government has steadfastly denied any detainees were tortured after their hand-over. “Not a single Taliban prisoner turned over by Canadian Forces can be proven to have been abused,” MacKay said at the Halifax conference. “That is the crux of the issue.”

Canadian Press

The Globe and Mail

CBC News

Joining the fight

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 9 Comments

As a woman in politics and a representative of royalty, there has always been a fascination with Michaëlle Jean’s attire. Often glamorous, the Governor General has hardly shied from the subject. It was with some justification then that Peter Mansbridge, anchoring the CBC’s coverage of Remembrance Day ceremonies in Ottawa, ventured a review of Jean’s appearance. “She seems to look pretty striking, and I think most Canadians have agreed with this position, in almost any outfit she chooses to wear,” he declared.

This, though, was different. Standing beside Prince Charles, Jean appeared in uniform. Mansbridge deemed her “resplendent.” Whatever the adjective, this was something more than fashion. This was Michaëlle Jean, commander-in-chief.

“Part of the role of the Governor General is to express as a person our feelings and sentiments,” says Peter Russell, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. “And though we’re all divided about the war in Afghanistan, we’re not divided about our support for the men and women who are serving there. I think that’s why we had such a splendid turnout on Remembrance Day. Her being there in that uniform, I thought, was just terrific.”

The title of commander-in-chief was officially bestowed upon the governor general in 1947. And even though Jean appeared publicly in uniform earlier this year, this was perhaps the first time she fully inhabited the role before the nation. It was also, in keeping with a Governor General who has sought an emotional connection with Canadians, an intensely personal gesture—one arrived at after a military officer on leave at Rideau Hall encouraged her to consider wearing a uniform in tribute to those who serve. “It was the right suggestion at the right time,” says Marthe Blouin, Jean’s press secretary.

Jean subsequently debuted in a navy uniform during a ceremony in Halifax this June. “I would like to begin by confiding something to you,” she told members of the navy there. “I grew up under the yoke of a ruthless dictatorship, where the military uniform came to symbolize the brutal repression of the people, tyranny and massacres. Since becoming commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces, I have had the opportunity to work alongside you—the women and men of this country who don the uniform. You can see how far I have come.”

The young Haitian girl is now the ceremonial head of state. And the Governor General now finds herself the commander-in-chief of a military embroiled in its deadliest mission in decades. When she addressed the country for the first time as Governor General four years ago this fall—before Canada had suffered the vast majority of its current casualties—Afghanistan was not explicitly invoked. That speech laid out the ideals she has most famously pursued since: community, engagement and equality, with a special emphasis on connecting with young people. She has defined herself by the motto “briser les solitudes,” breaking down solitudes. Days before reading the Throne Speech last fall, for instance, she convened a meeting of street youth in downtown Ottawa. In May, while touring Nunavut, she famously ate raw seal heart in solidarity with the Inuit. In Edmonton this summer, she sang and danced and spoke hopefully of hip hop.

A month after that, Jean made her second trip to Afghanistan and delivered an emotional salute to their mission. “Know that your fellow Canadians are very proud of what you are accomplishing here and are very much aware of the sacrifices you are making,” she said. Days later, with the death of another soldier, Jean deviated from her traditional statements of mourning to reflect at length. “The people of Afghanistan support progress, democracy, the reconstruction of peace, the rebuilding of their country, the respect of rights and freedoms, the equality of women, education and development,” she wrote, “and Canada, in turn, supports their efforts and initiatives to promote viable Afghan solutions to Afghan problems.”

A number of governors general donned a military uniform, but not since the Korean War in the 1950s has Canada been engaged as it is now, so rarely in recent years has the commander-in-chief been put in this position. Adrienne Clarkson, Jean’s immediate predecessor, twice spent New Year’s in Afghanistan—John Ralston Saul, her husband, rang in 2004 with a platoon, hiking up a muddy mountain near Kabul. In 2002, she was in Germany to meet the bodies of Canadians killed in an infamous friendly fire accident and was hailed as a hero when she left the job. “It is not by accident that as the Canadian Forces started looking past a decade of darkness, past a long period of insecurity and past a lingering feeling of shame, that you were our commander-in-chief,” said Gen. Rick Hiller, then chief of the defence staff.

Jean has been to Afghanistan twice and regularly attends repatriation ceremonies at the Canadian Forces base in Trenton, Ont., where the dead from Afghanistan arrive home. “Many of you have shared your pain with me,” she told recipients and family members this month at the inaugural presentation of Sacrifice Medals. “You also proudly told me about loved ones you lost in Afghanistan and know that Canadians share this pain and this pride with you. You are not alone.”

That is perhaps not among the solitudes she intended to break down, but the chasm between Canada and its understanding of itself at war may rival any other divide. And the closing of that gap may coincide with a new relevance for the governor general’s office. In Clarkson and Jean—both originally greeted as outsiders—the position has found new prominence, and not only because minority Parliaments have forced political consequence upon the viceregal.

“I think they were more conscious than other governors general in their job to help Canadians better understand their country,” Russell says. “That they have a real mission to help Canadians identify with Canada. And for a lot of people that needs a person, and these two people, partly because they didn’t have political backgrounds, they transcended politics. They were people of great warmth and charm.” Should the person appear in uniform it would seem only to lend greater meaning to both.

The return of In-and-Out

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:11 AM - 11 Comments

The Ottawa Citizen’s Glen McGregor reports from the resumption of hearings into the battle between Elections Canada and the Conservative party. Relevant background here.

The bashful film critic

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 11:01 AM - 0 Comments

Rod Bruinooge twitters his night at the movies.

newmoon is a cut above twilight. please don’t retweet that i went on opening weekend

'I'm not suggesting that we have not heard serious allegations'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 23, 2009 at 8:55 AM - 61 Comments

Peter MacKay explains what the government knew and does not know.

“I’m not suggesting that we have not heard serious allegations from the moment we took office. I’m not suggesting that prison conditions in Afghan jails are anything to behold,” Mr. MacKay said on Sunday, in response to reporters’ questions about allegations of torture and mistreatment of Taliban suspects, an issue that is expected to dominate Parliament this week…

“Not a single Taliban soldier turned over by Canadian forces can be proved to have been abused. That is the crux of the issue.”

What they said (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 11:40 PM - 3 Comments

On April 23, 2007, the Globe reported what it had learned from interviews with 30 detainees. Two days later, the paper revealed what the Foreign Affairs department’s own reporting disclosed about torture in Afghanistan. After the premature announcement of a new transfer agreement that week, a new deal was signed on May 3.

Understandably, the issue dominated Question Period during this time—dozens of questions asked between April 23 and May 7 as new stories and allegations came to light. Herein, a selection of questions and answers during that period. Continue…

What they said (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 22, 2009 at 8:45 PM - 4 Comments

In the first few months of 2007, the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan was discussed during 14 sessions of Question Period: February 6, February 12, February 13, February 21, February 27, March 1, March 2, March 19, March 20, March 21, March 22, March 23, March 26 and March 29. It was on the morning of March 19, that Gordon O’Connor apologized to the House for misleading it about the monitoring of detainees by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Herein, a collection of some of the relevant exchanges during this period. Continue…