Newsmakers '09: Breakups

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

Paul Haggis and Scientology
Risking Hollywood ignominy, the Oscar-winning director publicly crashed and burned his 35-year alliance with Tom Cruise’s place of worship in a letter blasting the church for its “tacit” support of a same-sex marriage ban. Fuelling the London, Ont., filmmaker’s ire was the “terrible personal pain” his wife suffered when she was ordered to shun her parents after they quit the religion.
Kate and Jon Gosselin
After 10 years, a zillion diaper changes, five seasons of film-crew chaos, a tummy tuck and sundry cosmetic surgeries, the Jon & Kate Plus 8 parents cancelled their marriage (and TV show), each accusing the other of infidelity. They did agree in separate back-to-back interviews that the intrusive tabloid media they courted contributed to their split and that they would leave their nine-year-old twins and five-year-old sextuplets in the Pennsylvania mansion on 10 hectares, while mom and dad move in and out “to minimize the disruption.”

Dany Heatley and the Ottawa Senators
The disgruntled forward finally got his wish to be traded, but not before his veto of a trade to the Edmonton Oilers made him a national pariah. Let’s hope the climate is warmer in San Jose for the newest Shark.

Greg Norman and Chris Evert
The ESPN fairy-tale union between the retired golf great and former tennis champ came at the cost of two marriages, a US$103-million settlement for Norman’s wife of 26 years, and US$2.3 million for a blowout Bahamian wedding. Fifteen months later it was kaput due to dissenting adult children and intractibility over whose lavish abode to set up house in.

Arlen Specter and the Republican party
Claiming he was increasingly “at odds with Republican philosophy,” the veteran Pennsylvania senator crossed the floor in a spring switchover that put the Senate Democrats one vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority of 60 seats and further solidified the ideological divide between the two parties.

Antarctica and the Wilkins ice shelf
The Jamaica-sized ice shelf continues its breakaway from the world’s southernmost continent, with the last major fracture recorded in April. It’s the tenth and largest ice shelf to give ground in the past 50 years.

Steven Page and the Barenaked Ladies
Fans of the beloved band were bereaved when its bespectacled lead singer and songwriter tweeted he was exiting the group he co-founded in 1988 to pursue a solo career, in the wake of an annus horribilis capped by a bust for cocaine possession.

Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley
The pint-sized pride of Napanee, Ont., finally said “c u l8er boi” to the Toronto-born Sum 41 lead singer after six years together, three as husband and wife. Known for their public spats, the couple took pains to declare each other “amazing” on their fan websites post-split.

Princess Taiping split
No lives were lost, no movie will be made. But the sinking of the replica 17th-century junk had its own pathos. The seacraft, built to prove that Chinese mariners could have reached America before Columbus or Magellan, was sliced in two by a cargo vessel near Taiwan one day short of completing its 27,360-km crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

Ian Davey and Michael Ignatieff
So much for political loyalties. The filmmaker son of famed Liberal “Rainmaker” Keith Davey recruited the Harvard intellectual, ran his failed leadership bid and served as chief of staff after Ignatieff was anointed leader—only to be dumped without warning for former Chrétien aide Peter Donolo. Fed up, Davies decamped to Toronto, taking with him girlfriend Jill Fairbrother, who quit as the party’s director of communications.

EnCana divided
Hoping to create 200 jobs and pump up the stock price, EnCana, the Calgary-based oil giant, revived its May 2008 scheme to divide itself into two distinct energy companies—one oil, one natural gas—that will share headquarters. The original plan had been kiboshed due to economic uncertainty and plummeting energy prices.

Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn
There were some achin’ hearts when country duo Brooks & Dunn announced they’d agreed to “call it a day” after 20 years, 10 studio albums and numerous No. 1 hits, including Boot Scootin’ Boogie and My Maria. Before they walk into the sunset alone, though, they’ll squeeze out a 2010 farewell tour, the Last Rodeo.

Newsmakers '09: U-Turns

By Rachel Mendleson - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

TD Bank recovers from fee-fall
After plans to impose a $35 inactivity fee for lines of credit sparked nationwide outrage, TD Bank got the message. On top of scrapping the inactivity charge, the bank pledged not to implement any new or increased fees on most products this year. At Toronto-Dominion Bank, it seems the customer is right after all.

It’s their party
The last thing sitting politicians need to worry about, says federal Tory party president Don Plett, is duking it out in riding-level nomination fights. After all, holding onto power in a minority government can be stressful. And so, despite razzing the Liberals for the same policy, Conservative MPs will now, for the first time, be granted automatic nominations in the next election.

The natural
Women have yet another reason to throw their panties at Tom Jones. The Sex Bomb singer, 69, has abandoned his signature dark brown hair in favour of a more natural look, a decision he concedes he should have made years ago. “Women love it,” says the silver-haired Jones, who has also vowed to give up plastic surgery.

Okay, Tasers might be trouble
Breaking with past statements, the RCMP recently conceded that Tasers carry “the risk of death, particularly for acutely agitated individuals.” Now when Tasers are deployed, Mounties are advised to steer clear of the suspect’s chest, lest the electricity trigger a cardiac arrest. Apparently, jolting someone with up to 50,000 volts of electricity can, in fact, be dangerous.
Angelina’s dress reversal
Consider it this year’s most literal fashion switch. In a bid for what her stylist called a “more blouson” look, Angelina Jolie wore her Max Azria gown backwards to the Screen Actors Guild Awards. That the plunging neckline happened to highlight her toned, tattooed back was purely coincidental.

Make that a two-child policy
After three decades of imposing a severe one-child-only policy, China is reacting to a new reality: a workforce shortage. To balance out Shanghai’s aging population, men and women who are both only children are encouraged to go forth and multiply—twice.

That $600-million bomb
After a proposal to award $21,000 ($600 million in total) to each of the families of all those killed during the Northern Ireland Troubles—including members of paramilitary groups and even a bomber who died when his device exploded—drew fire from some of the bereaved, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government rejected it.

Alberta: from riches to rags
Canada’s oil-laden province expects to be among those calling on Ottawa for a handout at the end of this fiscal year. Barring an unforeseen economic miracle, it will be the first time in more than 20 years that Alberta has asked for federal financial aid. Badly wounded by the stock market crash and plummeting energy prices, the once-rich province anticipates it will qualify for $220 million in fiscal stabilization funds.

U.S. military coffins visible once again
Eighteen years after George H. W. Bush banned U.S. media from recording images of military coffins returning from combat, the veil of secrecy has been lifted by the new President: provided the family doesn’t protest, media can once again photograph the homecoming of the country’s war dead.

Vatican sees the good in Harry Potter
A year after charging author J.K. Rowling with creating a story where “witchcraft is proposed as a positive ideal,” the Vatican’s official newspaper appears to have warmed up to Harry Potter. In L’Osservatore Romano’s assessment of Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince, the sixth film adaptation of the bestselling series, the paper proclaimed, “there is a clear line of demarcation between good and evil.”

Wikipedia closes ranks
The Web’s biggest open-knowledge bank isn’t so open anymore. As English-language articles passed the three-million mark, Wikipedia began keeping closer watch of entries on living people, giving a group of trusted editors the power to accept or reject revisions.

From reality TV to White House
Alejandra Campoverdi is a campaign intern who took Barack Obama’s message of change to heart. Before joining his team, Campoverdi, a Harvard grad, chose to put her other assets forward, appearing on the NBC reality show For Love Or Money and posing in Maxim. Her transformation prompted yet another about-face: shortly after she became an assistant to a deputy chief of staff, she was rumoured to be dating Jon Favreau, Obama’s 28-year-old speech writer who had previously bemoaned his singledom.

West Bank wall, schmall: it’s fine as it is
The West Bank wall, which Israel once proclaimed as “essential to keep out attackers,” isn’t so necessary anymore. After years of criticism from the international community over the barrier, which runs in and around the West Bank separating the Palestinian territory from Israel, Yuval Diskin, the head of Israel’s security service, told a parliamentary committee that now there’s “no need to finish” construction.

Top 10 Canadian TV shows of the decade

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:56 PM - 71 Comments

10. Clone High (2002 – 2003)
This one-season wonder was created by Bill Lawrence (Scrubs) as a Canada-U.S. co-production, but the U.S. partner dropped the show so quickly that only Canadians saw the full series. A parody of sitcoms, high school shows, and world history, it featured a premise-explaining theme song, characters based on JFK, Cleopatra and Gandhi, and a robot who talked like Mr. Belvedere. Even with an American creator, how could it not make the list?

9. Mantracker (2006 – )
Schlocky, cheesoid TV needs to be represented on a list like this. The obvious choice is the story of Terry Grant, a bad-ass horse-riding, hat-wearing, bearded cowboy who spends every episode hunting down a team of city-dwellers released into the wild. It’s basically the Most Dangerous Game on horseback, or Dog the Bounty Hunter without all the Christian moralizing. In other words, something you feel guilty for kind of enjoying.

8. Kenny vs. Spenny (2003 – )
A combination of reality competition and sitcom, this show about two mismatched buddies (a neat nut and an evil schemer, like a Canadian Odd Couple) show Kenny and Spenny doing various humiliating things every week in a desperate attempt to one-up each other. Many episodes feature the evil Kenny destroying his supposed friend through deceit, trickery and blatant cheating. When Trey Parker and Matt Stone joined the show as producers, it seemed to suggest what we already knew already: these guys are the new Cartman and Butters.

7. Life With Derek (2005 – 2009)
Canada has produced a number of “tween” comedies (Naturally Sadie, Radio Free Roscoe, The Latest Buzz) that were considerably better-acted and better-written than their counterparts on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. This Family Channel show, about a blended family that—unlike the Brady Bunch—can’t get along, was perhaps the best of the bunch, a throwback to real-world family problems in a TV landscape increasingly dominated by escapism. It was like Step By Step with people who aren’t disgusting.

6. The Hour (2005 – )
Though The Rick Mercer Report was the ‘00s most obvious answer to The Daily Show, George Stroumboulopoulos comes closer to matching Jon Stewart’s appeal: a comedian and “personality” performer conducting interviews with many serious, earnest people. After years of interviewers who were totally serious and earnest themselves, or talk-show hosts who only interviewed second-rank entertainers, seeing “Strombo” chat it up with James Cameron or Barbara Walters demonstrated that Canadian talk shows could successfully follow the U.S. template.

5. Corner Gas (2004 – 2009)
With the success of Brent Butt’s half-hour comedy about wacky small-town Saskatchewan residents, we saw how Canadians can step into the breach and do things the U.S. isn’t doing—in this case, rural comedy. The show also took techniques that had become common in U.S. single-camera comedy, like sudden cutaways and flashbacks, and brought them into the Canadian mainstream. It was about a place where life moves slowly, but it helped Canadian shows move a lot faster.

4. Durham County (2007 – )
A mashup of cop shows and American Beauty-type stories about the hidden evil of suburbs, this drama starred Hugh Dillon as a big-city cop who tries to start a new life in suburbia, only to discover there’s lots of murdering and depravity going on. Though the second season was not as strong as the first, it was The Movie Network‘s most interesting attempt to do a show in the style of its U.S. counterpart, HBO.

3. Trailer Park Boys (2001 – 2008)
One of the most influential and successful comedy shows of the era, this mock-documentary show about a bunch of beer-swilling lowlifes premiered in 2001, leading to a seven-season run and two films. In mining comedy from the adventures of people who are basically horrible, it preceded shows like It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and it was doing fake documentary comedy before Arrested Development and The Office made it cool again.

2. Slings & Arrows (2003 – 2006)
A Canadian show so good that international viewers don’t know it’s Canadian. A comedy-drama about the pressures of putting on a play at an artistically-compromised, financially-strapped Shakespeare festival, the show was both an inside look at the insanity of show business and a universal story about the things that go wrong in any workplace. It helped that the great cast was full of big names like Paul Gross and co-creator Mark McKinney (Kids in the Hall) and big names to be, like Rachel McAdams. The three seasons of the show were so successful they led to the ultimate compliment any show can receive: a foreign remake, the Brazilian Som e Fúria.

The apology precedent

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:49 PM - 10 Comments

It was suggested during QP yesterday that some sort of apology to the House might now be in order. Here, for the sake of comparison, is the statement Gordon O’Connor, Peter MacKay’s predecessor as minister of national defence, made in the House on Mar. 19, 2007, after it was confirmed that statements he had made were not accurate. Continue…

Now that their dinner is really ruined . . .

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 23 Comments

Americans have two great loves, eating and shopping, and their Thanksgiving holiday is the occasion when they enjoy both activities in all their gluttonous splendour. But while the central concern of most Americans last week was how to avoid getting trampled in the Black Friday stampedes at the mall, a more conscientious group was stressing over the morality of the holiday menu: should the vegetables be organic, or local?

It turns out that if you’re actually serious about taste, health benefits, and environmental impact, the correct answer is “neither.” The dispute between organic and local is one of those enormously high-strung civil wars that sweep through the environmental movement from time to time. And like its most notable predecessor, the paper-or-plastic conflict that raged across supermarket checkout counters in the late 1980s, this is one of those fights that is a genuine sucker’s game: the only way you can win is by not playing.

The jig has been up for organic for a while now. Originally promoted as the magic bullet of the produce aisle, with better taste, health benefits and environmental grades than regular food, organic has turned out to be none of those things. It didn’t help the organic brand that Wal-Mart started selling by the gross to the ambulatory eating machines of Middle America, but at least its defenders could cling to the idea that an organic tomato or lemon was more nutritious than its conventionally grown counterpart.

Continue…

A Quebec Queen Victoria: C.R.A.Z.Y.

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

It’s hard to imagine a less likely candidate to direct an adoring costume drama about British royalty. Quebec filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée is best known for writing and directing C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005), a movie drenched with rock ’n’ roll about a working-class teenager discovering his homosexuality in a rough-and-tumble neighbourhood of East End Montreal. Until recently, Vallée’s only romantic notion of sovereignty lay in the dream of Quebec independence, which he still supports, calling himself “a soft indépendantiste.” But an odd couple of producers—Martin Scorsese and Sarah Ferguson, the duchess of York—recruited him to direct The Young Queen Victoria, a coming-of-age story about the wilful teen who became England’s longest-reigning monarch. And he has pulled it off with remarkable grace.

Scorsese discovered C.R.A.Z.Y. through his producing partner, Graham King (The Departed), who says he felt it was “Scorsese-ish,” and Scorsese agreed. “They didn’t consider my origins or my nationality,” Vallée told Maclean’s last week. “They just said, ‘Okay, we love this film. We feel this guy could do something classic but at the same time give it a modern edge.’ ” Speaking by phone from an airport lounge—en route to Paris to shoot a TV insurance ad with Charlotte Rampling—the 46-year-old director said he’d been wading through scripts for a year and a half before hitting upon The Young Victoria, which was penned by Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park).

Continue…

Canadians believe Afghans were tortured

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM - 22 Comments

Canadians just aren’t buying the federal government’s claims Afghan detainees weren’t tortured. The vast majority believe that prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by the Canadian military were in fact mistreated—this, despite recent testimony to the contrary by top military officers like Rick Hillier, Canada’s former chief of defense staff. What’s more, most Canadians say the government intentionally misled them. The EKOS poll shows that 83 per cent think Ottawa was aware of the high potential for abuse before they handed over detainees. And only 24 per cent of Canadians say they are satisfied with the government’s overall transparency and disclosure regarding the later allegations of torture.

CBC News

Editor & Publisher to Shut Down

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:29 PM - 0 Comments

Nielsen media announced today that it is shutting down Editor & Publisher magazine, a trade paper for the newspaper business that has been around since 1884. Also being shuttered is the book publishing magazine Kirkus Reviews. As part of its restructuring, Nielsen sold off several publications, including Adweek magazine, but no one wanted to buy E&P or Kirkus. Apparently people like to read about things that aren’t depressing, and the state of publishing these days is pretty depressing.

DailyFinance

Air France flight drops 5,000 feet in same location as ill-fated jet

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:59 AM - 1 Comment

It may have been no more than an eerie coincidence, but air accident experts aren’t overlooking an incident last month in which an Air France jet plunged 5,000 feet—in the exact same spot where another airliner crashed into the Atlantic earlier this year. In June, AF447 fell out of the sky en route from Paris to Rio de Janeiro, killing all 228 people on board. Despite an extensive search, the black box has yet to be recovered, leaving many questions unanswered about what caused the fatal crash. Now, authorities are hoping that the more recent incident, involving AF445, might offer some insight. According to Air France, the flight hit turbulence four hours after taking off from Rio on Nov. 29 at 5:20 p.m. Standard procedure is to descend 300 feet, but the jet instead plunged 5,000 feet, from 33,000 feet to 28,000 feet. There were no reported injuries.

The Telegraph

Burka power!

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:51 AM - 7 Comments

Hundreds of Afghan women, many holding aloft pictures of relatives killed by drug lords or Taliban militants, lead a loud but nonviolent street protest in Kabul, demanding that President Hamid Karzai purge from his government anyone connected to corruption, war crimes or the Taliban. The protest, which also included some 500 men, was monitored by police in riot gear as it worked its way to the United Nations building who did nothing to disrupt the event. The event comes as Karzai faces increasing pressure to remove anyone linked to the rampant corruption in the country from his cabinet. “These women are being very brave,” the protest leader, her face hidden by a burka told the Los Angeles Times. “To be a woman in Afghanistan and an activist can mean death. We want justice for our loved ones!”

L.A. Times

Right to shelter upheld

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:43 AM - 1 Comment

Victoria is heading for what could be a landmark decision on sheltering the homeless. The city has lost its appeal of a lower court decision that homeless people have a right to live in tents in local parks if the city is unwilling or unable to supply an adequate number of beds in shelters. There’s no word yet on whether city lawyers plan to seek a hearing in the Supreme Court of Canada. But you have to think that’s where the case is headed, given the implications of the previous decisions. A B.C. Supreme Court trial judge had ruled that prohibiting the homeless from using rudimentary forms of overhead protection, “in circumstances where there is no practicable shelter alternative,” is a significant interference with their dignity and independence. But “practicable alternative” is a loaded phrase, and Victoria had argued that the court was intruding upon the jurisdiction of elected officials to decide just how much shelter taxpayers should provide.

The Tyee

Baghdad Bombers come forward

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:32 AM - 0 Comments

The Islamic State of Iraq is claiming responsibility for the car bomb attacks that killed 127 people and wounded more than 500 in Baghdad yesterday. In an online statement, the terrorist group said it was targeting “bastions of evil and dens of apostates,” and that it will “uproot the pillars of government.” The plan may be working—despite an overall decline in violence over the past 18 months, recent bombings have led to the replacement of Iraq’s top military commander. Iraqis are now calling for the resignation of the government’s interior and defence ministers.

The Guardian

NFL Picks Week 14: To you from wobbly hand Jay Cutler throws the ball. Be yours to intercept it.

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:30 AM - 1 Comment

Scott Feschuk Last week: 5-11 Season: 95-94-3

Scott Reid Last week: 5-11 Season 105-84-3

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Pittsburgh (minus 10) at Cleveland, Thursday night

Feschuk: Mike Tomlin promised his team would “unleash hell” in December, but they must have heard him wrong because they played like hell against Oakland. This sort of misunderstanding happened pretty much every week on Three’s Company, so the good news is that all Tomlin needs to do to get his team into the playoffs is have Ben Roethlisberger make a pass at Mr. Roper. (Playing Cleveland four times in a row would also help.) Pick: Pittsburgh.

Reid: I still miss Jerome ‘Chrissy’ Bettis. And I grant you that Mindenhall makes a pretty fair Cindy (mmm…Jenilee Harrison). The problem is that instead of Continue…

The price of security

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 11:10 AM - 10 Comments

Michael Popovich, a dentist, suffered a massive heart attack at age 52. His doctor, not surprisingly, told him that going back to work was a bad idea. Faced with the sudden prospect of losing several of his prime income-earning years, Popovich sold his dental practice in Thamesville, Ont., and began searching for a way to fund his unexpectedly long retirement.

Like many Canadians, he was attracted to the reliable monthly income stream that came with investing in income trusts (unlike corporations, trusts pay out most of their profits to investors). But he was forced to rethink his investing strategy after Ottawa said in 2006 that it would begin taxing the popular investment vehicles in four years, citing concerns about a loss of tax revenue. The value of Popovich’s holdings plummeted overnight.

Now, three years and one market crash later, he is one of millions of Canadians trying to retool their retirement portfolios. While some financial advisers are no doubt telling clients it’s a good time to get back into the stock market, you can’t blame people for being a little gun-shy. But playing it safe in an era of historically low interest rates isn’t a magic bullet either. “There are very few good options out there,” Popovich says. “Interest rates aren’t going to come back for a long time so you can’t count on that. Corporate investments are iffy because you don’t know where you’re going to go with those things.”

Continue…

Every word leaves a fingerprint

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:57 AM - 1 Comment

Using the books of Thomas Hardy, DH Lawrence and Herman Melville, Swedish physicists have developed a formula that analyzes different writing styles and texts in order to calculate what they call an author’s “literary footprint.” Published in the New Journal of Physics, the concept uses the frequency with which writers use new words in their literature to find distinct patterns in styles. The formula, which equates linguistic style with linguistic ability, also uses the speed at which this drops off as their books progress. Their evidence shows that the rate of unique word drop-off varies for different authors and, most significantly, is consistent across the entire works of any one of the three authors they analyzed. The statistical analysis was applied to entire novels, sections from novels, complete works and amalgamations from different works by the same authors—they all had a unique word-frequency ‘fingerprint’. The physicists believe the calculation could be used to end disputes over literary authorship and discover lost works by famous writers.

The Telegraph

Six-hour window to erase bad memories

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:54 AM - 3 Comments

According to researchers at New York University, fearful memories can be erased if tackled within six hours, which could help those with disorders like post-traumatic stress. Reliving a bad memory opens up what’s called a “reconsolidation window,” the BBC reports, a short timespan when a bad memory can be switched to good. In the study, reported in Nature, volunteers were wired to electrodes and given a shock whenever shown a picture of differently coloured squares, making them fear the images. One day later, they re-exposed volunteers to the same images, but without the shocks. This helped banish the fear only if the volunteer first recalled the bad experience no longer than six hours before “treatment” commenced. The treatment only blocked fear for the specific square the fear memory recalled, suggesting it’s a highly specific treatment. “Our memory reflects our last retrieval of it rather than an exact account of the original event,” lead researcher Dr. Elizabeth Phelps of New York University told the BBC. “Our results suggest a non-pharmacological, naturalistic approach to more effectively manage emotional memories.”

BBC News

Canada’s Olympians No. 1: Jennifer Heil

By Ken MacQueen - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 12 Comments

Every conversation with Canadian mogul queen Jennifer Heil heralds a new adventure: surfing, Third World development, politely picking the pockets of Canada’s business elite, rock climbing, jewellery design—and that thing she does so well with a pair of skis and a total absence of fear. When first we spoke in February 2006, she was making the rounds of Turin Winter Olympic venues as a self-appointed Team Canada cheerleader. She’d won Canada’s first gold medal in a rocket ride down the Italian course on the first day of Games competition. Thereafter she was everywhere, willing her compatriots to Canada’s best Olympic showing. “It’s extremely nerve-racking,” she said. “It’s harder to watch than it is to ski.” Hard to imagine. An Olympic mogul final is four years of preparation boiled down to 30 seconds of bumps and jumps on a 26-degree incline. But even there, especially there, Heil is a women in control.

Almost four years to the day—Feb. 13, 2010—should find Heil on Cypress Mountain in West Vancouver gunning for an equally impressive start to Canada’s Olympic fortunes. No matter the outcome, and Heil certainly is a medal favourite, her race will punctuate four years of personal development and giving by one very complex Olympian.

Most recently, before heading off to the snows of Europe, she waxed enthusiastic about a dream gig with Birks to design a line of jewellery. She immersed herself in the five-month project, dropping in to work with Birks’s Montreal design team every week she was in town. “I live right around the corner,” she says. “I would arrive smiling and leave smiling all the way.” Each sterling silver piece incorporates five rings, each with a different texture and each representing a word she believes contributes to success: dreams, focus, team, courage, joy. Don’t read anything into their silver content, she says with a laugh. That is a concession to affordability.

Continue…

The pivotal paperwork

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:04 AM - 66 Comments

Here, again, is the report that apparently precipitated General Walter Natynczyk’s correction yesterday morning. And here is the same report included among the 1,185 pages of documents provided to the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International—collected here—by the government on Nov. 14, 2007 during the course of a federal court case.

As noted, when the report was cited yesterday, it included a reference to abuse. In the version released in Nov. 2007, that portion of the report appears to have been redacted. The offices of Gen. Walter Natynczyk and Defence Minister Peter MacKay have been asked to explain that difference and a response is said to be forthcoming. It will be posted here as soon as it arrives.

(For anyone who has downloaded the entire 1,185 page file, the above document appears at page 879.)

Mitchel Raphael on the great sausage caper and a present for parliamentary geeks

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 7 Comments

After all that, he’s not sharing
Kenzie Potter, director of parliamentary affairs in government House leader Jay Hill’s office, desperately needed to get her hands on some Stawnichy sausages. They’re made in Mundare, Alta., 75 km east of Edmonton. She wanted to surprise her father, Dale Potter, a former Edmonton Eskimo who, in his 12-year career, helped the team win six Grey Cups. Her father, now living in Ottawa, hadn’t had a Stawnichy sausage in years and was craving them. She thought it would be the ideal birthday present and asked Labour Minister Rona Ambrose, who’s from Edmonton, for help. Ambrose wasn’t going to be in Edmonton but agreed to do what she could. She tried to have the sausages sent by mail but the shop said it couldn’t do that. Could they freeze the sausages, Ambrose asked, and she would have someone pick them up and fly them to Ottawa. For that, she was told, she would need special permission from the manager: Stawnichy rarely freezes its sausages for fear it will affect the taste. Continue…

Small ales, big sales

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 23 Comments

Last year, B.C.’s Phillips Brewing Co. doubled its staff. Next month, the Victoria microbrewery—a gold medallist at the Canadian Brewing Awards—will double capacity, says its amiable master brewer, Matt Phillips. The Nova Scotia native launched the brewhouse, one of seven Victoria beer-makers, eight years ago, juggling credit cards after banks took a pass on his business plan. Last year was among his best yet. “All the brewers I talk to have had a really good year,” says the 35-year-old, who is hoping to begin exporting to the U.S. In a recession-gripped economy, few other businesses can boast of such success.

In B.C. alone this year, a string of new microbreweries opened their doors, among them Driftwood Brewery and Surgenor Brewing on Vancouver Island, and Triple Island and Plan B Brewing Co. in northern B.C.—all pricing their products higher than mass-market beers. True, beer has long proved more recession-resistant than other industries. But last year, Canada’s overall beer industry, which has been flat since 2002, slipped into decline. Even heavyweights Molson and Labatt saw sales dip by three per cent. In the U.S., beer sales dropped a whopping 14 per cent in the final quarter of 2008. Indie “craft” beer-makers like Phillips, however, are bucking the trend. Despite a higher price point, and without marketing or advertising, they’re seeing double-digit growth. Indeed, they represent the industry’s fastest-growing segment—and they are striking fear into the mass-market brewers who dominate Canada’s $8-billion beer industry. Continue…

What’s a holiday without any guilt?

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 8:30 AM - 23 Comments

I feel guilty. I feel guilty about eating this steak. Did the cow have a good life? Did it experience a series of wacky cow adventures? When the time came, I hope the farmer gently held its hoof and whispered, “There, there.” In future, can I pay extra to make this happen? (I can see the sticker now: “Organic, pasture-fed, lovingly consoled.”)

I feel guilty about meat in general. I see pigs in those trucks on the highway and I feel guilty. I see pigs in a blanket and I feel guilty, and then hungry, and then guilty for feeling hungry. I see a plate of veal and I feel guilty that we didn’t let the little baby calf grow up to be penned in, force-fed slurry and slaughtered, as nature intended.

I also feel guilty I didn’t get the strip loin. The strip loin never disappoints.

Continue…

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of December 8th, 2009)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

What signal does Barbie’s burka send?

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 160 Comments

The other day, George Jonas passed on to his readers a characteristically shrewd observation gleaned from the late poet George Faludy: “No one likes to think of himself as a coward,” wrote Jonas. “People prefer to think they end up yielding to what the terrorists demand, not because it’s safer or more convenient, but because it’s the right thing . . . Successful terrorism persuades the terrorized that if they do terror’s bidding, it’s not because they’re terrified but because they’re socially concerned.”

This is true. Resisting terror is exhausting. It’s easier to appease it, but, for the sake of your self-esteem, you have to tell yourself you’re appeasing it in the cause of some or other variant of “social justice.” Obviously, it’s unfortunate if “Canadians” get arrested for plotting to murder the artists and publishers of the Danish Muhammad cartoons, but that’s all the more reason to be even more accommodating of the various “sensitivities” arising from the pervasive Islamophobia throughout Western society. Etc.

Yet this psychology also applies to broader challenges. By way of example, take a fluffy feature from a recent edition of Britain’s Daily Mail: “It’s Barbie in a Burka,” read the headline. Yes, as part of her 50th anniversary celebrations, “one of the world’s most famous children’s toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover.” And, in an attractive photo shoot, there was Barbie in “traditional Islamic dress,” wearing full head-to-toe lime-green and red burkas. At least, I’m assuming it was Barbie. It could have been G.I. Joe back there for all one can tell from the letterbox slot of eyeball meshing.

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Ivan Reitman warms up Whistler

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 1:21 AM - 3 Comments

Marie-Helene Bellavance wins Best Actress at Whistler in top prize-winner, 'Les Signes vitaux'

I spent the weekend at Whistler and got excited about snow. Not just the stuff on the mountains. Sure, last month the B.C. ski resort was blessed with the heaviest snowfall of any month in recorded history—5.5 metres—laying down an early base for that Olympic thing in February. And yes, I admit I did a little skiing. I even entered a “celebrity challenge” slalom race and came home with a silver medal that looks convincingly like the real thing. It’s heavy. But what got me excited was the snow onscreen in a Quebec movie called Les Signes vitaux, which played in competition at the 9th annual Whistler Film Festival and won its top prize, the $15,000 Borsos Award for Best New Canadian Feature Film—presented by Hollywood Canadian Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters). Written and directed by Sopie Deraspe, this exquisite drama is set against the bitter, austere beauty of a Quebec City winter, where snow serves as a bare canvas and a rich metaphor—for the naked  void between sex and death. This is not the  snowman-snow of Quebec’s Winter Carnival. It’s the snow that falls in silent shades of grey and squeaks underfoot, articulating cold, while it buries the past and turns a fresh page.

Les Signes vitaux—which is titled The Living Rate in English (though I’d prefer the literal translation, Vital Signs)—is the compelling story of a  young woman who becomes a volunteer in a palliative care home after the death of her mother. Sounds deadly, I know, and it’s not an easy sell.  But the drama hinges on the tension between this woman’s frustrated search for life amid death and her capricious, carnal romance with a failed musician she refuses to accept as her boyfriend. That’s not all. The woman is a double amputee below the knees. And we’re not talking CGI. She’s played by Marie-Helene Bellevance, who had both legs amputated at the age of 11. Continue…