Voice of Geddes

By Paul Wells - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 17 Comments

Our Ottawa bureau chief is a renaissance man, is what he is. One day he came into the office and showed us the publisher’s cover design for his novel. What, Geddes was writing a novel? News to us. And then it turned out to be a really good novel, which is not the way most novels turn out.

Most days he comes in and talks to me about Angela Hewitt or Bill Charlap, or to Wherry about Cooperstown, or to Petrou about military doctrine. Each of us thinks we’re pretty smart, but usually we wind up listening to Geddes talk circles around us on our own chosen topics. Partly that’s because he’s quite a talker. But it’s also because he knows about a lot of things, he’s always curious, and he’s always thinking about how one thing connects to something else.

He brings all these qualities to his journalism, which is usually about federal politics. But sometimes he gets to indulge his other interests. He’s the visual-arts man in our bureau, for instance, and here’s a lovely piece from last week’s issue about the Voice of Fire controversy, which was 20 years ago, my how time flies. You remember Voice of Fire. It’s the Barnett Newman painting that looked like this and cost a lot of money and provoked a nation-wide debate about the nature of art. John’s piece reminds us what the fuss was about, and revisits some of the protagonists.  I enjoyed reading it and I’ve been waiting for it to pop up on the website so I could pass it along, in case you missed it in the print edition.

Half the fun of working at this magazine is finding out every week which one of my colleagues is going to be swinging for the fences. Most weeks it’s someone different from the week before. Anyway, go read John’s piece.

How to go about this

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 62 Comments

I’ve asked a few learned minds about the feasibility of the NDP’s prorogation reform proposal. First to write back, University of Toronto professor emeritus Peter Russell.

I think what the NDP has in mind could be okay if properly drafted. It should be a resolution of Parliament saying that the Prime Minister should not ask the Governor General to prorogue without the approval of a majority of members (or a majority vote) of the House of Commons. Such a resolution would not purport to bind the Governor General in law—but would give the Governor General a political principle to guide her in exercising her discretionary power to prorogue. If the resolutiion supporting this principle had all party support it would have the strength of a constitutional convention.

This Week: Good news/Bad news

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

A week in the life of simon cowell
The upcoming season of American Idol (the reality hit’s ninth) will be the last for snarky British judge Simon Cowell. But don’t worry, he’s not going far. Cowell’s moving on to produce an American version of his own hit British competition show, The X Factor, which is pretty much the same thing as Idol, to be aired in the U.S. on Fox, which—you guessed it—is the same network that carries Idol. And guess who he may be bringing along with him? Former Idol judge Paula Abdul.

Hope in Afghanistan
Canadian Forces in Afghanistan had a bad year in 2009—32 of our soldiers died and many more were injured. A Canadian journalist, Michelle Lang, also lost her life. But there is hope that with a troop surge and new commitment on the part of NATO troops to live and work among ordinary Afghans, 2010 could bring better news. Plus, a new poll suggests that Afghans are more supportive of NATO’s mission there and less supportive of the Taliban. This is an important step in the fight to rid Afghanistan of extremists: unless Afghans themselves are on our side, all the peacekeeping and anti-terror missions in the world will not bring peace and democracy to the country. NATO relies heavily on Afghans—for goodwill and information regarding terrorists. With them on our side, the fight against the Taliban could take a turn for the better.

The war on salt
New York is at the forefront of the war on unhealthy foods. The city famously banned trans fats and forced restaurateurs to post calorie counts on their menus, a move that has been largely successful. Now the Big Apple is planning to stick it to another food foe: salt. It has set a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 per cent over the next five years. The city may have more difficulty convincing citizens to go easy on the sodium—while high levels of salt intake can cause strokes and cardiovascular problems, consumers have traditionally been wary of low-sodium products, fearing that they won’t taste as good. New Yorkers may soon be carrying salt shakers in their pockets.

Beware Kim Jong-Il
North Korea has said it is open to new talks about nuclear disarmament, in exchange for a peace treaty with the U.S. and an end to crippling sanctions. While we are wary of any platitudes that come out of Kim Jong-Il’s mouth, we are still encouraged that peace with North Korea may indeed be a possibility. If ending the awful human rights crisis in the Hermit Kingdom means dealing with a two-faced despot, we’d say it’s worthwhile. As long as we remain wary of Kim and his cohorts.

Medal domination
Our athletes are winning medals left, right and centre in the run-up to the Olympics. Snowboarder Jasey Jay Anderson has won his last two races; Pierre Lueders won two bobsled events last week, and our long-track speed skaters are dominating their sport. Combine that with the technological advantages (profiled last week in Maclean’s) developed for our athletes, and it looks like we may very well own the podium in Vancouver.

The return of Palin
She’s baaack! Sarah Palin has signed on as a regular contributor to Fox News, where she will also host occasional series. We don’t expect “her rogue-ness” to contribute anything worthwhile about serious news topics and politics—she’s more likely to offer shrill, empty jabs at the left-wing mainstream media, mixed with cringe-inducing memories of aw-shucks Alaska. A new book about the 2008 presidential campaign claims that John McCain’s advisers warned of Palin, “She doesn’t know anything.” That sounds just about right.

Ironic academics
On Monday, a group of over 100 Canadian university professors sent a letter to newspapers voicing their discontent with Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament. They accused the Prime Minister of violating “the trust of the Canadian people [and] thus acting anti-democratically.” Recent polls suggest many Canadians support that statement, but we find the professors’ stance more than a little ironic, given that Ontario community college teachers are currently threatening to strike. That would be another blow to Ontario’s post-secondary students, who have endured countless walkouts and strikes by faculty and teaching assistants in recent years. Academics in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Another wall?
Israel is planning to build another separation barrier—this time on its border with Egypt. Unlike its other security fence in the West Bank, which has successfully kept out terrorists, the Egyptian wall will mainly be used to keep illegal migrant workers from entering the country—much like the barrier Saudi Arabia built along parts of its border with Yemen. Egypt has said it has no problem with the barrier—as long as it is built on Israeli land—but we wouldn’t be surprised if the wall produced a sour relationship between Israel and one of its stronger regional allies. More walls don’t make for better neighbours.

Junk snail mail
More woes for those Canadians who still rely on the post office to send and receive mail. Canada Post has upped the price of domestic stamps to 57 cents, a rise of three cents (the largest hike in the Crown corporation’s history). As if that weren’t bad enough for post office users, the infamous “419” online scam—wherein a wealthy African attempts to access bank accounts by promising a massive payout—has made its way to snail mail. There is one alternative that we can think of—it’s cheaper, faster, and you don’t need to leave your couch to send or receive. You’ll still have to deal with 419 junk mail, though.

Voice of Fire: Are we over this yet?

By John Geddes - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 21 Comments

In the winter of 1967, working in his studio in Lower Manhattan, Barnett Newman covered a huge canvas, 5.4 m by 2.4 m, with just two colours of acrylic paint—twin vertical stripes of ultramarine blue flanking a middle one of cadmium red. Come spring, the American artist shipped the painting, which he called Voice of Fire, to Montreal for the International and Universal Exhibition, better known as Expo 67. It hung in Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, the hugely popular U.S. pavilion that also showcased an Apollo space capsule.

In Montreal that storied summer, Voice didn’t cause any stir. But then, Expo offered plenty of bright, bold objects to gape at, and, anyway, the fair was all about open-hearted optimism and looking at things anew. By 1990, though, when the National Gallery of Canada announced it had bought the painting the previous year—without saying so publicly at the time—the country was sliding into recession and the popular mood was markedly less groovy. Two decades later, the $1.8-million price might sound modest, but it seemed extravagant then. Public umbrage boiled over.

Yet most of those who were called upon to justify the purchase for weeks on end in the spring of ’90 seem to think back on the uproar fondly. After all, art has never since commanded such a prominent place in the national conversation. Diana Nemiroff, who was then the National Gallery’s contemporary art curator and is now director of Carleton University’s art gallery, laughs at her memory of dressing up as Voice to defend the painting on CBC Newsworld, which had been launched only the previous year, bringing to Canada the insatiable appetite for controversy that comes with 24-hour TV news. “I wore a blue blazer with a red T-shirt underneath,” Nemiroff says. “It took a while before someone noticed.”

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How about when hell freezes over? Two degrees, no separation and The price was right

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Just prorogue his subscription
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called The Economist one of his favourite magazines. The feeling isn’t mutual. The British journal has laid an editorial beating on the PM under the headline “Harper goes prorogue.” It condemns the “naked self-interest” it sees behind suspending Parliament until March 3, after the Olympics. It called his cabinet “a bunch of Gerald Fords,” who apparently can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, or run the country and host the Olympics. The more likely reason for proroguing, the editors say, was to avoid scrutiny on issues including Canada’s policy on handing over Afghan detainees to local authorities when they risked torture. Canadians are complacent, but only if the “government is in good hands,” the editorial ends. “They may soon conclude that it isn’t.”

Expos 1, Blue Jays 0
Andre Dawson, a fan favourite of the late Montreal Expos, was finally voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his ninth year on the ballot. Not so lucky was former Toronto Blue Jay Roberto Alomar, who didn’t make the cut in his first year of eligibility, though few doubt that one of the best second baseman to ever play will make it to the Cooperstown, N.Y., shrine. As for Mark McGwire’s chances, fuggedaboutit. He finally admitted the obvious Monday, telling the Associated Press he was on steroids before, during and after breaking the home run record in 1998.

Going down to Luisana
Her name, Luisana Loreley Lopilato de la Torre, is almost as long as the Vancouver to Buenos Aires commute singer Michael Bublé, 34, has been making these past two years to see his lady love. This week he confirmed that he trekked down to Argentina with an engagement ring in November and proposed to the 22-year-old star of a popular South American soap opera. The two met at a record company party in Buenos Aires in late 2008. No date has been set for the wedding. Bublé’s fiancée played his imaginary love interest in his recent video for Haven’t Met You Yet, filmed in a Vancouver grocery store.

How about when hell freezes over?
Relations are frosty between Iceland’s president, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, and Britain and the Netherlands after the head of the tiny, bankrupt nation vetoed a bill to repay the countries for bailing out creditors of the failed Icesave online bank. Icesave, which lacked adequate deposit insurance, failed in 2008. Britain and the Netherlands compensated depositors in their countries for $6 billion in losses and pressured Iceland for repayment. Compensation legislation was passed in Iceland’s parliament, but Grimsson refused to sign it, and instead called a referendum, which ends March 6. The vote will determine how—or if—Iceland will reimburse the bailout. So far public opinion is behind the president; the debt amounts to 40 per cent of Iceland’s GDP, about $18,000 a person.

Keanu’s not very excellent adventure
In the imagination of Karen Sala of Barrie, Ont., Toronto-born actor Keanu Reeves hangs out at the local No Frills grocery store, disguises himself as her ex-husband, and is the father of her four adult children. Last week, Judge Fred Graham dismissed her claim for $3 million a month in spousal support. He called the case “patently unbelievable,” and assessed her $15,000 in costs. Reeves, who says he never met Sala, submitted to a DNA test to prove he wasn’t the father. His lawyer said Reeves may not enforce the cost order against the cash-strapped Sala, though he spent some $85,000 in legal fees.

Two degrees, no separation
For most university students, life in a cramped residence room is a one-year transition from leaving home to a first apartment. Not so for Alkis Gerd’son, who has lived almost continuously in a University of Victoria residence since 1991. Gerd’son graduated more than 12 years ago with his second undergraduate degree and has since dabbled in a few non-credit courses. B.C.’s Supreme Court ruled the university can evict him. Gerd’son, who says he suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder and depression, has taken his case to the provincial human rights tribunal, claiming the university is unfair to the disabled.

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
Peter Robinson was Northern Ireland’s first minister and his wife, Iris, also an MP, was a religious and moral crusader who caused outrage in 2008 for saying homosexuality was as vile as child abuse. At the same time, it turns out, the first lady, now 60, was having an affair with 19-year-old Kirk McCambley, apparently after previously bedding his father, now dead. She also solicited money from property developers to help McCambley start a café. Iris has resigned her seat. Her husband, who temporarily stepped down from his post, is fighting to salvage his career. He has vowed to stay in the marriage.

Lean on us
The Chicopee ski hill in Kitchener, Ont., is short on elevation, but its skiers are big in heart. Last Thursday night the ski club paid a surprise visit to the family home of injured national team skier Kelly VanderBeek. She is there recovering from surgery for a knee injury that ended her hopes of competing in Whistler at the Olympics. A stunned VanderBeek hobbled to the door on crutches to be greeted by a crowd of 60, waving flags and singing O Canada, the song she’d hoped to hear from the podium. VanderBeek, who learned to ski at Chicopee, was moved to tears.

Life with Dad was a real blast
When your name is bin Laden, and your dad is Osama, it’s a safe bet your family life was complicated. Still, the clan has seen more than its share of drama lately. It emerged Osama’s  daughter Imam had fled the family compound near Tehran where one bin Laden wife and several children have lived under house arrest since 9/11. She sought refuge in the Saudi Embassy, and the Saudis are in talks to repatriate her. Brother Omar has since revealed another sibling, Bakr, who’s 16, has left Iran. Omar, of course, wrote the recent Growing Up Bin Laden, a portrait of a man who is a better terrorist than a father. Osama beat his children, sacrificed their pets to poison-gas experiments, and asked his sons to volunteer for suicide missions. Omar wrote, “My father hated his enemies more than he loved his sons.”

Stimulus begins at home
Balancing a trillion-dollar deficit may be less challenging for Peter Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), than flow-charting his relationships. Orszag, 41, is such a man about the Beltway he inspired a fan site, Orszgasm.com (“putting the OMG back in the OMB”). As a divorced father of two, he’s squired such dates as Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth, and venture capitalist Claire Milonas. Milonas was pregnant with their daughter when he took up with ABC reporter Bianna Golodryga. Weeks after Milonas gave birth, he and Golodryga announced their engagement. As an MSNBC headline put it, it’s a “Budget baby mama drama.”

The price was right
Affable former TV game show host Bob Barker seems an unlikely foil for the uncompromising Canadian environmentalist Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, but the two vegetarians are bitter foes of the Japanese whaling industry. Last week a Sea Shepherd speedboat and a Japanese whaler collided during a confrontation off Antarctica. Steaming to the rescue of the sinking speedboat and its crew was the 1,200-ton Bob Barker, financed by its namesake. Watson had told Barker he could put the whalers out of business for $5 million. “I have the $5 million,” Barker replied, “so let’s get it on.”

Another Reagan hits the panic button
Los Angeles police wasted no time responding to a silent alarm at 1 a.m. at the home of Michael Reagan, a conservative commentator and the adopted son of the late president Ronald Reagan. They quickly surrounded the home and arrested Michael’s 31-year-old son Cameron, who berated the officers and attempted to leave. Police say Ronnie’s grandson had been drinking. He was later released on a $10,000 bond. Michael said the “misunderstanding” resulted when his son, unaware he had tripped the alarm, panicked at the presence of police. He has had previous run-ins with police.

A shot of Tequila
Reality TV star Tila Tequila has turned to Twitter in her grief over the death of her fiancée, hard-partying Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. Tequila’s tweets soon degenerated into a slanging match with heiress Courtenay Semel, of the Yahoo! Semels. Semel has been romantically linked with both women and claimed the impending marriage was a fraud: “We’re talking about the biggest fame whore in L.A.,” a reference to Tequila. Meantime, yet another heiress, Nicky Hilton, and her socialite friend Bijou Phillips, seized two of Johnson’s dogs from a weeping Tequila. Zoey, an elderly, ill poodle, was to be put to sleep, and buried with his owner.

Careful what you wish for, Conan
In case you’re losing sleep over the state of NBC late night TV (and isn’t that the point of it?), here’s an update. Jay Leno’s prime-time show dies when NBC broadcasts the Vancouver Olympic Games next month. Leno moves to 11:35 p.m., bumping Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show to 12:05 a.m. On Monday, O’Brien ripped NBC in his monologue and joked he’ll star in a TV movie “about a woman trapped in an abusive relationship with her network.” Then, on Tuesday, he announced he wouldn’t host the show in its new “next day” time slot. Meantime, he has an exit strategy of sorts, revealed in pre-taped comments aired for the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons, a show he once wrote for. If somebody (Fox, say?) would put him to pasture in Spain, and pay him $1 a year to write dialogue for the evil Mr. Burns, he said, “I would take that job.”

99-year-old Granny isn’t the problem

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:13 AM - 206 Comments

A couple of days after the Christmas Day Pantybomber tried to light up his gusset on the approach to Detroit, I was at a small airport in Vermont shuffling through the line to what they call the “sterile” area. Anyway, I handed over my driver’s licence and, as he had done with all the previous passengers, the Transportation Security Administration agent examined it. And examined it. And examined it some more. He had a loupe, one of those magnifying glasses jewellers use to examine diamonds for any surface blemishes or internal flaws. In this case, he was deploying it to examine how the ink lies on the paper. And when he’d finished doing that he got out his UV light to study the watermark on my licence.

And, looking down at his bald patch as he went about his work with loving care, I was overcome by a sudden urge to point out that nobody had ever blown up a U.S. airliner with a fake driver’s licence. Why bother going to all that trouble when a real one is so easy to get? On Sept. 11, 2001, four of the terrorists boarded the flight with genuine, valid picture ID issued by the state of Virginia and obtained through the illegal-immigrant day-workers’ network run out of the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in Falls Church. Almost two years earlier, Ahmed Ressam, the Millennium Bomber, had been arrested on the British Columbia-Washington state border travelling on a genuine Canadian passport. In that instance, the terrorist had been stopped because the guard thought he seemed nervous when she looked him in the eye. But in Vermont the guy didn’t look me or anybody else in the eye. He remained hunched over his loupes and licences—no doubt in part because if he looked me or any other regular air traveller in the eye all he’d see staring back at him was an expression of total contempt at the pointless and stupid “security.” So they avoid looking at you, and instead peer through their magnifiers, and amble back and forth barking out the rules about how the three-ounce containers of liquids and gels have to be placed in a one-quart zip-top clear plastic bag, and rummage through your carry-on for more and more proscribed items. But they never look at you. Because they’re not looking for terrorists. They’re looking for things, and an ever-growing list of them.

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An over-looked moment in Canadian innovation

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 72 Comments

Canwest attaches a correction to Richard Foot’s review of prorogations past.

A Canwest News Service story in Saturday’s paper said incorrectly that John A. Macdonald and Stephen Harper are the only prime ministers to have prorogued Parliament to avoid an investigation by elected legislators. In fact, Jean Chrétien’s decision to prorogue Parliament in September 2002 prevented the delivery of a report, written for the House of Commons public accounts committee, into the sponsorship scandal.

Reviewing Canadian Press clips from the time, it seems Mr. Chretien, before the House had returned from its summer break, asked the Governor General to prorogue Parliament on Sept. 16 of that year. The House reconvened for a speech from the throne on Sept. 30. Continue…

The wrong fix

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:50 AM - 6 Comments

Alan Nicolson hung himself in his prison cell at Manitoba’s Stony Mountain Institution back in 2003. A first-time inmate, Nicolson, 34, was facing four years of incarceration after holding up a convenience store. Suffering from anxiety, depression and drug addiction, he was being held in a special segregated unit called the “mental health range.” But two years later, an inquest into his death found the solitary cell where Nicolson spent his last hours to be a “mental health range” in name only. “There is no programming. There is no treatment,” the report reads. “The mental health staff has no special responsibilities to those housed in this ward.”

The mental health range has since been shut down, but Nicolson’s death still bothers correctional investigator Howard Sapers. It’s a prime example, he says, of how Canada fails inmates—especially the mentally ill. Sapers cites the case of Ashley Smith as well, a New Brunswick teen who killed herself in a prison in Kitchener, Ont., in 2007. Smith, who’d acted out and threatened suicide, was held in isolation up to 23 hours a day before she was found dead in her cell. (An inquiry into her death is planned, although a date hasn’t yet been set.)

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In which I defend Pat Robertson

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:41 AM - 128 Comments

Writing in the National Post, Rex Murphy called Robertson an “obnoxious ignoramus” and described his mind as “an attic of obsolete and ugly demi-thoughts.” That’s one way of looking at it. Another possibility is that Pat Robertson said what he did because he’s one of the few people left who actually takes his religious beliefs seriously.

link

Owen Pallett’s a one-man symphony

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 2 Comments

Owen Pallett enjoys tempting fate. It’s why he combines original classical music and pop songs, using only a solo violin, his voice and live electronics to painstakingly construct symphonies onstage. And it’s why he initially named his recording project Final Fantasy, after the role-playing video game—a contentious copyright issue that finally caught up to him last month, when the video game’s makers forced a name change; his new album, Heartland (released this week), is credited to Owen Pallett, and not Final Fantasy.

When he performed at the Hillside Festival in Guelph, Ont., last summer, Pallett stared down Mother Nature herself. While he was playing a then-unreleased new song, a torrential thunderstorm mirrored the growing intensity of the performance. While stagehands covered his equipment and signalled furiously for Pallett to cut his set short, the solo violinist pressed on. Watching the YouTube clip, you can hear the audience become more ecstatic with each defiant chorus of “I’m never going to give it to you!”—no doubt wondering if the song might just climax with Pallett being electrocuted.

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Authenticity Watch: Freezing in the dark

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:35 AM - 14 Comments

“I know this sounds really lame, but I listen to a lot of music and it just sounds better.”

That’s New York sculptor Justen Ladda, explaining why he doesn’t heat his apartment.  Are you still using heat? Yuppie.  Cold is the new warm, dude.  Not only do you save money, but you can yank out your insulation to improve the acoustics in your living room. Besides, as Jake Dibeler, a 21-year-old performance artist living in an unheated warehouse in Baltimore with five roommates and two cats points out, a space heater is “a placebo at best”.

I wonder if they ever get together with the urban cavemen, and sit around on a concrete floor eating boar.

(thanks to the Handcaper)

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of January 18th, 2009)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

The new global hub: Toronto?

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:20 AM - 2 Comments

New York, London . . . Toronto? An influential business website says Canada’s largest city—and the banks and financial services companies clustered around Bay Street in particular—could one day “blindside” traditional financial centres such as London and New York when it comes to global importance.

While Canadians in other parts of the country are no doubt rolling their eyes, Business­Insider.com says the recent financial crisis has created opportunities for up-and-coming regional financial centres like Toronto to elevate their status to global hubs just as London and New York struggle to recover from last year’s financial meltdown. Other cities in the running include Luxembourg, São Paulo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Zurich, Hong Kong, Dubai, Singapore and Tokyo.

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Opening up to foreign ownership

By Jason Kirby - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 8:10 AM - 2 Comments

Some events in business come as a shock. Canwest’s move to put its newspaper division into bankruptcy protection wasn’t one of them. Last week, the company obtained creditor protection for its chain of papers (excluding the National Post, which was part of an earlier filing) and began the hunt for a buyer. But the real surprise could come if Ottawa finally allows foreign investors to snap up the Canwest papers.

The Harper government has already dramatically rewritten Canada’s foreign ownership restrictions in the telecom sector. In November, it overruled regulators and allowed Egyptian-owned Globalive to enter the wireless market. “The door on foreign ownership has been opened a crack,” says Vincent Mosco, a professor of cultural studies at Queen’s University.

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'Serge Marcil's story is one of thousands of people'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 8:07 PM - 1 Comment

The former Liberal MP is still missing.

Members of Marcil’s family are scouring hospitals in the Dominican Republic based on reports that he had been transferred to the country’s capital, Santo Domingo, on Thursday.

Two people on the ground in Haiti have said Marcil was found and transferred to the Dominican Republic, said a source close to the family Tuesday. But another tip placed Marcil at a Red Cross camp in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, the source said.

Marcil’s family has also received word that the search operation at the hotel where Marcil was staying has now gone from a rescue operation to one of recovery – meaning that crews do not expect to find anyone alive, the source said.

Oh, Like Now She Got Zapped Into that Time Machine and She's Like, Travelling Through Time!

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 5:13 PM - 5 Comments

I don’t think the value of a Canadian show is contingent on whether it does well in the States, but it is interesting that Being Erica has done quite well since the CBC sold the U.S. broadcast rights to Soapnet (the soap opera cable channel, which is going to get increasingly valuable as soaps are purged from the broadcast networks). The first season attracted 500,000 viewers, a good total for Soapnet, and the second season will premiere in the U.S. this week, accompanied by a View appearance for star Erin Karpluk.

This information comes from The Futon Critic’s interview with Erica creator Jana Sinyor, who talks about the time travel aspect of the show, and wins my respect by shooting down ‘shipper talk about Erica and Dr. Tom.

The subject line is a quote from that great 20th-century philosopher, Wolfman Jack.

There's the Bloc, and then there's everyone else

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 5:09 PM - 11 Comments

Léger Marketing released the results of its latest poll into the political leanings of Quebecers yesterday. Here’s where the federal parties stand (the numbers in parentheses represent the change since Nov. 27):

Bloc: 40% (+3)

Liberals: 23% (+3)

Conservatives: 17% (-3)

NDP: 15% (-2)

Whatever it is that’s ailing the Conservatives elsewhere (prorogation? Afghanistan? widespread grumpiness?) appears to be hurting them in Quebec as well, with their votes fleeing to the usual places—to Mononc’ Gilles and Professor Ignatieff. With no election on the horizon, it may not mean much. But the Liberals, Tories and NDP have to be hoping one of them can definitively pull ahead as the mainstay federalist option in the province to avoid splitting the vote and handing 55 seats over to the Bloc.

One of the things I like about Léger’s polls is the regional breakdown. Of course, the usual disclaimers about very small sample sizes apply, but here’s where everyone stands in Montreal/Quebec City/the rest of Quebec (i.e., les régions):

Bloc: 36 / 30 / 48 (-2 / +4 / +10)

Liberals: 27 / 14 / 20 (+4 / +2 / –)

Conservatives: 12 / 30 / 18 (-3 / -8 / -2)

NDP: 18 / 20 / 10 (+2 / +1 / -8)

A few things stand out:

-The NDP is considerably more popular than the Liberals in Quebec City. Huh.

-The Conservatives appear to have lost some ground everywhere, but are likely most worried about losing a good chunk of their base in and around Quebec City. They’re simply not competitive enough in Montreal to be able to afford that kind of collapse.

-The Liberals remain a force in Montreal. Of course, given the linguistic divide in the city, it’s hard to imagine this not being the case. But it’s still noteworthy.

-Whatever support bled out from the Bloc to the Tories and the NDP, especially in the rural areas, appears to have gone back to Duceppe and the gang.

E.coli in chicken linked to urinary tract infections in women

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 5:01 PM - 1 Comment

Researchers at the universities of McGill and Guelph, in conjunction with
the Public Health Agency of Canada, have found a connection between chicken
sold in retail outlets such as grocery stores and restaurants and the risk
of urinary tract infections in young women. Chicken samples taken in
Montreal between 2005 and 2007 revealed that E. coli bacteria from these
sources can lead to common UTIs—although eating contaminated chicken doesn’t
directly lead to UTIs. Researchers say people shouldn’t be alarmed, and
advise proper handling and thorough cooking of meat to cut the chances of
the bacteria spreading. They say this study is an important step towards
understanding whether the use of antibiotics in livestock may lead to E.
coli that is resistant to medication.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In India, inmates stretch their way to freedom

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 4:36 PM - 0 Comments

The transformative powers of yoga are being tested at a prison in central India, where inmates are reducing their sentences by perfecting the downward dog. The innovative scheme, which currently involves 400 inmates at the Gwalior Jail in Madhya Pradesh in central India, rewards prisoners who complete a three-month yoga course with a 36-day reduction in sentence. According to authorities, yoga, which is in place in many Indian jails, has a positive effect on both inmates’ fitness and demeanor, making them less angry and agitated.

The Telegraph

A pretty good day for the NDP

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 111 Comments

One of the most widely-read and respected Liberal bloggers in the history of that vitally important medium is none too pleased that the NDP have “outflanked the sloth-like Liberals.”

UPDATE: Nothing slothlike about this. Michael Ignatieff is going to smite the Conservatives by holding a town hall on his Facebook page. I am officially forbidden by the Pundits’ Guild to make fun of Facebook-related political action, so… draw your own conclusions.

Rights and Democracy: A little more context

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 4:21 PM - 19 Comments

From Embassy magazine, a scrappy Ottawa tabloid that consistently beats the rest of the Gallery on foreign-affairs news simply because that’s all it concentrates on, an op-ed from a Kairos principle about the guy who wrote that Jerusalem Post op-ed.

The goal of the government’s action on Kairos and Rights and Democracy has been to make moves that would be noticed by almost nobody, but would have narrow-cast appeal to a very small, very engaged component of the Conservative voter base. Simply by getting noticed outside the target voter market, that strategy has lately gone a bit awry.

Too ugly to ignore? (Updated)

By Chris Sorensen and Colin Campbell - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 4:15 PM - 46 Comments

UPDATE (Feb. 1, 2010): Ottawa has sent a shot across the bow of the companies operating in Alberta’s oil sands by saying they must do their part to help Canada shed its dirty image when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. Speaking before a group of business leaders in Calgary on Monday, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said the rapid development of the oil sands has contributed to a negative international perception of Canada and is at odds with the “clean energy superpower” image that it aspires to project to the world.

Many had expected the government to give the oil sands a break in any climate change program, but Prentice said that operators will be expected work with Ottawa and Alberta to help the country meet revised emissions targets that are part of the Copenhagen climate change accord. Canada’s new emissions targets, announced by Prentice over the weekend, are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels. That’s less than the previous target of 20 per cent below 2006 levels, but in line with targets set by the U.S. government. Prentice added, however, that the federal government still supports oil sands development and won’t adopt any specific measures unless the U.S. does first.

*****

If Canadians learned anything from the bickering at the Copenhagen climate change summit, it’s that our outsized appetite for energy and the ugly image of the Alberta oil sands—sprawling open-pit mines, belching smokestacks, murky tailings ponds—has bestowed upon us the unfamiliar role of environmental villain. And, justified or not, the scrutiny is only going to get worse in a year when Canada will host G8 and G20 summits and the Olympics.

The federal government has so far dismissed the characterization as the work of a few fringe environmental groups, but make no mistake: the oil sands are fast becoming a political problem for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and one that can’t be ignored indefinitely. “I think Canada is going to have to do something about the oil sands, not just because of the international pressure, but because the unconstrained growth will make it so difficult for us to reach the targets we’ve set for ourselves,” said a member of Ottawa’s climate change panel and Copenhagen conference attendee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. (He was referring to the government’s stated target of reducing emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020, not previous Kyoto targets.)

Continue…

Men marrying wealthier women

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 4:07 PM - 8 Comments

As women’s job titles and salaries are improving—men lost three of every four jobs shed in the latest recession—men are increasingly likely to marry women with more education and income than they have, the New York Times reports. A new study from the Pew Research Centre examined Americans aged 30 to 44, the first generation in which more women than men have college degrees; and since the 1970s, women’s earnings have been increasing faster than their counterparts’. Women with college degrees are more likely to marry today than less educated women. “We’ve known for some time that men need marriage more than women from the standpoint of physical and mental well-being,” said Stephanie Coontz, research director for the Council on Contemporary Families, a research and advocacy group. “Now it is becoming increasingly important to their economic well-being as well.”

New York Times

Massachusetts goes red

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 3:38 PM - 0 Comments

In what the Washington Post terms “a devastating blow” to Barack Obama’s legislative agenda, Republican Scott Brown took the Massachusetts Senate seat—once virtually owned by Ted Kennedy—from the Democrats on Tuesday. Brown’s victory strips the Democrats of their supermajority in the Senate, leaving the party vulnerable to filibusters that could derail efforts to pass Obama’s landmark healthcare reform bill. Brown’s campaign specifically targeted opponents of healthcare reform and could provide the Republicans with an electoral roadmap for the mid-term elections slated for November. Democratic candidate Martha Coakley blamed her party’s establishment for the loss, saying it failed to provide her with the campaign funds necessary to defeat a surging Brown.

Washington Post