'Are You Ready,' a song by Dan Hill and Paul Quarrington and Martin Worthy

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 10:39 AM - 44 Comments

Solo: Paul Quarrington

Duet: Hill/Quarrington

Cody Justin Peter Starr 1986-2010

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 9 Comments

Cody Justin Peter Starr was born on Aug. 20, 1986, in Winnipeg. He was the only child born to Jeffrey Smith, a labourer from Hollow Water First Nation, and Evelyn Ross, a chambermaid from Lac Sioux, Ont. Cody, a fearless boy who grew up in Winnipeg’s North End, was close to his five older half-brothers and half-sisters.

His love of drawing began at age three: armies, superheroes, monsters of his own creation (sometimes on his hands—no matter how often he was told not to). By eight, Cody, a leftie, was sketching complex battle scenes. In Grade 5, he won an award at Norquay School for his work: six weeks of paid lessons at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

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Now is not the time for democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 10:05 AM - 90 Comments

Conservative MP Ron Cannan explains why it was necessary to prorogue the House.

For him, prorogation is an opportunity for the Conservative government to concentrate on the economy by implementing the next phase of its economic stimulus program and prepare a new budget.

If parliament was in session then the opposition parties could vote non-confidence and force an election before those tasks are complete. “That’s what we don’t want,” said Cannan.

A ‘rat’ vindicated

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 5 Comments

When his testimony wraps up in the coming days, the man once known as Shaher Elsohemy will step off the stand and disappear back into the arms of the witness protection program. For obvious reasons, nothing about his new life can be revealed. Not his fake name. Not his whereabouts. Nothing. But one thing is absolutely certain: when he does leave the witness box and return to location unknown, he can walk away a happy man—vindicated, finally, after all these years.

Until last week, when he showed his face for the first time since 2006, Elsohemy was famous for two things: helping the RCMP topple the so-called “Toronto 18,” and being paid millions of dollars in the process. For more than three years, the Mounties’ star informant had to stay hidden in the shadows while countless fellow Muslims attacked his credibility. They called him a traitor. A rat. A money-hungry liar who deserves to “suffer in this life and the next.”

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Beatty’s 12,775 women? Ridiculous.

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 9:50 AM - 4 Comments

There’s a sad momentum in Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America. In an exhaustive, 627-page biography of the Hollywood icon, Peter Biskind sets out to prove Beatty is a serious filmmaker of historic importance, not just an incorrigible playboy. But as if governed by his subject’s roving eye, the author undermines his mission with the promiscuity of his reportage—he just can’t resist the temptation to chase every skirt that sent a ripple through Beatty’s life. An endless task.

In the course of a career that now appears to be over, Beatty made at least seven significant pictures: Splendor in the Grass, Bonnie and Clyde, Heaven Can Wait, Shampoo, Reds, Bugsy and Bulworth. Not too shabby. And he’s reaped 14 Oscar nominations as an actor, producer, director and writer. He got four each for Heaven Can Wait and Reds—a feat rivalled only by Orson Welles.

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Isn’t 32 a little old for an allowance?

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 9:43 AM - 191 Comments

In creaky melodramas of the old school, there came a moment when the plucky heroine would announce her intention to go ahead with some ill-advised courtship, and her father would threaten to cut her off without a cent.

Easier said than done. In Italy, a court has ordered, upon pain of having his assets seized, Giancarlo Casagrande of Bergamo to pay his daughter an allowance of 350 euros—approximately $525—every month. Signor Casagrande is 60. His daughter Marina is 32. She was supposed to have graduated with a degree in philosophy eight years ago but, though her classes ended way back at the beginning of the century, she’s still working on her thesis. So Signor Casagrande is obliged to pay up, either in perpetuity or until the completion of Marina’s thesis, whichever comes sooner. Her thesis is about the Holy Grail. Which it’s hard to see why Marina would have any use for, given that she’s already found a source of miraculous life-transforming powers in Papa’s chequebook.

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This Week: Good news/Bad news

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

A week in the life of Yulia Tymoshenko
The prime minister of Ukraine, Tymoshenko is set to face Viktor Yanukovych in second-round
voting for the country’s presidency, expected to be held next month. Tymoshenko was a leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, the popular uprising against Yanukovych in the aftermath of the country’s 2004 presidential election. While Tymoshenko blamed Russian interference back then, she is now seen as being in favour of closer ties with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Correct punishment
A Canadian man who conspired to commit mass murder in the name of Islam has been handed the harshest punishment possible: life behind bars. The judge who delivered the sentence said it best: “It is difficult to put into words Zakaria Amara’s degree of responsibility. He was the leader and directing mind of a plot that would have resulted in the most horrific crime Canada has ever seen.” The confessed ringleader of the “Toronto 18”—a man obsessed with detonating truck bombs—was hoping for a 20-year term, which, with credit for time served, may have put him back on the streets by the end of the decade. But the life sentence ensures Amara will remain in prison until the day he dies, or the day the National Parole Board decides he is no longer a threat to fellow Canadians. We hope that’s a very, very long way off.

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Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 1 Comment

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of January 25th, 2009)

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Where have you gone, Rutherford B. Hayes?

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 7:45 AM - 35 Comments

(AP Photo/Jorge Saenz)

I have the same reaction to every State of the Union address. It’s a vicarious Catonian revulsion, the grief and horror of the old Roman. (I’m a monarchist, but I’m a monarchist for us.) As everyone writing on the occasion of a SOTU observes, the president’s traditional harangue to the houses of Congress is said to be licensed by Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution:

[The President] shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

Even hard-bitten originalists tend to read this passage for sonority rather than meaning. All it says is that the President must furnish data to Congress and suggest legislative activity. It doesn’t say anything about doing so annually, though that became the habit almost immediately. It doesn’t say anything about giving information and advice in the form of a speech, let alone presenting oneself to Congress. Early presidents did so, but Thomas Jefferson pulled a face and refused to play ball. He fretted that a knockoff of Westminsterian Throne Speeches would “familiarize the public with monarchical ideas”, and he didn’t want representatives of the other branches of government to be intimidated by the person of the chief magistrate. Continue…

Jobs and Obama: story time

By Paul Wells - Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 12:51 AM - 71 Comments

I’m not asserting some enduring national character difference when I point out that Canada doesn’t have a political leader or a business leader right now who could begin to attract as much attention by giving a speech as Steve Jobs and Barack Obama did today. Nor indeed do we have a leader in either field, for the moment, who would even bother to try.

As I’ve pointed out before, Stephen Harper is the third prime minister in a row who will not make a big speech on television to put his case before the nation unless it’s his own political hide that’s in the balance, as Paul Martin did in 2005 and Jean Chrétien, perhaps a hair more nobly, did a week before the 1995 referendum. On the business side, try to imagine even the relatively flamboyant Mike Lazaridis or Jim Balsillie giving a big public speech to launch a new BlackBerry product. They never do. Continue…

The Commons: The cause of, and solution to, all life’s problems

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 10:04 PM - 81 Comments

Ideas are such mysterious and troublesome things.

Yesterday, for instance, the Prime Minister, penning an op-ed for the flagship newspaper of Canada’s liberal media elite, explained that, as part of hosting the G8 summit later this year, Canada will “champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions.”

This seemed almost impossible to quibble with. And yet, soon enough, people were asking questions, namely about what precisely the Prime Minister was talking about. How will he go about this? How much will it cost? What about Haiti? What about the deficit? Does this have something to do with abortion?

A reporter today asked Bev Oda, the minister for international development, which countries this country had so far discussed this proposal with. Ms. Oda declined to divulge specifics, but did assure that, in general, there was some interest in pursuing maternal and infant health in “conceptual terms.” “I can report with confidence that generally, all countries and all organizations we discussed with recognize the need and recognize that something can actually be done that will show results,” she reported.

So perhaps this is less an idea than a general notion. Still, it was enough of a concept for the nightly news to conclude this was somehow a setback for the Liberal side: the primary concern in any discussion of the world’s impoverished women and children being, of course, ‘how does this affect Michael Ignatieff’s chances of getting to be Prime Minister?’ Continue…

Steve Jobs delivers the iPad

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 6:05 PM - 10 Comments

And the heavens opened and Steve Jobs spaketh, “Here is your iPad.”

After months of intense anticipation and wild rumour mongering by Apple enthusiasts, the company’s CEO finally unveiled its latest offering today to the assembled masses in San Francisco—a tablet device that aims to meld the mobility of a smartphone with the functionality of a laptop. As Jobs said, it’s “way better than a laptop, way better than a phone.”

But now that we know what it is, can it live up to the hype?

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Reality-distortion field fail

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 5:54 PM - 29 Comments

I paid a combined $550 last year for an Asus netbook AND an 8G iPod Touch, Steve Jobs! The “big” one has a camera and can run Flash and Skype—in fact, it can run all those applications, and many others besides, at the same time! Meanwhile, the little one fits in a pants pocket; it’s pretty much the futuristic miniaturized version of the product you rolled out with such fanfare today. I was already fairly sure I didn’t personally have room in my life or budget for your tablet device (isn’t it funny how Apple can make everyone forget there’s a recession?), but I thought maybe there was a chance of some kind of crazy breakthrough in data pricing or mesh computing or gesture recognition or something. Like, maybe you would have something more fundamental to show us than just an overgrown, overpriced iPod?

And I’ve underestimated you before, Steve, but when it comes to this device that’s supposed to rescue my industry—well, are you really married to “iPad”? Because you kind of have the reputation of being an autocrat, and this seems like the paradigm of a marketing decision that an autocrat would make; everyone around him knows it’s messed up, but nobody wants to say anything and have their head bitten off. It seems to me that if you’re trying to move a product that nobody has a crystal-clear need for, that sort of consideration counts double. I’ll shut up now.

Melodrama Musings

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 5:26 PM - 2 Comments

This is a short post that should probably be a longer post, but I don’t really have a lot of clear observations to make on this topic; I just want to bring it up. Big Love recently started its fourth season, and it’s one of HBO’s more enjoyable shows. Yet I’ve always found it a little odd that it contains so much melodrama. When it was first announced, I sort of expected a small-scale family drama about a polygamous family. Instead, it is really a full-on soap opera in a lot of respects, with lots of sensationalistic plot twists. Which is fine; that’s what it is, and it does that well. But it brings up the point that HBO, for all its attempts to break with the common devices of U.S. TV, is still sticking with an important rule of U.S. television drama: it has to be big, not small. It has to be melodramatic, and it has to contain elements of sensationalism, violence, big dark secrets.

What U.S. television drama still has trouble doing, for all the advances over the last decade, is small-scale, realistic drama about everyday lives. Think about it: the general rule is that if you’re pitching a show about people who do not have anything spectacular going on in their lives, and who lend themselves to small stories, then it’s a half-hour comedy. Roseanne and Everybody Loves Raymond could be done as dramas, but they probably wouldn’t be. Would HBO, which produced Raymond, greenlight a serious drama about a man’s inability to break free of his parents’ suffocating influence and how it affects his marriage? Sure — but it would have to have a lot more murders and long-lost identity twists.

If there is a middle ground here it’s in the one-hour dramedy, the Freaks and Geeks kind of show. (Speaking of Raymond, Ray Romano himself has retuned with a good show in this form, Men of a Certain Age, which got picked up for a second season.) These shows are often classified as comedies, but they’re really not: they are non-melodramatic dramas, in the tradition of plays and films that are clearly dramas but don’t have anything particularly “big” happening in them. Most of these types of plays, from Chekhov onward, have an element of humour in them, but the essential thing about them is that they are basically serious about lives and situations that are not very remote from everyday life. Of course these shows have to be more melodramatic and intense than real life, but they do try to emphasize small, not big.

But the HBO-style cable show, perhaps because HBO is so dedicated to shock and surprise, tends to run away from anything small. They’re always trying to do epic novels or Shakespearian tragedy for TV, which is all very well. But to some degree what they’re trying to do is the usual U.S. crime drama or soap opera, except bigger, more profane and more artistically ambitious. The basic limitation — that drama must be melodramatic and non-melodrama is the realm of comedy — still remains, with some exceptions (In Treatment had some “small” elements to it — but of course In Treatment‘s stories have all come from a non-U.S. show).

Senate speculation swirls

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 4:07 PM - 5 Comments

Amidst the political furor surrounding Stephen Harper and his decision to prorogue Parliament on Dec. 30, there has been some buzz about who he will appoint to fill the five empty Senate vacancies—two in Ontario, and one Quebec, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland. The latest rumour out of Quebec is that Harper will appoint Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who has become well known in the province for his work with families victimized by criminal acts. Boisvenu wouldn’t confirm the news, but did say he’s discussed the idea with his wife. He also believes that, as a senator, he could advance his call for increased support for the families of victims.

CBC News

Introducing the iPad

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 4:02 PM - 7 Comments

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has unveiled the company’s new much-anticipated tablet-style computer, a 1.3 cm thick multimedia device that resembles an oversized iPod. The tablet’s 9.7-inch touchscreen can be used to browse the Internet, play games, and read digital books, newspapers and magazines. “Amazon has done a great job of pioneering books with the Kindle,” said Jobs. “We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a bit further.” The New York Times has already developed a customized application for the iPad that recreates the look and feel of the newspaper, with the added functionality of viewing embedded videos within articles. The tablet boasts a 10 hour battery life and comes with either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of flash storage. Most impressive, however, is the price: the WiFi-enabled 16GB model sells for just $499 in the U.S.

The Telegraph

Canada won't impose surtax on banks

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

Even as the U.S. and Britain entertain thoughts of boosting flagging government revenues with a special tax on banks, Canada has ruled out the possibility of implementing a similar fee. We are not about to impose new taxes on financial institutions in this country,” Finance Minister Jim Flaherty flatly told reporters. Though Flaherty expects the issue to come up during an upcoming G7 meeting in Iqaliut, he said Ottawa’s relationship with its banks is vastly different than that of the U.S. and British governments. “We are not about to impose limits or terms on executive compensation in the financial institutions in Canada, for a very simple reason,” he said. “Canadians did not have to put taxpayers’ money into our financial institutions. We did not have to bail them out.” The meeting of the world’s most powerful economies is expected to focus on the looming post-recession recovery.

The Globe and Mail

'You can vote us out of office'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 3:47 PM - 109 Comments

Industry Minister Tony Clement runs into some protesters at York.

“Parliament is coming back in March,” Clement told the protestors. “We are in the midst of consulting with the people of Canada about their issues and concerns, primarily about the economy. So, there is no end of democracy. That is a fallacy”…

“We have a government that is focused on the economy, focused on safer streets and focused on research and development,” Clement said. “If you don’t agree with that, which is your right, then you can vote us out of office. That’s democracy.”

MPs resume hearings into Afghan detainee controversy

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 3:07 PM - 1 Comment

The Parliamentary committee examining the treatment of Afghan detainees is set to resume meeting next week despite the prorogation of Parliament. NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar says the committee will hear from witnesses on an informal basis beginning February 3rd. The questioning will be conducted by Liberal and NDP MPs only—Conservative members of the committee won’t be present until the hearings formally resume on March 3rd, when parliament comes back in session. Dewar also criticized the government for its secretiveness on the file, pointing out the U.K and U.S. have already made parts of their detainee records public.

CBC News

Charges dropped in "Stop resisting!" case

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 1:59 PM - 3 Comments

Charges have been stayed against a 22-year-old student from the University of Western Ontario whose arrest went viral on the Internet last October. In a 90-second video posted online, Irnes Zjelkovic was shown being violently detained by several campus and London police officers, who punch, knee, and hit him with batons. Officers could also be heard yelling “stop resisting” and subsequently charged Zjelkovic with mischief, resisting arrest, escaping custody and assaulting a peace officer. After the video brought them national attention, police defended their actions, saying the video failed to capture the student’s combativeness leading up to the arrest.

AM 980

Koreas trade fire

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 1:45 PM - 2 Comments

In what may be a sign of deteriorating relations between the two countries, North and South Korea traded artillery shots on Wednesday. The exchange was seemingly prompted by the North Korean military’s firing of artillery shells into the water near its border with South Korea, which officials from the North defended as a military exercise. South Korean troops fired warning shots into the air in response. Still, while the bellicose military posturing is worrying, progress appears to be looming on economic and humanitarian issues between the two Koreas. High-level diplomatic talks, which are part of North Korea’s bid to secure economic help, are ongoing, and South Korean officials say the latest spat between the neighbours wouldn’t throw those talks into jeopardy.

Wall Street Journal

Is our children learning?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 12:56 PM - 70 Comments

Conservative MP Larry Miller finds a sympathetic high school civics teacher.

A student asked about prorogation and Miller defended and explained that decision. The civics teacher then remarked, “I didn’t know the word prorogue,” then added he doubted many had…

Scott noted former prime ministers Jean Chretien and Pierre Trudeau shut down government four and 11 times respectively with no fuss. ”How come all of a sudden when he does it, Mr. Harper does it, everybody knows about it and there’s protests?”…

Miller blamed the media for prorogation criticism. He said the media have “worked it up” to “sell papers or sell TV shows.” ”The national media needs a story in Ottawa and they didn’t have one,” Miller said, to which Scott expressed agreement…

Scott next asked Miller why opposition parties “give the impression they’re a little softer on crime.” They’re “not pro-criminal but they seem to look after the criminal as much if not more than the victim. What is that?”…

At one point, a student passed a note back to Scott, which he said informed him he was asking too many questions. Scott paused and invited students to ask any. Who’s your favourite hockey team? one asked. “Boston Bruins,” Miller replied.

Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" gets no rest

By John Geddes - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 12 Comments

Yet another version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” this one sung by Matt Morris and Justin Timberlake on the U.S. Hope for Haiti TV telethon, is now one of the hottest singles on iTunes. This in blatant defiance of Cohen’s request, after countless covers, some of them pretty big hits, that everybody give “Hallelujah” a rest. Given the cause I figure he’ll be okay with the moratorium being broken. (Our Brian D. Johnson probed the lasting allure of “Hallelujah” last year.)

He once was lost

By Philippe Gohier - Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 11:38 AM - 1 Comment

For a country in such desperate need of food, water, and shelter, even the smallest victories can seem like major triumphs. A 35-year-old man was pulled from the rubble of a collapsed store yesterday, two weeks after a 7.0 quake that devastated the small Caribbean nation. Rico Dibrivell was covered in dust  and wearing only his underpants when U.S. soldiers found him while clearing rubble. He was treated for severe dehydration and a broken leg, and there are still no details on how he managed to survive. Army specialist Andrew Pourak said it is possible he wasn’t trapped by the main earthquake, but by one of the powerful aftershocks. Authorities have all but given up on finding any more survivors from the initial earthquake more than two weeks ago.

CBC News