The party’s started

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Photograph by George Pimentel

Fashion branding is an international gold-medal sport, so it’s fitting that the big first parties of the Games combined the two themes. On Saturday night, Dsquared2’s Dan and Dean Caten, the identical twins who designed the fantastical opening ceremony costumes, were feted by MAC Cosmetics. The crowd that crushed into a hotel lobby included opera singer Measha Brueggergosman, rapper k-os, former Olympian Nancy Kerrigan, Jeanne Beker and Ben Mulroney.

Then there was the much-coveted invite to Omega’s Valentine’s night party “hosted” by Cindy Crawford, one of the brand’s celebrity “ambassadors,” which drew a stylish crowd wearing fabulous shoes despite the rain. Also on hand were Vancouver restaurateur Umberto Menghi and a few former Olympic gold medallists busy with future Games: former British MP Sebastian Coe, who fronted London’s 2012 bid, and Alexander Popov, who worked the crowd talking up Russia’s 2014 Games. The American dynastic pair David Lauren, son of Ralph, and model Lauren Bush, niece of George W., also swanned through, both in Ralph Lauren, the official designer for the 2010 U.S. team.

Until Crawford’s half-time entrance, speculation swirled (ill-founded, alas) that Omega ambassador George Clooney would be with her. The lineup for photo-ops included B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who ended up being late for his own opening-night bash at B.C. House in the Vancouver Art Gallery, hosted by Vicki Gabereau.

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America is running a hot-air cartel

By Peter Shawn Taylor - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

In 1925, the U.S. government declared helium to be a strategic resource and began stockpiling reserves of the lighter-than-air gas. Helium-filled dirigibles were thought to represent the future of air combat. While squadrons of blimp bombers never materialized, helium did become very important, and the government’s reserves kept growing. Helium’s unique properties, particularly as a refrigerant, led to many academic, medical, military and space exploration applications. It also proved handy for parades and birthday parties.

But in the mid-’90s, the U.S. government decided it no longer needed the huge stockpile of helium, which is held in a massive underground bunker in Texas called the Bush Dome Reserve (at its peak in 1973, the Dome contained 35 billion cubic feet of helium). The subsequent sell-off, as per the Helium Privatization Act of 1996, required that the gas be sold for a price high enough to recoup the cost of keeping the stockpile for all those decades. Since Bush Dome sales account for about one-third of global demand, smaller helium producers simply matched the mandated price—currently in the range of US$7 to $10 per liquid litre. In effect, the U.S. is running a helium cartel.

This policy has caused myriad problems for the scientific community. A new study from the National Academy of Sciences says universities and research organizations have been “hit particularly hard by the sharp price rises and shortages.” Worse, the study suggests that once its supply is depleted, the U.S. will find itself dependent on helium supplies from the Middle East and Russia.

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What kind of military are we building in Afghanistan?

By Andrew Potter - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 2:21 PM - 15 Comments

I don’t buy much of the Afghanistan-is-Vietnam-all-over-again storyline, but on CNN.com today, military historian Andrew Wiest makes a plausible argument for one way in which we might be repeating the same mistakes that were made in Vietnam. The issue is the type of army we’re trying to build over there; as Wiest agues,  the problem is that the Americans tried to train and equip a first-world army in a third-world country that had neither the cash nor the capable manpower to keep it going. And Wiest suggests that we’re making the same mistake this time, trying to mentor along an army that will never be able, on its own, to fight western-style.

I don’t know enough about the training and equipping that is going on in Afghanistan to judge this argument, but there are a few things about what we’re building over there that do concern me. The first is the sheer intended size of the security forces. The goal is to have a combined ANSF/ANP strength of almost 400 000 troops, including almost 270 000 on the military side.

To put that in perspective, Canada has a reg force military strength of 67 000; the total number of police at all levels is about the same. But Canada has a first-world economy, can fund it from an established tax base, and can draw for its personnel on a healthy and literate population. Afghanistan has an agricultural economy, no tax base to speak of, while the population is mostly illiterate and generally in poor health. How can Afghanistan afford this? It can’t. The coalition  plan is to set up a trust fund of some sort that will pay for wages, pensions, equipment, and so forth.

Assuming this can be done, not a lot of consideration seems to have gone into the consequences of building and supplying an army/gendarmerie of 400 000 people in a country sandwiched between Pakistan and Iran. The ANA would quickly become a dominant political power power, as well as an elite institution in the country that might soon come to have little more than contempt for the country’s civilian institutions.

This isn’t armchair speculation — these concerns were raised by a Canadian military official at a briefing in Kabul last week. As he said, people are aware of the problem, but aren’t talking about it much.  As has so often been the case in Afghanistan, when it comes to the military, the long-term danger might not be that we fail in our ambitions, but that we succeed.

***

UPDATE: Old-fashioned radios used by both sides enable ANA and Taliban soldiers to trash talk during firefights.

What they were told, what we aren't allowed to hear

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:54 PM - 32 Comments

The Star reports on a May 2007 memo warning government and military officials about the legal ramifications of detainee transfers. James Travers, meanwhile, posits an unsourced, but seemingly somehow informed, theory as to some of what the government is currently withholding.

In the winter of 2007, three insurgents captured by Canada’s top-secret Joint Task Force Two disappeared into the notorious Afghan prison system. Three years later, Prime Minister Stephen Harper suspended Parliament rather than release related documents that raise difficult questions about the role of this country’s special forces and spies in targeting, capturing and interrogating key enemies.

Linking those events are fears about what happened to Isa Mohammad and two other prisoners transferred to Kabul control by Canadians after successful Kandahar operations. In a private 2007 briefing, the prestigious International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern to Canada that the men had either been killed or were being held by the U.S. in one of its controversial “black site” military prisons.

Dispatches detailing those worries, the names of the three missing men – as well as a fourth who Canadians found – and Red Cross frustration over the military’s persistent failure to provide timely, accurate prisoner information are in the files the Harper government is withholding.

Twenty Years After

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

Two decades after Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for his death, British author Salman Rushdie is planning a book about the 10 years spent hiding under guard. “It’s my story, and at some point, it does need to be told. That point is getting closer, I think,” he told reporters at Emory University in Atlanta, where an exhibition of his personal correspondence, notebooks, photographs, drawings and manuscripts is set to open on Friday. “When [the archive material] was in cardboard boxes and dead computers, it would have been very, very difficult, but now it’s all organized,” he said. Last year marked 20 years since the Iranian leader called for Rushdie’s execution, saying that his novel The Satanic Verses insulted Islam, Mohammed and the Quran. The edict, which followed street protests and book burnings across the Muslim world, forced Rushdie under police protection for almost a decade. British booksellers said that if the Booker prize-winning author, who was knighted for his services to literature in 2007, went ahead with his plans, the work was likely to prove very successful. “This is one of the most fascinating chapters in recent literary history, and cannot but have affected Rushdie as a writer and as a man. The ironic thing is that this may be his most commercial book in years,” said Jon Howells at Waterstone’s. “The fatwa against Rushdie really was the first defining episode in the modern clash between fundamentalist religion and Enlightenment values which is now such a major issue for all of us. Rushdie’s profile is clearly massive, he still sells strongly, and he’ll get a lot of publicity for this book if he decides to write it,” agreed Benedicte Page, associate editor at the Bookseller. Rushdie’s next novel, Luka and the Fire of Life, a sequel to his children’s story Haroun and the Sea of Stories, is due out this autumn.

The Guardian

Pill to cure alcoholism?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 5 Comments

As excessive drinking has increasingly become the norm, Big Pharma is taking notice, looking for a pill that could “cure” alcoholism, Reuters reports. The industry took a long time to get interested in searching for this type of drug, partly because the perceived market (convicted drunk drivers, the unemployed and homeless) wouldn’t make for great returns, the news agency says. But now that everyday drinkers are on the rise among the middle classes, that’s changing. “The potential market for medications that can be prescribed for these functional alcoholics is huge,” said addiction expert Mark Willenbring, adding that alcoholism research could be approaching a “Prozac moment,” just as depression did, when it becomes acceptable to get a pill prescription to help one through a bad patch. There are now 24 drugs in development for alcoholism; while some such drugs already exist, their functions vary widely. Critics say Big Pharma is just looking to create a “new disease” to make a market for unnecessary medicines, but others say it could help millions improve their health, lowering society’s health care costs along the way.

Reuters

Masks and un-wearable shoes

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:16 PM - 1 Comment

In a recent auction, St. Martin’s Press bought Lady Gaga: Critical Mass Fashion for an undisclosed sum. The American publisher plans to rush it into print by fall, when it can join other Gaga titles: Lady Gaga: Behind the Fame by Emily Herbert; Fame: Lady Gaga by Dan Rafter and Tess Fowler; and, in Britain, Lady Gaga: “Just Dance”–The Biography by Helia Phoenix. The fashion book will aim slightly higher, according to the publisher. “The highly stylized, modernly designed book is an examination of the pop star’s extreme couture and her success in constructing an image through fashion as well as music. Extended captions scattered throughout the book will break down specific costumes, while the main text of each chapter will explore a different thread of her wardrobe: masks, bodily functions, un-wearable shoes, and more.”

Media Bistro

North Korea threatens nuclear attack

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:08 PM - 12 Comments

North Korea is flexing its nuclear muscles again ­this time, in the lead-up to the joint U.S-South Korea military drills which are scheduled for early next month. If the U.S. proceeds with the drills, warn North Korean officials, it must expect a “powerful”-and possibly nuclear-response. Said a Korean People’s Army spokesman: “If the U.S. imperialists and South Korean warmongers launch the joint military exercises we will react to them with our powerful military counteraction, and if necessary, mercilessly destroy the bulwark of aggression by mobilizing all the offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent.” North Korea pulled out of six-nations disarmament negotiations last year. Its latest threats were made just hours after a U.S. special envoy arrived in Seoul.

CBC

Tom Brokaw explains Canada to the U.S.

By Shanda Deziel - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:05 PM - 1 Comment

A president and his famous nemesis

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

The impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton 11 years ago now seems an oh-so-last-century drama in ways more profound than the merely chronological. Before 9/11, before the financial meltdown of 2008—and the new set of American obsessions they spawned—politics in an at-peace and prosperous U.S. turned on a crisis that unfolded as political theatre. Slow moving, long running, and—for most Americans—pain-in-the-frontal-lobes-inducing, the epic battle between Clinton and his nemesis, independent counsel Ken Starr, had something to appall everyone. Key components ran the gamut from the incomprehensible (the murky Whitewater land deal), to the tragic (the suicide of White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster) to the tawdry (the semen-stained blue dress) to the farcical (the chief executive’s alleged genital peculiarity) to the bewilderingly existential: in the end, it all depended, as Clinton once desperately tried to explain, on “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

But however ancient the story now appears, The Death of American Virtue, law professor Ken Gormley’s massive reconstruction of events, demonstrates how the impeachment saga created crucial fault lines in U.S. life that still reverberate, notably the venomously personal tone of American politics. Three separate freight trains had to smash into one another to propel Clinton to trial: Whitewater, the private lawsuit filed by Paula Jones alleging sexual harassment by Clinton when he was still Arkansas governor (it was Jones who swore his penis was “crooked”), and the president’s dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As Gormley sets out, in almost mind-numbing detail, it required a barely credible series of coincidences and poor ad hoc decisions on both sides to permit those trains to collide.

Starr’s investigation of Whitewater was petering out by 1997, at least in terms of pinning something on a Clinton (Bill or Hillary), and he announced in February that he was stepping down. But Starr’s own staff rose in revolt, and what Hillary Clinton later called “the vast right-wing conspiracy” swung into action, as conservatives in the media lambasted the prosecutor for cowardice and lack of moral fibre. Starr retracted his resignation, and set his investigation on a new track, into a search for women who had had affairs with Clinton. Clinton and his supporters viewed the new tack as a politically motivated witch hunt into his private life, while Starr defended it as an attempt to leave no stone unturned.

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Harper: hero to Uganda’s homosexuals

By Kaj Hasselriis - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 21 Comments

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose party refused to support same-sex marriage in Canada, is being hailed as a gay rights hero—in Uganda. “He’s a human rights activist,” said Brown Kiyimba. “Harper is a liberal guy,” added Emmanueil Turinawe. Both men are from Uganda’s gay community, which is under siege thanks to a bill that calls for life sentences for gays who “touch another person with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality,” and even the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” such as having sex while HIV-positive or being a “serial offender.” That bill, currently being debated in the Ugandan parliament, was introduced by government MP David Bahati and enjoys widespread support in a nation that already criminalizes homosexual acts. It also calls for the imprisonment of heterosexuals who fail to report gays, and the abolition of gay-rights organizations convicted of promoting homosexuality. And gay Ugandans don’t have to live in the nation to be affected by the proposed legislation, since it can apply to offences outside Uganda.

Until recently, the Prime Minister of Canada never registered on the radar of most gay Ugandans. But at last November’s Commonwealth conference in Trinidad and Tobago, Harper had a private meeting with Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni. He gave him his two cents’ worth on the anti-gay bill. Shortly after, the East African leader told BBC News, “The Prime Minister of Canada came to see me and what was he talking about? Gays.” For the first time, Museveni talked of the need for “extreme caution” about the bill because it had become a foreign affairs issue. (Though he hasn’t openly supported the proposed legislation, Museveni’s previous statement criticizing homosexuality—he claimed “European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa”—combined with the time and attention the private member’s bill has received in parliament, led many observers to conclude he tacitly backs it.)

Gay and lesbian Ugandans were thrilled. “The Prime Minister of Canada putting it forward was a way for the [gay] community to know the position of the president on this bill,” said Abdallah Wambere, another gay Ugandan. And since Harper and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown brought up the issue at the Commonwealth conference, other world leaders have followed, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

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Growing Pains Actor Still Missing In Vancouver

By macleans.ca - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 1 Comment

The mystery of Andrew Koenig, who played Richard “Boner” Stabone on the ’80s sitcom Growing Pains, gets weirder and weirder. Koenig, son of Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, has not worked much since he left his role as Kirk Cameron’s unfortunately nicknamed buddy at the end of the fourth season. He arrived in Vancouver earlier this month, but he has not been seen by anyone in days. Walter Koenig has said that the last time his son contacted him was via a “depressed” email on February 16, and a missing-persons coordinator told Radar.com that he fears this is the behaviour of a suicidal person. Larry King was scheduled to have an interview with Koening’s parents, but they walked out of the studio two minutes before the live interview was scheduled to begin, leaving Larry King “stammering” and leaving gawker.com with the suspicion that they had gotten some news about their son. As for the rest of us, we’ll have to wait and see.

Gawker

Radar

Bombardier’s Big Gamble

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 3 Comments

UPDATE: Bombardier has reached a deal to sell 40 of its yet-to-be-built CSeries aircraft with Indianapolis-based Republic Airways Holdings, which operates six regional carriers in the United States. The deal, valued at little over US$3 billion, is Bombardier’s first in North America for the fuel efficient 110- to 130-seat family of aircraft. It includes options for Republic to double the size of the order down the road.  Some observers have expressed concern about a lack of orders for the $3.4 billion CSeries project amid tough times for the airline industry. Prior to inking the agreement with Republic, Bombardier had firm orders for just 50 of the planes despite officially launching the program last summer.  The CSeries is larger than Bombardier’s current line of regional jets and will compete head-to-head with smaller aircraft built by industry heavyweights Boeing and Airbus, a first for Bombardier. The first CSeries aircraft are scheduled to roll off the assembly line in Montreal in 2013.

Gary Scott has, fittingly, spent a lot of time among the clouds lately. The head of commercial aviation for Bombardier is just back from Europe to pitch the plane-maker’s new CSeries aircraft, a state-of-the-art jet that, once it rolls off the production line in 2013, would put Bombardier in direct competition with giants Boeing and Airbus for the first time in its history. Next, he is off to visit a potential customer on this side of the Atlantic. Then he wings his way to Singapore, where he was scheduled to meet with dozens of airlines and aircraft leasing companies at a six-day air show.

The globe-trotting is part of the full court press that Bombardier is putting on some 150 potential customers who have expressed interest in its US$3.4-billion CSeries project, a 110- to 130-seat family of aircraft that targets what executives believe is an underserved market. An idea first hatched six years ago, the CSeries will be bigger than Bombardier’s existing regional jets, which top out at around 100 seats, but would be distinguished from the smallest versions of Boeing’s 737 family and Airbus’s A320 family by more fuel-efficient engines, state-of-the-art technology and lightweight composite components.

So far, though, Bombardier has notched just two orders, with firm commitments for a meagre 50 planes (Germany’s Lufthansa has ordered 30, and a leasing company 20). And it backed away from a prediction that it would announce a third order before the end of the company’s fiscal year on Jan. 31. “We are in advanced state of discussions with some customers, but the timing of final contracts and orders is always difficult to predict, particularly in these difficult times,” says Scott. “I do anticipate an order coming from these discussions in the first half of the year.”

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Backstopping the gold medal final—will Canada’s Szabados get the nod?

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

After Canada’s final practice at east Vancouver’s Britannia Rink yesterday, coach Mel Davidson refused to answer the question on everybody’s mind—who’ll be backstopping for Canada in today’s gold-medal final against the U.S.? “I’m not announcing anything—that’s it,” she said. “We have made a decision,” she conceded, after prodding from reporters. “And we’ve talked to the goalies.”

Youngster Shannon Szabados and veteran Kim St-Pierre have each had two starts, and are likely candidates for the job; Montreal’s Charline Labonte, who played the gold-medal final in Turin, is less likely because she’s only played one period, so far in Vancouver. St-Pierre was 2-0 with a 1.61 goals against average in three  appearances in Canada’s six-game exhibition series with the U.S. Szabados was 2-0 with a 2.00 GAA in her two starts.

Szabados, the youngest of Canada’s three goalies at 23, started in Canada’s last game, a 5-0 semi-final win over Finland, Monday—a hint, perhaps, that she might get the nod today. She spent five years in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, and was the league’s top goaltender.

No one was asking Team USA coach, Mark Johnson the question; there’s no chance he’ll go with anyone but Jessie Vetter, the reigning Patty Kazmaier Award winner as the NCAA’s top player.

Liveblog: Women's curling semi-finals

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 4 Comments

Welcome to the Vancouver Olympic Centre, and the semi-finals of the women’s curling tournament—otherwise known as the Cheryl Bernard show. The Canadian skip/Internet sensation is finished her warm-ups and removed her earphones, and as soon as the bagpipers are done with their grand entrance, it’s game time. China vs. Sweden. Switzerland vs. Canada.

9:22 am — Much sweeping and yelling. After the first end, it’s 1-0 Team Bernard and 1-0 Team Sweden. I’m still not sure why they have to play both semi-final games at the same time. It’s like a bowling alley in here.

9:33 am — The cow bells mean Switzerland has tied it up, 1-1. On Sheet B, China has given up another point to Sweden, and now trail 2-0. Those 14 people watching back home in Beijing are surely devastated.

9:42 am — Time for a little segment I like to call: “Things You Might Not Know About Cheryl Bernard.” She co-wrote a book entitled: Between the Sheets: Creating Curling Champions. The 43-year-old also works closely with famed sports psychologist Penny Werthner, who has helped improve her focus and mental toughness. She sure looks focused today. Bernard just landed what I’ve been told is a “freeze,” which is good. Apparently.

9:50 am — Bernard hits and and sticks for two! 3-1 Canada.

10:02 am — Switzerland gets one back. 3-2 Canada. One lane over, the Chinese just got on the board. Their coach, by the way, is a Canadian named Dan Rafael. He does not generate as many Google hits as Cheryl.

10:09 am — When she isn’t curling (or being Googled) Bernard works as an insurance broker in Calgary. She owns her own company, Unigroup Western Insurance Brokers. The company home page says “Come back January 1, 2010 for the web site launch!!!” Bernard must be busy doing something else.

10:17 am — Big steal for the Swiss. 3-3 at halftime. On Sheet B, the Chinese are getting rocked. With three in the fifth end, Sweden now has a commanding 6-1 lead. The Canadians are snacking on mixed nuts and bananas.

10:36 am — Bernard just hit and stuck for another two. Canada 5, Switzerland 3. I credit the bananas.

10:51 am — No points in the seventh end. Switzerland keeps the hammer—and the crowd is waking up. I’ve never seen the wave this early in the morning (or so many beer cups). China, by the way, scored singles in the sixth and seventh, and now trail 6-3.

11:09 am — In the eighth end, Swiss skip Mirjam Ott had a chance for two and the tie, with one rock already in the button and the hammer in her hand. But she left it heavy, and had to settle for one. Canada 5, Switzerland 4. Whichever team wins, it doesn’t look like China will the opponent in the final. They’re down 9-3 to Sweden in the ninth.

11:20 am — It’s official. China’s done. And it only took nine ends. They’ll play for bronze tomorrow morning.

11:25 am — Bernard just made the shot of the morning, using her hammer in the ninth end to knock the Swiss rock out of the button and capture one. It was almost two, but the official measuring guy took out his stick and said the second Swiss rock was a smidgen closer. 6-4 Canada. On to the tenth we go…

11:38 am — Donald Sutherland and his bushy white beard are here. He looks very concerned. And homeless.

11:41 am — Swedish skip Mirjam Ott is very good. Down by two, she just squeezed her second-last rock through traffic, bumped out the Canadian stone, and left two in the house. We’re down to the wire.

11:44 am — Okay, maybe Ott isn’t that good. Down by one, she tried to hit and stick but couldn’t. Her rock slid out of the house, and that’s that. Bernard and her rink are off to the gold-medal game! Crowd is thrilled. Bernard is blowing kisses.

Olympic Mailbag: Lindsey Vonn, Brian Boitano, The Sasquatch

By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:58 AM - 10 Comments

Welcome to the second Olympic mailbag, where, fine, I’ll be the one to ask even though we’re all thinking it: What would it take for our ice dancing gold medalists to make out just a little bit in front of us all on TV? I’m only talking about second base (unless it happens after 10 p.m.). They’re very pretty. Do it for your country, you selfish brats.

The following questions were actually submitted by actual readers. Remember – there’s no such thing as a stupid question, unless the question is: Should I pull my goalie after he’s given up four goals in a single period or should I wait til he’s surrendered six and the game is completely out of reach?

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Dear Scott:

I heard that Lindsey Vonn tweeted about you today. What did she say again? – museme

museme –

Actually, that tweet was about her shin, though it’s easy to see how you could be confused: I, too, am tender beyond belief and painful to live with.

•••

Dear Scott:

Given the newfound popularity of “cross” sports, when do you expect we’ll see the Skeleton Cross, and will you be participating? – Thwim

Thwim –

You know what I’d like to see? Biathlon cross. Every time they got to the shooting range, it would be like the climax of Bonnie and Clyde. In fact, why don’t we “cross” every event? Launch four Norwegians off Continue…

The pivotal paperwork (VI)

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 14 Comments

Two months after the government was first asked to explain why a reference to abuse in a 2006 field report was redacted in 2007, but released uncensored in 2009, the questions having been put to three different departments, an answer, of sorts, arrives from the Justice Department.

Those questions, for the record, were as follows: In regards to the redaction noted below, who oversaw, ordered or made that redaction? On what grounds was that reference to abuse redacted? Did those grounds no longer apply when Gen. Natynczyk disclosed the reference to abuse last week?

I reprint the response received this morning here in its entirety. Continue…

Lethbridge flourishes, Alberta fails

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 11 Comments

Some good and some bad news regarding Alberta’s health care system. First the bad: the median time it takes to get a bed after arriving at provincial ERs is more than 14 hours, up from 11 in 2007 (by comparison, the median wait time in Ontario is 12.1 hours). Now the good: most patients at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge get a bed in just three hours, and 30 per cent of those visiting the ER see a doctor within half an hour—far, far quicker than the provincial average of 2.6 hours. “Chinook’s getting better and the province is getting worse,” says Dr. John Cowell, chief executive officer of the Health Quality Council of Alberta.

Diane Shanks, Chinook’s director of emergency care, says the hospital used private consultants, and a grant from the province, to develop a dedicated approach to keeping wait times down. “The in-patient unit, the seniors’ outflow and community care groups, the lab, ICU, everybody is working to make sure we keep people in beds when they should be in beds, and trying not to delay moving them to where they need to go for the best care,” she says.

Following that integrated model, Chinook staff have a daily “bed huddle” that examines expected discharges and admissions, and tries to ensure there will be enough space before patients arrive. The hospital also emphasizes communication between departments to prevent unnecessary retesting and help stop bottlenecks. “In the past, beds were emergency’s problem,” says Vanessa Maclean, medical director for Alberta Health’s south zone. “Now everybody is responsible for how patients flow through the hospital.”

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You are in Candahar

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 3 Comments

Photograph by Simon Hayter

As millions tuned in to watch Canada’s founding First Nation tribes being celebrated with spectacular production values in the Olympic opening ceremonies at B.C. Place, another audience was participating in a more gritty and audacious Aboriginal spectacle just blocks away at the far less grand Playwrights Theatre Centre on Granville Island. There, more than a hundred thronged to the Candahar Bar when doors opened at 7 p.m., eager to check out the opening night of one of the most buzzed-about art installations on Vancouver’s jam-packed 2010 Cultural Olympiad calendar: a pop-up replica of a Belfast public house that’s part performance space, part ongoing social experiment.

The fact the $5 admission covered a glass of wine, beer or whiskey helped draw the crowd. But when patrons approached the pub to wet their whistles, they found it packed with revellers. A burly bouncer blocked the entrance; only Aboriginal people were allowed inside, he told them. Everyone else had to wait until 8:30 to be served liquor; until then, there was water or pop. The only non-native revellers inside were the Belfast-born brothers Chris and Conor Roddy—the unscripted performance artists who also serve drinks—and Theo Sims, the puckish British-born artist who masterminded the Candahar, which is named after a street in Belfast. Sims wanted to construct a space that would dismantle the car-bombs-and-balaclavas stereotype of Northern Ireland, where he went to university. First staged in Calgary in 2006, the installation has since toured the country, with Vancouver its fifth and final stop. When it was exhibited at the 2007 Biennale de Montréal, Sims deflected the demand to provide bilingual barkeep, which became a heated subject of debate within the bar itself.

And so it was last Friday night, when patrons discovered they’d been part of “Indians Only,” a one-off production by Vancouver multidisciplinary artist Rebecca Belmore, herself an Aboriginal Canadian. The idea, Belmore told Maclean’s, was to confront stereotypes about Indians drinking and to challenge presumed notions of privilege and prejudice.

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Crashing computers, and cars too

By Chris Sorensen - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 2 Comments

Sit inside a Toyota Prius hybrid and it’s hard not to marvel at all the high-tech eye candy: push-button ignition, touch-screen display and digital images of the vehicle’s dual gas-electric powertrains at work. But while automakers have generally rushed to highlight the sophisticated technology under the hood of their hybrids, Toyota’s recent decision to recall nearly half a million Prius vehicles because of a software glitch may cause drivers to think twice about buying such overly computerized cars.

Toyota decided to issue the recall because of a problem with the Prius’s computer-controlled brake system—specifically the way it switches between its hydraulic (stopping) and regenerative (power storing) braking systems, which can lead to uneven braking on bumpy terrain. Similarly, Ford said it would provide owners of some of its hybrid models with a software patch to fix a similar problem. “Hybrids have tended to be relatively error free compared to regular vehicles—that is, until now,” says Tony Faria, co-director of the University of Windsor business school’s Office of Automotive Research. Suddenly, these high-tech cars can seem downright scary.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Toyota is in the midst of recalling some 8.1 million vehicles worldwide amid a small number of complaints of “unintended acceleration.” So far, Toyota has identified ill-fitting floor mats and potentially sticky gas pedals as the culprits, but several observers have suggested Toyota’s drive-by-wire throttles (which replace the mechanical link between gas pedals and the engine with an electronic one) are to blame. It hasn’t helped that Apple co-founder and engineering guru Steve Wozniak publicly speculated that he was having software-related problems with the cruise control mechanism on his Prius.

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Stay calm! German Saxony house has plenty of beer

By Anne Kingston - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 10:09 AM - 1 Comment

The email from a colleague arrived around 6. He had heard, via the Olympic grapevine, that Saxony House is so popular they’d run out of beer. What? A German pavilion without beer? So as Maclean’s intrepid party/Pilsner reporter,  I hoofed it over to Stanley Park’s Vancouver Rowing Club—which has turned the space over for the Olympics—to investigate.  My interrogation began with two staff in the main party room, where a band played Omp-pah-pah and Dire Straights covers and patrons were downing plenty of liquid barley. The line of questioning seemed to amuse them. “Are you a spy?” one of them asked. “She’s a spy!” the other declared.

Undeterred, I worked my way into the VIP lounge for the lowdown—and some fabulous sausage smeared in Saxony mustard (like Dijon, only more mellow). As it turns out, the rumour is true.  Last Friday night, they exhausted the 270 kegs of Wernesgruner pilsner they’d imported, forcing beer-drinkers (i.e., everybody) to switch to Kostritzer, a dark beer for a few hours, Antje Rennack, assistant to the managing director, revealed. But the next day, another shipment arrived.

Mystery solved. But by this time I was enjoying myself nobbing among the Saxony VIPs, finding out more about the German state, and taking in the lovely views of English Bay. Since they can’t legally import sausage, a father-and-son team from Saxony (part of the VIP contingent) make it daily at a local German butcher using imported spices. They expect to go through two tons by the Games’ end.

Saxony House’s managing director Hans-Jürgen Goller arrived to field more questions. He’s been planning for the Olympics for three and a half years, he said. His first choice for a headquarters was the Roundhouse in Yaletown, now home to Casa Italia, but he wasn’t sure he could fill it nightly. Then there was a wrangle with the IOC over the fact that Saxony is not an IOC member.

But he seems happy where he is. The crowd is 90 per cent Canadian, 30 per cent of them of German origin, and 10 per cent German tourists. Usually there are line-ups. It’s far quieter on nights when Canada’s men’s hockey team plays, he says. “Canadian fans tend to stay in the city core. They want to be alone.”
He says one of the reasons Saxony set up at the Games is to stir awareness. Apparently it’s not yet on tourists’ radar. That’s a shame. If Saxony House is any indication, the actual place must be a blast.

Senator Frum helps launch A History of Anti-Semitism in England

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 14 Comments

Tory Senator Linda Frum (below) held a special book launch in her home for Anthony Julius’ new book Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England.

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Author Anthony Julius.

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Advice that won't be taken

By Colby Cosh - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 9:05 AM - 54 Comments

The Alberta Liberals will certainly boycott the province’s fall Senate election, as they have done on similar occasions in the past. They do this in the name of the principle that… oh, lord, I don’t know. I suppose they do it in the name of the principle that at every opportunity, they must display their deference to the federal Liberal party, even as they assert their independence from it, and must never miss a chance to insult Alberta voters gratuitously. Alberta Liberals are always quick to pose as victims of geographically fine-grained first-past-the-post elections, but given a chance to make some use of their province-wide support, in the only province-wide elections of any kind that occur anywhere in the country, they invariably back off and complain that Alberta is just going to vote for a bunch of right-wing nutcases anyway. Honestly, they don’t really act as though they like elections very much, and maybe losing 23 of them in a row will do that to you.

The stated principle upon which they refuse to participate is that incremental Senate reform is the enemy of the wholesale, constitutional Senate reform they supposedly support. Voting for a Senator, you see, merely entrenches the inequities of the current system. This doesn’t stop superannuated Alberta Liberal leaders from snatching Senate seats from Liberal federal governments as rewards for noble failure; somehow, doing that doesn’t entrench any inequities. The Alberta Liberals are not the only players of the old “support a categorically impossible major reform against a modest, feasible minor one” game, but they have certainly attained master-class certification at it.

As a practical matter, nobody can stop the Prime Minister from appointing whatever qualified person he likes to the Senate, whether that person has won an election or not. Alberta’s Liberals can go on sitting on the sidelines and repeating the federal opposition’s argument that the appointment of such a person is only unconstitutional if that person has won a procedurally fair election. This claim has always struck me as the kind of thing that Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children would cook up, but I guess they think it’s working for them.

If I were in charge of the party, mind you, I’d take a different view. I’d want to make a show of welcoming electoral tests, even low-stakes ones. Low stakes are good for parties that have issues building trust with the electorate! The party badly needs to exercise its organizational capacity, the way armies occasionally test their ability to manoeuvre and coordinate, and the Senate election is a very low-cost occasion. Moreover, the Alberta right is split. Not that it matters much, since the PCs don’t endorse candidates in Senate elections. If the Liberals got behind a single Senator-in-waiting candidate—is Kevin Taft particularly busy?—and said “Let’s all vote for X and put Stephen Harper’s sincerity to the test,” they could conceivably win.

And maybe it’s a mere side benefit, but such a victory really might offer a possible chance to test the prime minister’s sincerity. Alberta’s Liberal Senator Tommy Banks has a date with destiny on December 17, 2011. He has done good work in the actually existing Senate. That body can only benefit from having more of his kind, and fewer people like Pamela Wallin—people driven so insane or inane by feelings of partisan obligation that after a quarter-century in electronic journalism they can firmly, even angrily, attest to the high heavens that video monitoring doesn’t keep people honest.

Bestsellers

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 2 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles (week of February 22nd, 2010)

Fiction

Non-fiction

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