MUSIC: heavy rotation

By Paul Wells - Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 10:22 PM - 14 Comments

Here are some things I’ve been listening to a lot. I recommend each of them highly.

Beethoven Live, Orchestre de la Francophonie, Jean-Philippe Tremblay, conductor (Analekta)

This is the first complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies ever released by a Canadian orchestra. That it’s the work of a youth orchestra, recorded over four nights last July under a passionate but not particularly illustrious 31-year-old, is at once an hint of the project’s limitations and its highest recommendation. Continue…

Caption challenge: Robert Gibbs. Team Canada.

By Scott Feschuk - Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 6:06 PM - 69 Comments

Hey, look: it’s the press secretary to the U.S. President. And he’s wearing a Continue…

Memewatch: Haiti, in Trust

By Andrew Potter - Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 2:33 PM - 41 Comments

Yesterday’s FT has a letter to the editor from Thomas Moore of the Brookings Hoover  (duh) Institution, and his subject is the difficulty countries such as Haiti have attracting long-term assistance. The problem is that countries are leery of providing anything more beyond short-term aid, because they fear that such assistance will just be siphoned off by the corrupt leadership. What’s the answer? He proposes the old idea of a mandate:

The best state to run Haiti for the next 20 years is Canada. It has several advantages: a significant portion of Canadians speak French, which is related to the language of the native Haitians; Canada is widely considered as having one of the most open and honest governments in the world; and, most importantly, it has no record of being a colonising power. Canadians also have long been involved in attempting to help Haiti.

The terms of reference

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 11:30 AM - 130 Comments

The government releases Frank Iacobucci’s terms of reference, the opposition is unpersuaded.

“We’re disappointed that the government has told Mr. Iacobucci to basically decide which documents to withhold from Parliament and the Canadian people,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said after an event in Toronto Saturday. ”He’s been given an impossible job and we don’t believe we’re going to get to the bottom of the Afghan detainee scandal this way,” he said.

Can any country match that? No, actually

By Andrew Coyne - Saturday, March 13, 2010 at 11:45 PM - 58 Comments

To me, the most startling measure of Canada’s Olympic performance, eclipsing even the 14 gold (the most ever for any country) or the 26 medals (the most ever for Canada), was this: We placed in the top five in 37 of 86 events contested. Nearly half. In my Olympics wrap, I asked, quasi-rhetorically, “Can any country match that?”

This caused some snickers in the comments. The US won 37 medals, it was pointed out. So obviously they more than matched our top-5 record.

Well, no. If the question was, which country had the most top 5 finishes, the US would seem to have us beat: the 37 medallists, plus however many fourth- and fifth-place finishes they turned in. But the statement was not about how many top 5 finishes we had, but the number of events in which which we finished top 5, a measure of the breadth of our success.

I’ve now checked the results, and I can report that indeed, no country matched us in this regard. We placed top 5 in 37 events. The Americans were top 5 in 34. The Germans were top 5 in 33. No one else, I’m going to guess, eyeballing the results, was even close.

The seeming paradox is resolved by the fact that the Americans had more than one top 5 finisher in several events. But their success was concentrated in a narrower range of events than ours.

But wait, it gets better. Go back to that initial question: which country had the most top 5 finishes? The US, right? Well yes, but also Canada — the two countries were tied at the top, with 49 top 5 finishes each. (Germany had 46.) The US had more medallists than we did (37 to 26) but fewer 4ths and 5ths (12, to our 23).

So not only did we beat the world to the very top of the podium, we also were on or around more podiums, more times, than anyone else.

Hockey and minstrel shows—together at last!

By Philippe Gohier - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 5:56 PM - 63 Comments

I hate to admit how much time I spent trying to get this photo today, but Deadspin finally beat me to it. I saw this last night while watching the Habs’ game on RDS and had to pick my jaw up off the floor afterwards.

For those of you who aren’t hockey fans, first things first: What’s wrong with you? Second, here’s what went down: Sometime around the middle of the game, the camera inexplicably cut to these two doofuses in the crowd at the Bell Centre. The announcers initially seemed a little dumbfounded—not by the fact there were two Al Jolson wannabes taking in the game, but by why they’d be dressed up at all. When one of them noticed their t-shirts say “Subbanator” everything became crystal clear and perfectly reasonable.

P.K. Subban, you see, is a highly-touted prospect plying his trade in the Canadiens’ minor-league system and he’s already a bit of a fan favourite. He’s also black and, for some reason, no one involved in broadcasting (or attending) the game appeared to think this was a problematic way of feting Subban. Certainly not the dude in the truck, who left the shot up for a good 7-8 seconds; certainly not the announcers, who seemed to see it as “just a couple o’ guys havin’ fun at the game”; and certainly not Bell Centre security, who appear to be more concerned with preventing folks from sneaking beer into games than suggesting minstrel theatre should, at the very least, be confined to a different venue.

Ugh. Quebec just leaves me speechless sometimes.

Afghanistan, in Trust

By Andrew Potter - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 5:24 PM - 12 Comments

This week’s must-read on the Afghan file, I think, is Brian Stewart’s column about the growing sense that Karzai is more a part of the problem than he is a partner in a lasting solution. He’s fantastically corrupt, questionably loyal, and poor (if not completely uninterested) in actual governance. And while there’s no question that Karzai is a genius at political survival, he’s abetted by a very general but-he’s-our-bastard attitude in the West.

But maybe Karzai is neither solution nor problem, but simply irrelevant. Continue…

The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 23 Comments

And now the debut of a new weekly feature here at Beyond the Commons: a wholly arbitrary ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Exact criteria will take shape over time, points for now will be awarded on general competence and ability to amuse me. Continue…

Women on the pill might live longer

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 4:38 PM - 4 Comments

According to a study of 46,000 women over almost 40 years, those who took the birth control pill were less likely to die of cancer or heart disease. The team, led by Philip Hannaford of the University of Aberdeen, followed earlier data suggesting an increased risk for women on the pill, but found it disappeared in the long term. It was one of the largest investigations into the pill’s health effects, the BBC reports, adding that Philip called it “really reassuring for women.” While the pill’s long-term effects haven’t always been clear, he told the news service that “his study, after following up a large group of women for 39 years, has shown there is no increased risk among women who have used the pill, in fact there is a small 12% drop.”

BBC News

The Significance of Ralph Kramden

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 2 Comments

Noel Murray over at the AV Club has launched what promises to be a great new bi-weekly column, “A Very Special Episode.” He’ll be writing about various television episodes, from different eras and genres. As he explains, it’s not an attempt to pick the best TV episodes ever or even the best episodes of these shows, but to write about TV episodes that have some element that continues to be fascinating or to say something about our relationship to the TV medium.

The reason I like this idea is that it’s an attempt to do a TV column that’s similar in tone and focus to a lot of the better movie columns, where the writer picks a movie and identifies some theme in it that is particularly interesting and relevant. It’s different with TV, obviously, because an episode can’t be discussed in a complete vacuum (if you haven’t seen a bunch of episodes, and let the storytelling style of the show seep into your bloodstream as it were, you haven’t really watched that one episode either). But still, the episode is the essential unit of television — not the season, not the series, but the episode, that little mini-movie where the storytelling takes place — and a lot of online discussion of television episodes is inevitably less about the episode and more about where it fits into the series. How good a season is this? What’s going to happen next week, based on this episode? Is the character growing or regressing? If you’re discussing a current show, you can’t help but discuss episodes that way. I know I can’t.

So it’s good to see a more episode-specific discussion: what happens in this episode, what themes are conveyed — not, you will note, what themes the show may have intended to convey — and what we take away from this 25 or 50-minute viewing. It’s a way of giving the episode format the respect it deserves.

The first column is about one of the founding documents of television storytelling, The Honeymooners, and an episode that is to some extent about the medium of television itself.

Normally I would end this by saying what shows and episodes I would like to see Murray cover, but the whole comment section seems to be mostly about that, so I’ll back off.

Howard Stern is a jerk—with a point to ponder

By Anne Kingston - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 4:19 PM - 42 Comments

Howard Stern can be a nasty bastard—but he’s also often the only one willing to voice unpleasant truths others won’t. So it was this week when the Sirius shock jock unleashed a tirade against the future prospects for Gabourey Sidibe, the Best Actress nominee for her role in Precious. “There’s the most enormous, fat black chick I’ve ever seen,” Stern proclaimed the day after the Academy Awards. He went on to slam Oprah Winfrey’s tribute to Sidibe during the telecast in which she called the actress “a true American Cinderella on the threshold of a brilliant new career.” Stern was having none of it: “Everyone’s pretending she’s a part of show business and she’s never going to be in another movie. She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she’s never going to have another shot. What movie is she gonna be in?”

Stern was pilloried for being racist. He was also attacked for getting his facts wrong: Sidibe has been cast in the new Showtime comedy The C Word and the upcoming movie Yelling To The Sky, though neither are leading roles. The C Word stars Laura Linney; in Yelling to the Sky Sidibe plays a bully, which is safe to say not a role Halle Barry turned down.

On Wednesday, Stern defended his comments, taking on the role of compassionate health crusader. He compared Sidibe to his co-star Artie Lange, who recently attempted to commit suicide: “Like, I kind of don’t see a difference between what our Artie did—Artie tried to kill himself. And I feel this girl, in a slower way…she’s gonna kill herself.”

Stern being Stern, he couldn’t leave it there. He went on to deride the newcomer’s acting ability, calling her a “prop” in Precious, which suggests he didn’t see the movie or slept through it. His sidekick Robin Quivers chimed in with another inaccuracy: “You don’t have to be unhealthy to do that part,” she said. But any actress playing Precious, a 16-year-old girl monstrously abused by her parents, did have to be seriously overweight. The character’s only comfort comes from scarfing down tubs of fried chicken. Her excess flesh is not only a salient class indicator but also protective armour.

Off the screen, the 26-year-old is also creating buzz for showing no indication of signing up for a celebrity weight-loss reality show. On Oprah, she revealed she has battled her weight all of her life; it wasn’t until she was in her early 20s that she finally became comfortable in her own skin, she said. That was evident on the Oscar red carpet where she was joy to watch—exuberant, confident, loving every second, very much in the character of Precious who sustained herself with fantasies of being a celebrity. The actress ordered a camera to pan back to get her entire cobalt blue Marchesa gown in the frame and told Ryan Seacrest: “If fashion was porn, this dress would be the money shot.”

Watching, one couldn’t help wish for Sidibe to luxuriate in every second because deep-down we know Stern is right: Precious was a unique role; the odds of her transitioning into an American Cinderella—at least the Cinderella created by Disney who is slender and white—are nil in today’s Hollywood where women are valued for their youth, beauty and willingness to aspire to invisibility size-wise. “Plus-sized” or “full-figured” actresses (read: anyone over size six) have a tough enough time of it. Consider Nikki Blonsky who received high praise for her performance in Hairspray but hasn’t been heard from since. The verdict remains out on Jennifer Hudson, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Dreamgirls; she just dropped 60 pounds to play Winnie Mandela in a bio-pic.

The double-standard is so ingrained, it’s tedious: when Renée Zellweger gained 20 pounds to play Bridget Jones it was a major news story (and one suspects part of the reason she won an Oscar). Yet when Jeff Bridges packed on 25 pounds for his Oscar-winning role as washed-up country singer Bad Blake, no one asked for his weight-loss secrets. Male actors can get soft and paunchy and age and still get work—and the girl. Jack Black is allowed to play romantic lead against Kate Winslet. And nobody’s complaining that Philip Seymour Hoffman isn’t buff.

But Sidibe isn’t just “full-figured,” she’s obese—which, as Stern points out, is a hot-button topic in the U.S. and also a serious health risk. In Hollywood, morbid obesity is cheap-laugh fodder—slap a fat suit on Gwyneth Paltrow (Shallow Hal) or Eddie Murphy (The Nutty Professor/Norbit) and let the pathetic yucks begin. The 500-pound Darlene Cates who starred in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993 is an exception: she went on a few other roles, all of which hinged on her weight.

People went overboard rooting for Sidibe, Stern argues, “because she’s a big fat lady.” Maybe he’s right again. Consider it the Susan Boyle effect—the righteous pleasure of being so broad-minded to see that talent can come in different-sized packages. But the craving for change, evidenced in the first U.S. Black president, is deeper than that. Hollywood is taking tiny steps: Kathryn Bigelow broke through the male Best Director Oscar barrier. Meryl Streep is hotter at age 60 than she’s ever been. Helen Mirren is an inspiration. And non-stick figure Queen Latifah is playing a romantic lead in the upcoming movie Just Wright.

Fat, however, is more impenetrable, reflected in Stern mocking Sidibe’s for saying “I’m going to hit a Chick-fil-A,” a L.A. fast-food chain, after the awards. “That’s so sad,” he said. Of course, when the slender Best Actress winner Sandra Bullock expressed similar sentiment, it was heralded as a sign of how down to earth she is: “I just want to eat!” Bullock told the press room. “I just want to sit down and take my shoes off, and take my dress off, and eat a burger—and not worry that my dress is going to bust open.” Nobody, even Howard Stern, sees anything wrong with that picture.

This actually happened

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 3:31 PM - 38 Comments

Mark Kingwell has an essay about political civility in the new issue of the Walrus that I encourage you all to read—though it doesn’t appear to be online yet—and which I’m going to write about next week. In the meantime, here is Marlene Jennings’ supplementary question yesterday.

Hon. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the calls for public accountability from the Minister of State for the Status of Women and Rahim Jaffer are growing louder everyday. They are being called the Bonnie and Clyde of the Conservative Party. they are young, Conservative and above the law. Members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle like Kory Teneycke are saying that the minister owes an explanation and an apology and that Rahim owes the same. Is this what the Prime Minister meant when he sang “I get by with a little help from my friends, oh, I get high with a little help from my friends” a few months ago?

This week has four sketches

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 3:16 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly look back at all we saw and heard.

Monday. Adjust your cuffs and carry on
Tuesday. ‘I have the feeling that nothing will satisfy the honourable gentleman’
Wednesday. Comedy, tragedy, but no inquiry
Thursday. What this is about

What might have been (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 2:08 PM - 10 Comments

The Globe looks at the concerns within NATO in late 2006.

A memo obtained by The Globe and Mail shows that in 2006 the federal government was briefed on a lobbying campaign by NATO allies aimed at getting the Kabul government to create stronger safeguards for detainees after prisoner abuses elsewhere. “London, The Hague and Canberra [Australia] are deeply concerned about the absence of solid legal protections for detainees, which – in the age of Gitmo and Abu Ghraib – imperils domestic support for the Afghanistan mission,” said the memo of Dec. 4, 2006, written by diplomat Richard Colvin.

The memo was written after consultation with Catherine Bloodworth, a Foreign Affairs colleague, as well as the military attaché in Canada’s Kabul embassy. It was approved by David Sproule – then Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan – and was e-mailed to dozens of officials at Foreign Affairs, the Privy Council Office and National Defence.

Two dead in Edmonton shooting

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

A man opened fire with a gun at the Great West Chrysler dealership in west Edmonton today, killing one man and wounding another. The gunman is also dead, although police have not confirmed if he killed himself, nor have they released information on his relationship with the dealership, which has undergone recent layoffs. Witnesses are still speaking to police, but sources from nearby dealerships say the service manager and an automotive technician were victims. It’s believed that no costumers and only a few employees would have been at the dealership as the shooting unfolded.

Vancouver Sun

Triple shooting in Eastern Ontario leaves two dead

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 12:37 PM - 0 Comments

Ontario Provincial Police have arrested a man in connection with a triple shooting in Belleville that left two women dead and a third in critical condition. Police were called to the Prince Edward County home at 6:10 am on Friday morning, where they discovered the shooting victims. Three hours later, they’d arrested a suspect in nearby Trenton, though police have yet to release details about the man. The shooting prompted lockdowns in local schools which have since been lifted.

Toronto Star

10 Paralympians to watch

By Kate Lunau and Rachel Mendleson - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 12:32 PM - 3 Comments

Sonja Gaudet The only returning member of the Canadian Team, Sonja Gaudet, 43, is favoured to win gold at the Vancouver Games. Gaudet, who sustained a spinal injury after falling from a horse six years ago, enjoys diverse sports including basketball, rowing and swimming; she was a natural at wheelchair curling, having earned several top honours, including a gold medal at the 2009 World Championships and the gold in Torino in 2006, where wheelchair curling was first introduced as a Paralympic sport. Now based at the Vernon Curling Club in B.C., Gaudet works to improve accessibility in the community, and hopes to work in the school system once she retires from her athletic career. Married to husband Dan, she has two teenagers, Alysha and Colten.

Robbi Weldon Robbi Weldon, a visually impaired skiier who hails from Thunder Bay, Ont., got on her first pair of (downhill) skis at age three. As a teenager, she was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a genetic form of macular degeneration; she remained an active participant in several sports, even setting national and world records in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. She has been nordic skiing since 2002, and these are her first Paralympics. Weldon, 34, has two young children, Keegan and Alexander.

Brian McKeever Cross-country skiier Brian McKeever wept when he got the news that he’d only just failed to qualify for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the same year, which would have made him the first athlete to do so, reports the Vancouver Sun. Still, big things are expected from the 30-year-old Canmore native, a seven-time Paralympic medalist who was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a form of macular degeneration, soon after beginning university. With just ten per cent of his sight, McKeever also competes in able-bodied competition, inspecting a track and committing it to memory beforehand. He hopes to go on to compete at the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014.

Jim Armstrong A onetime able-bodied member of the British Columbia Curling Team, Jim Armstrong, a skip, switched to wheelchair curling about three years ago after developing knee and back problems (he’s had about 14 knee surgeries, he says). Armstrong, 59, started curling at age eight; last year, his team won gold at the 2009 World Curling Championships. He’s also the only curler to have won the Ross Harstone Award for Sportsmanship and Ability three times, an award voted on by his fellow curlers. Last year, Jim lost his wife Carleen to cancer. He has three children, Jody, Jayme and Greg.

Jody Barber According to Jody Barber, “Life is 10 per cent what happens to you and 90 per cent how you respond to it.” Barber, who will be vying for the podium in the Nordic events, was training for a triathlon when she nearly lost her arm in a bike accident in Australia in 2006. Told she would never swim or bike again, the 45-year-old mother of five set two goals: re-learn how to swim and do a half marathon—which she met. Next, Barber, who teaches high school in Smithers, B.C., set her sights on cross-country skiing. Though she says balancing with one pole was “a little awkward at first,” she soon got the hang of it, and before long, was competing on the international stage. After making the national team in 2008, she clinched silver in biathlon pursuit and bronze in cross-country skiing at the world championships in Finland. Despite competing in only three races this season, she’s going into Paralympic competition ranked tenth in the world. She attributes much of her success to her family; her husband, a cross-country coach, will be one of the forerunners at the Paralympics.

Lauren Woolstencroft One of the world’s top Paralympians, Lauren Woolstencroft is also a driving force behind the scenes at the Vancouver Games. The decorated skier, who has won 50 medals, including eight world cup championships, is also an electrical engineer; her handiwork is helping to light up the mountain venues. Competitive in all five of skiing’s events, Woolstencroft, 28, has been a star of the Para-Alpine team since becoming a member in 1998. Born without legs below the knee and with no arm below the left elbow, the Calgary native started skiing on family trips to Montana at the age of four. Using prostheses for her lower legs and left arm, she competes as a standing skier. Known as much for her drive as her talent, she earned the title of “Golden Girl” when, after taking a nasty fall in the downhill race, she came back to win gold in the super G—her fourth medal of those games.

Sam Danniels If his recent entry into IPC World Cup competition is any indication, para-alpine skier Sam Danniels is a serious medal contender. In his first IPC World Cup start during the finals in Whistler last year, the 24-year-old finished an impressive fourth in the sit-ski category. Danniels, who was born in Toronto, Ont., sustained a spinal injury in a mountain bike accident in 2005. A natural athlete, he has quickly progressed in the para-alpine world, volunteering with the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program, and teaching others to use a sit-ski. After posting the fastest time during the first downhill training sessions before the Paralympics, he told CTV, “I’m happy I’m alive, I’m happy I made it and the fact that I’m first is just the icing on the cake. I really can’t wait for the real race to happen on Saturday.”

Viviane Forest Heading into the Vancouver Games, Viviane Forest has set the bar high. When all is said and done, the 30-year-old Edmonton resident wants to have been on the podium for all five ski events. And if any of those medals are gold, she’ll also have something else to celebrate: being one of the only athletes to win gold at both the summer and winter Paralympics. Forest, who has won two gold medals for goalball, already has an impressive para-alpine record since joining Team Canada in 2008: she won the 2008-09 season overall Crystal Globe in the ladies visual impaired category; took gold medal in super combined in the 2009 IPC World Championships; and won top spot at the 2009 Canadian Para-Alpine Ski Championships in Sun Peaks, BC. Despite having only four per cent vision, she tears down the hill behind her guide at speeds that exceed 100 kilometres per hour.

Bradley Bowden According to sledge hockey athlete Bradley Bowden, Team Canada’s drive for the podium in Vancouver is “more than a hockey tournament. It’s something that I’m going to tell my children and grandchildren about one day.” Given his past accomplishments, the 26-year-old, who lives in Orton, Ont., is justified in expecting greatness. Since joining the national sledge hockey team in 1999, Bowden, who has Sacral Agenesis, a condition similar to Spina Bifida, has been a driving force behind several world championships, and a gold medal victory in Salt Lake City. He’s also a decorated wheelchair basketball player, picking up gold in Athens in 2004, and silver at the Para-Panamerican Games in Rio in 2007.

"Cursed bread" was contaminated with LSD

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 12:27 PM - 17 Comments

It’s taken nearly 60 years, but an American journalist appears to have finally solved the enduring mystery about the “cursed bread” in a small town in the south of France. The story dates back to 1951, when residents of Pont-Saint-Esprit suddenly began experiencing intense hallucinations after eating bread from the local bakery. Five people died and dozens ended up in asylums as a result of what was assumed to be contamination from ergot, a hallucinogenic mould that infects rye grain. Turns out, the real reason behind the spate of insanity was even wilder than anyone ever thought: according to journalist H. P. Albarelli Jr., the bread was laced with LSD by the CIA as part of a top-secret mind-control experiment. Albarelli concluded as much after coming across documents discussing the “secret of Pont-Saint-Esprit” that showed the contamination wasn’t caused by mould but by diethylamide, the D in LSD.

Telegraph

B.C. Place to get retractable roof

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 12:19 PM - 7 Comments

How about a little fresh air—and some gambling—to cure your post-Olympic hangover? The Province newspaper reports today that the B.C. government has concluded a colossal deal to develop the lands west of B.C. Place Stadium, which will get a new, retractable lid as part of the agreement. The linchpin of the deal is the sort of sprawling casino and entertainment complex that is never an easy sell in Vancouver; an existing one, according to The Province‘s report, will likely be shut down to accommodate the new facility. Meantime, the cost of the retractable roof to replace the stadium’s existing pillowy top comes in at a whopping $563 million. Just in case you’re wondering, that’s four and a half times what it cost to build the concrete-and-Teflon monstrosity, which opened in 1983. We’re not talking inflation-adjusted dollars, here. Still, it seems like a lot just to catch up to Toronto.

The Province

How Will They Write Off Katherine Heigl?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 11:49 AM - 8 Comments

If Michael Ausiello is right and Katherine Heigl will leave Grey’s Anatomy without filming another episode, it brings up the question: how will they get rid of her character? I don’t mean whether they’ll kill her off or have her move out of town, but how the news will be conveyed.

Sometimes, actors leave a show with advance notice, and stick around to film the scenes where they leave. But sometimes actors leave very suddenly and acrimoniously, and the writers have to get rid of their characters without ever showing them onscreen. M*A*S*H had famous examples of each method in the same year. McLean Stevenson announced while the third season was still filming that he wasn’t coming back for another season, so the writers gave him an episode where he actually leaves. But they also killed off his character, offscreen, without telling him. After that episode, they wrapped production on the third season, and during the break, Wayne Rogers (Trapper) decided he wasn’t coming back. So in the next season premiere, Trapper leaves without ever actually appearing onscreen.

It can’t be fun for the writers to come up with that kind of episode, because they have to find a way to make someone’s departure dramatic and convincing even though we never get to see them. M*A*S*H handled it about as well as they could, but it was still pretty contrived; Hawkeye comes back from vacation, discovers Trapper has been discharged, and spends the episode trying (and failing) to find him and say goodbye. But at least there’s a certain amount of truth in that, since it’s the army, where people come and go abruptly and friendships are temporary.

Other shows have used the army the other way, as a convenient reason to get rid of somebody. You may remember that when Ron Howard suddenly left Happy Days, the excuse the writers came up with was that his character had been drafted. That show also used the method many shows use with departed, unavailable characters: the one-sided phone call. (Richie actually got married to his longtime girlfriend over the phone, without ever being seen or heard by us.) The one-sided phone call allows the characters who are still there to fill us in on what happened to the person who left, or even try to have some kind of emotional conversation with the now-nonexistent character. So Meredith could have one of two conversations:

1. “Oh, Izzie, I’m so glad to hear that you’re doing so well at your new job in the distant, faraway land of Spokane!”

2. “What’s that, hospital person? You say Izzie was in a car crash and is dead? Sob! Well, at least she’s with her ghost boyfriend now.”

I don’t know if you have any bets on what will be done if Heigl has to be written off without appearing on the show (I guess it has a lot to do with what’s been happening with her character lately, and I haven’t been following it closely enough to know). But the writers must be really sad that there is no longer a draft, because this would be the perfect opportunity to inform us that she’s been pressed into service as an Army doctor.

Botox rival offers rebate

By macleans.ca - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 11:14 AM - 0 Comments

Medicis, maker of anti-wrinkle shot Dysport, has introduced a new marketing campaign targeting Botox, its better-known competitor. Like Coke rival Pepsi, the New York Times reports, it’s called the Dysport challenge. Medicis is offering a rebate on its product, and for customers who aren’t satisfied, a rebate for a Botox treatment, too. “We are so confident that we are literally willing to bet our money that patients will love their Dysport treatment,” said Jonah Shacknai, the chief executive of Medicis. Running until April 30, the campaign is thought to be the first time a drug maker has offered a rebate on a competing drug, although other prescription drug makers are increasingly offering giveaways, rebates and discounts. Sepracor, for one, is offering a free seven-day trial of Lunesta, a sleeping pill, while Merck has a voucher for a free 30-day supply of Januvia tablets for diabetes, and a coupon for allergy and asthma drug Singulair. Some medical ethicists worry offering discounts will mean doctors and patients choose treatments based on cost.

New York Times

'Commonplace among the the majority of law enforcement institutions'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 10:55 AM - 26 Comments

As the Star notes, the U.S. State Department has released its annual human rights reports for the countries of the world, including Afghanistan.

Human rights organizations reported local authorities tortured and abused detainees. Torture and abuse methods included, but were not limited to, beating by stick, scorching bar, or iron bar; flogging by cable; battering by rod; electric shock; deprivation of sleep, water, and food; abusive language; sexual humiliation; and rape. An April Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) report stated that torture was commonplace among the majority of law enforcement institutions, especially the police, and that officials used torture when a victim refused to confess to elicit bribes or because of personal enmity. Observers report that some police failed to understand the laws regarding torture.

Mailbag: Luge etiquette, Helena’s rear end, Jaffer’s comeback

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 9:55 AM - 23 Comments

Welcome to the Tuesday Mailbag on Wednesday that’s actually on Friday. The queries below were actually submitted by actual readers. And remember – there are no stupid questions, unless you’re asking whether John Baird has an inside voice.

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Dear Scott:

Helena Guergis claimed she worked her ass off on PEI somewhere. What has become of it? I thought I may have seen it being used as a bicycle stand in front of a Summerside Cows ice cream store. – Dot

Dot –

Brace yourself. Unlike that of Sidney Crosby’s missing equipment, this story does not have a happy ending. Half of the ass wound up in Patrice Bergeron’s hockey bag and has been recovered (it was mistaken for a helmet). But the other half is on its way to Russia, where it will be mounted and displayed in the International Hall of Political Body Parts, alongside the worked-off nuts of Leonid Brezhnev and the in-over-his-head of Jimmy Carter. If there’s any good news in this tragic tale, it’s that Guergis should be able to get by with just the one cheek since so much of what she does is half-assed anyway.

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Dear Scott:

If you were to compete in two-man luge or ice dancing in the next Winter Olympics, who, among the many politicians on Parliament Hill, would you select? In the spirit of gender neutrality, thou dost can choose man or woman. – anon001

anon001 –

I can’t very well pick a man, though, can I? Not now. Not since you opened the door to allowing me to choose a woman. If I go ahead now and pick a man to lie atop me on Continue…

Opening Weekend: Matt Damon is Bourne again in 'Green Zone'

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 9:34 AM - 3 Comments

Matt Damon in 'Green Zone'

Two boyish stars, two boffo franchises. Matt Damon is Jason Bourne in the Bourne trilogy; Robert Pattinson is Edward Cullen in the Twilight series. This week both are starring in new movies, and hope to drag their fans with them. With Bourne director Paul Greengrass at the helm, Damon dons Army fatigues in Green Zone, a kinetic thriller about conspiracy and cover-up in Baghdad after the 2003 U.S. invasion. It’s a movie on a political mission, but with its Cuisinart editing style, it plays like a Bourne adventure in military dress. In Remember Me, Pattinson loses the Goth make-up and amber contacts, and appears to play his shambling, self-deprecating self as a rebel without a cause. This earnest romance secretly wants to be a romantic comedy. It’s vampire-free, but still sticky with sentiment and contrived pathos. Pattinson and his vivacious co-star, Emilie de Ravin, generate some sparks , but the saddest thing about this tragedy is watching talented actors being slowly suffocated by a mediocre script. For more on Remember Me and the curious dilemma of its star, see my article in this week’s magazine: Someone rescue Robert Pattinson.

As for Green Zone, it’s a slickly made picture that’s hobbled by a double agenda. There’s no question that Paul Greengrass is a brilliant director of lean political dramas that have the authentic smack of documentaries, films like Bloody Sunday and United 93. There’s also no question that Greengrass is expert at crafting blockbuster thrill rides of escapist entertainment, i.e. the Bourne movies. With Green Zone, he tries to do both at once, which would seem like a natural impulse, an attempt to reconcile his worlds, but the result is unsatisfying as a political drama and an escapist thriller.

A convoluted script makes the plot almost as hard to follow as the manic camerawork. But behind all the smoke and mirrors, it’s pretty straightforward. Our straight-arrow hero is U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon), whose team is searching for the proverbial Weapons of Mass Destruction in the chaotic early days of the American occupation. As alleged sites keep turning up empty, he begins to wonder why the intelligence is so lousy. Gradually, Miller’s naivete gives way to suspicion as he sniffs out a conspiracy. And his mission changes, from searching for weapons to searching for truth. An Iraqi informant leads him to an enclave of Baathist leaders, and a general who may have the evidence he’s looking for. Meanwhile, as Miller goes rogue, he ends up at war with his own people, a cabal led an evil Defense Intelligence agent (Greg Kinnear) and an even more evil Special Forces operative with a biker moustache (Jason Isaacs). The puppet press, which spread the fake WMD info, is represented by a Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Adams), and the guy with all the answers is a CIA station chief (Brendan Gleeson), who’s right out of a Graham Greene novel. Continue…