Canada’s smartest cities 2010

By Nancy Macdonald - Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 5:00 AM - 43 Comments

Photograph by Geoff Howe

A decade ago, urbanists had just about written the obituary for St. John’s, Nfld. The fate of the hard-luck port town, like much of Newfoundland, was wedded to the fisheries. Between 1992, when the cod moratorium was announced, and 2006, the province lost 11 per cent of its population—the youngest, brightest and most productive 11 per cent, as Newfoundlanders will tell you. Everyone figured St. John’s would become a wasteland, because it had such low learning and employment opportunities, says Paul Cappon, president and chief executive of the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), an Ottawa-based non-profit that ranks more than 4,500 Canadian cities and communities annually.

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When the Stones were truly stoned

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 7:37 PM - 6 Comments

Images from 'Stones in Exile'

“We were young, good-looking and stupid. Now we’re just stupid. Nixon was in the White House, the war in Vietnam was going on, and we didn’t know anything about that because we were stuck next door in Villefranche Sur Mer making this record.”

Mick Jagger had the patter down pat, and recited it twice, first in French, then in English. Taking the stage to wild applause in the Theatre Croisette, that’s how he introduced Stones in Exile—a documentary about the 1972 recording of Exile on Main St. in Keith Richards’ rented Villa Nellcote mansion a stone’s throw down the coast from Cannes. Mick seemed pleased as punch. Looking dapper in a sleek grey suit, the 66-year-old elder statesman of rock generated more heat in Cannes than any movie star who’s touched down here all week. After all, there are stars, then there are icons.

After the screening, Jagger, with gentlemanly poise, sat down to entertain questions from the audience with director Steven Kijak and the some of the crew. Given that the film documents one of the most debauched period in the history of one of the world’s most debauched bands, the discussion was rather tame, though Mick did have a bit of a giggle about the cute eight-year-old blond kid who served as the house drug smuggler at Villa Nellcote while the band made music history. I’ll get back to that Q & A later in this post, and by tomorrow I’ll hope to post some video that I shot from the fourth row (as soon as I can find a suitable cable to download it). Meanwhile, here are some notes on the film, which I guess is  old news back home. It’s already been shown on TV. And I just talked to my 92-year-old mother on the phone who knew all about it. She’d seen Mick on Larry King. Continue…

Opposition leader quotability watch

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 5:59 PM - 29 Comments

Michael Ignatieff stops in Calgary and manages to comment on the meaning of accountability, the nature of public life, and the national significance of the Alberta oil sands.

This Theme Just Doesn't Sound Right

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 5:59 PM - 5 Comments

The titles for the remake of Hawaii 5-0 have been released (via The Hollywood Reporter), and while it’s good that they tip their hat to the big wave and the big balcony shot of the hero, this arrangement of the theme song just doesn’t really sound right. I know they have to make it sound contemporary, but it doesn’t even sound contemporary; it just sounds kind of cheesy. There’s got to be a way to re-arrange the tune while still having some sweep and flair. The problem isn’t with modernizing or shortening, the problem is more that it sounds like they really wished this was some other type of theme. It comes off like that “dark” arrangement of “We Used to Be Friends” from the last season of Veronica Mars.

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The last attempt at a remake, the 1997 pilot that didn’t sell, featured a more traditional arrangement, maybe too traditional.

CBS and the Law of Competitive Balance

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 4:06 PM - 1 Comment

One more comment on the U.S. fall TV schedule announcements: CBS, which is thought of as the network with the most stable lineup, is paradoxically the network that has made the most aggressive schedule changes. First they canceled a ton of shows, including two shows from their main man Jerry Bruckheimer, and some long-running shows whose ratings weren’t terrible, like Gary Unmarried, Ghost Whisperer and The New Adventures of Old Christine. (The only cancellation I’m sad about is Old Christine, a perfectly solid, enjoyable second-tier show that would have gotten up to 100 episodes if it hadn’t been for the 2007-8 Writers’ Strike. ABC might pick it up, and it’s just as good as their other “big lady” shows, Cougar Town and The Middle – but it might be an awkward fit on a mostly single-camera lineup.) And they’ve made some equally aggressive moves with their established shows, most notably their decision to launch a comedy block on Thursdays by moving The Big Bang Theory there, followed by William Shatner’s [Censored] My Dad Says.

The move of Bang makes some sense, not just because it would help the network if it proved able to anchor its own night but because the time slot is ripe for the plucking: it’s up against Bones, Community, and a new ABC show with a generic title (“My Generation”), and can probably beat them. Putting Big Bang against Community is bad news for the latter show’s attempt to find a foothold, but that’s TV tradition: it’s like Fred Silverman putting the loud, catchphrase-friendly Good Times up against ABC’s then-new, gentle single-camera comedy Happy Days to crush it in its second season. Whether Community will respond to the competition by having Abed jump garbage cans on a motorcycle remains to be seen, but we can assume that there will be some in-jokes about the characters’ hatred of nerds who hang out with a token hot blonde. That could even be a Britta story.

Anywho, back to the scheduling decisions: it seems weird for a sedate, successful network — one that trades on the idea of comforting familiarity and lack of risk — to make so many changes. There are at least two good reasons why it isn’t. One is the obvious one: a network that has more hits can afford to cancel middling performers. Two, the network brass is probably trying to avoid being caught flat-footed when things change, or some of their shows burn out unexpectedly, or their competitors come up with more hits. The cautionary tale is NBC, which depended too much on its established hits, made few real shake-ups after their run of good decisions in the early-to-mid-’90s, and found itself desperately trying to hang on to a few aging hits. CBS’s new lineup is really no different than last year’s — they’ve replaced the canceled shows with virtually identical new ones — but but the feeling that they are introducing new stuff, shaking things up, making moves, can help contribute to the perception that they’re not resting on their laurels. Bill James’ Law of Competitive Balance, that winners regress (because they don’t make changes) while losers get better (because they make changes) applies here, except that when you’re a network executive, your job is to make the changes needed to stay on top, without really changing much of anything.

Oh, and the ability of Rules of Engagement to survive is pretty damned amazing, don’t you think? The show is now going into its fifth season even though it has never had a full season. Ever. The longest season it’s ever had was 15 episodes (though that was strike-shortened); otherwise it always comes back at midseason for 13 episodes. It’s not a good show at all, but it’s somehow managed to accidentally bring a cable-season model to network television, simply by being just successful enough to avoid being canceled outright.

Pakistan logs off Facebook

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 4:04 PM - 49 Comments

On Wednesday, Pakistan ordered Internet providers to shut down access to Facebook amidst growing protest over a Facebook page that encourages users to post images of the Prophet Muhammad. The group, “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” was started in support of the creators of “South Park,” who came under fire from Muslim groups early this year, after depicting the Prophet dressed as a bear in a South Park episode. So is this just another example of high-level government censorship? Not exactly. In the last week, thousands of students have taken to the streets, demanding that the government take action against Facebook. “We love Muhammad. Say No to Facebook,” read one sign at a May 19th protest in Lahore. Other signs threatened Islamic holy war.

Toronto Star

Light drinkers are healthier: study

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 3:55 PM - 2 Comments

French researchers have discovered that moderate drinkers are healthier than either heavy boozers or abstainers. But the scientists behind the study are adamant their findings not be interpreted as evidence that a glass or two of red wine a day should get the credit. They’re tired of hearing that claim. “There’s too much talk about the benefits of moderate drinking,” said Boris Hansel, a researcher at the Hopital de la Pitie in Paris and lead author of the study. There’s no proven cause-and-effect link between light drinking and better health. Measured alcohol consumption, Hansel said, could well be a “marker” for other factors. For instance, moderate drinkers scored well in terms of their level of physical activity and socio-economic status. The study, published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, is only the latest of several suggesting earlier results interpreted as showing that booze is good for you failed to take other factors into account.

Agence France-Presse

U.S., China, Russia have deal on sanctions for Iran

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 3:51 PM - 0 Comments

On Tuesday, Iran announced that it had made a deal with Turkey and Brazil to ship half of its nuclear stockpile out of the country. Aha, said experts; savvy Tehran is working to preempt a U.S strike. Not so fast. A day later, the Obama administration confirmed that it had struck a deal with Russia and China to impose a new set of sanctions on Iran. Under the new sanctions, countries must inspect all ships and planes traveling in or out of Iran if they are suspected to contain banned materials. “This announcement is as convincing an answer to the efforts undertaken in Tehran over the last few days as we could provide,” lauded U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Still, not everyone is celebrating. In order to secure Russia and China’s cooperation, the U.S. was forced to scrap its most ambitious plan to stop the flow of oil into Iran. And some experts say the new sanctions just aren’t tough enough to get Iran to end its nuclear program.

New York Times

Prime Ministerial authenticity watch

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 2:36 PM - 56 Comments

The minivan-driving hockey dad from the suburbs‘ stylist is no longer being paid by the taxpayers. You are covering her airfare and hotel costs though.

Meanwhile, Mr. Harper—”Meeting celebrities isn’t my shtick. That was the shtick of the previous guy.“—has been jamming with Bryan Adams, hanging with Chad Kroeger and chatting with Gene Simmons.

Dollar falls after steps taken to bolster euro

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 2:22 PM - 2 Comments

The loonie fell as much as 1.36 cents Wednesday morning after Germany implemented a ban on so-called “naked” short selling of eurozone government bonds. It later recovered some ground after the markets opened, trading at about 95.54 cents (U.S.), down about a cent from a day earlier. Germany’s decision to ban “naked” short selling was designed to prevent big market sell-offs amid the Greek debt crisis, but traders are questioning the wisdom of the move, which some are interpreting as an act of desperation. Short selling occurs when traders borrow financial instruments and then sell them in anticipation of a price decline. They make money off the transaction through an agreement to buy back the instruments (at a lower price), and then return them to the lender at a later date, pocketing the difference. By contrast, “naked” short selling happens when traders take advantage of loopholes in the financial markets to short instruments they haven’t actually borrowed.

Globe and Mail

The first step is admitting the possibility

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 1:38 PM - 89 Comments

Rob Silver lays out the conditions for a coalition.

Do not rule out a coalition prior to or during an election campaign – if you rule it out, you deligitimize it as an option regardless of “what is allowed” under our system of government. In other words, if it is something you are considering, be honest and clear with the voters. It is ultimately their country and they get to choose the government they want.

Flying yogis and flying millions

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 12:40 PM - 80 Comments

He was the original guru pop star. Made famous by the Beatles in the 1960s, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the godfather of the Transcendental Meditation movement, known as TM. He inspired such acolytes as author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker David Lynch, and remained TM’s figurehead until his death in 2008 at the age of 94. The Maharishi was once dubbed “the giggling guru.” But now it appears he may have been giggling all the way to the bank. David Wants to Fly, a new documentary shown last week at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, offers compelling evidence that the Maharishi’s empire of enlightenment is more devoted to shaking down its followers and amassing wealth than transcending the material world.

The “David” of David Wants to Fly refers to the film’s director, a cheeky 32-year-old German named David Sieveking, and to the dubious feat of “yogic flying” or levitation. It could also refer to David Lynch, who has emerged as TM’s most prominent spokesman and is the prime target of Sieveking’s obsessive investigation. Sieveking embarked on his documentary as an avid Lynch fan dying to meet the genius behind Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks. But by the time he’d completed his film, five years later, it had turned into an exposé. Sieveking told Maclean’s that Lynch threatened to sue him and tried to block the film’s Berlin premiere. No wonder. It depicts TM as a secretive hierarchy with overtones of Scientology, and portrays Lynch as its Tom Cruise.

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Berkeley wants freshmen DNA

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:22 AM - 4 Comments

Freshmen at the University of California, Berkeley will be asked to voluntarily provide a DNA sample on a cotton swab, taken from the inside of their cheeks, to test for three genes that help regulate the ability to metabolize alcohol, lactose and folates, the New York Times reports. The study intends to help students make healthier choices by drinking less, avoiding dairy or eating more leafy green vegetables. This program, for the class of 2014, is the first mass genetic testing by a university, says genetics professor Jasper Rine, who adds that it’s designed to help students learn about personalized medicine. The testing is confidential: each freshman gets two bar code labels, one for the sample and one to keep. Results will be posted on a website where they can look for their bar code ID and see their results. Some bioethicists disagree with the program: Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics, says results should be given in a medical setting “where they can ask questions about the error rate or the chances of passing it on to their children.” Adds Boston University bioethicist George Annas, “What if someone tests negative [for the alcohol genetic marker], so they think that means they can drink more?” But Berkeley says the gene variants they’re looking for are relatively innocuous.

New York Times

A democracy bonus

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:21 AM - 69 Comments

Eight years ago, in an essay for Policy Options, professor Bruce Hicks made the case—with reference to Athens—for the sort of tax credit now being floated by the Alberta Liberals as a response to declining voter turnout.

The Australian Electoral Commission, meanwhile, has a useful guide to their system of compulsory voting—Eric Weiner wrote a good overview of it for Slate some years ago. The idea of a tax credit has been floated before by politicians and observers in Canada, but it doesn’t seem that any jurisdiction, here or elsewhere, has ever followed through.

Professors Hicks, Peter Loewen and Henry Milner conducted an experiment in 2007 to test whether financially compelled voting necessarily led to greater political engagement. Their results didn’t demonstrate the increased awareness that is supposed to follow from compulsory voting, but there is too the argument that increased voting is a good thing in and of itself. Conversely, there is a case to be made that low turnout isn’t necessarily a problem—that those who vote accurately reflect the views of the general populace, that low turnout is a sign of general satisfaction, that high turnout is often seen in moments of crisis (and nations with dictators) and so forth.

Dads get post-natal depression too: study

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:06 AM - 12 Comments

One in ten new fathers might suffer from post-natal depression, even though most cases go undetected and untreated, according to U.S. researchers writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Still, the rate is lower than in new mothers, the BBC reports. In the study, based on a review of previous medical literature, they found that lack of sleep, new responsibilities, or supporting a spouse with post-natal depression could trigger it in men. New dads are generally happiest in the weeks following the baby’s birth, with depression appearing after three to six months, at which time from 10 to 25 per cent of men had post-natal depression, even though they had not had the hormonal surges of giving birth. Men are far more likely to suffer if their partner is also depressed, they report.

BBC News

Sausages up heart disease risk: study

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 2 Comments

In a Harvard University study of more than one million people, researchers found that those who ate just 50 grams of processed meat (like sausages) per day raised their risk of heart disease and diabetes. The same risk was not seen as eating even twice as much unprocessed meat like beef, lamb or pork, the BBC reports, even though they had a similar fat content. In the journal Circulation, the team writes that given the similar quantities of cholesterol and saturated fat, the added risk could be due to salt and preservatives found in processed meat, which is any meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting (including bacon, sausages, and lunch meat). On average, each 50 gram serving of processed meat consumed in a day (about one sausage or a couple bacon rashers) raised the chance of developing coronary heart disease by 42 per cent, and diabetes by 19 per cent.

BBC News

Waiting for Mick

By Brian D. Johnson - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:52 AM - 0 Comments

Thumbing this blog on my Blackberry while standing in line for the ‘Stones in Exile’ documentary, premiering in the Directors’ Fortnight program in Cannes. Got here 90 minutes before the start time and there was already a crowd. The movie is less than an hour long. So this must be the first time I’ll have spent more time in a movie line-up than in the movie. The attraction is that Mick Jagger will be doing a Q and A after the screening. He’s doing so little press—30 minutes rationed among 4,000 journalists—that this is our only point of access. The line is building; half a dozen cops are standing by, expecting. . . Qui sait?

The film documents the time the Rolling Stones spent in 1972, just up the road from Cannes, recording their now legendary double album, Exile on Main Street, in the dank basement of Keith Richards’ mansion amid drug deals, thefts and the sudden wedding of Mick and Bianca. The Stones are behind the film, so I assume it’s sanitized, to an extent, unlike Robert Frank’s raunchy verite doc, Cocksucker Blues. We’ll see.

It’s now 4 pm. One hour to go. I wonder if things will get ugly. . .

In other news, I had dinner with a group that included the Brit producer of a Thai film that premieres in competition Friday. He was worried the director wouldn’t make it, because his visa was stuck in the Red Zone of Thai combat. The producer said Thierry Fremault, the director of Cannes, asked him: “Would you like me to call Sarkozy?” In the end, the director got his visa without presidential intervention. But as the producer said, “What other festival director in the world could offer to do that?” For the record, for those who enjoyed the phonetic riddle of the Icelandic volcano, the Thai director is named Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his movie is Lung Boonme Raluek Chat. That’s a lot of thumbing.

4:20 p.m. More crowds. More cops. More cameras. Holy Altamont! Will Mick have the Hell’s Angels escort him through the mob?

4:35 p.m. Screams from the mob of fans and paparazzi in the street. Can’t see him but clearly Jagger has arrived. He’s now in the building; I’m not.

4:50 p.m. I’m in! Sitting next to a NY Daily News columnist who says he named his cat after Bianca Jagger. Says he knows Bianca, and she was not amused. Neither was Aretha Franklin when he named a previous cat (a fat one) after her. OK, enough live blogging. . . Later.

Does this jacket go with these lies?

By Scott Feschuk - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:50 AM - 57 Comments

As word now arrives that the travel expenses of Mr. Bubble’s personal psychic stylist have been paid not by the Conservative party but by taxpayers, I invite you to journey back in time to this column of mine from three years ago (May 7, 2007)…

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Canadian politics has a rich tradition of believers in the outlandish. Mackenzie King sought spiritual guidance from his dead dog. Aline Chrétien wrote a testimonial letter for Montreal medium JoJo Savard. And Peter MacKay actually thought Condoleezza Rice was hot for him.

But none of this prepared Ottawa for revelations that Continue…

Someone should do something to make things somehow better

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 13 Comments

This video has been posted to YouTube under the headline “Jason Kenney calls for more civility in the House.” It features two of the more prominent members of Parliament lamenting for the tone and tenor of debate in Ottawa and if you look closely you can just about make out the halos that hang above each’s head.

Leaders of Thai "red shirt" movement surrender

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:34 AM - 0 Comments

Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, is burning and under curfew tonight, after Thai troops stormed the barricades of anti-government protesters camped in the city centre. At least five died in the assault, including an Italian news photographer, and more than 50 are injured. Leaders of the protest “red shirt” movement have surrendered, but many of their supporters urged continued defiance, rioted, and set nearby buildings on fire. Television footage showed soldiers firing at the backs of protesters running for cover. A government spokesperson described the operation as a success.

New York Times

BBC News

The content kings

By Chris Sorensen - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 2 Comments

Canwest Media Inc. / Mike Yarish / FOX

Shaw Communications’ $2-billion purchase of Canwest Global Communications’ television empire is all about piping TV content over “multiple platforms”—cable, satellite, broadband Internet and wireless smartphones. But Peter Bissonnette, the president of the Calgary-based cable company, doesn’t want you to call it convergence. After all, that was the concept that underpinned the last round of media consolidation at the beginning of the decade, when TV, newspaper and Internet companies largely failed to turn grand ideas about common ownership and content-sharing into big profits. The granddaddy of such deals was the US$350-billion mega-merger of AOL and Time Warner, which is now regarded as one of the biggest disasters in American business history. This time around is different, assures Bissonnette. “AOL is so Cro-Magnon compared to what is happening today.”

There’s no question the media landscape of 2010 bears little resemblance to that of 2000, when pokey dial-up Internet connections were common and computers, cellphones and television sets boasted very different functions. These days, the lines are blurred as people are equally likely to watch video on their laptops, type emails on their cellphones and access interactive Web features on their giant, flat-panel HD television sets. And then there’s a whole new category of device, Apple’s iPad. Call it what you like, but for cable operators, a new era of convergence has dawned.

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That pesky issue: but was it forged?

By Colby Cosh - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 11 Comments

The Canadian Press

All journalists talk about getting a “brown envelope” in the mail that contains some exciting, hitherto-unpublished revelation. We call them “brown envelopes” even when they’re not brown, or when there’s no envelope at all. But the one that Andrew McIntosh received at the National Post’s Ottawa bureau on April 5, 2001, was the real deal: an honest-to-God brown envelope, bearing no return address.

That envelope and its contents, which touched off eight years of appellate litigation and debate about the civil rights of journalists, are still out there somewhere. It is almost certain that only McIntosh knows their whereabouts, though he will not comment. Although he declined to surrender them to the police, he also refused to destroy them when asked to do so by the sender. He has always maintained that they are in a “secure location” not on the premises of the Post.

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Ottawa bank branch firebombed

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 9:50 AM - 8 Comments

An unnamed group claimed responsibility for the firebombing of a Royal Bank of Canada branch in an upscale Ottawa neighborhood, vowing to “be there” at next month’s G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville, Ont. and Toronto. A short video clip of the attack, which occurred in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was posted online. A person comes out of the branch’s side door and is then silhouetted against an orange flash. Then another figure emerges, and the two cross the street in the leafy Ottawa residential area called the Glebe. “Resistance continues,” reads a text posted with the video. “An RBC branch can be found in every corner of Kanada (sic).” The Royal Bank was target for self-styled anarchists protesting the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The damage to the branch was estimated at $300,000.

Ottawa Citizen

Information wants to be free

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 9:24 AM - 22 Comments

Liberals Siobhan Coady and Martha Hall Findlay and New Democrat Peter Stoffer say the auditor general should be invited to review MP expenses—joining Gilles Duceppe and the aforementioned Michelle Simson on that side of the debate.

Independent Andre Arthur, harbouring some general mistrust of accountants, says all details should simply be made public.