Rights and Democracy: Time keeps on slippin’…

By Paul Wells - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 11:19 AM - 0 Comments

Last week I decided to check in on the Deloitte forensic audit of Rights and Democracy, which the agency’s interim president announced in February and expected to receive three weeks later. In May the new president expected to make it public in June. In July he said it wouldn’t be available before the end of the summer. (The electronic trail of all of this can be found by clicking on the “Rights and Democracy” tag at the bottom of this blog post.)

I wrote to the communications people for Rights and Democracy:

It has now been just over a month since I last inquired about the Deloitte audit of Rights and Democracy. I am writing today with some further inquiries, which I hope you’ll pass along to Mr. Latulippe or anyone who can answer them.

1. Has Deloitte delivered the audit?

2. If so, when was it delivered?

3. If it has been delivered, when will it be released to the public and/or the Commons committee on foreign affairs?

4. In the interest of transparency and accountability, please account for any delay between Rights and Democracy’s receipt of the audit and its release to parliamentarians and the public.

5. If Deloitte has not yet delivered the audit, do you know when it will?

Thanks once again for all your help.

Sincerely,

Paul Wells

This morning I received a reply from Gérard Latulippe directly. Here it is in its entirety: Continue…

Nelson Mandela’s final resting place promises to be a point of contention

By Sonya Bell - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Peter Morey/AP/ Per-Anders Pettersson/Getty Images

It’s dusk on a Friday evening in Qunu, and the N2 highway is the village’s most happening scene. The locals linger at the road’s edge, forming a scattered crowd that includes gossiping grandmothers, flirtatious teenagers—and an entire flock of sheep. This is the village that raised Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s favourite son and first democratic president. He spent his earliest years on the edges of this same road, chasing friends up these rolling hills and minding the livestock that is still raised here—sheep, cattle, goats and chickens. But today, the youngsters at the roadside wear Converse sneakers, listen to Rihanna, and take pictures with their cellphones. “Put it on Facebook!” they insist when they see a shot they like.

Even in Qunu, which lies in one of the most remote and underdeveloped parts of South Africa, traditional Xhosa culture has adjusted to match the modernizing country. A newly married woman in the village still wears the wrap skirt and headdress that signify her status—unless she’s going into the city to work, in which case she can slip into a pair of pants. But one tradition that hasn’t changed is the custom that says a Xhosa man must be buried at home. This may prove a clashing point in South Africa one day soon, when the country buries its most celebrated citizen.

Continue…

Toward a total ban on analogy in political rhetoric

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments

From last week’s hearings of the industry committee, the former chief executive officer of the Saskatchewan regional health authority tries to draw a straight line from torture to the census.

“What you can guarantee by compulsion is a response: You put a gun to somebody’s head, they’re going to say something,” Mr. McFarlane told the House of Commons industry committee.

“It’s almost like the argument for water boarding: if you water board enough people, they will tell you something,” Mr. McFarlane said. “The question is are they telling you something that’s reliable? Are they telling you something that’s usable?”

Of course, since torture is abhorrent, law enforcement agencies in most civilized nations must acquire their answers through interrogation and investigation, aided by tools such as subpoenas and search warrants. So perhaps Statistics Canada could be assigned its own police force, with the same powers, charged with acquiring the demographic information it requires.

Or we could all agree here and now that analogies, when discussing contested political or social issues, are almost always misused and should therefore be almost always avoided.

Tough love among the Ahousaht

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Keven Drews/ Mike Deal/CP

In tiny Ahousaht, an isolated Nuu-chah-nulth community off the coast of Tofino, B.C., concepts like the Criminal Code of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are called “European law.” For many on the reserve, which has seen more than its share of tragedy, it remains a foreign justice system, one that has done little to curb a plague of addiction and all its ugly friends: despair, violence, accident, suicide.

This spring, community leaders—concerned by the poisonous impact of addictions, bootlegging and drug dealing—turned their back on modern legal remedies, and drew on the authority of their ancient laws. Hereditary chiefs and traditional law keepers went door-to-door on the Flores Island reserve in a lightning quick sweep of chronic offenders. They issued an edict: get clean or get out.

Continue…

These geese are cooked

By Josh Dehaas - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Joe Bryksa/Winnipeg Free Press/CP/ Edouard H. R. Gluck/AP

On July 8, six wildlife biologists in navy blue U.S. Department of Agriculture T-shirts spent their morning chasing packs of Canada geese around Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Prospect Park. They corralled them with temporary fences and then placed them, three at a time, in turkey cages. The cages were then loaded into a truck and driven to a nearby warehouse where the geese were placed in a special chamber. Carbon dioxide was pumped in. Minutes later, the dead geese were loaded back into the truck, taken to a landfill, and buried.

The process was repeated until all 400 of the park’s resident Canada geese were dead. All that was left, according to joggers who passed through the park later that morning, were feathers floating on the pond.

Continue…

The Emmys: Accent on Youth

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 11:01 PM - 0 Comments

It’s frivolous and pointless to try and impose a theme on a whole night of awards, but everybody does it, and the theme of this year’s Emmys seemed to be “New blood.” (As opposed to True Blood, which didn’t win much. Luckily for HBO, they proved once again that their real domination is in the field of miniseries and TV movies, where they brought home all the Emmys that they lost in the continuing series categories.) There were some old-guard shows and performers that won: Bryan Cranston kept up his basically well-deserved streak, while Edie Falco won best actress in a comedy because her show isn’t a comedy (as she herself pretty much admitted) and the voters can’t resist the chance to vote for Real Acting in that category. Plus the Best Actress in a drama category didn’t have any non-veterans except January Jones, and few people were upset that she didn’t win. And Mad Men won again because, as I said, it hits the Emmy voter sweet spot — but how strange is it that it’s dominated to this extent while never winning an acting award?

But many of the winners were newish. The biggest surprises of the night were in the drama supporting categories, where two relatively unfamiliar performers beat out a number of more familiar competitors. Aaron Paul, who won for Breaking Bad, is the archetypal young Hollywood journeyman who has been acting in TV in small parts since he was 19 years old, and became a fine actor without hardly anybody noticing until it became unavoidable. And Archie Panjabi, the biggest surprise by far (as well as the only hint of ethnic diversity in the acting awards), was not the youngest person in her category but is a relative newcomer to Hollywood. I sometimes wonder if this might be a case of two other young performers — Moss and Hendricks from Mad Men — splitting the vote for their show, allowing Panjabi to get a prize for a show that is much admired in the business, particularly among older voters. But since most of the other winners were for showy parts, it’s good to have one winner who had to make an impact with mostly non-showy material (and made much more out of her character than might have been expected).

Jim Parsons, obviously, is an example of the young guy making good (and, like Jane Lynch winning for Glee, allowed the Academy to recognize a phenomenon without giving it many other prizes). And Modern Family, whatever my reservations about it and its sledgehammer moralizing, is a new show that took lots of awards including the big one,  and the narrative before the show was based on the question of whether it would win or if another freshman show would take it.

There was a feeling for much of night, but reaching its peak with those supporting prizes, that there was a reaction against the relative predictability and familiarity of the last couple of years’ winners. And in general, the show — at least those parts of the show not involving Jewel — felt looser and less button-down than usual; the banter between the presenters was mostly bad as usual, but Fallon once again demonstrated that he’s become a pretty decent host by more or less embracing the fact that he’s not all that funny. However, the first part of the show felt much more entertaining and fast-paced than the second, because the awards in the second half (loading all the HBO mini and movie awards into it, for example) caused the pace to sag.

Most Undeserved Emmy Winning Streak

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 5:31 PM - 0 Comments

The Emmys have recently been dominated by two shows, 30 Rock and Mad Men, and tonight’s the night when we see if those two winning streaks will come to an end. 30 Rock seems likely to lose the award for Best Comedy Series, unless Glee and Modern Family split the Big New Thing vote between them and allow the old favourite to sneak through. (Despite my belief that Glee is not a comedy, I enjoy watching it more than Modern Family so I’m probably leaning toward rooting for that, if tepidly.) I don’t know about Mad Men, though; though I would rather see Breaking Bad or some other show win the Best Drama award, the appeal of Mad Men to Emmy voters is probably too great to give anything else a chance. Mad Men and 30 Rock happen to be perfectly positioned for Emmy glory, since they appeal to all ages and demographics — not among general audiences, who don’t watch much of either show, but among Academy members. Young ‘uns like them because they’re hip and edgy; old ‘uns like them because of the old-school factor on the one hand (30 Rock is a very old-fashioned comedy in many ways, and people like Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels are respected as having paid their dues in the business) and the nostalgia factor on the other.

But neither of those Emmy winning streaks can be considered real candidates for most undeserved (if 30 Rock wins for the fourth time in a row tonight, it’ll qualify). It’s hard to say what makes an undeserved Emmy streak, but I’d say it happens when a show or actor wins many times, sometimes for work that is less than its best, while taking Emmys away from equally or more deserving nominees.  A really classic modern example of the undeserved streak is Frasier winning best comedy for every one of its first five seasons. Was Frasier a great show in its first five seasons? Yes. Did it deserve to get everything while Seinfeld never got an award again (its only Best Comedy Emmy was before Frasier existed) and Larry Sanders never got anything? In my opinion, no. By handing out so many Emmys to one show, the Academy seemed to be suffering from inertia, as well as making a great age of TV comedy look like it was mostly about one show.

But at least Frasier stopped getting the Emmys once its quality went downhill (in its sixth season). And in some ways, its domination of the award wasn’t quite as unfair as L.A. Law‘s domination in the late ’80s and early ’90s; as part of the stranglehold Stephen Bochco used to have on the award, it kept beating out the many other more experimental, formally innovative dramas in one of the most experimental eras of U.S. network TV drama. (By the ’90s, everybody was back to doing cop, lawyer and doctor shows with a little sci-fi thrown in, and that’s remained largely true of the broadcast networks ever since, though luckily cable has come along to fill in most of the gaps.)

And speaking of strangleholds, the almost complete lock of Candice Bergen and Helen Hunt on the best actress in a Comedy award seems a little problematic now, though there’s been a built-in problem with the award and its best actor in a Comedy cousin: professional comedians, or people without a film pedigree, have a tough time getting respect from the Emmys for a comedy. At least Roseanne managed to get one Emmy; many comics, male and female, either never won or, as with Bill Cosby, couldn’t even get nominated. (Update/correction: As noted in comments, Bill Cosby did not submit himself for Emmy consideration. Luckily the point about comedians’ difficulties winning an Emmy still stands up without that example.) The assumption is always that people like Garry Shandling or Bob Newhart aren’t really acting because they’re just playing themselves, but of course they’re not really playing themselves, and even if they are, they can still act more convincingly than Candice Bergen.

Some awards have managed to avoid inertia, like the award for Best Actor in a Drama — there’s been quite a bit of variety in who gets the awards, though it does seem like there was a bit more variety in the ’70s and ’80s than there is now. An actor from an action show like Tom Selleck from Magnum P.I., or an actor from a light comic mystery like Bruce Willis from Moonlighting – to name two ’80s winners — wouldn’t stand much of a chance now unless he submitted himself in the comedy category like Shalhoub does. (The award for lead actress in a drama had less variety — Cagney and Lacey pretty much owned it for years — but that’s a truthful reflection of the fact that there were many fewer good roles for women on U.S. TV.) Still, James Spader winning three awards in four years has to be considered one of the more egregious streaks in the award’s history, because a) he took it away from guys like Hugh Laurie and Ian McShane, and b) it’s James Spader and his voice gets on me nerves.

Update: Tonight’s Emmys reminded me of one more: The Amazing Race has dominated the Emmys to an extent that’s kind of ridiculous, even for a show that’s generally considered the best of its type. It was good to see Top Chef break the streak tonight, just on the general principle that it’s time to let another good show have a turn.

Federal government rules out helping bid for second coming of Nordiques

By macleans.ca - Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 12:11 PM - 0 Comments

Ottawa won’t be ponying up any federal dollars to help Quebec City’s bid to land a new NHL franchise—but it’s not ruling out the prospect of helping fund a new professional-calibre arena, says Treasury Board President Stockwell Day. “As a federal government we’re not involved in the professional sports market, though we try to keep their taxes down for them,” Day said in a speech in Montreal. However, a ministry staffer added a proposal that would see the federal government foot part of the bill for an arena is being prepared and will be considered by Ottawa. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has already indicated a new facility in Quebec City is required before the league entertains the idea of putting a team back in the provincial capital.

Montreal Gazette

Hundreds of thousands rally in Washington to "restore honour"

By macleans.ca - Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 12:10 PM - 0 Comments

Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin attracted some 300,000 supporters to a right-wing rally in Washington to call for a return of religious and traditional values. The rally, named “Restoring Honor” and controversially timed to coincide with the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, “has nothing to do with politics,” Beck told the crowd. “It has everything to do with God, turning our faith back to the values and principles that made us great.” Palin, meanwhile, was less reluctant to address politics, albeit obliquely and without naming U.S. President Barack Obama. “We must not fundamentally transform America, as some would want,” she said. “We must restore America and restore her honour.”

Washington Post

Toronto Star

Fourth terror suspect released on bail and promptly re-arrested

By macleans.ca - Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

A 20-year-old man who was arrested Friday in connection with an ongoing investigation into an alleged terror cell and charged with assault and uttering a threat was immediately re-arrested after being granted bail. Awso Peshdary will face a new threat charge after his second arrest by the Ottawa Police some 10 minutes after he was released on the first set of charges. The three other suspects—Hiva Alizadeh, 30, and Misbahuddin Ahmed, 26, of Ottawa and London, Ont.-based Khurram Syed Sher, 28—appeared in court earlier to face a variety of terrorism charges, including conspiring with international terrorist groups.

Ottawa Citizen

Fame as fiction in ‘Teenage Paparazzo’ and ‘The Tillman Story’

By Brian D. Johnson - Saturday, August 28, 2010 at 2:04 PM - 0 Comments

These two documentaries are radically different in substance and tone. The Tillman Story is a jaw-dropping investigation into a high-level fraud and cover-up surrounding the death of a celebrated American soldier. Teenage Paparazzo is a flume ride into the churning froth of tabloid nonsense surrounding Hollywood stardom. But both are compelling, well-told stories that reveal how celebrity is, more often than not, a manufactured fiction.

Teenage Paparazzo is a personal, point-of-view doc from Adrian Grenier, the star of HBO’s Entourage, who shows there’s an inquiring mind behind the pretty-boy charm. Right off the top, he points out that he’s ironically qualified to explore the artifice of fame, considering that he became a celebrity by playing one on television. His subject is a cute, precocious, self-possessed kid named Austin Visschedyk, who has become a serious pro paparazzo at age 14. After spotting Austin in a scrum of photographers, Grenier takes him aside, gets to know him, and decides to turn the camera on him. The director’s declared goal is to explore the nature of paparazzi voyeurism through the bizarre phenomenon of a young teen who stays up to all hours stalking celebrities in the streets of L.A. But the film becomes a textbook example of how a camera changes the reality it documents the moment it enters the picture. As Grenier follows Austin around with a film crew, the actor’s own fame quickly begins to rub off, and inevitably the pint-sized paparazzo starts to morph into a celebrity himself. That begins to interfere with his job, which requires a degree of outlaw stealth. And Grenier’s presence becomes an irritation. At the same time, Austin is clearly chuffed by his sudden fame, and starts to act like another Hollywood brat.

There are number of ethical issues on the table. The permissive parenting of mother who allows her child to chase cars at 2 a.m. is up for scrutiny. But Austin seems decently home schooled, stays away from alcohol and drugs, and makes a preposterously good living. The job, which involves a lot of running and jumping and hiding, seems oddly appropriate for a kid. It’s an adventure, and let’s face it, he’s not exactly a child soldier. Then, of course, there’s the ethical issue of the stalking celebrities and invading their privacy. Grenier interviews some famous colleagues, such as Matt Damon and Julia Roberts, who find the whole business appalling. But the director’s sympathies ultimately seem to lie with the paparazzi pirates, who are simply playing the Hollywood game outside the boundaries set by the publicists. At one point, in an attempt to see the game from their point of view, he even buys a camera and gets in on the action. Continue…

The American character at work in post-Katrina New Orleans

By John Parisella - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 6:29 PM - 0 Comments

It has been five years since the disastrous Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico and the bordering states. Many reports this week are showing the incomplete but nonetheless significant resurgence of New Orleans. The citizens of the Gulf states, most recently affected by the BP oil spill, have endured much in the last few years. But they are examples of the American character in action—resilience and the ability to rebound have once again won the day.

What is it in the American character that promotes this capacity to recover, to reverse course when necessary and act in a way that brings progress? Some will argue that American history is full of examples where values and principles gave way to expediency. When slavery was abolished, segregation soon took its place. Yet today, America is governed by an African-American. It may take time, but it seems this most influential of all nations eventually gets it right.

The ongoing resurgence of New Orleans, the resistance to despondency by New Yorkers after the terrible events of 9/11, and the ability to revisit decisions like the one to go to war in Iraq speak to the nature of the American character. The mood in America has been decried of late as angry, with the rise of the Tea Party and the bitter debate over the Ground Zero mosque cited as evidence. This weekend Glenn Beck will deliver an angry address at the Lincoln Memorial, an attempt to simulate the Second Coming or his version of Martin Luther King’s  “I Have a Dream” speech. Meanwhile, the upcoming election cycle has already been interpreted as a rejection of America’s current course of action. But somehow Americans will make it through this period of fierce polarization. The one consistent trait of this country is its character. Five years after Katrina, that much should be clear.

[John Parisella is currently serving as Quebec's Delegate General in New York City]

'Taking back ownership'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 4:42 PM - 0 Comments

Jack Layton spoke today to the Rotary Club in Toronto to sketch out his economic vision.

If I have one message to convey today, it is this: It’s time to lead, not retreat. If we want the kind of recovery that comes with jobs and lasting benefits, we need some national leadership … If Ottawa can channel these aspirations, we’ll see more Canadians taking back ownership of their federal government not just voting, but actively making it a tool to build a better world.

Nuance alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 3:29 PM - 0 Comments

Michael Ignatieff comments on the HST in British Columbia.

On the issue most British Columbians are talking about — the HST — Ignatieff said it was a good idea badly executed. “We’ve always believed that tax harmonization is a good thing. But the way you do it is absolutely crucial. And the way it was done here has given every politician pause for reflection. The issue is not the tax, in my view. It had to do with democratic accountability and whether trust was broken. That’s an issue for the provincial Liberals, it’s not an issue for me. We’ve been clear on HST all along. But you have to do it right. If you lose the consent of the people on this, that’s a problem for Premier Campbell.”

Eight key cancer symptoms identified

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:57 PM - 0 Comments

Eight unexplained symptoms, which are most often linked to cancer, have been pinpointed by a team at Keele University, the BBC reports. Looking for symptoms that gave someone a one-in-20 or higher chance of a cancer diagnosis, they landed on the following: rectal blood, coughing up blood, breast lump or mass, difficulty swallowing, post-menopausal bleeding, abnormal prostate tests, blood in urine and anaemia. In the patient is below age 55, only two symptoms reach the “one in 20” threshold, they said: abnormal prostate tests and a breast lump. Still, there are more than 200 different types of cancer, with different symptoms, so any change in health should be checked out, they emphasized.

BBC News

Rob Ford issues “vague” policy response

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:49 PM - 0 Comments

Toronto resident Cathie Besso emailed Rob Ford, frontrunner in the upcoming Toronto mayoral election, to ask him what he intended to do about bike lanes in the city. She was taken aback by the reply: a form letter first thanked her for voicing her concerns, the Toronto Star reports. In the second paragraph, written in bold, it said “Insert vague response on policy.” Presumably an error, there was no answer to her question, and Ford’s team didn’t return the Star’s requests for comment.

Toronto Star

The census show trials

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

The industry committee is in the midst of another day of hearings on the census—you can view the proceedings online here. CP and the Globe have filed early dispatches. The Globe’s Steve Chase is also keeping a running account.

If you’d tuned in a moment ago, you would have noticed that among the witnesses was Calgary talk radio host Dave Rutherford. And if you’re wondering why a talk radio show host would be called before a parliamentary committee to testify on the census, you are apparently not alone. This from Mr. Rutherford’s own Twitter feed.

Hey the politicians must be desparate. I have been “invited” to appear at the Industry Committee in Ottawa about the census long form. Why?

Drake writes tribute letter to Aaliyah on anniversary of her death

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

To mark the ninth anniversary of singer Aaliyah’s death, rap artist Drake wrote an open letter on the site Rap Radar on Wednesday. The rapper wrote that her death connected with his heart “like a clean shot from Muhammad Ali.” He says that he’s “never lost a parent, a friend, or a lover” but that he “will never forget this day for the rest of my life.” Drake had never met Aaliyah, but says he was “truly in love” with her.

Rap Radar

Friends of Montreal terror suspect baffled by arrest

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

Since Khurram Sher, 28, was charged in an Ottawa court with a single count of conspiracy to facilitate a terrorist offence, his friends can’t make sense of the crime. The McGill-trained physician was known as a community pillar, loving husband and father of three small children. Former coworkers from McGill’s Health Centre say he had a great sense of humour, and that he was peaceful and likeable, and known for singing Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ on Canadian Idol auditions in June 2008. “He’s a great guy, there is absolutely no way he is involved in this,” said one colleague at the Montreal General Hospital who believes this is a case of mistaken identity. He added: “Anyone who knows him would say he couldn’t be involved in this.”

Montreal Gazette

Paying for Politics

By Andrew Potter - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 1:12 PM - 0 Comments

I’m surprised Tom Kent’s piece in yesterday’s Globe and Mail didn’t get more uptake. It’s really amazing how much the current disrepair of our democracy is a direct consequence of Chretien and Martin’s desire to screw one another over. Anyway, I quite liked this line about public funding of political parties:

“Few uses of public money are more indefensible.”

Trapped Chilean miners release new video

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 12:56 PM - 0 Comments

The men trapped in the Chilean mine released a new video, which shows them thin, heavily bearded, and shirtless. In front of the camera, they linked arms and shouted, “Long live Chile. Long live the miners” and “Chile! Chile! Chile!” They applauded rescue efforts, and one man told the camera: “We know what you’ve all been doing for us. You haven’t left us alone.” The camera was lowered down through a borehole and one of the miners used it to record a tour of living conditions, illuminated by a light on his head. The full version of the video is said to be 45 minutes long, and was shown to families of the miners at a private screening.

Telegraph

Stephen Harper, possibly a human being

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 12:43 PM - 0 Comments

In the wake of Stephen Harper dancing, CTV and the Star consider the larger meaning and wider ramifications. CTV links this week’s vaguely rhythmic movement with Mr. Harper’s not-quite-in-tune singing ten months ago to suggest some sort of trend.

What Was Your Favourite TGIF Lineup?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Wikipedia is a very useful resource for information that isn’t generally considered useful. For example, without Wikipedia, I wouldn’t have been able to link to a chart showing ABC’s TGIF lineup for each season of the programming gimmick’s existence. Actually, the chart has been up for a while, but I didn’t link to it because it was inaccurate for a while (including shows that either weren’t part of the lineup or weren’t regularly there); someone seems to have corrected it now.

For people who are in a certain age group, “TGIF” stands as one of the great TV marketing gimmicks: the proof is that virtually everybody referred to (and still refers to) ABC’s Friday night lineup as “TGIF,” meaning that we all accepted and adopted the marketing slogan. (“Must-see TV,” by contrast, was adopted ironically; people called it “Must-See TV” to point up the fact that some of the shows clearly weren’t must-see.) And it allowed ABC to stay strong on Friday nights well into the late ’90s, even as Friday night was becoming harder and harder to program. They finally lost their touch when they fell out with the Miller-Boyett gang in 1997-8 over the then-recent ABC/Disney merger: Miller-Boyett and their parent company Warner Brothers felt they were going to be out in the cold now that ABC was going to show favourtism to Disney product, so they took Step By Step and Family Matters over to CBS, where both shows died. Meanwhile ABC filled the gaps on Friday with Sabrina clones, leading to a mostly desperate, gimmicky lineup. It was the end of the line not only for TGIF but for the whole concept of major-network TV that appealed to viewers under 18: kids and teens, after all, are just as much outside the 18-49 sweet spot as senior citizens, and if anything the big networks want their viewership even less.

So, that said, for those of you who remember watching these shows on Friday night, what was your favourite lineup of the ones listed on that site? My favourite is, inevitably, the first I can remember watching. Which happens to be a lineup that wasn’t actually under the TGIF banner: the 1988-89 lineup. (The TGIF slogan was introduced officially the following year.)  I think, to be perfectly honest, that I usually tuned out after Full House, because my memories of the other two shows are much vaguer (even though Just the Ten of Us was the best of the lot), but I remember being glued to virtually every Perfect Strangers that year. That’s why I’m not well-adjusted. Anyway, I lost a certain amount of interest in the lineup the following season because they moved Perfect Strangers to 9:00, though that was the season Family Matters arrived to really cement the TGIF gimmick in the minds of my fellow kids.

Quality-wise, though, the best lineup was probably 1996-7. You had to get through a long-in-the-tooth Miller-Boyett show at 8 (Step By Step, it says, though an earlier version said Family Matters was there), but after that you had really strong shows by any standard: The first, wonderful season of Sabrina; the first season of the TV adaptation of Clueless, with much of the film’s cast (including Wallace Shawn) and crew; and the fourth and best season of Boy Meets World, which was none too happy about being moved to the end of the lineup:

Jimmy Carter wins release of American from North Korea

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 11:59 AM - 0 Comments

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter left North Korea on Friday after securing the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, an American man who was sentenced to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 for illegally entering the country in April. Carter arrived in North Korea Wednesday for the private humanitarian mission, but it is not known if he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. South Korean officials say a train believed to be carrying Kim entered China around midnight on Wednesday, setting off speculation over what might have compelled him to leave the country while Carter was visiting. South Korean intelligence officials speculated that Kim may have been taking his youngest son and presumed successor, Kim Jong-un, to formally introduce him to Chinese leaders. Other possible motives include the North’s need for Chinese aid because of flooding and the possibility of a decline in Kim’s health, which might have forced aides to take him to China for treatment.

New York Times