Parliament rebukes Maclean's
By John Geddes - Thursday, September 30, 2010 - 0 Comments
What does it mean in practical terms?
A House motion upbraiding Maclean’s for the magazine’s cover story on corruption in Quebec politics is thought to be only the second time in a century that MPs have closed ranks to express their disapproval with the work of a news publication.
Only one independent MP, Quebec City’s André Arthur, openly argues the motion was misguided, although Liberal MP Marc Garneau also expressed concern about the precedent. “If in two weeks, another magazine writes something that’s considered excessive,” Garneau said, “we can’t make a habit of putting out a motion every time we’re not happy about what’s written in the media.”
But Government House Leader John Baird, whose party approved the motion without argument, suggested the situation was “somewhat unique.” He added, “It goes without saying that matters of national unity are sensitive.”
This week’s House motion was prompted by the Maclean’s cover story headlined “The most corrupt province,” which was illustrated by a satirical depiction of Bonhomme Carnaval—the popular snowman mascot of Quebec City’s famous winter carnival. The story chronicled scandal in Quebec politics and an accompanying column by Andrew Coyne discussed why the province might be prone to it.
The motion by Bloc Québécois MP Pierre Paquette said: “That this House, while recognizing the importance of vigorous debate on subject of public interest, expresses its profound sadness at the prejudice displayed and the stereotypes employed by Maclean’s magazine to denigrate the Quebec nation, its history and its institutions.”
It passed without debate or a recorded vote.
Maclean’s requested an interview with Paquette, but a Bloc spokeswoman said the party would not answer any questions from the magazine until it issues an apology “to the people of Quebec.”
Baird, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s point man for House business, said the motion was shown to him on Wednesday. He agreed to it without asking for changes, although he said the precise wording wasn’t what he would have used had he drafted it himself. He didn’t say how his version might have been different.
Baird drew a distinction between Paquette’s motion and a formal censure from the House. “Censure would imply a judgment with consequences,” he said. “This just expresses sadness.”
In this case, the House did not ask for an apology, as it did after the Globe and Mail published a story in 2006 on the shooting at Montreal’s Dawson College, in which author and journalist Jan Wong prompted outrage inside Quebec by suggesting that the province’s history of linguistic strife contributed to the incident.
That prompted Liberal MP Denis Coderre to introduce this motion: “That, in the opinion of the House, an apology be given to the people of Quebec for the offensive remarks of Ms. Jan Wong in a Globe and Mail article regarding the recent Dawson College tragedy.”
It passed with the approval of all parties, like Paquette’s this week. However, the motion denouncing Maclean’s nearly failed to sail through unopposed: André Arthur, an independent MP from Quebec City, who is an outspoken former radio host, initially answered No when the Deputy Speaker asked if the motion had the unanimous consent of MPs.
Paquette immediately rose to warn Arthur “that he had better stick around for the rest of the week and all of the next week because I will move this motion every single day.” Arthur then left the chamber, and the motion was then agreed to by all MPs present.
“What they’re trying to do is make people who haven’t read Maclean’s or don’t read English believe that you said Quebecers are corrupt, when in fact Maclean’s clearly showed the political system in Quebec has unbelievable corruption problems,” Anthur said in an interview. “That’s perfectly true.”
Beyond the content of the Maclean’s story, Arthur questioned the wisdom of the legislature pronouncing on journalism, except where Parliament itself is directly involved. “I think the only case in which Parliament would have the right to comment on news coverage would be in a case where the integrity of Parliament itself was called into question,” he said. “It could call in the journalists and have them explain themselves. In any other case, Parliament has no business censuring, endorsing, or criticizing a newspaper article.”
In fact, the House has very rarely passed motions to rebuke the media. The Library of Parliament could find only two other comparable episodes, both obscure footnotes, before the recent Maclean’s and Globe cases. In 1873, the editor of the newspaper Courrier d’Outaouais, Elie Tassé, was ordered to appear before the bar of the House to answer questions about an article reflecting on two MPs. Then in 1906, a journalist named Joseph Ernest Eugène Cinq‑Mars was also called to appear before the bar, where he answered questions about a story that reflected poorly on an MP, after which the House passed a motion of censure against him.
Censure, though, is the term usually applied when MPs are upset over some action that directly affects their work—not wider controversies unfolding beyond Parliament. In 2003, Parliament censured former privacy commissioner George Radwanski for allegedly providing misleading information, and RCMP Deputy Commissioner Barbara George was found in contempt by the House in 2008 for misleading a parliamentary committee.
Paquette’s motion fits the definition, not of a censure motion, but of a “resolution.” According to the Glossary of Parliamentary Procedure used by the House Speaker’s office, a resolution is: “A motion adopted by the House in order to make a declaration of opinion or purpose. A resolution does not have the effect of requiring that any action be taken.”
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NFL Picks Week 4: THIS GUY Jon Gruden is becoming intolerable
By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 9:08 PM - 0 Comments
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Welcome to Can’t Miss NFL Picks and Other Lies, with Maclean’s columnist Scott FeschukWelcome to Can’t Miss NFL Picks and Other Lies, with Maclean’s columnist Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid, former senior advisor to Prime Minister Paul Martin.
Scott Feschuk Last week: 8-8 Season: 25-19-4
Scott Reid Last week: 7-9 Season: 22-22-4
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Cincinnati (minus 3.5) at Cleveland
Feschuk: Reading the stats page isn’t sufficient – you have to actually watch Carson Palmer’s passes with your own eyes. Either he’s missing his receiving targets by a wide margin or the invisible 12-foot-tall wideout to whom he’s throwing has got a bad case of butterfingers. Eric Mangini is 0-3 but with some luck he could be 3-0 and with some luck and ball gag he could be 3-0 and tolerable to be around. Cleveland wins this one outright. You heard me. Pick: Cleveland.
Reid: I love it when you drink in the afternoon. You come up with the craziest ideas. Cleveland winning outright is right up there with a relaunch of Hawaii 5-0 or hosting the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. At least the Games will be over in a couple weeks. As for Mangini, he’s so deeply boned that he might as well change his first name to Paris. Pick: Cincinnati.
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Denver (plus 6.5) at Tennessee
Reid: Kyle Orton threw 57 passes for 476 yards last week. And still lost. That’s like barbecuing an entire cow and Continue…
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Mike Lazaridis vs. Peter Robertson
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 6:15 PM - 0 Comments
Supremely useful low-tech wages battle against supremely useful high-tech
Mike Lazaridis
Why he’s famous: Putting e-mail on people’s cell phones via the BlackBerry.
Why he deserves to win: Along with co-CEO Jim Balsillie, Lazaridis has built Research in Motion into a tech powerhouse, putting Canada on the map in the wireless device business. Lazaridis has registered more than 30 patents and won dozens of awards for his innovations in software and wireless communications technology, including a 1999 Academy Award for RIM’s role in inventing a digital-barcode reader for film editing.
Peter Robertson
Why he’s famous: He’s the inventor of the Robertson screwdriver—you know, the square-shaped one in your toolbox.
Why he deserves to win: Before Robertson’s invention in 1908, we were stuck with the slip-prone flat bladed driver and slotted-head screw, a combo notorious for causing injuries. Later, when the cross-shaped Phillips screw and driver were invented, Consumer Reports magazine declared the Robertson superior because Phillips’ screws are easily stripped and degrade with wear. As writer Witold Rybcynski put it, “no matter how old, rusty, or painted over, a Robertson screw can always be unscrewed. [It’s] the biggest little invention of the 20th century.”
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Norman Bethune vs. Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 6:15 PM - 0 Comments
At least one Canadian medical hero will fall by the wayside
Norman Bethune
Why he’s famous: Bethune revolutionized battlefield medicine.
Why he deserves to win: During the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Bethune invented a mobile blood transfusion service which could collect blood from donors and deliver it wherever it was needed. His “mobile blood bank” is considered the greatest medical innovation from the war. Later, Bethune would take his battlefield medicine expertise to China, where he became the Red Army’s Medical Chief and taught his techniques to new doctors and nurses. Think of Bethune as the Canadian Florence Nightingale.
Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best
Why they’re famous: Along with Best, a medical student he’d hired, Banting isolated insulin as the hormone which regulates the body’s blood sugar levels.
Why they deserve to win: After reading a paper that suggested diabetes may be caused by a lack of a hormone secreted by islets in the back of the pancreas, he devised a way to isolate the islets by tying off most of the pancreas with ligatures. In 1921, Frederick Banting hired Charles Best and the two removed a dog’s pancreas, which caused blood sugar levels to rise (mimicking diabetics) before injecting the islets back into the dog. The animal lived for several more months, proving they had isolated the blood-sugar regulating hormone insulin. By 1922, the pair were bringing comatose diabetics in Toronto back to life. Diabetics worldwide have lived more normal lives ever since.
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The mammography debate rages on
By Kate Lunau - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 6:12 PM - 0 Comments
At what age should women begin getting annual mammograms? Researchers disagree.
A new study, published in the journal Cancer, claims to prove that annual mammography for women in their forties reduces the death rate from breast cancer in this group by almost 30 per cent. This is sure to throw more fuel on the fire as experts hotly debate at which age women should begin a regular screening program for breast cancer—and even whether awareness and treatment were more important tools than regular mammograms.
The most recent study was authored by Dr. Stephen Duffy of the University of London, and Dr. Laszlo Tabar of the University of Uppsala School of Medicine in Sweden, well-known advocates of mammography, the New York Times reports. It followed over 600,000 women for 16 years, and found that the number of breast cancer deaths among women who didn’t receive mammograms was twice as high as those who did. “It is now time to stop confusing women with conflicting information. Mammography is a lifesaver for women in their forties,” Dr. Gail Lebovic of the American Society of Breast Disease said, commenting on the study.
Still, other research has claimed differently. Just last week, another widely reported study suggested that increased awareness and better treatment—and not necessarily mammograms—were the best way to reduce death rates from breast cancer, the most common cancer in women worldwide. (See Canadian statistics on breast cancer here.) Timely care and “the widespread use of adjuvant therapy have probably combined to make screening now less important, said Dr. Gilbert Welch of Dartmouth Medical School in an editorial accompanying the study, according to ABC News.
This follows even more conflicting advice. In January, two U.S. groups (the American College of Radiology and the Society of Breast Imaging) recommended that women begin getting regular annual mammograms at age 40, just two months or so after the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended against routine mammograms at that age, causing an uproar among some health care professionals and patients alike.
Screening mammograms are meant to detect any signs of cancer tumours in apparently healthy women, but some argue they can do more harm than good, especially at a younger age. The disease is less common in younger women (the annual risk of developing it at age 40 is half what it is at 50), so they’re more likely to get false positive results, which can lead to everything from unnecessary biopsies to stress. That’s one reason medical bodies offer widely conflicting advice, as Maclean’s reported earlier this year. The Canadian Cancer Society says women aged 50 to 69 should get a mammogram every two years and those in their forties should talk to a doctor; both groups should get clinical breast exams. The American Cancer Society, meanwhile, recommends yearly mammograms beginning at 40.
Anyone could be forgiven to feeling confused. Until some sort of consensus on mammography emerges, one position almost every medical expert can agree on is that individual women should discuss the benefits of mammography with their doctors.
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UFOs over Montreal?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments
Witnesses agree sighting was “out of this world” but police point to helicopters
Mysterious objects in the sky in Montreal have led people to believe there was a visit to the city by UFOs. Among the witnesses was a Montreal doctor, Cleve Ziegler, who believes he saw something “out of this world” in the strange blinking lights hovering high in the sky. He said, “There were many little sparkly red and blue lights. It had a changing shape, morphing from something that looked triangular to something that looked like a trapezoid. It was not a stable shape.” Others said they saw the same thing, and several even called the police to report the mysterious sight. But Const. Daniel Lacoursière said Trudeau Airport reported nothing on the radar in that area and suggested that around that time, helicopters were buzzing around the site of a fuel spill at the Port of Montreal.
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Josh Brolin on Woody Allen, master manipulator
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 5:06 PM - 0 Comments
Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin in 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger'
Great actors line up to work with Woody Allen. Partly because he’s living legend. But also because a Woody Allen shoot is a high-wire act that’s like a cross between film and live theatre—actors have to navigate complex ensemble scenes shot on location in long takes with no margin for error. In Allen’s latest film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, Josh Brolin plays Roy, a novelist struggling with writer’s block who’s married to Sally (Naomi Watts) but develops a mad crush on the girl next door (Slumdog Millionaire ingenue Freida Pinto). I talked to Brolin a few weeks ago at the Toronto International Film Festival:
Q. What’s the big attraction of working with Woody Allen?
A. I worked with Woody before in a small part, in Melinda and Melinda [2004]. We didn’t speak at all. But there was this one scene. We were in a Rolls Royce. Will Ferrell and Amanda Peet were in the back, and I’m talking about how beautiful the sky is, but there were black clouds and it starts to drizzle. It doesn’t make any sense. So I try to get to Woody on the walkie-talkie—and Will is like [whispering] ‘You don’t want to do that! You don’t want to do that!” Finally I get Woody on the walkie-talkie and I say “Woody, it doesn’t make any sense what I’m saying.” Long, long, long pause. Then he says, “Alright, then make it weather contingent.” I hear a click. I put the thing down and Will goes, “I told you, you shouldn’t have said anything.” I had to improvise the entire scene keeping in mind the dark weather. And I had 30 seconds to do it. That kind of rush is very attractive—in hindsight.
Q. What challenges did you face making Tall Dark Stranger?
A. Usually when you block a scene you go back to your trailer by yourself, you isolate, you work on your dialogue. We had none of that with Woody. I was told we had trailers that are comfortable and nice. Did we ever see them? No. On day we were in a fifth-floor walk-up. We were in this tiny room, our holding pen. Everybody’s freaking out. Everyone wants to please Woody. I’m pacing and smoking. We show up on the set, and Woody says, “Okay, let’s block this.” We’re constantly moving. In a play it would take a week figuring out how this is going to work. We have 15 minutes. And it’s all done in one shot, so you can’t screw up the take. There’s no escape. You’ve got to be really on your game. Everybody’s talking to themselves, everybody’s pacing. You put yourself in this horrible position and you’re not being paid anything, to please this guy. He’s set himself up in such a way that all you want to do is please the master. It’s the greatest manipulation of anybody I’ve ever come across.
Freida Pinto in 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger'
Q. How did your co-stars fare?
Freida [Pinto] was really thrown. She told me she would almost get sick in the morning. Between me and Woody, it was like a monster to her. Woody came to her at one point and said, “I don’t feel like you like him at all. You’re supposed to be in love with him.” I can’t imagine being green and learning like she’s learning, really quickly, and doing a Woody Allen film. I would have folded. But she did extremely well.
Q. How does working with Woody compare to working with the Coen brothers?
A. Woody is more reactive. They don’t react. I work with a lot of people who don’t react. Oliver [Stone] doesn’t react. He’ll say, “Are you feeling okay today?” then walk away. I say, “What does that mean?” and he’ll say, “I don’t know, you seem a little off,” and then he’ll walk away. What does that mean? He’s just cranking me up. The Coens don’t say a lot. I’ve done three projects with them. I get [a look]. And that means great job, we can move on. I’ve never gotten a thumbs up.
Q. They only say something if there’s a problem?
A. Yeah, and it’s usually just, “Do you want to do that again?” Or “why are you crying? Let’s do it again.”
Q. What a strange job you have. And it’s not as if it’s the same job from one movie to the next.
A. Very different sensibilities. The only through line is that I have total trust in these people. That’s the difference in working for 20 years without it and working for four years now with people I absolutely trust. Therefore I feel that I can fail miserably, and humiliate myself without pause, and they will find the gem within that.
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Louis Gyori | 1952-2010
By Julia Belluz - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments
His life came into focus at a young age: he would become the owner of a summer camp, and teach kids how to water ski
Illustration by Juliana Neufeld
Louis Gyori was born on April 28, 1952, in Toronto. His parents, Louis Sr. and Emmilia, were immigrants from Hungary who established a lucrative sod farm in Keswick, Ont., called Royal Sod. Their only child helped out with the family business in the summers, and by the time he was 12, his parents sent him off to camp. Those early years outdoors made a great impression on the boy, and shaped the course of his life.
At De La Salle Camp on the shores of Lake Simcoe at Jackson’s Point, Ont., Louis was promoted to waterfront staff within a few summers. The round-faced kid—charismatic and always laughing—loved sports, and excelled at them. In particular, Louis enjoyed water-skiing, and co-founded the camp’s water-ski program with another camper. Together, they’d pull more than 100 skiers a day, and called their 16-foot boat “Ski-Lou.”
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The language war
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 4:41 PM - 0 Comments
Not in Ottawa today, and thus couldn’t witness the poetry of Question Period firsthand, but perhaps the transcript speaks for itself.
Conservative members, for instance, combined to use the word “coalition” 15 times, while the Prime Minister seems to have referred to the Liberals as “those characters.”
And Liberal Carolyn Bennett, in wondering whether the Prime Minister would acquiesce to last night’s House vote on the census, apparently observed that “leaders who think they make the rules are called dictators.” In fairness, with the next breath Ms. Bennett said that “this is a test,” so she seems at least willing to offer Mr. Harper the opportunity to prove he is not a dictator. Which is, well, something.
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Your movie's finally here, Tyler
By Andrée Cazabon - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments
A non-native filmmaker describes what it was like making a documentary on a native reserve
Andree Cazabon
October 2007: I’m on a 12-seater plane headed for Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation in Ontario, 600 km north of Thunder Bay, Ont. Below, boreal forests and lakes. On my lap, a box of Timbits I’m increasingly nervous about. When I called the band office, Sandra told me there were no “customary” gifts like tobacco, as in the south. I insisted: I had to bring something. She said, “Well, the chief likes donuts.” I’m sure they’re hard to get up here. When the plane stopped in a community en route, the “washroom” was an outhouse at the end of the tarmac. But Timbits—was she pulling my leg?
I don’t want to make a faux pas. I’m a non-native hoping to film a documentary here, so I’ve done my research, visited many other First Nations communities. Still, I’m unprepared for K.I. When we land, it doesn’t feel like we’re in Canada anymore. I try to keep my expression neutral as a youth worker drives me around, but I’m shocked. This is one of the more prosperous fly-in communities, but it looks like a ghost town: plywood nailed over windows, peeling paint—yet apparently inhabitants feel lucky. At least they have houses. Two hundred people—in a community of less than 1,200—are on the wait list. Only two to four homes are built every year; with no roads, it’s insanely expensive to transport building materials.
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A first-rate (mis)adventure writer
By Kate Fillion, Brian Bethune, Anne Kingston, Sheilagh McEvenue, Chris Sorensen - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments
Plus, a novel about Shakespeare’s illegitimate daughter, a case for the oil sands, a shocking confession, war biographies, and a head-spinning tour of central Europe
‘Even Silence Has An End’: Ingrid Betancourt with her sister at a concert for liberty in Paris, July, 20, 2008. Julien Hekimian/WireImage/Getty Images
EVEN SILENCE HAS AN END
Ingrid BetancourtDuring a quixotic campaign for the Colombian presidency in February 2002, Ingrid Betancourt—Green Oxygen party founder, elected senator, bestselling author and anti-corruption whistle-blower—was kidnapped by FARC rebels and spirited off to the jungle. Her account of the 6½ years she spent in captivity is, even at 528 pages, riveting: there are anacondas, piranhas, food shortages, forced marches through the rainforest, sadistic captors, life-threatening illnesses—and the growing certainty that she is both too valuable a pawn for the rebels and too inconvenient an activist for the government ever to be freed.
To evade detection, FARC commanders kept hostages on the move, sometimes cramming them into tiny barracks, and other times forcing them to sleep in the open. Betancourt escaped several times but was always recaptured, and eventually chained by the neck to a tree. But as she makes clear, she was not well-liked by the other hostages, several of whom rushed to press with damning memoirs accusing her of “haughtiness” and “selfishness.”
While Betancourt doesn’t address these charges directly, she writes that many hostages—who included fellow politicians and three American military contractors—were envious of the international attention her plight attracted. Certainly, meanness rather than grace emerged under pressure: cliques formed, captives began snitching on (and filching from) each other, and bitter squabbling and schadenfreude were the norm. Betancourt doesn’t pretend she was above any of this. “I, too, had run up to the stewpot in the hope of having a better piece . . . We were all alike, entangled in our ugly little pettiness.”
It’s easy to believe that in the jungle, Betancourt was a self-important pain in the ass at times. But in this surprisingly a political and tightly circumscribed memoir—there’s no discussion of her post-rescue divorce, or her ex-husband’s nasty kiss-and-tell book—she also proves herself to be a first-rate (mis)adventure writer. This jungle book is an indelible portrait of hell—which, as Sartre suggested, does turn out to be other people.
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The beer index is definitely down
By Scott Feschuk - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments
FESCHUK: There’s no better economic indicator than the state of useless innovations in beer
GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY TAYLOR SHUTE
Many economists waste their time studying a variety of data to forecast where the economy is heading. The truth is they need only consult the one indicator known to be foolproof: the index of Utterly Pointless Innovations in Beer.
The theory is so simple that an actor in a Coors Light commercial could understand it: if beer companies are investing millions in the development of highly expensive and Utterly Pointless Innovations, the economic outlook is promising.
Think back to the sweet times of 2006. The economy was strong. The stock market was soaring. And actual university-educated people were actually employed to make the mountains turn blue on Coors Light labels when the beer inside gets cold. (This technology was widely mocked, but consider its potential. With only a few tweaks, we could use it to determine when our coffee is still hot enough to drink, or when Nicolas Cage has finally stopped overacting. Has he turned blue? No? Then I think I’m going to skip that Sorcerer’s Apprentice movie.)
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Trust Lula, she's good
By Claire Ward - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments
Brazil’s president’s hand-picked successor is headed for certain victory in the Oct. 3 general election
Buda Mendes/LatinContent/Getty Images
Brazil has all but ushered in its first female president in advance of the Oct. 3 general election. Despite lacking her boss’s charisma, widespread popularity and elocution, Dilma Rousseff, the 62-year-old chief of staff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (or “Lula,” as he is affectionately known), is riding a widening gap in the polls with 50.5 per cent popularity, according to a Sensus poll. Her main opposition, São Paulo Gov. José Serra of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PDSB), sits at 26.4 per cent, down from 28 per cent in August. Rousseff’s surge in the polls is widely attributed to the popular outgoing president’s early endorsement of her as his successor, and his ongoing involvement in her campaign. “Today there is no one more prepared to govern our country than our future president, our comrade,” Lula said, pointing at Rousseff at a small-town appearance over the summer.
The president is enjoying 80-plus per cent approval ratings as his second and final term ends, arguably the kind of popularity that can rub off on even the most unlikely of candidates. “I can’t think of any other case in Latin America in the recent past where this has been the case: a twice-elected president simply saying, ‘Trust me,’ ” Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American program at Johns Hopkins University, has said. “The attitude is, ‘If Lula says she is the right person, she is the right person.’ ”
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What figure skating needs—an enforcer
By Charlie Gillis - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments
Beauty, meet the beast: tough guy Georges Laraque joins Battle of the Blades
Andrew Tolson; NHL/Getty Images; iStock/ Photo Illustration by Lauren Cattermole
In his playing days, Georges Laraque was known to issue verbal cautions. Keep up the guff, he’d tell a misbehaving opponent, and you’ll get your head pounded. And by pounded, Laraque meant like Omaha Beach in 1944: until he retired at the end of last year, he was the unofficial heavyweight champ of the NHL. This fall, Big Georges’ warning goes out to figure-skating fans, and lucky for them it is more in the vein of public service. “Don’t drink hot beverages while watching me skate,” he says, chuckling. “You’re going to laugh so hard you’ll spill it on your lap.”
He’s only half kidding. At six foot four and 270 lb., Laraque is the largest hockey player yet to lace up for CBC’s hit reality series, Battle of the Blades, and while his heft served him well in his role as enforcer for the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers, it won’t in this competition—a strangely absorbing spectacle in which retired hockey stars are transformed into the on-ice consorts of seasoned female pairs skaters.
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He had a gun and 'Tom Cruise eyes'
By Joanne Latimer - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments
These days forensic artists need to be up on pop culture references
Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
WANTED: one sketch artist for the Ontario Provincial Police. The force is hiring a forensic artist this fall, and job candidates need special forensic training and a portfolio of composite sketches. But an unofficial job qualification could go something like this: “should be familiar with actors, cartoons, prime-time television, sports stars, politicians, musicians and Google Images.”
“One witness asked me, ‘Do you know Beavis and Butt-Head? He looked like Beavis.’ I immediately knew to draw thin lips, a pointy nose and a furrowed brow. It was an excellent starting point,” said Det.-Const. Duncan Way, a forensic identification artist with the Barrie, Ont., police department who trained as a composite sketch artist at the prestigious FBI training centre in Quantico, Va. “Politicians are also popular references. I’ve had witnesses say, ‘He had a red face like John Turner’ or ‘buck teeth like Trudeau.’ ”
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Gourmet food trucks: Not your average street meat
By Julia Belluz - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments
Edmonton and Vancouver’s curbside menus just got tastier (PHOTOS)
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Construction guys never ate like this
By Julia Belluz - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments
The specialty food-truck craze that’s sweeping the U.S. is arriving here
Photography by Mark Cohene
Jason Apple, co-owner of Vancouver’s Roaming Dragon food truck, may be the closest thing Canada has to a street-food philosopher. When Apple was 14, his family moved to Seattle, where he set up a peanut and crackerjack stand outside a local stadium, and his love affair began. “The high of street food was infectious,” he says. “It’s a convergence zone: a prostitute can have a conversation with a big-shot lawyer about a taco.”
Apple subsidized his political science degree at the University of Washington by selling hot dogs and his old staples at baseball games. After moving back to Canada and dabbling in other businesses, the 33-year-old returned to the streets. But he didn’t launch a cart or stand: in June, he and business partner Jory Simkin invested $150,000 in a food truck.
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Mitchel Raphael on who said what, who dissed who, the first day back
By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments
Let me in, PM!
After the first question period of the new session of Parliament, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff did a round of TV interviews in the foyer sporting a red-striped tie, no jacket and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up. “Image consultants,” quipped NDP Leader Jack Layton, who was doing a similar round of TV interviews in a dark suit and purple tie. Government House leader John Baird went over to Iggy in the foyer and congratulated him on choosing David McGuinty as the Liberal House leader. Baird noted that since House leaders are supposed to enforce decorum, and that he and McGuinty were the worst shout-out offenders, heckling in the House should now be down by 50 per cent. Taking over the position of top Tory heckler the first day back was LaVar Payne, the MP for Medicine Hat, who wore a white shirt with an odd thick pink stripe on the collar that continued down the front. There were other interesting fashion choices. Halifax NDP MP Megan Leslie sported a piece of a teacup that had been turned into a necklace. It was made by Halifax artist Amy Belanger. “It’s my tea party movement,” joked Leslie. “It’s a recycling movement. And it’s reversible. Now that’s eco-fashion.” The first day had its kinks as well. Security said several of the Hill staff forgot to get new passes to allow them into the lobbies of the House. Among the more prominent of those without valid passes was the PM’s director of communications, Dimitri Soudas. He filled out a special note card which was given to a page to give to Stephen Harper to get him inside. -
And in this week's news . . .
By Kate Lunau - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments
It’s a question whether, below the desk, news anchors wear pants
Getty Images
News anchors are known for their clean-cut looks, usually capped off with a blazer. But it’s a long-held question whether, below the desk, they wear pants. “Remarkably this is a question I’ve been asked many, many times over the years,” Don Ward, an anchor for Colorado’s KKTV, writes on his blog. “The joke being that maybe we all sit at the desk with nothing but underwear under there.”
Last week, a newsreader on the program 24UR in Slovenia revealed his own preference. In a clip that became a YouTube sensation, he finishes reading the news, taps his papers on the desk, and turns to chat with a colleague—only to reveal he’s wearing boxer shorts with his suit jacket. (Ward writes: “There was a time, a glorious time, when the lower half could bask in the comfort of something more casual,” like jeans or shorts.
Ever since anchors started walking or standing as they delivered the news, though, all that generally changed.)
The Slovenian anchorman wasn’t the only journalist to recently make news. Norwegian radio journalist Pia Beathe Pedersen quit on-air from her job at NRK, where she’d been for 18 months, accusing her bosses of being too demanding. She capped off her rant by saying there wasn’t any news to report because “nothing important has happened” anyway. No word on her choice of attire. -
Habitable, earth-like planet discovered
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:46 PM - 0 Comments
First “Goldilocks” planet can sustain life
For the first time ever, scientists have found an Earth-like planet which, they believe, is habitable for life. Announced Wednesday by scientists, the planet is called Gliese 581G and is relatively close to the Earth—just 20 light years away from our solar system. Its size and distance from the sun is comparable to Earth’s, which has led scientists to believe that the conditions on the planet would mean there is water in liquid form and has a gravitational pull to hold an atmosphere around it. The Gliese 581 system also exhibits similar characteristics to our solar system. “This is our first Goldilocks planet—just the right size and the right distance from its sun,” said Paul Butler, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington to the Washington Post.
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Upping the rent for Russia
By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments
Russia intends to cut a deal with Kyrgyzstan
Denis Sinyakov/Reuters
Russia intends to cut a deal with Kyrgyzstan that would allow it to keep its five military bases in the country operational for 49 more years, as well as open a new one. Along with a Russian air base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan hosts Moscow’s naval training and research centre at Lake Issyk-Kul, and two seismic and communication facilities in the Chuyisk region. It’s believed a new base will add stability to the region, which earlier this year saw hundreds of Uzbeks killed in ethnic riots. But having bases in Kyrgyzstan is also a strategic move for Russia, which seeks to elbow out the United States and China and assert a strong military presence in the ex-Soviet republic.
In return, Kyrgyzstan authorities want Russia to exchange small arms and military hardware. But they also want cash. Kyrgyz Defence Minister Abibilla Kudayberdiev said that if Moscow continues using bases in Kyrgyzstan, he wants to increase the rent more than fourfold, from US$4.5 million annually to upwards of US$18 million. The deal has yet to be settled, but analysts say it probably won’t be until after the country’s elections on Oct. 10, the first vote since former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was unseated in a violent revolt in April.
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A sea of green lights
By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments
Should signals follow traffic, not vice versa?
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Brakes squealing, horns honking—traffic congestion is a huge problem, and it’s only getting bigger. But researchers with the Santa Fe Institute, a non-profit think tank that examines complex systems, are working to alleviate the smoky urban gridlock. The institute recently released a study proposing a new way to reduce road congestion: changing how traffic lights work. Currently most signals are on timers programmed to turn green or red according to the expected number of vehicles passing through intersections at certain times throughout the day—a system, scientists say, that’s due for an upgrade.
“Because of the large variability in the number of cars behind each red light, it means that although we have an optimal scheme, it’s optimal for a situation that does not occur,” Dirk Helbing, external professor with the Santa Fe Institute and co-author of the study, told Wired magazine. He proposes a new system, where signals respond to traffic instead of attempting to control it. This is accomplished by placing sensors at intersections to measure incoming and outgoing cars and alert other signals when a large volume is coming. The lights change once a certain number of vehicles pile up, creating a small local flow through several intersections that speeds up traffic globally and allows lots of cars to move through a string of green lights.
A simulation in Dresden, Germany, had traffic delays for trams and buses falling by more than half, while pedestrians and cars saw declines in wait times of 36 and nine per cent. Cities such as Dresden and Zurich are now considering implementing the system, and all that’s left is to see if it works on the large scale, or if it will become another nuisance set to leave commuters stranded before a series of red lights.
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Monkeys part of security measures at Commonwealth Games
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:37 PM - 0 Comments
The langurs are expected to keep other simians in check
Monkeys are now part of the security measures at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. Langurs, a common type on monkey in south Asia, are large and fierce, and are often used in India to keep other monkeys in check in public places. Beginning on Wednesday, about 10 of these animals will be on duty outside several venues, and that number will increase in the days leading up to Sunday’s opening ceremony. “The additional langurs will take care of the games venues and other important areas,” the council told the Press Trust of India news agency.
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Fisher-Price toy recall in Canada and the U.S.
By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:35 PM - 0 Comments
More than 10 million trikes, toys and high chairs recalled after injuries reported
After injuries ranging from cuts to genital bleeding, Fisher-Price is recalling more than 10 million tricycles, toys and high chairs over safety concerns. Officials said about 420,000 of the items were sold in Canada.
So-called dangerous toys include: Fisher-Price Trikes and Tough Trikes toddler tricycles, Healthy Care, Easy Clean and Close to Me High Chairs, Baby Playzone Crawl & Cruise Playground toys, Baby Playzone Crawl & Slide Arcade toys, Baby Gymtastics Play Wall toys, and Little People Wheelies Stand & Play Rampway toys. CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum said manufacturers need to do more to build safety into their products before they reach consumers. But she also praised Fisher-Price for “taking the right steps by agreeing to these recalls and offering consumers free repairs or replacement.” -
Where have all the novels gone?
By Sarah Weinman - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments
2009 was a bumper crop for fall fiction. This year, the big names are in short supply.
Getty Images; iStock; Andrew Tolson/ Photo Illustration by Adam Cholewa
The tradition in publishing is that serious fiction and the fall season go together like horses and carriages. Want to promote the latest thriller? Save it for the summer. Have a debut novel to push? Try the spring, so the big guns won’t crowd it out. But at a time when publishing tropes are vanishing faster than you can say e-book, holding back the most prestigious titles for the window between Labour Day and Christmas may be on the way out.
Granted, very few fall seasonal crops could be as bountiful as last year’s, which featured new books by awards regulars such as Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, A.S. Byatt, Jonathan Lethem and John Irving. By comparison, this year’s slate seems a bit thin. There’s another by Philip Roth (who produces novels at an annual rate these days), and new fiction from Salman Rushdie, Sara Gruen and Michael Cunningham. But the BookExpo America trade show emphasized potential summer hits—and newspaper preview stories are concentrating on 2011 non-fiction. What happened to fall fiction?
