Boomers are far less fit than their parents were

By Cathy Gulli - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 12:53 PM - 0 Comments

Sullivan/Corbis

Boomers developed their “forever young” mentality partly as an aversion to how their parents aged, says social demographer Andrew V. Wister: “They saw the grey hair, the wrinkles. They got slower and chubbier. Boomers are very cognizant that they don’t want to age the way their parents did.” So it makes perfect sense that baby boomers are among the biggest consumers of Botox and hair dye. But beyond the surface, it’s another story: rather than being more fit than their parents were when they were in their 40s, 50s and 60s, many boomers are actually now in worse shape.

It’s an inevitable part of adulthood: realizing the ways in which we are just like and nothing like our parents. The revelation can be amusing, even nostalgic. Or, as recent statistics examining the health of baby boomers suggest, the realization can be unsettling.

In this, the second article in a three-part series examining the wellness and lifestyles of baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1965, who account for nearly one-third of the national population—Maclean’s explores their physical condition and finds that for all their youthful attitudes, baby boomers are actually setting themselves up for senior years marred by sickness.

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One day we'll thank Jim Flaherty for all these signs

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 12:07 PM - 0 Comments

Of the sectors thriving under the government’s stewardship, perhaps none has fared as well as the news conference staging industry.

The contract — which requires recipient groups to submit photos of their Economic Action Plan signs — says eligible expenses for signage include maximum costs of $2,250 for a small sign and $4,250 for a large sign. Another $2,500 can be charged for a “permanent plaque.”

The club can expense rental fees on chairs, flagpoles, a public-address system and a stage, and can charge Ottawa for light refreshments and snacks (no booze), printing and mailing of invitations, and media kits.

The government released its latest economic progress report this morning. To mark the occasion, the Prime Minister staged a cabinet meeting.

TV Shows That Used Beatles Recordings?

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:59 AM - 0 Comments

Apart from reminding us of the rule that one casual sexual encounter will inevitably lead to pregnancy (the rule that every action has the worst possible consequences is dubbed “Can’t Get Away With Nuthin’” by TVTropes.org, and that’s about right), last night’s Mad Men also reminded us that if you’re going to make the Beatles a plot point in your episode, you had better find a way to write around the actual Beatles music. Though Don got Sally tickets to the Beatles’ famous 1965 New York concert, the only bit of Beatles music heard in the episode was an instrumental cover of “Do You Want to Know a Secret” over the closing credits. (Song choices on TV are often like the song choices in old cartoons: if we know the title of the song being played, we realize it’s a reference to the theme of the scene or the episode.) Though Mad Men has been able to spring for most songs from the various time periods in which it takes place, up to and including the Rolling Stones, a real Beatles recording seemed to be off-limits this week.

The Beatles records, of course, are the most difficult records to license for TV use and always have been. WKRP in Cincinnati had a music licensing deal that allowed them to get recordings for something like half-price, but even with that deal, the Beatles were so expensive that they only used three in the whole series (“I’m Down,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “Come Together”). I’m not saying Mad Men will never use a Beatles recording, but if they do, they’ll have to be very careful to use one in the episode where they absolutely must use it — otherwise, they either have to work around it, or use a cover version of the song (and the songs are expensive enough to license).

My question, then, is this: what are some other scripted TV shows that actually have used real Beatles recordings? I can think of two: WKRP, above, and “All You Need Is Love” in the The Prisoner. Any others?

Update: Thanks to regular commenter Anthony Strand for finding another clip from British TV in the ’60s — when it was perhaps a little less difficult to get the Beatles, since the group existed and the producers could contact them directly — an episode of Doctor Who where we learn that in the future, the Beatles are considered classics.

The race to save the census

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:31 AM - 0 Comments

The Liberal opposition says it will move a motion this week calling on the government to reinstate the long-form census and remove the threat of imprisonment for non-compliance. Even if passed by the House, that motion does not compel the government to act.

That motion though will be followed, in short order, by a Liberal private member’s bill, which would, conceivably, be official and binding. With the support of the NDP and BQ, that bill could, to some degree, be accelerated, though it’s unclear precisely how fast it could be moved through the House and when it could be expected to see a final vote.

Timing is, of course, of the essence because the census and the National Household Survey are due to be sent out in May. Liberal Marc Garneau mused late last week that perhaps an insert could be included advising recipients that the NHS is mandatory. Ivan Fellegi, the former chief statistician, has suggested that the whole census could be moved to September.

South African Olympic chief defends Commonwealth Games

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Gideon Sam, the president of South Africa’s Olympic committee, said he would clean the the toilets of New Delhi’s Commonwealth Games to help them be a success. “As developing nations we must stand together,” Sam said, according to the South African Press Agency. “We cannot allow developed countries to go out there and take the last seat in the hall.” Sam said the 147-member team of South African athletes will not use the conditions of the village as an excuse for their performance. “We will not complain,” he said. “And when I get there on Friday, if a toilet is not clean, I will clean it myself.”

Guardian

Pakistan criticizes NATO airstrikes

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 11:14 AM - 0 Comments

Pakistan has taken umbrage with a pair of NATO airstrikes that it says violates its sovereignty. The strikes, which occurred on Saturday, took place after insurgents based in Pakistan attacked an Afghan outpost in Khost province, which is across the border from Pakistan. Over 50 militants were killed. On Monday, the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that NATO did not have authority to have foreign troops on its soil and airspace, and that it will “consider response options” unless corrective measures are implemented. NATO says that airstrikes were justified because they were done in self-defense.

Washington Post

Not convicted, but in jail anyway

By macleans.ca - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 10:56 AM - 0 Comments

A federal government study shows that people accused of crime are likely to spend a lot more time in jail awaiting trial in Winnipeg and Whitehorse than in Toronto and Vancouver. The Justice department collected court data over three months in 2008 in six cities—Vancouver, Whitehorse, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax—finding that in Winnipeg, for example, the average time served “in remand” was 120 days compared with 17 days in Toronto. Who languishes behind bars while awaiting trial? “They’re poorer, economically, socially, and for various reasons they are less able to advocate for themselves,” said Craig Jones of the John Howard Society, adding many cannot afford to pay bail. “So they end up spending more time in remand.” The study was cited in a secret memorandum to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet, but was not made public back when MPs were debating legislation—which became law early this year—to ban the formerly common practice of judges cutting two days off a conviction criminal’s sentence for every one day spent locked up before trial. The Conservatives argued that such 2-for-1 crediting coddled criminals. Those who supported the practice said it recognized the hardship and inequity of pre-trial incarceration.

Winnipeg Free Press

Obama wants wire-tappable BlackBerries

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 10:32 AM - 0 Comments

The Obama administration is preparing to challenge one part of the BlackBerry business model. The BlackBerry Enterprise service offers corporate clients encrypted end-to-end communications that even BlackBerry says it can’t unscramble. The FBI wants them to redesign so that they can peer into what is passing through the RIM servers when a wiretap warrant is served.

They also want access to Facebook and Skype…

NYT: U.S. Wants to Makes It Easier to Wiretap the Internet

'Her Excellency would like to see you'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 9:45 AM - 0 Comments

CP’s Alexander Panetta reflects on Michaelle Jean’s five-year reign.

To be more precise, she sent an aide to drag in the lone Ottawa-based reporter covering her 2008 trip to the Northwest Territories with a request, which might be ubiquitous at Rideau Hall but counts as rare for an everyday greeting: “Her Excellency would like to see you.”

So the reporter cut short an interview, walked into the store and found himself a moment later standing — alongside Canada’s vicereine and an Inuvialuit couple — in front of a $14.89 pineapple. “We need to do something about this,” Jean said, staring in disbelief. She introduced the reporter to the local couple. “You need to speak to these people.”

Georges St. Pierre: Lord of the ring

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

Jon P. Kopaloff/Getty Images/ Richard Phibbs/Trunk Archive

The Most Dangerous Man on Earth (as voted by viewers of the testosterone-fuelled cable channel, Spike TV) pushes aside his plate and issues a challenge. “Go ahead, ask me a question about paleontology from the Triassic period, leading up to the end of the Cretaceous period,” says Georges St. Pierre. “I’m very, very good at this.”

To say that this is unexpected is something of an understatement. From the scars that part his stubbly hair, to his cauliflowered ears, to his well-muscled arms, everything about this 29-year-old Montrealer bespeaks his profession: beating people up. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) welterweight champion (20 wins-2 losses-0 draws) is rated, pound-for-pound, perhaps the best mixed-martial-arts fighter in the world.

Just minutes before, while polishing off a breakfast of three over-easy eggs, hash browns, sausages, a basket of whole wheat toast, a large bowl of fruit and yogourt, two orange juices and a café au lait in a trendy Manhattan bistro, he has calmly related the worst injury he has ever inflicted inside the steel-caged octagon: twisting back an opponent’s arm until he ripped the rotator cuff. “He didn’t want to tap out,” St. Pierre says, invoking fight jargon for crying uncle. “So I broke it. I couldn’t take the chance to let him go and do it to me.” Now, we’re talking dinosaurs.

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The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 2:37 PM - 0 Comments

We resume our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…

Was Louis Riel insane?

By Julia Belluz - Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 8:45 AM - 0 Comments

O.B. Buell/CP/ National Archives of Canada/CP

When Joseph Boyden read a National Post op-ed in July entitled “Louis Riel Deserves No Pardon,” the author of Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, the latest in Penguin Canada’s Extraordinary Canadians series, fired off a letter (it was never published) to the newspaper about what he says were “untrue and blatantly false” statements in the piece.

One of those falsehoods, says the Giller Prize-winning author of Through Black Spruce, is that Riel—Metis leader and father of Manitoba—tried to take land from the Indians and put it in the hands of his people. “Riel is one who very much believed in inclusion,” says Boyden, a regular contributor to Maclean’s. “He knew that the northwest was big enough for all the races living there.” In fact, the writer feels that Riel’s forward-thinking notions about a cohesive society should define his legacy: “He was one of the first to push for inclusion.”

Boyden is less resolute about another topic of the Post’s op-ed: Riel’s alleged insanity. Boyden thinks he was “somewhere between” sanity and madness. “One day he’d feel in control, the next day he was questioning himself down to his core,” he says. “This fragility mixed with absolute hubris is what’s so interesting about Riel, and part of why many people say he was crazy.”

EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

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The Father (and Mother) of Today's Teevee

By Jaime Weinman - Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 11:04 PM - 0 Comments

Having spent the week writing about the U.S. TV premieres, something has become clear to me that is probably equally clear to you: this is, even by recent standards, a really underwhelming fall season. There’s no Good Wife or Glee or  Modern Family to be anointed as an instant must-watch. Things are so very so-so that there’s a campaign to save the mega-flop Lone Star based solely on the pilot episode; not that it wasn’t a good pilot, but people seem to be rallying around it because there’s not much else, as yet, that creates any excitement. (So the energy that would normally go into supporting shows that have a chance is instead going into a symbolic crusade to save the last hope for cable-on-broadcast TV.) This may change as the season goes on and one or more shows grow on the promise of their pilots.

Luckily, when new TV is underwhelming there’s always lots of old TV to discuss — and luckily, old TV often explains why new TV is the way it is, so it’s still topical. With that in mind, I’d like to post a clip I found the other day, sort of a DVD making-of-documentary before DVDs existed. It was made when the show The Days And Nights of Molly Dodd was about to begin its fourth season, its second on the Lifetime cable network (after it was canceled by NBC). It features a behind-the-scenes look at the show, the pregnancy storyline that would dominate the fourth season, star Blair Brown, and creator Jay Tarses.

There are many people who can claim to be the parents of today’s TV — Steven Bochco most obviously — but Tarses may be the biggest influence on modern TV of anyone who never actually created a hit show. He and his then-partner Continue…

This week has four sketches

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 2:47 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly look back at all we saw and heard.

Monday. Picking up wherever it was we left off
Tuesday. The only thing we have to fear is total doom
Wednesday. Ignatieff’s sharp right hook
Thursday. Who is to blame for supporting the troops?

Canadian man arrested in connection with airplane bomb threat

By macleans.ca - Saturday, September 25, 2010 at 8:51 AM - 0 Comments

A plane en route from Toronto to Pakistan has landed abruptly in Stockholm, Sweden after Canadian police informed the pilot that a man carrying explosives may be on board. The Pakistani International Airlines Boeing 777 carried about 250 passengers. “A woman called police from a payphone in Canada and told Canadian police about the man. She said the man may have had explosives, but he passed security checks,” said Stockholm district police spokesman Janne Hedlund. The man is said to be of Pakistani descent but carrying a Canadian passport. There were no injuries and no explosives have been discovered.

Canada.com

What lies beneath Quebec's scandals

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 5:50 PM - 0 Comments

JONATHAN HAYWARD/ JACQUES DESCHENES/CP

No, Quebec is not the only province where political scandal sometimes erupts. Governments and business have been corrupting each other across this country since pre-Confederation days. But in no other province does it feel quite so . . . inevitable. British Columbia has thrown up the odd chiselling premier, Atlantic Canada is famously steeped in patronage, but there is no comparison to the kind of octopussal industry-union-mob-party configuration lurking just below the surface of politics in Quebec. Toronto may have been scandalized by the cronyism of the Mel Lastman era, but only in Montreal would a candidate for mayor publicly confess to being afraid for his life. When a senior adviser to Ontario premier David Peterson was forced to resign after it was revealed he had accepted a refrigerator from a party donor with ties to a developer, puzzled Montrealers phoned their friends in Toronto, asking, ‘What was in the fridge?’ ”

The roots of corruption run deep in the province. Scrounging for funds to carry him through the 1872 election, the eminently corruptible Sir John A. Macdonald didn’t have far to look: Montrealer Sir Hugh Allan, said to be the richest man in Canada, was even then angling for the contract to build the CPR. Fifty years later, with Prohibition in force and Montreal a flourishing centre of the cross-border smuggling business, Mackenzie King saw fit to put Jacques Bureau in charge of the customs department, with comically debauched results: the scandal that ultimately led to the King-Byng affair.

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Quebec: The most corrupt province

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 5:45 PM - 177 Comments

JACQUES BOISSINOT/CP/ TOM HANSON/CP

Marc Bellemare isn’t a particularly interesting man to look at, so you’d think the spectre of watching him sit behind a desk and answer questions for hours on end would have Quebecers switching the channel en masse. And yet, the province’s former justice minister has been must-see TV over the past few weeks, if only because of what has been flowing out of his mouth.

Bellemare, who has been testifying in an inquiry into the process by which judges are appointed in Quebec, has particularly bad memories of his brief stint in cabinet, from 2003 to 2004. The Liberal government, then as now under the leadership of Premier Jean Charest, was rife with collusion, graft and barely concealed favouritism, he says—the premier himself so beholden to Liberal party fundraisers that they had a say in which judges were appointed to the bench. “It happened in [Charest’s] office. He was relaxed, he served me a Perrier,” Bellemare testified. The two spoke about Franco Fava, a long-time Liberal fundraiser who, according to Bellemare, was lobbying for Marc Bisson (the son of another Liberal fundraiser) and Michel Simard to be promoted. “I said, ‘Who names the judges, me or Franco Fava?’ I was very annoyed. I found it unacceptable,” Bellemare recalls. He remembers Charest saying, “ ‘Franco is a personal friend. He’s an influential fundraiser for the party. We need men like this. We have to listen to them. If he says to nominate Bisson and Simard, nominate them.’ ”

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The way we were

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

From the “Random Stuff That Shows Up On YouTube” file, video of a CBC segment on the aftershocks of 9/11, featuring extensive comment from author and philosopher Michael Ignatieff.

TV Premiere Week: Friday and Sunday

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 1:57 PM - 0 Comments

Ratings news from last night appears to have been what was expected — despite the shakeups, everything was at its normal level. I must have been the only person in the world who was disappointed by the premiere of Community, which was very well-put-together and developed the characters even further, but had few actual jokes — and the ones they did have went not to the regulars but to Betty White. (I like the show best when it’s doing an actual story more or less straightforwardly, even if it’s a story from another genre like in the paintball episode. I lose interest when they do sitcom plots that they’re actively deconstructing; it’s like watching TVTropes, the series.) However, the ratings level for the show was not a disaster: like many shows with low viewership but a strong fan base, it will pull the same numbers no matter what the competition. (And at least it didn’t have a bad rape joke like 30 Rock.) So it certainly isn’t down for the count; numbers like these got it renewed for a second season and they might lead to a third if they continue. The ratings of Big Bang Theory can be read one of several ways: either it’s good because it did the same alone as it did after Two and a Half Men, or it’s a little soft because it didn’t increase its audience substantially. Networks will probably choose to assume, as usual, that three-camera sitcoms are on the way out if they just wait a little longer.

The ratings also reminded me how insane and silly the 18-49 demographic domination is: the teenage fans who flocked to CSI because of Justin Bieber don’t count in that demographic, and The Mentalist looks like much less of a hit than it actually is — all of which would make more sense only if teenagers and people over 50 had no money to spend on products. Maybe that’s why there’s a certain amount of overlap between the programming strategies of HBO and CBS (which is increasingly turning to HBO people to deliver shows like The Mentalist and Blue Bloods); if you care more about viewers, as opposed to viewers in an arbitrary age group, your shows wind up looking and feeling a little different, even if you’re making shows with very different subjects and approaches. Update: See this comment for a good explanation of why advertisers don’t think they can reach viewers out of at age raings. They may well be right, too.

In further TV news, Jeff Zucker is leaving NBC. I have trouble hating on him as much as everyone. Zucker’s problem was that he believed, like many executives but more strongly, that the old broadcast model was on its way out and that he needed to do things to adjust for the coming changes. In one way, he was almost successful: he placed a lot of emphasis on co-ordinating all of NBC’s corporate TV-related holdings, not just the main network, and most of those other networks wound up doing well. Trouble was that he thought the basic principles of network broadcasting — shows that start and end at the usual time, using the 10 o’clock hour for something other than disposable programming, the popularity of multi-camera sitcoms and mysteries — were on their way out. Turns out none of this was true, and much of the Zucker-era NBC strategy makes more sense if you realize that it’s all based on a mistaken idea of what audiences would want In The Future.

Now, to Friday and Sunday premieres. I’ll leave out Saturday because so do the networks. (This, too, is part of that demographic domination thing; networks used to have lots of shows on Saturday, until they realized that the 18-49 people were probably out. And the over-49 people, or kids, deserve nothing.)

Friday

NBC
8:00 Dateline
10:00 Outlaw

CBS
8:00 Medium
9:00 Csi New York
10:00 Blue Bloods

Fox
8:00 Human Target (returning next week)
9:00 The Good Guys

What can we say about Fridays? It’s further proof that networks have almost given up on a lot of prime-time real estate: viewership isn’t all that much lower on Fridays than the rest Continue…

What you can do with a lot of money (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 1:49 PM - 0 Comments

The Globe, Star, Post, Canadian Press, CBC and CTV take turns pointing out their favourite expenditure lines from the G8 and G20 reports. The government commends itself on its transparency in this regard.

The matter, rather predictably, led this morning’s QP scrimmage. Here’s the exchange between Ralph Goodale and John Baird. Continue…

Downtown Toronto elite infiltrate Prime Minister’s Office

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 1:08 PM - 0 Comments

The Prime Minister’s next chief of staff will be a former Bay Street executive who was educated at Harvard. Adjust your narratives accordingly.

Ottawa's shrinking deficit

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 12:53 PM - 0 Comments

With the economy slowly recovering from a crippling recession, the federal government’s fiscal situation is showing some improvement. Ottawa’s accumulated deficit is down sharply from last year after the first four months of the current fiscal year—$7.7 billion compared with $18.3 billion. The federal government’s tax revenues were up 10.5 per cent (or $1.9 billion) from last July, while spending fell by $3.6 billion over the same period.

Financial Post

Financial executive set to take over from Guy Giorno

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 0 Comments

With Guy Giorno on his way out of the PMO, Stephen Harper has settled on a Bay street executive to replace Giorno as his chief of staff. Harper’s new top aide is Nigel Wright, a Harvard-educated senior executive at Onex Corp, a Toronto-based investment firm. This won’t be Wright’s first tour of duty through Ottawa: he previously served as a speechwriter and policy adviser to former PM Brian Mulroney. Wright’s business background is expected to help the Conservative government reset its focus on the economy after a summer that’s seen the party’s popularity slide in the polls.

CTV News

Ahmadinejad the conspiracy theorist

By macleans.ca - Friday, September 24, 2010 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Speaking at the UN assembly in New York, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triggered a walkout after he suggested the U.S. government planned the 9/11 attacks to support Israel. U.S. diplomats called his comments “abhorrent” and “delusional,” according to The Guardian. It was a discouraging speech for politicians who hoped they could make headway with Iran over its controversial nuclear program. Instead, Ahmadinejad aggravated relations by saying “the U.S. government orchestrated the attack in order to save the Zionist regime in the Middle East.” During his speech to the UN’s 192 member countries, delegates from the U.S. and U.K. walked out. Canadian delegates chose to boycott the speech. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon called Ahmadinejad’s comments “unacceptable” and in violation of the spirit of the UN.

The Guardian

CBC News