The trick to loving how you look

By Julia McKinnell - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

CP; Getty Images; Photo Illustration: Taylor Shute; Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

When Valerie Monroe, beauty director for O magazine, revealed her top tip for an article asking “Do You Love the Way You Look?”, Carol Tuttle, a psychotherapist turned beauty adviser, took issue, calling the advice ridiculous. Munroe told O readers that, in order to love her own face, she lowers the bar. “I picture a face with little piggy eyes, a drooping, fleshy nose, a wet slash of a mouth, the whole thing sallow and sagging, really something awful. I prepare myself for this unpleasantness right before I look in the mirror.”

Tuttle took her Oprah outrage to YouTube. “I’m shocked. Oprah, come on! I’m going to think of the most horrible, awful-looking ugly face I can imagine and then look at myself and think, I’m not so bad? You basically should’ve written, ‘Honey, you’re just not attractive.’ You’re basically telling women, ‘You can’t be beautiful, so think of the ugliest face you can imagine, and then you’re not going to look so dang awful to yourself.’ This pisses me off, people.” As Tuttle told Maclean’s, “It’s disconcerting how many women have put themselves in the category of, ‘I’m not a beautiful woman. I have other talents.’ ”

For the last seven years, Tuttle has been teaching women how to “capture” their beauty with her course, “Dressing Your Truth.” “Most women do not know how truly beautiful they are,” she writes in her book of the same name. The problem for most women, she believes, is that they don’t know what “type” they are and are therefore “misunderstood.”

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Coyne v. Wells: Canada's place in the world

By Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brian Howell

Last week, Maclean’s hosted a round-table discussion titled “Canada’s Conservative Government: Radical Change or Drift?” at Vancouver’s Norman Rothstein Theatre. The panel included Keith Martin, a Liberal MP, Deborah Grey, the Reform party’s first elected member of Parliament, Monte Solberg, a former Conservative party cabinet minister, and Michael Byers, a professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. The debate, which focused on the Harper government’s record on the economy, social policy and foreign affairs, was moderated by CPAC’s Peter Van Dusen and included Maclean’s Paul Wells and Andrew Coyne. What follows is an excerpt of that evening’s discussion.

Andrew Coyne: I’m not frankly weeping in my beer that we didn’t get a seat on the Security Council, but it does suggest there’s not exactly a very strong, clear foreign policy agenda with this country, with this government. They do seem to be kind of all over the map on this, so the fact that they went for this Security Council seat, even though everyone knows Harper’s not particularly fond of the UN, seems to me to suggest a certain incoherence. I guess they thought they could pick it up easily, but they wind up with this complete egg all over their face.

And on Afghanistan, in the early years of this government, they were very firm in saying, “We’re not going to cut and run, we’re not going to have artificial agendas, we’re going to stay and finish the job.” And in the middle of the 2008 election, at a breakfast for reporters, I think it was, [Harper] completely turns over the policy and adopts the policy of the Bloc Québécois.

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Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Guess who?
Always controversial, Sri Lankan musician Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., donned a niqab for Spike TV’s Scream Awards. Whether it was a comment on burqa-banning fever everywhere from France to Quebec to Syria, or just a fashion statement, was left unsaid; M.I.A. gave photogs a black-gloved middle finger.

One local boy to another
After 27 years, Vancouver’s B.C. Pavilion Corp. is pulling the plug on its controversial pink and green beaux arts Terry Fox Memorial Arch, the city’s lone memorial to Terry Fox. It will go, as part of an ongoing $563-million renovation of B.C. Place. Vancouverites who have griped quietly about the garish memorial—made of tile, brick and stainless steel, and featuring four fibreglass lions—may be heartened to know that Vancouver artist Douglas Coupland, who wrote 2005’s touching tribute, Terry, has signed on to design the new one. Coupland’s latest piece of public art, “Digital Orca,” is being shown outside the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Eyes right
Angela Merkel left pundits round the world slack-jawed with a weekend speech claiming German multiculturalism had “utterly failed.” It was an illusion, the German chancellor added, to think that Germans and the country’s immigrant class could “live happily, side by side” without newcomers assimilating. Immigrants, she said, “should learn to speak German.” Even centre-right daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung seemed cool to Merkel’s new hardline stance. Newcomers, it argued, “should be made to feel welcome.” But the hard right, whose support Merkel needs, feels differently. Merkel, once Europe’s most popular leader, is facing a conservative revolt within her centrist Christian Democratic Union party and, with a poor showing in regional elections this spring, could lose the leadership altogether.

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NFL Picks Week 7: “The worst is the pinching. You wouldn’t expect it.”

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 6:01 AM - 0 Comments

Scott Feschuk Last week: 7-5-2 Season: 45-39-6

Scott Reid Last week: 6-6-2 Season: 40-44-6

Got a mass email from the Buffalo Bills this week headlined, “Wang tries hand at guard.” It’s about time Favre’s penis got back to work.

Let’s get picking for Week 7…

•••

Cincinnati (plus 3.5) at Atlanta

Feschuk: Big changes in the NFL this week – including a vow to enforce fines and suspensions for head shots, devastating hits, unnecessary canoodling, wet willies and failing to promptly send the quarterback a handwritten note of thanks after an interception. These panicky reforms have led to criticism that American football has become overly pansified. But in the league’s defence, it’s still two-hand touch, right? The Falcons have underperformed of late but I’m going to pick them because this is the new NFL and no one Continue…

What would Ignatieff do? He's not saying.

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 22, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Wattie/Reuters

Generally speaking, political parties have two broad strategies available to them. There’s the safe one: take no positions on anything, avoid specifics, and wait for the other guy to make a mistake. And there’s the risky one: stake out firm ground, tell it like it is, and hope to win credit for your frankness. The first is common, the second rarer, but the Ignatieff Liberals are probably the first to attempt both at the same time.

The Grits sense the Tories are vulnerable on the question of fiscal management, and they are right. The Tories have increased spending by nearly 50 per cent in just five years. They inherited a surplus of $13 billion and turned it into a $56-billion deficit in the last fiscal year. They would take far too long to erase the deficit—the recent economic update was the first even to project a balanced budget, and then only by fiscal 2016—and have identified next to nothing in the way of specific measures to that end.

So the way is open for the Liberals to steal the Tories’ clothes on this issue. It’s a sharp strategy for an opposition party, turning its adversary’s supposed strength to its own advantage. But to make it work, you have to put forward something that actually differs in some way from what your opponents propose.

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The Commons: Who loves ya, baby?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 6:58 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. As he made his first intervention, Michael Ignatieff insisted on staring down Stephen Harper’s empty chair. Perhaps it’s to the point now that the Liberal leader sees Mr. Harper’s dismissive mug wherever he looks. Perhaps he simply found the green felt of the House seats a soothing sight to gaze upon.

His question this day had to do with the potential sale of Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Incorporated to BHP Billiton Limited and all of the national, economic and social implications within and around that transaction. “Mr. Speaker,” he said, “yesterday when the Prime Minister was asked about the possible sale of Potash Corp he basically shrugged his shoulders and said ‘Australia, America, who cares?’”

In full, the Prime Minister had said, “This is a proposal for an American-controlled company to be taken over by an Australian-controlled company.” Whether Mr. Harper was shrugging at the time, I do not remember. But given that he is given to shrugging reflexively at almost all propositions, it is certainly a distinct possibility. Continue…

Gilbert James Weatherhead | 1930-2010

By Susan Mohammad - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

ILLUSTRATION BY JANICE VAN ECK

Gilbert “Gib” James Weatherhead was born on a dairy farm in Upper Rawdon in Nova Scotia’s Hants County during haying season on Aug. 10, 1930, to Ruth and Thomas Weatherhead. Along with his younger siblings Ronald, Keith, Bessie, Wilma, Verna and Dick, Gib was expected to milk the cows and help on his father’s woodlot on land that had belonged to the family since the early 19th century (the family had come to the region as United Empire Loyalists). According to his sister Bessie, Gib was a quiet child who loved math and was an “above average” student at the one-room schoolhouse where the Weatherhead children received their education.

At 19, his father died. “Gib was the one who found him in the back field after he had a heart attack while plowing,” says Bessie. “Our mother was left with seven kids ranging from ages two to 19.” After taking over his father’s dairy and woodlot business, Gib had little time for girls or fun, except for winter afternoons spent bobsledding down hills with his siblings.

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Pepper spray and a Brazilian blow-up

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

British Columbia: A Victoria hair salon is filing a class-action lawsuit against the California-based producer of Brazilian Blowout, the anti-frizz hair treatment, which, stylists say, is popular in the humid B.C. capital. The suit followed a warning by Health Canada that the hair-smoothing solution contained over 11 per cent more formaldehyde than is allowed in Canadian cosmetics. Contact with excessive doses of formaldehyde can cause breathing troubles and burning eyes, nose and throat. Brazilian Blowout insists Health Canada’s tests improperly measured the substance.

Saskatchewan: Pepper spray may be among the culprits in the death two years ago of a 43-year-old Regina man who had a fatal cardiac arrest while in police custody. His wife is now suing the City of Regina and the Regina Police Service; her lawyer argues the death occurred as a “direct result” of excessive use of force at the time of the arrest, which included police pepper-spraying the man. The allegations still have to be proven in court.

Manitoba: A Winnipeg man is seeking over $270,000 in damages from Canad Inns-Grand Forks Inc., and a Texas-based designer of waterslides after his ride down one such slide allegedly landed him headfirst into a shallow pool. The man said he was going down a one-person tube when the slide flipped, and that the accident left him with “severe and permanent physical injury,” such as chronic headaches and hearing disorders, missing out on a job promotion, and over $10,000 in medical bills. Canad Inns has not yet filed a statement of defence.

Ontario: After being stabbed with scissors and hit over the head with a hammer by two teenage girls, a Windsor cab driver is suing the city for $2 million for allegedly failing to enforce its own security regulations. (Both attackers have pleaded guilty to assault and robbery.) Only about three months earlier, Windsor had passed a bylaw requiring all cabs to carry a security camera, but this cab “slipped under the radar,” the plaintiff’s lawyer claimed. The cab company is also named in the suit.

Don't mess with the anthem

By Claire Ward - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Charice Pempengco, the 18-year-old Filipina starlet who recently landed a role on Glee with her powerful singing voice, could soon be violating her home country’s laws if she’s not careful. The Philippine Congress voted unanimously last week in favour of a bill proposing a $2,000 fine or jail time for the improper singing of the national anthem, Lupang Hinirang (Beloved Land). Pempeng­co, like many pop stars, opens sports events with a crooning interpretation of the national song—a trend that prompted the government to put a stop to the corruption of a patriotic symbol traditionally set to the beat of a military march.

Included in the bill is a ban on clothing displaying the country’s flag. “It’s basically and principally for Filipino citizens to instill more love of country, by explaining to them how the symbols of government, led by the flag, should be treated, including the proper way of singing the national anthem,” said Rep. Salvador Escudero, the bill’s principal author. The proposal must still be approved by the country’s senate and President Benigno Aquino before it can be passed into law.
But this concern isn’t unique to the Philippines. Another Asian country, Bangladesh, has made “insulting the national flag or anthem” a punishable offence.

The crisis over cabbage

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

South Koreans eat over two million tonnes of kimchi a year. The dish, composed of fermented cabbage, radish and chili paste and served with every meal, is such a staple that in the 1960s, when Seoul sent soldiers to fight in Vietnam, special arrangements were made to equip the men with kimchi. More recently, scientists prepared for the first South Korean astronaut’s trip into space by designing a bacteria-free kimchi that would not mutate in orbit.

So it is nothing less than a national calamity that bad weather has blighted the latest crop of napa cabbage—kimchi’s sine qua non—causing prices per head to spike from $4 to $14 or more. The government has responded with bailouts that haven’t assuaged the public. When President Lee Myung-bak assured his countrymen he would only eat kimchi made from the rounder cabbages more common in Europe and North America, South Koreans responded with anger, pointing out they aren’t much cheaper. “That is like Marie Antoinette saying, ‘Let them eat cake!’” wrote one blogger.

Mitchel Raphael on the MP who's a Glee addict and the GG's fire alarm

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 4:00 PM - 0 Comments

MP dilemma: Rick Mercer or Glee?
Heritage minister and Canadian cinema fan James Moore held his fourth movie night for MPs, this time showcasing Incendies by Quebec director Denis Villeneuve. Moore’s fellow MPs are very thankful that he has exposed them to some incredible Canadian films they might otherwise not have seen. Plus, they get to meet stars and directors: Villeneuve himself was on hand for this screening, as was actress Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin. Some MPs get their CanCon via Air Canada, such as NDP Megan Leslie, who appreciates being able to watch homegrown movies while flying. Airline travel has had another kind of impact on the viewing habits of Steven Fletcher, minister of state for democratic reform. He confessed to Capital Diary that while flying over the summer, he watched a lot of Glee. Back on the ground, however, there’s a problem: Glee is on TV at the same time as Rick Mercer’s show. Patriotically, Fletcher says that he opts for Mercer—so long as they are new episodes.

Encyclopedic knowledge
The Canadian Encyclopedia celebrated its 25th year at Ottawa’s Government Conference Centre. Moving online in 1999 has had some unforeseen benefits, notes editor-in-chief James Marsh. He says that while the encyclopedia tries to take the long view, certain political events, like prorogation, require immediate action. “When I went and read our own article on prorogation I thought, ‘I still don’t understand this.’ ” Online, the solution was easy: “We expanded that entry.” Marsh tries to plan ahead, and is currently ensuring the site has lots of info for the upcoming 200th anniversary of the War of 1812. All prime ministers are mentioned in the encyclopedia, as are finance ministers and politicians of lasting influence. The most looked-up article in the encyclopedia? The one on Pierre Trudeau, says Marsh. Montreal rookie MP Justin Trudeau is “in there, but it’s more for being famous than it is for anything else [at this point].” In attendance at the celebration was former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Flora MacDonald. “I think it’s so important that Canadians celebrate their history and this is one of the ways we do it.” While she was minister of communications in the ’80s, MacDonald provided funding for the encyclopedia.

Firefighters arrive at GG’s first public event
The first official public event for newly installed Governor General David Johnston was the launch of a joint initiative by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy (NRTEE) to look at the effects of global warming in Canada. Johnston, as it happens, was the founding chair of the NRTEE. The event was held at the Canadian Museum of Nature, where, just as the GG was being introduced, the fire alarm went off and a recorded voice instructed everyone to evacuate the building. At first the GG was taken to a gallery on the third floor, so he was one of the last ones out of the building. British Ambassador Anthony Cary, however, was one of the first out. Once firefighters arrived and confirmed that it had been a false alarm, the event was back on. Johnston took the podium and quipped, “I have been a university president for 26 years and this is the first time I emptied the room even before I spoke. There were many times they emptied while I was speaking.”

Baird happy for Tewksbury
Olympic gold medallist Mark Tewksbury was on the Hill for a reception for Special Olympics Canada. He is currently completing a $200,000 overhaul on his heritage home in Montreal, thanks in part to the government’s home renovation tax credit, he said. Government House leader John Baird piped up, “See, Canada’s economic action plan is working.”

Public pensions for the private sector

By Peter Shawn Taylor - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Pensions and toddlers don’t often go together. They do now in Manitoba. Last week, the NDP government announced it will provide a pension plan for all daycare staff in the province. An estimated 7,000 workers will qualify, including those who offer child care out of their home. It’s proving a controversial move.

The new $6.6-million-a-year policy creates a defined-contribution pension plan for staff working at privately run non-profit child care centres. Payments will be made to retroactively recognize up to 10 years service. For home-based daycares, the government will contribute up to $1,700 a year to the owner’s RRSP. All this is in addition to increases in provincial wage subsidies over the past decade that have pushed starting salaries for daycare workers in the province to $32,000.

Continue…

Freedom for a political martyr

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

Samson Haileyesus/AP

Last week, Meles Zenawi was sworn in as prime minister of Ethiopia for his fourth term since taking power in the East African country in a 1991 coup. Days later, Birtukan Mideksa, a 36-year-old former judge and single mother—and the country’s most famous political prisoner—was released after requesting a pardon. Accused of inciting riots after the 2005 elections, Mideksa, who leads the biggest opposition party, had been serving a life sentence; Amnesty International has described her as a “prisoner of conscience,” and she’s drawn comparisons to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi.

While Ethiopia remains a Western ally, its human rights record has come under heavy criticism. Human Rights Watch called Mideksa’s release “just a first step,” adding that an unknown number of political prisoners have been jailed. The U.S. State Department has noted “unlawful killings, torture, beating, abuse and mistreatment of detainees and opposition supporters by security forces.” Upon her release, Mideksa declared herself thankful to be back with her family, including her five-year-old daughter. When asked to comment on whether she’d be returning to politics, she replied: “Oh, this is not the time.”

Immigration and human rights

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:35 PM - 0 Comments

There would seem to be the potential makings of a complicated debate within the government’s latest proposals for immigration reform.

In an attempt to stop ships full of migrants from landing on Canada’s shores, the bill also empowers the minister of public safety to decide whether a migrant’s arrival in Canada is deemed “irregular” and subject to harsher treatment…

Those “irregular” asylum seekers would be put on a five-year probation, forbidding them from leaving Canada or applying to sponsor their families to come to Canada. The bill would also allow detention of these asylum seekers for up to a year.

The eternal flames

By Michael Barclay - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:20 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Windeyer/Nunatsiaq News

While cities like Vancouver are examining high-efficiency incineration as a way to avoid landfilling, the citizens of Iqaluit, who can’t bury garbage because of permafrost, are finding out that considerably lower-tech and unintended incineration can be a problem. A dump fire that started on Sept. 24 has continued to smoulder for over three weeks. The fire is composed mainly of construction debris, including metal and plastics, and toxic smoke forced the temporary closure of a nearby school after both students and teachers complained of headaches.

After initially trying just to contain the fire at the dump, the local fire department managed to extinguish a large portion of it; the fire is now relegated to a small, isolated area and “burning in a very controlled manner,” fire Chief Walter Oliver told Maclean’s, although there is “still a fair amount of fuel left” and weather conditions will determine how much longer it will burn. There are often small fires that break out at the dump, but high winds on the night of Sept. 24 allowed this one to “get too deep-seated,” says Oliver. The department had limited access to heavy equipment, as the few machines in the town with a population of over 6,000 were already delegated to infrastructure projects.

The Iqaluit dump did practise controlled burning until 2002; the current public works superintendent, Frank Ford, told the Nunatsiaq News that the risk of uncontrolled fires like the current one will remain unless the practice is resumed.

"I have committed despicable crimes"

By Michael Friscolanti and Cathy Gulli - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:05 PM - 0 Comments

Marie-France Comeau begged for her life. “I don’t deserve to die,” she said, cowering in the corner of her own bedroom. “Have a heart, please. I’ve been really good. I want to live.” Russell Williams put a piece of silver duct tape over her nose, and captured her final breaths with his video camera.

Williams assured his next murder victim, Jessica Lloyd, that he would set her free as long as she complied with each of his sick demands. And she did—for 18 hellish hours. Then he cracked her over the head with a flashlight, strangled her with a rope, and left her dead body in his garage for the next four days.

On Thursday morning—at the end of a sentencing hearing that revealed the true depth of Russell Williams’ shocking double life—Justice Robert Scott asked the man in the prisoner’s box if he had anything to say. He did.

“I stand before you, your Honour, indescribably ashamed,” said the disgraced air force colonel, his voice low, his ankles shackled. “I know the crimes I’ve committed have traumatized many people. The families and friends of Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd in particular have suffered and continue to suffer profound and desperate pain and sorrow as a result of what I’ve done.”

As he spoke, Williams paused for long stretches of time, fighting back tears (real or not). He listed all his crimes—including two home-invasion sexual assaults, and dozens of burglaries targeting women’s lingerie—and acknowledged that his actions caused many innocent women to “suffer terribly.” His family, he said, has also “been irreparably harmed.”

“The fact is I deeply regret what I have done and the harm I know I have caused,” he continued. “I have committed despicable crimes, your Honour.” Again, Williams had to stop and compose himself, reaching to accept a Kleenex from one of his lawyers. “And in the process, I betrayed my family, my friends, my colleagues, and the Canadian Forces.”

Sniffling and wiping his eyes, Williams paused one more time. “I shall spend the rest of my life knowing that I ended two vibrant, innocent and cherished lives,” he finally continued. “My very sincere hope is that my detailed confession on the night of Feb. 7, my full cooperation with investigators since, and ultimately my guilty pleas earlier this week have in some way served to temper the very, very serious harm I’ve caused my victims, their families, and friends. Thank you.”

When Williams finished, Justice Scott rubberstamped his mandatory sentence: two concurrent life terms to be served in a solitary cell at Kingston Penitentiary. Technically, Williams will be eligible for parole in 25 years (when he is 72) but the gruesome evidence revealed this week will almost certainly ensure that the National Parole Board keeps him behind bars until the day he dies. “His depravity has no equal,” the judge said. “He may be best described as Canada’s bright shining lie.”

A gifted pilot and a natural leader, Williams was once a rising star in the Canadian military, an elite officer who piloted prime ministers and the Queen and was later awarded the top job at CFB Trenton, the country’s largest and busiest air base. He seemed to have it all: a happy marriage, a hefty salary, and the respect of everyone under his command. But he was harbouring a dark, uncontrollable secret that—even now, after seeing the overwhelming evidence—is still difficult to believe.

“What makes it more despicable is that this was a man who was considered above reproach,” said Lee Burgess, one of the Crown Attorneys who worked the Williams file. “That a man like this could commit such monstrosities really makes you feel that the world is no longer a safe place, no matter where you are.”

MORE TO COME…

The sinner who kept on trying

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 0 Comments

Martin Roemers/Panos/ Trevor Samson/AFP/Getty Images

The cell is an ideal place to learn to know yourself; it gives you the opportunity to look daily into your conduct, to overcome the bad and develop what is good in you. Never forget that a saint is a sinner who keeps on trying.
—Nelson Mandela, in a letter from Robben Island Prison to his second wife, Winnie, in Kroonstad Prison, Feb. 1, 1975

For a figure of the political stature of Nelson Mandela to release a mass of personal records to a group of editors, to select from as they wished for inclusion in his new book, Conversations With Myself, is nothing short of astonishing. That’s not the sort of thing politicians do—giving up not only overt censorship of sensitive matters, but any opportunity for score-settling or late-in-life expressions of regret (however perfunctory) for past errors. But then Mandela, 92, one of the giants of 20th-century history, is not a typical politician. The entire concept of making public what’s become known as the Mandela archive only works because of who Nelson Mandela is: a man who emerged from 28 years in apartheid prisons not consumed with understandable anger and bitterness, not determined to oppress the oppressors, but committed to national reconciliation in South Africa.

Continue…

Pinsent Reads Bieber

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 2:58 PM - 0 Comments

Having someone read teeny-bopper prose or lyrics in an authoritative or otherwise incongruous voice is an old joke, but it usually works. The latest example is the “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” video where Gordon Pinsent reads from the memoirs of Justin Bieber.

[vodpod id=Video.4727049&w=640&h=385&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

As I said, this usually happens with lyrics, though it occasionally happens with books as well — the record “The Baroque Beatles Book,” where Beatles songs were transmogrified into Bach-style concertos and cantatas, took an excerpt from one of John Lennon’s children’s books and set it as a Baroque recitative. The most affectionate and enduring version of this idea is Peter Sellers’ recitation of “Hard Day’s Night” in the style of Laurence Olivier; the nastiest version was Steve Allen’s tendency to read rock n’ roll lyrics without the music in an attempt to show how stupid they supposedly were.

Wait—Mozart didn't write that!

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times; Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Illustration by Stephen Gregory

Classical music fans are very familiar with Mozart’s The Magic Flute. So in his new recording of the opera, conductor Rene Jacobs set out to make it sound unfamiliar. In the Harmonia Mundi three-CD set, Jacobs offers a “historically informed” performance, played on instruments of Mozart’s time. That’s conventional enough.

What’s different is that Jacobs is willing to go against Mozart’s score to make things sound more exciting. When Jacobs has singers insert a whistling interlude that Mozart didn’t write, or adds an unmarked pipe solo before a number ends, we realize he’s trying to give us the last thing anyone would expect from classical music: surprise.

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Put your money where your mouth is

By Sarah Elton - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Like a CSA program for a farm, Off The Hook has customers who invest at the start of the season, then get a share of each catch; Becky Cliche/ Suzanne Plunkett/Bloomberg/Getty Images/ Sadie Beaton

On a warm fall afternoon, a group gathered at the edge of a downtown Halifax parking lot, far from the smell of salt water, to buy fish out of a cooler. Despite the city’s proximity to the Atlantic, it is hard to buy freshly caught fish here. It takes six days for local fish to make it down the supply chain to the supermarket. Now, a group of five fishers has started an organization named Off The Hook in a rebuke to the way fish have been bought and sold in Atlantic Canada. They call it a community supported fishery—a nod to the local food movement’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) direct marketing programs, whereby farmers sell food directly to customers. As with a CSA, individuals join and pay a lump sum at the start of the season. They’re given their share of the catch each week. If there is no catch—as was the case one stormy week this summer—there’s no share. (The fishers did give out more fish later, though the contract says they don’t have to.)

This week, there was plenty to go around and each time a fish was pulled out of the cooler, people gasped at the size. There were foot-long haddock, hake and cod. Members who had bought a full share, for a cost of $60 a week, went home with up to five fish; those with half shares, priced at $30, packed two.

Continue…

Donny Osmond is my matchmaker

By Rebecca Eckler - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM CHOLEWA

“I’m engaged!” Lorraine Connors, 51, announces gleefully, shortly after returning from Holland, where she met her fiancé, Willem, for the first time in person. “I just told Donny,” she continues. “He squealed like a fan!”

That’s Donny as in Osmond: the singer, actor, winner of the ninth season of Dancing With the Stars, and star of “Donny and Marie,” a variety show at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, so popular it’s been extended to 2012. And Donny as in www.Donny.com, a website Osmond runs for his fans to connect and stay up to date on all things Donny, where Vancouver-based Connors first encountered her fiancé. So far, they are the only “Donny.commers,” as they call themselves, to get engaged. “It’s beyond a fairy-tale story,” sighs Connors, a long-time Donny fan, though she points out that it began as “a huge tear-jerker.”

Continue…

Witness left al-Qaeda because they wouldn’t pay for wife’s cesarean

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 1:46 PM - 0 Comments

L’Houssaine Kherchtou, a man who was once Osama Bin Laden’s personal pilot, broke down in tears in a U.S. court Wednesday when he was asked why he left al Qaeda in 1995. Kherchtou, a 46-year-old Moroccan, said he left because he saw no future for his children in Afghanistan (where al Qaeda was planning to move) and because al Qaeda had refused to pay for his pregnant wife’s medical treatment. (Kherchtou has previously testified that after returning to in Sudan after a trip to Kenya in 1995, he found his wife begging on the street for $500 for an emergency cesarean section.) Kherchtou was testifying yesterday against Ahmed Ghailani, who is accused of helping al Qaeda bombers buy the truck that destroyed the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on August 7, 1998. The bombing killed 11 people. A simultaneous explosion in Nairobi, Kenya killed 212 people.

Business Week

Canadians maintain a not-so-rosy view of the economy

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 1:43 PM - 0 Comments

The latest survey data shows Canadians’ confidence in the economy remains fragile. TNS Canada’s consumer confidence index rose 1.5 points to 96.3 this month, but those surveyed said the current poor economic environment is colouring their look to the future. “Canadians keep cautiously testing the economic waters with one foot then the other. But they don’t seem ready to commit, not quite yet,” said Michael Antecol, vice-president of the research group. The group’s Present Situation Index, which looks at the economic and employment environment, was down 0.7 points to 91.4 in October. Though its Expectations Index, which measures consumers’ outlook for the next six months, rose two points to 104.3 in October, TNS said that it’s “an amount still not enough to offset September’s 3.5-point drop.” Optimism is also on the decline, according to the Nanos Economic Mood Index.

Financial Post

Ugandan newspaper calls for hanging of gays

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 1:37 PM - 0 Comments

Human rights activists are warning that the lives of gay people in Uganda are in danger after Rolling Stone, a local newspaper, published a story featuring the names and photographs of 100 homosexuals under the headline: “Hang Them.” At least one woman named in the story has been forced to leave her home, while others have reported verbal abuse. The article appeared earlier this month following the first anniversary of the introduction to parliament of a controversial anti-homosexuality bill that calls for the death penalty for those convicted of repeated same-sex relations. Gay activists in the county are saying the legislation has inspired hate speech and created a climate of fear among homosexuals. Giles Muhame, the managing editor of the newspaper, defended the story, saying it was his duty as a journalist to “expose the evil in our society”.

The Guardian