The social disconnect

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:27 PM - 29 Comments

Tasha Kheiriddin considers apathy.

According to Ilona Dougherty, executive director and co-founder of Apathy is Boring, a group dedicated to instilling personal political responsibility in Canada’s next generation, “a TV ad will get you to change your mind about who you’re voting for, but it won’t get you to vote. Before the advent of television (and now, the Internet), politicians would go shake people’s hands. That connection is what will cause a person – particularly a young person – to get involved.”

It may seem counter-intuitive in the age of MySpace and Facebook, but social media may not increase voters’ actual political involvement. Instead, Dougherty’s group holds regular “Calls to Action” – the next is scheduled for Feb. 11 in Montreal – which put hundreds of young people and politicians in the same space. “If you don’t create the habit of getting involved when you’re young, you won’t have it in later life,” cautions Dougherty. “This risks disengagement by an entire generation; today’s low voter turnout by young people will be the general population’s rate in 20 to 30 years.”

Will Ottawa dip into $1 billion fund to pay for Quebec City arena?

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:13 PM - 16 Comments

The Conservatives are considering dipping into $1 billion of unspent money from the 2008 budget’s P3 Canada Fund to help pay for a new hockey arena in Quebec City. The P3 fund, which is allotted to joint projects between the government and private sector, currently forbids spending on “facilities used primarily by professional athletes,” but the Conservatives are looking at ways to bypass the restriction, as it seems to be the only source of federal funding for new stadiums and arenas. Among other projects, Ottawa is taking a close look at Saskatchewan’s request for $100-million from the $1.25-billion fund to build a new stadium that would be home to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, but would not be used exclusively for professional sports. Quebecor President Pierre Karl Péladeau has expressed a willingness to invest “tens of millions of dollars” towards a new $400 million arena in Quebec City, which would be home to a new NHL franchise.

The Globe and Mail

My excuse was youth. What’s theirs?

By Barbara Amiel - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 23 Comments

Doral Chenoweth III/Columbus Dispatch/AP

Back in the 1960s I had “Charlie.” Charlie was a derelict living in Toronto flophouses. I was a CBC researcher living in a highrise studio apartment. My assignment was a documentary on skid row lives, and Charlie was one of the three winos I had selected. All of them had mental disorders of varying degrees. They heard voices or suffered from paranoia. The day before shooting, Charlie went AWOL, ending up in the drunk tank. I bailed him out on CBC expense money.

Charlie didn’t have a golden voice, but he heard lots of voices and had conversations with them all. He wanted a regular job, he told me. After filming, I bought him a clean T-shirt and took him to a centre hiring hourly labourers. When I came home, an inebriated Charlie was waiting. He preferred working on camera and thought that was his true calling. I took him into my apartment for coffee and a talking-to. Afterwards he left—taking some small sterling silver items of mine.

My excuse was plain stupidity and youth. I’m not sure what excuses the enthusiasts behind the golden-voiced, down-and-out Ted Williams who, in a predictable arc after discovery by a journalist, gained worldwide fame, was arrested for an altercation, took part in an intervention on television’s Dr. Phil show, and disappeared into rehab. His sob story was watched by millions, when they weren’t watching people with utterly no connection to victims of the Tucson killings (except nearby zip codes) sobbing their eyes out. Heaven knows, Americans can go on “healing” and “counselling” and “intervening” until every last person is in therapy. But the problem when a popular culture goes barking mad is that complicated problems get reduced to cartoons.

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Return of the iron fist?

By Anna Porter - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 2:00 PM - 5 Comments

Bernadett Szabo/Reuters

The European Union’s rotating presidency is hardly the stuff of international headlines. Few could name the last two countries presiding (Spain and Belgium). The position is largely honorific, lasts only six months, offers a few opportunities for self-promotion and the occasional memorable moment for the president’s home team.

Not so with Hungary. Perhaps not even the 1956 revolution attracted so much ink and airtime than the weeks leading up to Viktor Orbán’s accession to the EU’s presidential chamber. From the venerable Financial Times to South Africa’s New Age, the press has been on the attack; most of the German, Italian and Spanish papers have been fulminating since early November, and even the China Times has made disapproving noises. The Süddeutsche Zeitung went so far as to accuse the Hungarian government of “murdering” the free press.

The fuss is about new media legislation that sets out a series of rules that apply to all media, including online, and threatens one of democracy’s most cherished hallmarks: freedom of the press. The document is 180 pages long, most of it standard officialese, but it does contain a couple of doozies. Article 13, for example, states that “all media providers shall provide authentic, rapid and accurate information on local, national and EU affairs and on any event that bears relevance to the citizens of the Republic of Hungary and members of the Hungarian nation.” It goes on to demand that all media “provide comprehensive, factual, up-to-date, objective and balanced coverage of local, national and European issues.” It fails to mention according to whom. One viewer’s “balanced” can be another’s “biased.”

Continue…

Two views of the U.A.E.

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 1:55 PM - 4 Comments

While the Canadian government is squabbling with the United Arab Emirates, the United States seems to value highly the tiny Persian Gulf nation as a key Arab ally. U.S. diplomatic notes, which are part of the massive WikiLeaks unwrapping of previously secret American government documents, describe the U.A.E. as a trusted, useful partner in a “rough and unforgiving neighbourhood.” American diplomats praise the U.A.E. for being willing to help out in regional trouble spots and for allowing U.S. military access to vital air bases. U.A.E. aid to Afghanistan and diplomatic outreach to Pakistan are also highlighted. But Stephen Harper’s Conservative government last year refused the U.A.E.’s request for more landing rights for its commercial airlines in Canada, leading the Arab state to cut off Canada’s use of a military base near Dubai, previously used as an important staging point for troops and supplies on their way to Afghanistan. As well, the U.A.E imposed new visa requirements on Canadian visitors. The rift between Ottawa and the U.A.E. also exposed a division in the Harper cabinet, with Defence Minister Peter MacKay arguing for more a more accommodating approach to the Arab country’s interests.

Toronto Star

Oscars: The Movies That Count and the Movies That Don't

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 1:02 PM - 8 Comments

Update: For some actual analysis of the nominations, go directly to Brian D. Johnson at this same website.

I have long thought that the Best Director category at the Oscars is somewhat pointless, leading to a misunderstanding of what a director’s job usually is, and always raising the question (on the rare occasions when the awards diverge), “how can he be the best director if he didn’t make the best movie?” Every other category, even writing, is separable from the quality of the movie to a certain extent. The director’s job is to supervise all those other categories. If they don’t blend into the best movie, then it may not be the director’s fault, but he and the producer were the ones in charge.

But, that said, the Oscars’ return to 10 Best Picture nominees instead of five has made the Best Director nominees a little more fun to look at, because it allows us to get a hint — just a slight hint — of which movies really have the support of the Academy as a whole and which ones were probably nominated for commercial reasons. Or at the very least which ones wouldn’t have made the cut if there had been only five nominees. So Chris Nolan’s non-nomination for Inception, more than anything else, is an indication that Inception probably wouldn’t have been nominated if it hadn’t been for the larger number of nominees. Like Toy Story 3, it’s there to represent the huge blockbuster hits, but is probably not a serious contender for the award.

Even in the five-picture era you got some of these, like Jaws getting nominated for Best Picture in 1975 but Steven Spielberg getting snubbed for Best Director. (Instead, Frederico Fellini got a Best Director nomination, and Spielberg was shown on TV wailing something like “I didn’t get it! I got beaten out by Fellini!” Though I should add that Spielberg doesn’t come off badly when he says that; just disappointed. I’m sure if you put a camera on Chris Nolan he’d have a similar reaction.) It was a hint that the movie was there out of respect to its enormous success, but wasn’t going to win. Driving Miss Daisy won even though its director was not nominated, but that’s very rare. What the expanded Best Picture field has done is open the category up to more “token” nominees that aren’t really taken seriously as potential winners.

But I still think that the concept of Best Director just doesn’t make sense. As Joe Spinell put it after Spielberg got snubbed, “Who made the picture? Somebody’s mother? Who made it, the shark?”

Oscar crowns 'King's Speech', annoints Quebec's 'Incendies'

By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:55 PM - 3 Comments

The universe unfolded as it should, more or less, with this morning’s announcement of the Oscar nominations. Predictably, The King’s Speech led the field with 12 nominations. And why not? As a universally loved period piece that’s about royalty and disability, it could not be closer to Oscar’s heart. What may have surprised some observers, especially those who look to the Golden Globes as a predictor, is that the Coen brothers’ True Grit (entirely snubbed by the Globes) is in second place with 10 nods, edging out The Social Network, which tied Inception with eight nominations (though most of Inception‘s honours are in technical categories). In the acting awards, the one surprise is that Javier Bardem snared the fifth nomination for Biutiful, one that might otherwise have gone to Canada’s Ryan Gosling for the equally melancholy Blue Valentine.

But Canadians can rejoice in seeing Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies score Quebec’s first nomination in the foreign-language category since Denys Arcand won for The Barbarian Invasions seven years ago. I think Villeneuve’s main competition will be Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful. Both films are family dramas powered by exceptionally intense, and complex, narratives. And both, are distributed in the U.S. by Sony Classics, which puts that company in a curious position. Presumably there will be more weight behind the Biutiful campaign because it also has a Best Actor nomination for Bardem, who has the heft of Hollywood stardom (and Julia Roberts) in his corner. But Biutiful is the story of a petty criminal who’s dying of cancer in Barcelona, and Academy members might have a closer affinity to Incendies, which resonates with current politics, and connects an immigrant family in North America to the scars of war in the Middle East.

As for the Best Picture category, ever since the Academy expanded it from 5 to 10 spots, it has become less compelling. They should call it the Good Picture category. It includes all the obvious contenders. Yesterday, for the record, I sent a list of my Best Picture predictions to the producers of CBC Radio’s Q, which had me on a panel this morning. And I’m not very proud to say that, by omitting some of my favorite films (such as Never Let Me Go), I predicted 10 out of 10. The Academy recently enlarged that category to make room for more blockbusters. The positive flipside of that, I suppose, is that there’s also more room for small gems such as Winter’s Bone, this year’s designated indie darling (it also got two acting nods and a screenplay nomination). For the “real” Best Picture nominees, however, go to the movies named in the Best Director category: Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky), The Fighter (David O. Russell), The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper), The Social Network (David Fincher) and True Grit (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen).

In the Best Actor race, it looks like it will be a coronation for Colin Firth, though one could argue that Eisenberg’s pitch-perfect, not showy—almost invisible—performance in The Social Network was better. But for my money, Bardem’s work in Biutiful is the most impressive of the lot. Other nominees are the crustier-than-ever Jeff Bridges for True Grit, and the chameleon-like James Franco for his virtuoso one-man show in the under-nominated 127 Hours.

Natalie Portman should have a lock on Best Actress for her bravura performance as a psycho ballerina in Black Swan. But don’t underestimate Hollywood’s love for Mrs. Warren Beatty, Annette Bening. Also, though The Kids Are All Right is a small, non-studio film, it does takes place in the Hollywood heartland of contemporary Los Angeles, and unfolds as an actor’s dream, ripe with juicy relationships. Also nominated are Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), and Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine).

For Best Supporting Actor, expect a cage match between Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech) and Christian Bale (The Fighter). Best Supporting Actress is a bit harder to call, with Melissa Leo and Amy Adams competing against each other (for The Fighter), and young Hailee Steinfeld having a real shot for True Grit. She could win. Why? Three reasons: 1. She’s being honoured in a diminutive category for what is actually a substantial lead performance—she carries the movie. 2. The Academy may find this is the only major category in which it can express its obvious affection for the film. 3. Throughout the Academy’s history, Best Supporting Actress could be easily renamed Best Newcomer.

Expect David Fincher to win Best Director for Social Network, and the film’s writer, Aaron Sorkin, to win Best Adapted Screenplay. Original Screenplay will no doubt go to David Seidler for The King’s Speech, in part because the epic saga of creating the script (and waiting for the Queen Mother to die) was almost as compelling as the film itself. Continue…

'A puck in the face for taxpayers'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 61 Comments

Whatever has been said about federal funding for a hypothetical arena for a hypothetical NHL team—and whatever you make of whatever has been said—the government is apparently still thinking about it.

A senior federal official confirmed that the Saskatchewan project is a “test case” that will determine how the government deals with large sports infrastructure projects, including a politically charged proposal from Quebec City. The P3 program is deemed, at this point, to be the most likely source of federal funding for stadiums and hockey arenas.

More from the archives here, here and here.

Break a leg, Spider-Man

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images; Joan Marcus; Photo illustration by Bradley Reinhardt

A Sunday matinee of Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark is going smoothly. Too smoothly. Unlike the performance where a stuntman fell 20 feet onto the floor, or the one where actress Natalie Mendoza suffered a concussion that forced her to quit the show, this one pulls off the complicated stunts and moving sets that caused writer-director Julie Taymor (The Lion King, Titus) to run up a $65-million budget. But then, with only one more number left to go in the second act, the prop people lower a giant spiderweb that looks very much like an old gym net—and it gets stuck on the way down. The musicians keep playing, stagehands come out onto the stage to fix it; Spider-Man, or perhaps it’s one of the many stunt Spider-Men, is pacing around in the wings with his mask off. Finally, a sheepish offstage voice announces that the show is experiencing a delay. The audience bursts into some of the most enthusiastic applause of the afternoon. There hasn’t been much clapping for the songs by U2’s Bono and the Edge; this is what they paid to see: something going wrong at a legendary showcase for theatrical disasters.

That may be a typical moment from the longest and most lucrative tryout period in the history of musical theatre. Spider-Man keeps delaying its official opening; it’s been in previews since November, and last week the producers pushed the date back by another month, to March 15. And why should it actually open? If the previews end, it’ll have to contend with critics—and the only critic who seems to like it for the moment is Glenn Beck. He called it “by far the best show I’ve ever seen,” and argued that it has a conservative message because the villainous Green Goblin is “an atheist, godlike scientist who’s in bed with the giant government.” On the other hand, as a show “trying out,” where things can go wrong and an executive producer has to walk out to assure us that the New York Labour Department has declared the show safe for the actors, it’s doing great: last week the New York Times reported that it “played to full houses” and managed to gross more at the box office than Broadway’s biggest hit, Wicked.

Some shows, particularly those that try out in New York like Spider-Man, can be hurt by nasty gossip during the preview period. But the bad word of mouth in this case seems to have been good for the show, because of all the publicity it’s generated. Spider-Man has been a target for late-night comedians (like Conan O’Brien, who regularly features parodies of the musical on his show) ever since it ran out of money during rehearsals. The original producer pulled out, replaced by Michael Cohl, the Canadian concert-tour producer who has handled the Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson—and also had a hand in Canada’s most expensive musical flop, Lord of the Rings. But Lord of the Rings’ inflated budget just made it a bad joke; Spider-Man’s problems are actually pulling in people who aren’t theatre fans. Jeremy Gerard, the theatre critic for Bloom­berg News, told Maclean’s that “sales did spike after the reports of the injuries.”

Continue…

The hollowed halls

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 4 Comments

Eddie Keogh/Reuters

In 1945, Evelyn Waugh famously depicted Oxford in his classic novel Brideshead Revisited as a place where young people spend their days “twittering and fluttering over the cobbles and up the steps, sightseeing and pleasure-seeking, drinking claret cup, eating cucumber sandwiches.” Six-and-a-half decades later, things in the whimsical college town are far less civilized. Oxford University students spent much of the fall term staging angry protests, gathering in town by the hundreds to demonstrate against the government. Meanwhile, at its historic rival Cambridge, a 2½-hour train ride away, students are equally fired up. After a number of boisterous marches in November, about 1,000 students staged an 11-day occupation of a university building. At issue is Britain’s massive new austerity package, which includes an 80 per cent cut to higher education teaching grants by 2012, and a potential tripling of tuition fees. The protests were “a wake-up call,” says Tom, a Cambridge Ph.D. student and one of the occupation organizers, who spoke with Maclean’s on the condition of anonymity. “The things the government are calling for seem extreme,” he says. “And extremely dangerous to education.”

Protests have taken place across Britain. But students at Oxford and Cambridge are motivated by a more pressing fear: that the new cuts will end the centuries-old reign of the institutions collectively called Oxbridge. Some are afraid the famed Oxbridge “tutorial system” is in jeopardy. Since their conception, Oxford and Cambridge have dismissed the traditional lecture system. Instead, undergrads are taught largely through one-on-one “tutorials” with professors. In between the weekly or fortnightly meetings, students work through massive reading lists, and write papers to later discuss with their tutors. “It makes the best use of bright students,” says David Palfreyman, an Oxford tutor and editor of The Oxford Tutorial. Students at the two schools work harder—10 to 15 hours a week more than average students, he says—“because [they] can’t escape in the tutorial system.” And it teaches them to think more creatively; many papers aren’t formally assessed, so students “can be a bit adventurous.”

It certainly attracts some keeners. David Barclay, an Oxford undergrad and president of the student union, says the tutorial system was one of the things that drew him to Oxford from Scotland, where he grew up. “It’s the best way of teaching,” he says. “One-on-one interaction with the best minds in the world.” At a coffee shop near the history department, Barclay recounts some particularly memorable classes, including one on 20th-century political history taught by a sitting member of Parliament. “Tutorials can be pretty scary,” he grinned. “But I love them.”

Continue…

Our health care delusion

By Ken MacQueen - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 204 Comments

Peter Power/Toronto Star

On Jan. 26, Maclean’s is hosting “Health Care in Canada: Time to Rebuild Medicare,” a town hall discussion at the Sir James Dunn Theatre, Dalhousie University, Halifax. The event, in conjunction with the Canadian Medical Association, will be broadcast live by CPAC. The conversation on health reform continues in the coming months in the magazine and at town halls in Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver and Ottawa.

A distraught 41-year-old man from West Kelowna, B.C., arrived at the emergency department of Kelowna General Hospital on the night of Dec. 28. “He was broken mentally,” his wife later told the local Daily Courier. “He wanted help.” By her account, he waited 90 minutes without seeing a doctor, minor by today’s emergency room standards. Kelowna RCMP put the wait at just 45 minutes. Regardless, he snapped, warning staff that he’d drive his truck into the hospital if he didn’t get treatment. When threats didn’t get results, he stormed out and returned at the wheel of his Chevy Blazer. As promised, he smashed through the ER’s double doors, narrowly missing two elderly people (one assumes they were elderly before their wait in emergency) and came to a halt in a hospital hallway.

Police arrived to find him waiting co-operatively in his truck. The bed he was assigned that night was in the RCMP detachment cell; he faces several charges including dangerous operation of a motor vehicle. While his strategy was extreme, his cry for attention resonates with many who’ve had the misfortune to trade germs and waste time in one of Canada’s overstressed emergency wards.

Continue…

Selling stocks on Twitter

By Julia Belluz - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 10:20 AM - 8 Comments

It had almost all the markings of a pump and dump scheme: rapper 50 Cent encouraged his 3.8 million Twitter followers to invest in a penny stock, causing H&H Imports to jump by 290 per cent over two days, and resulting in a paper profit for the music star of some US$8.7 million. “You can double your money right now,” he wrote. “Just get what you can afford.” With 50’s blessing, shares in the Florida-based company soared to 39 cents each from 10 cents. He later deleted the tweets about the stock, which trades as HNHI, and replaced them with more moderate words: “I own HNHI stock. Thoughts on it are my opinion. Talk to financial adviser about it.”

Shortly after those final words, the H&H share price dropped to 25 cents, leaving critics to wonder whether 50 used his Twitter influence to artificially increase the value of a stock for its shareholders’ benefit. So far, it appears the 35-year-old rapper (whose real name is Curtis Jackson) has avoided violating securities laws because he has not sold any of his H&H stock. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission declined to comment about whether they’d investigate. Still, questions remain about what constitutes a 140-character pump and dump.

Stephen Harper and Canada, a love story

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 168 Comments

Judging from the Conservative party’s campaign slogan (“Here for Canada”) and the placard that adorned the Prime Minister’s lectern yesterday (“Canada”) and the giant flag behind him (Canadian), not to mention the actual content of Sunday’s speech—some of which was presaged by a speech to supporters last fall—Mr. Harper’s preferred ballot question would seem to be this: Who loves Canada most? Or, put as less of a question: I love Canada more than Michael Ignatieff.

In a way, this inverts questions Mr. Harper has himself faced. (At the outset of the 2006 campaign he was asked rather bluntly by a reporter whether he loved the country and Paul Martin’s campaign attempted to make something of the fact that his answer didn’t include the word “yes.) In another way, it reintroduces—if one wishes to engage in this debate—everything Mr. Harper has himself said about the country he now loves deeply.

Of the comments of Mr. Ignatieff’s that Mr. Harper’s side objects to, one involves the Canadian flag. That particular quote is taken from a column Mr. Ignatieff wrote for the Observer in 1990. Mr. Ignatieff wrote about the experience of watching the World Cup as a Canadian in England and, coincidentally, the irony of modern nationalism. The piece can be read, in its entirety, here.

Trashing the island

By Charlie Gillis - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 5:00 PM - 10 Comments

Jonathan Alcorn/Keystone Press

The sea, as any poet will tell you, invites metaphor, and scientists are as susceptible to its powers as those who deal in tropes. Having surveyed the stew of shattered plastic, discarded tires and floating refrigerators gathering in the mid-Pacific, the oceanographer Curtis Ebbesmeyer raised a worldwide alarm a decade ago about a burgeoning “garbage patch”—the result of centripetal ocean currents and convergent weather patterns in a vast, subtropical swirl known as the North Pacific Gyre. To say the least, this label captured the public imagination. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch shot up the hierarchy of environmental causes, garnering the sort of attention reserved for clear-cut logging, or global warming.

But it wasn’t enough to sate today’s multi-platform media monster. By 2005, the fervid accounts of eco-bloggers and mainstream journalists were elevating the patch to an “island”—as if you could step from the deck of a boat and walk across it. Oprah Winfrey’s website described it as “the world’s largest trash dump” and “the most shocking thing” the TV host had “ever seen.” “Estimated to be twice the size of Texas, it swirls across the Pacific from California to Japan,” the site proclaimed, notwithstanding the fact Oprah had never seen it first-hand. “In some places, it’s 300 feet deep and has killed millions of sea birds and marine mammals.”

Er, not quite, says Angelicque White, an oceanographer who has actually visited the gyre. Based on water samples and data gathered during a research voyage in 2008, the Oregon State University scientist last week issued an analysis letting a lot of air out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, describing it not so much as an island or even a patch, but as a highly diffuse soup, in which tiny shards of plastic float metres, if not kilometres apart. “Imagine 1,000 one-litre bottles sitting in front you, all full of water from this area,” she says from her office in Corvallis, Ore. “Three to five of those bottles would have one piece of plastic the size of a pencil eraser. It’s not twice the size of Texas. You can’t see it from space. It’s not even something you can see from the deck of a ship.”

John Baird is consistently saddened by your partisanship

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 4:09 PM - 31 Comments

Today, the New Democrats hosted a tour for reporters of their campaign headquarters. John Baird subsequently explained that while other parties were participating in political provocations, his party was interested only in governing.

Four years ago, the Conservatives hosted a tour for reporters of their campaign headquarters. John Baird subsequently explained that while other parties were participating in political provocations, his party was interested only in governing.

Everybody Has a Long Lost Something

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 3:37 PM - 10 Comments

Oprah Winfrey’s announcement that she has a long-lost half-sister naturally got me thinking about other TV characters who have long-lost siblings. There are a lot of them. The ones who immediately came to mind were the Fonz, Hank Hill, and above all Homer Simpson, whose brother led a charmed life “until he found out he was a Simpson” (and until he was dumb enough to let Homer design a car). But other people reminded me or told me about others:

Simon Cowell reconciled with his half-brother last year; there were long-lost siblings on that Lost island, Sydney Bristow had one as did Kristen on The O.C.; Boy Meets World created a long-lost half-brother to shoehorn a Lawrence Brother into the show, and Charmed came up with a long-lost half-sister to replace Shannen Doherty (much as Aaron Spelling, bless his low-integrity soul, conveniently replaced Farrah Fawcett with a previously-unknown sister on Charlie’s Angels). Fox Mulder acquired a half-brother almost as late in the series as The Fonz did, and Lex Luthor on Smallville got a couple of them. And this is to say nothing of all the daytime soap opera characters.

My point is, of course Oprah has a long-lost half-sibling. She’s on TV.

Go big, go home

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 2:50 PM - 25 Comments

Brian Mulroney offers some free advice to Stephen Harper.

“We make enough mistakes in politics but it’s important that you try to get the big things right,” the 71-year-old former Conservative prime minister says in an interview from his Montreal law office. “History remembers the big-ticket items.”

… His advice to Prime Minister Harper, especially given the partisan fighting that is so much part of a minority Parliament, is to create a blue ribbon panel of non-partisan, distinguished Canadians. “Someone has to provide some unbiased, thoughtful but effective leadership in the thinking on this,” he says. “Without some new thinking and some visionary approaches, health care is going to consume 70 to 75 per cent of provincial budgets.”

Setting aside what lessons Mr. Mulroney’s premiership may provide about the wisdom of striving for big change, Mr. Harper already dismissed this specific idea in an interview with Postmedia two weeks ago. Continue…

It's no island: How the Pacific 'garbage patch' was exaggerated

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 2:42 PM - 7 Comments

Read Charlie’s article “Trashing the island” from the January 31 issue of Maclean’s

‘Palestine Papers’ reveal details of a decade of negotiations

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 1:45 PM - 34 Comments

The Arabic news network Al Jazeera has obtained more than 1,600 classified documents detailing a decade of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The documents include memos, emails, maps, meeting minutes, strategy papers, and accounts of “high level exchanges” between 1999 to 2010. Among the most significant revelations so far is the apparent willingness of the Palestinian Authority to make significant concessions on the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, which then Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s refused to accept because it did not include other settlements in the West Bank. The leaks are expected to be damaging to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, who were unable to obtain a peace deal with the Israelis despite making offers and concessions that would not necessarily be in the best interests of the Palestinian people.

Al Jazeera

The best plane money can buy

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 65 Comments

While two former members of the Canadian military defend the purchase of new F-35s, an American military analyst questions the cost.

I can guarantee to you, however, that the unit cost Canada will pay for a complete, operational F-35A will be well in excess of $70 million – even taking into account whatever exclusion of American costs to develop the aircraft your government may be able to negotiate. If and when Canada signs an actual purchase contract for F-35As in 2014, as I understand is currently planned, the real question is what multiple of CAD$70 million will Canada have to pay?  I do not believe it unreasonable to expect a multiplication factor of two.

B.C. polygamy case to hear from women

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 12:07 PM - 24 Comments

Women from the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful, B.C. will testify in court on Monday on the constitutionality of Canada’s anti-polygamy law. For the last two months, the B.C. Supreme Court has heard testimony from people who have parted ways with Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) and left Bountiful. They decry the practice of polygamy as physically and emotionally abusive to women and their children. However, women belonging to the fundamentalist Mormon community in Bountiful who are testifying are expected to defend polygamy as an essential component of their faith that has not been forced on them. “Although I know I have the option to say yes or no to the person I am called to the prophet to marry, I believe the prophet is inspired of God on these matters,” wrote a 25 year-old woman known only as witness No. 11 in an affidavit. Police charged Winston Blackmore and James Oler, two FLDS leaders, with polygamy two years ago, but the charges were dropped. Mainstream Mormons renounced polygamy more than a hundred years ago.

CBC News

Provisional results show South Sudan votes for independence

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 12:06 PM - 0 Comments

Early results from South Sudan’s referendum show that an overwhelming majority—almost 99 per cent of voters—have voted for independence. The referendum was part of the 2005 North-South peace deal, ending Africa’s longest civil war which claimed an estimated 2 million lives. The outcome was widely expected because of the North and South’s longstanding differences over oil, ideology, ethnicity and religion. The referendum headquarters in Khartoum will announce preliminary results in one week.

Reuters

Explosion rips through Moscow airport

By macleans.ca - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 11:26 AM - 5 Comments

Dozens are dead and over 100 are wounded after an explosion at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport. While the exact cause of the explosion has not been established, investigators say they suspect a suicide bomber. The blast occurred in the baggage claim of the arrivals hall, where witnesses say thousands of people were gathered. Domodedovo airport is a popular airport among travelers, but it has been criticized for its security procedures. In 2004, two suicide bombers from the Dagestan region were able to board flight a flight and detonate their bombs in mid-air, killing everyone on board.

BBC News

Harper's talent for turning

By John Geddes - Monday, January 24, 2011 at 11:17 AM - 57 Comments

There’s only one big thing about Stephen Harper that we know after his five years in power that we didn’t know before. We know how brazen he can be. It’s been a cardinal quality of past prime ministers, too.

Before his Jan. 23, 2006 election victory, we already knew about Harper’s ideological roots from his days in the Reform and Canadian Alliance parties, and even more clearly from his verbally freewheeling hiatus as head of the National Citizens Coalition. We also knew that his convictions were subsumed in the political drive he displayed by first wrenching the Alliance from Stockwell Day, then merging it with the Progressive Conservatives to unite the right.

But if we knew a lot about what fuels him and how he rolls, we didn’t know if he had that particular knack that we seem to secretly admire in our elected leaders. We didn’t know how his face would look, how his voice would sound, how he would adjust his posture, when he had to turn on a dime. Swallow himself whole. Brazen it out.

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