The GOP’s grand navigator

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Alex Brandon/AP

John Boehner is no Newt Gingrich. And, so far, that’s working.

Shortly after the perpetually tanned Ohio Republican took over as Speaker of the now GOP-controlled House of Representatives in January, he faced a trial by fire in the form of negotiations over federal spending. Republicans elected with the backing of the Tea Party movement were demanding $100 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars) in spending cuts—out of a total expenditure of $3.7 trillion—this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. They were prepared to shut down the government if they didn’t get them. On the other hand, he faced President Barack Obama, whose party still controlled the Senate and who could benefit politically if Republicans forced a shutdown, just as the 1995 shutdown paved the way for Bill Clinton’s re-election the following year.

Boehner found a middle way—he extracted cuts from Obama and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, while avoiding a total revolt on his right flank, and kept the government open. In the process, he laid the groundwork for negotiations over the 2012 budget and long-term fiscal reforms that Congress will begin to tackle next month. Many Republicans were relieved that Boehner did not lead them over the shutdown cliff. “One of the worries I had was that public opinion could have swung wildly if a government shutdown had occurred,” said GOP strategist Kevin Madden. Instead, Republicans emerged from the negotiations in control of the Washington debate, which not long ago had centred on how much to spend to stimulate the economy. “We’re talking not only about whether we are going to cut, but how much we are going to cut government spending,” said Madden.

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How Cher’s daughter became her son

By Brian D. Johnson - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 15 Comments

Lucas Jackson/Reuters

It’s the feel-good sex-change movie of the year, the story of a child-star princess who becomes a transsexual poster boy. For a certain generation, Chastity Bono will always be the adorable blond child who goofed around with her iconic parents on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in the ’70s. Pushed onto the stage at the age of two, she grew up trapped in a showbiz fantasy world. She also grew up as a boy trapped in a girl’s body, a body she hated since puberty. Now, at the age 42, Chastity is Chaz. In 2008, Bono decided to undergo gender transition with hormone injections and surgery. And he elected to do it on camera. The resulting documentary, Becoming Chaz—which will show at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival next week before airing on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN network in May—is an intimate portrait of a stranger-than-fiction family that just got stranger.

Talk about getting even with your mother. Cher, the queen of cosmetic surgery, has to wrap her head around the notion that her daughter had her breasts removed and is now her son. Then there’s Bono’s lesbian mate, Jennifer Elia, who watches her girlfriend morph into a man. A recovering alcoholic working to complete her M.A., Elia announces right off the bat that she can’t face this ordeal without drinking. “Under the best of circumstances,” says Bono, “relationships are tough. When you throw in substance abuse and a sex change, it gets complicated.”

Bono has his own saga of addiction, to painkillers. Then he became hooked on video games, and sank into a two-year depression on the couch. “It was another way not to be present,” says Elia, “but safer than the drugs.” Initially, the sex change seems a tonic for both of them. Bono doesn’t want to mess with his genitals—“the surgery is just not very good”—but merrily undergoes a double mastectomy. Warmly supportive, Elia congratulates him for losing “6½ lb. of boob.”

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A dubious debut

By Jason Kirby - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 3 Comments

Andrew Vaughan/CP

The official launch of Research In Motion’s PlayBook device in New York City, on April 15, didn’t muster the same international media blitz that accompanied the debut of Apple’s iPad a year ago. But the two events shared one thing in common—both sparked a fierce backlash over what the tablet makers failed to include.

As it stands, the PlayBook doesn’t come with email, contacts or calendar programs. Those applications can be accessed by wirelessly bridging the PlayBook to a BlackBerry smartphone, thus extending RIM’s airtight security features. But those without a BlackBerry must use online services, or wait for a promised update later this year. There were also complaints that PlayBook users have access to just 3,000 tailored apps, versus 65,000 for the iPad. The Wall Street Journal tech reviewer Walt Mossberg called the PlayBook “a tablet with a case of codependency,” and said he couldn’t recommend the device to anyone but “folks whose BlackBerrys never leave their sides.”

It didn’t help that just days before the launch, RIM’s co-CEO Mike Lazaridis walked out of an interview with the BBC because he was angry over the reporter’s questions. A Google News search for “Lazaridis and BBC” turned up nearly half as many hits as “Playbook and launch” for the past week.

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Why does 'American Idol' hate women?

By Jaime Weinman - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 8 Comments

Michael Becker/FOX

When Pia Toscano was eliminated by the voters on the April 7 episode of American Idol, all the judges looked and sounded shocked. But why? The last few years of Idol should have shown that a female singer won’t get far. While the early years produced such winners as Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, the last three champs were men. Only one woman, Crystal Bowersox, made it to the final round in those three years. And this season’s finals eliminated five women in a row before finally voting out the first man. After Toscano departed, Jennifer Lopez admitted that she was afraid to criticize the two remaining females: “I feel like all of the girls are getting voted off, and I don’t like that.”

There have always been arguments about bias on Idol; until Lee DeWyze won last year, there were rumours that the show was biased toward southerners. But this season has turned the voters’ alleged anti-woman bias into a major issue. Deadline.com TV reporter Nellie Andreeva, who rarely expresses personal opinions, made an exception and asked, “Why are Idol female singers vanishing?” arguing that “the voting is so heavily skewed in the male singers’ favour that the voting results can’t possibly be random.” A report by The Today Show put it more bluntly: “Sorry, ladies. Idol’s just not that into you.”

Democracy is rarely pretty, so the first step in the anti-Idol backlash was to blame the people. More women than men watch American Idol—the show is especially popular with young women—and now that online voting is available on the show, they’re free to flood the system with votes in support of the boys they love most. Thia Megla, one of the women who was eliminated early on, said in a press conference that, “We sort of figured since there were more females watching this show the votes were going to be more for the guys.” Another eliminated woman, Naima Adedapo, accused her fellow females of voting for sex appeal instead of talent. “When it comes down to it,” she told the Hollywood Reporter, “the reality is that more than 50 per cent of the audience is little teenage girls, and once they get a crush, we’re done.”

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Maclean's explains everything

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 7 Comments

After taking a couple days to ruminate on the meaning of it all, Messrs Wells, Coyne, Geddes and myself will explain this election to you next week in an exclusive live event.

We’ll sell you the whole seat, but you’ll only need the edge.

This Week: Newsmakers

By Nancy MacDonald, Julia Belluz and staff - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

Danny Moloshok/Reuters

Harper: Monarchy is a man’s job

Queen Elizabeth II only came to the throne because she had no brothers, and Prince William and Kate Middleton’s first son will leapfrog any older sisters to become king, thanks to a 300-year-old act. Now Britain’s deputy PM, Nick Clegg, wants to reform the law. The move requires the agreement of Commonwealth countries directly affected. New Zealand’s PM, John Key, supports the change. Not Stephen Harper: “The successor to the throne is a man,” he said this week. “The next successor to the throne is a man. I don’t think Canadians want to open a debate on the monarchy…at this time.” It’s the same unerring instinct that’s characterized the treatment of female Tory cabinet ministers—think Lisa Raitt, Helena Guergis—and which observers say has limited Harper’s appeal among female voters. Good man, Mr. Harper, good man.

A rapidly Freying narrative

Bestselling Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson is facing buckets of bad press following a 60 Minutes report that questioned his work with his charity, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), for schools in remote Pakistan and Afghanistan. It alleged some schools don’t exist, or haven’t received support from CAI, and that Mortenson uses the charity as a “private ATM machine.” Then there are allegations Mortenson was never kidnapped by the Taliban in Waziristan, as he wrote. Mansur Khan Mahsud told The Daily Beast he played host to Mortenson in Waziristan and was shocked to get a call from Into Thin Air author Jon Krakauer (a former Mortenson supporter) telling him the author had described the experience as a kidnapping. Mortenson’s publisher is investigating.

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This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Good News

Issei Kato/Reuters

Cuba libre?

Signs of glasnost appeared in Cuba as the ruling Communists held a party congress and Fidel Castro prepared to step down as first secretary. Fidel’s successor as president, brother Raul, opened the meeting with a speech endorsing term limits for senior leadership—a surprising suggestion, coming from half of the duo that has held power since 1959. Delegates discussed an astonishing package of market-based reforms, including property rights, free currency flows, and the elimination of universal food rationing.

More news is good news

Quebecor launched its Sun News Network cable channel, receiving praise and catcalls for its “populist” programming in the visual style of Fox News. Key figures in the day-one lineup included talk-radio star Charles Adler, multimedia reporting vets David Akin and Brian Lilley, and daytime anchor Krista Erickson, who provided a special fillip to the rollout by posing as the Sun papers’ Sunshine Girl. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the presence of Liberal campaign advertising; party president Alf Apps noted that “the price was right.”

Disaster control

Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich announced results from simulations of crowds that may help police prevent fatal panics like the one that killed 21 at a music festival in Duisburg, Germany, last year. New models show that when a crowd reaches a critical density, a coordinated “undulation” begins, signalling the potential onset of a turbulent “crowd quake” of deadly physical force. Review of video from Duisburg confirms that a wavelike motion preceded the stampede, raising hopes that similar disasters could be averted in real time.

A real shell game

The University of Maine and the Canada-U.S. Lobster Institute introduced a biodegradable golf ball made from discarded lobster shells. The balls can survive just a few swings, but they are a good fit for use on cruise ships, since they break down in water within a few weeks. The cost of the lobster balls is lower than that of existing biodegradable alternatives, and the lobster industry is eager to find profitable uses for the shells, which make up half of the weight of the total catch.

Bad News

Edward Echwalu/Reuters

Flood risks

Residents of the southern Prairies coming off a wet growing season and a very snowy winter are facing spring flooding. In Manitoba, a total of 700 people, including 576 from the Peguis First Nation, had to evacuate threatened homes, and Highway 75, the province’s key overland link to the U.S. border, was closed. Floodways and dikes have performed well during the crisis, protecting all but a handful of homes, but two rural Manitoba motorists were killed trying to navigate flooded roads.

Bad medicine

A Fraser Institute study shed harsh light on the recent increase in Canadian health care costs, showing that provincial health spending grew by an average of 7.5 per cent a year from 2001 to 2010; during the same period provincial revenues expanded at a pace of 5.7 per cent and the Canadian economy by 5.2 per cent. Ontario and Quebec will already be spending 50 per cent of total revenues on health by the end of 2011, said analysts Brett Skinner and Mark Rovere. But their proposed solution—a five-year waiver of Canada Health Act provisions outlawing private insurance and care providers—found no takers among those running for election.

MinUS sign

Bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s stunned markets by downgrading the debt of the United States Treasury. U.S. bonds remain AAA-rated, but S&P, firing a warning shot across Washington’s bow, adjusted the outlook from “stable” to “negative.” An S&P analyst noted that “policymakers have still not agreed on how to reverse recent fiscal deterioration,” adding that S&P estimates the likelihood of the U.S. losing its triple-A status within the next two years at “at least one in three.”

Head feint

As the NHL playoffs began amidst a clamour over ill-defined “head shot” rules—which came into play after Vancouver Canucks forward Raffi Torres received only a two-minute minor for blindsiding Chicago’s Brent Seabrook—new research from the University of Calgary confirmed estimates that players experience about 1.8 concussions per 1,000 hours of ice time. Breakdowns of the numbers emphasize the risks of repeat concussion and of attempting to play through one.

The book on Stephen Harper

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 8:34 AM - 32 Comments

The Liberals have released what is apparently the definitive collection of Stephen Harper’s public statements—compiled apparently by Mr. Harper’s own side several years ago. It can be downloaded in full here. Laura Payton samples the selection.

“Most MPs are bit players in today’s parliamentary system, with the average backbencher merely acting as an ombudsman for constituents on non-partisan issues and as a local sales representative for his/her political party on the big issues. That’s why we believe that before MPs demand more money, they should reform the system and give themselves a role that’s deserving of more money.” (Sept. 1, 1998)

Elections With Benefits

By Andrew Potter - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 8:28 AM - 73 Comments

Very good column today from William Watson debunking the whole “Seinfeld election” stupidity. This election has been useful and edifying in all sorts of ways. In particular:

A second change is that Canadians are now much more familiar with how their system of government works. We elect members of Parliament at whose sufferance the prime minister serves. Nothing says the prime minister must come from the party with the most members. All that’s required is that his or her government have the confidence of the House. It may not be the best system in the world but it’s our system and now more of us understand it. Who knows? With a week of potential political education left, maybe even Harper will come around to understanding it

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On the campaign trail with Steven Fletcher

By Mitchel Raphael - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 12:23 AM - 11 Comments

Winnipeg Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, with the help of his three-year-old niece, Evelyn Sieman, hit the Manitoba Eastern Star Chalet seniors’ apartment complex to campaign.

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Fascist takeover! Or else a Commalition! Consensus at last!

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 8:00 PM - 96 Comments

All right, time for an updated roundup of the leading seat projections (with thanks to PunditsGuide for pointing out a couple I’d missed). The Fascists continue their remorseless march on the capital, with some projections having them already inside the gates. The Visitors, meanwhile, show no signs of coming back for anybody.

But the real story, of course, is the Commie insurgency: one particularly excitable forecaster, whose name I won’t Ekos, even predicts they will be leading a coalition government within the week. As always, the averages are a little more level-headed, with about 10 Traitors’ heads among the first to be leveled. Still no Ewocs sightings, however.

Andrew Coyne on the implications of the NDP's surge in Quebec

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 5:38 PM - 7 Comments

Finally a Reason to Watch Leno

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 5:35 PM - 2 Comments

Not a great reason, but Paul Reiser will be on The Tonight Show tonight to plug a show that has already been canceled, after only two airings. Presumably, when they made the booking, they thought the show would still be on for at least another week. I don’t expect anything entertaining out of either man, but the possibility of an orgy of misplaced self-pity – two friends who consider themselves badly treated by NBC when in fact they weren’t – will get me watching, as long as the Reiser interview doesn’t start before Colbert ends. It will be disappointing, because Leno has repeatedly shown he no longer has any ability to take advantage of opportunities for interesting TV, but there’s always the flickering possibility that someone might go Kimmel on him.
(Update: It wasn’t very interesting, except as an illustration that “lack of promotion” is a catch-all scapegoat for a show’s failure.)

There’s not much to say about The Paul Reiser Show at this point except to shake one’s head again over NBC’s development this season. Well, there is one thing: the presence of of Reiser’s (fictional) kids on the show remind us why Chuck Cunningham Syndrome is sometimes a good thing. Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s pilot special portrayed Larry David as a father, since he’s a father in real life; in the series, he either has no kids or never mentions them at any time. This allows him to be as sociopathic as he needs to be for the purposes of comedy, without tipping over into unfunny reality: if he had kids, we might start thinking about how miserable their lives might be or how screwed-up they’re going to become.

A musical campaign interlude: deep doo-wop

By John Geddes - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 5:21 PM - 0 Comments

Election campaigns can be tuneful. There are the theme songs they crank up  when the leaders make their entrances at campaign events. Jack Layton is famous for pulling out his guitar during long flights.

But mostly, these days, there are iPods. So instead of a shared campaign soundtrack, we each create private ones, although Michael Ignatieff made his playlist public when he took a Bruce Springsteen “rise up” refrain and turned it into a riff in his speeches.

When I take listening break, I’ve been liking Paul Simon’s “Afterlife,” from his new album So Beautiful or So What. In it, Simon imagines a kind of heaven, singing as his fade-out conclusion:

And you feel like swimming in an ocean of love, and the current is strong.

But all that remains when you try to explain is a fragment of song…

Lord is it, Be Bop A Lu La or Ooh Poppa Do Lord, Be Bop A Lu La or Ooh Poppa Do

Be Bop A Lu La

It’s made me bring back into rotation my favourite song from 2009, Jesse Winchester’s “Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding,” which also distills everything that matters down to a goofy doo-wop refrain.

O those sweet old love songs


Every word rings true


Sham-a-ling-dong-ding means sweetheart


Sham-a-ling-dang-dong does too


And it means that right here in my arms


That’s where you belong


And it means sham-a-ling-dong-ding


Sham-a-ling-dang-dong

Simon and Winchester were both born in the early 1940s, so some of their earliest memories of pop music would have been from the doo-wop heyday of the 1950s. Early in their careers, they reached into “folk” to lend their songwriting depth. Now that they’re older, they’re inclined to hear mantras in the sweet harmonies and nonsense syllables of their childhood.

And doo-wop’s claims are so modest—unlike, say, the earnestness of a lot singer-songwriter stuff or the bombast of too much rock—that this particular corner of boomer nostalgia is easy to enjoy.

No excuse for apathy

By Andrew Potter - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 5:14 PM - 30 Comments

From Susan Delacourt’s piece on voter alienation in today’s Star, Angus Reid’s Jaideep Mukerji gets it exactly right:

A full 78 per cent of respondents to this newest survey believe politicians are less honest today and 62 per cent said they believed Canadian democracy was in crisis. More than half of the respondents — 52 per cent — said none of the political parties had satisfactory positions on issues important to the voters.

Mukerji says the 52 per cent figure is disturbing.

“You can imagine that in a two-party system, like in the United States, that might make sense. But in Canada, there are four national parties, and there’s an extra one in Quebec. It’s not like there’s a lack of choice,” he said.

Watching TV may narrow blood vessels in childrens’ eyes: study

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 4:16 PM - 1 Comment

Kids who spent more time in front of televisions and computer screens, and less time outside, have narrowed blood vessels in their eyes, according to a new Australian study reported in the New York Times. Scientists looked at 1,492 six-year-olds across Sydney, and had their parents answer questionnaires about how much time they spent doing physical activity, versus sitting in front of a TV or computer. They then examined the kids’ eyes. Children who watched the most TV had blood vessels in their eyes that were slightly smaller in diameter than those who watched the least. Kids who exercised the least had narrowest vessels in their eyes. What it means for these children is still unknown.

New York Times

Photo gallery: Easter in NYC

By Zoran Milich - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 4:08 PM - 0 Comments

Your region in power

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 3:33 PM - 93 Comments

Mr. Harper’s closing pitch to a crowd in Sault Ste Marie this morning.

We’re coming to many areas of the country that have been unrepresented in government for some time. And one of the things we say is look at what we just went through in the recession and isn’t it a shame that it took Tony Clement down in Muskoka, Greg Rickford up in Kenora, to identify the kind of priorities we need here in Sault Ste Marie. You know, when there are serious economic issues facing communities and facing people in northern Ontario, they do not need MPs whose simple view is they’re going to vote against everything. We don’t need MPs whose whole goal is to just work with the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois on arrangements against the government. We need people who are going to work with the government and with the people in this area to make things actually happen for this area.

On May 2, will you be voting *for* someone, or *against* someone else?

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 3:23 PM - 14 Comments

Are young voters behind the NDP surge in Quebec?

By Josh Dehaas - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 3:01 PM - 6 Comments

The NDP is surging in Quebec and many point to the party’s popularity among young voters as the reason why. Jack Layton’s progressive message, the logic goes, makes him stand out as a legitimate alternative to Gilles Duceppe among left-leaning voters.

But here’s a problem with that storyline: data from the Historica-Dominion Institute’s poll of young voters suggests there isn’t an NDP surge among Quebec youth at all. Its 2011 Inter-generational Study shows young Quebecers are no more likely to vote NDP now than they were in 2008. Back then, the party captured a mere 12 per cent of the vote in Quebec.

The Historica-Dominion survey gathered the opinions of 831 youth aged 18 to 24, including 189 from Quebec. The NDP was the most popular party among young voters in Quebec, capturing 27 per cent support, while the Liberals got 23 per cent, the Bloc Québécois got 21 per cent, and the Conservatives came last with 8 per cent.  (For more results from the study, including a look at which issues matter to young voters, read the next issue of Maclean’s.) Those figures are virtually unchanged from the Institute’s 2008 Youth Election Study, which found 27 per cent of young Quebecers leaning toward the NDP, another 27 per cent supporting the Bloc, 20 per cent behind the Liberals, and 7 per cent leaning Tory.

The youth numbers also mirror last week’s EKOS and CROP polls, give or take a few points. “That seems to indicate the rest of the population is catching up to the youth in considering the NDP rather than a youth surge,” says Allison Harell, a political scientist at the University of Quebec at Montreal. That may be good news for Jack Layton. If his support is more broadly distributed across age groups, she adds, it may translate into more votes on election day. Historically, only about a third of Canadian youth end up voting, compared to nearly two-thirds of the electorate overall.

The big question is whether the current NDP supporters—young or not—will change their minds before election day. Houda Souissi, a 21-year-old labour law student at the University of Montreal has already switched back to Duceppe after a brief dalliance with Layton. After scrutinizing the NDP record, she worries an NDP government could take away provincial powers. She’s also turned-off by Layton’s stance on the long gun registry. Most importantly, she’s wary of inexperienced MPs. “I don’t want to say they’re nobodies,” she says. “But outside of Outremont, we don’t really know who the NDP candidates are.”

Souissi’s worries may be moot come May 3. If the NDP’s surge in the polls translates into actual votes, the party’s Quebec candidates could be well on their way to becoming decidedly mainstream among voters of all ages.

The Facebook vote

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 2:18 PM - 9 Comments

The current tally, with improvements from the last tally in parentheses.

Michael Ignatieff 63,836 (7,747)
Jack Layton 52,329 (10,974)
Stephen Harper 52,163 (3,109)
Elizabeth May 10,405 (828)
Gilles Duceppe 7,993 (1,08)

Behind the scenes with Chuck Harris

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 1:27 PM - 0 Comments

Read the article here

Happy places have highest suicide rates: study

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 1:08 PM - 5 Comments

Studies have shown that places like Denmark and Sweden, which consistently get high scores when it comes to measures of happiness and life satisfaction, also have relatively high suicide rates, the New York Times reports. New research tracking suicide rates suggests that being around happy people could actually make unhappy people feel more depressed. Economists from the UK and the US looked at data on 2.3 million Americans to study life satisfaction scores state by state, and compared them with suicide rates. They found a relationship between overall happiness and suicide risk: states with highest levels of life satisfaction had higher suicide rates, according to the report. Utah, for example, is ranked first in life satisfaction and has the ninth highest suicide rate. New York is 45th in life satisfaction and has the lowest suicide rate. Hawaii was second for life satisfaction and had the fifth highest suicide rate, and New Jersey was 47th for both happiness and suicide.

New York Times

John Geddes on the leaders' sprint to the finish

By macleans.ca - Monday, April 25, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments