Newsmakers: July 8 – July 14, 2011

By Richard Warnica, Alex Ballingall, Emma Teitel, and Cigdem Iltan - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:55 AM - 0 Comments

Photo by Charles William Pelletier

The incredible journey

One lucky Montreal family finally got their dog back last week after an amazing, year-long adventure that took the pup 4,500 km across the country. Pollux, a black Lab cross who escaped from her east-end Montreal home last June, turned up in Kamloops, B.C., where, last week, the SPCA found a microchip implant registered to her vet. No one is sure how exactly Pollux travelled so far, but her owner, Isabelle Robitaille, thinks she might have jumped on a train to avoid the rain, since she’s scared of water. Robitaille let her kids, who cried themselves to sleep when she disappeared, stay up way past bedtime to welcome their beloved pooch home at the airport, where she was greeted with squeals. “For them, it’s a second Christmas,” Robitaille told the Montreal Gazette. “My son spent 45 minutes just petting her. He was so happy.”

A long road to another struggle

Just two nights after tossing the ball that led to the accidental death of firefighter Shannon Stone, Texas Rangers left-fielder Josh Hamilton hit a game-winning, two-run homer against the Oakland A’s. Hamilton, who was said to be “very distraught” after the tragedy, rounded the bases with his head down only to be mobbed by his teammates at home plate as the home crowd hollered in support. After the game, Hamilton told reporters that his thoughts were with Stone’s family. The 39-year-old firefighter was at a Rangers game with his six-year-old son when Hamilton threw him a foul ball. The toss was short, and Stone fell to his death after leaning over the railing to catch it. This isn’t the first time Hamilton has faced adversity. Struggles with heroin and alcohol almost cost the all-star his career. What helps him get through it all? He’s a born-again Christian, and after Stone’s death, Hamilton stayed up all night talking with his wife, Katie.

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Rupert Murdoch’s day of reckoning

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:50 AM - 3 Comments

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The most telling story in Michael Wolff’s biography of Rupert Murdoch, The Man Who Owns the News, didn’t appear in the original 2008, 400-plus-page hardcover. It’s the tale of the media mogul’s reaction to the book, appended as a forward to the paperback version two years later. Eight weeks before the first edition hit the streets, the News Corporation proprietor somehow obtained a copy—“purloined,” writes Wolff, from a rival British newspaper that was bidding on the serialization rights. And as he read the product of the more than 50 hours of candid and profane interviews he had given, Murdoch got upset. Over the course of a single day, he left the author a dozen increasingly agitated voice mails, quibbling with ancient details, and complaining about tone and interpretation. Then he went ominously silent.

For three months after its publication, Wolff’s book received exactly zero mentions in, or on, News Corp.’s globe-spanning network of media properties, which includes the Australian, the U.K.’s Sun, the Wall Street Journal and Fox News. Then the Murdoch-owned New York Post splashed news of the fiftysomething “bald, trout-lipped” writer’s extramarital affair with a 28-year-old “hot blond” intern all over its gossip pages. For weeks, the Post kept at it, chronicling his crumbling marriage, accusing Wolff of trying to evict his 85-year-old mother-in-law from an apartment he owned, even lampooning him in highly unflattering editorial cartoons. The attacks only ceased when he threatened to post the recordings of his interviews with the paper’s owner on the Internet, in all their unedited glory.

For the author, the painful episode confirmed something he already knew—scandal and bullying are both Murdoch’s trade and passion. The obsession is partly about gathering business intelligence, Wolff writes in his forward: “who is saying what to whom; who might be buying what; who has less money than he says he has.” But the 80-year-old titan also just really delights in the dirty details. “He especially likes to know which liberals are sleeping around (but he will take conservatives, too). It is a prurient interest, but it is also about leverage. He refers to having pictures and reports and files.” At the time, Wolff assumed such claims were part of Murdoch’s trademark hubris, designed to fuel his cultivated image as a villainous billionaire. Now it appears they may have simply been the truth.

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The Palin family fishbowl

By Jaime Weinman - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 3 Comments

iStock; Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute

“You know, she definitely knows,” Bristol Palin said when asked if her mother had made up her mind about running for the highest office in the U.S. “We’ve talked about it before. Some things just need to stay in the family.” The daughter of Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and possible U.S. presidential candidate, said this on Fox News, as part of a countrywide media tour to promote her book, Not Afraid of Life. It seemed appropriate somehow that she would say that only the decision to run for president was private and off-limits. Everything else with the Palin family is open to the public in a way we haven’t seen since English aristocratic families allowed tours of their houses. We’ve seen the Palins on reality shows, and in tabloids fluffy and ferocious alike, and soon they’ll be starring in the upcoming documentary The Undefeated, a film director Stephen K. Bannon created to defend Palin against her enemies. The Palin blitz even involves a case of duelling books: Bristol’s just-published memoir, in which she trashes her child’s father, Levi Johnston, will be followed in September by Johnston’s own book, Deer In the Headlights: My Life in Sarah Palin’s Crosshairs. Sarah Palin is famous for her dislike of what she calls the “lamestream media,” meaning every news outlet except Fox News. But when it comes to other types of media, she and her whole family have built up an empire that most political families can’t compete with.

No one knows if this kind of media attention will translate into a presidential campaign, particularly with recent polls showing President Barack Obama beating Palin even in her home state. It might not even matter. Sarah Palin is considered popular enough with ordinary Republican voters that she can still be a formidable presence in the nomination race if she chooses to enter. Still, some of her thunder has recently been stolen by Michele Bachmann, another former beauty contestant with ties to the Christian right. Though the Palin family seems to consider her an upstart (“I think she dresses a lot like my mom,” Bristol told Popeater.com), Bachmann is more popular with journalists, holds a full-time political job, and can recite political talking points more fluently. That loss of the spotlight may have made it harder for the Palins to sell books, the tool a political dynasty uses to promote itself. Jessica Lussenhop of Minneapolis City Pages reported that when Sarah and Bristol showed up in the heart of Bachmann’s native Minnesota to promote Bristol’s book, “one estimate put the number of autograph seekers at about 300 people,” and the autograph signing session ended “at least a half-hour early.”

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Keeping tabs on the baby-shooters

By Colby Cosh - Monday, July 18, 2011 at 1:00 AM - 42 Comments

Christie Blatchford is doing an amazing job of describing the social problems in the four-cornered Indian town of Hobbema, Alberta—such an amazing job, indeed, that one is almost lulled into forgetting she is there because of a crime. It was not alcohol, poor governance, or residential schools that shot a five-year-old child in the head while he was sleeping last week. Some specific person, still at large, had to pull the trigger.

This, perhaps, is the true shame of Ethan Yellowbird’s death. We know there is not much point in rallying the majestic resources of an outraged mass media behind the quest for a killer—as we would surely do if a white child died under these circumstances. The person who shot Ethan is someone whose disregard for human life makes him arguably more dangerous than a mere power-hungry gangster; yet there can be no doubt that dozens of residents of Hobbema know his identity, or, at the very least, where they would start looking for him. They do not seem especially interested. The code of omertà holds; police and media inquiries are still met with chilly hostility. And, after all, Ethan might as well have been carried off by rogue eagles or the plague, for all the good that turning in the intoxicated ne’er-do-well who fired the fatal shot might possibly do.

We can say this with an unusually high degree of confidence, because another child, two-year-old Asia Saddleback, was wounded under exactly the same circumstances in Hobbema in 2008. And, as it happens, the person who shot her did get caught. Consider what, in your own ideal world, you might consider an appropriate penalty for such an action. Then consider what actually happened to Christopher Shane Crane, who shot Asia through a wall of her house after already committing an armed home-invasion robbery the same evening. The judge who sentenced Crane was keenly cognizant of his youth—the shooting was the culmination of an 18th-birthday party that got way, way out of hand—and of his “troubled past”. The troubles in question, needless to say, already included a certain number of assault priors. Who knows? Considering his gang involvement, he may even have grown up with bullets whizzing around him, poor creature.

Crane got six years’ imprisonment for the home invasion and six years for the aggravated assault of Asia Saddleback, to be served consecutively. His year awaiting trial counted double both ways, making the remaining sentence four years plus four years, with an extra year knocked off because the judge applied the “totality principle”. The “totality principle” in sentencing basically boils down to “If you’re adding jail time together from separate offences that somehow overlap in time or in nature, you should probably take your foot off the throttle a little bit.” It is more or less a technical name for the notion that excessiveness in the compounding of criminal penalties is inhumane.

And thus we arrive at a final quantum of punishment for the haphazard wounding of an infant, committed out of boredom; half of seven years. Or, rather, eight, if you are a stubborn literalist who wishes to count Crane’s year in remand as an actual astronomical-type year. (Who knows? Maybe you’re one of those “truth in sentencing” wackoes who just doesn’t grok justice-system math.) Our correctional system being the fount of hope and rehabilitative expertise that it is, Christopher Crane may already be out of prison. Indeed, one hopes that the RCMP has taken care to ascertain his whereabouts on the evening of July 11, if only as a matter of bookkeeping.

Breaking Bad Begins Again

By Jaime Weinman - Sunday, July 17, 2011 at 11:00 PM - 0 Comments

Tonight Breaking Bad, or The Bald Head Variety Hour as it will be re-titled in syndication, returned for a fourth season. I have some thoughts after the jump:
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Why China’s days as a rare earth bully are numbered

By Erica Alini - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 5:22 PM - 19 Comments

Have you ever begged your six-month-old to stop throwing the pacifier off the edge of the high chair­ only to watch him do it again with a profoundly amused, puffy-cheeked smile? That must be how American, Japanese and European diplomats feel today. After pleading with China not to re-issue rare earth quotas, Beijing did just that, imposing new restrictions that would keep exports of the strategic materials at roughly last year’s levels.

Rare earth metals are the little-known but vitally important stuff that things like iPhone and laptop monitors, and wind turbine and hybrid car parts are made of. As Maclean’s reported last November, these metals are so crucial to much of the high-tech industry that, like oil and diamonds, they have effectively become a tool for geopolitical arm-twisting. Continue…

In praise of uncertainty

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 4:30 PM - 21 Comments

Amy Langstaff considers talking point culture.

In many cases, as Wallace suggests, our response to feeling confused and overwhelmed is to seek out the safety of stable positions — and, I would add, stable ways of stating those positions. We put on a carapace of freeze-dried arguments and talking points. We curl, woodlouse-like, into a posture that will protect us from the vulnerability of not knowing what to say next and the pain of sometimes not knowing how to defend the ideas (however inarticulate) that we love and even live by…

The temptation to shatter this rhetorical armour is strong not necessarily because it is urgent to defeat the other person in argument, but because it is galling to look into the face of another — a marvelous primate endowed with 100-billion neurons — to watch their mouth open, and to listen as a half-remembered editorial or some other unreconstructed bit of flotsam tumbles forth. It is an affront not only to oneself but to “the ongoing human interaction.”

California students to learn LGBT history

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 4:21 PM - 0 Comments

California has become the first U.S. state to have its public schools teach gay history. Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill Thursday that would require the contributions of LGBT Americans throughout history to be included the state’s educational syllabus. The bill was authored by Sen. Mark Leno of San Francisco, and has drawn loud opposition from conservative and evangelical groups in the state. “It is an outrage that Governor Jerry Brown has opened the classroom door for homosexual activists to indoctrinate the minds of California’s youth, since no factual materials would be allowed to be presented,” said Rev. Louis Sheldon, chairman and founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, which represents more than 43,000 churches. But California law already requires schools to teach students about the contributions of other minority groups, and Sen. Leno’s office cited research showing that schools that teach students about LGBT people and issues are perceived as more inclusive. “History should be honest,” said Gov. Brown in his statement following the signing of the bill into law.

CNN

France and the persistence of public order

By Andrew Potter - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 3:57 PM - 5 Comments

Happy (belated) Bastille Day, everyone. While the philosophy community is celebrating (or not) the arrival of Derek Parfit’s long-awaited two-volume work on ethics, I’ve been plowing my way through the first volume of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order. The basic question he’s trying to answer is how any society ever made the transition from a tribal society to a modern state. It starts with chimpanzee politics, moves quickly to the state of nature and then on status seeking, so it’s basically the perfect book, thematically. I’m going to write a proper review of it soon, but one passage I came across last night was particularly interesting: it is about the particular character of the French state, pre-revolution:

While England developed an advanced theory of public finance and optimal taxation, elucidated in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, French taxation was opportunistic and dysfunctional… Most important, the French fiscal system deliberately encouraged rent-seeking. Wealthy individuals, instead of investing their money in productive assets in the private economy, spent their fortunes on heritable offices that could not create but only redistribute wealth. Rather than focusing on technological innovation, they innovated with regard to new ways of outwitting the state and its tax system. This weakened private entrepreneurship and made its emerging private sector dependent on state largesse, just at the same moment that private markets were blossoming across the English channel.

A Canada without YouTube? It could happen.

By Peter Nowak - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 3:00 PM - 42 Comments

Photo by jonsson/Flickr

Here’s an interesting if somewhat disturbing thought: can you picture a world without YouTube? Or more specifically, a country without YouTube?

It seems improbable, almost impossible, but it’s entirely conceivable if the CRTC loses its collective mind and decides to regulate such “over-the-top” Internet services in Canada.

The regulator, answering to cajoling from traditional broadcasters, has now concluded its “fact-finding mission” on whether YouTube, Netflix and other OTT services should have Canadian content rules foisted on to them. At some point, it will decide on whether to proceed with a new, full hearing, or whether it will just drop the issue, at least for now.

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The playwrights strike back

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 70 Comments

Michael Healey responds to the end of federal funding for SummerWorks.

In theatres across the country tonight comes our answer. The very play that frightened everyone from Sun journalists to radio hacks to members of the PMO is getting an airing. We are showing our Prime Minister and his government there is an immense downside to throwing red meat to the base at our expense. Asking for his respect is probably too much, but showing him he’s better off leaving us alone is a message he can hopefully ingest.

‘Diplomatic overkill’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:49 PM - 5 Comments

Adam Chapnik explains the wisdom of dysfunction at the United Nations.

To suggest, however, that North Korea’s accession to the presidency of the conference on disarmament – not to mention the conference’s failure to play a role in any recent progress on global non-proliferation initiatives – justifies a Canadian boycott, which could eventually lead to the decline of the conference altogether, misses the point.

The United Nations is nothing more than a framework through which its members can sort out their political, economic, and security-related disagreements. It cannot do the negotiating for them, but it can make it easier to negotiate when the time is right.

The State Department says the United States won’t be boycotting the conference. Continue…

Google’s Android continues to widen its lead over Apple and BlackBerry

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:36 PM - 0 Comments

In the fight for smartphone supremacy, Google’s Android operating system continues to widen its lead over Apple and BlackBerry

Chart Source: Comscore, Business Insider

Kate Middleton and the weight debate

By Anne Kingston - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:25 PM - 18 Comments

Chris Jackson/Getty Images

When an already slender Kate Middleton lost an estimated 20 lb. between her November 2010 engagement and April 2011 wedding, the reaction from a society that upholds size 00 as a fashion ideal was predictable: however did she do it? Rumours that her mother introduced her to a low-carbohydrate regime devised by French doctor Pierre Dukan catapulted the 30-year-old The Dukan Diet onto bestseller lists worldwide.

But Middleton’s rapid weight loss also gave rise to concern, particularly among those who remembered Prince William’s mother’s struggle with bulimia. Back in March, Belfast resident Heather Lindsay reportedly advised Prince William’s fiancée “not to lose any more weight” when she shook hands with her during a walkabout. Lindsay later reported Middleton laughed and said it was “part of the wedding plan.” At the time, few questioned that logic. The spectre of brides dropping several dress sizes before their big day is part of the wedding script, one even encouraged by reality TV shows like Bridal Bootcamp. And no bride was under more scrutiny than Middleton.

But the duchess of Cambridge’s disturbingly rail-thin appearance during her Canadian tour, one not fully captured by cameras, suggests the weight loss was more than wedding jitters. It was a subject of rabid discussion among journalists covering the tour, though rarely mentioned in their reports, primarily because the topic is not part of the fairy-tale narrative that William and Catherine embody—one that sells newspapers and magazines. One British journalist, a veteran royal watcher, puts it thus: “Her weight is simply not discussed.” Some reporters, especially women, are reluctant to engage in “body-snarking,” the common practice of criticizing women in the public eye for their physical appearance, and they’ve chosen not to add to the immense pressure the duchess already is under.

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Canada set to seal EU free trade deal

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:22 PM - 15 Comments

International Trade Minister Ed Fast says Canada is headed toward closing a free trade deal with the European Union by 2012. Fast says “important progress” was made during eighth-round negotiations with the EU in Brussels this week. A ninth round of talks will take place in October. Fast suggested Canada is willing to offer the EU significant compromises on goods and government purchasing. The Harper government has focused on increasing non-U.S. trade so Canada isn’t so dependent on a single market.

The Globe and Mail

Europe’s lenders await stress tests results

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Europe’s lenders are holding their breath in anticipation of the release of “stress test” results Friday. The profit forecasts of 90 banks will be revealed in the evaluation. As many as 15 lenders are expected to fail the test, with casualties in Spain, Greece, Germany and Portugal. However, no large bank is expected to fail. Critics of the stress test say it doesn’t include the impact of the Greek default. Analysts expect that about 110 billion euros will be needed for a second bailout of Greece.

Reuters

Harper won’t leave 24 Sussex despite “urgent” need for renovations

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 12:17 PM - 44 Comments

Stephen Harper “sees no need for a substantial renovation program” at 24 Sussex Drive, despite a leaky roof, temperamental heating system and asbestos. The Prime Minister is staying put at his official residence in Ottawa, even though the National Capital Commission, the Crown corporation that manages the building, has reasserted the need for more than $10 million in repairs. The commission deemed the long list of repairs “urgent” four years ago, and now says the repairs will require Harper to live somewhere else for more than a year.  “The Prime Minister and his family find 24 Sussex adequate to their needs,” a spokeswoman told the National Post.

National Post

Sidney Crosby resumes off-season training

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:37 AM - 0 Comments

Pittsburgh Penguins star, Sidney Crosby, has begun on-ice workouts again near Halifax—his first time training since two massive hits gave him the concussion that has kept him off the ice since January. UPMC’s Dr. Michael Collins has given Crosby the green light to resume regular off-season workouts. The Penguins hope Crosby will recover in time for training camp, but only time will tell.

The Toronto Star

Protesters killed as thousands demonstrate across Syria

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:34 AM - 0 Comments

Seven people are dead after security forces in Syria opened fire on large crowds of anti-government protesters the Damascus suburb of Qaboun, activists said. They are among a total of 12 killed in the country as tens of thousands protested against the government of President Bashir al-Assad on Friday. Rallies broke out after Friday prayers in the central Syrian cities of Homs and Hama, Deir al-Zour in the northeast and in the southern town of Dara’a, which was subjected to a brutal military crackdown in April. After four months of protests across the country, the government has spoken vaguely of offering reforms. Most anti-regime activists are skeptical of the government’s intentions.

The New York Times

14-year-old boy shoots and kills 12-year-old on Saskatchewan reserve

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

A 14-year-old boy in the reserve community of Hall Lake, Saskatchewan has been charged with careless use of a firearm after he shot and killed a 12-year-old boy. The Mounties who were on duty at the crime scene Wednesday said the boys went into the woods with a firearm, and what transpired before and after the shooting remains unknown. Some say the boys were hunting, while others believe they did not know the gun was loaded. The 14-year-old made a brief appearance in court. He has since been released.

The Chronicle Herald

Group of 30 countries recognized Libya’s rebel government

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:23 AM - 6 Comments

Group of 30 countries recognized Libya’s rebel government
Contact Group on Libya declares Gadhafi regime illegitimate

A bloc of 30 countries has declared Moammar Gadhafi’s government in Libya illegitimate, officially recognizing the rebel transitional government as the country’s true representatives. Officials from the Contact Group on Libya, which included Canadian foreign minister John Baird, made the decision Friday while meeting in Turkey. Canada had already formally recognized the Transitional National Council — the Benghazi-based government in Libya — but other countries, including the U.S., had not done so until Friday. Concerns over Libya’s future were also raised at the meeting, such as whether a post-Gadhafi regime would succeed in being democratic change and representing the various tribes and regions of the country. 

CBC News

Police search home of Dick Oland’s son for evidence

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:21 AM - 0 Comments

Police remain “tight-lipped” about details regarding last week’s murder of New Brunswick businessman Dick Oland, The Globe and Mail reports. But according to Derek Oland, Dick Oland’s younger brother, police have begun searching the home of Dennis Oland, Dick’s only son. Derek Oland says police began searching his nephew’s home after questioning him extensively. Their reason for the search remains unknown. Dennis Oland told police he was not close with his father, though they bonded on the family boat from time to time.

The Globe and Mail

Rebekah Brooks resigns as head of News International

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:19 AM - 0 Comments

Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of the British arm of Rupert Murdoch’s embattled media empire, bowed to repeated calls for her resignation Friday. In an internal email to News International staff, Brooks said she was resigning because her presence had become a distraction during the company’s efforts to deal with the ongoing phone hacking scandal. Rupert Murdoch has consistently supported Brooks, who was editor of the now-defunct News of the World tabloid when it allegedly hacked into the cell phone of a murdered 13-year-old girl. When asked last week what his top priority was in dealing with the scandal, Murdoch gestured to Brooks and said “this one.” In a statement Friday, Brooks said she feels “a deep sense of responsibility for the people we have hurt,” and that she will now concentrate on clearing her record as a journalist.

The Daily Mail

Week in Pictures: July 11th – 17th 2011

By macleans.ca - Friday, July 15, 2011 at 11:06 AM - 0 Comments

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Week in Pictures: July 11th – 17th 2011

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The two-headed snake

A rare two-headed snake explores its surroundings in a private zoo in the Crimean town of Yalta, Ukraine on July 8, 2011. The three-year-old snake was brought from a zoo in Switzerland where it was born. (REUTERS/Stringer)

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