The unlikely Olsen sister

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Blaine Weir/Zumapress.com/Keystone Press Agency

Every so often a lovely young actress comes out of nowhere to nail a lead role, displaying an intelligence that trumps her beauty, and a depth of emotion that’s uncanny for her age. In 2009, it was Carey Mulligan sliding into the arms of a duplicitous older man in An Education. In 2010, it was Jennifer Lawrence penetrating an Ozark underworld in Winter’s Bone. This year, the breakout performance belongs to Elizabeth Olsen, who bares her body and soul as a recovering cult victim in Martha Marcy May Marlene.

In Olsen’s case, the heat of the spotlight is just catching up to her fame by association, as the kid sister of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Yes, those Olsens. Seeing the three of them together doesn’t quite compute. Mary-Kate and Ashley, 25-year-old fraternal twins, traffic in pure, pharmaceutical-grade celebrity, uncut by any visible talent aside from merchandising their bubble-blond image. As child stars who were breast-fed by showbiz at the age of nine months (starting out as babies on Full House), they parlayed their TV careers into a wildly successful fashion business that made them super-rich, while battling the tabloids over scandals involving anorexia, alleged drug use and Mary-Kate’s mysterious involvement with actor Heath Ledger at the time of his fatal overdose.

By contrast, Elizabeth—Lizzie to her friends—is a 22-year-old theatre major at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts who has trained with its Atlantic Theater Co., studied at the Moscow Art Theatre School, and is now a credible Oscar contender for Martha Marcy May Marlene. It’s one of a string of movies she filmed while taking a year off school. She made her screen debut as Jane Fonda’s granddaughter in Bruce Beresford’s Peace, Love and Misunderstanding; she worked with Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver in the supernatural thriller Red Lights, and joined Zack Efron and Josh Radnor in the college comedy Liberal Arts. “She’s going to get every role she goes for,” Beresford told the New York Times, comparing her to Cate Blanchett, whom he cast in Paradise Road, her first major screen role.

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Minister overboard

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Adrian Wyld/CP

The Conservatives are most anxious that everyone should know what an independent and impartial process was used to decide the recent competition for $33 billion in federal shipbuilding work. And by all accounts it was. Ministers were kept far away from the file. The task of assessing the competing bids, from shipyards in B.C., Halifax and Quebec, was left to a team of senior civil servants. A “fairness monitor” vouched for their handiwork, with the help of two outside auditors. And so on.

All of which would be a lot more impressive if a) it had not already been decided at the political level that no foreign shipyards would be allowed to compete, reserving the bidding to a handful of high-priced domestic yards, b) it had not similarly been decided in advance that the work would be divided between two yards, meaning two of the three bidders were guaranteed to win something, and c) one of the three, Quebec’s near-bankrupt Davie Yards, had not been shoehorned into the bidding at the last minute thanks to a political decision to extend the deadline. Indeed, it is hard to escape the impression that all this scrupulousness was based less on principle and more on protecting the government from the inevitable blowback from whichever province lost, naming no Quebecs.

But why quibble? It would be a stretch to say the best bid won, but at least the worst bid lost, which is a lot better than these things usually play out. Indeed, the process was such a success some have been moved to ask: why don’t we do this . . . all the time? If it is a good thing to keep politicians’ thumbs off the scales on a major shipbuilding contract, why is it not also a good thing to get the politics out of procurement generally? Not only would it spare the taxpayer needless expense, but it would spare the country the regional resentments, lobbying wars and suspicions of corruption that go with most such decisions.

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‘Canadians have not been given sufficient justification’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 10:03 AM - 0 Comments

The privacy commissioner questions the Harper government’s push for “lawful access” legislation.

Despite repeated calls, no systematic case has yet been made to justify the extent of the new investigative capabilities that would have been created by the bills. Canadian authorities have yet to provide the public with evidence to suggest that CSIS or Canadian police cannot perform their duties under the current regime.   One-off cases and isolated incidents should not prove the rule, nor should exigent or emergency circumstances, for which there are already Criminal Code provisions. 

As well, if the concern of law enforcement agencies is that it is difficult to obtain warrants or judicial authorization in a timely way, these administrative challenges should be addressed by administrative solutions rather than by weakening long-standing legal principles that uphold  Canadians’ fundamental freedoms. 

‘In Time’: a clockwork ‘Bonne and Clyde’ for the 99%

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 9:28 AM - 0 Comments

Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried in 'In Time'

Gotta love the zeitgeist. New Zealand-born filmmaker  Andrew Niccol, who scripted The Truman Show and wrote and directed Gattica, crafts anti-totalitarian sci-fi thrillers with the high-concept flair of a TV commercial director, which is what he was before he made features . But when Niccol was shooting In Time, there’s no way he could have known that it would be so timely—a picture-perfect pamphlet for an Occupy Wall Street movement that hadn’t happened yet. And how sci-fi is that?

This meta-Marxist allegory about human capital takes place in an Orwellian future where time is literally money. For everyone, aging mysteriously stops at 25, freezing youth and beauty in a vampire-like stasis. From that moment on, people live only for as many years, months, days or minutes that they can earn. Time is the universal currency. The 99% scrape to stay alive for another week or two; the 1% have centuries to burn. Your net worth is written on your wrist, as a fluorescent clock that spins numbers on skin like a digital tattoo. It’s a kind of bar-code scanner. Everything you buy is priced in increments of time, from pay phones to sports cars. How does it all work? Don’t ask. This is the kind sleek sci-fi flick that doesn’t waste time explaining its premise. You just have to run with it. And there’s a lot of running. Not just because it’s an action movie, but because the characters are, well, racing against time. If your clock runs down to zero, you die, with a spastic electric jolt. It’s called “timing out.” No one can afford to be in debt. And there’s plenty of crime afoot, because you can steal someone’s time in an arm-wrestling transfer, or give it away. Needless to say, there are more word plays on time than sexual double entendres in a Bond movie. When a gangster tells his thugs to “clean their clocks,” it’s not just a metaphor. Continue…

Occupy democracy

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 8:52 AM - 0 Comments

Jeff Jedras questions the suggestion that Occupy protesters would simply be better off voting.

Yes, they should get involved, but we should also reform our political system because, the fact is, it is viewed as irrelevant and ineffective by many Canadians, and not just the young folk. If we want greater engagement by citizens of all ages, we need to start doing something differently.

Off the top of my head, I’d suggest loosening the oppressive yoke of party discipline, empowering individual MPs to have personalities and agendas and represent their constituents and causes, and making the policy development process in political parties actually connected to their election platform instead of an exercise in pointless tedium. For starters.

A short public service message

By Colby Cosh - Friday, October 28, 2011 at 5:14 AM - 0 Comments

It’s the damnedest thing: when I visit the website of discount store Winners, I find nothing in its “In the News” section or in its “In the Community” section about an Edmonton outlet’s clumsy mistreatment of an autistic child. The store’s behaviour certainly counts as interaction with the community, and has certainly made news. International headlines, even!

Young Emily Ainsworth travels with an “autism service dog” named Levi. Emily’s mother points out that service animals are “permitted in public under human rights legislation”, which is a very slight simplification. Alberta law actually specifies [PDF] that retailers cannot discriminate against customers on the basis of “physical reliance on a guide dog [or] service dog”; there is no Alberta Human Rights Commission caselaw on autism service animals.

But the likely reason for this is that Emily would certainly win any such case in a resounding slam-dunk. Most people working in retail jobs are probably vaguely familiar with the functions performed by guide dogs for the blind, and would know better than to challenge one. It may be somewhat natural, however, for a cute, physically well child accompanied by a dog to arouse skepticism—even though certified service dogs like Levi have special identifying vests and papers that can be produced on request.

So it would probably help prevent embarrassments if people realized that autism dogs are not just present for emotional support. Autistic children are impulsive, and can’t always interpret signs and orders; an autism dog is trained to physically protect them. A service dog training facility in Lynden, Ont., explains it this way:

One of the key roles of ADS service dogs is to provide safety outside of the home, in public settings and at school. The service dog acts as a physical anchor for the child with autism. A tether made of nylon webbing joins the service dog and child. The webbing is connected around the child’s waist, like a belt, and links up to a ring on the dog’s service dog jacket. ADS trains the service dogs to respond to commands given by the caregiver or educator. The service dog is specially trained to stop on command. As a result this prevents the child from entering into potentially dangerous situations (i.e. roadways, parking lots, bodies of water, ravines, etc.) and gives the caregiver or educator the much needed time to intervene and direct the child back onto the safer path. The service dog also prevents the child from wandering away from the family while out in public settings.

In short, autism service dogs are not much different in principle from guide dogs for the blind, and provide for personal independence in a closely analogous way. If you’re a retail clerk, host, receptionist, or proprietor, you should be aware of this. If only for your own good.

Are the circumstances surrounding Moammar Gadhafi’s death worth investigating?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 5:49 PM - 0 Comments

How many MPs do we need?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 5:32 PM - 0 Comments

The New Democrats and Liberals say they’re eager to hear what the provinces have to say about the Harper government’s additions to the House of Commons. Liberal MP Judy Sgro says adding MPs now is not fiscally responsible.

It’s being suggested by some that it would take something like 900 MPs to achieve true representation by population, but astute commenter LaxAtlDwfYow figures we could get very nearly there with 350.

Speaking with reporters after QP today, interim Liberal leader Bob Rae wondered if it would be better to work within a fixed number of MPs. Continue…

A letter in song

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 3:34 PM - 0 Comments

Raffi has composed Jack Layton’s final letter as a song.

“In his last letter to Canadians, Jack Layton expressed a spirit of cooperation and positivity that resonated strongly with me and with many Canadians. This message was so widely shared immediately after his passing, I wanted to capture its wisdom in song to help us remember,” says Raffi, who in recent years has written songs inspired by the likes of Nelson Mandela, Jane Goodall, and the Dalai Lama.

The Paul Dewar show

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 2:31 PM - 0 Comments

Another video from the Dewar campaign.

Robot balls: you don’t need them, but you know you want them

By Jesse Brown - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 2:18 PM - 0 Comments

Here is an unnecessary thing for you to covet: Sphero, a robot ball you control with your smartphone, on it’s way this holiday season for $130 US.

What’s it good for? Who cares, it looks fun. You can guide the thing around with your finger, draw a path for it to follow, or use it in a small but growing library of games that blur the line between virtual and physical.

For example, golf. Take a swing with your phone in hand, and Sphero will react as if it had been smacked by an iron club. Orbotix, Sphero’s maker, is encouraging developers to come up with their own applications and games for Sphero, so who knows what the future might bring?

For starters, it’s a great way to mess with kittens and babies. Personally, I’d like to see a swarm of these beat the crap out of a Furby.

What Will We Do When We Can’t Laugh at NBC?

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 1:44 PM - 0 Comments

The annual story of the U.S. TV season is that NBC doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing; this season’s troubles have been immortalized in a Taiwanese animation segment, though I don’t think it’s one of the best (the Playboy bunny getting executed to show the failure of The Playboy Club… okay, but it’s a bit literal).

Normally, this would just be another story of a network that lost its way at least a decade ago and has continued to soldier on. There are a few things that make NBC stories fascinating to people. One thing, again, is that NBC has mythologized itself more than any other network – this is the network, after all, that has a long-running comedy series about itself. When ABC has problems, they’re just ABC; NBC has made itself an institution, like HBO. The whole Tonight Show controversy was built around the mythology of NBC and its most legendary franchise. NBC is like a sports team; the people running it and playing for it are almost completely different now, but the legends and the history and the traditions are still part of the way we think of it.

Two, NBC has actually had a pretty good track record of producing shows that have a loyal and passionate following. They’re the network of The Office, Community, Parks & Recreation, 30 Rock, Parenthood and Chuck. The network has picked up a lot of bad shows too, but the basic strategy in the Jeff Zucker era was to cultivate a cool, hip image and look for hip shows. Fox did hip comedy and drama too in that period, but their attempts Continue…

Time is short

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 1:34 PM - 0 Comments

The Conservatives have invoked time allocation on C-19, the bill that eliminates the long-gun registry. Of the ten government bills debated in the House since Parliament reconvened in June, the Harper government has now invoked time allocation on five of them: C-3 (budget implementation), C-10 (the omnibus crime bill), C-13 (budget implementation), C-18 (Canadian Wheat Board) and C-19.

On a sixth bill, C-6, which legislated an end to the lockout at Canada Post, the government invoked closure.

The young Stephen Harper would no doubt be concerned.

Quebec refusing to destroy gun registry data

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:43 PM - 0 Comments

The provincial government in Quebec says it will defy an order by Ottawa to destroy data related to the long-gun registry. Provincial Public Security Minister Robert Dutil said Wednesday the Sûreté du Québec will be told to hold onto the data it has collected over the years while the province seeks to gain control of federally-held data on Quebec gun owners. Quebec’s plan is to build a gun registry of its own to replace the federal registry the Conservatives are planning to dismantle. “We will work hard to make sure that these tools are given back to Quebec,” provincial Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Yvon Vallières said. “We helped pay for them, I don’t see why we couldn’t have them.”

The Globe and Mail

U.S. economy grows at 2.5 per cent

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 0 Comments

U.S. economic growth accelerated between July and September of this year, aided by a pickup in consumer and business spending, the Wall Street Journal reports. GDP grew at an inflation-adjusted annual rate of 2.5 per cent in the third quarter, below the 2.7 per cent forecast by economists surveyed by Dowjones Newswires but enough to ease widespread concern that the U.S. might be slipping back into recession.

The Wall Street Journal

Federal government commits $477 million to U.S.-led military satellite system

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:30 PM - 0 Comments

Ottawa is planning to spend as much as $477 million on a military satellite program. The goal is to have nine satellites hovering over different parts of the world, ready to provide high-frequency bandwidth for U.S. and allied forces wherever they may be operating. Australia has already contributed $800 million to the U.S.-led Wideband Global Satellite System project, while New Zealand, Luxembourg, Denmark and the Netherlands have expressed interest. But 10 years after it was initially announced, the project has so far been marred by cost overruns and manufacturing issues. Initially estimated to cost $1.3 billion for six satellites, the project is already 39.5 per cent over budget and it’s expected the final tally could climb to more than $3.5 billion.

Postmedia News

U.S. mayors losing patience with Occupy protests

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:19 PM - 0 Comments

Some U.S. cities have begun cracking down on the Occupy Wall St.-inspired protests that have spread across the continent. Police in Oakland dispersed protesters late Tuesday by filling the city’s core with tear gas, while officials in San Francisco have warned protesters in a makeshift camp they could be arrested if they don’t leave. Earlier this week, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed ordered police to arrest the dozens of protesters occupying a downtown park. In Democratic-leaning Chicago, meanwhile, the Occupy protesters have requested 24-hour access to Grant Park and demanded that charges be dropped against the more than 300 protesters arrested there in the past weeks.

The New York Times

Consumers sue RIM over BlackBerry outage

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 12:11 PM - 0 Comments

Research in Motion has been hit with consumers lawsuits in Canada and the U.S. over the four-day BlackBerry outage that disrupted email, instant messaging and browsing services for millions of users on five continents earlier this month, Reuters reports. North of the border, a lawsuit on behalf of all Canadian BlackBerry owners with an active service agreement at the time of the disruption was filed on Wednesday in Quebec Superior Court. In the U.S. a similar lawsuit was filed the same day in federal court in Santa Ana, California. The US complaint said that RIM earns at least $3.4 million per day on fees for a service that, the lawsuit argues, it failed to provide between October 11 and October 14.

Reuters

The newest math

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 11:24 AM - 0 Comments

After one version last week and another last night, the official House of Commons math now adds 15 new seats for Ontario, six for British Columbia, six for Alberta and three for Quebec.

The provinces thus break down as so.

Ontario 38.8% of the population and 35.8% of the seats
Quebec 23.1% and 23.1%
British Columbia 13.3% and 12.4%
Alberta 11.0% and 10.1%
Manitoba 3.6% and 4.1%
Saskatchewan 3.1% and 4.1%
Nova Scotia 2.7% and 3.3%
New Brunswick 2.2% and 3.0%
Newfoundland 1.5% and 2.1%
PEI 0.4% and 1.2%

Eurozone leaders emerge with plan to stem debt crisis

By macleans.ca - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 11:16 AM - 0 Comments

After marathon negotiations, and tensions that flared up into an epic fist fight among Italian lawmakers on Wednesday, eurozone leaders announced on Thursday morning that they have reached a deal to shore-up Greece’s debt, and increase the firepower of a fund meant to prevent contagion to other troubled European economies. The agreement sees private investors accepting a 50 per cent loss in the face value of their Greek bonds, a measure expected to reduce the country’s debt levels to 120 per cent of GDP by the end of the decade, according to the Financial Times. European leaders also said they would provide risk insurance over new bonds issued by countries struggling with high-level debt, such as Italy, a mechanism believed to boost the eurozone’s bailout fund to about $1.4tn. French president Nicolas Sarkozy called his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, shortly after the deal, in what analysts say may be an attempt to get China to help bankroll the EU’s plan to rescue Greece, the Wall Street Journal reports. Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed “cautious optimism” about the eurozone deal.

The Financial Times

The Wall Street Journal

The Canadian Press

Criminals didn’t register guns, but registered guns figured in crime

By John Geddes - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 10:45 AM - 0 Comments

Among the arguments against the long-gun registry, I think the most compelling, at least superficially, was the indignant assertion that gun owners are, by and large, law-abiding citizens who present no danger to society. I know that’s true. Why impose a registration requirement on them?

I’m inclined to respond with smart-alecky questions about similar impositions. Why audit taxpayers when most dutifully pay up? Why ask drivers to blow at those RIDE checks when most are sober? But I fear that many of those who hated the gun registry would miss my rhetorical point and heartily agree that random roadside breathalizers and routine CRA audits should be done away with next.

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Healthier, but not cheaper

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

Chris Auld debunks the notion that encouraging healthier lifestyles will decrease public health care costs.

The evidence suggests that unhealthy lifestyles tend to increase health care use at any given age and reduce life expectancy, so more is spent per year but for fewer years. For example, statistical estimates from a well-known 1997 paper are displayed in the graph. The lower two lines show that if we compare a smoker and a non-smoker who are the same age, we should expect to find that the smoker consumes more health care. But the top two lines show that health care costs for non-smokers eventually become much higher than those for smokers simply because smokers on average die sooner than non-smokers. This study estimated that if every smoker were to spontaneously quit, demand on the health care system would first fall, as the quitters become healthier than they otherwise would be, but eventually rise by 7 per cent in the long run as smokers live longer.

Ask a simple question

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 9:33 AM - 0 Comments

In yesterday’s episode, the NDP’s David Christopherson attempted to convince Defence Minister Peter MacKay to say either the word “yes” or the word “no.”

Christopherson. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has proven that he is good at misdirection, rhetoric and personal insults. What he is not so good at is giving straight answers. The minister hurls accusations of fearmongering, but the biggest source of fearmongering is the minister’s refusal to clear the air on base closures. The minister is the only who can put military families and their communities at ease. Will he please stand in his place and assure military base communities that they have nothing to fear?

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How did Michael Jackson die?

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, October 27, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

Mario Anzuoni-Pool/Getty Images

As the legal team for Dr. Conrad Murray prepares to make its case, a new toxicology report could break the last leg in the defence of Michael Jackson’s embattled former physician. Conducted by the Los Angeles County coroner at the request of the prosecution, the report concluded that the amount of lorazepam found in the late pop star’s body was “totally inconsistent with oral consumption of lorazepam tablets”—contradicting one argument advanced by Murray’s defence that Jackson, exhausted from rehearsing for his comeback tour, swallowed eight tablets of the anti-anxiety drug the day he died.

The 58-year-old physician has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the June 25, 2009, death of the pop legend, who died at his rented Los Angeles home as he prepared for a series of 50 sold-out concerts at London’s O2 Arena. On Aug. 28, 2009, the coroner ruled that Jackson died of an acute intoxication of propofol, a powerful anaesthetic, in combination with a cocktail of drugs, including lorazepam.

In a two-hour interview with LAPD detectives taped two days after Jackson’s death and presented in court, Murray described the insomniac pop star begging for his “milk,” the slang for propofol, the morning he died. The doctor admitted he administered a daily intravenous drip in the two months leading up to his death. Concerned that Jackson was addicted, Murray said he tried to “wean him off” propofol in the three days before his death by giving him lorazepam and other drugs. While Murray’s defence team abandoned one theory that Jackson orally administered the lethal dose of propofol himself, it still maintains he used a syringe to inject propofol through a catheter in his leg, and took lorazepam while Murray was out of the room—creating a “perfect storm in his body that killed him instantly,” according to Murray’s lead lawyer, Ed Chernoff.

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