The many ways bus drivers can be mean

By Emma Teitel - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Ottawa mayor Jim Watson said he felt “sick” and “angry” after watching a YouTube video uploaded by a city transit passenger depicting an Ottawa bus driver verbally harassing another passenger. The passenger was apparently reading aloud from a sexually explicit play he had written; he also happened to be autistic. “Shut the f–k up,” “Shut your ignorant f–king cake-hole,” and “If you don’t shut your f–king face I’m going to stick my fist in it!” are just a few of the driver’s alleged correctives caught on tape (unfortunately the video only captured an image of the victim, not the perpetrator). The passenger, who described himself as “mildly autistic,” can be seen giving a very meek apology and darting off the bus at the next stop. Mayor Watson is shocked and appalled. I’m not—shocked, that is. Say what you want about city transit employees—they’re overworked, underpaid, overtired—but you can’t deny that they are, by and large, an unapologetically surly bunch (except, in my vast commuting experience, the ones in Nova Scotia, where everyone is delightful). And it’s about time someone told them to snap out of it. Being miserable is all well and good when you’re a Subway sandwich artist or telemarketer (two of my own previous occupations, coincidentally), but when you’re a public employee and your job requires that you deal daily with the elderly, infirm—and yes, some of the 35 million plus tourists who visit Canada each year—it should also require that you check your surliness at the folding doors.

I might not be so harsh on transit workers if they would only discriminate. But they’re equal opportunity churls: they’re mean to everyone. An immigrant with a hard-to-comprehend question, an old lady with a bundle buggy, a homeless guy with someone else’s recycling, a serial teen-mom, a puppy—you name it, they yell at it.

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Sing along

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 9:55 AM - 0 Comments

Just before the House officially begins business each Wednesday, the MPs in the chamber sing O Canada. The dulcet tones of honourable members are carried on CPAC and so yesterday this scene was broadcast.

The NDP says the two MPs, Lise St. Denis and Djaouida Sellah, a francophone and an allophone respectively, are trying to learn the English lyrics of the anthem and should be “applauded, not derided,” for doing so.

CTV is conducting an online plebiscite to determine the exact level of consternation that should be applied here.

Peter Kent dismisses himself

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

With a written statement of the minister in her possession, Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan again confronted Peter Kent yesterday about cuts to ozone monitoring.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment has twice denigrated reporters when his position is challenged. But clearly the real problem is the news reader across the way. I have the briefing note which says there is no duplication in Canada’s ozone monitoring networks, which means they cannot be optimized and streamlined, only cut. Answers to an order paper question signed by the minister also says there is no duplication. Will the government finally admit there will be cuts to the ozone program?

Mr. Kent stood here and dismissed Ms. Duncan’s premise entirely.

Mr. Speaker, I reject all of the assumptions of my honourable colleague yet once again. I would also again suggest that she use more reliable research than that to which she has made a practice of using.

Mike De Souza, who has been doggedly pursuing this story over the last few months (see here, here, here, here, here and here), explains the order paper response in context of recent revelations

A loyal son, a ruthless brother

By Michael Friscolanti - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments

Marcos Townsend/The Gazette

When police searched Hamed Shafia’s Montreal bedroom in the summer of 2009, they found a short essay written for a recent school assignment. The title was: “Importance of Traditions and Customs.” Today, inside a Kingston, Ont., courtroom—where Hamed and his parents are on trial for the mass “honour killing” of four family members—the essay has a new title: Exhibit #2.

“Traditions and customs are to be followed till the end of ones life,” Hamed wrote in his opening line, his mistakes marked by a teacher’s pen. “It doesn’t matter at all weather your close to the community following the specific traditions or living millions of miles away. Traditions and customs of a person is like his identity and what makes him special.”

Hamed was 18, toothpick skinny with a mop of curly black hair, when he printed those ominous words. The eldest son of a wealthy Afghan entrepreneur, he had immigrated to Canada less than two years earlier, and already enjoyed what most in his adopted country can only dream about: a Lexus in the garage, a wallet full of cash, and the inevitable inheritance of his dad’s multi-million-dollar business. (In one memorable car-ride conversation, captured by a police wiretap in the days before their arrests, father asked son if he had any small bills because “sometimes they don’t accept hundreds” at the gas station.)

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Bestsellers – Week of November 21st, 2011

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Top-selling fiction and non-fiction titles

Fiction

Non-fiction

LAST WEEK (WEEKS ON LIST)

Madoff women sound off on Madoff men

By Nicholas Köhler - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

GI/BM/Getty Images

Bernie Madoff’s decades-long Ponzi scheme, worth upwards of $50 billion, put the Manhattan money guru, former NASDAQ chair and philanthropist in jail for life and devastated thousands of investors, including some of his closest friends and family members. To his son Mark, who later committed suicide—he hung himself with his dog’s leash from the same beam in his SoHo apartment where he’d lately hung a pinata for his daughter’s birthday party—Madoff left what Mark colourfully described as a “legacy of s–t.”

That Mark put his father’s impact on his life in scatalogical terms is no accident: a preoccupation with poop defined Madoff’s private life, according to many not-so-subtle hints offered by two recent “inside” accounts of the family—The End of Normal: A Wife’s Anguish, a Widow’s New Life, by Mark’s widow, Stephanie Madoff Mack, the other, magazine writer Laurie Sandell’s Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family, brokered by Catherine Hooper, fiancée to Mark’s younger brother Andrew.

In both books Madoff emerges as a screamer, a domestic tyrant, anal in the truest sense. He could not “abide the feeling of elastic,” Sandell writes, and therefore ordered custom-made underpants with buttons up the side. On his 88-foot-long boat (appropriately, but perhaps incompletely, called Bull), Madoff enforced strict cleanliness, including walking new guests through proper use of the bathroom: “close the lid on the toilet before you flush,” he tells Catherine, “or it’ll be a s–t shower.” “Bernie was fastidiously neat to the point of being obsessive-compulsive,” writes Madoff Mack. “Even worse, Captain Dick, the man who looked after Bernie’s boats, kept coming in to use the toilet, which Bernie would then inspect. The rest of us were then treated to his crude description of what he had seen, and his almost girlish outrage over how disgusted he was.”

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Babies are taking over television

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Colleen Hayes/Colleen Hayes/NBC

Emily Spivey told critics that her new show, Up All Night, with Christina Applegate and Will Arnett as a hip couple trying to adjust to the challenge of raising a newborn, has a premise “straight out of my baby journal.” It sometimes feels like most shows this season are straight out of a baby journal. Television shows used to avoid babies if possible; Dawn Jeffory Nelson, a professional “baby wrangler” on movies like the new Harold & Kumar picture, told Maclean’s that babies are usually “relegated to the background,” or “they go up the stairs as babies, and they come down and they’re five.” But today, babies are taking over TV in a way that we haven’t seen since the Olsen twins were on Full House.

The story possibilities of babies seem to have fired the imaginations of writers like Spivey, who based her show on her own experience as a working mother. Producers are aware that a baby can add a new dimension to a show: Nelson says that on Dexter, a show she recently did some work on, the psychopathic title character’s baby son “is becoming an important aspect of Dexter’s character.” The family drama Parenthood has incorporated an adoption and a pregnancy, and creator Jason Katims told TV Line that “The baby arc is really interesting and will essentially last the whole season.” And Last Man Standing is supposed to be about Tim Allen’s relationship with his wife and daughters, but builds a number of plots around his attempts to impart manly values to his baby grandson.

Some of this baby mania may be due to what the Los Angeles Times has described as “the Modern Family effect.” Lily, the adorable baby adopted by the characters of Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), had viewers all over the world cooing over her. Another show that has quietly proven the effectiveness of babies is Raising Hope, from My Name Is Earl creator Greg Garcia. The show, where the leads are in charge of raising a serial killer’s baby, has proven that the presence of a little girl can make abrasive characters more family-friendly.

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An indie gal’s take on Marilyn Monroe

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Laurence Cendrowicz

Of all the screen goddesses that Hollywood has produced, there is no more enduring icon than Marilyn Monroe. Her career spanned just 16 years, but she remains the gold standard of sex symbols. From souvenir kitsch to Warhol silkscreens, her face is ubiquitous. Everyone from Madonna to Lady Gaga pays her homage. And when Lindsay Lohan needs to transfuse her impoverished glamour with some hard currency, she strips for Playboy, cloning the cover pose that launched the magazine, and Monroe’s career, in 1953. But an actress who actually dares to play Marilyn onscreen faces a huge challenge, not just in simulating how she looked, talked and moved, but in breaking through the platinum icon to find the woman behind it.

In My Week With Marilyn, Michelle Williams does that. She doesn’t just get away with it, she incarnates Monroe with such delicate precision and luminous depth that it’s thrilling to watch. She may not seem an obvious choice. The indie gamine—cast as troubled wives in Brokeback Mountain, Blue Valentine and Sarah Polley’s upcoming Take This Waltz—lacks Marilyn’s ample curves, and hasn’t exactly cultivated herself as a sex symbol. Which makes her transformation that much more miraculous. “You have to have courage to take on a part like this,” British director Simon Curtis told Maclean’s. “It’s like a young actor taking on Hamlet. People’s excitement in seeing her performance is palpable.”

Williams pulls off this feat of acting in a movie that is about acting. Based on memoirs by Colin Clark—who fell under Monroe’s spell while serving as a 23-year-old gofer on The Prince and the Showgirl—the story spans just a narrow slice of her life while shooting the 1957 comedy at London’s Pinewood Studios. She’s cast opposite an imperious Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), who’s also directing. Terrified by Olivier, and paralyzed by anxiety, Marilyn seeks refuge in pills and the maternal comfort of method acting coach Paula Strasberg (Zoë Wanamaker). With her fresh marriage to Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott) already crumbling, she takes a shine to Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a callow kid who’s sharp enough to appreciate her dilemma: “Olivier,” he tells her, “is a great actor who wants to be a film star. You’re a film star who wants to be a great actress. This movie will not help either of you.”

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What’s keeping Windsor awake at night?

By Alex Ballingall - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Brent Foster

They say it comes most often in the dead of night: a deep, relentless rumble that rolls in from the west. At the best of times, it’s a low frequency drone—not unlike the sound of idling truck engines, says one resident. At its worst, the mysterious force known as the Windsor Hum is described as an incessant roar. It rattles windows, frightens dogs, wakes up babies, doles out headaches and deprives people of sleep.

“It pulsates all night long,” says Christine Southern, who lives with her husband and two children in LaSalle, a suburb of Windsor, Ont., near the eastern bank of the Detroit River, where the sound is reportedly strongest. “You can feel it in your chest,” she says. “Once you hear it, you can’t not hear it. You listen for it every night.”

For months, no one knew where it was coming from. Far-fetched theories were tossed about. Some people insisted it was alien spaceships, says Southern, a leading voice on the Windsor Hum Facebook group, which has more than 780 members. Others said it came from secret military testing beneath the surface of the Great Lakes. As it turns out, the likely source may be just as difficult to address.

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Young, divorced and stigmatized

By Kate Lunau - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Denise Truscello/WireImage

Wedding season can be demanding, no matter how great the parties or how happy the couples. For Malik, a 26-year-old from Oshawa, Ont., who attended three weddings this summer, it was especially tough because he was keeping a secret from his friends. At an age when many of them are settling down, he’s in the process of separating from his wife. Soon, he’ll be divorced. “It is really isolating. I still haven’t told everybody,” says Malik, who asked that his real name not be used so friends wouldn’t learn of the split in Maclean’s. “I’m going to a wedding at the end of November for one of my closest friends. I don’t have the heart to tell him, ‘I’m going through a divorce, but congratulations.’ ”

A glut of books, movies and magazine stories suggests Malik’s situation isn’t unique: consider the recent, impossible-to-avoid breakups of stars Zooey Deschanel and Kim Kardashian after two years and 72 days of marriage, respectively. (Kardashian’s divorce attracted nearly as much attention as her over-the-top wedding, minus the televised special.)

But even if the celebrity cycle and the Eat Pray Love juggernaut would suggest that marriages are fizzing out in record numbers, that’s actually far from true. Four in 10 of the Canadian couples who married in 2008 will be divorced by 2035, according to a report from the Vanier Institute of the Family, an Ottawa-based think tank, and the rate has been relatively stable for more than a decade. That year, there were 70,229 divorces across the country, a four per cent drop from the year before—and a full 27 per cent lower than in 1987, the year after amendments to the Divorce Act made breaking up easier, legally speaking.

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When Buddy met Pedro

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, November 24, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Photograph by Cole Garside

On a grey and blustery November afternoon, the lovebirds nestle together for warmth. Scrunched into a corner by a large boulder, they seem oblivious to the gawkers and shutterbugs that ring the path above. Even another couple mating furiously at their feet fails to draw much more than a quick, beady-eyed glance. Buddy and Pedro, the Toronto Zoo’s suddenly famous gay penguins, are lost in the moment. Or maybe they are simply digesting lunch. A gut full of smelts and enduring passion are difficult to differentiate when it comes to small, flightless waterfowl.

Truth be told, there is little to set the pair apart from the 10 other African penguins that make up the park’s newest exhibit. At 21, Buddy is more portly and has a notched beak—the sign of a distinguished older male. Pedro, 10, while not exactly a hardbody, could be described as lithe, and tends to be more energetic. Both are around standard Spheniscus demersus height, just a tad over two feet. But even zoo officials rely on their colour-coded flipper bands to pick them out—pale orange for Pedro, flamboyant yellow for Buddy.

In the beginning, few took notice of their May-December romance. When they arrived in Toronto from an all-male colony at the Toledo Zoo last November, they were placed in quarantine, then gradually introduced to the other penguins, imported from two different U.S. facilities. The group then spent the winter indoors, in a building next to the exhibit, getting to know each other and their keepers. In May, when the display opened, they moved outside to the large pool—a former seal pen with vantage areas up top and windows down below for the underwater view. Zoo workers were pleased: the penguins spent about 70 per cent of their time this summer swimming, a sign of contentment for the species. But Buddy and Pedro proved to be a little aloof—especially to the girls. While the others frolicked, they would repair to a shady nook underneath a large rock for alone time. Soon it was apparent that they had bonded.

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A confused judicial treatise on polygamy

By Emmett Macfarlane - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 8:57 PM - 0 Comments

Today’s decision by the British Columbia Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of Canada’s anti-polygamy law serves as a quintessential example of the difficulties inherent in having courts resolve fundamentally moral issues implicated by the Charter of Rights.

Justice Robert Bauman’s judgment is an exhausting and comprehensive display of philosophy, social scientific inquiry, history, religious and cultural studies. It serves to demonstrate, yet again, that judges are experts in law and tend not to be very good at any of these other things.

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The Commons: Whatever he meant, Tony Clement stands by what he said

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 7:15 PM - 0 Comments

The Scene. Tony Clement would not stand for this. Or rather, he would stand. Indeed, here is where he would take his stand.

For months he has been the subject of indignation and accusation. He is said by his opponents to have frivolously and flagrantly spent public funds, drawn from an account approved by Parliament for entirely unrelated reasons, on various trinkets And he is said to have subsequently avoided taking responsibility for himself, remaining in his seat while others were sent up to explain his actions away.

But now he stands accused of intervening to have the word “sure” removed from the official record of his testimony before a parliamentary committee. And so he stood, rising immediately after Question Period to solemnly proclaim his innocence on this count and to call on the Speaker to investigate.

“These baseless and outrageous allegations form a serious breach of my privilege,” he declared, “which is impeding my work as a member of this House and as a minister of the Crown.”

Mr. Clement stopped just short of demanding a full public inquiry with subpoena powers, but a police raid of the Hansard office seems in order. Continue…

‘Baseless and outrageous’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 4:51 PM - 0 Comments

After QP this afternoon, Tony Clement stood with the following point of privilege.

Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that certain changes were made to the evidence of the meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on November 2, 2011, including my testimony. Members of the NDP opposition have alleged that I made those changes. I have not, nor has anyone in my employ. These baseless and outrageous allegations form a serious breach of my privilege, which is impeding my work as a member of this House and as a minister of the Crown.

I respectfully ask that you review this matter to determine how and why these changes were made and that you provide assurances to this House as to the reasons for any changes to the official record of this place. The suggestions from the opposition regarding any role by me are absolutely false, and I look forward to your attention to this matter. In conclusion, I believe you will find all the necessary information in my letter that I provided to you before question period. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

German bond sale fizzles

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 3:47 PM - 0 Comments

A bond sale by Germany’s Bundesbank on Wednesday fizzled, as investors shied away even from the country that has so far been the eurozone’s financial stalwart, the Financial Times reports. The bond auction raised only two-thirds of the amount targeted, a worrying sign that the markets are concerned the debt crisis won’t spare Europe’s biggest economy and that the continent’s monetary union could collapse.

The Financial Times

B.C. judge upholds polygamy ban

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2:51 PM - 0 Comments

The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled to uphold Canada’s polygamy laws, adding that minors in polygamous marriages shouldn’t face prosecution as a result of this law, the CBC reports. Chief Justice Robert Bauman ruled in favour of a section of the Criminal Code barring polygamous unions after 42 days of legal arguments on the constitutionality of this section of the code. B.C. Attorney General Shirley Bond called it a “landmark” ruling, but opponents said it went against freedom of religion and freedom of association guaranteed in the charter.

CBC

CBC to hand over internal records

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2:46 PM - 0 Comments

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday that the CBC must hand over some of its internal records to the federal information commissioner, the Toronto Star reports. Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, the court determined, has the right to see the documents in order to be able to review complaints filed against the public broadcaster following denials to freedom-of-information requests. The CBC blocked the release of records related to 16 such requests citing exemptions under the federal Access to Information and Privacy Act involving documents related to its journalistic, creative and programming activities. The public broadcaster is also under scrutiny in the Commons, where an ethics committee is investigating whether it abused the exemption clause to avoid handing over documents to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Quebecor-owned QMI Agency and Sun News Network, which ran a series of stories about the CBC’s spending habits, have also complained about unfairly being denied freedom-of-information requests.

The Toronto Star

Prison is so passé

By Jesse Brown - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2:36 PM - 0 Comments

There are so many things to dislike about Stephen Harper’s unnecessary, anachronistic, ruinously expensive, and mean-spirited omnibus crime bill that at least one of them has been largely overlooked: the bill will bring an end to the option of house arrest as a “conditional sentence” for a large range of offences. What that means is that many small time crooks, including grow-op gardeners, joy-riders and laptop thieves may find themselves behind bars, whereas they might have otherwise been constrained to their homes and places of work.

This is a shame, and not just because prison is, as Elizabeth May pointed out, “crime school” for minor hoodlums who might otherwise have found their way.

An end to house arrest will also mean that the Canadian justice system will be unable to make use of technologies that make it cheaper and more effective than ever to keep an eye on criminals without locking them up. I speak specifically of a new generation of GPS-enabled tracking devices.

House arrest was once a difficult thing to enforce- corrections officers would have to randomly and sporadically check in on convicts to make sure they were following the rules. Later, ankle monitors were introduced that could measure the distance between a wearer and a receiving unit placed in his or her home. The unit used radio signals to measure distance, and then used phone lines to relay the data to the authorities.

Today, GPS units on cellular networks allow for a much more sophisticated approach to house arrest. Convicts can move between their homes and workplaces  and other pre-ordained locations without triggering false alarms. Any small deviation goes recorded, and major deviations—like, say, a drug dealer approaching a schoolyard, can set off instant alarms. Additional devices can constantly monitor blood-alcohol levels.

If left completely unmonitored by actual humans, these devices would likely be circumvented. Cunning criminals will adapt and find ways to break their sentences without triggering alerts. But coupled with human oversight and random in-person check-ups, modern house arrest can be pretty difficult to outsmart.  If crimes are committed while a monitoring device is worn, alibis will have to match perfect digital records of a convicts’ whereabouts.

In the U.S., the ballooning prison population resulting from the war on drugs has pushed these technologies forward.  It would be nice if Canada could benefit from them without repeating American history.

Jesse Brown is the host of TVO.org’s Search Engine podcast. He is on Twitter @jessebrown

[Main article image: Tim Pearce/Flickr]

Yemeni president to step down

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2:19 PM - 0 Comments

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed on Wednesday to sign a deal that sets the stage for his political exit after months of unrest, the Financial Times reports. According to the agreement, which was brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, and signed in the presence of Saudi King Abdullah, Saleh will hand the reins of power to Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi within 30 days, with presidential elections set to take place within 90 days of the signing. The plan also envisions a two-year transition period. Saleh said he will fly to New York for medical treatment shortly after signing the deal.

The Financial Times

On UBB, the fat lady has not yet sung

By Peter Nowak - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 2:17 PM - 0 Comments

It’s been a week since the CRTC released its big decision on usage-based Internet billing. With the dust settled, everything is a lot clearer, right? Not really. Because of the ruling’s complex nature, it looks like it may be some time before its effects are felt and understood. One thing is clear: this long-running drama that everyone hoped would be resolved, with Internet users and small service providers on one side and the big telecom companies on the other, is far from over.

A number of consumer advocates have come out in favour of the CRTC’s decision. University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist wrote this week that it is a very good thing for small Internet service providers. By allowing them to purchase capacity rather than per-byte usage from large ISPs, they now have the flexibility to offer plans that are different from what the big guys sell: Continue…

New evidence contradicts Clement on G8 fund

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 1:39 PM - 0 Comments

Documents obtained by the NDP through freedom-of-information requests contradict statements by Treasury Board President Tony Clement before the Commons that he merely played a “coordinating role” in carving up a $50 million fund for his riding before the G8 summit last year. The evidence obtained and shared by the NDP shows that Clement’s constituency office asked municipalities to submit funding applications, going so far as to specify the kinds of projects that were wanted, such as “storefront renovations, roadwork, landscaping and general beautification.”

The Globe and Mail

Treacherousness is in the eye of the beholder (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 1:34 PM - 0 Comments

In case you were wondering, Minister Kent’s office hasn’t yet responded to my request for clarification. Regardless, Mr. Kent will probably have to explain himself to the Speaker now—at least so far as his second use of the term “treacherous”—because the NDP’s Pierre Dionne Labelle rose with a point of order after Question Period yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, in his response earlier to my colleague from Halifax, the Minister of the Environment called her a traitor. Since when do we call someone a traitor for going to meet with elected representatives in another country? Why is the environment minister keeping tabs on the people the NDP meets with? We maintain valuable relationships with progressive people in the United States. Instead of keeping tabs on us, he would do well to keep an eye on the hole in the ozone layer.

The Speaker said he would review the comment in question.

Daily Show Segments Past

By Jaime Weinman - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

When Sarah Vowell made her debut as a Daily Show contributor last week (she’d been on before as a guest), I had an odd reaction: I started remembering Frank DeCaro. No, actually, every time the show introduces a new contributor – some stay around, some don’t – I start remembering the older segments and personalities, and how much the show has changed in the last decade without ever really going through an obvious re-tool. Because of the format of The Daily Show, performers rarely vanish in an obvious way: the only constant is the host, so as long as he’s there, anything else can be rotated in and out. Therefore the only true re-tool the show ever experienced was when Stewart replaced Kilborn.

And yet, after Stewart came in, a lot of the Kilborn-era aspects of the show remained, and they stayed around for longer than people might expect. DeCaro is the most obvious example because he was there from the beginning of the Kilborn show, and seemed out of place in the Stewart era. And yet he lasted until 2003, and since I started watching around 2001, I still sort of expect him to turn up. (I didn’t like his segment, but even with segments you don’t like, you sort of expect them to be there.) There were a lot of non-political segments, a holdover from the original concept of the show as a send-up of all the news, not just political coverage. There were regular features parodying showbiz coverage, tech coverage, and round-ups of stupid commercials. Steve Carell was particularly good at non-political segments, since his desperate energy lends itself well to phony showbiz enthusiasm. (I will admit, though, to being the only person of my acquaintance who didn’t hate Carell’s “Produce Pete” thing.) Stewart started the move to serious political humour as soon as he arrived, but the other segments lasted for quite a long time.

Some of these segments disappeared because they weren’t that good, others because the people who specialized in them (like Carell and Helms) left, others because of changing technology – with YouTube, we don’t need a regular advertising segment to see the crazy recent commercials. And some of the parodies of non-political news migrated to The Colbert Report, although that show has also been cutting back on that type of thing in recent years.

A lot of this, obviously, is just a show weeding out the stuff it doesn’t do so well and focusing on the stuff it does well: other shows are good at making fun of movies and vapid showbiz segments, but none are as good as The Daily Show at political humour, so it plays to its strengths. It’s just interesting to me that the current focus of the show is not a result of one big revision – maybe not even a conscious revision – but a slow process of revision taking place over many years, many comings and goings.

As for other people I still think of as part of the show even though they’re not: it took me a long time to realize that Mo Rocca had left, and I still sometimes think of John Oliver as English Mo Rocca. (I appreciate that this will probably be considered an insult to John Oliver. But I’m just talking about his function on the show.) Strangely enough, I have never connected Louis Black all that strongly with the show, even though his segment is one of the few that never quite gets retired. Maybe because his segment is a bit out of step with the rest of the show – even though they’ve tried to change that in recent years and make it closer to the type of multi-media humour they do regularly – so I almost think of it as a Lewis Black comedy bit, rather than a Daily Show bit.

Planted questions

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 at 1:03 PM - 0 Comments

In addition to the questions posed by opposition MPs each afternoon, a few spots are set aside each day for government MPs to ask questions. In theory, Conservative backbenchers might use these opportunities to perform their duty of holding the government to account. Instead they are generally used by the government side to lob friendly requests that ministers stand and expound on the greatness of the government’s efforts in some regard or another.

Yesterday though, the government side abandoned even that pretence and sent up Rob Merrifield to mouth the following on behalf of the people of Yellowhead. Continue…