Bollywood’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’

By Katie Engelhart - Wednesday, March 3, 2010 - 3 Comments

The film ‘Dunno Y…Na Jaane Kyun’ features a gay kiss

Its promotional posters, placed throughout India, show two bare-chested men, eyes closed and necks strained, locked in a sexual embrace. And though the film does not come out until May, it is already being hailed as an iconoclastic cinematic break—or, more commonly, “Bollywood’s answer to Brokeback Mountain.”

Sanjay Sharma’s film Dunno Y…Na Jaane Kyun will, for the first time in Bollywood history, feature a gay kiss. The plot centres on a struggling model who moves to Mumbai in search of fame, and then begins a relationship with another man. In a country that only decriminalized homosexuality last year, it’s no surprise that the premise has some ﬁlmgoers squirming. (In fact, until recently, even heterosexual kisses—or “lip-locks”—were taboo, although that is changing.)

To be fair, Dunno Y will not show Bollywood’s ﬁrst man-to-man kiss, per se. In 2008, the ﬁlm Dostana portrayed two men pretending to be gay, in an effort to fool a young woman into living with them. At the end of the ﬁlm, the two men kiss…as a punishment. And Bollywood has occasionally featured gay characters. But they are effeminate men whose roles are limited to comic relief.

And they are never cast in a sexual light. In contrast, Sharma insists that his ﬁlm depicts a “normal relationship” between two unambiguously gay men. “The only thing I was particular about was that this character should not come across as a caricature or just as an object of mockery,” he told the Times of India.

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Raptor devours cheerleader

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 4:58 PM - 6 Comments

Hey, haven’t we seen this before?

It happened on February 3rd, during the half-time show of the Toronto Raptors vs. New Jersey Nets game. One moment, the inflatable Toronto Raptor is bopping along beside an especially spirited Dance Pak cheerleader. The next moment, that same exuberant blonde is swallowed whole.

“The Raptor. Having some fun with the cheerleaders,” narrates the announcer. “Wow. Devoured! That’s… that’s wrong!”

Video footage of the incident—dubbed “Raptor devours cheerleader”—has since gone viral, with close to 3 million views on YouTube, hundreds of blog links, and tributes on a host of daily news networks.

It has also been played under a number of titles, though the understanding is never lost: “Maskot slukte cheerleader,” (Norway’s TV2underholdning),“Toronto Raptors mascotte eet cheerleader,” (Holland’s VKMag.com),“Maskottchen fristt Cheerleader auf,” (Germany’s RP Online), “Un ‘raptor,’ engullidor de cheerleaders” (Spain’s Eurosport).

Some have taken creative license with the footage, speculating about the Raptor’s new taste for human meat. “Did she taste like chicken?” pondered letroxxx in a comment on YouTube. “Is that Tiger Woods in there?” wondered Samoancanadian.

Others have debated the significance of the stunt. One blogger pointed out the skit was performed on Charles Darwin Day: “The important thing,” he wrote, “is that it demonstrates the concept of natural selection and survival of the fittest.” [Actually, Darwin Day is on February 12th.]

Most recently, a more sophisticated version of the stunt was attempted. Sarah C. (she wasn’t able to give me her last name, as per Raptors Dance Pak rules) was the dancer involved. She wouldn’t tell me what it was like inside the Raptor’s mouth—“we like to keep how we do the move a little bit of a secret”—but she says it all went according to plan: “[The Raptor] ate me and then spit out a man [who was also inside the costume.] The Dance Pak wanted him to give me back, so he spit me out, too.”

Weeks later, the Toronto Raptors franchise is still fielding media calls. “We’re totally surprised,” Anton Wright, manager of game operations for the team, told Maclean’s, noting that this is the most attention the Raptor has ever generated. For Wright, the stunt speaks for itself: “When you see [the Raptor] chomping on a dancer, fans and people on the opposite team are like: what’s going on? It’s pretty fun.”

Still, the stunt’s inherent entertainment factor does not exactly hold up as an explanation of the YouTube sensation. For one, there’s the simple fact that our darlingist dinosaur has tasted fresh cheerleader before. Here, for instance, the Raptor enjoys a spunky University of Buffalo cheerleader with a ponytail.

That, and the fact that the Houston Rocket’s mascot Clutch (a bear) has been cheerleader-devouring for years. In fact, Clutch was the first professional mascot to own a costume with cheerleader-devouring capabilities.

The Toronto Raptors do not allow the Raptor himself to be interviewed, but I caught up with Robert Boudwin, a.k.a. Clutch, this week.

“We do [the trick] about five or six times a year at Rockets games. And then I do it on the road,” Boudwin told me. “We’ve done that bit probably about 60 or 70 times now…And we’ve done it with countless cheerleaders.”

The first person Clutch ate, in fact, was not a cheerleader, but a child dressed up in the opposing team’s jersey. Since then, he’s unveiled some creative variations on the theme. “We’ve done it with PA announcers…. The PA announcer is talking on the mic and we eat her and then she continues to talk from the inside of the costume: ‘Hey, let me out of here. It’s dark in here. Oooh, God. What did you eat?’”

It works pretty simply, Boudwin tells me. Inside the costume, Boudwin wears a power belt with a battery and fan that is constantly sucking in air from the outside. The mouth has a trap door built into it, sealed with a thick piece of Velcro. From inside, Boudwin unlatches the Velcro, throws the mouth over the child/cheerleader, lifts the child/cheerleader onto his shoulder, and then seals the mouth before too much air is released.

I tell him that’s an impressive feat for an aging bear. (Boudwin has been Clutch for 15 years now). “Nah, they’re only 50 pounds for kids,” he laughs. “One hundred pounds for the girls. It’s not like you’re picking up a 200-pound man.” [Though Boudwin admits he’s done that, too.]

So is the T.Rap just a sorry copycat? In fact, it’s more accurate to say that Clutch and the Raptor have a special friendship: a bond that has placed them at the forefront of mascot innovation.

It all goes back 15 years. Boudwin was, by then, an expert in his field. As an undergrad, he started the mascot program at the University of Delaware, later moving to Houston after a successful audition for the part of Clutch. In 1997 or 1998, Boudwin heard of a new kind of inflatable mascot that had been introduced at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. Impressed, he contacted Signs and Shapes International, the company behind the costume, and discussed the possibility of building an inflatable version of his popular character. “Air Clutch was the first [inflatable mascot] in pro sports,” he boasts.

Air Clutch worked well…for a while. But Boudwin quickly tired of it and moved on to “the next phase,” an airhead doll—“a shorter, fatter [mascot] that can roll… and that have these trap doors in the mouth.”

A year or two later, says Boudwin, the Raptor called. Soon, he had an airhead of his own. Today, the Rockets and the Raptors are the only teams in the NBA league to have airhead mascots. Clutch and the Raptor have even performed side-by-side, gobbling down Dallas Mavericks dancers at an All-Star game.

For Boudwin, sharing the idea with his good friend just made sense. “I mean, a lot of the NBA mascots talk very regularly,” he says. “The general rule is that the guys that have been in it longer tend to associate with each other,” says Boudwin, noting he’s closest with the Raptor, the Utah Jazz Bear, the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Rumble the Bison, and the Pacers’ cat, Boomer.

Asked why the Raptor’s stunt was so popular when Clutch has been at the same thing for years, Boudwin just shrugs: “I mean there’s a lot of stuff out there on YouTube.”

In any event, it seems likely that ‘Raptor devours cheerleader’ is only the beginning. Scott Bowen, production manager of Signs and Shapes International, says he has met with the Raptor on a number of occasions to develop new features. “We’ve always got some R&D going,” he admits. Past brainstorming sessions have resulted in the mini inflatable Raptor and a pair of adaptable feet the Raptor mounts to stilts or rollerblades.

Still, game operations manager Anton Wright is cautious about promising more cheerleader devouring in the future. “We talked about it,” he concedes, “ and we don’t want to do it too much, because it gets boring then. Then it’s like: oh yeah, he’s eating another cheerleader again. He’s chomping another dancer… You just want to do it a couple times, where it still has that kind of appeal and that kind of, ‘What is he going to do? I wonder what he’s going to chomp on next time?’”
Cavemen who walk among us

By Katie Engelhart - Friday, February 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 74 Comments

From their workouts to their parenting styles, these modern men are fanatical in their devotion to Stone Age life

We’re used to seeing the potato as a focal point of conflict and discord, the clichéd casualty of the carbohydrate wars. But hoopla over green beans, that healthiest of vegetables? There are lots of reasons why Loren Cordain wouldn’t touch a green bean. If you ask him, he might talk about how legumes can render a healthy gut “leaky.” Or he might rant about their “anti-nutrient” properties. But it would come down to this: green beans weren’t around tens of thousands of years ago, when our prehistoric ancestors ushered in the Paleolithic era with the first tools made of stone. And so we shouldn’t eat them today.

“It’s not rocket science,” Cordain insists. His book, The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Food You Were Designed to Eat, now a bible to a small but growing subculture, is built around a simple premise: humans evolved over millions of years. Modern agriculture has been around for just 10,000, a blip on the evolutionary timeline. Because of this, humans are healthiest when eating as they did before agriculture came along—in other words, like cavemen.

The diet boils down to meat (lots of it), seafood, eggs, vegetables and fruits: anything you could hunt or forage for in the wild bush, and wouldn’t need to cook. All of which sounds generally inoffensive. “Nobody’s going to argue with fruits and veggies,” says Cordain. But the repertoire excludes so-called super-foods: green beans (and other legumes, like lentils), tomatoes (and other nightshades), dairy products and whole grains. Most oils are also out; today’s cavemen opt for lard.

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Virtue and Moir take the gold

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments

Canadian ice dancers are North America’s first-ever gold medalists in the event

Canadian ice dance duo Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir took home the gold medal with a stunning 221.57-point program. The pair inched ahead of their American rivals (and best friends) Charlie White and Meryl Davis, who took second place with 215.57 points. In the ice dance world, the win is a historic one. Since the sport was invented in 1976, no North American team had ever won gold. Virtue and Moir began skating together when she was seven and he was nine; they were so small that Tessa was able to lift Scott on the ice.

For more on Moir and Virtue’s unusually friendly rivalry with Americans Charlie White and Meryl Davis, click here.
Be careful what you text in China

By Katie Engelhart - Monday, February 22, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 2 Comments

Chinese police are searching text messages for ‘unhealthy’ content

Another virtual brick has been added to what has been dubbed “The Great Firewall of China.” According to the state-run China Daily, police will provide mobile phone companies with a set of “key words” deemed “unhealthy.” Text messages will then be searched by the cell companies for those phrases. People accused of transmitting unhealthy content will be investigated, and may have their texting capabilities suspended. China Daily suggests that the mobile companies are operating on orders from Beijing. “What if I send messages to my wife with sexual content?” asked one man, quoted in the paper. “Am I also going to be suspended?”

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Liveblog: men's free skate

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 7:01 PM - 3 Comments

American Evan Lysacek wins gold; Canada’s Patrick Chan places 5th

7:00 p.m:
T minus one hour. (I’m already giddy with excitement.) Tune in at 8 p.m for live commentary on the men’s free skate.

7:55 p.m:
OK, Canada. Where are we at? What you really need to know is that last night, Patrick Chan – our domestic darling, our medal-ready men’s master – CHOKED. It’s true. He’s starting tonight in 7th place. But lucky us; we’ve got Vaughn Chipeur standing strong in 4th.

8:09 p.m:
Sorry, folks. Some technical difficulties. we’ve got Tomas Verner skating for the Czech Republic

8:10 p.m:

Verner stands in 19th right now. I’m not surprised. This routine is moving through at a snail’s pace.

8:10 p.m:
Although that was a very crisp triple lutz.

8:12:
Wow. That was a face plant, ladies and gents. Nothing dainty about that fall.

8:12:
I’m confused because his vest was so fabuliciously sparkled. And yet, his routine lacked any hint of spunk.

8:14:
Score is not great. Sorry, Verner.

8:15:
But WOW. Check out the love story that drove Verner to the ice.

8:15
Italy’s up. We’ve got the Paolo Bacchini skating to Cirque de soleil.

8:16:
Nasty take off on the triple axel. Flunk.

8:17
This pale, slender boy is lovely. I’m not sure why he’s dancing like a Frenchman to French music. But man oh man can he dance.

8:18
Nailed the triple salchow, triple toe.

8:18
Italians aren’t used to getting men on the Olympic ice. I bet everyone in Italy is watching this right now.

8:19
A smile! I love it when they smile. Why don’t they smile more?

8:19
The audience is going nuts. People are clapping with the beat. Clap. Clap. Clap.

8:20
Confusion. It seemed as though the music just stopped. But Bacchini kept skating. And then the music came on again… slowly. That’s a strange musical choice.

8:22
(Keep in mind that our dear Patrick Chan was docked a point last night for skating after the music had stopped, and thus going over the time limit.)

8:23
This is what Chan said of his show last night: “I’m really lost, I seriously got off the ice and I couldn’t believe what I had just done. I pictured it in my mind just right, every step of the way. . . it’s OK, Thursday will be a new day.” Oh, Patrick!

8:24
Not bad: 177.21 pints for Bacchini.

8:25
We’ve got Viktor Pfeifer of Austria up. I love a man in a white silk shirt.
The commentator just described him as “a super person.”

8:25
Pfeifer is a professional cello player! I feel so untalented…

8:26
Pfeifer wanted to be bold and start of with a bang! (read: a quad). He just fell. Oh well. Go big or go home, I always say…

8:26
Triple salchow, triple toe was flawless.

8:27
Could this routine be slower? The effect of the pale skin, white shirt, black pants & black gloves makes me think of a mime.

8:28
Wow! Triple jump sequence was very nice. I’m half Austrian. I think maybe I’ll root for this guy…

8:29
How many times can you wildly throw your arms up into the air with a pained look on your face – as if to say: dear Lord of the ice arena I present myself, raw and vulnerable, to you….??

8:32:
CANADA!

8:33
I’m so excited. How adorable is our 24th place holder?

8:34
Smokin! Fine, he singled that jump. Rub it in our face, commentators.

8:35
Those are some smooth moves.

8:36:
Pizazzzzz. More spins. And I’ve never seen someone jump quite so high. And look at that toe-pick action.

8:36:
I’m sorry. I’ve developed a debilitating crush. Refocus:

8:36:
This guy is screwing up every major jump.

8:37:
Great jump! And another! Jumping for days! Like it’s going out of style…

8:37:
Another! Dear Lord!

8:37:
Jazz fingers…

8:38:
Self-embrace.

8:39:
Wow. He spins. Jumps in the air on one foot. Lands and continues spinning.

8:40:
Take a bow, good sir.

8:40:
I think he took that literally. This guy won’t stop bowing. Now, he is skate sauntering off the ice.

8:40
Nope. Not yet. One more lap.

8:40:
Fine! He lost 18 technical points for all those weird high, mid-air jolts and ice touch-downs. (warning: made up terminology)

8:40
Did the commentator just say he had “too much energy”? What? He’s supposed to be solemn a la Czech Republic’s Tomas Verner??

8:44
Commercial break. Let’s talk men’s figure skating. Now, I know my fair share of manly men who turn up their nose are these skilled gliding wonders. But men’s figure skating is NOT a soft sport. Just ask U.S legend Johnny Weir.

8:47
This Canadian Tire commercial (for Canadian Tire commemorative coins??) is adorable. The boy teaches his dad to skate. Why does this touch me so? I’m ACTUALLY teaching my own Dad to skate. Get it? Canadian Tire is relatable.

8:49:
Adrian Schultheiss is up for Sweden.

8:49:
OK he’s wearing a straight jacket. Why?

8:50
NO, he’s ACTUALLY wearing a straight jacket. He begins his routine pretending that his hands are bound to his chest and jerking his head sideways as if insane.

8:51
This is funny because the commentators were just talking about what an inspiration he will be to little boys everywhere.

8:51
The music just changed. Is this an 80s rap remix of Jump Around?

8:52
I have NO idea what’s going on. But I know it’s mighty deep.

8:52
Now he’s doing the robot, I think? I do a better robot. Just sayin’…

8:53
Points for boldest musical choice.

8:53
And he’s really working the facial expressions.

8:53
Commentator just said he’s a “real technician.” No, Schultheiss is a MAD technician.

8:53
Triple lutz, double toe will give him 10 extra points.

8:54
Now the music has changed again. I know this song! Either:
1) I played it in concert band. (flute)
2) I danced to it at a bar mitzvah.
Can’t remember….

8:57
200.44 points. A personal best!!

9:01
Apparently the hockey game is tied. Who cares?

9:05
Stefan Lindemann of Germany is up. I would have told you sooner, but TSN decided not to broadcast the beginning of his routine. I bet it was great, though.

9:06
Let’s notice that all the figure skaters are sporting black gloves. Can we say: MJ commemoration Olympics 2010?

9:06
Lindemann has a lot of fancy footwork going on. Not surprising; he’s a 7-time German champion. But I’m finding his routine sort of understated.

9:07
Just doubled his triple axel. Tsk. Tsk.

9:07
Another double…

9:08
And another double. Oh dear.

9:09
This sounds like Lord of the Rings.

9:09
He looks so sad. And strained.
He’s shvitzing.

9:11
His coaches look peeved too. Hows about a smile, Germany.

9:11
Looked like the coach was giving him a comforting back rub. But she just picked a piece of lint of his bejewled t-shirt.

9:12
171.98 points.

9:13
As he wipes perspiration off his face, I see that his gloves are also bejewled.

9:13
Artem Borodulin of the Russian Federation is up.

9:14
Wow. That jump was crazy.

9:14
He’s dancing to Roxanne (Moulin Rouge version). I love love love.

9:14
Two triple axels in a row.

9:14
Was that three?

9:14
As he tosses his head sensually, his shoulder-length blond locks swirl. They look run-your-fingers-through worthy.

9:15
Landed another jump sequence.

9:15
The crazy thing is that Borodulin wasn’t even meant to come to the Olympics! He only got slated last minute because the Russian frontrunner dropped down. And now look at him

9:17
Roxanne has morphed into some kind of ballet music.

9:17
My friend describes his dance as “a flail fest.” Young people these days and their flailing limbs. Sorry excuse for dancing…

9:18
He does look a wee bit tired. Slowing down.

9:21
210.16 points! He’s in 1st right now. Not too bad, for a guy who wasn’t supposed to be here.

9:21
Jeremy Abbott of the United States of America steps onto the ice in a conservative blue button down, black slacks, and a brown corporate hair do.

9:22
My peanut gallery notes that the shirt has detail on the shoulder.

9:22
That was quite a bad fall on his rump. Left a snow mark.

9:23
He almost fell again. He’s got a scared look on his face. Not on to a good start.

9:24
He’s not really letting himself fall into this routine. He seems very reserved. And he’s had a couple near falls.

9:26
I’m bored. This is a boring routine.

9:27
Abbott looks like he is going to weep on the ice. He can barely bring himself to bow. He throws down his upper body with great sorrow.

9:29
218.96.
1st place.
FOUL
FOUL
FOUL!

9:29
FOUL

9:29
What just happened? He was terrible technically. And stylistically pedestrian. I am shocked and appalled.

9:30
Samuel Contesti of Italy.

9:31
Oops. Messed up his first jump and did not finish the sequence.

9:31
I dig the the windpipe music. (Riddle me this, batmen: what is the name of this instrument? Feel free to comment.)

9:31
It takes a certain kind of man to wear a sun embroidered skin-tight blazer over a fluorescent orange undershirt – tucked in to tight (embroidered) pants.

9:32
Sounds like a didgeridoo.

9:33
He just messed up his second triple axel. His hands touched down on the ice. That’s going to cost him technical points.

9:34
Tribal arms. The Italian is doing some sort of aboriginal-themed tribal dance.

9:34
I’m not not dancing along.

9:35
Contesti made his last two jumps, but faltered on both landings.

9:35
He’s a former European silver medallist.

9:36
It’s like he’s saying: Look, I’m going to get a failing grade on these jumps. But I’m going to blind you with my (tribal-themed) spirit fingers.

9:37
Ouch. That’s a no good very bad techincal score.

9:38
187.5 points. He’ll take it.

9:38
Representing Spain: Javier Fernandez. (What a name!)

9:38
Pirates of the Caribbean theme. Delicious.

9:39
Is he breaking the no accessories rule with that dangling tassel thing around his waste?

9:39
Music stimulates fond memories of swaggering Johnny Depp.

9:39
Ouch. A wipe-out on the first jump.

9:39
Epic recovery.

9:40
His spin gets very close to the ice.

9:40
He’s pretending to be drunk, like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean.
Yeah, about that “inspiring young boys and girls” thing…

9:40
He’s in character. I like it.

9:42
Fernandez is only the 2nd man from Spain to ever make it to the Winter Olympics. First one was way back in 1956.

9:42
Now, he’s fake sword fighting with the air. This is precious. Fight on, man. Fight on!

9:44
I’m still angry that American skater Jeremy Abbott is in first. He was like… Republicans on Ice. Nay! Chartered Accountants Convention on Ice.

9:46
206.68 puts Javier Fernandez of Spain in 3rd.

9:45
Brian Joubert of France is taking the ice. Why I like him:
1) He has TWO quadruple jumps planned. Can you believe it? That’s a game-change.
2) His physique and chiseled cheekbones.

9:47
His shirt is sort of ravaged and ripped and raw. Like shirt, like man.

9:47
He puts a finger in front of his lips and whispers shhhh. We were already speechless.

9:47
GREAT! He wipes out on the first quad. Tragic. He needed this.

9:48
Will he change his mind and triple his second quad?

9:48
Yep. He triples it. Lands it. But triples it.

9:49
There will be another point reduction for faltering on the triple lutz.

9:49
“With this amount of mistakes not, he needs to just skate for himself now.”
“It’s over.”
“Yeah.”
-TSN, saying it like it is.

9:50
French skating chief Didier Gailhaguet has a theory for why Joubert has fared so poorly tonight. It involves him “not working enough.”

9:51
The commentators are right. Overall, an underwhelming evening thus far.

9:52
At least he has his looks to fall back on. Sigh.

9:54
200.22. Joubert is in 5th right now.

10:01
OK. I know I’ve been hard on some skaters for their outfit choice. But that’s nothing compared to the smack Victoria Beckham’s been shouting: “There’s nothing good about those outfits. I wear the feathers in my relationship. If David came home dressed like that – could you imagine? Terrible.”- Beckham, discussing men’s figure skating attire.

10:07
I just learned this from the commercial break: To hit a triple axel, skates jump 23 inches off the ice. That’s about what NBA basketball players jump to make a slam dunk! Except: the skaters need to land on one foot. Sheesh. Often, during the free skate, skaters do up to 8 of those tricky triples.

10:09
What if Olympic figure skating was in 3D? Wow. Ring, Ring: Calling James Cameron.
Sorry, it’s been a long commercial break…

10:11
The Chan Man is warming up on the ice.

10:11
Oh my gosh. There’s this adorable little girl who is a double amputee (lost both her legs to a disease) whose dream was to be a figure skater. She’s working now at the Olympics. They’re showing her on the ice right now. Tears.

10:12
Chan needs 149 points to get 230 (his season’s best). His personal best is 260. He can do it. I have faith!

10:13
Great picture on Patrick Chan‘s official website. Umm…

10:14
TSN is showing me a bar graph. I mean, skate graph. It’s supposed to tell me something about Patrick Chan’s strategy. I don’t get it…

10:16
Don’t forget: In Turino, Patrick Chan went from 6th after the short program to 3rd (Bronze!). He’s a fighter. Fierce.

10:17
Then again, can you BELIEVE his deduction last night was for going over the time limit. I mean: amateur mistake!

10:18
Takahiko Kozuka.

10:19
At last! Hip hip hoorah for a QUAD!

10:19
Kozuka is slender, dressed head to toe in black with spiked hair.

10:20
Triple lutz double toe at the beginning was just kind of thrown in. He had meant to do a three jump combination. That double sequence will earn him major technical points, though!

10:21
Oh dear. After landing a quad, he fell on a double axel. Yikes!

10:22
My TV is blurring up! Oh no wait. That’s just Kozuka spinning

10:23
You know why I like Kozuka so much? He’s a thinker. He missed the opportunity for a triple jump sequence, so he improvised. And it’s going to pay off. A less experienced skater would have frozen up.

10:25
231.19 points.
That’s a new personal best for Kozuka!
And that puts Kozuka in first.
(For the record: Japan has NEVER medalled in men’s figure skating.)

10:26
We’ve got Ten Dennis of Kazakhstan.

10:26
What a baby-face. He’s only 16 years old: the youngest guy in the competition.

10:26
That was a pretty bad fall on that triple axel. And he’d been hitting them all in practice.

10:26
Come back alert! Nailed the second triple jump.

10:27
And again…

10:27
He’s so tiny and graceful.

10:28
Nice flying camel spin.

10:29
Triple salchow followed by double axel. No big deal.

10:29
And yet, I’m yawning through this routine. The music is dramatic – in a sort of Spanish bull fight kinda way. But this choreography is fairly standard. He’s moving his arms in the right way, but I don’t buy it…

10:33
211.25 points for Denis Ten. He’s in third so far. This teaches me that FLAIR has nothing to do with it at all…
Silly, judges. Technical points are for kids.

10:34
Kevin van der Perren of Belgium. He’s 12th after the short program.

10:34
i’m trying to figure out if those lime green blobs of fabric spattered over his tight, sheer black shirt mean something…

10:35
Um, yeah they do. He’s skating to Robin Hood.

10:35
ALMOST touched down with his hand on the triple axel.

10:35
Might of actually touched down the second time. He’ll lose techincal points for that.

10:35
Triple trip, triple toe loop. apparently, van der Perren was going to do a triple-triple-triple but lost the momentum and only double tripled (aka triple-tripled). Confused?

10:36
The slow, sweet music is somewhat at odds with the very large back tatoo shining through van der Perrin’s sheer number.

10:38
So apparently van der Perren is moving jumps around as he goes, possibly because he’s tired. This is kind of a no-no for Olympic skaters. They’ve practiced for so long. It’s best to just stick with the routine.

10:39
He seems very tired in deed.

10:39
Yawn. That’s some slow spinning.

10:40
I told you to stick with your routine, Mr. van der Perren!
Apparently, he did 3 triple salchows – perhaps in the confusion. Well, only the first two will count. (You can only repeat a jump once).

10:42
189.89 points for Belgium.

10:42
Florent Amodio of France is up.

10:42
Wow, what a life story… LITERALLY abandoned on the streets of Brazil by his parents when he was a baby.

10:43
He attempts the first quad salcow of the night…. (drumroll please!)

10:43
Error. Changes it to a drab double axel.

10:44
Triple axel is rocky at the end.

10:44
Whew. Florent is gettin funky on the ice. Those are some jazzy moves coming from the man in an unbuttoned purple shirt with built-in suspenders.

10:45
Oh wow. Bring on the wind-up-doll moves.

10:45
Nice: triple axel, double toe.

10:45
Triple salchow, double-toe loop. Oh he’s having great fun out there!

10:47
Lost out on that triple jump routine. Won’t be nabbing any extra technical points.

10:47
Intergalactic Planetarium… dadada. Is that really playing?

10:47
No, Katie. No, it’s not. (That’s what 2 hours and 47 minutes of live blogging will do to you). But take my word for it: he’s shakin’ it.

10:48
Adorable. He’s booty-shaking instead of bowing.

10:49
Patrick Chan is on the ice.
His mother is apparently scribbling notes furiously from the stand.

10:50
Florent Amodio’s got 210.30. 4th overall.

10:50
Back to Chan.

The crowd
goes
WILD!

10:50
This is going to be a great routine – choreographed by Lori Nichol.

10:51
Nails his triple axel. We have hope ENCORE!!!

10:52
And again.

10:53
Oh, man. A bit of a falter.

10:53
Hello, commentators? Where did you go?
I think this is a bad sign. The chatter has stopped.
I think this means Patrick Chan blew it for Canada and nobody wants to say it.

10:53
Second triple axel. He is down on his arse. All the way.

10:53
The audience is clapping in a kind of “thanks, but not thanks” kind of way.

10:54
He needed this to be perfect.

10:55
How much do I love Phantom of the Opera. (The Phantom of the Opera is here. Inside my mask… da da da da da).

10:55
He really is picking up such great steam. Wonderfully tight spins.

10:57
He looks so disappointed. Tears, maybe?

10:57
The commentators offer these pearls:
“It was supposed to be his time…ascent to the podium. Vanquished tonight!”
“My heart is just empty right now.”

10:58
241.12
THE CROWD IS GOING CRAZY.
What a smile! What a smile!
He’s in 1st right now.
Oh, Patrick!

11:00
Michal Brezina of the Czech Republic.

11:00
If I ever had a dream about a triple axel, my dream would look like THAT.

11:00
He looks like a JCrew ad. Strolling around the ice in a short sleeved white polo and a pink and brown sweater vest. His sun-kissed (nay, chemically altered) hair positioned ever so casually over his forehead.

11:01
Music is an American in Paris. Pretty.

11:02
Nailed the second triple axel.

11:02
He’s wearing brown sued-ish pants. They don’t even look like skating pants.
True story: male figure skaters HAVE to wear pants. They can’t wear skirts. And they can’t wear tights. Now that doesn’t seem fair, does it?

11:03
Quite the wipe-out on the triple lutz.

11:03
I feel perturbed to see a delicate boy in a pink sweater vest fall so violently.

11:03
The music quickens. Ballet arms joined above his head.

11:03
The music softens, becomes jazzy. He prances lightly into the air before falling effortlessly into a camel spin.

11:04
He looks upset.

11:04
Dear skaters,
Please smile! You always end up smiling when you’re snuggling up to your coaches later. Might as well save yourself the embarrassment of looking like a poor sport now.

11:07
216.17 points for Brezina.
Did I mention Chan’s score was a personal best??

11:14
Evan Lysacek of the United States is kicking off this flight.

11:15
Triple lutz, triple toe loop is beautiful.

11:15
Are y’all noticing that the higher the skater’s rank, the more conservative the attire?

11:16
Triple axel is so flawless. Not a wobble in there. This man is a pleasure to watch. He is big and strong and looks fully in control of his limbs.

11:16
By the way, this routine is also choreographed by Lori Nichol.

11:17
Manages to land his second triple axel jump.

11:18
This guy is a big deal, people. Class A celeb status. Don’t believe me. Just ask People Magazine.

11:18
“He loves clubbing in L.A. with pals like Nicole Richie and Rachel Zoe.”

11:19
Did you see that? He did a CanCan kick and his thigh almost touched his nose.
Fierce…

11:20
Lysacek celebrates with a self-congratulatory scream. “Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light… tra la la.”

11:22
167.37: HUGE lead into first place for Lysacek.

11:23
Oda Nobunari of Japan.

11:24
Oh he’s wearing a little bow tie. I want to wrap him up and take him home and put him under my Christmas tree.

11:24
Sorry… carried away.

11:24
The thing is, Nobunari was supposed to start with a quad. He’s been practicing the quad all week – and landing it just fine. But last minute, he opted for a triple lutz.

11:25
Fancy footwork here. This is a darling routine.

11:26
Airborne!

11:26
Some quick, perky jump routines.

11:27
This is where the top skaters are really distinguishing themselves. There’s no time wasting here… it’s all moving.

11:27
Oh dear!
A fall and he’s injured! His skate has fallen apart.

11:27
His coach is on the ice and the music has stopped.

11:28
His skate fell apart like it’s 1994!

11:28
He leaves the ice and puts on a new skate. That will be an automatic two point deduction. But….

11:29
The music has resumed. He’s back on the ice. He’s lost his speed, but the audience is cheering him on. What a trooper!

11:30
The music sounds sort of like nutcracker ballet.

11:30
What applause!

11:30
Can you believe his lace snapped? You make it all the way to the Olympics and your f***ing lace comes undone!

11:33:
238.54.
He WOULD have been in second (ahead of Chan), but for that costume malfunction.

11:34
We’ve got Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland.

11:34
Touch down on his first jump.

11:34
And forward again on his second jump.

11:35
It’s coming: the quad. He BARELY hangs on. But it ain’t pretty.

11:35
Nice double jump sequence.

11:36
Heavenly jump into that camel spin.

11:36
Holding his head at artistic angles.

11:36
Like Patrick Chan, Lambiel is a beautiful dancer. Just look at the way he holds his wrist while spinning.

11:37
Don’t you just get the feeling with him that he isn’t wasting an iota of energy?

11:38
Lambiel, keep in mind, is coming back to skating after a debilitating hip injury. Here’s what the 24-year-old said of that: “Last year at this time I couldn’t skate more than twice a week before the hip would start to bother me. At that point, I never could have imagined I’d be here today.”

11:38
Katie Engelhart award for fastest spin of the evening, perhaps?

11:39
Commercial break.
I’m so excited for American Johnny Weir to skate. He is fabulous. His role models include Lady Gaga. Um…

11:41
162.09 for Lambiel. Chan falls to third. Canada: kiss goodbye to our podium chances.

11:41
Daisuke Takahashi of Japan.

11:42
Another wipe-out!
And he didn’t just fall coming out of the jump, he was completely off balance going in.

11:43
That next triple was landed very nicely. A whole lot of speed on that one.

11:43
This guy has major spunk. Did he just look at the camera and make a fierce face?

11:44
He’s one of only a few male skaters to achieve level 4 footwork (the highest level that can be achieved.)

11:44
A tad off balance at the end of that sequence.

11:45
That’s some dainty footwork right there, I’ll tell ya that.

11:45
Gorgeous triple axel near the end of the routine when – let’s not forget – his muscles are probably rip roaring raw.

11:47
Could Japan finally make it to the podium for figure skating?

11:48
Johnny Weir is blowing his nose on the ice in a white sparkly spandex shirt that is flared at the wrists.

11:49
247.93
In second. BUT 10 points behind Evan Lysacek. Whew.

11:50
John Weir!
Weir almost quit last year after placing fifth. And now, he’s 6th after teh short program.

11:50
He’s skating to City of Angels. He says it’s the story of his life.

11:52
Nails te second triple axel.

11:53
Katie Engelhart award for most elegant skate of the night.

11:53
Smooth combination.

11:53
“He’s only lacking in steps that bring the element together,” says the commentator. Are you kidding? He just did four jumps in a row!

11:54
Fact: Johnny jumps clockwise. Most other skaters jump counter clockwise.

11:55
The music speeds up. The crowd is rooting for him. (I mean, let’s face it. We’ve given up on Chan. And Johnny’s not a bad second.)

11:56
Routine is finished to booming applause. Now here’a smile!

11:56
Some of you may be wondering: How on earth did Johnny wear prepare for such a grueling routine? I know! His roomate, ice dancer Tanith Belbin, leaves him alone to relax: ”She is the best roommate – she stayed away all day today so I could run around naked and watch Real Housewives of Atlanta,” he adds. “I will do the same for her.”

11:58
Are you KIDDING me?
5th place for Johnny Weir?
I give up.

11:58
At least he accepted his results wearing a wreath of red roses around his head.

11:59
Evgeni Plushenko of Russia.

11:59
QUAD!

12:00
Oh he BARELY hung on to that triple axel.

12:00
Legs for days! Look at those puppies…

12:01
“He stands in his place for too long.”
OK now the commentators are trying to hard to find fault. He rubs us all the wrong way. But look at how softly his skates land on that ice.

12:01
Plushenko, darling. Is that comic relief? A funny little jig breaks up the slow music.

12:02
He’s the guy we love to hate. Think about all the hullabaloo he created around his quad.

12:03
Dancing like his life depends on it.

12:04
That quadruple combination is going to give him some serious technical points. But will it be enough?

12:04
If I had two cents to rub together, I think I’d put them on Plushenko.

12:06
Dick Button is the only man to ever win back to back gold for men’s figure skating.

12:06
256.36.
PLUSHENKO loses by… ONE POINT.

12:07
The American superstar Evan Lysacek wins GOLD.
I can’t decide whether or not to celebrate. Let me think about it….

12:08
While I ponder my sleep-deprived emotions, let me recap: Patrick Chan finished 5th.

12:09
Pluschenko had the quad, but it wasn’t enough to match the yankee skater’s chichi. I think I’ll end with a one-liner… one of them sayings that us figure skating ‘insiders’ like to throw out there: “Quality over Quad.”

12:11
Good night readers. Vive les sequins!
Liveblogging the pairs free skate

By Katie Engelhart - Monday, February 15, 2010 at 7:19 PM - 8 Comments

Will Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison find a way onto the podium?

7:19 p.m
Gearing up to live blog pairs figure skating. The fun starts at 8 p.m.

7:52 p.m
For those just tuning in: Last night was the pairs short competition. Going into the free skate tonight, Canada’s got Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison in 6th & Anabelle Langlois and Cody Hay in 7th.

7:55 p.m
OK I did an admirable job on my pizza. Now I can devote myself this. t-6 minutes.

7:56 p.m
Contrary to popular belief (among my mom, at least) I did not get stuck with this sport. I fought tooth and nail for it.

8:03 p.m
So this is where we’re at:
1st: Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao (China)
2nd: Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy (Germany)
3rd: Yuko Kavaguti & Alexander Smirnov (Russia)
4th: Qing Pang & Jian Tong (China)
5th: Dan Zhang & Hao Zhang (China)
6th: Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison (Canada)
7th: Anabelle Langlois & Cody Hay (Canada)

8:07
It’s no big shocker that the Chinese are dominating. Still, it’s a big deal that Shen and Zhao set the world record last night for the highest score ever earned on a short skate: 76.66.

8:07
Wohoo. Germans are up. Is that outfit serious?

8:08
You heard it: Don’t land the side-by-side triple toes, and you can kiss it all goodbye.

8:09
Seriously though it looks like she said: I want to wear a pretty red dress. And he said: done, but for your information, I’m going to kick it like a gladiator.

8:11
My god, I love a good death spiral.

8:13
I love olympic commercials. I love that Rona made it financially possible for the Olympians to train. I would like to use Rona paint. As per the suggestion of that Sex and the City lady, I would also like to travel to British Columbia.

8:15
Ukranians.

8:16
Is it just me or does someone ALWAYS skate to this song?

8:18
The commentators aptly point out that this is a really slow routine. There’s definitely a lack of spunk factor here, although the lifts are beautiful.

8:19
That’s the problem with this ‘Pearl Harbour’ song, it just keeps going and going…

8:20
The team has only been together for two years, apparently. That makes sense. It seems like it takes a long time to build chemistry on the ice.

8:21
Jeez, I sound like a sports commentator.
On the plus side, her outfit was sooo Halle Berry Oscars circa 2002. Nice.

8:22
OK so the technical score wasn’t great. She landed some of her jumps with two feet. That’s no good.

8:23
The Estonians skating to West Side Story? After the Ukranians skated to Pearl Harbour? There is great cultural confusion tonight.

8:24
That was a perfect landing. These two look so young and baby-faced. They’re lovely. I like them.

8:25
The dance part of their routine seems a wee bit stiff. The pair combination spin was quite slow.

8:26
They saved it by going clockwise AND counter-clockwise. That will earn them extra technical points.

8:28
They saved their triple salchow until near the end of their routine. That’s a plus.

8:29
Let’s take a moment during this commercial break to take note of the spelling of ‘salchow.’ It’s pronounced sow-cow. That’s very strange. I had to Google it.

8:27
This is their first Olympics together. They look like they’re having so much fun. And I love the pizazz at the end.

8:31
The Estonians automatically lost 2 points for landing that salchow with two feet. So they’re 2/3 now.

8:33
The Poles started off with their hardest jump: side by side double toe. They nailed it. And some fancy lifting follows.

8:33
Ugh-oh, a fall. They’ve fallen out of sync now. And he’s talking to her, which is interesting. I don’t think I usually see the skaters talking to each other during the routine.

8:36
Triple lutz was perfect. And then…. HE FALLS! His toe-pick catches and HE falls. Without cause! Just skating in a straight line. That’s got to feel bad.

8:38
(Although CTV has comforting words: “He probably has a good sense of humour. Might even have a good chuckle about that one later.” Ummm… I’m going to go with: No. He probably won’t have a good chuckle later about falling over himself at the Olympics.)

8:47
You know you’re out of things to stay when you start talking about how thick the boards lining the ice are… and how far you have to reach to pass a water bottle across them. (Thanks, CTV)

8:49
We’ve got Great Britain, nailing a throw triple toe. The pairs are slightly out of sync on their side-by-side spins. But at least they’re decked out in colonial looking garb. Their country could ask for nothing more.

8:51
They have a sort of engaging routine here. I think the music choice was poor and there isn’t a terrible amount of rhythm or flow. But they’ve done some unusual jumps. And had a unique backwards entry to their last lift.

8:55
The British coaches married after skating together. Why does it seem like all the pairs get married? Or, marry their coaches. In what other workplace do colleagues wed at such an extraordinary rate?

8:56
1st place for the Brits, as of now.

8:57
The French team is up. She was born in Scarborough. And wow, she’s stunning.

8:58
So for their side-by-side triple salchows (tehee) he tripled and she doubled. The judges will mark that as a double.

9:00
This pair is really making up for a rocky start. This is stunning choreography. And they just nailed the most beautiful lift of the evening.

9:01
First standing ovation of the night.

9:04
Their death spiral was really hot. The death spiral is a required move, but for some reason it still excites me a lot.
Now, here’s a great factoid: there is a variation of the “Death Spiral” known as the “Love Spiral.”

9:05
OK I changed my mind. I love the Swiss. They are so ballsy. Beige plaid overalls!

9:06
My mother is not impressed with above comment. Her view: “They look like f***ing lederhosen.”

9:07
This is such a fun routine. We’ve seen a real string of sap-tasticness tonight. This is a welcome change.

9:08
That was a bad fall. And they’re starting to slow down a bit. How can they be slowing down with this music? It’s so darn chirpy!

9:09
Even while head-bopping, I can tell a sloppy side-by-side spin when I see one.

9:10
I liked the idea of this routine, but the execution was lacking. They seemed out of sync for most of it. And there were too many stumbles.
OK, I just learned that she’s only 16. Now I feel guilty. Oh, and she’s giving the cameras a backwards double thumbs up. Adorable.

9:16
As the commentators point out, the U.S team is going at a much faster pace that the previous teams. We’re told she messed up a jump yesterday – and that this is why they are placed so low. But, that they’re a better team than what they’re rank indicates.

9:17
I realize I’m not being very feminist friendly. SHE didn’t mess up a jump yesterday. THEY messed up their jump yesterday. Today, they are skating beautifully. WAY out of the others’ league!

9:21
CTV just showed us the Canadians warming up on side-by-side treadmills. I never would have guessed that skaters warm up by cycling… or that they even need their heart rates to be up when they start.

9:24
Not that you need anything extra to make figure skating exciting, but…. here’s something that could work.

9:28
We’re still on break (the ice is being cleared).
So, onward with our education: Here’s some guy’s review of the five worst falls ever in figure skating.

9:43
Ok we’re back with another American team.

9:44
I like when teams go strong to start. They’re triple twist was nice.

9:45
Throw triple lutz, her hand touched down. And then their spins were a little far apart.

9:46
Is it OK for me to say that they totally did a botch job on his make-up? His skin looks orange and patchy from where he shaved. I digress… Their spread-eagle entry into the star was very impressive.

9:48
He looks like he might be the strongest male we’ve seen tonight – physically. Those lifts are LONG. He looks like he could lift her for days. Even nearing the end, when his arms must be burning.

9:49
Technically, it wasn’t a stellar routine. But these two are jacked. That’s cool.

9:52
114.06. Their personal best.
This pair is extremely emotional.

9:53
Russians are up. OK, she just stumbled on her first jump. And, they barely held on to their first throw. But I’m completely mesmerized. This dancing is stunning. This is real choreography.

9:54
These two are dancers. She looks like a little Russian ballerina; I see signs of classical training.

9:56
Best lift of the night.

9:56
Bad fall on her bum!

9:56
Summary thus far: elegant dancing… but the two mess up each and every technical point of their routine.

9:57
Maybe they’re out of practice because he was banned for 18 months for taking an illegal substance!! (He claims his father gave him a headache pill and that there was no real doping violation).

10:01
Ukraine!

10:03
This guy is a mammoth. And that was a huge throw across the ice.
It’s very touching to see this giant balding Neanderthal skate with such… tenderness. Sigh.

10:04
They win my award for best throw thus far. (The much-coveted random blogger says it’s so award.)

10:05
A one-handed lift near the end of the routine.

10:08
No big deal, he rocks a tight black v-neck and giant dangling cross necklace. No big deal.

10:09
Ukrainians are first right now. And Italy is up.

10:10
Side-by-side triple salchows. She falls flat on her arse! After nailing it in practice all week.
Nice spiral routine, though. They are perfectly coordinated. That’s not something we’ve seen a lot of tonight.

10:11
Side-by-side axels. Perfection.

10:12
Here comes the next round of random blogger awards. I grant the Italian team… Best Comeback Award. Sure, they had a godawful fall on their first jump. But they bounced back and they’ve been dead on since. I can’t imagine that they’ll lose too many technical points – beyond what they’ll be docked automatically for that fall.

10:18
The Canadians are warming up! Let’s send some good karma into the universe for them.

10:25
CANADA. Skating to Grand Canyon Suite.

10:26
Oh, she lost it on the side-by-side triple salchows!

10:27
But she landed that triple throw beautifully. This team was not expected to be in the running, and it’s amazing that they’re in 7th at all!

10:27
What nice, reserved Canadian costumes these are.

10:28
Anabelle is adorable. She just came back from ankle surgery. What a trooper.

10:29
That was a stunning lift. He covered a ton of ice with that one.
They seem very relaxed. It’s nice to see.

10:28
Sad. They didn’t make their big throw: the triple flip. There goes their chances…

10:30
Or, as CTV says, they “succumbed to the Olympics spotlight.”

10:30
Very romantic, the way she clutched his chest at the end. My hearts a’flutterin.

10:31
Also, props to him for covering so much ground with those lifts. He’s not half the size of the Ukranian behemoth.

10:33
A persona best for the team!

10:34
Dan Zhang & Hao Zhang of China.
Opening up with… a near face plant!

10:36
Man, that girl is airborne. That was a HUGE triple twist.

10:36
Throw triple loop landed with easy. She’s very graceful.

10:38
Their combination spin is very nice. I always like that move where the guy puts one leg over the girl and kind of sits on her. (Whodda thunk!)

10:39
My, he does not look happy! Then again, that fall will cost them any chance they had of medalling tonight.

10:41
Come on, man. Crack a smile! Crack a smile! You just ook first place!

10:42
We’ve got another Russian team. They’re placed 8th right now.

10:42
They’re skating to Love Story.
You know what I’m not in love with: men who leave a wee triangle of hair under their bottom lip.

10:43
Back on track: she’s gone down on their side-by-side triple salchows.

10:44
She was fired into that throw triple loop and she landed it perfectly.

10:45
Throw triple salchow she touched a hand down… but barely.

10:45
Do all Russian women have tight blond buns and red dresses? I think, maybe.

10:45
The commentators worry that they were too close on those side-by-side spins. Them be sharp blades!

10:46
Ooh. A mid-routine smooch.
This was quite a sensual routine, if I do say so myself.

10:49
I will give a prize to whoever can answer this question: what is the record for the world’s longest live-blog ever?
Just asking…

10:50
CANADA! Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison.
Skating to The Way We Were.

10:51
Amazing triple twist.
The commentators tell us that they’re getting back to a “storytelling” style tonight. As opposed to…? We are told they are very emotionally involved in this routine. Again, as opposed to….?

10:51
Stellar side-by-side jobs.

10:52
NOOOOOOOOO. A FALLLLLLLLLLLL. My hopes are dashed, dashed away.

10:53
She has had a lot of problems with that throw. I’m surprised they didn’t find some way to switch it up within the routine.

10:53
And she two-foots a landing. My goodness.

10:53
They look swell though. Reminds me of my school uniform days.

10:54
Triple loop. Nailed. Bravo.

10:54
They are very elegant dancers. These lands are so soft.

10:55
They look so sad. And they just skated away from each other. Come on. Smile!
She’s going to cry? No she’s not. Don’t cry!

10:56
Sorry, I need to collect myself.

10:57
OK not a great night for them. But better than this fateful night a few years back.

10:58
187.11.
No way they will medal.
(Also bonus points for whoever can figure out when ‘medal’ became a verb. Or was it always?…)

11:02
This routine was meant to recreate the story told in “The Way We Were,” the 1973 romantic comedy staring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford. The movie was about an anti-war activist (Streisand) who falls for a writer (Redford) while in university. Summary: the two lovers fall in love and get married, but eventually drift apart because of their radically different political views.

This is what Davison said of their routine yesterday:
“Like in the movie, two people fall in love. . . it doesn’t end up working out and they end up leaving each other and the famous scene of walking away from each other at the end, that’s kind of been Jess and my story. That’s why it’s such an easy story for us to tell, because we’ve lived most of it, on the emotional side of things.”

11:09
So maybe they weren’t being poor sports at the end when they skated away from each other instead of smiling and embracing? Maybe it was part of the routine! That’s my angle and I’m sticking to it.

11:10
Oh wow. That Cheese Whiz commercial just made my stomach churn. Melted Cheese Whiz on a hot dog?

11:15
Four teams left.
OK, let’s learn something about the Chinese team now in first. I like these two for three reasons:
1) They set the record for highest score EVER last night… even though they are both in their 30s!
2) The couple actually retired from figure skating, but came back to try their hand at the 2010 Games.
3) They aren’t Russian. I know, I know. But the Russians ALWAYS win. (12 consecutive Olympic golds, to date.)

11:21
The Russians are up: Yuko Kavaguti & Alexander Smirnov.
She gave up her citizenship (Japanese) to skate for the Russian team. That’s figure skating dedication, Russian-styles.

11:22
Throw quad salchow…..Oooooh. She tripled AND touched down.

11:22
Immaturity alert: Does the Russian’s last name HAVE to be Smirnov?

11:23
Those side-by-side spin routines were dead on! And they were the perfect distance apart.

11:23
What an interesting move there. This really is such an elegant team.

11:23
The music has picked up. They are hip-hopping around. Oh here’s what just happened:
1) He fell on the first part of their side-by-side double axel.
2) They left out the second side-by-side double axel.

11:24
CTV: “It’s becoming a nightmare.”
She’s down again.
My goodness, Russia!

11:25
The costumes make no sense. He’s in a grey body suite/collared shirt. She is in an oriental-style red number.

11:26
They are hugging. Hug away! My bet is that they won’t podium. (If medal is a verb, can’t “podium” be a verb?)

11:27
I’m getting a lot of sexual innuendo from this CTV commentary. Is this just me?

11:28
He has a nice face. Very chiseled.

11:29
Are you KIDDING ME?
The Russians just took the lead.
They fell a million times. When DIDN’T they fall?
I’m crying foul. FOUL, I say.

11:29
Germans are up.

11:30
HUGE pat on the back for skating to Out of Africa.

11:30
Side-by-side triple toe: he stumbled and she doubled. Nice flip followed though.

11:31
Prize for whoever can figure out the answer to this question: Have there been an unusual amount of wipe-outs this year? Didn’t falls used to be rare?

11:31
Same problem from the short program: lack of unison on those side-by-side spins. You’d think that would be the least of their worries – spinning. And yet it’s something we’re seeing a lot of tonight.

11:32
Yes, TV network I agree that they seem “dispassionate.” I know! The Germans: dispassionate! Weird…

11:33
I’ve seen better death spirals.

11:34
This choreography seems quite drab. I would have expected something that stands out more from a pair ranked so highly.

11:34
OK so I guess the winner will be the pair that doesn’t wipe out more than twice? This is a sad state of affairs. I miss Olympics figure skating a la 2002.

11:36
Commentators: “The main problem has been their long program.” Ummm… there are only 2 programs. They kinda need to nail the long one.

11:37
Germans are in 1st now. But it won’t be good enough.
Also, does he REALLY need to pick his nose now in front of the camera? Narsty…

11:38
China is up! Qing Pang & Jian Tong. (In 4th from yesterday).

11:39
This is such inspiring music. The song is Impossible Dream. They’re dressed in red. And they’re ravishing and flourishing and all those adjectives that sound like that. And the music picks up speed and they are incorporating a kind of salsa dance thing in there. (I’m tired. Is this a good enough picture that I painted for you?)

11:40
Perfect triple twist.

11:41
I like that she’s smiling. Nay, grinning! From ear to ear. She’s lovely.

11:41
Holy F***! That was a wild jump. She covered half the ice.
And then a perfect triple loop.
I’m in love with the Chinese team.

11:42
The crowd goes wild.
Perfect!

11:43
If my arse wasn’t glued to my couch, I would be giving the team a standing ovation.

They’re DEFINITELY going to ‘podium.’

11:45
They’re in first! That means the PRC is definitely placing first (since the only other team to go is also a Chinese team). The Russian run has been broken!

11:46
Xue Shen & Hongbo Zhao are up! China again.

11:47
There has been a plethora of red tonight.

11:47
Nailed the first jump.
… And the second side-by-side jumps.

11:48
Her face is so expressive. I like it!

11:48
Lifts for days….

11:49
Oh no. Error. Error. Error. Mess-up on a lift.
That may have just cost them gold.

11:49
Although they just did a beautiful flip.
And a beautiful throw triple loop.

11:50
Phew! Barely landing the throw triple salchow.

11:51
Jeez, that was smooth.
Turn to your significant other right now and take bets: Will that slip-up on the lift cost them gold?

11:52
CTV commentator: “The year of the tiger begins with a roar.” Indeed.

11:53
This definitely is not the appropriate time, but… Going back to my post about Cheese Whiz…. Look at the possibilities!

11:54
It’s it!

THEY WON

11:55
These two are adorable! So happy!
Can you believe these two came back from RETIREMENT?
No Scrabble competitions and early bird specials for them….

11:56
Canada placed 6th and 9th. Snaps.

11:58
OK thanks to anyone and everyone who tuned in! My mom said nobody would real my blog. But the 5 comments up right now prove her wrong. Mwahaha.

Don’t forget: Maclean’s will be live blogging each and every figure skating event of the Games!
Iran: bracing for a backlash

By Katie Engelhart - Saturday, February 13, 2010 at 4:34 PM - 3 Comments

Facing insolvency, Ahmadinejad will cut popular state subsidies

Since last summer, when demonstrators took to the streets to protest what they viewed as the fraudulent re-election of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran has faced its worst upheavals since the Islamic revolution of 1979. For weeks, until a bloody crackdown by the regime in large part quelled the disturbances, proponents of the so-called Green Revolution united in a show of defiance against the ayatollahs. The response—thousands were detained and dozens killed in clashes with police—brought harsh criticism from the West, as has the government’s recent announcement that it is ramping up its nuclear program, viewed by many as a means of gaining nuclear arms. Now, with Tehran facing the threat of new sanctions that could further hurt the country’s faltering economy, the regime is bracing for more unrest. But that may come at its own initiative: with his government facing insolvency, Ahmadinejad has proposed a radical overhaul of the system of massive state subsidies that have kept life tolerable for Iran’s citizens.

Continue…
Ontario's $7-billion green energy investment upsets enviros

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 3:55 PM - 19 Comments

Dalton McGuinty’s deal with Samsung has Green Party fuming

Last week, when Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced a new $7 billion investment in the province’s green energy sector—perhaps the largest such investment in the world—he earned himself an unlikely adversary: the Green Party of Ontario. “We’d like to see the provincial government scrap this deal,” said Mike Schreiner, the Green leader, in an interview with Maclean’s.

The province signed its deal with a South Korean consortium, which includes Samsung. And at first glance, it seems like an environmentalist’s dream come true. The consortium is committed to developing 2,500 megawatts of wind and solar power across the province (about enough to light 580,000 Canadian homes). In the process, it will create an estimated 16,000 jobs, 4,000 of which will be permanent. The goal is to make Ontario “the place to be for green energy manufacturing in North America,” McGuinty explained.

That’s all well and good, says Schreiner, whose party celebrated the passing of the Green Energy Act last year. But “this deal essentially throws [Ontario companies] under the bus.” Ontario-based projects are shovel ready, he insists. “So why are we offering special deals to multinational corporations?” The Association of Power Producers of Ontario is equally upset. David Butters, the group’s president, says it’s not Samsung’s presence that bothers him so much as the preferential treatment that the South Korean behemouth is getting. Ontario has guaranteed Samsung a higher-than-market value for its energy and priority access to the power grid. “Now we have two kinds of developers in Ontario,” laments Butters. “Samsung and everybody else.”

Consumers, at least, can take solace in the fact that the power they’re getting will be clean and green. But at a cost, say various critics. The province will shell out $437 million to the consortium, who in turn are investing the $7 billion. At the household level, that amounts to $1.60 a year, for the next 20 years.
The politicizing of Haiti

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 3:50 PM - 27 Comments

Some personalities are putting their own spin on the disaster—others are just clueless
Granny nannies

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, January 14, 2010 at 11:40 AM - 19 Comments

This new class of caregiver is booming, and quite unregulated

When Esther Heckbert told her mother she wanted to leave the Philippines to work as a babysitter abroad, her mother was leery. “She said, ‘babysitter? You’re done university!’ ” The two were folding laundry at their home in Isabela. Esther, who has a degree in business administration, had high hopes. “I said, a babysitter abroad can make a lot of money. From there, you can upgrade yourself: you can get citizenship.” For decades, thousands with the same profile—young, female, Filipino—have come to Canada to work as babysitters. Twenty-five years since arriving, Esther has helped rear dozens of Canadian tots: first as a nanny and then as the owner of a nursery school. But a few years ago, she sensed a changing wind.

She left babysitting behind, sought retraining, and now works under a more whimsical title: granny nanny.

She joins a growing rank of babysitters-turned-eldercare workers: a nod to shifting demographics. In 2008, just under 14 per cent of the Canadian population was over 65; it will be more than 25 per cent by 2044. At the same time, seniors are increasingly shunning the option once pressed on them: nursing homes. Now, most care to frail, older adults is provided outside facilities, says Norah Keating, human ecology professor at the University of Alberta. As more seniors stay home, we’re racing to import and train professionals to care for them. That dash has created a new class of caregivers, many of whom are undertrained, unregulated and unprotected—and with this a new set of problems. Continue…
Taking on the mob

By Katie Engelhart - Wednesday, December 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM - 5 Comments

A crackdown in Italy has netted 17 of the 30 most-wanted fugitives

The code name for last week’s anti-Mafia raid, at least among the more than 1,200 Italian police ofﬁcers who carried out the nearly 100 Mafiosi arrests in Palermo and Tuscany, was “Perseus.” The name refers to the Greek mythological hero who killed Medusa by cutting off her head—and it’s meant to embody the renewed Italian commitment to “decapitate” the Maﬁa elite. For Peter Schneider, a retired sociology professor who studied organized crime in Italy for decades, the reference is not entirely apt. He describes Italian crime rings as “hydra-like”: “You cut off one head, and three or four others sprout immediately.”

Either way, it’s clear that heads are rolling. In just the last few months, police have nabbed 17 of the country’s 30 most-wanted fugitives. The blitz, dubbed “historic” by anti-Maﬁa forces, has targeted all major crime syndicates: the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Naples-based Camorra, and Calabria’s ’Ndrangheta. A critical win was the arrest of Gianni Nicchi, said to be the Cosa Nostra’s No. 2, early this month. Another was the Dec. 1 sweep of southern Italy—the grand ﬁnale of operation “Domino,” which decimated the Parisi clan and allowed ofﬁcials to conﬁscate assets totalling nearly $374 million.

If you believe the many prosecutors and ofﬁcials who are celebrating this latest siege, the “decapitation” might indeed appear lasting. “With Operation Perseus,” explained Pietro Grasso, head of the anti-Maﬁa prosecution services, “we have stopped [the Maﬁa] from rising up again, by cutting off all [its] strategic, thinking heads.” The raids have been a “decisive blow,” Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa agrees. At the least, it would seem that Italy’s organized crime rests on fragile ground. Said Justice Minister Angelino Alfano: “The Maﬁa is on its knees. Now we want to deal the killing blow.”

Then again, these kinds of political divinations have been made before. In the 1920s, Benito Mussolini pledged to eradicate the Maﬁa, which had by then been making trouble in Sicily for about 50 years. That was followed by more than 11,000 arrests and many trials. Decrying earlier “half-hearted attempts” to crack down on the Mafiosi’s’ “ﬁendish devilry,” a 1927 Time magazine article celebrated “Signor Mussolini,” who had at last “dared to put down their wholesale lawlessness.”

Some say that this recent campaign marks a more modern turning point. Peter Schneider explains that things came to a head a few years ago, when gang warfare broke out around Naples and it became obvious that southern Italy was “Europe’s largest drug supermarket.” It became a national embarrassment, he says, and “the authorities were under pressure to intervene.” Added to that, says Schneider, was an “avalanche of pentiti: Maﬁosi who, “caught between a rock and a hard place,” became police informants.

John Dickie, author of Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Maﬁa, says that these latest arrests have been a long time coming—and are the fruit of a “cumulative successful effort.” It began in the 1980s with the Maxi trial, which put hundreds of Sicilian criminals in the accused’s box. The two prosecutors of that case were famously murdered in 1992 and have since been revered as anti-Maﬁa martyrs. But Dickie agrees that “the Sicilian Maﬁa has been absolutely devastated recently.” The commission of Maﬁa chiefs, he says, has not even been able to meet since 1993.

But if the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, which used to run the Italian crime show, is indeed in its death throes, the once-secondary Naples Camorra is gaining ground. Tom Behan, author of The Camorra, says that the Camorra has “managed to recycle itself better.” It has responded to crackdowns by extending its reach into legal industries, like municipal trash collection. The Camorra, explains Behan, is different from the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, whose image has been made universal with The Godfather ﬁlms and The Sopranos TV series. Unlike the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra lacks a federal structure and is not as dependent on large crime families. It has no “precise boundaries” or “agreement between competing gangs,” says Behan, factors that make the Camorra more prone to inter-group violence, but also harder for authorities to track. (The Camorra itself might be nostalgic for the old days of Sicilian rule. When Giuseppe Bastone, a Camorra leader, was located this summer in an underground bunker, police found a DVD copy of The Godfather among his scant possessions.)
But there are other signs that the face of Italian crime is changing. “It’s not just psychopaths with guns on street corners” anymore, says Behan. For starters, there’s a growing gender shift, as more women take the criminal reins. In July, for instance, police busted an 81-year-old woman in Sicily known as “the Godmother.” There’s also a new preference for white-collar leaders: bosses who are not street ﬁghters, but are lawyers, doctors and entrepreneurs.

But the Maﬁa is still kicking, as Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has found out. A notable Maﬁa turncoat, Caspare Spatuzza, has alleged that Berlusconi was in cahoots with the mob in the early 1990s. He also claims that Berlusconi was involved in a Maﬁa bombing campaign in 1993. The messenger in this case is not the most reliable: Spatuzza is serving a life sentence for murder. On the other hand, Marcello Dell’Utri, Berlusconi’s former right-hand man, has already been convicted of ties to the Cosa Nostra. Berlusconi has made light of the situation. “Do you have problems with the Mafia?” he joked when meeting workers in Olbia last month. “Don’t worry—I am the Mafia!” But the PM went out of his way to herald some recent arrests, stressing that he had “done more than anyone else” to tackle organized crime—a sign that the Mafia, and allegations of ties to it, can still sting.

Newsmakers '09: Lingo

By Katie Engelhart - Friday, December 4, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Kate Gosselin’s hair cut got its own phrase, as did Michelle Obama’s pipes

	Reverse mullet: Fashion faux pas of the season: the “reverse mullet”—named after the haircut that Kate Gosselin (of Jon & Kate Plus 8) got last spring. The asymmetrical bob—short and spiky at the crown and longer in the front—was widely mocked, notably by celebrity site TMZ.com, which dubbed it a “bi-level, Flock of Seagulls-humped-a-porcupine” weave.
	Death panels: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote a Facebook post falsely accusing Obama of trying to set up “death panels” to ration access to health care. She mused: “My baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide . . . whether [he is] worthy of health care.” Fear, it seems, is contagious. A later CNN poll found 41 per cent of Americans felt seniors could fall victim to “government panels.”
	Toxic resumés: That’s about all that bankers from Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. were left with when their firms went bust. Well, that and the millions in bonuses they accrued over the years, giving out “toxic loans” from “toxic banks” on “toxic streets” (think Wall).

Continue…

Holland’s anti-Islamic firebrand

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 2:55 PM - 68 Comments

He wants to ban the Quran. He’s also leading in the polls.

Geert Wilders is famous for his punchy one-liners. Here’s one: “I don’t believe there is a moderate Islam.” And another: “The more Islam that we get, the less freedom that we get.” Wilders, for all his rhetorical failings, is always to the point—like when he categorically proclaims: “I want to ban the Quran.”

It’s not hard to imagine one of these brash catchphrases serving as a slogan for his possible run at the Dutch prime minister’s office in 2011. Today, Geert Wilders stands at the helm of the Netherlands’ fastest growing political force: the Party for Freedom (PVV), founded by Wilders after his 2004 split with the People’s Party. Wilders, Holland’s most notorious right-wing political rock star, has already managed to win a broad base of support, picking up 17 per cent of the Dutch vote in this year’s European elections.

But the PVV has come to resemble, for many, less of a political unit than a vehicle for Europe’s most brazen and unapologetic crusade against Islam—or, as Wilders is known to say, “that sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad.” That is at the heart of the PVV’s stance on nearly every issue. “Islam,” he insists, “is an ideology, not a religion. And it’s a very dangerous, violent and fascist ideology.” Indeed, Wilders has mobilized the right wing around a shared fear: “the Islamic invasion of Holland.”

Wilders wants to ban Islam’s primary religious text, the Quran, on the basis that it is no different from Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s 1925 articulation of Nazi ideology. He also backs moves to prohibit the headscarf and burka—a policy that is endorsed by the country’s integration and immigration minister. Recently, Wilders has played on economic woes, urging the government to calculate “the cost of multiculturalism.” It’s an approach that has ostensibly met success; polls indicate that were a national vote to be held today, Wilders’s party would walk away with more votes than any other.

Wilders’s rise, some say, can be traced back to the day five years ago when a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim shot and then nearly decapitated Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, allegedly for insulting Islam. The killing spurred a series of mosque burnings, and pitted Dutch nationalists against a growing body of immigrants. As the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel has written, “Nov. 2, 2004 was the Netherlands’ Sept. 11, and after that day many politicians declared that the country was now at war.” Wilders’s war has included his 17-minute film Fitna, which means “diagreement and division among people” in Arabic. It juxtaposes images of Sept. 11 and the 2005 London transit bombings with verses from the Quran, such as: “Prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering, to strike terror, to strike terror into the hearts of the enemies, of Allah and your enemies.” (Last February, he was denied entry to London to show the film, although that stance was later reversed.)

Wilders’s rise, says Simon Usherwood, a professor at the University of Surrey, is explained in part by “economic downturn, [which] produces swings toward more reactionary politics.” But another factor is his undeniable charisma. Wilders’s nickname, “Mozart,” is a tribute to his striking hair: longish, cut bluntly, and bleached platinum blond—an attempt, say the rumours, to hide his allegedly Jewish ancestry. But the crux of his support stems from a pressing anxiety about immigration. There are now around one million Muslims—many from Morocco and Turkey—in the Netherlands. But while they only make up around six per cent of the population, there are Muslim strongholds, like Rotterdam, where, Usherwood says, you find white citizens worried that a “national minority will become a local majority.” Tensions are ripe, he claims, because the government has stuck to a policy of “benign neglect”: “simply stick[ing] your fingers in your ears and go[ing] ‘bla bla bla, I can’t hear you.’ ” This has allowed Wilders, with his own crude solution, to sweep in.

Ian Buruma, author of Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance, points his finger at a more global phenomenon: “It is a sign of a broader shift that is happening in Europe, or even the United States with Sarah Palin, in that there is a strong populist mood.” Wilders has managed to take advantage of an “anti-elite” sentiment, says Buruma, in part by manipulating criticism voiced against him. “Part of exploiting the fears of being victimized by elites is his own position: ‘look at me, the elites are out to get me.’ It helps cement that image of the beleaguered voice of the little man being stifled by the elite.”

For Wilders, the Netherlands—which Usherwood stresses is still “liberal and permissive”—is filled with hidden Islamic threats. But how much longer this Dutch Mozart, who is under heavy police protection, will be able to run his mouth is a topic for debate. A national court has charged Wilders with hate speech, and the trial will begin in January. But Buruma thinks a courtroom show will only fuel Wilders’s following, especially if tensions around immigration are not definitively addressed. “When people get fearful,” he warns,” they are capable of following demagogues anywhere.”
Same-sex couples fight to adopt

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 26, 2009 at 9:50 AM - 7 Comments

In France, gay couples are not allowed to adopt children

When the French lesbian known to the public as “Emmanuelle B.” first applied to adopt a child in 1998, she was rejected; the adoption board cited the “lack of a paternal figure in [B.’s] household.” That explanation spurred a legal standoff that pitted French courts against gay rights advocates, who saw the rejection as a statement about their ability—or, more accurately, inability—to be parents. Last week, 11 years after the case began—and one year after the European Court of Human Rights condemned France for sexual discrimination—a French court overruled the 1998 verdict, conceding that it could not “legally justify the decision to reject [B.’s] request.”

B.’s supporters say the case is a flagrant example of high-level prejudice, because, since 1966, France has explicitly allowed unmarried individuals to adopt. And given that the now-48-year-old B. is a nursery school teacher, it would be hard to claim she is an unqualified caregiver. So last week’s reversal is being celebrated as a landmark. “This groundbreaking ruling means governments can’t use sexual orientation to stop someone from adopting a child,” charged Scott Long, director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights division program at Human Rights Watch. L’Est Republicain, a French newspaper, dubbed the decision “the end of hypocrisy.”

For others, the victory is tainted. If B. does apply to adopt again, she will still have to designate herself as a single parent, despite the fact that she is in a 20-year relationship. That’s because French law still bars same-sex couples from adopting. And that view does not look poised to change: “The government and president have on several occasions expressed our position,” said spokesman Luc Chatal, “which is that we are not in favour of the adoption of children by same-sex couples.”

Translation: one gay mother is okay, but not two.
Behold! The lamb of Alberta.

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:20 PM - 0 Comments

Beef prices are falling, but lamb prices remain high

Alberta ranchers beware: there’s a new threat out on the open range. But this one is soft and fuzzy.

The Alberta Lamb Producers have launched a campaign to make their sheep a mainstay on the province’s dinner plates—and they’re trying to convert cattlemen to shepherds. The ALP campaign kicked off last month at the Alberta Sheep Symposium, where members gathered to hear lectures on topics like nutrition and lamb mortality. Continue…
Coming now to a TV near you

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

The future of local programming is on-demand, all the time

Traditional television needs a fairy godmother. Or maybe a visit from a knight in shining armour. Perhaps that’s why Rogers Communications, one of the country’s largest media companies, is betting on the man who was at the helm of Walt Disney Co. when it launched hit titles like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King.

Last month, Rogers (which owns Maclean’s) announced plans to invest millions in Vuguru, a Web video studio launched by former Disney chairman Michael Eisner—the man credited with reviving the Magic Kingdom at a time when Disney was flailing financially. The investment bought Rogers a minority stake in the venture, which will produce around 30 Web series every year, each made up of “mini-sodes” that are a few minutes in length. It may be Rogers’ foothold into what many see as the future of television. Continue…
Hawaii starts 'Furlough Fridays'

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 4 Comments

The state’s public schools are now on a four-days-a-week schedule

School’s out for Fridays. Hawaii’s 256 public schools have switched to a four-day school week as part of statewide cost cuts. Hawaii now has the shortest academic calender in the country, with only 163 school days each year. Parents and politicians are protesting against the new “Furlough Fridays” program. “We are about to rob 17 days from our children’s school year,” lamented Democratic representative Neil Abercrombie. “Days they will never get back.”

The policy has left parents scrambling to find adequate supervision for their liberated little ones—and local news agencies fearing the worst. The Honolulu Advertiser predicted that students would “wind up at grandma’s house or . . . simply be unsupervised at Hawaii’s beaches and malls.” But in the face of a projected $1-billion state deficit, schools superintendent Patricia Hamanoto insists there is no choice: “During this difficult economic period the department is utilizing the resources it has.” Continue…
Where will P.E.I. Muslims go to pray?

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 12:40 PM - 50 Comments

Muslims want the government to help fund a mosque for the Island

Call it Little Mosque on the Island. Last week, the CBC ran a news story about a Muslim doctor whose efforts to build the first mosque in P.E.I. have thus far come to naught. The “disappointed” doctor asked the province for financial assistance, only to be “turned down.”

The CBC story also suggested that there was reason to believe the city might step in. It quoted Charlottetown Coun. David MacDonald as saying he would be willing to meet with Muslims and “see if the city can assist in building a mosque.” But when Maclean’s spoke to MacDonald, he said, “We wouldn’t give any assistance to a religious group any more than we would to anybody else. We don’t provide financial assistance to any kind of developer.” The meeting, MacDonald says, will be little more than an “information session.” Continue…
'The last great Nazi trial'

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 11:06 AM - 33 Comments

John Demjanjuk’s trial in Munich may mark the end of an era

It is being touted as the last great Nazi trial. In November, John Demjanjuk—now ﬁrst on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of most-wanted war criminals—will appear before a Munich court. He is charged with 27,900 counts of accessory to murder for his role as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Demjanjuk is 89, and those in favour of prosecuting him feel a sense of urgency. “It’s a race against time,” says Michael Scharf, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University who has worked on the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic. “They’re trying to close the book on justice before [his] life ends naturally.”

For the most vehement advocates of prosecution, it has been an agonizing wait. Demjanjuk moved to the United States soon after the war, and was able to live quietly for 25 years before evidence of a darker past was unearthed. In the 1980s, he was brought to trial, but his conviction was later overturned on grounds that he had been mistakenly identiﬁed as “Ivan the Terrible,” a notorious sadist at Treblinka death camp in Poland. Only in 2000 was another investigation initiated; even then, nine more years passed until German ofﬁcials issued a warrant for his arrest. In May of this year—some 30 years after the process began—he was deported to Germany, where his trial will begin on Nov. 30. Continue…
Women fight back against Berlusconi

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 5:20 PM - 2 Comments

He told Bindi, ‘You are more beautiful than intelligent’

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has never been terribly discreet about his penchant for extra-marital amore. But here’s some sound advice from one of his colleagues, Italian senator Patrizia Bugnano, after the PM’s latest misstep: “Someone tell Berlusconi he is no George Clooney.”

The row began when Rosy Bindi, a member of the opposition Democratic party, appeared with Berlusconi on the late-night television show Porta a Porta to discuss an Italian court’s decision to revoke his executive immunity from prosecution—a move that could reopen a number of criminal cases against the PM, including alleged tax fraud. During the show, Berlusconi told the matronly Bindi, “You are more beautiful than intelligent,” apparently taking a swipe at both her looks and smarts. (On the show, Bindi fired back: “I’m not one of the women at your disposal.”) Continue…
Jail time for Saudi 'sex braggart'

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 5:00 PM - 3 Comments

Abdul-Jawad will also get 1,000 lashes for touting his conquests

Some people like to boast about their sexual conquests, others think it uncouth to do so. Here’s a story supporting the latter group: last week, 32-year-old Mazen Abdul-Jawad was sentenced to five years in a Saudi Arabian jail and 1,000 lashes for vaunting his sexual escapades on a Lebanon-based Arabic station, LBC. The self-professed philanderer, a divorced father of four, was detained in July, shortly after appearing on the show Bold Red Line, where he detailed his technique for picking up women at shopping malls—live on TV. He also paraded a number of sex toys in front of the camera, and reflected on losing his virginity at the age of 14.

In the West, Jawad, dubbed a “sex braggart” and the “Saudi Casanova” by the Saudi press, might have simply been written off as a lout looking for his 15 minutes of fame. Not in the kingdom, where unmarried men and women are forbidden from mingling and the Islamic religious elite reigns over many areas of public life. Jawad’s TV escapade led 200 Saudis to file legal complaints against him. Continue…
Venezuela's hard-luck orchestra

By Katie Engelhart - Friday, October 23, 2009 at 12:27 PM - 1 Comment

How a revolutionary outreach program turned poverty-stricken youth into world-class musicians

What can Canada learn from a program a classical music program based in the slums of Venezuela? A lot, as far as the Toronto-based Glenn Gould Foundation is concerned.

Next week, the organization named after one of Canada’s most celebrated musical legends will present Dr. José Antonio Abreu of Venezuela with its triennial Glenn Gould Prize, given to an individual for his or her contributions to music and communication. Accompanying Dr. Abreu to Toronto will be the Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra, a 250-member ensemble that was recently recognized by the Times of London as among the best in the world. But its prestigious reputation belies its humble roots. All 250 musicians are between the ages of 16 and 22, and all come from Venezuela’s most impoverished communities—a seemingly unlikely breeding ground for top-tier classical musicians.

Over 30 years ago, Dr. Abreu, an economist and conductor, founded El Sistema, a national program promoting free music education in Venezuela. His hope was to use music to reach out to the country’s most at-risk children. When Abreu first started, says Glenn Morley, chair of the Glenn Gould Foundation, “people would say, ‘Why wouldn’t you have sports programs?’ Sports programs are fine and they have their purposes. But they’re also competitive and they have winners and losers. And one thing you don’t want to have is winners and loser in competitions when people have guns in their hands.”

Since then, the program has grown exponentially. It now boasts 126 music centres in Venezuela, each of which caters to an average of 2,000 students. That’s why Venezuela has “probably the highest per capita ratio of young, outstanding classical musicians of anywhere in the world,” says Morley. Indeed, the program is far more than a casual extracurricular pursuit. From the age of about 4, Venezuela’s poverty-stricken youth are eligible for the free afterschool program. They, in turn, must commit themselves to serious study: four hour practices, six days a week.

Among El Sistema’s graduates is Gustavo Dudamel, the newest conductor of the L.A Philharmonic. Only 28 years old, Dudamel made Time magazine’s 2009 list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Dudamel will be in Toronto to accompany the group’s kick-off concert on Monday night.

Morley stresses that the point of the program is not focused on creating better musicians, but better citizens. Though Dudamel stands out as an example of Venezeula’s nascent ability, El Sistema’s boosters are just as likely to tout the fact that while Venezuela’s school drop-out rate for teens 14 and over is 26.4 per cent, that figure drops to just 6.9 per cent for El Sistema participants.

The power of music will be the topic of conversation on Wednesday, when Dr. Abreu joins educators from across Canada in a symposium on music education. The week’s other events include visits to Toronto schools and community centers, in addition to a concert for 14,000 high school students at the Rogers Centre on Thursday. The hope, says the Glenn Gould Foundation’s Beth Sulman, is that Canada will adopt some variation of El Sistema here. Similar programs have already been set up in 20 countries, including the United States and Great Britain. But in Ontario, music education “has just dropped of the radar,” says Sulman. “The Ontario Minister of Education is going to be [at Wednesday’s symposium], so there’s hope.”

Already, programs based on El Sistema have been started in Ottawa and New Brunswick, but they are in very early stages.

Morley hopes his organization can help accelerate this trend, by transforming an award which has long recognized musical talent—that of Yo-yo Ma, and André Previn, for instance—to one that honors perhaps lesser-known social transformers. In particular, Morley wants to turn his prize into a kind of Nobel Prize for the arts, of which there is currently none.

“Now the vision has been so expanded,” says the Glenn Gould chair, “that almost anything is possible.”
Bringing albino-killers to justice

By Katie Engelhart - Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 4:20 PM - 19 Comments

In two years, 53 albinos have been murdered in Tanzania

In the past two years, 53 albinos have been killed in Tanzania. No one has been brought to justice for committing these murders. Until now.

Last Wednesday, a Tanzanian court sentenced three men to death for killing a 14-year-old albino boy, Matatizo Dunia from Shinyanga, in brutal fashion—they kidnapped him, then cut his body into pieces. An equally barbaric case is also garnering national attention: Mariam Emmanuel, a ﬁve-year-old girl, was butchered by a group of machete-wielding men in Mwanza. The culprits divided the girl’s body up among themselves and drank her blood while her siblings watched. Murdered albinos are usually sold at high prices to witch doctors, who grind up the body parts and brew them into potions that they believe carry magic powers. Continue…
It’s like a curse

By Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 11:39 AM - 10 Comments

New findings offer a bleak outlook for redheads everywhere

Red is the hair colour of the season. In fashion magazines worldwide, crimson clichés abound: Hollywood has succumbed to “scarlet fever” and starlets are “painting the town red.” Model Coco Rocha and actress Scarlett Johansson are two of the latest to turn red. But they are only following in the wake of faux-red trailblazers like Amy Adams, who swears there was “a definite shift in [her] life” the moment she “decided to go red.”

Hollywood stylist Robert Hallowell—whose latest gig involves keeping CSI star Marg Helgenberger’s copper hair shining on set—cautions that, of all the bottle-bought shades, red is the most finicky. “It’s so hard to get it right,” he bemoans. “It can be so I Love Lucy orange. Or it can go to the bluey, dark red that is sort of ’80s.” That, of course, is not a problem for the two per cent of the world that is genuinely red. But while Hollywood is turning more titian-friendly, another place appears increasingly threatening to redheads: the dentist’s chair. Continue…