Whatever happened to tenure?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, January 20, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 8 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Tolson

In 2000, 36-year-old Leslie Jermyn went to teach her first course as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto. For $4,550, she taught 100 students a two-month first-year anthropology course. Though Jermyn would go on to teach courses every summer for the next 11 years, the job was never guaranteed, and every year she experienced “gut-wrenching tension” waiting to find out whether she’d won a new contract. “Often I was hired within two weeks of the start time of the course,” she says. For years she had no benefits and worked out of a shared office, furnished with one desk and one telephone. In 2007, after she had been teaching upwards of 800 students a year for three years straight, she argued to the dean that the department needed a regular teaching position. That didn’t work, and Jermyn says she knows why: “I’m cheaper without benefits.”

Jermyn’s lot is similar to that of many North American university undergraduate teachers today. A November 2010 report titled “Employees in Postsecondary Institutions” released by the U.S. Department of Education concludes that the proportion of university instructors who have tenure or are on the tenure track fell below 30 per cent in 2009—a big drop from 1971, when 57 per cent were on the tenure track or had tenure already.

In Canada, the numbers tell a similar story. A 2010 Statistics Canada survey of full-time teaching staff in universities shows that there were 20,685 tenured professors in 2009, down from 26,487 in 1999. Meanwhile, over the same period the number of sessional staff rose from 2,865 to 3,135. Estimates from the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a 65,000-strong academic staff union, say that between 40 and 60 per cent of undergraduate teaching is done by sessional lecturers who often cobble together a living earning between $5,000 and $7,000 for a four-month course, sometimes travelling between two or three universities in one term. The joke in academic circles is they’re “roads scholars.”

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Trouble in the big house

By Stephanie Findlay - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 1:01 PM - 35 Comments

JOSE CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images

If the views of Julian Fantino, the former chief of the Toronto and Ontario police forces and now a Conservative MP, are anything to go by, the Conservative government is hell bent on sending more people to prison. “In some cases, the Charter has been exploited and the rulings that have followed have, in fact, benefited some criminals, absolutely,” said Fantino, in a TV interview last November. His attitude echoes the Conservative government’s anti-crime philosophy, which has resulted in legislation like last February’s Truth in Sentencing Act, which removed the two-for-one credit that prisoners received for time served prior to their conviction.

Now the Tories are proposing the establishment of mandatory minimum sentences for a flurry of offences. For example, Bill S-10, which was on the agenda in the House of Commons and Senate in December, would impose mandatory minimum sentencing for growing marijuana (currently, the law sets only maximum penalties). It’s an expensive venture. This week the Harper government announced that it intends to invest $2 billion over five years to absorb the influx of inmates.

This stance has confounded criminologists and opposition politicians alike, who say the hardline agenda will drive more people into prison for longer, and flies in the face of StatCan reports that show police-reported crime rates have been falling. And, critics say, mandatory minimum sentencing would worsen an already increasing problem in Canada’s justice system: the boom in women in federal prisons.

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Sorry guys, the party's over

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 12:00 PM - 1 Comment

Feng Li/AP

Sparked by public outrage over government corruption, Beijing has promised to crack down on excessive spending by government officials on overseas seminars and functions—expenses that cost Chinese taxpayers 400 billion yuan ($58 billion) a year. Speaking specifically about lavish parties—at some, revellers have reportedly died due to excessive drinking—Wu Yuliang, secretary-general of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, says the government is committed to eradicating “the extravagance and waste.”

Last year, 113,000 officials were punished for corruption, but only 4,300 cases were deemed worthy enough to be investigated for potential legal action. And critics have low expectations that the government’s anti-corruption plan, laid out last month in a 39-page report, will result in big changes. “If your leaders are already corrupt and you want those leaders to fight corruption, then in reality I don’t think this is sincere,” says human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Zapatero zapped

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments

81 per cent say Zapatero inspires little or no confidence | Andrea Comas/Reuters

This could be the beginning of the end for Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The local branch of his Socialist party was beaten by the conservative and nationalistic Catalan party Convergència i Unió (CiU) in regional elections in Catalonia late last month, dealing a major blow to Zapatero’s government as he attempts to tackle the country’s floundering economy and sky-high levels of unemployment. The CiU won 38 per cent of the vote, clobbering the Socialists who took just 18 per cent, although the CiU failed to get a majority in the regional government.

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Jihad in the Caucasus?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, December 2, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Musa Sadulayev/AP

An increasing number of recent terrorist attacks in Russia’s North Caucasus have attracted the attention of analysts who point to a growing role of Arab fighters and even preachers in the region. “North Caucasus jihadis’ linkage to the global jihad is now at a level in which clerics have become influential and are sought out for fatwas and advice,” writes Murad Batal al-Shishani, a political analyst at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based political think tank, noting what appears to be the spreading influence of Arab Salafist ideologues.

Among the recent examples of an Arab presence is the highly publicized but not unique death of 24-year-old Jordanian Anas Khalil Khadir, who was killed in Chechnya in June after joining jihadist groups there. And in August, Jordanian Salafist ideologue Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi and Syrian cleric Abu Basir al-Tartusi condemned the fracturing of jihadist groups in Chechnya and the North Caucasus, advocating they unite under the militant Chechen Islamic leader Doku Umarov.

That’s not to say that Arab terrorists are overrunning the region. Paul Crego, a specialist on the Caucasus and cataloguer at the U.S. Library of Congress, says that the “Arab fighter,” though a real threat, doesn’t mean there’s a unified Caucasus jihad movement. And Arabs ultimately act as individual players, aligning themselves with different militant Islamic factions within the region.

Crego acknowledges that “there has been some radicalization of the Islamic movement in the North Caucasus, and outside influence from Islamic militants.” But, he notes, “if you took away all jihad, whether global or local in the North Caucasus, you would still have the issue of people who have been treated very badly by imperial Russia for the past two centuries.” And for that, he says, “I don’t see an easy resolution.”

The ring's cycle

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 3:00 PM - 1 Comment

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP; David Levinson/Corbis

On Friday, Feb. 6, 1981, on the grounds of Windsor Castle, Prince Charles proposed to Diana—sans ring. It came two weeks later on Feb. 22, when he and Diana were having an intimate evening with the Queen. Diana described being presented with a choice of potential gems in Andrew Morton’s 1992 book Diana: Her True Story. “A briefcase comes along on the pretext that Andrew is getting a signet ring for his 21st birthday and along come these sapphires. I mean nuggets! I suppose I chose it, we all chipped in. The Queen paid for it.”

The ring in question was a large oval sapphire surrounded by 14 round diamonds and set in 18-karat white gold, worth $67,000 and made by jeweller Garrard & Co., the official crown jewellers at the time.

Just two days later, on Feb. 24, following a private lunch with the Queen, Lady Diana Spencer and Charles officially announced their engagement. On the grounds of Buckingham Palace, the future princess of Wales posed for photographers awkwardly, placing her hand across her body assuming an uncomfortable, defensive position. Tina Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles, wrote that her department-store outfit, picked days before off a rack at Harrods, was “air-stewardess blue with a matronly print blouse tied by a large pussycat bow that made her look like a zaftig Sloane on the frontispiece of Country Life.”

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Taking on Hugo Chávez

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 25, 2010 at 8:40 AM - 3 Comments

Incensed, Chávez has called the governor a ‘traitor’ | Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

Henri Falcón, the governor of Venezuela’s western state of Lara, is picking up momentum. His name is being tossed around by analysts as a potential candidate to run against Hugo Chávez in the 2012 presidential elections. And with the failure of Chávez’s United Socialist Party to reach a two-thirds majority in the national assembly elections held this September, the opposition, including Fatherland for All, of which Falcón is a member, is strengthening.

Elected governor of Lara in 2008, and a former mayor of the state’s capital city of Barquisimeto—he was elected twice, in 2000 and 2004—Falcón joined Chávez’s party in 2007, but broke ranks this February to join Fatherland for All. In his open resignation letter to Chávez, Falcón wrote that the president’s party was permeated by “bureaucracy, an absence of discussion, clientelism, factionalism, and a badly understood concept of loyalty.” In response, Chávez’s party has accused Falcón of colluding with the opposition and business groups in Lara. “He’s a traitor—let the people from Lara know it,” said Chávez on his weekly television show in March. “I know it, maybe like Christ knew that Judas was the traitor.”

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Odds are picking up

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

“If you strike out everywhere else, just come to the Mount,” says Cody Brown, a congenial second-year student at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. The reason is simple: the Mount’s student body is 79 per cent women. “It’s a great ratio,” says the 19-year-old enthusiastically. “A phenomenal ratio.”

Though the Mount is an extreme example, female-dominated campuses are an increasing reality at universities across the country. According to Statistics Canada, 57 per cent of the student body in universities is female. Of the 69 schools Maclean’s surveyed in its 2010 university guide, 24 institutions have a student body that’s over 60 per cent female. And it’s not just Mount Saint Vincent where the females make up more than 70 per cent of the population. It’s the same at NSCAD University and Université Sainte-Anne.

The trend is welcome news for women who want to focus on homework instead of being incessantly courted, and men who like all the attention. But as the female-to-male ratio skews, dating must adapt.

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Ralph Ronald O'Neil | 1959-2010

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

Illustration by Team Macho

Ralph Ronald O’Neil was born on Aug. 27, 1959, to Eunice and Richard O’Neil, a homemaker and a farmer in the eastern Ontario town of Winchester. He had three older brothers, Robert, Clarence and Allen, and a younger brother and sister, Brenda and Rick. As kids, the O’Neils would play baseball and hockey, and fish for sunfish and perch in the St Lawrence River. Even then, Ralph had a “love for horses and cows,” and since he was 13 he worked on farms, says his 54-year-old brother Bob. “He, like the rest of us, quit school when he was 16,” says Bob. “He just didn’t like it.”

One evening, when Ralph was 21, he was strolling along a street in Winchester and ran into his aunt. She was walking with her friend, Heather Moodie, a 31-year-old from Ottawa who had started a natural food store in Winchester. “She introduced me to Ralph, and he was such a cute little thing,” says Heather. “There was just something about him—he had a great sense of humour and a twinkle in his eye.” Ralph swung by his aunt’s house later that night, and he and Heather were together ever since.
About a year into their courtship, Heather had returned to a job in Ottawa because her business had folded. With the couple trying to maintain a long-distance relationship, Ralph proposed over the telephone. “He couldn’t wait to see me,” says Heather. They were married on March 25, 1981, in Heather’s mother’s living room in Ottawa.

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Representing the new guy

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 9:40 AM - 2 Comments

Getty Images

In reaction to the success of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right populist political party that in last month’s federal election won 20 seats in the 349-member parliament, Tarek Al-Khatib, a Swedish immigrant, has formed a political party to represent immigrants’ interests. Known as the Svartsk­alledmokraterna, or the “Wog Democrats,” the party’s aim is to challenge the Sweden Democrats’ anti-immigrant and anti-Islam platform. “We have to defend ourselves through greater political activity,” Al-Khatib told the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, adding that Sweden’s shift to the right sends a “clear warning signal” to immigrants in the Nordic country.

That Sweden needs a political party that supports foreigners’ interests may be an understatement. In recent weeks, the country has seen a rash of shootings against foreigners in Malmö, the third largest city, where almost half the population are immigrants. They were the latest in a string of shootings over the past year in Malmö: 16 in total, resulting in numerous injuries and the death of one woman. Given the atmosphere of fear, the Wog Democrats appear to be gaining momentum: since its recent inception this month, the party says more than 1,000 people have expressed interest.

Goodbye to Sherwood?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

SIMON DAWSON/AP

In an attempt to raise billions in funds for Britain’s “Big Society,” David Cameron’s government is allegedly planning to sell half of Britain’s government-owned forests–including the stomping grounds of Robin Hood and Maid Marian: Sherwood Forest. The land will be sold to private companies that will build holiday villages, golf courses, and begin commercial logging operations: legislation that governs protection of the forests, some of which dates back to the Magna Carta of 1215, will likely be changed to grant private firms the right to log.

The Telegraph reports that a third of the land would be transferred to private ownership between 2011 and 2015, and the rest would be sold by 2020. The revenue from the forest sales will be directed toward government departments that were worst hit by Britain’s new austerity program, under which government spending is to be cut by 19 per cent. Opposition to a forest sell-off is mounting: “If this means vast swathes of valuable forest being sold to private developers, it will be an unforgiveable act of environmental vandalism,” said Green MP Caroline Lucas.

Offering a better licence to drive

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

In Nord-du-Québec, the region north of the 55th parallel, anyone 16 or older can register in a special licensing program, which allows them to drive in their communities. Until now, there has been little need for a provincial licence, since roads in this region are not connected to the rest of the province’s roads, explains Audrey Chaput, media relations officer for the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec. But changes to improve training are in the works, the result of more roads being built linking the communities to the main road network. Not to mention issues of safety: the rise in the number of young drivers on the road—up 26.6 per cent since 2004—has coincided with a spike in problems. During the first six months of 2010, the local police in Kuujjuaq, one of the communities in the region, opened 505 files for impaired driving, compared to 263 in 2008.

To address the issue, the Kativik police force, the Kativik school board and the Quebec Ministry of Transportation are creating a certified driving school in Nunavik so drivers can get their provincial licence, the class 5 permit. The Kativik regional government will cover the costs of the course, which will be run by the school board. It will include 24 hours of classroom theory and 15 hours of instruction behind the wheel, says Julie Grenier, a communications officer with the Kativik regional government.

The course will be mandatory, and the goal is to phase out the territorial permits. There is a concerted effort by Nunavik organizations to have a safe road environment, says Debbie Astroff, a public relations officer for the Kativik school board. “That’s why we’re working so closely with the [Transportation Ministry] right now to try and address the problem,” says Grenier, “because we know it is a problem.”

Brian Raymond Wood | 1977-2010

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 3 Comments

Illustration by Julia Minamata

Brian Raymond Wood was born on March 3, 1977, in Denver to Edward and Janice Wood. For the first couple of weeks, newborn Brian always had a frown on his face. “We called him grumplet,” laughs Ed. But after six weeks his frown turned upside down, and he became a smiling, easygoing tot.

Brian was an imaginative child, and when he was able to read he took to fantasy stories. In middle school he began playing Dungeons and Dragons, a fantasy role-playing game, and Atari, an early video game console. “Eventually, of course, he ended up with a Game Boy,” says Ed. He also liked real-life adventures. Brian was in Indian Guides, became a Cub Scout, and then graduated to a Boy Scout troop, often taking part in “high-adventure” treks. But it was in high school that he really came into his own. After trying out for the football team and not liking it—he said it was “too rough,” says Ed—Brian decided to audition for a school play. He discovered his singing voice, and would go on to act in high school musical productions like 42nd Street, Time Out for Ginger, and The Pajama Game. “We were hiking on the 55-mile trek in New Mexico, and here Brian was leading the group along, singing The Sound of Music,” laughs Ed. He also took up fencing, which he did competitively for a while.

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Leaving for greener pastures

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

Ralph Orlowski/ Getty Images

Germany used to be the most popular destination for Turkish immigrants. The Deutsch-Türken (German Turks) first came to Germany as gastarbeiter (guest workers) in the 1960s, when the construction of the Berlin Wall effectively cut off the flow of immigrants from East Germany. Since then, the Turkish population has grown to 3.5 million. But now, more ethnic Turks are moving out of Germany than in. According to the latest data from 2008, from the Futureorg Institute, a private research institute, 4,609 Turks left compared to just 2,569 who moved in. “The new phenomenom here is that people who are comparatively well educated, who weren’t born in Turkey, not raised in Turkey, they’re going back,” says David Bosold, head of the International Forum on Strategic Thinking in Berlin. Bosold says that many of his ethnically Turkish friends who were born in Germany have moved ‘‘back” to Turkey to work for German businesses like Mercedes or Deutsche Bank. He says it’s a question of opportunity: “They simply can have a better life.”

Despite calls for reform, Germany remains inhospitable toward its Turks. Last February, researchers at the University of Konstanz published a study that found highly skilled job candidates with Turkish names like “Fatih” and “Serkan” received 14 per cent less positive responses than those with the same qualifications but with German names. In smaller businesses, it was 24 per cent more likely that a person with a German name would be called back. Says Büro Memet Kilic, an ethnic Turk and MP for the Green party in Germany: “Young immigrants of the second and third generations who have degrees from German universities are condemned to earn their living as cab drivers. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that people emigrate from Germany.”

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From e-books to no books

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Andre Zelck/laif/Redux

Earlier this month, the University of Texas at San Antonio announced it had built the world’s first bookless library. Its Applied Engineering and Technology Library offers access to 425,000 e-books and 18,000 e-journal subscriptions, and librarians say they’ve yet to hear a complaint from the 350-plus students and faculty who pass through its doors daily. “We’ve gotten no negative feedback,” says Krisellen Maloney, library dean at the University of Texas. “We looked at circulation rates, we looked at electronic resources, we looked at requests, and we decided that having the services was more important than the physical books.” She adds bluntly: “When we prioritized the needs, the books weren’t the priority.”

It used to be that the size of a collection defined a library’s greatness, but now with access to online academic journals and e-books, a large physical collection doesn’t yield the same competitive advantage.

Now the bookless trend is taking hold in Canada, where more and more libraries are expanding their electronic resources. “My own institution has increased its holdings exponentially,” says Ernie Ingles, vice-provost and chief librarian at the University of Alberta and president of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). “Virtually 90 per cent of our journals are electronic now, without print equivalents, and I believe we have approaching one million e-books in one kind or another.” Ingles says that all the members of CARL, including the University of British Columbia, the University of Ottawa and Dalhousie University, are moving in a similar direction.

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Saying 'nein' to street view

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

CARSTEN REHDER/DPA/ZUMA/KEYSTONE PRESS

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Google in Europe. Governments and residents are not thrilled with the company’s Street View service, which allows users to get an up-close-and-personal 360-degree image of any given location, including residential areas. In Guernsey, two of Google’s Street View cars were vandalized. Meanwhile, the Czech Republic shot down Google’s second request to collect data from Czech streets, saying the collection represents a threat to citizens’ privacy. One of the concerns revolves around the cameras, which are posted 2.7 m on top of Google’s cars. The Czech office says the cameras are too tall and allow intrusive photographs to be “taken over the fence.”

There’s similar resistance in Germany. Even though Germans are among the most frequent users of Street View, they reportedly aren’t so comfortable over the possibility of seeing their own houses online. Over 100,000 have already registered to have their homes blurred out on Street View, slated for a full launch in Germany’s 20 biggest cities by the end of the year. Others have until Oct. 15 to apply for their houses to be pixelated unrecognizable.

Upping the rent for Russia

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 2:40 PM - 0 Comments

Denis Sinyakov/Reuters

Russia intends to cut a deal with Kyrgyzstan that would allow it to keep its five military bases in the country operational for 49 more years, as well as open a new one. Along with a Russian air base in Kant, Kyrgyzstan hosts Moscow’s naval training and research centre at Lake Issyk-Kul, and two seismic and communication facilities in the Chuyisk region. It’s believed a new base will add stability to the region, which earlier this year saw hundreds of Uzbeks killed in ethnic riots. But having bases in Kyrgyzstan is also a strategic move for Russia, which seeks to elbow out the United States and China and assert a strong military presence in the ex-Soviet republic.

In return, Kyrgyzstan authorities want Russia to exchange small arms and military hardware. But they also want cash. Kyrgyz Defence Minister Abibilla Kudayberdiev said that if Moscow continues using bases in Kyrgyzstan, he wants to increase the rent more than fourfold, from US$4.5 million annually to upwards of US$18 million. The deal has yet to be settled, but analysts say it probably won’t be until after the country’s elections on Oct. 10, the first vote since former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was unseated in a violent revolt in April.

No pregnant nuns, please

By Stephanie Findlay - Tuesday, September 28, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

An ice cream advertisement has been banned in Italy after complaints from Christians that it was offensive. The ad, which depicts a heavily pregnant nun with the line “immaculately conceived,” prompted 10 complaints to Italy’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after running in the magazines The Lady and Grazia. (Another ad in the campaign features two men in cassocks and clerical collars close to kissing, with the line “we believe in salivation.”)

The ice-cream company, Antonio Federici Gelato Italiano, defended itself against the pregnant-nun complaints, arguing that “conception” described the development of their ice cream. The company also claims that the ads are, in part, meant “to comment on and question, using satire and gentle humour, the relevance and hypocrisy of religion and the attitudes of the Church to social issues.” But the ASA ruled that the pregnant nun ad was “likely to be seen as a distortion and mockery of the beliefs of Roman Catholics,” and banned it. That wasn’t the first time the ASA has had to police the company’s ads. Last year they canned another one that depicted a priest just about to kiss a nun.

Leaving one game for another

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, president of the Russian republic of Kalmykia for 17 years, has announced his resignation in order to focus on maintaining control of the international chess federation, FIDE. Ilyumzhinov, who has been president of FIDE for 15 years, is running for re-election as head of the organization, with the vote slated for Sept. 29 during the bienniel Chess Olympiad, held this year in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia. But Ilyumzhinov may have had a push from the Kremlin, which has been cleaning house. He’s just one of a group of long-time leaders of Russian republics who have recently retired from their posts, including Murtaza G. Rakhimov of Bashkortostan, Eduard Rossel of Sverdlovsk Oblast, and Mintimer Shaimiyev of Tatarstan.

If Ilyumzhinov has indeed been ousted, it may have had something to do with his claims that he can communicate with aliens, or his inept financial management of his poverty-stricken region.

(For the 1998 Chess Olympiad, Ilyumzhinov spent $50 million to build Chess City, a chess-themed Disneyland-like complex on the outskirts of Kalmykia’s capital, Elista.) Meanwhile, Ilyumzhinov’s FIDE presidential campaign has also hit rough waters. In July, Anatoly Karpov, a former world champion, filed a lawsuit along with five national chess federations in Switzerland seeking to have Ilyumzhinov’s election ticket disqualified. The hearing is scheduled for Sept. 15 and 16, just two weeks before the FIDE election and the Chess Olympiad.

Can separatists be trusted?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Reuters

For four decades, Basque separatists—known as the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, or ETA—have waged a bloody campaign for an independent homeland in northern Spain and southwest France. But now, in a video released to the BBC early this September, they are declaring a ceasefire. The Spanish government remains unconvinced. The last time the ETA declared a ceasefire, in 2006, there was an attack nine months later when rebels killed two people in a car bomb at Madrid airport. Said Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba: “The idea of a truce as a way to open a process of dialogue is dead.”

However, Gerry Adams, an influential terrorist turned peace activist and leader of Ireland’s left-leaning Sinn Féin party, says the ETA’s call for a ceasefire should be taken seriously. Adams says his group has been involved in years of “debate, discussion and strategizing” among the Basque activists that led to the armistice. Writing in the Guardian, Adams said, “Many in the Basque country look to the Irish peace process for inspiration, and much of what has been attempted there in the last decade has been modelled on our experience.” The question is, will the violent-prone ETA ultimately heed Adams’s advice?

Why Israelis love Berlin

By Stephanie Findlay - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

SEAN GALLUP/GETTY IMAGES

Berlin, the epicentre of European hip, has been attracting a rapidly increasing number of Israeli tourists of late. “In the first six months of 2010, we had an increase of Israeli overnight stays in Berlin by almost 25 per cent,” says Kirsten Schmidt, director of public relations of Berlin Tourism Marketing. “The numbers have been going up steadily, except for a slight dip in 2007.” From January to June of this year, 22,531 Israelis took in the sights and sounds of the German capital.

The average stay was 3.3 days. While many young Israelis are drawn to the city’s vibrant club scene, others come to learn more about their history and participate in the city’s fast-growing Jewish community. Among non-European visitors to Berlin, only American tourists outnumber those visiting from Israel. It’s all part of a larger Jewish immigration trend. In fact, Berlin boasts the largest Jewish community in Germany, with 11,000 registered members in the city’s synagogues and private congregations.

The afterparty to end all parties

By Stephanie Findlay - Sunday, September 19, 2010 at 7:29 PM - 0 Comments

So on Thursday night, I set out with two events on my agenda. One was a dinner, the other was an afterparty. It would be my first time covering both types of events. The Roosevelt Room was hosting a dinner for “Hollywood producing mogul,” Harvey Weinstein and the cast of Sarah’s Key. According to the publicists, the dinner was in celebration of Weinstein’s purchase of the film and apparently Kristen Scott Thomas was set to attend. I felt obliged to go, seeing as she’s one of my Dad’s favourite actresses.

I arrived at nine with some friends, and was seated down at one of nine white tablecloth-covered tables in the middle of the restaurant. But while we were on the guest list, it soon became clear that we weren’t on the VIP guest list. The talent was late, as usual, but when Kristen Scott Thomas arrived she was ushered into a room in the back. I didn’t even see her. Sorry Dad. The back room was where the real action was happening but a waiter told us that no, we couldn’t go in. We were assured that the next event—a celebration of Belstaff jackets—would boost the energy level but I wasn’t so sure. There are many things that get me excited, but jackets isn’t one of them. A waiter offered another option: that we stick around to get rich men to buy us drinks. Rumour has it they come in droves as the night goes on. However, gold digging was not on the agenda this evening.

So around eleven, we headed over to the after party for Rio Sex Comedy. In the afternoon, I had emailed my friends warning them, “this may or may not be fun.” Now, this is an embarrassing admission, but until that night I hadn’t actually been to a film’s private after party yet. My strategy had been to attend the big name parties, like the InStyle Party, or the Hello! Party, or the Vitamin Water party. As a TIFF rookie, pre-screening cocktails or post-screening parties didn’t register on my radar. And what a rookie mistake that was.

This party was less of a party and more of a friendly hang out at an open bar and free food with people who happen to be actors. Charlotte Rampling stationed herself at the entrance of the restaurant casually chatting. Bill Pullman made his way through the bar, laughing and shaking hands congenially. And there were scores of other people there from all over the world, some from Brazil, some with English accents. Sure, maybe these people weren’t the likes of Matt Damon or Blake Lively, but to me, they represented a refreshing side of TIFF. A stripped-down version where the focus was on the film and the people, as opposed to the glam and the profit.

I could have gone to another party after. Internationally famous Puerto Rican musician Louie Vega was djing at AME, a restaurant down in the entertainment district in King West. But thumping bass and random people was not how I wanted to end my stint at the festival. So I went home instead, opting to remember TIFF by people coming together and enjoying their work in film.

Ryan Gosling and his kid co-star's salty oatmeal

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 4:41 PM - 0 Comments

Yesterday, it was a beautiful sunny day at the ‘Blue Valentine’ red carpet at the Ryerson Theatre and it was fitting that on such a lovely afternoon I met Ryan Gosling. He brought the girls out of the woodwork. Of the approximately one hundred people pressed up in a line along the fence of the red carpet, I think there were just four guys. The fans were all holding cameras, some had pictures of his face, and I even saw one who brought flowers. They shrieked every time he faced them. It’s all “still surreal” to him, he told me.

For all the artificiality of the red carpet, Gosling comes off as a down-to-earth guy. He’s not an average Joe, but he’s genuine. He was relaxed and answered questions carefully, though he didn’t pander to reporters. When asked what type of husband he would be (loving? caring?) he sarcastically joked that no, he wouldn’t be a loving husband.

Williams and Gosling’s performances as a dysfunctional couple have gotten early Oscar buzz. When asked about working with Williams, who wasn’t able to attend the premiere, Gosling said “she’s the best.” He explained that it was because they were very good friends before making the movie that they were able to explore a deeper, darker chemistry on screen, allowing them to “go places that we otherwise couldn’t have” with the characters.

As we were talking, 6-year-old Faith Wladyka, Ryan and Michelle’s daughter in the film, came up to us. Gosling picked her up and held her on his hip while I asked her what her favourite part about shooting the film was. Gosling egged her on to “say Ryan.” Wladyka obliged. “He’s goofy,” she giggled.

A reporter beside me began asking Gosling about what his Mom thinks when he takes a woman home. “You’re going to ask an untoward question with a kid here?” said Gosling mockingly. After putting Wladyka down and ushering her away he continued to answer the questions. But when asked what the sexiest thing about him is, he had enough. He gave me a look that said “who is this guy?” and then curtly replied to the reporter that “we should not have this conversation” and moved on.

The director, Derek Cianfrance, came up next.  I asked him whether or not it was difficult working with a child on such a serious movie. “It’s fun working with kids, I have two kids of my own,” replied Cianfrance. “We just try to make it games for her.”

“For instance with the oatmeal, she’s supposed to not like oatmeal. But she loves oatmeal. So I told Michelle to put a little salt in the oatmeal so she wouldn’t like it.

“Pretty soon by the eleventh take she was putting in so much salt and she was still loving it. Finally she was just stuffed, so I finally got my take when she just couldn’t eat any more oatmeal.”

After the red carpet, I had a couple hours before heading over to the Festival Music House at the Roosevelt Room for the third and final night of all-Canadian performances. The venue was packed. I was struck by how eclectic the crowd was. It was full with a mish-mash of industry business types, artist folk, and a smattering of media people like me. I arrived in time to catch BEAST. On their MySpace page, they call their genre “Experimental/Trip Hop.” It can also be described as hip-hop meets spaghetti western. (Singer Betty Bonifassi even mentioned a song was inspired by Ennio Morricone). After BEAST was Zeus, a long-haired rock n’roll band who sounded straight out of the early 70s. The night was capped off with a performance from the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie.

I took off just as George Strombolopolous walked in. That’s a lot of Canada in one room.

Gossipers and porn stars

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, September 16, 2010 at 1:29 PM - 0 Comments

The most coveted parties at TIFF are known only to the closest industry insiders, so it was great for me to have the ear of professional gossiper Lainey of eTalk fame for a few minutes yesterday. After 15 minutes with the celeb-obsessed host, she tipped me off to one of the coolest parties I’ve been to yet. If only I’d met her five days ago.

Lainey also told me that during TIFF she sleeps “an average of two hours a night.” I didn’t even know people could do that. She said she had more than enough training after covering the festival for five years, and also after reporting the Olympics. “That was fourteen days,” she explained, “this is only ten.” As for her seemingly unfailing desire to report on the life of stars, she told me she sees it as more of a sociological endeavor. “Without sounding pretentious,” she said, “celebrity gossip speaks to a larger social consciousness.” For example, the Angelina-Brad-Aniston triangle keeps selling tabloids because it speaks to a woman’s deepest fear: that their man will be stolen by a vixen.

When asked about whether she sees herself as a fly-on-the-wall or an active participant in the lifestyles of the rich and famous, Lainey paused. She likes to go with her friends and observe, she said, but feels she’s not like “them” and is one of “us.” Before she left, I asked her where she was headed, and she rang off a list of interviews, red carpets and parties. It was one of those events, at the SoHo, that I decided to check out that evening.

As it was described to me, the SoHo has functioned as a sort of celebrity getaway. Getting in was a clandestine affair. I wasn’t allowed to bring guests. I entered under another name. And the venue was in an alleyway. Was this for real? I was told that previously, the space had been a bridal boutique, but when I walked in, I was met by an intimate party space with plenty of comfortable seating areas, sofas and chairs, large wood tables, low lighting and hardcover books lining the walls. This event was by far the best I’d been to for actually meeting people. I introduced myself to a handsome couple dressed all in black. As it turned out, they both worked in fashion, though they were quick to add that it was “only Canadian box store fashion.” Our favourite beverage of the night was ‘The Torontonian’—vodka, organic cucumber juice and ginger beer. I enjoyed watching the bartender make it—the preparation resembled a dance routine as he clapped the mint leaves together before dropping them into my drink. One of my new friends dryly remarked that while the drink was delicious, he wished they had come up with a “less lame name.”

We eventually left our bartenders to check out an intriguing Star Wars pinball machine in the corner of the room. In between turns, waiters presented me with a near-constant array of delicious morsels—hamburger sliders, concord grapes with condensed goats milk, crab claws and macaroons. On the main table were an assortment of cold cuts and cheeses, grapes, dried fruits and fresh hot foccacia bread. One upside of TIFF is that my grocery bill is next to nothing.

Around midnight there was a performance by some young bright things from L.A., a band called The Airborne Toxic Event. Some notables made fashionably late entrances, including Avatar’s Sam Worthington and the queenly Helen Mirren. John Madden, director of The Debt, also passed through, as well as Miramax president, Daniel Battsek. As I was leaving, Ryan Philippe, star of the Bang Bang Club, was just walking in and hanging out in the back corner. If only I had known about this place earlier, it would have been so much easier to fill my star quota.

But I’d heard word from a friend that Sasha Grey was djing at the Drake Hotel and had to check it out. For those who don’t know, Sasha Grey is a pornstar-cum-actress. What I didn’t know was that she’s also a DJ. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Now, everyone’s a DJ. The room was packed and excited for Grey to begin. It didn’t matter that when she finally got to the booth, she wasn’t really doing much. In fact, she looked like the girl next door, wearing an innocuous black tank top. Her first song, ‘Boomin’ Granny’ by the Beastie Boys, left the top-40 crowd confused. But for the rest, I’m pretty sure that the majority of them couldn’t care less. They were there for the novelty of the act. “This is weird,” I heard someone say. “I’ve seen her in so many raunchy positions.” Porn star or not, the novelty couldn’t carry me until closing, and after fifteen minutes I went home to tuck into bed early at a modest 3:30 am.