Nike’s strange moral universe
By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - 0 Comments
Why Joe Paterno is a perfect poster boy for Phil Knight’s sportswear giant
Zumapress/Keystone Press
Nike founder and professional provocateur Phil Knight gave an Oscar-worthy performance at Joe Paterno’s massive memorial last week, admonishing university officials for allegedly disgracing the late, great football coach (the winningest in Penn State history) before his death on Jan. 22. Paterno, who passed away from lung cancer at 85, was ousted from his near-half-century post as Penn State’s football coach in November, for his lacklustre response to the sexual abuse accusations made against his long-time assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky—now regarded as likely a career pedophile (he has since been accused of molesting several other children on Penn State’s campus). When now-assistant coach Mike McQueary tried to alert Paterno to that probability in 2002 (McQueary says he saw Sandusky raping a boy in the Penn State showers), Paterno informed his superiors, who, in turn, informed nobody else. Paterno, apparently thinking he had done enough, let the matter lie, effectively turning a blind eye to his colleague’s behaviour. In short, he obeyed the technical letter of the law, but seriously abused its spirit.
This is something Nike—under the aegis of its founder and chairman—has been doing for years, which makes Knight’s apologia at Paterno’s memorial all the more perversely appropriate. It’s no secret, for example, that Knight’s shoe empire has enraged labour rights groups across the globe for its maltreatment of workers and violation of child labour laws. But Knight has consistently maintained that what appear to be Nike’s ethical violations actually belong to someone else. As one anti-Nike blog puts it, Knight “claimed that the employees who were exploited weren’t officially ‘Nike’s employees,’ but were instead employees of other businesses contracted to source Nike’s shoes.” This is almost exactly the same rationale Knight extended to Paterno’s actions in his memorial speech, when he proclaimed before a packed auditorium at Penn State that the coach “gave full disclosure to his superiors” and “if there is a villain in this tragedy, it lies in that investigation and not in Joe Paterno.” But the villain in the tragedy is neither the “investigation” nor Joe Paterno. The villain is Jerry Sandusky. What Knight misses in his blanket defence of Paterno is Edmund Burke’s dictum: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Or that good men do less than they should. It isn’t only bad guys who are capable of doing bad things.
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How I tried (and failed) to ignore the Super Bowl
By David Newland - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 6:02 PM - 0 Comments
Sadly, one of our last remaining communal experiences is also a bore
Call me a spoilsport, but I don’t have a TV, I don’t watch American football, and I don’t care for big entertainment spectacles.All of which means, I didn’t watch the Super Bowl yesterday. That’s right: I missed Super Bowl XLVI, the most popular television show in American history. (How they set the record without me is a mystery.)
But here’s the rub: I may as well have watched the show, because I feel as if I somehow saw it vicariously anyway. It’s as if the crowd noise from the stadium was amplified through the broadcast media, then re-amplified through social media. Good luck ignoring that. Continue…
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A painful shot to Google’s private parts
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, February 6, 2012 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments
Scott Feschuk on Google’s potentially apocalyptic path to all-knowing corporate dictatorship
Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Liz Sullivan
Google is taking heat these days for its new privacy code, which the company describes as “enhancing the user experience” and critics describe as another terrifying step along an apocalyptic path toward an all-knowing, all-seeing corporate dictatorship and the utter annihilation of human identity. (I’m paraphrasing.)
Beginning March 1, the company will bring together and analyze the things you search for on the Web, discuss in your email, watch on YouTube, type into your calendar—and combine all that information into a single user profile. This will enable Google to a) better tailor the ads you see on your computer screen, and b) nothing sinister. WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT SINISTERNESS?
There’s one thing that Google executives and their critics agree on: the debate over privacy is only going to intensify as the company grows in size, influence and—especially—ambition. Here’s a calendar of milestones to expect in the months and years ahead:
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Back to work, grandma
By the editors - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 7:00 AM - 0 Comments
Why the retirement age needs to change
The Star Tribune/Courtney Perry/AP
What explains the mystique of age 65?
There was no particular logic at work in 1966 when Canada settled on 65 as the normal age of retirement for the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). We were simply copying the “minimum retirement age” the United States chose for itself back in 1934. Since then, the notion of 65 as the proper age at which to stop working and start enjoying oneself has come to be seen as a sacred right. It’s not. And it needs to change.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper hinted at looming changes to Canada’s public retirement system. This has been widely interpreted to mean a shift in the age of eligibility for Old Age Security (OAS) from 65 to 67. It’s an entirely reasonable idea, and has been predictably met with outrage and protest.
Continuous increases in life expectancy are fundamentally altering the mathematics of retirement in Canada. When we settled on 65 as the social norm for retirement almost half a century ago, life expectancy was around 72 years. Today it is almost 81 years. And there’s no reason to believe these gains—driven by better health care technology, drugs and education—will stop. Over the past 100 years Canadians have added, on average, an extra three months to their lifespans year after year. But retirement at age 65 remains fixed.
More years of leisure and comparatively fewer for work, partly paid for by government, sounds like a great deal. Yet such a scenario is unsustainable over the long run. According to a recent article in Canadian Public Policy by McMaster University economists Frank Denton and Byron Spencer, the ratio of Canadian workers per retiree will drop from 4:1 to 2:1 over the next two decades. If retirement programs are kept at current levels, this will inevitably require a doubling of the public cost of retirement—a massive burden to place upon future generations. The obvious solution is to adjust the age of retirement.
Canada is unique among developed nations in ignoring the issue until now. Countries that have already raised or are raising their retirement age include: the U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Japan, Finland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Turkey . . . and on and on. It’s worth noting that the U.S. began the process of hiking its retirement age to 67 as far back as 1983.
And yet opponents are now accusing Harper of unleashing a hidden agenda on retirees. “The government has taken off the sweater vest,” remarked NDP finance critic Peter Julian. Critics point out Canada is in much better financial shape than many European countries. That may be true. But whether or not we’ve avoided the excesses of other public pension systems has no bearing on the fact that our system faces a crisis of its own due to rising life expectancies and lengthening retirements.
If Harper deserves criticism for his recent trial balloon, it should be for excessive timidity. In his Davos remarks he sought to contain potential criticism by declaring the CPP off limits: “Fortunately, the Canada Pension Plan is fully funded, actuarially sound and does not need to be changed.” In truth, the plan is fully funded only for the next few years and will soon require a major re-evaluation. Relentless increases in longevity have just as big an impact on CPP as OAS. It makes little sense to adjust the retirement age upward for one program while protecting the notion of retirement at 65 elsewhere. The social norm needs to change.
Canada’s retirement system was never designed to cover several decades of freedom from work. While it may be politically expedient to argue that Canada’s retirement system should be protected from change of any kind, there are serious consequences to the status quo. If we allow retirement to grow longer and more lucrative, we rob the economy of productive workers, put a greater burden on the next generation and inevitably threaten the viability of every other social program in the country.
Of course, any changes to the retirement age must be gradual, transparent and fair. (Certainly nothing should disadvantage the elderly poor; the near elimination of seniors’ poverty is one of the great Canadian public policy success stories of the past few decades.) Denton and Spencer propose adding three months per year to the retirement age until it reaches 70. Alternatively, Sweden indexes its normal retirement age to life expectancy tables; as the Swedish lifespan lengthens, so too does time spent at work. Regardless of the process, however, something has to give. Retirement can’t last forever.
Amid the massive media attention paid to the recent Shafia murder trial in Kingston, Ont., Maclean’s coverage stands out from the pack for our detailed investigation into the inner workings of this fatally dysfunctional family. An exhaustive 22-page report by Maclean’s award-winning Senior Writer Michael Friscolanti offers readers an in-depth look at what really went on inside the Shafia home before and after the murders, as well as providing detailed coverage of the subsequent police investigation and trial. See “ ‘A sick notion of honour’ ” beginning on page 38.
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Stephen Harper’s confession
By Paul Wells - Friday, February 3, 2012 at 7:00 AM - 0 Comments
Paul Wells on why Harper’s warning was really an admission— the Tories behaved like trust fund babies
Fred Chartrand/CP
The priorities and planning committee of cabinet—Stephen Harper in the chair, Marjory LeBreton vice-chair, with members including ministers Jim Flaherty, Peter MacKay, Tony Clement, Jason Kenney, John Baird and Diane Finley—met at the Willson House conference centre at Meech Lake on Jan. 20 and 21.
Several other ministers were brought in to join what was, for this cabinet, an unusually detailed and freewheeling conversation. Agenda topics included energy, trade, and the report on subsidies for industrial innovation that Open Text chairman Tom Jenkins handed to the government last October. All of those items made it into the Prime Minister’s speech at Davos five days after the committee retreat ended.
Harper’s vague mention of changes to public pensions will get most of the attention. But I was struck by a few paragraphs higher up in the speech. The part where he lectures his peers—or, more gently, shares lessons learned—on the virtues of a virtuous government.
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Here’s an idea: cut the programs that offend our intelligence
By Emma Teitel - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
Our gravy-conscious government should pay more attention to which belts they’re tightening
Peter Cade/Getty Images
The verdict is in: governments far and wide must “tighten their belts,” “cut the fat,” “purge the gravy” and “stop the insanity” in order to curb their enormous debts. The euro is hanging on for dear life (apparently), America is going to hell in a handbasket (allegedly) and Canada is—though decidedly okay—accumulating household debt at a very risky rate, according to our patron god of finance, Mark Carney. Ontario, or Onterrible, as it’s known elsewhere, is particularly gifted in the art of acquiring debt (the province is supposed to exceed $250 billion) and Toronto’s most polarizing mayor in history—Rob Ford—has, of late, spent more time tightening his own belt than his city’s. By “eating like a rabbit,” says a slowly shrinking Ford, he has shed up to 10 lb. in the past week. Toronto’s fiscal situation, meanwhile, hasn’t been so fortunate—and its citizens (myself included) haven’t exactly warmed to the idea that controversial budget cuts may be in order. So what to do? Can Ford curb the debt? And more importantly, can any Canadian leader curb his constituents’ debt without slashing popular public programs and policies?
Probably not. It would be a potential insult to our intelligence to think so. But I have a proposal: why don’t leaders cut every program and initiative that offends the average person’s intelligence, and save money in the process. What programs, you might ask? Take the one I encounter every time I use a public washroom:
“This is a message from the Public Health Agency of Canada: Wet your hands. Put a small amount of liquid soap in the palm of one hand. Rub your hands together for 20 seconds so you produce lather. Rinse your hands well with clean running water for at least 10 seconds. Dry your hands with a single use paper towel. Use hand lotion to put moisture back into your skin if your hands are dry. Model good handwashing technique to your children … Have them sing a song like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while rubbing their hands together to teach them the amount of time it takes to clean their hands properly.”
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Newt Gingrich: best trivial pursuit president ever
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments
Scott Feschuk on the walking Wikipedia with fat baby hands who is wooing America
iStock; Getty Images; Reuters; Photo Illustration by Levi Nicholson
As Republicans move closer to choosing a presidential nominee, more and more Americans find themselves asking that old chestnut of a question: if I could sit down in a bar and have a beer with any of the candidates, why wouldn’t I stay home instead?
This past week saw yet another televised debate for the handful of hopefuls who remain, including: Rick Santorum, who looks like he received his share of wedgies as a boy; Mitt Romney, who looks like he delivered a few; and Ron Paul, who kind of resembles one. Continue…
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The right way for the West to get tough with Iran
By the editors - Monday, January 30, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments
Sanctions from members of The European Union are appropriate and necessary
Ali Mohammad/AFP/Getty Images
This week the Western world dramatically increased its sanctions against Iran, an effort to stem the country’s nuclear ambitions. While the array of economic deterrents is now quite broad and deep, the history of sanctions as useful policy weapons is hardly reassuring. For everyone’s sake, we should hope they’re sufficient this time around.
The European Union announced Monday that it will no longer buy Iranian oil. The 27 member countries currently consume a fifth of Iran’s output; the loss of this market will put a sizable hole in the country’s coffers. The EU also unveiled sanctions on currency transactions that will further isolate Iran’s central bank and limit the country’s ability to engage in global trade.
Canada enacted similar sanctions last November, banning almost all financial dealings and expanding the list of goods prohibited from sale to Iran. Taken together with strict measures announced by U.S. President Barack Obama in December, the scope of sanctions aimed at Iran represents an impressive display of unanimity and commitment among Western nations.
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Stephen Harper’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-him approach
By Paul Wells - Friday, January 27, 2012 at 7:30 AM - 0 Comments
Paul Wells on why Harper works harder than any prime minister in his lifetime to take himself out of the picture
Adrian Wyld/CP
On the eve of his meeting with national Aboriginal chiefs, Stephen Harper sat down with a Radio-Canada reporter to talk about some other stuff. She asked him why he doesn’t get along with Quebec voters. The federal Conservatives’ boosting of the royals, their nomination of a unilingual auditor general, their tough-on-crime bills don’t go down well with Montreal commentators.
As any of his predecessors would, Harper disputed the question. Quebecers like our sensible policies just fine, he said in effect, and we like Quebecers too. Then he made a bold claim: “I think our approach to federalism truly weakened the Bloc Québécois,” he said, “and we saw the downfall of the Bloc.”
Really? When I posted that excerpt on my blog, a lot of readers made fun of it. If Harper did chop down the mighty oak that Lucien Bouchard and Gilles Duceppe built, it fell in an odd direction: toward Jack Layton’s NDP, which won 59 seats in Quebec. The Conservatives won five. Even the Liberals, with seven Quebec seats, did better there.
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Which political party is really rigid and inflexible?
By the editors - Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments
The Conservatives have not only accepted gay marriage, they are defending it vigorously
Norm Betts/Getty Images
Same-sex marriage was the subject of a brief media tempest last week when an unidentified foreign lesbian couple found that the wedding they celebrated in Toronto in 2005 was a vanishing one-way street: half Brigadoon, half bear trap. Seeking a divorce from a Canadian court, they met with the surprising argument from a lawyer for the federal government that there was no way to give them one—because they weren’t really married. The same-sex nuptials are not legally recognized by the jurisdiction in which the couple lives, and so, under well-established principles of what lawyers call “comity,” that means the marriage contract is void in Canada, too.
This sad tale was reported by the Globe and Mail, which described the Crown’s stance as a Conservative-driven “reversal of policy” on same-sex couples. In fact, as a chorus of lawyers from across the political spectrum hastened to reassure us, the government’s position in the case was settled law. It reposes upon a mountain of precedent, and is not specific to same-sex marriage at all. A heterosexual couple making the same argument under analogous circumstances would have gotten the same dismissive answer; Canada permits first-cousin marriages, for example, while most U.S. states don’t.
It’s not clear why a couple seeking a divorce should be unhappy to discover they don’t need one. Former gay-marriage tourists were nonetheless troubled to learn that their wedded bliss was no longer “legal”; influential sex columnist Dan Savage, who got hitched in Vancouver in 2005, complained of being “divorced overnight.” Our Conservative majority government could hardly move fast enough to reassure Savage. Before the sun had set on the Globe’s story, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson had responded, affirming the validity of non-resident same-sex marriages and promising to repair the “gap” in the law.
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I see you think I’m not very interesting
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 23, 2012 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments
Would it kill you to leave your cell alone for 30 seconds while we’re together?
Apple; Getty Images; iStock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
An open letter to the person with whom I was having a nice conversation until he looked down at his phone and started pecking away at the keyboard for, like, 10 minutes.
Dear Señor Jerkface,
I’m not a big “manners” person. I don’t care which fork you use to eat your salad, so long as it’s not mine. But while you and I are dining together, perhaps you would deign to keep your hands and eyes off your mobile phone for more than 30 seconds at a time.
No? Very well—might I see your device for a moment? How sleek and stylish! And how very clumsy of me to accidentally drop it into my soup, then drop the soup into a crocodile, then push the crocodile out of a helicopter.
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Uniting under the bigotry umbrella
By Emma Teitel - Friday, January 20, 2012 at 8:30 AM - 0 Comments
The Christian right’s prejudice against Catholics and Mormons is overshadowed by their prejudice against the “secular liberal agenda”
Rainier Ehrhardt/Reuters
When a good friend of mine told her mother she was gay, her mother’s response was not, “How could you do this to me?” She said, “How could you do this to your father? I knew I shouldn’t have signed you up for softball.” Eventually, though, she made her peace with it. “Okay,” she conceded, “you can have a girlfriend. As long as you find one who’s Jewish.”
So Rachel did. She spurned non-Jewish girls in order to appease her mother, in the process becoming an instant expert in the art of Paradoxical Acceptance: the ability to deflect one prejudice by embracing another one. Her mother’s fear of lesbians was overshadowed by her fear of ham. Rachel dodged the first fear by giving in to the second.
It turns out that modern politics is littered with similarly questionable moral exchanges. And what better place to look for them than everyone’s favourite travelling circus: the Republican primaries—currently under way in the God-fearing Palmetto State of South Carolina.
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Why some safety regulations make for worse drivers
By the editors - Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments
Do we need a law requiring winter tires?
Tom Hanson/CP
Most people will agree winter tires seem like a good idea. Then again, so does flossing, eating bran cereal and taking the stairs. But no one expects government to mandate any of those activities. Do we need a law requiring winter tires?
In a country as familiar with the perils of winter driving as Canada, mandatory winter tires have become a perennial point for debate. In 2008, Quebec became the first, and so far only, province to demand winter tires from December to March, on pain of a $300 fine. In November, Saskatchewan’s minister for government insurance categorically rejected the idea, which pops up in most provinces on a regular basis and undoubtedly will continue to do so. Tire manufacturers tend to be eager supporters, for obvious reasons, while the Canadian Automobile Association opposes a law on cost grounds. Last year, however, the CAA joined with the Rubber Association of Canada in demanding Ontario subsidize winter tires. The province declined.
Despite universal agreement that winter tires improve stopping distances on snow and ice, this issue is complicated by more than mere physics.
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Wait, what’s this column about again?
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments
Scott Feschuk can name six of the seven Osmond kids. But what he got for Christmas? No clue.
Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
A new study has found that memory loss begins as early as one’s mid-forties. But as one who has just entered his mid-forties, here’s something even more distressing: the study found that memory loss begins as early as one’s mid-forties.
It’s official: you are reading the words of a man who is as with it as he is going to get.
And it’s not just memory. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, also found that over a period of 10 years there was a 3.6 per cent decline in mental reasoning among men aged 45-49. Worryingly, that may be enough to make the brain succumb to nefarious plots like email scams and Adele songs.
I have long had a love-hate relationship with my brain: I love me and it hates me. My memory has always been lousy and it’s unsettling to imagine it eroding even further.
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Rupert Murdoch: the media monster becomes human
By Emma Teitel - Monday, January 16, 2012 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments
Believe it or not, Murdoch’s pretty compelling on Twitter
Simon Dawson/Getty Images
Rupert Murdoch has made an unofficial New Year’s resolution, and it has nothing to do with restoring the privacy of News Corp.’s alleged phone hacking victims—and everything to do with relinquishing some of his own. The beleaguered press baron joined Twitter on New Year’s Eve (his first tweet, on Dec. 31, was a recommendation for a “great book” he had just read called The Rational Optimist) and has been tweeting ever since. His topics have ranged from his publications’ philanthropic projects (“over two million dollars [raised] in two days for orphans of shot hero cop!” Jan. 6), global warming (“Big reversal. NY weather beautiful,” Jan. 7), and of course, American politics (“Obama out to lunch!” Jan. 9). With over 122,000 followers and counting, Murdoch has already racked up more adherents than Regis Philbin and Queen Elizabeth II (two other octogenarians who have taken to the social networking site) combined. For any skeptics out there, the blue checkmark beside his Twitter account (@rupertmurdoch) is legitimate proof that he’s the real Murdoch—and not one of the many imposters who tweet under his name. Still, you might ask, what’s the big deal? With everyone from Enron to your mom on Twitter, why shouldn’t the world’s foremost media mogul be there too, boring us with hand-picked minutiae from his own everyday life?
Here’s one reason: Murdoch and his massive media conglomerate, News Corporation, are embroiled in multiple scandals and lawsuits at the moment, the most notorious of which involve gross privacy violations of innocent people. Which makes a compendium of tips and quips from the guy who (allegedly) brought you the Milly Dowler phone-hacking scandal a less than charming proposition. Secondly, if his performance at the hearing into the Milly Dowler affair is indicative, Rupert, no spring chicken, is possibly already down a mental pint or two; who knows what kind of dementia-induced faux pas he could make with the world at his fingertips? Twitter and Murdoch, you’d suspect, would be a match made in media hell. Surprisingly, they’re not.
Because @rupertmurdoch turns out to be infinitely more likeable than Rupert Murdoch in the flesh. How do we end up liking him? Let me count the ways.
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Harper’s slow boat to China sets sail
By Paul Wells - Friday, January 13, 2012 at 7:40 AM - 0 Comments
Now that relations with the U.S. are strained, Harper has warmed up to China
Adrian Wyld/CP
The question before us is how Stephen Harper, of all people, came to give up on the United States and embrace Red China. It’s been a long time coming. Let’s have a look.
Here’s the Prime Minister more than four years ago, complaining to our John Geddes in a pre-Christmas 2007 interview about the deterioration in Canada’s relations with the United States:
“We continue to see what we call the thickening of the border. The building up of more regulations, new agricultural fees. And to be blunt with you, this has happened despite a good working relationship between my government and the American administration. I’m not optimistic this trend will be reversed. In fact, I’m certain this trend will not be reversed in the lifetime of the current American administration.”
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A year of revolution and romance. Now, what’s next?
By the editors - Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments
The new year marks our 107th year of continuous publication as a trusted source of news and opinion for Canadian readers
Fred Chartrand/CP
When did Canadian journalism begin? Before anyone kept records, camp criers of the Prairie Cree and many other tribes would wander amongst the teepees giving notice of meetings and announcing important events. The country’s first formal newspaper was the Halifax Gazette, published in 1792; its inaugural edition featured a compendium of international news and local advertisements. (Butter was available by the firkin at the Proctor and Scutt store, near the city’s north gate.)
Maclean’s is very proud to be part of this long heritage; the new year marks our 107th year of continuous publication as a trusted source of news and opinion for Canadian readers. With so much in flux in the media world, we consider our history to be a great achievement. And the future looks even more exciting.
The world experienced unprecedented upheavals in 2011. Natural and man-made disasters came together in the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear catastrophe in Japan. The Middle East was convulsed by popular democratic uprisings and brutal crackdowns. Vancouver was shaken by a massive riot. The year also managed to sparkle with the British royal wedding and magical summer visit to Canada by Prince William and Catherine, duchess of Cambridge.
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Margaret Thatcher, in fashion at last
By Barbara Amiel - Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
‘The Iron Lady’ succeeds despite the acknowledged political gap between its star and its subject
Peter Turnley/Corbis
When a left-wing Hollywood star deigns to play a right-wing heroine, odds are the result will irritate everyone. Surprisingly, The Iron Lady is far better than expected, particularly given that virtually the entire entertainment community from Hollywood to the eastern seaboard is liberal, a bias gaily acknowledged by Meryl Streep, who gives us the anticipated brilliant performance as three-term British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. “I’m an actor,” she said, talking about the film, “and, you know, politically we’re all on the other side.”
Fashion mags are doing kip-ups on this Thatcher resurrection, or rather the Streep reincarnation. January’s Vogue has Ms. Streep on the cover with a caption tying her to Thatcher. I suppose there is no reason why Mrs. Thatcher herself should ever have been on the cover of Vogue, though it’s nice to see her there, even if in someone else’s body. She was occasionally in its inside pages and actually made it to the world’s best-dressed list after Aquascutum created a knockout wardrobe for her 1987 trip to Moscow to counter the über-dressed Raisa Gorbachev, who favoured YSL. A friend of mine who visited Lady Thatcher a couple of weeks ago said a coat from that trip, camel-coloured with a sable collar, was hanging 25 years later in the hallway.
Harper’s Bazaar couldn’t get Meryl Streep, so their big September issue came up with Mick Jagger’s daughter as Lady T in blond helmet-hair, and a seven-page fashion spread with quotes from Thatcher’s speeches matched to the clothes. Sadly, they didn’t have my favourite quote on consensus, which Thatcher defined as “the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects . . . what great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?” Difficult to feature the matching blah outfit.
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Liberals offer Canadians conversations, $1 each
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments
Scott Feschuk on how the federal Liberals are trying to rebuild, and the results are absolutely adorable
Getty Images; iStock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
Anyone out there remember the Liberal Party of Canada? Governed our country for the better part of the 20th century. Produced five leaders who each ruled the land for at least eight years. Briefly tried to convince us that John Manley had charisma. Is any of this ringing a bell?
What some of you may not know is that the Liberal party still exists. It’s true! In fact, by one measure the Liberals currently rank second of the three major federal parties. (That measure? Alphabetical order.)
The buzzword among party members these days is renewal. This month Liberals will gather in Ottawa for the party’s biennial convention (“biennial” from the Latin meaning “no longer able to afford an open bar”). At the convention, Liberals will try to demonstrate they are a relevant 21st-century political force by refusing to accredit bloggers and likely choosing old-guard stalwart and human klaxon Sheila Copps to be party president. EVERYONE CLEAR THE TRACKS FOR THE RENEWAL TRAIN!
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Harper’s sleepy majority
By Paul Wells - Friday, January 6, 2012 at 6:00 AM - 0 Comments
Will Prime Minister Stephen Harper proceed with promised ‘major’ reforms in 2012?
Jason Lee/Reuters
What does Stephen Harper want to do with his parliamentary majority? “I want to make sure that we use it,” he told CTV’s Lisa LaFlamme in a year-end interview. “You know, I’ve seen too many majority governments, the bureaucracy talks them into going to sleep for three years, and then they all of a sudden realize they’re close to an election.”
Let’s see what the Prime Minister meant, if he meant much. Harper was born while John Diefenbaker was prime minister. He saw eight majority governments elected between that one and his own. History does not record much napping.
Pierre Trudeau introduced official bilingualism and multiculturalism during his first mandate, and invoked the War Measures Act to stop the October Crisis in Quebec. In his second majority, from 1974 to 1979, he introduced wage and price controls and joined the G7. During his third he won the 1980 Quebec referendum, repatriated the Constitution with a Charter of Rights, and introduced the National Energy Program.
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How exactly does Santa know I’m sleeping?
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
And why did only ‘certain shepherds’ hear the angels’ tidings?
Getty Images; iStock; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
To aid in your enjoyment of the holidays, please consult this list of answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the songs of the season.
Q: According to God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, a blessed angel delivered “tidings” of the birth of Jesus—but only “unto certain shepherds.” Why?
A: Fortunately, theologians recently unearthed a transcript from the nightly shift briefing of angels on the evening in question: “Big night, folks. Big night. Coffey, Bates, Renko: you’re on choir duty. Let’s keep it peppy: Big sound. Blinding lights. Killer harp solo. Belker: you alert the shepherds. Bring tidings and so forth. But listen: only to certain shepherds, okay? We’re introducing a messiah, not holding a rave. And not Gary the shepherd—that guy’s a tool.”
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What ‘Dragon Tattoo’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ have in common
By the editors - Monday, December 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments
Many of the greatest moments in movies are the result of astute directors grasping the significance of scenes novelists wrote but ignored
Joel Ryan/AP
Christmas holidays are a popular time for movies, and this season none seem as eagerly anticipated, both by movie lovers and book readers, as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Will either be disappointed?
The original novel by the late Swedish writer Stieg Larsson is an international publishing phenomenon that’s single-handedly created a new crime genre of Nordic noir. The movie doesn’t open until Dec. 21, but it’s already creating its own controversy. New Yorker magazine recently broke a press embargo to publish a favourable review of the movie. (Maclean’s review will appear online next week.) Larsson’s novel is dismissed as “pulpy and sensational,” while director David Fincher’s movie version is a “mesmerizing piece of filmmaking.”
Moviegoers can’t yet judge for themselves, but the New Yorker’s assessment seems a fair bet. Despite its global success, Larsson’s novel is, by any reasonable criteria, a run-of-the-mill pulp thriller marked by flat writing, uneven pacing and frequently tiresome exposition. It is a mediocre book enlivened only by clever marketing, an exotic location and one memorable character: dragon-tattooed Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander.
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Politics in politics, boring is better
By Emma Teitel - Friday, December 16, 2011 at 4:40 PM - 0 Comments
Our politics may not be riveting, but that’s exactly the point
Andrew Burton/Getty Images
“I made a vow to God . . . that’s stronger than a Texas handshake.”—Rick Perry
“What if [poor kids] became assistant janitors and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom.”—Newt Gingrich
“I’ll bet you $10,000!”—Mitt Romney
“WIN, WIN, WIN!”—Michele Bachmann
“I distinguish between nationalism and patriotism.”—Michael Ignatieff
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The wild bid, the fake and other art tales
By Barbara Amiel - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments
Murray Frum could be defined by many aspects of his life, unfortunately all of them very good
Jeff Coulson
The most difficult task a columnist can have is to write about a universally Good Thing. Santa Claus comes to mind. Well, no, it’s not Santa Claus I am about to discuss, topical though that would be in this December cheer, but rather Murray Frum.
Mr. Frum could be defined by many aspects of his life, unfortunately all of them very good. He was born poor, sleeping on the living-room sofa behind his father’s tiny grocery shop (good). He became a dentist, married a nice Jewish girl from Niagara Falls, Barbara Rosberg (triple good), and happily played Dennis Thatcher to super-broadcaster Barbara Frum while making lots of money in real estate and giving lots away. His gift for attracting the best women was confirmed when, after Barbara died, he married the enchanting, high-achieving business executive Nancy Lockhart. Now he has written a book about an aspect of himself (dodgy) but it is sadly not for sale, thus modest and good.
Published this month, the book is titled Collecting: A Work in Progress. Frum is a very important collector of African and Oceanic art as well as fine things in general. The Art Gallery of Ontario has the Frum gallery built with his own money and choice of architects. Frum sensed that superb as Frank Gehry’s new AGO addition would be, he was not the person to design the setting for Frum’s donation of African tribal art. This in itself is an excellent lesson: great name architects often build lousy museums. The best example is Daniel Libeskind’s Jewish Museum in Berlin, an evocative, even brilliant building but a disaster as far as creating display space and best viewed empty.
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How Germany finally took control of Europe
By the editors - Wednesday, December 14, 2011 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
It’s hard to argue anyone else can save the Old Continent
Remy de la Mauviniere/AP
Among the many desperate calls for help during the current European crisis, that of Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski stands out for its sheer lack of precedent. “I may be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is: I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity,” Sikorsky said last week in Berlin to his hosts. “You have become Europe’s indispensible nation . . . nobody else can do it.” Only Germany can save Europe now.
It’s hard to argue against Sikorksi’s logic, at least in the short run. Ireland and Portugal have been bailed out at great expense. Investors were forced to take a massive loss on Greek bonds. Now even major European states such as Italy and Spain are teetering on the edge of insolvency. If these governments lose the ability to continue borrowing, the entire continent could be plunged into complete economic collapse, with grim implications for the rest of the world, including Canada.
Throughout this two-year-long crisis, only Germany has retained the financial and moral clout sufficient to save the day, thanks to its low unemployment rate, reasonable debt levels and robust financial sector. (France, for all its bluster, remains a necessary but junior partner in this project.) After decades of backstopping the European experiment by buying bonds and, more recently, providing the bulk of the recent bailout packages, Germany has begun to exert a new sense of authority. In particular, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been demanding strict new rules over spending in individual countries as the price for continued German intervention.
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The NDP’s human shields of tedium
By Scott Feschuk - Monday, December 12, 2011 at 9:40 AM - 0 Comments
Scott Feschuk on how watching the poor suckers in the background was the fun part of the leaders’ debate
CP; Getty Images; Photo Illustration by Taylor Shute
The first debate of New Democratic Party leadership hopefuls, televised live on CPAC, answered a number of important questions: Ottawa? Broken. Conservatives? Out of touch. Production values? Can’t afford them.
The Republican presidential debates in the U.S. have featured expensive-looking video backdrops. The NDP opted for something much cheaper: humans. They shoehorned women and men behind the nine contenders to succeed Jack Layton. Presumably, party officials wanted to convey the multicultural appeal of the party—and they would have succeeded, too, had audience members not looked as though they were contestants on a reality show entitled Remain Grim-Faced or This Puppy Gets Stabbed.
Still, these human shields of tedium were easily the most fascinating element of an otherwise platitudinous affair. For instance, there was a moment when front-runner Brian Topp caught fire with a passionate call to action—but then one of the guys behind him started picking at his ear. (At his own ear, to be clear—not at Topp’s ear. Still: distracting.)
