The Commons: Life under occupation

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 5:55 PM - 30 Comments

Simon Hayter/Maclean's

The Scene. These are awkward times. Various people are marching in the streets and camping in the parks, shouting various things about various concerns. No one is quite sure what it means or if it means anything except to say that some people are somehow unhappy about something. And that they may have some cause to be somehow disenchanted.

Our elected leaders are thus put in variously awkward positions. And so increases the likelihood that they will say awkward things.

Witness Ted Menzies, affable-seeming minister of state for finance. Yesterday he was presented with the spectre of said protests and the suggestion that perhaps said protestors were on to something.

“Mr. Speaker, it is fortunate that all Canadians have the right to peacefully express their views,” he said, as if this were some kind of profound observation.

“Canada does not, by the way,” he continued, “have the degree of economic inequality that we are seeing in other countries that have perhaps started this movement.”

Two sentences in, Mr. Menzies had already gone wobbly. For while we can indeed boast a level of inequality less crushing than that of the United States, our gini coefficient is still on par with that of riotous Greece. Which is to say that the sea of troubles is lapping from inside the house. Continue…

Shed a tear

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 15, 2011 at 2:30 PM - 4 Comments

Katrina Onstad considers the politics of emoting.

Crying men have a little more leeway. Bill Clinton knew how to work his tear ducts – or at least a quivering lip – to his advantage. Republican House Speaker John Boehner is a prodigious weeper. Perhaps because it’s still rare, a man displaying emotion can deepen his public image, gesturing toward reservoirs of feeling. But for Bill’s wife, one teary appearance in 2008 revealed a mass of confusing attitudes around women crying. While some female voters responded to a humanized Hillary Clinton, TV pundits jeered at the bawling chick who couldn’t take it in the big leagues. Her crying didn’t expand the public’s impression of her; it reduced it. In other words: “What is she – on her period?”

Michaelle Jean’s tearful statement after the earthquake Haiti was one of the defining moments of her term as Governor General and the residential schools apology in the House was an altogether emotional day—consider, for instance, Jack Layton’s speech—but otherwise there aren’t many (any?) recent displays of emotion in the Canadian context that come to mind.

During the 2008 campaign, the Prime Minister was accused of lacking empathy at the outset of that year’s financial crisis. In an interview at the time, he soundly dismissed the criticism. Continue…

In honour of Presidents Day

By John Parisella - Sunday, February 20, 2011 at 9:32 PM - 12 Comments

Every third monday in February, the U.S. celebrates a national holiday honouring George Washington and his successors as president. The presidency was not originally meant to be the most important elected office in the world. The separation of powers between the exceutive and legislative (Congress) branches made sure that American Revolution would not replace a royal monarch with a civil one. Also, at the time of the founding Constitution, the new nation was far from being the superpower it would become less than 200 years later. Yet, no one today would dispute that the American president, despite the checks and balances of the U.S. Constitution, is the most consequential political actor in the world.

Whether it is FDR announcing direct U.S. involvement in WWII after Pearl Harbour, Truman dropping the bomb at Hiroshima to end the war, JFK confronting the Soviets in the Cuban Missile Crisis and deciding to launch the program to put a man on the moon, Nixon going to China, Reagan telling the Soviets to tear down the Berlin Wall, or Bush choosing to go to war after 9/11, a president’s decisions can go a long way to steer the course of history. As a Canadian living in the United States, I choose to honour this February 21st holiday by highlighting those inspirational presidents who made an impact on me and otherwise made a significant contribution to improve the human condition:

-Abraham Lincoln for the abolition of slavery;
-Franklin D. Roosevelt for social security;
-Lyndon B. Johnson for the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, as well as Medicare, Medicaid and the War on Poverty;
- and Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton for active, inspiring and productive post-presidencies.

I know there have been many other significant presidencies and they deserve to be highlighted. It is also too early to draw conclusions on the current presidency of Barack Obama (although healthcare reform, if it lasts, and the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ will be historic). Fifteen presidents governed a nation that condoned slavery, and women did not have the right to vote until the 28th president. But the rhetoric and vision of Jefferson and Adams, as well as the contributions of Andrew Jackson, have contributed to making Presidents Day a worthwhile celebration.

Tough presidential decisions have been made in the course of history around the world that have improved the lot of many in the world. Overall, the two-party system has produced men (and, hopefully soon, women) of stature, though only few of true greatness out of the 44 who have served.

What is truly inspiring and worth honouring this President’s’ Day is the stability and vibrancy of the world’s most successful democracy, and the importance of role the occupants of the office of the presidency have played in building it. Happy Presidents Day to my American friends.

Hey Obama—now what?

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Friday, November 5, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters/ Jason Henry/The New York Times

When he strode into office in the middle of two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the question was whether Barack Obama could rally the nation behind him and emerge as a historic leader, or whether the crisis would destroy him altogether. The answer is becoming clearer. While he can take credit for steering the country away from a full-fledged depression, he hasn’t emerged a greater figure for it. He’s been more like an incredible shrinking president.

“I can’t stop the war / I can’t save the sons and daughters / I can’t change the world and make things fair,” crooned Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow in a downbeat anthem at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, the satirical gathering by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that drew hundreds of thousands of Democrats to Washington’s National Mall on Oct. 30. It was hardly “Hope and Change.”

Indeed, “hopeless” might be a more fitting term after the stunning but expected defeat suffered by the Democrats in Tuesday’s mid-term elections. Obama’s party had previously held the House of Representatives by 255 seats to the Republicans’ 178. By the time Maclean’s went to press on Tuesday night, the GOP had decisively won control of the House. In the Senate, Democrats appeared to have held on to a shrunken majority, but one far short of the 60 votes needed to overcome Republicans’ use of filibusters to block votes on legislation and nominees. And across the United States, Republicans made huge gains in gubernatorial races, all the while raising the spectre of the 2012 general election—and that the United States might be witnessing its first one-term presidency since George Bush Sr.’s two decades ago.

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Clinton was right about everything

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, May 28, 2010 at 4:18 PM - 0 Comments

Nicola Dove

Tired of 1980s nostalgia? Here comes The Special Relationship with 1990s nostalgia. The HBO TV movie, premiering on May 29 and written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), gets its title from the relationship between Tony Blair (Michael Sheen, who played this part for Morgan in two other films) and Bill Clinton (Dennis Quaid). Though it gets a publicity boost from the U.K.’s electoral shakeup, Morgan’s script stops in the year 2000, requiring director Richard Loncraine to create a Clinton-era period piece. “The ’90s have got less personality than, say, the ’60s,” Loncraine sighed to Maclean’s, regretting a lack of distinction in “the hair, the clothes, the cars.” But the film suggests one thing the ’90s had in common with the ’60s: they had infinite hope and promise, and it all went to hell.

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Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 28, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

Case closed
Prosecutors withdrew criminal charges Tuesday against former Ontario attorney general Michael Bryant in the very public death in downtown Toronto last Aug. 31 of bicycle courier Darcy Allan Sheppard. There was no prospect of conviction on the charges, which included criminal negligence causing death, said independent prosecutor Richard Peck, who was brought in from Vancouver because of the sensitivity of the case. Experts determined Sheppard, who was intoxicated, was trying to attack Bryant, when he tried to grab the steering wheel of Bryant’s convertible. Bryant sped off and Sheppard, clinging to the car, was slammed into a mailbox and a tree, before falling under the car. Bryant now works for a Toronto law firm.

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Newsmakers

By macleans.ca - Friday, May 21, 2010 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Bill comes due
For US$5 you can spend a day in New York with Bill Clinton. The former president is raffling himself off in a bid to clear “a few vestiges of debt” left over from his wife Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential bid. The vestige is US$771,000 in unpaid bills. The innovative idea has drawn much interest and, it being the Clintons, much rebuke. Critics point to another big number: US$109 million, the estimated amount the two have earned since leaving the White House.

A wrinkle in time
Portuguese film director Manoel de Oliveira, a hale 101-year-old, cut a dashing figure at the Cannes Film Festival last week as he plugged his latest work, The Strange Case of Angelica, about a young Jewish photographer. De Oliveira made his first film in 1931, and has grown more productive as he ages. He’s set a high standard for 74-year-old Woody Allen, at the festival to promote You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger. Allen laments it’s “frustrating” he’s too old to get the girl in his movies, in this case Naomi Watts. Still, he’d happily work at 101, if he’s fit, he said. “My relationship with death remains the same. I’m strongly against it.”

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Why American Idol needs Haeley Vaughn

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 26, 2010 at 4:42 PM - 3 Comments

Could Hillary Clinton win American Idol? This is not an entirely facetious question.

As Idol debuted its Top 24 this week, the women’s half of the competition breaks down like a Democratic presidential primary: one obvious and seemingly inevitable front-runner (think Hillary), several intriguing prospects who could be brilliant or disastrous (Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Bill Clinton, Bill Bradley, Paul Tsongas or Barack Obama) and a few unremarkable candidates who will soon be forgotten (Dick Gephardt).

The last group is not particularly worth dwelling upon. Two—Janell and Ashley—were eliminated in the competition’s first viewer vote. The rest (Lacey, Michelle Paige and Didi) will probably be gone in short order.

The middle group is both the most interesting, albeit least likely to succeed. Of this year’s 12 final girls, at least five qualify here. Lilly is a punky former busker with platinum blond bangs who sang a relatively obscure Beatles song (Fixing a Hole) this week. Katelyn is this season’s temptress, all big eyes and curly hair, who performed the Beatles’ Oh! Darling this week, while wearing a black leather skirt and bright red lipstick. Siobhan is a glass-blowing apprentice from Cape Cod who sang Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game in an surprisingly deep voice. Crystal is a dreadlocked mum with one of those chin piercings who sang an Alanis Morrisette song while playing guitar and harmonica.

Most intriguing is Haeley Vaughn, a 16-year-old, black, female country singer and guitarist with a way of singing that can only be described as odd-sounding. She turned I Want To Hold Your Hand into something almost reggae. Kara said she was “very pure,” Ellen said she shone, Simon said she was “a complete and utter mess.” Ellen countered that if she was a mess, she was a “hot mess.” It is difficult to express just how wildly divergent the possibilities are here. Haeley could be one of the most intriguing and unique performers in Idol history. She could end up being responsible for one of most excruciating performances in the history of American television. She could be Bill Clinton, she might be Howard Dean.

The clear and unquestionable favourite is Katie Stevens, a savvy 17-year-old who swaggered her way through a Michael Buble song this week. She is pretty and cute and blessed of a big voice. She has an endearing story: her quest for stardom set up as a race against the time and memory of her ailing grandmother. She seems somehow descended from the most successful Idols: Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jordin Sparks, pleasingly and unostentatiously talented and attractive.

If a woman is to win this year’s Idol—Simon Cowell is on record as saying this year’s winner is most likely to be female—it should be Katie Stevens. And maybe that’s a problem.

It is, for one thing, harder to impress when you’re expected to be great. Katie was more or less fine this week, but she was scolded for seeming too contrived and not acting her age. For another, it is harder to be motivated if unchallenged. The unrivalled front-runner tempts doom (see Al Gore or John Kerry).

Cowell has said he wants to find the next Taylor Swift, someone “relevant.” That, right now, isn’t Katie Stevens. And that’s why Idol might need Haeley Vaughn.

A president and his famous nemesis

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 1:00 PM - 0 Comments

The impeachment trial of U.S. President Bill Clinton 11 years ago now seems an oh-so-last-century drama in ways more profound than the merely chronological. Before 9/11, before the financial meltdown of 2008—and the new set of American obsessions they spawned—politics in an at-peace and prosperous U.S. turned on a crisis that unfolded as political theatre. Slow moving, long running, and—for most Americans—pain-in-the-frontal-lobes-inducing, the epic battle between Clinton and his nemesis, independent counsel Ken Starr, had something to appall everyone. Key components ran the gamut from the incomprehensible (the murky Whitewater land deal), to the tragic (the suicide of White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster) to the tawdry (the semen-stained blue dress) to the farcical (the chief executive’s alleged genital peculiarity) to the bewilderingly existential: in the end, it all depended, as Clinton once desperately tried to explain, on “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

But however ancient the story now appears, The Death of American Virtue, law professor Ken Gormley’s massive reconstruction of events, demonstrates how the impeachment saga created crucial fault lines in U.S. life that still reverberate, notably the venomously personal tone of American politics. Three separate freight trains had to smash into one another to propel Clinton to trial: Whitewater, the private lawsuit filed by Paula Jones alleging sexual harassment by Clinton when he was still Arkansas governor (it was Jones who swore his penis was “crooked”), and the president’s dalliance with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As Gormley sets out, in almost mind-numbing detail, it required a barely credible series of coincidences and poor ad hoc decisions on both sides to permit those trains to collide.

Starr’s investigation of Whitewater was petering out by 1997, at least in terms of pinning something on a Clinton (Bill or Hillary), and he announced in February that he was stepping down. But Starr’s own staff rose in revolt, and what Hillary Clinton later called “the vast right-wing conspiracy” swung into action, as conservatives in the media lambasted the prosecutor for cowardice and lack of moral fibre. Starr retracted his resignation, and set his investigation on a new track, into a search for women who had had affairs with Clinton. Clinton and his supporters viewed the new tack as a politically motivated witch hunt into his private life, while Starr defended it as an attempt to leave no stone unturned.

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Private lives and the public interest

By Andrew Coyne - Monday, February 22, 2010 at 1:39 PM - 40 Comments

The hypocrite in our times is not, as of old, the libertine posing as moralist—Tartuffe, or Angelo in Measure for Measure—but moralists posing as libertines. Today we are most keen to advertise not our virtue but our worldly indifference to others’ faults, fearing not that we might be accused of the same so much as that we might be thought of as prigs. Judge not lest ye be judgmental.

This is particularly so when it comes to the political arena. On those not infrequent occasions when a politician is found to have behaved badly in his private life, there is always a crush of apologists racing to the nearest rooftop to shout how little they care. Cheats on his wife? Yawn. Drunk every night? Big deal. Takes hundreds of thousands in cash from fugitive international arms dealers? Doesn’t everyone?

From Adam Giambrone to Maxime Bernier, from Bill Clinton to Brian Mulroney, whenever the issue arises the same debate is replayed. Does the public have a right to know about a politician’s private affairs? How much? How far?

Continue…

The Olympic Food Police

By Anne Kingston - Friday, February 19, 2010 at 1:33 PM - 0 Comments

Chef and restaurateur Pino Posteraro, who owns Vancouver’s landmark Cioppino’s Enoteca, has cooked for foreign dignitaries for decades. Jean Chrétien and Bill Clinton have both dined at the place without much security fuss. So he was surprised to see a crew of government operatives—one U.S. Secret Service, a RCMP officer and a Health Canada official—show up in his kitchen last Sunday after U.S. VP Joe Biden arrived for dinner. That’s when he learned of new rules for traveling heads of states chowing down in local restaurants: He had to prepare a duplicate of Biden’s order for the agents who bagged it as evidence should the VP suddenly fall ill. Meet the 21st-century court food tester—all forensic analysis minus any of that problematic thrashing around on the floor grasping at one’s throat. If Jill Biden had joined her hubby for the Valentine’s Day dinner, Posteraro learned, he would have had to cook up a duplicate of her order as well. Fortunately, he says, Biden has simple tastes: Bufala Mozzarella as a starter, followed by pasta with a tomato-basil sauce. Matters were more complicated on Tuesday night when Prince Albert of Monaco showed up for dinner with Richard Branson. The chef had to duplicate the royal’s entire seven-course tasting menu for federal take-out.

The beginning of the end of American Idol

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 7:58 AM - 8 Comments

Herein, the first in a semi-regular series chronicling the ninth season of American Idol.

With last year’s winner now almost entirely forgotten, it is time again for a new season of American Idol. Such is the circle of life, the natural order of things, the way it has always been. Or at least the way it has been since Starbucks began systematically over-caffinating the developed world.

If everything about life has always been fleeting, it is somehow now more so. Everything about Idol has always seemed tenuous—desperate hopefuls chasing glory, contestants forgotten shortly after defeat and victory, each season daring to drain America’s well of undiscovered talent. And so it is that this season begins feeling like an end.

As announced days before last night’s season opener, Simon Cowell, the show’s British judge and central force, will be moving on after this ninth campaign, apparently to pursue another televised talent show. It is possible to overstate the implications of this, but only barely. It is Cowell, tormentor of the weak and cruel voice of reality, who is counted on to identify talent, guide the viewer and bestow his blessing on the truly worthy. The other judges are superfluous voices of generalities, the contestants interchangeable, Ryan Seacrest unremarkably acceptable. Cowell is constant, an ever-present reminder of the show’s claim to a higher purpose. He wears only t-shirts and seeks only to reward the deserving. He is possibly the last pure and uncompromised thing on television. And a post-Cowell Idol would seem destined to be something akin to a post-Jordan NBA or a post-Clinton America: strange, uninspired and grasping at golden calves (in fairness, Grant Hill and Donald Rumsfeld seemed like really good ideas at the time).

The producers—perhaps astutely, perhaps accidentally—had already begun to transition to something new. A fourth judge—the relatively substantive, if easily antagonized, songwriter Kara DioGuardi—was added last season. After an acrimonious split, Paula Abdul, Cowell’s effusive foil, will ultimately be replaced by the vaguely subversive Ellen DeGeneres. (Randy Jackson, a former music producer who may or may not have been created by Jim Henson, remains and could well endure in a post-Cowell Idol. If only because it is impossible now to imagine him existing outside this show.) Assuming Cowell is replaced by someone with some wit—and a British accent—it is possible to see Idol surviving and succeeding, in some sense, for several years more. But it won’t be the same. It will be somehow more complicated. Idol, as we’ve known it, will cease at this season’s end, destined to struggle for some time unless and until a transformative figure (its LeBron James or Captain Sully) arrives to save it for a new generation.

We have then but five months to revel in simpler times. Let us cherish them.

The first episode of this ninth season, chronicling the start of open auditions, was in keeping with what we have come to expect from each season’s opener: a parade of weirdos, performance artists, deluded narcissists, sobbing also-rans, irrepressible talent, conspicuous product placement and heartwarming tales from Middle America. For all the mocking freakishness of the early going, it is on inspiration that Idol ultimately depends. In these first two hours, covering tryouts in Boston, we were introduced to the girl whose family adopts children with Down Syndrome, the plus-sized Italian bartender, the floppy-haired hippie with two broken wrists, the girl whose grandmother has Alzheimer’s, the handsome cancer survivor and the Long Island girl whose parents were strict churchgoers. This last singer, apparently chasing her parents’ approval, somehow seemed the most affecting.

We were also introduced to one girl, a student from Boston, who was said to possibly possess “it.” And Victoria Beckham was there, for some reason. And, in one segment, American Idol was explained as the ultimate end goal of the American Revolution.

In its own way, this all made perfect sense.

Friend in high places, Dog tired and Bubba's other bombshell

By macleans.ca - Friday, January 8, 2010 at 9:01 AM - 6 Comments

Behind the mask, even more Iron
She’s known as the “Iron Lady,” but new revelations about former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher show the extent to which that was true. According to recently released secret files dating back to her time as PM, she told then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter she had personally “handled” the guns currently being used by the Northern Ireland police force, and decided the American-made Ruger pistol was a better shot. Maggie also liked whisky, preferred refugees from Poland or Hungary to ones from Asia, and didn’t like to be bored: in another file, she scolds staff for not organizing a “sufficiently interesting” itinerary for her first U.S. trip.

Nice shot
NBA all-star Gilbert Arenas has done the impossible: he’s trumped Tiger Woods in the athletes-behaving-badly department. A locker-room dispute with Washington Wizards teammate Javaris Crittenton over a gambling debt apparently led Arenas to reach for a handgun. Crittenton grabbed a gun, too, the New York Post reported, and a Christmas Eve standoff ensued. (That the team name was changed from the Bullets over concerns about gun violence adds to the sad irony.) No guns were discharged, but Arenas has since laid down covering fire on Twitter. Among the tweets the self-described “goof ball” posted: “I hav 2 change subjects umM what about that TIGER WOODS I heard he dated 2 MIDGETS.”

Bet you think this song is about me
European media reported last week that in an effort to attract a million new members to his People of Freedom party, Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi planned to launch a new political campaign, with posters featuring his bloodied and beaten face and the slogan “Love always wins over hate.” The 73-year-old, who spent four days in hospital after being attacked during a rally in Milan last month, received plenty of public sympathy after being struck in the face with a miniature Duomo statue; in one poll, his popularity rose from 45 to 48 per cent. His aides deny any plans to feature the infamous photo, but the party’s campaign song is changing. Roughly translated, the existing anthem includes the line “Thank God that Silvio exists.” It will be replaced by the slightly less megalomaniacal “Thank God we exist.”

Friend in high places
France’s first lady, Carla Bruni, has befriended a homeless man who lives on the street between her home in the 16th arrondissement and her son’s school. In addition to chatting with Denis, 53, about books and music and providing him with a “military-type duvet,” Bruni is said to have given him a signed copy of her latest CD. “My friends from the street told me that as [it] has got her signature, it’s worth a lot of money,” Denis told Closer magazine. “I couldn’t care less, I prefer to keep it; having said that, I lent it to someone two months ago who hasn’t given it back.” The police no longer bother him, Denis said. He isn’t the only beneficiary of Bruni’s do-gooding. Two French nationals, Céline Faye and Sarah Zaknoun, held in a Dominican Republic prison for 18 months on drug trafficking charges, were pardoned on Christmas Eve after Bruni took up their cause. “It’s thanks to her that we are here,” said Faye.

Dog tired
After some 25 years of competitive mushing, William Kleedehn of Carcross, Yukon, has sold off most of his sled dogs and announced his retirement. The German-born Kleedehn moved to Canada as a young man after reading a newspaper story in 1978 about the 1,850-km Iditarod race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. Kleedehn, 50, never won the Iditarod or the gruelling Yukon Quest, though he did win many mid-distance races. He is hanging on to eight puppies and two adult dogs for recreational mushing, but, he vows, “I won’t let it rule my life again.” At the top of his to-do list are travels to South America and Australia, by more conventional means.

Bubba’s other bombshell
While the focus on Ken Gormley’s soon-to-be-released book, The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, has mostly been Monica Lewinsky’s claim that Bill Clinton lied under oath about their relationship, one of the book’s most shocking revelations is that the former president was nearly the victim of a 1996 bomb attack organized by Osama bin Laden. On a state visit to Manila, Clinton’s motorcade was diverted at the last minute after secret service officers received a “crackly message” that included the word “wedding,” commonly used by terrorists as code word for assassination. It was later found that a nearby bridge the president would have crossed was rigged with explosives.

Love and rockets
Israeli whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu is in trouble again. Not for spilling the beans on Israel’s nuclear program—he’s already had his knuckles rapped for that, twice—but for having a Norwegian girlfriend. Vanunu was first arrested in 1986, after disclosing information about Israel’s clandestine nuclear program to the Sunday Times. He spent 18 years in jail—then went back to the slammer for six months in 2007 after violating his parole by contacting media again. Now he’s been arrested a third time. The Israeli secret service is worried he’s telling secrets to his girlfriend. (Vanunu is banned from travelling abroad as well as speaking with foreigners.) According to his lawyer, though, the girlfriend “is not interested in nuclear business; she’s interested in Mordechai Vanunu.”

Lights, cameras,  order, order!
In her bid for “100 per cent physical custody” of her son, Tripp Johnston-Palin, Bristol Palin, the 19-year-old daughter of Sarah Palin, had argued that keeping the custody battle private was in Tripp’s best interests. She also claimed Levi Johnston, the one-year-old’s father, only wanted to make the hearing public to promote himself. Johnston recently posed for Playgirl and has been on something of a media campaign since splitting with Bristol last spring. Nonetheless, the proceedings will play out in open court following a court decision last week. Johnston, who is seeking joint custody, must be pleased. He said he did “not feel protected against Sarah Palin in a closed proceeding.”

One for the little folk
The jury is still out on whether Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group, which closed in October, took part in insider trading (he pleaded not guilty), but apparently the Sri Lankan is guilty of pulling some rather peculiar stunts. According to the Wall Street Journal, Rajaratnam once offered $5,000 to any employee who would agree to be tasered (a female trader actually obliged). On another occasion, Rajaratnam introduced a dwarf, whom he said he’d hired to cover small-cap stocks (get it?), to employees. That turned out to be an April Fool’s joke.

New blood on the ice
When Canada’s Olympic hockey roster was an­nounced last week, perhaps the biggest surprise was the inclusion of 20-year-old Drew Doughty. Sports commentators across the country talked about a “changing of the guard”—more experienced defencemen, like Jay Bouwmeester and Dion Phaneuf, were left off the team. It caught even the L.A. Kings defenceman off guard. Doughty slept through the call of a lifetime and only found out he’d been selected after checking his voice mail. Then he woke up his roomie, Kings captain Dustin Brown, who will also be in Vancouver—as leader of Team U.S.A. Brown is already dreading meeting Doughty on the ice. “I’m not too afraid of his bodychecks,” said Brown. “It’s his hip checks.”

Mommie dearest
Can a child have two mothers? Yes, and no. When Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins, a lesbian couple living in Vermont, separated in 2003, a judge awarded custody of their child to Miller and visitation rights to Jenkins. That same year, Miller, the biological mother, moved to Virginia, renounced homosexuality, and adopted the evangelical Christian faith. She appealed to the supreme courts of Virginia and Vermont to revoke Jenkins’s right to see their daughter Isabella, born via artificial insemination in 2002, on the grounds that a relationship with Jenkins would hamper her new religion. The courts ruled against her, noting custody cases for same-sex couples worked like those for heterosexual couples. Miller still refused to let Jenkins see the child—so the court reversed custody to ensure Jenkins would have access to Isabella. Miller has since disappeared, along with the child.

Bailout, Korean style
In an attempt to bolster the country’s 2018 Winter Olympic bid, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, pardoned Lee Kun-hee, former chairman of Samsung, who had been convicted of tax evasion and breach of trust. The move allows Lee to try to regain membership in the International Olympic Committee, and take the lead in Pyeongchang County’s bid. Critics say the pardon confirmed the common view that corporate heavyweights are above the law in Korea. “A criminal convict travelling around the world campaigning for South Korea’s Olympic bid,” says Kim Sang-jo, an economist at Hansung University, “will only hurt our national interest and image.”

Good man walking
After 23 years of togetherness—they were never married—Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins have split up. The couple had long been considered tops among Hollywood’s socially conscious crew; they championed anti-globalization and Ralph Nader, while opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 1999, Sarandon was made a UNICEF goodwill ambassador—whatever that means. Apparently the two actually split in the summer but didn’t notify the press until now—hmm, wonder if that has anything to do with Sarandon’s new movie, The Lovely Bones, out now and considered an Oscar contender.

Dog’s best friend
Here’s a heartwarming story: two Montreal women are taking a trip to Vancouver to retrieve a dog they’ve never met for a family they hardly know. After Fred the dog was found in a trailer with his owner, Cyril Roy, three days after Roy’s death, Frank Palumbo, a dog-lover and owner of a freight company, pledged to get the seven-year-old kugsha home. His wife, Mélanie Pellerin, and her friend Christianne Hendershott flew to Vancouver to pick up Fred, then boarded a train for the four-day ride. VIA Rail chipped in with free first-class tickets for them, plus an extra ticket for Fred, who will eventually settle down in Ontario with one of Cyril’s sisters, a dog breeder.

The Year in Quotes: world edition

By Patricia Treble - Sunday, December 6, 2009 at 1:30 PM - 0 Comments

Palin title fight

By Brian Bethune - Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 8:50 AM - 22 Comments

No one and nothing polarizes her nation—you betcha!—like Sarah Palin. Even Barack Obama, who has admirers loving enough to hand him a Nobel Peace Prize for good intentions alone and enemies virulent enough to deny he’s a legitimate President at all, can’t match the contrasting depths of adulation and vitriol Palin invokes. In the four days between John McCain choosing the unknown Alaska governor as his running mate in late August 2008 and her speech to the Republican convention, Palin utterly (if temporarily) transformed the presidential election campaign. Anti-abortion and pro-gun, a moose-hunting Christian hockey mom, she seemed to supporters to radiate with what one called the same raw political talent “we hated and admired in Bill Clinton.” The vice-presidential candidate galvanized her party’s conservative base and gave the Republicans a bounce in the polls. Political opponents, especially women, reacted with fear and loathing to the perceived threat. Heather Mallick, writing on the CBC website, was hardly beyond the pale of standard anti-Palin rhetoric when she sniffed at Palin’s “porn actress look” while condemning her for “terrible” parenting.

A year later, astonishingly little has changed. Palin remains intensely newsworthy. The handful of special elections held this year were scrutinized in light of how they might influence her chances for the Republican nomination in 2012. The ramblings—and upcoming Playgirl appearance—of Levi Johnston, the self-described “f–kin’ redneck” father of Palin’s grandson who is now estranged from the Palin family, are parsed primarily in terms of whether they inspire ridicule or sympathy for Palin. And her eagerly awaited autobiography, scheduled for release on Nov. 17, has enough pre-orders to rank No. 2 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list. Publisher Harper-Collins is guarding the text as closely as if it were a new Da Vinci Code. Continue…

Was Obama's Nobel for "awesomeness" and positive thinking?

By Anne Kingston with Katie Engelhart - Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 11:30 AM - 42 Comments

On the weekend, Australia’s former foreign minister Alexander Downer weighed into the reaction to Barack Obama’s surprise win of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling it a farce that has discredited the award. Like Kanye West storming the stage of the MTV Video awards to express his anger when Taylor Swift beat out Beyonce, Downer pronounced Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, ignored after years of struggling for human rights in his country, a more worthy selection.

He isn’t alone. Response to Obama’s win has become a watershed that signals the official end of Obamamania and suggests the world’s most esteemed award might also be overrated. Lech Walesa, ex-president of Poland who won in 1983 summed up the most common all splendid oratory-no action yet criticism of Obama: “Well, there’s hasn’t been any contribution to peace yet,” he said, apparently not impressed by his cancelling the U.S. missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic. “He’s proposing things, he’s initiating things, but he is yet to deliver.” Continue…

Bill’s backstage moments

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 12:55 PM - 0 Comments

Journalists write the first draft of history. Bill Clinton provided the second—and subsequent revisions—with his 957-page autobiography, My Life, in 2004. Now we get the footnotes.

Taylor Branch’s thick new book, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, is the product of more than 80 free-form conversations the Pulitzer-prize-winning author recorded with the former U.S. commander-in-chief during his eight years in office. Intimate, often late-night bull sessions between two old friends (Clinton, Branch and Hillary all worked together on George McGovern’s 1972 Democratic campaign), the semi-regular chats were an effort to capture the details of White House deliberations, crises and victories while they were still fresh. Not so much the period’s great events, as its backstage moments. Continue…

Let's go to the Ex, with Bill Clinton

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, August 27, 2009 at 12:00 AM - 3 Comments

The build-up to Bill Clinton’s appearance at Toronto’s CNE featured none of the hype its organizers had presumably hoped for. Just a day before the event, only 7,000 tickets had been sold, prompting organizers to dramatically scale back the number of tickets available from 25,000 to 10,000. By Saturday, CNE officials were selling tickets to those already inside the fairgrounds for a mere five bucks.

Given the event’s vague, banal title—“Embracing Our Common Humanity”—it was never entirely clear what topics Clinton was planning to touch upon. However, to the 12,000 who did end up at Toronto’s BMO field on this sunny Saturday afternoon, that didn’t seem to matter. Clinton was greeted with a standing ovation before he’d uttered a single word.

The hoarse-voiced and tired-looking former President generously repaid the favour, beginning his speech with a tribute to the CNE. He noted the Ex’s history-making displays of electricity, telephones, radio and other contemporary gadgetry, celebrating its role in bridging the technological divide between urban and rural areas. In fact, the need to better equip those living in the world’s rural areas was a point Clinton would revisit often. “We live in a time,” he said, “where it’s very important to merge values.” Clinton said modern societies are crippled by the “uneven” economic and social conditions that separate their urban and rural dwellers.

An anecdote about his foundation’s work to build medical facilities in Ethiopia that are accessible to the country’s 80 million citizens provided Clinton with a segue into the afternoon’s most compelling subject: the ongoing debate over health care in the U.S. In a sharp departure from the rest of his speech, Clinton showed that he has lost little of his partisan political instincts. The U.S., he said, is “saddled with the wrong kind of [health care] system,” musing that the debate over Barack Obama’s proposed reforms must appear absurd to Canadians. “You must wonder what in the world are my friends to the south thinking? Why don’t they just pass some bill? How could it be worse?” In his only direct reference to his time in office, Clinton said those who oppose reforms share a trait with those who opposed his own health care proposals in the early ’90s—they are, he said, “full of fear.”

Unfortunately, the former President reverted back to the formless, fuzzy vernacular that made up the first part of his half-hour speech. The U.S. and Canada, he said, are increasingly defined by a “common humanity”; there is a need for world leaders to balance environmental policy with “good economics”; and good government, ethical business leaders, and effective philanthropy are essential to change.

Aside from a question about the best decision U.S. political leaders can make to improve the world—“to radically change the way we produce and consume energy,” according to Clinton—the CNE’s Greg Bednar, who moderated a brief question-and-answer session with Clinton following the speech, did little to sharpen the discussion. Bednar used his final question to toss the former President a softball, asking him what he loved most about Toronto. It’s a “city of the future,” Clinton replied to applause, one that’s “friendly” and comfortable with its traditions. “There are a lot of people,” he added, “who would kill to live in an environment like this.”

It was, in its own way, a fitting end. Though Clinton’s speech was peppered with references to his foundation’s work, it was marked by a consistent retreat to the parochial—references to his visits to Canada, the Canadian health care system, the history of the CNE. Our “common humanity,” at least that shared by those in attendance, appears to be anchored by a love of two things: ourselves and Bill Clinton.

The Queen's YouTube channel, John Hughes' pen pal, and a religious conversion reality TV show

By Lianne George - Friday, August 14, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 1 Comment

Whisky business
On Sunday, Queen Elizabeth II, 83, launched her new YouTube channel, where she will broadcast her 50th annual televised Christmas message this December. According to Buckingham Palace, “the Queen always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people.” Also available on the Royal Channel will be video clips of garden parties, state visits, and footage of a day in the life of Prince Charles. Some things about the royal family, however, are not for public consumption. According to the Daily Mail, the Norfolk Police has declined a request made under the Freedom of Information Act for details on how many officers receive a bottle of whisky from Her Majesty each year at Christmas time. The police department issued a five-page response defending its secrecy, claiming that in the wrong hands, this information could allow “domestic or foreign terrorists to establish the level of police protection afforded to royal residences.” It would reveal, however, that two of its officers, Chief Insp. Dick Curtis and Sgt. P. Newby, had each receieved Christmas puddings from the Queen, valued at £13.

It worked for Bill
Hyun Jeong-eun, the head of Hyundai Group, one of South Korea’s most powerful conglomerates, ventured to North Korea this week to discuss “current issues” with officials and attempt to secure the release of one of her employees. The man, known only by his family name, Yoo, who was taken prisoner in March in the Northern border town of Kaesong, according to the BBC, allegedly for “undermining the North’s political system.” Hyun’s visit is said to have been prompted by the recent success of former U.S. president Bill Clinton in negotiating the release of two American journalists. Clinton is reported to have raised Yoo’s case during his visit with Kim Jong Il, but so far there is no reason to believe the North Korean dictator has any intention of releasing him. Continue…

More marquee tourism mad money for Toronto? And they're going to spend it on an American speaker?!

By kadyomalley - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 10:57 AM - 48 Comments

Why, it’s an outrage! A scandal! A debacle! Just give ITQ a second to grab some nails and a fresh -gate from the supply cupboard, and — wait a second. Still reading.

Hmm.

Has ITQ gone completely crazy, or is this, in fact, exactly the kind of thing that the MTEP should be funding: An attention-grabbing, attendance-boosting headliner for a longstanding, historically successful event that needs just a little extra oomph to make sure the recession doesn’t take too heavy a toll on the bottom line? Heck, it even manages to be both family- and gay-friendly — and since it’s going to be announced more than 48 hours in advance, it may well rake in some of those all-important out-of-towner tourist dollars! What more could you ask for, really? Well, unless you’re one of those cranky Toronto-hating Republican-favouring C/conservatives, of course, in which case you’d probably rather pay for another sex parade than spend a single taxpayer dollar to bring Slick Willie to town, but really, it’s hard to see how anyone who supports the concept of the marquee tourism program could find fault with giving money to this particular event.

This Week: Good news/Bad news

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 7, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Face of the week
Annamay Pierse sets a world record in the 200-m breaststroke semi-final at the world championship. She won silver in the final.

A week in the life of Amanda Rodrigues
The widow and one-time suspect in the death of Montreal boxing champ Arturo Gatti was released from a Brazilian prison after his hanging July 11 at a seaside resort was ruled a suicide. A second autopsy, conducted last week at the request of his family, revealed bruises missed in the first examination. The family has also questioned why Gatti changed his will three weeks before his death. The new will makes Rodrigues the sole beneficiary of his estate. Continue…

Obama, Republicans and the Birthers

By John Parisella - Monday, August 3, 2009 at 10:06 PM - 161 Comments

On August 4, President Barack Obama will be celebrating his 48th birthday.  It seems the actual date poses no problem but his place of birth has become a hot-button issue in the blogosphere and has given rise to a movement called, birthism. In recent weeks, the movement with its prominent and active website has been either supported or encouraged by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, CNN’s Lou Dobbs , Fox’s Glenn Beck, convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy and a number of  Republican elected officials. They have succeeded in keeping the issue alive and some poll figures in the American South show over 30 per cent believe he was not born in the U.S. or they are not sure. A disturbing, though for now, isolated statistic.

To the mainstream media with the exception of Lou Dobbs, this is seen as a marginal issue. Factcheck.org, a non-partisan organization and a respected fact-finding and verification outfit associated with the University of Pennsylvania, disputes the allegations of the Birthers and has verified existing legal documents to confirm that Obama fulfills the constitutional requirement of being born in the United States. The state of Hawaii officially assures us of Obama’s birth in Honolulu in 1961 with documents at hand. Yet, despite a grueling primary season and presidential campaign that lasted over two years with close scrutiny and vetting by media and opponents, and the fact that Obama has been in office for over six months, some Republicans are introducing legislation  requiring future occupants  to provide birth certificate evidence that they are native born citizens. They say Obama is not the target, just future candidates. Who are they kidding? This entire episode following last year’s campaign about Obama being a Muslim should be laughable, but it illustrates a more disturbing line of attack on Obama. Continue…

Can I see your passport, Mr. President?

By Steve Maich - Friday, May 29, 2009 at 8:22 PM - 13 Comments

C’mon. Did we really expect one of them to say something unkind?

About 5,000 people paid between $100 and $200 for a ticket to “A conversation with Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton,” today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and every single one of them came hoping for at least a little jousting on foreign policy, or taxes, or even just a taste of old-fashioned partisan ribbing. But no. The only jokes were self-deprecating. The only disagreements were measured and respectful. “I have a different take on that” was about as pointed as it got.

To be fair, Clinton undercut the confrontational atmosphere right off the top. “You imagine this is a 21st century version of the Roman Coliseum. You expect us to attempt to devour each other. Frank McKenna (the moderator) will attempt to meet your expectations. We’ll do our best to thwart them,” he said. Continue…

Who measures up?

By Jonathon Gatehouse - Thursday, May 7, 2009 at 12:00 PM - 0 Comments

In 1992, Bill Clinton pushed George H.W. Bush from the White House by focusing his campaign on a simple reality: times were tough and voters were looking for someone to blame. “It’s the economy, stupid,” read the legendary sign affixed to the walls of his Little Rock, Ark., headquarters. But a decade and a half later, amidst a much more severe global downturn, polls suggest the link between the recession and removal from office is no longer quite so automatic. The only world leaders who are in trouble now seem to be the ones people weren’t so hot on in the first place.

South of the border, where the economic crisis started and is being keenly felt, President Barack Obama is basking in a 69 per cent approval rating, up three points from last month, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News survey. And despite the plethora of domestic and foreign challenges, 48 per cent of Americans now say their country is headed in the right direction, the highest number since the beginning of 2004, reports the Associated Press. In Australia, support for Kevin Rudd, elected in November 2007, remains high—68 per cent according to the latest poll, up five points since late March. The story is the same in Germany, where Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats are holding steady at 35 per cent, while support for her main rival, the leftist Social Democrats, is tumbling. In France, where the Great Recession has sparked massive street protests and a sharp uptick in “boss-nappings,” 48 per cent of voters nonetheless report a positive opinion of President Nicolas Sarkozy, up six points in a month. And Silvio Berlusconi, the gaffe-prone Italian prime minister, has the confidence of 56 per cent of the electorate, according to the latest poll, up four per cent.

Continue…