Newsmakers: May 5-12, 2011
By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, May 13, 2011 - 0 Comments
Donald Trump gets sued, Rita Chretien is found alive, and Don Cherry is angry about something again
EMPICS Entertainment/Keystone Press
Compassion for bin Laden
Angela Merkel’s remark that she was “glad” Osama bin Laden had been killed sparked a firestorm of controversy in Germany. Hamburg judge Heinz Uthmann even filed a criminal complaint, alleging the German chancellor broke a law barring the “rewarding and approving of crimes”—in this case, bin Laden’s “homicide.” Politicians denounced her, and 64 per cent of Germans agreed: bin Laden’s death was “no reason to rejoice.” In L.A., however, even the Dalai Lama—compassion incarnate—said he had it coming. “If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader.
Mother’s day miracle
After 49 days alone in a Chevy Astro van on a logging road in remote Nevada, Rita Chretien was found barely conscious, but clinging to life. The 56-year-old Penticton, B.C., native and her husband, Albert, were stranded en route to Las Vegas on March 19; Albert, who left two days later to find help, hasn’t been seen since. Rita’s faith, and a bit of trail mix, was all that kept her going until finally she was spotted by hunters on ATVs. “We were praying for a miracle and, boy, did we get one,” her son Raymond told reporters Sunday.
-
Back to school (II)
By Philippe Gohier - Friday, May 6, 2011 at 9:36 AM - 43 Comments
Michael Ignatieff talks to the Globe.
“I’m going back into a classroom because the only damn thing I can do that’s any use to anybody is to teach kids what I learned and what mistakes I made … The life that I like the best is teaching. It’s the end of my life as a politician.”
-
Back to school
By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, May 5, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 51 Comments
Michael Ignatieff will take up residence at the University of Toronto.
“Political leadership often comes with onerous burdens and Dr. Ignatieff has met his challenges with both fortitude and imagination,” Fraser said. “He will be welcomed into the university community in Toronto by both faculty and students and honoured for his commitment to our national life. In return, we shall have the benefit from his learning and experience.”
-
Film Reviews: 'Wanted' and 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed'
By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 4:49 PM - 0 Comments
Summertime. The living is easy and the popcorn is high. And the time is right for . . . intelligent design? That’s just my lazy way of introducing two unrelated movies about cult-like crazies who harbour some preposterous conspiracy theories. Neither movie makes much sense. But in the case of Wanted, an action blockbuster starring Angelina Jolie as an über-assassin working for a mystical fraternity, who cares? It’s a wild ride, and Angelina looks and behaves like the scandalous bad girl we want her to be despite all those children and all that charity work. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a documentary polemic arguing that believers in intelligent design (i.e. creationists) are being persecuted by “Big Science” and that theories of Darwinian evolution helped spawn Hitler and the Holocaust. There’s not much action in Expelled, but it made me want to throw things at the screen.
Wanted
Judging by the poster and the trailer, you’d be inclined to think of this as the new Angelina Jolie movie. But as it turns out, Wanted is more like the new James McAvoy movie. The plucky star of Atonement and The Last King of Scotland stars as the story’s protagonist, a downtrodden white-collar weakling named Wesley who is rescued from his nowhere job in an office cubicle and recruited into a secret fraternity of assassins. But hey, you could also call it a Timur Bekmambetov movie. . . Timur who? Continue…
