Justin Trudeau vs. God
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 21, 2012 - 0 Comments
Michael Coren cheers that God sent a storm to Sudbury to prevent “Heretic Trudeau” from speaking to Catholic students. Justin Trudeau actually still managed to speak with students, but the crowd wasn’t as large as it might’ve been. Nonetheless, Campaign Life Catholics has sent out a news release—entitled “ ’Act of God’ spares 900 catholic youth from Justin’s clutches”—to thank God for His efforts.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sudbury, ON, December 21, 2012 - Faithful Catholics in Sudbury are thanking God today for having blocked pro-abortion extremist, Justin Trudeau, from being able to influence the hearts and minds of many children at St. Charles College High School. A winter storm caused the board to cancel school buses. An announcement on the Board’s website states that fewer than 100 students were present for the Liberal Leadership hopeful’s address this morning, contrasted with the 1000 it originally planned to pack into the school’s amphitheater.
“God is good. He spared 900 Catholic youth from being potentially influenced by Justin’s immoral views in support of abortion and homosexual marriage”, said Kevin Murphy, a Catholic ratepayer and one of the protestors who stood outside the board office and St. Charles College for 4 days.
Suresh Dominic, a spokesperson for Campaign Life Catholics, a division of Campaign Life Coalition, who helped organize the protests added, “We continue to disapprove of the board’s decision for allowing Justin to speak at the school, but we are thankful for the weather that limited Justin’s exposure to only 100 people.”
The Board had rebuffed critics by claiming that no risk of scandal to the faith of children existed since Justin was asked not to speak about abortion or homosexuality. Murphy disagrees with the Board’s reasoning, “That’s ludicrous”, he said. “There’s widespread public knowledge of Justin’s opposition to these Catholic teachings, so giving him a platform, regardless of the topic, can be interpreted by kids to mean that the Board is supportive of all that Justin stands for.”
-
Sun News Network's big mouths, small-town look
By Jaime Weinman - Monday, May 9, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 24 Comments
If Sun News hopes to compete with Fox, it needs to up its production values
Getty Images; Photo illustration by Taylor Shute
Sun News Network expected to be attacked for its politics—not its professionalism. But the reviews of the conservative-leaning news channel have pointed out that it looks amateurish: “The sets and lighting are Spartan,” wrote Brad Oswald of the Winnipeg Free Press; Globe and Mail critic John Doyle called it “cheap, cheesy, terrible television.” That’s not a charge often levelled at Sun’s U.S. model, Fox News, whose high production values are acknowledged even by people who hate it. If Sun has trouble looking classy, it has nothing to do with the rather modest short skirts and sleeveless dresses; it may be because of the unexciting scenes behind them.
The hyper-patriotic Sun turned to the Toronto-based AKA Creative Group to design the sets. Andrew Kinsella, AKA’s president, feels they created “a style that Canadians have never seen before,” but adds that it would be “a lot more expensive to work with the big-name [design] competitors south of the border.” But on screen, the American competitors sometimes look more spectacular. Ezra Levant’s The Source is modelled on Glenn Beck’s soon-to-be-cancelled Fox show; it has the host do wacky conservative things like destroy a bush to show his contempt for Earth Day. But Beck’s program has an elaborate set and there’s creative use of camera angles and lighting. Levant’s set, dominated by two fairly small TV screens with his name on them, looks much more low-tech. And like many of the Sun shows, the backgrounds are often monolithically blue, which can give news shows a feeling of sameness: U.S. set designer Jim Fenhagen, who designed shows like ABC World News Tonight, hasn’t seen Sun but told Maclean’s that as a general rule, “doing blue sets is pretty old-fashioned now.”
While some Sun programs make good use of space—Kinsella is proud of the main news hub, with a “retractable rear-projection screen as well as flexibility for the host to move freely from one area to another”—others don’t look much more big-budget than the average local newscast. Some of the daytime shows feature the familiar sight of announcers at a desk with a drab-looking newsroom in the background, the kind of thing Fenhagen tried to avoid when he created the newsroom set for ABC: “Usually the main shot is all the people back there and you can’t get rid of them, which I think is a mistake.” Conservative TV host Michael Coren, who has appeared as a guest on Sun, considers the overall look “sharp and modern” but added that “because of the number of linked interviews with guests around the country, there is always going to be a certain limitation to the overall look.” But those limitations may mean the Sun hosts can’t compete with a Fox personality like Megyn Kelly, the network’s aggressively blond daytime star, who yells at guests against a stylish background of glass, metal and flickering screens.
-
BTC: 955km in a rental car and what did we learn?
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 25, 2008 at 5:10 PM - 0 Comments
For one, women seem to like Stephane Dion. Granted, this is a conclusion based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence, and relatively little of it at that. But pretty much without fail, wherever Dion was last week, women were the most likely to express their support.
On the one hand, this might very well be a problem for a Conservative party whose leader has a well-documented problem with the female vote. On the other, there’s what one gushing woman said about the Liberal Green Shift shortly after Dion left her store.
“I think it’s good in purpose,” wine store staffer Susana Serralde said after meeting Dion and putting him on the phone with one of her friends, with whom he did chat about the key Liberal policy.
“But I just don’t think it’s going to be embraced by a large percentage of people because we are a car society, unfortunately.”
This is not the first time I’ve heard the “I like him, but I’m not sure anyone else will” lament. Its internal contradiction is rather obvious. But then Dion supporters are probably to be forgiven if they feel entirely alone in this world. Continue…
