Can Sarah Palin win over Albertans? Alaska!

By Colby Cosh - Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 8:08 PM - 167 Comments

6:02 pm (all times Mountain!): I’m in the sumptuous Palomino Room at Calgary’s BMO Centre, waiting with an audience of about one thousand to witness Sarah Palin’s first live address outside the United States, depending on which media personage in the back row you ask. Calgary is an obvious choice for a test-run of Palin’s ability to win over a foreign audience; her game-slaying soccer-mom persona does resonate here. We’re so close to Alaska, geographically and spiritually, that Palin almost seems like a caricature. For better and worse. She’s familiar… but it must be said that nobody likes having a distorted effigy of themselves waved at them either.

6:16 pm: Calgary Herald editor Lorne Motley introduces… Cliff Fryers, Preston Manning’s former chief of staff, who is here to introduce the lady herself. Fryers suggests that Palin is on a path parallel to that followed by Reform–outsiders who challenged the status quo and were as “mainstream as apple pie” ten years later.

6:19 pm: “Alaska and Alberta!” Palin’s daughter Piper interrupts the first sentences of her speech, as if on cue, and gets a blazing round of applause. Palin talks about constantly having her accent described as “Canadian”. “You did an amazing job” with the Olympics; Canada’s filled with “tough and talented hockey players.” The pandering works.

6:22 pm: Girlish excitement about meeting Shaun White backstage at the Tonight Show.  I didn’t know she’d cast her lot with Leno. Bad move! You’ll lose the youth demographic!

6:26 pm: She’s laying it on a little thick with the pandering and cute gags. Of course she can get away with it, but it occurs to me that I’m not exactly sure what the substantive portion of this speech is supposed to involve. Was there going to be a substantive portion?

6:30 pm: Finally some nuts and bolts. She talks about bringing TransCanada Pipelines in on the Alaska Gas Line project… as part of her goal of helping establish “energy independence” for the United States. She’s kind of bopping back and forth between hitting the independence note and emphasizing what a great business partner and ally Canada is. Which, technically, seems like inTERdependence.

6:33 pm: “I think there’s a little bit of vindication going on for those of us who called for sound science on climate change.” This being Calgary, the applause is enormous. “The all-of-the-above energy policy… is still the one that Americans support, and people are coming back around to our ideas. Our votes didn’t carry the day, and knew that we didn’t get our message across, and it was a tough battle, it really was, but our ideas, people are seemingly more interested today than they were then, and that’s what the Tea Party movement is kind of about…” If I were fast enough to transcribe this with perfect accuracy there would be THOUSANDS of words between the periods.

6:37 pm: “Some leaders in Washington, D.C. aren’t listening to the people.” Some leaders? You got any names for us?

6:39 pm: Fairly extended attack on the Copenhagen climate conference and the IPCC. “We deserve sound science, not data designed to serve political ends.” She rehearses all the recent embarrassments for the Panel for the bedrock-conservative audience.

6:41 pm: Strongest line of the night–most heartfelt–is her description of debt as “immoral”. Her clickety-clack pace of statistics and factoids is held up for a moment as she speaks slowly about the intergenerational unfairness of public insolvency. Soon, however, she returns to her exhausting regular rhythm. It’s a struggle to maintain attention.

6:45 pm: “The hard work of friendship has created an unbreakable bond between Canada and the United States.” Quotes JFK. “I think he would be pleased to see that the bond of friendship does endure. I ask that we continue that, that we preserve it and continue it into the next generation.” Q&A, the fun part, is about to start.

6:48 pm: Here’s Sen. Wallin. With her help. Palin dispenses deftly with the “writing on the hand” thing and the “I can see Russia from my backyard” thing. First things first, I suppose. The former has Biblical warrant (book of Isaiah, people!) and the latter was, or so Palin says, just a Tina Fey quote that got hung on the real candidate. “And she made a lotta money sayin’ it, too,” gripes the Gov.

6:53 pm: More love letter to TCPL. Maybe this should have been held in their boardroom? I really, really want a cigarette. Sen. Wallin is NOT going to be asking the fastball questions this evening.

6:55 pm: Palin says she wanted to go back to being Governor and soccer mom after the campaign but she encountered a “new normal” with a newly hostile press corps. She boasts of finishing her grand ethics reform and goes over familiar ground about how she is “fighting for Alaska in a different way”.

7:07 pm: As you might expect, there are quite a lot of women in the crowd tonight who look vaguely LIKE Sarah Palin. Tall hair with expensive highlights, 20%-more-chic-than-Mrs.-Thatcher jackets, pearls, naughty-librarian wire-frame glasses.

7:08 pm: Wallin getting a little combative, actually inducing a few angry murmurs from the crowd. Pressing Palin a little bit on her “narrow” originalist view of US government, asking her why we should trust her when her paradoxical message is “don’t trust politicians”. Palin says she’s “concentrated on the basics” in every level of government.

7:11 pm: Wallin asks a confused question about Alaska state-government energy rebates; the Q&A suddenly becomes an A for some time as Palin riffs on her battle against corruption and her belief that the citizen is the best judge of his own welfare and the most efficient user of his own earnings. Then she roasts the media for a while. The media responds with, among other things, cranky, impatient liveblogs.

7:21 pm: Q&A ends; Palin vanishes instantly. I’ll cut this off so I can go mingle before the place empties. Will fill in with a proper summation and some actual thoughts a little later. Depending on whether any of my Calgary friends want to go to the bar.

Stalking Barbie

By Colby Cosh - Saturday, March 6, 2010 at 12:44 PM - 16 Comments

Barring some unnatural disaster of the sort I always regard as certain in the minutes before a trip, I’ll be in Calgary tonight providing live or very-nearly-live weblog coverage of Sarah Palin’s speech and Q&A session at the BMO Centre in Stampede Park. If you’re there, say hi (also, where the heck did you get that kind of money, and can I have some?). If you’re anywhere else in the world, check back here at Macleans.ca for the unfolding details.

How we talk about this

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 1:10 PM - 29 Comments

George Packer considers the way we discuss this stuff.

Broder wasn’t analyzing Palin’s positions or accusations, or the truth or falsehood of her claims, or even the nature of the emotions that she appeals to. He was reviewing a performance and giving it the thumbs up, using the familiar terminology of political journalism. This has been so characteristic of the coverage of politics for so long that it doesn’t seem in the least bit odd, and it’s hard to imagine doing it any other way. A couple of weeks ago, the Times ran a piece by its lead political reporter, Adam Nagourney, about a Republican strategy session in Hawaii: “Here in Honolulu, the strains within the party over conservative principles versus political pragmatism played out in a sharp and public way, especially as the party establishment struggled to deal with the demands of the Tea Party movement.” The structure of the sentence, and of the article, puts the emphasis entirely on tactics and performance. This kind of prose goes down as easily and unnoticeably as a glass of sparkling water, with no aftertaste. Readers interested in politics drink quarts of it every day without gaining weight. And Broder and Nagourney are at the top of their game.

It takes a village to raise an idiot, He did it for the kids and Bad times for burkas

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

It takes a village to raise an idiot
Jacques Rogge and the rest of the executive board of the International Olympic Committee have relented and will allow the Australian International Olympic Committee to fly its iconic “boxing kangaroo” flag from a balcony of the Vancouver Olympic Village. The flag was ordered removed because the IOC bans unauthorized commercial symbols, and the cartoon ’roo is trademarked, albeit only to the Australian Olympic Committee. The dispute fired up Aussies everywhere. Deputy PM Julia Gillard called it a “scandal.” Vancouver radio phone-in callers raged at the IOC’s bully tactics. IOC spokesman Mark Adams called the issue “a storm in a teacup.” Meantime, athletes are streaming to the Oz sector of the village for a photo with the giant ’roo.

He did it for the kids
It was death in the afternoon for any bull that Jairo Miguel Sànchez Alonso faced Saturday at an arena in southwest Spain. The 16-year-old killed six bulls without mussing his sparkly white suit of lights. He returned to Spain after several years apprenticing in Mexico, where there is no minimum age for fighters. He almost died there in 2007 when a bull gored him. Alonso holds no grudges. “I feel quite bad when the bull has been good and you see the expression on his face, the innocence,” he says. “He has given you his bravery.” The event, while bloody, had a softer side. It was a fundraiser for children with autism.

Bad times for burkas
French Prime Minister François Fillon announced this week he’ll deny citizenship to a Moroccan national who forces his French-born wife to wear a burka. “If this man does not want to change his attitude, he has no place in our country,” he said. Meantime, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a law banning full burkas is gaining steam. He has declared the full veil and body covering “not welcome” in France, and inconsistent with the country’s values. It’s certainly not welcome in Paris post offices. Two burka-clad robbers walked into a post office in the Paris suburb of Athis Mons, an area with a large immigrant Muslim population. They pulled out handguns and stole the equivalent of $6,000.

Blades of glory
Germany’s Katarina Witt and Canada’s Elizabeth Manley met on the ice in Vancouver Sunday, 22 years after the Teutonic bombshell and Canada’s sweetheart squared off in Calgary during the 1988 Olympics. Witt won gold but Manley, under enormous home-country pressure, pulled off the skate of her life to finish second. Both women are doing television colour commentary in Vancouver, but they took a turn on the Robson Square ice rink with young members of the Coquitlam Skating Club. “We’re not here for a rematch,” joked Manley, 44. “Not at our age, I’m 20—plus tax.” Replied a razor-sharp Witt: “Oh, my God! How much are taxes here?”

Tea time in Tennessee
Cranky country singer and musical comedian Ray Stevens’s flagging career was ready for a death panel. Then the 71-year-old singer of such novelty hits as Ahab the A-rab and Gitarzan wrote We the People, a lighthearted attack on President Barack Obama’s health care initiative. The video, which shows Stevens strumming a bathroom plunger and singing, “You vote Obamacare, we’re gonna vote you outta there,” is a YouTube hit and an unofficial anthem of the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement. Stevens sang at the group’s convention in Nashville on the weekend, where Sarah Palin raised eyebrows with her $100,000 fee for giving the keynote speech. “That’s a lot of damned tea,” grumbled one delegate.

Do as I say, not as I…ahh-choo!
As deputy health minister for the Czech Republic, Michael Vit has the job of deciding whether to impose mandatory swine flu vaccinations on “all people indispensable for the functioning of the country.” The day after receiving the assignment, Vit came down with H1N1 himself. “I have muscle problems, a headache, simply all symptoms of the flu,” he said. The deputy health minister admitted he had yet to receive the vaccination. “As you see, I’m a living example.”

‘Funeral’ for friends, and strangers
Canadian orchestral rockers Arcade Fire made it to the Super Bowl last weekend, when the group’s stirring anthem Wake Up, from their hit CD Funeral, was used in a series of NFL promo ads. While the group is protective of licensing its music, they had their reasons in this case. They turned over the fat licensing fee to Partners in Health, an agency with deep roots in Haiti. Band member Régine Chassagne’s family came from the island. She expressed her grief in an article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “I am mourning people I know. People I don’t know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won’t be rescued in time.”

Broom versus stick
Icy, obsessed with winning and not above the occasional cheap shot. Yes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and hockey are a match made in heaven. Hockey is “deeply reflective of the character of the nation,” he explained in a pre-Olympic interview with Sports Illustrated. Harper, who has studied the origins of the sport, said it contributes to “a uniquely Canadian sense of belonging in a community across the country.” Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff waxes poetic about a different sport: curling. Naturally, he identifies with the skip. “It’s the leadership and the precision, and the quiet,” he told the Globe and Mail. Apparently he’s not the sort of skip who shouts unseemly commands like, “Hurry, hurry hard.”

Very, very teed off
A Kelowna, B.C., entrepreneur is cashing in on Tiger Woods’s extramarital mayhem. Mike Caldwell has produced the Mistress Collection, a boxed set of 12 golf balls, each bearing a portrait of one of Woods’s mistresses. “He likes to play a round with them…and now you can, too!” notes his website, tailofthetiger.com. Caldwell says he sold 1,500 sets at US$54.90 in the first six days. Less than impressed is Joslyn James, an adult film star and alleged Woods mistress. She called a news conference to denounce the balls as hurtful and in bad taste. “It bothered me to think that someone would be standing with a dangerous club in their hands hitting a ball with my photo on it,” she said. She then showed her sensitive side by releasing 100 tawdry text messages she said she received from Woods.

You don’t want a visit by Oscar
Oscar the cat has a near infallible ability to detect which of the patients in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I., is next to die, says Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician. When Oscar curls up with a patient, staff know to phone the next of kin. “It’s like he’s on a vigil,” says Dosa. Such insight would come as no surprise to cat owners, who are themselves terribly smart. Certainly smarter than dog owners, according to a study by Dr. Jane Murray at the University of Bristol. Winston Churchill was a cat lover. Paris Hilton loves dogs. Want more proof? Cat owners (if anyone really owns a cat) are 1.36 times more likely than dog owners to hold a university degree. They’re also 100 per cent less likely to have to follow behind their pet and scoop droppings off the sidewalk.

Gay but not cheerful
The headline in the Seattle Weekly says it all: “Gay, mentally challenged biracial male cheerleader claims discrimination.” All that high school student Benjamin Grundy wants is to shake his pom-poms like the girls on the squad at Garfield-Palouse High School in tiny Palouse, Wash. Instead, the cheer coach suggested he’d make a great mascot. He was eventually given a cheerleader’s top but denied the rest of the uniform, pom-poms, and the right to join the dance routine. “I was reduced to standing there and moving my arms,” he says. The school board denies discrimination, but Benjamin’s mother, Suzanne Grundy, is pressing the case with the ACLU and her congressman. “The combination of a biracial, mentally challenged gay male may be too much for them,” she told the local TV station.

L’état c’est moi
Quebec’s Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Duchesne has revived a tradition that ended 44 years ago—awarding medals, in gold, silver and bronze, and bearing his coat of arms, to those making contributions to their communities. The practice of awarding such medals ended in 1966 after Quebec nationalists condemned the symbolic tie with the monarchy. Duchesne has no such qualms: he also invoked royal privilege to avoid testifying before a national assembly committee on how he spends some $1 million annually in taxpayer money. His refusal to testify was condemned by all sides of the legislature.

Disharmony in the house of Wang
It was Hong Kong feng shui master Tony Chan’s skills in arranging buildings to create a positive life force that drew Chan to the eccentric, pigtailed property magnate Nina Wang. He began a 15-year affair with Wang, 23 years his senior. Now, he’s accused of arranging her $4-billion fortune in a manner auspicious to himself. When she died at 69 in 2007, he claimed to be her sole heir. Her family contested the will, and he’s charged with forgery.

She also has a Ph.D. in thankless tasks
Leila Ghannam, a former Palestinian intelligence officer, is the first woman governor of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank. Her challenge is to quash a resurgence by hard-liners in Hamas. “My intelligence experience, like my degree in psychology, helps me carry out my job,” she says.

This Week: Good news/Bad news

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

A week in the life of simon cowell
The upcoming season of American Idol (the reality hit’s ninth) will be the last for snarky British judge Simon Cowell. But don’t worry, he’s not going far. Cowell’s moving on to produce an American version of his own hit British competition show, The X Factor, which is pretty much the same thing as Idol, to be aired in the U.S. on Fox, which—you guessed it—is the same network that carries Idol. And guess who he may be bringing along with him? Former Idol judge Paula Abdul.

Hope in Afghanistan
Canadian Forces in Afghanistan had a bad year in 2009—32 of our soldiers died and many more were injured. A Canadian journalist, Michelle Lang, also lost her life. But there is hope that with a troop surge and new commitment on the part of NATO troops to live and work among ordinary Afghans, 2010 could bring better news. Plus, a new poll suggests that Afghans are more supportive of NATO’s mission there and less supportive of the Taliban. This is an important step in the fight to rid Afghanistan of extremists: unless Afghans themselves are on our side, all the peacekeeping and anti-terror missions in the world will not bring peace and democracy to the country. NATO relies heavily on Afghans—for goodwill and information regarding terrorists. With them on our side, the fight against the Taliban could take a turn for the better.

The war on salt
New York is at the forefront of the war on unhealthy foods. The city famously banned trans fats and forced restaurateurs to post calorie counts on their menus, a move that has been largely successful. Now the Big Apple is planning to stick it to another food foe: salt. It has set a goal of reducing the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant food by 25 per cent over the next five years. The city may have more difficulty convincing citizens to go easy on the sodium—while high levels of salt intake can cause strokes and cardiovascular problems, consumers have traditionally been wary of low-sodium products, fearing that they won’t taste as good. New Yorkers may soon be carrying salt shakers in their pockets.

Beware Kim Jong-Il
North Korea has said it is open to new talks about nuclear disarmament, in exchange for a peace treaty with the U.S. and an end to crippling sanctions. While we are wary of any platitudes that come out of Kim Jong-Il’s mouth, we are still encouraged that peace with North Korea may indeed be a possibility. If ending the awful human rights crisis in the Hermit Kingdom means dealing with a two-faced despot, we’d say it’s worthwhile. As long as we remain wary of Kim and his cohorts.

Medal domination
Our athletes are winning medals left, right and centre in the run-up to the Olympics. Snowboarder Jasey Jay Anderson has won his last two races; Pierre Lueders won two bobsled events last week, and our long-track speed skaters are dominating their sport. Combine that with the technological advantages (profiled last week in Maclean’s) developed for our athletes, and it looks like we may very well own the podium in Vancouver.

The return of Palin
She’s baaack! Sarah Palin has signed on as a regular contributor to Fox News, where she will also host occasional series. We don’t expect “her rogue-ness” to contribute anything worthwhile about serious news topics and politics—she’s more likely to offer shrill, empty jabs at the left-wing mainstream media, mixed with cringe-inducing memories of aw-shucks Alaska. A new book about the 2008 presidential campaign claims that John McCain’s advisers warned of Palin, “She doesn’t know anything.” That sounds just about right.

Ironic academics
On Monday, a group of over 100 Canadian university professors sent a letter to newspapers voicing their discontent with Stephen Harper’s decision to prorogue Parliament. They accused the Prime Minister of violating “the trust of the Canadian people [and] thus acting anti-democratically.” Recent polls suggest many Canadians support that statement, but we find the professors’ stance more than a little ironic, given that Ontario community college teachers are currently threatening to strike. That would be another blow to Ontario’s post-secondary students, who have endured countless walkouts and strikes by faculty and teaching assistants in recent years. Academics in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Another wall?
Israel is planning to build another separation barrier—this time on its border with Egypt. Unlike its other security fence in the West Bank, which has successfully kept out terrorists, the Egyptian wall will mainly be used to keep illegal migrant workers from entering the country—much like the barrier Saudi Arabia built along parts of its border with Yemen. Egypt has said it has no problem with the barrier—as long as it is built on Israeli land—but we wouldn’t be surprised if the wall produced a sour relationship between Israel and one of its stronger regional allies. More walls don’t make for better neighbours.

Junk snail mail
More woes for those Canadians who still rely on the post office to send and receive mail. Canada Post has upped the price of domestic stamps to 57 cents, a rise of three cents (the largest hike in the Crown corporation’s history). As if that weren’t bad enough for post office users, the infamous “419” online scam—wherein a wealthy African attempts to access bank accounts by promising a massive payout—has made its way to snail mail. There is one alternative that we can think of—it’s cheaper, faster, and you don’t need to leave your couch to send or receive. You’ll still have to deal with 419 junk mail, though.

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.

Newsmakers '09: Feuds

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 2:40 PM - 1 Comment

	PALIN vs. JOHNSTON Call it the tussle on the tundra: America’s most famous Alaskans have been at each other’s throats ever since Levi Johnston left the Palin family home shortly after the birth of his son, Tripp, to Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol. In interviews and a tell-all article for Vanity Fair, Johnston paints a portrait of Sarah as a lazy, tempestuous, money-hungry egomaniac. Palin, meanwhile, has dismissed Bristol’s relationship with Johnston as a “mistake” and accused the 19-year-old newly minted Playgirl model of being a deadbeat on a “quest for fame, attention, and fortune.”
	PORT vs. COHEN The Skanks in NYC blog was never destined for greatness. And yet its musings about Canadian-born model Liskula Cohen (right) made headlines after Cohen went to court to force Google to identify the anonymous blogger. Cohen eventually dropped her US$3-million defamation suit against Rosemary Port, the 29-year-old fashion student in question. Port, though, launched a US$15-million suit against Google, which she claims should have upheld her right to call someone a “psychotic lying whore” online.
	INDIA vs. SCOTLAND It’s a fixture in Indian restaurants, but Glasgow chef Ahmed Aslam Ali says chicken tikka masala isn’t Indian at all—it’s Scottish. In fact, the 64-year-old founder of the Shish Mahal restaurant claims he invented it in the early 1970s. A Scottish MP is now taking the Scot’s claim one step further, trying to secure “protected designation of origin” status for the dish. Indian foodies have dismissed Ali’s claims as “preposterous,” and say chicken tikka masala is an “authentic Mughlai recipe” that’s been passed down for generations.
	VLADIMIR PUTIN vs. UKRAINE When Ukraine missed a US$500-million payment for Russian gas in November, Russian PM Vladimir Putin was incensed. His Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Tymoshenko, stepped in and negotiated a deal to guarantee gas deliveries. But Putin has since suggested Ukraine’s payment “problems” could be met with significant supply “problems.” And should Ukraine decide to siphon gas from shipments meant for Europe rather than buy it from Russia, he threatened, “we will cut supplies,” a tactic he already used last January.
	SEPARATIST vs. THE NATIONAL BATTLEFIELDS COMMISSION When Quebec’s hard-core separatist fringe threatened to disrupt a re-enactment of the battle on the Plains of Abraham, Canada’s National Battlefields Commission simply cancelled the event altogether. “We don’t want it to become a clash,” André Juneau, then commission president, said by way of explanation. “There was one in 1759 and we don’t want another.” History, it seems, isn’t written by the winners, but by the whiners.
	BECKHAM vs. FANS David Beckham probably knew better than to expect a warm welcome when he returned to L.A. for his first home game with Major League Soccer’s Galaxy. Despite his US$250-million contract, the star had skipped the Galaxy’s first 17 matches of the season, opting to play for an Italian club. But the reception was enough to leave Beckham wishing he’d stayed in Italy. Fed up with the taunts and boos, he tried to climb a barrier to get at an angry fan. Beckham claims he just wanted to shake hands; he was fined US$1,000 for the goodwill gesture.
	ATHEISTS vs. UNITED CHURCH Last winter, Canadian atheists announced they would be buying ad space on buses to promote their message: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Rather than try to censor the message, the United Church of Canada opted to run a cheeky reply of its own: “There’s probably a God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Whatever impact the ads may have had, the real message may very well have been, “There’s probably no point arguing about religion on the sides of buses.”
	AMERICAN APPERAL vs. WOODY ALLEN Woody Allen isn’t the first name that comes to most people’s minds when the topic of fashion models comes up. Still, no one was as surprised as Allen himself when his frumpish mug found its way onto an American Apparel billboard in 2007. Allen sued over the ad, which showed him dressed as an Orthodox Jew, with a caption, in Yiddish, calling him “the high rabbi.” They settled out of court in May for US$5 million.
	CHINA vs. RIO TINTO Last July, Chinese officials arrested four employees of Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, accusing them of stealing state secrets. The arrests followed a failed bid by Chinalco, a state-owned Chinese manufacturer, to invest US$19.5 billion in the company. Rio Tinto, along with Australian officials, is still working to free Stern Hu, the company’s chief iron ore negotiator, but Chinese officials say their investigation isn’t complete.

Newsmakers '09: Lingo

By Katie Engelhart - Friday, December 4, 2009 at 1:40 PM - 0 Comments

	Reverse mullet: Fashion faux pas of the season: the “reverse mullet”—named after the haircut that Kate Gosselin (of Jon & Kate Plus 8) got last spring. The asymmetrical bob—short and spiky at the crown and longer in the front—was widely mocked, notably by celebrity site TMZ.com, which dubbed it a “bi-level, Flock of Seagulls-humped-a-porcupine” weave.
	Death panels: Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin wrote a Facebook post falsely accusing Obama of trying to set up “death panels” to ration access to health care. She mused: “My baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide . . . whether [he is] worthy of health care.” Fear, it seems, is contagious. A later CNN poll found 41 per cent of Americans felt seniors could fall victim to “government panels.”
	Toxic resumés: That’s about all that bankers from Bear Stearns and Lehman Bros. were left with when their firms went bust. Well, that and the millions in bonuses they accrued over the years, giving out “toxic loans” from “toxic banks” on “toxic streets” (think Wall).

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One ticket to paradise, This story has legs, and Daughter knew best

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

One ticket to paradise
The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks will soon have his day in court. But much to the chagrin of some relatives of the 2,751 who died in the World Trade Center attack, the fate of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be decided in a civilian trial on U.S. soil, not far from Ground Zero. Mohammed, who has been dubbed “one of history’s most infamous terrorists,” is one of five suspects who will be transferred from Guantánamo Bay to New York. His chances of acquittal may be slim, but the jury will also hear of the waterboarding and other measures used in his interrogation. After admitting his guilt to an Al Jazeera reporter in 2002, Mohammed confessed at a closed-door review at Guantánamo Bay: “I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation from A to Z.” Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty. A conviction could speed Mohammed along on his self-proclaimed path toward martyrdom.

This story has legs
Any doubt Sarah Palin is overexposed was put to rest this week when the latest Newsweek hit the stands. There, in full, fetching colour, is a leggy portrait of the ex-beauty queen, ex-vice-presidential candidate and ex-governor of Alaska. The very ex-y Palin has one arm resting on an American flag and the other on a cocked hip. Less flattering is the headline: “How do you solve a problem like Sarah?” Palin is everywhere now, flogging her bestseller, Going Rogue, in which she dishes about the media, being “bottled up” by Republican strategists, and her abiding faith in “God and Todd” (her husband). As for the come-hither photo, she complains on Facebook, “The out-of-context Newsweek approach [is] sexist, and oh-so-expected by now.” True, she posed for the picture, but it was intended for Runner’s World, where legs are just things you run with.

Daughter knew best
Carter Spencer, 39, was drunk and high on cocaine last October when he plowed his truck into Christopher Raymond Kniffen, a 19-year-old skateboarder, at a Regina intersection, leaving Kniffen to die in the street while he drove on to his cousin’s and had a couple of more drinks. The next day, Spencer washed his car. Nothing would have connected him to the fatal hit-and-run had Spencer’s own 13-year-old daughter not contacted police and given a statement 2½ weeks later. “His 13-year-old daughter demonstrated more responsibility than he did,” Crown prosecutor Sonya Guiboche told the court. Last week, Spencer pleaded guilty to driving while disqualified and to leaving the accident scene knowing someone was injured. He has 32 criminal convictions, seven of them for driving offences, and had been stripped of his licence after failing to pursue a substance-abuse program. Sentencing is scheduled for later this month.

Hush-up money
Lou Dobbs has used his bully pulpit at CNN for increasingly oddball debates surrounding illegal immigrants and the “birther” movement, which claims U.S. President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S. and is ineligible for office. How does one top that? It’s a question Dobbs is trying to suss out now that he’s left CNN, the news network that was his home for almost 30 years. Rumours have him heading over to rival Fox News or even running for president. The gossip also has him getting dropped rather than quitting the CNN punditocracy. The New York Post reports the network was so maddened by his move to the right and so worried it would tarnish the network’s reputation that it agreed to grease his departure with $8 million.

The fight of his life
When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar started having hot flashes last year, the NBA Hall of Famer says, “I knew something was up. But I didn’t think it was going to be something as serious as leukemia.” As the 62-year-old recently revealed, he was diagnosed last December with Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia, a rare form of cancer of the blood and bone marrow. But despite the frightening moniker, the disease can be controlled with medication and regular checkups. So far, says Abdul-Jabbar, so good: “I responded well to the treatment. I just want that to continue.”

Plus you can’t even get HBO
Accused murderer and gang leader Jamie Bacon of Abbotsford, B.C., has a new cell outfitted with a fridge, toaster and microwave, but it hasn’t stopped a litany of complaints over his treatment at the Surrey Pretrial Centre. Bacon’s lawyer, Kimberly Eldred, is seeking to have him moved out of isolation and into the general prison population as he awaits trial in connection with the murder of six men in a Surrey, B.C., apartment. Eldred told a B.C. Supreme Court judge that Bacon’s six months in isolation constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Although he was moved to a refurbished cell after previous complaints, she says Bacon can’t see his TV from his bed. As well, the cell, unlike the previous one, lacks a shower, “the one thing in life he could control.” Lawyers for the prison told the hearing he remains in isolation to keep him safe and to prevent him from conducting gang business. There were attempts on his life before his arrest.

Lady Love keeps her day job
By day she is Brooke Magnanti, a researcher in developmental neurotoxicology and cancer epidemiology in Bristol, U.K. But online, in British bookshops and on the telly she’s the previously anonymous Belle de Jour—a semi-fictional London call girl. Magnanti outed herself this week because of concerns a former boyfriend would reveal her secret. She admits she bases her writing on her experience working as a $530-an-hour escort in 2003 as she struggled to finance her Ph.D. Her body of work spawned the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, broadcast on Showcase in Canada. Reaction from her scientific colleagues, she says, has been “amazingly kind and supportive.”

Rocking the boat
Gordon Cruse, a 67-year-old retired corrections worker at Victoria’s Youth Custody Centre, used to be a pirate, but not the bad kind. Calgary-born Cruse was one of the original outlaws beaming taboo rock ’n’ roll into British homes from Radio Caroline, a ship broadcasting offshore to thwart staid 1960s-era radio regulations. His primary job was reading the news, but he also spun rock records, the kind the BBC was still too stuffy to play (the Beatles, the Stones). Authorities shut down the outlaw stations in 1967, but their antics are now immortalized in the hit comedy Pirate Radio, a film Cruse has already seen five times. “Changing British radio as the pirates did was a once in a lifetime excitement immeasurable in its scope,” he once told the BBC. “To be part of that—me, a humble Canadian flatlander—is a unique and exceptional experience.”

Yes, he went to the Wall—but when?
A host of world leaders and everyday East Germans claim credit for tearing down the Berlin Wall; last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy chipped in with his own version of events. His Facebook posting had him rushing to the Wall on Nov. 9, 1989, as giddy crowds of Berliners bashed away at the concrete monstrosity. He posted a photo of his 34-year-old self wielding a hammer against a graffiti-covered part of the structure. But critics are skeptical Sarkozy was that fleet of foot, considering news reports have him in France that day in 1989. While he was clearly there in the early days of the Wall’s demise, even former prime minister Alain Juppé, who accompanied Sarkozy, says he is unsure about the date. Sarkozy is sticking to his story, but former Socialist presidential candidate Ségolène Royal isn’t buying it. She jokes it is equally likely he was at the Bastille in 1789.

Worth a thousand words? Try $100,000.
It was a shocking offer for former supermodel Cindy Crawford. Last summer, a man allegedly contacted Crawford and her entrepreneur husband, Rande Gerber, threatening to go public unless they bought a photograph of their seven-year-old daughter, gagged and tied to a chair. The couple instead brought the matter to authorities, who deported 26-year-old Edis Kayalar, of Germany, for being in the U.S. illegally. Refusing to take no for an answer, Kayalar is said to have called the family again, this time demanding $100,000 for the photo. Kayalar, reportedly on vacation in Turkey, has been charged with extortion in the U.S. and is under investigation in Germany. As for the photo, it was taken without Crawford’s knowledge by a former nanny during a game of cops and robbers. The picture was allegedly stolen from the nanny.

Mama was a dealer at MotorCity
Joe Cada knew the odds weren’t in his favour when he dropped out of community college to commit to poker full-time. “You have to be very careful when you decide to make it a living. More people lose than win.” So far, the gamble has paid off. In November, the 21-year-old Michigan resident became the youngest person in the history of the World Series of Poker to take home the jackpot. Cada, who will be sharing the US$8.55-million prize with the backers who helped pay his entry fee, comes by his card-playing prowess honestly. His mom is a dealer at Detroit’s MotorCity Casino, and family gatherings, says his uncle, “always seemed to end up in a card game.”

Another Obama speaks
This Obama lives far from the White House, in a rented flat in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen. Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo shares a father with his half-brother, the U.S. President. Barack Obama Sr. affected the two men in different ways. The President has written of the abandonment he felt when his father left when he was two. His half-brother’s autobiographical novel portrays their father as an abusive alcoholic. “His mother was being attacked and he couldn’t protect her,” he writes of one assault. “And that was just one night. There were many more.” Mark was born in Kenya to his father’s third wife. The two half-brothers have had little contact. Barack Sr. died in a car crash in Kenya in 1982.

The hunted look, the defensive crouch

By Paul Wells - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7:11 PM - 80 Comments

Sarah Palin does Oprah:

When Ms. Winfrey pressed Ms. Palin about why she would not mention the names of newspapers or magazines she read when Ms. Couric asked her to, Ms. Palin said she found the CBS anchor’s persistence “annoying.” Still looking annoyed, she recalled how she left a rally “pumped up” and aglow, only to pull back the curtain and discover Ms. Couric waiting with camera and crew, or as she put it sourly, “There’s the perky one again.”

Ms. Winfrey, who didn’t hide her surprise at Ms. Palin’s impolitic wording, came to Ms. Couric’s defense, noting, “You’re pretty perky too.”

Oprah and the other members of the left liberal MSM elite sure will be surprised when the perky Palin rolls over the usual Harvard Trotskyites to get elected president in 2012. By a landslide. Mark my words.

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…

Why moderate Republicans do better than Palin Republicans

By John Parisella - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 6:39 PM - 35 Comments

It was not what Barack Obama expected one year after his historic victory. The Republican party showed it is far from extinct, winning governorships in both New Jersey and Virginia, two states that had until then been held by Democrats. A third contest with national implications was held in the 23rd congressional district of New York state, where the Democrats took a seat that had been in Republican hands for nearly a century.

Though both parties can claim to have made some inroads, this was a GOP night. The loss of Virginia by a wide margin suggests a large-scale defection of independent voters away from the Democrats. While the loss of New Jersey may have had more to do with an unpopular governor, there too, independents appear to have abandoned the Democratic party. That should not go unnoticed by Democratic strategists preparing for next year’s mid terms. The Obama coalition of a year ago was simply not in effect in this off-year election. Of course, Democrats can argue that Obama was not on the ballot. But unless they take note of Tuesday’s results and react accordingly, they are in for a rude awakening next November.

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Mitchel Raphael on a Rahim Jaffer joke

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 0 Comments

Good sport Maxime Bernier

At the suggestion of Capital Diary, this year’s Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner was a different kind of night. Traditionally, party leaders have given funny speeches, but this dinner became a mock awards ceremony with lots of MPs and journalists taking to the stage (in part because fewer and fewer leaders were offering to speak at the event). Rick Mercer talked about all the gay staffers who work for Tory ministers “except Lisa Raitt. How do I know? Just look at her hair.” Other highlights included former foreign affairs minister and very good sport Maxime Bernier comically looking for his notes on stage. He found them and did not have to call Julie Couillard. Also, Scott Brison had some great lines: “I’ve put a lot of work into my speech,” said the Nova Scotia Liberal MP. “In fact, I even got together with former colleague Rahim Jaffer to do a few lines.”

How to get elected in Nova Scotia without spending a dime

The recent announcement of a by-election in Nova Scotia has all eyes in that province on one man: Bill Casey. Casey was the Tory MP who voted against the Conservative budget over the Atlantic accord and then sat as an Independent. He resigned this year, triggering the by-election in his old riding. He is now a Nova Scotia hero: any candidate that received his blessing would sail to victory. According to NDP MP Megan Leslie, “You wouldn’t have to run a campaign if Bill endorsed you.” Casey now works for the Nova Scotia government representing the province’s interests in Ottawa, so he has to appear neutral, but politicians at all levels of government in the province are keen to score even a photo with him.

Happy Birthday from Justin

During question period Justin Trudeau can often be spotted signing all sorts of things. (Most MPs do this, including the PM, who has been spotted signing photos of himself.) One day Trudeau had a huge stack of cards on his desk. Every Liberal supporter in his Montreal riding, he explains, gets a personalized birthday card. Recently, Trudeau popped by the seventh annual Champions of Mental Health awards at the Fairmont Château Laurier ballroom. His mother, Margaret Trudeau, got an award for being open about having bipolar disorder. Also on the awards list was Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Gen. Walter Natynczyk, chief of defence staff, for their work launching the Canadian Forces mental health campaign, “Be the Difference.” MacKay noted that the number of health care officials hired under his watch has increased significantly. Meanwhile, on the military mission front, Natynczyk told Capital Diary that he just wrapped up the mission in Bosnia a few weeks ago. He noted that when it comes to wars, politicians like to sprint, while the military run marathons.

His daughter and Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin’s memoir, Going Rogue: An American Life, will be out soon. So which NDP MP has a photo homage of Palin in his office? Peter Stoffer’s daughter, Amber Ocean Stoffer, once dressed up as the former Republican vice-presidential nominee, and the Nova Scotia MP keeps the snap in a prominent frame in his Hill office. She is called Amber Ocean, says Stoffer, because she was conceived on a cruise ship and the sunsets were a stunning amber colour. Stoffer has another daughter named Jasmin Aurora Stoffer; she was born in the Yukon during an aurora borealis.

What the Senator wore

Sen. Nancy Ruth showed up to the weekly Conservative caucus meeting with a T-shirt under her blazer that read: “I may be wrong, but I doubt it.” She showed it to a few MPs, but made sure not to flash the Prime Minister.

Sarah Palin's no slave to syntax

By Scott Feschuk - Friday, October 16, 2009 at 4:31 PM - 50 Comments

I wasn’t asked to write the foreword to Sarah Palin’s forthcoming memoir, but that didn’t stop me.

Maverick. Iconoclast. Renegade. These are all words Sarah Palin would have trouble spelling correctly.

The political phenomenon from Wasilla, Alaska, burst onto the national stage in the fall of 2008. She was unlike anything Americans had ever seen before, unless they’d seen Tina Fey, which most of them had. Continue…

Guy Laliberté's space concert, Sarah Palin's revenge, and a tribute for the Man in Black

By Ken MacQueen - Friday, October 9, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

Just add water
His Cirque du Soleil shows are a staple in Las Vegas, one of the planet’s most profligate users of water, but space tourist and Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberté is on a self-described “poetic social mission” to raise awareness of the need for access to clean drinking water. The Montreal-based Laliberté, who spent more than US$35 million for a 12-day visit to the International Space Station, donned a red foam clown’s nose as he arrived at the station last Friday, but his trip isn’t all fun and games. On Oct. 9, the Cirque founder hosts an all-star webcast at onedrop.org as the station orbits the planet. The two-hour “poetic tale,” written by novelist Yann Martel, brings together personalities from 14 world cities. Among them: former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, U2, Peter Gabriel, Shakira, Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, environmentalist David Suzuki and Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman. Laliberté says he hopes the event will raise awareness for One Drop’s aim of “water for all, all for water.”

Paradise doesn’t come easy
Kurtis Coombs, a 19-year-old political science major at Memorial University, had a first-hand lesson last week in the dark art of politics. For almost two days, he was the elected mayor of Paradise, Nfld., where he lives with his parents while commuting to school in St. John’s. But Canada’s youngest mayor found his victory short-lived. A recount shaved his razor-thin three-vote victory into a tie with incumbent Ralph Wiseman. The draw was settled by putting both names in a recycling bin and picking the winner. With that, Wiseman returned to office and Coombs is back in class. A Facebook page has been set up to assist Coombs “in keeping the job that was stolen from him.” On Tuesday, a judge ordered a second recount. Continue…

Limbaugh and Beck's strange patriotism

By John Parisella - Monday, October 5, 2009 at 7:15 PM - 48 Comments

Last Friday, the International Olympic Committee selected Rio de Janiero for the 2016 Summer Olympics, a wise choice by the Olympic movement as these will be the first games ever held in South America. Anyone who knows anything about Olympic decision-making knows the IOC is among the most mysterious and byzantine organizations in the world. Like the Vatican, it operates in a virtual vacuum and is nearly immune to outside pressures. Given this, Barack Obama’s appearance in Copenhagen to push Chicago’s bid was hardly guaranteed to make it a fait accompli. If anything, it may have been counterproductive. That said, it would have been difficult for Obama to turn down the opportunity when other heads of state, like Brazil’s Lula and Spain’s King Juan Carlos, were scheduled to attend.

Granted, it was not a banner day for the American president. But the elation of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and a congregation of observers associated with the Weekly Standard at the news of Chicago’s failure to land the Games suggests their obsession with seeing Obama fail at any cost has reached new heights. With over 80% of Americans supporting the lone U.S. bid, one has to wonder about their strange interpretation of patriotism.

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Who needs credibility when you've got Sarah Palin?

By John Parisella - Friday, October 2, 2009 at 6:14 PM - 70 Comments

Her book is called Going Rogue and it is already a bestseller weeks ahead of appearing on the bookshelves. This is no small feat and is indicative of the fact that Sarah Palin is the most spectacular politician in the Republican party—and possibly the United States. Her book is just thin edge of the wedge, too. Not only will she make millions doing speeches and grow her profile by acting ‘mavericky’ on Facebook and other outlets, she will dominate fundraising efforts for her party in the upcoming electoral year. Should the GOP make any gains in the 2010 mid terms, she will be in a position to reap the credit and her name will leap to the top of Republican field for the presidential primaries in 2012.

Clearly, she energizes the Republican base and excites the Beck-Limbaugh-Hannity-O’Reilly populist crowd. It matters little to them that she cannot conduct an in-depth interview on policy matters with reputed journalists. All she has to do is control the medium, as she did in Hong Kong and as she does with her Facebook interventions. No one challenges her knowledge because she plays her star quality to the hilt. Her somewhat-glamorous looks and her unpredictability make her irresistible to reality TV–types who want to see a show. Surely, her 400-page book will contain even more revealing glimpses of the hockey mom from Alaska.

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Dislike Obama? You must be racist.

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, September 24, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 427 Comments

A year ago, in the final stretch of the U.S. election campaign, I would find myself in New York or Los Angeles or points in between and asked for my thoughts on who would win. I usually answered “John McCain,” more in hope than expectation: I’ve no use for the soi-disant “maverick,” who was a catastrophic candidate, but in those heady days between Sarah Palin’s boffo convention speech and McCain’s characteristically inept response to the economic meltdown there was briefly a faint chance that the Alaskan governor might yet save the Republican party from its rendezvous with destiny.

And at that point the worldly liberal Democrat who had sought my views would nod thoughtfully and agree: yes, McCain would win. Not because of Sarah Palin. But because Americans were too racist to stomach the thought of a black man in the White House. Continue…

Why Beck and Limbaugh are bad for the Republicans

By John Parisella - Monday, September 21, 2009 at 2:07 PM - 48 Comments

The current debate over whether Barack Obama’s opponents are motivated by his policy or his race dominated the Sunday news shows, with a general consensus emerging that policy was the main factor. It was nonetheless conceded that racism was a disturbing presence in many of the protest events. Sadly, no Republican spokesperson on the shows said anything to condemn the organizers that allowed and may have encouraged the ugly manifestations of racism.

Many of the recent protests reminded me of rallies last fall at which Sarah Palin would talk about “taking back our America” and accuse Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” The fact that media types like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh engage in overt race-baiting on a daily basis only adds to the perception that the GOP is out of sync with its basic principles and values. It seems no Republican luminary would dare question Beck or Limbaugh for fear of facing primary challenges down the road, which is somewhat ironic when you consider that neither of the two is an actual member of the GOP. After all, opposing a liberal administration is good for ratings.

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The Palin Republicans

By John Parisella - Monday, September 14, 2009 at 4:08 PM - 203 Comments

No one can deny that the GOP, celebrating 155 years of existence this year, has been a significant factor in the American polity. The Republicans have won 22 presidential elections to the Democrats’ 16, and can lay claim to the one president that transcended partisan politics–Abraham Lincoln. No Democratic president in history comes close, not even FDR. Lincoln’s leadership in the civil war and his abolition of slavery are often portrayed as American achievements as opposed to Republican successes. The GOP has also had at least three dominant periods in which they fashioned social, economic, and international policy: 1893 to 1912, 1921 to 1933 and 1980 to 2008. There were excesses along the way but, generally speaking, the party’s history revolves around a legitimate conception of America and how it should be governed. That has been true until this year.

Ever since Obama’s inauguration, the Republicans have struggled to gain any traction as a viable alternative. Since then, Obama’s approval numbers have gone down sharply, but the Republicans have not benefited in any noticeable way. Last week’s silly outburst by Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina, may have made him a hero to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and the rest of the lunatic right. But it did little to make his party seem like legitimate counterweight to the Democrats. Similarly, this Saturday’s Tea Party protests seem grassroots enough, but the rhetoric emerging from its spokespersons leaves the impression that the Republican party is now just a party of protest. It is no longer playing the role of the guardian of conservatism. Consider, for instance, how Sarah Palin’s false charges of death panels did little other than derail a legitimate debate on health care reform. As a result, the battle over health care is now an intra-party contest within the Democratic party.

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Sarah and Hillary: A study in contrasts

By John Parisella - Friday, July 31, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 28 Comments

Aside from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008, the respective campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin remain the highlights of the last political season. Clinton got 18 million votes in the Democratic primaries and nearly became the nominee. Palin came out of nowhere to energize a lackluster McCain bid, and, for a couple weeks in September at least, helped him take a lead in the polls. Since then, she has easily become the most sought after personality in the GOP.

Last Sunday, both Clinton and Palin were in the news, albeit for different reasons, and made it clear why both fascinate the media and the American public. The Secretary of State  was on Meet The Press doing a one-hour interview. Meanwhile, Palin was delivering her farewell address to the people of Alaska. Events dealing with health care reform and yesterday’s ‘Beer Summit’ limited the interventions of the two politicians to one-day news stories. I might add regrettably because both these political figures will continue to play a vital role in the public life of the United States. Continue…

What's eating Stephen Harper?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 24, 2009 at 1:33 PM - 77 Comments

Gerald Caplan considers Sarah Palin, Mike Harris and Richard Nixon in an attempt to understand Stephen Harper and that outburst in Italy.

Why is Harper such a troubled man? Why are those who disagree with him enemies, not opponents? No one has a clue what’s eating him deep down. He’s not a small-town nobody as Mike Harris had been. He wasn’t an outsider in his own universe the way Richard Nixon was. He seems to have had a happy, typically middle-class upbringing. In fact, he grew up one of the luckiest human beings on earth, with privileges that only a fraction of humankind has ever enjoyed, and has remained lucky and privileged ever since. Yet he’s such an angry man.

Stephen Harper seems incapable of suppressing resentments that are unfathomable to the rest of us but that lead him to the most outrageous and self-destructive partisanship. His dismissal of socialists and separatists is just conservative boiler-plate. But his loathing of liberals/Liberals surpasses all understanding. No doubt he is a very smart man about some things. But for such a smart man he sure does some troubling things.

We must close the absurdity gap

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, July 20, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 12 Comments

Where did we go wrong, Canada? France gets as a first lady a supermodel who used to pose naked. Italy gets a prime minister in the midst of yet another sex scandal—this one set off by the revelations of a woman who goes by the nickname Long Thighs. And what do we get? We get a summer’s worth of political debate about the mechanics of Employment Insurance administration. If we’re not careful, they’re going to kick us out of the G8 for this.

The tedium transcends the federal level. Ed Stelmach was grazed by a handful of pie near the beginning of his term as Alberta premier, and has yet to accomplish anything else quite as interesting. Brad Wall of Saskatchewan keeps talking about how everything in his province is going to be all great and awesome thanks to . . . potash!—the four-eyed nerd of the resource world. Meanwhile, reporters in Prince Edward Island got excited recently when rumours began to fly that one of Robert Ghiz’s hairs had been spotted moving. Continue…

Palin and the presidency? Not so fast.

By John Parisella - Friday, July 17, 2009 at 5:30 PM - 21 Comments

It is becoming obvious that Sarah Palin is leaving the Alaska governorship in order to become the face of Republican politics. In that role, she will have to respond to Democratic initiatives with criticism and, hopefully, alternative policies. This will have her opposing healthcare reform, environmental policies designed to reduce carbon emissions, and any overtures aimed at jump-starting the peace process in the Middle East. She will fight for lower taxes, less government and a return to a strong national security policy. Sound familiar? It should.

Continue…