Team Elin
By Nancy Macdonald - Monday, January 11, 2010 - 11 Comments
How Sweden’s egalitarian culture affected its response to the Woods scandal
Not long ago, Sweden served as the ideal retreat for the famously reclusive Tiger Woods. There, the planet’s most transcendent athlete could escape the paparazzi’s constant gaze and enjoy snowy, low-key holidays in Parlstrom, at the family home of Elin Nordegren, his Swedish-born wife. He could stroll through tiny Vaxholm or Stockholm’s leafy, central Karlaplan plaza without raising so much as a blond eyebrow.
But since the world’s No. 1 golfer drove his Cadillac Escalade into a tree on Nov. 27 and his sexcapades became the biggest story of 2009, the golf-mad Swedes have unleashed a torrent of public support for his wronged wife, lashing out at Woods in the process. “ ‘Transgressions,’ ‘infidelity’ and ‘hiatus’ are not good enough,” wrote Lasse Anrell, a star columnist with Aftonbladet, the country’s biggest newspaper. Tiger, he says, should at least be man enough to admit to what he did. “Here’s a word that he should add to his vocabulary: ‘sex addict.’ That’s S-E-X-A-D-D-I-C-T, Tiger.” Meanwhile, Ann Söderlund, a leading Aftonbladet journalist, commended Nordegren’s “Swedish” reaction. “While Hillary and Posh Spice chose to keep silent, diet and become feminist doormats, Elin stood with both feet firmly planted on the ground and realized the shame was Tiger’s, not hers. Thank God for girls like Elin. Next time, I hope she uses a bigger club.”
In fact, Nordegren (who allegedly took a three-iron to her philandering husband) is being celebrated as a kind of modern folk hero. “Swing it again, Elin!” wrote Aftonbladet’s editor-in-chief Jan Helin on his blog. Yes, Woods, the planet’s blandest superstar, has inspired the progressive, famously peaceful nation to advocate for retributive justice.
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Sweden, of course, remains a safe haven for Nordegren. In fact, she is believed to have retreated there over the holidays with the couple’s two children, two-year-old Sam and 10-month-old Charlie. And recently, she bought a US$2.2-million, six-bedroom hideaway on small, secluded Faglaro Island, a 45-minute ferry ride from Vaxholm, where she grew up.
Yet more than “she’s our gal” patriotic loyalty is driving Swedish support, columnist Britta Svensson told Maclean’s. Nordegren, after all, is no regular Swede; rather, her “well-known, upper-middle-class family” makes this “personal,” she says. Nordegren’s mother Barbro Holmberg, a former cabinet minister and current governor of Gävleborg county, made the front page of the country’s biggest papers, Expressen, Aftonbladet, and Dagens Nyheter, after being hospitalized in Florida with stomach pains in the early days of the scandal. And Elin’s globe-trotting journalist father, Thomas Nordegren, has been thrust into an even brighter spotlight than usual. “I do, of course, have an opinion about both the Internet gossip and media’s treatment [of the unfolding drama],” Thomas recently told his radio audience. “But my biggest task is to support my daughter and my grandchildren. To bring that up in my own program would be inappropriate. Enough about this!” Most of the Swedish media has politely respected the parents’ privacy.
But with their very own flaxen-haired party in the drama, Swedes are lapping up every juicy new detail of the golfer’s sordid affairs. Woods’s marital saga has been splashed on the front pages of the country’s papers for weeks, with some media outlets dispatching reporters to Florida to cover this most un-Swedish circus. The normally reserved country—wholly unused to the media digging into the private lives of its public figures—is gorging on its first real taste of paparazzi scrutiny, says Michael Winiarski, a U.S.-based correspondent with Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest morning paper. “Hour after hour,” he described in a recent report, “relationship experts, finger-waggers, weepers and D-list celebrities” were trotted out on network TV to comment on the latest, tawdry revelation.
Still, Swedes perceive celebrity, pop culture and gender entirely differently than the U.S., and some see this as an opportunity to punctuate that. Sweden’s “obsessively egalitarian” culture ensures that girls have a strong sense of self, experts explain (this is, after all, the country that in the ’40s gave us girl rebel Pippi Longstocking, who lived alone, sailed the seven seas, drank lemonade from the jug, and could outlift any man). “Swedish women like Elin are brought up to be independent and strong,” Aftonbladet editor Karin Magnusson explains. “We’re excited about this. We’re hoping Elin will file for divorce, and show Tiger—and the world—what Swedish women stand for.”
The country’s famed, cradle-to-grave welfare state, which offsets women’s unpaid work with state-funded child care and eldercare services, includes a state-paid allowance for 60 days of pappamanader—“daddy’s months”—to allow father and newborn to properly bond. And the gap in the employment rates between men and women in Sweden is half of what it is in the U.S. Swedes pride themselves on having created a more egalitarian culture, not just between rich and poor, but between men and women. “Our Swedish hearts are overwhelmed with pride, because our very own Elin didn’t take any s–t. Just like a tough Swedish girl shouldn’t,” Svensson wrote. “Elin is our heroine.”
Still, few believe Nordegren will take her young children to live in Sweden, away from their dad. Tradition dictates that child custody be shared, says Svensson (in Sweden, single-parent custody is “very rare,” she adds, generally granted only in cases of “incest or severe domestic abuse”). When a Swedish couple divorces, assets are typically halved, 50-50—“pre-nups and divorce lawyers are almost unheard of,” writes Swedish journalist Katarina Andersson. In fact, most Swedes were revolted by news that Woods had reportedly sweetened the pre-nup, offering Nordegren US$55 million more to stay for two more years, says Svensson: “We think a woman who marries for money is stupid—behaviour we connect with a typical American gold-digging housewife.” And Nordegren, poised, substantive, elegant, and born of an intelligent, well-to-do family, is, she insists, nothing of the sort.
What Nordegren has planned next is anybody’s guess. But while she has remained silent, some have picked up on signals—as when she was photographed pumping gas without her wedding ring. Though she was reportedly in talks with a top L.A. divorce lawyer before Christmas, it remains unclear whether she will “take the money, and kick him in the butt,” as per the suggestion of fellow Swede, Anna Anka, whose tumultuous marriage to Paul Anka has also captivated the country. If Nordegren does give Woods the boot—which several U.S. media reports she intends to—those supportive Swedes might make it a national holiday.
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Montreal is a disaster
By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 1:45 PM - 275 Comments
The once-glamorous city is now a corrupt, crumbling, mob-ridden disgrace. What went wrong?
It says something about a city when tales of bravery in the face of organized crime are apparently a prerequisite to governing it. Five weeks into an increasingly bizarre election campaign dominated by scandal, graft and good, old-fashioned backstabbing, Gérald Tremblay wants it known that he is scared for the well-being of his family. Montreal’s mayor and leader of the municipal party Union Montréal (Quebec has parties at the city level) is vying for a third term. He says his decision to clean up city hall during the past four years has made him a target of Montreal’s criminal underbelly. He recently reminded voters of the time police found two fire bombs behind his country house in 2005. Then there was the time when, as Quebec’s industry minister, he denied a liquor permit to a Montreal-area wine producer—who was subsequently found dead in the trunk of his own car. “I’m not naive,” Tremblay told Le Devoir last week. “I’m very well informed. I knew exactly what I was getting into with the city of Montreal.”Not to be outdone, Tremblay’s opponents offered up their own brave bona fides. Tremblay’s main challenger and leader of the rival party Vision Montréal, Louise Harel, reminded voters that her late husband, journalist and union leader Michel Bourdon, was repeatedly threatened by the Mafia. Richard Bergeron, of the upstart Projet Montréal, says he has requested police protection, though he makes it clear that his crusade against municipal corruption hasn’t garnered him any death threats—yet. “Everyone knows where I live,” he told a reporter recently. Continue…
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Ottawa’s ‘sexy’ scandal
By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 16, 2009 at 12:02 PM - 0 Comments
Lisa Raitt is known for her confidence. But how much trouble can she handle?
Lisa Raitt understands. It frustrates her. But she knows what it means to be in a position like hers—the authority, the scrutiny, the scorn, the conflict. “There were people who called politicians in Ottawa and demanded that I be fired. I don’t know who. Nobody ever names names . . . I wish they would,” she once told a reporter. “I don’t mix personalities with business, and I don’t want to seem like I am whining. I’m not whining, but it does bug me. But I don’t hold any grudges. This is the big leagues.”Of course, that was nearly six years ago, when Raitt was in charge of the Toronto Port Authority. Long before she got to Ottawa. Even longer before she and a close aide went to a network television studio in the capital to explain the government’s handling of a national health crisis, arriving with a binder full of confidential briefing notes and leaving without it. This time, Raitt stood and faced her accusers in person, the Speaker naming names as he introduced one opposition MP after another who wanted the natural resources minister fired. Raitt stood and, as she has many times since being elected the MP for Halton last fall, answered calmly and confidently, her assurances only periodically peppered with a patronizing put-down. “Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned with the language being utilized by the member opposite,” she lamented after the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair had referred to her disgraced assistant as subservient. “The people who work for us on the Hill work very hard.”
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Spy scandal deepens rift with Russia
By Susan Mohammad - Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments
Russia signed a pact with two Georgian breakaway republics
For a while, it looked as if Russia and NATO were mending fences, but those hopes have now been dashed. The biggest spy scandal in NATO history is erupting into a diplomatic nightmare—and it’s one that now involves Canada.It all started when two Russian diplomats were ejected from NATO headquarters in Brussels over accusations of espionage. Viktor Kochukov, a political desk chief stationed at the Russian mission to NATO, and mission attaché Vasily Chizhov were stripped of their credentials last Thursday over suspected links to convicted Estonian spy Herman Simm.
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Can anyone save Belgium from itself?
By Kate Lunau - Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments
Van Rompuy: Dull, unwilling but good for Belgium
As the citizens of Belgium rang in the New Year, many were drinking to a future with a little stability. After all, 2008 saw the country beset with seething tensions between its two major linguistic groups, the near-failure of its largest bank, and the collapse of a scandal-ridden government after just nine months in power. Now it will be up to Herman Van Rompuy, sworn in as the new prime minister just before year-end, to turn things around in 2009.
Belgium’s previous government, headed by Flemish Christian Democrat Yves Leterme, collapsed in December after a Belgian judge said he had “strong indications” Leterme’s aides had pressured the court over a rescue plan for Fortis, a once-mighty bank felled by the financial crisis. Leterme was also criticized for failing to quell tensions between Belgium’s French and Dutch speakers, whose bickering over regional autonomy deadlocked the government for months. His gaffes often upset French speakers: he once famously confused Belgium’s national anthem with France’s, and claimed the country’s francophones were incapable of learning Dutch.
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It's InterThingWebNet Day on the campaign trail, y'all!
By kadyomalley - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 7:45 AM - 18 Comments
- CanWest News and the Toronto Sun are both reporting on the latest incarnation of notaleader.ca, courtesy of the Conservatives, whose leader recently – and presciently – predicted a “very nasty campaign.” Promise made, promise kept! (ITQ will admit to giggling at the “DionBook” – specifically, the wall post from The Ghost of Edward Blake. She’s such a geek.)
- Meanwhile, the Liberals are launching not one but two new sites: This Is Dion, which isn’t yet online, but was teasered in today’s Globe. It will apparently depict the Liberal leader as a – gasp! – actual human being, who fishes and snowshoes and fights for national unity while simultaneously playing ball hockey. There’s also the Scandalpedia — insert spooky theme music here — which highlights some of the juicier controversies of the last two years of Conservative government, from the In and Out election financing scandal to the Bernier Affair, and will be updated just as often as the dark elves of the war room are able to do so.
- Finally, your very own ITQ was on TVO’s The Agenda last night, talking about – of all things – online electioneering. The video should be up later today. See if you can point the exact moment at which I snap after hearing the words “citizen journalist” one too many times! (Disclaimer: Some of my favourite people are citizen journalists.)
And finally, courtesy of the entirely Web 2.0 compliant David Akin, a shot of ITQ in full liveblogger mode, standing on the wall outside 24 Sussex Drive last weekend:
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Weekend Viewing: Charles Van Doren On TWENTY-ONE
By Jaime Weinman - Friday, August 8, 2008 at 4:08 PM - 0 Comments
Charles Van Doren recently wrote a piece for the New Yorker about his infamous rigged appearance on the game show Twenty-One, where both he and the reigning champion Herb Stempel had been coached as to who would win, what the questions would be and how they should act to create tension. (I guess everything, no matter how scandalous, will eventually be the focus of a nostalgic New Yorker piece.) Here, then, is Van Doren against Stempel on Twenty-One, where, as instructed, he hems and haws and answers questions at the last moment.
Click “read more” for the rest of the episode.
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la montage
By Andrew Potter - Thursday, May 29, 2008 at 11:26 PM - 0 Comments
Every great scandal needs a montage. Here is a youtube video of screenshots and…
Every great scandal needs a montage. Here is a youtube video of screenshots and pullquotes from the Couillard scandal. Courtesy of, of all places, the NY Observer:
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Oh, and one more teeny tiny bit of advice for the Tory spin team
By kadyomalley - Monday, April 21, 2008 at 9:30 PM - 0 Comments
You might want to think twice about having Peter Van Loan repeat, with Tourettes-like…
You might want to think twice about having Peter Van Loan repeat, with Tourettes-like fervour, that the Conservatives are the only political party in Canadian history to have their headquarters raided by the RCMP. I don’t think it sends quite the right message.
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You say "transparency," I say "chilling effect on cooperation of potential witnesses" …
By kadyomalley - Monday, April 21, 2008 at 8:57 PM - 0 Comments
Hey, lawtalking guys (of either gender):
Is this totally standard boilerplate for requesting a…Hey, lawtalking guys (of either gender):
Is this totally standard boilerplate for requesting a sealing order, particularly the bit about witness cooperation and “tailor[ing] evidence”? It just strikes me as an interesting argument, given how much trouble the investigators had in trying to interview candidates and other interested parties. (I’ll type up that bit up later if the OCR fairy doesn’t show up soon.)
GROUNDS FOR SEALING ORDERI believe the disclosure at this time of the Search Warrant, this Information to Obtain a Search Warrant and the material filed in support of this application, would subvert the ends of justice by compromising the nature and extent of an ongoing investigation. The investigation is proceeding but a considerable amount of work remains to be completed, including interviews of numerous persons of interest to the investigation. I believe that should the information contained in my Information become public knowledge, the ability to carry out the remainder of the investigation would be compromised because:
1. The outline of the investigation and the evidence obtained to date would be known to potential interviewees; and
2. I believe such knowledge would tend to have a chilling effect on cooperation of potential witnesses and could allow interviewees to tailor their evidence to achieve a desired result.
[...]
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Reporting in from under an enormous stack of virtual evidence …
By kadyomalley - Monday, April 21, 2008 at 6:46 PM - 0 Comments
Not, I should note, to be confused with imaginary evidence, which is how I’m…
Not, I should note, to be confused with imaginary evidence, which is how I’m sure Peter Van Loan would describe the search warrant, and 600plus pages of potentially devastating supporting evidence that the Conservative Party deliberately skirted that was released by a Toronto court earlier today. So far, I’ve only made it about a quarter of the way through the filing, but already, my brain is hurting the best possible way.
I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to say once I’ve plowed through to the end, but so far, my reaction can be summed up as follows: “Wow. They actually thought that this story could be killed off by meeting with a few reporters on a Sunday afternoon? I mean, there’s audacity of hope, and then there’s just crazy talk.”
