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November 30, 2006
All you had to do was ask
Q: What are we doing in Afghanistan?
A: Among various military activities you've heard a fair bit about, this.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2006
C-minus
Dion, whose delegates waved the Canadian flag and sang O Canada as they awaited his arrival, was in an upbeat mood too. He told reporters he had the passion and heart to win the race, and that, like the others, he was happy to put to end the "political-science seminar" provoked by the Quebec nation issue.
I think Québécois families with children approaching university age have a right to know which institutions on Dion's resume — Laval? Moncton? U de M? — teach political science seminars that resemble what we're currently seeing in any way, shape or form.
Posted by Chris Selley at 07:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 28, 2006
Trust them, they don't know what they're doing
At time of writing, The Agenda's (unscientific) online poll from yesterday had 89 percent of 700 respondents disagreeing with the following motion: "The Québécois form a nation within a united Canada."
Said motion passed in the House of Commons with 89 percent in favour.
What can be inferred from this? Chiefly, I think, that Canadians recognize that this has nothing to do with whether Quebec, or Quebec(k)ers, or "the Québécois" in fact comprise a nation. If it did, it is safe to say that the last six media releases on the Prime Minister of Canada's homepage wouldn't concern, in reverse chronological order: the appointment of Peter Van Loan to replace some poor conscience-ridden sap (there's an Onion headline in there somewhere — "Canada's Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Announces His Existence, Resigns"); the PM's plans to attend the inauguration of the Mexican President; Canada's new Partnership Against Cancer; tackling crime through bail reform; the establishment of an Advisory Committee on the Public Service; and, on November 10, the new strategy to deal with drug-impaired drivers. No, if it meant anything, I think the Prime Minister would have explained by now just what in bloody hell is going on.
Does it mean the nation of the pur laine Québécois? Surely not. As Andrew Coyne says, ethnic nationalism is… a little passé in Canada in 2006. Does it mean the province of Quebec and all who inhabit it? Maybe, but what's so special about Quebec? You can define a "distinct society" in terms of what surrounds it — you have to, in fact — but a nation has to exist on its own terms, independent of its current political situation. Explain to me how Quebec fulfils that requirement and not New Brunswick, which has forged a successful provincial identity out of a far bigger linguistic plurality than exists in Quebec.
But maybe it doesn't even matter. Maybe every single ethnic, linguistic and civic community in Canada — the entire Canadian francophone community; anglophones in Montreal; Canada itself; Kapuskasing — is in fact a nation, in which case we're back at square one, except for the new transfusion of piss and vinegar Duceppe, Boisclair, & cie now have coursing through their veins.
It blows my mind that so many people can compliment Harper's strategic brilliance while freely acknowledging that the whole thing is pure bullshit. It reduces Canada to the status of Texas Holdem. In one sense, though, Harper's right — or, sorry, the various random MPs speaking for their Prime Minister are right. (And really, why shouldn't Laurie Hawn face off against Garth Turner to close out the debate?) The motion means anything people want it to mean, and as such is meaningless.
We are assured this was all necessary. I assume that will give us comfort if the whole sham ends up screwing us once and for all. (I should probably clarify: I don't think it will. But the cynicism of it is all very depressing nonetheless.)
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 23, 2006
Those wacky Albertans
At very least, Harper owes all Canadians a fulsome definition of "nation" so that we will all know what is really at stake.
You guys are crazy. Shut up out there!
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:05 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 22, 2006
Mais pourquoi?
There's this:
Harper said the issue of Quebec's nationhood should not be decided by the federal government but by the Quebec legislation. However, he said the Bloc has forced the government to take a position.
And then there's this:
Conservative strategists also hope Harper's decisive approach will restore some of the Tories' lustre in Quebec, making them a more palatable federalist alternative than the warring Liberals.
Interesting. Quebec federalists partial to the whole "nation" thing would probably have found Harper's Conservatives an even more "palatable federalist alternative" if this decision hadn't been made at the point of a separatist gun. The Prime Minister had ample time to decide this was the right decision, and he opted against it.
But in what way, exactly, did the Bloc force the government to take this position? If his original motion — "Quebec is a nation," basically — had been defeated, Gilles Duceppe could have gone back to the people of Quebec and said, "See? They don't think we're a nation. Let's separate!" If it had passed, Duceppe could have gone back and said, "See? They said we're a nation. So let's separate!"
Neither outcome would have been positive. But seeing either as a code-red national emergency presupposes that Canada is no stronger than tissue paper — and more to the point that Quebeckers are complete idiots, vulnerable to transparent separatist ploys like cats are to catnip. How many referenda will it take to prove it's not true?
Word was some Liberals would have supported the Bloc motion, and the CP reports that "NDP Leader Jack Layton said his party will support both the Bloc and government motions."
For the love of god, why? Whether Layton or any other MP thinks Quebec is a nation should be totally beside the point when the Bloc's motives are so painfully obvious. It's not the statement; it's who made it. Politicians disagree with each other on principle all the time — that is to say they disagree with each other as a matter of principle. Most Canadian MPs will say almost literally anything in the interests of partisanship. It wouldn't have been unreasonable to ask them to stand together to defeat the Bloc's motion, even if they agreed with it, in the interests of their country.
But given that "nation" seems to mean whatever you want it to mean, I'm going to go ahead and look for a silver lining here: If "the Quebecois form an independent nation," as Harper said today, then so necessarily does Canada. This Quebec nation presumably comprises its francophone majority and minorities of all stripes — anglophone, allophone, native-born, immigrant, aboriginal. Except that its majority is anglophone, that's Canada. I'd like to think the Canadian entity outranks the Quebecois entity, but on a day like today I'll settle for equality. In reality, however, I refuse to believe that politicians have dominion over anything of the significance some are ascribing to today's events.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:44 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 21, 2006
What's up, Chuck? (larf, guffaw, chortle)
If it were a spoof, it's be dismissed as too much by half. But it's not a spoof.
The CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving USA is not just a man (no surprise there). He's a man who goes by the shark-jumping name of Chuck Hurley. I mean... Chuck Hurley. Cripes!
(Oh, and they want everyone to eventually have to blow into a tube in their cars before they drive anywhere. Yawn.)
(h/t William Stewart)
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 20, 2006
The More You Know
I've heard it said that the City of Toronto employs as many people as the Province of Ontario. I have no idea if it's true, but TTC customers are currently being presented with some stark supporting evidence:
Help me, David Miller. What is the correct way to wipe my ass?
Posted by Chris Selley at 11:40 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
Calling all IP lawyers
When the Royal Canadian Legion went after Pierre Bourque last year for displaying the poppy on his website, they told him that "we have to protect this image or lose its use as a symbol of Remembrance." Every lawyer I came across backed them up: "Sorry dude, but the Legion had no choice but to protect its trademark."
"It's a protected emblem," IP lawyer Rod McDonald told the Montreal Gazette at the time. "Whether or not somebody is using it to remember veterans is irrelevant."
Lawyers are awesome. They act as if the law was imposed on us, in one crazy fell swoop, by the overlords whose Petrie dish we're now floundering around in. "Common sense?" one can almost see them saying. "Get the hell out of my office!" Rod McDonald would have us believe that it's totally normal and acceptable — indeed necessary — for the Legion to attack those who use the poppy for its stated purpose with the same ferocity as it would someone who used it to sell, say, lottery tickets, or beer mugs.
Well, what am I saying? Of course only the Legion itself is allowed to use the poppy to sell lottery tickets and beer mugs (and bumper stickers, cigarette lighters, wallets, ashtrays, golf balls, etc.). When I ignite my dying cigarette with a poppy-branded lighter, I'm promoting Remembrance; when Pierre Bourque displayed the poppy as "the most sincere sign of respect to the vets who fought and died for us," he weakened Remembrance. I'm sure it would all make perfect sense if only I'd gone to law school.
The point was made at the time that the Royal British Legion encourages people to download and display the poppy wherever they like, but it's not just that. The RBL's attitude is totally different across the board. On the white peacenik poppies, for instance:
Canadian Legion: "The legion cannot condone it, and we cannot accept any attempt to use this poppy without authority or approval." And: "The unfortunate decision by these individuals, or organization, to use the national Day of Remembrance as a focus for a fundraising project of promotion of an ideal is completely inappropriate and unacceptable."
British Legion: "What you wear is a matter of choice, the Legion doesn't have a problem whether you wear a red one or a white one, both or none at all. It is up to you."
So what gives? Is this not the RBL's trademark on its poppy? Are the RBL's lawyers pounding on the door in Pall Mall, demanding an end to this wanton permissiveness?
Furthermore, I saw the poppy on several well-read blogs this year. Why go after Pierre Bourque last year and not (just for instance) Kate McMillan this year? Has the Legion given up, thus surrendering Remembrance Day to these horrible people who want to honour the memories of Canada's fallen soldiers? Or did common sense somehow sneak past security?
My indignance knows no bounds, I realize, but these are honest questions. I'm interested in some honest answers.
Posted by Chris Selley at 11:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 18, 2006
Musical miscellany
Not sure how "obscure" this is, but the boffo Britpop continues tonight on Tart Cider with The Wonder Stuff's "Don't Let Me Down, Gently":
And, moving in the direction of 2006, here's the Stereophonics with a faithful-to-Rod version of Mike d'Abo's friggin' awesome "Handbags and Gladrags":
Posted by Chris Selley at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2006
We're all dumber for having heard that
Cheers to the Star's "Speak Out" feature for once again spreading total nonsense to the people. "I want real live seeing humans on my trains, thanks," says Jim Truax, in response to Howard Moscoe's Random Thought #194 — he wants computers to drive TTC subway trains. Arthur Nichol opines that "If the computer system fails during operation, the lives of all the passengers are at risk." "There is no substitute like a train which is manned by a driver, especially for safety and security purposes." "I know I can't wait to be on a runaway train with no driver."
I mean, bloody hell. Is it asking too much to suggest that when you say subway trains in New York (only the L line, as far as I know, and rather unsuccessfully), Tokyo and San Francisco are "automated", you might also want to emphasize that those trains nevertheless have human operators — to point out that HAL 9000 can easily be overridden if the train in question starts hurtling backwards down the wrong track? (UPDATE: I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here — as Robert McClelland points out in the comments, the Star article does mention that a human will remain on board. If I weren't so tired I'd swear blind that it didn't say that before, but I am that tired, so there you have it. Still, the human's safety role seems understated to me — "Once automated, the only thing required of the operator at the front of the train would be to look out the window, ensure everyone is safely aboard and manually close the doors." The operator is also required to keep everyone alive, surely.)
(It's a little bizarre, too, that the Star didn't mention the three of four Montreal Metro lines that are computerized, but never mind that.)
While I agree with my dear old dad (seventh response) that "driverless trains come a long way down the list of what is needed to cure gridlock and provide a modern public transportation system in Toronto," that doesn't make automated trains a bad idea. Capacity on the Yonge line is a serious concern, and a 40 percent increase therein would make a huge difference. Of course, by virtue of it coming out of Moscoe's mouth, I suspect the potential benefits are actually far less than that.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:59 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
November 16, 2006
So there
Some wiseacre friend recently commented that if the new job cut down on time available for blogging, I could at least keep flooding the zone with "obscure Britpop" from YouTube. So here's some less obscure Britpop I like, smart guy:
The Cure — "Boys Don't Cry"
The Stone Roses — "Elephant Stone"
The Smiths — "This Charming Man"
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:21 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 14, 2006
Outed
"Bailey" wins the cupie doll for spotting me over at Macleans.ca. You'll find me there until they think better of it, and I urge you to drop by every day for all kinds of hot content from the Macleans.ca team.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Yes, but
Colby Cosh: "I'm sure Mr. [Dick] Duff is a wonderful gentleman, but to induct him into the Hockey Hall of Fame is to tempt catastrophic divine recrimination."
True, but I'm sure Cosh is aware that Clark Gillies is in the Hall of Fame. Clark Gillies. If the earth didn't open up and devour the southwest corner of Yonge and Front on that fateful day, then it probably won't happen until the day Charles Wang goes in as a builder. Either there is no god or he's stopped caring about the most ridiculous, most corpulent Hall of Fame in the sporting world.
Posted by Chris Selley at 06:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 13, 2006
Excellent news!
Bob Tarantino has rebranded and reblogged.
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:55 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 11, 2006
Today's the day the neocon ghouls have their picnic
PW: We should really do this more often.
DF: I love you, Dad.
Posted by Chris Selley at 06:53 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 10, 2006
Le plus extraordinary
Anglophone Canadians learn French as their default second language, as opposed to Spanish or Cantonese, because Canada is a bilingual country. That makes sense. What I've never understood is why Anglophone Canadians outside Quebec are taught Parisian French, which is infinitely more alienating a dialect in Montreal than English. I bring it up because I think this Halloween episode of Têtes à Claques might be one of the funniest things I've ever seen, but I can understand only about 15 percent of it, and I blame my education. "Le Willi Waller" is more accessible to this bloke, and also hilarious.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:16 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 09, 2006
Back from Disneyworld
"We do things we're not proud of, and that's one of them."
In this writer's opinion, Patrick Roy was a horse's ass. Well, a horse's ass and a fairly tremendous goalie. Watching a TSN feature tonight showing him riding the autobus with the Remparts, positively exuding humility… it's quite something. Roy's decision to allow an orthodox Jewish player to miss roughly half of the Remparts' games in observance of his religion was almost impossible to wrap one's head around until one read the coach's justification: "It's fun to see someone who knows what he wants. I'm not going to go against this."
I fully expect the horse's ass to show himself again, but for now I am impressed. Good on ya, Pat Roy.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Truth in politics
For the umpteenth time, the MP for Henley commits what would be political suicide in Canada:
…it is also, surely, a huge deterrent to any public-spirited man contemplating a career in education that society apparently regards all adult male contact with young people as being potentially a bit dodgy, a bit rum, a bit you know…
It is a total disaster. It is not just that both boys and girls could do with more male role models in the classroom. Worse still, it often used to be men who taught physics, and maths, and chemistry, and it is the current shortage of such teachers that explains why 80 per cent of pupils studying physics are now taught by someone with a degree in biology; and that in turn helps explain why the numbers doing physics A-level have halved, and why physics departments are closing all over the shop, with all the consequent damage to our science base.
It has tended to be male teachers who take contact sports. Even if they can find a playing-field, these days, the poor male sports teachers have to cope with a terrifying six-inch thick manual explaining how they must on no account shout at their charges, and above all, on pain of prosecution, they must NOT BE LEFT ALONE with the kids. No wonder our children are apparently turning into big fat Augustus Gloops.
It is insane, and the problem is the general collapse of trust. Almost every human relationship that was sensibly regulated by trust is now governed by law, with cripplingly expensive consequences.
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Re: Andrew Coyne on dual citizenship
"This isn't even about dual citizens. It's about being citizens: what it means, what it asks of us."
I humbly suggest that AC has hit the nail squarely on the head right there, and ergo that addressing dual citizenship can't possibly solve the problem, if there is one.
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 08, 2006
Exposed
It's been a hectic week. Since Toronto's failed Expo bid is on the lips of just about everyone I've met in recent days (kidding!), I decided I'd catch up on the post-mortems. "Who cares?" was a common refrain, but the Star's Royson James sees this as rather more important:
Toronto's hopes to host the World's Fair in 2015 died without even a bid, an embarrassment of international proportion [For the record, I can't find the story mentioned in any international media –ed.].
Having bid and lost contests to host two Olympics and two World's Fairs since 1990, Toronto couldn't even get to the starting gate this time.
"It's one thing to get your ass kicked in a bid against other cities, but to not even get into the game? That's embarrassing," said one bitter bid organizer.
And our mayor, seeking re-election on a slogan of "Great City," was left flailing away yesterday, a pathetic figure of weakness, unable to convince his friends at Queen's Park to backstop the bid, and incapable of getting his Conservative enemies in the federal government to take a swipe at their Liberal political foes for setting up the port authority and overseeing the $35 million settlement.
All of that may be true, but it's also true that notwithstanding positive poll numbers during the bid process — not really surprising, since it's a hard thing to really oppose on principle — no one seems to give a damn about this. You might attribute this to Toronto's ass-backwards approach to urban renewal — Give us a major event and we'll revitalize our waterfront! — or to the much vaunted inferiority complex. Personally, I think it's just this: Here in the city that never sleeps in, people have time to prefer an Expo bid over no Expo bid, but no time to actually support it or any other pie-in-the-sky ideas. They have jobs, families, and jobs. That said, they do tend somehow to find the time for casual self-loathing.
I suspect Peter Kuitenbrouwer has it right with this:
Yesterday at an editorial board meeting at the National Post, Mr. Miller insisted he is against rezoning industrial and commercial property in Toronto for residential use. A house or condo, as the Mayor knows, generates less tax revenue to the city and costs the city far more to service.
For businesses, notes Peter Viducis, manager of economic research at the City of Toronto, "We clean the snow off their streets. They take care of their own garbage. We don't have to offer them libraries and rec centres."
The Mayor vows to preserve our industrial/commercial tax base, but as I watch condos sprout on the Railway Lands by the Rogers Centre, in Liberty Village (once a thriving industrial area), and even at the foot of my street, across from the Drake Hotel, I must say his words ring hollow.
The only way to keep this city healthy, and curb urban sprawl, is to keep well-paying jobs here. Turning over the Port Lands to an Expo was not going to do that.
(Not sure what this is supposed to mean, though: "All the world's great cities, including Montreal and Vancouver, have thriving ports." Jeez, what do Paris and Berlin have to do to get a look-in from us high-toned Torontonians?)
Posted by Chris Selley at 06:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 07, 2006
Reassessments
It's not phrased as clearly as it might be, but Simon Jenkins is on to something here:
…I find it eerie to witness so complete an about-turn in a general consensus within the world's most potent global policeman [i.e., the US on Iraq]. After all, the only thing that has changed in Iraq is that the relentless spin, that all was fine, has been proved wrong. American troops have taken a pounding and sense defeat, They have not changed their objective, nor their strategy for attaining it.
The fact that the going has gotten tough should not affect the argument for becoming involved in the first place. Or is something even more dangerous than invading Iraq now taking place? Americans are ceasing to think clearly about what they do, and becoming reactive purely to victory or defeat. When they face defeat they maintain that victory was not their intention from the start.
Two erstwhile war supporters among Canada's punditocracy recently published their post-mortems on Iraq. Jonathan Kay threw in the towel, while Andrew Coyne dug his heels in and employed a standard defence — he separated the war from its justifications. "To say that the invasion was a mistake," said Coyne, "requires us to believe that because Saddam had not rebuilt his WMD capacity at the time, he never would."
This argument has always done my head in. To say (hypothetically, of course) that downing 14 pints last Saturday night was a mistake requires us to believe that I wouldn't have accidentally burned the house down had I not gone out, or been mowed down by a bus on my way back from a movie. This is stretching a point, obviously, but you can use this sort of logic to extricate yourself from every single mistake you ever made or supported.
The US and UK went to Iraq because, they said, Saddam had WMDs. He didn't. Ergo, it says here, the invasion was a mistake before it even began. Can a war be considered successful if it doesn't achieve its primary goal? I wouldn't have thought so. So I wouldn't have thought an invasion could be considered successful when its primary target turned out not even to exist.
Either Bush and Blair lied or they were victims of a spectacular intelligence failure. This is an odd platform on which to even want success, let alone claim it. That's not to say that any and all invasions of Iraq would have been in error — just the one that actually happened, which is what I've always said. It makes absolutely no sense to me that someone could support invading a sovereign nation on fraudulent grounds and then subsequently claim anything better than failure, especially when that nation is the smoking crater that is Iraq circa November 2006.
Back across the Atlantic, Boris Johnson has been nothing if not forthright in his self-evaluation on the Iraq file:
With no protection except for Isaac, my interpreter, I went to the Iraqi foreign ministry, and found the place deserted. The windows were broken, and every piece of computer equipment had been looted. As I was staring at the fire-blackened walls a Humvee came through the gates. A pair of large GIs got out and asked me my business. I explained that I was representing the people of South Oxfordshire and Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph.
That didn't cut much ice. Then I noticed a figure begin to unpack his giraffe-like limbs from the shady interior of the Humvee. He was one of those quiet Americans that you sometimes meet in odd places.
He was grizzled and in his mid-50s and with a lantern jaw, and unlike every other US soldier I'd met he had neither his name nor his blood group stitched on his person. I grasped at once that this quiet American was no soldier. He had that Brahmin air, a bit Ivy League, a touch of JK Galbraith. Yes, folks, he was some kind of spook.
I remember how he walked slowly towards the shattered foreign ministry building, stroking his chin. Then he walked back towards us, and posed a remarkable question. "Have you, uh, seen anyone here?" he asked.
Nope, we said. All quiet here, we said. Quiet as the grave.
"Uhuh," he said, and started to get back in the Humvee. And then I blurted my own question: "But who are you?" I asked. "Oh, let's just say I work for the US government," he sighed. "I was just wondering if anyone was going to show up for work," he said. "That's all."
And that, of course, was the beginning of the disaster.
That's the other side of this unpleasant equation — even if there had been WMDs, it still almost certainly would have gone to shit — and Johnson has no time for Monday-morning quarterbacking on those grounds:
It is now commonplace for people like me, who supported the war, to say that we "did the right thing" but that it had mysteriously "turned out wrong". This is intellectually vacuous. It is like saying British strategy for July 1, 1916 was perfect, but let down by faulty execution. The thing was a disaster from the moment we invaded…
When you're attacked or directly threatened, there's no need to agonize over this stuff. But the US wasn't attacked by Iraq, and as it turned out it wasn't directly threatened by Iraq either. If it were up to me these circumstances would result in a redoubling of efforts to save Iraq from civil war and its destabilizing effects on the region, but the American and British public appear too war-weary to allow that to happen. That's just one more unfortunate circumstance that should have been anticipated when this war was being planned.
Posted by Chris Selley at 11:37 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
November 06, 2006
Up yours, fishwife!
"Tory MP's insult outrages Copps," an article by Joan Bryden from September 18, 1991's Ottawa Citizen:
Bill Kempling, the pig-poaching Tory backbencher, landed in more hot water Tuesday after he apparently called a female MP a slut.
But the portly Burlington MP denied using the derogatory word, insisting that he had simply called deputy Liberal leader Sheila Copps " pain in the butt."
However, a recording of the incident shows Kempling muttering "What a sl.." after an angry exchange with Copps in the Commons.
Outraged female MPs, who say Kempling has called them fishwives and bitches in the past, are now demanding that he be fired as a parliamentary secretary.
Kempling was recently charged with theft for taking a stuffed pink pig and a pair of foam dice, props used by Parliament Hill protester Glen Kealey, and throwing them in the garbage. Kempling maintains he was simply cleaning up "pollution" on the Hill.
Tuesday's dispute erupted during debate on the government's legislation to force striking public servants back to work. At one point in the debate, Kempling told Copps to "go back to the sewer."
When she demanded an apology, it only got worse.
Kempling denied saying "any of those stupid words" about the sewer even though he is clearly recorded in Hansard saying them. Kempling nevertheless offered an apology.
As he resumed his seat, he muttered, "What a sl.."
The last word is not clearly distinguishable on tape but Copps said her office was flooded with angry calls from television viewers who were furious that she'd been called a slut.
…
She [Copps] took the matter directly to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and demanded he fire Kempling as a parliamentary secretary. She said Mulroney promised to review the tape of the incident and get back to her.
"I told him that enough is enough," Copps said. "This isn't the first time (Kempling has insulted a female MP). It's a systematic attack on women members and I've had it and my colleagues have had it and we want him out of his job."
…
"This man seems to have a systematic hate on for women members and when he doesn't like our arguments on the issues, he attacks us with vocabulary that is directed in a hateful way toward women," she said.
Copps noted that Kempling once called her "goddamn ignorant bitch." New Democrat MP Dawn Black said Kempling once called her "fishwife."
No comment.
Posted by Chris Selley at 05:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Sunset
Today's Financial Post details the Sun chain's woes and various ideas on how to counteract them. (One idea that actually is going to be implemented — "a new computer system [has been] put in place to produce identical pages for publication in papers across the chain" — strikes me as a sure-fire bet to make things worse.) Suggestions include making the papers free, which Quebecor CEO Karl Peladeau rejects thusly: "Either you have strong content and then you pay for it or you have commodity content and then it's free."
Ahem… or, as is currently the case, neither. One wonders what might happen to the Suns' bottom line if they set about becoming, you know, less terrible. Or does this utopian idea that superior products sell better belong to a bygone era?
Posted by Chris Selley at 04:53 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
They might be wrong, but they'll be ringing
Anyone who considers Stompin' Tom Connors inconsequential would do well to view this barn-burning rendition of "Sudbury Sunday Night." Connors is our Cash, for better or worse, and he has a significant role to play in whatever national identify we have. Underestimate him at your peril, and your country's.
Posted by Chris Selley at 01:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 05, 2006
More old music I like!
"Four Seasons in One Day," from Crowded House's 1996 farewell concert in Sydney:
Posted by Chris Selley at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
It means whatever you want it to mean
Here's the first clue that something isn't quite right with last week's poll about which world leaders pose a danger to world peace. The EKOS press release's subheadline says: "Bush ranks after Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il but ahead of Nasrallah and Ahmadinejad as Threat to World Peace." And the Guardian's headline says: "British believe Bush is more dangerous than Kim Jong-il."
For some reason, British pollsters ICM (whose results the Guardian was presumably using) treated the data considerably differently than Canadian pollsters EKOS. EKOS asked "Would you say ______ poses a great danger, moderate danger, small danger, or no danger at all?" ("danger to what?" being the obvious question) and adjusted the sample size to exclude those who didn't know or refused to answer. ICM asked a different question — "Now I'm going to read a list of political leaders and ask how much danger you think they pose to world peace." — and presented its data including those who wouldn't answer.
This created significant differences in the results vis-à-vis Jong-Il, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah, where 15, 15 and 17 percent of respondents, respectively, would give no opinion. This table shows the difference in the poll results based on the two methods (G = great danger, M = moderate danger, S = small danger, N = no danger):
So if you consider the "winner" to be the leader seen by the most people as a great danger, EKOS ranks them Osama, Kim, George, Hassan, Mahmoud. George and Kim switch places in the ICM rankings. EKOS' number is 7 points higher than ICM's for Kim, and a single point higher for Bush.
What does it all mean? Search me. But it is flat-out wrong to say as a result of this poll that anyone sees anyone as more or less dangerous than anyone else. Respondents were simply asked who they viewed as dangerous; they weren't asked for any comparative judgments at all. Would it have been so hard for the Guardian to say "More Britons see Bush as a danger to world peace than Kim Jong Il, by a single whopping percentage point"? It doesn't make for particularly controversial copy, especially since Bush has initiated two wars in the past six years and Kim Jong Il has initiated none, but it does have that elusive quality of not being b-s.
(The Star did better with its coverage of the EKOS poll, but still claimed that "Canadians also consider Bush more dangerous to world peace than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah," which, again, just isn't right… or might be right, but this poll isn't telling.)
Posted by Chris Selley at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 03, 2006
Unconscionable
Fox rallies for stem cell candidate
He's going to get him elected and then harvest him for science? Diabolical!
Posted by Chris Selley at 06:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 01, 2006
Norman baits
troll1 /tro:l/ n. Scand. Myth a member of a race of grotesque dwarfs (or, formerly, giants) usu. dwelling in caves or under bridges.
Norman Spector's tenure as the Western Standard's resident shit-stirrer did not exactly strengthen his brand. How is it, one had to wonder, that someone of his import — former ambassador to Israel, newspaper columnist, judge and executioner of every other anglophone and francophone newspaper columnist in the world, and clearly quite content with himself — could have all this time to spend, or the inclination to spend it, in the dank cave Canadian bigotry calls home?
In internet parlance, a troll is (by my definition) someone who posts on a public discussion forum in bad faith, with incitement as his only goal. The best trolls make otherwise reasonable people look foolish by enraging them over nothing, and Spector was pretty good at it except for one thing: The best trolls are almost always not newspaper columnists and former ambassadors to Israel — indeed they are usually anonymous — because trolling is not seen as an honourable pastime. It is a poor use of one's resources, and it doesn't look good on anyone. Or it didn't.
I wondered back in the Shotgun days if Spector might be researching a book or something, but I suspect now he was just practicing for something like this "Belinda Stronach is a bitch" bit. It's genius, and he has every right to be proud of it. Like the terrifying little girl who emerges from the television in The Ring, Spector has taken his trolling into the real world. He has exited the Holodeck. In effect he managed to successfully troll an entire nation's media and chattering classes, and the results are in the best tradition of self-inflicted satire.
bitch /bIt∫/ n. & v. • n. 1 a female dog or other canine animal. 2 offensive slang a malicious, spiteful, or unpleasant woman. …
Spector explained himself to the Globe (and gave the game away, not that anyone noticed):
"I think it's the perfect choice of word that the Oxford English Dictionary describes as 'malicious or treacherous,' " he said. "So I think as an analyst of politics, I chose the right word."
Anyone who frequents particularly adversarial blogs knows what that is — textbook trolling. ("What's all the fuss about? Look here in the dictionary. Is there something wrong with this word?") Anyone who frequents such blogs also knows that today's histrionics in response signify total victory for the troll.
Antonia Zerbisias: "Why does Norman Spector hate women?" (While we're asking questions: Why did noted comment moderator Antonia Zerbisias click "publish" on the first comment on that post?)
…my Oxford dictionary defines "Norman Spector" as "Mulroney patronage appointment who blew the ratification of the Meech Lake Accord, did nothing to stop the al-Mashat scandal, and was a big tobacco lobbyist who denies being a lobbyist." The next edition will add "misogynist"…
The Vancouver Sun's editorial board (to which I offer a standing ovation):
Spector refused to apologize for the slur, though he did offer some sort of justification, saying the Oxford English Dictionary defines "bitch" as "malicious and treacherous." What Spector left out, of course, is that the word only applies to women. There's no evidence that Spector has ever called a male parliamentarian a "bitch," despite the abundance of evidence that men are also quite capable of treachery.
Perhaps most troubling is that Spector said he was speaking as a political analyst. Yet his language is more in line with what we'd expect from gangsta rappers, who inevitably refer to women as "bitches, sluts and hos."
"I find it shocking that people [i.e., media outlets] would use [i.e., publish] him now that he has displayed such horrible language around women," Black said.
"(Media organizations) may want to have a word with Mr. Spector and get some assurances from him that he will apologize for this kind of behaviour."
Meanwhile, Black's NDP colleague Judy Wasylycia-Leis wants no apology, as she deems Spector's actions "absolutely unforgivable". Absolutely unforgivable.
And Ms Stronach herself, who sounds even more like a degenerating comment thread than Spector: "I think Norman Spector has some issues that he needs perhaps to deal with." Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Under attack in the House of Commons for something that has absolutely nothing to do with his government, Conservative House Leader Rob Nicholson took a little air out of things with this: "That individual doesn't speak for the government. If he speaks for anybody he's surely doing it for himself, that's all."
At least someone in Ottawa gets it.
Posted by Chris Selley at 08:05 PM | Comments (9) | TrackBack