BLOG THIS | blog.thismagazine.ca: March 2005 Archives

Doug Saunders wrote a nice piece in Saturday's Globe (I'd link to it, but it's only accessible with subscription) about problems in Athens related to the Olympics. To wit: the venues were built in a rushed manner, using poor materials and methods and done over budget to make deadlines, and now they are virtually useless — abandoned and shut down, waiting for saviours who can afford to renovate them. Greece itself can't afford to do it — it has more public debt than any other EU nation.

The prosperous legacy of constant tourism and helpful infrastructure hasn't materialized because the venues were so grandiose and Greece was revealed as an expensive place to visit.

These are the kinds of problems that concerned me when I voted against bringing the Olympics to Vancouver in 2003. I hope this isn't Vancouver's post-2010 future, but I'm not holding my breath.

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All aboard the sissyfied, pontificating nerd bandwagon

Posted by andrew at 10:25 AM ET | Comments (0)

From the new edition of the American Prospect:

The spirit of '68 still lives on in some quarters of the left. Too bad -- there are much more effective ways to be an opposition party than by reliving the past.

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March 30, 2005

Up Next: Death Rays

Posted by andrew at 12:00 PM ET | Comments (3)

Three years ago, I wrote a piece for This Magazine entitled "Death Rays." It was a short, fun little thing pointing out that American scientists seemed to be devoting a great deal of energy to building Death Rays.

But you can never to be too playful. My piece was reprinted in the Ottawa Citizen (back before I got stuck on some Ottawa Citizen do-not-publish list), and was picked up in exactly one other place:

The Alaska Missile Defence Early Bird Weekly

Yoiks.

Anyway, looks like they are still at it.

The Solar Death Ray is made of 112 mirrors mounted on a platform 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall. Each mirror is a square roughly 3.5 inches on edge. Allvthese mirrors focus the sun to a single spot 5 feet, 6 inches from the mirrorvplatform. A wooden fork extends from the mirror base to the area near thevfocus and serves as a mounting point for Solar Death Ray targets.

(thanks to the Poulans for the ref).

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Untitled

Posted by andrew at 10:31 AM ET | Comments (12)

CBC radio host Paul Kennedy is launching a campaign to get Leonard Cohen nominated for a Nobel Prize. The campaign begins, with help from George Elliott Clarke, Michel Garneau, Edward Palumbo and Karen Young, on Saturday, April 2 at 20h30, at Blue Metropolis in Montreal.

Does Leonard Cohen deserve a Nobel prize? Is it the sort of thing a seventy-something buddhist would want? Is it the sort of thing a thirty-somethng Cohen would have wanted?

There Are Some Men

There are some men
who should have mountains
to bear their names to time.

Grave-markers are not high enough
or green,
and sons go far away
to lose the fist
their father's hand will always seem.

I had a friend:
he lived and died in mighty silence
and with dignity,
left no book, son, or lover to mourn.

Nor is this a mourning-song
but only a naming of this mountain
on which I walk,
fragrant, dark, and softly white
under the pale of mist.
I name this mountain after him.

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March 28, 2005

My new band is called "The Hobbesian Monists"

Posted by andrew at 09:04 PM ET | Comments (15)

Hobbesian nuts like Heath and Potter (and the late philosopher John Rawls) not-so-secretly pine for an all-powerful social contract that would create permanent cultural and political synthesis. So you see, kids, it's your inborn duty to rebel. Otherwise the future development of human history will be a thing of the past.

Heath and Potter have a hard-on for Hobbes, which means they hate Freud.

Convinced they're living in late-period Tsarist Russia, the hysterical Heath/Potter swear that, for the past 30 years, nihilistic "rebels" have been ruining the left's chances to grab "state power."

Heath/Potter, like most conservatives, have a big problem with "root cause" theories of crime.

They have no coherent plan on how to install the great justice-dispensing Leviathan, other than effete pleas for more laws and political organizing.

As political theorists, Heath and Potter are strict 17th century Hobbesian monists, waving their utopian social contracts at every societal ill.

I don't think he liked our book.

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Next—they admit they have no idea who killed JFK

Posted by john_d at 03:21 PM ET | Comments (12)

The New York Times has thrown a heavyweight editorial into the creators’ corner in the ongoing struggle over copyright in this crazy, mixed up digital world. Here’s a bit:

Both the court and Congress should be sensitive to evolving technologies. But they should not let technology evolve in a way that deprives people who create of the ability to be paid for their work.

Happy am I. That’s some powerful support for the continuation of my own livelihood, and from a, how to put this, somewhat, um, surprising source. One of the biggest test cases—okay THE test case—for creators’ rights in the US was a class action suit filed by a freelance writer against a major newspaper that was reusing work without pay or permission—a little thing called Tasini v. The New York Times, maybe you’ve heard of it. Tasini won.

Canada has its own test case heading to the Supreme Court—Robertson vs. Thomson Corp.

I repeat, strong copyright protection for creators is in the interests of all dedicated lefties. The socialist paradise does not guarantee you free music downloads.

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The National Post's Potemkin Parliament

Posted by andrew at 11:22 AM ET | Comments (11)

Imagine the following scenario: In a bid to make Parliament more "democratic", the government decides that it will no longer independently debate policy, draft and introduce legislation, submit a budget, or make executive decisions without the explicit say-so of "the people". All proposals would have to come from "the citizens" and would be subject to ratification only by referendum. Under this regime, the federal government would still exist. There would still be the illusion of a Parliament, bills would be debated and voted on, sent to the Senate and back to the House, then on to the GG for final authorization. Except it would be a Potemkin Parliament, because, in reality, the 308 MPs would agree to only debate and pass those bills that had already been proposed and then voted on by the people in a referendum. The entire federal superstructure would become a mere cipher for the "will of the people."

Here's the question. Despite the fact that this scenario might conform with the strict requirements of the constitution, is there any sense in which Canada would still be considered a representative democracy, having a constitution "similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom"? I submit that the answer is no. Parliamentary democracy is not just a formal procedure for taking decisions, it is also a normative institution, containing a principled allocation of powers. Change that allocation, and you change the constitution.

Which brings us to last week's appointment of 9 Senators by Paul Martin. I don't have much to say on the actual appointments, except that Romeo Dallaire heading off to the Red Chamber is sad because now he won't be Governor General, like I had hoped. The rest of them seem ok, although it is too bad they have to share a legislative chamber with losers like Mac Harb.

But what about the manner of their appointment? They were, of course, named to the Senate by the Prime Minister, in accordance with the constitution. The PM didn't name any of Alberta's four "senators in waiting," who were "elected" in a provincial vote. Paul Martin has said that, while he favours senate reform, he isn't going to proceed without a consensus amongst the provinces on how to proceed. That is as it should be. The constitution says what it says, and if we want to change it, well, it has an amending formula.

But that's too much work for the editorial writers at the National Post. In Saturday's edition, they called on the Prime Minister to help eliminate the "democratic deficit" by following Stephen Harper's suggestion to simply agree to appoint the senators in waiting. Here's the crucial bit: According to the Post, "the Prime Minister would still technically retain appointment rights, but in provinces where votes had been held to choose their senators, he would respect the wishes of the electorate."

Everyone clear? The Prime Minister would substitute the results of a plebiscite for one of his constitutional powers of appointment. But this wouldn't be unconstitutional, because he would "technically" retain the power of appointment.

This is an obscenity. The National Post is suggesting, in the name of democracy, that the Prime Minister arbitrarily and unilaterally amend the constitution. They are proposing that the Prime Minister do an end-run around the constitution, visit a fraud upon the constitution, because a real amendment "could lead to extremely divisive debate."

Really? You mean to say, there is no agreement in the country on how the senators should make their way to the Red Chamber? That's a shame.

I'm not claiming that the current system is the best one possible, although I suspect that it is. Anyone looking for an excellent debunking of the Alberta demands -- on democratic grounds -- should check out Gordon Gibson's recent report to the Fraser Institute. Key point: How is it democratic to elect people to an office for life, with no mechanism for recall? We don't do that for the House of Commons, why would we do it for the Senate, which has virtually identical powers to the House?

But the deeper point is this: We have a constitution for a reason. The allocation of powers was not due to some arbitrary set decisions by the fathers of confederation. Notably, they spent more time debating the senate than any other constitutional topic. Furthermore, it took Canada 115 years to come to an agreement on how we should amend our own constitution.

But over in National Post la-la land, that's nothing to sweat over. The constitution is just a bunch of words, after all, a mere set of technicalities. If we can't change the words, we'll just change their meaning. In the conservative fantasies of National Post editorialists, "plebiscite" can mean "Prime Ministerial appointment," and representative democracy can mean Potemkin Parliament.

At least we know, now, what democracy in Alberta means. It is a fraud. A farrago of nonsense.

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March 24, 2005

Oh, damn, where is Pierre Trudeau when you really need him?

Posted by john_d at 11:47 AM ET | Comments (12)

from The Toronto Star

“In a brief appearance before reporters at the Prairie Chapel Ranch yesterday, as the three leaders walked along with Barney, the president’s Scottish terrier, a casually dressed Martin joked that the big difference between Bush’s farm and his own in Quebec’s Eastern townships was the lack of snow.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan, a dog lover, reportedly insisted on posing for a picture at the ranch while she held Barney and the president held Barney’s canine companion, Miss Beazley.

Asked whether he would invite Bush and Fox to his own farm, Martin smiled and said: “I certainly would.” Later, he told reporters that this didn’t amount to a full-fledged invitation and there would need to be more negotiations on the site and timing of their next gathering, due to take place sometime after the first 90-day progress report on the new partnership plan.

Martin made special mention of the fact that he found the ranch “nice,” and McLellan quickly corrected him: “Really nice.”“

Ummm, how to put this diplomatically?... Enough toadying you pathetic, sycophantic invertebrates!

Yeah, that’s probably not too subtle for the Liberals to understand.

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what's the principle, Paul?

Posted by andrew at 08:48 AM ET | Comments (0)

This hasn't been widely reported by the eastern-bastard media, but Saskatchewan's bid to get energy revenues excluded from the equalization formula has hit a bit of a snag. The House of Commons defeated a Conservative motion to that effect yesterday. The bid was defeated by a vote of 182-105 with the Bloc Quebecois siding with the minority Liberal government.

1. Since the Headwaiter didn't exactly ask for Parliament's permission to give sovereignty-association to Quebec last summer, nor did he ask Parliament to approve his decision to put an escalator clause(!!??) into the equalization formula, nor did he table a motion asking the House to okay the arbitrary deal he cut with Newfoundland and Nova Scotia on offshore energy, I'll assume that this vote means nothing.

2. But assume it means something. What it means is the the government -- "led" by Paul Martin -- opposed the motion.

On what grounds? What's the principle involved here, other than the fact that the Canadian flag continues to fly in the Sakskatchewan legislature?

In a recent issue of Policy Options, Tom Kent said that the proper description of the Headwaiter's approach to national unity is not "asymmetrical federalism," but "sugar daddy federalism."

It looks like the sugar daddy plays favourites.

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Blame Rammestein. Blame Homestar.

Posted by andrew at 08:30 AM ET | Comments (3)

It would appear that wannabe trenchcoat mafioso Jeff Weise left a handful of clues to his murderous intentions. Apparently his favourite bands included Korn, Marilyn Manson, Rammstein, and John "happpiness is a warm gun" Lennon. But more interesting is the bit of flash animation he posted online. Called "Target Practice," the bit shows a character killing three civilians and a Klansman, grenading a cop car, firing off a bunch more rounds, then sticking a pistol in his mouth and blowing his head off.

All courtesy of The Smoking Gun. (thanks to lw for the tip).

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March 23, 2005

Oh, and some Mexican.

Posted by john_d at 12:30 PM ET | Comments (12)

Nice work by the Globe and Mail this morning, reporting on Paul Martin’s meet ‘n greet with U.S. President Bush. Judging by the photo below, they got all chummy together in a Waco.

Of course, the photo accompanying the actual story pulls back a bit to show that Mexican President, Vicente Fox (Ringo, to his friends) was also hanging with Paul and George. Do we really need to make ourselves seem more important in North America by cropping out the Mexicans?

photos by Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images, from www.theglobeandmail.com

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Odds and Sods

Posted by andrew at 10:42 AM ET | Comments (8)

UPDATE: Ok all you lurkers or non-punk rock book cover fans. Time to put down that work you are doing and get involved. Warren K himself has just dropped by the comments string. He cares what you think!

1. Warren Kinsella has posted the mockup for the cover of his new book about punk, Fury's Hour. What do you guys think? I like the DIY font they have used for Warren's name, and the black is cool. But it seems to me that a book like this ought to have, on the cover, either a picture of a guitar about to die (e.g. London Calling) or something more evocative.

I wonder if Warren got more out his publisher than a simple "right to be consulted."

2. The Guardian has posted an annotated list of Tom Waits' top 20 albums. Most of this music is, IMO, crap. But the annnotations are awesome. (thanks to wn for the link)

3. Does anyone know what has happened to Bruce Little's column in Report on Business? It was the best economics column in the country. The Globe has adopted this really annoying habit of having columns simply disappear, with no explanation or replacement (e.g. Paul Sullivan's column on The West).

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March 22, 2005

Strange Doings at The University of Calgary

Posted by john_d at 02:19 PM ET | Comments (2)

According to this story in The Varsity (the University of Toronto student paper), select staff at U of C’s The Gauntlet have been temporarily removed from their positions for publishing a photo of a public event that occurred publicly on the public campus of public University of Calgary. Have I said the word public enough?

Okay, what is weirder? That the U of C student union would choose a strip show for their Sexual Health Awareness Show, or that a student who strips in public for a sexual health awareness week, and is then interviewed about stripping in public, would demand a paper be shut down because they reported that she stripped in public?

Here’s a bit from The Gauntlet. “Honey” is the stripper/student who is now upset:

Nasty Girl Honey Houston has an interesting perspective when it comes to the sexual acceptance of students at the U of C, being both an exotic dancer and full time philosophy student. She hopes that the week will help U of C students loosen up when it comes to sex.

“Being a student and an exotic dancer are in two opposite worlds—doing homework in a strip bar can be interesting,” said Houston. “I hope students at the U of C will get the confidence to try new things. This is the place to expand your mind in different ways.”

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Has Been

Posted by andrew at 09:16 AM ET | Comments (12)

UPDATE OK, listen up Annette. Shatner has been given a Fame Audit by Fametracker, and you know what? It's bitchin'. In fact, it is probably the best Fame Audit they've ever done. And that's no surprise, you know why? Because it was written by Fametracker's Man From Funkle, aka Adam Sternbergh, former Postie and Saturday Night editor. Adam was there, at McGill, in 1992, toiling away for the McGill Tribune, in the very basement of the very building that is now the William Shatner University Centre. Give up. We're Everywhere.

************************************
My fellow Montrealer William Shatner turns 74 today. He is one of my heroes.

1. Fall 1992, I was editor-in-chief of The Red Herring, McGill University's "only deliberately funny magazine." With the Student's Society threatening to cut off our funding, a co-editor and I sent a letter to William Shatner. The students of McGill had just voted to rename their student union building The Shatner Centre. We asked him to give McGill students the gift of laughter, by giving us a gift of, er, $3000.

Shatner wrote back within a week. "Let me get this straight," he said. "You want me to give you $3000 so that, 25 years from now, you can show your friends you were the biggest twits at McGill University? NO WAY."

I still have the letter.

2. CBC Television airs "At Home in the Universe" the Life and Times of William Shatner. It is one of the most riveting hours of television I have ever seen. While they were filiming it, Shatner's wife Nerine Kidd drowned (suicide?) in their pool. The last scene has Shatner, staring into the distance, near tears, talking about life being "an endlessly curling wave... and you don't know whether to stay on or get off..."

3. Last fall, Shatner released Has Been, an album of spoken word/prose poems put to music by Ben Folds. The album leads with a great version of Pulp's Common People, with guest vocals by Joe Jackson. The record -- I kid you not -- out Cohen's Leonard Cohen.

I saw Shatner interviewed on the CBC, and they asked him why he called the record "Has Been." He said that he'd seen a journalist calll him that, and it struck him that it was one of the worst things you could say about someone. "Has Been? What does that mean -- that you were a somebody, and now you aren't?"

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March 21, 2005

More consequences...

Posted by john_d at 10:16 AM ET | Comments (4)

From the NY Times:

Mr. Bush lifted off in his Marine One helicopter from his 1,600-acre ranch in Crawford under warm, sunny skies shortly before noon on Sunday. Minutes later he landed in nearby Waco, where he boarded Air Force One wearing a suit and a tie. His manner was crisp and businesslike, and he did not smile as he usually does at onlookers and the small group of reporters who accompany him.

It was the first time this president had interrupted a vacation to return to Washington…

Why was the U.S. President returning to Washington in such a hurry? To sign a bill forcing a feeding tube down the throat of a woman who had previously expressed a decision not to be kept alive should she ever be left in the persistent vegetative state in which she has continued the past 15 years. The same kind of decision to end artificial feeding is made by caring families in America all the time. Still, this particular case was important enough for Bush to shorten his rest.

It’s the culture of life.

March 20, 2005

Consequences of conservatism

Posted by andrew at 11:28 AM ET | Comments (3)

I've always thought that Canadian and American politics were almost mirror images of each other, in the following sense: In Canada, the Liberal party has managed to remain united through thick and thin, and has thus consolidated and held power as a centre-left regime for most of the past 100 years. On the other side of the House, the various permutations of conservatism have remained mired in the perennial opposition of unsullied principle.

In the US, it is the Republicans who have managed to hold a strong governing coalition together, while the Dems have utterly failed to -- pardon me -- get their shit together. (Again, see Marc Cooper's piece in the April issue of the Atlantic for an excellent summary of the problem.)

But here's Andrew Sullivan, with a bit of cognitive dissonance:

In my view if a Democratic president had Bush's record, the Republican party would have come close to impeaching him for his adventures in big government, fiscal insanity and foreign policy liberalism. But it swallowed its principles and covered up its differences to keep him (and itself) in power. The consequences are slowly becoming clear.

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March 18, 2005

Eat This, part 2

Posted by john_d at 05:04 PM ET | Comments (6)

More from House of Anansi’s latest how to save earth manual, Feeding the Future (A. Heintzman and E. Solomon, editors). In his essay on technology and food, The High Tech Menu, William I. Atkinson discusses the relatively new science of nanotechnology:

“The DoubleCore, Wilson’s top-of-the-line tennis ball, gets its name from an extra layer of nanomaterial inside its standard shell… the enclosed air does not escape… Wilson had to toughen up the DoubleCore’s outer fuzz because players were wearing it bald without affecting its play behaviour.”

And then:

The Sciperio compound starts off as hydrophilic, or water-bonding. When left in the air for a few hours, it attracts water molecules by the trillion, bonding them as tightly as flies to flypaper. At this point the surface is made hydrophobic, or water-repellent, allowing the accumulated water to slide into a collector. The result is unlimited pure water from thin air, even dry desert air.

Fantastic. Better than flying cars. We can soon, if not now, make pure water from the air, anywhere, anytime. The implications for humanity are unfathomable.

Of course, we made a better tennis ball first. Priorities people.

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Canada's National Magazine of Toronto reborn

Posted by joyceb at 12:11 PM ET | Comments (9)

Here's a sneak peek at the redesigned Toronto Life.

According to a brief article in Masthead online, editor John Macfarlane said that unlike many redesigns, this one was not forced upon them by an advertising, circulation or editorial crisis. "It's better to make changes when you don't have to," said Macfarlane. He said the staff never liked the old logo much -- "a big red blob" -- but was careful to create a new logo that would still clearly communicate the brand. "Magazines with strong brands change, but they never walk away from their history."

We can relate. Remember This Magazine's boxy late-90s THIS logo that we retired in December 2003? Forgotten it already? Whew.

What do people think? I like the typeface, but would have chose a different colour palate for my relaunch issue.

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March 17, 2005

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Posted by joyceb at 11:05 AM ET | Comments (12)

Ah, my second-least-favourite "holiday". It's right up there with Valentine's Day, which takes top honours, for reasons which I probably don't have to explain to anyone.

I was going to blog this morning about the Irish really deserve more credit than they get, and that Guinness Canada's marketing ploy to get March 17th made into a national holiday, all in the name of drinking beer...well, it just reinforces that image of the short, red-faced man with drool on his chin staggering out of a pub at last orders (which, in Eire, is around 10:00).

I was going to point out that Ireland's contribution to literature and music is nearly without peer. And then apologize, we take no responsibility for Great Big Sea, and so on.

I'm the girl who's humbug about St Patrick's day. I refuse to wear green, because people who ARE Irish don't need to. My one concession being a piece of antique jewellry. And after all, my eyes are green, so there you are.

I was feeling very righteous, in the way that I sometimes am, until I surfed to the link I wanted to provide you all with, the coverage of the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, which took place this afternoon. And then I read the following paragraph:

"Organisers are asking people to enjoy themselves responsibly after claims that drunkenness marred last year's festival."

And so instead I salute you all, you wannabe Irish. May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind be at your back. And may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

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March 16, 2005

2 acquitted in Air India bombings

Posted by andrew at 04:28 PM ET | Comments (3)

The summer I was 15, my friend Kenny and I were up at my family's cottage for a few days, flush in the glorious boredom of post-exam bliss. We were hanging out on the dock when my mom came down and told us that there had been an accident. A plane from Canada to India had gone down over Ireland. Our friend Mukul Paliwal was on board.

We'd known Mukul since kindergarten. I'd lost touch with him since my family had moved from Nepean to downtown Ottawa, but Kenny and Mukul were still close.

Mukul was a cool guy, and a genius. In grade 4, he built this crazy electronics thing out of wires and motors. For the same assignment, I made a ghost out of bristol board. That was the same year they brought in the health hussle. Mukul and this guy Chris used to sing lewd lyrics to the songs as they pretended to do the exercises, but they never got in trouble because Mukul always had this terrific smile on his face.

Mukul was on the plane because he'd stayed in Canada to write his optional year-end exams. He'd made his recs easily -- he was a straight A student -- but he wanted to try to boost some of his grades. He was on his way to meet his family in India when the plane blew up.

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Eat This

Posted by john_d at 03:03 PM ET | Comments (13)

I’m slowly making my way through Feeding the Future, the newish collection of essays edited by Andrew Heintzman and Evan Solomon. I say ‘slowly’ because the barfing takes up a lot of time when you’re trying to chew through this analysis of what we eat and how it gets to our plate. The bottom line, mostly our food gets driven to our plates like some pampered rock star – in a limo, after idling outside a Manhattan nightclub for four hours.

The saddest factoid for me is that my beloved breakfast cereal requires four calories of fossil fuel use in order to produce just one calorie of vanilla- and almond-flavoured goodness. Sooooo, it’s not just the carnivores who are ruining the planet. It’s a sad day for obnoxious, holier than thou vegetarians everywhere.

Stuart Laidlaw’s opening essay, Saving Agriculture From Itself, charts an interesting trend – one retired blogster Andrew Potter might have something to say about. With the growth of demand for organic products, a new American food giant is on the rise, Organic Valley Farms. Putting the lie to capitalism’s mantra of “cutting out the middle man,” Organic Valley encourages the development of middle, er, persons – small, family run farms that actually win in direct competition with the huge factory farm model because wealthy North Americans are actually willing to pay a premium to feel good about how their food is produced.

I like the trend, but fear the future. The way Laidlaw describes it, Organic Valley looks to be about one short decade away from that nasty phase that seems to hit all corporations, no matter the founding principle. When the original energy is gone, in come the consultants and market ‘experts’ who start whispering in the ears of the CEO – “cut out the middle man.”

Chapter Two? – how we kill cows, in excruciatingly vivid detail. Excuse me, I’ll be back in a minute.

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Move Over Toronto

Posted by joyceb at 11:43 AM ET | Comments (2)

It's official. The events of the past month prove that Edmonton is now the centre of the universe. Evidence:
- Mayerthorpe incident becomes national tragedy
- Edmonton's Randy Ferbey skips Alberta to a win at the Brier
- Worldcom's Bernard Ebbers becomes the biggest business fraud in history. Ebbers started his career as a milkman in Edmonton.

If you're keeping track, yes, this shift has happened since I relocated to the Western Bureau. And yes, I'm a Sagittarius.

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March 15, 2005

CNN, Snoop-style

Posted by annette at 02:06 PM ET | Comments (9)

Trying to beef up your street lingo? Longing to see CNN as SnoopDogg does? Then check out Gizoogle , a site "fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit." The site allows visitors to "translate" sites like cnn.com, slashdot.org and msnbc.com, resulting in amusing headlines like "Jackson did ho-slappin accusa told schoo' official."

No word yet on what Google thinks about this endeavour...

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Say it ain't so, Garry

Posted by john_d at 11:57 AM ET | Comments (2)

Recognizing that I am in danger of sinking irretrievably into the abyss of nerditude, I nevertheless intend to now blog about chess.

I didn’t think it right that we let pass such an earthquake-like event as the retirement of Garry Kasparov without some sort of comment. To quote from the Guardian story about him, Kasparov was “the highest-rated player ever, the youngest world champion at 22, the No1 player for two decades.” These are not small things. I would also like to point out that not only did Kasparov agree to play IBM’s dumb computer in a very public match, but he shrugged off his eventual loss to Deep Blue and went on to keep winning real tournaments in the real world where real chess masters are allowed to study the games of their opponents beforehand.

He’s a genius, and he’s a bit weird, as can be said of much in the world of professional chess. That he is toying with the idea of trying to unseat Vladimir Putin and take control of his native Russia in 2008 is a story worth watching, though chess and politics have a way of not mixing very well – witness Bobby Fisher’s various forays in the field. Whether or not he is right to oppose Putin’s increasingly authoritarian control of government (of course he’s right), Russian politics is no board game. It’s played for keeps, and often has little respect for rules.

Anyway, I’ll be toasting him the next time I’m in a bar. We will not see a champion, of anything, at his level of greatness again in our lifetimes.

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Bigger is better

Posted by patricia at 11:23 AM ET | Comments (1)

In a story in today's NP on the almost exclusively Canadian trend toward big, big bands (Broken Social Scene, the Hidden Cameras etc.) writer Jake Bogoch asks:

"So why have the bands' individual contributions been examined but the greater movement ignored? Why has the music press snoozed on one of the most creative musical movements in the last decade? Why hasn't anyone identified that bands like these have made layered, intellegent music hip again, and that it is coming from Canada?"

I would like to direct him here.

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March 14, 2005

Hockey (film) Night in Toronto

Posted by joyceb at 05:33 PM ET | Comments (0)

Those of you who were intrigued by Andrew Potter's post of some while back about the Slap Shot-style league play in Quebec that's taken hold of his heart thanks to the NHL players strike won't want to miss "The Chiefs" -- opening today. And remember the precepts of our Film Club. Tell everyone you know. Your calipigious behind can save Canadian cinema. Here's the entry direct from the Film Club newsletter.

THE CHIEFS DVD Launch & Free Screening
Monday, March 14, 2005
The Pilot Tavern (Stealth Lounge, 2nd Floor, http://www.thepilot.ca), Toronto

Come for dinner downstairs! The doors for Stealth Lounge open at 7:00pm; the first screening is at 8:00pm and the second screening is at 10:00pm. Admission is FREE!!

THE CHIEFS: A REVIEW FROM THIS MAGAZINE BY DEVON BABIN
Les Chiefs is a classic Canadian movie and not because it involves hockey, beer, and the occasional gap-toothed smile - although it has all those things. No, it is a classic Canadian movie because it was made with a small budget using amazing people most of us have never heard of.

Inspired by the 70s cult classic Slap Shot, this documentary by Montreal's East Hill Productions focuses on a rag-tag team of hockey players from Laval, Quebec. Les Chiefs are known less for their hockey skills, and more for their ability to fight and stir up a crowd, and that is where the heart of the movie begins.

Following five main characters, the film documents each player's battle with his own limitations, and the decision of whether to remain a big fish in the small pond of Laval, or try to move on.

Through interviews with the players, family and friends, and scenes of their living and working environments, the filmmakers do a great job at convincing the audience that the characters could be any number of wannabe pro hockey players, in any of Canada's small hockey-obsessed towns.

The movie is real, and unlike Hollywood cookie-cutter productions, the ending isn't necessarily happy for all the players, just as the ending isn't always happy for many of the failed pro hockey players around the country.

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Welcome to Canada: The Great White Waste of Time?

Posted by phillipadsmith at 10:23 AM ET | Comments (6)

Call me nationalist. Call me sentimental. Call me angry-as-hell! Reading articles like this one at the Weekly Standard (the feature story of the issue), gets my Canadian pride burning.

I'm not a historian, a pollster, or an expert on all things Canada, U.S., or elsewhere ... but I have traveled our fair country from coast-to-coast. I have also crisscrossed the U.S., thanks to a short-lived career as a photographer's assistant on tour with Iron Maiden and Styx (which is now lead by Canadian singer Larry Gowan). And one thing I can say with some personal conviction is that Canada is the place that I'd choose to live, over and over again.

If you've ever been to Washington, D.C., (the home of the Weekly Standard), you've likely seen the imbalance that is so common in the U.S. Just one example is the enormous new convention centres in the downtown area -- sparkling examples of wealth and opulence -- and just a few short blocks away people are living in abject poverty. This scene repeats itself over-and-over in the U.S., from Detroit, to Michigan, and across many of the Southern states.

Sure, it pains me to think of my friends and family having to wait three or more hours in our overcrowded hospital waiting rooms. And it irks me to recall some of the environmental damage that Canada has played a big part in. But the arbitrary statistics that Matt Labash uses in his article paint a very narrow picture of Canada's place in the world, and completely avoids the fact that, though the waits are long, most Canadians have access to both basic health care and advanced medical procedures. And while we've done our share of the damage, we are also producing some of the world's most efficient vehicles.

Mr. Labash: I assure you, spending my early years in northern Quebec, not once did I feel like a simple reflection of what is not American.

Last year I invested a lot of my time and energy working on the BillionairesForBush.com campaign and other voter-education initiatives in the U.S. leading up to the November 2nd election. My feeling at the end of 2004 was that it was time to bring my attention and energy back to Canada and the issues that we face as Canadians. I'd like to see Canada improve its record on many of Mr. Ladbash's points -- including better health care, more incentives for renewable energy, and broader representation in our political system -- and I'm even more up for the task knowing that we've got such a head start.

So the question is: where do we begin?

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March 13, 2005

Extra, Extra!

Posted by annette at 11:33 AM ET | Comments (9)

This Magazine's Mar/Apr issue is spotlighted in today's Sunday Toronto Star in the Ideas section. If you live in the GTA, go buy a copy and check it out!

I would also like to take this opportunity to mention how much I love the new Sunday Star. The in-depth features are great -- high quality writing, thoughtful analysis. Why didn't they do this sooner?

Today's Ideas section includes pieces exploring the benefits of solitude, David Byrne's thoughts on PowerPoint presentations, and a review of the new S'mores chocolate bar.

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Copyright, copyleft? Hmmmmm, where’d this cheque come from?

Posted by john_d at 09:58 AM ET | Comments (2)

The other day, at a lovely historic hall in downtown Toronto I attended the annual general meeting of Access Copyright, Canada’s English language copyright licensing agency. What’s that you say? Access who? Licensing what? And the fact that 90% of Canadians would ask the same questions just means that, in a sense, Access Copyright is doing its job.

And its job is to, as quietly and seamlessly as possible, collect money from folks who do an awful lot of photo and digital copying of copyright material – textbooks, magazine articles, photographs – and funnel that money back to the folks who own copyright—the writers, illustrators, photographers and publishers. This past year, AC funneled just under $20 million dollars to those deserving cultural workers. This is an astounding success story, considering that only 10 years ago, creators and publishers in Canada weren’t seeing even 10% of that money. And this is real money we’re talking about, cash money, money that would have otherwise gone into profit statements for corporations and copy shops, or rolled into the budgets of universities and governments, without any recognition that copyright material was being illegally used. I got my cheque from AC this year, and it was welcome.

So, here’s a success story for Canadian culture. Yay. You don’t need to know about it, or care about it, because it works behind the scenes—and who would argue about a little bit more money making it to Canadian artists and publishers?

Oh wait, the copyleft movement would argue with that, or at least some in their fold would. Copylefters, lovingly profiled in this very magazine a year and a half ago, are the anarchists of creativity who, at their extreme edge, advocate the removal of all restraints on use and reuse of creative material. Music downloaders, cut and pasters – we all do it, and we’re all vaguely aware that at some point someone will probably figure out a way for us to pay for it. Certainly, I do not mind paying 99 cents to download a Ron Sexsmith song to my iMac, and I don’t really need to know where exactly every cent of that 99 is going. I assume Mr. Sexsmith is getting some of it, and if he’s not that he’ll make a big enough stink about it that the system will eventually change. Who can argue against artists getting paid for what they do?

And yet, it’s increasingly popular to do so. The Walrus just recently ran a sarcastic humour piece suggesting the publishing industry lobby for a hidden tax on blank paper, just like the music industry succeeded in doing on blank tapes and cds. It included some lame argument about people who only buy blank cds for data – why should they pay an extra cent or so because other people are putting copyrighted music on the cds? Well, it’s called the economy, and though I am NOT advocating for a paper tax here, I generally support any measure or agency, like Access Copyright, designed to help artists make a living at what they do. And I’ve got my cheque stub from AC to prove that’s what’s happening.

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March 11, 2005

The Last Post (II)

Posted by andrew at 09:39 PM ET | Comments (1)

But look closer, and in their eyes there is pride. Look closer, and on one, even the hint of a smile. How could they not have been proud? They were members of our national police force. They were Mounties.

Paul Martin gave a great speech yesterday. Watching the ceremony on TV, I wanted to be a Mountie more than just about anything in the world.

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Regret the error

Posted by patricia at 03:54 PM ET | Comments (0)

It's been around for a few months now, so maybe you've seen it, but if you haven't you really should check it out. Regret the error is a daily compilation of corrections and clarifications from Canadian and US newspapers and magazines and even TV and radio stations.

Some, like this one from the Toronto Star, expose the occasional idiocy of major media outlets: Contrary to a story in today's What's On, Singer Lena Horne is not dead. The Star regrets the error.

And some, like this one from the Ottawa Citizen, are works of art in themselves: The Ottawa Citizen and Southam News wish to apologize for our apology to Mark Steyn, published Oct. 22. In correcting the incorrect statements about Mr. Steyn published Oct. 15, we incorrectly published the incorrect correction. We accept and regret that our original regrets were unacceptable and we apologize to Mr. Steyn for any distress caused by our previous apology.

Regret the error is edited by Craig Silverman, a Montreal writer and the guy behind Explainer, an excellent column that runs in Montreal's alt-weekly, Hour.

Here's Silverman reflecting on the unexpected success of Regret the error:
"I've also noticed that other blogs like Gawker are now paying attention to corrections. Perhaps I've had some small part in raising the profile of corrections, which otherwise remain tucked away and unnoticed. I think they can often say more than the story that spawned them -- and they certainly demonstrate the areas in which the media falls short, such as when it comes to names, numbers and nuance."

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Back again

Posted by patricia at 01:37 PM ET | Comments (0)

Utne.com has picked up on This Magazine's January/February cover story, Nightmare neurosurgery: The curious comeback of psychiatry's scariest procedure. Full content of the January/February issue will soon be online, but keen-eyed thismagazine.ca readers may already have found the cover story, by Danielle Egan.

Here's an excerpt from the Utne story:
In an article published by This Magazine, author Danielle Egan writes that the lobotomy -- also known as psychosurgery -- was introduced in the 1930s, re-emerged in the 1970s, and is once again in vogue. And just as the procedure has reappeared, so has the accompanying controversy.

The serious side-effects -- zombie-like apathy, aggressiveness, depression, fatigue -- remain the same, as do the fault lines that define the medical community's opinion of the procedure. Proponents hold fast to the idea that the source of mental illness is in the organic structure of the brain and can be cut out. Skeptics say mental illness can be traced to psychological trauma in a patient's past and argue that behavioral therapy is superior to surgical solutions, which are both invasive and scientifically suspect.

Egan is a skeptic, but does not dismiss the psychological devastation that drives both doctors and patients to turn to radical measures. What most concerns her is that patients are not fully apprised of the operation's risks and that in some cases doctors are forsaking their Hippocratic Oath in the name of expedience.

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The last post

Posted by andrew at 12:48 PM ET | Comments (1)

All things Rheostatic:

1. For those of you following Jian Ghomeshi and his 50 tracks crusade, it is my duty to point out that not a single Rheostatic song is on the list. Odd, considering that just last year, Whale Music was named, by DNTO, as the most essential Canadian album ever.

Anyway, it is not too late. People over on the Rheo mailing list are rallying around Self Serve Gas Station. It can only make it on the list now as one of the 10 audience picks. The deadline is midnight tonight -- email 50tracks@cbc.ca to vote for SSGS.

2. For anyone in La Belle Province: Rheostatics are playing tomorrow night at Le Swimming. Hope to see you all there.

This will be my last contrbution to this blog. I am boring myself, which means I am boring you. Thanks to all for all the discussion and feedback. Subscribe to This. Enjoy life.

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March 09, 2005

Talking to Americans (and Brits) (about counterculture)

Posted by andrew at 11:24 PM ET | Comments (11)

If you subscribe to the Atlantic, then you've probably already seen this review essay by Marc Cooper, in which he dumps on the Democratic Party for being, well, the Democratic Party. Along the way, he namechecks George Lakoff, Thomas Frank, and Heath and Potter.

If you don't subscribe, well I hope you enjoy the first 250 words of the piece.

If you do subscribe, there's now an online bonus: An fairly long interview that Joe and I did with a Montreal writer named Elizabeth Wasserman.

If you don't subscribe, well, again, you're SOOL.

And for the price of a subscription to the Atlantic, you might as well just buy the book -- now in American and UK editions.

The American one is a cheaper paperback with a more Paul-Revere sounding title. The UK one has the same title as the Canuck version, but uses a modified form of the US subtitle. The US version has the same text as the Canuck version. The US and Canadian versions use US spellings. The UK version has all of the "trucks" changed to "lorries" and "cookies" to "biscuits," and uses British spellings. The Canadian version remains the winner in overall attractive design. The UK version is a lovely hardback with a very cool cover that will make an excellent T-shirt someday.

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This pizza is getting cold

Posted by andrew at 11:50 AM ET | Comments (9)

Some of you may recall that, a while ago, there was a cabinet minister named Judy Sgro. She got into a bit of hotwater over allegations over strippers, immigration certificates, free pizza, and so on. We were told, back in 2004, that the Ethics Commissioner was looking into it. As long ago as January, we were told that he would report back "within a month."

We're still waiting. A visit to the EC's website, under the "what's new?" link has, as its most recent posting, the announcement of the EC's appointment last March. Most of the material on the site still refers to the position as the "ethics counsellor," which it was under Howard Wilson, who reported directly to the PM.

So this morning, I called the Office of the Ethics commissioner and made some inquiries, especially relating to the status of the Sgro file. After being transferred twice, I finally found someone who would speak to me. I asked three questions:

Q. Has the Ethics Commissioner completed his inquiry into the Sgro file?
A. No.

Q. Any idea when he might be finished?
A. No.

Q. Any idea when the public might be informed of the results?
A. No.

This is accountability?

Update, for all you budding journalists out there: There's actually a fairly big story here. Where is the Ethics Commissioner? Why is it taking him so long to report back to parliament? Does he have inadequate resources? Is the office of the EC the appropriate tool for this sort of investigation? Are there problems with the office of the EC?

If I were a freelancer looking to break an interesting public governance piece, I'd start making some phone calls.

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Pedant Corner

Posted by andrew at 09:16 AM ET | Comments (3)

Flag at Half -Mast
The flag on the Peace Tower will remain at half-mast until sunset on Saturday, March 12, 2005 - the day of the last funeral of the RCMP officers who died while on duty on March 3, 2005.

I find this touching and entirely appropriate. But -- not to make light of an extremely sad and infuriating set of events -- the Peace Tower doesn't have a mast. Ships have masts.

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March 08, 2005

From the Archives

Posted by andrew at 08:09 AM ET | Comments (4)

The space programme, necessary imperial wars, and the struggle for recognition in the interlocking corporations can provide purpose only for a small minority. Purpose for the majority will be found in the subsidiary ethos of the fun culture. It will meet the demands of those who live in affluence but are removed from any directing of the society.

One is tempted to state that the North American ethos is "the orgasm at home and napalm abroad," but in the nervous mobile society, people have only so much capacity for orgasm, and the flickering messages of the performing arts will fill the interstices.

They provide the entertainment and release which technological society requires. THe public purpose of art will not be to lead men to the meaning of things, but to titivate, cajole, and shock them into fitting into a world in which the question of meaning is not relevant. The humanities in the universities will become handmaidens in this task.

George Grant, "The University Curriculum"
This Magazine is About Schools, 1967-68

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March 07, 2005

CBC: Television cold, Radio getting colder, Internet Frozen

Posted by andrew at 08:57 AM ET | Comments (8)

CBC has shut down its Radio3 website.

Oh, and they're going to cancel Brave New Waves, too. Check out Carl Wilson's piece here, for a history of BNW.

It's probably too late to get Chris Cuthbert back on the CBC. But to complain about what they are doing to the people's radio:

Please voice your concerns directly to Jane Chalmers:

jane_chalmers@cbc.ca vice president of english radio

And Steve Pratt steve_pratt@cbcradio3.com (new director)

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The Majesty of Parliament

Posted by andrew at 08:01 AM ET | Comments (0)

The Sunday Gazette had an article entitled "Ottawa's Missing People," which raised anew the problem of the 450 Governor-in-Council appointments that the Headwaiter hasn't yet got around to filling in his 15 months as PM. Here's PMO director of communications, Scott Reid, doing his bit to promote the relevance of Parliament to the Canadian people. Along the way, he manages to take his boss's single greatest weakness and turn it into a point of principle:

"Let's just take ourselves out of the carousel of Ottawa politics for two munutes. Do you think there is a single Canadian, a single living, breathing, honest-to-god working Canadian, who thinks it is a tragedy that the Prime Minister has chosen not to fill those [fifteen] Senate vacanices in the first 15 months in office? I don't."

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March 05, 2005

The Mayerthorpe Menace

Posted by mason at 01:01 PM ET | Comments (5)

As Canada’s media outlets try to make sense of Thursday’s RCMP shooting in rural Alberta, there is a distinct sense among many I’ve talked to that coverage is teetering on the edge of blowing the marijuana grow-op angle out of proportion. True, it is one element of the tragedy, just as gun control and RCMP preparedness are. But in both the Globe and the Post today, the grow-op angle takes a prominent place, despite the fact that the officers who were killed were investigating an auto parts theft case. No drug squad was to be found. Furthermore, the killer, James Roszko, was a known cop-hater and gun enthusiast, shall we say. Has gun control legislation come under the microscope the way marijuana decriminalization has? No.

Toronto-based journalist Bill Doskoch has a post on his blog about a New York Times story linking the shootings almost exclusively to grow operations, with many oversights. It’s that kind of dangerous coverage that could taint any efforts to create sensible policies on marijuana decriminalization.

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March 04, 2005

Cats and Dogs Living Together

Posted by john_d at 04:13 PM ET | Comments (1)

The NDP has picked up Stephen Harper’s dropped baton, and taken over the role of official opposition. This is from their latest e-mail blast:

REWIND:

“To those who would vote NDP, yes we have our differences, but we share many of the same goals and our visions fall within the same frame.” Paul Martin begging for the support of progressive voters in Wolfeville, Nova Scotia. 27 June 2004.

FASTFORWARD:

“In fact, I’m a lot happier than I thought I’d be. The major priorities in this budget are Conservative priorities.’’ – Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Paul Martin’s first budget since the 2004 election. 23 February 2005

They then go on to do a point-by-point analysis of the ‘coalition’ budget. Like so:

ENVIRONMENT

Progressive voters wanted:

A plan[,] and appropriate funding to clean the air[,] and meet Canada’s international commitment at Kyoto to reduce climate changing gases by 240 mega-tonnes by 2012.

The Martin/Harper budget delivered:

A broken promise to present a plan [to] meet Canada’s Kyoto commitment[;]

An inadequate allocation of funds to meet our Kyoto commitments[;]

Status quo for federal government subsidies for unsustainable energy production[;]

No support for consumers to buy green cars[;]

Inadequate support for development of new renewable energy.

And finally, just a little nag—PLEASE NDP, hire a proofreader for your bulletins. There’s nothing worse than tripping over typos and improper punctuation during a strong political argument.

Better yet, hire me. I'm expensive, but good.

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One step backwards for blog-kind

Posted by annette at 12:50 PM ET | Comments (2)

It looks like bloggers have been dealt a blow in their quest to have the same rights as journalists. A judge in sunny California has tentatively ruled that three bloggers must reveal their anonymous sources to Apple (in the States journalists are protected by shield laws that allow them to keep their sources secret). Apple was P.O.'d about the bloggers revealing information about products Apple has in the works.

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March 03, 2005

Seriously, this is a sovereignty metaphor is ever there was one:

Posted by john_d at 02:05 PM ET | Comments (7)

The Washington “Nationals” repatriating America’s “national” pasttime from Canada’s team of 1967 (the year of Canada’s greatest pride in itself—you know, the kind of pride that doesn’t take scandalous ad exec sleaze to produce), right in the middle of a number of muscle moves by Ottawa to show they can take the Americans if they have to?

Since all that sponsorship money was going to Quebec anyway, why didn’t the Liberals just buy the Expos, move them to Hull (well, there can’t be fewer baseball fans in Hull than in Montreal, can there?) and rename them the Canadian Federals. Would that have been a worse investment than overpriced flags, golf balls and t-shirts? Ad exec buddies of the government would be right now polishing their private boxes at the new stadium. Sports reporters in Canada would have something to report. Everybody wins.

Oh well, at least Toronto and Vancouver still have major league teams… what’s that? Nevermind.

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The Expos Win! ...what’s that? Oh, nevermind.

Posted by john_d at 10:11 AM ET | Comments (3)

Remember how after the Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche they picked up Montreal’s goalie and won the Stanley Cup? Yeah, here’s some more of that—The new Washington Nationals have won their first game ever. They have a perfect record!

Will the humiliation never end for Quebec?

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Poem of the day

Posted by andrew at 09:31 AM ET | Comments (3)

As Bad as a Mile

Watching the shied core
Striking the basket, skidding across the floor,
Shows less and less of luck, and more and more

Of failure spreading back up the arm
Earlier and earlier, the unraised hand calm,
The apple unbitten in the palm.

- Philip Larkin

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March 02, 2005

Son of a Meech (vol xxv)

Posted by andrew at 09:36 AM ET | Comments (3)

Weird, isn't it, how federal cabinet ministers from Quebec don't have a problem ceding federal power, authority, and money, to their home province? Paul Martin loves asymmetric federalism backed with side deals and massive transfers for Quebec. Liza Frulla has no problem with Quebec's Culture Minister speaking on Canada's behalf at international conferences. Lucienne Robillard, when she can be roused to do her job as intergovernmental affairs minister, praises asymetricalism by saying inane things about "citizen-based" government. Irwin Cotler thinks Quebec is a distinct society (see below). Jean Lapierre helped found the Bloc Quebecois.

On it goes. Since Paul Martin took over, they've been delirious over at Parti Quebecois headquarters, because the federal government has been profoundly and effectively taken over by Quebec interests.

Which brings us to the parental leave deal that was finally signed between the federal government and Quebec.

It is totally bizarre: This is a deal that has taken almost 8 years to negotiate, largely because of extremely acrimonious differences of opinion over just how much Ottawa should have to pay Quebec to run a Better Plan Than The Rest of Canada Gets.

Yet I haven't been able to find a single article in the English press that actually talks about how the negotiations went, and what concessions were made from previous positions, and so on. Unbelievably, the CBC.Ca article linked above doesn't mention a single dollar figure.

Yet on the front page of today's La Presse, there is much complaining that Quebec still has to find $250 million to cover its expanded plan, since Ottawa has agreed to transfer $750 million, and the Quebec plan is expected to cost around a billion a year. Additionally, Ottawa has agreed to pay Quebec $200 million in start-up money.

Four things:

1. As far as I can tell, this represents a total cave by the Feds. I could be wrong, and if anyone there actually knows the figures or where I can find them, please let me know. But I recall that $750 million was exactly what Quebec was demanding last month, and that feds had offered $375 million. Can anyone confirm/confute this?

2. Federal Ministers from Quebec are justifying this under their newfound religion of asymmetric federalism. Here's Lapierre in La Presse (my translation): "Today, we have signed another agreement that demonstrates that we are not obliged to make programmes that apply equally across Canada. I hope that we'll be signing similar agreements in the near future."

3. Despite this total cave by the feds, the Quebec government continues to pursue its case in the Supreme Court that the federal parental leave programme is unconstitutional.

Understand? The Federal government completely caved in the financial negotiations, and couldn't even extract a committment from Quebec to abandon its constitutional claim.

4. They are still celebrating over at the HQ of the Parti Quebecois. But are they happy? Hell no. Here's PQ employment critic, talking about the new agreement (my translation): "We could say that the solidarity of Quebecers has finally triumphed over the incomprehesible federal obstinacy on this file."

For eight years, he goes on, Ottawa has refused, for no reason, to provide "hundreds of thousands of parents access to a better parental leave regime." This refusal will leave "a black mark that will remain an indelible stain [tache indelible] in Quebec Canada relations."

They win, and are still humiliated.

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Son of a Meech (vol. xxiv)

Posted by andrew at 09:26 AM ET | Comments (2)

Remember after last fall's Historic Health Accord, when Paul Martin fixed health care for a generation? And a few of us (Spector, Coyne, Gwynn) pointed out that the health accord was actually a new constitutional regime that implemented substantial elements of the Meech Lake Accord? And Team Martin was celebrating a new era of "asymmetric federalism"? And the Parti Quebecois was celebrating because they knew, better than anyone, just what a profound concession it was?

Well, they're at it again. The Federal Minister of Justice, Irwin Cotler (who I liked, once upon a time), has decided that he'll "seriously consider candidates proposed by the Quebec government to fill vacancies on the Supreme Court."

That it is to say, he's prepared to cede yet another federal power to Quebec. On what grounds? Here's how the honourable member put it:

"I recognize that Quebec isn't a province like the others," Cotler told The Canadian Press. "For me, it's not a problem: Quebec is a distinct society."

Right: So Irwin Cotler is prepared to accept a constitutional devolution of powers, on the grounds that Quebec is a distinct society.

That's what Meech said. And that is why it was rejected.

They are still celebrating over at PQ HQ.

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March 01, 2005

CBC: Television cold, radio hot

Posted by andrew at 11:02 AM ET | Comments (5)

CBC TV sucks. The Sports department is continuing its losing streak, dumping Chris Cuthbert in what is one of the most-boneheaded moves since the Flames traded Doug Gilmour for Gary Leeman.

Meanwhile, Da Vinci is gone, replaced by some combination of This is Wonderland and The Newsroom. Wonderland is so-so, but the Newsroom stinks. It used to be a very funny parody, now it's just juvenile.

CBC Radio is great. Last night, I finally caught Jowi Taylor's new series The Wire, exploring the history of electricity in music. Each show ends with a DJ-remix of the show you just heard. It's wicked. Do not miss the four remaining episodes -- Monday, 8pm, Radio 1.

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Previous month: February 2005
Next month: April 2005

THIS MAGAZINE. BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

Please note that all writers hold the copyright for their pieces and it is illegal for any portion of them to be copied or distributed without their expressed permission. So please don't steal.

THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

March 31, 2005

Vancouver's Future?

All aboard the sissyfied, pontificating nerd bandwagon

March 30, 2005

Up Next: Death Rays

Untitled

March 28, 2005

My new band is called "The Hobbesian Monists"

Next—they admit they have no idea who killed JFK

The National Post's Potemkin Parliament

March 24, 2005

Oh, damn, where is Pierre Trudeau when you really need him?

what's the principle, Paul?

Blame Rammestein. Blame Homestar.

March 23, 2005

Oh, and some Mexican.

Odds and Sods

March 22, 2005

Strange Doings at The University of Calgary

Has Been

March 21, 2005

More consequences...

March 20, 2005

Consequences of conservatism

March 18, 2005

Eat This, part 2

Canada's National Magazine of Toronto reborn

March 17, 2005

Happy St. Patrick's Day

March 16, 2005

2 acquitted in Air India bombings

Eat This

Move Over Toronto

March 15, 2005

CNN, Snoop-style

Say it ain't so, Garry

Bigger is better

March 14, 2005

Hockey (film) Night in Toronto

Welcome to Canada: The Great White Waste of Time?

March 13, 2005

Extra, Extra!

Copyright, copyleft? Hmmmmm, where’d this cheque come from?

March 11, 2005

The Last Post (II)

Regret the error

Back again

The last post

March 09, 2005

Talking to Americans (and Brits) (about counterculture)

This pizza is getting cold

Pedant Corner

March 08, 2005

From the Archives

March 07, 2005

CBC: Television cold, Radio getting colder, Internet Frozen

The Majesty of Parliament

March 05, 2005

The Mayerthorpe Menace

March 04, 2005

Cats and Dogs Living Together

One step backwards for blog-kind

March 03, 2005

Seriously, this is a sovereignty metaphor is ever there was one:

The Expos Win! ...what’s that? Oh, nevermind.

Poem of the day

March 02, 2005

Son of a Meech (vol xxv)

Son of a Meech (vol. xxiv)

March 01, 2005

CBC: Television cold, radio hot