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Home » Blog This » September 2004 Archives

September 30, 2004

New Wave, not Punk. Totally different head. Totally.

Posted by joyceb at 03:58 PM ET | Comments (7)

Warren Kinsella is writing a book about punk?

A bunch of us are seeing Franz Ferdinand this Friday - and, yes, Tony Clement will be among us. A former Conservative cabinet minister who I happen to like, guys like Tony are a puzzle to me - as are all punk-loving conservatives. Punk, y'see, is essentially Leftist in its orientation (anti-globalization, anti-corporate, pro-feminist, pro-gay), and it is decidedly anti-authority, too. Usually, the Right constitutes the authorities. So, ipso facto, how did Johnny Ramone, a life-long Republican, keep himself from going batty? I'm not being coy, either: I'm writing a book about punk, and I actually don't know the answer! Send your theories to warren@warrenkinsella.com!

Apparently, writing about counter-culture is the new black.

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The Carpenter would like a promotion

Posted by joyceb at 02:07 PM ET | Comments (4)

It's official, the last of the original editorial team at The Walrus have left the building.
Churn continues at The Walrus.

How very sad.

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September 29, 2004

Why Does Liza Frulla Still Have a Job?

Posted by andrew at 01:27 PM ET | Comments (1)

It must be so nice to be a Liberal MP, especially a Liberal MP from Quebec. You're almost guaranteed a spot in Cabinet, no matter how boneheaded you happen to be. To boot, you get to treat the entire country as your own little sandbox, wherein you can build and destroy sandcastles as the whimsy strikes.

One would think that the Liberals might have learned something from the sponsorship scandal, viz., that neither Quebecers nor the rest of Canada really appreciate the Liberals running things like this is some third-rate kleptocracy. One would think. But enter Liza Frulla, who has inexplicably been given the job of Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Here's Liza last month, opining on the prospect of Don Cherry returning to HNIC, clipped from the CBC website:

In an interview appearing in Saturday's edition of La Presse, Frulla told the Montreal newspaper that if Cherry "persists in wanting to insult whoever, I can't support that. This man has to stick to sport."

"If Don Cherry sticks to sports analysis, he is a colourful sports analyst like so many others," added Frulla.

Who does she think she's working for? Mao? Why not just rename her portfolio the Ministry of Truth and Culture and be done with it?

Wait, there's worse. I can't actually bring myself to even type it because the froth from my mouth will destroy my keyboard. So I'm going to cut and paste it from Paul Wells' blog (if it bugs you Wells, let me know and I'll delete it).

Last week Liza Frulla, Canada's minister of Canadian heritage, said Quebec's Minister of Culture can defend Canadian positions at international meetings, including UNESCO.

"There will be cases where I won't be there or I will be busy in Parliament while Line will be able to attend these meetings," Frulla said, referring to her just-us-gals first-names-only pal, Line Beauchamp. "We have a modus operandi. Line can very well speak for the two of us. We will agree beforehand."

Great. I've got just a few questions for "Liza."

1. If "Line" is tied up at the National Assembly or maybe stuck late at the orthodontist's, will you be filling in for her at meetings of provincial ministers?

2. Can you name any ministers from other provinces with whom you're on a first-name, hey-can-you-pitch-in-for-me-at-UNESCO basis?

3. Can you name any other provinces?

4. If this is a Quebec-only thing, then, uh... why is it a Quebec-only thing? There may be a perfectly good reason why Quebec should be treated differently in matters of culture. The fun bit is, none of us has heard why that might be, from this government.

5. More precisely: If Quebec is so different from the rest of Canada on cultural matters that the presence of a federal minister is insufficient, and Quebec must have its own ministers present too... then what qualifies those ministers to speak, occasionally, for the foreign culture of "English Canada?"

6. This isn't really a question, but I started in point form and now I'm stuck with it. So anyway, what I'm saying is: Either mon Canada comprend le Québec, which means, by one possible translation, that my Canada gets Quebec —or it doesn't. But if Quebec is incomprehensible to the feds, requiring a Quebec minister to represent her own unique culture along with the federal minister... then by the same token no Quebec provincial minister can understand or hope to speak for the alien culture of English Canada.

7. Or perhaps I'm wrong. Let's check: Say both "Liza" and "Line" are stuck some weekend at the hunting lodge and there's a big meeting in Geneva on cultural politics. Is it fine by both of them if Newfoundland's culture minister ("Alf") or Alberta's culture minister ("Stu") or Manitoba's culture minister ("Cedric") goes off to defend Quebec culture in their place?

8. If not, why not?

9. Will this still be okay when a Parti Québécois government holds power in Quebec? Would "Liza" have advocated that Diane Lemieux should speak for Ontarians at UNESCO, after "Diane" had patiently explained that Ontario has no culture?

10. What's the protocol for that sort of thing, anyway? Do you defend the Canadian position first, and then the secessionist position? Or do you give the PQ line first, and then conclude by saying, "But if you guys don't go for that sort of thing, here's what my English-Canadian dominators want me to say"? Or is it a kind of alternating-paragraph thing, maybe with little blue and red flag props to make sure nobody loses track?

11. When will the government of Canada, if I may use that term loosely, explain any of this to the citizens of Canada?

Bottom line: either Quebec needs separate representation or it doesn't. I find the idea that Quebec needs separate representation silly but tolerable. But simple logic holds that if Canada cannot speak for Quebec, then Quebec cannot speak for Canada. I did not believe I would ever have to explain this to my government.

Right. So now that Mr. Wells has kindly explained it to us, I think we need to get an explanation from Mr. Martin, who is apparently our Prime Minister. I am simply going to print out Wells' post and mail it, under a cover letter, to "Liza", Paul Martin, and my home MP, demanding an explanation.

Some suggestions: Don't send email. In my experience, you are much more likely to get a response if you send either a fax or a letter. Remember, mail may be sent postage-free to any Member at the following address:

House of Commons
Parliament Buildings
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada
K1A 0A6

Here is a link to an alphabetical list of all MPs. You can also search by party and by location. They all have clickable links to their addresses etc.

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My fighting technique is unstoppable!

Posted by joyceb at 12:29 PM ET | Comments (2)

Ah, the singular talent of caption writing. Donald Rumsfeld as karate master. I appear to be behind the times, but this is some fine funny stuff.

Rumsfeld Fighting Technique

Thanks to Christine for sharing this one.

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There’s a Link Between War and Oil? Wha?

Posted by john_d at 11:53 AM ET | Comments (0)

American spy-master Alan Furst wrote a very entertaining book called Blood of Victory, about the central importance of Romanian oil reserves in the Nazi war machine. During WWII, oil was literally the lifeblood pumping through the expansionist German corps. With it in large quantities, there’s no telling how far Hitler would have gone. When he ran out of it in 1945, he lost. Determination and ideology only go so far. If you can’t start the Panzers, the end is nigh.

Canadian journalist Linda McQuaig’s latest book, It’s the Crude, Dude, possibly the least seriously-titled book about world domination ever (but then again, Blood of Victory was already taken), charts the ever-expanding circles of political and military influence around the world’s ever-dwindling easily accessible oil supply. Nothing new here. Supporters of the Iraq war occasionally admit that controlling Iraq’s oil supply is a perfectly reasonable motivation for invasion and occupation, considering just how crucial oil is to everything we do on this planet right now.

Comes the question – what will we fight about when all the oil is gone? Or better yet, if we are eventually forced to fight wars using renewable, alternative energy sources, how does one gain strategic fuel advantage? Will we need to capture vast tracts of cornfield in order to secure the ethanol supply? Will desert nations hold the advantage with their superior solar powered arsenals?

Paul Martin take notice. As the oil-addicted dinosaurs punch it out on their way to extinction, the smart governments would be those investing heavily in alternative fuel development. The environmentally conscious geeks of today are the world-power brokers of tomorrow.

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Darfur After Dark

Posted by joyceb at 09:47 AM ET | Comments (0)

This Magazine alum Sheila Heti and Carl Wilson are involved with this worthy event taking place in Toronto tonight.

Wednesday September 29, 2004: Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
An event to benefit Medecins Sans Frontiers

"All the money will go to their work on the ground in Darfur, Sudan. We hope this event will raise money for MSF, and show the Canadian government that its citizens care deeply about its participation in this humanitarian crisis.

There will be a staged reading of a play created from actual minutes from the latest UN Security Council meeting. Performing the roles of the delegates will be: Ken Babstock (as U.S.A.), Dionne Brand (Brazil), Gerry Caplan (Philippines), Fabrizio Filippo (France), Michael Ondaatje (Germany), Patricia Rozema (China) and Daniel Brooks (Sudan).

Dr. Joanna Liu, the president of MSF who has just returned from Darfur, will give a talk about her experience there. The Sudanese band Kush will be playing a set, and DJ Medicineman will be spinning till late.

MSF will be taking donations, the cover charge of $5 will go to them, and we will be having a lovely silent auction with books and stuff.

Darfur After Dark events -- including a performance of the UN play -- will be taking place across Canada on the same night, September 29, 2004, in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal and St. John's.

Please join us from 8:00 on at the Gladstone Hotel. 1214 Queen St. West. $5"

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September 28, 2004

Communism on the March

Posted by john_d at 10:51 AM ET | Comments (0)

I know, I know, this is a Canadian blog and I’m supposed to talk Canadian politics. Okay, so the Globe reports Chretien knew something about the misspent sponsorship money. Shock and horror!

And now, on the international front, it looks like China may be sending their first ever UN peacekeeping force into the Western Hemisphere. 130 of the People’s Armed Police are scheduled to travel to Haiti soon, to help control the violence surrounding the Hurricane Jeanne relief effort. Conditions in Haiti are increasingly horrible.

Checking the UN website, I note that this development will see the only two remaining superpowers, rivals on the Security Council (see yesterday’s post), working together under the authority of the United Nations.

Here is the list of countries contributing troops or police to the UN mission in Haiti:

Military Troops: Argentina, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Croatia, France, Guatemala, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, United States and Uruguay

Civilian Police Personnel: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Chile, China, France, Ghana, Jordan, Niger, Portugal, Senegal and Turkey.

Can total world peace be far behind?

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September 27, 2004

Veto this!

Posted by john_d at 05:24 PM ET | Comments (0)

While the world awaits a UN decision, expected this week, on deployment of African peacekeeping forces to halt the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, the broader debate at the United Nations is internal democracy—specifically, which nations should have permanent seats and a veto on the Security Council.

The 15 seat council has only 5 permanent members, reflecting the post-WWII world – the US, Britain, France, China and Russia can each throw a monkey wrench into progressive (or regressive) world policy anytime they feel threatened by it… and regularly do.

The International Herald Tribune has a short piece on the debate, which includes the suggestion that the continent of Africa be given a permanent voice in the chambers – not sure how that would work.

I have always wondered what the world would look like if the permanent seats remained – superpowers are superpowers after all, and if they are to be expected to pick up the bill 99% of the time, they should really be invited to the discussion – but the power of veto disappeared. How long would it take for the US or China to walk out of the building altogether if they knew they had to abide by a vote that swung on, say, the honourable representative from Romania?

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Hitchens Update -- it speaks!

Posted by john_d at 11:45 AM ET | Comments (0)

Thanks to everyone who slogged through my whine about Christopher Hitchens last week. I feel five pounds lighter.

So, what appears recently in Britain’s The Independent? A truly fascinating analysis of the modern Hitchens, much of it in his own words. It explains a great deal, though not the decline of his rhetoric.

I particularly like how he separates the right. It’s all about the motives. Kissinger, bad. Cheney, bad. Wolfowitz, good!

Again, very little about Bush.

Cue the crickets.

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September 24, 2004

The National Dream

Posted by andrew at 03:39 PM ET | Comments (2)

Update: As we passed Kingston just after 7pm, the conductor announced that we would be arriving in Toronto at 8:59pm, i.e. right on schedule. We pulled in at 9:26. Perfunctory apology. It is worth remarking that we somehow lost almost 30 minutes of time in the last two hours of the trip. That's a rather astonishing margin of error.

OK, in about 90 minutes I'm getting on a VIA train from Montreal to Toronto. Expected travel time is 4 hrs and 6 mins.

Pardon me. That is VIA's stated travel time. My personal expected travel time is rather longer than that.

Anyone want to place bets on when I actually pull into Union Station tonight? Free pitcher at Sneaky Dee's for whoever guesses closest.

Bonus question: Assuming we are the usual 30-60 minutes late, does anyone think that there will be any sort of announcement on the train either a) explaining the delay, or b) apologising?

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If this is upper canada, what must lower canada be like?

Posted by andrew at 11:08 AM ET | Comments (0)

So, I hear that, as a step towards making Quebec a sovereign state within Canada (whatever that is supposed to mean) Mario Dumont wants to change the name of Quebec. Great idea!

Might I suggest:

Kanata (native for "meeting place")
Pas-si-Nouvelle France
Narcissia

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Who Can Take Christopher Hitchens Seriously Anymore?

Posted by john_d at 10:35 AM ET | Comments (9)

This is a long one, so bear with me.

I’ve spent more than a bit of time the past while rereading some of what Vanity Fair and Slate columnist Christopher Hitchens has been writing about anything and everything. As a result, the quality of my Hitchens appreciation has changed somewhat. I’ve certainly stopped reading him as a source of anything authoritative on matters concerning the war in Iraq, President Bush, America in general, other journalists and/or political commentators. Occasionally I still read him for his appreciation of good writing – George Orwell, Czeslaw Milosz, Edward Said, and so on. And I read him to laugh, because he remains wickedly funny. These days, a little more “sad clown” funny than “sharp wit” funny. Still, he makes me laugh.

And occasionally he sends me into one of those special rages that has me pulling out my twenty-year-old copy of Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (Second Edition) to make sure it’s not just my imagination that this supposedly super-moral arguing man is breaking just about every rule of honest debate ever invented (in my opinion, he is – if not all, then most).

Understand please, I do not begrudge Hitchens his opinion on Iraq, Bush, Kerry, Michael Moore, Naomi Klein or anything or anyone else. In fact, if I project a bit, I can follow the rather twisty path a thoroughly intelligent modern lefty might take to get to his pro-war, pro-moron position.

What bothers me is the slippery rhetoric he’s engaging in to advance and defend these positions. As far as I can tell, with every new paragraph the man writes, his worth as a political authority collapses further and further into the inky black hole that is his apparently monumental ego. Every discussion is an argument of dire import and he simply wants to win all the time, on everything, and in such a way that shows any opposing position to be the product of a rodent-like brain. Furthermore, the right/left axis has no bearing on where he will point his cannon or how well he uses it, just as long as he gets to make a big booming sound.

So, here are excerpts from his head-high tackle on Ronald Reagan, very soon after the extremely popular two-termer’s death from Alzheimer’s:

“He was as dumb as a stump… His children didn’t like him all that much… I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.”

Funny stuff. But remember, Hitchens is a man who, judging by his attacks on John Kerry and his steadfast defence of the rightness of this current war, seems to favour George W. Bush as President of the US. Look at that quote again. “Dumb as a stump… poor governor… obvious phony.”

A quick side note to how Hitchens reacted to Michael Moore’s work-up of Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine:

“(But then, this is the guy who thought it so clever and amusing to catch Charlton Heston, in Bowling for Columbine, at the onset of his senile dementia.) Such courage.”

So, a dead, long-defunct Ronald Reagan is a fair target, but a living and still ten-commanding Charlton Heston is a poor sufferer only a coward would attack. I think they both deserve the best shots either Moore or Hitchens can squeeze off, but there seems to be only room enough for one sheriff in Hitchens’ town.

“Mixed signals are wrong signals,” said George W. Bush a couple of days ago, in one of his classic either you’re with us or agin’ us moments. He was referring to the fact that his rival in the election, Senator John Kerry, had the audacity to disagree with him on how well things are going in Iraq. Checking Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (Second Edition), I see that Bush is indulging in the “either/or fallacy” of rhetorical persuasion. The stubborn imposition of a binary restriction on a many-sided discussion. This is neither a new nor surprising tactic from Bush. Either/or is a very effective tactic for shutting down criticism, which all Presidents tend to like to do. Kerry’s been doing the same stuff with his play on “W is for Wrong.” But either/or is the cheapest possible move for a supposedly independent thinker. Boxing in your opponent so their position can only be slotted into the pre-defined wrong position does not encourage debate, rational consideration and complicated solutions to complicated problems; rather, it shuts all these things down. And this is precisely the kind of fallacious crap I keep finding in Hitchens’ work.

Earlier this month, he took a swipe at Naomi Klein over her somewhat notorious Nation column entitled “Bring Najaf to New York.” There are a lot of good reasons not to like Klein’s column – weakly argued, too cute for something this serious, way insensitive about New York’s already prominent role in the justification for war – but Hitchens leaves all validity aside in his leap for the big boom:

“I honestly did not expect to find [The Nation] publishing actual endorsements of jihad… And now, Ms. Klein, among many others, wanting to bring the war home because any kind of anti-Americanism is better than none at all.”

So here we have the either/or fallacy in full bloom – either you refrain from any discussion of the root causes of terror, or you endorse jihad. It is syllogistically false, a faulty generalization with maybe a little bit of an undistributed middle term thrown in there. Here is Hitchens’ logic as I read it: All those who endorse jihad criticize America for insensitivity to Islam. Naomi Klein criticizes America for insensitivity to Islam. Naomi Klein endorses jihad.

Such logic juggling is commonplace in debates, but no serious debater counts for victory only on their ability to employ these fallacies. At some point, one must deal with something resembling fact. Naomi Klein was not calling for the violence of Najaf to be transported to New York. She was calling for the insertion of uncomfortable ideas about how this war is being carried out into a national debate (focused for the moment in New York) that was rather inexplicably ignoring these ideas. This does not translate into an endorsement of jihad. At worst, Naomi’s article is bad writing, but Hitchens implies evil.

He pulled the same fast one on John Kerry during the swift boat brouhaha. And I quote:

“[The Democrats] have done something eye-rubbingly unprincipled, doing what Reagan and Kissinger could not do: rehabilitating the notion of the Vietnam horror as “a noble cause.”

Here’s the gist of that construction as far as I can tell: Noble acts occur in the service of noble causes. John Kerry claims to have performed noble acts in Vietnam. John Kerry claims Vietnam was a noble cause.

It’s simply faulty logic – never mind Kerry’s well-recorded leadership of anti-Vietnam protests.

Like I said, I don’t belong to those on the left who want to see Hitchens give back his membership card just because he supports this war and doesn’t like John Kerry. I’m not John Kerry’s greatest fan myself, but Hitchens’ attacks on the Democratic nominee range from the brilliantly subtle to the blatantly unfair (see above) – and he seems to notice no difference between the two. On the other hand, his criticisms of Bush are, to say the least, hard to find – and this blatantly unbalanced position brings me to the limit of admiration for an entertaining argument.

I can’t quite believe a man as smart as Hitchens does not notice the many contradictions, unnatural convolutions and telling dishonesties of the Bush doctrine and its followers. In fact, I’m convinced he has noticed them all, and made a conscious decision to steer clear of that mess in order to remain faithful to his sincere hope for a freer, safer Iraq. Is it possible even, Hitchens has such a high opinion of his own critical capacity that he believes his pet, George W., could not withstand some well-deserved scolding.

By steadfastly refusing to comment on the gaping moral chasm opened by Bush administration personalities, policies and practices – no matter the net effect in Iraq, still unknown and unpredictable – Hitchens has made himself, at the very least, a completely unreliable source for considered opinion about a subject he seems to hold at paramount – delivering everyday Iraqis from danger and desperation. At worst, I think it has transformed him into a sad, morally blind propagandist for a power structure destined, I’m convinced, to be very harshly judged by history.

The odour coming off the Bush administration is thick and overwhelmingly foul these days. Is it possible Christopher Hitchens is the only person nearby who can’t smell it?

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September 23, 2004

fun with moral quandries

Posted by andrew at 05:52 PM ET | Comments (10)

Bioethics 234 Mid-term quiz. Take home. Answer in complete sentences.

1. Steve needs knee replacement surgery. He is 290th on the waiting list, and expects to wait 2 years or more for the surgery. He is in a great deal of pain, and can no longer work. He offers $10 000 to someone higher up on the waiting list who is willing to trade places with him. He finds someone willing to trade, but the provincial health minister vetoes the transaction, calling it "unethical".

Did the health minister make the right call? If not, why not? If yes, explain who is harmed by the transaction, and why their interests are morally relevant.

10 marks.

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Word on the Street: Toronto

Posted by joyceb at 03:34 PM ET | Comments (0)

Sunday, September 26 2004 is the 15th Anniversary of the Word on the Street, Canada's pre-eminent book and magazine festival. This year there's a new location in Toronto to note: QUEEN'S PARK, from Bloor to Wellesley. This Magazine staff, volunteers and writers will be there to hawk our wares all day, including subscriptions, back issues and limited edition chachkas (your fridge is just crying out for a This Magazine magnet). Our booth is on the east side of Queen's Park, on the street, just south of St Joseph. Come by and say hello.

While you're there, you can check out readings by This Magazine celebs:

Stuart Ross reads new poetry between 1245 and 1:00
Ania Szado reads from The Beginning of Was, 12:30 pm
Elyse Friedman reads from Waking Beauty, 2:30 pm
Andrew Potter and Joseph Heath read from The Rebel Sell, 3:30 pm
Hal Niedzviecki reads from Hello, I'm Special, 4:30 pm
Joyce Byrne is part of a panel discussing "Canada's Thinking Person's Magazines" 4-5:00 pm

Congratulations to all present and former This contributors who have books released this fall.

More info is available at the WOTS website, and the Saturday Star will contain a full program. Hope to see you there!

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from protest to power?

Posted by andrew at 10:58 AM ET | Comments (0)

Here's the penultimate paragraph of Reed Scowen's very challenging review of Jack Layton's new book, in the recent issue of the LRC:

The country needs a credible socialist alternative. The NDP could be providing it, but with a frustrating air of moral superiority it prefers to fight battles that have little resonance with the Canadian voter. It tells citizens what they should be thinking about, rather than listening and responding to their real concerns. It supposes that all worthy collective action must be government based. It has enemies that we do not share. It resembles a religion more than a political party and, in its own way, it is as elitist as Conrad Black.

And yet...

Well, you'll have to pick up a copy if you want to know the rest.

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September 22, 2004

US Election Update -- The Empire Strikes Back

Posted by john_d at 05:24 PM ET | Comments (2)

Checking the electoral vote count website today, I note two things of interest. First, Kerry has edged ahead of Bush again in projections for who will reach the magic number and be all Martin Sheeny come November, due to a newly strong showing in hurricane-ravaged Florida. The first debate looms, also in Florida, September 30th at the University of Miami.

Reading through the EV site news, I came across this sad little posting from the International Herald Tribune regarding a sudden decision by the Pentagon to restrict overseas access to certain government sites. They claim they are doing this to stop hacking. Which sites you ask? Among others, a little one called the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the official website assigned to assist overseas Americans with their voter registration for the upcoming election. Who uses a site like that? Among others, soldiers fighting in Iraq.

What possible reason would the Pentagon have for restricting the votes of their soldiers in Iraq?

Coming up in this blog space: “Who Can Take Christopher Hitchens Seriously Anymore?” Watch for it.

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Media can be idiotic

Posted by joyceb at 05:06 PM ET | Comments (1)

Last week I was ranting around the office about Teen Vogue's cover story on "The shocking new way girls are keeping slim" or some equally stupid coverline. The story was about starlets using cocaine to keep their waistlines slim. It ticked me off because there's widely held editorial wisdom with eating disorders that you don't contribute to the problem by printing detailed instructions in magazines. Now I know I can ditch the ex-lax and have some fun while slimming down. Argh.

Anyway, my point is that this week, Kryptonite locks have issued a consumer alert that many (most?) of their U-Locks have been shown to be easily unlocked by a 39 cent pen. Yikes. But not only did CTV news' consumer reports warn me on last night's news, they then proceeded to show video obtained off the internet of someone disabling the lock with a pen over and over again. And to add insult to injury, they said that if we can't get it the first time, be persistent. It takes some practice, but once you learn how it's a snap. What??! So now me and every other jackass in Toronto knows EXACTLY how to steal a bike using a pen, because I've had it demonstrated to me. I don't have to go and hunt down the video on the internet to find out, which I probably would have forgotten to do after I took all that ex-lax.

Morons.

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Mr Gladwell, You Saucy Thing!

Posted by joyceb at 12:59 PM ET | Comments (0)

I read Malcolm Gladwell's latest, a charming essay on Ketchup, in the food issue (September 6, 2004) of the New Yorker. I recommend it for a number of reasons:

- it reminded me of the equally charming "Legend of Pepsi AM" by Chris Turner (This Magazine, November/December 2002)
- which reminded me what a kick-ass issue the November/December 2002 issue was (yeah, we'll get it online in the archive soon)
- Heinz Ketchup is apparently a perfect food, because it has all FIVE tastes known to the human palate, salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami -- balanced in perfect "amplitude"
- Somebody named Elizabeth Rozin wrote a book called "Ketchup and the Collective Unconscious" and called ketchup the "Esperanto of cuisine"
- I learned people get their PhDs in tomatoes
- there's all sorts of interesting bits about culinary art and science, and how statistics are used to develop new food products

And finally, it appears had it not been for Grey Poupon, we'd all still be eating French's mustard on everything.

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upside down world

Posted by andrew at 10:58 AM ET | Comments (4)

As I climbed out of bed this morning, a host of monkeys flew out of my butt. I traipsed over and flicked on the radio, where the CBC was reporting on a snowball fight in hell. Huh, I thought. That's weird. What happened -- did Quebec sign the Constitution?

Close:

We were wrong about free trade
OTTAWA - The Canadian Labour Congress, one of the fiercest foes of free trade with the United States, is officially abandoning its position today, acknowledging that free trade has not been the "economic disaster" the labour group had predicted at the time.

[from the National Post]

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September 21, 2004

A heartbreaking work of staggering genius

Posted by andrew at 04:58 PM ET | Comments (2)

This afternoon I stumbled into the Quebec book chain Renaud-Bray, juggling my fancy coffee and overstuffed knapsack, trying to make my way to the magazine rack to pick up a copy of the Economist. As I cut by the cash, I was brought by the lee by a gorgeous, lemon-yellow little book, glowing shyly amid stacks of anti-Bush treatises.

"The Rebel Sell", it said.
Then, more quietly: "why the culture can't be jammed"

I don't want to sound like one of those people who have a baby and then go on like they're the first humans ever to conceive. Hell, some people around here have twins and books; I have half a book.

But I have to say that my mouth fell open as my heart went boomboomboom, there was a quick roaring in my ears, and then cutting through the white noise was k.d. lang on the PA singing helplesshelplesshelpless. I stood around for a few minutes, slowly doing laps around the display counter, looking like a book thief and feeling like a dork. Pride is a strange emotion, so I finally skulked out the door. It's the first time I've seen something I wrote on sale.

Ok. this is the one and only time I'll get all look-at-me on this blog, but there's a point to it. On Sept. 29th, This Magazine is hosting a fundraising dinner at the Town Grill in Toronto. There are still a number of tickets left, and we'd really like to sell the place out. Joe Heath and I (authors of The Rebel Sell) are the attraction, but please consider coming even if you hate us and think the book stinks. It's for a good cause -- assuming you think This Magazine is a good cause -- and it is going to be loads of fun.

For tickets, call Joyce at This Mag, Tel: 416-979-9429 or toll-free 1-877-999-8447.

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Paul Martin, Headwaiter (Part One of an ongoing series)

Posted by andrew at 10:19 AM ET | Comments (0)

Came across this comment the other day:

I've learned something interesting: if you give away ice cream, eventually a lot of people will complain about the flavours, and others will complain that you aren't also giving away syrup and whipped cream and nuts.

I was reminded of this as I read in my morning paper that the cities are already clamouring for Paul Martin to double his promised money from $5 billion to $10 billion. As in health care so in funding for municipalities: Why stop at $10 billion? Why not make it twenty?

Further on in the front section, I notice that Jean Charest got creamed in 3 out of 4 byelections yesterday. That's odd, because on the weekend, they were talking about the "Charest bounce" from the health care deal leading the Libs to victory in at least three ridings.

Dearest Mr. Martin, you pathetic, insecure man, here's a tip. Remember the parable of the ice cream. Giving something away doesn't make people like you, it makes them resent you. Two things every prime minister for the last 35 years has understood:

1. The federal government never gets credit for spending in provincial jurisdiction.

2. The federal government never gets credit for devolving powers to the provinces.

The underlying principle, which everyone except Paul Martin seems to have learned in the schoolyard: The weaker you act, the weaker they treat you.

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September 20, 2004

Legalize It!—or Bogotá on the St. Lawrence

Posted by john_d at 11:39 AM ET | Comments (3)

The Globe is reporting today about how certain parts of rural Quebec are seeing a rise in conspicuous teenage wealth due to the extremely profitable business of farming marijuana for organized crime.

While the students seem happy with all the cool stuff their drug money can buy, local economies suffer:

“Lured by quick cash, the students are turning up their noses at old-fashioned summer jobs such as life-guarding or bagging groceries.

[One local high school principal] said kids can make $25 an hour working for drug producers, who police say are linked to organized crime. Local businesses complain about a worker shortage.”

Since you can’t grow coca in our northern gardening zones, and since poppies are very easy to spot from the air, there’s a simple solution to this “growing” social problem – and at least one local Mayor is endorsing it. Make pot legal. Then we’ll have all the francophone bagboys and lifeguards we need.

And the alternative? Arrest all these rural kids and give them criminal records just before they graduate high school.

(Please note: The Globe link URL for this story has the following descriptor in it “…reefer20/BNStory/Front/” – so now we know the official Globe style-guide reference for pot.)

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guardian blog

Posted by andrew at 10:41 AM ET | Comments (0)

The Guardian has a cool news blog here.

Play around with it amongst yourselves. I'm going to retreat to my hovel with a copy of Hogg's Constitutional Law of Canada and try to figure out just how badly Paul Martin has screwed Canada with this appalling Health Care deal. Long rant will follow.

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September 19, 2004

where in the world?

Posted by andrew at 09:08 PM ET | Comments (3)

Think you know your countries? Take this quiz. I scored a pathetic 40%, though I think I deserve half marks for getting Haiti/Dominican Republic backward.

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September 17, 2004

All the news that's fit to asper, I mean alter

Posted by john_d at 12:50 PM ET | Comments (0)

I know in Andrew’s absence, I should pick up the baton and say something witty and wise about the new health care agreement in this country, but I’ve simply lost the battle to stay interested in it. I’m glad everyone seems to be in agreement. I have as much faith in all parties staying uncomplainingly “on side” as I do that NHL hockey will be played this winter.

Instead let’s revisit the recent freedom of expression discussion. I heard a report on CBC radio this morning that a prominent news wire service is upset about a large media chain purchasing their copy, and then altering it to fit their “house style.” It seems this publisher’s definition of “style” is broad enough to include “opinion.” Instead of just commas and semi-colons shifting around, entire words and their meanings are being replaced. This, understandably, becomes an issue for the original author of an article when, for instance, the word “revolt” changes into the phrase “terrorist action.” If this re-characterization of the news is actually happening, it seems a clear case of infringement on the “moral rights” of the original authors. Do Canada’s media conglomerates actually believe that once they’ve bought content, they can alter it however they like? Surely not (somebody break out that Copyright Act…).

As I said, I heard this item on the public broadcaster. So far, no luck finding mention of it in any of the newspapers. What’s that all about?

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September 16, 2004

Paul Wolfowitz Gets All Ironical… and Scary

Posted by john_d at 10:19 AM ET | Comments (1)

In a bizarre op-ed in today’s New York Times, Paul Wolfowitz, the widely discredited court advisor to King George II, makes an impassioned plea to Presidential candidates in Indonesia to respect the rule of law and freedom of the press. Read it yourself. The ironies are too many and too deep to pick just one.

Instead, I want to focus on this weird passage below:

“While holding two fair presidential elections in a row is a hallmark of democratic progress, the real test of a democracy is how it protects the rights of its citizens. Our own Declaration of Independence doesn’t speak of elections but rather about the rights of all human beings to certain “inalienable rights,” in particular “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And it is a fundamental principle of our Constitution that citizens cannot be deprived of those rights except by due process of law.”

I see the point he’s making about individual freedoms, but it is almost crowded out of the picture by Mr. Wolfowitz’s near inexplicable slight of a free electoral process. Yeah, yeah, elections… whatever, the real important stuff is individual freedom. I say “near” inexplicable because he has shown little real desire to witness the spectacle of a truly free electoral process in Iraq anytime soon, and let's not ignore the use of the term “fair presidential elections” by a guy who owes his job to stolen votes in Florida.

I am tempted to view this short passage as a Bush administration trial balloon on the perceived sanctity of elections within the American political process. The US vote is about six weeks away, and the electoral vote projections are looking better for Bush than they have all year (he’s moving ahead in Florida, which has been deadlocked forever), but this race is still a virtual dead heat with polls showing the most unstable voter preference since, well, since 2000. If Kerry starts making gains in key battleground states, will we be hearing more of these dark rumblings about how a fair election isn’t as important as one might think?

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September 15, 2004

And lawsuits for all.... part 2

Posted by andrew at 11:40 AM ET | Comments (1)

Edited because who knows how deep the libel chill goes?

So Lord Tubby of Fleece is suing St. Joseph Media, owners of Toronto Life, because of an article that appeared in that magazine in July, called "A toast to Lord Black on his arrival in hell." He wants $2.1 million.

Haven't seen the piece, but I laughed at the title. Black claims that the article has brought him into "hatred, ridicule, and contempt."

Right. In a way, that, say, wrecking Massey Ferguson and the Dominion store chain, writing a huge biography celebrating Duplessis, repeatedly advocating that Canada sucks and should join the US, talking and dressing like a buffoon, running your company in an [DELETED] and possibly [DELETED] manner, and being told by a Delaware judge that your testimony "doesn't have the ring of truth", doesn't bring you into hatred, ridicule, and contempt.

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And lawsuits for all.... part 1

Posted by andrew at 11:19 AM ET | Comments (3)

So Kalle Lasn has managed to persuade Clayton Ruby to sue CBC, CTV, Canwest, CHUM, and the Canadian Government. Why? Because Adbusters magazine can't persuade any of these media outlets to run their dorky "anti-advertisements."

According to today's Globe, Lasn is outraged by "the idea of a TV executive lording it over me and telling me what I can and cannot say. It violates my democratic principles."

I agree! It reminds me of the time, back in 2001, I received a call from an Adbusters editor asking me if I would like to write a column for the magazine. They ran one, then promptly rejected three consecutive submissions from me. I couldn't believe it -- the idea of some magazine editor lording it over me and telling me what I can and cannot say. It was a clear violation of my democratic principles. I considered suing, but I can't afford Clay Ruby. Hell, I can't even afford a pair of sweet new blackspot sneakers, designed by my favourite shoe designer John Fluevog.

/sarcasm

How Mr. Ruby got himself wrapped up in this I can't figure out. My understanding of my democratic rights is that s.2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms forbids the government from infringing my right to freedom of expression. But it certainly doesn't guarantee me a platform for my views. Or at least, it shouldn't. This is one case I hope Mr. Ruby loses, badly.

That said, I happen to think that all of these media outlets should take Lasn's money and run his ads. Then maybe he'd discover the big secret nobody in the industry wants to talk about: Advertising doesn't really work.

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September 14, 2004

Money talks...

Posted by joyceb at 02:58 PM ET | Comments (2)

We've had a lot of response to our inaugural media column by Arthur Johnson, Wage Slaves, which entreats the large, profit-driven magazines to abolish their unpaid internships. It touched a nerve for young journalists who are expected to 'pay their dues' by working for free to enter the magazine workforce. And the righteous clucking amongst editors and publishers alike? Some, but not all, feel that the system works exactly as it should and needs no adjustments thank you very much.

I'm curious about the blogverse? Read Art's position, take a look at Patricia D'Souza's take on the subject, and weigh in.

Full disclosure: This Magazine runs on a non-profit model and relies on many sources for funding, including government grants. We have unpaid internships from September-May, and rely on government youth employment programs to fund our summer program. (And in the absence of a bio available at the moment, I'm the publisher, and one of only three full-time paid staff).

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Dr. Strangelove, weatherman

Posted by andrew at 10:42 AM ET | Comments (2)

Q: Hey, why don't they just deal with hurricanes by nuking them?

A: Because

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September 13, 2004

Update: Our Atheletes Ain't So Bad

Posted by annette at 04:33 PM ET | Comments (5)

I don't want to instigate another Olympic showdown here, but there's an interesting article from The Tyee that indicates Canadian atheletes didn't do so badly after all.

Read this article on The Tyee's site

Apparently when you factor in population and GDP, Canada actually did better than the US... and Cuba and Jamaica kicked ass!

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poet's corner

Posted by andrew at 02:32 PM ET | Comments (2)

Thanks to one of those strange confluences that the information age occasionally produces, poetry has been forced onto the front burner of my consciousness this week. Unpacking my last box of books, I came across an old copy of 15 Canadian Poets. I sat down, took a break, and quickly reread some of my favourite poems from the collection: Al Purdy's Lament for the Dorsets, Raymond Souster's The Death of the Grenadiers, and the entire selection of Alden Nowlan poems.

Later in the week, I open up the latest Walrus and see the photo spread on many of these same poets, thirty years ago, and I can't help but agree with George Bowering: How beautiful they all were.

I have an uneasy relationship with poetry. I remember liking a lot of the poetry we were taught in high school (mostly English romantic stuff), but I couldn't escape the feeling that poetry was a chore, in the sense that a poem was something that was to be decoded, not enjoyed. So into undergrad and beyond, I left poetry to the poseurs and the english majors.

Two events, years apart, threatened to bring me back to poetry.

1. In 1994, a friend graduated from UofT and his uncle bought him a big bucket of cheap red wine for the apres-convocation party in his room in residence. There was plenty left over, and the next night a small group of us gathered to finish it off. One of us pulled a book of poems off the shelf and started reading... hours later we were still at it, drinking wine and trading off poems. The hilight was E.J. Pratt's The Shark, with it's wicked last stanza:

Then out of the harbour,
With that three-cornered fin
Shearing without a bubble the water
Lithely,
Leisurely,
He swam--
That strange fish,
Tubular, tapered, smoke-blue,
Part vulture, part wolf,
Part neither-- for his blood was cold.

2. A few years ago, at the Victory Cafe in Toronto, I happened to catch a launch of a new issue Taddle Creek, a small literary journal. I sat and listened to Chris Chambers read from his book Lake Where No One Swims, and for the first time -- far too late -- I realised how plainly enjoyable a poem can be. I still re-read Chris's book once or twice a year, though I really wish he'd get on with another one.

Anyway, these thoughts occur just as Toronto is looking to replace Dennis Lee as its municipal poet laureate, and as George Bowering's term as Parliamentary poet laureate comes to an end. It rather depresses me that I can't think of a single thing either of them wrote during their tenure.

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convergence games

Posted by andrew at 10:37 AM ET | Comments (1)

The lead story in today's Post -- big headline, above the fold -- is Scott Taylor's weeklong kidnapping/beating ordeal at the hands of Al-Qaeda in Northern Iraq last week. It sounds pretty harrowing... Canada could have had our own hostage/beheading threat, which certainly would have given Post editorialists the opportunity to say "we told you so."

Interesting to note, though, that the Globe only saw fit to run the story as one of its news briefs in the middle of the front section.

Could it be because Taylor was working for Global at the time?

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September 11, 2004

an unanswerable question -- but a good one

Posted by john_d at 10:01 PM ET | Comments (1)

Three years ago today I was running late for work because of a bad headache, and I stepped into a local coffee shop on my way to the office, only to be stopped, like everyone else in the world, by a television and a crowd of silent onlookers.

Today, riding a city bus downtown with my kids who were both in the womb on 9/11, I was forced to think about the world they've always known -- the new reality we're so often reminded of.

The current New Yorker has a fantastic, very long profile of Al Gore, a guy who lives on a street in Nashville, Tennessee, goes to a lot of concerts and surfs the internet every day checking out news about the culture of uncertainty he might have had a hand in preventing.

I held a good, long, internal debate about making a political statement on this day, but then I read Donald Rumsfeld's partisan tribute during his speech at Arlington. So, screw him.

It strikes me that no-one in the media has pointed out something startlingly obvious. Al Gore, being one of the architects of the Clinton plan for containing Al-Qaeda, would not have ignored the August 01 memo warning of an imminent attempt to hijack planes and crash them into buildings. There is, in fact, an excellent chance a President Gore would have prevented most if not all of the events of three years ago -- simply because it was on his to do list from his old job as VP.

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Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup

Posted by joyceb at 02:13 PM ET | Comments (0)

Summer seems to have finally arrived in southern Ontario (thanks probably to all those devastating storms happening south of us). I have a message in my inbox today from a worthy cause and a good excuse to get outside this weekend and over the course of the rest of September. The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup was started 10 years ago by the Vancouver Aquarium, and this year you can get involved across Canada.

"This year more than 30,000 volunteers have registered to clean up river, stream, lake, ocean, and wetland shorelines, across Canada September 11 through 19, 2004."

I have attached the list of Toronto activities and you can get more info from the website .

Cleanup locations and dates:

Don River, Danforth, and Broadview Ave. on September 12, 2004 at 10:00am
Ross Lord Park at Finch Reservior on September 12, 2004 at 1:00pm
Sunnyside Park/Beach on September 12, 2004 at 11:00am
West Don River at Ontario Science Centre on September 12, 2004 at 10:30am
Eglinton Flats on September 13, 2004 at 6:30pm
Chalkfarm Community, Black Creek on September 14, 2004 at 1:00pm
Humber Bay Park West on September 15, 2004 at 10:00am
Grendier Pond, High Park on September 15, 2004 at 5:00pm
Smith Park to Magwood Park on September 15, 2004 at 2:00pm
Humber Bay East Park on September 15, 2004 at 6:30pm
Clark Beach ParkCherry Beach on September 16, 2004 at 2:30pm
Eastern Beaches, Beaches Park on September 16, 2004 at 10:00am
Toronto Island, Hanlon's Point on September 16, 2004 at 10:00am
Etobicoke Valley Park on September 17, 2004 at 4:30pm
Black Creek at Shoreham Drive on September 17, 2004 at 8:00am
U. of T., St. George Campus at Humber Marshes on September 17, 2004 at 3:00pm
Etienne Brule Park on September 18, 2004 at 10:00am
Humber Bay Shoreline West, Humber Bay Park on September 18, 2004 at 8:00am
Ashbridges Bay Park-Woodine Beach, Lake Ontario on September 18, 2004 at 11:00am
Eastern Beaches, east of Woodbine Avenue on September 18, 2004 at 10:00am
Toronto Island-Ward's Island on September 18, 2004 at 11:00am
Don River, north of the Danforth on September 18, 2004 at 1:00pm
Raymore Park on September 18, 2004 at 11:00am
Don River at Lawrence and Bayview on September 19, 2004 at 1:30pm
Budapest Park at Parkside Dr. and Lakeshore Blvd. On September 19, 2004 at
2:00pm
Marie Curtis Park on September 19, 2004 at 2:00pm
Mimico by the lake at Amos Waites Park, Mimico Beach on September 19, 2004 at
8:30am
Smithfield Park Tributary on September 25, 2004 at 9:00am

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September 10, 2004

Responsible Government, RIP

Posted by andrew at 12:34 PM ET | Comments (5)

Canadians are about to get a nice lesson in one of the curious features of our Parliamentary system. Contrary to popular belief, party discipline and cabinet solidarity do not undermine reponsible government. Rather, they embody it.

In many ways, party discipline is just an extension of cabinet solidarity, reinforcing the idea that, in Parliament, there is a Government -- whose job it is to govern -- and an Opposition, whose job it is to oppose the government. Members of the governing party who aren't in Cabinet are nevertheless expected to vote with the government; otherwise, what reason do they have for being there?

The prevailing wisdom in recent years has been that majority governments are a problem, that it gives too much power to the government. Maybe. But there is every indication that our minority parliament is going to be far worse, since there won't be any government at all.

According to new reports, the three parties that did the crappiest in the last election (usually called "losers") want to act like they won. They want to change things in the Throne Speech that they don't like, and they want to change the definition of a confidence motion, to restrict it only final votes on the Throne Speech, the budget, and spending estimates. Everything else would be fair game for defeat. They also want to make sure the every opposition motion gets put to a vote (currently, only a small fraction are).

In today's Globe, Jack Layton asks: "why should the government control the agenda of the House of Commons [when] it didn't receive the majority of seats?"

Gee Jack, I dunno. Lemme fetch my copy of the BNA Act...

Just so we're clear: The parties that DIDN'T WIN THE ELECTION want to decide what legislation gets voted on and passes. That is, they want to govern, without being the government. Meanwhile, they want to make sure that the government can't actually govern.

This is a recipe for political paralysis. It will also guarantee, not that government becomes more accountable, but that it becomes less so.

For those of you keeping score: This is what it'll be like under proportional representation, all the time.

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A tale of two corporations

Posted by andrew at 11:12 AM ET | Comments (0)

Edited b/c I can't spell Purolator

Last week, I was waiting for a Very Important document (ok, a cheque) to arrive by Fedex. Oops -- Ms. Delivery Woman knocked while I was in the shower, leaving a note saying "pick it up tomorrow at..."

But I wanted the cheque NOW. So I called Fedex, got a nice-sounding woman (she sounded like she was in the midwest, but she wouldn't tell me), explained the situation, and she said No Problem. She called the driver on the road, he turned around, and I had my rent money 30 minutes later.

This week, I've been waiting for a package that went out by Purolator last Friday. I really wanted it by the weekend. Again, Mr. Purolator arrives while I'm out fetching the morning papers. He leaves a note saying, "pick your package up Monday Sept. 13th at...".

Cripes, I think. What's the point in using a courier if it takes 12 days to get to you? So I called up 1-888-SHIP-123 and try to find out where my package is. Press 1 for service in English. I get a pleasant sounding man who, unfortunately, speaks poor and heavily accented (South Asian, I'm guessing) English. We have a very hard time understanding one another. Finally, I get it across to him that I want to know if there is any way I can get my Very Important package today.

Answer: "No. It's on the truck."
I tried twice more, same answer. Finally gave up.

Setting aside all concerns about my need to have things immediately, here's a quick quiz:

One of these companies is a publicly-traded limited liability corporation run by professional managers, with a share price currently trading at around US$85.

The other is 94% owned by a Crown Corporation run by assorted friends, lackeys, cronies, and toadies of the Liberal government.

Guess which is which?

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Changes Afoot Within Islam

Posted by mason at 12:59 AM ET | Comments (3)

Further to Potter’s comment on my post about “root causes” of terrorism, New Statesman has an article about significant changes underway in Islam, prompted at least in part by the activities of al-Qaeda and the fact that many moderate Muslims are sick of the bad name their faith is getting worldwide.

A short excerpt:

“For the vast majority of Muslims, changes to Islamic law have to be made within the boundaries of the Koran’s teachings if they are to be legitimate. Without the co-operation of the religious scholars, who bestow this legitimacy, the masses will not embrace change.

“This is where Morocco has provided an essential lead. Its new Islamic family law, introduced in February, sweeps away centuries of bigotry and bias against women. It was produced with the full co-operation of religious scholars as well as the active participation of women.”

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September 09, 2004

Google unknowingly creates all-knowing, all-seeing, oracle

Posted by phillipadsmith at 01:27 PM ET | Comments (1)

I had to laugh when I got this response from my good friend Christy while warning her about the perils of Google's new Gmail service. Gmail is a free, web-based, e-mail service (similar to Hotmail) that is in beta testing now; it uses Google's search and advertising technology to read through a user's messages and then deliver highly-targeted advertising right to their inbox! What could be better you ask? How about a web-based e-mail service that reads your mind...

Christy wrote:

I thought I could live with the adwords feature of googlemail since I may be under surveillance anyway - but that was before I realized it would be some sort of depressing oracle. I've only sent and received a few messages so far, and they've pretty much all been about the RNC. Then this morning I logged in to googlemail and found three ads at the side of a new message, as follows:

Lonely
Create A Free Profile Now & Find The Perfect Match - Sign Up Today
www.PassionatePersonals.com

I Used to Miss Him
But My Aim is Improving: Not Your Ordinary Breakup Survival Guide
www.improveyouraim.com

Lonely - Find a Friend
Find a date or friend to comfort you. Chat & signup free now.
www.FriendFinder.com

Say it ain't so, google. So sad.

Have your own "predictions sponsored by Google?" Post 'em here.

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Eggman as yet undetermined

Posted by john_d at 11:06 AM ET | Comments (7)

The Walrus settles into a comfortable position just below THIS Magazine as one of Canada’s most interesting and relevant general interest magazines. October’s issue responds to THIS magazine’s profile of Jack Layton with a look behind the curtain at Stephen Harper’s Conservative strategy machine.

Most interesting is the debate-by-essay on the American election, featuring psychographics king Michael Adams explaining why Bush’s grand destiny is writ in the shared values of most Americans, and Time Canada columnist Stephen Handelman’s assertion that, thanks to the more radical elements in the White House, John F. Kerry has a free and open centre to occupy in Bush’s America.

I’d be interested in others’ response to these arguments. I find Adams’ logic unusually weak. His survey of the shared values of Americans reveals, for instance, that “Republicans are more likely to feel a duty to vote than are Democrats,” which I believe to be true… except in this election. He seems to have completely glossed over the shock and horror most Democrats feel when remembering Florida 2000, and the fact that, as Handelman points out, national US polling reveals a much higher than average voter interest in this election, which can only spell trouble for an incumbent president initially brought to power by a sleepy and apathetic electorate.

Anyway, good on The Walrus. We at THIS Magazine encourage brash young upstarts like them to take a run at joining the national conversation. They can call us for advice anytime. As for Time Canada, one can only wonder why Handelman didn’t publish his essay there.

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If I were a billionnaire I'd....

Posted by andrew at 11:00 AM ET | Comments (3)

Buy an iPod!

No just kidding. Here's one more rainy day activity for you all: Say you were rich, like Carnegie/Thomson/Gates rich, and you wanted to get all philanthropic. What would you do?

Over at Marginal Revolution, they've been debating whether it is better to endow a general foundation, or to sponsor a prize for a specific result. For example, the X-Prize for getting someone into space, or Bill Gate's malaria vaccince initiative.

Here are the winning suggestions at MR. Personally, I really like both the space elevator and cryogenics ideas. There are other prizes out there, for things like building Lt. Commander Data and a computer that could pass the Turing Test.

Ok, ThisBlog people, surely we can do better. If you could endow a prize, what would it be for?

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two things for a rainy day

Posted by andrew at 10:52 AM ET | Comments (0)

Pouring rain here in la belle province, though I note that the squeegee kids at Parc and Mt. Royal are still at work. So, if you don't really have a job or are bored at the one you have, two things to while away the day:

1. Pick up the National Post and read all about health care reform. Regardless of how you feel about the paper and its ideology, it is spending five solid days looking at health care in this country in a reasonably balanced way. Just more evidence of how that paper continues to be a far more interesting read than the Front Street Bore.

2. Read Gordon Gibson's report on Senate Reform, from the Fraser Institute. I've only skimmed it so far, but it looks quite interesting, if only for the bias Gibson brings to his analysis: However we decide to reform the Senate, it must not result in a strengthening of the federal government's legitimacy. Isn't that nuts?

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September 07, 2004

Blissed out on healthcare

Posted by andrew at 09:46 PM ET | Comments (1)

A few years ago, Michael Bliss gave up a promising career as a historian so that he could be a mediocre political pundit for the National Post. In today's Post, he kicked off a five-part series on "Canada's myth of single-tier healthcare" with some observations about the place of healthcare in Canada's constitution and in our national mythology.

For the most part, nothing he says is terribly objectionable: Equating universal health care with our national identity is both historically inaccurate, constitutionally unsound, and, for Paul Martin, politically unwise. It also may be the case that we have a lousy health care system compared to other countries.

Yet one point that Bliss made gave me pause:

"It's a common political trick to link a favourite program with the fate of the nation... Time after time, when we have finally screwed up the courage to cull the herd by dispensing with outmoded policies [examples], we have found that Canada and Canadian values remain fundamentally unchanged."

As a nationalist (Go Shield!)I find this gratifying, and it fits well with the conclusions drawn by Michael Adams in his recent bestseller, Fire and Ice.

Only one problem: This is the exact opposite of the argument Bliss made last year in his three-part series for the Post on Canadian Identity.

Post-readers out there will recall that Bliss argued that the past 135-odd years of Canadian nation-building has been more or less a failure. We are not sufficiently Northern, British, or Socialist to distinguish ourselves much from the US, and he claimed to see no difference between Canada and the American cities he visits regularly.

Furthermore, Bliss argued that free trade, globalisation, and the inevitable forces of globalisation have made our transformation into Americans inevitable. The only question, he suggested, is what sorts of Americans we would become.

Well.

Either a nation can maintain a distinct identity built around a core set of values regardless of what political, institutional and economic structures it possesses, or it can't. Last year, Bliss said it can't. Now he says it can.

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Naomi Klein in Harper’s, Part 3

Posted by john_d at 10:58 AM ET | Comments (9)

This is a fine and impressive bit of journalism. Looks like Klein happened to schedule her several weeks in Baghdad just as the last hopes for a reasonably stable transition were, literally, exploding—the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the grisly murders in Fallujah, the beheading of Nicholas Berg. Klein courageously does her duty as a witness to history, all the while shifting the curtain on the Bush administration’s disguised intentions for their new economic colony.

A question – does Klein underestimate the resiliency of the economic fundamentalists in Washington? Her conclusion about the failed free-market experiment in Iraq seems solid, for the time being. But here’s a scenario:

1. Bush, Cheney and the gang keep on shamelessly lying about everything.


2. They defeat an unfathomably naive Kerry/Edwards ticket in November.


3. There is a completely fair and free election in Iraq, and Bush allies just happen to win, then brutally repress all opposition.


4. By the time Hillary Clinton secures her historic presidency against Rudolph Giuliani¹ in 2008, all the neocons in Washington are happily heading the reinvestment wave in Iraq, scoring monopolies and inflated “Iraqi government” contracts to rebuild everything they destroyed in the previous five years.


5. The rich get richer and the poor die miserably without proper health care.

Lewis Lapham’s personal history of the growing Republican propaganda machine (in the same issue of Harper’s) shows just how insidiously patient and committed these true believers are. The removal of all government constraint on free market capitalism is not just a one-off experiment for these folks, it is the promised land, and they are the chosen ones.

¹ Giuliani wins the Republican nomination in 2008 after ridiculing John McCain’s war record, saying the Senator from Arizona “sat out” Vietnam in the Hanoi Hilton.

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September 06, 2004

Time for a reality check

Posted by mason at 10:01 AM ET | Comments (2)

Look, I realize I’m not breaking any new ground when I say this, but I think it bears repeating in the wake of Bush’s “bounce” in the presidential election polls (besides, the neo-liberal message is repeated over and over again, so maybe it’s not a bad strategy): the way to prevent terrorism is to get to the root causes of the marginalization of people. I saw a protest sign recently that read “War feeds terrorism, justice starves it,” or something to that effect, and it was the wisest catch phrase I’ve heard in a while.

So listen up, American voters: Don’t believe the hype. Elevated alert levels and fear-mongering will not make you any safer. By all means, America should promote freedom in the world. Just don’t do it Dubya’s way. Take a long, hard look at the world economy. Forgiving the debt of poor countries would go a long, long way toward improving foreign opinion of America, and probably wouldn’t cost much more money than another war in the long run. Practising diplomacy instead of warfare would engender respect.

Anyway, it’s all been said before, but it bears repeating.

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September 03, 2004

Secoppdom? Freecuritunity?

Posted by john_d at 11:13 AM ET | Comments (3)

Now that we’ve had the official word on “security,” “opportunity,” and “freedom” – key words all in George W. Bush’s acceptance speech last night at the RNC, here’s a rhetorical alka seltzer:

Operation Truth – tales of the Iraq war in the words of those who are actually fighting it.

I have a natural aversion to any website with the word Truth in the title, so make up your own mind about the dependability of this information, but I heard the website’s owner interviewed on Air America yesterday, a relatively reliable journalistic source, so at least I’m confident an actual American soldier is behind this. Interesting comment from him during the interview. The host asked him if he was taking in the Republican National Convention while in New York.

“The people in there don’t much like seeing me here,” he said.

We love our troops!

Oh, and ha, ha, ha, ha, ha – did anyone catch that video tribute to George Bush last night? The man’s courage and resolution following 9/11 boiled down to, and I’m not lying, the fact that he threw a baseball from the pitcher’s mound during the 2001 World Series. Four years as President during one of the most dramatic upheavals in American society, opposed by a bona fide war hero in the election, and all they’ve got is a pretty good pitching arm (it was a really nice throw).

Will the American people actually buy that crap? Ask Rick Salutin.

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Phil Knight: I'm quaking in my air jordans

Posted by andrew at 09:34 AM ET | Comments (0)

I can't possibly add anything to this. Thanks to JKY for forwarding it.

*****************
From: "Culture Jammers Network"
To: "Culture Jammers Network"
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 3:56 PM
Subject: communique 6: Blackspot Sneaker has Arrived

Jammers,

Naomi Klein threw cold water on the idea, and there was a widespread lefty revolt against it. "Why is Adbusters launching a brand and selling a sneaker?" they cried. Why indeed. Because there are times when actions speak louder then words. At some point we have to acknowledge that just talking a good game is not enough. We may have changed a few minds with our rhetoric, but we haven't changed the world - yet.

We dared to think outside the activist box. And we came up with an ass-kicking shoe: Classic design. Organic hemp. Fair labor. Hand drawn anti-logo. And a red toe tip for kicking Phil's ass. It's all part of a radical new strategy for cleaning up sweatshops and dirty CEOs -- and just maybe, transforming capitalism itself.

Go to and experience The Blackspot Anticorporation. Read the mission statement and take a peek at the actual shoe. Then, order your pair and become a shareholder in the cooperative. Your member number will allow you to cast votes on the design of future prototypes, factory options, and how to spend any profits.

The Blackspot is an unfolding experiment in bottom-up capitalism. It's an idea with huge potential. We hope you will come on board and help pull it off. This may turn out to be one of the biggest, most important, precedent setting Jams of our generation.

If you don't need new sneakers right now, help uncool Nike and reassert consumer sovereignty over corporations by painting a symbolic red dot on the toe of the pair you're currently wearing.

And check out Phil Knight's latest mindfuck at http://adbusters.org

Just undo it.
Kalle Lasn
CEO, The Blackspot Anticorporation

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September 02, 2004

when current events are like sports

Posted by mason at 08:42 PM ET | Comments (4)

I don't know if I'm feeling a leftover spirit of international fellowship from the Olympics, or just general human concern, but this Russian hostage case has me feeling both interested and a little tense here in Toronto. I'm far more interested in what will happen to the 300 Russian hostages than I normally would be. As well, I'm a little troubled by my news-watching habits in this case. They eerily resemble my habits of following the Olympics and other sporting events: I'm checking online for regular updates to see what's been going on, soaking up TV and radio news footage, and feel like an intrigued spectator more than anything. What has the Olympics done to twist my view of the world? It's a little scary.

What's really getting to me at the present time is how every news report says that no one has claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking, but Chechen rebels are suspected. Same thing with the two planes that were exploded in Russia recently. If the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" extended to whole nations of people, the Chechens would definitely be getting a raw deal. I understand they are the most likely candidate for stirring up shit in Russia, but it's still unfair. It reminds me of when international (read: brown) terrorists were suspected of blowing up the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and it turned out to be Tommy McVeigh and friends. It simply feeds the hysteria and suspicion of certain groups to assume they are behind all nasty situations.

Let's just hope as few people are hurt as possible in Beslan.

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I think he missed "Kindergarten Cop"

Posted by andrew at 03:00 PM ET | Comments (1)

Thank you.

What a greeting!

This is like winning an Oscar! ...As if I would know! Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called "True Lies." It's what the Democrats should have called their convention.

So began Ah-nuld's speech at the RNC yesterday. Here's the rest of the speech. How many references to his films can you count?

Also, thanks to Twindaddy for the link to Maureen Dowd's editorial.

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Naomi Klein on Iraq's reconstruction

Posted by andrew at 11:22 AM ET | Comments (1)

In trying to design the best place in the world to do business, the neocons have managed to create the worst, the most eloquent indictment yet of the guiding logic behind deregulated free markets...

the shock therapy reforms that were supposed to create an economic boom that would rebuild the country have instead fueled a resistance that ultimately made reconstruction impossible...

[the neocons] and their masters in Washington are no more likely to reexamine their core beliefs than the Taliban mullahs were inclined to search their souls when their Islamic state slid into a debauched Hades of opium and sex slavery. When facts threaten true believers, they simply close their eyes and pray harder...

That's three passages from Klein's piece in the current Harper's. It's an excellent article, nicely written, and devastating in its indictment of the Bush government's decision to use the rebuilding of Iraq as an economics experiment. The first issue of Harper's in a long that that is worth the eight bucks.

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September 01, 2004

Cure for Short-Sightedness not Covered by Pharmacare

Posted by john_d at 11:46 AM ET | Comments (2)

Two interesting discussions of the upcoming First Minister’s meeting on health care – one from Paul Wells and one in the Globe , both break down the political dimension of this whole discussion, if you read them right. And I quote (sort of):

“[Popular health care guru] Mr. Romanow said yesterday that [struggling Ontario Premier] Mr. McGuinty seems to be understanding the [political] complexities and [political] cost of the pharmacare proposal, and sensibly searching for a more moderate position.

Sticking to the provincial drug-plan demand at the expense of a deal could be [politically] dangerous, he added."

Of course pharmacare is a hot potato right now because the demographics of the voting public show that well-documented heavy boomer contingent (49% or thereabouts) rapidly aging and in need of lots and lots of expensive pills and ointments. Political maneuvering for those votes is now endangering a nascent process that could see revolutionary health care commitments for all Canadians, including us young X and Y folks for whom, BTW, pharmacare would actually be affordable… you know, once the boomers are in that happy place where drugs no longer matter. How about free vaccinations and eye exams for my kids? How about some money for preventive health care? How about that national childcare program that forever and always recedes beyond the horizon? I’m betting a less stressed parent is a healthier parent.

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