Since writing a post on the Star's annual Santa Claus Fund, I've found myself needing a daily fix of checking out the numbers. There're not good. In fact, Barb Mrozek who's in charge says she need $45,000 a day every day until Christmas Eve just to reach the $1.5 million target. "We're in deep trouble," is how she put it.
There are a lot of pressures on people this year, and especially at Christmas. I simply want to use the Decoder to remind people the Star fund to deliver gift boxes to 45,000 children at Christmas is out there for your consideration.
To Date: $957,484
To Donate: For secure online donations, please go to thestar.com/santaclausfund
Visa, AMEX, MasterCard: Call 416-869-4847
Cheques: Please send to The Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund, One Yonge Street, Toronto, ON M5E 1E6
The Star does not allow anyone to solicit on its behalf. Tax receipts will be issued.
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While I'm on the topic of our tough economy, let me break the news that Up in the Air was not the movie I thought it was going to be. I have a bone to pick with film critic Peter Howell who loved it. 4 stars.
I'm not saying the film won't load up on award show hardware. Its message fits perfectly with the zeitgeist and the ultimate message it delivers is a warm and fuzzy one. Which is what one would expect of a Hollywood movie. It was at least fun to carp over dinner Saturday about why we didn't like it. (Yes, Peter, I was pumped by your review into going out opening weekend.) Besides, I'll know what everybody is buzzing about this year at the Golden Globes, Oscars, et cetera.
I won't worry this blurb will affect moviegoers. After all, who're you gonna believe, me or Howell?
* * *
In a roughly similar view, my taste runs to About Schmidt. Kathy Bates in the hot tub is an image forever burned in my brain. You want small town? Two words. Dermot Mulroney.
That would be Barb Mrozek and it's an honour for the Decoder to tell you about her.
She celebrates Christmas twice each year. One is her traditional family Christmas that officially begins on Christmas Eve, as soon as she finishes work at the Toronto Star. The other starts much earlier, in February of each year, and ends around 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve when she's taken care of every last detail of the TorontoStar's Santa Claus Fund. You might say this second Christmas is a little bigger for Barb since she's in charge of ensuring 45,000 gift boxes arrive at children's homes across Toronto, as well as Peel and York regions, in time for the big day. She'd probably be hard-pressed to decide which is her favorite Christmas so it's best she doesn't have to choose.
As director of charities and philanthropy for the Star, Barb's in charge of the annual Santa Claus Fund. There's an immense amount of work, beginning with placing all the orders for toys and clothing in February, but she has the pleasure (as she puts it) of "bringing a little bit of comfort and a little bit of joy" to the hearts of so many children. She takes care to see each box is packed with a warm shirt, mittens, a hat, socks, candy and a toy for children up to 12 years. Barb (or one of her elves) even tucks a toothbrush and either watermelon- or strawberry-flavoured toothpaste in the boxes for children 5 and older. That way, she doesn't feel guilty about the candy. She says her goal is to send "educational" toys, but they still sound like fun. This year they include everything from a stuffed bear that snores for the really little ones to a walkie-talkie (age 7), a crystal-growing set (10), an American Idol shower radio (11) and a mini digital camera (12). Children are selected by social service and community organizations, including Toronto Social Services, the Yonge Street Mission, the YMCA and Catholic Children's Aid, among many others.
By the time Barb gets home to her own family on Christmas Eve, she's exhausted but it's the best kind of exhaustion. She gets cards, letters and telephone calls from regular donors, often people who tell her they remember receiving a gift - sometimes their only gift - from the Star's Santa Claus Fund when they were little and want to repay the kindness. This year has been an especially tough year for the economy and she's finding donations are coming in at a slightly slower pace than usual, but she's still confident of reaching the $1.5-million goal. "We need all the help we can get."
Barb talks about "one little guy" who started donating when he must have been about three years old. Julian Stevens from Toronto is a pre-teen now and veteran philanthropist, whose mother, April, first contacted the Star in 2003 to deliver $40 he'd raised with his hot chocolate business. (Barb keeps good records.) By 2007, he'd switched to the Fresh Air Fund, sending in $92 from his lemonade stand. Barb describes Julian's products as "seasonal." Last year, Julian collected $198.18 for the Santa Claus Fund and it's little wonder Barb says "he's inspiring."
In fact, "inspiring" is the adjective she uses to describe her job, although she says she usually doesn't see it that way until after Christmas when the work is done and she can relax. By then, it's almost time to begin again.
Merry Christmas, Barb, and best wishes of the season to you and your entire team of elves.
Here are the details of the Santa Claus Fund if you'd like to become a Barb Mrozek elf:
Goal: $1.5 million.
To Date: $883,585.
To Donate: For secure online donation, please go to thestar.com/santaclausfund
Visa, AMEX and MasterCard: Call 416-869-4847
Cheques: Please send to The Toronto Star Santa Claus Fund, One Yonge St., Toronto, ON M5E 1E6
The Star does not allow anyone to solicit on its behalf. Tax receipts will be issued.
Was I the only one seething during yesterday's Grey Cup game at the HBC TV ad for the Vancouver Olympics? It seemed to air at every break, with the narrator intoning: "We arrived 340 years ago to a land of rock, ice and snow." Since then, HBC has been outfitting a nation, one that didn't just survive but thrived.
And what's really great is that they did it all by themselves in that empty, empty land.
* * *
An Olympic factoid: In 2005, the Hudson's Bay Co. was chosen to outfit Canada's Olympic athletes through 2012. The contract between HBC and the Vancouver Olympic Organizing is worth more than $100 million. HBC was sold to NRDC Equity Partners of New York in 2008.
Tell a Washington Post reporter she's written "the second worst story" in an editor's 43 years in the paper's Style section - the Washington society (if that's not an oxymoron) bible - and fists fly. Them's fightin' words. It's just like the Star's newsroom. Joke.
This is pretty funny. It is, I'm afraid my only posting until next week. Next time I'll learn to better judge the time required for an assignment. Enjoy:
I raved last week about FlashForward, the new ABC drama based on the premise the entire world (or maybe not) loses consciousness for 2 minutes and 17 seconds (give or take a second or two), an idea I found intriguing. It's based on the novel by Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer.
I couldn't wait for Episode 2 last night. Well, since I raved about it last week, I have to admit this latest offering was flat. It certainly dropped in the ratings and may not turn out to be the smash hit I thought it would be. Let's hope the creators can pull it back - especially since Fringe is fast losing my interest too. There goes my Thursday night sci-fi fest.
I've been lucky enough to have been on a panel at the Toronto Star's tent at the Word on the Street festival before, however yesterday was something special. The crowd was bigger and questions were great. No soft peddling. The audience told us what we're not covering adequately. That readers want more issue journalism during election campaigns came through loud and clear to my group: Ian Urquhart, editorial page editor, National Editor Tim Harper and me. Our session, gracefully moderated by the Star's Geoff Pevere, delved into Canada-U.S. relations and the differences/similarities between the two systems. Readers (and I assume we had a lot of Star readers, if not, please subscribe because you're my kind of reader) commented on the genesis of 9/11 (The massive 9/11 Commission Report provides some interesting reading) conservative talk show radio including Rush Limbaugh and, of course, medical care north and south of the border, or lack thereof. And those topics were for starters.
I carried my little Sureshot so I could take photographs for PoliticalDecoder but, became so lost in the discussion, I left it in my pocket. Smart. Next time.
It's often hard for journalists to judge how readers respond to our work because so much of it is done online these days with anonymous commentary. I'm not against that, although I think an opinion worth having deserves a name, but I'm frustrated with the breakdown of a comment feature that seems increasingly dominated by (mainly) Conservative and Liberal war room/cap-P-Partisans to whom the individual story means nothing. They sit in basements growing their toenails and twiddling their little typing fingers ready to hit the keyboards for the party line. (I'm kidding, the war rooms aren't underground.) Then, there's a smaller percentage of people who aren't Partisans but have their minds made up on an issue beforehad and use the story to get their views across. Now that's fine, although they too often attribute statements or facts to the story that aren't there. We invite comment and I applaud readers with opinions who take the time to write to us. (I'd still like names.) But my favorite comments come from readers who clearly have read the story involved and react - negatively or positively - to the actual contents. These readers appear to compose a very small percentage of the online commentators and you can pick out their offerings, just as you can the Liberal or Conservative professionals. When I have time to read comments on mine and other stories, theirs are most interesting because I know the story has added something to the debate. Whether they agree or not is secondary.
My hearty thanks to all the people who came to our panel (I could describe some of the crowd, but next time I'll bring my camera) and assure them we took their comments and suggestions seriously. The only thing I regret yesterday was Tim didn't get a chance to talk more about covering the Obama presidential election campaign. Last year, he wrote about one meaty piece about being on the road with Obama - "too much bad coffee and an unhealthy dependence on MapQuest" - that had me on the floor laughing. I've walked in Tim's shoes as Washington bureau chief and it was the best piece I've ever read. Terrific, so take the time to read it now if you can. I could have brought it up yesterday on the panel but then all the questions would have gone to Tim, leaving nothing for Ian amnd me. I know, I'm such a noble soul. Again, just kidding. Sorta.
From what I hear, our other panels were a hit as well.
* * *
Bright Star, Dark Hole: In the I'm-no-critic-but I saw Bright Star on the weekend, on the recommendation of Star movie critic Peter Howell, who has evolved into one of the best critics anywhere. (Peter, I like you even more than Anthony Lane.) Yesterday, as he finished his Word on the Street panel I hustled over to him to insist he owes me a Saturday night movie of my choice. Peter was dead right when he said Campion strived for "everydayness" in his Howell review, but then went on to give the flick 3 stars. Well, she got her everydayness, and the next and the next . . . Bleeeccccccchhhhhhhhh.
It was awful. I rate Campion's The Piano among my favorite films of all time, so I had high expectations. Bad script, dull, dull acting, great cinematography. I should have been forewarned last week by her comment to Howell and another piece iby Rick Groen - The Power ofher Restraint - in which she talked about having to strip her actors down to the basics.
“For example, we didn't rehearse this in the normal way. I didn't like the idea of doing a big period-piece bio, so we were already working against the fact that we had costumes on. It was quite a challenge for some members of the cast to feel that they didn't have to present a character, but just to slip into that quiet space. It was uncomfortable for them. They were getting grumpy. I'd see them doing stuff, I could see the gears turning, and I'd look at it and think, ‘I'm so not interested in what you're doing. Can you stop? Can you just stop ?' They were scared at times, but it was weirdly inside me that I just couldn't react to anything fake. ‘When you stop acting,' I said, ‘I'll look.' It's such a relief when screen actors don't act.”
Thought, I'll wager the stuff they were doing was thinking. Without it, the characters came across as dumb as spoons.
The relationship between Fannie Brawne and John Keats had to be passionate and compelling for their immortal love affair to carry the movie.
I should note the animal who played the Brawne family cat was terrific. When he/she played with the pages of a slim book of poetry, you totally forgot this was an actor cat. Kudos there, and let's keep it in mind at award time.
Even though there were loud yawns throughout, people sat at the end and listened to the dull Keats character read a very long poem as the credits rolled. I don't remember the name because my mind was screaming to get out but I was too polite to push my way down the row. (I know my friend would have died of embarrassment.) But it was like being in church as a child; somebody farts, keeps farting even, and everybody smells it but sits respectfully, without expression, as if nothing has happened, waiting for to be dismissed at the end of the service. Thast's how the crowd reacted Saturday night, as if walking out would have shown them to have been incapable of understanding the genius of Keats. They sat as if nobody had farted.
But read Peter's review to make up your mind. As I said: I'm no critic.
* * *
You can never be too careful. The Stephen Harper government has given the Dalai Lama a wide berth during his trip to Canada this week. Even the Governor-General cancelled a meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader upon whom Harper bestowed honorary Canadian citizenship a few years ago.
Thoughts are contagious. Anybody that calm obviously must have something up his sleeve, other than freedom for Tibet. Could the Dalai Lama have something to do with that 2 minute 17 (or so) second blackout on FlashForward?
I know, China would frown. But jeez. What's next? Book-burning? I've heard approved book lists will be ready for circulation in Canada next spring. Joke.
Well, except maybe Megan Fox's dress size. I've been meaning to give a plug to the LRC (Canadian Literary Review) since I began reading it a year ago. It's nothing fancy in terms of production, but it brims with great reads on politics, the economy, history, music, literary reviews and pop culture (well, maybe you will get that dress size after all) and it's worth a look. The current issue has a fascinating lead story by John Ralston Saul about how southern solutions don't work in the North (I'd like to give you the title, but can't seem to find the most recent issue online and don't have my copy in the office) and the September issue is highlighted by Joseph Heath's, "Did the Banks Go Crazy?"
It's edited by esteemed arts journalist Bronwyn Drainie, and I promise I have no financial stake in the publication (as if I could afford it). I can't say, though, you won't ever see my name as contributor, (I feel like Kristin Chenoweth at the Emmys accepting for the cancelled Pushing Daisies. "I'd like to be on Mad Men. I also like The Office and 24."
* * *
LIke millions of other viewers I tuned into ABC's FlashForward last night because I love the surreal and sci fi (a big Fringe fan) but one line was a real clunker. A guy is drowning in the LA surf (actually hundreds are drowning) and a man on a pier quite a distance away yells down something like: "Hang on. I'll be right there. I'm a doctor." Now I know the fact he's a doctor is a plot development but who would take the time to verify his profession? Oh, did I mention it stars Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love?
While we're on the general topic, I always get a kick out of TV listings that write, The National (N) or Global News (N). Me, I prefer the old stuff.
Sigh! Fox has some summer filler froth called "More to Love" in which 20 plus-sized women fight for the attention of bachelor Luke Conley and a chance to "spend the rest of our lives together." Oh yuck.
We've seen so much of that formulaic slop with The Bachelor and Bachlorette. But this one! I haven't seen a show so knowingly cruel to women since I was on assignment in Britain and happened to catch a plastic surgery series from the States in which women were literally being sliced up for "tummy tucks" on the operating table while doctors giggled and made fun of their unconscious patients. I forget what it was called (if I ever knew), but it was clearly too much for even an American audience.
This show is sad, just so sad. Here you have these great looking women (who of course don't believe it for a second) confiding to the camera their lives were hell until they "learned to love themselves," as they've done now because this incredible man sees them and appreciates them for who they are. These transformations appear to have taken place over the previous 36 hours. So many tears, so much emotion my flat screen leaked. That's what they say, except their confidence looks about as shaky as More to Love's chances as a repeat series (or should be anyway). Then a woman gets eliminated and she sobs: "Was it because of my weight?"
It's self-flagellation with the cherry of sadism on top, sends a horrible message to girls - the exact opposite of the message it's supposed to be sendng - and is so incredibly patronizing to women, well I, well I . . .turned it off!
Here's a Fox interview with Conley - the latest expert on love - who confides he's interested in a woman "with some meat on her bones." His goal is to meet someone "special," blah-blah, and he expects a woman that can challenge him. Now there's a Herculean task.
Don't get me wrong. I think Matthew Baldwin who came up with the Infinite Summer idea to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest this summer, along with like-minded people, is a great one. A multitude of blogs have sprung up, it's a hit on Facebook, Twitter and even around the prehistoric water cooler, talk is of the 1,078 pages by the genius who last year committed suicide. He was working on his second novel and, in a weird way, he reminds me of the character in Camus' La Peste who spends his life trying to write a perfect sentence about a rose and dies without achieving it. Maybe the same demons in Wallace's second novel.
I have Infinite Jest on my nightstand and had planned to read it this summer, however now I can't, or won't. I feel coerced. (Believe me, I know how childish this is, this outlandish tendency to translate even the slightest suggestion into an order. I must be free!) I'll read it later when it's not so cool to do so, although he will always be cool, as heard below.
However, that's not my point today. I'm weary of the hoopla that's accompanied this summer project, the lament of the death of the novel, Round 283. In a recent piece in the Globe, John Barber (a favorite writer of mine) hauls up the hoary litany of writers and editors who have made just such declarations. He cites V.S. Naipaul (love him too) saying the novel is "over" and edification from Naipaul's editior Diana Athill in her book, Somewhere Towards the End. Barber recounts Athill's premise there are no modern equivalents to Eliot, Tolstoy, Dickens and Proust. She writes: "They are so rare because they are a different kind of person, just as a musical genius is: They have an imaginative energy of a kind so extrordinary that it is hardly too much to describe it as uncanny." Barber notes Athill's view the the contemporary novel is no substitute for those greats of the past, although she makes an exception for Infinite Jest.
Hooey. How many times have we heard this? I think it was Tom Wolfe who was going on about the death of the novel one summer a few years ago when I happened to be engrossed in American Blood by John Nichols. (Seem to recall Norman Mailer making a similar point.) Does Wolfe read nothing but himself? In my view, American Blood, about war and the awful redemption, is equal to All Quiet on the Western Front or The Thin Red Line. It's the book on the Vietnam War that opens with a pig noshing on the strewn intestines of a dead child on a Vietnamese road and moves to America with the shell of soldier/man seeking to restore his own life through a bond with other human beings. It's all that's possible after the hugeness of horror - redemption through the individual. The Bonfire of the Vanities is a good, speedy read, rollicking entertainment. But it's not the American war novel. (I know, Nichols wrote a lot of other books that come nowhere near the quality of American Blood.) I argue this does not make me, too, a literary snob because Wolfe set the terms of debate.
This idea the greats who died long ago can't be replaced is elitism. For me, Eliot is in a class of her own (and I'm not a Proust afficionado), however while Dickens and Tolstoy (big fan of both) are brilliant chroniclers of their time, I wouldn't say they can't be matched by living writers, or those of the last century. To toss off a fast list: John Steinbeck, Vikram Seth, Edward P. Jones, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy . . . I could spend all day on the list. So could readers.
Ignore literary pronouncements and just read. Whatever you like, without feeling it doesn't count if you aren't rereading Anthony Trollope or James Joyce for the upteenth time.
Enjoy.
That's my segue into a two-week break from the Decoder in which I plan to inhale as many books as I possible can. Some may even be classics by a deceased literary genius or two. I'll save Infinite Jest for Christmas.
This is a departure for Decoder, a link to a video showing an address in March by a woman who died last week. Rachel Barkey was dying of cancer when she spoke in March to a women's group at Westside Church in Richmond, B.C. and passed away on July 2, She was 37. It's really a departure because this isn't really an address - it's a sermon and that's makes me nervous. Moreover, it's about Barkey finding her strength through Jesus. Decoder is more a "whatever gets you through the night" kind of blog, not meant to support any religion, and that's putting it mildly.
But a friend of Barkey's who just came back from her funeral told me about the video earlier today and I found it incredibly moving. A mother leaving everything she loves. What struck me when I listened was her courage, her love of her children and husband and her ability to show such strength in the face of death. I honour that. I have seen people of different beliefs - both in my personal and profession life - face death with grace and courage. It is not easy and we none of us know how we'll do. Barkey had her answer.
To me, this seems a fitting offering for a Friday afternoon in summer, on the brink of a week off. If it's not your cup of tea, give it a pass.
* * *
Nash for NDP: Peggy Nash will run for the NDP presidency in August. Very interesting. I thought she might go the Ontario leadership, but she didn't. Is this the first step of a plan to run for the national leadership at some point?
* * *
Boo to meterologists: Can't help it, I'm addicted to CFTO's late night weather report, even though I keep vowing to give it up. How could you not like Dave Devall who retired in April after breaking on-air longevity records? Then, Anwar Knight immediately became my guy.
But.
Why won't they let us enjoy anything. Okay, so this summer's a bit of a bummer, but we've had lots of nice days in Toronto. (Try Montreal!) But they've got all this fancy-dancy equipment that allows them to predict 82 days down the road and they're hell-bent on using it. They can't just tell us it will be warm and sunny tomorrow, and maybe for a day or two after that, but rather warn us it will all end by next week with whatever blah-blah is blowing in from Wichita.
It's too much information. Plus, half the time they're wrong anyway.
Let us live in the weather moment. Please. At least on occasion. They're not alone, by the way. They're all the same. Let them give us short-term forecasts and, maybe, towards the end of every week, a broadcast that looks ahead three years if they want, and I won't watch.
Sorry about this. Just blowing off steam. And yes, I know, capturing the weather moment is just going outside, and an easy fix for me is to just stop watching. But that's easier said than done.
Decoder is back Monday, July 20. They've already told me when it will rain next week.
It's Friday, it's summertime and the weather looks good. Let's lighten the mood with this late offering.
* * *
For delicious summer reading (non loon-related): I'm a huge fan of Henning Mankell, the Swedish mystery writer and creator of Insp. Kurt Wallander. I have a lounge chair waiting and a copy of One Step Behind all set to go tomorrow.
* * *
A travel tip for Margaret Wente: You don't have to go as far in Canada to find loons (the feathered variety) as she imagines. First, I should say I like Peggy Wente and think she's totally charming. I write this only out of a sense of duty to my roots. In her Globe column last weekend, she wrote about becoming a Canadian citizen in 1979 and her ensuing romance with the wilderness. Wilderness to her means the Nahanni, Queen Charlotte Islands and Algonquin Park and she says few Canadians experience that. Fair enough, but she goes further: "Even though we've put loons and lakes on our money, hardly anyone lives near loons and lakes, or even sees them."
Them's fightin' words, lady, for somebody born and raised around Sudbury. The calls of loons and whippoorwills across northern lakes made up the soundtrack of my youth. I learned how to do most everything at family camps (not those effete southern cottages, mind you) and have friends across the mid-North - Sudbury, Timmins, Kirkland, etc.- who grew up the same way. I've spent extensive time in both the Western and Eastern Arctic and they're amazing places, but my primeval wilderness experience came in my own north.
Oh, re Pierre Trudeau's line: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe." Damn, and here I always thought a Canadian was someone who had sex with a Mountie. Too late.
Joking! Just joking.
* * *
The PM is not our President. With a Global link to the Parliament Hill incident causing all the flap about Harper.
* * *
Allan Gotlieb wrote the following in a recent Globe column (it's my Globe week): "If we are to seek to preserve our comparative advantage, we should now be aiming to deepen NAFTA, at least between Canada and the United States. Our aim should be to achieve a single economic space and a common security perimieter. "
I know, why don't we just get rid of the bother of even having a separate country?
* * *
More fluff: I love reader email (ldiebel@thestar.ca) and blog comments for their richness, great ideas and, occasionally, moral support. Sometimes I even get an unintended giggle - none moreso than with the reader who took my heads-up to readers in a recent post on Honduras that upcoming links were in Spanish to mean I expect foreign countries to write their newspapers in English to please me - one blogger.
Yes, yes, that's exactly what I meant, running dog imperialist that I am. In fact, when I'm working in Latin America, I scream, wave my arms about wildly and make faces in order to be understood. That's what you do, right?
There's been a mountain of speculation about what drugs Michael Jackson was on at the time of death. But I have looked unsuccessfully in all the coverage of his death for a reference to a defibrillator. Yesterday, I saw Edward Chernoff, the lawyer for Jackson's doctor, Dr. Conrad Murray, being interviewed on Dateline NBC. (He's the doctor Jackson hired to accompany him on his planned comeback tour and who'd been living at his L.A. home for 11 days.) Chernoff insisted Murray didn't give Jackson injections of Demerol or OxyContin tablets. Then, he described the circumstances surrounding the doctor finding Jackson not breathing. He said it was Murray's habit to spend time with Jackson in his room when the king of pop was in bed, and had done so last Thursday. He left the room but returned (I got the impression on NBC he was away only briefly, but I could be wrong and on NBC's Today show today, Chernoff said Murray "happened" to drop by Jackson's room). Murray apparently found Jackson not breathing and checked to find he was still warm and with a faint pulse. He immediately began CPR, with one hand behind Jackson for support and the other pumping his chest. He then put Jackson on the floor to continue the procedure until help arrived.
It surprised me he didn't first use a defibrillator, the little machine that can restore a heartbeat or the rhythm of the heart. I used to be completely oblivious to the defibrillators one sees on the walls of airports and other places — that is, until I finally got around to taking a war correspondents' course (insisted on by the Toronto Star) a couple of years ago. Among other things taught that week in my course in Virginia, the instructors emphasized the importance of defibrillators. Obviously, they didn't expect us to carry one in our backpacks in a war zone, but they wanted us to be aware of their value so we could help somebody, should the need ever arise and one be available. Increasingly, I see them in public places. I would have thought Jackson's doctor would have had a defibrillator (which, as this link shows, works by momentarily stopping the heart and, in successful cases, restoring a proper rhythm) and used it, before beginning CPR. After all, the guy is a cardiologist. In any case, I'm not a doctor, but I'm curious about what medical personnel think.
It also struck me as odd that Murray apparently reported Jackson was still warm. If he'd only left the room for the brief time suggested by the lawyer (as I heard it) on Dateline NBC, Jackson would obviously be still warm. I'm not suggesting anything nefarious here, just waiting for authorities to release more details on Jackson's death.
Also, this appears to be a clear case where an inquest is required. Only then would issues, such as whether the doctor took all the proper medical steps in his efforts to save his patient's life, be resolved. There's been no indication an inquest will be held. Without it, we'll be left with speculation, nothing more.
Poor Jian Ghomeshi. Guess he didn't get his instructions straight today from actor/rocker Billy Bob Thornton (at right in AP photo with his band, the Boxmasters) for their interview on Ghomeshi's CBC radio show, Q. As a result, what else was there for Billie Bob to do but sulk? On air.
Ghomeshi had Thornton and his band on this morning to talk about their tour and new album. The first hint Thornton had turned sour came when he stonewalled Ghomeshi's queries about touring with Willie Nelson and went bizarro on another about muscial influences as a kid. Ghomeshi was doing that, "Oo-kaaayyyy," and soldiering on. Was Billy Bob always passionate about music?" And there's where it exploded.
"Would you say that to Tom Petty," demanded Thornton. Ghomeshi said, sure. Ghomeshi probed until Thornton blurted out he was angry "since you're instructed not to talk about shit like that."
Turns out Thornton - or his people - had given Ghomeshi's people his list of forbidden questions, including, it would seem, suggesting he had ever been anything but a musician. An actor, whatever do you mean? Ghomeshi mentioned he was just trying to give his listeners a little context, but Thornton sulked for the rest of the show. His band played an instrumental number without him on drums because, as he explained, he's not lugging around drums at 6 in the morning! Oh, he did take a few minutes to diss Canadian fans for sitting on their hands. Apparently, he's used to fans who throw chairs around.
Bravo to Ghomeshi. And Billy Bob? He gave us an up close and personal look at a real live star. All class.
Petti Fong, the Toronto Star's Vancouver bureau chief, gets the skinny on George W. Bush later today when she covers his "speaking" engagement in Calgary, so don't miss her reports. He's reportedly pulling in $10,000 for the gig, small potatoes in the ex-president league, but damned hefty, wouldn't ya say, for a guy who likely thought Gitmo was a prison camp in Guantanamera?
I took a nostalgic little walk of my own down memory lane last weekend with a double dose of Bush, including Will Ferrell's broadway show, You're Welcome, America: A Final Night with George W. Bush, and Oliver Stone's W with Josh Brolin. I guess I just can't get enough after covering Dubya and, before him, his pappy, George Herbert Walker, in the White House. About Ferrell, what can I say but, wow! With this guy, you get lulled into the thinking about thumb-suckers like Talladega Nights (money-makers, no doubt, but not my taste) and forget how friggin' brilliant he is. I mean, genius. Says the show's promo:
"Don't miss your chance to discover the man behind the myth, the truth behind the lies, and the logic behind the illogical in this limited Broadway event."
I marked my calendar for 9 pm last Saturday on HBO Canada for Ferrell's show. It's a dark, spiralling ever darker, portrayal that still had me falling off my chair for most of the 90 minutes. He sums up the family dynamic of Barbara Bush and clan in one seemingly ridiculous flight of fancy that absolutely nails it. I've read books and lengthy psychological takeouts that don't come close. I won't spoil your fun. Plus, actress Pia Glenn does Condoleezza Rice as a stripping, dancing sexbomb, enticing Bush around the Oval Office. I've read reviews suggesting, while Ferrell had insightful moments, a lot was simply ha-ha comedy. Don't believe it! You'll surely get another chance on HBO so don't miss it. Or run when it comes out on video. The credits list Ferrell as writer. . . masterful!
W isn't in Ferrell's league, but it is Oliver Stone after all, and he's always interesting. Besides, Josh Brolin has turned into an under-rated Edward Norton, which is pretty under-rated and pretty great. Richard Dreyfus was good as Dick Cheney, even though he later called Stone a "fascist" on The View, and said he did it for the money. The real showstopping performance was Thandie Newton's Ms. Rice. She played her like a female "Step 'n Fetchit." Or Butterfly McQueen as Prissy on valium. Withering. Worth the entire price of admission. Gotta see it too.
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Dear Iris, I'm sorry.
Yesterday, I wrote about a class action suit filed in Ontario Superior Court allleging Ottawa is reponsible for "cultural genocide" over 20 years for removing children from Ontario reserves and placing them in non-native homes where they lost their identity, The Star's Tony Bock photographed plaintiff Marcia Martel (right). I want to share a link I received to a very personal blog post on the subject, written from a very different perspective.
Torontontians remember August, 2004, when an armed gunman shot and injured his wife, then ran, taking a female hostage en route and ending up in front of Union Station. I covered the tense standoff and remember seeing the woman's fear from behind police barricades. It ended when an Emergency Task Force (ETF) sniper from Toronto police killed the man with a single shot to the head. At the time, a Special Internal Investigations (SIU) unit ruled the Toronto Police department sniper took proper legal action in shooting the hostage-taker.
From that hostage-taking, Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern created and wrote the Canadian police drama, Flashpoint, shown Friday on CTV, with the ETF morphing into the SRU (Strategic Response Unit). CBS picked up the show, a coup for Canadian television, and it's been a hit, although maybe its move from hot Thursday to lacklustre Friday (in television business thinking) is a bad sign.
Flashpoint is a smart, gripping and gritty production and, though I'm still waiting for my all-time favorite drama, Intelligence, to return, I've become a fan. Friday nights are often veg night after a writing push for the weekend papers and it's a treat to see a show with unabashed scenes of Toronto, instead of that stock footage to impersonate an American city. The writing is great and Hugh Dillon as tactical leader Ed Lane is coiled so tightly, it always seems he's about to go off. Enrico Colantoni plays Sgt. Gregory Parker, the squad's chief negotiator and the show gets into the human drama of officers in life-and-death situations, as well as the toll on their lives. We get to know them. The first episode was a thinly veiled re-enactment of the Union Station hostage-taking in 2004.
But last Friday's show was disturbing — or at least the ending was. This time, robbers break into a wealthy home using the connection between the Russian nanny and her boyfriend, a former Russian military type. It quickly goes bad and turns into a hostage-taking with two children involved. The SRU team is soon on the scene and, without rehashing the plot, it builds towards a finale with the armed Russian holding a little boy on one side of a room and armed SRU officers, Sgt. Paker (Colantoni) among them, on the other behind shields. Meanwhile, in the hallway, Lane (Dillon) and his partner are getting into position to get a clear shot. Parker negotiates and in a series of quick actions, the Russian is convinced to give up the boy and almost simultaneously, lets the boy go (and the child begins to move away), pushes his gun away on the floor in front of him and raises his arms in the air. At that moment, Ed Lane shoots him dead with a single shot to the head.
Then comes the denouement. Great, I figure, Lane is going to agonize over the fatal shot, while Parker telles him SIU (or Flashpoint equivalent) will be involved but not to worry, he'll be fine. But that's not what happens. Parker says he feels guilty about the way he handled the beginning of the afternoon's incident, then flips open his phone to call a woman he's dating while Lane ambles off.
Okay, it's TV-land, not real life. And I'm not big on those folk who think Jack Bauer promotes terrorism. All I expected from Flashpoint was a fleeting acknowledgement police snipers don't take out a man with his hands in the air without even the flicker of an afterthought, the mention of a potential internal investigation. You know, the way police forces across Canada do by training and experience.
Omigod, Roland Hedley is about to scratch himself. Who could make the point better than Garry Trudeau?
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More on the Net: Judith Timson is sadly hilarious about sludge passing for comment. I think you look great, Judy.
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Black Wednesday: It appears the "Equitable Compensation Act" will breeze through the Commons later this afternoon. Remember, that's the bill that strips the right of women in the federal public service to fight for equal pay for work of equal value. Winnipeg NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis says her party tried everything to convince the Liberals not to support the government, without success. "We implored them, but the Liberals, true to form, support the government," said a sombre Wasylycia-Leis a few moments ago. "It's Black Wednesday. It marks the death of pay equity in the federal public service in this country and nobody seems to care." She says NDP members will wear black armbands in the Commons for the final vote.
Will get back to you later on the predictable outcome of the final vote.
So much for my idea of keeping my blog going while on holidays. I'm afraid I haven't done a very good job.
I'm going to do the smart thing and sign off the Political Decoder until I'm back at work next week. My goal these days is to inhale all the fiction I haven't been able to read all year and watch as much of the Olympics as I can squeeze in, usually at 4 a.m. But I doubt readers are interested in my grouchy opinions of Olympic commentators. If the CBC's diving expert tells us one more time the judges may not be able to see the errors she's noticing because they don't have the same slo-mo technology, I'm going to be ill. And how many times per minute does the gymnastics commentator believe she needs to explain the scoring system to us. What are we, idiots?
Go online, you say. More choice. Sure, but then I have to watch the Air Canada commercial every two seconds on the CBC site. You know, the one where cleaners, mechanics, flight crews talk about how special it is for them to serve Olympic athletes — leaving me seething over how us regular schlubs get treated. Oh, and one more thing, that Bombardier commercial with happy folks around the world singing along to "O Canada" in various languages? Yuck!
You see, reading my blog this week would be no fun at all.
Instead, I will leave you will a new photo of a reader's dog, Chewy, who's into sleeping with her mouth open — and sign off until next week.
Hmm, guess I'm guilty of my own yuck quotient. Sorry, Chewy, you're adorable.
I marvelled at the against-all-odds performance of the U.S. men's swim team in the the 400-metre freestyle relay earlier this week. It was made for Hollywood, with American anchor Jason Lezak coming from behind to beat France's Alain Bernard to take the event. It was simply delicious, with all the elements of drama from Bernard's prior arrogant comment that France would "smash" the U.S. team to his mistake in the pool. It gave the Americans a victory and kept alive phenom Michael Phelp's much hyped drive for eight gold medals at a single Olympics.
Watching it, I wondered what it is in the U.S. diet that keeps producing these kind of miracle plays. Not that it's never happened for Canadians, but the Americans seem to pull off these amazing results as a matter of routine, living out fairytale scripts. Then, I picked up the current issue of The Walrus and read Katharine Dunn's great piece, "Sink of Swim: Pierre Lafontaine's bid to revive Swimming Canada." I'm not even going to check if I can pull the article down for you because the September issue is on news stands now, and the magazine industry needs all the help it can get.
As a teenaged swimmer from Nova Scotia, Dunn choked in her backstroke event at the Canada Games in Saskatoon. She remembers the starter's gun going off, glancing at the girl in the next lane who was already ahead and thinking: "I don't want this badly enough." Dunn extrapolates to examine the decline of Canadian swimmers since the medal performances of Alex Baumann and Victor Davis in Los Angeles in 1984. In Athens, the Canadian team collapsed. In looking at the problem, Dunn observes:
"What has happened to the national swim team at international meets since the 1980s is a version of what happened with my Canada Games teammates in Saskatoon. Pitted against apparently stronger, richer rivals, do Canadian athletes shrink? Do we, as (former Canadian coach Dave) Johnson suggests, buckle under pressure? More problematic, do we suffer from some sort of national inferiority complex?"
A very interesting point. The article works on many levels. Dunn's experience as a Maritimer explores, without a megaphone, the Canadian dynamic and our own internal inferiority feelings region-to-region. She describes the plans new Swimming Canada CEO Pierre Lafontaine has for rebuilding, as well as the decision by the Canadian Olympic Committee to hire Baumann from Australia in 2006 as executive director of the Road to Excellence program for summer sports. Baumann has long made the point — as he did again this week from Beijing — that it's too soon to see the results of new government funding. Baumann wants the bulk of money for athletes to come from the federal government, a belief Dunn shows is not shared by some U.S. coaches. During the 2004 Olympics, American Murray Stevens described Canada's approach to swimming as "socialist," later telling Dunn handouts don't help athletes. "The more you get from the outside, the less you work for it," he told her. "Mother bird can only help little bird so much."
Dunn asks whether Canadian athletes need to "shake off their own culture" in order to ascend to the podium.
Everybody hopes Canada will win medals in Beijing, however Dunn's article is a must-read. It's a starting point for debate about what's wrong, if indeed anything really is wrong with the Canadian sports system.
A footnote on the swimming events: While we all appreciate how well Canadian swimmers have done in beating their own best times (and there's no doubt they've done this), hearing it so often from the athletes themselves, one wants to shout out: "Yes, but you're not in Kansas anymore."
Plus, the award for more realistic line from a TV anchor: Coming back from Global's report on the Chinese tricks at the opening ceremonies, Kevin Newman laughed and said it didn't seem to be a big problem. As he sees it: "We all know TV is all smoke-and-mirrors."
Nicely put.
Finally, I apologize for the sporadic postings. I'm on holidays, and now back to the Games . . .
I'd planned to post today on the threat to Great Lakes water and — while I am veritably seized with this environmental problem — it is summertime. On to more mammorable topics. Ewww, sorry.
Plus, the Decoder has a job to do, a civilization to defend.
It looks like there's more to this alleged "wardrobe malfunction" than meets the eye, no pun intended since nobody saw more than the flash of a snazzy sunburst nipple cover back in 2004 when Justin Timberlake ripped open Janet Jackson's bodice during the Superbowl half-time show. During the duo's number, as 90 million viewers probably recall, Timberlake reached across Jackson's bustier and pulled open a flap, singing: ""Gonna have you naked by the end of this song."
Nipple alert, nipple alert. What a hullabaloo, what a way to pull in publicity, guys. Still, virtuous CBS pleaded "wardrobe malfunction." After a protracted battle with the FCC, a federal court ruling released yesterday, dismissed indecency charges against CBS and struck down the hefty fine. Democracy is saved, although I wonder if the regulators will junk those time-delays. Or are they too convenient a censorship tool?
Okay, few of us bought the couple's 'big whoops!' theory. Too neat, practised. And yesterday, Jackson admitted the "reveal" was planned. But Don Macpherson, Gazette political columnist, sports junkie and former television journalist, takes it further. In an email today, (my friend) Macpherson points out the shot of Jackson's breast lasted exactly nine-sixteenths of a second. "Anybody who has ever been in a television control room during a live broadcast knows it's impossible to make a clean cut so quickly without the director, the switcher and the operator of the camera to which the cut is being made all being ready."
Therefore, he argues, CBS had to be in on the ruse, along with Timberlake and Jackson.
Furthermore, Macpherson believes "the real issue here is not the supposed nudity (which in fact did not occur, since Jackson's nipple was concealed by a decoration), but rather the simulation of a sexual assault, which most people have overlooked."
He first brought the issue to the attention of his readers in February, 2004, when he wrote in his column:
After vowing lyrically to "have you naked by the end of this song," Timberlake suddenly reached across Jackson's body and tore away the right top of her costume, in effect wordlessly adding: "Whether you like it or not." Jackson's stage reaction was one of first shock, then anger.
So an audience that tuned in to watch a football game also saw a simulation of a sexual assault as misogynistic entertainment. And parents who remembered how they imitated the pop stars of their youth found themselves needing to explain to their sons that, no matter what Justin Timberlake does on stage, it's not cool for boys to tear the clothes off girls. Anybody who was offended by that was right.
Don and his wife Kate Greenaway are raising two boys. Seems like they are in pretty good hands.
Linda Diebel is a veteran political reporter who worked across Canada, including on Parliament Hill, and as the Toronto Star's bureau chief in both Washington and Latin America. She has written two books, Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa, and Stéphane Dion: Against the Current.
She's been described as "that mean Diebel person" by President George H.W. Bush and someone "with a good head on her shoulders" by Noam Chomsky. They're probably both right.
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