Not this summer, not the death of the novel again

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.

Back on August 17.

Rachel Barkey: Death is not dying

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.

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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?

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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.

Diebel tips for finding loons

It's Friday, it's summertime and the weather looks good. Let's lighten the mood with this late offering. 

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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.

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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.

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The PM is not our President. With a Global link to the Parliament Hill incident causing all the flap about Harper.

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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?

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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?

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A Confederacy of Dunces online book club: love the idea!

Michael Jackson: Was everything done to save him?

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.

Here's a useful link to the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation.

 

Jian Ghomeshi versus Billy Bob Boor

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.

Watch the video.

Dubya, Go away already (except for Will Ferrell)

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.

Flashpoint drops the ball

STAR FILE PHOTO

Hugh Dillon in Flashpoint.

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.

Doonesbury all a-Twitter

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.

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In case you haven't seen the CBC's Iggy satire worth a look.

Blogger on Olympic R'n'R

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.

Are Canadian athletes too "Canadian" to win Olympic medals?

Toronto Star Photos

Alex Baumann returns to Canada in 2006.

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 . . .

Nipplegate: Conspiracy, Misogyny and Capitalism

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.

Cold, silent, deep; What more could you want in a country?

Ken Faught, Toronto Star Photo

Diebel and Faught in Montreal during cross-country tour.

Our online editors sought Canada Day photos and, with best wishes on our 141st birthday since Confederation, I present mine.

It's not my photo, but let me explain: It's of Star photographer Ken Faught and me on a cross-Canada trip at the end of 2004, my first since being back in the country after long stints as a foreign correspondent and Ken's last before going into management. How much more Canadian can you get than to do your travelling in December?

I was almost kissing the ground. There's nothing like being posted for years outside of Canada to make a person think about the essence of the nation — and my defining moment came during one of those seemingly mundane little episodes that turn out to branded forever in memory. We were five, friends having dinner in Mexico City, and the Mexicans began teasing the Swede and me about the strange, cold, northern places we call home. To them, we were the same; to us, we were completely different.

"Oh, you northerners are so cold," said a woman, laughing. She was being somewhat tactful because the Swede was her husband, but they still cut loose with all the clichés about Canada they'd ever heard. To be fair, she wasn't really talking so much about temperature, although she'd been to Canada in the winter, but about the silence of northerners compared to the constant clatter, conversation and intensity of life in a hot, crowded place. We all had another margarita before going our separate ways but that evening, I brooded for a long time on my balcony. It was that night, I think, I realized how homesick I was.

She's right about the silences. They are there, with our families, with our friends and with some of our greatest writers. In my view, it's there in the work of the two great Margaret's, Robertson Davies or Gilles Vigneault, all who convey great meaning with painful silence, metaphor and gesture. It's there in the beauty of Michael Ondaatje's prose, with its lonely yearning and misunderstandings.

I love the exuberance and colour of life in Latin America. But the silences between people can give us our sweet neuroses — and from away, we yearn for them, as well as the offbeat perspective of comedians who see the obvious between the lines. There is Canadian humour. I've always liked the answer to the contest to complete the phrase, "as Canada as," and the winner was "as Canadian as possible under the circumstances."

The silence also comes from the land. In my experience, it's the morning stillness of a northern lake, with the mist just rising and the occasional slap of a fish on the water, or the sound of my paddle. It's that same lake in the early summer twilight, with the haunting call of the loon coming across the water. It's because of the general feeling of silence we hear so sharply. Never, during all my time away, did I forget the sound of the loon, the whippoorwill, the summer grasshopper, the howl of the wolf or the call of migrating geese. I know, too, the sound of the mosquito. At home, they're a pain; away, they're like our fish stories. They were sooooo-ooooo big.

Silence and solitude. I've swum alone to a raft a few hundred metres out on a lake and stayed there of an afternoon, reading, swimming and watching cloud patterns across the sky. I've set out on a summer road by bicycle, destination unknown, opportunities boundless. Or skated for hours on a northern rink, round and round to music as if in a trance. The first zen moments of a northern child.

In many ways, the apartness of Canadians is well-suited to the business of being a foreign correspondent, or a journalist even.

I missed the seasons. You'd never think it, would you? But in Washington and, especially, Mexico City, where I slowly grew to recognize the different seasons and see their beauty, I enjoyed them, but they weren't mine. I don't think we necessarily need suffering to be true Canadians, but I ask you: can you really experience that wonderful, throw-up-your-arms, shout-and-dance feeling of spring, without having gone through winter?

The more I was away, the more I grew to recognize the inflections and tones of the many accents of Canada when I came home. I write in English and so I missed the sound of my own language. A writer needs that, even if only from time to time. Other Canadians miss the sound of other languages. Others thought I had the accent. Whenever he came by, the FEDEX guy in D.C. — who talked like Norm on Cheers — never failed to get a kick out of asking me to say, "out." Sometimes I would oblige him, although I never really got it.

And I grew nostalgic for the politeness. It's not merely a myth. Once, arriving in Vancouver straight from D.C. on a White House press charter, I remember being struck by the sudden politeness. At the airport, I heard the first person apologize for bumping into a pillar.

We have problems and injustices. No doubt. I'd like to wave a wand and fix everything. I wish we demanded more of our governments as citizens, especially in ending horrible inequality and getting rid of the indifference of politicians and ministries who sometimes forget who pays their salaries. I yearn for an election with the enduring  message for whomever wins being: "Hey, you're not the boss of us!"

Still, when I came home, I was delighted. When I asked a Canadian border official if she wanted to see the documentation for my animals, she said; "Yeah sure, if they are foaming at the mouth." I thought that was the funniest thing I'd ever heard, which tells you how emotional I was.

I've talked about some of my favorite Canadians things, obviously shaped by my background and perspective. Yours is undoubtedly different. The Dominion Institute, an organization that tries to preserve and honour this country's history, has a survey out to determine the top 101 things on this Canada Day. Readers can share their views with this blog, or with the Institute's own site. (There's some bad new on the site too. According to a survey for the Institute by Ipsos Reid, Canadians know more about U.S. history — 47 per cent — than they do about their own — only 42 per cent.)

I wish you a final Happy Canada Day, and leave you with an anecdote about attitude. I know there are many unfavourable attitudes towards Canadians these days. However, I have experienced so many good ones. In the United States, I often used to often interview an African-American teacher working with students in inner-city D.C. Pretty rough. We used to have long conversations about race and he once asked me: "Do all Canadians think like you? ... I want to live there."

"Yes," I said.

We knew it wasn't true, strictly speaking. But he knew what I meant.  Canada seems to me to be a C.S. Lewis kind of country, in the long run, more good than evil.

Hot Docs and other things hot

Can't leave Friday on a NAFTA note. To temper the mood, I offer non-NAFTA reading and other suggestions.

The first isn't so light, but Tracey Deer's documentary, Club Native, is a good analysis of the lunacy of the Indian Act on who has the right blood quantum. I can't offer the film, which previewed recently during Toronto's Hot Docs festival, but here's a taste:

Two other suggestions:

I just read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and loved it. Starkly poetic. I should strike that description, but will leave it in to remind myself how pretentious I can sound.

And, finally, I saw In Bruges. I'd say it's Shakespearian if I could decide whether it's tragedy or comedy.  I was on the floor.

Buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride

Welcome to my Political Decoder blog. I've been thinking about doing this for some time but undertaking it is your fault. It was reader reaction to a recent story that ultimately pushed me to this insanity. The story ("The dark underside of 'Oprah's Big Give' ") prompted about 100 readers to write to me and, while it was tremendously gratifying to know I'm being read, it took the whole weekend to respond to everyone. A blog, I thought, there's the ticket. Readers would be able to see comments by other readers and I wouldn't have to spend summer weekends hunched over my laptop. Besides, being part of a community is the point of the Toronto Star website with its blogs. So, if you feel so inclined, post a comment. Or not. Just remember: be nice.

Writing the Oprah piece made me reflect on things Canadian and, given that I'm national affairs writer, this blog will be "as Canadian as possible under the circumstances." (That line, legend has it, won a Star contest to complete the fragment, "As Canadian as. . . ") Under what circumstances? Dunno. Whatever moves me.

Like other bloggers, I have categories, but I see these as rough guidelines and have every intention of colouring outside the lines. Don't rely on me to get you to Flin Flon by Family Day. "FreeTrade Fridays" could be Tuesdays; "The Downside" could turn into one big giggle.

Like Bette  D. on party night (with her would-be successor baring her teeth in the parlour) I promise to give it as bumpy a go as I know how. Enjoy yourselves and, for me, hope for the best. As the old chief says in Little Big Man : "Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn't." 

I'll offer my first official post later today (can't say much except it's an exclusive, very, very exciting) but for now, I'll slip you an amuse-bouche to tide you over.

(With a nod to the great Joe Martin, let's call it,

UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT:

Yes, yes, the City of Toronto is rolling along with its new bin program. Lucky, lucky us. The smallest blue recycling bin takes the equivalent of one of the old blue boxes, while the small grey garbage bin takes one bag.

But get this. According to the City, "the bin design requires a false bottom to maintain the height required for automated collection." That's for the smallest bins.

Now, there's "truthiness" for you.

I could be wrong, but it sure looks to me like the false bottoms are there for a different purpose entirely: to prevent residents from stuffing in more gum wrappers or orange peels than officially mandated for a particular small bin, before moving up to the next bin in size - and price - like obedient citizens. The medium blue bin takes two of the old blue boxes and the medium grey takes a bag and a half of garbage.

Who comes up with such deviousness?  More money from taxpayers and, for landfills of the future, lots and lots and lots more plastic.

Now there's green thinking to make us all proud.

Check it out for yourselves at the City's site - and weep.