Kofi Annan’s intemperate labelling of an Israeli bombardment that hit a UN post in south Lebanon last week as “apparently deliberate” – before he had even been briefed – is just another straw (Rwanda, Oil-for-Fraud) on the long-ago broken camel’s back of Annan’s credibility. And it firms up an item that should be added to the Conservatives’ majority government checklist: get Brian Mulroney in as Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Mulroney, as has been said only half in jest, has every major dictator on speed dial. He still maintains unsurpassed business and political connections worldwide. As Secretary-General, he would have the respect of the nations who do the heavy lifting and pay the bills, the skills to flatter the nuttier regimes, and the negotiating ability to convince all parties they will get something out of a deal.
If a majority were to be achieved while George W. Bush is still in office, Mulroney’s appointment would likely enjoy the enthusiastic support of the US. The Bushies’ naming of John Bolton as their UN ambassador, and the diplomatic tongue-lashings that Bolton has been delivering at the UN, suggest that the Bush administration does not view the UN as entirely useless, merely misdirected and mismanaged.
By coincidence, Mulroney’s eldest son, Canadian Idol host Ben Mulroney, has just been appointed a national ambassador for UNICEF Canada. Or maybe it’s not a coincidence.
It must be noted that Mulroney’s name has come up for the job before, in October of 1991. This was when Mulroney was barely three years into his second majority mandate, but one year after the GST was implemented and the Meech Lake Accord collapsed. After several days of fevered Toronto Star headlines, Sheila Copps’ demand that he resign, and one round of voting, Mulroney withdrew his name from contention. Boutros-Boutros Ghali of Egypt emerged the winner.
An Angus Reid-Southam News poll taken at that time suggested that 56 per cent of Canadians thought Mulroney should accept the job if it were offered to him, but this may have been more reflective of Mulroney’s unpopularity than Canadians’ enthusiasm for his diplomatic skills. The New Yorker magazine later reported that Mulroney had been actively seeking the job as a suitable exit from politics, but Mulroney denied it.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Underreported Stories Dept: Oil-for-Fraud
Even before the Middle East blew up again, and the words “proportionate” and “civilian” took on their new Orwellian meanings, the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food scandal had been severely underreported. Given recent events, it will likely pass quietly into the impressive annals of UN corruption and incompetence.
But it should not go without mention that a few weeks ago a major figure in the scandal was convicted in a Manhattan court room, try as the New York Times did to downplay it.
The New York Observer had an intriguing piece on the Times passing on covering the Manhattan (i.e. nearby) trial of UN Oil-for-Food bagman Tongsun Park. From a monetary standpoint alone, the scandal dwarfs AdScam.
Our own Western Standard is to be commended for its attention to this story, having done several stories on the scandal (nearly two dozen articles at their website refer to Oil-for-Food), including a lengthy Kevin Libin piece on the involvement of Power Corp. and Maurice Strong, lifelong UN groupie and Kyoto midwife.
Good news, however: in the future, the Times can blame their diminishing news hole for failing to cover fraud and chicanery at the UN, and other inconvenient stories that run counter to their anti-Bush administration viewpoint.
Some excerpts from the Observer story:
The story had everything: secret agents, political intrigue, personal betrayal and cash. Lots and lots of cash.
Yet, for all that, a remarkable trial that ended last week in a Manhattan courtroom—a proceeding that implicated figures in the highest echelons of international politics—was barely mentioned in the major American press. If it weren’t for the journalistic wing of the conservative movement, outlets like the National Review Online and The New York Sun, it might not have been covered at all.
Take the events of last Thursday, for example. After two weeks of testimony, a jury took only a few hours to convict a South Korean national, Tongsun Park, of acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The conspiracy of which he was a part ran for 10 years, ending in late 2002, and helped one of the world’s worst regimes maintain its grip on power.
But The New York Times did not assign a reporter to his trial, its total coverage amounting to a brief wire report on the day following Mr. Park’s conviction. Of the other major national dailies, The Washington Post ran a single news-brief item, the Los Angeles Times not a word.
. . . . .
The episodes described during the trial involve the U.N.’s present as well as its past.
Maurice Strong was current Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy to North Korea until the oil-for-food scandal began to lap around his feet last year.
Fresh details about a check for almost $1 million that Mr. Strong was given by Mr. Park emerged at the trial. The court also heard evidence that Mr. Park covered Mr. Strong’s private office expenses for several years.
Mr. Strong, like Mr. Boutros-Ghali, denies any wrongdoing. But, at the least, it is odd that people at the very highest level of the U.N. enjoyed such a close relationship with Mr. Park.
. . . . .
Mr. Avni, declining to “name names,” also recalled a conversation he said he’d had with a Times reporter some months back:
“I said to him, ‘We are covering the U.N. much more aggressively than you are.’ And he said, ‘Right, but we are covering the Bush administration much more aggressively than you are.’ We find faults where we are looking for faults, and they want to find faults where they are looking for faults.”
Claudia Rosett, a former member of The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board, is now a freelance journalist who has become an authority on the oil-for-food scandal. She blogged the Park trial for National Review Online. She contended that emphasis on the ideological affiliations of the media that have covered the story most effectively is, ultimately, detrimental—because it can too easily divert attention from the scandal itself.
“The criticisms we’ve been hearing about the U.N. would have no traction if they were not grounded in fact,” she said. “The reason this has become a scandal is that the accusations have been proven true.”
But it should not go without mention that a few weeks ago a major figure in the scandal was convicted in a Manhattan court room, try as the New York Times did to downplay it.
The New York Observer had an intriguing piece on the Times passing on covering the Manhattan (i.e. nearby) trial of UN Oil-for-Food bagman Tongsun Park. From a monetary standpoint alone, the scandal dwarfs AdScam.
Our own Western Standard is to be commended for its attention to this story, having done several stories on the scandal (nearly two dozen articles at their website refer to Oil-for-Food), including a lengthy Kevin Libin piece on the involvement of Power Corp. and Maurice Strong, lifelong UN groupie and Kyoto midwife.
Good news, however: in the future, the Times can blame their diminishing news hole for failing to cover fraud and chicanery at the UN, and other inconvenient stories that run counter to their anti-Bush administration viewpoint.
Some excerpts from the Observer story:
The story had everything: secret agents, political intrigue, personal betrayal and cash. Lots and lots of cash.
Yet, for all that, a remarkable trial that ended last week in a Manhattan courtroom—a proceeding that implicated figures in the highest echelons of international politics—was barely mentioned in the major American press. If it weren’t for the journalistic wing of the conservative movement, outlets like the National Review Online and The New York Sun, it might not have been covered at all.
Take the events of last Thursday, for example. After two weeks of testimony, a jury took only a few hours to convict a South Korean national, Tongsun Park, of acting as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The conspiracy of which he was a part ran for 10 years, ending in late 2002, and helped one of the world’s worst regimes maintain its grip on power.
But The New York Times did not assign a reporter to his trial, its total coverage amounting to a brief wire report on the day following Mr. Park’s conviction. Of the other major national dailies, The Washington Post ran a single news-brief item, the Los Angeles Times not a word.
. . . . .
The episodes described during the trial involve the U.N.’s present as well as its past.
Maurice Strong was current Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy to North Korea until the oil-for-food scandal began to lap around his feet last year.
Fresh details about a check for almost $1 million that Mr. Strong was given by Mr. Park emerged at the trial. The court also heard evidence that Mr. Park covered Mr. Strong’s private office expenses for several years.
Mr. Strong, like Mr. Boutros-Ghali, denies any wrongdoing. But, at the least, it is odd that people at the very highest level of the U.N. enjoyed such a close relationship with Mr. Park.
. . . . .
Mr. Avni, declining to “name names,” also recalled a conversation he said he’d had with a Times reporter some months back:
“I said to him, ‘We are covering the U.N. much more aggressively than you are.’ And he said, ‘Right, but we are covering the Bush administration much more aggressively than you are.’ We find faults where we are looking for faults, and they want to find faults where they are looking for faults.”
Claudia Rosett, a former member of The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board, is now a freelance journalist who has become an authority on the oil-for-food scandal. She blogged the Park trial for National Review Online. She contended that emphasis on the ideological affiliations of the media that have covered the story most effectively is, ultimately, detrimental—because it can too easily divert attention from the scandal itself.
“The criticisms we’ve been hearing about the U.N. would have no traction if they were not grounded in fact,” she said. “The reason this has become a scandal is that the accusations have been proven true.”
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Bottom story of the day*
Another hot exclusive from People magazine, who also brought us the Star Jones "I feel like I was fired" story.
*With apologies to the Wall Street Journal Online's Best of the Web Today.
*With apologies to the Wall Street Journal Online's Best of the Web Today.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Another Fiberal backbencher with hoof-in-mouth disease
Dalton McGuinty’s backbench is stirring up memories of the old Reform and Canadian Alliance caucuses, which during the summer months saw regular eruptions of infighting and ill-advised public comments. (Until Harper took over in 2002 and introduced the party to the concepts of focus and discipline.)
This comes on the heels of Thornhill MPP Mario Racco’s musings on the have-or-have-not Maritimes the other day:
Premier Pinocchio immediately distanced himself from the comments of both MPPs – and he was already in Charlottetown.
“I believe the Harper government, which receives its foreign policy from David Frum direct from George Bush, should apologize to the Canadian people for their support of the collective punishment of people first in Gaza and now in Lebanon,” he [Ottawa Liberal MPP Phil McNeely] said in an e-mail obtained by the Citizen. “As an elected member of Parliament I cannot believe that the democratically elected members of Hamas have been captured and imprisoned by this rogue state.”
In an interview with the Citizen yesterday morning, Mr. McNeely stood by the comments in the e-mail. He is so upset about the death and destruction going on in Lebanon that he had to speak out, he said.
--MPP calls Israel ‘rogue’ state, Ottawa Citizen, July 20
This comes on the heels of Thornhill MPP Mario Racco’s musings on the have-or-have-not Maritimes the other day:
Liberal MPP Mario Racco (Thornhill) told the Toronto Star that an Ontario NDP proposal to cap gas prices as is done in the Maritimes and Newfoundland is poor public policy.
Racco went further, saying it would be unwise for Ontario to follow the lead of the poorest region in Canada. “Tell me something, what’s the economic status of the Maritimes? Are they `have’ provinces or `have-not’ provinces? How is their economy doing? Why is it that Ontario has been doing much better than them?” he said. “The past performance would suggest to me their (the Maritime provinces’) approach hasn’t been as effective as it has been in Ontario. Why would we rely on their system?”
--Toronto Star, July 19
Premier Pinocchio immediately distanced himself from the comments of both MPPs – and he was already in Charlottetown.
New Fiberal logo promoting same-sex polygamy?
It looks like John Tory’s fight against Dalton McGuinty’s latest screw-up – redesigning the Ontario logo – is gaining traction. The Star reports today that Tory’s website, SavetheTrillium.ca, has received 2,800 complaints about the logo:
Yup, when I think hip and contemporary, I naturally think of Liberal warhorse Gerry Phillips (who, as Minister of Paper Clips, has to carry the can for the Premier’s office on this one), tourism minister Jim “yes that’s my real hair, why do you ask?” Bradley, and Minister of Cement-Pouring and Ribbon-Cutting David “Flounder” Caplan.
But on closer examination, I have realized that, contrary to my first post on this topic, the logo is not merely the latest Liberal attempt to wipe out Canadian symbols (a la the flag, the three branches of the military, the royal coat of arms, etc.), nor another Liberal gambit aimed at equating its own partisan interests with those of the citizenry, but instead a subtle promotion of same-sex polygamy.
Wait, let me explain.
Some have said, as the Star reports today, that the logo looks like an overhead view of three people in a hot tub. It is clear from the V-shaped figures that these are male body-builders. Now what kind of a body builder gets in a tub with two other guys? The gay kind, that’s who.
So the redesign is not just about making the Liberal party synonymous with Ontario, or destroying a Canadian symbol, or helping their favourite ad agency, it’s apparently a subliminal advertisement for gay polygamy.
I’m just sayin’.
Tory launched the site, http://www.savethetrillium.ca, after the Toronto Star disclosed on June 23 the province had quietly replaced the traditional T-shaped trillium logo with an A-shaped flower — panned as resembling an aerial view of three men in a hot tub.
The controversial new design, which is similar to the trillium that appears in the dot on the “i” in the Ontario Liberal Party’s logo, was done by Bensimon Byrne at a cost of $219,000.
Bensimon Byrne is the same ad firm that did the party’s 2003 election advertising.
Tory noted that the familiar rendition of the province’s official flower dates back to former PC premier John Robarts’ administration in 1964. [The year I was born – now I’m REALLY mad! Next thing you know, Pontiac will stop making the Star Chief my parents bought the same year. What do you mean they already did?]
“Dalton McGuinty took a historic icon of Ontario and changed it without even consulting the taxpayers,” [Tory] said.
Government Services Minister Gerry Phillips has said the change was made to update the province’s brand and make it seem more “contemporary.”--TheStar.com
Yup, when I think hip and contemporary, I naturally think of Liberal warhorse Gerry Phillips (who, as Minister of Paper Clips, has to carry the can for the Premier’s office on this one), tourism minister Jim “yes that’s my real hair, why do you ask?” Bradley, and Minister of Cement-Pouring and Ribbon-Cutting David “Flounder” Caplan.
But on closer examination, I have realized that, contrary to my first post on this topic, the logo is not merely the latest Liberal attempt to wipe out Canadian symbols (a la the flag, the three branches of the military, the royal coat of arms, etc.), nor another Liberal gambit aimed at equating its own partisan interests with those of the citizenry, but instead a subtle promotion of same-sex polygamy.
Wait, let me explain.
Some have said, as the Star reports today, that the logo looks like an overhead view of three people in a hot tub. It is clear from the V-shaped figures that these are male body-builders. Now what kind of a body builder gets in a tub with two other guys? The gay kind, that’s who.
So the redesign is not just about making the Liberal party synonymous with Ontario, or destroying a Canadian symbol, or helping their favourite ad agency, it’s apparently a subliminal advertisement for gay polygamy.
I’m just sayin’.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Bill Graham: building a bridge to a terrorist century
In the 1996 US presidential election, Bill Clinton’s re-election slogan was “building a bridge to the 21st century.” Like most campaign slogans, it was designed to inspire and veil at the same time.
Ten years later, we have the Liberal Party of Canada which, though leaderless, has lost not a dram of its well-honed sense of moral superiority, coating a tasty combination of delusion and toasted nuts (but I'm not going to talk about Dan McTeague today). It too has seen fit to invoke the handy bridge metaphor, though coming from its interim leader, in whose riding a short span to the island airport remains a bridge too far, the metaphor is a poor fit. But that is the least of Bill Graham's rhetorical problems:
* Note to Liberal communications tools: you can set Microsoft Word to Canadian English by going to the “Tools” menu and selecting Language, then Set Language. Select "English (Canada)."
Graham’s evoking of Canada as a “bridge builder,” while urging “dialogue” and a “balanced approach” are vague – and deliberately so – concepts that tiptoe around the rather fundamental questions of: building a bridge -- between whom? Dialogue – with whom? Balanced approach – between what?
The history of the region would suggest the answer is: building a bridge to, and dialogue with, terrorists determined to destroy Israel, five years after it has exited south Lebanon and after it evicted its own citizens from Gaza in the hopes that enough Palestinians preferred land, prosperity and normalcy to refugee camps, squalor and blowing up their own children. The fact that they apparently do not helps explain the reported 80% approval among Israelis for the current military action. What dialogue can there be with people who care more about destroying Israel than any other political goal? What balance can there be between Israel existing and not existing?
And by “all sides in the Middle East,” does Graham mean to include Hezbollah’s sugar daddy Iran, which imprisoned and murdered Canadian journalist Zara Khazemi, then sent the official believed responsible for her death to the recent conference of the UN’s new “we really mean it this time” human rights body?
Graham’s view is not only offside from reality; it is offside from the usual defenders (or at least silent bystanders) of attacks on Israel. Even the Arab League and Saudi Arabia have condemned Hezbollah for the attacks and kidnappings that started the current conflict.
There have been some stunningly naïve arguments offered in defense of Hezbollah, focussing on its charitable and so-called educational activities. I guess people still need to be reminded that Hitler ended inflation, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. I think the Hitler Youth also got a few wayward boys off the streets.
After 27 years of terrorism, it is disheartening to see that so many people still seem to think that treating terrorists as legitimate spokespersons for legitimate grievances is a fruitful tactic. As Osama bin Laden has famously written, the meagre response of the West toward incidents such as the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993, Somalia, the USS Cole, Khobar Towers, etc. convinced him that the West did not have the will to fight.
Terrorists cannot be co-opted, legitimized or dialogued with, because they believe that to negotiate is to capitulate. Anwar Sadat of Egypt made peace with Israel. His reward was an assassin’s bullet.
Bill Graham’s Pollyanna euphemisms only reinforce the argument that, while his rhetoric may be scarcely a decade old, the clock in the Liberal Party’s foreign policy Delorean is permanently set to 1956.
Ten years later, we have the Liberal Party of Canada which, though leaderless, has lost not a dram of its well-honed sense of moral superiority, coating a tasty combination of delusion and toasted nuts (but I'm not going to talk about Dan McTeague today). It too has seen fit to invoke the handy bridge metaphor, though coming from its interim leader, in whose riding a short span to the island airport remains a bridge too far, the metaphor is a poor fit. But that is the least of Bill Graham's rhetorical problems:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper must move away from his hard-line position on the Middle East crisis in favor* of one which enables Canada to maintain its historic role as a bridge builder in the region, Liberal Leader Bill Graham said today.
“We're very concerned about Mr. Harper's change in Canada’s traditional position of working with all sides in the Middle East for long-term peace by being able to work with all sides of the conflict to bring them together and in a dialogue,” Mr. Graham said. “Canada has always been able to act as an intermediary, but we can only serve in that capacity if both our comportment and our actions enable us to play that role.”
Mr. Graham urged Prime Minister Harper to look to the G-8 communique as a starting point for a balanced approach to help all parties in the region come together.
--Liberal party website
* Note to Liberal communications tools: you can set Microsoft Word to Canadian English by going to the “Tools” menu and selecting Language, then Set Language. Select "English (Canada)."
Graham’s evoking of Canada as a “bridge builder,” while urging “dialogue” and a “balanced approach” are vague – and deliberately so – concepts that tiptoe around the rather fundamental questions of: building a bridge -- between whom? Dialogue – with whom? Balanced approach – between what?
The history of the region would suggest the answer is: building a bridge to, and dialogue with, terrorists determined to destroy Israel, five years after it has exited south Lebanon and after it evicted its own citizens from Gaza in the hopes that enough Palestinians preferred land, prosperity and normalcy to refugee camps, squalor and blowing up their own children. The fact that they apparently do not helps explain the reported 80% approval among Israelis for the current military action. What dialogue can there be with people who care more about destroying Israel than any other political goal? What balance can there be between Israel existing and not existing?
And by “all sides in the Middle East,” does Graham mean to include Hezbollah’s sugar daddy Iran, which imprisoned and murdered Canadian journalist Zara Khazemi, then sent the official believed responsible for her death to the recent conference of the UN’s new “we really mean it this time” human rights body?
Graham’s view is not only offside from reality; it is offside from the usual defenders (or at least silent bystanders) of attacks on Israel. Even the Arab League and Saudi Arabia have condemned Hezbollah for the attacks and kidnappings that started the current conflict.
There have been some stunningly naïve arguments offered in defense of Hezbollah, focussing on its charitable and so-called educational activities. I guess people still need to be reminded that Hitler ended inflation, and Mussolini made the trains run on time. I think the Hitler Youth also got a few wayward boys off the streets.
After 27 years of terrorism, it is disheartening to see that so many people still seem to think that treating terrorists as legitimate spokespersons for legitimate grievances is a fruitful tactic. As Osama bin Laden has famously written, the meagre response of the West toward incidents such as the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983, the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993, Somalia, the USS Cole, Khobar Towers, etc. convinced him that the West did not have the will to fight.
Terrorists cannot be co-opted, legitimized or dialogued with, because they believe that to negotiate is to capitulate. Anwar Sadat of Egypt made peace with Israel. His reward was an assassin’s bullet.
Bill Graham’s Pollyanna euphemisms only reinforce the argument that, while his rhetoric may be scarcely a decade old, the clock in the Liberal Party’s foreign policy Delorean is permanently set to 1956.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Yes, he is Canadian
“But a positive note: Is Stephen Harper an hombre or what? Are we sure he’s a Canadian? I mean, an elected one — and one elected prime minister at that?”
That’s National Review managing editor Jay Nordlinger’s observation on Stephen Harper, especially as compared to Chirac and Putin (yes, a rather low bar, but nevertheless).
That’s National Review managing editor Jay Nordlinger’s observation on Stephen Harper, especially as compared to Chirac and Putin (yes, a rather low bar, but nevertheless).
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Nikola Tesla: the man who put the AC in AC/DC
Given that the Toronto Star is among my favourite whipping posts, it feels odd to commend them, but they deserve a nod for Tyler Hamilton’s feature on Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla. It appeared in the Star’s business section yesterday, the 150th anniversary of Tesla’s birth (go to TheStar.com and search “Tesla”).
Hamilton tiptoes around Tesla’s ethnicity, describing him as a Croatian-born Serb. Just to be clear: Tesla was the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest, born in a heavily-Serb area of what is now the independent state of Croatia. But to be fair, Tesla never had much interest in the centuries-old ethnic tensions of the Balkans, and is reported to have said that he was ""equally proud of my Serb origin and my Croatian homeland."
However neither this fact, nor their attempts to ethnically cleanse Croatia of ethnic Serbs, have stopped Croatia from trying to adopt Tesla as its own:
But an Associated Press story published by the Buffalo News notes the lack of electricity around Tesla’s birthplace, and suggests something else is afoot:
From the Star story:
Hamilton tiptoes around Tesla’s ethnicity, describing him as a Croatian-born Serb. Just to be clear: Tesla was the son of a Serbian Orthodox priest, born in a heavily-Serb area of what is now the independent state of Croatia. But to be fair, Tesla never had much interest in the centuries-old ethnic tensions of the Balkans, and is reported to have said that he was ""equally proud of my Serb origin and my Croatian homeland."
However neither this fact, nor their attempts to ethnically cleanse Croatia of ethnic Serbs, have stopped Croatia from trying to adopt Tesla as its own:
“I am happy that we are here today to celebrate Tesla, a Serb, a son of Croatia and a citizen of the world,” Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.
He spoke at a ceremony held just near the house where the scientist, an ethnic Serb, was born in 1856 in the south-central village of Smiljan while Croatia was a part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire.
--physorg.com
But an Associated Press story published by the Buffalo News notes the lack of electricity around Tesla’s birthplace, and suggests something else is afoot:
The crowning irony for war-battered Croatia is that hundreds of villages around Smiljan, his [Tesla’s] native town, have no electricity.
“If Tesla rose from the dead, he wouldn’t believe it,” said Marija Batinic, 50, who lives near Smiljan and believes that the heavily Serb region of central Croatia is being deprived of electricity because of ethnic discrimination.
One reason for Tesla’s transformation from nonperson to national hero in Croatia is the European Union, which wants the country to show gestures of reconciliation toward its Serbs as a condition for joining the prosperous club of democracies.
The government has spent $8.75 million turning Tesla’s house into a museum, and the presidents of Croatia and Serbia will come together Monday to dedicate it on the anniversary of his birth. A new statue of Tesla was unveiled Friday in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, and two more are planned.
Croatia’s Serbian minority, about 12 percent of the population of 4.5 million before the war, is down to 3 percent, many of them in the villages around Smiljan in central Croatia.
The government denies discrimination, blaming the power shortage on a lack of funds. It has promised to restore electricity to about 300 villages when it can get the money.
From the Star story:
He died alone, poor and a little nutty — the Croatian-born ethnic Serb genius whose innovations had a profound impact on development of the modern-day electrical grid.
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, who grew famous in the late 1800s for his public battles with inventor Thomas Edison during the “War of Currents.”
Tesla, at 28, emigrated to the United States in 1884, a time when Edison was aggressively promoting the concept of direct-current power generation. But Edison’s invention had major limitations. The “DC” power stations he was building had to be located in the centre of industry, since the direct current Edison was producing could only travel a kilometre in any direction.
Only 18 central power stations based on DC existed in the United States at that time, and about 370 smaller stations were located within factories. Tesla’s vision was to liberate this electricity through the use of alternating current, or AC, systems, which make it possible to efficiently transmit power over hundreds of kilometres at high voltages.
“He knew down the road, when industry develops, that there would be large amounts of power required to be transferred from one place to another,” says Mike Radan, a Serbian-born Canadian and electrical engineer who worked 35 years at the former Ontario Hydro. “Edison felt threatened.”
But Tesla, on his own an inept businessman, was no match for Edison. It took the support and foresight of American entrepreneur George Westinghouse and his Westinghouse Electric Corp. to push the “AC” concept forward — and to ultimately defeat Edison’s active fight against the AC movement and his aggressive public relations campaign promoting the deadly nature of alternating current.
In the end, Tesla and his AC inventions won the currents war after the Niagara Falls Power Co. and the Canadian Niagara Power Co. embraced the technology for an unprecedented power project at Niagara Falls, which was dependent on Tesla’s “polyphase” AC systems and patents. Westinghouse was chosen to lead construction of the massive hydro stations.
....
Yesterday, the Niagara Parks Commission unveiled a Tesla monument in recognition of his contributions to the region and the world of electricity. The Professional Engineers of Ontario have also declared 2006 to be the year of Tesla.
....
Tesla, who never married, died alone in 1943 of heart failure at 86. But his name lives on. This fall rock idol David Bowie will play Tesla in a movie called The Prestige, which will also star Michael Caine and Hugh Jackman.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
MP mortgage story silent on McGuinty subsidy
Today’s Toronto Star reports MP Garth Turner’s claim that MPs may be able to apply their $75-per-day meal subsidy toward a mortgage if they purchase a home in Ottawa (sorry, no link: the Star’s links never work for me, but you can go to TheStar.com and find the story on the “Canada” page):
The author of the story is GTA Bureau Chief Richard Brennan, late of the Star's Queen’s Park bureau, who would be familiar with the fact that in 2004 the Ontario Liberal party purchased a house in Toronto for Dalton McGuinty to live in. There is no mention in today’s story of the fact that McGuinty hands his approximately $1,460-per-month MPP housing allowance over to the Ontario Liberal party as “rent” on the Rosedale house.
As I posted on my blog in May, the purchase price of the house was $995,000 and a $1,000,000 mortgage in favour of Scotiabank is registered against it. I estimated that the monthly carrying costs for the house would be close to $7,000, including a mortgage payment of $5,845.90 (assuming 5% interest and a 25-year amortization). All the documents are posted here.
To date, the Star has published little detail about McGuinty’s housecapades, revealing only that the house’s price was “in the high six figures” and that the party would accept his monthly housing allowance as adequate rent.
A search of the Star’s archives using the terms McGuinty, house or home, and mortgage, reveals no articles mentioning the payment of the Ontario Liberal party’s mortgage with McGuinty’s MPP allowance.
If an MP were to claim the meal subsidy for 20 days out of a month, that would translate into $1,500, roughly equivalent to what McGuinty is handing the Ontario Liberal party every month.
In fairness, it could be argued that there is a difference between a housing allowance going to pay a mortgage, and a meal allowance going to pay a mortgage. But I am puzzled by the Star’s two-and-a-half-year silence on McGuinty subsidizing a mortgage with his allowance, while trumpeting only the theoretical possibility that MPs might subsidize a mortgage with theirs.
A GTA Conservative MP is calling for the immediate end to a little-known perk that allows MPs to put their $75 daily meal allowance towards their mortgage on an Ottawa residence.
Turner said that, as it stands, an MP can decide to buy a house in Ottawa, rather than rent. (Those who rent are entitled to accommodation and related living expenses of up to $24,000 a year, recently increased from $20,000.) If the house is eventually sold at a profit, the MP pockets the difference, even though taxpayers’ dollars enabled the politician to buy the home.
“I can get my $75 cheque delivered to my office, I can save them up and once a month I can put them against my mortgage.”
The author of the story is GTA Bureau Chief Richard Brennan, late of the Star's Queen’s Park bureau, who would be familiar with the fact that in 2004 the Ontario Liberal party purchased a house in Toronto for Dalton McGuinty to live in. There is no mention in today’s story of the fact that McGuinty hands his approximately $1,460-per-month MPP housing allowance over to the Ontario Liberal party as “rent” on the Rosedale house.
As I posted on my blog in May, the purchase price of the house was $995,000 and a $1,000,000 mortgage in favour of Scotiabank is registered against it. I estimated that the monthly carrying costs for the house would be close to $7,000, including a mortgage payment of $5,845.90 (assuming 5% interest and a 25-year amortization). All the documents are posted here.
To date, the Star has published little detail about McGuinty’s housecapades, revealing only that the house’s price was “in the high six figures” and that the party would accept his monthly housing allowance as adequate rent.
A search of the Star’s archives using the terms McGuinty, house or home, and mortgage, reveals no articles mentioning the payment of the Ontario Liberal party’s mortgage with McGuinty’s MPP allowance.
If an MP were to claim the meal subsidy for 20 days out of a month, that would translate into $1,500, roughly equivalent to what McGuinty is handing the Ontario Liberal party every month.
In fairness, it could be argued that there is a difference between a housing allowance going to pay a mortgage, and a meal allowance going to pay a mortgage. But I am puzzled by the Star’s two-and-a-half-year silence on McGuinty subsidizing a mortgage with his allowance, while trumpeting only the theoretical possibility that MPs might subsidize a mortgage with theirs.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Hands out of my pocket, hands out of my pocket . . .
Price of my Second Cup “small” coffee (which used to be called a “regular”) last week: $1.66
Price of my Second Cup coffee today: $1.64.
A government that I worked to elect keeping a promise: priceless.
(But at which Tim’s does Reg get an extra-large coffee for the same price?)
Lorne Gunter rhapsodizes at length about the meaning of it all in today’s National Post:
We’ve seen tax cuts before. The Mike Harris government in Ontario significantly reduced personal income taxes (30% in its first term; 20% its second – but I believe the McGuinty Fiberals clawed back part of the 20%).
Unfortunately, the Ontario Tories were succeeded by a government that imposed the largest personal income tax hike in Ontario history and has broken 50-plus election promises, yet is still hovering between 35% and 40% in the polls. I remain hopeful that a change in philosophy is happening (or, as Trailer Park Boy Ricky would say “I’m not a pessimist, I’m an optometrist”). But, as I like to say, only time will tell.
Price of my Second Cup coffee today: $1.64.
A government that I worked to elect keeping a promise: priceless.
(But at which Tim’s does Reg get an extra-large coffee for the same price?)
Lorne Gunter rhapsodizes at length about the meaning of it all in today’s National Post:
What thrilled me was the principle of it -- for once, a federal government was keeping less of my money rather than grasping for more.
I have grown so tired of the assumption within government that just because they print the money it all belongs to them and those of us who earn it should be grateful for whatever fraction they permit us to keep.
Those who favour massive social programs believe themselves to possess a heightened sense of social responsibility, and have convinced themselves they know so much better how to spend our money then we do.
They have no particular right to our money, no matter how high-minded their goals for it.
…….
I know the GST rollback is piddling -- hardly worth all my excitement. Still, it marks a change in philosophy about who's in charge, whose rights are paramount -- those of government or individual citizens.
We’ve seen tax cuts before. The Mike Harris government in Ontario significantly reduced personal income taxes (30% in its first term; 20% its second – but I believe the McGuinty Fiberals clawed back part of the 20%).
Unfortunately, the Ontario Tories were succeeded by a government that imposed the largest personal income tax hike in Ontario history and has broken 50-plus election promises, yet is still hovering between 35% and 40% in the polls. I remain hopeful that a change in philosophy is happening (or, as Trailer Park Boy Ricky would say “I’m not a pessimist, I’m an optometrist”). But, as I like to say, only time will tell.
I didn’t know Cheech and Chong owned a courier company . . .
Elections Canada has confirmation that the Marijuana Party's [2005 fiscal] return has been sent by courier and is in transit.
--“Registered Political Parties Submit 2005 Fiscal Returns,” Elections Canada news release, July 1, 2006
--“Registered Political Parties Submit 2005 Fiscal Returns,” Elections Canada news release, July 1, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Star Jones was right – Walters didn’t have her back
Note: this post has been updated. Please scroll to the end.
I never thought I would see the day when I took the side of Star Jones – the Bridezilla grifter and slavering fan of Hillary Clinton – but alas, that day has arrived. I am marginally – marginally – on the side of Jones, in the imbroglio over her departure from the View and the hiring of Rosie O’Donnell to replace Meredith Vieira.
As I recall, and as Jones reminded the public on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show this morning, the View announced the hiring of Rosie O’Donnell to replace Meredith Vieira the same week that O’Donnell publicly dissed Jones: O’Donnell said that Jones should fess up to having had gastric by-pass surgery. (Yes, when I am looking for someone to keep it real, I always think of Rosie O’Donnell, who was pretending to be straight and in love with Tom Cruise when she last had a daytime talk show in the 90s.) From the Drudgereport.com:
I recall that, instead of defending Jones against O’Donnell’s criticism, Walters was reported to have said that if a problem were to emerge on the View after O’Donnell’s arrival, it would not be because of O’Donnell. (Take that, Star!)
Walters’ choosing to defend the incoming O’Donnell over the not-yet-outgoing Jones was telling, and surprising, considering that of all the View co-hosts, Jones has been the most reliable and notorious braun noser of Walters.
True, after O’Donnell’s hiring was announced, Jones apparently did float some items in the gossip columns about looking for other work. Why shouldn’t she, after Walters had already taken O’Donnell’s side? And Jones' outburst yesterday should not have been unexpected.
Further, Walters’ story is that ABC made the decision to fire Jones (or, in their words, not renew her contract). Are we to believe that if Walters had opposed that decision, she was helpless to reverse it? ABC Daytime was nowhere until Walters came along and created the View. She is also the View’s co-producer. If she really wanted Jones to stay, she probably could have made it happen. Instead, she is hiding behind the ABC suits.
Walters’ claim that she has been trying to protect Jones is not credible, in light of the facts that (1) she apparently made no effort to challenge ABC’s decision to dump Jones, (2) she and her co-producer hired someone who had publicly trashed a current co-host and (3) she publicly took the side of O’Donnell over Jones.
Frankly, I am baffled by the hiring of O’Donnell. She doesn’t have Vieira’s gravitas, and her addition to the View table seems redundant: Joy Behar already amply fills the mold of the fat, angry, menopausal, New York liberal.
And speaking of angry, O’Donnell is a very angry woman. During the trial of the suit against her by the publishers of McCall’s magazine – the demise of which followed O’Donnell’s becoming its editorial director – some very ugly testimony was heard about O’Donnell’s behaviour. She told Cindy Spengler, head of marketing of McCall’s, that her silence in a meeting of the magazine was tantamount to lying. Spengler quoted O’Donnell as saying, “You know what happens to people who lie. They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again.”
Ironically, O’Donnell was caught in a lie herself, when she admitted having lied in a deposition that she never made the remark.
Check out this link for more stories of Rosie’s public tirades.
I don’t envy the View’s staffers. Methinks there will be some serious resume-polishing going on over the summer.
O’Donnell is reportedly returning to TV to bolster her own fading celebrity, having whinged that she recently had to wait in line for a table at a restaurant. Oh, the humanity.
I don’t know that I’ll be watching the View regularly when O’Donnell joins the table in the fall, but I’m definitely looking forward to see what Saturday Night Live does with the new lineup and Jones' absence from it.
Addendum: Part of the Walters camp’s spin is the claim that ABC had done audience research that found viewers had been turned off by Jones’ weight loss and wedding. I guess that’s possible, but I’d love to see the research – if any – on O’Donnell.
After her ugly lawsuit over McCall’s, same-sex wedding in San Francisco (which, like all the others performed there, there was nullified because cities can’t change marriage laws), same-sex family cruise line, regular attacks on Bush (sorry, but some of the View’s audience supports him – why else do they let the inept Elisabeth Hasselbeck defend him on occasion?), etc., could O’Donnell have a better image among the View's target audience than Jones? I doubt it, which lends more weight to the theory that Walters was behind dumping Jones – not the suits at ABC.
I never thought I would see the day when I took the side of Star Jones – the Bridezilla grifter and slavering fan of Hillary Clinton – but alas, that day has arrived. I am marginally – marginally – on the side of Jones, in the imbroglio over her departure from the View and the hiring of Rosie O’Donnell to replace Meredith Vieira.
As I recall, and as Jones reminded the public on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show this morning, the View announced the hiring of Rosie O’Donnell to replace Meredith Vieira the same week that O’Donnell publicly dissed Jones: O’Donnell said that Jones should fess up to having had gastric by-pass surgery. (Yes, when I am looking for someone to keep it real, I always think of Rosie O’Donnell, who was pretending to be straight and in love with Tom Cruise when she last had a daytime talk show in the 90s.) From the Drudgereport.com:
Star Jones fired back on Ryan Seacrest’s morning radio show in Los Angeles, PerezHilton.com reports.
Star told KIIS FM: “I’m not trying to be emotional about this. I understand it was a business decision. I understood it was a business decision when I was told then. But then in that same week, I was told they were adding a new co-host and it was Rosie O’Donnell. And that was the same week that she had been so nasty and vicious towards me. Rosie insulted me. She tried to damage me professionally and personally...
“It’s a little shocking to me that Barbara feels betrayed. I was really surprised that Barbara feels betrayed. If you watched me yesterday, I said that she was the most amazing mentor and I thanked her for the most amazing opportunity. My departure was orchestrated some time ago. And while I can accept any business decision, it’s hard to accept the manner in which it was handled during the last two months. But, if you use words like betrayal, if anyone should be betrayed, it should be me! Barbara didn’t have my back...
I recall that, instead of defending Jones against O’Donnell’s criticism, Walters was reported to have said that if a problem were to emerge on the View after O’Donnell’s arrival, it would not be because of O’Donnell. (Take that, Star!)
Walters’ choosing to defend the incoming O’Donnell over the not-yet-outgoing Jones was telling, and surprising, considering that of all the View co-hosts, Jones has been the most reliable and notorious braun noser of Walters.
True, after O’Donnell’s hiring was announced, Jones apparently did float some items in the gossip columns about looking for other work. Why shouldn’t she, after Walters had already taken O’Donnell’s side? And Jones' outburst yesterday should not have been unexpected.
Further, Walters’ story is that ABC made the decision to fire Jones (or, in their words, not renew her contract). Are we to believe that if Walters had opposed that decision, she was helpless to reverse it? ABC Daytime was nowhere until Walters came along and created the View. She is also the View’s co-producer. If she really wanted Jones to stay, she probably could have made it happen. Instead, she is hiding behind the ABC suits.
Walters’ claim that she has been trying to protect Jones is not credible, in light of the facts that (1) she apparently made no effort to challenge ABC’s decision to dump Jones, (2) she and her co-producer hired someone who had publicly trashed a current co-host and (3) she publicly took the side of O’Donnell over Jones.
Frankly, I am baffled by the hiring of O’Donnell. She doesn’t have Vieira’s gravitas, and her addition to the View table seems redundant: Joy Behar already amply fills the mold of the fat, angry, menopausal, New York liberal.
And speaking of angry, O’Donnell is a very angry woman. During the trial of the suit against her by the publishers of McCall’s magazine – the demise of which followed O’Donnell’s becoming its editorial director – some very ugly testimony was heard about O’Donnell’s behaviour. She told Cindy Spengler, head of marketing of McCall’s, that her silence in a meeting of the magazine was tantamount to lying. Spengler quoted O’Donnell as saying, “You know what happens to people who lie. They get sick and they get cancer. If they keep lying, they get it again.”
Ironically, O’Donnell was caught in a lie herself, when she admitted having lied in a deposition that she never made the remark.
Check out this link for more stories of Rosie’s public tirades.
I don’t envy the View’s staffers. Methinks there will be some serious resume-polishing going on over the summer.
O’Donnell is reportedly returning to TV to bolster her own fading celebrity, having whinged that she recently had to wait in line for a table at a restaurant. Oh, the humanity.
I don’t know that I’ll be watching the View regularly when O’Donnell joins the table in the fall, but I’m definitely looking forward to see what Saturday Night Live does with the new lineup and Jones' absence from it.
Addendum: Part of the Walters camp’s spin is the claim that ABC had done audience research that found viewers had been turned off by Jones’ weight loss and wedding. I guess that’s possible, but I’d love to see the research – if any – on O’Donnell.
After her ugly lawsuit over McCall’s, same-sex wedding in San Francisco (which, like all the others performed there, there was nullified because cities can’t change marriage laws), same-sex family cruise line, regular attacks on Bush (sorry, but some of the View’s audience supports him – why else do they let the inept Elisabeth Hasselbeck defend him on occasion?), etc., could O’Donnell have a better image among the View's target audience than Jones? I doubt it, which lends more weight to the theory that Walters was behind dumping Jones – not the suits at ABC.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Another Liberal stinkbomb disguised as a flower
Roses are red, violets are blue, the Ontario trillium is white – right?
Not if you were a Liberal in Ontario in the late 1980s. To adorn the cover of the government's 1988 budget documents – the first budget after winning their huge majority in September 1987 – Liberal treasurer Robert Nixon chose a red trillium. Soon it came out that the red trillum differed from the traditional white one in more than its colour.
The red trillium emits a noxious smell – not unlike the stench left by the 1985-90 Peterson government that jacked up welfare rates, the size of the civil service, and taxes (33 separate tax increases!), leaving their successors in the NDP government of Bob Rae with a time bomb, instead of the balanced budget they claimed (but it was Rae who put the Liberals in power in 1985, so there was a sort of poetic justice to him having to clean up their mess).
Now, as if their 50-plus broken promises weren’t enough, the McGuinty Fiberals have dropped another Liberal-scented stinkbomb on unsuspecting Ontarians. From today’s Toronto Star:
The Liberal government has quietly replaced the traditional Ontario trillium logo dating back to 1964 with a version of the flower similar to the party’s trademark.
In a move opposition critics blasted as “a waste of money” at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty’s administration is running a deficit, the stylized trillium has been radically changed.
Gone is the classic T-shaped rendition of the official provincial flower introduced by Progressive Conservative premier John Robarts 42 years ago.
In its place is a more detailed A-shaped trillium that is eerily similar to one that appears in the dot on the “i” in the Ontario Liberal Party’s three-year-old logo.
Bensimon Byrne, a Liberal-friendly advertising firm, designed the new provincial logo at a cost of $219,000. The agency’s Peter Byrne created the Liberals’ 2003 election ads, including the now-infamous spot featuring McGuinty saying: “I won’t raise your taxes.”
(For the full story, you’ll have to go to TheStar.com and find it – posting the Star’s links never seems to work for me.)
So what appears to be an innocent “rebranding” of the Ontario government is really (1) an attempt to subliminally equate the Ontario government with the Ontario Liberal party and (2) another reward to the Fiberals’ favourite ad agency. I guess you could call the new logo a Trojan flower.
But who is surprised, really? The arrogance symbolized by the phrase “l’état, c’est moi” is deep in the marrow of the Liberal party. Appropriating government symbols to meet the Liberal’s party’s ends – which ends are, after all, questioned only by bigots and Bible-thumpers – is merely one of the more innocent manifestations of their manifest destiny. The sponsorship scandal is one of the more guilty ones.
Another memory of Peterson-era arrogance: after they brought down the Miller PC government in June of 1985, a Liberal banner hung from the front of the Ontario Legislature – for the entire summer. I’m not kidding.
Not if you were a Liberal in Ontario in the late 1980s. To adorn the cover of the government's 1988 budget documents – the first budget after winning their huge majority in September 1987 – Liberal treasurer Robert Nixon chose a red trillium. Soon it came out that the red trillum differed from the traditional white one in more than its colour.
The red trillium emits a noxious smell – not unlike the stench left by the 1985-90 Peterson government that jacked up welfare rates, the size of the civil service, and taxes (33 separate tax increases!), leaving their successors in the NDP government of Bob Rae with a time bomb, instead of the balanced budget they claimed (but it was Rae who put the Liberals in power in 1985, so there was a sort of poetic justice to him having to clean up their mess).
Now, as if their 50-plus broken promises weren’t enough, the McGuinty Fiberals have dropped another Liberal-scented stinkbomb on unsuspecting Ontarians. From today’s Toronto Star:
The Liberal government has quietly replaced the traditional Ontario trillium logo dating back to 1964 with a version of the flower similar to the party’s trademark.
In a move opposition critics blasted as “a waste of money” at a time when Premier Dalton McGuinty’s administration is running a deficit, the stylized trillium has been radically changed.
Gone is the classic T-shaped rendition of the official provincial flower introduced by Progressive Conservative premier John Robarts 42 years ago.
In its place is a more detailed A-shaped trillium that is eerily similar to one that appears in the dot on the “i” in the Ontario Liberal Party’s three-year-old logo.
Bensimon Byrne, a Liberal-friendly advertising firm, designed the new provincial logo at a cost of $219,000. The agency’s Peter Byrne created the Liberals’ 2003 election ads, including the now-infamous spot featuring McGuinty saying: “I won’t raise your taxes.”
(For the full story, you’ll have to go to TheStar.com and find it – posting the Star’s links never seems to work for me.)
So what appears to be an innocent “rebranding” of the Ontario government is really (1) an attempt to subliminally equate the Ontario government with the Ontario Liberal party and (2) another reward to the Fiberals’ favourite ad agency. I guess you could call the new logo a Trojan flower.
But who is surprised, really? The arrogance symbolized by the phrase “l’état, c’est moi” is deep in the marrow of the Liberal party. Appropriating government symbols to meet the Liberal’s party’s ends – which ends are, after all, questioned only by bigots and Bible-thumpers – is merely one of the more innocent manifestations of their manifest destiny. The sponsorship scandal is one of the more guilty ones.
Another memory of Peterson-era arrogance: after they brought down the Miller PC government in June of 1985, a Liberal banner hung from the front of the Ontario Legislature – for the entire summer. I’m not kidding.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
John Kerry*: in favour of withdrawal by year-end before he was against it
Kerry used to be funny. Now he’s just pathetic. From the Boston Globe:
Sure, maybe Kerry’s latest gambit is a thoughtful attempt to get more than the six votes he got for his original cut-and-run plan. Or maybe he’s just a dangerous idiot. The fact that he chose to propose this on the day the mutilated bodies of two American soldiers were found in Iraq would suggest the latter.
* The French-looking Massachusetts senator, who by the way served in Vietnam. He didn’t learn anything, but he still has the hat (hat tip: OpinionJournal.com)
Senator John F. Kerry is pushing back by six months the deadline he wants to set for removing combat troops from Iraq, as he seeks to build support in the Senate for his plan for troop withdrawal.
The proposal to be offered by Kerry today would require President Bush to remove nearly all US troops from Iraq by July 1, 2007. The Massachusetts Democrat's initial plan -- to remove troops by the end of 2006 -- received just six votes in the Senate last week, and the later date is intended to build support for the proposal, said April Boyd, a Kerry spokeswoman. (Hat tip: Lucianne.com)
Sure, maybe Kerry’s latest gambit is a thoughtful attempt to get more than the six votes he got for his original cut-and-run plan. Or maybe he’s just a dangerous idiot. The fact that he chose to propose this on the day the mutilated bodies of two American soldiers were found in Iraq would suggest the latter.
* The French-looking Massachusetts senator, who by the way served in Vietnam. He didn’t learn anything, but he still has the hat (hat tip: OpinionJournal.com)
Monday, June 19, 2006
Reporter bites owner
A newsboy cap tip to David Giles for steering me to this scathing op-ed in the Saskatoon StarPhoenix penned by Les MacPherson. It is a bracing – to put it mildly – corrective to the adoring obituaries of Lord Thomson in the wake of his death last week:
What follows are anecdotes of filthy offices, staff working unrecompensed overtime hours, and reporting standards that would only fly in a one-newspaper town. And here’s MacPherson’s take on the writing-instrument policy at Thomson Newspapers, which apparently was even worse than the lore I had heard:
What the obituaries don't mention, however, is Thomson's pathological greed. His celebrated media empire was built on monopoly newspapers that treated their employees like dirt while providing a third-rate product to captive subscribers.
I speak here from personal experience. I worked for the Prince Albert Daily Herald for a few years back in the 1970s, when it was part of the Thomson newspaper chain. This was the meanest, cheapest organization I've ever known.
What follows are anecdotes of filthy offices, staff working unrecompensed overtime hours, and reporting standards that would only fly in a one-newspaper town. And here’s MacPherson’s take on the writing-instrument policy at Thomson Newspapers, which apparently was even worse than the lore I had heard:
It was in Moose Jaw where reporters had to take notes with pencils because pens were deemed too expensive. To get a new pencil, they first had to turn in the old pencil stub. When the photographers exceeded their film budgets, editors were told to run old pictures until next month. This at a daily newspaper. That's how Ken Thomson got to be the wealthiest man in Canada.
Friday, June 16, 2006
The dog that didn’t bark
I am somewhat confused by the unadulterated praise for the late Ken Thomson, citing his (a) business acumen (b) philanthropy (c) common touch (d) love of art (e) love of dogs, in particular walking his own among the common folk of Rosedale (and seeing to the scooping personally).
Not that any of this tribute is untrue or undeserved, but where are the oft-told tales of the legendary parsimony at Thomson Newspapers, the bits of grit around which the pearl necklace of the Thomson empire was built?
Where are the anecdotes related by reporters who had worked on Thomson papers, poured into the credulous ears of journalism students such as myself? Anecdotes such as reporters being required to turn in a dry ballpoint pen before being issued another. Black humour (no pun intended) along the lines of: if Thomson managers could figure out how to use both sides of a piece of toilet paper, it would be company policy.
Perhaps over the past decade or so Thomson has been eclipsed by Conrad Black as the gold standard of malevolent media ownership, allowing Thomson Newspapers’ bean-counting to fade into the mists of memory. And to be sure, having to beg a supply clerk for a 25-cent Bic hardly compares to being described by your owner thus: “My experience with journalists authorises me to record that a very large number of them are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised.” (My favourite epigram about Conrad Black has always been former Saturday Night editor John Fraser’s observation that “If Conrad Black didn’t exist, journalists would have to invent him in order to have someone to be fearful of.”)
But for there to be almost no mention of the penny-pinching at Thomson? Odd.
Reading Thomson’s obits, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the initial flurry of obituaries after Richard Nixon’s death in 1994, which highlighted his achievements after leaving the White House in 1974, and the regard in which he was held at his death. Within days there was a bit of a push back from boomer journalists and commentators along the lines of, “Er, sorry to spoil the wake, but didn’t this man try to subvert the constitution, and resign in disgrace after the House Judiciary Committee recommended that he be impeached?”
I wonder if there will be any similar correctives offered on Thomson. Only time will tell.
Not that any of this tribute is untrue or undeserved, but where are the oft-told tales of the legendary parsimony at Thomson Newspapers, the bits of grit around which the pearl necklace of the Thomson empire was built?
Where are the anecdotes related by reporters who had worked on Thomson papers, poured into the credulous ears of journalism students such as myself? Anecdotes such as reporters being required to turn in a dry ballpoint pen before being issued another. Black humour (no pun intended) along the lines of: if Thomson managers could figure out how to use both sides of a piece of toilet paper, it would be company policy.
Perhaps over the past decade or so Thomson has been eclipsed by Conrad Black as the gold standard of malevolent media ownership, allowing Thomson Newspapers’ bean-counting to fade into the mists of memory. And to be sure, having to beg a supply clerk for a 25-cent Bic hardly compares to being described by your owner thus: “My experience with journalists authorises me to record that a very large number of them are ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised.” (My favourite epigram about Conrad Black has always been former Saturday Night editor John Fraser’s observation that “If Conrad Black didn’t exist, journalists would have to invent him in order to have someone to be fearful of.”)
But for there to be almost no mention of the penny-pinching at Thomson? Odd.
Reading Thomson’s obits, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the initial flurry of obituaries after Richard Nixon’s death in 1994, which highlighted his achievements after leaving the White House in 1974, and the regard in which he was held at his death. Within days there was a bit of a push back from boomer journalists and commentators along the lines of, “Er, sorry to spoil the wake, but didn’t this man try to subvert the constitution, and resign in disgrace after the House Judiciary Committee recommended that he be impeached?”
I wonder if there will be any similar correctives offered on Thomson. Only time will tell.
Unpopular views test tolerance limit
Letter published in today's Toronto Star, on Ryerson University's award of an honorary degree to ethicist Margaret Somerville:
As a Ryerson graduate, I commend the university for standing by its decision to award an honorary degree to Margaret Somerville. The academic council committee put it well in its statement that says, in part, "If we withdraw the award, then we demonstrate that as a university we show tolerance for some contestable views but not others."
In recent years it seems that many in the gay community — having now checked off most of their own agenda items — have forgotten the meaning of tolerance. They also seem to have forgotten that it is unpopular views that test the limits of tolerance and that their views were once in that category.
Joan Tintor, Toronto
Postscript: I heard on CFRB yesteday that Ryerson had no idea about Somerville's "controversial" views on same-sex marriage. Not doing a news database search on people being considered for honorary degrees is a bit careless and it reflects badly on Ryerson that this basic due diligence was not done.
Had they found the news stories about her testimony before Parliament and decided not to honor her because of her position on gay marriage, I would have had no quarrel with that -- there is no "right" to receive an honorary degree and universities are free to base them on whatever criteria they wish.
But Somerville is being honored for her academic work, not her views on same-sex marriage, and rescinding the degree after it had already been publicly announced would have been unfair to Somerville and sent the wrong message, as per the quote from Ryerson above.
As a Ryerson graduate, I commend the university for standing by its decision to award an honorary degree to Margaret Somerville. The academic council committee put it well in its statement that says, in part, "If we withdraw the award, then we demonstrate that as a university we show tolerance for some contestable views but not others."
In recent years it seems that many in the gay community — having now checked off most of their own agenda items — have forgotten the meaning of tolerance. They also seem to have forgotten that it is unpopular views that test the limits of tolerance and that their views were once in that category.
Joan Tintor, Toronto
Postscript: I heard on CFRB yesteday that Ryerson had no idea about Somerville's "controversial" views on same-sex marriage. Not doing a news database search on people being considered for honorary degrees is a bit careless and it reflects badly on Ryerson that this basic due diligence was not done.
Had they found the news stories about her testimony before Parliament and decided not to honor her because of her position on gay marriage, I would have had no quarrel with that -- there is no "right" to receive an honorary degree and universities are free to base them on whatever criteria they wish.
But Somerville is being honored for her academic work, not her views on same-sex marriage, and rescinding the degree after it had already been publicly announced would have been unfair to Somerville and sent the wrong message, as per the quote from Ryerson above.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Channelling “Carrie” on a Thursday morning
I was waiting in line this morning to buy a coffee. The guy ahead of me had brought his own mug, a blue glass job bearing the unmistakeable logo of OPSEU – the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. Silently I cursed OPSEU and all public sector unions.
I looked away for a few seconds, then heard a loud “pop” and breaking glass. The OPSEU mug had exploded into several large pieces after its owner filled it with fresh coffee. No one was injured, but I suspect my look of contentment might have put Mona Lisa to shame.
One of the coffee shop staff pointed at me jokingly, saying “she did it.” Well now, maybe I did.
I looked away for a few seconds, then heard a loud “pop” and breaking glass. The OPSEU mug had exploded into several large pieces after its owner filled it with fresh coffee. No one was injured, but I suspect my look of contentment might have put Mona Lisa to shame.
One of the coffee shop staff pointed at me jokingly, saying “she did it.” Well now, maybe I did.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Pitfield says take back our public services – on second thought, never mind
I was surprised to hear a report that Toronto councillor and mayoral candidate Jane Pitfield had argued in favour of phasing out the unions that deliver Toronto’s public services such as transit and garbage pickup:
Pitfield seems like a smart woman and a common-sense pol, but she has never struck me as particularly visionary or bold – which any politician who dares question the existence of public sector unions would have to be.
By close of business yesterday Pitfield had issued a clarification:
My regular readers (all five of them) will know that ”taking back our public services” is one of my most cherished hobbyhorses. While I continue to hope that some gutsy politician(s) will take up this fight someday, it’s obvious that Jane Pitfield is not going to be the one to do it.
"The unions are stronger than I have ever seen them," Pitfield said. "It's not healthy for the city. Perhaps it's time to start phasing out unions."
Pitfield seems like a smart woman and a common-sense pol, but she has never struck me as particularly visionary or bold – which any politician who dares question the existence of public sector unions would have to be.
By close of business yesterday Pitfield had issued a clarification:
"I wish to state clearly that organized labour can have an important role to play in municipal government and do not believe that they should be decertified or eliminated," she wrote. "However, this is clearly distinguishable from the increasing influence that unions have currently, which in my view is threatening the ability of our city to function to the best of its ability."
One of the few remaining contracts not handled by the unions is garbage pick-up in Etobicoke and York. City staff prepared a report saying it would cost $21 million extra for the city to take over those routes.
Pitfield said she'd like to sit down and speak to the heads of the city's unions about how the union contracts are stressing the city's operating budget. [insert laugh track here]
My regular readers (all five of them) will know that ”taking back our public services” is one of my most cherished hobbyhorses. While I continue to hope that some gutsy politician(s) will take up this fight someday, it’s obvious that Jane Pitfield is not going to be the one to do it.
Monday, June 12, 2006
California voters reject Meathead’s universal preschool plan
This story is several days old, but I didn’t see it reported in the Canadian media, despite the parallels to the debate here over the federal Liberals’ child care scheme – a scheme to which many Liberal leadership candidates remain firmly wedded.
Last week California voters rejected a proposition that would have provided “free” preschool to all 4-year-olds. The measure was spearheaded by director Rob Reiner, who first rose to fame as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on the 1970s TV series All in the Family. (My fellow geezers may also recall that Reiner alternated with Canadian actor Stuart Margolin in the role of “Snake” on the Partridge Family; Snake was a biker and would-be suitor of Laurie Partridge.)
As the Los Angeles Times reported last week:
Last week California voters rejected a proposition that would have provided “free” preschool to all 4-year-olds. The measure was spearheaded by director Rob Reiner, who first rose to fame as Mike “Meathead” Stivic on the 1970s TV series All in the Family. (My fellow geezers may also recall that Reiner alternated with Canadian actor Stuart Margolin in the role of “Snake” on the Partridge Family; Snake was a biker and would-be suitor of Laurie Partridge.)
As the Los Angeles Times reported last week:
Voters rejected a ballot measure that would have taxed the wealthy to provide free preschool for all California 4-year-olds, while a $600-million library bond issue appeared headed for defeat early today.
Proposition 82, the universal preschool proposal created and bankrolled by Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner, was designed to raise an estimated $2.4 billion annually by taxing individuals who earn more than $400,000 and couples who earn more than $800,000.
Shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday, Reiner acknowledged to a crowd at Los Angeles' Westin Bonaventure Hotel that Proposition 82 was not faring well.
"But it doesn't matter," he said. "Win or lose, we have raised the profile of the importance of early childhood education and preschool in this state, and it will never go away."
To those who didn't like the initiative, Reiner said: "Help us come up with another way."
The measure envisioned free half-day preschool at public schools and private learning centers for all children, regardless of family income. Opponents, who raised about half as much money as supporters, argued throughout the campaign that the measure was well-intentioned but fatally flawed.
The billions of dollars it would raise would be better spent on the state's public schools, they said, instead of providing a subsidy to the middle-class and well-off who can afford to pay for preschool.
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