Rolling down the shutters

Dear patrons: GMW will be closed for the Great Winter Hoohah as of tomorrow. We intend to keep busy and come back better than ever in the New Year: while you loll about in your tryptophan coma, GMW staff will be taking inventory, sweeping out any dusty corners, installing a new zinc bar, renovating the men's loo, and laying down warfarin. We may even do a little research on how to put up photographs. We will be open for business sporadically as of Dec. 27, and resume regular opening hours at the start of the New Year. No reservations will be taken until that time, but feel free to leave a message after the tone. Happy holidays and a merry everything!

Your morning aaargh

Another weird-ass front page today, as the photo and no. 2 headline go to an agitated and disoriented Business columnist, under the mysterious headline "Will Danny's resource power grab pay off?" You see, Premier Williams of Newfoundland (as we bloggers with our olde-world courtesy prefer to call him) has expropriated hydro assets and timber cutting rights belonging to AbitibiBowater, in response to their plans to close their main mill in central Newfoundland and throw huge numbers of people out of work. But it takes a hell of a lot of work to find that out, what with having to wade through endless unfunny Hugo Chavez jokes and wipe off all the spittle. I don't know how much Abitibi stock Konrad Yakabuski owns, but he is a very very angry little man. (Actually, if he owns stock he should be grateful by the sound of it.)

If you read the other, background article on p. 4, you get much more information, including the somehow amusing fact that the government informed Abitibi of its plans by e-mail. Also that Williams claims Abitibi has reneged on its side of the 1905 (!) contract it had with the government.

The Premier quoted century-old documents to the legislature. He cited a 1903 letter from the president of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company Limited, a predecessor to AbitibiBowater, and a 1905 lease agreement to argue that the company's rights were dependent on operating a mill in the province.

But neither article bothers to investigate the content of Williams' claims and work out whether they're true or not. So, though it certainly warms the heart to see a corporate hack that angry, there's absolutely no way for the reader to figure out the rights and wrongs here. (It does seem suggestive that they can't find a single Newfoundlander to quote as opposed to Williams' plan, not even the heads of the other major local employers.) The Globe knows what it wants you to think -- so much so that they're prepared to pass off the editorial as the news story and cut the news story down to a useless add-on.

UPDATE: Heh heh, about half the letters to the editor today are complaints about that dumb story. Well, you heard it here first.

Apples 12, Oranges 0

Malcolm Gladwell's articles are always loaded with fascinating information, but then it's a toss-up whether the inferences he draws are clever or ridiculous. Last week's article in the New Yorker was definitely on the asinine side, so I was disturbed to see it being pushed further by Yglesias.

Gladwell's starting point is the fun fact that apparently it's almost impossible to predict who will be a successful NFL quarterback. The NFL defensive teams are so much faster than in college that the whole strategic picture changes, and it's impossible to tell who will be able to adapt. Ok, fine. (Though actually it doesn't sound like an unsolvable problem to me: instead of watching games, just run some lab tests to find out exactly how fast the guy's vision and reflexes are.)

Then we get a analogy with (elementary and high school) teaching. Apparently there is such a thing as teaching skill: year after year some teachers get demonstrably better results than others on an objectively measurable and consistent basis. (Colour me somewhat more sceptical here.) But as with the quarterbacks, no one can predict who those good teachers are going to be. Somewhat spoiling his point, Gladwell then describes an experience of watching videos of teachers and instantly detecting which ones are successful (videos of beginning teachers at that, so there's no way these judgements could be backed up by the kind of long-term comparative evidence he's just been insisting is probative). Apparently it's a breeze to tell good teachers from bad once they're in the classroom, and it's just as you'd expect: the good teachers are the interactive, confident, responsive, high-feedback ones. Hence my scepticism: the profile of 'good teaching' here sounds suspiciously like what the education industry already assumed it was. But perhaps it is so.

The ridiculous part is the moral Gladwell draws: we need a lot more turnover in teaching. Abolish all entry barriers, and then fire everyone who doesn't perform! Because as with the quarterbacks, you can't predict, you can only sort after the fact. But this doesn't make sense for either industry -- and that's about all they have in common. The problem with selecting NFL quarterbacks is that they need physical gifts so extraordinary that they're freaks of nature even among skilled football players, and the costs of a wrong choice are extremely high. (So it's no surprise that the NFL doesn't in fact use the massive-turnover strategy.) In the case of schools as well, the costs of bad teaching are pretty high. But if good teaching is what Gladwell thinks it is, it's a bag of tricks that any reasonably quick-witted person could learn to master. So why not just teach actual teachers to do it? He's written an article about how to improve teaching which depends on the assumption that teaching can't work.

A lot of writing about education, even by smart guys like Gladwell and Yglesias, has this not-too-well-concealed Fire everybody! agenda. And it's not hard to guess why. Everybody had to suffer under The Teacher From Hell at some point in their lives, and it's an extremely traumatic experience. It's as if every single person writing about health care policy had had a close call with a botched surgery -- of course you get obsessed with the problem of bad apples. And I don't deny that there is such a problem. But if these guys kept in better touch with their high school friends, they'd know that their Teacher From Hell was somebody else's inspirational teacher of a lifetime. It's not a simple business. And it definitely isn't football.

Toronto Life watch

I see Toronto Life is still running that stupid poll feature on the back page. Every month I hope it will have been changed to something more interesting, like 'Casserole of the Month' or 'Celebrity Lint', but no. They ask random vox pops a bunch of neither-serious-nor-actually-funny questions and print the meaningless results. I can see the advantages from the editor's point of view: it's free, and the intern can do it in an hour. But you'd think there'd be a voice in the back of his head pointing out that it's totally unamusing, month after month.

The only reason I notice is that the back page used to be the best thing in the magazine. It was a kind of obituary page, only for local institutions as well as heroes and villains -- I remember one for the old CHUM AM. It was often very poignant and well written, with a genuine local feeling. And before that it was a pretty good humour column by Marni Jackson. (Yes, Dr. B. goes way back.) It's the perfect spot for a snappy interview, or to a spotlight a local hero. But I guess advertisers don't care what goes there. And so the editors don't either.

'How to insult George Bush, wherever you are in the world'

is the irresistible headline of an article in the on-line Guardian's today, complete with action photo of flying shoes. Unfortunately it's just a survey of traditionally obscene and insulting hand gestures from around the world -- which turns out to mean just about every hand gesture you can imagine, including the Churchill victory sign. This is useful information, but does not solve the problem of what to do when George Bush is not standing in front of you.

Nitwit of the Day

Now this is just embarrassing -- can we please get some kind of ruling that hockey columnists do not get to also write about politics? Maybe from the board of health under workplace sanitation rules, like the way raw poultry has to be handled separately. Having spent the weeks in question covering Sidney Crosbie, Roy MacGregor here shows olde-Canadian grit and resourcefulness in just making stuff up as regards the nameless parliamentary crisis. For the record: we have no reason to think that the G-G was 'uncertain' about anything, whatever exactly he means by that, and it is not true that "one of the polls found that nearly three-quarters of Canadians were "scared" silly by all this." Well, maybe one of the polls did, I don't know what might be out there (and notice how msm columnists never give you links, even in the online version), and I know that for instance the outfit that specializes in climate-change denialist push-polling also did a poll with some predictably absurd results. But the only serious poll I saw about the coalition, and the only one the Globe itself bothered printing, had the following on the relevant point:

Only 37 per cent of respondents supported the proposed Liberal-NDP coalition, while 58 per cent opposed it.

Good luck getting that to equal 'three-quarters scared silly'.

Meanwhile some of the grownup columnists are also peddling this tripe about the coalition having been an unmitigated disaster with the voters, what a terrible blunder it was, good thing Ignatieff is backing away etc. etc. I can't tell whether they've been sincerely gulled by all the hysterical screeching from the right (not that it wasn't sincere screeching, just that the Con base is very good at puffing its chest out to look bigger than it is). Actually my suspicion is that the media insider types were just so horrified by Dion's amateur video that it's the only thing they can remember about the whole business (which happened all of ten days ago). Anyway, the fact that public opinion was divided and equivocal in all the ways you'd expect has been pushed right down the memory hole already.

Wacky Hijinks of the Wealthy

Shorter Leah McLaren: My rich friends have stopped giving to charity! Funny or what?!

I'm going with 'what', but there is something funny here, which is how desperately the online Globe seems to be hiding the piece -- though I did eventually find it, if you really care. In fact the whole 'Shopping' section, or whatever it's called, practically disappears online; and the only McLaren piece openly listed anywhere is from November 22, and she comes up sixth on a search for 'McLaren'.

Add in that the online version regularly reclassifies the trivial stories that appear on the front page (as Sports or Business or whatever they in fact are); and that it updates pretty rapidly during the day; and that there's some good extra political coverage (including this guy's very interesting blog), and you have a paper that's way more serious than the paper version. I hope they're finding a way to make some money off it.

Canada as Milhouse

All through this fall, as the financial system of the U.S. imploded, it seemed to be almost impossible to get good information on how, and how far, and why Canada was or wasn't different. Did we do that whole highly leveraged securitization of subprime mortgages thing? Apparently not -- who knows why. Did we have mortgages like that in the first place? I was sure I'd seen ads for such things. Now the Globe finally gets around to looking into it, and the short answer is yes, it did happen here -- but only for two years, spring 2006-2008, at which point the government beat a stumbing retreat back to its senses.

“Quite honestly I was surprised [the 40-year mortgage] was seized upon so eagerly by the Canadian banks and borrowers,” said a U.S. insurance executive who asked not to be named. “You hear all the usual excuses: ‘It's a cash-flow management tool, people will pay off their mortgage ahead of time.' But in reality it just becomes a mechanism for borrowing more than you probably should have.”

Industry officials repeatedly said in interviews that they were shocked at the frenzied escalation of risk. “It was fast and furious,” said one AIG executive. [yes, that AIG: apparently their awe-inspiring stability and prestige played a major role in gulling Canadian regulators at the time]

We have so little transparency in the mortgage system that one can't say with confidence that disaster has been avoided. But if it has been, it's clear that the reasons are what they always are around here: sheer dumb luck, or more precisely Canadian caution and inertia. It's not that anyone actually perceived the risks accurately and spoke out. It's not that Canadians are less greedy. It's certainly not that our politicians and regulators are more aggressive in defending the public good. It's just that when Americans decide to do something incredibly risky and reckless and stupid, it takes Canada ten years to make up its mind to do the same thing.

Nolen to India

Stephanie Nolen, surely the Globe's best reporter these days, is leaving the Africa beat. The farewell article makes it clear why five years is enough, but it's too bad -- good reporting on Africa is a really scarce commodity. The stories she emphasises are mostly the obvious ones (AIDS in South Africa, Congo civil war), but the ones I remember best were a series on Mugabe this spring and summer, when it looked like the evil old bastard might actually go. God knows why they would have talked to her, but her articles gave you a vivid sense of listening in on debates among the Old Man's cronies -- far more detailed and telling than anything I read anywhere else. Likewise her attempts to explain the awful anti-foreigner riots in South Africa last spring. And, above all, a great article about how the current movement to prosecute former tyrants at the ICJ, and the prosecution of Charles Taylor in particular, was having the unintended consequence of pressing Mugabe and similar to cling to power for as long as possible. It was impeccably reported, fairly written, and unanswerable -- the most disturbing piece I've ever read in that great genre, 'Westerners with good intentions once again pave road to hell for Africans'.

By popular request

I didn't mention it yesterday, because I'm trying to keep a cap on the number of posts about how awful the front page looks. But yes, it does seem ridiculous to have a front-page story about the fact that Ian Brodie is now a lobbyist. And the headline is ridiculous too:

"PM's former adviser accused of peddling access to corridors of power"

... in other words accused of being a lobbyist. Shock, horror, shock. Of course he's a lobbyist: that's what people like that do, after leaving the PMO and similar, and I've never understood why it's viewed as inherently evil. Our political system depends absolutely on a large cadre of full-time career political hacks -- the guys who run the campaigns, keep the party machinery working, develop policy, talent-spot and hold things together for whichever party is out of power. They don't hold elected office (a good thing) and aren't really employable outside of politics either (also good). Meanwhile given the nature of our system there are bound to be lobbyists of some description. Having the hacks employed as the lobbyists is a very effective way to get big business to massively subsidize the costs of our political system, without it being perceived as a tax. Of course governments that make bad policy because of insider lobbying are bad governments, but that doesn't have to be the outcome and it's a whole nother problem.

Can I just say how much I love saying 'the King-Byng Affair'?

Canadians are not much good at naming -- who else would have traded in 'Dominion Day' for 'Canada Day'? Then there's the way every institution has to be named the Canadian X (CBC, CNE, CMHC, NGC, CMC, CFL...). Because we have to insist that Canada too has an X -- not a very big X, of course, not the X, not an X with any distinguishing features, just a little X of our very own. And if we called it the National X most Canadians would think it was American.

So it seems worth pointing out that 'the King-Byng Affair' is a genuinely kick-ass meme. It has that proto-Ludlum, welthistorische-diplomatische resonance -- right up there with Molotov-Ribbentrop, the Balfour Declaration, and the War of Jenkin's Ear, but with a slightly P.G. Wodehouse assonance all its own. And we don't need to call it the Canadian King-Byng Affair, now do we?

So now that we have a bit of a lull in Nameless Crisis, let's all get cracking on a name for it.

Igwatch

So, everyone is asking, "What do we think of this Ignatieff fellow?" So far opinion in these pages breaks down as follows:

white-hot hatred: 20%
he's ruthless and intelligent, good: 20%
turns too many people off -- he's toast: 20%
ambivalent/undecided: 20%
ambivalent with overtones of Judith Krantz: 20%

Dr. B. herself is still waiting for the full graphological analysis of that wobbly signature on the Coalition petition, but will come up with an opinion in due course. In the mean time, she notes that Ignatieff made exactly the right noises yesterday:

- a coalition if necessary, but not necessarily a coalition ("You don't vote against a budget you haven't read.")

- ...someone asked him at his first press conference how he would cope with attack ads from the Conservatives. With a look of defiance and a rising voice, Mr. Ignatieff warned Mr. Harper that in the middle of a parliamentary crisis, "it would be a very serious mistake" to do so.

- major project will be to win back dingbat vote fixated on 1980 Trudeau energy policy [ed. note -- project phrased somewhat differently by M.I.]

- and the good bit: "I don't take lessons in legitimacy from Stephen Harper."

Stick up, into the boards, a clean hit and off we go. Good. Because if there's one thing everybody knows about Stephen Harper, it's that he's a bully. And if there's one thing Canadian voters hate, judging by the fortunes of Stephane Dion, it's a bully's victim.

Because there are no cool couples cooler than Toronto cool couples

In the November 24 New Yorker, a profile of Duguid and Alford:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/24/081124fa_fact_kramer

In the December 8 New Yorker, a profile of Naomi and Avi:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/08/081208fa_fact_macfarquhar

So which hipsters will be welcoming the New Yorker to their downtown Victorian brick semi in the December 22 issue? Atom and Arsinee? Peggy and Graeme? Those lesbians with the big dog down the street? Please god not Jack and Olivia.

Your Section A recap

In today's Globe on the front page with photo, a story of interest strictly to those nostalgic for all things 1988: 'Bobsledders make a cool run to B.C.' [ed. note -- I hope this is not their idea of going for that coveted 'younger' demographic]

On page 3: 'Canada ties for last among developed countries in early-childhood care'

page 7: Canada becoming pariah for aggressive indifference to global warming

page 13: those Greek riots explained, sort of

Given how many of them are required, I can understand having a cap on the prominence of articles to the effect 'Canada under Harper increasingly a shithole'. But I can't be the only person who's been wondering for a few days why Athens is in flames.

I note that the Jamaican bobsled story is kind of hard to find on-line, since it's accurately treated as a minor story under Sports. Evidently on-line readers are assumed to be more interested in that whole 'news' thing.

Another milestone in the life of the Dominion

as, in what I believe is a first, the word 'fuck' appears on the front page of the Globe and Mail.

The story is quoting from who else but the fabulously corrupt Governor Rob Blagojevich, as he imprecates the unhelpful Obama administration. As you recall, dear reader, a story covered here with more consideration for the delicate sensibilities of the Canadian web-surfer.

Distinct Society

Noted in a random juxtaposition this morning, the old Quebec:

[Former PM Jean] Chretien was born on January the 11, 1934 in Shawinigan, Quebec, as the 18th of 19 children (10 of whom did not survive infancy) to Wellie Chrétien and Marie Boisvert...

Not that long ago, really.

And the new, from the results of Monday's election:

"Left-wing party aiming to 'share the wealth' gains a foothold"

In the surprise breakthrough of the election, physician Amir Khadir picked up a first seat for the Québec solidaire party, a fledgling formation whose policies for big government would place it on the fringes of the Canadian political spectrum.

Dr. Khadir, an Iranian-born father of three, ousted a two-term Parti Québécois incumbent to win a riding in the heart of Montreal.

Québec solidaire brands itself as leftist, ecologist, feminist, pacifist, pluralistic, democratic and sovereigntist.

And why can't they just vote Green or NDP like normal people, and try to, you know, actually build something that might spread? Oh right -- because they have to add that souverainiste bit. There's no chance that the comfortable artsies on the Plateau are actually serious about that, but god forbid that they should give up on the reflexive fuck-you to the rest of Canada, it's a sacred moral requirement.

Ah, Quebec -- always inspiring, heartwarming and totally aggravating in equal measure.

Last of the Rae days

Do you, like Simpson this morning, feel kinda sorry for Bob Rae? I don't really, even though I have have plenty of respect for him. The reason Rae's deficit-raddled 1990-95 premiership hangs around his neck like a leper's bell is that nobody knows what he's been up to since then. And if his reputation is unfair it was up to him to fix it. He's clever enough to have written a bestseller to redefine himself, the way Chretien did with Straight from the Heart, but he didn't. (Wait a minute, he did write a book, and it sounds kinda interesting. But I'd never heard of it.) He could also have outed himself as a Liberal much earlier and put his real skills on display under Chretien, Martin or even McGuinty. But he didn't. Instead he spent ten years -- and it feels like much longer, whole eras have passed in Canadian politics -- doing mildly useful great-and-the-good stuff nobody noticed. Which is fine, but you can't hope to go straight from what's perceived as a fiasco to having the prime ministership fall into your lap. Rae should have been able to see in 2006 that the only way he could ever be PM was after a record of success in somebody else's cabinet. But it was probably too late even then, and it definitely is now.

To me the fascinating thing here continues to be the fact that Ignatieff and Rae were roommates and rivals in college. (There's what I remember as a better, fuller Valpy article behind the wall.) Proof that Canada is even more class-ridden and inbred than the U.S. or U.K? Or just a fun fact?

UPDATE: Our New Brunswick correspondent points me to a much better article in Macleans about the enduring Rae-Ignatieff psychodrama. It brings out clearly how deeply Toronto-establishment both boys are, but also makes the point that both families had worked their way inside in a single generation -- though admittedly the whole Czarist-cabinet-minister thing makes the Ignatieff saga less than the stuff of Horatio Alger. Still, you get the impression that the Canadian establishment is both a somewhat creepy club for insider game-playing and reasonably meritocratic... is that possible?

Count the kinds of wrong

I only just got to the very yuckiest thing in Monday's paper, an interview with Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA -- arguably the most influential animal rights activist of our time. And it's in the 'Life' section. And it's by one Sarah Hampson, most recently seen writing about starter marriages, what to do when your ex-remarries, and something I couldn't make sense of about Vince Vaughn. Every 'question' Hampson asks is nakedly hostile:

"Some people would say the move is shameless hucksterism," I point out.

Doesn't she worry that people might develop fatigue over PETA's predictable shock tactics and ignore the message?

But doesn't she debase humanity by putting it on the same level as other animals?

There seems to be a distinctly anti-human theme to her comments.

Does she ever wonder if she has felt more love for animals other than humans, I ask by way of concluding the interview.

It isn't even intelligible as a hit job, because it tries to depict Newkirk both as an unabashed nutbar and as a cunning manipulator of her own image ("she keeps the image on a tight leash" -- i.e., strangely, she wasn't keen to share secrets about her private life with an aggressively hostile doofus). It's a compendium of all the ways an article can be wrong without, so far as I know, quite saying anything factually incorrect. Trivializing an important subject; filtering everything through biases that aren't acknowledged or explained; and sneering and snickering because... well, because that's what journalists do when they don't know what to do. And I say this without having a pro-PETA axe to grind: I don't know whether to think of them as a force for good or not, that's why I read this stupid thing.

Sometimes I think environmental issues are finally being taken seriously in the mainstream media. Sometimes I know they're not.

Oh Chicago, I miss you sometimes

Courtesy of Eschaton, some hi-lites from today's indictment of Governor Blagojevich:

A 76-page FBI affidavit alleges that Blagojevich was intercepted on court-authorized wiretaps during the last month conspiring to sell or trade Illinois’ U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama for financial and other personal benefits for himself and his wife. At various times, in exchange for the Senate appointment, Blagojevich discussed obtaining:
< a substantial salary for himself at a either a non-profit foundation or an organization affiliated with labor unions;
< placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year;
< promises of campaign funds – including cash up front; and
< a cabinet post or ambassadorship for himself.
Just last week, on December 4, Blagojevich allegedly told an advisor that he might “get some (money) up front, maybe” from Senate Candidate 5, if he named Senate Candidate 5 to the Senate seat, to insure that Senate Candidate 5 kept a promise about raising money for Blagojevich if he ran for re-election. In a recorded conversation on October 31, Blagojevich claimed he was approached by an associate of Senate Candidate 5 as follows: “We were approached ‘pay to play.’ That, you know, he’d raise 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him (Senate Candidate 5) a Senator.”

The full press release is here, including some almost Nixon-quality bathos:

Throughout the intercepted conversations, Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including: frustration at being “stuck” as governor; a belief that he will be able to obtain greater resources if he is indicted as a sitting Senator as opposed to a sitting governor; a desire to remake his image in consideration of a possible run for President in 2016; avoiding impeachment by the Illinois legislature; making corporate contacts that would be of value to him after leaving public office; facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist; and generating speaking fees should he decide to leave public office.

... In a conversation with Harris on November 4, Blagojevich analogized his situation to that of a sports agent shopping a potential free agent to the highest bidder. The day after the election, Harris allegedly suggested to Blagojevich that the President-elect could make him the head of a private foundation.

...Also during that call, Blagojevich agreed it was unlikely that the President-elect would name him Secretary of Health and Human Services or give him an ambassadorship because of all of the negative publicity surrounding him.

Meanwhile the Nixon tapes just keep on giving.

Mock Bloc Shock

I guess there's nothing really surprising about this op-ed piece by Tom Flanagan -- except perhaps for the measured tone and rational content of the opening paragraphs, given that Flanagan is Stephen Harper's ideologue-in-chief, a denialist moneylaunderer, and an all-purpose creep. But then -- wait for it -- we get this explanation of why the G-G should not consider asking the Coalition to form a government, normal constitutional practice notwithstanding:

The Bloc is not a party comme les autres. It rejects the Canadian constitutional order and is devoted to achieving the separation of Quebec from Canada.

...Because they cast votes in the House of Commons, other parties must at times make common cause with them on particular issues; otherwise, nothing would get done in a minority Parliament.

But it is another thing altogether to ink a long-term agreement that makes such a party a pivotal supporter of a coalition government. Any politician who says he cannot see the difference has just demonstrated why he should not become prime minister.

... it is preposterous to install a Bloc-based coalition in power without giving voters a chance to discuss it.

See, the problem here is that everybody now knows that the Conservatives themselves solicited the formal support of the Bloc in 2004, hoping to oust the Liberals in a similar minority situation -- and that the Alliance (the Alliance!) thought about doing the same thing in 2000:

The separatist Bloc Québécois was part of secret plotting in 2000 to join a formal coalition with the two parties that now make up Stephen Harper's government, according to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail.

The scheme, designed to propel current Conservative minister Stockwell Day to power, undermines the Harper government's line this week that it would never sign a deal like the current one between the Liberal Party, the NDP and the Bloc.

What's fascinating is Flanagan's response to this embarrassment, because -- because there isn't one. At all. No explanation of how those cases were different; no casuistry; no flimflam about extenuating circumstances, no distancing, no embarrassed softpedaling, nope nada nothing. Because for these guys, even when they're writing an op-ed for a wide circulation daily, the point isn't really to persuade anyone or argue or prove anything. It's to tell partisans what to think; and to see how many of the ignorant can be gulled. And trust that all the contrary evidence falls down the memory hole.

I always wonder how the reporters at the Globe -- or the NYT, or the WSJ -- feel about the editorial board preference for columns by people in whose alternate universe their work has been suppressed.

Igwatch

The fun continues.

This is well-reported, comprehensive insider stuff -- assuming it's true, that is, and we'll know within a few days [ed. update -- or minutes]. What's questionable is the framing: it's all about Ignatieff, complete with a bigass front-page photo of him looking like Brutus on his way to the Senate. As you read the article it becomes clear that everyone in the Liberal Party thinks Dion must go now, and there's a real debate about how: Ignatieff and supporters want a vote of caucus to install him as interim leader followed by the convention as planned, Bob Rae a speeded-up party vote by phone or some such. Why not just present it in those terms?

So far what's described is all perfectly rational. Dion can't go on; a flesh-and-blood convention can't be magically moved forward; and there's no upside to installing an interim figurehead. And god knows where the whole freakin' governing party of the Chretien and Martin years vanished to, but Ignatieff really does look like their most electable option now. But as we've just seen with the coalition hoohah, choosing the best of a lot of bad options can still bite you in the ass politically -- and in this case it's actually Rae's proposal that sounds the best (ie most democratic, transparent and thus legitimizing).

I wonder if Ignatieff really grasps how many people, including nice born-Liberal Ontariarians, find him viscerally distasteful. If asked why, they can always cite his little Iraq war booboo. The Ignatieff supporter can respond that that was an isolated mistake of which he's repented (sort of), and keep the conversation going. But if Ignatieff takes control by anything that looks like an undemocratic power-grab, I suspect that many, many voters will take it as probative of his character and will be gone forever.

Meanwhile, shorter Blatchford: Politics, hockey, same difference. You got a problem with that?

UPDATE: Like I say, "everyone in the Liberal Party thinks Dion must go now": that turns out to include Dion. Interesting thoughts on the tricky questions of method now facing the Liberals here and here.

J'ai l'oeil Americain et je dirai tout

One of the less-noted benefits of living in Toronto is the whole French TV thing. Due to an obscure regulation from the Trudeau era, cable companies are required to provide French-language channels equal to the number of Francophones currently resident in Toronto. Which means we're now up to four: CBLFT, TFO, TV5, and RDI. (Wait, where did RDI go? Did somebody leave town?) Freed from the unreasonable demands of actual viewers, every one of them offers better programming than the anglo channels; TFO in particular runs great movies, often with surprise value as the TV guide coverage is sketchy. Late Friday night I was hooked by something grainy and enigmatic which eventually resolved itself into a classic of the cinema francais: Le Corbeau, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and a safe bet for the best French film of 1943. A tense, queasy-making tale of poison pen letters in a country village, Le Corbeau was banned at the Liberation for giving an, erm, unsympathetic portrait of French provincial life, and blacklisted by the Catholic Church to boot (films à proscrire absolument parce qu'ils sont essentiellement pernicieux au point de vue social, moral ou religieux). Apparently it was made by a German company of collaborationist stripe, but the movie itself is misanthropic in a subversive and implicitly lefty way, much like the creeptastic Bunuel Diary of a Chambermaid. So check it out, and don't say bilingualism never did nothin' for ya.

The post title should be a link: for proof that the interwebs can explain anything, see here.

Your book review recap

Number of full-length book reviews in the weekend Globe: seven

Number of positive reviews: six (poor Josef Skvorecky)

Number of positive reviews that manage to make the book sound awful: five (exception: Paul Quarrington on hockey books)

You-lost-me-at-hello openings:

Margaret Thatcher was the greatest reformer in Argentinean history [ed. note - that's actually a pretty good line]; and it could hardly have escaped the notice of anyone who met her that she was, or had made herself, a most formidable figure. Indeed, she seems almost the last politician on the world stage to have had any object in view other than the achievement of personal power. [wha with the what now?]

This is Wally Lamb's first novel in nine years and, even if you suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome and have a hard time holding it, I guarantee you won't be able to put it down. Lamb's first two novels, I Know This Much Is True and She's Come Undone, were Oprah picks, and this one doesn't disappoint. [Why do you keep threatening me?]

It's easy to distrust a book whose first chapter is mainly press clippings. Fortunately .... [Fortunately it's about a really interesting parrot, so who cares about the writing!]

James Bond never was a man of many words, and nor is this book. With a text limited to a foreword, captions and an interview of actor Craig Daniels by the author-photographer, the rest is a visual treat of hundreds of pictures.

Ah yes -- Daniels, Craig Daniels.

Today's Rex Murphy prize for almost literally unreadable tripe

Goes -- dear reader, how could it not -- to Rex Murphy:

"And what of the other crowd? What of partisan architecture's wildest students, the Frank Lloyd Blights of Parliament Hill [ed. note: meme FAIL], Stephane Dion, Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton, engineers of the coalition? If you'd asked these three to design an elevator, they'd deliver Stonehenge.
Was ever such a cobbled construction seriously proposed to be the government of a serious country?"

"Separatist and federalist, NDP activists and retired bank managers. A deposed leader on the way out who is a prime minister on the way in. Green shifters and auto-industry saviours. Matter, meet anti-matter. Wet, meet dry. Sense, meet non. Welcome to the coalition -- we're a government!"

I have to go take some Gravol now.

One cobbled construction will be sent to Mister Murphy, in honour of his own.

What makes this really embarrassing is that Margaret Wente has written exactly the same column next door, only in English.

Shorter Wente: Stephen Harper is a bad man. But Stephane Dion looks silly on teevee! Oh noes, what to do??

Not in the weekend Globe

is the one piece I was looking forward to, as advertised in Friday's paper:

"Farewell Africa: Globe correspondent Stephanie Nolen departs her Johannesburg post with a bittersweet look at the continent's progress in her five years reporting there."

Presumably Nolen got bumped by the three pages on Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, on the occasion of no. 100 having been reached. I have mixed feelings about articles like this:

1. Yes: quite right to remind people that there is a huge human cost to this Afghanistan mission. Our soldiers are doing something noble and tremendously difficult, and when they make the supreme sacrifice of course they deserve three pages. Attention should be paid. [moment of silence, head bowed]

2. But... I'm not actually going to read it. Did you? A quick skim strongly suggests there's nothing new here, factually or so to speak emotionally. And articles about the troops never have useful policy implications, since the take-away message is always on the one hand that the soldiers believe strongly in what they are doing (which is indeed a point worth bringing out) and on the other hand that it doesn't actually seem to be working. I've yet to see an article that pushes beyond that stalemate to something I didn't already know.

3. If you have Christie Blatchford covering the military, The Point Will Get Made.

All we aspired to was 'snarky'

A friend of these pages points out that we have already managed to offend... Facebook?

Look what happened when I tried to switch over... while on Facebook:

The following website has been identified as malicious:
http://globeandmailwatch.blogspot.com/
The link you have clicked has been identified by Facebook as a malicious web site. For the safety and privacy of your Facebook account, we strongly suggest you avoid visiting this address.

As she notes:

Sorry for exercising free speech, Facebook.

And pithily comments:

Holy crap. Where do we even begin?

I have to admit I'm somewhat charmed by the idea of an emergency session of the Facebook Security Council convening for a detailed analysis of all three days of posts here, and after a frenzied discussion caving to unimaginable pressures from the fiendish international Rogers lobby. But frankly it seems to me more likely that a something-bot misfired. Now for a no doubt hilarious Brazil-like exercise in attempting to wrest an admission of error from the implacable Authorities. In the mean time you can join an exciting new Facebook group at http://utoronto.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52246940983&ref=nf. Let the crossfire begin!

It's hard to be sure without knowing what actually happened (thanks for the transparency, Facebook); but if this really is the result of thin human skin I will have to further label this post 'Canadian lameness'. Because frankly the level of snark here is nothing compared to the hijinks American political blogs get up to. There are good (meaning among other things tough) Canadian blogs as well; but not nearly so many and they don't seem to be as big a part of the culture yet, so Mister Delicate-Flower Journalist might not have found out about them. (That would explain a lot, come to think of it... 'You mean they have politics on the intertubes now?' ) Anyway a political blogroll with tons 'o' fun suggestions will be coming soon, so you will be able to see for yourselves just how very constructive, peacable, and dare I say it Canadian we are here.

Your morning aaargh

Wonderfully depressing poll this morning. 63% have noticed that Harper is responsible for "the current situation", but 45% would vote for him and outside of Quebec a full 64% are opposed to the Coalition.

The problem is that like all polls it isn't explanatory, so for insight you're still stuck with vox pops and guesswork by pundits. What's wanted is a follow-up question to those 64% asking why, with a suitable range of options:

(1) Because President Harper won that majority fair and square
(2) Because Stephane Dion is a geek
(3) Because as an Albertan who personally invented oil, my vote should count for triple
(4) Because them thar Frenchies!

Still, another day of pretty good coverage, balanced and thorough. Given how well (1) and (4) are represented on the letters page, a lot of Globe 'readers' must not read anything in the paper at all.

But do they have a special Airbus pull-out section, and news about the Leafs?

For the most part, not a bad paper today, it seemed to me -- clearly starting a critical blog has the same kind of effect as vowing to carry an umbrella at all times.

On the other hand, our Senior Mitteleuropa Correspondent [Code Name: Edelweiss] has some truly disturbing observations on the Globe coverage of international news. Or to be accurate the lack of it:

Why does Canadian journalism in general assume that "news" is actually crime reporting, and "foreign news" is bizarre crime reporting from other countries?

I've just done, for comparative purposes, a quick scan of foreign news in today's (or yesterday's) online Globe, NYT and Die Presse (centre-right Austrian daily, serving a market one-quarter the size of Canada). I've not gone into content - a qualitative comparison would be too depressing - but just to see what's covered and what isn't. The Globe's view of the world includes a confused piece about how everyone is being mean to one another in Gaza, the governor of Kandahar, the Ressam sentence and Somali pirates. Its US news consists of lead in toys, a Nixon memo on Vietnam, Polanski pleading clemency and a nifty arrangement of stars in the sky, as well as the Obama transition. In Europe, apparently the only thing that is happening is that Venice is sinking. Asia is all about Mumbai and Thailand (fair enough), and unfortunate Chinese schoolgirls. In Africa they mention Zimbabwe and Somali pirates, though if you click on the Africa sub-heading you actually go through to sports.

The NYT and Die Presse, on the other hand, in addition to the stories that even the Globe couldn't overlook, mention Rwanda and Congo, clashes in the UK parliament, the condemnation of Sudan's Al-Bashir by the UNSC, Kosovo riots, the Politkovskaya trial, Chavez's most recent manoeuvres, an ETA killing yesterday, real analysis of Gaza, Mindanao/Philippines, politics in Poland, Romania, and more. What really sums it all up for me though, is the cluster bomb treaty signed in Oslo - the Globe mentions it in a 2-sentence Reuters piece buried on page 20 of the print edition, while Die Presse devotes to it 10 paragraphs, a backgrounder and links to five related articles and the NYT covers it in 20 paragraphs and two backgrounders. And the Globe has ENTIRELY overlooked this week's NATO Council Meeting, which was shaping up to be the latest event in the new Cold War what with the US suddenly pushing for Georgian and Ukrainian NATO membership - extensively covered by both other papers (and Austria not even a NATO member...).

So there you have it: right-wing Austrians are presumed to take an educated interest in cluster bombs, the Sudanese government, Russian repression of journalists, and the internal politics of NATO, which Austria unlike Canada does not belong to. Canadians... er, not so much.

(Ed. note: Links are of course to today's 'World' section of the three on-line papers, so you can perform the whole depressing operation all over again.)

The G-G Caves

An ugly precedent -- decently reported here, with plenty of context.

'Caves' is a tendentious way to put it, obviously, but there seemed to be some pretty good arguments that this was constitutionally speaking the wrong thing to do.

You have to wonder if Jean felt wrong-footed by having been a not-so-secret souverainiste herself. And appointed by teh Librul. And being, not to put to fine a point of it, a woman from Haiti. In short, a perfect candidate for divisive demonization by the asshole-in-chief. It would have been very much in character for him to respond to a rejection by challenging her legitimacy, just as he has challenged the legitimacy of Parliament itself, perhaps demanding her replacement and provoking a full-blown constitutional meltdown. For any G-G, that rather fragile legitimacy is bound to be top priority.

So the rematch starts January 26. I'm betting that at least one of the Liberals or Conservatives will have a new leader by then; and that if only one of the parties does that party will come out on top.

Argle Bargle or Fooforaw?

Clearly we need a more efficient definite description than 'this weird game of parliamentary chicken which is now evolving into a constitutional crisis'. But every option has its drawbacks:

(1) 'Harper's EPIC FAIL'
-- This leaves out some interesting twists and turns.

(2) 'The Crisis'
-- Wait, wasn't our tanking economy already the crisis?

(3) This... [distraught hand gesture] ... Thing.
-- Depends on distraught hand gesture.

(4) 'Your Daily Shitstorm'
-- Meme unlikely to be adopted by CBC, Governor-General.

(5) 'Canada's Political Crisis'
-- Apparently the Globe's favourite at present, but don't you think it lack snap, zing and pep? Sounds aimed at foreign readers who might, you know, get our crisis confused with one in Cameroon or Comoros or wherever.

If you have a preference, or a better idea, say so in the comments.

Nitwit of the Day

Dear Adam Radwanski:

Do you really, seriously, hand on your heart believe that the fact that Stephane Dion's televised speech last night had poor video quality tells us something important about his ability to lead a coalition government?

If not, why do you want Canadians to believe it?

I'm aware this sounds trivial. It's not.

Oh good, glad you cleared that up then.

It's probably unfair to blame Radwanski in particular. If you assume that the voting public are complete idiots, and that your job is to give that idiocy voice and direction rather than to encourage more informed reflection, then it follows that raising idiotic criticisms of politicians is an essential part of your job. And it's hard to find a columnist who doesn't seem committed to those assumptions, bizarre though they may be.

Eripitur Cardigan, Manet Res

There's a certain kind of cold bland repression that can be hard to parse emotionally. Uncle Dick over there, so quiet at all the family gatherings -- is he a sociopath who tortures squirrels in his basement? Or is he just the old-fashioned type, strong and silent? They think well of him at the office, after all. Americans have by now figured out exactly what to think of Uncle Dick Cheney, but only after a wishful media spent years presenting him as just the sort of grown-up we all want to have in charge. Fascism not being much of a dealbreaker, I believe the scales only really tipped when he shot that guy in the face.

Uncle Steve, he of the fuzzy sweater, is having his face-shooting moment right now. Anyone who's been paying attention has known for years that Harper was an obsessional partisan, a relentless liar and hypocrite with a real distaste for the common good. But now word has really got out. The problem is, of course, that this isn't just a personal style: it's a political strategy, imported from the US Republicans, and quite a few Canadians are happy to openly support it. Those who don't need to push back as hard as we can, right now.

Unfortunately, the risks involved in the proposed coalition are complex and enormous. If the Governor-General blinks and prorogues, part of me will be very relieved. But if she does, and if it comes to be spun as a victory for Harper, then it will also be the first clear-cut national victory in Canada for scorched-earth Republican thuggery. For the Karl Rove machinery of open lies (there was no flag!), hypocrisy (dealing with separatists!), fearmongering (it's a coup d'etat!), astroturf campaigning ('Rally for Canada!') and plain old-fashioned bullying in every direction. To simplify just a little: the politics of hatred. If the politics of hatred wins now, the Conservative Party will be wedded to it for the foreseeable future: at this point, they have nothing else. And they will get better and better at it until maybe some day a Canadian Obama comes along. I can't quite figure out what the Western wingnuts fear from the Bloc Quebecois, but I sure as hell know why I think this country is in serious danger.

Because we deserve a national newspaper that doesn't suck

So, you get the idea. I won't focus obsessively on the Globe: they're far from being the only inspiration for snark out there. Who knows -- in the years to come I may share moments of whimsy, limericks and recipes for pie. But so long as the Globe keeps providing my Morning Annoyance day after day with hammer-like regularity, they will be front and center.

It isn't that I hate the Globe. Not at all. They have great reporters, like Stephanie Nolen and Marina Jimenez. They have Toronto's only reliable restaurant reviews. Christie Blatchford and Margaret Wente do what columnists are supposed to do. Russell Smith... I have a bit of a crush on Russell Smith. And I think David Eddie is a great advice columnist even though I remember what he was like in high school. I don't want to cancel my subscription.

The problem is that the Globe is wildly uneven. To be precise, the political coverage sucks, on Canadian and American topics alike. I remember thinking about a decade ago that Jeffrey Simpson seemed a bit past his sell-by date -- now he looks like Thucydides by comparison. I have no real connections at the Globe, but my impression as a reader is that they are trying to be more right-wing than is compatible with reporting interesting stories accurately and allowing the ablest writers to speak their minds. Alas for today's right-wing-toadying newspapers, reality does have a liberal bias.

The column that gave me the idea for this blog was actually one last week by John Ibbitson. It starts off like a everyday exercise in triteness-maximization: Love her or hate her, Hillary Clinton is back. (Yes, that's actually the title.) Political soap opera... intriguing sideshow ... yadda yadda... but that's still only 100 words, so instead of trying to, you know, say something about Clinton-hatred, Ibbitson goes on to note that some people hate George W. Bush. And some hated Ronald Reagan. And some hated Brian Mulroney! And these things are all exactly alike, in the important respect that Ibbitson can't be bothered to think about any of them.

Excuse me while I bang. My head. Slowly. Against. The wall.

Note just a few of the problems here:

The first is the American-style false-equivalence imperative. Barack Obama is very deeply hated by many right-wing Americans right now, but put that together with Clinton-hatred and a pattern might start to emerge. So instead, we get Bush: isn't it mysterious how many people seem to dislike him? Perhaps sensing the incredulous snickers, Ibbitson flails for cover:

It is perfectly reasonable to be deeply disappointed with George W. Bush's legacy. Yet the contempt that many feel for the 43rd president antedated Katrina or the invasion of Iraq. He was derided as "Dubya" and "Shrub" from the day he entered the White House.

Uhh, yes. Because to anyone who was paying attention it was obvious that he was going to be exactly the kind of president who was going to do stuff like that. If you were too slow to catch on before Katrina, Mister I., you really shouldn't be admitting it. Not in your line of work.

Hence the need for more flailing cover with Reagan and Mulroney... which I can't be bothered to go into. Let's just be clear: Clinton-hatred is a unique phenomenon in modern North American politics. It is remarkable in having almost nothing to do with policy (just try naming Bill's scary lefty accomplishments). What's more, unlike 'hatred' as usually understood, it is not a state of mind but a well-documented, powerful social movement involving millions of dollars of expenditures by wealthy obsessives employing professional spies, 'journalists', lawyers, etc. If you can't see that there are some interesting sociological differences between the Arkansas Project and leftist snark about Bush, you really don't belong in journalism.

Oh, and the best bit: Who do you suppose is Ibbitson's great quoted source and example of Clinton-hatred? Richard Mellon Scaife, perhaps, who funded the Arkansas Project? Grand inquisitor Ken Starr? Obsessional sozzled ranter Maureen Dowd?

Why, no -- it's Dick Morris. Because really, who could be more representative of a powerful social movement than um, ... a disgruntled ex-employee of the other side?

Shorter Ibbitson: apples, oranges, pineapples -- they're all vegetables to me! For proof, have a persimmon.

Nowhere in today's Globe (print edition)

so far as I can tell: any mention of the fact that the Prime Minister flat-out, demonstrably, just plain lied in Question Period yesterday. (In order to impugn the patriotism of his opponents, it goes without saying.)

It's such an obvious and embarrassing lie that you have to assume he or someone in his office was misled by the camera angle. But it only counts as an honest mistake if you apologize for it -- not if you get your ministers to keep repeating it.

Does that really not count as news any more?

My last letter to the Globe & Mail

Because doing it this way should be a lot more fun.

Dear Gary Mason,

Contrary to your column today, it is not true that BC voted 'mostly Tory' in the last election. Steven Harper won 61% of the seats with well under half the popular vote, and if Westerners are going to feel alienated about anything that would be a good place to start.

As I'm sure you know, it is also not true that talk radio callers are representative of anything other than their spittle-flecked selves. Is that really the best data you can find?

Over half of BC and Manitoba voters and almost half of Saskatchewan voters did not vote for the Tories; even in Alberta, a third did not, and they managed to elect an NDPer in Edmonton. Are all these people feeling 'betrayed' by the coalition too, or are they thrilled at the prospect that they might now, albeit indirectly, get a little representation? Lazy writing like yours today does absolutely nothing to help a Torontonian like me figure out what is really going on in the West. All it does is confirm my suspicion that Canadian journalists have a habit of saying 'the West' when they mean 'loud rural Albertans'. Thanks for nothing,

yours sincerely,

Dr. B.

Mason's column was actually not the worst in the Globe today. As so often, that honour goes to John Barber, their regular source of hazily wafting fumes vaguely related to Toronto.

Shorter Barber: Michael Ignatieff lives in Yorkville -- Yorkville, I tell you. Also, as an insider, I have long suspected that Jack Layton was a politician.

Mister Smithers rules our world

Posthumous blowjobs for unpleasant rich man here here here and here in the Globe alone. Fascinating that the sycophancy is almost as intense in the outlets he didn't own as the ones he did. I guess it's just because only a visionary titan of entrepreneurial genius, a man who thought big and never flinched, on whose like we will never look again, and whose very feces are an untrammelled delight -- only such a towering giant could ever have managed to make any money out of a cable monopoly, radio, teevee or cellphones.