Ten Years Later

It was 10 years ago, and I was struck by life's irony. A wonderful woman passed away. She gave her heart and soul to the poor and the diseased. She wanted nothing more than to help people. Then she was taken from us and...nobody noticed.

Her name was Mother Teresa. The nun of Calcutta had enough humility to recognize God's sense of humour: Princess Diana died only six days before. The headlines remained in England.

People wept and prayed over a woman who did her best to live the high life, destroy the reputations of her benefactors, and ski the slopes of wintry paradise. In between visits to Monaco and Paris, she would visit pristine hospitals to shake the hands of AIDS patients. The shutters would click, the bulbs would flash, and there she was: the Princess. And people would swoon.

When you have beauty, you do not need humility. You can go on television and in one breath discuss your infidelity and your eating disorders without shame. Sunlight is not the great cleanser. Television is. If you tell your neighbours that you cheated on your husband by banging the riding instructor (I'll say) and that you barfed after every breakfast, they'll call you a headcase. Tell it to the world on TV, and they call you "poor thing."

No one noticed the passing of Mother Teresa, and in a way I always liked that. She wouldn't have wanted the headlines, unless they came with a donation for her Missionaries of Charity. She had no crown jewels, and would have hawked them for food if she did.

10 years on, the news coverage still makes me laugh. A few days ago, a number of papers ran a story about how Teresa questioned her faith in God towards the end of her life. That's a great hit job on a devoted Christian, and a wonderful way to celebrate her life, isn't it? Diana, however, gets the tears, the flowers, and the orgasmic excitement of a nation in mourning. Fire up the TV. Replay the Elton John tune. Edit the video and photo montages. Set them to music, with soft focus and dissolve transitions. Nothing's too good for the Princess.

The differences in their deaths could not be more striking. One with malaria and heart failure, the other in a millionaire's limo. Guess which one gets the full blown Larry King treatment?

From Airport to Railroad

I may have jumped the gun in that last piece, but I'd like to say it wasn't entirely my fault. Senator Craig pleaded guilty to the disorderly conduct charge from June 11, 2007. When someone pleads guilty, you have to figure there's a lot of truth to the charge.

Don't you?

AP Photo/Matt Cilley

I just finished going over the transcript of Senator Craig's arrest interview. The officer in the case, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, advised Craig of his rights, and then asked Craig for his side of the story.

It's an iteresting tale. Nowhere in the transcript does Craig or Karsnia mention the infamous 'shoe tapping' that has been heard so many times in the press. We discover that Craig was standing while in the stall, not sitting. Craig says he spread his legs far apart so as not to have his pants hit the floor while taking a leak. At this point, Karsnia says their feet bumped. Craig is not so sure, but gives a "if you say so" argument. It makes one wonder how far apart the cop's legs were in the neighboring stall.

Further along in the interview, we learn that Craig picked up a piece of toilet paper. Karsnia doesn't confirm or deny this. Karsnia instead says that the Senator put his left hand under the stall. He knew what hand it was, because he saw the Senator's wedding ring.

But hang on. The Senator says that is impossible, because he put his right hand down, not his left. With the Senator standing up in front of the toilet, Karsnia was to his right. Karsnia skips this by asking if the Senator switched his wedding ring to his left hand sometime before the interview. Craig says of course not.

Another interesting bit involves sexual preference. Look at this exchange early on in the interview:

LC: I don't, ah, I am not gay, I don't do these kinds of things and...

DK: It doesn't matter, I don't care about sexual preference or anything like that. Here's your stuff back sir. Um, I don't care about sexual preference.

LC: I know you don't. You're out to enforce the law.

DK: Right.

I found this exchange interesting. Karsnia doesn't care about sexual preferences? Then what is he doing in the toilet waiting for men to proposition him for gay sex? Sexual preference is the most important part of his job, otherwise he would have to arrest everyone in the bathroom. If a man looks him dead in the eye while standing at the sink, is that a "gay pass," or a "straight stare"? According to Karsnia, it doesn't matter. He can arrest you and interpret your actions to mean whatever he wants.

Another interesting exchange:

DK: But there's the, there there's two ways, yes. You can, you can, ah, you can go to court. You can plead guilty.

LC: Yep.

DK: There'll be a fine. You won't have to explain anything. (inaudible) I know.

LC: Right.

DK: And you'll pay a fine, you be (inaudible), done. Or if you want to plead not guilty, ah, and I, I can't make these decisions for you.

LC: No, no. Just tell me where I am (inaudible) I need to make this flight.

DK: Okay. Okay. And then I go to people that are not guilty, then I would have to come to court and end up testifying. So those are the two things, okay. Did I explain that part?

That scares the hell out of me. Police officers and prosecutors, whether real or fictional, have long been using the idea of a plea bargain as a way of making everything all better.

In a nut shell, this is what Karsnia is saying: "If you say you're not guilty, I can take you to jail and you'll have to go to court. Your political career, and life as you know it, will be over. But if you say you're guilty, I'll give a get-out-jail-free card, called a fine, and this will go away."

Further along in the interview, Karsnia has the audacity to say, "I'm not trying to act like I have all kinds of power here."

Yeah, right. Whatever you say, Krupke. The highlight of your day is jailing people that want a quick handjob before a flight to Phoenix. You sit in stalls hoping to get hit on. When women ask what you do for a living, you have to lie in case they think you caught VD off a toilet seat. Not trying to act like you've got all kinds of power? Discovering you've arrested a US Senator must make you feel like you've hit the Mother Lode.

I listened to the audio of the interview. The Senator sounds relatively composed throughout. Karsnia does not. His voice rises in frustration and anger as things don't work out so well: the Senator is willing to pay the fine to avoid the embarrassment, but he's not admitting to anything.

Nor should he have. This is what they had on him? It's a he said/he said case. Where's the crime? There is not one shred of physical evidence in this case, nor is there any audio or videotape. Everything hinges on this cop's story. Even if you buy everything the cop says, it's a hell of stretch to say that the Senator committed a criminal act.

I remember reading a book written by a retired cop in Chicago. He went through the vice squad to pay his dues. For that detail, he had to watch gay men go at it in public bathrooms. He couldn't arrest them until they were virtually in the act of sex, otherwise there was no crime. He wrote some pretty disturbing images in that book, about Vaseline and all kinds of stuff, but it's an important example: to convict someone of a crime, there must actually be a guilty act. The lawyers called it mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty act). You need to have both in order to constitute a crime.

To believe that the Senator is guilty of a crime, you must then believe that everything the arresting cop is saying is the truth, and you must assume that Senator Craig was looking for sex. It just doesn't stand up. If you believe it does, then God help you when you're in the hands of an overzealous cop.

Imagine it this way:

You're in a parking lot, waiting for your friend. Your window is down. There's a man parked beside you. You run your hands along the rearview mirror, perhaps clearing dust. A moment later, you run that same hand along the window sill, because you're bored and people do things with their hands when they're bored. Then you touch your ear.

Just then, the man gets out of the neighbouring car, and places you under arrest. He says you've solicited him for gay sex. He says "people do this all the time in parking lots." He goes on to say that if you plead guilty, he'll merely give you a fine and that will be the end of it. If you plead not guilty, he will take you to jail, you'll go to court, your name will be in the papers, you'll likely lose your career, and perhaps your family.

What do you do?

I'll tell you: lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. Got that? If the Senator had called a lawyer there would have been no fallout whatsoever. The case would have never gone to court.

As it is, I'm glad the tape was released so I could get a handle on the facts. I now know the cops were running a sting operation in the airport, and that they were hungry for arrests. I also know that the Senator's crime was not lewd behaviour, whether he was after a romp or not.

His crime was stupidity. If there's a cop sitting across from you and the tape recorder's rolling, call a lawyer. No matter what.

Brokeback Bathroom

Can someone tell me what a Senator is doing in the john, tapping out Morse code signals on his foot and hoping to score?

The story of Republican Senator Craig is weird all the way around. I never would have thought an airport craphouse was the perfect place to pick up a one-minute stand. According to the cops, men use them all the time. They sit on the toilet, drop their pants, and tap their finger on their right shoe. This tells fellow swinging dudes that you’re looking for a good time. If your neighbor is game, he’ll run his finger along the bottom of the stall.

So that’s what that guy was doing. Here I was just sneaking a cigarette before the redeye to Copenhagen, and I accidentally gave a guy blue balls. He probably had an 18-hour flight to Auckland and I left him hanging. As it were.

The media’s been too busy crucifying the Senator to ask the penetrating questions. For instance, why are cops in the can looking for Senators that want to throw away their careers? We’ve been led to believe that the airport stiffs are searching for terrorists and mad bombers. Not the case. They’re sitting in the WC and waiting for guys to hit on them.

I wonder how long the cops spend waiting. They must be the guy in the first stall. Usually, if you go to the john in the airport, there’s a pair of shoes under the first or second door. They remain firmly planted on the ground as you go about your business, wash your hands, and exit. I’d always thought they were constipated travelers or stroke victims. Turns out, they’re gum shoes, hoping you’ll take a seat beside them and invite them to…what?

I don’t know if it’s possible to get it on in an airport toilet. I’m not gay, but it doesn’t strike me as the most romantic place to hook up. And with all the people coming and going all the time, the heavy breathing stuff is out the window. Or down the toilet. Or whatever.

The news of the Senator’s “disorderly conduct” bust no doubt scared the hell out of every smoker in the country. For the first time, we found out that there really are cops in the john, and that the $5000 smoking fine might be enforced. What’s worse, I used to tap out my cigarette on the side of my shoe. No longer. Not only might I pay five grand on a smoking rap, but I could wind up on CNN apologizing for propositioning a cop.

After pleading guilty to the charge, Senator Craig is now in front of the microphones saying he didn’t mean it. He’s not gay, and he’s not guilty. He was confused, and duped. As always, poor people are criminals and rich people make mistakes. What else is new?

I feel sorry for the cops. Not the ones on the street, but the ones that pull toilet duty in the airport. God knows what they go through on a given day. Sitting there staring at poetry such as, Here I sit lonely hearted, came to crap and only farted, or reading For a good time call messages. The stink must be unreal after the long European flights let out. They sit through all of this in the hope that some guy will sit down and make an offer 99% of the population would refuse. These cops cannot be the city’s finest. Only a flunking grade at the academy could get you stuck with this detail.

When you screw up in the army, you have to clean the latrine. When you’re in the bad books as a cop, you have to sit in it and wait for a romantic pass. A lesson for high school kids making a career choice.

Strike Three - You're Up

I was going to do a piece on Rick Ankiel, the pitcher who crumbled and then returned to glory as a right fielder...but Krauthammer beat me to it. It's a good write-up. Read it here.

(AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

Michael Vick - Please Plea Me

It looks like Michael Vick has copped a plea regarding the dog fighting allegations. Click here to see what I wrote about the allegations last month.

A plea bargain for Michael Vick confuses me. I always thought that plea bargains were used to leverage information from criminals. As in, "We'll chop three years off your sentence if you give us info on the Godfather."

Two defendants in the dog fighting indictment have already rolled over and begged for the prosecution. So what can the prosecution possibly need from Vick?

I suppose a plea agreement saves the taxpayers a costly trial, but something smells fishy. They must have given Vick something to agree to, and we won't know what that is until it comes out at the hearing.

Until then, all you can say is, "What a bozo."

In 2004, this man signed a 10-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons. Pay check: $130 million dollars. And he pissed it all away killing dogs.

Bill Moyers - Mythical Conceit

An interesting bit I found on the MRC website. Bill Moyers got a smackdown from his own ombudsman, and here's his letter of response:

"The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions....The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story.

That’s what I did regarding the argument for impeachment....There’s a movement for impeachment, not one against impeachment, and to fail to explore the arguments driving that movement would be as foolish as when Washington journalists in the months before the invasion of Iraq dared not talk about ‘occupation’ because official sources only wanted to talk about ‘liberation.’...I could have aired a Beltway-like ‘debate’ between a Democrat and a Republican, or a conservative and a liberal, but that’s usually conventional wisdom and standard practice, and public broadcasting was meant to be an alternative, not an echo."

— PBS’s Bill Moyers in a letter to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler, who had criticized the July 13 edition of Bill Moyers Journal for featuring only guests who favor Bush and Cheney’s impeachment.

I love it when the media-types decide that they know better than everyone else. It's interesting to see their thought processes, as in the above letter.

A few questions for Bill Moyers:

1) If the journalist's job is to provide the public with the "best thinking" out there, who decides what the "best" thinking is?

2) If there is a "movement" for impeachment, how can there not be one against it?

3) Since when was public broadcasting meant to be an alternative to anything? Just because you suck at your craft and have to appear between telethons and Nova re-runs doesn't mean you can give yourself a cool title like "alternative."

4) When did journalists "dare not" talk about anything because officials didn't want them to? Did you even watch the pre-invasion press conferences? I did. Guys were asking Generals if Baghdad was going to resemble Stalingrad. This proves two things: they don't toe the official line, and they are morons.

5) "The journalist's job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium..." Really?

News to us. We lowly worst-thinkers always thought it was. It's nice to know that Bill Moyers believes equilibrium in a story of opinions is a thing of myth and legend.

In case you missed Journalism 101, bonehead, here's what we want from you:

Who, What, When, Where, How.

When it comes to the why, give me both sides of the story, if you please.

Grand New Flag

I was driving down a suburban Canadian street today and something caught my eye. A woman was driving one of those scooter machines, the kind that help old people go shopping, pick up groceries, and run down arrogant teenagers.

In her lap was a little girl. Beside the scooter was a black Labrador retriever. His leash was so tight that you'd think the engine had failed and he was towing the scooter down the sidewalk. On the front and back of the scooter were two Canadian flags, the size of Manila envelopes. They wearily flapped in the breeze as this unlikely trio made progress at 3mph.

I thought, where they hell is my camera?

The Canadian flags really made the image. Not one flag, but two flags, and it reminded me of all the Canadian pennants I see on a daily basis. Stuck to houses, jammed in lawns, stamped to beer bottles, hanging from eavestroughs, embroidered on sweaters, stitched to backbacks, emblazoned across bartenders' breasts.

There is no escaping the Canadian flag today. What cracks me up are the Canadians that declare how proud they are to be Canadian, yet bash the Americans for being patriotic.

The difference between the US and Canada can be summed up by the scooter woman: a Canadian would call her cute. If she was in the States and flying American flags, that same Canadian would call her lame.

Point is, Canadians are far more outspoken about their country than Americans are, but won't admit it. The t-shirt Canada Kicks Ass was making the rounds a few years ago, and every time I saw it I wanted to ask, at what? Free (until you pay your taxes) health care? Besides, Canadians are supposed to be the Mr. Nice Guys of the international scene. We have soldiers on our ten dollar bill, and none of them are carrying weapons.

Red Ensign
Canadian arrogance is out of all proportion to its post-Maple Leaf deeds, and the flag tells the story. Well, there isn't actually much of a story. There were committees, and a lot of arguments, and some Federal ramrodding, and bingo: in 1965, you had a Maple Leaf flag take the place of the British Red Ensign.

And that's the whole tale. What does the flag mean? Not much. Contrary to popular belief, the points on the Maple Leaf do not denote the 10 provinces plus territories (back when this would have made sense; Nunavut didn't yet exist). Unlike the Australians, who use their star's points to show how many provinces they have lying around, the Maple Leaf has no significant meaning. In the early days, the leaf had 13 points, or 15, and sometimes more.

Why is the flag red and white? No, not because a patriotic Canadian thought it would be a good idea. It was jolly old King George V that made that decision. In 1921 he said that Canada's national colours would be red and white because the British cross of St. George was red, and the emblem of France was white. So the Canadian flag, adopted as a symbol to separate Canada from Britain, owes it's colours to a British king. Better yet, the flag didn't officially become a symbol of Canada until after Queen Elizabeth II approved it in 1965.

News flash: when you are still seeking approval from foreign queens, you are not, by definition, self-determining. And please don't hand me any commonwealth talk, or that it works both ways. Fly to England and apply for a job. Tell me how far you get.

I read an article about the flag a little while ago regarding the maple leaf. It said the maple leaf was adopted in the 1700's to celebrate the environment and nature of Canada. Unlikely. This smacks of a post-1990's worldview, something that was missing from the canoe toting boys of the 1700's. They were more concerned with such important eco-matters as cutting down trees and killing as many beavers as they could get their hands on. I suspect that the maple leaf was used as a symbol of Canada because there were a lot of maple trees getting in the way. It could just as easily have been a spruce, which would have been quite prophetic: a spruce would greatly resemble the flag of Lebanon, and we all found out last year how many "Canadians" are living there.

Diefenbaker
The Canadian flag isn't really a symbol of anything, at least not anything of historical significance. However, the flag is truly representative of its country. Like the majority of things Canadian, the flag was launched by committee, and raised without consulting the Canadian people. During the great flag debate of 1964, former PM Diefenbaker demanded that a referendum be held on the issue. Lester Pearson used the tyrannical powers of the Canadian prime minister's office to shun that idea. He turned the decision over to a 15-member panel, and they made the decision for everyone. They picked a design from a contest, handed it over to the House of Commons, and that was that.

The flag looks pretty, but it means little. The rules that govern it don't actually exist. When you hear someone say that the flag shouldn't touch the ground, or shouldn't be used to wipe up coffee, they're borrowing from the Americans. There are no rules governing the use or misuse of the Canadian flag. You have every right to fly it over your house, or use it as a lobster bib.

However, there are certain times when the flag should be flown at half-mast. Let's have a look at them. They will tell you a lot about the flag, and a lot about the Canadian people.

- the death of a current or former Prime Minister
- the death of a current or former Governor General
- the death of a member of Federal Cabinet
- the death of the Monarch, or one of her kids, her husband, or mom, or whatever
- April 9th (Vimy Ridge Day; quick, tell me what happened there)
- April 28th (Workers' Mourning Day)
- Last Sunday in September (Police Officers' National Mourning Day)
- November 11th (Remembrance Day)
- December 6th (National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women).

There's your list of important half-masters. I have two favorites. The first is the one about the Federal Cabinet. Who says Canada isn't a democracy? We fly a flag at half-mast for important people, but only if they were hand-picked by the PM. If you're walking down the street and ask someone why the flag is at half-mast, grab a cup of coffee. The person just might respond, "Well, the poor President of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Western Economic Diversification. We lost them last night."

My other favorite is the December 6th deal. Again, you're walking down the street. Again, you ask someone why the flag is at half-mast. Imagine your surprise when they say, "We're bemoaning the fact that Canadians beat and kill a lot of women."

Men don't cut it. Screw 'em, let them die in the street. Kids? We never liked them anyway. But let's be sure to remember the women. Canadian men beat them mercilessly on a daily basis. It must be true. There's only five half-mast days in the calendar year. Why else would one of those days be dedicated to it?

Yes, I know what December 6th is. It's the day that a man walked into the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and shot unarmed women. On this day, we are supposed to fly flags at half-mast, wear white or purple ribbons, and hold a minute of silence to hope for an end to violence against women. I've got a better idea: how about we hold a moment of silence to hope that next time, all of the men won't slink out of the room after being ordered to by the patient executioner.

Whatever your chosen day of mourning, if you want a flag, they're yours for the taking. Flags flown on Parliament Hill are available free of charge. All you have to do is ask for one, provided you'll live long enough to see it. The waiting list to obtain a Peace Tower flag is 18 years. By that time, you might be dead. No worries. Tell your family to fly it at half-mast.

Poor Canada. A people with a trademark for a flag, and a national anthem that confuses visiting Red Sox fans. Canadians do not know who they are, and they have forgotten where they're from. We are not proud of ourselves, we are proud of who we are not.

Don't believe me? Fine. Tell me when Flag Day is. It's the day Elizabeth II let us have our flag, and we celebrate it every year. It should be a no-brainer. Go on, tell me.

Now look it up.

Short Cuts -- While Dodging the Heat

A few quick takes from last week.

Asterisk
Barry Bonds* has passed Hank Aaron on the all-time home run list. The book Game of Shadows can tell you everything you need to know about Bonds* and his legacy.

As for me, Hank Aaron will always be the true home run king, but home runs no longer count for much.

In case you haven’t noticed, I am a massive baseball fan. To be a baseball fan, you have to look at numbers. There’s no avoiding that. Taken a step further, looking at numbers means you have to look at all-time records. So I will say now that there’s only one record that interests me: Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak. The rest are details. I will make an exception if A-Rod beats the home run record a decade from now, and if he avoids allegations of drug use.

Hot Air
The enviro-boobs aren’t saying anything about it, but Mark Steyn is: after re-examining faulty data, NASA has changed the hottest year on record to 1934. The steamy, terrifying years from the past decade don’t even make it into the top 10.

This won’t change the enviro-boobs’ outlook on anything for one reason: environmental activism is their occupation. It’s how they make money. To admit their errors and say that they have no idea what they’re talking about would mean a spot on the unemployment line. No more government grants, no more donations, no more sainthood for Earth gigolo David Suzuki. To say nothing of the fact that even this data could be faulty; really, who was checking the temperature back in 10 000 BC?

Summer is hot. Winter is cold. You want me to pay you for saying that? Get real.

Speaking of the Earth gigolo, have you seen those commercials with David Suzuki showing up in people’s houses to change their light bulbs? If I found this weirdo in my house telling me what to do, I know where that light bulb would end up.

Borat
I watched Borat last night. It disturbed me.

I’d been putting it off for quite a while, because the commercials told me everything I needed to know. He was going to make Americans look dumb, and he was going to do it in a faux-reality TV format.

One thing the film did show me is that it’s becoming more and more hip to pick on Jews. Antisemitism is returning to the days of being acceptable as long as its done to a laugh track. One scene that particularly bothered me involved the title character throwing money at two cockroaches. The roaches represented the elderly Jewish couple that had given him a place to stay for the night.

Yes, yes, I know. It was only a comedy. I can laugh at most anything, and I can dish it out as much as I can take it. Still, I had an unsettling feeling creep over me with every new Jew-bash in the picture.

I pointed out some time ago that Hollywood has no problem bashing Asians. Jews get the same treatment. Try that with blacks, Hispanics, or gays, and your career would be over. It's interesting how the degree of your prejudice is measured by what group you happen to be picking on.

The film did manage to show me that while Americans can appear stupid at the hands of a comedian and his editor, they always appear extremely polite and welcoming. I doubt that’s the effect Borat was going for.

See You Later, Merv
Merv Griffin died on Sunday. If you've ever watched Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, then you've seen his name at the end of each episode.

I remember staying in the Beverly Hilton about six years ago. It was one of his hotels. Merv's greatest hits were on one of the hotel's channels, and I watched an old interview he did with Richard Burton. Burton said to Griffin, "You're more successful than I am."

Merv looked suitably surprised, and asked Burton to elaborate. Burton said, "You're more successful than I am. Because you're on television." His emphasis on that last word was a sign of Burton's smarts.

He was correct, of course. Movie stars are movie stars, but they only reach us once a year or so. Merv Griffin reached everybody, all the time. Though he was passed over for the Tonight Show after Jack Paar retired (Carson was chosen instead), Griffin later went on to great success with The Merv Griffin Show. It was on the air for 20 years.

His real windfall came from his game shows. Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune are still smash hits. When he sold their rights to Coca-Cola back in 1986, Griffin grabbed a cool $250 million in the deal. From there, he went on to buy resort hotels, including the Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas.

I was at the Atlantis a few years ago, and I told a friend, "Hey, did you know Merv Griffin owns this pad?"

"Griffin?"

"Yeah, the guy that created Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy."

"No kidding. Man, he must be worth a ton."

He was. And Richard Burton was right. Any time during the primetime week, you can flip on the tube and find Merv Griffin's name written somewhere, welcoming you as his next guest.

Making a List, Checking it Twice

If you want to know when you're heading for Dumpsville, an article on Yahoo gives you the goods. Elina Furman penned the piece, and it's one of those mundane Cosmo articles that pops up on your homepage from time to time.

You know the drill. You click on your homepage and up comes NEWS. It says Bush is an idiot or that Iraq is a failure. As you move to click on this inspired story, the little box changes to ENTERTAINMENT. Now you're looking at Brad Pitt as he breaks up with another wife or girlfriend. Then the little box changes to FOOD, and SPORTS, and so on.

I usually by-pass this stuff, but today I decided to click on Furman's piece. Her by-line is Special to Yahoo Personals, and she's written a piece called 5 Breakup Signs - How to Tell When You're Going to Get the Boot.

I've never been a big fan of lists. They're usually bogus. The Top Ten this and the Number One that are terribly subjective unless they can be backed up by hard facts. Even if the facts are there, the list is generally pointless: The Top 10 Deadliest Poisons in the World is not a list you're likely to see because all of them are deadly, and who cares if you've got an extra minute to live if you drink one but not the other: you're dead, anyway.

Lists also beg the question of who wrote them, and how qualified the author is. Take Ms. Furman. She's written a list of five signs that you're going to get dumped. I doubt she took a college course on this material, so there's only two ways that she can know this stuff. Either she practices these traits on her partners before kicking them to the curb, or she's had them done to her so many times that she's a thirty-something neurotic who sees a breakup around every corner. Being her boyfriend would be a pain in the ass, because she probably walks around with a notebook and writes down everything you say as a 'sign.'

In any event, here's her list, with my constructive comments after each. If Elina is qualified, how can I not be?

1. Picking fights. No one is saying you have to get along 24/7. Constructive conflict can actually be good for your relationship. But if you find that your partner has become argumentative over petty issues like your clothes or choice of restaurant, that should serve as a warning sign that he/she may be looking for an excuse to bail.

Maybe. Or it could be that you dress like a loser or eat at lousy restaurants. I don't think I've ever met a woman who doesn't comment about the way their man dresses. Supposedly they find it cute to throw away a man's favorite t-shirt because it's gone ratty and they hate it. As for the restaurant deal, is there a woman alive who hasn't made the choice of a restaurant seem like a Russian/US Summit Meeting?

2. Forgetting to call. Used to be that your phone would ring all day long with your sweetie wanting to make plans or calling just to say, "I love you." Now your significant other doesn't even call when he/she is running three hours late. It may seem obvious, but going from speed dial to a blocked number is a sure sign that your relationship may be nearing its expiration date.

Perhaps. Or maybe he's finally convinced you not to call him at work. Better yet, maybe you've convinced him that you "need your space." By the way, if you've gone from speed dial to blocked number, it's because you were calling him all the time and he thinks you're a stalker. He's probably correct.

3. Changing their stripes. A major change in appearance can be a sign that your partner is looking toward greener pastures. Whether they've chopped off their hair, lost 40 pounds or gone from a bold brunette to a sultry blonde, major cosmetic changes should be noted. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a little vain, but if the change is accompanied by any of the other signs listed here, you may need to get ready to go solo.

Let me get this straight. Women bitch when we don't comment on every new outfit and haircut they get, and now we're supposed to pack our bags when we finally take notice? News to me. New clothes, dyed hair, fad diets. Isn't that a typical woman's week?

4. Criticizing. If your sweetie isn't feeling you anymore, don't be surprised if he/she becomes less tolerant of everything, from how you brush your teeth to how you tie your shoes. Constant criticism is a telltale sign that your days as a twosome are numbered.

If someone criticizes how you tie your shoes, they were a headcase to begin with. Don't be afraid of getting dumped. If you're a woman, just walk away and be thankful you did. If you're a man, don't breakup with her. She'll sleep with your friends. The easiest way to speed a woman on the path of dumping your ass is to wait until the next family dinner. Blow a fart at the table, and your relationship is gone with the wind.

5. Losing sexual interest. A healthy sex life can make or break a relationship. If you find that your partner is becoming more sexually aloof, you need to get to the root of the issue. While it's natural to have less sex as you settle into a comfortable groove together, waiting weeks or months to have sexual contact is a sign that something is amiss.

Don't sweat it. He's probably gay. Even if he's not, tell people he is. Especially your gay friends. They'll be in a tizzy to see who can out him first, and it will make your cocktail parties more entertaining.

Now that you know the warning signs, don't panic [too late; you just ruined tonight's dinner for half the couples in North America]. Just because your partner exhibits some of these behaviors, that doesn't necessarily mean the relationship is over [but I thought you just said it did]. In fact, it's usually a combination of signs and not one isolated incident that foreshadows a breakup [thank God; sweetheart just finished saying that I wasn't brushing my teeth correctly. I started to cry].

If you're worried that your partner is itching to get out [you just caused it], the most important thing you can do is sit down and discuss your issues in an honest and open manner [there goes the football game]. If you take these signs as your cue to improve communication, your relationship may just have a fighting chance [if all of these things are so terrible, why are you telling me to fight for the relationship?].

This piece was obviously written by a woman for women. She threw in a couple of he/she bits, but the telltale signs are there. Honest. Open. Communication.

Whatever. Look, if your relationship is headed for the dumps, you don't need a stranger to give you a list. You need to go with your gut. Guy never calls when he's always three hours late? He's balling somebody. Woman doesn't want to have sex with you anymore? She's not attracted to you. Guy constantly picks on your appearance? He's a jerk.

You know these things, but knowing is not believing. No list in the world is going to help you with that problem. Everybody's been there. When friends are calling your boyfriend an idiot or your girlfriend a witch, you know they're right. You just don't want to believe it.

You're on your own with that one.

The Beckham Bust - And How Sean Berry Saved Soccer

Last night, David Beckham arrived in Toronto to much hoop-lah, and…nothing happened.

He took to the field in a sharp suit and tie. He sat on his butt throughout 90 minutes of excruciatingly boring play. And then he left. Final score: 0-0. Ninety minutes of professional sport, and at the end of it, all you can say is, “Well, something almost happened. And it was cool to see Beckham. I mean, I think it was Beckham. We were in the top row. But it looked like Beckham. Nice suit, too.”

This is what North America was waiting for? What a bust. Even Beckham must be wondering what he’s gotten himself into. The play of his own team, LA Galaxy, was terrible. He left Europe for this?

The grass leading from the locker room to the field was yellow and dead. Over his shoulder you could see port-a-johns in the background. His team ended with a zero-zero (excuse me, nil-nil) tie (draw) against a Toronto club that hasn’t scored a goal in over 300 minutes of play. I don’t know what the word is for “brutal” in soccer-speak, but I’ll bet Beckham could tell me after watching last night’s fiasco.

To set the record straight for my soccer-minded friends and enemies, I have nothing against the game, per se. I think it is a wonderful way to boost the self-esteem of children that can’t throw a fastball or shoot a puck. It also serves the purpose of getting fat kids to lose weight. But as entertainment I should pay to watch? Not a chance.

I’ve been told many times that if I went to a soccer game, I would have a great time. I don’t dispute that. When I was in South Africa, I went to many a rugby match and had a blast. Not because of the rugby. If a bunch of guys want to run two steps forward and pass the ball one step back, I’m not going to argue. It seems a foolish way of making progress, but what do I know?

The reason I enjoyed the rugby matches was in the stands. I was plastered most of the time, and I yelled at the referee, and once in a while I’d look at the score, and then I’d grab another beer. I didn’t care who won or lost, only that beers in a South African rugby stadium sell for a $1.50 a can. At those prices, I’d go to a tiddly winks tournament.

So yes, if I went to a soccer game, I would have a great time. I have no doubt of it. I would swill beer and check out the hooters on the girl wearing the “Bend Me, Beckham” t-shirt, and I’d holler at the ref for no reason whatsoever. It would be a fine time. But don’t for one minute think that I would pay money to watch the actual game. There is, after all, no reason to watch it. If your team scores once every 300 minutes (about every three games), why bother looking at the field at all?

If last night’s soccer game is how the league is going to present the sport to North America, they are in deep trouble. Perhaps Jesus Christ could put on a pair of cleats and bring soccer to the masses, but David Beckham can’t perform that miracle on his own.

Long story short, soccer is a drag. There’s no scoring. There’s no violence. Soccer fans that complain about the constant stoppage in “American” football should look at their own game first. Every time a soccer player is on a breakaway or even looks like he has a chance of scoring, he falls down and draws a whistle at the first opportunity. The game is one long episode of “let’s go out and pass the ball, dad.”

Three quick suggestions for Major League Soccer. One, put a blue line on the field, as in hockey. The offside rule as it stands now is confusing to novices (the very people you’re trying to attract), and it’s an invitation to tedium. With a soccer blue line, you’ll get more breakaways and more scoring. Once the ball is inside the thirty yard line, offside should go out the window. As with hockey, the players will be in a scoring zone. Let them try to do just that. More shots, more scoring, more excitement. People aren’t paying money to watch the defence put a guy offside by walking forward five feet. They want to see the strikers work their magic. Give them the time and space to say presto.

Two, dispense with the defensive no-rough-stuff philosophy. Sometime in the past, soccer became a sport for wimps. Nowhere in the rules does it say you can’t tackle a man in earnest. So allow hard play. If a guy falls down and rolls around on the ground, let him lie there or throw him out of the game. Bring the physicality back to soccer, and you will draw more fans.

Three, bring in the shoot-out at the end of a tie. Yeah, yeah, I know the soccer types hate the shoot-out, but welcome to the land of winners and losers. None of North America’s sports allows a tie. (Football does after an extra quarter of play, but it happens so rarely, nobody cares. It’s one of those aberrations that makes playoff math interesting from time to time). You can call North Americans unsportsmanlike swine for wanting a winner after every game, but that’s the way it is. We love winners and scorn losers. Give them to us.

I don’t want to hear from any purists that any of the above suggestions would ruin the game, or that it’s not “real soccer.”

So what? This isn’t really soccer country, either. The idea that people somehow have to adapt to a product you’re selling is preposterous. It’s the other way around. Learn it the hard way or the easy way, it’s all the same to me.

The Bourne Ultimatum - Review

Director: Paul Greengrass
Writers: Tony Gilroy/Scott Z. Burns/G. Nolfi
Runtime: 112 minutes

Matt Damon returns as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum, a movie so fast and lean that you’ll walk out of the theater saying, “That was great. Wasn’t it?”

As action movies go, it’s fairly straightforward. Jason Bourne is still suffering from amnesia, and doesn’t remember how he became a hitman. For reasons unknown to him, the CIA is still on his trail and wants to take him out. He again turns the tables on them by tracking them down and wrecking havoc in various hotspots around the world. Finally he faces off against the people who “created” him.

If this sounds like old news, it is. You might be sitting there saying, “Wasn’t that what the first two Bourne movies were about?”

The answer, of course, is yes. And that is virtually the only problem I have with Ultimatum. Matt Damon is fine in this installment of the trilogy (?). He is as heroic as ever, and he does a great job with the fight scenes. There’s virtually no room in the film for him to act, so it’s pointless to talk here about his acting abilities. If you want to see Damon act, have another look at The Good Shepherd or The Talented Mr. Ripley. He is superb in both. If you want to see him act as Bourne, then you will have to re-visit The Bourne Identity.

Ultimatum is well titled. It is the ultimate third in a three-part series. There’s no new story here, and not much character development. But the filmmakers are not stupid. They know that if they keep the film moving at breakneck speed, no one is going to argue with them. In fact, the word ultimatum is as misleading as the word supremacy was in the second film. How can a character be supreme when he still has another movie to go through before he comes out on top? How can he have an ultimatum with someone when he doesn’t give one?

The answer about the titling question is that they’re taken from Robert Ludlum’s books. That’s about all Ludlum’s material has to do with the films. The producer’s commentary on the other Bourne projects put that question to rest: he told the screenwriter to write whatever he wanted, but to keep the characters’ names intact. If you go out and buy Ludlum’s Bourne series, you won’t recognize much of them from the films.

I have no problem with that. Books were not made to be movies (the possible exception is Crichton’s Lost World, which reads like a script outline). Screenwriters have all kinds of problems when turning a novel into a screenplay. People that cry foul when they see a movie and declare that “the book was better” really don’t get it. They miss the point: the movie wasn’t supposed to look like the book. Never was. Never will be.

Books are books and movies are movies. The best advice I have for people that want to see a film that is completely faithful to the book it’s based on is this: don’t see the movie. There will never be a production meeting in Hollywood where the producer says, “Throw in another car chase,” and the writer replies, “But that’s not in the book.” The first thing the producer will say is, “Who cares?” The next thing he will say is, “You’re fired.” Because movies aren’t books.

Sometimes, to your surprise, the movie can be better. I think a great example of this is John Irving's A Widow for One Year. After reading the book, I thought to myself, “He should have stopped at the mid-point.” The first half of the book was fantastic, the rest of it a convoluted story about writers and their craft, and some other soul searching tripe. When I saw the film (renamed The Door in the Floor), I was pleasantly surprised to see that the screenwriter (Tod Williams, who also directed) knew more than Irving: he stopped the story halfway and left out the rest.

For the Bourne series, the producers and writers kept the titles, and more less threw the rest in the trash. On with the show.

If you’re an action fan, you won’t be disappointed. The fight scenes are well staged, and the direction is incredibly fast paced. The film is shot almost entirely hand held, and the editing is quick-quick. It works in most places. In others it’s plain confusing. You won’t get seasick, but you might get a bit lost. Still, it makes me giggle when people use ‘action director’ as an insult. In my mind, Schindler’s List is a hell of a lot easier to direct than Predator or Armageddon.

Think of all the set-ups that a director (in this case, Paul Greengrass) has to go through for one car chase. Weeks of work. Editing in your head. Saying “action” and “cut” two seconds apart. Over and over. “Action,” bottle over the guy’s head, “cut.” The next time you watch a good action sequence, hit rewind and concentrate on how hard that would be to produce believably. Directors must go through some sleepless nights wondering, “Will the stuff we shot today look cool, or like a jumble of crap?”

The only knock I have against Ultimatum is that it’s the same old, same old. The words still and again keep cropping up. Bourne still has amnesia. He still has creepy flashbacks. His own side wants to kill him again. He has to go to America again. Even the song for the closing credits is the same. Moby’s Extreme Ways, again.

If you liked the first two installments, though, then you won’t mind seeing Bourne win the day. Again.

Water Over The Bridge

I see that the mainstream media-types are still harping on about the non-story of a bridge falling down in Minnesota. I don't think I'm being hard hearted here. The 5 (some reports say 1, some say 7, and I've gotten tired of Googling dead people) that died on the bridge didn't have it coming. They were just going about their day and, bam, they were killed. My heart goes out to them and their families.

Watching the media cover this story for a few days has told me a couple of things. 1) It's a hell of a slow news week around the world. 2) Everything and anything that happens inside or outside the United States is entirely Bush's fault. Bridge falls down? Damn him for spending money in Iraq when he could've put more steel girders on bridges. Troops don't have enough body armour? Damn him for spending too much money on bridges and not enough in Iraq.

It took CNN exactly 12 hours to have a graphic that said, Who's to Blame? written beneath pictures of concrete in water. Jack Cafferty, CNN's most asinine reporter (and that's saying something) went on his usual anti-Fed rant. He blamed the bridge collapse on Bush, Iraq, Bush, Iraq. He hearkened back to the glorious mud slinging days of Katrina and the tsunami (tidal wave, to the rest of us). Then he read some emails from his fans that did the same. Then he tossed it back to Wolf Blitzer and returned to his corner, waiting for Blitzer to call his unqualified ass back onto the tube to read more emails later in the show.

This is what passes for reporting nowadays. Jack Cafferty rolls up his sleeves like some 1950's newspaper editor and pretends to do some investigating. The next time you watch this guy on TV, you'll realize he does nothing of the kind. He's a morning show has-been. He's a hack. He sits on a stool and reads emails sent to him by the unemployed of America. Who else is watching CNN at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and writing political diatribes to Jack Cafferty?

So, who's to blame? How about you, Jackie. Get off your soapbox and do some investigating. Why didn't you tell us about dangerous bridges last week or last year? Why didn't you tell us that FEMA was a joke before Katrina happened?

The mythical investigative reporter of the Watergate era is long gone. The only guy we have left is that dude from NBC Dateline, who busts pedophiles and people that steal iPods. Nobody else is out there pounding the beat and investigating anything.

Here's a couple of stories from the past few days that you might have missed because the US news media have been busy trying to make their politicians look bad.

Scouts Banned From Eating Burgers and Bangers - Because of Religious Beliefs

In case you're worried about the "bangers" bit, don't be. The Scouts haven't been wandering around the in the woods getting laid (to their probable teenage dismay). Bangers is English for "sausages."

100 years after Lord Baden-Powell led the first Boy Scout troupe into the woods to skin rabbits and sing around the fire, the pussification of our youth has taken another leap forward.

The word Boy, by the way, has been dropped from the Scouting lexicon. So today you have Scouts hiking into the woods to learn ...what, exactly?

Here's a quote from the Scouts' (you guessed it) spokeswoman Clare Haines, at the 2007 Scouting Centenary: "We have been very careful to make sure food is provided to everybody's tastes and beliefs, so no one feels left out. They enjoyed their vegetarian meals, especially vegetable chilli, fresh salads and jacket potatoes."

Hmmm. "Everyone's tastes and beliefs." Obviously that doesn't include the people who have a taste for hamburger, or the Christians who believe in eating fish on Friday.

I don't know what's worse: the fact that Clare believes teenagers enjoy fresh salads more than burgers, or that she might be right. From the moment today's children arrive in the world, we teach them to be a wimp. Regulations out the ying yang, boring playground equipment, bicycle helmets, peanut-free cafeterias. Children are not taught to fend for themselves at any time in their lives, and then we wonder why their self-esteem suffers as a thirty-something basket case.

The Scouts should fold up their tents and call it a day. Vegetarian food a mile from the highway, and no fires allowed? Not to mention the internet cafe for homesick Scouts, and the solar powered lights to keep them from tripping over tent pegs. That's not what being a Scout used to mean.

It is doubtful that Lord Baden-Powell thought playing the violin or developing a new yam pie recipe deserved a merit badge on the level of compass reading and sharpshooting. He saw the Scouts as a paramilitary organization, and wanted to teach boys to become self-sufficient men.

Then again, don't pat him on the back too hard, either. As his diary notes, he thought Mein Kampf was "a wonderful book, with good ideas on education, health, propaganda, organization, etc." He even designed early merit badges with swastikas on them.

The poor Scouts. They've become wimps, and their father was a Nazi sympathizer. Had history taken a different route, Baden-Powell could have been an honorary member of the Hitler Youth. But his original Scouts, grown up by WWII, beat the Germans and ensured that wouldn't happen.

Could today's Scouts do the same?

Penn Pal

Speaking of pro-Fascists, it looks like Sean Penn has decided to go a step further in his glorious career as a pro-Fascist actor. I used to think that he was a great actor, and still would, if I saw any more of his films. I wouldn't call it a boycott, so much as a bore-cott. Is there anything more mundane that watching a rich American celebrity punish himself for being just that?

Seeing Penn bootlick the heels of an anti-Semitic dictator is a good reminder that actors are just people and some people are morons.