For Everyone's Safety

Can someone tell me exactly what the RCMP are for?

I don't mean the guys in their pretty red jackets. We know what they're for: parades, handing out sports trophies, and posing for pictures.

I'm talking about the guys that show up brandishing weapons and acting like the best thing to hit law enforcement since Walker Texas Ranger. They're loud, they're proud. They carry big guns and wear black SWAT outfits that make the ladies swoon and macho men cream in their pants. They are...drum roll...the Mounties. Protectors of the innocent and smiters of evil.

What hogwash.

Last week, a 22-year-old man was sitting on a Greyhound bus travelling through Manitoba. He was apparently minding his own business when his seatmate stood up and stabbed him to death. According to witnesses, the murderer was very calm. No rage, no screaming lunacy. He stabbed the victim anywhere from 40 to fifty times. One witness described the murderer as "robotic."

The bus driver pulled over to the side of the highway, and he and the other passengers exited the vehicle. Witnesses tell us that the murderer stayed aboard the bus, cut off the man's head, and held it aloft for all to see. The witnesses know this, because three of them went back aboard the bus to check on the victim. That is when they saw the murderer cutting up the young man. At that point, the murderer ran towards them, knife in hand. The witnesses, bus driver included, ran back off the bus and slammed the door shut, locking the murderer inside.

They kept a vigil at the door, making sure the killer couldn't get out. It was then that the killer showed them the man's severed head and dropped it to the floor in front of them. Yet they kept their vigil, not running off to the nearest farmhouse and hiding behind the barn.

The cops eventually showed up and a standoff ensued. You know the type: brave cops surround a vehicle or building, and wait for the killer to do whatever it is he's going to do, until he gets tired and quits. All the while, a "crisis negotiator" is there, talking to the man in soothing tones, promising he won't come to any harm.

Cops, you see, don't like confronting people carrying weapons. It's safer outside. Safer, they tell us, for "everyone involved, including the suspect." Sure. We honestly believe you when you say you're worried about the suspect's safety.

Only in the surreal world of today's police will you find a crisis negotiator attempting to negotiate with a man that has just decapitated someone.

Oh, but the story from Manitoba gets worse. During the several hour standoff, the murderer kept himself busy. Here's an RCMP transmission, recorded and posted on YouTube: ""Badger is armed with a knife and a pair of scissors and he is defiling the body at the front of the bus as we speak."

"Badger" was the codeword for the murderer. Macho types always come up with such great nicknames, don't they? Makes them feel like they're doing something cool.

Another transmission: "Okay, Badger's at the back of the bus, hacking off pieces and eating it."

After the standoff, the RCMP immediately told the press that the transmissions needed to be removed from the internet because they were not for "public consumption." Setting aside the unfortunate choice of words in that statement, it's no surprise the Mounties didn't want this stuff on the airwaves. The Mounties wouldn't want people to know that these brave men in uniform had ringside seats for the evening's cannibalism show, and did absolutely nothing to bring it to an end except sit on their macho asses and play sportscaster (neverminding the fact that, as Canadians, no one on that bus thought to do anything about the guy while he was stabbing the victim 50 times; we'll save that argument for another day).

The scene eventually ended the way it usually does: on the murderer's terms. He tried to jump from a window and the police arrested him. But not before the bastard had done such awful things to the victim that his parents will be having nightmares for the rest of their lives, and the chances of an open casket funeral are remote.

Speaking of the parents, the RCMP weren't done with their latest laughfest. Too busy playing CSI Miami, the cops forgot to tell the victim's family about the whole thing. The victim's father didn't find out about his son's demise for 24 hours, and it wasn't anyone official that broke the news. Rather, it was a news reporter at his front door, seeking a reaction piece.

The good old days
Those brave Mounties. Last year, a man from Europe was sitting in the Vancouver airport, waiting in the baggage room. He couldn't speak English, had never been on an airplane, and couldn't understand why his mother wasn't coming to pick him up. He was a big, simple, innocent guy. He sat there for almost a complete day, and nobody helped him. Finally he wigged out and started throwing things around in frustration. The RCMP showed up, Tasered him, sat on his back with his face to the floor, and within twenty seconds the man was dead. No negotiator for him. Just high voltage, and brave cops pinning him to the ground.

Or how about this one: earlier this year, the Mounties showed up in the hospital room of a man suffering from pneumonia. He was lying in bed. The man was delirious, and he had a knife in his hand. Time to call the negotiator? Nah. They zapped the man with the good ol' Taser. The man, by the way, was 82 years old. In their defence, a Mountie spokesman said, "Whether the person is 80 or 20, we are dealing with a person who had a deadly weapon in their hand." Like, say, a man in a bus carving someone into little pieces?

Yeah, they're brave all right. Some guy without a weapon goes into airport rage, or an old timer goes nutty in bed, and the Mounties have no problem - what's the phrase? - "taking them down." But a murderer with a knife carves up a mother's son for hours on end, and they do nothing except give a play-by-play on their cute walkie-talkies. Guess they forgot to charge their Tasers back at the office.

The lack of bravery among cops in nothing new, nor is it only lacking in Canada. In the US, when a gun nut goes whacko, it's usually a gunpacking witness that solves the problem, or the murderer just gets bored of the whole thing and shoots himself in the head. The police, you see, are outside "securing the area" for "everyone's safety."

Keep up the mantra, guys, I'm sure it will help you sleep better at night. Too bad the victims won't be.

Photos: BC Rugby News & Yarns

Hollywood A to C

I was watching the news today and saw that actress Keira Knightley is putting her foot down over her boobs.

That makes for a weird headline even by Hollywood's standards, but there you have it. Apparently the production house that is turning out her latest film, The Duchess, wants to increase Knightley's bust size for the promo posters. Knightley is said to be fighting back, declaring that she's proud of what she's got, and her chest doesn't need to be enhanced. No C cup for her, thank you, the A cup is just fine (though an A cup is really more of an "A saucer" when you get down to it).

Good for Knightley. Nice to see her taking a stand on something important, like phoniness in the movies. Now if only she'd wipe off the make-up, fire her hairdresser, send Mr. Gucci and his red carpet dress packing, and tell the lighting guy to cool it with the halo effect. When she's done that she can have the director of photography remove the filter from the lens, tell the editor not to cut out her mistakes, and inform the producer that she no longer needs to fly first class because coach is where the real peoples be.

Knightley's breasts have been news before. Back when she was only so-so famous, her breast size was enlarged on the posters for King Arthur. She didn't mind then, but ah, she's a star now. When an actress becomes a star, they get a boatload of ethics to go with their trailer.

Still, it's an interesting issue for her to hang her t-shirt on. Why breast size? Why not fake lashes, dyed hair, ten pounds of Max Factor, or body doubles during the sex scenes?

I was watching an ABC bit about Knightley's beating of breast, and in it they intimated that this will empower women to stand up for themselves. One "expert" said that young women will now feel free to proclaim that the real them is the real deal. No more phoniness, no more caving to the materialistic, misogynistic culture.

Sure. It's men that tie 300, 000 women down and cart them into the operating room for breast augmentation each year (2006 numbers). Seeing as the FDA doesn't allow anyone under the age of 18 to receive breast augmentation surgery without parental consent, there aren't that many "young women" doing it. The women going in for the surgery are just that: women. They can vote, they can fight in wars, they can fly an airplane, they can get their breasts augmented. The only thing they can't do is drink, which is a shame, because the bar is where augmented breasts are always a sure hit.

Breasts are an interesting piece of anatomy. Without them, there would be no wet t-shirt contests (well, maybe there would, but they'd be boring ones), nor would there be a reason to find yourself in court for sexual harassment after a case of the morning stares. Breasts make office parties and late night TV more fun, and they do wonders for a football game when a woman playfully responds to a drunk's request of "Show us your tits!"

Alas, poor Keira probably never heard those words when growing up in jolly England, where the footballing yobs are not shy about asking for such favours. Maybe her protest isn't so much about the phoniness of the movie business, but her way of battling past teenage angst.

Whatever the case, I wish her luck on her quest for truth in pictures, though you can bet if it was zit removal, she'd be giving the Photoshop lab two perky thumbs up.

Photo: Telegraph

Those Crazy Days of Base-Ball

I was watching a game the other night, and Jays' reliever Brandon League whipped a ball at a batter. The pitch struck him in the leg, the batter took his base, and the ump tossed League from the game.

Usually an ump gives a pitcher a warning before tossing him, but these days the umps are quick on the trigger to toss someone if they think the pitcher intentionally drilled the guy.

Personally, I think throwing at a batter is part of the game, as long as the pitch comes in below the shoulders. The "inside pitch" has got to remain a part of baseball, and pitchers have to be given the right to throw it. Batters already have a massive advantage through a small stirke zone, a short pitcher's mound, and a meaningless batter's box. These days they can even elect to wear padding on their elbow, which should be banned outright: this is not cricket, and elbow padding only begs a hitter to lean over the plate.

If umpires begin tossing pitchers at the first sign of trouble, then you can kiss pitching strategy good-bye. A pitcher won't want to throw inside to brush a batter back, because if he misses by only two or three inches, he might plunk the batter and end up with a trip to the showers. This threat forces the pitcher to pitch carefully over the plate, and when you pitch carefully over the plate, you're throwing grapefruits ripe for homeruns.

The history of hitting someone with a baseball is as old as baseball itself, but the rules have gone through unbelievable changes. In fact, batters used to receive the short end of the stick when it came to inside pitching.

Picture this. The year is 1876. You're playing "base-ball." You're up to bat, as the "striker," wearing your little cloth cap and baggy pants. The pitcher winds up from 45 feet away. He's not allowed to pitch "over his shoulder," but he can still whistle the thing in there pretty good using an underhand or sidearm.

So you get ready. The pitch comes in. Ker-plunk. It hits you in the ribs. The ump says nothing, and the pitcher gets ready to throw another. In the rules of the day, the first ball, whether "unfair" (today's "ball") or "fair" (today's "strike"), is not called regardless of where it ends up. It's a freebie.

Pitch 2: the pitcher winds up. Ker-Plunk, he nails you in the shin. The ump calls the pitch "unfair," but he doesn't tell you to take your base. You see, three "unfair" pitches make up one "ball." But a pitch that hits the batter is also a ball. So there's a chance you'll face 8 more unfair pitches before you can walk, or two more, if both of them nail you. Of course, there's always a chance you'll hit the ball, in which case you hope the ump sees it clearly, because if the ump needs help with the call, he's allowed to ask for help from a spectator.

Image that today, say in Yankee Stadium. A Red Sox player hits the ball and it looks foul, but the ump isn't sure, so he turns to the crowd and asks for their opinion.

In the old days, being hit by a pitch was almost guaranteed. Pitchers used it to great advantage, intimidating players and moving them around the 6 x 6 foot batter's box. But then, batters used it too, leaning into pitches in order to get on base. Getting hit by numerous pitches sounds like a lot of pain to take for one lousy base, but it makes more sense when you consider the baserunning rules of the day: men on base, regardless if forced or not, all advanced one base if the batter walked. In other words, a man on third would come home even if the bases weren't loaded. Walks were winners.

Hitting a batter became a little more costly in 1878, when the rules declared that an umpire could fine a pitcher on the spot for beaning a man. The hitter couldn't take his base after being hit, but he could be satisfied to hear the ump tell the pitcher that he was fined anywhere between $10 and $25. A year later, the fine increased to a maximum of $50, showing that ball clubs thought beaning a hitter was cheap at half the price. The imposed fines had to be paid at the end of the day, or the offending team forfeited the game.

Baseball's history is a confusion of rule changes, a lot of them centering around the hit batsman. There were a number of leagues in the country, professional and amateur, and none of them agreed on anything at the same time. In less than a decade, the National League changed the number of balls needed for a walk from 9, to six, to seven.

Over in the American Association, they decided to simplify the whole thing. In 1884 they became the first league to immediately give a batter first base if he was hit by a pitch, as long as the ump thought the beanball was intentional. They declared that an intentionally beaned man could not be put out on his way to first, as long as he took first base "on the run." So after being drilled by a pitch, a man had to hustle to first. If he took his time, the big baby could be thrown out.

Ventura Takes Exception
Everything was fine for five minutes, but those damned hitters screwed everything up again by trying to get hit by pitches, forcing baseball to remove the hit-by-pitch rule if the ball struck you on the forearm or hand. It was called the Welch amendment, named after one particular hitter that had a knack for leaning into pitches, then putting up his hands to "defend himself." (Hughie Jennings may have been another good actor, being hit by 287 pitches between 1891 and 1903).

Baseball began to wimp out in the 20th Century, and now a hit-by-pitch is a big deal. Benches clear, managers get ejected, pitchers get fined thousands of dollars, soccer moms cry. Today's beanball, however, is nothing compared to the old days, where you literally expected to get drilled at least once per at-bat, and maybe three times for good measure.

Ah, the good old days.

Photos: Nationals Review & Google Images

The Dark Knight - Review

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: C. Nolan and J. Nolan
Starring: Christian Bale/Heath Ledger
Runtime: 152 minutes

Ticket line ups and sell out crowds don't mean much to me in terms of how good a movie is. All line ups mean is that people are willing to line up to see the movie. That's it. Box office records, and revenue, don't have a thing to do with a movie's quality, at least in the first or second weekend.

So what makes people line up to see a flick?

Good question. If you knew the answer to that, you would be sitting in the biggest office Hollywood has to offer. There'd be starlets rubbing your back and lowly interns shining your shoes, as actors and agents take turns kissing your ring.

Nobody knows how to make people line up for a movie. Producers pour money into flicks in all kinds of ways: top notch screenwriter, award winning director, great cast, bestselling book to base the movie upon, and advertising out the ying yang. They put up billboards in Times Square and send their stars on the late night talk show tour. They plaster the internet, bus terminals, and subway stations with posters, and they beam commercials straight into your living room. And at the end of all their hard work, producers can do only one thing: pray.

They know better than anyone that there is no guarantee a film will do well. None whatsoever. Sometimes they get Star Wars returns. Others, Bonfire of the Vanities.

Why is that?

There's a lot of theories, but I like William Goldman's. He's a screenwriter that's had some big hits. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, The Princess Bride, Marathon Man, Misery. Though he wrote some duds, he wrote a lot of movies that people lined up to see. How did he do it?

Search him. Goldman's theory says there is one reason a movie succeeds: people want to see it. There is one reason a movie doesn't succeed: people don't want to see it. End of discussion.

There's no other explanation. Audiences are incredibly fickle, and there is no way to read their minds. That's why you see so many sequels. Producers have given up trying to shape the art and business of film, so they cash in when they can. If people line up to see Spider-Man, you'd better get ready for another decade of web slinging. James Bond? Same thing. Batman? Ditto. These are called "franchise movies," and producers will squeeze the life out of them before moving on to the next - hopeful - hit. And, speaking of James Bond, they will only move on once the franchise has crashed. Bond, to his credit, has yet to flop badly enough for the studios to call Her Majesty and tell the Queen that they will no longer need her Service.

Which brings us to Batman. See if this would make sense outside of the movie business:

Batman. 1989. A movie about how Bruce Wayne grows up, becomes Batman, and faces the Joker. The Joker dies.

Batman Returns. 1992. Batman comes back, fights two bad guys, plus a semi-bad Catwoman.

Batman Forever (apparently so, but not with Michael Keaton - he's replaced by Val Kilmer). 1995. Batman fights another two bad guys, and is joined by the Boy Wonder.

Batman and Robin. 1997. Kilmer is replaced by Clooney. Batman must again fight two villains, but he's now joined by Robin, and Batgirl.

And...thud. The franchise hits the dust until three years ago with Batman 5, which is miraculously called Batman Begins. In this movie, we learn how Bruce Wayne grows up to become Batman, and -- hey, wait a minute. Didn't we already see all of this?

Sure we did. But this is an extra-special re-telling. This one's darker, or more powerful, or more true to the Batman story. The story you saw before was okay, but all the hype was misplaced. This, the producers tell us, is the real Batman. Besides, it's not like the Joker's in it or anything...

So tonight I go to see The Dark Knight, the 2nd of the second Batman movies, where we meet...ta-da! The Joker.

Look, I'm all in favour of a good time. I liked The Dark Knight, and I thought Batman Begins was the best Batman movie of them all. But while we're cooing over these flicks, let's be real about Hollywood and our expectations of it.

We constantly tell Hollywood to give us fresh ideas and better movies. We yell "derivative" at the top of our voices, and feel cheated when we see the same old, same old. But who are we to complain when we sell out North American theatres for a chance to see a retread of a movie from 19 years ago? The message to Hollywood is clear: we want to see these movies, and we're only lying when we tell them to give us something new.

How can it be otherwise? Tonight's film shows that the same pattern is being repeated. The second movie needs two bad guys, one primary (the Joker), one secondary (which I won't give away). There's a damn good chance that Robin will show up in the next film (but not Christian Bale, if he follows Keaton's lead), plus two or more bad guys to keep the sub-plots rolling. Then we'll get another movie with a couple of bad guys that are only interesting if you've read the comic books. Finally, and mercifully, there will be one more film until the franchise goes cold. Then, once today's audience has procreated and raised their children to movie-going age, we'll be fed another dose of Batman Redux.

But, you're saying, what was The Dark Knight like? How was Heath Ledger? What's your deal and why don't you shut up?

Okay, fine. Tonight's film was good. Not bad, not great, but good. Like most sequels, Knight takes it for granted that you've seen the first one and know the lead character very well. Why is Wayne living in an apartment instead of a mansion? Why is the Batcave in the cellar of a building? Sorry. You should have re-run Batman Begins before coming into the theatre.

There's no real story to The Dark Knight. The Joker shows up, causes havoc, and Batman tries to save the day. That's pretty much it.

Heath Ledger does well as the Joker. Ledger was a damn fine actor, and it's a shame he died so young, but his Joker role is not worthy of an Oscar nod, as some have said. He does a good job with the character, but it is nothing that leaves a memorable impression.

The rest of the cast is fine. Aaron Eckhart is good as Harvey Dent. The three old timers, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman, are as steady as ever. Freeman and Caine aren't used much, but Oldman has a lot of screentime. Maggie Gyllenhaal's character is pretty much there for kidnap-bait. I did take issue with one 30 minute sequence of the film, where the characters go against type so badly that I was wondering what the hell the movie was doing. See if you can figure it out, because I can't.

The lack of story scared me. Batman Begins was so good in this regard, that I thought the second would follow up. Not to be. Comic book characters get short shrift in sequels, as if the first movie said all there was to say about them. That's why you need two or more bad guys, a bunch of new gadgets (like Knight's Batcycle), and a couple of sidekicks in later films: they prop up the lack of depth by throwing new tricks and characters into the mix. Spider-Man, to its credit, has avoided this cliche. As in the first series of Batman films, I think these cliches will eventually ruin this franchise, too.

But if what I am saying is true, why are people lining up around the corner to get into the theatre?

Search me. I guess people just want to see it.

Photos: Yahoo Movies

I'm A Sports "Journalist," Get Me A Tissue

"Though spared the indignity of another tie, Selig had to suffer through the 4-hour, 50-minute Yankee Stadium special wondering, like everyone else, which position players Francona and NL manager Clint Hurdle would designate their pitchers and whether this would officially wreck the sham that says an All-Star game should mean something."

That's Jeff Passan, from Yahoo Sports. Someone get him a hanky. Though not quite as much of an insipid hack as Toronto sports writers, Jeff always comes close.

Poor guy. Another sycophant who believes that sports are for one thing: to give him a job worshipping his heroes.

In 2002, Major League Baseball made the All-Star game mean something (homefield advantage for the World Series) because a tie game angered the fans. Back in the 2002 game, the managers worried that their poor pitchers' arms were going to get tired, so they asked for the game to be called a draw. Bud Selig agreed, and the game ended, to a chorus of boos from the stands.

I never used to watch the All-Star game. I don't believe any game should be televised unless it means something. This is not Europe, where you play "friendlies" against some team from down the road or across a continent. The only exception to this is the pre-season, where the games actually mean quite a lot: they tell you whom you want to hire and fire.

This is North America. We play to win. Winning is all the matters (unless you work for the Jays, whose losing record has forced them to run commercials that say "it's about more than winning." Sure it is, when you're losing). If a game isn't worth winning, why is it worth watching?

I only started to watch the All-Star game when it was decided that the winning team would receive homefield advantage in the World Series. Good enough for me. Now that there was something on the line, I was ready to tune in.

Sports writers hated the idea. You see, they make their living worshipping and protecting sports stars. They thought that baseball players might get hurt playing in a game that mattered (they do it 162 times during the regular season, but boo-hoo, be careful on one night July, little darlings). Sportscasters wanted the game to stay the way it always was: a nice four-day press trip to a baseball stadium, where they could hang out with their heroes and pat them on the back.

Tough luck. Sports "journalists" covered up the steroid scandal in baseball for over a decade while they kissed millionaire butt. Their opinion is absolutely irrelevant to me when it comes to how the game should be played, or if any changes should be made to it.

Major Leage Baseball heard the jeers six years ago, and the league responded to what the fans wanted. The fans! Who could believe it? Not the sports writers, who suddenly found themselves with the task of not drinking too much from the press box so they could actually report on a real game during the All-Star break.

If managers are afraid of long innings and tired arms, they should manage teams better during the game. If this means a player doesn't get a chance to play, too bad. The game means something. Sit on the bench and wait your turn if we need you. This isn't Little League. They're grown men, playing for a very important prize in the post-season. Being picked last doesn't mean they'll miss a date with Mary Jane, it means their team might win. They can deal with it.

As, in fact, they are. I haven't heard much griping from players today about a long, 15-inning game. The fans, too, don't seem to care that they were treated to a close one. It's the sports "journalists" that are having a hard time with it. A long game meant delayed flights, late deadlines, and perhaps a missed opportunity to hit the bar for last call on their newspaper's dime.

So tonight I will tune in and listen to these hacks berate last night's game. And I will laugh, knowing that the fans caused the change in the game, and ticked off these self-righteous buffoons. It's going to be a great night.

Favre

It's going to get ugly in Green Bay.

After Brett Favre's tearful farewell to the game in March, everybody thought that they'd seen the last of Brett Favre on the football field. It seemed this time he actually meant it when he said he was through.

Not so fast. Favre has said he wants to come out of retirement. A couple of months ago, the Packers would have been keen to hear the news, but now they're saying they've moved on. Trouble is, they still have control of Favre, which means they have to decide what to do with him now that he's said he wants to play.

In the past couple of weeks, the tension has been rising and the fans have been getting restless. The team's management has said that a) Aaron Rogers is going to be their starting QB, and b) Favre can come back as a back-up if he wants to.

That isn't exactly what a Hall of Famer wants to hear, so Favre has asked to be released from the team. This will allow him to play for any team in the league. And guess what? Just today the Pack said that they will not release Favre, so if he wants to play football, he'll have to be happy with a back-up roll on the Packers squad, or forget about playing altogether.

That doesn't have to be the final answer. There's a chance the Packers can trade Favre to a team outside their division, which will guarantee that he won't embarrass them on their own turf in at least 2 games next year. But as it stands now, there's a very real possibility that this could blow up to the point where Favre will want to play for another team just so he can go into the Hall of Fame in any jersey other than Packer green.

Weird how life goes. Six months ago, Favre was a Packer legend. Now he's a headache for management, and a martyr for the fans.

Sanctimony Murmur

I'm back from a break, and while I was gone...nothing happened.

Life's funny that way. One minute you're working hard on a ton of ultra-important jobs, reading reams of frightening news reports, answering life-or-death phone calls about family dinners and gig prospects. The next, you're sitting around for a week or two, drinking a few beers, watching baseball, listening to the grass grow, and it hits you. Life doesn't change much, and it doesn't need you, anyway.

I spent my 20's travelling around the world, and I'll bet that I watched the news maybe 3 times a month that whole decade. This was back when the internet was in its infancy, so the only news I got was from the TV hanging over a bar in Mexico or somewhere. If you've been in enough bars, then you know that the TV is always on super-low volume and drowned out by ABBA's greatest hits, so your chances of hearing anything important are pretty much nil. If you're a news junkie, you'd have to read the little scroller on the bottom of the screen to stay tuned to the big stories, like how the pandas came out of their cave and screwed for the first time in years.

So I spent a decade not really knowing what was going on. I don't mean I was a complete moron. I knew that Clinton got re-elected, and George Bush, and I saw 9/11 happen. Big stuff. But as for the little stuff in between, well, I just couldn't be bothered. When there's a beach bunny sitting under the TV set asking you to buy her another Bahama Mama, suddenly politics and Mississippi floods don't seem like that big a deal.

Not watching is more fun than watching, and certainly less stressful. I suppose I could hang on a politician's every word, or check on how many times an Israeli market's been blown up in a given week, or whether Katie Couric's numbers have gone up in the ratings. But taking a break from listening to those stories reminds you that life is pretty fleeting, and most things don't matter one way or the other.

Sure, I guess it matters to "life," whatever that is, but does it really matter to me?

That's a tough question. On the one hand, you could say that everything that happens in the world has a direct impact upon your life, no man is an island, so forth. When an Israeli market blows up, and someone mentions that Israel might nuke Iran, the gas prices spike. That bugs me, but it doesn't make me sit down and cry. So yes, that news story impacts my life, but not so much that it takes control of me.

So what do I care about? I worry about big stuff like Islamofacism, and what I see as a new wave of communism disguised as human rights (we are all one, up with the collective, everyone's a migrant, the Declaration of Human Rights is the gospel, Western society is the problem, the world belongs to all of us...and we need someone in charge to tell us exactly what to do with it). But I don't worry about it as much as I do the damn dresser drawer that won't work properly. Every time I watch the news I get pissed off, but whenever I open the dresser drawer and it almost amputates my foot, I get even more pissed off.

Caring is about proximity. Dresser drawer? Care. Weirdo terrorist in Baghdad? Care a little. Weirdo terrorist in my living room? Care a lot.

This is why I'm amused when I watch the news reports on TV. A month back, everyone and their mother seemed to be protesting about Myanmar. Remember that place? Former peaceniks were saying that war would be a good idea, to feed the people hit by the hurricane. No one liked Myanmar's regime, governments said they'd boycott them until doomsday, and feminists were going to send shipments of underwear to the junta in order to embarrass them or turn them on, I can't remember which. Anyway, Myanmar was a very big, bad problem, and the whole wide world was up in arms about it.

We all cared. Then a month goes by, and damned if I can find anything in the news about it. Oh, sure, there's lots of websites that still have a stake because they blew their money on the domain address, but when is the last time it led the evening news? It's been ages. I haven't heard the word "Myanmar" come out of a politician's mouth in a hell of a long time, and I doubt I will again until the place gets knocked over by another hurricane. The protests have dried up, and everyone's gone on to other protests, other problems, other picnics with potato salad.

So really: did we care?

If caring is about proximity, it's also about longevity. You can usually judge how bad a problem is for you by how much time you spend worrying about it. I'm sure you know that Myanmar is still a craphole and that people are suffering unbelievably. But you don't care anymore because you never really did. It was just the latest craze, the latest hep thing to be upset about. Then Obama got nominated, or your raise came in, or your boyfriend proposed marriage, or your dad died. And Myanmar? Poof.

Still, you can console yourself with the oldest line in the book: what can I do about it? Given a choice between a dresser drawer and Myanmar, you're probably going to reach for a screwdriver before you put your underwear in the mail.

Caring is about proximity and longevity, but for the really big news stories, you need one more thing: the news. The old "global village" adage is very true, but only when a megaphone is blasting the message into your rec room. For a few weeks, the news can have you thinking that Myanmar is the next city over. But when the megaphone changes to A-Rod screwing Madonna, Myanmar miraculously ends up on the other side of the earth. Proximity? Nada. Longevity? Forget it. Burmese people? Never heard of them.

The next time you're watching the news, be honest and ask yourself if you really care. If you do, let me swing by and ask you again in six months.

Movie, Politics, Baseball, and Break

I was thumbing through the PPV guide on cable tonight, and saw a movie called The Cottage. The little info bubble said that it was 92 minutes long. I automatically thought it was a horror movie, and with a title like The Cottage, probably a harmlessly lame one.

I was right about the horror, but wrong about the quality. It's a British spoof movie that would best be described as Quentin Tarantino meets Friday the 13th. I won't tell you the plot, but I will say that it's a sleeper pick of the year, and you should see it when you can. Very smart, funny, sometimes gory, always entertaining. The writing is great.

I also saw that the Canadian Human Rights Commission punted on the Mark Steyn deal. No surprise. They're taking a beating from the press, and it looks like they'll have their hands full with a parliamentary review and an RCMP investigation.

I said a long time ago that the worst thing they ever did was pick on Maclean's and Steyn. The CHRC had a nice racket going and no one was the wiser. Then they went after big names and it blew up in their faces. I have a feeling they're regretting it already, and the dismissal of the Steyn complaint is an attempt at damage control.

The Jays got burned again tonight, and it looks like another .500 season for them. Tampa Bay, on the other hand, is tearing it up. It would be fun to see them give the Red Sox a run for their money, if they can keep it up until September. Tough to do, as the Rays don't have experience winning long seasons, but we can always hope. Otherwise, it'll be the Red Sox out of the east in a walk.

I'm going on a break for a week or so to chill out. The blogs have been random lately because I've been busy with some video stuff, and summer is keeping my occupied with the great outdoors. That doesn't mean I'm off kayaking or rock climbing, it just means that I walk outside, sit down, and don't have the computer around.

So happy Canada Day to all, and if I don't write again until the 4th, happy Independence Day to the Yanks.

Last Laughs

I guess it's fair to say that the people over at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal don't mind a little controversy. After this month's hearing about Maclean's magazine, I thought the tribunal might lie low for a while. There's been a lot of fallout from the blogosphere and the mainstream press, with writers saying that a human rights tribunal has no right to tell anyone what to think, say, or write.

I misjudged the tribunal. They are so convinced of their authority, that they've quickly come up with another way to silence people. In this case, it's stand-up comedians.

Two days ago, the tribunal released a document saying that they will hear the case of a lesbian woman who was insulted during a comedian's act in Vancouver. The comic is Guy Earle of Toronto, and he says that the women were heckling him, so he heckled them right back. He admits that it got heated, and that he was rude, but he says he's not a bigot.

Anyone who's been to a comedy nightclub knows that it's never a good idea to take on a professional comic. They win every time. Or at least they used to.

The complainant's name is Lorna Pardy. She says that Earle used homophobic and sexist language towards her and her friends. She was offended by these remarks, and filed a complaint with the tribunal, who then agreed to hear the case. As with all human rights hearings, the complainant doesn't have to hire a lawyer, nor do they even have to show up for the proceeding. Their job is pretty much done. It's now up to Earle and the restaurant owner to prove they aren't bigots.

I'm not sure I even recognize Canada much these days. Inside of a month, a psuedo-court of unelected officials has put the fear of litigation into the minds of all writers and now all comedians.

It cannot be said enough that the outcomes of these cases is irrelevant. In a year's time, Guy Earle may be found innocent of thought-crimes by this psuedo-court. That isn't the point. What matters is that a nugget of fear will now be placed into the heads of stage performers who may decide that the gags they've written aren't worth the price of a lawyer and being smeared as a bigot.

Money matters to everybody, but it matters to comics more than most. I've worked with and befriended dozens of comics over the years. Only big name comedians make money, while the rest work the Yuk Yuk's circuit and live in motels. Unless they're getting regular TV work, comics have a meager existence, hoping the gas prices don't spike on their way to Regina. Many may decide that they simply can't afford to "go there" in the humorous sense. They'll start to censor themselves, watering down their work and boring their audiences.

Note that the comedy club itself was also named as a respondent to the complaint. Though the restaurant in the Pardy case has gone out of business, the owner himself is accused of promoting bigotry. This is extremely important: you may think that Earle will ride this controversy to new fame, and you may be right. But will other restaurants and comedy clubs take a chance on future young performers whom they've heard are "outrageous" or "mean?" These clubs may figure that being investigated for crimes against humanity isn't worth it, and tell their comedians to tone it down.

Why are we, as Canadians, allowing this to be done to us? We didn't elect any of these people. None of them ran for office, and yet they feel fit to speak for us all when they muzzle writers and gag comedians. Is this what we now stand for? Proud Canada, my ass. We're sheep, beholden to people that buy their SUVs with the taxpayers' money, while telling those same taxpayers to shut up.

George Carlin, a brilliant comedian, died this week. He rose to fame after he canned the suit-and-tie act, put on a t-shirt, and started railing about the "seven dirty words you can't say on television." Old news. Give the commissions time, and it will be the "seven sacred subjects you can't speak about anywhere."

Gibbons Out, Gaston In

Cito Gaston returns as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, as John Gibbons and three other coaches were shown the door.

I say it's two years too late, but better late than never. Listening to Fan 590 tonight will be very interesting, as Gibbons/Blue Jays shill Mike Wilner will no doubt try to cover his ass for protecting Gibbons for the past 3 years. Wilner is never worth listening to except when you want to learn how not to play the game of baseball.

As for Cito, it will be good to see him back, but I have to feel sorry for him. Being handed a baseball team that can't hit is much like being given the keys to a car that's missing a couple of cylinders. Still, he's got nothing to lose. If the team continues to tank, it's all on Gibbons and general manager JP Ricciardi. If the team does well, then he can take credit.

The Happening - Review

Director & Writer: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Mark Wahlberg

I've spent years sticking up for M. Night Shyamalan. After The Village came out, I spent a good deal of time telling people that although the story was fairly lame, the photography and art direction was great. Signs was another flick which I thought was a bit childish but, on the whole, still worth seeing.

Then along came The Lady in the Water, and even I couldn't defend it. I shrugged and thought, "Well, even Shyamalan deserves an off day."

Except deep down inside, I knew that it wasn't an off day. Shyamalan's movies have been suffering from a big dose of amateurish whimsy at least since The Village, and Lady in the Water only confirmed it.

Now we have The Happening. When I saw the trailers for this flick, I couldn't wait to see it. I thought Shyamalan would turn things around and treat us to a very scary humans-run-for-their-lives movie. Instead, he gives us another dud, and I find myself wondering if he even knows how to tell a story anymore. This film is horrible on so many levels that it's a shame it even got made. And I can no longer deny it: Shyamalan's movies just aren't that good.

The Happening starts off in New York City. It's a pleasant enough day. People are hanging out in Central Park, rollerblading, reading a book, walking their dogs, so forth. Suddenly, one by one, they can't speak. They can't hear. They go into a trance. And then they kill themselves with whatever's handy, such as a hairpin, or a pistol.

The chaos spreads throughout the city, as people off themselves one by one. There's a particularly creepy scene where construction workers leap to their deaths, their clothing fluttering in the breeze until they smash to the concrete below.

That's a damn good first act for a movie. It instantly makes you wonder, "What's going to happen next?"

Alas, not a hell of a lot.

We meet Mark Wahlberg, playing Eliot. Eliot's a science teacher in a New York high school. When we meet him, he's giving a speech to his class about how nature marches to the beat of its own drummer. Some things can never be explained. In fact, look at all the bees that have disappeared over the past couple of years. No explanation. Maybe there isn't one. Nature, after all, is mysterious.

After he gave that speech, I shook my head, looked to my neighbour, and grimaced. Eliot's speech was a warning to the audience: this movie is going to suck. Why? Because Shyamalan the writer is using Eliot to tell you that the movie will have no satisfying conclusion. The dialogue is not so much a device to move the plot forward, as it is an opening argument form a defence attorney: "I've written and directed a movie that has a garbage ending, but you won't mind because I told you at the beginning that nature's mysterious. Shit happens."

The "shit happens" device is not new, but it is still insulting. After laying down 12 dollars to see a movie, it always hurts when you're immediately told that the movie isn't worth the price of admission.

I was amazed at how badly the story developed. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who wants to see it (and judging from the box office returns, that's not a lot of people), but fifteen minutes into the film, Shyamalan blows any suspense the movie might have had.

"I think it's the plants," one character says. He goes on to tell us that the trees and plants can talk to each other, and that they probably feel they're under attack, so they're fighting back. Well, so much for the hero discovering the source of the problem and doing something about it. Turns out, that is exactly what the problem is. Plants are mad.

This is old school Gaia stuff, the theory that the Earth is somehow all interconnected and each organism is in secret communication with all of the other ones. The Gaia hypothesis has it that the Earth is self-regulating, and that it "thinks" for itself. It's weirdo science, but you still hear about it sometimes. I didn't think Shyamalan was the type, but then, I've never met him.

I'm no environmentalist, but I'll let a lot of things slide if the story's okay. This one isn't.

In this movie there is no hero. Eliot is just some science teacher, and he and his wife (of course they're estranged, and of course they'll love each other by the end) go from town to town, trying to outrun the "virus." When the wind kicks up, look out! The virus spreads and makes people go into a trance before leaping from cliffs. Of course, you can't actually see the virus. No special effects spores for these plants. Just plain old invisible air, done with a handy wind machine.

The movie is so very bad, it is funny. Watch as one of the central features of the film is a mood ring that Eliot wears. Once upon a time, he'd given it to his wife. Here's the dialogue:

"That's the mood ring you gave me."
"Yeah. The first time I wore it, it turned blue."
"For patience."
"Mine was purple. We thought it meant passion, but all it meant was I was horny."
"What color is love?"
"I don't know."

Good grief.

There's a great moment in the film that I suppose is meant to serve as a subliminal message. After running away from the latest house they've broken into (I think they break into four, and each one represents a new act in the film), the characters end up standing under a real estate billboard. So while they talk about doom and gloom, and the plants get their revenge on some hapless folk down the road, you see the words YOU DESERVE THIS written on the billboard. "Deserve" is underlined. The sign is saying you deserve a nice new house. The movie's saying you deserve to be shot for building it. Cute.

Shyamalan has done something that isn't easy to do: he has created a movie with no good guy, no bad guy, no anything. The plants can't be bad because they only make you shoot yourself in the head. You pull the trigger. They're just giving off gas. There's no good guy because none of the characters are proactive in the least. They don't act, they just react, running away, running away, running away, until the movie's over (the ending is so simple and insulting, it will probably leave you shaking your head). There is not one time in the film where Eliot tries to figure out how to solve the problem, or have a seance with the plants to tell them to play nice. It's all reaction, all the time, which doesn't make for great stories. Who care about a guy that doesn't do anything?

This film has a horrible plot, laughable dialogue, and characters you won't give a damn about. Don't bother seeing it in theatres. You deserve better.

Beam Them Up, Scotty

From ABC:

We are asking you to use your imagination to create short videos about what it would be like to live through the next century if we stay on our current path. Using predictions from top experts, we will brief participants on global conditions in the years 2015, 2050, 2070 and 2100 -- and we want you to describe the dangers that are unfolding before your eyes.

Submitted videos will be combined with the projections of top scientists, historians, and economists to form a powerful Web-based narrative about the perils of our future. We will also select the most compelling reports to form the backbone of our two-hour primetime ABC News broadcast: Earth 2100, airing this fall.

All right, I thought these guys were nuts before, but now they've really gone off the deep end. America's Funniest Home Videos is going to merge with the book of Revelation, and ABC will present the results on a primetime "news" program.

Chee-Chee-Chee...Hah-Hah-Hah

So here it is, the day that they named almost a dozen bad movies after. Friday the 13th.

I've never been much of a superstitious guy. After spilling salt on the table, I always forget to throw it over my shoulder. I'm not nimble enough to dodge an energetic black cat. Breaking a mirror doesn't bother me either, though I do wonder about those old time Western stuntmen. In the saloons, they used to hurl whiskey bottles at the good guy's head with reckless abandon. When they'd miss, SMASH. 7 more years of bad luck for the hapless stuntman.

Sometimes I do knock on wood. When I can find any, that is: if someone tells me to knock on wood, there never seems to be any wood nearby. I look around at plastic chairs, glass tables, and plaster walls, then shrug. Being told to knock on wood is especially tough if you're in the car. At least I'm not like the dopes that think it's funny to look for wood to knock on, come up empty, and then knock on the sides of their heads.

Ladders don't bother me much. It's just a ladder. If some moron puts it in the middle of the hallway, there's nothing to do except walk under it. Opening an umbrella indoors doesn't freak me out either. If it did, I'd lose money, since lighting things sometimes calls for the use of an umbrella over a flash or lamphead.

I do have a weird hockey superstition. I don't wear the Red Wings sweater during a game, because I think they'll lose. I can wear it while making dinner, watching Judge Judy, or changing the oil on the car. But during a hockey game? Never.

In any case, it looks like there's nothing to worry about. According to Reuters, "Dutch statisticians have established that Friday 13th, a date regarded in many countries as inauspicious, is actually safer than an average Friday."

Damn. Just tempted the fates with that last paragraph. Better knock on wood.

If I can find any.

Photo: All Posters

Swing And A Miss...And A Miss...And A...

I remember watching the movie Fever Pitch, a comedy about the Red Sox. It was made before the Sox won the World Series a few years ago, so there were lots of funny lines about what losers they were. I remember one of the characters saying, "They've elevated losing to an art form."

Move over Rembrandt, hello Blue Jays.

Tonight, they blew it in magnificent style. Nobody out. Bottom of the 9th. Game tied 2-2. Eckstein on first. Rios at the plate.

Whoops. Eckstein is thrown out at first base, caught leaning. The odds of seeing a man picked off at first are worse than 1 in 100, but the Jays manage to do it with nobody out in the bottom of the 9th.

Rios walks.

Next batter comes up, gets called on a dumb check swing while Rios steals second. Two out.

Wild pitch. Rios to third.

Rollen grounds out.

Next inning, Seattle scores, game over. Ah, but how did the Mariners score, you ask? Simple: Blue Jays pitcher Jason Frasor walked the bases loaded, and the Mariners put on a safety squeeze.

That's the Jays. Bottom of the 9th heroics that involve runners caught leaning, and check-swing strikeouts. Then the very next inning, their relief staff walks 'em loaded.

But wait, it gets better. Believe or not, the Jays still had a chance to win after the Mariners went ahead 3-2. That's right, the Blue Jays loaded the bases twice in the bottom of the tenth, and still did not bring home a run. That is not easy to do in professional baseball, but the Jays, like the Red Sox of old, have turned losing into an art form.

Makes me wish hockey season was back already.

You Know What?

"And we have to tell them, you know what, if you're not going to allow us to do that, there will be consequences. You will be taken to the human rights commission, you will be taken to the press council, and you know what? If you manage to get rid of the human rights code provisions [on hate speech], we will then take you to the civil courts system. And you know what? Some judge out there might just think that perhaps it's time to have a tort of group defamation, and you might be liable for a few million dollars." YAHHH!!!

All right, so I made up the scream.

The rest of it is Khurrum Awan at a weekend conference, as quoted in the National Post. He's one of the guys that wants the government to tell Maclean's to run an article by an author of their choosing. When I read his speech above, I thought for sure he was doing a Howard "The Scream" Dean send-up. "You know what?...You know something?...We're not just going to New Hampshire...We're going to South Dakota, and Oregon, and Washington, and Michigan, and then we're going to Washington DC to take back the White House. YAHHH!!!"

If we have to get serious for minute, then it's worth remembering that Khurrum Awan is not one of the complainants against Maclean's. He's on TV and in the papers so much that it's easy to forget that fact (as the Post has). Mohamed Elmasry and Naiyer Habib are the official complainants, not Awan. The Post: "Awan is a recent graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, and one of the main complainants against columnist Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine...[Awan] and his co-plaintiffs are demanding the magazine give Islamist messages space equal to the amount it devoted to Mr. Steyn's work."

No he isn't, and no they aren't. Awan isn't a co-plaintiff of anything. He's just in the papers a lot. The Post has done a hell of job at keeping this issue in the news, but like everyone else they have to be careful and avoid the Kool-Aid. In their June 9th editorial, they referenced Awan as a complainant more than a few times, and didn't mention Elmasry or Habib even once. That's a Kool-Aid alert if ever I saw one.

Awan obviously had an agenda by inserting himself into this complaint, and I don't think it had much to do with "free speech." For him, the issue seems to be more about about punishment for Steyn and Maclean's, and a healthy dose of publicity for himself. Last year, he was just some guy. 6 months later and he's in the papers every other day, and making the rounds on the TV circuit. It'll be interesting to see if he can handle it, but to judge by the speech above, he hasn't yet hired a publicist.

As for the punishment deal, I can't see it as being much else. If, as he says, the human rights code gets ammended, that doesn't mean there's any hope of a civil court telling Maclean's to run an article written by anybody, and a group defamation suit (does that exist?) wouldn't get the presses rolling either. So what's the answer? "A few million dollars."

Funny. This all started with the complainants and their allies claiming they just wanted an open debate. They've received all kinds of press, including a TV showdown with Mark Steyn, but it hasn't been enough. So the quest for an "open debate" continues. If they fail at that altruistic goal, it will now be about boring old cash?

Whatever the case, this is the first time that I have heard someone from the complainants' camp mention the possibility of the human rights commissions being brought to heel.

You know what? That's interesting.

The Spotted Owl Does Not Belong in the Bedroom

"Green is the new black. And, in these days of "inconvenient truths," even our sex lives can use a little environmental consciousness."

That's from Yahoo Lifestyle, one of those dippy tabs you click on when you've got nothing better to do. When I saw that opening line of the "environmental sex" article, my 'nads crawled up into my kidneys.

As if it isn't hard enough to get laid (fear of STDs, "drink responsibly" billboards, the illegality of Rohypnol), now the environmental movement has gotten in on the act.

The environment and sex have never gone together. The only reason humans evolved to live in caves and then Bel Air was so they could find more comfortable places to get laid.

Anyone who's had sex on the beach knows that it's better off as the name of a tourist cocktail. Sand gets everywhere when you're on the beach. Movie scenes involving apocalyptic surf sex might look good on the big-screen (Blame it on Rio, From Here To Eternity, The Firm), but they don't add much spice in real life. I remember once going for a romantic walk on the beach in Acapulco, hand in hand with a pretty lass. We hopscotched through the surf, waded blissfully through the moonlit water, dreamed impossible dreams...and then saw the cavern of a sewage pipe. At 3 AM, Acapulco empties its sewage onto the beach, and we both now smelled like urinal pucks.

Environment 1, Sex 0.

Sex in the woods isn't so great either. Bears, wolverines, mountain lions, and those are just the girls you meet before the cabin kegger even gets started. Sex in the woods requires all manner of planning, which is impossible for a city guy because if he's in the woods, he's probably dead drunk. The Scouts may have taught him that poison ivy shouldn't be used for wiping, but one high school bush bash (pardon the pun) teaches him that pine needles should never be used in place of silk sheets.

Here's Yahoo: "...find yourself a nice bed of duff, the dense layer of decayed leaves and pine needles on the forest floor, as it restores itself more easily.

Beware of your sex noise pollution, too, they add: "Yells and moans carry over open water and across meadows but will disperse quickly among trees."

For a minute I thought Yahoo was getting dirty, but now I know that "duff" is a dense layer of decayed leaves. Sounds great. Let's not "hit the hay," let's "do it on the duff." And there's those pine needles again. Poor Yahoo. They actually believe that the yells and moans are from great sex, meanwhile the girl's butt is being treated like a pin cushion.

Environment 2, Sex 0.

The Yahoo article has it that your sex life can save the Earth. Not by having kids to live on the planet (that's so 50's, and besides, we all know kids grow up to kill everything they see), but by cutting down on the energy (rechargeable batteries, so forth) used in the act of copulation.

How's that for a pick-up line? "Hey baby, we'll have a wild time tonight, and I'll be sure to cut down on the power."

Um, no. The unfortunate thing about movies and TV is they've led women to believe that sex should last 5 hours, and orgasms should go on forever. The cover of Cosmo is constantly telling women what to do with their man, and what to tell their man to do with them. I don't think I've ever seen the cover announce "saving energy" as the way to a Magic O. Instead, it's "have your man go down on you for an entire Grey's Anatomy episode." This might save energy for the woman, who isn't doing anything but trying to keep the man's head out of the way, but it does nothing for the planet. Televisions use a lot of electricity, and a sweating man will work too hard, require a shower, and there goes the rain forest.

Yahoo has other interesting tips. Strangely, they don't advise doing it in a hybrid car, but they do tell you to purchase plug-in vibrators. Not a bad call, but for some reason women are notoriously shy about those things, and tend to hide them in their underwear drawer, somewhere behind the socks that don't match, and beneath the lingerie they never wear except on third dates. A plug-in vibrator could be disastrous in this situation because if it shorts out, there goes the underwear, the socks, and maybe even the whole house. Think of the carbon that would be pumped into the atmosphere.

Here's one tip that I just don't get: "Avoid parabens. Often contained in lubes. Like phthalates, the jury is still out on their impact on humans, but you can avoid them by simply reading the ingredients. Look for Canadian-made and organically sourced, preservative-free massage oils and lubricants."

All right, I'll be honest. I had no idea what a phthalates was until Yahoo told me, and I still don't know how to pronounce it. A word that begins with "phth" is probably not a good thing if it's in the same sentence as the word "sex," so I'll take Yahoo's word for it that phthalates are scary and evil. But seriously, has sex really become so complicated that you have to stand in the aisle and read the ingredients on lube? When it comes to sex, the planet be damned, just grab the cherry flavoured and let's get to the check out line (you're buying, I'm embarrassed).

Pierre Trudeau once said that the government does not belong in the bedroom. I agree with him. Neither does the spotted owl, the president of the Greenpeace, or the whackos from Yahoo Lifestyle.

Journalism (Room) 101

Mark Steyn's been linking to some pro and con sites regarding the Human Rights Tribunal, and I check in now and then to see what's going on.

I was looking at this article by John Miller, who has a piece on a website called The Canadian Journalism Project. Steyn has him as a journalism professor. As boring and dry as that sounds, I decided to read his bit all the way through.

I've been calling for the mainstream press to get on board against this human rights business for a while. Instead, I get this:

Journalistic opinion is hailing Mark Steyn, of all people, as the new poster child for freedom of expression in Canada.

I beg to differ.

Miller has a problem with Mark Steyn, whose writing he declares both xenophobic and Islamophobic. Miller thinks the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal should take Steyn down a peg or two. This line of Miller's will give you a good first impression. His lectures must be a blast: "That is the law as it stands, and everyone must obey the law."

When I read that note from Squaresville, I sank a little lower into my chair and let my eyes glaze over. From then on, I was on auto-pilot, waiting for the buried lead (cool - I just used some hip journo-speak) to rear its head.

It comes at the end of Miller's essay. After he's done declaring Steyn's article a work of bigotry, Miller gets to the point:

Steyn and Maclean’s also appear to violate a great many of the principles and guidelines for reporting that the CAJ [Canadian Association of Journalists] adopted in 2002. They include (to name only the most obvious ones)...

Horrors! Xenophobia, Islamophobia, and violating the CAJ's principles.

Actually, I figured that's what Miller's problem was. It's not that Steyn's a bigot, it's that Steyn's not a real journalist. He doesn't toe the CAJ line. He shouldn't be playing with Miller's toys. Steyn didn't quote enough sources, or give enough references, or otherwise follow the rules of the CAJ (which is pretty funny, since the CAJ intervened on Maclean's behalf in BC and wants them off the hook, rules are meant for bending, so forth).

Still, let me play devil's advocate. Here's what Miller says, with my comments to follow.

It [Steyn's article] is contrary to the value of keeping the news comprehensive and proportional – specifically by “inflating events for sensation, neglecting others, stereotyping or being disproportionately negative.”

Sounds like how I describe strip clubs to my girlfriend. Still, let's say it's true, that Steyn waxed negative. So what? Where is this mighty book of values kept, and when did it become law? If Steyn is guilty of breaking some sort of ethics, then newspapers can refuse to print him, and Maclean's can stop running his stuff. This does not mean that a government agency has the right to tell Maclean's what to print afterwards (yes, John, Maclean's is the real issue here, no matter how much you want it to be about the xenophobic writer).

It violates the discipline of verification – specifically by not “seeking out multiple witnesses, disclosing as much as possible about sources, or asking various sides for comment.”

There's no way Miller can know any of that, unless he was sitting in the room when Steyn wrote the piece, or he broke into Steyn's pad and stole his notes. (Dear Journalism Professor: when you see the words "Newsweek stands by its story," it's because Newsweek knows more about the story than you do, but isn't disclosing the sources). But, again, let's say it's true. Big deal. If John Miller was an editor of a paper and one of his reporters wrote a fabricated story about neo-Nazis, I doubt he'd agree to a human rights commission forcing him to run an essay supportive of neo-Nazis. No, John Miller would use the old "Miller's Magazine regrets the error," run an op-ed berating itself, and that would be that.

And it runs contrary to a journalist’s first obligation to the truth – specifically by neglecting “the professional discipline of assembling and verifying facts.”

Um, sources please? Again, there's no way he can know any of that. He's making it up. He has no clue what sources Steyn and Maclean's looked at two years ago, and which ones they found credible or not. Earlier in his piece, Miller says that he spent a few minutes Googling Steyn's subject, and he found entirely different facts and arguments. No surprise. That's why there's dozens of books on the Kennedy assassination. Nobody agrees on anything. But does the good professor really believe that this means Maclean's should be found guilty of promoting hatred in British Columbia?

Other specific claims in the article are questionable. For example, Steyn states that high birthrates in Muslim countries “will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia” by mid-century. Yemen’s population in 2007 was 22 million, and Russia’s was 141 million. Barring some historic collapse of the Russian population, Yemen is not going to overtake it by 2050.

Note the key words. Questionable. Barring. Not exactly a damning assessment of Steyn's article. If something is questionable, then it is possible. I also like the "barring some historic collapse" bit. Okay, but what if the collapse happens? One, Yemen would be pretty crowded, and two, Miller's argument would cave in.

Indeed, one is tempted by this evidence to conclude that Steyn’s article was not journalism at all, but a “polemic” – which my dictionary defines as a selective attack.

Damn, a journalism prof that has to look up "polemic." I hope he paused for irony when he saw what it meant. Miller's whole article reads like a polemic - a very selective attack against the xenophobic, Islamophobic writings of Mark Steyn.

Let's be real. Miller kicks off his piece by calling Steyn's work xenophobic and Islamophobic, and uses exactly one source to back up the bigotry claims (a year-old book review; the rest is just his opinion). Tsk, tsk. He then Googles some of his own facts, cherry picks the good ones, and uses them to refute Steyn's piece. In essence, he did to Steyn what he says Steyn did to the world.

You know what? That's exactly what he should do. That's called arguing. Anyone can do it, and Miller just did. Asking the state to step in and shut Steyn up because he doesn't follow the rules of the BCHRT or the CAJ is chicken, and it's a crock.

What is it with the guys in the writing game that don't see the writing on the wall? It might be Steyn today, but later on it could be some CAJ member's career on the line. It wouldn't help the reporter to know that a journalism professor, John Miller, once told the human rights commission that a lack of references should be a factor in judging someone as a promoter of hate speech.

Clint's Still Got It

Clint Eastwood is one of my favorite actor/directors. He's 78 now, and even at that age I still wouldn't mess with the guy.

A couple of weeks ago, Spike Lee said Clint Eastwood's work was bogus and leaning towards racist, because he didn't have any blacks in Flags Of Our Fathers.

Here's Eastwood in a recent interview with the Guardian:

Eastwood has no time for Lee's gripes. "He was complaining when I did Bird [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else." As for Flags of Our Fathers, he says, yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

Not bad, but he follows it up with a beauty: "A guy like him should shut his face."

Cool. Not, "Well, Spike has his own views, and I respect that..." Or: "A helpful dialogue would help us find common ground, and in today's world we can all get along..." No. For Eastwood it's "Shut your face."

Whatever happened to cool actors? I don't mean the kind of cool that comes with saving animals, practicing Scientology, or using the standard Bush-hate to get some cheap press. I mean Marlon Brando cool, when he advised that "The way to say fuck you in Hollywood is "trust me."' Or maybe John Wayne, when he showed up on the set of a movie, gun in hand, looking to kill Dennis Hopper for messing around with his daughter.

The cool actors didn't care about bad press. They had minds of their own and they weren't worried about the sensitive tastes of Oprah Winfrey fans.

Eastwood's old, but he's still got the touch. After Michael Moore ambushed Charlton Heston for use in his documentary, Eastwood promised that if Moore showed up at his door, he'd kill him. I don't know if Moore took the threat seriously or not, but I sure as hell would. When Eastwood whispers, he always sounds like he means it.

Here's the rest of the Guardian interview. It's worth a read.

Cup Comes Home

Detroit had the Red Wings parade today, and I caught a bit of it on TV.

Sports parades are never very thrilling. Since the city doesn't have more than two days notice that the team will win a championship, there's no chance of putting on something akin to Pasadena. The parades of any sports championship usually involve a lot of pick-up trucks, Ford convertibles, and a couple of high school marching bands.

One thing that was very apparent from the parade coverage was Detroit's Channel 4 needing to re-think who they're going to have on the desk during parade commentary.

No offense to the lady sitting between the two hockey commentators, but she constantly embarrassed herself. Here's a couple of highlights. See if you feel my pain:

Hockey guy: "Well, here he comes, Mr. Hockey."
News lady: "Oh. Yes..um..."
Hockey guy: "Gordie Howe."
News lady: "Right, Gordie Howe! Did he win any Stanley Cups?"

And:

News lady: "Here's the Miller Genuine Draft float."
Hockey guy: "That's the Zamboni."

Photo: AP

Worse By the Minute

I just took a peek at Andrew Coyne's live-blog from the Maclean's/British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal hearing. It's in its fourth day, and the news gets more bizarre by the minute.

For a Canadian, it makes for pretty depressing stuff. I don't know if I should keep reading it in order to stay up-to-date on what's going on, or if I should try to ignore it until the weekend so I don't get too bummed out.

Turns out, there's no stenographer in the hearing room, and they've been having trouble with their microphones. In other words, there might be no official record of what's going on in there. That leaves us with reporter Andrew Coyne, trying his best to record what he sees and hears.

Right now, the complainant (Naiyer Habib) is reading blog posts that he got from the internet. The posts reference Steyn's article, and they go on to make all kinds of bigoted slurs against Muslims. This, the complainant argues, shows that Steyn's article incites bigotry in British Columbia. Trouble is, the two blogs are from outside the country. One's in the US, the other's in Belgium.

The tribunal, though it doesn't have any jurisdiction over the internet and doesn't know who wrote the blogs, has declared that the blogs are valid as evidence (though - and there's a lot of the word "though" when discussing this stuff - the tribunal has no rules of evidence to weigh the evidence against).

These internet posts could have been written by anybody. Could have been the guy sitting next to you on the bus, or some guy killing time in the South Pole. Nobody knows. But they're deemed valid to show that Steyn's work is against the human rights code of British Columbia, and that his work incites hatred in the province. What they're saying is, Steyn and Maclean's must pay because someone, somewhere, is a bigot.

In passing, Andrew Coyne makes a brief comment in the middle of his live-blog. It won't make any headlines, and barely anybody will notice it. He makes the comment while reporting on the racist posts that the complainant is reading aloud. For me, Coyne's aside is the most important statement to come out of the hearing:

It occurs to me: I hope the BC Human Rights code makes exception for reports of their own proceedings. Otherwise I’m in trouble, since the code makes no allowance for reporting on a matter of public interest…

Read that comment again. This is a Canadian journalist, who has written hundreds of articles and columns over his career. And today, he is nervous that quotation marks around bigoted slurs will not protect him from litigation. I will bet you anything that he never thought he'd make that comment in his lifetime. He should never have had to. To use his words, it should never have occurred to him.

That's what I mean when I say, "The accusation is the conviction. The process is the punishment." A conviction isn't necessary, because the fear of accusation is enough to get people to censor themselves. Never mind shutting up the bloggers. From the look of Coyne's comment, this hearing has already placed the germ of fear and silence into the heads of the mainstream press.

Wings Win

The 2008 version of the Red Wings showed me a lot, winning game 6 in Pittsburgh after a disappointing triple overtime loss in game 5 - when they were just 34 seconds away from winning Lord Stanley's Cup in the 3rd period, before Pittsburgh tied it. It could have been a heartbreaker, the kind of loss that starts a fall. Instead, the Wings rebounded, going on the road and winning the Cup 48 hours later. They were the only team to win in Pittsburgh's building all playoffs long, and they did it twice, the second time to clinch the championship.

The Wings are Stanley Cup champs again, and the the city of Detroit is partying hard. As is the city's usual manner there's booze flowing, a lot of people in the bars and dancing in the streets - and no rioting or other idiocy. Detroit's fans know how to win.

It all looks good, just like it did the other 3 times in past 11 years. Lidstrom, McCarty, Osgood and the rest of the old guard did a great job, and Zetterberg (Conn Smythe winner - or MVP of the playoffs if hockey's not your bag), Datsyuk, Kronwall, and Franzen have answered the critics. It's worth bearing in my mind that almost no one in sports talk TV/radio picked the Wings to win the Cup. No one will admit it, but several of the critics picked Nashville to beat the Wings in the first round. TSN's experts picked Colorado to beat the Wings, and the Wings responded by sweeping them. It was only when Detroit beat Dallas in the Conference Finals that the Wings were suddenly known as an unstoppable force.

No sour grapes from me, everyone's welcome on the bandwagon.

The Wings' story this year was fun to watch. Darren McCarty came back after retirement. He worked his ass off in the minors and the Wings gave him another shot at the title. Tonight, he's smoking a cigar in the locker room. Nicklas Lidstrom made history by becoming the first European player to captain a Stanley Cup team. Coach Mike Babcock exorcised some demons after losing in game 7 two years ago when coaching Anaheim.

Dominic Hasek proved to be one of the classiest players in the league. After being benched in the first round, he reportedly spent extra time on the ice after every practice throughout the playoffs, keeping loose and waiting for his shot. It never came, but as he said tonight, who cares? He declared it a team effort. He and Osgood won the identical number of games throughout the regular season, so Hasek deserves the Cup as much as anyone else. With all of the goalie controversies that infect other clubs, his relationship with Osgood is a clinic for young kids coming up.

Now the players can savour the victory, while general manager Ken Holland and the coaches smoke a cigar and get ready for next seas--whoops. Back to work already.

Photos: AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn - AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

What the Hell's Going On In There?

One thing that caught my eye while reading up on the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) and Maclean's fiasco was Andrew Coyne's remark about a US reporter.

Some guy from the New York Times was in attendance. He's doing a story on the different ways that the two countries deal with speech laws. Coyne said the guy couldn't believe what he was seeing.

I'll say. I can just imagine a Yankee reporter wandering into the Vancouver hearing room and listening to bits like, "Strict rules of evidence don't apply," from the mouth of the Tribunal chair.

Andrew Coyne, a writer for Maclean's, was doing a live blog during yesterday's hearing. His report is pretty amazing stuff. I dare anyone to read it and not come away with a feeling that this whole human rights deal is absurd.

Actually, I shouldn't have said that. I went tiptoeing through the internet last night and saw a lot of commentary that sided with the human rights complaint against Maclean's, as well as the procedures being used by the BCHRT. Frankly, I figure that people are siding with the procedures because of who is on trial. Mark Steyn (Islamophobe) and Maclean's (Islamaphobe's publisher).

After reading Coyne's live blog, I guess the human rights procedures boil down to something like this:

1) there are no trial procedures as in any real court. The tribunal decides who speaks, and in which order, from day to day.

2) the complainant (in this case, Mohamed Elmasry) doesn't have to be in attendance. The hearing can go on without him. Facing your accuser? Forget it.

3) Hearsay evidence is admissible, and is still admissible even if one of the people who originally said something is in the room while you're giving the hearsay testimony.

4) Jurisdiction does not apply. In this hearing, a witness from Ontario testified that he read something in Ontario and was offended by it in Ontario...which is why he's testifying in a BC hearing room. From Coyne: "Julian Porter on his feet, objecting on territorial grounds, as Awan details how the article made him feel as he read it in downtown Toronto. Overruled."

5) Jurisdiction shopping is allowed. The complainant was not in attendance, so one of his representatives outlined how they looked at the human rights codes of various places, and made their picks. Ontario, BC, and the Federal human rights commissions. You've gotta get lucky sooner or later.

6) The original charge doesn't matter much, it's more about the alleged violation's impact on the world at large. This one is especially weird. Get this: the Steyn article in Maclean's is what the complaint is all about. Yet the witness (Khurrum Awan) went on at length about stuff he read after the Steyn article was released, and how it made him feel. The witness and his counsel are claiming that the Steyn article inspired these works. Blog posts, YouTube comments, and other internet material. This is especially creepy, because the state is being asked not to look at a specific incident, but to read the minds of anonymous nice-Canadians-turned-bigots and use it in their ruling. What does any of this have to do with Elmasry? Nothing.

7) Rules of evidence don't exist. For instance, yesterday the lead counsel for the complainant, Faisal Joseph, read from 20 Maclean's articles. Later in the day, blog post were read aloud, and comments from YouTube were referenced. How do we know who wrote this stuff? We don't. Could have been anybody. None of this stuff is vetted for veracity. Even the 20 Maclean's articles could be bogus, and the Tribunal would never know it. With no rules of evidence, do you think they investigated the articles for original accuracy before the hearing?

8) It's this next from the Tribunal that should scare you the most. Andrew Coyne: "Under Section 7.1, he continues, innocent intent is not a defence, nor is truth, nor is fair comment or the public interest, nor is good faith or responsible journalism. Or in other words, there is no defence." That's Maclean's lawyer, giving a rundown of section 7.1, the section that says you can't expose people to hatred or contempt. Look at that list and tell me if he's wrong: there is no defence. If someone's offended by what you write, no matter how true, no matter how factual, then you're done like dinner for a hate offense.

I'm with the New York Times guy: what the hell's going on in there?

What disturbs me the most are the people that agree wholeheartedly with the procedure. Their hatred of Steyn and what he's written has fogged up their glasses. The common defence of the BCHRT that I'm reading is, "Maclean's and Steyn haven't been found guilty of anything yet, so it doesn't matter. It'll all go away, you haters, and you can get back to work."

Are people really that thick? The process in itself is a crime against a democratic society. Hearsay evidence. Shopping for a jurisdiction until you find one with favourable statutes. Filing simultaneous complaints and hoping to get lucky. Using the after-the-fact blog rants of strangers to condemn someone for what they've written. Not being able to face your accuser. Zero rules of evidence.

But really, the biggest crime is the complaint itself. "I didn't like what you wrote, so now I will bring you down." How many people will censor themselves now, just to avoid something like that? How many people will it silence?

The accusation is the conviction, the process is the punishment. Don't they get it? Actually, I think they get it only too well.

Steyn Wars

Mark Steyn goes in front of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal today. This makes it Episode 2 of Steyn Wars. The first installment was a couple of months ago, when a complaint against Maclean's magazine wound up in front of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

That commission decided that it couldn't prosecute Maclean's or Steyn for a hate crime, but the commissioner did say that news magazines had to watch it when they published stories.

If you haven't heard by now, the question is about free speech. Maclean's ran an excerpt of Mark Steyn's book, America Alone, which two people found offensive. Their names are Naiyer Habib and Mohamed Elmasry. They're the two complainants in the earlier Episode One's OHRC case, Episode Two's BCHRT case (today), and Episode Three's Canadian Human Right Commission case (sometime in the near or distant future).

At least, as far as I know. This story is so convoluted, it's hard to keep track. Last year I was sitting in an Italian restaurant getting drunk, and the last thing on my mind was Canada, or Maclean's magazine. I wasn't thinking too much about human rights either, unless you count cheap beer as a right that should be available to all (it should).

Oooookay. So here goes:

Mark Steyn writes a book. In it, he quotes a European imam as saying that Muslims "breed like mosquitoes." Steyn shows that demographically, there will be more Muslims in Europe than any other faith, and that this will change the political and cultural landscape of Europe. Maclean's decides to run the "mosquito" section of the book. Naiyer Habib and Mohamed Elmasry find the excerpt offensive. Even though it was the European imam that said the mosquito stuff, they charge that Steyn is Islamophobic. They file complaints with the Ontario, British Columbia, and Federal branches of the Canadian human rights commissions. That's commission(s). News to me, too. Last year, I had no clue there was a human rights commission in every province.

Time moves on with the scripting for the Steyn Wars trilogy, and no one hears from Naiyer Habib or Mohamed Elmasry, because a bunch of law students get on board and "represent" them. What they want is this: a Maclean's cover story written by a writer of their choosing, which Maclean's must publish but can't edit. They want their own artwork to go with it, and it needs to be around 5000 words.

Crazy, huh? Why would a magazine agree to do that?

Maclean's didn't. And so the human rights trials began, where the students (and I guess the original two complainants, though you seldom see their names in the papers) are attempting to get the government to force Maclean's to run the piece, or otherwise punish ("remedy") Maclean's for running Steyn's work. According to The Province, the Canadian Islamic Congress wants monetary compensation from the affair.

Anyway, here we sit, months later. Steyn Wars I opened to lukewarm reviews. The Ontario branch decided they couldn't do anything, not because they didn't want to, but because the OHRC has no mandate covering magazines. So now it's Steyn Wars II. British Columbia's turn.

If you think the sequel is going to be boring and lame, don't sweat it, the producers have thrown in a twist. Unlike Ontario, the British Columbia human rights tribunal does have something to say about publications. On their website, they say it's a human rights violation to publish anything that could likely expose anyone to hatred or contempt. As an added bit of theatre, the producers even changed the name of the bad guy. In BC, they're not a "Commission," they're a "Tribunal." You can almost hear the wind whip up as the skies darken.

The Canadian human rights commission(s) started so you couldn't refuse someone a job or housing because of their race. A few decades later, and they've bloated to the point where they can tell magazines what to publish.

In British Columbia, the human rights tribunal is especially overblown. Check this one out: in April, they declared that it's discriminatory for McDonald's to tell their employees to wash their hands. I know, I know, you want the whole story. But it's so damn...oh, all right. A woman said she couldn't wash her hands because she has a skin condition. When McDonald's said she had to, she said she couldn't, and so McDonald's let her go. Bam. Human rights complaint. In the end, she was awarded over $23 000 in back pay, $25 000 for hurt feelings and dignity, plus $400 for dental and medical. Oh, plus interest on the back pay and medical. McDonald's was also ordered to cease its discriminatory behavior.

Gross. A government agency just told a restaurant that their employees don't have to wash their hands if they don't want to. So much for those "All Employees" signs in the outhouse.

Anyway, now it's Steyn's turn. He's guessing that the BCHRT will find him guilty of offending someone, and force Maclean's to run some sort of rebuttal-essay.

If that happens, it's really the end of Canada as we know it. What would be the point of writing anything? Even if you can get over your fear of writing something un-PC in the first place, there's a good chance you'll be ordered to give someone else a spot in your paper, magazine, or blog, so they can tell your audience that you're a bonehead.

That used to be called a Letters section. Now it's called a human right.

Weird. And scary. We'll see how Steyn Wars II goes today, and what the critics think. But there won't be time to dwell on it. If the Maclean's and Canadian Human Rights Commission deal is still alive, then we'll have Steyn Wars III out in time for the Oscars.