Spectator

March 2008 Archive

Who tops the Toronto Star for Earth Hour ballyhoo? Noooooobody!

Posted on March 31, 2008 by

Because what I am about to say will sound churlish to even the meanest ear, I would like to begin by stating the following: I think a lot of people turning out their lights and appliances at the same time is a good idea. I prize silence and the dark as much as the next guy, so Earth Hour is, to my mind, a good thing. Still, it’s all a bit of motherhood, isn’t it (so much for the anodyne opening)? Who could possibly oppose it? For all the caveats about Earth Hour’s symbolism, one longs to spray-paint dissent on its wall of temperate virtue—but you can’t since it’s all so virtuous. Which brings me to my mean-spirited, cynical, toxic point: what in hell is the Toronto Star doing promoting Earth Hour in its editorial pages (and every other page after page after page) like one of the Lastmans braying on about Bad Boy?

Hey, Toronto, why should we take Richard Florida’s word for it?

Posted on March 31, 2008 by

image for Hey, Toronto, why should we take Richard Florida’s word for it?

A while back, my colleague Philip Preville and Toronto’s newly minted urban affairs media guru Richard Florida crossed swords over the perils and opportunities of civic boosterism in T.O. On the whole, they grudgingly agreed to disagree. Florida acknowledged that he was something of an optimist: “I have been wondering for some time now why people like Preville are so negative and insecure about what Jane Jacobs said is North America’s greatest city.” And Preville agreed that “being a negative kind of guy, I’d rather focus on problems and prod people toward solutions.” I raise all this because I spent part of the weekend traipsing around Philadelphia and came across a column by Florida in The Inquirer titled “Why Philadelphia’s economic future looks so bright.” It’s essentially a love letter to the city:

On the complexity of Rob Ford

Posted on March 28, 2008 by

In his blog on the Rob Ford imbroglio today, Philip Preville hits a walk-off home run. Preville gets it exactly right. The entire blessed mess is sad, tedious and points to the need for the 24/7 news maw to step back occasionally and wonder silently at the horror that is our human lot.

Conrad Black ignored by the OSC, embraced by the New York Sun

Posted on March 28, 2008 by

Sure it’s well worn, but to my mind it forever bears repetition: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.” Karl Marx certainly knew a thing or two about capitalism’s foibles didn’t he? Just ask Conrad Black. There he sits in a tropical hoosegow, and still the poor guy has to fend off the Ontario Securities Commission, which, having deferred to just about every American regulatory body save the Nevada State Gaming Commission, has postponed—yet again—a hearing into the malfeasances of Hollinger Inc et al.

Advice for Democrats from an unlikely place

Posted on March 28, 2008 by

In case you’re ever in doubt as to how much more extreme, fevered and just plain nuts the American political discourse is than our own (Flaherty versus McGuinty notwithstanding), I offer the following: This past Monday, a certain John Yoo wrote an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, complaining about the democratic party’s undemocratic practice of appointing superdelegates to their upcoming nominating convention:

Jim Himes provides much-need realism, free beer

Posted on March 28, 2008 by

image for Jim Himes provides much-need realism, free beer

It’s 8:30 p.m. in Stamford, Connecticut, and the reclamation of America is progressing one stultifying trivia question at a time. Forty-something Jim Himes—slim, energetic, whip smart, democratic and electable—is running for Congress in the Connecticut 4th District. He needs support and money, and what better way to find those than by sponsoring (with free beer and pizza) a pub trivia night upstairs at Bradford’s, an ersatz pub on a twee shopping drag. If you happen to know who went on from the Governor’s mansion in Hartford to become U.S. ambassador to India then, buddy, your night is made. Mine, not so much.

The Globe shines with Khadr coverage

Posted on March 27, 2008 by

In the Canadian media’s ongoing effort to cover the looking-glass war on terror, yesterday was a banner day. The Globe led with the strange case of Omar Khadr. Kirk Makin was all over the Ottawa Supremes, taking the government’s lawyers to task for essentially consigning Khadr to hell in Guantanamo, then—Pilate like—washing their hands of the entire grim mess.

$20 million later, it’s all over but the crying (and the appeal)

Posted on March 26, 2008 by

The last fag-ends of the frayed mess left by the Hollinger Five are finally being clipped away. With Black and Radler in the pokey, Atkinson and Boultbee nervously awaiting their appeal and Mark Kipnis relatively free and clear, Hollinger Inc. cut its tattered umbilical cord to Sun-Times Media Group Inc. in one fell swoop. Yesterday, the company relinquished its super-voting shares and replaced them with common stock (consequently, the six board members appointed by Hollinger last July will resign) and settled with the SEC to the tune of $20-odd-million.

Clinton, Obama, McCain star in Sheila Heti’s presidential dream team

Posted on March 25, 2008 by

I’m in New Jersey at the moment, preparing to gorge myself on a revealing slice of the American political pie. Before I get started, though, I thought I’d try a Canadian appetizer—a phenomenon affecting in a minor key the political scene down here. I speak of Sheila Heti, the whimsical Toronto novelist and all-around cultural entrepreneur whose blogs I Dream of Barack, I Dream of Hillary and I Dream of McCain have generated a mountain of press down here. Heti transcribes, more or less verbatim, the nocturnal imaginings of her readers and turns them into blog posts describing dreams of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain. These dreams are not of the political variety—or at least not as “politics” is conventionally understood. To wit:

How to change the Wall Street Journal without pissing off bankers

Posted on March 25, 2008 by

image for How to change the Wall Street Journal without pissing off bankers

The battle for the hearts and minds of New York newspaper readers (and every other elite reader in North America) was further joined yesterday as the Times reported on the ongoing efforts at the Journal to cut the Times’ grass: “The Wall Street Journal’s transition to more breaking news and shorter articles will continue in the coming weeks with a make-over of its Marketplace section.”

E-mail now among Conrad Black’s luxuries

Posted on March 24, 2008 by

Conrad Black’s recent missive to the Canadian Press, much bruited upon by this blog over the Easter weekend, reveals the weirdly Janus-faced attitude that the United States adopts toward the free speech of the two million of its own citizens (reportedly the highest rate of incarceration per capita of any nation on earth) it now imprisons.

Photo shoot for Toronto Star–owned magazine results in lion attack, bloody lung

Posted on March 20, 2008 by

It’s Easter for many of us, and let’s face it: we’re looking for a laugh. In that spirit, I offer the latest in unconscious self-parody from those laughmeisters at the Toronto Star (motto: All the news that’s unintentionally hilarious). Yesterday, in seeking to promote its latest throwaway publication, Desi Life (“the Star’s award-winning bimonthly magazine about the GTA’s South Asian community”), the Star ran a news item accompanied by an ad for the new issue that tells the heartwarming tale of the mag’s latest cover shoot. Apparently—or perhaps, evidently—the photo session was interrupted when a 180-kilogram (397 pounds) lion mauled the subject (one Gitanjali Kolanad, martial arts instructor), breaking four of her ribs, bruising her lung and putting her out of work for a month.

Mark Kipnis is competent 99 per cent of the time

Posted on March 20, 2008 by

The top story on law.com today reprises the strange case of Mark Kipnis, former Hollinger International corporate counsel and, pending appeal, convicted felon. Kipnis—who benefited not at all from the scheme that paid out millions to his bosses—was convicted essentially of negligence. In pleading to stay out of jail (successfully, it turns out), Kipnis admitted that “ninety-nine per cent of my time, Judge, I believe I was competent. I believe I did do a good job. It was that one per cent—the compliance aspect—that should have taken much more of my time. I admit…I did not fully understand the magnitude of those responsibilities.”

David Frum compliments lefty bloggers—watch for flying pigs

Posted on March 20, 2008 by

image for David Frum compliments lefty bloggers—watch for flying pigs

The January-February issue of National Interest, a mainstay of America’s neo-con commentariat, has two aspects of note. First, it is the last issue listing Conrad Black as a member of its advisory council. The reason for his departure, other than the obvious, may include the fact that his decidedly former pal Henry Kissinger is the publication’s honorary chairman. The second aspect, much as it galls me to say, is an intriguing piece on the influence of the blogosphere on American foreign policy debates written by former White House speech scribbler and big-time Conrad Black apologist David Frum.

Nutbar Puritanism alive and well at the FCC, Stephen Harper’s cabinet table

Posted on March 19, 2008 by

“The issue of vulgar speech on the nation’s regulated airwaves, a flash point for decades, reached the Supreme Court again on Monday,” reported yesterday morning’s New York Times.

Erosion of the First Amendment, thy name is libel

Posted on March 18, 2008 by

In a fit of self congratulation, the Globe editorialized this morning on the merits of an appeals court decision that tossed out the contempt charge against Hamilton Spectator’s Kenneth Peters for failing to report his sources to a lower court (a cut-and-dry case of spiteful judicial overreach). Meanwhile, a darker, more consequential, case plays out south of the border. There was a piece in The New York Times yesterday on the ongoing case of Dr. Steven Hatfill. Hatfill, you might remember, is the government scientist wrongly identified as a “person of interest” in connection with the sending of anthrax-laced letters to U.S. senators in the early part of the decade. Hatfill sued the government for violating his privacy by leaking information about him to the press. He also sued The New York Times (among others) for publishing that information and thereby libelling him.

CBC execs: low on reason, high on the hog

Posted on March 18, 2008 by

Yesterday’s Toronto Sun reported on its freedom of information requests that dug up the following on the expenditures of senior CBC executives:

Jonathan Black rear-ends celebrity status

Posted on March 17, 2008 by

Well, it’s not exactly Britney Spears shaving her head, but when Jonathan Black allegedly bounced his vehicle—what the Toronto Star characterized as his “luxury” car—off the back of a GMC Safari van last Thursday, he verged, however briefly, into the tawdry world of Lindsay Lohan, celebutantes, the paparazzi and whatever else it is that fuels the 24/7 not-so-beau monde of TMZ, Perez Hilton and X17online. Jonathan hasn’t hit Brangelina status quite yet, but the reach of the story should give the Canadian media pause. The story has made it all the way to The Sydney Morning Herald and the Malaysia Star.

Hollinger four submits appeal, argues St. Eve gave prosecution “evidentiary shortcuts”

Posted on March 14, 2008 by

At this hour, there are reports from Bloomberg, AP and the Canadian Press that Conrad Black’s appeal has been submitted to judges Easterbrook, Bauer and Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court. The appeal is a joint submission from the Hollinger four (Mark Kipnis mustn’t be finding house arrest as congenial as he thought it would be).

The trouble with Eliot Spitzer (and Conrad Black?)

Posted on March 14, 2008 by

David Brooks, whose twice-weekly column in The New York Times is, along with Frank Rich’s Sunday column, the best thing in that newspaper, hits a towering shot this morning. Without using his name once, Brooks neatly dissects exactly the trouble with Eliot Spitzer. For those of my interlocutors drawing comparisons to his Lordship, there’s plenty here for you, too.

New York’s newspaper war: Times one, Journal bupkis

Posted on March 13, 2008 by

image for New York’s newspaper war: Times one, Journal bupkis

Recently, I spoke with an editor at The New York Times who grew up on Canadian journalism and plied his trade here until the late ’90s about the nostalgia that grips his former colleagues when they discuss the early days of the National Post. “They get all weepy when they talk about it. You’d think it was Paris in the ’20s or something.” Well, yes, it was—if by Paris in the ’20s you mean Don Mills in the late ’90s. Sure, there were fewer good restaurants and the architecture was a little less je ne sais quoi, but for writers, “bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, / But to be young was very heaven.”

The New York Times smells blood, opens wallet

Posted on March 13, 2008 by

If you’ve ever wondered what sort of resources the Times throws at a story when it smells blood, then check out the bottom of this A1 story that ran in Tuesday’s paper. Is that a battalion or a brigade? I can never remember...

Conrad Black’s legacy: $200,000,000 in legal fees

Posted on March 12, 2008 by

If you like numbers—and who doesn’t?—this one’s a beaut. The Chicago Tribune, in reporting on the ongoing catastrophic losses at Conrad Black’s former holding company Sun-Times Media Group Inc. (formerly Hollinger International), reveals that:

Could Margaret Wente be an expert on the Spitzers’ marriage?

Posted on March 12, 2008 by

A local footnote to the continuing tsunami of stories on the now ex-governor of New York. An august member of this city’s editorial elite wrote me this morning:

Spitzer coverage hints at war between The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal

Posted on March 12, 2008 by

If you didn’t spend at least part of day two de l’affaire Spitzer with your nose buried in the pages or, to bend the analogy, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, I have to ask: does your blood run red? This story has it all: intrigue, hubris, venality, corruption, a wife spurned and, yes, hookers. Yet if you read carefully, another story starts to emerge: the Spitzer coverage represents the early days of an all-out newspaper war—the Journal vs. the Times—for the hearts and minds of Americans generally, and New Yorkers specifically.

British invasion: Can The Guardian and the BBC win over American readers?

Posted on March 11, 2008 by

One of the hoarier shibboleths dug up by the fuss over the NAFTA leaks is the inevitable palaver over the asymmetrical relationship between “them” (Americans) and “us” (Canadians). We all know that song—they don’t pay enough attention to us, they take us for granted, and when they do pay attention, it’s only to patronize us and/or dismiss us (Gawker defines Canada as “the large mass of semi-arable land blocking Montana’s view of the Arctic”). We all know it’s much worse than that: they simply don’t think about us except to do and say all of the above.

Tucker Carlson handed ass, pink slip

Posted on March 11, 2008 by

Well, that didn’t take long. Though it got buried under Eliot Spitzer’s wandering libido, MSNBC cancelled Tucker Carlson’s show, Tucker, yesterday. It’s unclear whether it had anything to do with his abysmal performance last Friday (see below) during which Tucker was handed his ass by a reporter from The Scotsman for defending the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy that protects established figures in the U.S. from genuine journalistic interrogation and accountability.

Journalism 101: Tucker Carlson thinks he knows when the record is on

Posted on March 11, 2008 by

Surprisingly, electoral politics is not the most interesting thing about the hullabaloo surrounding Samantha Power’s resignation from the Obama campaign over her “off the record” comments describing Hillary Clinton as a “monster.” For Spectator, the real issue concerns the rights and responsibilities governing reporters and their subjects. In an interview on MSNBC last Friday, right-wing weenie Tucker Carlson confronted Scotsman reporter Gerri Peev on his now-cancelled show, asking her why she wouldn’t have honoured Ms. Power’s after-the-fact request that her remarks be treated as “off the record”:

Is Rupert Murdoch’s reporter sniffing out Obama pal Tony Rezko?

Posted on March 10, 2008 by

Filed under “W” for “what a weird coincidence,” a reporter close to the scene at the Tony Rezko trial (overseen by the same judge who handled the Conrad Black matter, Amy St. Eve) told me last week:

Jean Chrétien on Conrad Black: “Justice is justice”

Posted on March 7, 2008 by

Demonstrating his trademark canny candour, Jean Chrétien gave a speech at U of T yesterday and shed one (and only one) crocodile tear over his former frenemy, Conrad Black. “It’s sad, but justice is justice,” said the former prime minister. “It’s done and it’s an American problem—it’s very sad.”

In the race for the American presidency, Canada is a punchline

Posted on March 6, 2008 by

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. This morning, Canadians awoke to headlines expressing consternation about a leak from a Canadian diplomat—a leak that Stephen Harper said in the House of Commons was “unfair” to Barack Obama and would result in an immediate and thorough investigation of somebody by somebody.

The ongoing irony of Conrad Black

Posted on March 6, 2008 by

For those among you who are fans of lead-weight irony (and who among us isn’t?), I give you John Willman today on the Financial Times’ Web site, FT.com:

Obama, Clinton and Saturday Night Live in the hall of mirrors

Posted on March 6, 2008 by

Coverage of the American election is turning into a hall of mirrors. It’s created an infinite reflection of the media covering the media covering the media, ad infinitum. Take yesterday’s piece in The New York Times by Katherine Q. Seelye titled “News Coverage Changes, and So Does Tone of the Campaign.” Seelye reports that since a skit on Saturday Night Live taking the piss out of the press’ fawning coverage of Obama aired two weeks ago, scrutiny of Mr. Obama has increased:

Toronto Star’s cartoon illustrates much more than just Conrad Black’s prison rapists

Posted on March 5, 2008 by

image for Toronto Star’s cartoon illustrates much more than just Conrad Black’s prison rapists

As expected, the hysteria around Conrad Black’s incarceration has died down, but there’s one bit of leftover business that needs to be addressed—mostly for what it says about the fortunes of Canada’s two most prominent newspapers, the Star and the Globe. On Monday of this week, the Star kicked off a kerfuffle when it ran the following cartoon on its editorial page.

Best of the Black coverage (or, Conrad quaffs America cocktails)

Posted on March 4, 2008 by

As the Black coverage continues raining down cats and dogs, I can’t help but think that this is the storm before the calm. There’s something all too ephemeral about the endless recitation of grim prison factoids: the mandatory shirt tuck, the khaki trousers, the steel-toed boots, lights out at 11, maximum 15 minutes on the phone, only five books, three magazines and one newspaper at a time, pedophiles for roommates, starchy food, 12 cents an hour…this too shall pass. And then there will be a silence into which everything else will flood—Britney, Obama, Cadman, Schreiber and on and on and on. Amid all the noise, I have found several highlights of today’s coverage (listed below). One item in particular intrigued me. It’s an entry by Michael White on his politics blog at The Guardian. In it he demonstrates the British gift for taking away with the right hand, then taking away more with the left:

The glitzy Toronto event that linked Bill Clinton, Shakira and Eugene Levy

Posted on March 4, 2008 by

image for The glitzy Toronto event that linked Bill Clinton, Shakira and Eugene Levy

The skybox on the front page of yesterday’s Toronto Star featured a bunch of gold stars with the faces of famous people: Tom Cruise, Robin Williams, John Travolta, Shakira and Elton John. The bold, all-caps display copy reads “STAR STUDDED,” and the underline pitched a story on the front page of the business section: “Bill Clinton fundraiser in Toronto draws big names.” The piece itself was a slavering paean to the fundraising abilities of the former president and his Canadian partner, mining billionaire Frank Giustra. To wit:

Character assassin–cum–biographer Tom Bower weighs in on Black

Posted on March 4, 2008 by

Among the more grinding ironies that his Lordship had to endure on that inauspicious yesterday was the appearance at 2:19 p.m. EST of a piece on the Web site of his former flagship, The Daily Telegraph. In it, and without the riposte, Black’s most ferocious tormentor, the character assassin–cum–biographer Tom Bower, puts the boot in without fear of contradiction:

Mark Steyn defends Black’s breast-cupping gesture

Posted on March 3, 2008 by

Writing on his Maclean’s blog today, Mark Steyn—playing Cohn to Black’s Joseph McCarthy—enlightened the passing multitudes on the injustice of it all. In doing so he offered the following: “As for the various papers around the world, they’re not in such great shape under their new owners. ‘You have to have a feel for it,’ Conrad said to me a couple of months back, making that little motion he does with his right hand that makes it look either as if he’s re-tuning an ancient radio or cupping the breast of a passing waitress.”

National Post: gratuitous, cheap, salacious, depraved, malicious and grotesque

Posted on March 3, 2008 by

Amid the deluge of articles and columns raining down around Conrad Black’s incarceration, I was particularly struck by a weekend piece in the National Post. The authors attempt to examine, through the eyes of inmates at Coleman FCI and similar institutions, what life will be like for Black during his stay in the pen. Published under a double byline—Katie Rook and Mary Vallis—the piece makes use of correspondence between the Post and various inmates, who are, as a result, named in the paper. The information provided confirms what anyone with even a passing acquaintance with prison life would assume. Life inside is full of drudgery and marked by the ugly possibility of exploitation. Given the interest in Black’s situation, this sort of reporting is (if not exactly worthy) entirely justified. And then, out of the clear blue, this bit of nonsense: “The prisoners’ written correspondences to the Post are rife with sexual innuendo and longing.”

Conrad Black goes to jail, writes book about it

Posted on March 3, 2008 by

image for Conrad Black goes to jail, writes book about it

“Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison.” And with those words from Thoreau, Conrad Black enters that “true place” today accompanied by a cacophony of media hoo-ha, some of it sensible, some sickening, some silly. A photograph of his house in Palm Beach is splashed across the front page of the Globe. A quote from his final address to the troops—published simultaneously in The New York Sun, natch—covers a third of the Post’s front page.

Avi Lewis: pompous, literal and working for Al Jazeera

Posted on March 3, 2008 by

Ever wonder what happened to CBC journalist and lefty icon Avi Lewis? Well, here’s the skinny: According to the National Post, Mr. Naomi Klein is settling into a new job as a talking head at the Arab news network Al Jazeera, working out of Washington.