Goodbye G'Kar...

If you asked me to pick my all-time favourite show, it would be no contest. Now, I love some great shows: West Wing, the X-Files, CSI, Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But my favourite show by a mile is Babylon 5.

I'm not saying the writing, acting or special effects were always the best. But damn it, it had guts. Creator and writer J. Michael Straczynski had a vision, a five year story arc and despite innumerable challenges and set backs, he got it done. He also did something never done before in television - he wrote every episode in season two and three (In fact, of the roughly 100 episodes, he wrote about 80% of them). And it was mostly great. It was occasionally astonishing. I have all five seasons on DVD and plan on setting aside time in the next few months to sit down and watch them all over again.



I have two favourite characters in the show: Claudia Christian, who played the sarcastic, fatalistic Commander Susan Ivanova and G'Kar, played by Andreas Katsulas. I found out today that he passed away of lung cancer. This is the tribute written by Straczynski.

Even if you weren't a fan of Babylon 5 you probably spotted him somewhere else. He did a lot of work in his too short life.



Why did I love G'kar? I might have loved the sarcasm and dry wit of Ivanova, but no character on the show went through what G'kar did during the show's five seasons. From being the show's bad guy, the angry nationalist look for revenge, to a humbled broken man to a spiritual leader. He was repulsive, infuriating, charming, funny, heartbreaking, scary and always fascinating. It was an astonishing transformation in the character and a great piece of acting, especially considering the make-up he worked under.

Science fiction often gets a bad rap, especially in the acting. G'Kar was never anything less than captivating when he was on screen, and that's a tribute to Katsulas' acting. He should have won Emmy's, but never did. It's a pity.

Straczynski was right about one thing in his tribute: "Andreas is gone...and G'Kar with him, because no one else can ever play
that role, or ever will."

Curling bits...

1. In retrospect, considering how much I was sweating after curling this evening, going outside in -30 without putting my hood up might not have been the smartest think I could have done. Then again, we lost 11-2, giving up six in the last end, when my skip actually raised in one the opposing team's stone with her last rock. Not that I was shooting much better. I love curling, but it's day's like today that I want to take a stone and repeatedly smack my head against it.

2. Brad Gushue had a good day, beating two tough teams. He also did something I've never seen at that level of curling - he won a game without scoring more than a single point an end. I mean, I've seen games won 3-2, but never when the score was 7-5. It was a good rebound, so hopefully it can continue tomorrow against Norway. Stealing four consecutive ends is also pretty damn impressive.

3. Nude curlers. Not as grim as you might think.

4. I know I shouldn't be down on them, but I have really low expectations for both Heather Strong's chances at the Scott and Ken Peddigrew's at the Brier. Early prediction? Strong wins 4, Peddigrew wins 2. I hope I'm wrong, but I kind of doubt it.

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Greatest Hits - Fleetwood Mac

Ack, gack, uck...

And now, more Winter Olympics stuff.

1. That was a clear choke by Gushue today. It was a big game against a big team and he just couldn't close the deal. Most of the Swedes were curling in the mid-60% range. They got another gift of a game against a good team having a bad day, but this time they couldn't seal the deal.

Yeah, the stone picked on something in the 11th end, but you know what, on stones that big, you clean the Goddamn thing. They didn't do it, it caught debris. But worse than that was the miss in the 10th. He just got excited and winged it. It should have been an easy hit. They can't afford too many games like that. Hopefully he'll calm the nerves and get going again. Losing more than three games is going to make it difficult to get into the playoffs.

2. I have a long-standing theory on the Olympics and it is this: If it requires judges and a grading systems to determine who has won, then it shouldn't be an Olympic sport. As was shown in pairs figure skating in 2002, it's far too easy for corruption and bias to get into the process.

So, hockey is an Olympic sport. So is downhill skiing, luge, curling, cross-country skiing, biathelon, speed-skating and other sports where it's you against a clock or another team or person head-to-head.

What isn't? All figure skating. Moguls (I know we won a gold in it, sorry). Half pipe, ski jumping, etc. I'm not saying they're not athletes. I'm not saying they don't train a lot or what they do isn't hard. I just hate it when five anonymous people decide who is best and deserving of a gold.

3. Along those lines, my respect for figure skating went down yet another notch (and it was already pretty low) after hearing the Chinese pair Zhang Dan and Zhang Hao got a silver medal. They went and tried a very difficult move, and bombed. Dan actually landed in a way that made me wince. So they skate off the ice, take a breather, finish the program and get a silver medal.

Ummm, no.

Hey, I appreciate the ballsy of the move. You want the gold, you go all out. But if you fail, and fail as spectacularly as they did, you don't get a breather and a silver medal.

Why? Ask the women competing in the carnage filled luge event. Ask American Samantha Retrosi, who wiped out so badly she was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. Ask Canadian Meaghan Simister who took a camera out, she crashed so hard.

For that matter, let's ask Canadian skier Allison Forsyth, who fell and tore her ACL and may never ski again.

We don't even have to go for wipe outs. Let's take Canadian short track speed skater Charles Hamelin. He was leading his race with two laps to go. A Chinese skater bumped him and knocked him out of first. The Chinese skater was disqualified, but it didn't matter. Hamelin finished fifth, eventually moving up to fourth after the disqualification. Would they have liked a breather and another chance? I'm sure they would, but that's not how it works in real sports.

You compete, you compete hard and you take risks to try and win. Sometimes it pays off and you get gold. And sometimes you crash or fall on the ice or get bumped. And then it's all over. It sucks, but that's the way it goes. All it takes is a minute and your dreams are dashed. Is it fair? Maybe not. But every athlete at the games knows this, accepts this and deals with the possibility that one mistake, one slip, one bit of bad luck ruins your dream.

Unless you're in figure skating. Where of course you get a second chance. And of course, even though you failed, they still give you silver.

That's why figure skating is a joke. It's also why every other athelete at the Olympics should want to burn down that stadium. Because it diminishes their sacrifices and hard work. It's a cheat of a sport.

And that's why I hate figure skating.

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Down at the Khyber - Joel Plaskett Emergency

Happy belated birthday (to me...)

Cathy has been mortified for the better part of the last month over my birthday gift. She knew I wanted pretty much only one thing, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. I've been saying it ever since I first heard about the book, more than a year ago.

She thought she had ordered it in plenty of time, but alas, there were difficulties. Both Chapters and Amazon actually ran out of copies of the book in early January. That meant she had to deal with Amazon Marketplace. And as she has sadly learned, there can be problems when you're going through a dealer at the marketplace, as opposed to going through Amazon itself. Not the least of which was that a book that Amazon might have gotten here in a week or so, took more than a month.

She's been kind of upset and disgusted about this (several angry e-mails have already been fired off) and I haven't the heart to tease her. And I really don't mind; these things happen. They did to me at Christmas. But anyway, today was the happy day. It came!



I've only just started to go through it, but it's very fun. And heavy. The set is about 20 pounds. I loved the strip and this is just about perfect. One day it will take its place side by side with my Complete Far Side, but that will have to wait until I pull that book out of storage.

So if my blogging becomes slack over the next week or so, blame Calvin.

One down, eight to go...

To say there has been a bit of a lead-up to the Winter Olympics in the Welsh household would be an understatement. Of the two Olympics, I do tend to like the winter ones better. They feel…cozier. The Summer Olympics are this big sprawling mess of a thing. The Winter Olympics are smaller. Cathy is also completely over the moon for the Olympics. If she could take the next two weeks off and stay home and do nothing but watching the games, she would.

I also like the winter games because you tend to get crazier sports, like skeleton. It’s like a cry for attention or something. I mean, some of the sleds they’re racing down hill are insane. And with sports such as luge, speed skating and downhill skiing, you’ve got to be pretty secure in your masculinity, or femininity, to wear some of those outfits.

Thank Christ they don’t have to wear them in curling. Can you just imagine Russ Howard in one of those things? Gahhhh…

Speaking of curling, and thanking Christ, Canada won its first game in men’s curling today. I didn't see it, being stuck at work, but I did peak in on the score from time to time.

To be honest, it doesn’t look like they did that great. They gave up a steal of two in the first end. Third Mark Nichols curled a horrific 54%. And even Gushue curled (at 81%) beneath what he has to. Still, it was the first game and I’m sure nerves were in play. And they did come back and win the game.

Then again, they did get the gift of the German skip shooting 50%. As I said, I didn’t see the game so I don’t know if he was shooting bad because Gushue was constantly putting pressure on him, or if he was just plain bad. But Gushue is going to have to step it up because really, at this level, not too many people are going to shoot that bad again.

I am cheering for him for any number of reasons. I do love curling. It is one of the few sports in which I profess any skill. Gushue is a Newfoundlander and if he wins gold, well, I can’t think of anything bigger in Newfoundland sports history. Plus, in the weeks leading up to the Olympics, a lot of curling commentators, especially from out west, were making snarky comments about the odds of him winning.

Even NBC noticed it and mention it in their curling coverage. So yes, Gushue winning and getting to rub it in the nose of curling snobs out west would be lovely icing on the cake.

Currently Playing
Very Best of... - Rush

Love is cold

I was out doing some last minute Valentine's Day shopping today. I boasted for years that V-day was one of my favourite days of the year. Because beneath the crusty, bitter, cynical exterior shell lies, well, a softer, bitter, cynical interior. But somewhere deeper than that that is the chewy core of a romantic. Honest.

I've enjoyed doing this for years. When I had girlfriends I tended to go all out - flowers, dinner and gift of some kind, plus some sort of surprise. Even when I didn't have a girlfriend, I tended to do these kinds of things. When I was in Korea I sent a dozen roses to two of my female friends - Tiffany and Andrea. If I recall properly, Andrea cursed me out for doing something so sweet and ruining a perfectly good rotten mood she had building up for Valentine's Day.

So you would figure for Cathy I would go all out. But the last two years she has kicked my ass. Last year I was feeling down because we were apart. But yet, she managed to get me a great gift (The Complete Far Side). The year before, I just plain screwed up. It was the weekend of the East Coast Music Awards in St. John's. So I spent most of the weekend running around taking photos and catching bands. I imagine it wasn't much fun for her.

But I've got it covered this year. I think I'm in pretty good shape for the big day. She should be happy.

However, I did get a reminder today of how lucky I am to have someone.

Most of my friends will recall I really, really didn't enjoy the whole single experience. I hated it and I'm glad I never have to do it again. Others, of course, are still single and Valentine's Day must be a nuisance for them.

But just imagine being single in a small, isolated northern town. I'm actually kind of curious about the number of people who are single here and the breakdown of single men to women. I know it can be horrific in some place, with men out numbering women 5 to 1 in some places. I don't think it's that bad here, however.

Fortunately, one of the local coffee shops - Fantasy Palace (don't go there, the jokes have already been made) - is offering something to help all those lonely singles in Iqaluit. Speed Dating! Yes, because it wasn't horrific and terminally embarrassing enough down south, bringing it to Iqaluit must add a whole new layer of hell to the experience.

I saw that sign today and thought to myself "I love my wife so very, very, very much." Then I went and bought her something else. Because really, I'd do pretty much anything to eliminate even the slimest risk that I might have to go and do something like that. Ever.

Currently Playing
Plans - Death Cab For Cutie

Inuktitut for dummies...

...the dummy in question being me, of course.

For obvious reasons, I haven't talked much about work. But just in case people missed it, here's why: enough people have been fired because they talked about their job (normally in a negative or indiscreet way) while blogging so that it has become perfectly obvious that it is a remarkably stupid thing to do.

So, just for the record, I really like my job. If for no other reason than it's the first time in eight years I've worked something resembling regular hours. The concept of not having about eight hours of work to do on the weekends is so radical that I'm still not use to it.

One of the other nice things is that for an hour a week we have people coming into our office teaching us Inuktitut. One week we have an Inuit woman come in and teach us conversational Inuktitut, the other week we have a lovely kind of crazy Irish fellow come in and explain the linguistic aspects of it. He taught us the word for "He ate the nurse" in Inuktitut while relating a story of northern canibalism in our first class. Don't ask me what it is; I forget because I'm crap with vocabulary. Plus, I was laughing my ass off.

One of the goals of the government here is to have Inuktitut to be the primary language spoken in the workspace by 2020. I don't know if they'll succeed. In some other parts of Nunavut, where most of the government employees are Inuit, sure. No problem. In Iqaluit, where many of the employees are still qallunaaq (white people, although there are most skin pigmentations than white kicking around Iqaluit) it might be more of a challenge.

Anyway, I think it's great that this is happening. I've heard a lot of people when in Southern Canada complain when foreigners can't speak either English or French. There is the expectation than if you're in Canada, learn to speak one of the languages.

So really, if I'm going to be in Iqaluit for several years, then the only polite thing to do is at least pick up some of the language. It's kind of rude to not at least try. I am a visitor in their land, after all.

However, there are a couple of problems with this plan:

1. I suck at picking up new languages. There are all sorts of studies that say if you don't start learning a new language when you're young, you're going to have a lot more problems trying to learn them when you get older. Learn the language when the brain is still growing and soaking up stuff.

That didn't happen with me. So I spent eight fruitless years, between grade 4 and 11, trying to learn French. In Grade 11 I was so bad that I actually failed every test that year, but because it was graded on a curve, I got a 58. That was pretty much my sign to get out. I didn't care if there was a school trip to St. Pierre the next year, which was the annual excuse to go to a place with a lower drinking age and get legally hammered. I needed to get out of that class. So my French is appalling.

Personally, I blame it on the annoying habit the French have of every Goddamn object having to be either male or female. But I digress.

I also spent two semesters trying to learn German while at MUN. Not such a great idea.

I spent nine months in Korea and despite being assured that Hangul is a very elegant and easy language to learn, I didn't get very far. I picked up a few curse words, though, which is always useful.

And now I'm trying to learn Inuktitut. It's likely a doomed attempt, but I take some comfort that some of my co-workers, who have been in the territory longer than me, are clearly more lost than I am.

"It is a comfort in wretchedness to have companions in woe." I always liked that quote. Not that it's wretched trying to learn Inuktitut; it's just that most of the people in my class are hopeless. We're talking some smart people and they're having a bitch of a time with the language because....

2. Inuktitut is hard. The linguist they brought it explained it roughly this way. Most languages are beads on a string...subject-verb-object, for example. Inuktitut is more like lego blocks. So they take a word and keep adding to it until it can occasionally reach ridiculous lengths.

For example, Nuna means "land." Nunavut means "Our land." Nunatsiavut means "Our beautiful land". And so on, and so forth. You can hit some real beauties up here.

Plus, there are different sounds to learn. You're also dealing with a language that's trying to find ways to describe things. I think the word for airplane (which I forget, ooops) literally means "thing that hangs in the sky."

So yeah, this will be fun. My poor brain is likely to explode. But hey, I'm learning new things every day. That's always good...

If you're curious about the language, there is this site. It appears to be the best one I can find online, although I find it a little clunky and some of the vocabulary is the not what I learned today (oh joy), but it gives you an idea of the language.

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American Idiot - Green Day

Freestyle pizza

Turns out I won't be on Freestyle this Friday after all. It's still going ahead, but it's looking like it will be Monday or Tuesday before you get to hear my lovely voice on air. I hope you can all handle the suspense.

Ever since the supposed sex ring story broke, the other thing I was curious about, other than how a git as large as Deering gets to be police chief, is what was the "Downtown fast food business" implicated in the story. I had my suspicions, but obviously it's a little difficult to figure that out from Iqaluit.

That's why I knew Blue Kaffee was going to be useful at some point. Several people on one of the boards are reporting that it is exactly the business I suspected it was. CBC also tipped it off earlier in the day when they ran a story about downtown businesses and if they had seen anything unusual. Funny how the manager of Dooley's was interviewed. Only a few fast food places near there, right?

I wonder how big and terrible this is going to be before it's all over...

Currently Playing
Lonely Runs Both Ways - Alison Krauss and Union Station

May the cause...

Sorry about the delay on this, but life happens. Still, I said I would respond to MUN’s reaction and this is it.

Along with MUN’s response on its site, Dr. Axel Meisen did a bit on CBC’s Here and Now last Friday. And it was watching Meisen that I was reminded of the half dozen times I’ve interviewed him since he became president. He’s always struck me as an intelligent man who is working hard to bring MUN to the next level. I know there has been criticism of him for making the university too open to corporate interests. And that’s fine; that’s a legitimate debate. And I took my shot at him last week, saying maybe he ought to be fired over the Chandra mess.

But he did say something interesting in MUN’s defence – that while he wasn’t there when all this happened (he became president in September ’99. Chandra left in ‘02. Most of the mess was well under way or even over at that point) he would have done things differently if he had been there. He would have kept pursuing the truth.

And you know what, I think he would have.

My initial reaction, my rage, towards Meisen and MUN actually had a familiar taste to it. It goes back to 1993 and the federal election of that year. Kim Campbell wasn’t that bad a person and she certainly wasn’t the worst prime minister the country ever had. She was just the unfortunate receprocant of about 10 years of building, collective rage towards Brian Mulroney.

We hated Mulroney. We couldn’t get him so we took it out on her.

Meisen is currently getting the rage and ire over mistakes from MUN’s previous president. That being Art May. We can’t get him, so we take it out on Meisen.

I admit bias towards May. I don’t like him. I never have. I thought he was a terrible university president. The Muse had a special place in his heart, what with him threatening to sue the paper once, saying a controversial GLB supplement was going to harm alumni donations and cause tuition to rise (both were bullshit) and reportedly once telling a former editor that considering her grades, perhaps she should spend more time hitting the books and not spend so much time at the newspaper. Lovely.

So that this mess happened under May’s watch surprises me not in the least. The fact that when the investigation wrapped up in ’98 May wrote a letter thanking Chandra for his cooperation is infuriating. Chandra had been anything but helpful at that point.

Meisen can say it was just a phrase and that May was merely being polite. No. You know what, maybe if you’ve just spent four years investigating someone who apparently was very uncooperative and threatening legal action, maybe you don’t thank him for his help. I think that’s the very least you can do at that point.

MUN’s defence, by the way, is essentially useless. First, Meisen nicely undermined it by saying that he wouldn’t have stopped. He would have kept pursuing the truth. MUN is saying they did their best with an uncooperative professor. Meisen said you keep going until you get to the truth.

MUN is also arguing semantics. “Oh, we did too do enough. Chandra just wasn’t being cooperative.” Imagine that, he was hiding fraud and he wasn’t cooperative. People guilty of fraud are normally just so cooperative when it comes to investigations.

It didn’t do enough with someone they knew was lying and being a pain in the ass. I mean really, his assistant stole his research? Did the dog eat the rest of the research he had done at MUN over the years? No, wait, it was lost in a move.

My wife is a teacher. She hears better excuses from her Grade 4/5 class.

It’s fiddling while Rome burns. This is the story whether MUN likes it or not: Chandra is a fraud and quite possibly a thief. MUN knew (or very strongly suspected) he was an academic fraud, but because they feared a lawsuit and a loss of reputation, they buried the incident and hoped it went away. After all, it’s not like his research was all that important or life-threatening.

This is being reported by one of CBC Newfoundland’s most respected journalists.

MUN’s reaction is to pick at details in their release. At least Meisen had the right reaction: we made an effort; it wasn’t good enough. And if I had been there, we would have done more and better. And we’re going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

There you go, that’s the right answer. Hammer away at it long enough and maybe, just maybe, they might get out of this scrape.

By the way, at no point am I saying the quality of education at MUN is bad. I have no complaints about what I received. I know MUN has some top-notch programs.

But we know that because most people reading this blog went there. What’s the reaction to someone hearing about this out west? “Wow, that university must be a joke.” I bet you more than one person thought that after seeing the story.

But the MUN where the Chandra case happened in the 80s and 90s was still a pretty insular university. The overwhelming majority of students came from Newfoundland. Foreign students or ones from other parts of Canada weren’t important to the administrations game plan. They were having a hard enough time find space for all the local students. Which is perhaps why they didn’t care about Chandra. They weren’t worried about an international reputation. Why bother when all your students come from Newfoundland.

It’s a different university today. They are actively recruiting and trying to get students from other parts of the world. And for that to happen, your reputation counts for a lot. Yes, so does reasonable tuition, but you need a rep. Otherwise, why would someone travel half way around the world?

And this story damages that reputation. MUN is going to have to work hard at fixing it and proving they’re a better university than they were a decade ago. That it would be impossible for this to happen now.

How big of an impact will this have? I don’t know. I think it’s a bit of wishful thinking to believe MUN will get off scot-free. And it's infurating that May is getting a pass for this mess. But who knows, it could be worse. And I take some small comfort in the hope that it will be for Dr. Chandra.

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Greatest Hits - The Smashing Pumpkins

Freestyle

I swear to God, I am working on the Iqaluit FAQ and my response to MUN's defence of their actions when it comes to Dr. Chandra. It's just that sex scandals, big airplanes, cowardly Liberals and other things keep distracting me. Hopefully MUN tomorrow and the FAQ by the weekend, unless something else weird and intriguing pops up.

On a personal note, for those of you wondering what I sound like, you can get your chance on Friday. Through truly bizarre and cool circumstances, a producer with the CBC Radio national program Freestyle contacted me a week or so ago. They heard I used to do review movies with The Express and thought the idea of a movie buff being in Iqaluit and looking for ways to satisfy his jones was intriguing.

So I'll be on the air this Friday and chatting for about 10 minutes about what it's like trying to watch movies in the North and doing a review of a recent DVD release, in this case, Lord of War. This has the potential, if everything goes well, of being a semi-regular thing.

So, by all means, feel free to contact Freestyle, and tell them that you loved my voice, thought my chemistry with Kelly and Cameron was amazing and that was very intelligent and witty. In fact, demand that I return often.

There is a risk, I might add, that people in Newfoundland won't hear me. I don't know right now when I'll be on air. The show runs from 2:30 to 4 p.m. in Newfoundland. They don't air the last 30 minutes of Freestyle. So if I'm in the last half hour, well, unless you want to listen to me online, you're out of luck. But here's hoping that doesn't happen.

Then again, it's not like I can listen to me. The show doesn't air in Iqaluit. They play Inuit programming during the afternoon's here instead. Ah well...

Currently Playing
29 - Ryan Adams

Do your job...

So I'm guessing I know what story is going to be dominating headlines in St. John's for the next few days. And it isn't going to be what Loyola Hearn is going to do as Fisheries Minister and it isn't going to be Bill Barry swooping to the rescue in Harbour Breton. Not when there is a teenage sex ring operating in town.

You know, I'm not going to comment on the sex ring yet because there isn't enough information out there about what's happening. But I do want to comment on an element of the story from CBC National. Interestingly, the local CBC cut the rant by RNC Chief Richard Deering. It was there this afternoon, but as I type this, it's gone.

VOCM kept it though.

As I understand it, there have been rumours for weeks in St. John's about a sex ring trafficking in possible prostitution and pornography in St. John's. They're girls and they're underage. The RNC admits they've been investigating for two weeks and there are 10 officers on the case.

From what I saw on CBC Newsworld at lunch time, local reporters have known something was going on and have been hunting the story for a few weeks as well. But all hell broke loose yesterday when a parent of one of the girls called VOCM's Open Line and talked about some aspect of it. Deering calls in and confirms an investigation, but won't give any details.

This morning, The Telegram runs front page with what they have, which isn't much, but certainly is eye-catching. Deering calls a press conference in the morning, gives a bit more information and then blasts the media saying it has jeopardized the investigation. By going with what they have, the suspects may destroy evidence or run.

I have three words for Deering: "Bullshit." That's followed by "Bite me."

Where to begin. OK, with the "harm" to the investigation. You know what, when someone goes on Open Line, of all shows, I think it's safe to say the suspects probably know they're in it deep, especially when the Chief of Police pops up shortly afterwards and confirms there is an investigation.

So saying The Media (ie. The Telegram) have jeopardized their investigation is foolishness. The rumour was out there. Someone goes on Open Line. Deering comments. I think the jig was up, b'ys, well before The Telegram went to press.

Next, I find it hard to sympathize for the RNC because they have so frequently in the past acted in a massively uncooperative and occasionally vindictive manner. Go ahead, ask a reporter in the city how easy the RNC is to deal with. CBC has horror stories. The Telegram has horror stories. The Independent has them. The Express has them. Maybe not NTV, because they keep getting those ride alongs with RNC that they can get three part series out of.

The Express time in purgatory came after we did a couple of critical stories and one especially, I admit, harsh editorial. We were then blacklisted. We know this because officers told us off the record. Their names were not allowed to appear in the paper, even on an unrelated to police work matter, or else management were going to give them shit. Calls were not returned. We were removed from their press release list so when little things like sexual assults were happening, we were having problems covering the story because we weren't getting the information from the police.

The day Deering leaves the RNC, the media will be the ones throwing him the good-bye party.

One other thing. Deering snipes that the media didn't really have a right to the story. Sorry, Richard, but the days of the St. John's media giving the RNC the benefit of the doubt to do the right thing, especially with regards to a case involving sex crimes, pretty much died around the time Mount Cashel finally broke.

If Deering doesn't like it,too bad. Get a thicker skin or get a new job. I don't particularly care which it is.

One last thing, one site online that's going to be interesting to watch, as this develops is Blue Kaffee. It's a site for local youth to talk about different issues. It'll be interesting to see what crops up there in the coming weeks. I suspect the people who post there are going to have a different perspective on things, not to mention information.

Currently Playing
40 Licks - The Rolling Stones.

Up in the air, it's a bird, it's a bloody big plane...

Some of you may or may not know that Iqaluit had a visitor today. As this story points out the Airbus 380 is the largest passenger jet in the world and she's in town for cold weather testing. Everybody in town is angling for a ride, but because of insurance reasons, that's not going to happen.

However, since she can hold about 550 people, I figure it would only take about a dozen trips or so.

Naturally enough, a plane this big produces some excitement in a town of about 6,000. So from about 9:45 to 11 a.m. this morning, Iqaluit basically shut down so everyone could find a spot to see her land.

Immediate thoughts? That it is, in fact, a goddamn big plane. And that photographing a goddamn big white plane flying into a town covered in snow on a bright, sunny day is a bigger challenge than you might think.

Secondly, that some people are already concerned that it isn't cold enough. The engineers (and aren't they always the problem) want temperatures colder than -30 for testing. It's about that today, but it will be getting up to about -20 for the rest of the week.

Third, there are an awful lot of digital cameras up here.

Finally, you know you live in a small town when half the population shows up to see an airplane land.

Anyway, here she is...

Red to yellow...

Can we view the provincial Liberals failure to have a leadership race as anything than an utter throwing in the of the towel for the next provincial election? I don't think there is any other way to look at it.

Yes, there have been plenty of articles recently, mostly focusing on the federal Liberals, explaining the hardships of being in politics, and especially being a leader of a political party. Ed has already written well about the high costs. But that's never stopped people from doing it before. I refuse to believe that suddenly a bunch of provincial politicians are aware of the risks and damages to family relations that a political career can have.

Nope, this was a bunch of people in the Liberal caucus scoping out the landscape and quickly realizing several things:
1. Unless video arises showing Danny Williams wearing dark robes and chanting "Hail, my Dark Lord" before an alter with a baby placed on top of it, he's going to win the next provincial election.
2. Barring a small miracle, the Liberals will actually lose seats in 2007. They might find themselves with seat numbers that will rival the NDP.
3. Nobody sitting in caucus, and indeed few in the province, wants to be the guy (or girl) leading the party into the teeth of that particular storm. Or be the person held accountable when it happens.
4. In fact, most of the caucus want to stay in their own district in the hopes they can hold onto it, as oppose to travelling around the province in the doomed quest to try and pick up seats.

Now, I admit, when you stake out those odds, maybe the smart thing to do is to duck and cover. To be the one not leading the charge and let someone else take the hit. But sometimes you've got to do the stupid, gutsy thing. To lead the charge when you know the hail of bullets is coming. And for Jim Bennett to be the only one in the Liberal party to have those guts, well, that's kind of a sad commentary on the state of the Liberal party in Newfoundland and Labrador.

I understand why Paul Antle and Siobahn Coady didn't want to do it. They've just been through a grinder of a federal election campaign. But for the rest of the provincial caucus? Cowards.

Government's work best when there is a strong opposition and I want the Liberals and NDP to do well and pick up a few seats. But I can't help but feel that in the next provincial election, the Liberals are going to get what's coming to them. They deserve it, in some ways.

Change that bold red in the Liberal logo, b'ys. I think yellow might be more appropriate in this case.

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Underdogs - Matthew Good Band

Ad recap

One more good reason to be living in the North - I got to watch the Super Bowl and actually watch the American ads. Which was good, because the game itself was kind of dull and immensely frustrating seeing as how I was rooting for the Seahawks.

I have said this before and I will say it again; I have for years wanted to smack the crap out of someone with NTV over the Super Bowl. The station carries maybe three NFL games all year, including the Super Bowl. They then run their ads during the game. Which would be annoying enough, except they tend to show the same five or six damn ads all game. I remember one year I swore I would never by a car from Tom Woodford just because NTV kept showing the same bloody ad all game. At least a 20 times, if not more.

And the kicker? There was a story a year or two ago on how much Super Bowl ads go for. Obviously for the U.S. network carrying the game, it's a couple of million for 30 seconds. In most of Canada, it was still a hundred thousand or more to show an ad during the game.

NTV was selling them for something like $1,000, the cheapest in North America. Gits.

Look, the game is normally crap. At least give us the small pleasure of a few entertaining ads.

So what were the best ones, for those of you who missed out. Definitely watch for the MacGuyver/Mastercard ad, which is a classic. And Bud Light hit four solid ones: hidding BL in the office, the guys worshipping the magic fridge, the guys repairing the roof and the guy stealing a BL and leaving his buddy to be mauled by a bear.

Worst ones: The Diet Pepsi ones fell flat (pardon the pun). And the one for Hummer was just fucking weird.

Oh, and you know what, I appreciate it was an ad for a hybrid vehicle, but it was for a hybrid SUV and maybe, just maybe, I don't want to see Kermit the Frog being used to sell hybrid SUVs. That's just wrong.

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OK Computer - Radiohead

Happy critters

There is absolutely no need to put this picture of my friend Colette riding a camel on my blog, other than, really, how often do you get to put pictures of a friend riding a camel on a blog?



The photo is from her recent trip to the Middle East. To my knowledge, she had a good time, was treated well and no Canadian flags were burned in her wake. And she got to ride a camel. I'd call that a pretty successful trip.

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Greatest Hits - Gordon Lightfoot

Flags R Us

Jason asked me in the previous post what I thought of the surreal situation happening with Muslims freaking out, waaayyyy out over a series of cartoons in a Danish newspaper. And when I say they are freaking in a way that is completely out of proportion to the act, you have to take into account that probably 90% of them have never seen the actual cartoons. Most just know someone drew a couple of cartoons mocking the Prophet, so they've gone nuts.

There has been plenty written about this. Two local bloggers, Liam and Damian have done thoughtful, well reasoned arguments on the issue. The only thing, in seriousness, that I can add is this: I was once a professional journalist. I may well be again in the future. In my heart, I likely always will be one. Under no circumstances I could I envision me condoning any of the rabid, extreme actions I've seen taken in the news over this. Freedom of speech means having to put up with it even when it infuriates or enrages you. Especially when it does that. It doesn't mean you make death threats or attack embassies.

That also means striking or criticizing religion. I watched Newsworld this morning and they did a streeter asking if it was ok to satirize religion. And some people said it wasn't.

I gotta tell you, the day it isn't ok for me to mock the Catholic church, I need to move to another country. I do that for stress relief.

But the one thing that stuck me during all of this is that whenever the TV cameras should protesters being outraged, they were burning Danish flags. I saw it in Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Yemen and other places.

You know, photos like this one (Photo is by Associated Press, btw).



And the question I have is, where the heck do you get Danish flags in the Middle East?

I mean, you're constantly seeing American flags burned. I always assumed there was some local guy (Abdul's Flag Emporium: Our Flags Burn the Best!) with a small shop whose job it was to make U.S. flags for burning. I imagine there must be a craft to it. Obviously you're not making the flags for durability. Odds are the person buying the U.S. flag is just going to rush right out and burn it.

Still, you don't want it to go up like paper. It has to burn, but just right. A nice, slow burning flag so you get maximum time waving it around on fire so that Western Photographers and Al Jazeera can get their shots. But you still want it to burn brightly. There's a craftsmanship in it that I suspect many of us in the West can't really appreciate.

So I figured there's a few guys like this scattered around different hot spots in the Middle East. Most of their business is in U.S. flags, but just in case another country upsets people, you make the odd Union Jack, a German flag or two. Maybe even the French.

But Denmark? Really? I mean, I would have been hard pressed to find a Danish flag in Newfoundland. Or most of Canada for that matter. So I'm genuinely curious. Where does the average outraged Jordanian or Palestinian get a Danish flag on short notice for burning?

Enquiring minds want to know...

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Employment - Kaiser Chiefs

Well howdy...

I guess my complaint about not enough people paying attention to the MUN issue got a bit of attention. The number of people visiting my blog today is a record and is at least double, pushing triple, the average number of people who swing by.

Not that I get massive amounts of traffic. I'm fairly pragmatic about the fact that some blogs, such as Damian Penny's probably get as many hits in an hour as I get in a week. Still, like any writer, it's nice to know that people are reading. So to all the new people who swung by today to see what I was talking about, thank you. Also thanks to Sure b'y and Nancy for the links.

And an especially warm greetting to all of those people from MUN's University Relations who popped by. And my goodness, there were an awful lot of you who came by today. So allow me a moment to wave and say hi to Ivan, David and everyone else at MUN's PR wing. I'm guessing you've had better weeks.

Sticking with MUN, this is their response to the Chandra story. As you might expect, I have my beefs with it. But I want to do a thorough job in the response and I just don't have time this evening. Quality time with Cathy on the couch with a movie awaits.

I will say, however, that my favourite part of that page has been removed. On the left hand side you might notice something called "Snapshot". The photo underneath is a guy running during the recent blizzard towards a building. The caption now reads "Campus closure."

This afternoon, it read "Running for cover." Which I guess is something you don't want on a page where you justify your decision to let academic fraud go unpunished. Someone must have caught it. Pity.

One more thing, in my previous post I was talking about the professor who died last November and the student who was harassing her. In retrospect, I shouldn't have really commented on it because I didn't know enough about the situation, only what I heard in passing. So whatever MUN's sins, that one shouldn't be counted among them. So I apologize for that.

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The Bends - Radiohead

Where's the outrage?

I hate to keep harping on this, but I'm sensing a distinct lack of outrage at Memorial University. Obviously I'm not in St. John's, so I can't see how the reaction is playing out there. Perhaps it is being talked about on the streets or the open line shows. Perhaps students are losing their minds at MUN over the behaviour of their administration.

But I haven't seen it in any of the other media. I haven't seen it on any other blogs. And even the comments on my blog have been kind of lacking.

Let us recap what MUN has done recently:

1. Lost a more than $800,000 lawsuit with Wanda Young over falsely accusing her of child abuse. No less a body than the Supreme Court of Canada basically said they acted stupidly in their handling of the situation.
2. The Auditor General unleashes a report which says certain administration officials are being massively overpaid for doing work similar to government officials. And apparently the Board of Regents are getting plenty of food and drink as well, according to some of the bills.
3. A professor died over Christmas (which I had forgotten about) and her family is blaming the university for not taking action to stop a student known for harassing behavior.
4. And, oh yeah, they admitted to massive academic fraud on national television. They can also be tied to financial fraud since if they knew (and they did know) that Chandra was faking research, they had to have asked themselves "Gee, I wonder what he's doing with that research money?" I don't care if they money didn't go through them. They knew something fishy was going on, and still let organizations give him money.

A good friend of mine, Mike, is a professional research scientist. He got his PhD from MUN. He's currently so mad he can't see straight. So when he says the following to me, in e-mail (reprinted with his permission), then you can pretty much get an idea of how much trouble MUN is in right now:

"Simply unbelievable. Mindboggling. We're going to be - justifiably - the laughing stock of the Canadian scientific community for a long, long time. And the credibility of every MUN research-based degree has been seriously compromised."

Every single one of us who has graduated from MUN, but especially those in the sciences, are going to be harmed by this. The value and prestige of your degree is going to take a hit. It may actually become harder to get some jobs because MUN's reputation has been so tarnished.

This is comparable, in some ways, to what happened to the Newfoundland Career Academy a decade or so ago. It wasn't just the poor bastards who were going to school at the time and lost money and didn't get the diploma that got screwed - it was every single graduate of the Career Academy that got burned. Because when that school went down, their diplomas basically became worthless. The school didn't exist anymore. The name became synonymous with being a joke.

And sure we felt bad for them. They just wanted an education and got screwed. But I know more than one of us, and I'm included in that, looked down our noses at them a bit. "Well," we thought "they should have went to a real school, like MUN, CONA or the Marine Institute. You know, a place with a reputation."

So what kind of reputation does MUN have right now? And as graduates, how big of a hit have our degrees and reputations taken? MUN condoned, on national television, fraud, cheating and dishonesty. They said as long as no one was harmed by Chandra's research, what's the big deal?

Mike again:

"So, applying MUN logic to the non-academic community, if a Breezeway bartender was found to have been lacing the beer with arsenic, for many years, but no one had died, would the university consider "the case closed" if said bartender "chose to retire quietly and move[d] away", presumably to seek employment at another bar???

Mike raised one other point, and while part of me thinks it's just him blowing off steam, the other part of me wonders if he isn't right and that it might not happen. And his point is this: "could we launch a class-action lawsuit against the administration for criminal incompetence/wanton indifference resulting in harm to (our) reputation?"

You know what? All it's going to take is a few people, especially in the sciences, to go to a few interviews and have people say "sorry, we know you have good grades and all, but you come from MUN and lieu of them admitting committing academic fraud, we don't really trust or hire anyone coming out of that school."

If that happens, you might just see the class action suit. I suspect this going to get uglier before it gets better.

Oh, last thing, people need to be fired over this. Starting at the top isn't a bad place to begin.

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Five Star Motel - Andy Stochansky

Juicy

I really wasn't going to post this image (don't ask where I got it) because, well, family could be reading this blog and I have to give the appearance of being presentable. Or, you know, at least not a total freak.

But then Nancy posted the image of the tampered polish ham and then it became something I simply couldn't ignore. Clearly I needed to post this:



I'm not entirely certain what it is. Some kind of bread or pastry, I believe. Certainly something you are suppose to, er, eat.

If you're related to me, by either blood or marriage, I'm terribly sorry. Feel free to disown me...

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Hello Starling - Josh Ritter

That was brutal...

• Jesus Christ but MUN got brutalized on CBC over that Chandra report this evening. At least Chandra can flee to India and hide away. MUN is just going to have to sit there and take it. I mean, when the former editor of the British Medical Journal sits there and says that the university obvious cares more about its reputation than the truth and that people will now have to question everything that comes out of the university, you can't view that as anything other than a massive body blow.

What's the reaction been like on campus? Anyone?

• I've been writing a lot the last day or so, but it's still going to be a few more days before the Iqaluit FAQ is ready to go. Perhaps by this weekend. No surprise, it's proving to be longer than I anticipated.

• While Nancy was impressed with my ability to get Oscar picks, I think Newsweek managed to one up me pretty good. They interviewed the five people nominated in the best director category before the nominations were announced. Nice trick. The article is here. The article is a little too "oh, but your movie was wonderful too" but there are a few interesting bits.

The best was that Haggis (Crash) and Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck) worked together on The Facts of Life. How weird is that?

• Oh, and one last thing. My good friend Sara has started blogging. Alas, I haven't seen her in about four years, but unless the pod people have gotten her, she still remains one of the smartest and nicest women (when not kicking me in the shins, a bad habit of many of the short women in my life) it's my pleasure to know.

She also cited myself and Dups as inspirations to start blogging. Generally speaking, myself and Dups normally inspire women to drink heavily, so it's nice to see we can do positive things as well. She's only getting started, but feel free to go and say nice things and encourage her to keep at it. She's a great writer.

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Truthfully, Truthfully - Joel Plaskett Emergency