I admit, I get a perverse pleasure out of people who are the creators of their own misfortune. Tragedies in the classical sense. Not necessarily causing death, but at least causing inconvenience. Hurricane Gustav created two examples of this, and the victims are our favourite punching bags: politicians and the media.

The first comes out of the video above. A few weeks ago, Stuart Shepard of Focus on the Family posted a video online in which he half-jokingly suggests that Christian Conservatives pray for rain during Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at an open-air stadium. They say they never meant for it to be taken seriously, but it was, and the video was pulled (the one above is a copy).

Of course, there was no rain the night of Obama’s acceptance speech, and the Democratic convention went off without a hitch. But the day after, as John McCain was announcing his vice-presidential pick, we start hearing about this hurricane headed for the Gulf Coast. Toward New Orleans. Three years almost to the day that Katrina struck.

Oh the irony. It almost makes me believe in a god, as it did Michael Moore.

The second example comes from our good friends at CNN. When Barack Obama announced his VP pick, CNN filled the airwaves with news and analysis. Responding to a viewer comment via Facebook (oh how the media has changed, folks), anchor Rick Sanchez says this on air:

By the way, I have to share this with you. It is from Sam. He says, Rick — this is on Facebook — I’m counting on you to do the same kind of coverage when McCain announces his vice president as you’re doing tonight when Barack Obama has announced his vice president. Sam, we’ve already made that decision. I can guarantee you we will.

No caveats, no ifs or buts, just a bold guarantee. Of course, neither CNN nor the other news networks are coming close to meeting that guarantee for the convention. Half the news about Sarah Palin was surrounded (literally) by hurricane updates, and the convention coverage is being threatened by it. Even the convention itself is changing plans at the last minute to deal with people (like President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal) who can’t speak.

I actually feel a bit bad for the Republicans. It’s not their fault this hurricane hit with such horrible timing, nor is it their fault that Bristol Palin got pregnant. If they lose in November, it should be because of the issues, not because the campaign was derailed by … well, acts of God.

See also:

• March 25, 2008 — There are no generic people
• September 5, 2008 — CRTC Roundup: Shaw seeks CNN International license
• August 27, 2008 — Barack Obama abandons newborn babies in dirty rooms alone to die

Now, as André Pratte asks, does this mean we have to let the Greens into the party leaders’ debates?

See also:

• August 12, 2008 — By-election politicians on Facebook
• July 26, 2008 — The by-election campaign has begun
• July 5, 2008 — ALD for NDP

The other, a few pages down, comes from Canwest’s Scott Deveau, who is a reporter in Afghanistan and came face-to-face with a roadside bomb. Again, no serious repercussions, but a pretty huge scare.

So what should we learn from this encounter? Simple: Jason Magder and Scott Deveau are pussies.

But perhaps we can look into this a bit deeper. What purpose do these first-person articles serve? There have been other home break-ins and other roadside bombings that have been worse but gotten less coverage. Is a reporter’s first-person account better than a second-hand version given by a witness? Is this a this-happens-every-day story? Or is it just a way for reporters to placate their enormous egos, a preview into their future memoirs, and an indication that things are more significant when they happen to people we know?

Discuss. Please include unnecessarily personal references in your comments.

See also:

• No related posts

The highlight of the deal (from the Globe press release) is a promise from Transcon to buy new presses capable of printing full-colour on all pages. Currently newspapers have to budget which pages get colour and which stay black, mainly because colour is a four-plate process (CMYK) and black requires only one plate and one colour ink. (The change will also mean a shorter paper and another redesign)

That sounds pretty cool. But spending $200 million on new presses to satisfy an 18-year deal (2010-2028) when we’re not even sure that newspapers are going to last that long?

Like the New York Times and other larger papers, the Globe will probably weather the crisis a bit longer than most (the fact that it hasn’t drastically cut the number of journalists recently certainly helps). But 20 years is a long time in the future, especially when you consider where we were 20 years ago. In 1988, newspaper staffs were at their peak, television production values practically nonexistent, and nobody knew what the Internet was.

See also:

• August 12, 2008 — National humility in contrast
• August 9, 2008 — Buses are a commuter service
• July 28, 2008 — Globe reduces TV listings

See also:

• February 28, 2008 — Headline fun
• February 4, 2008 — Oh The HumanBrady!

See also:

• September 2, 2008 — Hurricanes suck
• August 27, 2008 — Barack Obama abandons newborn babies in dirty rooms alone to die
• August 25, 2008 — U.S. conventions live on CPAC

We know how you feel. Sucks, huh?

See also:

• August 25, 2008 — Top 10 worst moments of the Beijing Olympics
• August 19, 2008 — This is what I love about the Olympics
• August 19, 2008 — Beijing Games online coverage analysis

See also:

• August 14, 2008 — Killer cops

Oh, and the riot was justified and rioters aren’t criminals.

“No justice, no peace” indeed. (Doesn’t that just mean “wage war until you get what you think you deserve?”)

See also:

• August 15, 2008 — OMGsclusives on Fredy
• July 15, 2008 — The metro car ice cream parlor, and other Just for Laughs outdoor fun
• July 13, 2008 — Street sale mania

As a champion of minority rights, AffiliationQuebec calls on Quebec’s cultural communities to select effective candidates to run under the AQ banner in order to elect relevant representation to send to the National Assembly.

The tense situation in Montreal North offers a unique opportunity for these communities to ‘break free’ from Quebec’s nationalist agenda, and to play a direct role in their own governance.

It’s amazing how many new causes are dummed up every hour to replace the apparently inadequate “kids mad ’cause cops shot other kid.”

See also:

• January 16, 2008 — Journal does it again
• August 16, 2008 — Media win battle over riot footage
• August 14, 2008 — Yves Bolduc’s spending spree

On a slightly more serious note, an analysis of Toronto media coverage of its susprise breaking news. Toronto media were caught especially off-guard because the incident happened in the middle of the night on a weekend, when few (if any) people are on the job.

Montreal’s media got lucky, in that the riots started before midnight, before newspapers were put to bed and everyone went home for the night. In addition, the top story was about the police shooting that prompted the riot, so newspapers (like mine) could combine the two together and not have to rip apart their front pages.

La Presse has the best roundup of the action (including a column by Patrick Lagacé, who was on the scene and has some stories to tell about it), as well as the best photos from photographer David Boily. LCN was on the scene live with its helicopter coverage, and though suffering from the usual breaking-news confusion saying-stuff-off-the-top-of-your-ass time-filler, was enough to keep us journalists glued to the set. (LCN/TVA reporters, meanwhile, repeatedly ignored police demands to retreat to a safe area once shots had been fired, making the anchor’s half-transparent “are you ok?” clichés seem almost silly.)

The best anglo coverage came, of course, from Canadian Press, whose reporter Andy Blatchford (a former classmate of mine) had a story filled with quotes.

Unfortunately, most of the other media are playing catch-up today, and you’ll see more photos of day-after busted up businesses than the riots themselves.

As for blog and “new media” coverage, it was pretty well nonexistent. Some posts with “this is bad” comments, but no citizen journalists stepping up and doing a proper reporting job.

See also:

• August 16, 2008 — Media win battle over riot footage
• August 28, 2008 — Patrick Lagacé wants to be your friend
• August 18, 2008 — I have hair too!

See also:

• August 26, 2008 — Globe thinks colour will solve newspaper crisis
• August 12, 2008 — National humility in contrast
• July 31, 2008 — Decapitation leads to passioned debate

In the case of online ticket purchases, if you actually click to read Ticketmaster’s fine print before buying concert tickets, the terms run nearly 6,200 words. It takes far longer to read than the three minutes and 15 seconds Ticketmaster gives you to make a decision to buy tickets.

It also points out that the terms can be abusive to the point of absurdity:

They’re often lengthy and complicated. Sometimes they can be changed unilaterally by the company, and they usually include a limited corporate liability clause.

Readers are encouraged to comment on this article. In order to do that, you have to agree to this 785-word license release, which also requires you to read and agree to this 10,509-word general website terms of service. Both contain an absolute liability waiver, and the latter contains a clause that allows the company to unilaterally change the terms without notice. It also contains gems like these:

1. Except as provided herein, you agree not to reproduce, make derivative works of, retransmit, distribute, sell, publish, communicate, broadcast or otherwise make available any of the Content obtained through a canada.com Site or any of the Services, including without limitation, by caching, framing, deep-linking or similar means, without the prior written consent of the respective copyright owner of such Content.
2. You shall not have any right to terminate the permissions granted herein, nor to seek, obtain, or enforce any injunctive or other equitable relief against canada.com, all of which such rights are hereby expressly and irrevocably waived by you in favour of canada.com.
3. You acknowledge having obtained independent legal advice in connection with this license, release and waiver, failing which, you shall be deemed to have voluntarily waived the right to seek such independent legal advice.

Don’t let it be said my bosses don’t have a sense of humour.

(By submitting a comment to this blog post, you hereby agree that Fagstein is awesome.)

See also:

• August 2, 2007 — De-NIED!
• September 2, 2008 — Hurricanes suck
• July 22, 2008 — It’s all fun and games until a kid goes missing

Some of us are working alone in the Sports department late at night, hoping beyond anything else that an announcement doesn’t come out of the blue to screw everything up.

See also:

• February 20, 2008 — Comeback of a lifetime
• February 2, 2008 — More changes at The Gazette
• November 10, 2007 — Habs Inside/Out redesigned

Patrick Lagacé points to this report about a kid in Georgia who bounced a baby across a room by jumping on an inflatable pillow. He’s now facing charges for child cruelty.

Of course, because there’s video of the incident, TV news was all over this story. Sure, the video is disturbing, but people will watch it. So they play it over and over. That’s an average of one baby launch every 7.5 seconds.

Did they think we’d forget after the first 15 times what it looked like?

See also:

• August 18, 2008 — Olympics’ assault on fair use
• August 7, 2008 — Global Quebec’s fake local news
• February 11, 2008 — Live hits gone mad

The comments are all debating three different topics:

1. What should the passengers have done? Some say they should have intervened, even at personal risk:
   

   37 adults could not stop this poor child from getting decapitated. 37 adults chose to cowardly permit a haneous murder right under their noses. These 37 cowards may have saved a few scratches on their skin to lose their souls.

   Many many more sane people say that a large man with a large knife in an insane homicidal rage can’t be safely disarmed on a bus by civilians. As it is they barely escaped serious injury.

2. Should the death penalty be brought back for cases like this? This debate, tied somewhat with the debate on how mentally ill criminals should be treated (and whether or not the man in question was mentally ill), doesn’t deal with the facts in this case much.
3. Should we allow concealed weapons on buses? Gun control can’t possibly not be a debate here, even though no guns were involved. My favourite comment:
   

   If Canadians were permitted concealed carry of firearms, one of the other passengers would have plugged that psychopath before he had the chance to cut the poor victim’s head off. Just another example of Canada’s soccer mom gun laws working against the interests of honest citizens.

   See if that guy tries to ever cut MY head off… staring at the barrel of my .357

   Never bring a knife to a gun fight, psychoboy.

   That sounds like rock-solid logic. (Unless of course the psychopath had a concealed firearm and killed his victim in one shot, leading to the same result.)

4. Should police have shot to kill once they got on scene? The victim had already been decapitated by this point, so I guess the odds of recovery were slim. But some people seem to think that summary police execution is justified in cases like this.
   

   What I really wonder about is why didn’t the police shoot the perpetrator as soon as they could? With that many witnesses, the perpetrator showing off the head of his victim, the amount of blood that had to be on the scene,would there be any need for court to determine his guilt?

   Others suggest that’s not a very rational way of thinking:

   There should be some minimum age or education required to post on this news site. How many more people are going to say that we just kill this guy without a trial? What the hell country do you think you are living in?

5. Should we install metal detectors in bus terminals? How far do we want to go to ensure our safety? This far?
   

   Never mind the metal detectors. We can’t be safe until we are all locked up so we can’t harm others or harm ourselves.

   Think how much safety would be improved on planes and buses if we were handcuffed to our chairs by security guards while in transit. This would stop every assault and every hijacking attempt on an aircraft or bus.

   Perhaps the human equivalents of pet carriers are what is needed to ensure our safety. Any time we go out in public, we can be locked into a sort of rolling sarcophagus, and can be wheeled around wherever we need to go by security guards.

   These kinds of measures may seem extreme, but no sacrifice is too great to make for safety.

There. Now you don’t have to spend hours reading the comments.

UPDATE: 1,500 comments and counting in under 24 hours.

See also:

• August 9, 2008 — Buses are a commuter service
• August 2, 2008 — Nobody wants to read 1,000 comments
• March 13, 2008 — Sur le Web: Get a clue

For some bizarre reason, the STM started this campaign without updating its web page on the card so that students could learn more about the new system.

One of the claims by the STM, as highlighted by The Gazette, is that the card will eliminate fraud and, hence, taxing by fellow students. The way this will be done, it suggests, is by revoking the card’s credentials once it’s reported stolen.

Let me repeat that: Once it’s reported stolen (This is assuming, of course, that the student in question knows the serial number of the stolen card or the STM can search a large database of personal information to find it).

Now, to those who have never been bullied in high school: What do you think is going to happen after someone has taxed you for your transit pass and you report it stolen?

Of course, the fact that ID and pass are on the same card, and that ID should be checked any time the card is used, should automatically make it impossible to use the card of anyone but an identical twin. But, as we all know, verification of student ID cards is hardly 100 per cent.

See also:

• August 29, 2008 — We need to rid our city of driver-side bus mirrors
• August 26, 2008 — STM adds service, but still short on buses
• August 6, 2008 — 11 problems with STM’s new magnetic fare card

Oh hey, did you hear they opened a new Apple store on Ste. Catherine Street downtown on Friday? I don’t think anyone noticed the opening event but me.

I started work at 6:30 on Friday, so I figured I’d stop by and see all the commotion around the new Apple Store on Ste. Catherine Street. It wasn’t the store itself I was interested in, as much as the crowd that gathered to worship it.

So many people showed up that a barricade had to be setup to the corner of Crescent Street and then at least halfway up the block toward de Maisonneuve. Even an hour after the store opened, the line continued around the block.

Apple Store doors open at 5pm

At 5pm (just moments after I arrived), the doors opened and people who had been waiting since as early as 7am got ushered in.

A customer is handed swag and cheered as he walks in

As each customer entered, they were handed swag (more on that below), and gleefully cheered at by over a dozen employees in blue and orange t-shirts.

Store employees cheer on customers

The group kept this up for thousands of customers over at least an hour, cheering for each of them as if … uhh … what would cause you to cheer enthusiastically for someone you’ve never met?

Well-wishers on the second floor

The second floor, which houses the genius bar among other things, was packed with people looking outside taking photos. Many of them are already on flickr.

Gazette photographer Dave Sidaway takes a shot of the employees

The media were there in full force, taking pictures and doing interviews. Most came by earlier for a “pre-opening” exclusive to the media, but stuck around for the craziness. Gazette photographer Dave Sidaway put together a photo gallery. Reporter Roberto Rocha has a video.

I managed to capture a few of them on camera. Full points if you can recognize all five:

NNNNNNERRRRRDDSSSS!

Perhaps the only thing more pathetic than the people waiting in line to go into a store were the people who came up with excuses on how to cut in line. Just about every excuse in the book came out. Some claimed they were just inside, others wanted to meet family members, or just go in for a second, or wanted special privileges because they were tired. Many just said they didn’t notice there was a huge line right behind them that snaked around the block.

"I was just inside. I forgot to get a shirt"

This guy, for example, nearly assaulted the security guard to get in after his friend tried excuses of his own. His efforts failed.

Honk honk

This fire truck happened by, and its occupants rubber-necked at the commotion. The driver happily obliged the store employees who urged him to give a celebratory honk.

The loot

This is what thousands of t-shirts in Apple boxes looks like

For the opening, the store rounded up 2,500 t-shirts, each in its individual Apple-branded box, to be given to the first 2,500 customers. A side-effect (whether intended or not) was that rumours abounded about what was in the boxes. Were they giving out iPhones? iPods? A rumour that they contained free iPod shuffles made the rounds, thanks to some devious rumour-spreading on my part. It seemed just plausible enough.

The loot

As my lovely assistant demonstrates, the swag was pretty standard fare. A one-size-fits-most t-shirt, a pamphlet, and some cards.

Apple Store Opening t-shirt

The t-shirt is blue, with a graphic of a hockey stick with iPod earphones wrapped around it. Someone apparently told Apple’s marketing department that we like hockey here.

Apple Store t-shirt: Back detail of date

On the back, near the collar, is some text reminding people of the event in question, so you can one day tell your grandkids about it.

This is the box the t-shirt came in

The box the t-shirt came in (was a box really necessary here?) was folded in a funky way, which also made it cool because it was Apple.

Bright at night

Apple Store at night

I went by after my shift ended late at night, and noticed that the store was extremely bright. Not only did that waste a lot of electricity, but it had a side-effect of attracting bugs:

A bug on the Apple Store window at night

The bugs attached themselves to the outer window, apparently confusing the bright lights inside with the light of the sun and/or moon.

The empty Apple Store at night

It also presented my first opportunity to get a clear view inside. Computers and iPods on display, unsurprisingly.

Upcoming events at the Apple Store

The store is ccelebrating by having über-cool artists come and play there. Anik Jean and David Usher are among those scheduled this week.

See also:

• August 29, 2008 — Spot the green
• August 13, 2008 — Hampstead still hates the environment
• July 22, 2008 — Three days and counting

From Shatnerian

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it official Friday, announcing that three federal by-elections would be held on Sept. 8 in Westmount-Ville-Marie, St. Lambert and Guelph, Ontario.

Westmount-Ville-Marie features the big race for us Montrealers, as the Liberals and NDP both have star candidates. Perhaps coincidentally, they are the only ones with campaign posters or websites as of this writing.

The candidates are (essentially in order of the likelihood of them getting the seat):

• LIB: Marc Garneau, former astronaut, who failed in a bid for the Vaudreuil riding in the last election. His biggest advantage here is not so much his star quality, but the fact that Westmount used to be a Liberal stronghold.
• NDP: Anne Lagacé Dowson, CBC radio host. I’m not sure if Jack Layton has a CBC Radio fetish he wants to play out or something, as two of the NDP’s three candidates come from the Mother Corp. (Tom King in Guelph is the other). She has some name recognition, but those who recognize her are people who listen religiously to the CBC and are likely to vote NDP anyway. And a lot of people who do listen to her don’t seem to like her. She has a way of presenting herself that makes her seem a tad pretentious and patronizing. Her political credentials are also pretty weak. (Full disclosure: I worked with Anne for about two weeks at CBC Radio - not long enough to develop an opinion, but long enough for her to have paid me off, theoretically)
• CON: Guy Dufort, a lawyer with Heenan Blaikie specializing in labour law. No website. Website still hasn’t been indexed by Google, so a search for “Guy Dufort” won’t get you information about the candidate.
• BQ: Charles Larivée, a former (current?) president of the McGill Political Science Students Association. No website, and no hope. (Top Google hit for the name is my previous post about this race)
• GRN: Claude Genest, deputy Green Party leader and former cast member on TV’s Sirens.

See also:

• August 12, 2008 — By-election politicians on Facebook
• July 5, 2008 — ALD for NDP
• September 17, 2007 — Congratulations, Mr. Mulcair

Air Canada plane takes off after repairs from Gimli, Manitoba (from CBC TV report)

It was 25 years ago this week that Air Canada Flight 143, en route from Montreal to Edmonton (via Ottawa), ran out of fuel above western Ontario and had to make an emergency no-engine landing on what used to be a runway at a small airport in Gimli, Manitoba.

The Winnipeg Free Press has a story about the captain of that flight, Bob Pearson, meeting the two boys he almost ran down with his barely-controllable airplane on July 23, 1983. The boys were part of a family day outing at an old runway that had been converted into a racetrack. Unfortunately, the captain and his copilot didn’t know that and were shocked to find people gathered on their emergency landing strip. With no engines and no room to change course, they had no choice but to land anyway. The kids, being kids, panicked and pedalled as fast as they could on their bikes away from the plane, not rationally concluding that there’s no way a bicycle is going to outrun a landing 767. As luck would have it, the plane’s nose gear collapsed (without power it hadn’t been lowered properly and wasn’t locked in place), slowing it down and keeping it from running anyone over.

Two kids try to outrun a landing plane on their bikes (dramatization image from Mayday)

The CBC also mentions a mural that honours the flight being unveiled.

There really isn’t a way to overstate how awesome this story is. This writeup last year at Damn Interesting gives it a shot, though:

After repeated unsuccessful attempts to restart the stalled engines, Pearson and Quintal once again consulted the 767 emergency manual, this time for advice on an unpowered landing. Much to their dismay, no such section existed, presumably because a simultaneous engine failure had been too ridiculous for Boeing engineers to contemplate.

Basically, the story was that the plane’s fuel gauges were non-functional prior to takeoff (apparently a common occurrence at the time which should have been sufficient to ground the plane until it was fixed), and the ground crew measured the fuel load manually (in Montreal and again in Ottawa), figuring that would be enough. Unfortunately, they made an error in the conversion process (the brand new 767 was an all-metric aircraft in an era when people were still using pounds) and ended up thinking they had twice as much fuel as they did.

By the time the crew realized they had insufficient fuel, it was too late and the engines quickly starved to death. This required some quick thinking from the crew, who hadn’t been trained on gliding a jumbo jet without engines because nobody had ever thought it necessary to train pilots how to do so. One never-before-contemplated-much-less-even-tried maneuvre from the captain, a forward slip (where the ailerons were turned in one direction and the rudder in the other, causing the plane to fly sideways and at a nearly 90-degree angle to the ground to lose altitude quickly) is enough to turn one’s stomach.

Gimli Glider sideslips, flying sideways to lose altitude (re-enactment from Mayday)

Still, despite having no fuel (and limited control), despite the lack of an air traffic control tower at Gimli, despite the runway that wasn’t a runway, despite the pants-soiling forward-slip maneuvre a hundred feet above the ground, and despite the collapsed nose gear, the plane landed safely with no major injuries to anyone on the plane or on the ground.

Perhaps most shockingly, the plane was repaired on site and then flown back for further maintenance, and continued in service for Air Canada for another 25 years. It retired this January, just six months before the 25th anniversary of its historic flight.

For those of you who prefer your stories in dramatic re-enactment form, though, my favouritest TV show ever finally got around to profiling the flight this season (the two stills above are from this episode). You can watch Mayday: Gimli Glider on Discovery’s website for free.

UPDATE (July 28): Discovery is replaying its Gimli Glider Mayday episode Wednesday at 10pm (repeats Thursday at 2am and 3pm)

See also:

• January 26, 2008 — The Gimli Glider retires