This video made me laugh. It also reminds me why I don’t watch Lost.
Monthly Archives: February 2007
She ordered St. Hubert once. Oh the horror!
As part of its six-day food series, The Gazette today looks at the personal culinary habits of its restaurant critic, complete with photos that keep her off camera so she won’t get recognized doing her job.
It’s about what you’d expect.
My daily profile of a supermarket shopper isn’t online, but it’s in the paper on Page A4. Today is Daisy Leclerc, who was lots of fun to interview (albeit for a brief period).
The Crazy Left unaccommodating on accommodation
A gaggle of the usual radical left subjects is already condemning a debate on reasonable accomodation as “racist and sexist.”
Their diatribe produces golden gems of sociological claptrap like this:
In this respect, we reassert the dynamic nature of the various manifestations of our beliefs or cultural identities, which express themselves within a larger social and political context.
In particular, we observe that the analysis of the oppression of women and gender inequality, as expressed in the mass media, as strictly a phenomenon internal to religions, explicitly ignores the external, universal systems of patriarchy and sexism which all women face, while also definitively homogenizing religion.
Among the things they denounce:
– mass media
– the State
– capitalism (not quite sure what that has to do with Hérouxville)
– “imperialist feminist discourse”, whatever that is
– war proponents
– colonialism/imperialism
Things not denounced:
– oppressive religions
CanWest to expand
CanWest Publications, the print media arm of CanWest MediaWorks, which is owned by CanWest Global Communications Corp., is expanding its CanWest News Service to open new bureaus locally and abroad.
What the glowing press release masquerading as a news story doesn’t say, however, is that the reason for this expansion is that CanWest is pulling out of Canadian Press, the national nonprofit wire service that just about every news outlet in the country is part of because of its comprehensive coverage of Canadian affairs.
The expansion is necessary because CanWest has no publications east of Montreal and only a couple of bureaus abroad. Pulling out of CP (and by extension losing Associated Press copy as well) will save the chain a few million dollars but kill its main source of wire copy. Even the hiring of 25 new journalists isn’t going to make up for all of that.
Nevertheless, I’m not entirely denouncing the decision. Wire copy (and especially copy from CP and AP) is so easy to get online that it gives almost no added value to the newspaper. Those 25 new journalists, however, will probably represent a net gain as far as the industry goes; CanWest represents only about 10 per cent of CP’s revenue, far less than it used to now that free wire-service-only papers like Metro and 24 Heures are all over the place.
I could be wrong about this, but I’m hoping that this turns out positively for the industry. I just wish CanWest would do more with its seven-figure savings than hire 25 journalists and pocket the rest.
UPDATE: Deborah Jones has some comments as well on the announced expansion, and some concerns as well.
Today in the paper: Me!
My profile (subscriber-locked) of this blog (Page B2).
The first in the supermarket streeter series, and the accompanying video (Page B4).
And a Bluffer’s Guide to celebrities in politics (no link due to a confusion in copyright).
Keep quite!
Here’s a sob story about someone coming into town, trying to pay cab fare by credit card, and then giving the guy a 40-cent tip when she finally gets some cash.
Did I mention I hate MySpace?
N.Y. man charged with money laundering … TO TERRORISTS!
The big story is about sending $150,000 to the Middle East, but this man is also charged with laundering money through a Montreal bank account, also allegedly for terrorism purposes.
Rael’s UFOland for sale
The world’s most notorious attention whore Rael is back, on the front page of the Globe and Mail today with this story about his organization’s “UFOland” up for sale for $3 million.
Any takers?
Ryan Larkin died
Ryan Larkin, he of the Oscar-winning NFB film Ryan, died on Valentine’s Day.
UPDATE: CP has an obit
OMG: Dog, cat get along
It’s all over the press:
Workers at the Meriden Humane Society are marveling at a short-haired mother cat that has adopted a 6-day-old Rottweiler puppy that was rejected by its mother.
Udder failure
Maybe the Vachibou wasn’t such a good idea after all (byline is one of my J-school classmates who’s clearly more successful than I am).
Reasons not to trust Wikipedia
From today’s Gazette:
An item that appeared in last Saturday’s Take 5 section (“If there is justice, NFL greats will get digital career replays“) and attributed to Wikipedia incorrectly stated The Princeton Review had named Liberty University “the least sexually active university in America.” There is, in fact, no such study.
Cranky old guy takes bus
I took the 105 today to get home. Behind me in line was an older fellow, tall with a trenchcoat. He seemed frustrated by something as he put on his tuque, as if he should be yelling at the weather for being cold.
As the bus pulled up beside the long line, he started moving forward ahead of me, as if that would make the line move faster. I quickly reclaimed my place as the line moved forward, and grabbed the last single seat just ahead of him.
I thought nothing of it until he sat down, then quickly got back up and walked toward the driver, with people still getting on. He complained: there’s a window open.
To my astonishment, the driver actually got up, walked back and closed the window, explaining to the old man that it’s the passengers, not the driver, who control window openings and closings.
The old man didn’t seem pleased. As if the world should apologize for inconveniencing him.
Landry gets special treatment
So says The Gazette’s Peggy Curran:
“Only a fraction of the $35,000 Concordia University will pay former premier Bernard Landry this semester is for teaching, with the rest covering “other tasks,” like networking and forging links with business leaders and government, Concordia officials said last night.” more…
Why spend all that money on education when you can hire people to schmooze?
You think he’d see it coming
Now I’m the last person in the world who would make fun of someone’s family name.
But you can’t help but chuckle when the guy whose car is firebombed (subscriber-only, but the intro paragraph should be enough) is named Denis Laflamme.