Monthly Archives: June 2007

| Uncategorized

Teacher is a poo-poo head

Freda Lewkowicz has some thoughts in today’s paper about the St. Thomas Burn Book situation, and rightly points out that the problem is not with Facebook or the Internet, but with students’ attitudes toward teachers.

She theorizes about some of the causes of this behaviour. One potential cause, the negative impression teachers give by striking, should be discounted entirely. While I never experienced a teacher strike, I and my fellow students were actually largely supportive of teachers’ salary and other demands. At least, those of us mature enough to understand labour politics beyond “Yay! A strike! No school today!”

The problem is that elementary and high schools have become more and more like mommy. It makes sense: during the school year, teachers see students more than their parents do. So that natural teenage rebellion that is usually aimed at their parents also portions out some of its rage toward authority figures such as teachers.

But that’s not the end of the story. Students are not sufficiently disciplined today. Part of it is because of the stereotypical overbearing parent blaming the school for everything that goes wrong. Part of it is the schools’ “boys will be boys” attitude that condones bullying, vandalism, rudeness and other anti-social behaviour. And part of it is just that some kids out there are stupid and mean.

Everyone, teachers and parents, need to make it clear that this type of behaviour is not tolerated.

| Movies, Technology

Guzzo is doing searches

The federal government’s new law against recording video inside movie theatres has come to its inevitable conclusion: Cinema Guzzo is now searching people who enter its theatres and seizing any type of camera, whether it takes video or not.

As you might expect, some people are not happy about this.

Guzzo can’t really be blamed for this. The law makes the cinema owner just as responsible if the law is broken, so they’re just looking after their own asses. But the idea that so much is contraband — food, drink, bags, cameras — inside a room where all they’re doing is projecting an image onto a screen kind of boggles the mind. Even aircraft luggage doesn’t get this kind of treatment.

Of course, it goes without saying that, other than proving the U.S. movie industry has our government by the ballsack, this bill doesn’t do anything. Michael Geist (whose blog should be on everyone’s reading list) has a roundup of its problems (and a cool video about it too), to which I will only add this: Movies recorded in a crowded movie theatre are of such bad quality that I’m surprised anyone actually does it.

Take this badly-camcorded Family Guy / Star Wars bit. It includes a laugh track, viewer commentary, a partially obscured, darkened, oblong screen (that the camera pans away from every now and then) and a barely-discernable original audio track. Is this kind of stuff the world’s greatest threat to the movie industry?

| Business, On the Net

How hard is it to do online classifieds right?

Along with Quebecor’s acquisition of Osprey comes news that they’ve launched yet another online classifieds website. The Gazette’s Roberto Rocha correctly points out that they have stiff competition from everyone else out there. Some are run by big media companies, and others don’t suck.

I’m forever confused as to why big newspaper owners put out such horrible online classified sites. They senselessly limit their audience to just those areas where they own newspapers. They charge ridiculously high fees for simple ads online when others give away the space for free. They make their websites crazy-complicated while the incredibly popular Craigslist keeps it simple.

I mean, if you’re trying to outdo Craigslist, wouldn’t you at least want to copy some of their good ideas?

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| Uncategorized

Doug Camilli advocates MURDER

From today’s column:

A way to get the ratings for American Idol up again: In Manila, Romy Baligula was singing in a karaoke bar when another customer, Robilito Ortega, yelled that Romy was out of tune. Romy kept singing, so Robilito pulled out his gun and shot him dead.

Oh Doug, just be glad they don’t do that when newspaper columnists miss their funny mark.

… and I’ll be glad that self-important bloggers are also exempt, for now.

| Montreal

Save the park! Keep the rubber off! Let it go bareback!

The Save Westmount Park group got an opinion in the Gazette today. Their cause is keeping artificial turf out of the park, due to the artificial surfaces’ perceived risks to health and the environment.

Wikipedia has a good roundup of the pros and cons of artificial versus natural grass:

  • PRO: It’s easier to maintain
  • CON: It’s made of old tires and heavy metals which are poisonous

The things we do just to make our lives a bit easier and our grasses a bit greener…

| Media

OmniCorpMedia isn’t too far off

Another step into the eventual merger of all Canadian private media into one giant company, Quebecor, owner of the Sun chain, the Journal de Montréal, the London “Free” Press, 24 Hours/24 Heures, Mirror, ICI and countless other smaller papers, has agreed to buy Osprey Media, owner of just about everything in southwestern Ontario, including the Barrie Examiner, Kingston Whig-Standard, Peterborough Examiner and Sarnia Observer.

So take out one name on the ever-shrinking list of Canadian media owners:

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| Media

Everyone’s got a hidden agenda

André Picard has an (opinion?) piece in the Globe about Quebec’s anti-smoking law one year later. Some sentences of note:

Despite the sky-is-falling claims of some bar owners (most of them aligned with Big Tobacco), the world as we know it did not come to a grinding, smokeless halt.

Aligned with Big Tobacco? This is the first I’ve heard of this claim, and it’s not explained at all. Perhaps it’s true, but even if some big bars are getting paid off by the cigarette companies, the concerns of small independent bars weren’t and aren’t frivolous. Fewer people went to bars, and the bars lost some money.

Bar business did not go “poof.” Bingo halls did not go bankrupt. Nicotine addicts did not drop dead outside hospitals as they trudged nine metres from the door desperately searching for a place for a legal puff.

Funny he mentions bingo halls, since we just had a story on bingo halls’ lost profits. And though bar business did not go “poof” (is there anyone who seriously suggested bars would cease to exist?), some bars have indeed closed because of the smoking ban.

In fact, according to a new poll, the smoking ban is enormously popular with the public: 78 per cent of Quebeckers surveyed – including 60 per cent of current smokers – said the legislation has improved the health and quality of life of citizens.

This is misleading. The question did not ask if people approved of the ban, but whether it improved peoples’ health. The two are not the same. It’s conceivable that someone could be against the smoking ban for reasons of freedom or practicality, while still agree it’s good for their health.

I don’t disagree with his conclusions: That anti-smoking legislation improves public health, that it’s popular, and that the losses are more than offset by the gains. But when arguing a controversial topic, it’s important that all your statements be incontrovertible.