These were among the last few vehicles to make it through Ste. Catherine St. east of Berri late last night. As of 6am this morning, and until September, this becomes a pedestrian mall where people can sit on expanded terrasses and drink beer to their heart’s content. Provided, of course, that beer is Labatt’s. (via Lagacé)
The nominations for the Gémeaux awards came out yesterday. Included is a new category for web video series, and the obvious ones are nominated.
From the list of nominees (PDF) we see:
I got this email this morning:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Thurai Moorthy <xxxxx>
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 10:52 AM
Subject: United Earth Day, June 21, 2008, Saturday 5:00-11:00 PM, at 4775 Anthime,Pierrefonds, Quebec H9H 4L3, Please Publsh and Send a Reporter
To: letters@thegazette.canwest.comUnited Earth Organization (UEOG)
United Earth Day, June 21, 2008, Saturday 5:00-11:00 PM local time, everywhere on Earth, (local location at 4775 Anthime,Pierrefonds, Quebec H9H 4L3) in your own space. Neighbours, friends, relatives. Inform everyone from Tokyo to Vancouver. Visit www.ueog.org starting at 5:00 PM Tokyo time and continuing east ward at 5:00 PM local time around the globe. United Earth Organization (UEOG), Presentation, Music, Dance. Vegetarian potluck, No disposables.
Folowing ing messsage is meant for the editor and not for publication:
Please send a reporter to cover the above event.
Regards,
[Contact info here deleted]
Some suggestions:
As if 940 AM couldn’t get more pathetic, I give you the new AM 940 non-News website. Almost makes you want to cry.
Official “launch” of the new, crappy station is scheduled for July 1.
Meanwhile, I should mention there have been rather large, visible ads for CBC Radio One and CJAD in the Gazette suggesting that people listen to them for news and information. Hint, hint.
UPDATE (June 18): Mike Boone today has a hilariously scathing review of 940’s new format:
The Mozart Requiem was composed in 1791. But its sombre, funereal tones would be perfect for a radio format that will be DOA.
In addition to being mocked on the Colbert Report, the Hockey Night in Canada theme situation has also made the New York Times.
As a side note, I’ve noticed that mainstream media websites, when talking about the Hockey Night theme, have been linking to a version of it on YouTube which was clearly infringing on copyright. Later, when some of these same media websites talked about the Colbert Report talking about the Hockey Night in Canada theme, they linked to another YouTube video, which was also infringing on copyright. (Both those videos have since been taken down.) Is it appropriate for media websites to be promoting content they know to be infringing on other people’s copyright?
UPDATE: Scott Moore, the executive director of CBC TV sports, has a post up about the HNIC theme and the responses he’s gotten about it.
The STM’s summer schedule starts next Monday, and the Planibus schedules were posted online today. As expected, there are many service improvements, especially to increase service outside of rush hour on weekdays (links go to PDF schedules).
The following bus routes will be extended to full-day service (meaning Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, during morning and afternoon rush hours and the time between them) at 20-minutes-or-less intervals from about 6am to about 6:30pm:
The following bus routes will move to a one-direction-until-noon, another-direction-after-noon schedule, with 20-minute intervals off-peak, until about 6:30pm:
Other changes:
Other changes, such as the 480 on Nuns’ Island and weekend service on the 470 Express Pierrefonds, will come in September.
Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments. I haven’t found anything yet on the Old Port bus that’s supposed to come.
The latest blog from The Gazette is “War and Peace” from Alyson Grant. She’s aboard the HMCS Toronto as it goes on NATO exercises and a diplomatic trip to Dublin.
UPDATE: Dave Stubbs has also started a Beijing Olympic Games blog.
The Gazette finally has its advertising rates posted online. If you check out its rate card (PDF) and do the math, a full-page ad (10 columns by 292 agate lines) will set you back about $10,000. If you want a colour full-page ad at the back of a section on a Saturday, that number is closer to $20,000.
Or, if you’re interested in online, rates are $15-30 CPM for the website, and the ad spots on HabsInsideOut.com are $750 a month each.
Or if you really want to throw your money away … why not just give it to me? I’ll totally whore myself out to your product.
A story came out on Wednesday about how the Defence Department union wants more women on emergency response units, because “a group of female workers were stripped naked and scrubbed down by an all-male team responding to an anthrax scare.”
I looked for it, but I couldn’t find any commentary from the blogosphere, the PQ or others calling sexism here and saying that emergency response workers should not be discriminated against because of their gender.
This is odd, because a lot of people make a fuss about the idea that only male police officers should address Hassidic Jews, or that only female doctors should see Muslim women as patients.
What’s the difference in these reasonable accommodations?
On Thursday, TQS-owner-to-be-maybe Remstar decided to cave, slightly, into the CRTC’s demands that it not completely eliminate its news department. The new plan would have 15 hours of locally-produced programming a week in Montreal, including two hours of news; 10 hours of programming with 2 hours of news in Quebec City; and 1.5 hours of programming with 50 minutes of news in Sherbrooke, Trois Rivières and Saguenay.
I’m sorry, but this shouldn’t be a long, drawn-out negotiation. The CRTC has to set limits on the amount of programming that stations need in order to have the right to broadcast on TV airwaves here. If Remstar wants to meet that requirement with TQS, fine. If not, they lose their broadcast license and they can try their luck on cable.
Looking at the anglo TV stations will quickly give an idea of the pressures against local programming. The CTV and Global stations teeter on the edge of the 18 hours of local programming required every week. Global Quebec makes a mockery of it, repeating an evening newscast at 6am the next day (a newscast, produced out of Vancouver with a local host, and which includes packages produced by other Global stations outside the province).
For more on the TQS situation by the way, check out the union-driven website TQS SOS.
The Boston Celtics are one win away today from winning the NBA championship. The Boston Red Sox lead the AL East and trail only the Chicago Cubs in number of … wait, what? The Cubs? Really? The Cubs? You sure it’s not the White Sox? The Chicago Cubs? Best in the entire league right now? Wow. OK. Wow.
Anyway, add to that the Boston-based New England Patriots went 18-0 last season before fucking it up in the Super Bowl, and it’s a pretty sweet time to be a Boston sports fan.
Unless of course, you like hockey.
And this is a perfect excuse to bring back my favourite Ryan Parker song. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you haven’t read this blog enough.
Enjoy.
This week’s bluffer’s guide courtesy of yours truly is about the Canadian residential school system, which the Canadian government formally apologized for this week. In addition to the apology, the government is handing out money by the bucketsful to people who lived in these schools, and has agreed to setup a Truth and Reconciliation commission to study the matter.
The latter is certainly a good idea because despite the huge amount of information out there, a lot of it is contradictory and it would be nice to get some more accuracy about a very shameful part of Canada’s history. I had a lot of trouble with conflicting information about when the schools started, when they closed, where they were located and how many there were and what their ages were (in other words, about half the information in this Reuters factbox). We’re still not entirely sure how many people are involved, but it could easily be over 100,000.
That said, for further reading I would recommend the Indian Residential School Survivor Society and the residential school settlement website.
Also, be sure to check out this classic 1950s CBC educational video about the school system. It’s so cliché it hurts.
Pauline Marois has apparently taken to vlogging (on YouTube, no less, which doesn’t have a French Canadian version). In this video from a few days ago, she talks about how Jean Charest should accept the PQ’s proposal to amend the Quebec charter to include:
She also name-drops the Mouvement Montréal français, which I guess shouldn’t be so surprising, but will probably hurt the PQ later when the MMF inevitably says something outright racist.
I’ve always admired Patrick Lagacé. The way he works hard, the way he does his homework before putting together insightful commentary (instead of knee-jerk reactions), his hair, and the fact he puts me on his blogroll.
But more importantly, I admire the impact he has. Like being able to piss off the entire management team at TVA.
Yesterday, La Presse published a really long letter signed by four executives at TVA which accuses Lagacé of not checking his facts in a recent column about the network burying embarrassing news about itself and friends of owner Quebecor.
As Lagacé mentions at the end of the column, TVA is suing Gesca and Lagacé personally for his previous remarks on this issue.
For the benefit of those who don’t want to read the long letter, or whose French is rusty, here’s TVA’s main points:
Left unmentioned by both parties is that Lagacé used to be part of the Quebecor family when he worked for the Journal and blogged for Canoe. To say there’s bad blood between the two might be considered an understatement.
But, of course, Quebecor doesn’t control TVA. So this silly conspiracy theory has no basis, right?
American political journalism just died today. On the job.