The Toronto-based International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) reports that at least 21 journalists were killed in a politically motivated massacre of more than 52 people in the Philippines this week. It is the largest group of journalists killed in a single incident ever. Abducted by armed men, many of the victims were beheaded and mutilated; some of the women were raped. The dead were part of a convoy delivering candidacy papers for Ismael Mangudadatu, a local mayor and candidate for governor Maguindanao province on Mindanao island. Mangudadatu's wife and several other relatives were among the dead. The killings have received scant...

26 November, 2009

A Contrarian reader writes: If only it were true that they were back peddling. In tonight's news, MacKay is heard sinking to new depths of loathsomeness by accusing Colvin of impugning the integrity of Canadian troops. He obviously hoping Canadians will turn against Colvin if he can be made to look as if he's attacking the military. How much more cowardly and disgusting can you get than using the military as a red herring to draw attention away from your own behaviour. I'm beginning to feel slimy just being in the same country with...

23 November, 2009

CONTRARIAN INDEX — Number of newspaper columnists who think politician Peter MacKay's character assassination of diplomat Richard Colvin was a virtuoso performance: 1. The Chronicle-Herald's normally astute Stephen Maher took a flying leap off the deep end Saturday with a column slathering praise on Peter MacKay for his reckless attacks on diplomat Richard Colvin. Maher said MacKay "showed what he is made of, ...

21 November, 2009

CBRM Mayor John Morgan has convinced Jim Meek of the Chronicle-Herald, Wendy Bergfeldt of CBC-Cape Breton, and Gillian Cormier of AllNovaScotia.com that the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society is trying to punish him for criticizing a judicial decision. Nonsense. Anyone can criticize a judicial decision. Lawyers do it all the time. Even the most cursory review of Morgan's comments makes it clear that his offense was not criticizing a decision but impugning the impartiality of Nova Scotia judges in general, and Supreme Justice John Murphy in particular. Morgan's comments came in an interview with CBC-Cape Breton's Information Morning host Steve Sutherland on April...

15 November, 2009

Our post on Vin Scully, 81, who just wrapped up his 60th season calling play-by-play for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers (and plans to stay on through next season), elicited some wonderful reader comments. First, Frank MacDonald (yes, that Frank MacDonald, the other Inverness County writer who deserves a Giller): Enjoyed your reminder of the Koufax perfect game. In my own writing during the baseball season, the game plays the role for me that music plays for many others. Even when it is televised, as it mostly is in this house, it is two rooms away, and the sound of the...

13 November, 2009

In a fit of foolishness, Elections Canada has decreed that returns from today's Cumberland Colchester Musquodoboit Valley byelection cannot be disseminated until after the polls close—in British Columbia. In a general election, this silly provision serves to assuage the patronizing concern that voters in western time zones might either (pick one): be annoyed that the winning party had been decided before they cast their vote; or be shrewd enough to use the results in eastern Canada to guide their strategic voting decisions. Heaven forefend. On a day with four byelections scattered across our vast country, it serves no purpose whatever, save perhaps to bolster...

09 November, 2009

Contrarian reader PC responds to our annoyance at our future king's mispronunciation of the name of Canada's 10th province: I am more troubled by the many Canadians west of the Atlantic Provinces who use the same mispronunciation, including Carol Off on As It Happens just a few nights ago.  How can someone who works for the CBC, where every national program announcement finishes with "half an hour later in ...

08 November, 2009
peanuts-csWriting in the New Scientist, David Nutt, recently fired as chair of Britain's scientific advisory council on the misuse of drugs, offers cogent thoughts on the nature of scientific advice to government. Moneyquote:
I can trace the beginning of the end of my role as chairman of the UK's official advisory body on drugs to the moment I quoted a New Scientist editorial (14 February, p 5). Entitled, fittingly enough, "Drugs drive politicians out of their minds", the editorial asked the reader to imagine being seated at a table with two bowls, one containing peanuts, the other the illegal drug MDMA (ecstasy). Which is safer to give to a stranger? Why, the ecstasy of course. I quoted these words in the Eve Saville lecture at King's College London in July. This example plus other comments I have made – such as horse riding is more harmful than ecstasy – prompted Alan Johnson, the home secretary, to say that I had crossed the line from science to policy. This, he said, is why I had to go. But simple, accurate and understandable statements of scientific fact are precisely what the advisory council is supposed to provide...
More after the jump.
08 November, 2009

In yet another sign of dire straits in the newspaper industry,  Toronto Star Publisher John Cruickshank today offered newsroom staff voluntary severance packages in advance of probable layoffs. In a memo to staff, Cruickshank said the paper is "seriously considering" contracting out core editorial and advertising functions. Moneyquote: [W]e are exploring the contracting out of some or all copy editing and pagination work, and the scope again may expand to include other editorial production and related activities.  The scope of these and related outsourcing initiatives may well extend to work groups in other divisions of the Star. Hat tip:  DMC...

03 November, 2009

Pop anthropologist Wade Davis, the first of whose CBC Radio Massey lectures¹ just ended in the Atlantic time zone, obviously has a lot of knowledge to impart about the Earth's diverse human cultures. So why did her  waste a good half of the opening talk shooting racist fish in a 19th Century barrel? Davis's point was that the errant 19th Century "science" of physical anthropology dripped with colonial arrogance, but the thinly disguised subtext seemed to be Davis's own moral superiority to these imperial prigs. The effect was both distasteful and boring, like listening a 21st Century astrophysicist satirize the Ptolemaic...

02 November, 2009
Show more
Loading...