In Merriam-Webster's online vocabulary quiz, sixty-somethings blow the competition away: Take that, whippersnappers!...

16 March, 2013

Disturbing but brilliant, I should say. Here, Lena Dunham teams up with fashion designer pal Rachel Antonoff to produce a short "nature documentary" about best friends, starring Dunham's sister, and narrated by Adam Driver.* [Video link] [For some reason, the embed code for this video resists resizing, but you can click the 'view full screen' icon at the bottom.] * No money shot warning required....

13 March, 2013

In an email cri de coeur last week, musician Robert Speirs lambasted Halifax TV newscasters for publishing the names of five men allegedly lured into motel meetings with a police officer they believed to be a a 16-year-old girl. Bill Turpin, former editor of the late lamented Halifax Daily News, makes the case for printing names of people accused of crimes, even bogus crimes concocted to entrap them. I understand Mr. Speirs’ distress over the plight of the men identified as the accused in the on-line child luring case last week and his sense that the media are persecuting them. But publicity...

06 March, 2013

As at least one news organization has noted, Tom Flanagan was Stephen Harper's campaign manager in the 2004 federal election when the Conservative Party levelled charges against then-Prime Minister Paul Martin strikingly similar to those that so damaged Flanagan last week. At the heart of the beleaguered professor's misgivings about child porn laws is the question of when and how the legal system should intervene to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. A similar, though not identical, issue separated the Conservative Party of Canada from the other three other parties contesting the 2004 election. The details of the dispute are not...

05 March, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11400" align="alignleft" width="125"] McGuire[/caption] [caption id="attachment_11401" align="alignright" width="125"] Cannon[/caption] In the moral panic that arose in response to Tom Flanagan's comments on child pornography last week, most of those who rushed to join the lynch mob were guilty of self-righteousness abetted by misrepresentation. CBC New executive Jennifer McGuire and University of Calgary President Elizabeth Cannon, however, deserve special mention for their failure to uphold the responsibility their instituions have for protecting controversial speech. Both had a duty to uphold a core principle of their organizations, and they weren't up to the task....

04 March, 2013

Late last week, Halifax musician Robert Speirs fired off an angry email to three broadcast networks: Why did you divulge the names of the men accused of luring? What if they are innocent? Why do you want to try them by media and subject them to public humiliation, [and] so ruin their lives? Why do you display such unjustified hatred to people you do not know? Again, what if they are innocent? Your insistence on revealing the identities of the accused inspires any thinking person to wonder who are the true perverts. Shame on you! Speirs, who signed the note, "Disgusted," was referring to a sting...

03 March, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11387" align="alignright" width="260"] They can strike without without warning - anytime, anywhere.[/caption] Contrarian reader Jim Guy proposes an innovative addition to the CBC's weather warning arsenal: Perhaps they should engage their meteorologists to prepare daily meteorite reports. These reports would focus on the probabilities of our island being smattered by rogue meteorite impacts, with police interviews reminding us to wear our headgear to work when meteors are in the vicinity. You can never be too careful in this world where the margin of safety is small. Previous instalments of Contrarian's inflated weather forecast meme here, here, here, and here. I'll to give the topic a rest now...

03 March, 2013

In response to this, this, this, and many other provocations, a particularly keen-eyed consumer of Contrarian arguments has graciously created the official Contrarian weather page. (Click the image to download a larger version.) H/T:WCR...

02 March, 2013

Contrarian reader Peter Barss waxes philosophical about the primal draw of radio-storms and weather-porn: It 's exciting to sit in our warm, safe living rooms listening to dire warnings of impending weather doom. It's even more of a thrill to turn on our flat screen TVs and watch weather gals and guys get whipped by wind-driven snow as they stand outside yelling into their microphones so they can be heard over the howling "weather bomb." We live in a society that is soft and luxurious. One of the luxuries we indulge is the illusion that if we just do everything right we...

01 March, 2013

Most of the listeners who responded to my debate with CBC manager Andrew Cochran about the network's (in my view) inflated coverage of weather are just fine with the CBC's weather treatment. [caption id="attachment_11355" align="alignright" width="300"] Highway conditions at 3:30 pm, February 20, when Cape Breton schools closed early due to forecasts of possible freezing rain that evening: Pavement dry; precipitation nil.[/caption] This doesn't surprise me. Some people like being frightened about weather, just as others like being frightened about crime. Lurid coverage of crime by some media has led to a sharp increase in the public perception of personal risk from...

01 March, 2013
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