Obama on Harper: “a large lump”?
Wow. Is this another eagle-kidnaps-baby-in-park moment?
A parody site?
Or a hoped-for moment for progressives across Canada?
Canada Live, Dec. 19: political winners and losers of 2012
2 billion pixel photo of Mt. Everest
Like, wow. Click the image to see the link.
No name, no fame
A very interesting man wrote to me yesterday, passionately, about my column about Newtown.
Warren: I am standing on my chair, applauding as loudly and vociferously as I ever have after reading a column.
I could not believe my eyes, when the SUN actually published your column this morning. I’ve been saying as much myself, for years now. Why is it that we devote column inches, and hours of glowing TV coverage, to these selfish, cowardly bastards? Of course gun control is an issue, but equally to blame is exactly what you laid out in your column – they do it to get their name, picture and story in the paper! It’s as plain as the nose on our face, yet no-one in the media ever steps forward to acknowledge this simple truth.
And:
Warren, how do we go about raising support for a “No Name. No Face” policy ? Let’s deprive these celebrity seeking sociopaths of the fuel that’s truly driving them! Let’s not name them, nor show their faces in the Mass Media. If even one shooting is averted through our efforts, it will have been well worth it. Of course the “public has the right to now” hounds would bay in indignation. “They’ll just look it up on the Internet” – well, then, let them. If people choose to exercise their sick, perverted voyeuristic inclinations, then so be it. But, let’s not give the killers their 5 minutes of “glory”.
Thank you for having the courage to speak out. I only wish there were more responsible individuals like you out there.
The man’s name is Claudio Rodrigues, and we have both agreed to reconnect after the holidays. I like his idea; I want to pursue it. I suspect a lot of citizens will, too. Some commentators seem to be sympathetic.
The media – who, as I have written before many times, are just a special interest group like any other – will resist, because they feel it is against their corporate interests, and because they genuinely believe there is a “right to know.” But I don’t believe that there is such a “right” (or, at least, if such a right exists, it is a qualified right) when we can demonstrate a causal link to violence.
What do you think? I have long held the conviction that popular culture, and the media, indisputably affect the behaviour of human beings. And that it is frankly absurd to assert (as media, Hollywood and others regularly do) that they are a powerful force for good things, but that they can never ever be a powerful force for bad things. That’s unadulterated bullshit.
Am I wrong? Am I right? Open thread.
What’s important
Ontario Liberal debates are important, fiscal cliff is important, Canadians in space are important, gun crime and mental illness are important, the world ending on Friday is important.
Me? What’s important to me is that Son Two is now a teenager. That means three of the four of them are teenagers!
This makes me feel simultaneously old and terrified. Carry on as you were.
Daisy help wanted
Daisy is looking for a full-time staffer who has:
- an interest in public affairs
- good research skills
- strong writing skills
- a willingness to assist in administrative stuff (scheduling, billing)
- and an ability to work well with others (and an ability to fake an interest in punk rock)
If that sounds like you, email info@greenlightgroup.co with your CV and writing samples!
Pupatello: it’s all about jobs (updated)
UPDATED: BCL weighs in – pick the right gal, as he says, and you can win. And there’s only one gal who (i) knows how to win outside GTA, (ii) has never lost an election, and (iii) has decades of experience in beating both Cons and Dippers. That’s Pupatello. And it’s why most of caucus and cabinet are supporting her.
In Tuesday’s Sun: read all about him
You’re holding it in your hands right now: one of the reasons for Newtown.
All of us have been reading incessant theories about the myriad reasons why a nobody murdered 20 children in Newtown, Conn., last Friday morning.
Americans are gun crazy, and they let crazy people access guns. Insufficient attention paid to mental health issues. A gun lobby that cares more about profit than children. A sick society that sees gay marriage as a threat to families, but not assault weapons.
Those are all plausible reasons for the extraordinary evil that took place in Newtown.
But the media? We’re partly responsible, too. We covered the story, and we’re also covered in blame.
Not because we insisted on interviewing terrified six-year-olds on air, actually asked them how they “feel.” That was evil enough, but not a root cause of the evil, per se.
Not because we descended on the place like vultures, picking through the viscera for something that someone else hadn’t yet reported and no one wanted to know about. That, too, was despicable.
But that isn’t why Newtown happened, either.
If the homicidal loser — the nobody — was still here, he’d tell us why.
As surely as that little bastard is burning in hell right about now, this surely is why he did it: Because the media turned a loser — nobody — into a somebody. We made him famous.
It was an act of unspeakable evil that lasted only a few moments, but we have been immortalizing the evildoer — making him a somebody the world will remember for years to come.
I won’t write his name, because that’s what the monster wanted.
In the aftermath of these mass murders, there’s always a sickening familiarity to the predictable profiles: A young man. A loner, a bit of an oddball. Not good at making friends, not ever having a girlfriend. Not academically stupid, but no real achievements in life, either. A nobody.
For untold years, they seethe at this. They silently rage at it, playing their infernal single-player shooter games, maybe torturing someone’s pet. For years, they languish in deserved anonymity, pitying their lot in life.
And then, one day, they pick up a discarded newspaper — or turn on a radio or TV news broadcast — and they are electrified. They receive their inspiration, like a telegram delivered by God.
Columbine, Aurora, the myriad shootings that have happened since Friday: The media dutifully tell the killers-to-be how to achieve immortality. Don some combat gear, pack up a bag with some easily acquired assault weapons, then go hunting for humans.
Pick a school or a hospital or a mall or a movie theatre, for maximum effect. We in the media do the rest.
Back when I was in law school, I worked at newspapers in Calgary and Ottawa to pay the rent.
Usually, I worked the cop beat. One day, I asked one of my editors why we never covered suicides.
I asked him why we never named the many people who kill themselves — usually with guns, often around holidays — and describe what happened.
“Because, if we did that,” my editor said, not even looking up, “we’d have a lot of other nobodies killing themselves. Just to get their names in the paper.”
The Christmas of tears
A few weeks ago, I opined – and I’m a former speechwriter to no less than Jean Chretien, remember – that political speeches don’t matter anymore.
I was wrong about that. And the speech below is why. It is Obama’s greatest oratory ever; it is his Gettysburg Address. I confess that I cried when I read it for the first time, at the end of a long Sunday of helping one son to study, and helping another to get to and from hockey games and practices.
One of my editors at the Sun said this to me last night: “I take back what I wrote about this being the time of year with nothing to write about. I wish that were true.”
Me, too. What a terrible time this is. This is the Christmas of tears.
Harper will win in 2015
…that’s what I’ve been saying to folks across Canada since the release of Fight The Right, a few weeks ago. It’s the incontrovertible reality: conservatives winning majorities in a country where the majority are progressive. They do that because the progressive vote is split.
Harper’s vote is slipping and shrinking, but it still doesn’t matter. As long as progressives – Liberals, New Democrats, Greens – continue to fight amongst themselves, Stephen Harper will continue to benefit. You may not like it, you may not approve, but that’s the way it is. It’s math.
Graves, here, with whom Bricker and others agree this morning: