In other news
Um, election?
Sounds like we’re going to get one!
What do you think, folks? Participate in our highly-scientific poll! Vote once, vote often!
Mr. Rae
…and, as with Messrs. Klein and Eves, below, all of us at the wk.com empire wish a speedy recovery, and best of the season, to Mr. Rae.
I may be “a stupid blogger,” quote unquote, but I’m a charitable stupid blogger!
Maclean’s does it again
The magazine says Canadian universities are “Too Asian.” Previously, it called all of Quebec “corrupt.”
This is turning into a pattern.
In both cases, politicians called for the magazine to apologize. (In respect of the Quebec mess, its parent company did apologize; in respect of the “Too Asian” headline, it has deleted that intolerant headline, and expressed hope that it caused “no offence.”)
Are you convinced? (See that? That’s a Maclean’s trick. Say something really offensive, but follow it with a question mark. That way, you get to say it, still, but you can hide behind the question mark if things get too hot. To wit: IS MACLEAN’S RUN BY TOTAL IDIOTS?)
Anyway, getting politicians involved just turns it into a big free press thing, with predictable results. Much shrieking and braying, etc. etc., nothing really achieved.
But if average citizens and community groups are upset – and with the “Too Asian” edition, they truly are – that’s something Maclean’s can’t so easily dismiss. They need to carefully consider what is being said to and about them. If nothing else, they need to think about what they are doing to their credibility.
Will they change course? Who knows. Rush Limbaugh is quite popular, I suppose, but I doubt there’s a soul alive who still considers him a journalist.
Operation Alienation continues apace
Someone in the offices at 131 Queen Street seems to think it’s good strategy, I guess, to keep blaming the very popular former Liberal MP – you know, the guy who is now the very popular mayor, and who also won the riding for more than twenty years with huge pluralities – for the Vaughan by-election loss. When the authors of that particular misfortune are to be seen, as they say, in the bathroom mirror.
It’s not accurate, it’s not fair to Maurizio, and it’s short-sighted. But what do I know?
Ralph and Ernie
Tim Hudak, electrifying speaker
Hebert (and Wells): Ye reap what ye sow (updated)
Hebert:
A great friend in Ottawa asked me this morning if I am “an elder statesman.” I’m elder, I said, but not much of a statesman.
But Chantal’s observation is the truth, nonetheless: if the people in Ottawa had listened to Chretien and Broadbent, they’d be in much better shape by now.
Anyway. Whatever; we tried, we failed. Stephen Harper must be a very happy man, indeed.
UPDATE: And now Paul Wells has commented on Hebert’s comments. It’s a groundswell! Anyway, as one of those “currently [and happily – ed.] largely discredited,” I urge you to read Wells’ column, and not just because I agree with it. My take, of which I’m living proof: things in politics are usually not as complicated as they are made out to be. It’s so simple, in fact, it barely merits saying: uniting warring progressives makes them stronger. Also simple: your main opponent – you know, the guy who united warring conservatives to successfully win power – will do everything he can to prevent such a progressive union. Like Wells says: “[Harper] needs to scare Michael Ignatieff off the structural-realignment dime if he is to hold power. Fortunately for him, the prime minister’s task is not particularly difficult.”
Anyway, it’s not going to happen anytime soon. It took the Right three election cycles (1993, 1997 and 2000) to get together, and win. It’ll take at least three more election cycles, over almost as many years (2006, 2008 and maybe 2011 or 2012), for the Left to realize, what Pogo famously observed so long ago:
Helen Heller, literary agent par excellence
My uber-literary agent of 20 years, Helen Heller, has a cool new web site. Check it out, here – but don’t send her tons of unsolicited manuscripts. Send only really good ones.