Who's in charge?

Metablogging Montreal has photos of questionable no parking signs appearing in neighbourhoods hipper than mine. I wonder what the Talmud says about road signs that aren't authorized by the local authorities. Must they be obeyed? Or should we stone some virgins?

Thank goodness for MuchMoreMusic

Apparently, Britney Spears's life is fabulous. Who knew?

Actually, I am quickly becoming addicted to The Surreal Life.

Ooo... "Election" is on. Great black comedy.

Nice work, amazon.com

It's the online retailer's tenth birthday, so how does it celebrate? By inviting Bob Dylan, Norah Jones, Bill Maher and more to deliver the goods at a concert for employees in Seattle. The icing on the cake? The show is being streamed live at amazon.com. Your move, Heather Reisman.

Oh yeah, Bob fuckin' rocks.

Proper

Following up Saturday's post, good news from the Government of Canada:

The Canadian government revoked a disgraced Aboriginal leader's membership in the Order of Canada Monday.

David Ahenakew was stripped [of] his membership after being convicted Friday of willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group. He was convicted for telling a reporter in Saskatoon on Dec. 13, 2002, that the Jews were a "disease" and Hitler was trying to "clean up the world" when he "fried six million of those guys" during the Second World War.

Fittingly, the Globe also has news from the opposite end of the moving-on spectrum:

Ottawa — Prime Minister Paul Martin must decide soon who will replace Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson and observers say it must be someone with political savvy.

Ms. Clarkson is recuperating in Toronto after a weekend operation to implant a pacemaker to regulate her heartbeat.

Her Excellency has had a remarkable run as head of state; she's brought dignity and intelligence to her incredibly active role. Unlike David Ahenakew, she represents the best our country has to offer.

I love Canada

From a White House press briefing today:

QUESTION: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it.

The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

C.J. Craig he's not.

Media douchebag of the week redux

Poor Miles O'Brien. It seems that the CNN anchor was all set to become the first journalist to board the space shuttle and blast off into outer space. Until Columbia disintegrated, and with it, an anchorman's dream.

Sorry, I wanted to know what that would look like if I were writing for CNN (maybe the feature where they display blogs on the Web).

Anyhow, the New York Daily News has the story; O'Brien was set to begin training at NASA when the shuttle was destroyed.

That sound you hear? Legitimate astronauts who were passed over for the shuttle vomiting.

Thanks to Shaky for the tip.

The lazy common denominator

Over at This Magazine John_D wonders why nobody in Canada seems to give two bits about dozens murdered in Iraq, while we go nuts over attacks in London. While I'm not really interested in getting mired in that thread, I am intrigued by one of the responses, which set off a conversation about the "local angle." The theory goes that the story can only really penetrate the North American psyche if it has a local connection: like Calgary Girl Survives Tube Ride. As Joseph Krengle puts it:

Maybe it's a result of information overload, but the world has gotten bigger and our lives have gotten smaller; and as a result most people have actively cordoned the two off from each other. Events can only translate from one to the other when there is some sort of superficial (but easily digested) connection.

This is bunk. The reason we always hear about the local angle is not because we actually care that a potential neighbour may or may not have been involved; it's because one of the tenets of crappy journalism is that people will only engage if they feel like they have a personal stake in the story. Actually, the idea's not that bad, it's the execution that's messed up. Think about it - of course you won't read a story or watch a report about something you can't engage with. But what do I care if a local man was on the scene half the world away? The London story struck all of us so deeply for so many reasons. It reminded us that our kind of lifestyle is not immune to terrorism and extremism; that the success of our technological era leave us exposed to anonymous attack; that the challenges that face Canada are shared, if not amplified, by others around the globe; and that safety is ephemeral.

If assignment editors are relying on a local angle to a big story to attract an audience, they'll only succeed so long as the public buys into its "role" of unthinking news consumer. Sadly, they need not worry (but you'd expect more from the people at This).

Media douchebag of the week

CNN's Miles O'Brien, who had this to say on Thursday:

You know, we were talking to one of our analysts earlier -- one of our security analysts, and he said, you know -- he made that parallel between the summer of 2001 and the summer we had up until this morning. The focus on sharks, the missing people, all of the things that seem to occupy our attention in that summer were -- seem to be repeating themselves. And that was ominous to some people who look at these things and make it their business. I don't think the summer's going to be the same after this.

Meanwhile, in Aruba...

Oy vey

Paul Wells pointed this to my attention:

Le prochain scrutin risque d'être catastrophique pour Jean Charest et le parti libéral. En effet, «si la tendance se maintient», ce parti sera confiné à peu de chose près à ce qu'était celui du Parti Égalité en 1976, soit une quinzaine de circonscriptions de l'ouest de Montréal à forte concentration de Juifs anglophones. La pire débâcle de toute l'histoire du PLQ qui arriverait au troisième rang pour le nombre de députés, derrière l'ADQ de Mario Dumont.

As Wells points out, the EQ didn't exist in 1986, let alone 1976, the party never won more than four seats and there aren't enough Jews in Quebec to deliver 15 electoral ridings to anybody.

Meanwhile, in the Prairiers, Native leader David Ahenakew has been convicted promoting hatred, after making a series of anti-Semitic remarks to a journalist. At a press conference following his court appearance, he continued his anti-Jewish diatribe. Thankfully, the movement pushed forth by Peter C. Newman to have his Order of Canada revoked is gathering steam. On the National last night, a spokesman for the Assembly of First Nations refused to comment. I guess the AFN was then (who knows if it will have a change of mind) of the mind that it's inappropriate for Aboriginal leaders to call a fellow chief the racist that he is. That's inappropriate.

If the most meaningful criticism is supposed to come from within, then I'm guilty of taking my time to weigh in on the latest Zahra Kazemi affair. Kazemi was in the news in Montreal recently when the Cote Saint-Luc city council voted to remove an exhibit of her work at the borough's popular municipal library. The council was reacting to a small number of complaints about some of the murdered photographer's works, which contrasted Taliban oppression with Israeli military checkpoints in the occupied territories. Councillors and borough Mayor Robert Libman claim that the exhibit's accompanying texts equated the Israeli military's treatment of Palestinians with Taliban brutality toward women.

The exhibit was prepared by Kazemi's son, Stephan Hachemi, who insisted it be dismounted once the CSL library removed five photographs. It seems the borough council was quite content to comply with his all-or-nothing directive.

When the news hit the airwaves a few weeks ago, I called the library to find out what was going on in crazy CSL and I emailed Robert Libman. Surprisingly, both my messages were returned. One city councillor told me that a decision had to be made and that the council felt bad but had no choice. Libman, who had told the press that the borough had a tight connection to Israel and could not stand for this kind of Israel-bashing on its dime, was less conciliatory. He said that Hachemi had tricked the library by misleading it abouut the substance of the text, and that he was unwilling compromise. Apparently, incredibly, nobody at the library vetted the work before mounting it. To be so negligent and then to complain about a work being "too politically charged" for the community, as Libman later told Canadian Press, is the worst kind of cop-out. As I wrote to the library, the "decision brings you closer to the guiding principles of the fanatical regime in Iran than to the mitzvot of the Torah. The rationale that the works are too political, is incomprehensible; what were you expecting?"

My friend Chad Lubelsky has more at rabble.ca. In the meantime, in the wake of her posthumous silencing, it's worhtwhile to remember why Zahra Kazemi was killed.