news two-point-oh-oh

h/t to Rick Harp for finding this bit of viz. Thanks to him, I now know what I’ve been doing right all of these years. From the walk&talk, to the raised eyebrow and head nod, to the obsequiesce comments that don’t make any sense in the invu clips. It’s all there. Now I can hang up my Journalism 101 badge and end it all. Because it’s all in that one damn piece. (sigh)

chuckie and da baas gotta go

A few years ago, I did some research on federal education funding from elementary, to high school and post secondary. Province by province, it was a mish-mash of ad-hocery that even a relatively superficial examination showed that the Department of Indian And Northern Affairs was simply throwing money at some schools and some school boards, while starving others to point of shutdown. What I found early on were examples of off-reserve school boards (white school boards) filing inflated numbers of Indigenous kids at the beginning of the school year and got cheques cut for them by INAC with nary a question asked. On the other hand, on-reserve schools had to justify each and every request for funds; for every staple, piece of chalk and teaching aid.

Strahl don't need no edumacated Indians!

Off-reserve schools recruited reserve kids like crazy before the September deadline for admissions, then managed to kick a lot of them out once the cheques had been delivered. On-reserve schools had to fight to keep their students in classes sometimes with no heat, few books, and grossly underpaid teachers,  compared to what teachers in the white schools got. Gym teacher? In a rez school? What kinda mushrooms you chewin’ on?! Y’eedjit.

Off-reserve schools got grants to upgrade their computers. On-reserve schools got nada – not a freakin’ dime – for computers or software or printers. Nothing. Period! Off-reserve school boards could factor in a certain percentage of their federal grant applications from Indian Affairs for upkeep to the premises, usually called “infrastructure” or “capital” costs. On-reserve schools got a belly laugh from Indian Affairs officials when they tried to apply for similar funding.

I tried to encourage reporters to take a closer look, including some Aboriginal reporters.  All I got were blank stares. I got the feeling from the Aboriginal reporters that they wanted me to do their work for them. I got the feeling from the white reporters that not only did they want me to do their work for them but they couldn’t give a sh*t either.

Which brings me to my pick for overlooked or ignored news story of the week. Once again, it’s the disgusting behaviour of the Harper Government in Ottawa, and the always blood-boiling antics of the Department of Indian Affairs under the direction of Chuckie. I have never seen such of bunch of two-faced, lyin’ sonsawhoosits in my life. They give new meaning to the word: “shameless.”

shameless |ˈ sh āmlis|
adjective
(of a person or their conduct) characterized by or showing a lack of shame : his shameless hypocrisy.

holy crap

There’s a law against this kind of thing. But those who see the war against terrorism – maybe any war anywhere – as a war in the service of Christ, a Christian war against non-believers, possibly against anyone whose religious beliefs or even skin colour is different. There’s only one word for it. Not “illegal” because we already know that. No, the word is “sick.”

saving local tv? yeah, right

I came into the world of Canadian journalism at a time when local TV truly was local. A lot of interesting, (and I use that word advisedly) television was produced by privately-owned affiliate stations in cities and big towns across the country. Some of it stunk. Some of those shows became huge hits and launched the careers of a few people who went on to become international stars.

Remember SCTV? Don Messers’ Jubilee? You Can’t Do that on Television? The Red Green Show? These shows all came out of local affiliates, and developed huge Canadian followings after they were picked up by a network. These stations may have been affiliated with either the CBC or what would become the CTV or Global networks, but they produced their own local news programs and controlled their own schedules too. A few stations were affiliated to both the public and private television networks. Their schedule might have a mix of CBC, American, and CTV programs punctuated with their own locally-produced shows. As already mentioned, sometimes the shows were painful to watch. But it was local, and for a lot of viewers – and local advertisers – that’s all that mattered.

That’s just to add to what you’ll read if you head on over to “Medium Close Up.” It begins with the NBC/Leno/O’Brien flap, but then provides context to what’s going on here in Canada with the CTV/Global/CBC campaign to “save local TV.”

dumbass is as dumbass does

I only wish they wouldn’t call him a “Tory.”

Tory MP apologizes for calling unemployed citizens ‘no-good bastards’

Conservative MP Gerald Keddy

Posted: November 24, 2009, 1:13 PM by Jodi Lai

Conservative MP Gerald Keddy, who called unemployed Nova Scotians “no-good bastards” in a Halifax newspaper, has apologized for his comments after pressure from a federal Liberal critic.

In a Tuesday interview with the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Mr. Keddy called unemployed citizens “no-good bastards” who sit on the sidewalk instead of getting work.

Read more here.

wente… a relative embarrassment

I’m in the car, and my iPod battery is dead.  I turn on Q on CBC Radio One just in time to hear  host, Jian Ghomeshi, introduce a media panel considering the question: Are Canadians too moderate?” On deck: John Cruickshank (former editor at the Globe and Mail, former head of  CBC News and now publisher at the Toronto Star), Judy Rebick (formerly Status of Women, now rabble.ca), and Margaret Wente (columnist at G&M).

After listening for a few minutes, I get that old familiar feeling. You know what I mean. Aunt What’s-Her-Face is visiting. She’s a doddering old fool, set in her ways, who mutters insults as though they’re pearls. She has that old auntie smell. If you don’t know what I mean, give a listen for yourself. See if you don’t agree.

The most surprising comment for me: Wente doesn’t see herself as right-wing. Makes me wonder about the company she keeps if she sees herself as either centrist or even a bit of a lefty? Not the company I’d want at my dinner party.

durn it, beat me to it

I was on the road all day Friday. I was doing stuff the day before knowing I’d be on the road all day Friday. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

So (sigh) go on over the StageLeft.  Read Balbulican’s post which nails the latest load of horsesh*t that faux academic, Francis Widdowson, had published in that rag pretending to be a newspaper called the National Post this past week. (they should change its masthead to “all the fits that’s printed as news”)

There must be editorial standards for opinion pieces even for rags like that one. Then again, I guess it depends on what standards you want to aspire to. How else to explain how the NP could publish an opinion piece – horrendously uninformed opinion – foisted upon its reading audience, based almost completely on a ten-year old blog post by Gilbert Oskaboose?

Somebody – please – stop that Widdowson woman from calling herself an “academic” and that rag from calling itself a newspaper!

reality bites

It’s pretentious, snobby, puts itself on a pedestal, looks down on real people, thinks it directs or informs international policies where it’s published and sometimes through influential readers where it is not. But every now and then, even The Economist nails it.

It called former PM Paul Martin Jr. “Mr. Dithers,” and everyone seemed to know his days were numbered (including Mr. Martin). Now the British-based international business magazine has a new target living at 24 Sussex in Ottawa.

PM Stephen Harper (not exactly as pictured)

The headline reads: Halted in mid-debate

But its the sub-head that does the damage:

Stephen Harper is counting on Canadians’ complacency as he rewrites the rules of his country’s politics to weaken legislative scrutiny

T’was ever thus. Can you hear the clock ticking…. ?

great line

A "borrowed" picture of Rick Mercer

This is by Rick Mercer, a comedian, humourist, and funny guy in Canada. I think he comes closest to the biting kind of political satire that Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) and Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report) specialize in.

Here’s Mercer’s rant on Stephen Harper, who has p*ssed off just about everybody in all areas of the political quandrants by proroguing Parliament for another couple of months (probably so he can avoid answering opposition questions on torture in Afghanistan, stack the Senate while Parliament is empty, spend taxpayers’ money like drunken fools without anyone asking serious questions, and pretty much avoid the media.

PM Stephen Harper

Enjoy the >full rant here:

This is a man who could argue that he is Canada’s greenest PM simply because he’s the only one who has gone out of his way to give potted plants key portfolios.

Using a public Wave to engage a news audience

Using a public Wave to engage a news audience

Posted using ShareThis

That was obviously their topic title – not mine. I don’t use capital letters in my titles.  Regardless, this is a pretty good topic that is trying to sell me, and other readers, on the benefits of using Google’s WAVE. Not bad article, says I. But there are other methods out there, and more coming it seems every other day.

It’s not the shift in technology or method that amazes me though. It’s the apparently infinite ability for so many people to fear a change in mindset required to take advantage of these new tools, or avoid looking into it a bit more if only to educate themselves. Thankfully, they will be creating new deposites of petroleum-based resources in a few hundred thousand years, give or take a millenium or so.