Yes, this is the blog you seek

I haven't redecorated in a while, so I thought I'd play with Blogger's new templates.  I may or may not stick with this one - what do you think?

The Logic of Margaret Wente

Shorter Margaret Wente:

All the blogs I read are by men.

Therefore, all bloggers are male.

Slightly longer Margaret Wente:

I read a few blogs.

All the blogs I read are political.

All the blogs I read are by men.

Men like to spout off opinions without thinking.

The bloggers I read spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, men blog because they like to spout off opinions without thinking.

Therefore, all political bloggers are men.

Therefore, there are no female political bloggers.

Therefore, none of you exist.

Begone!

The Roger Ebert in my Head

There's a lovely movie that came out last year called "Julie & Julia", about one woman writing a cookbook, and another woman writing a blog about her 50 years later.

A movie about cooking AND blogging? How could I not love it?

The young blogger Julie develops a special bond with Julia Child, a writer she has never met but comes to know through her work and by reading about her life. One person suggests that Julia is her 'pretend friend', and Julie agrees. After all, she is the audience Julie is writing for and hopes to emulate. She fantasizes about meeting her idol, but in the end her husband observes that it isn't necessary for the two to meet because she already knows her, and that the Julia Child that lives in her head is perfect.

Roger Ebert is my imaginary friend. Roger Ebert lives in my head.

We have long conversations in there - about movies, about religion, about democracy, about the health care systems in our respective countries. We've attended numerous imaginary screenings together, and I've explained to him many times exactly why his criticism of Spielberg's 'Artificial Intelligence' is based on an assumption that completely ignores the facts presented in the first five minutes of the film and is therefore fundamentally flawed.

He reluctantly agrees.

The Roger in my head looks and sounds just like he did the last time I saw him on television, and when I read his blog, that's the voice I hear. Of course I know that he doesn't look or sound like that anymore - not since cancer surgery and a series of near fatal complications left him without a lower jaw and without a voice. I had seen a couple of more recent photos, but Roger has generally kept his physical self to the shadows these past four years, so the old photo that graces his website was still the one in my head.

That all changed this week when I read a profile of Roger from Esquire magazine, which opened with an uncompromising full page photo.



The article is wonderful, and discusses a lot of the issues Roger himself has talked about in his blog - the things he's lost, the things he misses, the surprising things he's gained or rediscovered in the process, including his newfound passion for blogging. It talks about his amazing wife Chaz, about the new routine of their lives, and it describes his physical state in unflinching detail. It's not sappy, or maudlin, or voyeuristic, and after reading it I got over the momentary shock of the photo and started to feel like the Roger in my head had gained another dimension or two.

The article was followed by an appearance on an Oprah Winfrey special the other night which I didn't like quite so much. I'm not sure why, but it all seemed a little condescending to me, a little too much like trotting out the crippled kid at a tent revival for a bit of pity and inspiration. Hallelujah!

The one moment that redeemed the whole episode was when Roger got to demonstrate his brand new computer voice to his wife. The voice, which replaces the generic Stephen Hawking-like one he's been using, was created by a company in Scotland and uses actual samples of his own voice culled from hours of his DVD commentary tracks.

The result was so startling, it brought Chaz to tears.

So now the Roger in my head has a voice again. A real voice - not one half remembered with the 'At the Movies' theme music playing under it. It's still not the real Roger, but that's just as well. If I ever did meet Roger Ebert in the flesh I would probably fall all over my own tongue and embarrass myself utterly.

When I started this blog three years ago (God it's been three years?!), my first full post was entitled "Just Call me Roger". At the time, I fantasized about becoming Canada's Roger Ebert, or at least some brand of Professional Journalist, waiting to be discovered sitting at my own virtual Schwab's lunch counter.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Instead, my little blog transformed from being a place to post my reviews and work on my writing skills into a reasonably well respected (albeit minor league) political blog. That in turn led to attending a couple of political events, meeting some of the local players in the Liberal Party, diving head first into a political campaign, and eventually getting in up to my neck in riding politics. Meanwhile, I started writing about other subjects, from environmental sustainability to foreign policy to local issues and politics.

And now I'm running for Town Council.

Like Roger, and like Julie, blogging opened up a whole world for me that I never imagined I would be walking in at this point in my life.

Like them, I found my voice.

Thanks, Roger.

G&M Shuts Down the Haters

Jane Taber ran a piece on the Globe & Mail website this afternoon about Scott Brison's Christmas card, which has a lovely picture of him with his husband and their dog:



Right below it you will find the following:

Comments have been disabled
Editor's Note: Comments have been closed due to an overwhelming number of hateful and homophobic remarks. We appreciate that readers want to discuss this issue, but we can't allow our site to become a platform for intolerance.

First, kudos to the Globe & Mail for not just shutting down the comments but for saying in no uncertain terms why they did it.

Second, this is an extreme example of something I've been noticing over the past six months or so: commenters on news sites are lunatics who simply cannot be reasoned with.

There used to be some semblance of rational discourse and debate on these things, similar to what you usually find on the 'real' blogs. But now the voices of reason have been completely drowned out by the haters, the fanatics, and the most intransigent of partisans all trying to shout each other down.

I used to think that posting the occasional sane comment on news sites somehow helped to balance the debate and maybe win some hearts and minds. But now I understand that doing so only encourages the bedlam, and I refuse to participate any more.

Consider this my early New Year's Resolution: I will no longer post comments to any newspaper or television news website.*

Let them have it.

*just for clarification, I am not including Maclean's in this boycott - at least not yet. It's a magazine, they have real bloggers over there, and the discourse hasn't quite descended to the 'pissing in the wind' level yet

Why Canadian Cynic is Still my Favourite Guilty Pleasure

Whenever I'm feeling down or discouraged, or I just need a bit of a laugh, CC is always there to cheer me up:

BREAKING NEWS: Pierre Poilievre is an obnoxious little turd.

Hey, don't take my word for it -- even a Blogging Tory thinks so.

Whenever you see that little shit, don't you have an overwhelming urge to stuff him into a locker?

Yeah, it's petty, it's juvenile, and it adds absolutely nothing to the the political discourse. But it's oh so very, very true.

Thanks, CC. I needed that.

What Personality is This Blog?

Wow. That's actually kinda spooky.

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment and are highly skilled at seeing and fixing what needs to be fixed. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

(go try it out at Typealyzer)

We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Apologies to anyone who has been having problems with my new comments system. I recently switched to JS-Kit, which worked great for about a week until they changed the whole thing over to something called Echo.

Let's just say they're still working out the bugs.

If you have any problems leaving a comment, please email me and let me know.

Kady O'Malley: Blog Goddess

Fabulous interview with my blogging hero Kady O'Malley, in which she discusses blurring lines, press gallery credentials, and those amazing flying thumbs.

I totally want this woman's job.



Courtesy of Ian Capstick.

Help Send a Blogger to the Liberal Convention!

Well, now I've done it. I've filled out my Form 6 and faxed it to the LPCO, and unless we have a sudden flood of people from Halton who want to go to the Vancouver Liberal Convention, it look like I'm going to be a delegate.

Woot!

Now I just have to pay for it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not going to be going into debt or taking food out of the mouths of my family to do this. We've got a bit of savings and some leftovers from a recent windfall, and I'm always happy to indulge myself if it's something I consider worthwhile.

Still, Liberal conventions are notoriously expensive. Although apparently the party is offering reduced convention fees depending on how expensive it's likely to be to get there from your riding. Which means that flying out of Toronto I'll be saving... thirty-five bucks. Oh, boy.

I can't wait to find out what the WiFi access fees are going to be.

So. Since I plan to blog from the convention and will be therefore providing you, my faithful readers, with three whole days of high quality Liberalicious entertainment, I thought I would also provide you all with the opportunity to contribute to the cause.

PayPal donations now being accepted, with gratitude, at the sidebar to your right.

Cherniak

I lost all patience with Jason Cherniak pretty early in my blogging career, and my decision to not join Liblogs was largely due to my unease at what I perceived to be his excessive partisanship and intolerance for dissent.

I'm feeling pretty good about that decision today.

LeDaro reported today that a previous post of his had appeared on Liblogs and then mysteriously disappeared. There is still no indication of whether that was a glitch or an intentional removal, but just before LeDaro made his first post, Jason Cherniak posted a statement of his own on Liblogs' front page:

Israel and Gaza

Liblogs is not affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada. It is a non-profit organization without charitable status and we provide an advertising service to bloggers who identify themselves as Liberal Party supporters. We take no responsibility for what those bloggers write and only remove them for actions that go beyond reasonable discourse. Such decisions are made by a Board of Directors and I am only one vote out of five.

As President of Liblogs, I speak on behalf of the organization. While I will never force bloggers to adopt my view, I feel it is my responsibility to lay out the official position of Liblogs on the fighting in Israel and Gaza. Individual bloggers are free to disagree as long as they do so in a mature and civil manner.

He then proceeds to lay out what amounts to his personal opinions on the current situation in Gaza.

Now, I don't want to get too much of a discussion of censorship here. I suspect that the issue was not so much LeDaro's post as much as the graphic photos that accompanied it. If that is the case, and since Liblogs displays photos along with text in its previews, I can see that being a legitimate, if questionable, editorial decision. And it is true that several Libloggers have made posts even more critical of Israel's actions than LeDaro's that have not been deleted.

What concerns me more is Cherniak's use of Liblog's home page as his personal pulpit. While his previous statement asking for cool heads and civility on the issue was an appropriate one for him to make as Liblogs president, what he posted today was downright bizarre. "The official position of Liblogs on the fighting in Israel and Gaza"?! In what possible way is it appropriate for a blog aggregator to have an "official position" on such a contentious and ongoing situation - particularly when that position happens to be identical with the personal position of one member of that aggregator's board?

All of which makes me wonder - are the other Liblogs board members cool with this? Is Jeff, whose own opinions on the situation seem to differ somewhat from Jason's, on board with this new "official position"?

Like I said, I'm not a Liblog member and so none of this is really any of my business. But I know and respect people who are involved to one degree or another, so to them I would respectfully suggest that they have a little chat with Mr. Cherniak and recommend that he consider reviving his personal blog if he wishes to express his views on this or any other topic.

That's what blogs are for.

UPDATE: I asked Jeff Jedras about his feelings on this over at his place, and here is his response:

Jennifer, I believe Jason erred by saying "official position of Liblogs." Liblogs has no official position, other than keep it clean people. The opinion expressed in the admin note was his own. And I'd prefer admin notes be confined to administrative matters, as yesterday's note largely was. And we all, being Jason and the board, agree that a note at the top of the aggregate is not the best way to disseminate messages to the membership. We're working on coming up with a new method of posting such messages in the future that is less obtrusive, and more like a regular post that will fall down the page. And since Jason's current message has certaintly been disemenated by now, it should be offline this evening/early morning I would suspect.

And so it is. Fair enough. Thanks, Jeff.

My New Favourite GLBT Blog

I'm not sure why I had never paid much attention to Montreal Simon before, but between Prop 8 and this story, I've been reading his blog so often lately that I thought I'd give him a bit of a shout out.

Kudos!

2008 Canadian Blog Awards

Nominations are now open. Feel free to nominate your favourite blogs. Like... I dunno... MINE!

And don't forget, I have two other blogs: HaltonWatch and Sprawlville.

Seriously, though, any of the fine blogs I have listed in my blogroll would be worthy recipients of a Canadian Blog Award, so take a moment to nominate one today.

Quote of the Day

Say what you like about Canadian Cynic, whenever PSA blesses us with a post, all ye take heed.

And the Liberals, they stood by like a pack of wet dogs, shivering and licking their own hinds, trembling from the cold, confusion and fear. Pity poor Stephane Dion, a decent enough guy stuffed into the wrong place at the wrong time and doomed to wear the blame for the wave of failure that is rising before him. He is a smart, decent fellow. In this climate, where we are infected by the same contagious stupidity that is endemic in America, the worst thing for a party leader is to be smart and decent. That equals weakness in the new political math. A brave and powerful political ape will scream and hurl great armloads of feces and recline on a bed of enemy skulls to drink toasts to himself. Dion is a lost man waiting to discover his fate. While Stephen Harper is a scalding douche telling the biggest lie, most often until it begins to find belief in the TV thickened skulls of the electorate. Welcome children of Karl Rove, we are your dupes, victims and patsies.

Another voice, crying out in the wilderness.

Runesmith on Ormiston - and Why I Wish I Wasn't

When I attended the Progressive Bloggers BBQ a few weeks ago, a camera crew from CBC was there to film material for an edition of Ormiston Online. Being a Leo, I immediately volunteered to get interviewed despite the fact that I have a face for radio at the best of times, and that day I hadn't even bothered to put on make-up.

The episode aired tonight on The National. You can watch it here (if you must) about 35 minutes in (UPDATE: The segment is now also available on its own). As it turns out, of the 2 or 3 minutes I spent speaking to the second-unit camera crew, the single sound bite they extracted consisted of me blathering about being one of those bloggers who obsessively checks my stats every morning to see how many people have read my blog.

Groan.

I am quite sure I said things that were far more eloquent and insightful than that, but apparently that's not what they were going for. In fact, from what I can tell, Susan Ormiston and Steve "the Jankulator" Janke have some sort of thing going.

Janke. The guy whose idea of 'investigative journalism' is stalking political candidates, following them from their home to the mall and taking pictures of their car. Good call there, Susan.

Sure, she made some effort to profile bloggers with other political affiliations, but apparently the best she could come up with was Cherniak and some Blogging Dipper named Devin. But Janke... well, she was all over him and his nice house and his 4.7 children like white on rice.

Next time someone from Ormiston wants to talk to me, they can just piss off.
__________________

UPDATE: Ok, I take that back. She linked to me. She misspelled my blog title, but that's ok. I forgive her (mmm... traffic....).

Lisa Raitt Blog Watch

NOTE: The following update has been deemed suitable for viewing by candidates' children aged 7 and under.

Days since Halton Candidate Lisa Raitt's last blog post:    4

Days since Lisa Raitt's last blog post that Lisa Raitt wrote any of* (not including comments reprinted from local newspapers):    9

Days since Lisa Raitt's last blog post that Lisa Raitt wrote ALL of*:    10

Days since Lisa Raitt's blog stopped accepting comments:    10

Percentage of total words on Lisa Raitt's blog written by Lisa Raitt*, including titles:    44%

* giving her the benefit of the doubt, but not precluding the possibility that some or all segments were written for her by staff.

Blog Wars Part 2: On Candidate Blogs

Halton is blessed (or cursed) with having the Canadian House of Commons' most prolific blogger as our MP. It's fascinating, informative, often embarrassing, and never, ever dull having Garth Turner represent us in Parliament and in the blogosphere.

Perhaps that's why Lisa Raitt's shortcomings as a blogger have stood in such stark contrast, and why so many have chosen to mock her (with my encouragement) even though her style of non-blog blog is more the rule than the exception among candidates. But given today's unceremonious removal of blogging candidate Chris Reid by the Conservative Party, it's not hard to understand why most candidates might be reluctant to risk the exposure, and why some parties might want to actively discourage the practice.

The thing with blogging is this: sooner or later, it bares the soul.

You can try to be good and stick to the party line. You can try to conceal who you really are. But if you are really doing it, day after day, putting your thoughts and opinions out there for all the world to see, sooner or later you're going to say something you wish you hadn't.

We've all done it. You get on a tear, you word something poorly, you say something that might reflect your real feelings at the moment but still isn't something you'd ever want to have to justify publically. But even these errors, understandable as they may be, say something about us. We may be embarrassed by them, but we cannot deny them. They are part of us.

Politicians are no different. They're human. They fuck up - but HOW they fuck up can be very instructional. They can either say something we can imagine ourselves saying under the wrong circumstances, or they can reveal a rot that goes to the very core of their being.

Garth Turner has fucked up plenty over the years, but his flaws and his errors in judgement are out there for all the world to see. Like him or hate his guts, you can't say you don't know what you're getting when you vote for him. Lisa Raitt and all the other candidates who hide behind boilerplate press releases and cookie-cutter talking points - I have no freakin' idea who these people are. They might be perfectly descent people, but I find their silence disturbing.

So, to all you candidates out there, of all parties: blog away. Please. Because if the only way you can avoid saying something bad enough to end your political career forever is to say nothing at all, then frankly I'd rather vote for the copy machine that prints out your press releases.

The Blog Wars Claim Another Victim

Congratulations to BigCityLib for digging up that nasty hairball Conservative candidate and handgun fan Chris Reid coughed up and subsequently tried to shove down the memory hole.

(Note to Conservative bloggers: the internet never forgets.)

Reid has now withdrawn his candidacy, claiming that he "would not be able to "commit" to a four-year term in office". Right. Because he apparently realized just this weekend that he had about a .042% chance of beating the incumbent - Bob Rae.

I find it curious that Reid chose this particular time to shut down the comments on his blog, and then delete the blog all together. It makes me wonder if he and Lisa Raitt might have received the same memo from the Ministry of Truth that Garth Turner got two years ago.

More later...

Was it Something I Said?!

Yesterday, I paid a visit to Lisa Raitt's new blog. It was mostly press release-type posts, but there were a few comments (well, four) basically saying, "Great blog, Lisa!" and "Liberals sure are stupid!" and the like.

So I left a comment under her post entitled "Keep your Universal Child Care Benefit". I asked how many of the 125,000 new child care spaces the Conservatives had promised would be created through employee tax credits had actually been created so far. Just so. I used my real name, email and URL. I was very nice, I thought. Polite. Non-threatening. And it's a legitimate question, because although the last time I checked the answer was 'zero', I honestly don't know if that's still true.

As of this morning, my comment was still awaiting moderation.

As of tonight, all previous comments have been deleted, and all further comments are closed.

I'm sorry, should I have asked an easier question? Or perhaps tried to hide my identity and pretend to be a supporter? Because Ms. Raitt, if you can't handle one simple question on a website from a non-Conservative without shutting down all lines of communication, then it's probably a good thing you haven't had to put up with the threats, the stalking, and the intimidation your opponent and his staff have had to deal with over the past couple of weeks. Seems to me you might need to develop a thicker skin.

The first debate is on Monday, in Oakville. I look forward to meeting you and asking my question in person.

Greens Gone Wild

I personally think Buckdog has been a little over zealous in his attacks on Elizabeth May and the Green Party. And even he has more or less acknowledged that the audio of May on the "Canadians Are Stupid" YouTube video he embedded in his blog is taken badly out of context.

But c'mon, this is ridiculous:

From: John Bennett
To: leftdog@hushmail.com
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:37:56 -0600

Please be informed that the if the video

Canadians Are Stupid!" - Elizabeth May

is not removed from your site with the hour the Green Party of Canada will seek means to prevent legal proceedings further slander.

John Bennett
Director of Communications
Green Party of Canada

Not only is this a completely over the top response that looks suspiciously like suppression of free speech - it's not even proper English! Neither is their subsequent email responding to Buckdog's understandable "piss off":

You are knowingly asisting in slander get it down or you face legal action us & TVO.

Journalism is more than repeating. You have a responsibility to verify the facts.

Get get it down now.

Seriously, if their grammar, spelling and syntax aren't any better than that, I don't think I'd be too worried about the keen legal minds they've got working for them.

So, let's see. The Harper war room has been taken over by a bunch of Red Bull-crazed 20-somethings whose idea of cutting edge political strategy is puffin poop and insulting the parents of our war dead. The NDP think the multi-party system in this country is just fine and dandy as long as they're the only alternative party that gets to play. And now the Greens have apparently decided to emulate Harper's knee-jerk litigation approach to political debate.

If this keeps up, Dion might just win through attrition. This way to the Moral High Ground, boys!

I Kick Ass! And So Do They

Wow - two in two days! Many thanks to the truly ass-kicking Impolitical AND West End Bob for tagging me as a Kick-Ass Blogger. I am truly, deeply honoured.



My turn... hmmm...

Creekside, for sure. Alison was one of the first kick-ass bloggers I ever read (and all the rest of them at The Beav, of course - but they already have lots of awards).

JimBobby, who is just so dang funny and smart and doesn't post nearly often enough (but kicks ass when he does).

Dead Things On Sticks, run by the ass-kicking Denis McGrath - television writer, industry maven and latter day Marshall McLuhan.

Unrepentant Old Hippie TOTALLY kicks ass.

And... can I? I will anyway... Garth Turner, who was indirectly responsible for changing me from a film and television blogger into a political blogger. I still wouldn't want to see him as Finance Minister, but as a blogger and an MP, he kicks Conservative ass like only a convert can.

Now for the rules:

* Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are "Kick Ass Bloggers"
* Let 'em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they've received an award
* Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
* Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!