Forget Montreal - come to Canada 150 in Halton!

Reading the various blog posts and op-eds about this weekend's 'Canada at 150' think-fest in Montreal, one might be forgiven for thinking that the whole thing is just some expensive, elitist wank designed to give the appearance of policy input without actually listening to anyone.

Of course, none of the nay-sayers and poo-pooers have bothered to mention the other Canada 150 events going on this weekend: the local 'satellite' conferences.

When the Montreal Conference was first announced, it was indeed planned as an exclusive event - just like Kingston, Aylmer and all the others were. Which is exactly why several grassroots members pressured the party to broaden the scope by setting up local events across the country, like the one I'm helping to organize in Halton.

The idea was to decentralize the whole process by linking these smaller events into Montreal via the internet. We would watch the webcast of the proceedings in Montreal, discuss the issues with our own group of thinkers and activists, then feed our ideas and conclusions back to Montreal.

That's the ideal. In practice... well, we'll see. Some ridings are just hosting watching parties for the webcast, which is rather sad. Others aren't doing anything at all.

To them, all I can say is you can't complain that no one is listening if you don't speak up.

Our event in Halton is going to be a real local version of what's happening in Montreal. We have over a dozen panelists including local municipal councillors, representatives from environmental and multicultural organizations, community activists for accessibility and social housing, local media - all sorts of people, hardly any of whom are partisan Liberals.

We'll be monitoring the Montreal webcast and will put it up on the screen if their discussions look particularly interesting, but mostly it will be a discussion between our panelists and the 30-60 guests we're expecting. Then a summary and any conclusions we draw will all get fed back to Montreal.

Whether the party chooses to do anything with our input will remain to be seen. I'm not holding my breath, frankly. But even if we end up binned, I will still consider this a useful exercise. For one thing, organizing all this with only five people in the space of a month and a half has proven my theory that the fewer organizers you have, the more you get done. Having no budget helps too.

For another thing, we have made some great new connections with local leaders and community organizations that will last long after this conference is over.

Lastly, even if our party leadership doesn't listen, our local candidate will be there soaking it all in. And when she is elected as our MP, she will be taking all our input and all these ideas to caucus with her.

Seriously - come to Halton on Saturday. Sheridan College, Oakville, Room G404. We're there all day, and it won't cost you six hundred dollars. Although if you want to throw us a couple of bucks to cover sandwiches and photocopying, we'd really appreciate it.

My Ann Coulter Theory - updated

I watched Ann Coulter on Power Play today, or at least as much as I could stand. It felt rather like being choked by a giant blonde hairball, which makes me wonder why on earth anyone would pay good money to listen to her.

More importantly, why would anyone assign credibility to a woman who any sane person would instinctively cross the room to get away from at a cocktail party?

So I can certainly sympathize with the U. of O. students who chose to protest this dreadful person's presence at their campus. I would have too. But there is a vast difference between objecting to or even protesting a public speaker and threatening violence. Which makes me really wonder about this:

Ann Coulter’s speech in Ottawa cancelled

Right-wing antagonist Ann Coulter cancelled a University of Ottawa address last night after organizers decided it wasn’t safe to speak.

The move followed boisterous demonstrations outside that sponsors of the appearance feared could turn violent.

“There was a risk there could be physical violence,” said Canadian conservative activist Ezra Levant, who was scheduled to introduce Ms. Coulter.

Let me get this straight - the organizers decided it wasn't safe for her to speak? Organizers, as in Ezra Levant?!

Am I the only person to smell a PR stunt here?



Levant claims that "police advised [the event] was untenable for safety reasons". I would very much like to have that verified by the actual police, because the amount of mileage Coulter and Levant are about to get out of this ("BANNED IN CANADA!") is likely going to more than make up for the money they were getting out of the Ottawa speech.

UPDATE: I would say that this pretty much confirms my theory -

Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter, who was forced to cancel her speech to the University of Ottawa Tuesday night over fears for her safety, says she’s the victim of a hate crime under Canadian laws.

She said she’s hired Canadian conservative activist Ezra Levant to prepare a human-rights complaint that will test how equitably these hate-crime laws are applied.

Quid pro quo.

FURTHER UPDATE: I can' find it right now on the CBC site, but one of their reporters who was there is stating that there were maybe 1,500 people there (Levant is claiming 2,000), but only a couple of hundred of them were actual protesters. The rest - some 1,200 by her guess - were Coulter supporters and curiosity seekers lined up around the building just waiting to get into the hall. The hall only had a capacity of 400, so there was some frustration at the inefficient and disorganized process of verifying who had and had not pre-registered.

She also reported that the protesters themselves were rowdy but hardly threatening, and that the police were present, but only to investigate the pulling of a fire alarm.

And then there's Ezra's performance as he announced that the speech was to be cancelled. The video is here - I'll let you judge his acting abilities for yourself. I'm thinking Bill Shatner should play him in the movie.

STILL MORE UPDATES: Our intrepid Kady O'Malley has confirmed that it was not, in fact, the police who shut the event down, despite what Coulter and Levant are claiming. She has also been unable to find a single mention of rocks, sticks, tar or feathers on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else, except for the endlessly repeated claims by Coulter supporters that threats were made. Google it yourself - there's nothing.

It's all very interesting - go read.

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!

Lisa Raitt Back at Work

You'd almost think this was a spoof, but it's not. These are the very thoughts that pass through the head of Lisa Raitt during Question Period, as expressed through Twitter:

lraitt

thinking about live tweeting QP
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@kady @inkless @davidakin watching from above
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

hedy fry and geoff regan seem to be color-coordinated seat mates
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@tonyclementMP has the coolest iPhone apps
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

@inklesswells is correct. these curtains are terrible
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

lots of purple on the other side of the house today
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

wow - some liberals are loud!
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

M. Bachand's tie is a little askew today
about 20 hours ago via mobile web

It's people like this who give blondes a bad name.

ZombieBread, Part 2: Still 'Fresh'!

You may remember about a month ago I told you about the Bread That Wouldn't Die. This miraculous loaf was purchased some time around December 30th in Daytona, Florida, largely because it advertised itself to have "No Artificial Preservatives, Colors or Flavors" and "No High Fructose Corn Syrup".



Today is exactly two months and six days after the expiry date marked on the bag, so I decided to pull it out of the bread box again and examine it for signs of mould, decay or even staleness.

Nope. It's just as fresh and mould-free as it was the day it was purchased.



This is really starting to scare me. But what is truly terrifying is the knowledge that if I ever contacted the "Nature's Own" company to complain that their bread lasts too long, they would think I was out of my mind.

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.

We. Are. Canadian.

It doesn't take much for me to get all gushy and patriotic, so I've been on some serious maple leaf overload these past two weeks.

Long before the international press suddenly decided midway through that these were no longer the worst Olympics ever but quite possibly the best - even before our own pundits stopped whining about what a cock-up it all was and how we had set our sights too high - I was on board from day one.

I cried at the whales and the trees and the sight of all those First Nations dancers. I watched events all day at home and kept track of the scores on my Blackberry at work at night. I teared up every time our flag was raised or a crowd broke into a spontaneous chorus of 'O Canada'. I shouted myself hoarse over that final hockey game, and I positively squirmed with glee through the entire closing ceremonies.

Even that stupid 'I Believe' song chokes me up. Still.

So you'll have to forgive me if I find all this analytical puzzlement over our supposedly newfound patriotism passing strange, given that I feel this way most of the time and just sort of assume all Canadians do. I suppose the word 'patriotism' itself might be part of the problem, since we do tend to associate it with the sort of obnoxious, blinkered, 'my country right or wrong' patriotism of the United States. Let's face it - a lot of Americans give 'patriotism' a bad name.

Maybe we just need a different word. But pride doesn't seem big enough, and love is too generic. It's not nationalism because it goes beyond the limitations of the nation-state. It's not tribalism because our origins lie in every corner of the earth. It's not about being better than everyone else. It's not even about winning a hockey game.

Maybe it's just a feeling of familiarity. A recognition that this is us - this is who we are. Feeling part of the same rich tapestry woven from the threads of our individual and common experiences into this incredible landscape we share. Silly little touchstones like road hockey and maple syrup and tobogganing after that first snow of winter which, even if we haven't experienced them all as individuals, we still understand as being a part of our common culture.

In the end, it's just... complicated. We're a complicated people, which may be why our 'Canadian identity' is so notoriously hard to define. But if the past two weeks have proven anything, it's that just because something can't be defined doesn't mean that it can't be cherished, felt deeply, or shouted out from the rooftops.



And then there's what Denis said.