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Newspaper theme issues: Friend or Foe?

This Magazine Staff

Did anyone see the Globe and Mail on Saturday? It was devoted to reports from the Globe’s team in China. The articles were for the most part quite interesting, but at the same time I missed the news from the rest of the world and the regular Saturday items. I was a bit overwhelmed by […] More »

Very sorry sir. Canada will pay to have that cleaned, of course.

This Magazine Staff

Looks like The Headwaiter is having trouble keeping all his customers satisfied. More »

The Rheostatics’ 2067: Discussion starts here

This Magazine Staff

UPPERDATE: Ok, we’re finishing this baby off today. Comments on the last 1/3 of the songs are appended below. UPDATE: Entries for songs 5-8 have now been added to the bottom of this post. Let’s talk Rheostatics! 2067 is the 12th album from The Rheostatics, their first in three years. Last year, their album Whale […] More »

Culture Wars II

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Paul Wells thinks that Team America: World Police is “certainly the most insightful political movie of 2004.” Anyone agree? I thought it was pretty funny. As political satire, though, I was less than impressed. I did quite like the “dicks, pussies, and a**holes” speech, which is a better justification for the Iraq war than anything […] More »

Culture Wars I

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I heard a weird little piece on the CBC tonight. It seems that the Germans, to counteract widespread conviction that they have an unpleasant-sounding tongue, had a contest to determine the nicest-sounding word in the German language. The winners, as best I was able to determine (corrections welcome). third place: Lieben (love) second place: Geborgeheit […] More »

Steyn on Bigley

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Warren Kinsella calls this column by Mark Steyn one of the the most “cruel and callous” columns he’s ever read. I’m not so sure. Look, I despise Steyn. I think he’s intellectually dishonest, a poseur, and the master of what Mark Kingwell calls “the reverse sarcasm”. In this piece, he goes after Kenneth Bigley, the […] More »

2067: Are you ready?

This Magazine Staff

Upperdate: Here‘s a review of the new disk. Update: We’re going to start this Monday morning. Not enough net traffic on weekends; plus, it’ll be more fun to waste work time talking about the Rheos. Ok kids, the new Rheostatics album 2067 has been in stores since Tuesday, so I’m assuming you all have your […] More »

Forget Mr Right. Calling Mr Right Thing to Do

This Magazine Staff

So another Friday night in the big smoke. Number one curse of this Lady of the Left these days seems to be the lack of love connections. Oh who am I kidding, I’m EXTREMELY picky. So I’ve given up trying and have decided to do the right thing and solicit a marriage of political convenience. […] More »

“I shall serve drinks on the beaches, I shall serve drinks in the air, I shall never, ever stop serving drinks!”

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Update: I picked up a copy of the Wednesday Ottawa Citizen today. The front story was reaction to Stephen Harper’s “trial Walloon” (Wells’ joke, I think) proposing to turn Canada into Belgium. Here’s The Headwaiter, doing his finest Churchill impression: “I think the role of the prime minister of Canada is not to build a […] More »

Life of a columnist Part II

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It’s always nice to get a shout-out in the Globe and Mail. So I was initially pleased to see Russell Smith reference The Rebel Sell in his column in today’s Globe (sorry, Russell’s behind the new Globe firewall). Smith was talking about the new American Apparel store on Queen St. in Toronto, making the point […] More »

The life of a columnist part I

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Conrad Black famously described journalists as “ignorant, lazy, opinionated, intellectually dishonest and inadequately supervised hacks”. I think he was at least 1/5 correct. For example, I see that that the slumbering beast that is the National Press Corps is gradually awakening to the unhappy realities of The Headwaiter’s regime. Back in the summer, when Paul […] More »