Though I hate to flog dead horses, I thought I’d return to our recent debate, Crime, Corruption and Cameron, or whatever it was called, and give a nod to the Ryerson Review of Journalism. (The magazine, produced by students in Ryerson’s magazine journalism program, launches tonight.) Anyway, there’s an excellent package of stories in the […] More »

Over at Politics Watch, they’ve set up a vote selector quiz. Answer 19 questions, and based on your answers they match you with the federal leader that most closely fits your profile. Like web-dating, but even dorkier. So, I plugged in my preferences, and discovered to my shock and horror that here are my match […] More »

We let the 25th Anniversary of the death of one of our heroes go unmarked. Terry Fox. Hail, Terry. You remind every one of us that there’s always a little bit that we can do, individually. Incidentally, Douglas Coupland has a beautiful new book, a tribute to Terry Fox. Proceeds are going to charity. For […] More »

According to this report in The Toronto Star , Stephen Harper feels no need to wait to force an election – and if I were advising him, I’d agree. Why wait, when all the other parties seem to be cooperating with the Gomery Inquiry and the press to guarantee a one-issue (well zero-issue really) vote? […] More »

I’d like to direct everyone to the excellent discussion sparked by Mason’s Controversial! posting about investigative journalism below. Degen has just weighed in with some important points. I’d like to add something here. It is important to recognize that Adscam is not really an aberration. Despite all the protests about it “not being part of […] More »

David Ahenakew’s trial has come to a close. Ahenakew said all kinds of nasty things about Jews to a reporter, but now says he was feeling disoriented from new medication for diabetes when he made the controversial comments. Except, as Alex Roslin found out, this member of the order of Canada had been saying this […] More »

The great, universal complaint of our era is overwork. We’re all harried, exhausted, enslaved by the Man, and working too hard to enjoy our lives. But is it possible that the culprit isn’t our work ethic after all, but our leisure ethic? That’s from my latest piece in the new, wonderful, Toronto Sunday Star. From […] More »

So the National Post’s Don Martin believes Adscam is Canada’s Watergate. Insomuch as it represents the extreme level of corruption within the governing party, I suppose he’s right. But I can’t help but note one significant difference: Watergate was uncovered by investigative journalists, while Adscam was busted open by the Auditor-General, and the recent damning […] More »

The largest and most well attended funeral in living memory took place in Rome today, and the central image throughout was the plainest of wooden boxes, made of cypress wood and featuring some fine dovetail work on the joinery. Simple, unpretentious and, I’m guessing, not nearly as expensive as the polished mahogany and brass caskets […] More »

As we put the May/June issue of This Magazine to bed, I’m sure our art director wishes he had a staff of 45, but such is not the case. So I was amused to find this masthead for The New Yorker, cobbled together by The New York Observer (click the link at the end of […] More »

Today’s Edmonton Journal reports that plans are well underway to create the position of poet laureate for the city. My pointing out of this matter in the lunch room begged the following questions: What does a poet laureate do? And, Why does Edmonton need one? I had to confess to not knowing what the specific […] More »