Fish science / Fish scam

Have you been to Fishscam? It's a site dedicated to the idea that the scare about mercury in fish and seafood (particularly tuna) is the result of "junk science." (Never mind that a warning on mercury levels is the subject of the first-ever joint advisory from the US FDA and EPA.)

Who is behind the site? Well, the "About us" section of Fishscam.com (which, strangely, refers to the site as "MercuryFacts.org") says it is "a project of the Center for Consumer Freedom," which, in turn, says it is "a nonprofit coalition of restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices."

The thing with these kinds of corporate sites masquerading as grassroots consumer efforts promoting "choice" is that they always seem to blow their cover by using tell-tale phrases like "so-called" or "junk science." In other words, by resorting to name calling -- which stands completely at odds with the objective, rational image they are trying to project.

The Center for Consumer Freedom sees itself as standing opposed to "The growing cabal of 'food cops,' health care enforcers, militant activists, meddling bureaucrats, and violent radicals..." Meanwhile, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are "lunatics," the Center for Science in the Public Interest is "meddlesome" and warnings from Consumer Reports exhibit "cluelessness."

Those are just a few choice quotes, but there are lots more, both at Fishscam (aka MercuryFacts) and its parent site. It's all wrapped up in the language of freedom and choice, which sounds great. Except how can we have informed choice without science and without groups that are genuinely independent (as opposed to industry lobby groups posing as independent)?

Trans fat free (we guess)

Pick up a box of Premium Plus crackers. "0 trans fats" proclaims the packaging.

Read the ingredients. One of them is hydrogenated oil, ie trans fat. What's up with that?

When icons collide

On Monday, cowboys on horseback (including Ian Tyson) descended on Calgary to protest against oil exploration in the Foothills region, saying it will cause environmental damage and ruin the lives of their communities.

Now that's interesting. These are Alberta's two iconic images -- the cowboy and the oil rig, or, if you will, the cowboy and the roughneck -- both representing ruggedness and individualism. But guess what? Rugged individualists can clash too.

And then what? Well, the government could step in and order an environmental review. Or the regulations could be changed so that you needed more than a simple agreement between a landowner and an oil company before allowing any exploration. But that would probably be too socialistic. A gunfight maybe?

Are we that innumerate?

CNN this morning. A story on how the US military needs to recruit and retain more officers.

In the coming year, "they will need 7,800 new officers. That's nearly 8,000."

Round 3

Congrats to local kid and all-around nice guy Ryan Hillier (from Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia) picked in the third round of the NHL draft by the New York Rangers. A couple of weeks ago he was at my kids' school signing autographs. I hope they hang onto them.

Citizenship vs consumerism, version 504

A few years back, we Nova Scotians cemented our position as the most backward people in Canada -- or proclaimed our uniqueness in valuing of life over work, depending on your point of view -- by voting in a plebiscite to continue the ban on Sunday shopping.

Sunday shopping proponents started fighting the result as soon as it was announced. Halifax Chamber of Commerce head Heather Tulk yesterday said that the government should just let shoppers decide. Great. Citizens have already decided, in a democratic vote. Not good enough apparently. Viva shoppers!

The ban has since been blown open by supermarkets chopping different sections of their shops up into independently incorporated businesses, each of which is small enough to be allowed to open on Sunday. So one Sobeys supermarket, for instance, is now officially a mall, with independently incorporated businesses including Sobeys Fruit Stand Ltd. and Sobeys Meat Market Ltd.

Our recently re-elected bright-light premier has asked the justice department to take a look at this practice. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald quotes him as saying they want to determine "whether the spirit of the law is being followed."

Well, if the spirit of the law was to allow large retailers to stay open on Sundays, then I'd say it's being followed. But if the point of a law against Sunday shopping was to actually make sure some businesses stay closed on Sundays, then you don't need the justice department to tell you the spirit of the law is being completely ignored.

Grafix

Kids who know I write the Daisy Dreamer comic for Chickadee magazine often hit me up for suggestions on comics to read. But I seem to get asked for graphic novel recommendations from adults fairly regularly too.

I sent a long(ish) list to my pal Andy Riga the other day, and he suggested I blog it. So here goes.

Just about any discussion of graphic novels seems to start with Art Spiegelman's Maus and Maus II. They have become canonical, and remain a great place to start for people who aren't sure about the whole comics thing. You can't get much farther from the super-hero genre than a story that blends the difficult relationship of a Holocaust survivor and his son, with the survivor's horrific tale. Spiegelman uses the funny pages tradition of anthropomorphic animals to bridge the gap between comics as a genre for kids and as a means of telling stories with tough, mature themes.

Both of the Persepolis books by Marjane Satrapi are brilliant. They are comics memoirs. Volume one tells the story of her childhood in post-revolution Iran, and volume two picks up with her in boarding school in Vienna, but eventually making her way back to Iran. Graphically very simple, almost childlike, but very absorbing. And it is eye-opening to see the Iranian revolution from the inside, and how, especially to a child, incidents on which the West spilled lots of ink were barely noticed. Interestingly, Satrapi's introduction to graphic novels came through Spiegelman. She has written that "when I read him, I thought 'Jesus Christ, it's possible to tell a story and make a point this way.'"

Ben Katchor writes an odd little comic called Julius Knipl: Real Estate Photographer, and many of the strips are collected in books. Though I like Knipl's quirkiness, the Katchor book I love most is The Jew of New York, which is set in the 1830s and mixes fantasy and history (along with a plan to carbonate all of Lake Erie).

These aren't strictly speaking graphic novels, but Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo books are superb. Set in 17th-century Japan, they tell stories centred on a masterless samurai named Usagi, who wanders the country. He has a couple of good friends who reoccur in the books, and a son who (Usagi thinks) doesn't realize that he is really his father, and not his uncle. The characters are all anthropomorphic animals. Usagi is a rabbit (Usagi Yojimbo means Rabbit Bodyguard), the bounty hunter Gen is a rhinoceros, etc. When I first started reading the books, this threw me off, but I quickly got used to it. Stan Sakai has done a lot of research into medieval Japan (and often tells you about his sources in the endnotes) and brings it all to life. The stories are filled with action, but the violence is never gory or gratuitous (maybe in part because you've got animals fighting each other). There is much more to them than sword-fighting though. These are stories filled with compassion and heart.

I also really like the "comics journalism" of Joe Sacco, especially his Safe Area Gorazde, about an enclave of Muslims hanging on (not always successfully) during the Bosnian war. Haunting and chilling, but very well done. Sacco manages to bring out the horror of the situation without resorting to gore. Take the scene where a Muslim family is roused from sleep by Serb thugs. We see an image of shoes just under the bed. Someone in the family asks for permission to get their shoes on. Their abductor says it doesn't matter -- they'll all be dead in a few minutes anyway. I walked around with this book in my mind for months after reading it.

A word about Will Eisner. Am I a heretic? I've never been especially drawn to Eisner, even though he is revered as the father of the graphic novel, and has one of the big comics awards named for him. To comics creators he's a key influence who has made their work possible. But I still find his artwork a bit ham-fisted and the storylines predictable.

Chester Brown's Louis Riel biography -- even though it is not always historically accurate -- is a landmark work in Canadian comics history. I felf like I truly understood the Riel rebellion for the first time after reading this. And for purists (like me), Brown does include extensive notes both for reference, and also to clearly notewhere he has deviated from the truth for the sake of storytelling.

I also absolutely love the work of Michael Kupperman, but I'll save that for another post.

Finally, I highly recommend Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It's a non-fiction book (in comics format) that really thinks through the history and future of the genre, and looks into how and why comics work. He followed it up with Reinventing Comics, and is about to release Making Comics -- and will then kick off a cross-continent tour that will see him coming here to Halifax.

Before you fly...

You might want to avoid this site before setting off on any plane trips. Then again, maybe a comprehensive listing of plane crashes is just what you need to help put the world in perspective.

The "Last Words" page (taken from cockpit voice recorders) is both poignant and chilling, from "We've been shot!" (Pacific Airlines Flight 773, May 1964) to "Amy I love you" (Atlantic Southeast Airlines Flight 529, August 1995).

I'd be curious to know more about Richard Kebabjian, the guy behind the site.

Not quite Dewey Defeats Truman

Beckett Hockey, a hockey collectibles mag, has gone to print with this on the cover: "'Canes Capture the Cup!" Nice big picture of the cover (featuring Stall and Ward) and quotes here.

Here's hoping tonight proves them wrong.

Thank you for enlightening me

Great expert quoted on CBC radio yesterday afternoon, commenting on Oilers-mania and fandom in general. Really opened my eyes. Did you realize that the identity of fans is connected to the success or failure of the team they follow?

The furious and the fast

The Canadian government is introducing new legislation, with harsher penalties for street racing. (What happened to the famous five priorities they were going to focus on? Was this one of them? Did I miss something?)

How many people has this scourge killed so far this year in Canada? Ummm, six actually. Two of those are the drivers. Sounds like a national emergency to me.

Liberals: Start here

Nova Scotia's Liberals need a new leader and have to try to figure out a way to become more than an electoral rump. Maybe they could also think about their TV ads before the next trip to the polls. A spot whose visuals consist entirely of the leader hugging supporters? In slo-mo? Yeah, that's the guy I'm voting for.

Best election comment

We had ourselves a little election here in Nova Scotia yesterday -- one that saw the minority Conservative government returned with 23 seats, down from 25. (The NDP upped its total to 20, from 15, while the Liberals continued their long flame-out, with only 9 MLAs elected.)

Funniest comment comes from Bob Howse of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

"I don't know whether Rodney MacDonald was a big advocate of running on the spot when he taught gym in school.

"But last night’s re-election of a Conservative minority government sure feels like he just put all of us through four weeks of vigorous exercise that got us nowhere."

Al-what's-his-name

A few days ago, the local CBC Radio newsroom reported on the death of al-Zarqawi (aka al-Jizzari). Yesterday, we were treated to a new version: al-Jizzawi. Getting warmer boys, getting warmer.

Jumping on dead trends

Trust the CBC to leap on a stupid trend just as it's waning. In an effort to build audiences, English TV head Richard Stursberg (you know, the guy who was so successful over at Telefilm when it came to bringing in massive audiences for English-language Canadian films) is betting the house on "factual entertainment." There's a new factual entertainment division over at the Corp, and we can expect a lot more dumb-ass game-show style reality shows.

Meanwhile, what's raking in the audiences on American TV? House, Lost, Desperate Housewives -- you know, scripted dramatic programming. The reality stuff isn't going to die, but it's not where the big bucks are right now.

But of course, the CBC has a mandate to be different.

Al-who?

The local CBC Radio news teams are not the most enterprising I've ever encountered. A few months ago they referred to a suspected murderer without naming him, because the police had not released the name. Meanwhile, Halifax daily The Chronicle Herald -- on the stands for several hours already -- identified the guy in their lead story on page one.

Now I realize that a small, underfunded newsroom can't work wonders. And I realize that the CBC's once-firm commitment to correct pronunciation is not what it was. But you would think it wouldn't be that hard to pronounce Al-Zarqawi. Well, let me introduce you to the afternoon newscast at 2:00 PM last Friday. This is where we learned that a US air strike had killed Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu-Musab al-Jizzari. That's right: al-Jizzari. Repeated several times. al-Jazeera, al-Zarqawi -- damn, those Ay-rab names are confusing.

Bob Cole

There's a lot of ganging up on CBC play-by-play man Bob Cole these days. The argument goes that he's faded, he's too old (73), he can't keep up with the play.

I have never understood the appeal of Bob Cole. Having grown up listening to Danny Gallivan (audio) , I remember being appalled the first time I heard Bob Cole do a broadcast. His "This is..." call, which he would use endlessly every game, was particularly irritating. ("This is Bobby Clarke...") Leafs fans had to put up with this all the time? Poor things!

Now we all get Bob Cole inflicted on us -- even worse, a Bob Cole well past his prime. I am pretty sure that during Game 2 last night I heard him say, "He has a player open, but he doesn't pass to him because he's covered."

We are not afraid... we are ridiculous

The Kinsella-Zerbisias bun fight has become tiresome and more than a little bit absurd (I score higher than you on Google trends... more people Google me in the Ottawa area... I win on Google Fight...).

But I gotta agree with Zerbisias that Kinsella's "I am not afraid"campaign is idiotic. The idea is inspired by the I am not afraid signs and shirts people in London were sporting after the Tube bombings. Well, in London they had actually been bombed. What would thousands of people showing up in "I am not afraid" t-shirts at a Jays game say. That fans aren't worried the team will completely implode?

My favourite part of ol' Warren's post was this:

"The idea is to be positive and populist – no politicians, just regular folks reclaiming the spaces that the alleged terrorists targeted."

No politicians? He just finished telling us, a couple of lines up, that Liberal grandstander Dennis Mills (of SARS-stock fame) and Senator Jerry Grafstein are both on side.

Maybe someone should make up "We are afraid of the coming police state" t-shirts and take those to a ballgame.

Does working get any better than this?

Tonight I'm being paid to go to a sports bar for game one of the Stanley Cup finals.

The King (Kaufman)

Why King Kaufman of Salon is one of my favourite sports writers (even though he doesn't write about hockey nearly often enough). From today's column:

"Edmonton-Carolina is exactly the kind of all-small-market final that could never have happened if the NHL hadn't interrupted play for a year with a lockout that was necessary to get the league's financial house in order and restore competitive balance.

"Just look at the last Stanley Cup Finals before the stoppage: Tampa Bay vs. Calgary.

"Hmm. Wait a minute."

Stirring defence

I had heard rumours that Howard Richler, the freelancer whose column on words was terminated by the Montreal Gazette after he used material that wasn't his (that's called plagiarism, kiddies), was crying foul over his dismissal. Word had it he felt it was unfair and he hadn't had a chance to defend himself.

Richler has his say this week in the Montreal weekly The Suburban, in a column by Mike Cohen.

Cohen writes, “Richler, who is about to publish two new books on language, explains that during the last year his column length was cut back by more than 100 words and he had to make a decision in some cases to reduce attributions, rather than information."

He quotes Richler as saying “I generally believe that too many attributions are not in order for a largely lay audience. Occasionally therefore, I may have been unintentionally remiss in not rewording information sufficiently... When asked language questions by readers, if I am not sure of the answer, I often do online research and it is not incumbent on me to provide a source to the reader’s query."

So basically, Richler's argument comes down to this: his column was cut, so he didn't always have room to credit his sources, and he doesn't think you need to credit sources for a newspaper audience. Find me an editor who wouldn't fire a guy if that's the best he can come up with.

Given the Suburban's editorial bent, I'm just glad they didn't cry anti-Semitism.

PC design

That's PC as in President's Choice -- the Loblaw's house brand, whose housewares were recently re-designed by Joseph Mimran.

We have joined the tens of thousands of Canadians who have purchased the PC toaster. Not only that, we followed it up with the coffee maker. And they both look good in the kitchen too.

The toaster -- sleek, slightly rounded, chrome, retro -- has become the poster child for the President's Choice brand.

Visit the PC Financial website, and there it is ("Bank fees are toast."). Walk into a Loblaw's (or The Real Atlantic Superstore, as it's known in these parts) and there are posters featuring it.

Why are people buying this stuff in droves? The same reasons people shop at IKEA. You get (depending on what you buy) slick design at reasonable prices, and President's Choice continues to successfully market itself as inexpensive, reliable -- and at the same time, slightly up-market and sophisiticated. Which is really quite a neat trick.

Another element of the products' appeal is their simplicity. The toaster has a dial which you can use to make your toast darker or lighter. There is also a bagel button (toasts one side more than the other). And that's about it. There is no reheat setting, no adjustable bread guide, no extra wide slots.

It's part of the same trend that sees a master chef like Michael Noble taking on the development of dishes for the Earls restaurant chain (why no apostrophe, goddammit!). You too can have fine food/design/clothing without paying too much for it and still separate yourself from the Wal-Mart shoppers.

Twenty years from now, if there's a Souvenir of Canada 3, we'll be looking at these PC appliances the same way we now look at this stuff.