Duff Conacher jumps the shark?

Duff Conacher is a very nice guy (I remember him from his days as a camp counsellor) and he does superb work with Democracy Watch.

But what's with his call for lie detector tests for politicians? It's the kind of whacked-out idea that gets you media coverage -- but not necessarily the good kind. Politicians lie. But, as any of us with kids know, sometimes an untruth is not a lie. Like yesterday. We said we'd make pizza for dinner, but circumstances made it hard for us to do that. So we had leftovers and decided to have pizza tonight. Our seven-year-old was outraged. Had we lied? In his eyes, yes. To most adults, no.

I appreciate a politician who sticks to his guns -- but not to the point of stupidity. Duff's efforts to make our democracy more transparent are extremely commendable. I hope he doesn't keep mucking them up with proposals like this one, that are a little harder to take seriously.

Canadian Screenwriter story online

My Canadian Screenwriter magazine story on the Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story debacle is now online. The story is called "The Greatest Canadian Gets Pulled from Distribution" (Don't look at me; I didn't write the title).

An excerpt:

[Screenwriter Bruce] Smith has no objection to the CBC investigating the accuracy of his script–after all, their own lawyers thoroughly vetted the production before it went to air. What he wants is to defend his film in public–and he’d welcome the opportunity to go head to head with the academic who wrote the report.

“I have no beef with the Gardiner family. I’m sorry they’re upset, but this stuff should be debated, and if they want to defend Jimmy Gardiner they should be able to defend him in public. The point is this stuff should be defended in public,” Smith says. “If some academic wants to criticize it he should have the simple decency to do so under his own name. That’s all. It’s very simple. My name is on it. The name of everyone who worked on the film is on it. We’re not trying to hide anything–we’re trying to put it on television and let people argue about the history of Canada.”

Maybe the studio marketers poisoned him

Just in time for the new James Bond movie. Coincidence?

Hardship, lotus-land style

So Vancouverites have to boil their water. CBC Radio's The Current ended today's show with a montage of clips from affected residents. "It's brutal," one of them says. "Every restaurant you go into, you can't get drinks."

Tidbits

Some Nova Scotia bits today.

• The province is set to legalize midwifery, finally. Announcement and press conference to come at Province House this afternoon.
• Community Services minister Judy Streatch, who had expressed willingness to appear at a troubled teen's case conference (after being ordered to do so by a judge) is now trying to back out. Judy, you played up the fact that you had a big family when you were elected, and you said that now you were the legal guardian for all the kids in your department's care too. So do the right thing and turn up already.
• Provincial Minister of Health Chris d'Entremont (who will be making the midwifery announcement) was asked last week about a promise made by a Tory candidate for a new nursing home, d'Entremont dismissed the promise as "election propaganda." Then he corrected himself. The brochure in which the promise appeared was not propaganda. It was "election literature." Still not a promise though.
• This one is not funny, but you've got to admit there's a certain irony. I can just imagine the firefighters rushing to the scene and being at a loss as to how to proceed.
  

Movie time... maybe

So we decide to go out for some wholesome, all-Canadian entertainment. The Trailer Park Boys movie (second-time for me!).

What time is the movie playing, and where? You'd think these would be easy questions to answer. Think again. According to the Coast, the local alternative weekly, the film is on at three different theatres. But the Coast has been wrong before. We've turned up at the theatre to see movies they say are playing, when they're not. So off we go to the daily newspaper's website. They have different theatres and times listed. How about the theatre itself? Different again. This time out, it turns out the theatre is actually listing the correct times (as confirmed by a phone call) -- but they've been wrong in the past too, so you never know.

And what's with the directions people give in this place? Call the theatre where the film is (we hope) playing and the automated message tells you it's located "near the Superstore."

Oh, thank you. Reminds me of the guy who told me his shop was located "near the Tim Horton's" (there are about five in the vicinity), and when I said I wasn't sure where that was, he told me it was "near the Dairy Queen." Finally, he broke down and gave me actual directions.

Duh... and duh

An essay mill is offering a paper for purchase that includes a reference to my first-person essay on heavy metal. The topic? "Heavy metal music is important to the people who listen to it." Who would have imagined?

In other news, the police in the Halifax area are warning motorists to -- get this -- clear the ice off their windshields before driving. Thank you officers.

I am such a child sometimes

Less than three weeks until the release of Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny!

Freecycling

You seem some pretty strange items on Freecycle ("bag of miscellaneous ribbons, for pickup"). But today I saw the strangest yet. Someone slaughtered a cow yesterday, and the hide is available free to anyone who wants it. Don't all rush at once.

New stuff in print

1. The new issue of Canadian Screenwriter is out, with my story on the Bruce Smith / Tommy Douglas miniseries fiasco. (CBC pulled the plug on its own miniseries and apologied to the descendants of someone portrayed in the film -- without ever consulting the screenwriter, who stands by the accuracy of his script.) The same issue also has my first "as told to" piece. I got to sit down with the wonderful Barbara Doran, get her telling stories, and then put it together for print.

Links to follow, if the mag puts the pieces online.

2. Last summer, Reader's Digest gave me a nifty little decibel reader and set me loose in Halifax and the surrounding areas, to record noise levels and talk to people. I went to a sports bar during the Stanley Cup finals, a monster truck show, the gym, a massive construction site, and several other locations. The results are in the latest Reader's Digest, but don't look for my name. I'm one of the anonymous researchers the story refers to (which is fine -- that was the deal all along).

When I did the research, I was surprised to learn that traffic noise in Halifax was not all that bad. I figured it would be worse in the bigger cities. But the story says that in general traffic noise is not all that bad. Your mp3 player is a lot more likely to blow your hearing.