Good riddance Commonwealth Games

Halifax's bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games is in trouble. For months, people (some a little obsessively) have been raising concerns about cost overruns, and about some of the ridiculous claims the bid committee is making. The games are going to attract a million people to Halifax? More than the population of the whole province? I don't think so.

But the one issue that seems most likely to sink the bid is the inept behaviour of the bid committee, which has kept as many of the details of its proposals as possible secret -- even from the members of city council. Now, many on council are completely fed up. And the bid committee has shot itself yet again, thanks to its announcement that they are pushing back by two weeks the date at which they will finally reveal the details of the bid to council (behind closed doors, mind you).

I fervently hope that the 2014 games go to Glasgow or Abuja. Of course, neither of these cities has quite as brilliant a slogan as Halifax has come up with. Here is the gem that is going to put Halifax over the top, and convince residents of the city that they should pony up hundreds of millions in tax dollars for the games. Literally: "Here."

That's right. Here. That's the slogan. Take a look at it yourself, at the Halifax 2014 website.

For a while, it was all over the municipal buses and billboards. "Here." Yes, thank you. I am here. I hope the games will not be here.

Other than the missteps on secrecy, the bid committee came up with another brilliant PR ploy: asking shoppers at liquor stores to add a dollar to their bill, to fund the (completely secret) bid effort. Sign me up!

The sooner this thing sinks, the better. Then we can get on to better things -- though instead of doing that we're more likely to continue to squabble perenially over crucial issues such as whether or not parking should be allowed on the streets overnight in winter.

How to cook a rib-eye steak

Maybe I should have watched this first.

High Steaks Online

"High Steaks" -- my 12-minute radio documentary on what happens tome and my family when I start to contemplate having a steak after 20 years as a more-or-less vegetarian -- is now online here. Click the link to stream it, or right-click to save to your computer and listen later.

The photo is from Highview Farms -- the place where the first steak in the story came from.

Go see the career counsellor

These guys are not cut out for a life of crime. From today's Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

Three teenage boys face criminal charges following an armed robbery in Dartmouth Monday.

Just after 9 p.m., two teens wearing ski masks and bandanas over their faces walked into the Petro-Canada station on Victoria Road.

The two ran off with an undisclosed amount of money and cigarettes.

The pair was quickly tracked down by officers who followed their footprints in the snow to a residence, which was down a nearby side street.

Inside the home, officers arrested two boys, aged 16 and 17, and recovered a shotgun, money and smokes.

Ex-vegetarians

One of the things I've learned from talking about my Outfront story on CBC Radio is just how many of the people I know are ex-vegetarians. They range from the relative who was a vegetarian in university "the way some people are bisexual when they're students," and the friend who was vegetarian for a year, "except for pizza slices when I was drunk," to people who were solidly committed to not eating meat for many years.

The other thing that amazes me is finding out how easy it was for some people to make the transition from one kind of diet to another. Meanwhile, I've fretted and dithered for ages. And if CBC hadn't accepted my proposal, I would probably be fretting and dithering still.

One thing I've never understood is the militant vegetarians and militant meat-eaters who you will, very boringly and predictably, find on any web forum in which the topic comes up.

Like this one, although it has more than the usual share of thoughtful posts.

I have to say, I find the militant meat eaters scarier. Take this guy, who signs himself "Carnivore."

Vegetarians, PETAssholes and Such-Like Filth Cannot be Reasoned With

Because their food preferences are a RELIGION with them, every bit as much as the fundies. And they want to FORCE their religion on the rest of us.

Some of us won't go quietly. They would be safer trying to take a steak away from a tiger than from me.

Tigers don't carry guns.

High Steaks Documentary

My 12-minute radio documentary "High Steaks" is on CBC Radio One's Outfront tonight, at 8:43 PM. (If you've got satellite, it's on Sirius 137, but I can't tell you what time.)

Here's what the website says about tonight's show:

Monday February 19, 2007

High Steaks
by: Philip Moscovitch

Philip Moscovitch gave up eating meat 20 years ago. Now, he's feeling the siren call of bacon, sausages and beef. His vegetarian partner and children aren't thrilled. Find out what happens when he heads out to buy his first steak in two decades.

Producers: Laura Chapin & Stewart Young

I didn't get much of an opportunity to work with Stewart Young, because he got shifted to another job, but Laura Chapin was fantastic. Relationships with producers can be tricky, but Laura seemed to make it easy.

Recording for the show was done with a Marantz digital recorder, and I did the sound mix using Audacity, which you can download for free from here.

There is some music in the piece: part of Vegetarian Mumbo Jumbo by NOFX, a couple of clips from Chicken Cordon Blues by Steve Goodman, and an excerpt from Steven's Blues, by my buddies The Reluctants.

So what would they need to do to get fired?

NEW GLASGOW — Two nurses who taped the mouth of an elderly New Glasgow nursing home resident and then drew a happy face on it have been disciplined but will keep their jobs.

Link.

Bureaucracy?

Who says UN bodies are needlessly bureaucratic? Why, even the names of their meetings make it quite clear what they are up to. Take this one, for instance, coming up next week in Montreal.

Third meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-ended Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts on Liability and Redress in the context of Protocol

Sounds like party time!

Protect the cheese press!

The town of Cheshire, Massachusetts, home of a cheese press sculpture, requested a grant to buy a new fire truck for the volunteer fire department. (Why a cheese press sculpture? Why to commemorate the 1,450 pounds of cheese town elders once gave Thomas Jefferson, of course.)

Instead of what they asked for, they got a huge Homeland Security grant. But it can't be used to purchase a fire truck.

Story here.

And you thought you were in trouble before...

Kid plays in the woods where his parents have told him not to go. Falls down. Hits his head. Gets hurt. Is scared to tell his parents because he might get in trouble.

So, instead, he concocts this story.

Police launched a major investigation after the boy reported being struck in the head by a masked man who tried to get him into a white car after he was dropped off by his school bus.

The boy was treated in hospital and received stitches for the head wound.
...
However, on Tuesday, the boy changed his story. He now says he was playing in an area where he was not supposed to be when he fell and struck his head.

And the nice Nova Scotia cops give him a stern warning, but see a silver lining:

"There was a lot of resources and manpower oriented toward this investigation, but on the other side of it, it just shows you how closely knit the community of Lake Echo was, too," Cpl. Taplin said. "They rallied really quickly in order to ensure that their children were taught street safety and knew . . . to be on the lookout."

Out with the new

I've been meaning to post something more or less exactly like this on the Harper government's near-obsessive insistence on referring to itself as "Canada's New Government." You know, they have a name. They are the Government of Canada. Point final.

Think obsessed is too strong a word? Read this.

Excerpt:

FROM: VANESSA NELSON
As per the Minister's Office, effective immediately, the words “Canada's New Government” are to be used instead of “the Government of Canada” in all departmental correspondence. Please note that the initial letters of all three words are capitalized. Thank you for your cooperation.

FROM: ANDREW OKULITCH
Why do newly elected officials think everything begins with them taking office? They are merely stewards for as long as the public allows. They are the Government of Canada. Nothing more. I shall use “Geological Survey of Canada” on my departmental correspondence to avoid any connection with “New Government.” The GSC, steward to Canada's earth resources for 164 years, is an institution worthy of my loyalty, as opposed to idiotic buzzwords coined by political hacks.

FROM: IRWIN ITZKOVITCH
Given your strong though misdirected views of the role and authority of the Government as elected by the people, and your duty to reflect their decisions, I accept that you are immediately removing yourself from the Emeritus Program. I wish you every success in your future.

Mommy dearest

Strangest story of the day, from the BBC.

A woman in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has pleaded guilty to attempted homicide, assault and kidnapping for trying to cut a foetus from a neighbour's womb.

Peggy Jo Conner, 39, who gave up her right to trial by jury, was told by the judge she could face up to 80 years in prison and $100,000 (£51,000) in fines.

Authorities said Conner had tried to steal the unborn baby in an attempt to pass it off as her own child.

Imagine the kid's life if she had succeeded.

Worse than promo girl

That CBC radio promo for the Gill Deacon show. Can I stand to listen to it one more time?

Apparently the show features "intriguing people" who tell "fascinating stories."

Number 1: Intriguing and fascinating are probably the two most tired words in the copywriter's lexicon. Absolutely everything is either intriguing or fascinating. If it's not, it's edgy. Or maybe it's all three.

Number 2: What the heck is CBC radio doing promoting the hell out of a TV show? Hello? I am listening to the radio. How about promoting what else will be on the radio. I might find that very intriguing, and perhaps even fascinating.

Google "intriguing and fascinating" to find out just how much intriguing and fascinating stuff there is out there. Here is my favourite:

FASCINATING NEW MASONIC HALL OPENED BY HRH DUKE OF KENT

Beamish launched its most intriguing and fascinating attraction to date on 19th April 2006, with the opening of the “brand new” Masonic Hall – the first to permanently open to the public in Europe !

HRH The Duke of Kent (Head of the United Grand Lodge of Freemasons in England) opened the Masonic attraction along with hundreds of Freemasons in full regalia. The Freemasons processed and gathered along The Town Street at Beamish. This was the largest public gathering of Freemasons in full regalia in recent memory !

The intriguing Masonic Hall is a truly authentic recreation of an early 20th century Masonic Hall – with a ‘real' fine frontage that has come from a former Masonic Hall in Park Terrace, Sunderland, taken down and rebuilt at Beamish. A simply stunning Masonic Hall has been built behind the frontage with a breath-taking interior complete with period décor and rare Masonic furnishings, paintings and artefacts, providing a unique insight into the world of the Freemasons in 1913.

Race is a Four-Letter Word

Spend an hour in front of your TV tonight, and watch Race is a Four-Letter Word, a one-hour documentary produced by the NFB here in Halifax. It airs on CBC Newsworld's The Lens.

Director and writer Sobaz Benjamin, who I first met a few years back when we both worked as writers/story consultants on an ill-fated documentary, brings together a black man who was once obsessed with being whiter (himself), a white man who thinks of himself as black, and the incomparable Miss Canadiana.

If you miss it tonight, you can catch it again on Saturday.

The Halifax Daily News has a story on the film here.

Junk science?

In advance of the release of the latest dire climate change report from the UN, I received one of those inadvertently funny and inept media releases from a group that masquerades as caring about the environment, but wanting to inject reason and balance into the debate.

What I love about groups like this is how they seem unable to restrain themselves from saying things that make them look stupid.

The organization in question is the Natural Resources Stewardship Project, and their releases warns against taking the UN report seriously. The release arrived in advance of the press conference announcing the report, which was a bit confusing.

A good media release draws you in, tells you a story and quickly lets you understand why it is important. It does not use prose like this in the second paragraph:

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I (WG1), assigned to report on the state of climate change science, will release its ‘Summary for Policymakers’ on Friday, February 2. This is ostensibly an executive summary of their ‘Fourth Assessment Report’ WG1 full science report that will not be issued until May 2007.

Sounds good so far, don't it?

I couldn't resist visiting the group's Web site, which is full of gems, right on the home page.

First, there is the excessive use of quotation marks:

Impractical and exorbitantly expensive policies directed towards ‘global climate control’, unrealistic emission standards and so-called ‘green energy’, promoted by ideologically-driven ‘environmentalists’, are being widely accepted and vigorously promoted by mass media and politicians at all levels of government.

I'm surprised there aren't any "so-calleds" in there.

Then there's the persecution complex:

All natural resources management in Canada - forestry, fishing, mining, water management and agriculture included – have for years been targets of environmental extremists.

These guys must have been really disappointed with Harper's virage vert.

Molly Ivins

Molly Ivins died this week. I first discovered her column in the late 1980s in the pages of The Progressive, (which has a radio interview with Ivins here).

Ivins was politically astute and sharp-tongued, but she also always had a sense of fun around her. Even if she was railing about a subject like the Iraq war, she could do it with a flair like nobody else. I loved reading that she used to turn up for work at the New York Times barefoot, with her dog in tow.

There's a tribute to her from her editor here, and you can also read past columns on the site.

Wank Week

According to a story in The Guardian, Channel 4 in the UK has cancelled three documentaries on masturbation that they were going to show as part of "Wank week."

Wank week included documentaries about compulsive male masturbators, female masturbation, and a wankathon event held in London last year.

Seems Channel 4 is skittish about courting more controversy following the Big Brother racism fiasco. How these two things are related is completely beyond me.

You want ratings? Wank week!