I thought they believed in less government interference

Canada's Conservative government wants to kill any film and television productions that a committee deems to be offensive or not in the public interest.

In opposition, the Reform Party -- predecessors to the current government -- railed for years against films they saw as a waste of public funds. It was one of their recurring motifs.

Take this comment made in Parliament by luminary Myron Thompson:

The National Film Board receives over $80 million from taxpayers. I would like to outline for the House where some of those dollars are going. A film board promotion for a video says: ``Compelling, often hilarious and always rebellious, the 10 women discuss lesbian sexuality and survival in Canada during the fifties and the sixties. This video brings lesbian history out of the closet and contributes to the viable history of sexuality in Canada''. It also states: ``Due to the explicit nature of certain scenes, viewer discretion is advised''.

The film Thompson is referring to is Forbidden Love. Presumably, the kind of thing the new censorship committee would have disapproved of.

Would the world be a better place without Forbidden Love? Its many awards include a Genie -- Canada's highest film honour -- for best feature-length documentary. Fifteen years after its release, groups are still screening it. You can't say that about a lot of documentaries.

I say, give me honest libertarians any day. If you want to shrink the role of government, then just do it. Don't tell us you're against government interference, then insist on telling us what's good for us.

My volunteer fire service story on CBC Radio One's Maritime Magazine, Feb 24

A few months ago, I heard Blandford, Nova Scotia fire chief Philip Publicover on the CBC radio news. He was talking about the problems he faced in recruiting and keeping new members for his community's volunteer fire service.

I wanted to know more, so I pitched the CBC a story on the challenges facing rural fire departments.

The result is my half-hour documentary, "Where There's Smoke... Will There Be Firefighters?"-- which airs on CBC Radio One's Maritime Magazine, Sunday, February 24 at 8:30 AM. The producer is Christina Harnett.

The show focuses on Blandford, and how the challenges it faces are emblematic of challenges faced by fire services throughout the region -- and the country. I had no idea that the vast majority of the fire services in the country are volunteer, or that sometimes stations are so broke they can barely put fuel in the trucks.

I hope you can tune in. If you're outside the Maritimes, it will probably be too early for you. The piece will eventually go online, and I'll post a link.

First the Royal Philharmonic, now this

A Japanese ensemble playing Smoke on the Water, with traditional instruments.

Freeing Madame Tutli-Putli

This is clever.

The National Film Board has an Oscar nomination for the animated film Madame Tutli-Putli. Each time someone clicks this link, they unlock one of the 23,287 frames of the film. If they're all unlocked, the film streams online for free.

You're welcome

I got a good reminder today of why I gave up trying to write for daily newspapers ages ago. The Montreal Gazette was good for my confidence when I was starting out as a freelance writer, picking up a few of my stories. The pay was not great, and I wound up joining a group suing the paper for re-selling our stories online without permission (court date coming up at the end of February), but it was a good way to get a freelance career underway.

As the writer of the a kids' comic ("Daisy Dreamer" for Chickadee magazine) I was visiting a rural school last week, talking to kids about comics writing. At the end of the day I got to chatting with the principal. Turns out he is a top-level table tennis official. He worked the Barcelona Olympics and was about to leave for China to help train officials for Beijing.

Since the guy was leaving town soon, I figured I'd do a quick pitch to a local Halifax paper. Called the newsroom, where warning bell #1 should have rung: the woman who answers the phone told me the newsroom never pays for freelance submissions. But she gives me the name of another editor who does pay for them. I email him a query.

Monday, I follow up with a phone call.

Tuesday morning, I hear from the editor that he has passed the query on to editor #2. Then I hear from my source that he's been interviewed by the paper.

Nice.

Editor #2 claims he didn't know it was a freelance pitch, so he assigned the story to a staffer. Says there was some miscommunication. I believe him, because, you know, I tend to believe people. Even if he had known it was a freelance pitch, mind you, his section never buys freelance stories anyway.

I used to hear stories like this from other freelance writers, and I'd think "Why are you pitching these jerkwater papers that are going to pay you 50 bucks for your story?"

I should have asked myself the same question.

Boot to the Head

The classic Frantics skit Boot to the Head, featuring the art of Tae Kwon Leap, as acted out by a bunch of World of Warcraft avatars. Works surprisingly well.

Being in the story

When you're a freelance writer, you don't tend to see your own name in print (unless it's a byline). So I was a bit taken aback to come across this story on Reader's Digest education hero Joe Bishara, in The Yarmouth County Vanguard.

Because I wrote the RD profile of Bishara, I'm there in the lead and at various other spots in the story.

The writer from Readers Digest looked with disbelief at the 60-strong student honour guard in their bright red jackets with Canadian flags fluttering over-head last September. He turned to teacher Joe Bishara.

“This is for one veteran?” asked Philip Moscovitch.

“I told him “Yup - one or a hundred- it doesn’t matter around here,” said Bishara, who spearheaded the Maple Grove Memorial Club close to two decades ago.

The writer of the story never checked with me on what I thought, relying instead on what Bishara says I said. That, and a few factual errors in the piece drove home (once again) the lesson of how important it is to check your sources and make sure your facts are straight.

Although there are mistakes, I have to confess to feeling slightly tickled at seeing myself in the story -- even if I think it's a bit weird.

Bilcon seeks damages

A New Jersey-based company called Bilcon had plans to build a quarry on Digby Neck. This is a gorgeous, environmentally sensitive spot: a narrow arm of basalt sticking out into an ocean that is home to sensitive whale populations and a healthy lobster fishery.

The quarry would have seen tons of basalt ripped out of the ground and sent to the US for use in building roads. All-in-all, a Class A project when it comes to environmental benefits.

After much lobbying, those opposed to the quarry were able to convince the powers that be that the project merited a full panel review -- the most in-depth level of environmental assessment. The review ruled that the quarry should not proceed.

Now Bilcon is seeking $188 million in compensation for this "regulatory failure."

As Jim Meek writes in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

Mr. Appleton, a veteran international trade litigator who has written books on NAFTA, said Monday that the "wheels fell off" this regulatory process.

The Fournier panel "included novel, non-scientific criteria" in its decision, Mr. Appleton said.

"They used this concept of community core values, which they had no authority to invoke. Bilcon was never informed of these community core value criteria so it could address them."

Imagine! Looking at community values! Ludicrous.

I just hope my kids don't hear about this litigation. What about the time last summer they asked me for ice cream? And I said we might get some? But using the non-scientific criteria that it was getting too close to dinner time, I wound up saying no. Their expectations were shattered. I should have compensated them with brownies -- or maybe an increase in allowance -- instead.

Robert Fisk's Saddam biography

Great story by Robert Fisk, in which he discovers a biography of Saddam Hussein -- purportedly written by him -- is selling well in Egypt:

Needless to say, I noticed one or two problems with this book. It took a very lenient view of the brutality of Saddam, it didn't seem to care much about the gassed civilians of Halabja – and it was full of the kind of purple passages which I loathe. "After the American rejection of the Iraqi weapons report to the UN," 'Robert Fisk' wrote, "the beating of war drums turned into a cacophony..."

Dare I suggest to readers that this kind of cliche doesn't sound like Robert Fisk? The only war drums I could hear were those of my own astonishment. For I never wrote this book.

I like the tone Fisk takes. Rather than get high-and-mighty, he casts himself as Detective Fisk, enlists the help of an Egyptian friend and a cab driver who wants to make sure his name appears in full in the newspaper, and goes off in search of the writer.