Re-branding

It's time...I'm trying to lose the News Addict alias and become Laura Payton again online. The blog has moved to a new home, and I hope everyone will follow.

Hottawa

Weather in Ottawa is crazy. Two hours ago it was 40 degrees with the humidity.

My basil and my cat are sweltering.





















All the poor cat does is lie in front of open windows and try to position herself near one of our fans. The fur coat isn't really conducive to staying cool when it's this hot.

The power of video

After a brief weekend spent relaxing and ignoring the rest of the world, I'm catching up on news. Particularly in Iran.

A lot of people are talking about Neda. According to the person who posted the video on Youtube, this woman was shot by a paramilitary force.

It's not a violent video, but you're watching a woman bleed to death. Another woman screams, a man cries her name repeatedly. It's powerful.

Here it is if you want to see it. Youtube makes you sign in to swear you're not a minor, but Mashable provides it to everyone.

More on Iran

Twitter re-schedules maintenance around Iran

The primary user I'm following says the usual proxy sites and ISPs are down. There are rumours of Hizbollah in Iran and protesters taken to Evin - a notoriously nasty prison in Tehran. Also rumours the government is tracking Twitter users and blocking access to the primary discussion feed on twitter (#iranelection). Discussion is moving to www.twitter.com/#iran9. And here's a New York Times article on how protesters are using social media to organize and get news in and out.

Social media for social change

I'm captivated by what's happening in Iran. Some people are calling it a revolution.

Photos here They make me wish I were a photographer - words can't always do justice to a story. It's just not possible to use words as effectively as pictures to show a woman's fear as a group of men surrounds her and begins beating her and her companion, or the sight of police in riot gear chasing protesters, batons drawn and swinging.

Dozens of updates every 10 seconds here

In particular, I'm intrigued at protesters' use of Twitter to pass information and keep all of us on top of what they're seeing. Of course it's all relatively anonymous, so it could be somebody faking it. But they'd be devoting a lot of time to a fake feed. Also incredible is how non-Iranians are drawn to help: warning readers that the government is monitoring the Twitter feed, passing on proxies so Iranians can continue to Tweet, and ganging up to ask Twitter to delay planned maintenance so they can keep getting information out.

National Newspaper Awards

GAAAHHH. Blogging hasn't just been light lately, it's been non-existant. I've been in a non-writing mode, focusing on business planning for the past couple of weeks. It's something I should have done when I started to freelance but strategic planning and being a journalist seem like things that shouldn't go together.

But this weekend pulled me back into the news world. My wonderful and talented husband won a National Newspaper Award for politics reporting (he's not in the photo - that's Graeme Smith from the Globe, who won two well-deserved awards. But they have matching post-Afghanistan beards).

Besides the amazing high from Steve winning an award, it was fabulous to see all the excellent journalism done around the country. Simply reading the list of nominations doesn't do justice to the investigations and reporting that newspapers still manage to squeeze out, despite cutbacks. It's been a bad year for the business, but this was a nice reminder that some newsrooms are still committed to shining light into darkness.

Steyn on Iggy

Mark Steyn reviews Michael Ignatieff's True Patriot Love. This isn't the meat of his argument, just the pithiest part:

"It’s tempting to respond, “Oh, bugger off, you ridiculous poseur,” and pass on to something more rewarding, like Paris Hilton’s Twitter feed."

Most of the time Steyn makes me want to throw my magazine across the room. This time he holds my attention for the entire column.

"As to the idea that it’s “a story about us,” no, it’s a story about him: the vandalism he does to the memory of Kaydance and Santana Pauchay, the tasteless opportunism of cashing in on their fate by conscripting a grimly particular episode to the cheap generalities of societal guilt, the horrible glimpse inside the husk of a man once genuinely engaged by Iraq and Bosnia and reduced by ambition to peddling what he knows to be bilge."

The review is called Iggy's morally contemptible words.

Getting it right

As someone who relies on public transit in Ottawa, I've been watching the downtown tunnel discussion closely.

This disturbed me:

"Rogers said the problem with veering northward at Kent Street [from Albert Street to Queen Street - ed.] is that it will reduce the rail line's future potential ridership because there will be new development on streets like Slater and Laurier Avenue, rather than farther north on Queen and Sparks. Rogers said that by staying farther south, the city would be able to include buildings such as the Bell Canada tower within reasonable walking distance of the subway."

The distance between Albert Street and Queen Street? Two blocks. Not wide city blocks. Just normal-sized streets. That take all of 30 seconds each to walk down. Having to walk from Laurier Avenue to Queen Street might dissuade someone from taking light rail if they're only going a few blocks to begin with. But no rational person would choose to drive into downtown, find and pay for parking and deal with all of the related problems just because it means they have to walk two minutes less to get to their office tower. Unless they're looking for a reason to keep using their car, but at that point it's not the two block walk that's going to change their mind.

Let's have a rational discussion on light rail. There are plenty of wrinkles to iron out. This isn't something that should slow down the debate.

Ottawa weekend

This is an exciting weekend in Ottawa. There's tons and tons to do. It's like spring has hit and everyone wants to take advantage. Some of the things I'm considering doing:

1. You Say Party! We Say Die! at Babylon on Saturday night (part of BC Scene through the NAC)
2. Outdoor art in Chinatown on Saturday afternoon
3. Vintage shoe sale at Victoire Saturday 2-9pm
4. Tulip Festival
5. Jane's Walk Ottawa

We also have two birthday outings with friends to work into the schedule.

I have to promote the Apartment613 blog here. Most of the fun stuff around town that I've been finding out about comes from them. They're super tuned into the cool kid scene and they have a fab blog to let us all know what's happening.

Fame whores

OH MY GOD FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST PLEASE GO AWAY AND NEVER EVER COME BACK AGAIN EVER.

Micro

So this week should have been a much better week for blogging, but I haven't been doing it. Ideas flit into my head briefly, usually when I'm working or otherwise unable to update, and then I get home and don't blog. I have been using twitter a lot lately, so maybe I'm wasting all my expressiveness through micro-blogging.

As you've probably guessed, I love the internet. I love social media, although I feel pressure to keep up with all the new toys. Lately I've been meaning to check out 12seconds, which lets you make 12 second videos, and AudioBoo, which is an audio blog tool built specifically for iPhones. For anyone interested in social media, you should be following David Akin (@davidakin) and Ian Capstick (@iancapstick) on Twitter. Besides being prolific tweeters they are also the very first early adopters on the Hill for new tech stuff.

Speaking of new media...earlier this week I had to rush off to a story with about an hour's notice. It was an interview with a veteran from the Battle of the Atlantic. Naturally, I turned to Wikipedia (double-sourced at the Veterans' Affairs website). Let me lay this out for you. My history marks in high school were always in the high 80s and low 90s. I was AWESOME at history. And I couldn't even tell you if the Battle of the Atlantic was in the First or Second World War (it was WWII).

As I often do with the internet, I wondered what people - specifically reporters - used to do without it. Would I phone someone in the newsroom's library to get me some articles on it? What if I were a freelancer and didn't have library access? Reporters have beats, but it's unlikely someone on the defence/military beat would be dispatched to cover an advance story on a commemorative event.

Either we are lucky that technology arrived in time for us to deal with newspaper staff cuts, allowing us to do quick research rather than taking the time to dig through books, or they were able to make the cuts because we had technology to help us keep up with the information we're expected to manage. Maybe I should hate the internet for that.

I admit it

I finally have to accept that I'm a member of the youtube generation. Usually I ignore silly labels like that, mostly because I was born in 1980, which is the cut-off for Gen X to Gen Y/Me/Echo Boom/spoiled brats with helicopter parents. So I never fit either one really well. But after spending 15 minutes with my husband learning via youtube how to tie a Windsor knot, I think I need to own it.

In case anyone is wondering, apparently all the cool kids wear Windsor knots.

The only good part about being sick...

...is being able to watch dvds and tv. In this case, I have been catching up on the episodes of Being Erica that I missed when we were in Egypt. I think this one is one of my favorites yet.

I have some thoughts on tv-via-the-internet, sparked by a conversation with some former colleagues a couple of weeks ago. But they're not fully formed and my head hurts too much to put them in order right now.

Please try this show. I don't want it to end up like that other awesome CBC show with Michael Riley, This is Wonderland, cancelled after three amazing seasons because the network moved it around too many timeslots for it to develop an audience.

The only sure thing is the continuing decline of the industry

Dan Gardner has it right: Hug a reporter and buy a newspaper. We could use the support.

Blogging is light as I fall into a funk. On top of me being sick all week, we were forced (through many tears) to return our new cat to the SPCA because he had a major health problem that could infect our other cat. He had already become a cuddly, loving part of the family and we're still having a hard time dealing with it. The dark cloud over my head isn't conducive to blogging and I'm having a hard time shaking it. More to come when I am not such a Debbie Downer.

Introducing Le chat 2

So we got a new cat. We had been thinking about it for a long time, since Le chat sometimes seems lonely when we're both out working (she greets us at the door and follows us around the apartment, meowing. We think she is telling us about her day). Then I wrote a story about a local SPCA that is full to the brim with animals, and since our one-bedroom apartment won't support a big dog, we looked for a cat.

Le chat 2 is somewhere around 8 years old, although our vet thinks he may be younger. He spent the majority, if not all, of his life outside, and needed to be neutered when he got to the shelter. He was a little rough, but settled into indoor life beautifully. He's incredibly gentle with us and with our other cat, and does this thing that S describes as a "cuddle-seeking missile" when he puts his head down and heads right for the nearest set of legs so he can get your attention. He sleeps on our bed, right up at our shoulders between S and I.

We thought he was a breed called a Scottish Fold, which would explain the cute folded-over ears, but our vet said his ears look like he's had a lot of ear infections and ear mites over his life, so with no medical treatment it could be that his ears are like that because he was just so sick. It could also be that he had frostbite that made his ears fold over. Either way, it was undoubtedly painful, and it's incredibly easy for him to get infected ears.

We are fighting an infection right now. Our gentle little guy has to endure having q-tips jammed into his ears twice a day to clean them, followed by a round of ear drops, and then by an antibiotic pill shoved down his throat. The vet spoke softly to him as she cleaned them at his appointment, telling him that it would be okay and that she knew he didn't deserve to be so sick.

He's not happy with any of this, but we're hoping that he'll be better after a couple of weeks. Mostly we're relieved that we could give him a home and hopefully a better life than whatever he faced when he lived outside. All animals deserve that.

Fifteen years

I wrote earlier this week about going to Rwanda, thanks to the passion of a Carleton professor who works to put Canadian and Rwandan journalists in touch so we can teach each other. That prof wrote a piece for the Star on the 15th anniversary of the genocide this past week. You should read it.

Self-promotion

Sometimes I still get a real buzz off seeing where my stories end up.

Today, one was on the front page, and the other picked up on macleans.ca (top story on Friday).

Maclean's is my favourite magazine. I'm having a fangirl moment.

UBC gets international reporting course

I can see Carleton turning green with envy even kilometres away from campus.

Travel money for their international reporting course?

When I went to Rwanda in 2006 as part of the Rwanda Initiative, Carleton had just started an ad campaign that featured bus and tv ads with students talking about "My Carleton". Despite the best efforts of an extremely dedicated prof, most of us couldn't get any kind of funding for our trip - the only thing paid was accommodation, and that was covered by the newspaper we were writing for. Anyway, talked one hot African day about writing our own ad. Something along the lines of:

"I paid for my summer internship. I covered my flight and expenses. I gave up paid work. That's My Carleton."

The money I spent was well worth it, and I would never take back that experience. It just means that kids who can afford that type of trip will go; kids who can't don't get to participate.

It's great that UBC students won't face the same problem.

Last to fall

The Canadian Press had been, by my unofficial count, the only company in Canada to avoid having to (publicly) consider lay-offs or cuts.

Not anymore.

My husband works there. I always wish for plentiful jobs and big budgets for media companies, but even more so for CP.

(via j-source.ca)

Bringing down the House

Last night's episode of House caught me totally unprepared. I had heard one of the main characters would get killed off, but I sort of put it out of my head, assuming it would happen in the last episode of the season, or that there would be some kind of hint.

The good (?) news is that Kal Penn is going to work for the Obama administration. For real.

Anyway, he and the executive producers talked to a blogger about last night's episode. But I'm not sure if this explanation makes sense to me.

SHORE: ...we wanted it to be a character who didn't make sense -- or didn't superficially make sense. Obviously, there are reasons, but the notion that the reasons are too complicated for even House to figure out is what was drawing us to it. I like the fact that Kutner is almost the least likely guy to do this. And it gets down to the issue of, "Do we know anybody? You work with somebody for two years, but do you really know them?"

It sounds like they chose the plot twist and then decided to write the show around the twist, rather than letting a storyline come to its natural climax. I know nothing about tv writing, but that just seems so...gimmicky. And so unlike House.

Random

Two things from daytime tv that made me wonder.

1. The View shows a picture of Rihanna during a segment on teen fashion (what? I like the background noise while I work...it's weird not being in a newsroom). Chris Brown is in the photo. They do not crop him out. Fashion expert guest says "And with Chris Brown! He's such a cutie." It seems to have been a re-run (they showed a "current" cover of Seventeen that ran in March), but somebody needed to think this through a little better. The man's trial starts tomorrow. TOMORROW. BAD timing.

2. E-Talk (please refer to the above point about background noise) says Gabrielle Miller from Corner Gas adopted a child from "southern Africa". Is this a generic reference to a country in the southern part of the continent? Do they think we wouldn't recognize the name of the country itself? Did they actually mean South Africa? Why is this so hard? (no link, it's currently leading to a segment of a tv movie instead of the segment of E-Talk I want)

3. Wow, I totally forgot about this guy. I actually had to imdb him to figure out that he spent five seasons on CSI Miami. Hope he's learned to take care of his gun for 24.

Defamer takes on the Wall Street Journal

When I start to feel guilty about reading celebrity blogs, I always defend them (to myself or to others) by describing how good the writing is. TMZ.com, Go Fug Yourself and Defamer, among others, are not really bringing any value to the internet, other than giving me a good laugh, and taking the piss out of people who are treated with often undue respect in traditional celeb media like E-Talk or Entertainment Tonight (seriously, anyone who makes a deal with Anna Nicole Smith's baby daddy and then does specials on said baby's first birthday party sickens me).

But, as a writer, one thing I appreciate is the strength of their writing teams. Active voice phrasing, sentences that punch and aren't flabby or over-written, proper grammar, clever turns of phrase...on top of being fun, they're also another venue for pros to get some much-needed work.

All that to say that this weekend Defamer.com brutalizes the respectable WSJ for a story that is inaccurate enough to sound torqued.

"The example today was the Wall Street Journal's report, "Hollywood Squeezes Stars' Pay in Slump," which is being cited everywhere to suggest that there's no money left in the movies . This is wrong. If your movie just opened huge last weekend, a studio will still back up a Brinks truck to your Hollywood Hills abode. Lauren A.E. Schuker starts out with a way-past-his-prime Eddie Murphy. But even there, she makes a muddled mess of things..."

Defamer goes onto give a detailed explanation of how she got it wrong, and how stars get paid.

It just shows that even though blogs won't replace traditional media, there is room out there for the niche websites that offer critiques and back them up with expertise.

Free speech, free PR

Not really knowing anything about George Galloway, I leapt to his defence in the face of Canada denying him entry to our country.

Dan Gardner has repeated pointed out why Galloway is undeserving of all the attention he's gotten (or perhaps more deserving, depending on how much credit you give him for brewing up this storm).

Lots of commentators claimed anyone in favour of Galloway coming to Canada is really a lefty who would never support right-wing speakers in the same way (Gardner didn't lump everyone into that category, but he did accuse unnamed left-wingers of that). So just to be clear, I'm for free speech for everyone, including the oft-cited Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn (I told Levant that when I briefly met him last year).

I still stand by anyone's right to speak publicly in Canada. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows Galloway is a hypocritical blowhard too.

The reality of freelancing

When people outside of journalism hear what I do, they often look at me quizzically and say, "So you don't know if you're working tomorrow?" I think unless you work in the industry (and sometimes even if you do), it's hard to grasp why someone would willingly do that to themselves.

I've been fortunate enough to have regular work lately. The buy-outs in the industry have certainly helped the market for freelancers, although budget cuts have hurt. But part of being able to work is not being picky. I just don't say no to any assignments, and on the days when I don't have an assignment, I look for my own stories to pitch on the slow days. Lots of people do it better than me and market versions of a story to multiple outlets, work for industry publications that pay better, or in-flight magazines and international publications that pay even better. That's just how freelancing works.

And yet. This is the downside.

In 1979, the average annual income for a freelance writer in Canada was around $25,000. In 1996 the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC) conducted a new survey on rates. They found the average annual income was about $26,000. In 2006 PWAC released its latest survey results. It shows a full 61% of freelancers making under $25,000, with nearly 40% making less than $10,000. The average income had dropped to $24,000.

But these numbers only show half the picture. Between 1979 and 2006 inflation grew the cost of living by about 165%. What cost $1 in 1979 cost about $2.65 in 2006. It now takes about 65% more money just to be at the same economic level, compared to 1979. Yet freelancers are still receiving the same $1 they did thirty years ago.

The discussion I linked to is about magazine freelancing rates (and copyrights, another issue for freelancers). I'm curious about newspaper rates from back then. Something tells me that the day rate may have changed but the per word rate will be around the same.

Newspapers vs. the interweb

This is a couple of weeks old, but now that I have no commute I am way behind on my podcasts. It's a great discussion though, and worth listening to. Also worth visiting the show website if you went to Carleton so you can see this photo of Chris Dornan.

Spring into action

It's finally here. Spring has hit the capital. I'm so glad to see the sun back in the sky.

I was also excited about seeing a glossy colour magazine fall out of my Citizen today. They're the people I do the bulk of my freelance work for, but I was really disappointed as a reader to see them cut the Style section years ago and then the weekend section that had housed what remained of it. Lately, most of the style pieces they run come from a newswire, and either have no photos or black and white photos. It's hard to show Spring 09's bright and bold colours in black and white. But today! A Style magazine! With fab photos from David Kawai and Ashely Fraser, two great young shooters who I love working with. Recipes from the chef at Play, vintage fashion in Ottawa and some home decor tips (that sounds pretentious..., sorry). Ottawa seems to be on the move lately, with enough hipsters to sustain a little fashion cove on Dalhousie Street and some really fantastic chefs. It's nice to see a lot of that profiled in the magazine.

And the colour. Oh, the colour. Love it. See what a deal your local newspaper is? For $25 a month, all this is delivered to your door, every day. Let's not let that die.

Three months rent or...

I don't care if these are the brainchild of Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton. They're fug.

Via macleans.ca

While we're on the subject of fashion, I will take this opportunity to announce the demise of my nose ring. I took it out a couple of nights ago after being fed up with a particularly extended period of the corkscrew part not staying in place. That always means toying with it every five minutes so it didn't protrude from my nostril.

I thought I would miss it a lot, and took a good week to consider whether I really wanted to remove it. I talked to S. about varying wild shades I could dye my hair (or parts thereof) to make up for the lost sassy factor. But I actually haven't missed my little stud at all. In fact, every time I step outside and my nose starts to run, I am thrilled not to have to deal with it.

This doesn't seem nearly as important as I write it. It was just a big deal to me. Another step on the way to being a grown-up, along with attending baby showers and funerals.

Well, the Charter *is* for Canadians...

...so I guess the freedoms guaranteed in it - like expression - aren't guaranteed for visiting UK citizens.

H/t Kady O'Malley

Update: Just realized...do I need to explain my problem with this? It's all well and good for anyone to disagree with Galloway, including a government or government spokesperson. But to deny somebody entry to Canada just because of his point of view - not because he's dangerous, at least not in any way other than to the government's position on Afghanistan - is sliding toward the wrong side of the democracy/dictatorship split. Don't we have soldiers, aid workers and government mentors in Afghanistan to give women the right to have a voice there? Aren't we in that country to get rid of a horrific group of people that, when they were in power, BEAT people for having opinions or acting in ways that countered their very specific, strict set of beliefs?

It's incredibly hypocrisy to deny a visiting speaker entry to Canada simply because he is opposed to the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

Feds consider bailing out private networks

I haven't given this any thought yet, but my first reaction is to wonder how a government could justify helping out private networks but not the public network. I imagine they would say it's because they already give money to the CBC. I imagine CBC defenders would argue the network is underfunded compared to every other public network in the world, so it wouldn't hurt the feds to throw them a few dozen million dollars.

Scratch all that. My first reaction is WAHHHHOOOOOO to anything that could help the industry. The above is my second reaction.

CBC watch

Summary: CBC won't go to radio ads; Heritage Minister James Moore says he didn't tell the Sun the CBC would be cutting 600-1200 jobs.

The CBC will announce cuts to staff at the end of the month.

I can't hear you with my hands over my ears like this

I've been ignoring this report on people not caring about losing their local newspapers. And this report by possibly the most respected journalism organization in North America, if not the world, that tells us we should all re-write our resumes and start applying for PR jobs.

(This unscientific poll says more than half of people think newspapers inform them and hold government accountable, which makes me feel a little better. Even if it is taken from a sample of Globe online readers.)

So I've just decided not to read any of them. That's a useful strategy, right?

Okay, I just peeked at the Pew report press release (the report is 180,000 pages...maybe I'll read that on the weekend) and it says the same thing all the other reports are: readership is UP...but online. And since online content is free, nobody can afford to pay their reporters. There seems to be a gathering momentum behind asking readers to pay for online content. Papers have tried this before and abandoned it because there was always somebody else offering free content. But maybe this recession will force all the companies to try it again at the same time.

Being of a generation that believes I should get everything online for free, this pains me. But not eating pains me more, and seeing my friends losing their jobs is still worse. Paying a couple of cents per article is something I can do, and I hope other people will consider it too.

Kicking ass in Canadian conservative politics

Pierre Poilievre shows there's a reason why he's successful: he gets it.

Mega h/t to Aaron Wherry for transcribing and writing this. It's a side of Poilievre you don't often see on the Hill. If you're a political junkie and you don't already read Wherry's Beyond the Commons, you are hugely missing out.

“The problem likely is that a lot of our young political activists were very good in university,” he said. “And if they could get an A on their university paper it means that they were destined to be political communicators. Why is this? Not because critical thought and learning is bad, but because in university we are taught to take five pages of content and stretch it into 20 pages of writing. When, in fact, the real skill is to do exactly the opposite, to compress that five pages into one. I think it was Rousseau who said, in a ten-page letter to a friend of his, ‘I would’ve written you this letter in one page, but I didn’t have time.’”

[SNIP]

“The voter does not have any responsibility to spend their time deciphering your Latin. They have a busy life. They are raising families. They are paying taxes. They are working their jobs. It is not their responsibility to decipher excessively verbose language. It is their job to read it and get it quick. It’s your job to help them do that.”

[SNIP]

"Often times, we in the political class, we develop our own language and we start to speak that language. We use acronyms that nobody understands, we use long, pointless sentences, we become vague. What you learn when you knock on doors is how to communicate with people who have busy lives and who don’t have time to decipher your Latin. And the great thing about knocking on doors is you have an instant and free focus group. You can tell by whether or not the voter’s eyes are glazing over if you are actually communicating. You can tell whether or not your language is persuasive to them, or just to you … You can test yourself over and over and over again.”

No sober second thought in this place

Some excerpts from Question Period yesterday. It was one of the worst I've ever heard. Legit questions and insulting answers that completely skirt the issues.

Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ):

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice told us that he was giving thought to the approach government lawyers should take in the case against Groupe Polygone, a key player in the sponsorship scandal. But while the minister is thinking, his lawyers are, through their silence, endorsing the extraordinary procedure the Groupe Polygone lawyers used to have journalist Daniel Leblanc subpoenaed to reveal his source.

My question is simple: does the minister approve of this manoeuvre?

[English]

Hon. Rob Nicholson (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, we have no intention of conducting litigation here on the floor of the House of Commons. If that member would go back to his constituents, he would find that they have some serious concerns about violent crime in this country. He would be better off spending his time worrying about the safety of his constituents here and leave the litigation to the lawyers.

[Translation]

Mr. Serge Ménard (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, BQ):

Mr. Speaker, freedom of the press is recognized in the Charter. In the civilized countries that we like to compare ourselves to, freedom of the press includes protecting a journalist's confidential sources.

How can the Attorney General, the guardian of the Charter—and does the Minister of Justice want to live up to this title?—how can the Attorney General allow his lawyers to remain silent and indifferent in the face of an extraordinary procedure that would force Daniel Leblanc to reveal enough information that his source could be identified?

[English]

Hon. Rob Nicholson (Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, the comments by the hon. member are ridiculous. Again, we will not be conducting litigation here on the floor of the House of Commons. However, again I invite this member, and this would be something new for his political party, to start worrying about victims and law-abiding Canadians and get behind the agenda that this Conservative government has presented to Parliament.

----

Ms. Olivia Chow (Trinity—Spadina, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, vulnerable migrants are being ripped off because the immigration system is dysfunctional.

In a pathetic attempt to address the problem, the Minister Immigration had to launch a PR campaign to combat fraud, but it does not address the real problem of unregulated immigration consultants. The minister is ignoring crimes committed by fake consultants who take advantage of innocent people wanting to make Canada their new home.

When will the government implement the immigration committee's comprehensive recommendations to control immigration consultants?

Hon. Jason Kenney (Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, while I appreciate the member's concern about this issue, it is an issue that, of course, the NDP will never be able to do anything about because it is a party of permanent opposition.

Having said that, I have taken into serious consideration the committee's recommendations.

When I was in India recently, I raised this matter of people being exploited by unscrupulous consultants and document vendors in parts of India and I got a commitment from the first minister of Punjab to dedicate a specific police task force to crack down on this kind of exploitation.

We intend to take further action here in Canada to improve the regulation of immigration consultants to protect newcomers to this country.

Vegan cat

I always sort of assumed cats preferred to eat meat. My cat certainly always showed a taste for spinach and cheese, but since S. and I started eating more vegetarian food, Le Chat has been rousing herself from sleep and nosing her way around some of our non-meat food.

Last night she stuck her nose into my curried lentil and sweet potato stew.



And today she tried to get at my homemade hummus. Although I think it was more the pita bread that she wanted. She has always loved bread.

Sad news for the Hill

Updated below with more links

This news hit Ottawa reporters and photographers hard today. Tom Hanson, a 41-year-old Canadian Press photographer, died of a heart attack last night.

David Akin sums it up well. You should click through to the google image page to see his work. You may not have heard of him, but I guarantee you've seen his photos (I particularly liked the ones he took when Barack Obama visited Ottawa recently). Tom was a prolific photographer, and an incredibly talented one. On top of that, he had a photographer's knack for not backing down from a subject, but was still well-enough liked that even the prime minister joked with him (click through to the Star article for that story).

I knew Tom only to chat with him at events, but it's incredibly sad for his colleagues and family. It's also a huge loss to photojournalism. I hope someone puts together a collection of his photos so we can enjoy them in some medium other than the internet.

Update: CP has a gallery up that shows Tom's versatility and talent, and they wrote an obituary.
CBC has an article with a photo of Tom, as well as a link to a photo gallery.

Industry trouble watch

This isn't good for the Canadian Press.

Quebecor is pulling out. No more CP content in any of the Sun chain of newspapers.

Work for free! Only experienced candidates please

It's been a long day. I don't even know what to say about this, except that I see things like this frequently through our old j-school jobs list-serv (a list-serv of sorts...e-mails sent regularly by a very dedicated and lovely admin assistant). Lots of responsibility...no pay. People seem to think students want to work for free.

I took out the guilty party's identifying details.

Part-time Marketing/Communications Director

[An organization] is seeking a dynamic, results-oriented marketing professional
responsible for planning, development and implementation of [the organization's] marketing strategies, and communications activities. In your role as
marketing and communications director, you will be responsible for
increasing public awareness of [the organization's] services, developing the
organization's reputation through media exposure, helping identify and
liaise with clients and sponsors and broadening [the organization's] client base.

Contract Position: 1 to 2 years (2 days per week until June/09)

Salary: to be discussed

[snip]

Duties:

§ Assures articulation of [the organization's] mandate and vision.

§ Co-ordinates all media interest and acts as [the organization's] representative.

§ Provides counsel to management team on marketing and communication.

[blah blah...snip]

Qualifications:

§ Minimum of 5 years' experience in marketing and communications with
demonstrated success preferably in the not-for-profit sector

§ Proven skills, knowledge and experience in the design and execution of
marketing, communications and public relations activities.

§ Strong creative, strategic, analytical, organizational and sales
skills.

§ Successful experience making presentations and negotiating effective
outcomes.

[Etc.]

Seriously. Two days a week of work, and they want five years experience? They might luck out an get someone with that much experience who is coming off a parental leave, or who for whatever other reasons is choosing to work two days a week. They may even have good enough timing to get someone who would normally want full-time work but due to the recession can only get part-time offers. It's understandable that a charity can't afford to pay well or can only afford to pay for two days a week, but let's be realistic about the level of candidate you're going to get. And they're highly unlikely to get someone with that much experience when they're advertising at a university.

Government efficiency

Excerpt from conversation with nameless government PR person today:

Nameless PR person: What's your deadline?
Me: 4pm
NPRP: (laughing) Good luck.
Me: I put in the request at 9am.
NPRP: I just got it now [10:54am]. And you weren't home when I called... [voice trailing off, perhaps because he realized he was calling my cell, the number for which is on my voice mail at home, and which I left with the assistant who took my message.]

The previous government that was apparently so opaque and unaccountable didn't seem to have trouble returning calls within one business day. One wonders why it's so hard for the current one to do the same.

What do you get when you make-over a Walrus?

J-source has the answer, via a Globe and Mail article.

Changes at the Canadian general interest magazine include a redesign, some staffing cuts, and making sure the cover art reflects the editorial content. This last bit threw me a little...we used to subscribe to the magazine and I never questioned the weird cover art. But of course it should match what's inside the magazine: how do you attract someone to buy your mag if you can't visually hook them with the content? I remember one issue with a really striking rainbow swirl on the cover. When I looked at the headlines on the cover page they were completely boring. The cover had nothing to do with the content.

J-source also points out that the new editor wants content driven by the editors themselves, not pitches from freelancers; that should help the magazine's content hang together better. You never knew with the old Walrus what you'd get when you opened the magazine, even based on the text on the cover page. It was unpredictable, I don't think in a good way.

We let our subscription lapse because we had subscribed after a particularly good issue but been entirely underwhelmed with the subsequent 10 issues. It was incredibly hit and miss. In a way I wanted to keep subscribing just to be able to support what seems like a good idea. I support well-paid journalism; I support Canadian magazines; I support an outlet for good writing. But most of it just wasn't interesting to me, and much of it was far too long. Maybe it's just not my style of magazine. I will check in over the next few issues though, just in case there's a reason to pick up the subscription again.

More in the industry death watch

A-News is cutting 118 jobs, and most news programming. That's 28 per cent of its workforce.

A-News Ottawa is expected to cut all of its newscasts, but will keep a morning show. I joked to someone that with those kinds of cuts the only reason to keep the station is to watch Ellen and Next Top Model; she replied it's a good place for CTV to air its primetime shows, which are getting good ratings there.

Just so we're clear, there's no longer any room for news at A. It's not a channel I watched for news, but they did provide local coverage. Any loss to community coverage is bad news.

Why we need newspapers

A former crime reporter finds his old paper lacking.

(via macleans.ca)

There's been lots going on with media companies the past week. Lots of bad.

CanWest watch (also at Maclean's.ca)

CTV is projecting a $100 million loss, and selling two southwestern Ontario stations

CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning did a series on the Ottawa Citizen, available one piece each morning here

But CBC is in trouble too, and wants some government cash to help.

Some people wonder whether blogs will replace newspapers. But David Simon, who wrote the Baltimore piece, disagrees.

"Well, sorry, but I didn't trip over any blogger trying to find out McKissick's [a police officer who shot an unarmed man] identity and performance history. Nor were any citizen journalists at the City Council hearing in January when police officials inflated the nature and severity of the threats against officers. And there wasn't anyone working sources in the police department to counterbalance all of the spin or omission."

Blogs are great for keeping in touch with friends, having a creative outlet and sometimes (carefully) venting frustration. I've even seen great debates in blog comments. But a blogger with a day job simply will never have the time to do what crime reporters are supposed to do. The catch being that newspapers need to make sure crime reporters have the time too.

Something to bring home

Possibly the thing I love most about travelling is the food. You can't beat the fresh fruit you get in Africa, and local meals are a really nice change from whatever I'm used to cooking in Canada. But yesterday I discovered something that really made my food week.

A french-fry pita.

That's right - take a pita, add some tahini, some tomato and cucumber with coriander, and throw in a handful of crispy, golden, nicely-salted french fries. This is an incredible idea. I think we should start a franchise in Canada. Of course in Egypt it costs only about 35 cents Canadian. Charging more in Canada may be a bit of a drawback to sales. But honestly. How can you beat a sandwich made of french fries?

"I think I'm going to cry from food happiness," I said to S.

"I think I'm going to cry too, but for other reasons," he replied.

I don't care. It was delicious. I had another one today. And while I promised S. I wouldn't have another one at dinner, I don't know if that's a promise I'll be able to keep. It will be our last meal here, after all. What could be more Egyptian than felafel and a french fry sandwich?

Meth for newsies

Just as daily tracking polls are a news junkie's crack during an election, I have found my methamphetamine: Twitter Topics.

Refresh! Hit refresh! Two new posts! REFRESH!

I will be stepping away from the internet cafe shortly, but wondering all day how things are going in O-town.

Americans on the Obama visit

The other night we hung out with our Cairo friend and her ex-pat circle, all of them American. They were confused about the Obama visit - why Canada first? What's the big deal?

The three Canadians exploded into a chorus of "this is tradition!" "we're 20% of your trade!" and "you're 80% of our trade!". The well-travelled, well-educated, and lovely Americans mostly had no idea. "What do we buy from you?" one of them asked.

Oil. Natural resources. Wood. Potash. The Big Three Carmakers ship vehicles back and forth between Detroit and Windsor so much it's hard to tell whether they're US- or Canadian-made. They were so gracious about listening to us, I told them this is what Americans get for hanging out with Canadians - the bilateral trade lecture.

Bets on how many mentions the visit will get on CNN? I'm thinking under 10.

Obamawa

I *really* wish I were back in Ottawa right now. Just did a quick check on Twitter and of course everyone I'm following is full of newsy detail and downright excitement over the Obama visit. I don't care if the only thing I would have seen is his head as he exits the Beast to go into the foyer. It would have been great.

Alas. Twitter tells me there is an Obama string on the site called Obamawa. I don't quite understand the ins and outs of twitter (yet! I'm learning!), so I don't know how you get to whatever discussion is happening there, but if you know, then you can now head over and enjoy.

I would love to be blogging more about Egypt but I feel like photo blogging would be the way to go, and we just won't have the chance to upload pics until we get home. Suffice it to say Cairo is still smoggy, smoky and full of continuously blaring horns. I think I'm just starting to get the hang of this place, or at least the 10-block radius around our hotel, but we'll be leaving soon. If you see me walking in the street in Ottawa, it's just because that's how they roll here.

Smoke gets in your eyes

The odyssey continues...we made it from Cairo to Luxor, then to Aswan and Abu Simbel, back through Cairo and onto Alexandria last week. We went from the far south of the country to the far north in about 17 hours of train riding, which ended up being too much for both of us. S caught the flu and I am in the midst of an allergic reaction - we think - due to either the Japanese tourists smoking all night next to us on the train, or simply to the dust. We covered a lot of territory though so it could also just be plain old fatigue getting to us.

Abu Simbel was the highlight for me, with a massive temple that has 20m high statues at its entrance. You can imagine what an impressive place it was when it was first built, sitting at a wide part of the Nile to welcome anyone arriving by ship. The great thing about this country is the almost unfettered access to all the sites...the bad thing being that the unfettered access means we've seen people smoking in the middle of an outdoor temple and touching all the walls of hieroglyphics in the tombs. It's shocking how littered with garbage they are, how poorly-labelled, and how horribly unprotected these ancient pieces are. It's frustrating when you think that photos aren't allowed (presumably to prevent flash photography, but practically to encourage souvenir buying) but meanwhile sweaty Europeans grope 3,000 year-old walls every day. Our guide book says within a generation some of the walls will be completely deteriorated.

Alexandria's Citadel was another great site to visit - standing on the site of a former lighthouse that keeled over after 1700 years, it was built in the 11th century using some of the lighthouse's original stone. It was much cleaner than some of the other sites, although there was graffiti carved onto the walls. It sits right on the Mediterranean so you could also imagine Roman ships approaching it in stormy weather.

We're back in Cairo now and still recovering a bit. We tried to walk to Islamic Cairo today but the lack of English-language signs totally defeated us. We'll attempt it again tomorrow, this time with a driver.

How many camels?

Walking down the street in Egypt is a lot different from back home. First, there's all the people. Then there's the traffic that doesn't ever seem to stop, making it necessary to step in front of five lanes of speeding cars to cross the street. And sometimes there's the men, making comments when I walk by. Next to my husband.

One of my good friends has been in Cairo for almost two years now, and used to blog a lot about her culture shock, so I sort of knew what to expect. But it's still a little surprising. The first few comments/whistles/noises came from one side of me while S was walking along on the other side. I had assumed I would be fairly safe from harassment while in the company of a man and wearing a wedding ring, but apparently not. S even missed the first few times it happened (though he swears he believed me, I'm pretty sure he thought I was exaggerating). Then he started to hear it too. He even saw a guard at the Cairo museum take my ticket and watch me walk away, while S, who was clearly accompanying me, waited for him to turn back around and take his ticket.

Today made it all a bit more laughable though - walking through a market, every other vendor would yell "Lucky guy! Nice eyes! How many camels?" It became pretty clear that this is a line they break out for every couple, along with "What country? Canada? Canada Dry!" Our Cairo-based friend says they know Westerners have stereotypes so they play up to them - trading livestock for women has never been a part of Egyptian culture.

S is still on the deck to guest-blog, and promises to work on his post on Thursday. Fingers crossed.

Honk honk

I'm here! Successfully met up with S at the airport, after dodging offers from "helpful" people (need a driver? need a hotel?). The first thing I noticed about Cairo, which I'd been warned about a lot, is the noise. Drivers here honk their horns constantly, like they're just letting all the other drivers know that they're there. There are lines painted on the road to denote lanes, but that's just a technicality. Cars randomly float around the road and are totally comfortable squeezing between two actual lanes while pedestrians walk through the middle of five-lane roads to get where they're going.

The city itself is a strange mix of loads and loads of sketchy-looking apartment buildings, complete with shantytowns on the rooftops, and beautiful universities, international schools, mosques and museums. Cigarette smoke is everywhere, and this morning I smelled charcoal cooking again. It smelled like Rwanda too me, just like the diesel trucks at the Cairo airport. There are SO many people on the sidewalks, all the time. Most of the women wear hijabs, and some wear niqabs, which cover the upper body and leave only a thin opening for the eyes. But all the women are stylishly-dressed, and most have great shoes. S said he noticed the same thing in Kandahar, where most women still wear burqas but accessorize with high heels.

It does make for a noisy city, especially at night. With all the people on the streets and the honking, even in our 12th-floor hotel room we had a hard time sleeping. The call to prayer woke us up before 6am this morning, but I had been so excited about hearing it that I didn't mind.

So far Cairo has been a real trip for the senses. It's great for a stimulation junkie like me, who is often reading the paper, watching tv and online chatting at the same time. But I can see how it would be tiring on days where you've got a headache, or are having a bad time, or just needing some quiet. We have only explored a tiny section of the city but have yet to find any calm or tranquility.

To fully appreciate Egypt, you also need to know what it's like trying to book anything in advance. So S will join us as a guest blogger in the near future to tell us about his trip to pick me up at the airport.

WAHOO!

So judging by these projections, I may find someone to hire me by the second quarter of 2010. Q4 at the latest. That would be lovely.

A lot of us are banking on Mark Carney (see the red line) being right. Those of us who are journalists wanting good jobs, anyway. And we're clinging to hope that there will be a hiring spree since so many experienced people have been laid off/bought out recently.

Not as much blood on the floor as the auto industry, but most of us spent $40,000 on university degrees.

Can I fit a cat in there?

I leave very soon for Egypt. The big thing it means is that I'll be seeing my husband soon! He is finished his reporting tour in Afghanistan, and will soon be replaced by another reporter from Ottawa. It will have been eight weeks since we last saw each other.

I was always a little worried about the end, because we've heard it can be hard to get back to reporting in Canada when you've seen what's happening in other parts of the world. We have so much and can get worked up over such tiny things that some reporters find it frustrating and annoying to have to write about seemingly unimportant topics. I think it'll be okay though. S was there for more deaths, and got out to the city to see a slice of normal life. But I don't think anything was jarring enough to make the transition home too hard.

For now I'm packing and making sure I take care of all my errands - laundry, tidying the apartment so we don't get back to a mess, exchanging money, etc. (Egypt will be interesting because some hotels take euros, some take US$ and for everything else we'll do best with Egyptian pounds. So I'll have a whole mix on me). I put off packing for as long as I thought I could sanely do it because le chat goes a little crazy when she sees suitcases. She seems to be okay so far though.

I also cleaned out my purse today and found six pens in it. I think I need to clean it out more often.

Day One

Blech, I was very sick for a week. Life wasn't good. I could barely drag my fingers across the keyboard, not for weakness, but because I felt so blah about writing. This week is so much better though - Friday was my first day feeling almost healthy again, and then Saturday I literally danced around my apartment. Yesterday and today I've got that drive to write again - just like usual, like it's all brand new and exciting. That's a good thing because today was busy.

Yesterday was particularly good for me, partly because I only had one story to work on. It just reminded me of how it was when I first started reporting. I haven't been in the industry that long but it struck me that maybe that's how it always was on general assignment, but that the recent cutbacks have made it harder to have that luxury. I could be wrong though - maybe it was just because I was new at things that my editors limited me to one story a day.

On a related note, more(er) bad news for the industry. The Globe cuts were previously announced, and actually they had twice as many people take a voluntary buy-out as they had expected, so it wasn't quite the bloodbath they expected. But it's still bad. More details to come, I'm sure.

Storm clouds

Oh good, more good news for my industry.

And while I'm feeling cheerful, I want to link to this Dan Gardner blog post on how the economy sucks, but it isn't as bad as the 80s. The following made me giggle:

And if you think I'm sitting securely in my feathered nest -- I get email to that effect now and then -- think again. I have three young kids and a mortgage. And I work for a newspaper. I feel about as secure as the people on the assembly lines in Oshawa.

Somehow I never thought anyone would consider a journalist to be in a safe job.

Separation anxiety

I'll be meeting S. in Egypt in less than two weeks! Plans are finally coming together too, although they're completely different from what we'd originally had in mind. I should have immersed myself in the Lonely Planet guidebook sooner, but at least I've got a couple of weeks left to confirm the details.

We were talking the other day about how hard the separation has been. We've done longer - the summer we got engaged, I lived on the West Coast and he lived in Toronto for five months. We only saw each other twice in that time. The previous summer we lived apart for three months. All that to prove that we aren't just being big babies about this. But I think the reason why this has been harder is that it's come on the heels of all the wedding madness. First we had a crazy summer getting things organized (which coincided with a rather crazy summer at work for me), then the actual event itself. We went straight from our honeymoon to the federal election, so seamlessly that the prime minister made the call while we waited at the airport to leave the Caribbean. Then S. had his conflict reporting training, followed by another work trip. Five months into our marriage and we've spent less than three months of it together.

So Egypt will be like a second honeymoon, which I somehow feel is deserved, even though it's less than half-way through our first year together. Here's hoping for a much calmer February through August - no more elections, please, your excellency.

Meditation on women's buddy flicks

I'm home sick with a bad cold and watching whatever bad movies are on tv. Today I chose First Wives Club, a movie I'd seen a few times, over Rocky and The Legend of Zorro.

The great thing about the movie is that it's driven by the women's performances. The men don't feature much in it, unless they're interacting with the wives or the girlfriends. Plus, look at the cast: Stockard Channing, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn (who's done a couple of movies about women getting older, so must have a sense of humour about it).

Seeing such a funny movie about women bonding made me wonder why it took another 12 or so years to get movies like Sex and the City and Mamma Mia made. Those are both adaptations from other things, but they were wildly popular and show the demand for funny films about women.

First Wives Club was made in 1996. To give you some idea of how old it is, the much-younger women who are the reason for the First Wives' divorces are played by Heather Locklear, Sarah Jessica Parker, Elizabeth Berkley and Marcia Gay Harden. Heather Locklear is now only four years younger than Goldie Hawn was when they made the film.

Can you think of any movies made in between that I'm leaving out? Summer of 2008 seemed to me to be the first time in a long time that anyone put out a movie made just for women that wasn't a romantic comedy. Why do you think it took so long?

So early for a broken promise

I don't recall whether Stephen Harper ever specifically promised not to go into deficit, but he certainly indicated it was a) unnecessary and b) something those wasteful Liberals would do.

My how things have changed.

Last Inaugural fashion post

If you want to see some of the celeb outfits, check out the Fug Girls. While we differ on the formal gown they agree with me on Michelle Obama's outift.

Inaugural ball fashion

Pardon me while I convert into girly talk.

OMG! LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the gown! Eeeee!

Ahem.

This is going to be the hippest White House ever.

[UPDATE: See the dance link! And cry!]

Seeing the Obamas dancing together in the spotlight, my cold black journalist heart grew three sizes.

I still found room in my brain to find it totally tacky that Beyonce sang an Etta James song, since she is currently promoting her Etta James movie. So maybe my heart only grew 2 and a half sizes. But the little affectionate, intimate, deeply emotive looks the Obamas exchange in big moments like this remind you that real love exists, even for politicians.

Rogers offering 4-day workweek

Staff at publications like Maclean's, Chatelaine and MoneySense are being offered a 4-day workweek, and a 20 % pay cut, according to this article on j-source.ca (yes, we have a navel-gazing industry magazine online, and yes I read it. Shut up).

It's hard not to be suspicious of what it could mean - for those who don't sign up, do they move up the list of potential job cuts? Are they able to move back to a 5-day workweek if they don't like the 4-day one? Is this a test to see if Rogers can simply mandate a 4-day workweek and still get the magazines out, leading to a standardized 4-day week?

When everyone else is cutting jobs, this seems like a happier alternative than laying off 600 people. Some people may even prefer it (it's something I would have seriously considered as a working journalist, and it's likely something a lot of parents would enjoy). But not everyone wants to (or is able to) volunteer for a paycut like that, and I imagine it'll be an unpopular idea.

Inaugural discussion points

There are many people far smarter than me who will speak eloquently about the significance of today's inauguration. But I am comfortable in at least one area: inaugural fashion.

1. That's a lot of mustard yellow on a very tall woman. I much preferred Michelle Obama's election night outfit, although I appreciate that today's outfit looks much more first lady-like. My favourite part of today's outfit though are the olive-green gloves and shoes. VERY nice accessory in a great contrasting colour. The lack of a bag so far makes me wonder who's carrying around her lipstick though. The new president: always well-dressed, but never as interesting as his wife. I'm sure his suit is very expensive though (see, it's just harder to comment on men's fashion. The tie is fine. The coat is fine. Everything fits. He appears to be wearing a bracelet like the one President Palmer wore on 24. That's it.).

2. Malia and Sasha, aka Radiance and Rosebud, look fantastic - classy and age-appropriate.

3. The George H. W. Bushes are wearing matching purple scarves! Way to bring some fun to the inauguration. I love it. Mrs. Bush's hair is such a beautiful shade of white.

4. Aretha Franklin can wear whatever damn thing she wants.

5. If I were a first lady, there's no way anybody would call me Mrs. The woman's got degrees from ivy league schools, was VP of a major hospital, and now she's just "Mrs. Obama"? Argh.

Discuss. Michelle Obama: better dressed today or on election night?

I'm having trouble finding photos right now but will update as they're posted.

More bad media news

I don't know that anyone's surprised, but this is more bad news for CanWest.

This part in particular caught my attention:

By contrast [to falling conventional tv revenue - ed.], CanWest's specialty TV and digital media division fattened its operating profit to $44-million from $37-million, as revenue rose by nearly $9-million to $106-million.

I'm not sure it's good news that it's the channels that carry Til Debt Do Us Part and Rich Bride, Poor Bride that are making CanWest their money. It would be nice if Global, which produces an actual drama or two (okay, maybe just one) plus excellent news programming, did better. Although my 2008 vice was Slice.

Meditation on press releases

I think I'll make this into an occasional series on press releases and press relations people. There are certainly enough stories.

Note the workplace is on Smyth Road. It seems odd not to just come right out and say it.

Then again, it's not so much the Ottawa Police Service's job to publicize news-worthy details. Just the arrests.

-----

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 4:35pm

(Ottawa) – The Ottawa Police Service initiated an
investigation on January 13, 2009 in regards to a complaint
that an Ottawa man had made threats towards co-workers at
his workplace on Smyth Road.

As a result of this investigation, Uwe SCHWARZ, 46-years-
old, of Ottawa was charged with two counts of uttering
death threats.
...

------

This one (the part in bold) cracked me up over the holidays. It may just be me though.

Update: Stabbing in the West end of the city
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 1 pm

(Ottawa) - A 16-year-old male is charged with attempt
murder, robbery and weapons related offences in relation to
two incidents that occurred in the area of Baseline and
Monterey Drive at about 5 p.m. yesterday.
...

The incidents occurred about 10 minutes apart. The accused
and the first victim are known to each other. Aside from
involving the same suspect, the incidents are not related.
...

Mid-winter blahs

January hit me like 350lb linebacker today. S and I are more than half-way through his assignment in Afghanistan, but this morning we fought before I'd even had breakfast. I'm tired. I had a bag of salt and vinegar chips for lunch. I spent the entire day covering meetings in French, which is entirely what I signed on for with my latest freelance gig but which was enough today to make me want to jump off the inter-provincial bridge. I missed a scrum I should have been at. My wi-fi wasn't working where I was, so I couldn't check my e-mail or fact-check my story all day and essentially lugged my laptop on a 70-minute return walk for no reason. Of the 10 or so people presenting at the meeting I was covering, none of them brought documents for the media, so all I had to refer to were my hastily-scribbled notes, taken as they raced through their presentations. In French. My apartment's a mess. The past two nights I haven't finished working until 7:30 p.m.

Tomorrow's a new day. A -39 day, but a new day nonetheless. Let's hope the sun shines brightly in Afghanistan too.

Stuff Journalists Like

Thanks to another Citizen writer for passing this on.

A few samples:

On using jargon:
Since journalists are increasingly covering a little bit of everything, they can usually hold a casual cocktail party conversation on almost any topic for about 10 minutes. Go past 10 minutes, though, and they'll most likely try to change the subject.

On drinking:
Nothing takes the edge off after a day of reporting on the scene of drug bust, shifting through six years of financial papers at city hall and stressing over deadlines like a nice shot of low-shelf whiskey or a pint. Interns and journalists just out of school have all heard the stories of the days when journalists kept flasks in their back pockets and handles of Jim Bean in their filing cabinets. But today, newspapers and their corporate owners shun such habits. But go to any veteran journalist and he'll show you were he keeps his bourbon. And if journalists don’t like to drink because of having to interview a widow who just lost her husband in Iraq, then there is always job security. As one journalist after another exits the newsroom with their severance check in hand, journalists flee to their safe haven – dive bars.

And finally...on dating other journos:
Journalists like dating each other because only fellow journalists understand the phrase: “Not tonight dear, I’m on deadline.”
Attempts to date people outside of the newsroom who cannot name gubernatorial candidates, have a limited vocabulary and who don’t know who Hunter S. Thompson is will only lead to a return to dating journalists.

Good stuff.

Perfect hair every time

OMG, how have I never heard of Bump Its before? The ad is amazing. Let's face it, especially in these difficult economic times, we all need to be able to go from flat to fabulous.

Another life

I spent the day at the courthouse in Gatineau today at preliminary inquiries (sort of like a grand jury, without the jury, if you're a Law and Order fan). Rather than navigate the murky worlds of publication bans and how-to-avoid-trouble-in-blogging, I'll just link to the story.

While they were changing witnesses, another lawyer came in with his client. If you've never been to a court, you'd probably think of it as a rigid, formal place. Instead, sometimes the scheduling for simple matters is as easy as asking who's in the room and whether their lawyer is there. I think this was one of those cases. The judge had handled a few cases before this inquiry started but maybe the client hadn't been available earlier. Anyway, in the midst of the hearing for charges of prostitution, alcohol and crack abuse, this other case is a harassment charge. And the complainant is dropping the charge. The judge explained to her that essentially, this means it never happened. If she charges the guy again, she can't provide this incident as evidence, she can't take this back, etc. etc. Has she been threatened or intimidated into dropping the charge? No. And by the way, she's looking into self-esteem courses.

I saw a similar case in j-school and it made me wonder how long you'd have to sit in a courtroom before seeing it each day. In the j-school-era case, the crown got the woman on the stand and was doing her best to to get the story out of her. So your door ended up broken? Yes. How did it break? There was pressure applied to it. Pressure? Yes. What kind of pressure? Well, he applied pressure with his foot, and the door just broke. The crown gave up and dropped the charges.

I had been happy to get out of my apartment for the first time all week, and excited about covering a relatively big trial. But all of this certainly reminded me that there's a whole other world out there that's very real to the people involved.

Entrance exam

I like surveys. They let me give my opinion! It's like voting, but more regular. I have volunteered for a couple of different polling groups' online surveys so that I can exercise my democratic right more often. And sometimes because I feel like it gives me a heads-up on certain trends, or at least on what people are researching as trends. Once in a blue moon I get a survey on politics, like the one that asked me to choose my favourite off a list of potential federal Liberal leadership candidates, and had two surprise entries. Then I wondered which of those two had paid the polling firm to do some research on their chances.

I started filling out a monthly survey tonight. And stopped when I got to this preamble to a question (emphasis added):

In talking to people about elections, we often find that a lot of people were not able to vote because they weren’t registered, they were sick, or they didn’t have time. We also sometimes find that people who thought that they had voted actually did not vote. Also, people who usually vote may have trouble saying for sure whether they voted in a particular election.

If somebody can't tell whether they walked to the polling station, stood in line, walked behind a paper cubicle, filled out a ballot and handed it to a grumpy volunteer, I really don't mind that they *aren't* voting. If you think you voted in the election when you were actually calling in your vote for Nico, I don't mind that you missed the election.

It's a Monday

Right. So it's been a day.

My night, in descending order of awesomeness:

1. eating a bowl of ice cream with chocolate chips and watching Gossip Girl;

2. discovering the cat, who is a sensitive soul, has been peeing on my bed all day, unbeknownst to me. Oh, and not just peeing, but peeing blood, which actually doesn't worry me because it's happened three times before and at this point I know the vet is going to run a lot of tests and discover she is a stress case but with nothing physically wrong and offer to put her on prozac for me;

3. discovering smoke coming out of the washing machine because I tried cramming a queen-size duvet into it rather than going to the laundromat;

4. realizing I'm one of "those people" I read - or even write about - in the paper. "Well, what did she THINK would happen?!";

5. trying to wash the detergent out of the duvet, in the bathtub, and then losing my balance and falling backward into the brand-new metal shelving unit I put into the bathroom this weekend to keep the place tidier. And now I have a sopping wet queen-size duvet in the tub. And an aching back.

On the bright side, my landlord is possibly the nicest man in the entire world. "Oh, I guess I'd better go check that out," he said, from his home, where any normal human would at that time have been getting ready for bed, upon hearing I had possibly set the building on fire and could have set the alarm off, evacuating the building. "It sometimes does that if you try to wash a really big blanket. Maybe next time try the bathtub."

Small mercies.

I have been informed that this blog isn't updated frequently enough for those of you who are sitting in the middle of a warzone. But my brain is still mushy from holiday over-eating so this will be brief.

My mom left this morning after a nice, nearly week-long visit. It was fabulous.

Highlights/thoughts from the holidays:

1. Introducing my mom to Sephora, TMZ.com (the tv show, not their website) and my friend visiting from Cairo. Mom didn't take as much of a shine to Gossip Girl but I'm still working on that.

2. Why doesn't someone on Larry O'Brien's staff comb down his right eyebrow, or trim it, or gel it or SOMETHING? There needs to be some man-scaping there. It looks like it's permanently cocked, and makes him look like he's smirking throughout interviews. I've always thought that he and Sam Sullivan, former mayor of Vancouver, would make the perfect comic book evil mayoral duo, and the raised eyebrow effect only reinforces that.

3. OKAY. ALL RIGHT, CBC. I will watch your damn Erica show tonight. The tv ads, reviews and web ads were bad enough. But a full-page ad in today's Globe? You're putting way too much money into this for me to avoid the show. But you should know that 24 starts next week, and House moves to Mondays the week after, and I will not be moved from a Hugh Laurie/Kiefer Sutherland lovefest. As awesome as Michael Riley was on This is Wonderland, he's no Kiefer. And this just reminds me THAT YOU CANCELLED THIS IS WONDERLAND. After changing its timeslot three times over three years and being surprised when viewers didn't watch (perhaps they couldn't FIND it). Which just makes me not want to watch Being Erica. Hmm, we may have come full circle.

4. Michael Riley did a tv movie called Strauss: King of 3/4 Time? How did I miss that?

5. New Year's Eve involved a night in with lots of wine and Mamma Mia. Meryl Streep rocks.

6. The news. Bah. I'm glad to live in Canada.