I won't let the Sun go down on me.

The Sun's Brian Lilley wrote a blog post defending his newspaper chain's coverage of the Homegrown "story" last week against my Tweeted criticism of it. His response is fairly maddening right from the top - saying someone is "ignorant of the realities of the arts" is not the same as saying they're ignorant. To set the record straight on that point, I'm sure Mr Lilley is not ignorant about many subjects and I look forward to discovering which ones now that I've started to follow his Twitter account.

Anyway, I've been trying to post a comment to Lilley's blog post since last week and it hasn't appeared. So I'm posting it here on my long-defunct personal blog rather than my Globe one, because it's was never intended as a full-on blog post and, well, it's a bit dated now.

Mr Lilley, can you honestly tell me with a straight face that, shucks, all the Sun has been doing is reporting facts and asking questions?

The Sun's stories about Homegrown, right from that Saturday cover story titled "Sympathy for the devil", have had an obviously negative slant. They have exaggerated the extent of - and tried to incite outrage over - the trickle of government funding that may have reached Homegrown through funding for the festival that is presenting it and 41 other plays, plus a series of concerts and other events. (The only direct funding was a $6000 grant from the Toronto Arts Council for a workshop of an earlier, fictional version of the play that was never produced.)

Remember how the Sun printed a list of telephone numbers of government and corporate sponsors of SummerWorks last week so readers could let them know how they felt about a play neither they nor any Sun reporters had seen or read? Does the Sun usually provide helpful lists of contacts for the subjects of its stories? How can you deny this was a campaign against the alleged funding of this play?

Here, in this blog post, you correct note that "the federal government and a couple of banks were sponsoring, indirectly, the presentation of this play". Why did you not use the word "indirectly" in your oh-so-objective news report? The lede for the story you contributed to the Sun's coverage was: "There will be no review and no withdrawal of federal funding for a play that gives a sympathetic portrayal of convicted terrorist Shareef Abdelhaleem." Well, how could there be a review or withdrawal of federal funding for the play, where there was never any federal funding for this play?

That's one of the aspects of this "controversy" that irritates me the most. I have a certain understanding of people who say: I can't believe my tax dollars went directly to support X work of art. I've said that myself from time to time. But questioning money going directly to Young People Effing, for example, is a different thing from questioning all of the money that goes to the Toronto International Film Festival because it presented Young People Effing along with a couple hundred other films.

The Sun articles have tried to blur that distinction. At the very very most - and this is based on a no-doubt false assumption that SummerWorks's Canadian Heritage grant was divided equally among the plays - Homegrown could be said to have got $840 or so from the feds, as you've said in your blog post, indirectly.

I might as well write an outraged series of stories about how $3-million in federal tax money went to support the Sun's attack on Homegrown. Indeed, I have seen several ads for the Stratford Shakespeare Festival next to the Sun's articles about Homegrown. The SSF received $3-million dollars from Ottawa's Marquee Tourism Events Program to support its marketing initiatives. That money is what likely paid for those ads on the Sun's website, indirectly. Where's the review and withdrawal of federal funding for Toronto Sun articles?

The Sun's preemptive campaign against Homegrown was unfair from the start, taking two words from an interview with a fairly green playwright - "sympathetic portrayal" - and using them to harass her then-unseen play and impune the SummerWorks festival, one of the most vibrant theatre festivals in the country, the launching point for so many of the most exciting new plays of the past decade, and one of the few artistic endeavours in this country unafraid to take risks.

That sums up my objection to your paper's coverage. Things got a bit better once David Akin was on the story (and it actually became a story when the PMO commented).

As to what you say in this blog post, you've taken one of my tweets out of context and ascribed opinions to me that I don't hold. I certainly don't believe there's "a right to arts funding" or that "just because a play is written it should be funded". Who thinks that? That's certainly not the case right now in Canada, nor should it be.

Our democratically elected governments have chosen to help fund the arts to a limited degree and I agree with that decision - in fact I'd like us to increase funding for the arts.

If someone has a problem with funding, take it up with the politicians - don't attack artists, the vast majority of whom live in or near the poverty level, for applying and getting some of that funding. Why not go after the Prime Minister who is oh-so-concerned about funding plays that "glorify terrorism" (which Homegrown, misguided as it may be, does not), but is too afraid to actually take concrete action on that front for fear of political backlash. He, like the Sun, is just rousing the rabble. Sorry, but I expect more from journalists and politicians.

Dumont and Dumont



No comment necessary.

Help! Should I buy a house/condo in Toronto right now?

Any advice would be helpful. I started looking in May, but stopped when it looked like we might go on strike at the Globe and Mail.

Now I'm starting to look again and... I've lost my nerve a bit.

It some ways it seems like the perfect time to buy: House/condos in the Toronto neighbouhoods I like are more affordable now, interest rates are really low and the market seems to be headed back up.

But I have this friend, we'll call him The Pessimist, who believes Canada's bubble hasn't burst yet. Low interest rates are artificially stimulating the market right now, he says, and when they go up in 2010, demand will drop and house prices will drop too. (He believes another 10%.)

The Pessimist is not the only one. According to a recent Globe story:

[L]ow rates are also one of the reasons analysts are worried about the surprising surge in the housing market. “It's all happening because of the crack cocaine of housing, which is rock-bottom interest rates,” said Garth Turner, author of Greater Fool: The Troubled Future of Real Estate . “They're so irresistible, especially to inexperienced first-time buyers. That's what's propelling the market.”

Mr. Turner's concern is that rising rates will eventually propel the market lower by making houses less affordable. His level of confidence that the boom will last? Zero.

In his book, published in early 2008, Mr. Turner warned that the Canadian housing market was in a bubble just like its U.S. counterpart. After a peak-to-valley decline of almost 14 per cent in Canada's national average price, he's predicting another plunge for home prices that will be triggered in large part by rising interest rates.

“We're now into the housing bubble, Part Two,” said Mr. Turner, a former member of Parliament who now gives financial seminars and promotes his books. “I think this bubble is going to burst later this year. It's going to be short and intense.”

Yikes! That's my concern. And why I'm beginning to think I should rent for another year and see what happens.

But those low interest rates are so irresistable!

ACK!

Any advice?

Billy Bob Thornton pwned by Jian Ghomeshi!

From Willie Nelson:

It has been reported that Billy Bob Thornton & The Boxmasters will not be continuing the Canadian tour with Willie and Ray. At this time, no reasons have been announced but the remainder of the tour will continue as scheduled without The Boxmasters.

FTW! ROTFL! MSTRKRFT!

I resent having to use Google to understand the Times.

The New York Times writes a story about the censorship of an obscene pun in China - but won't tell us what the "especially vile obscenity" being punned is. Isn't the newspaper industry dying quickly enough without these self-inflicted wounds!?!

This may top the time they wouldn't print the word "poo" in an album title. (The Edmonton Journal has no such qualms, obviously.)

Yeah, I joined Twitter.

Tweet.

Five-four those of y'all who wear fanny packs.

Better than the Nixon tapes: Barack Obama swearing

Oh god, these are so good. Someone has digitised the sweary bits from the audiobook of Dreams of My Father... yes, the audiobook that Obama reads himself.

I give it five minutes before the first YouTube video mashing this up with Christian Bale is created...

"You ain’t my bitch, nigga! Buy your own damn fries!"

Now I understand...

... why I couldn't follow any of the action sequences in the last two Batman movies. It's not that Christopher Nolan is a lousy director - it's that Christian "Dark Knight" Bale chased all the lighting guys off the set so he could maintain the concentration needed to sustain that ridiculous growl...

Remix!

Big Peanut: Everybody's enemy now...

From the wires: "There is new information available about the recent salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter from a plant in Georgia.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said at least 12 times over the past two years the Peanut Corporation of America has knowingly sold products that had tested positive for salmonella."

I know at least one anthropomorphic arachide bigwig who just dropped his cane and let his monocle fall out of his eye in rage that his plot to poison America has been foiled...

Thanks, language, for being confusing.

From CBC Arts:

For the first time in the 34-year history of the César Awards, a Quebec actor has been nominated for the French film awards.

Marc-André Grondin is nominated as most promising young male actor for his role in the film Le Premier Jour Du Reste de Ta Vie (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life). ...

Oh, neat! First time ever? But what about...

Marie-José Crozes [double sic!] was nominated as most promising young female actress in 2004 for her role in Denys Arcand film The Barbarian Invasions.

Oh, first Quebec ACTOR, not first Quebec ACTRESS...

OK, so there's nothing, strictly speaking, wrong with what the CBC has done here... But some news sources use actor as a gender neutral term and others use actor and actress, so I was confused... I wish there was a universal style guide for this - and, frankly, I think the old way was much clearer. Can we go back, though?

Headline of the day.

Couple Suing After Being Hit By NES Truck

The long-awaited return of... CBC Arts Headline Watch!

Today's doozy: "Errors are human, says Wikipedia founder"

I look forward to tomorrow's follow-up story on what Jimmy Wales thinks of forgiveness...

(Past editions of CBC Arts Headline and Lede Watch here...)

The death of the newspa-- whaaaaaa?

Will wonders never cease: The National Post turns a profit.

Things that make you go hmm....

Have you noticed that every time the Canadiens have faced the Leafs so far this season (and again for the rest of the regular season), the Habs have played a game the night before and the Leafs have had the night before off? Is this some sort of attempt to even out the teams by tiring the Habs out? CONSPIRACY.

Merry Christmas!

That is all.

Leonard Cohen takes #1, #2 spots on British charts.

With Hallelujah, covered by Alexandra Burke and Jeff Buckley. How awesome is that?

Leonard Cohen's song "Hallelujah" made British chart history Sunday when it became both number one and number two in the Christmas singles charts -- although both versions were covers...

The last time [the same song was in first and second place on the charts] was in January 1957, when Tommy Steele and Guy Mitchell held the top two places with Singin' The Blues.

In another twist, Cohen's own version of the song -- which he first released on an album in 1984 -- entered the charts as a new entry at number 36.

Go Christmas, go!

David Mitchell on being pro-Christmas without having to sacrifice on the fun misanthropy that comes from being anti-Christmas:

This is a time when we all come together to disagree about how Christmas is supposed to be done. It's not so much "love thy neighbour" as "mock the neon Santa on thy neighbour's roof". I think these divisions might be what saves my pro-Christmas policy because I love asserting my way of celebrating it over everyone else's. In another life, I could have been a great witchfinder general, paranoid anti-communist or warrior ant. I will root out people who slightly differ from me in their Christmas traditions and blow them away with the twin barrels of my British disdain gun, which are, of course, snobbery and inverse snobbery.

To test your suitability for this fight, consider your reaction to the phrase: "We actually had goose this year." It's not the nature of your reaction that's important, but its strength. I'm hoping for a strong one. Either: "Yes of course, goose is a much tastier meat and an older tradition. I can't believe those turkey-eating scum are suffered to live. They should be locked up in the same hell sheds where the bland objects of their culinary affection are chemically spawned." Or, and this is the one I favour: "Fuck off back to Borough Market with your talk of goose deliciousness. We're supposed to eat turkey - that's now the tradition. Stop pretending you're Victorian, drop this obsession with flavour and get defrosting a Bernard Matthews."

This is embarrassing.

I think this lack of video just killed the coalition.

Will Harper still go prorogue?

UPDATE: This is the best description of the evening's events I've come across so far: "Harper looked like a rapist on trial and Dion looked like he was using Skype from his basement."

Badly devised Jeopardy categories

Last night, on the teen tournament, there was a category called, "An 'F' in History". All of contestants shortened the category slightly when they asked for it. So, this is what it sounded like:

Overconfident Boy #1: Let's go with effin' History, Alex.

Overconfident Boy #2: I'll take effin' History for 400.

Quietly confident Girl, who eventually trounced the boys: Let's try effin' History for 1000, please.

I think to get more kids to take history as an elective in high school, they should change the course title to something like this. ("What you got next period, dude?" "Effin' History." "Awesome!")

Two words: Omar Khadr.

Good column by Rick Salutin.

Tune on, drop in, turnout...

I hate all these contextless statistics being bandied in attempts to prove various tenuous points about the American election.

In particular, I find turnout percentage stats not very useful, given that they don't accurately reflect what I would consider to be turnout.

That's because the state-by-state turnout stats are based on the number of registered voters, not on the population of eligible voters.

Look at Virginia, for instance. 3,223,156 voted in 2004 and 3,474,202 voted in 2008. That's approximately an 8% increase in turnout, right?

Well, no, because registered voters increased from 4.5m to 5m between 2004 and 2008.

So even though 250,000 more people voted in 2008 than 2004 in Virginia, officially voter turnout went down from 71.3% to 69%.

(These numbers are all from Virginia State Board of Elections.)

As for making sweeping statements about racial division based on exit polls - exit polls, people - in a single state like Alabama, that's even less useful. I think the most telling stat that I've heard is that a higher percentage of whites across the country voted for Obama than any Democratic candidate since Carter.

Saying that racial division persists in the USA is a truism. But saying that race played a negative or positive role in this election - difficult to prove.

What BBC coverage lacked in holograms, it made up for in crazy Gore Vidals.

"We need new idioms, we need to stop talking like beatniks."

Love that Alice Glass, who tops NME's dumb-fun Cool List this year.

Lost in translation.

From the BBC: "When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.

"Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated".

"So that was what went up under the English version which barred lorries from a road near a supermarket."