Friday Night

Liza Minelli and Joel Grey explain the surprising results in the 2012 Alberta Election.

Also, the Toronto Star won five National Newspaper Awards. 

Please recommend this post

Local Media Punked (Again)

Or the case of the fictitious yellow bellied yobs.

On 14 Jan 2008 Jason Brunelle was driving near Bassano Alberta. He claimed he stopped to help some people who appeared to be broken down, and then was severely beaten up. The Bassano RCMP investigated but there were no witnesses and no suspects. He claims he fought off his assailants then drove to his home (or a gas station) in Strathmore where he called the police. Brunelle was taken to hospital as he did indeed have injuries to his face and head. Brunelle then phoned his story in to QR77 and the Calgary Sun and they promptly wrote it up as fact. It remains unclear as to whether any journalists actually talked to him face to face. The Calgary Herald also wrote about the incident.

Yesterday a quiet news release came out from QR77 reporting that Brunelle has been charged with mischief and that the Bassano RCMP believe the story was fabricated. He will appear in court in February.

Brunelle, while describing his ordeal, also told the Calgary Sun that he had previously been hit by a truck and survived by holding onto the grill, fell off a roof and was saved by grabbing a power line, and once fell into a bonfire. In professional journalism and police work I think these stories would be referred to as "clues".

I don't entirely blame the media for writing up this story, however they didn't express even a shred of doubt about completely unsubstantiated claims. When I read the story as written by Michael Platt on 15 Jan 2008 (less than a full day after the incident) I actually felt sorry for him. He so desperately believed and wanted it to be true because it affirmed the world view of right wing tabloid journalism, that godly good Samaritans (us) are under constant siege from godless yellow bellied scum (them).

Too bad Platt ran out of real estate in his column. He could have thrown in some bits about Jamaican gang members and the immigration system and it would have rounded it out really well.

And its a good thing that Brunelle's injuries didn't require a blood transfusion otherwise Michael Plett would have had to demand the return of the blood. Please recommend this post

Michael Platt: Gangsters Don't Deserve our Blood

The article by Michael Plett in today's Calgary Sun is simply outstanding. You ought to read it.

Plett is angry because good caring people donate their blood only to have it used in the ER to save the lives of alleged gang members who were shooting at each other. It sounds like one of those stealth arguments for capital punishment. Here's a gang member who needs 50 units of blood to stay alive. Might as well let him die because his life is worthless, right? No need for lawyers and judges when Doctors and Nurses can solve a social problem by tweaking their triage a bit. Thankfully Doctors and Nurses are trained to simply save lives without making political value judgments.

In some ways we are a crazy species. Police, EMT's and Doctors rush feverishly to save the life of someone who just committed a horrible crime. We do this because we value life and we cannot put medical professionals in the position of deciding who is worthy to live and who isn't. As if they don't have enough problems during a crisis.

And yes, there is a blood shortage in Calgary and elsewhere. There are always signs advertising clinics. You have it in you to give. But remember, the deal is this: you give the blood, the Doctor decides who gets it.

In as much as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren you did it to me... Please recommend this post

Not Really Funny, More Sad

Yesterday in the Calgary Sun:

Calgarians can take some comfort in the fact a known gangster ordered deported from Canada -- four years ago! -- isn't wandering free on the streets.

But that's only because Tran Trong Nghi Nguyen, also known as Jackie Tran and Nghia Trong Nguyen-Tran, hasn't been able to post two $10,000 bonds.

Maybe that's because he can't get hold of a cellphone in the Calgary Remand Centre, where he's been held since Jan. 10.

More likely, it is because money put up for bond must be accompanied by proof it was obtained by legitimate means.

Today according CBC Calgary:

A convicted drug trafficker and known gang member ordered deported four years ago is free in Calgary on $20,000 bond as his appeal process drags on.

Tran Trong Nghi Nguyen, 26, who goes by the name Jackie Tran, has been appealing an order to deport him from Canada since 2004. He was freed from custody on Tuesday.

...

The money must be proven to have come from legitimate means, and paid by a bonds person who meets guidelines set out by the Canada Border Services Agency.

In a way it is kind of funny, but not really given the potential for violence from this individual. A little tip to the Calgary Sun that every hockey coach already knows...if you taunt the other team they'll probably come back at you harder just to make you eat your words...The best thing journalists can do for me is to just tell me the facts of a case. Spare me the self-serving true detective rhetoric. It gives me a headache and probably makes things worse.

Yes, four years is probably an unreasonable amount of time to execute a deportation order. I'm in favor of deportation of bad people if they've been given appropriate opportunity to defend themselves and an appropriate opportunity for appeal.

The broader ironies are worth noting. The law and order Premier of Alberta refused the Mayor of Calgary's request for $25M to strengthen the Calgary Police Gang Unit. The requested amount was less than 1/1000th of the last budget overage.

Read the Sun, vote Tory, live in constant fear. Please recommend this post

Statistics and Hysteria

I was just reading this analysis from Stats Canada which suggests our family demographics are changing.

Regarding gay couples:

Half of all same-sex couples in Canada lived in the three largest census metropolitan areas, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver, in 2006. Toronto accounted for 21.2% of all same-sex couples, Montréal, 18.4% and Vancouver, 10.3%.

In 2006, same-sex couples represented 0.6% of all couples in Canada. This is comparable to data from New Zealand (0.7%) and Australia (0.6%).

Over half (53.7%) of same-sex married spouses were men in 2006, compared with 46.3% who were women.

Regarding one person households:

During this time, the number of one-person households increased 11.8%, more than twice as fast as the 5.3% increase for the total population in private households. At the same time, the number of households consisting of couples without children aged 24 years and under increased 11.2% since 2001.

On legally married versus single or common-law:

Unmarried people outnumber legally married people for the first time

For the first time, the census enumerated more unmarried people aged 15 and over than legally married people.

In 2006, more than one-half (51.5%) of the adult population were unmarried, that is, never married, divorced, separated or widowed, compared with 49.9% five years earlier. Conversely, only 48.5% of persons aged 15 and over were legally married in 2006, down from 50.1% in 2001.

These results are based on the 2006 census, which compiled the responses of almost 9 million Canadians. But not me, I was just cleaning house and found my completed but never submitted form. All the census people probably know me by now as that recalcitrant thwarter of statistics gathering. You could make a movie about it with Reese Witherspoon and that guy from Ferris Bueller's day off and it would be quite funny.

Anyway, I was about to head off to the club when Baldrick came in and breathlessly told me I must read the latest vomitous screed from the Calgary Sun.

Apparently the broader trends are not holding in Calgary, and as a result the Calgary Sun had to diatribe about how much better we are than other Canadians, to quote:

Calgary is holding the fort in a country where the notion of the traditional family is increasingly under siege, states a federal census.

Holding the fort? Against whom? The enemy? What is the traditional family and who is sieging it? These military metaphors are red flags for plain old fashioned bigotry.

States a federal census? Huh? That has to be the most poorly written most mendacious pukey line I think I have ever read in a newspaper. It is absolutely disgraceful to mingle your bigotry in with someone else's headline and make it seem like they're a bigot as well.

But that's our Calgary Sun, defending us tirelessly against statistics, trends, facts and ideas. Please recommend this post