Wild About Writing

When Michelle Jean, the Governor General, had herself photographed eating raw seal meat this week, support for the monarchy probably moved up several notches in Canada.

Phone-in shows like CBC’s Ontario Today brought almost 100 per cent support from callers. Rex Murphy, the mother corp’s resident curmudgeon, launched an on-air love-in by proclaiming her appointment by Paul Martin as the best thing the deposed Liberal PM ever did. A sentiment I have to agree with!

Murphy followed up with a fawning column in Saturday’s Globe and Mail and set aside his Sunday Cross-Country Checkup on CBC Radio (May 31) for a national discussion on Michelle Jean’s performance as G-G.

Madame Jean’s willingness to eat a bit of raw seal meat was meant, of course, as a gesture of support for the beleaguered seal hunt industry. A carefully orchestrated photo opp, no doubt engineered by the Prime Minister’s Office. And a terse response to the European  Union’s ban on commercial seal imports from Canada.

Most callers are cheering Michelle Jean for giving a rare bit of Canadian back-talk against foreign criticism of what is a natural way of life for our Inuit population.

They’re fed up with critics from outfits like PETA, as well as those who have no difficulty eating beef or chicken, or wearing designer leather clothes, but deign to condemn the seal hunt.

Will the wave of adulation for Madame Jean help stem the slow but steady rise in republican sentiment in Canada?

Tom Freda, national director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, isn’t impressed. He says opinion polls show about 55 per cent favor abolition.

It might be a stretch to assume that because we think it’s okay to eat raw seal meat, we all love the Queen. In fact, most Canadians do admire Queen Elizabeth. Robert Hardman’s book A Year With the Queen (Tandem) helps explain this. It’s just that we don’t have the same sense of felicity for Prince Charles. Few see him as a suitable future king. Prince Harry, maybe.

Australians have had a serious discussion of their country’s future linkage with the monarchy. In a referendum a couple of years ago, they voted narrowly to stick with the status quo. Their Governor General thinks the issue will soon be back on the front burner.

Here, support for the monarchy is probably more the result of apathy than affection. Quebec would love to see us cut our last tie with Britain. But most Canadians seem to think the whole issue a bore, something not worth arguing about.

And it does help to distinguish us from the United States!

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My new book, Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime, explores the life of Joplin and other musicians, writers and artists whose works brought such profound changes to modern culture in the Ragtime Era, the period between the 1890s and the First World War. Check it out here.

The sudden departure of Globe and Mail editor-in-chief Edward Greenspoon and his replacement by John Stackhouse is raising all kinds of questions about what’s going on at Canada’s most influential newspaper.

The change came in an abrupt statement carried online and in the newspaper:

“The Globe and Mail has appointed John Stackhouse as its new editor-in-chief, effective today.”

As is usually the case in corporate shake-ups, the departing Greenspoon was given short shrift in the announcement. Globe and Mail publisher Philip Crawley simply said: “I know you will join me in thanking Ed  and wishing him well as he moves on to new challenges.”

That’s a pretty cavalier way to dismiss the contribution of the man who led The Globe’s successful move into media convergence, marrying the paper’s daily print edition with an impressive, value-added online presence.

The Globe is probably the most online-wise paper in North America, if not the world. It’s managed to use the web as a supplementary platform for the paper by offering reader interface and special features that can only be delivered online.

The latest example is Roy McGregor’s This Country column, which has taken on the form of a combination print column and online blog.

There are rumors that the blow-up came from Greenspoon’s resistance to further cuts in the paper’s editorial budget. I suspect the cleavage goes deeper.

Crawley’s announcement referred to the need for “new skills and different styles of leadership.” It went on to suggest that as the paper’s focus on the web grows, it’s going to have to start charging for access. Makes sense, but surely Greenspoon would not be in disagreement on that point.

While it’s sad to see Greenspoon go, we all wish Stackhouse a productive and successful tenure. He’s been a great foreign correspondent, business editor, and all-round editorial powerhouse.

Stackhouse is the author of two books I admire. Out of Poverty (Random House), is his account of the struggle at the local level to rise above bare existence in countries like India and Uganda.

Stackhouse turned his attention back to Canada in Timbit Nation: A Hitchhiker’s View of Canada (Vintage Canada). Part travelogue and part national pulse-taking, it was published in 2004 and in many ways, foretold the loss of jobs and incomes that Canadians are experiencing today.

By coincidence or not, Greenspoon’s departure is simply the latest of a depressing list of editorial leave-takings from North America’s top dailies. The Globe is at least the 17th major daily to make a change at the top in the past three years. The list includes the likes of USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

Greenspoon’s departure is more evidence of the crisis confronting the news media. At a time when readership is dwindling due to the Internet, advertising revenues have fallen off the cliff because of the recession.

The Globe’s been less affected that most. Its circulation has stood up, especially in comparison to its would-be competitor, The National Post.

Much of the improvement in The Globe in recent years can be laid at the doorstep of The Post. If Conrad Black ever made a positive contribution to Canadian journalism, it was in  providing a competitor that forced The Globe to step up from its lethargic, holier-than-thou attitude of pre-Post days.

These are hard days for the media, television as well as print. Switching editors is not exactly like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Media watchers will be keen to see if Stackhouse is able to deliver on Crawley’s promise of “new skills and different styles of leadership.”

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My new book, Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime, explores the life of Joplin and other musicians, writers and artists whose works brought such profound changes to modern culture in the Ragtime Era, the period between the 1890s and the First World War. Check it out here.

I’m at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary for the opening event of this year’s meeting of the Writers’ Union of Canada. The Glenbow is a magnificent repository of Western regional culture. It has over a million artifacts and 28,000 works of art.

The attraction this evening is Mavericks, which we’re told is the first ever museum exhibition based on a book.

The book is Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta (Penguin Canada) by the Calgary novelist Aritha van Herk. She’s tracked down some of the most colorful and influential figures that have made this idiosyncratic province — for better or for worse — what it is today.

The Glenbow has cleverly designed exhibits depicting many of the characters in the book and the forces that they grappled with in building Alberta.

My favorite mavericks include Bob Edwards, the legendary editor of the Calgary Eye Opener that went out of business with his death in the early 1920s. Bob liked a drink. He once said, “Everyone has their favorite bird. Mine is the bat.”

His preferred target was the Canadian Pacific Railway. After reporting a series of train wrecks, he published a picture of the railway’s president under the heading, “Another CPR Wreck.”

Another favorite of mine from the Maverick cast of characters is Sam Steele, the Northwest Mountie who fired one of the last shots in the Northwest Rebellion, helped police the building of the CPR, kept law and order in the Yukon, and led a Canadian cavalry contingent in the Boer War.

A placard on Steele carries his famous quote reminding his troops that there is no countrry in the world that is superior to Canada. His remark reflected the jingoistic nationalism of the time. I often think it also expressed a sentiment that is even more valid today.

Speaking of the Boer War, I was delighted that Ms van Herk shared the stage with Fred Stenson, author of another wonderful book, The Great Karoo (Doubleday Canada). It’s the story of a group of Alberta cowhands who see duty in the South African war.

Stinson brilliantly captures both the horse-wise culture of the cowhands and the incredible arrogance and incompetence of their British commanders. I’m halfway through and enjoying every page.

A distinguished First Nations elder rounded out last night’s panel.

Today, we’re talking about such writerly issues as the ways in which the Internet is impacting the reading, writing and selling of books. More on this later.

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My new book, Scott Joplin and the Age of  Ragtime (McFarland) explores Joplin’s life and that of other musicians, writers and artists who brought profound changes to modern culture in the Ragtime Era, the years between the 1890s and  World War I. Check it out here or here. 

I’ve just spent several fascinating hours reviewing more than 30 submissions to the Writers’ Union of Canada annual children’s story writing competition.

The winner gets $1,500 and the top three entries will be submitted to publishers.

As a first-round judge, my job was to pick out five or more entries worthy of further consideration by a final judging panel.

I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of all the stories. I was faced with difficult choices which reminded me again  of what a crap shoot it is for a writer to get her work published.

I ended up selecting seven stories — five fiction, one poem and one non-fiction work, for the next round of judging.

I don’t think I’m giving anything away by mentioning some of the plot lines.

There was a well-told tale of the long necked women of Burma, the usual barnyard creatures piece, one on the flight of the Silver Dart at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, and a piece that brought me tears of reminisence about a boy who is taken by his father every year to cut down a Christmas tree. After his father dies. he continues the tradition with his children.

The stories got me to thinking about what makes a good children’s story. For one thing, they have to be imaginative enough that a parent doesn’t mind reading them over and over again.

This was certainly true of the great kid lit that I remember reading to my children. Anything by Dr. Seuss, especially The Cat in the Hat, and the classic, The Man Who Wouldn’t Wash His Dishes, by Phyllis Krasilovsky.

This poor guy lets his dishes pile up night after night until he finally puts them out in the rain. They all get washed, and thereafter he resolves to do his dishes faithfully every night. My daughter Brenda loved this book and I read it to her time after time.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I recall one unhappy example: Alice in Wonderland. It gave me nightmares, and I don’t think I ever finished it. Today, of course, there’s Harry Potter.

The Canadian author Marie-Louise Gay, who has won major awards for her children’s stories, says kid lit has to be able to appeal to “incredibly brilliant, curious and observant people.”

English author Fiona Smith, at The Crafty Writer, says it’s not hard to tell a good children’s story:

Is it fun to read? Is the plot well constructed with a good beginning, middle and end? Are the characters engaging and realistic? Does the plot line deal with emotional issues without being too soppy? Does it dare to be daring?

Great children’s literature can be controversial as well as entertaining. Deborah Ellis, the Canadian who has written widely for children about the Middle East, got into hot water with her Three Wishes. In it, she tells the stories of Israeli and Palestinian children buffeted by war and strife.

Young readers deserve to be exposed to this taste of reality.

On the fun side, I’m looking forward to the October release of Spike Jonezs’ movie, Where the Wild Things Are. It’s based on that great book by Maurice Sandak. Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world — a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.

A small confession: My interest in children’s stories has been stimulated by the fact that I’m writing a Young Adult book (for readers over 12) on the exploits of one Edward Mallandaine. He’s the B.C. boy in the famous picture of the driving of the Last Spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Who was he, where did he come from, and what happened to him?

You’ll have to read the book!

A couple of things have got me thinking about authors and crime, and how the two fit together so naturally in a literary sense. 

A promo on TV this week for a showing of In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s remarkable book about the slaying of a Kansas farm family, reminded me of the power of this genre of story telling. Capote’s book, as you’ll know, is regarded as having created a new literary style, the non-fiction novel.

I re-read the book recently and found it even more compelling than on my first go-round. The movie, which I’ve never seen, probably tells the tale in an even more harrowing fashion. It was filmed using the actual crime scenes – the house where the murders occurred, the store when the two killers bought their weapons, even some of the people who served on the jury are cast in their real life roles.

The other event that got me on this topic was the passage by the Saskatchewan legislature of its new law to prevent criminals from benefitting financially from their crimes, either by writing books, or selling memorabilia.

It’s aimed at diverting any profits Colin Thatcher might earn from his book, Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame, to be published by ECW Press, Toronto.

Thatcher stands convicted of arranging the murder of his ex-wife JoAnne Wilson. He served 22 years before being paroled in 2006. He still maintains his innocence, which accounts for the title of his book.

The Saskatchewan law, the Profits of Criminal Notoriety Act, sailed through the Legislature in just eight days. Its stated purpose “is to prevent persons convicted of, or charged with, a designated crime from financially exploiting the notoriety of their crimes.” Proceeds would be diverted to victims of crime.

Jack Davidson, ECW publisher, thinks the law may not apply to Thatcher’s book because it refers specifically to “the recounting of a crime.” Thatcher’s book deals not directly with the crime but with his legal struggle after his arrest.

I haven’t been able to find anything about the Thatcher book on the ECW web site. Surprising — you’d think they’d post a statement on the issue.

The Saskatchewan law is the latest in a long series of “Son of Sam” laws, dating back to a New York state law of the 1970s after the “Son of Sam” murders committed by David Burkowitz. The U.S. Supreme Court found that law unconstitutional in 1991 on the grounds that it was “overinclusive.” 

New York, and other states, have since passed more specific laws designed to meet First Amendment tests.

Ask the men and women who write about crime — either fiction or non-fiction – and I’m sure you’ll get a mixed reaction to these laws.

(I think it’s a bit ironic that Canada’s legendary hangman, Arthur Ellis, is memoralized by having his name on the awards given out  by the Crime Writers of Canada.)

Most people will probably agree that the idea of a convicted criminal profiting from his crimes offends the moral standards of society. 

But well-meaning measures too often have unintended consequences. They can be used to reach out and take in a far wider range of cases than lawmakers ever intended. For that reason, I’m against laws of this type.

The Canadian Side of Automotive History

Neil Reynolds has a marvellous column in The Globe and Mail on the Canadian part in the history of General Motors. It helps one realize how much this country’s past has been bound up in making cars. Read it here.

I’m a little late mentioning this, but The Beaver magazine, the magazine of Canadian history, published in Winnipeg, has been named Magazine of the Year at the first-ever Manitoba Magazine Awards.

I blushingly claim a small degree of credit for this. My article, The Boy in the Picture, copped the award for best editorial presentation. The article was about young Edward Mallandaine, the 18-year-old lad who got himself in the famous photograph of the driving of the Last Spike. That event marked the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway back in 1885.

When Mallandaine was a very old man, and I was a very young boy, I had the privilege of knowing him. He was the reeve (mayor) of my hometown of Creston, B.C.

I’m putting together a Young Adult book about his youthful adventures.

Another Beaver winner was my friend Christopher Moore who was recognized for the best regular column.

Chris is one of the writers for a book The Beaver and Harper Collins Publishers will publish later this year, 100 Photos that Changed Canada.

THOUGHTS ON THE MULRONEY INQUIRY

There’s no doubt that Brian Mulroney is a strong candidate for the unlikely title of most detested Prime Minister in Canadian history.

His current ordeal, where he’s facing tough questioning at the Oliphant Inquiry probing his business relationship with German-Canadian lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber, is also, however, showcasing some endearing qualities.

It’s remembered that no Prime Minister had a more loyal Caucus that Mulroney (1984-1991). He inherited a fractious bunch of MPs after ousting Joe Clark, but by blarney and bluster, he won them all over.

Listening to his testimony on CBC Newsworld, I was struck by his facile use of colloquialisms.

In one circumstance, he commented that he’d be there “in a New York minute.” In another, about the honeymoon period of his relationship with Schreiber, he had him bouncing around “like an Energizer Bunny non-stop” while lobbying the government for an arms manufacturing plant.

For all the pressure he’s under, Mulroney is still able to show flashes of the easy-going personality that helped him cut such a wide swath in Canadian politics.

Consider these problems that demand the attention of Canadian lawmakers:

1. The Great Recession — the impending collapse of General Motors and the deepening trough of economic malaise around the world
2. The Tamil protests in Toronto that verge on civil violence and which the authorities seem powerless to resolve
3. The wave of gun killings and gang violence that has scarred the streets of Vancouver and Toronto.

And what were Ottawa’s politicians focussed on this week? A dispute between an MP and her family’s servants, carrying all the soap opera elements of high comedy, tears, and doubtful protests of people who think they’ve been badly treated.

The media have covered the testimony before the House of Commons Immigration Committee of Ruby Dhalla, the Brampton MP, and her accusers, Magdalene Gordo and Richelyn Tongson. There’s no need for me to repeat any of it.

So what have we learned? Essentially nothing. The care-givers in the Dhalla household told their stories, but could provide no independent support for their complaints. Ms. Dhalla forecefully rebutted their testimony. If anything, she may have been too forceful. It would not have hurt her to have shown empathy for the obvious distress of the care-givers.

The Committee hearing was all bread and circus.  If there’s been any violation of federal laws governing immigant care-givers, or of provincial laws setting out pay, hours and working conditions, it is up to the responsible authorities to take action.

Controversies of this type do not belong on the agendas of House of Commons committees.

Let’s hope this fiasco on Parliament Hill has put an end to the matter. Eventually, the voters of Brampton Springdale will register their own judgement — the one that counts.

Ruby Dhalla, the colorful, controversial and passionate Member of Parliament for the Toronto area riding of Brampton Springdale, isn’t giving up easily. Nor should she.

Facing an onslaught of charges — all unproven and some highly questionable, to say the least — she’s vowed she’ll fight back against allegations of having mistreated three immigrant women who worked as caregivers to her mother.

Ms. Dhalla has stepped down as the Opposition critic for multiculturalism and says she’s the victim of a conspiracy. She calls the complaints “complete nonsense” and has asked the parliamentary ethics office to look into them.

The essence of the accusations is that the women were underpaid, forced to do extra tasks such as shoveling snow and cleaning the MPs’ chain of chiropactic offices, and that they had their passports taken away.

This case bears all the marks of a frameup. It’s an incendiary example of partisan exploitation of political correctness, with the facts buried somewhere in a misama of half truths and vague assertions. For instance:

• Why did the women wait a year after leaving the Dhalla family household to air their complaints? And then only after attending a town hall meeting of two Ontario provincial Liberal cabinet mnisters?
• Why did Intercede, the federally-funded immigrant help agency that says it had a complaint from one of the women about her passport being taken from her, not report it to authorities in Ottawa?
• Why did no one take action under the Ontario Employment Standards Act, which clearly spells out the rights of domestic workers?

The most sordid aspect of this puzzling case is the glee with which the Conservative MPs have leapt onto it. In an orchestrated smear campaign, one Tory MP after another used Question Period to lob contrived queries to Jason Kenney, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. What would the government do about this awful situation?  Wasn’t it just another example of Liberal arrogance? Of course, Mr. Kenney replied, the Harper government cares very much for the welfare of foreign women brought into Canada under the government’s Live-In Caregivers program.

The Tories are dying to find a way of cutting into the edge the Liberals hold n the ethnic and newcomer vote.

We can get ready for an even sorrier spectacle when the House of Commons’ Immigration committee calls the three women and Ms. Dhalla to testify — under oath — about the case.

“We’ll certainly be inviting those nannies to come and talk about their experiences,” says David Tilson, the committee’s Tory chair.

Will the women be able to back up their complaints? Will they even show up?

Judging from how a House committee mishandled its hearings on Karlheinz Schreiber’s dealings with ex-PM  Brian Mulroney, you can expect a blizzard of irrelevant partisanship that will do more to muddy the situation than to clarify it.

Hiring immigrant workers can be a risky business for politicians. In the U.S., several prominent politicians have fallen afoul of the regulations, bringing much embarrasment on themselves.

The accusation that Ms. Ruby and/or her family has mistreated domestic employees is serious, and warrants proper investigation as to whether there has been any violation of provincial or federal legislation. Just as any other complaint of this type should be dealt with.

But that’s not what’s happening.

Instead, there’s the usual rush to judgement that if one has been accused, one must be guilty.

The National Post says “the mere fact” that two women have complained about Ms. Dhalla’s treatment of them “will likely ruin her political career.”

Perhaps not. The Toronto Star has a story here saying that most people in her riding are reserving judgment.

Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is leaving it to Bob Rae to respond on behalf of the party.

“I’ve seen a lot of lynch-mob activity,” Rae says, “and this is just another example.”

For my part, I’ve followed Ms. Dhalla’s career closely since she was first elected — by a handful of votes – in 2004. I encouraged her to take a run at the leadership after Stephane Dion resigned — even if only to build her profile.

In an article I wrote for the multicultural magazine AMOI I picked her as a future Canadian Barack Obama. I noted that at 35, she has twenty or thirty years ahead of her to find her fit in Canadian public life.

It would be a shame if all this promise goes down the drain — especially if, as seems entirely possible, the only ones to gain in the end are not the caregivers or the constituents of Ms. Dhalla, but her political enemies who drool at the chance to knock off a bright, assertive female role model for the multicultural community.

I have been watching, with a mixture of bewilderment and bother, the apparently endless attempts to erode free speech rights in Canada.

The most spectacular recent examples involve those twins of far right views (about as far removed from my political compass as one could conceive), Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant.

Both were harrassed by Human Rights Commissions for views expressed in their books, Levants’s Shakedown and Steyn’s America Alone.

Notwithstanding the fact that both have won their cases, the very idea that both had to defend, at considerable cost, their right to express their views strikes at the roots of Canada’s Charter of Rights.

Levant, you’ll remember, was called on the carpet for reprinting the harmless and somewhat juvenile cartoons of Mohammed in his Western Standard magazine; Steyn incurred the wrath of Canada’s Muslim establishment for his assertion, reprinted in Maclean’s magazine, that the United States stands alone as the sole defender of the West agtainst Islamic extremism.

All this reminds me of my own run-in with the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Two small neighborhood convenience stores were hit with a decree that they were creating a “hostile environment” for shoppers by selling adult magazines like Playboy and Penthouse. 

The two women who made the complaint enjoyed the unlimited financial and moral support of the Ontario government. The store owners were in no position to fight back. In their defense, I called in a coalition of magazine distributors who ended up putting $50,000 into a legal defense fund.

The case went to a three-person tribunal of well-paid adjudicators who held extensive (and expensive) hearings before concurring with our submission that the complaints were baseless.

If the business group had not been willing to support these small stores, I have no doubt they would have been pilloried by their accusers. Every mom-and-pop store could have found itself at risk for selling magazines that met every letter of the law.

In reflecting on this, I thought of the wonderful contribution of Alan Borovoy over the past forty years in his leadership of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Now retired, he fought tireless battles over capital punishment, religious instruction in the schools, hate speech, obscenity laws, terrorism, and the War Measures Act.

Borovoy remained steadfast in his opposition to hate speech laws. His stance cost him many friends in the Jewish community.

The struggle goes on. There has never been an adequate explanation for the way the Harper government barred British MP George Galloway from entering Canada. It’s clear he was kept out because of his views on the war in Afghanistan and his alleged support for Hamas, the democratically elected government of Palestine.

Agree or disagree with Galloway, his views deserve testing in the court of public opinion, not in the shrouded back rooms of the bureaucracy.

New examples come up almost every day. B’nai Brith has demanded that Toronto Mayor David Miller stop the performance of the play, Seven Jewish Children, at a theatre the city bailed out a few years ago.  The idea of asking a mayor to act as a censor in Canada is truly mind-boggling.

The willingness of Canadian courts to impose publication bans on evidence at criminal trials is equally troubling. Other than to protect the identity of a juvenile, I see no justification in restricting in any way, shape or form the reporting of what goes on in our courts.

Our entire system of justice is built on public disclosure of court proceedings. This is the only assurance we have against secret arrests, trials and imprisonment. How much, for example, would we know of the RCMP’s misbehavior in the Dzienkaski case without disclosure of the video showing how this poor man was assaulted?

The one small glimmer of hope I’ve been able to find is that Canada has opposed a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council that would make “defamation of religion” a human rights violation. Look out, Christopher Hitchins, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins!This week, an association of Canadian journalists marked the annual World Press Freedom Day. Alan Borovoy reminds us that the greatest threat to freedom of expression in Canada is not government edicts, but public apathy.

Our Human Rights Commissions were established to deal primarily with discrimination in employment and housing. It is time they returned to these duties. It is time to dump the whole panoply of hate speech laws and all those invidious devices that allow repression of the vigorous debate that is the mark of true democracy.

Oh Canada, stand on guard!

As an author, I’d be indignant if someone profited by reading my books over the air without getting my permission or compensating me for my work.

Yet that’s what happens every day in Canada when you turn on your TV set and pick up a cable signal of your favorite CBC, CTV or Global programs.

There’s a big battle going on in Canadian broadcasting over what the networks call “carriage fees.”

Hard pressed by falling advertising revenues, the networks are asking the CRTC  (Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission) to require cable companies to compensate them for including their signals in the programming package they sell their customers.

I’ve always wondered why the cable companies were not required to do this in the first place. The U.S. has long had a rule that cable companies pay over-the-air TV stations for carrying their signals.

The networks may have welcomed the added exposure they got as Canadian homes switched from antennas to cable in the past forty years. Now that decision has come back to haunt them.

The specialty channels, like Bravo and the Weather Network, have been treated differently. From Day One, they’ve received a few cents for every cable customer.

Cable companies like Rogers and Shaw claim they’d have to charge customers $6 more a month to give the networks carriage fees. The networks would like the cable guys to cough up the fee from their profits.

As an example of how troubled Canadian broadcasting has become, CTV announced it would have to close three small city stations in Windsor and Wingham, Ontario and Brandon, Manitoba. When no buyer stepped up, CTV boss Ivan Fecan said he’d let them go for a dollar. Shaw Cable immediately offered that princely sum, and it looks as if they’ll get them.

At the same time, Shaw took out newspaper ads blasting the networks for asking for a bail-out.

I wonder if the folks running Shaw and Rogers have ever heard of intellectual property rights. Getting rich by selling somebody else’s property doesn’t seem right to me.

REPORTING ON THE RUN

There is a famous newspaper cliche, first popularized by Ben Hecht’s play The Front Page, that goes “Get me Rewrite.”

It was supposedly shouted by legmen who phoned from police court to pass on details of a trial. Their facts would then be written up by Rewrite and slapped on the front page of the next edition.

Today, a lot of news is transmitted from the scene to the presses — pictures as well as words — via wireless computing and digital photography.

In a landmark court ruling this week, Justice Douglas Cunningham has given reporters covering the trial of Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien permission to live-blog and send instant news stories from their handheld devices inside the courtroom. The story’s here.

Reporters used to have to take a break and rush from the courtroom to phone in their stuff, just like in the days of The Front Page.

However, the judge turned down the CBC when it requested permission to put TV cameras in the courtroom.

The Mayor, by the way, is charged with influence peddling.

A REVIEW OF MY NEW BOOK

If you’d like to read a review of my new book, Scott Joplin and the Age of Ragtime, go to my book site and click on News and Reviews (on the right).

My thanks to Nancy Mereska for her kind review.