The Media vs. John Lennon

Politics for Joe 14

by Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News

December 30, 2010

Preamble:

It was on a late night streetcar ride this past March from Toronto Western Hospital where my beloved Kimberly rested in ICU following emergency brain surgery, to my sister's flat off the Danforth. Twenty years had passed since I lived in Toronto, with a girlfriend at the time with whom we used to describe ourselves as Toronto's Dashing Young Sophisticates. All the dancing and daring martinis in the then fresh nightclubs around John Street aside, one of the thousand things about Toronto I had enjoyed back then was the Streetcar Crazies.

You know who I mean. The lost souls one missed prescription dosage away from a stint in the mental hospital, or worse a frozen corpse shroud in newspaper under a Q.E.W. overpass. Come listen to us, for we are the dead and we know of many things.

And I enjoyed and enjoy listening to them. I used to comment in light sarcasm to other Dashing Young Sophisticates that, 'If the Apocalypse is really coming I want to know about it.' Ha hah. Ho hoh.

So with my eyes fixed on whatever book I was reading for review on that March night, I kept my ears alerted from the ravings coming from the man across the aisle, two seats ahead. His age is immaterial, his description obvious, so I leave those details to your mind.

But he carried on, to the woman sat next to him – I couldn't tell if she was sympathetic friend or unfortunate bystander who had lost the seat lottery – shouting in a measured calm voice.

This city is doomed. You'll see. You'll see. The newspapers and the TV and the radio, they're all behind Tom Ford. Oh Yeah. You'll see. You'll see. There's going to be the army on every street and nobody's going to be allowed downtown. Oh yeah. You'll see. You'll see. We're going to be driven out or locked up. Oh yeah. You'll see. You'll see.

Ha hah. Ho hoh.

One G8 summit and a municipal election later (he got the order wrong), who's the Streetcar Crazy: him or me?

This picture of a beautiful woman probably led you to this column. That's my point.

A Working Class Hero is Something to Be:

I've been considering this column for weeks now, which is why there has not been a new Politics for Joe column for weeks now. For much of what I am going to discuss and damn at length is based on what I will call the casual punditry that infests news media. I utterly reject the tossing out of explosive opinions (e.g. Tucker Carlson: “Michael Vick should have been executed”) just for their own sake; deadline met, audience aroused, cheque cashed.

Such opinions are the IED of journalism. The Improvised Explosive Device, assembled by uncaring fools, and lobbed or embedded in places where they will cause the most damage. The only difference is in the audience reaction – an IED is feared; an IED pundit is idolized. Why?

As soon as you're born they make you feel small,
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all,

Those are the opening lines to John Lennon's 'Working Class Hero”. You'll be seeing more of them here, but for now I just want to say that on December 8, the thirtieth anniversary of Lennon's murder, I read and heard lots of references to Beatle John, Father John, Husband John, and Victim John but darn few about Revolutionary John.

The reason? To discuss Revolutionary John would mean that followers might emerge: questioners, dissenters, those who look at the way things are and say No.

I've been reading Chris Hedges' 'Death of the Liberal Class' for a review which will be appearing in the next few days. Hedges' essential point is that popular opinion has been so narrowed and homogenized by state and corporate control that there truly is no contrary argument available for the way things are. We argue about the tailoring of the Emperor's clothes while ignoring the pink and naked man beneath.

Think I'm wrong? I'm going to play an off the cuff game. Here are the top news (sic) stories on several major news sites, chosen as the first four off the top of my head, as I write this column:

Yahoo!: 'Spring Olympics' top news story' (actual headline)

Google News: 'Graphic cigarette warnings ignore contraband problem'

The Globe & Mail: 'UAE denied new visa fees discriminate against Canadians'

The New York Times: 'Families Bear Brunt of Deployment Strains'

Well let's see: if you're a cigarette smoking Canadian serviceman hoping for a spot of skiing in Dubai while on furlough, you're going to be piss mad. Otherwise, it's not your problem.

There's room at the top they are telling you still,
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill,
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

What is disturbing about these headlines is how they skirt around the real issue at their heart. Let's take them in order.

1. Spring Olympics – The cause is global climate change, but let's not talk about that. Instead, let's talk about the inconvenience, the 'unusual' nature of a warm February in British Columbia that nonetheless – yay for us! - did not stop the Olympics from being an extended Canadian end zone dance worthy of Billy 'White Shoes' Johnson.
2. Cigarette labels – Again, let's approach a major issue from the point of view of a shy teenaged boy at the high school dance – we shall observe the action from the perimeter. Instead, why is the question never asked that: Cigarettes do nothing for the soul except put off the pangs of addiction while causing cancer, yet are legal. Marijuana at least makes people giggly happy while causing cancer, yet are illegal. Cigarettes are profitable and taxable. Marijuana can be grown by any fool with a heat lamp, seeds and a pot to plant in.
3. UAE visa fees – A story about the Middle East that does not add to the discussion of the distrust and cultural cleavage between the Arab world and the West. Instead, luxury travelers are inconvenienced. Slightly.
4. Troop deployment – Deployment is hard on families. Therefore, let's support the troops! For the troops are good! Families are good! Our war is good! It just needs to be managed better.

'Keep you doped with religion, and sex and TV'

Of all the things I can teach or describe to you about Politics today, what I am about to say is the most important of them all: There is no debate. None. Not in the 'major media', barely any in the minor media.

Let us take the Afghanistan War as an example – there are others, but Afghanistan is well enough known to the reader that there is no need to waste time in describing the situation. What one comes down to is a dialogue straight out of Samuel Beckett:

A: How will we know when the war is over?

B: When it is won.

A: How will we know when it is won?

B: When the war is over.

A: When the other side surrenders?

B: Yes.

A: And if they surrender?

B: Then the war is not over.

A: Why?

B: Because if they surrender, then they are still alive and not to be trusted. So the war continues.

A: And if they do not surrender?

B: So the war continues.

A: So therefore the war continues?

B: But only until it is won.

Lather, rinse, repeat. In the meantime, private contractors will rake in billions in profit, young people who want to have a career and simultaneously serve what they perceive to be their country's needs will die, and we face a situation of perpetual war that never addresses the root issues of ethnic hatred, poverty and minimal education. But all that will come, we are told, when the war is over. Except we shall never know when the war is over.

And Joseph Heller thought 'Catch-22' was a novel.

But yet, the danger exists for the controlling interests of business and their political lackeys (for the word is not too strong) that someone might sit up and take notice, that the absurdist dialogue just described might have a public life. Can't be having that.

So instead we have a false debate, a magician's distraction as it were. We instead are told to exercise our opinions on Lindsay Lohan's latest rehab, Heidi Montag's new tits, or whether or not New York Jets' football coach Rex Ryan has really, really nice feet.

Equally, we are faced with a false debate between a Right and a Left – neither of which exist. I say that debate does not exist because there are no extremes that might invigorate the left or the right. No one – no one – is advocating complete disarmament. No one - no one – is advocating a complete prohibition on cigarettes. No one – no one – is saying that perhaps Al-Qaeda has a point when in its murderous, suicidal way it says that the West is the enemy for it hates the Islamic world and supports the Israeli apartheid state.

There is no Right and Left. Such argument is no more extreme than a golfer and his caddy arguing whether to take a sand wedge or a lob wedge for the approach shot. Should we be playing golf, or militarizing the Gulf, at all? That question is not asked.

And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still f@(king peasents as far as I can see, 

The saddest set-piece of modern journalism is when it decides to anoint someone ass Radical of the Month in order to proclaim, 'See? We are intense and trustworthy!' the latest is Wikileaks' Julian Assange. All appropriately wind-swept blonde, a Liam Neeson character in training, Assange is our current Danger Man. And by re-publishing Wikileaks' stolen material, the media get to claim that they are fighting against The Man! Working for openness! Let a thousand flowers bloom!

Madness.

What is the outcome of Assange? It is this. He has done more to advance the cause of government secrecy than any man in history. They'll just be more careful about it all next time. Any further tightening of sunshine laws will be justified by pointing at Wikileaks and saying, 'We need to protect the privacy of our citizens and our state.' Assange is like God to the corporate state: if he didn't exist, he'd have to be invented.

A working class hero is something to be.
If you want to be a hero well just follow me,

No, dear friends, you're being deluded. It's ironic really that the journalists of a foregone age when the media (nee press) was actually confrontational to power that they were popularly known as a gang of brutish drunks. (My father was a columnist and my uncle Walter the editor of the Montreal Star- the description was fairly accurate.) The irony comes in that whereas the present journalistas are largely healthy eaters – they are a pretty trim bunch – they have more reason to wallow in the whisky bath of shame.

I've written about this In Another Place as they say of the Senate or House of Lords in the Commons, but I do feel the need to expand on the theme of the pap bath that modern 'news' has become. Because it should, it must, affect everything you think about politics today.

Political speech more than ever has become a language of raw slogans designed to stimulate raw responses. I'm not going to pretend that I remember an age when it was much more. I am a great admirer of the late Pierre Trudeau, but put absolutely bluntly, the average voter who swept him to power saw him as a guy with a nifty haircut, a hot car and said whatever you wanted to get up to in the wee small hours was fine by him so long as everyone involved was down with that.

But that at least, again in bluntest terms, was more than Obama. Obama was America saying to the world the Archie Bunker line of, 'Some of my best friends are Negroes', a reluctance to return to the Clinton years, a nifty poster and he had nothing to do with George W. Bush.

Except, what precisely, beyond a watery Health Care Bill and the revocation of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has Obama done that is much different from what Bush would have done in the same time and place?

Exactly.

But yet, one is led to believe that there chasms of difference between an Obama Democrat and a Bush Republican. The Tea Party is not all that different. They used to be called America Firsters and John Birchers. They're the crazy uncle that's always been part of the Republican family but they liked to leave out of the Christmas card photo.

And yet, they are alone on the fringe. The Tea Partiers – or the John Baird brand of Harper Conservatives in Canada – are truly a fringe whose message is More of the Same! More war, more secrecy, more intrusion into the lives of private citizens, and the environment can go to hell because that's going to be the next guy's problem.

So where exactly is the equivalent on the left? There is no true contrarian voice. One may not agree with arguments such as:

• pull all troops out of the Middle East and Afghanistan
• cease development of the Tar Sands immediately until there is scientific consensus
• take the starvation or abuse of any child in the world as seriously as one would take the fate of that child were he or she to be a child of your home country

But such a debate, which would in turn strengthen the more moderate members with the dialectic of ideas, is not heard. There are two reasons.

One, it is infinitely easier for the media to illuminate and re-write the positions of the current 'left' and 'right' wings (which are as different as Tweedledee is to Tweedledum) than to seek out opinions that frame the debate as a bottom versus top proposition. That, by the way, is the genius of Michael Moore. He literally shoves the powerless in the face of the powerful.

But two – it's bad for business. The 'news' so to speak approaches its audience the way Harry Lime looked at the people below the Ferris Wheel in 'The Third Man'. “The dead are happier dead.” People don't want to be disturbed. Outside of scary movies and comic books they've spent their entire lives being told they don't have to be disturbed – not for long anyway. The next Saviour will be along shortly. We'll package him up nicely: Obama shooting hoops, Ignatieff flipping sausage, Harper singing Beatles' hits. You'll like us! You'll really like us!

Ideas will only re-enter the arena when the media decides it will be so, when it re-assumes its mantle as the challenger of authority. Media must be brave, else it is just advertising with weather maps.

Media must not pacify the audience with pseudo-news of who Scarlett Johansson may or may not be married to this week. If there truly needs to be celebrity news at all within a newscast, let it be celebrity news that illuminates rather than overshadows a true issue, a real issue.

For instance, the most read posting on my website was about actress Alyssa Milano sponsoring wells being dug in arid areas of Africa. That is real celebrity news because it is about environmental victims. Bottom versus an uncaring top. (For it is an uncaring top. One week of war could bring fresh water to all of the Saharan fringe.)

So Joe, that is your politics today. Demand the truth and support it where you find it. And don't be afraid to hear a shocking opinion. Happy New Year and -

Be seeing you.

Jon Stewart and the Shame of Journalism

Inside Television 534

Publication Date: 12-31-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

Jon Stewart named Man of the Year

As this column appears in print on New Year's Eve, I am reminded of the oft-repeated words of the late Ed McMahon: 'New Year's is a night for amateur drunks'. So therefore sir, you and I as professionals need to set an example for all the kids out there. There is both a right way of doing things or a drive off the highway way. You want to go with that first one.

For instance, just because at midnight that bottle of expensive scotch on the sideboard looks an awful lot like that jug of Mateus you lugged into the party at eight does not make it yours. You don't want to get kicked out in the snow because frankly right about now you couldn't drive a nail let alone Dad's truck. So be advised.

Now then – I used to write a column for pwtorch.com, the best pro wrestling news website. The of course there were multiple hospitalizations from our house that left me and the dog staring at each other with little thought balloons appearing over our heads that read, Who's Next? So the hobby writing dropped low on the priority list.

Anyway, the editor – Wade Keller – posted a question on the Torch website this week that I thought was a good way of approaching the New Year. He asked, What would you like wrestling to give you in 2011?

I responded to it, not that I'll belabor you with the response. Search the site and you'll find it. But I do have an answer to my own version, What would I like television to give me in 2011?

The New York Times this week stated that comedian Jon Stewart is the Edward R. Murrow of today, specifically for focusing on the issue of the lack of publicly-funded health care for the 9-11 first responders. Many of them have suffered from debilitating respiratory illnesses from the carnage they inhaled, among other sicknesses afflicting them, and Stewart essentially shamed the U.S. Congress into passing a Bill that was dying on the order paper which covered the first responders' needs.

As much as I admire and applaud Jon Stewart for this and many other actions, I think that virtually every legitimate journalist should feel as shamed as the obstructionist Congressmen. Every Western democracy, for this isn't just an 'American thing', has a reflexive belief in protecting the freedom of the press. One innately believes in this, like the acceptances that babies are cute, no one cooks like Mom, and when mice wear pants and appear in a drawing they have the ability to speak.

But press freedom is only worth defending if the press actually does its job. Its only purpose should be to challenge authority. All authority. Government, business, religion, scientific, economic, labour, ethical and overall philosophical. That's the job gentlemen.

The most ridiculous proposition in today's journalism (specifically here we'll deal with television journalism) is that somehow having a one-track attack as an editorial decision, whether its from the right or the left is somehow a breath of fresh air. Feisty! Provocative! Giving them fat cats hell!

That is a bigger load of rubbish than all the discarded trees and bags of ruined wrapping paper to be found tumbled the streets on the first garbage pick-up day after Christmas. Fox News or the upcoming Sun TV in Canada aren't revolutionaries: they are panderers. They pander to the interests of power and capital, of a permanent war mentality that cannot be challenged, and at a concentration on the glamorous or infamous figures at the top rather than the needs of the millions and the billions.

By the news – broadly stated – not challenging equally it challenges nothing. It merely reinforces the opinions of its audience, pitting right vs. left, whereas the true battle should be bottom vs. top. The audience seeks out opinions that it agrees with already. Do remember that the definition of a genius is a man who agrees with you about everything.

To close with something quite specific, News, Entertainment, Weather and Sports are all legitimate public interests. But I want them kept separate. Unless the result is absolutely of massive public interest, like Canada winning the gold medal in hockey, I don't ever want to see a sports story on my half hour or sixty minute newscast. I don't want to see or hear anything about Michael Jackson's kids unless I tune into or surf over to a place that features entertainment information.

Stop occupying our minds with bread and circuses. Even a circus can get boring after a while.

Here's the good news. We survived another year. That means we win. Be seeing you.

(If you'd like to read more of my commentary, my book review pages can be found Here.)

Alyssa Milano and The Gift of Christmas

Inside Television 533

Publication Date: 12-24-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

Alyssa Milano, from her mycharitywater.org page

And where will you find Christmas tonight? I suppose if your eyes are looking through lenses of belief you might find it almost anywhere. For some it will be in the sound of hymns soft as Silent Night or bold as Come All Ye Faithful. It may be in the toe of a stocking nestled next to the tangerine. Or perhaps Christmas rests its head on the pillow next to a sleeping child. It can turn snowflakes to magic and a turkey dinner into something that fills not just the stomach, but feeding the soul itself.

And sometimes – rarely and most beautifully – you don't find Christmas. It finds you.

I'll let you in on a non-secret. I wanted to dump the whole thing this year. No Christmas for me, no sir. I could find no reason to celebrate the season – not this time. The show wasn't ready to open.

Then I found something on Twitter – yes, silly little 140 character at a time Twitter – that changed my mind. And wouldn't you know, isn't the irony and the opportunity just perfect, that it has a TV connection.

I'm sure you recognize the name Alyssa Milano. You're reading a TV column, of course you recognize her name. Child star on 'Who's the Boss?' from 1984-92; adult star of 'Charmed' from 1998-2006. Movies, music, a clothing line and a fanatical devotion to baseball. A celebrity.

There are those who sneer at the modern times and the cult of celebrity. If I look back at the archives of my writing, I'm sure I can find my own contributions to the general theme of, 'I'm above all that nonsense.'

But a celebrity has an advantage, a power if you will, in the ability to make people pay attention. And when lots of people pay attention, and lots of people do one little thing sometimes all those little things become big beautiful things.

Did you know that one billion people – roughly thirty times Canada's population – don't have near access to that most basic of staples, clean water? Those that don't walk an average of three miles a day to get enough water for the day, then return the next day and the next and all the days after that until their bodies break down and they die. The result is weakness, poverty; and from that anger, hate and just not giving a damn about anything other than personal survival.

Alyssa Milano turned 38 this past Sunday and she gave the cause of water...her birthday. Through mycharitywater.org and by Tweeting the request, she asked for her fans to give to the development of clean water projects in Africa; specifically Ethiopia. And her goal of $38,000 was achieved and surpassed.

Maybe it was just the timing of it all, but I felt incredibly moved by this simple act of a good person who has earned the right to sit back, relax, and wait for the servants to peel a grape.

Maybe you won't see the relationship of this simple act to the celebration of Christmas. But I remind you that there is pretty good evidence that Jesus Christ himself was an Ethiopian, and besides which, isn't 'giving' the point of this festival of indulgence?

Take a look at the mycharitywater.org link. Do something yourself. Or do something entirely different for a whole different charity. I think, I believe, I know you'll find Christmas carefully wrapped inside your heart, waiting to be released.

Give peace a chance. Be seeing you.

What to Give for Christmas?

Inside Television 532

Publication Date: 12-17-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

You very nearly came to this space this week to find 500 words or so on the average salary ($55,000 as of 2007) of CBC employees, the resultant huff and puff of various Tory MP's ($157,000 as of 2010) and my defense of the former at the expense of the latter. But, a Thunder Bay bus driver has saved you from that dry reading.

I realized some time ago that my biggest fans are cab drivers and bus drivers. This is a good thing. 'Taxi' was one of my favourite sitcoms and Ralph Kramden one of the greatest of all comedy creations. But I was getting off the Mainline the other day when the driver asked me, 'Hey, you got something special planned for us to read for Christmas?' I of course answered, 'Yes sir!'

I of course had nothing of the sort planned. I'd thought of it certainly. For the past ten years I've done an annual Suggested Gift column with the best of TV sets, comfy chairs, boxed DVDs etc. etc. etc. A column like your morning toast and jam: easily made, easily forgotten.

But all this darn reading has gotten in the way of all that. To be perfectly honest, if it wasn't for all the reading I've done for my book reviews, I would have gone mad this year. Sincerely. Really. No exaggeration. And the reading has turned me off of consumerism. Sincerely. Really. No exaggeration there either.

You see, when you read about poverty in Africa, and struggles for survival around the world, it kind of makes what new scent of Old Spice is available just a might touch unimportant. But I am here to help, not hector or lecture.

You want to honour your loved ones with gifts. Good. Great. Lovely. Why don't you give them something different this year? – give them You. Huh?

A dear friend of mine who hates reading his name in the paper, even though he is one of the finest keyboard players this city has produced, said something interesting while we were indulging in liquid enhanced problem solving the other night. He said that because of the wretched Northwestern Ontario winter, everyone he knows is creative in some way: music, writing, drawing, crafting, woodworking, you name it. So why not do that and then give it away?

I've written my darling Kimberly a Christmas Book for this year. One of the stories is free for you to share – it can be found at thefearandloathingpage.blogspot.com. Stories, poems and essays all printed upa nd bound together. You can do the same and nobody is going to care if you're not Charles Dickens, John Cheever, or even me.

Or, if all else fails, spend two bucks and buy a blank DVD. Load it up with show clips that have made you happy, songs that have made you sing, pictures that have made you laugh, anything at all that defines who you are and who the gift recipients are to you.

There. Over. Said. Done. And if that dear person in your life was looking for a sweater, try giving a hug instead. A hug is much warmer than any sweater ever knitted. Merry Christmas to come, and to all – Be seeing you.

Turn Out the Lights, The Party's Over

Inside Television 531

Publication Date: 12-10-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

The Dream Team

It couldn't have been more than three weeks ago that I got to thinking about Don Meredith, who passed away this week of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 72. I was wondering if the man Howard Cosell nicknamed Danderoo might ever do a one-shot guest announcer appearance on one of the football broadcasts. God knows the NFL could use a little fun this year.

Yes, even the most fervent football fan – the one whose every kitchen appliance is decorated in team colours – knows that this year has been a dog. And that's even before Michael Vick starting contending for MVP honours. There are no undefeated teams, no one chasing records, the glam offensive units of San Diego, Indianapolis and New Orleans are lurching, James Harrison of the Steelers has paid more in illegal hit fines this season than you'll make in the next two years, the Dallas Cowboys killed their coach fir all the world to see, and the less said about Brett Favre and the Vikings would be a pleasant change.

Whomever wins the Super Bowl will have fans who will claim this as the bestest ever football season! The rest of us will know better and move on to the NBA or NHL.

But that was the thing about Don Meredith. He was at his best making some godawful Monday Night Football blowouts memorable. He's the first sports announcer I can remember who was truly funny. For instance, there was the famous moment during a blowout in, I think, Denver when the camera panned to a bored fan sat alone in the stands during the fourth quarter. The fan noticed the camera and instead of waving his arms like an idiot and putting on a rainbow wig, he just raised a middle finger. To which, Meredith commented, 'That means “We're Number One” Howard.' Classic.

Meredith also did not mind revealing the side of his personality that made him the rumoured (and more or less confirmed by him) of the two best football novels ever written: North Dallas 40; and Semi-Tough. Dallas was not the media centre that New York was in the 1960s, elsewise Meredith and the Dallas Cowboys would have given Broadway Joe Namath and the New York Jets a good run for the backpage party headlines.

There was the time when the Cleveland Browns brought into the game a new wide receiver, one who actually had a decent enough career. He had an unusual name: Fair Hooker. Over to you, Don. 'Ah nevah met one of those Frank.' As it would turn out 20 years later, neither did Frank Gifford when he was caught avec courtesan and landed on the front page.

ABC, or in recent years ESPN has never been able to get that magic formula of Cosell, Gifford and Meredith right again. They tried the comics, they tried the sportswriters, they came very close with Al Michaels and John Madden, but the first Monday Night Football crew was an unmatchable classic.

The final thought is what you would think it would be. The best thing about a bad game is that Meredith would essentially tell you to change the channel. Chick Hearn used to do the same kind of thing for the Los Angeles Lakers ('ladies and gentlemen, this game is in the refrigerator. The door's closed, the light's out and the butter's getting hard') but only Don Meredith would make you want to stick around to hear a southwestern baritone that poured out like the third Jack Daniels of the night:

'Turn out the lights,

The Party's over

It is time to say good night.'

Enjoy the eternal party Danderoo.

Be seeing you.

Wikileaks Agonistes

The Wikileaks Scandal:

Where Do You Draw the Line?

Politics for Joe 13

by Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News

All right, so it has been formally confirmed that Prince Andrew is a buffoon. What else is new? Quite a bit actually, and all of it is quite, quite scary.

Once the Wikileak and Guardian (q.v.) stories drawn from an immense cache of (ahem) secret American diplomatic messages were released, I knew that this was a subject that was going to require a reasonably deep analysis. For the past several years, people have been speculating on the subject of what 'new media' was going to look and feel like – such fabric ranged from kitten-soft woolies to a corduroy impossibly charged with enough static electricity to light the New York Times Building for a year.

Who was going to win out? The old media companies like the NY Times? The newer, gauche, arriviste typed like the septuagenarian Rupert Murdoch? Maybe sexy-looking and saucy web concoctions like Slate or Salon?

Turns out it's any asshole with a memory stick an d a blog with a catchy name.

Regardless of whether you view Wikileaks 'founder' Julian Assange as a Babyface or a Heel one inquiry about him can be stamped as closed. He is a lousy journalist.

Journalism is all about editing. The classic image is of the harried and balding city desk man two coney dogs away from a terminal heart attack, slashing away at copy with a red marker, or red highlighting on a pdf as it were. All true, but there is also editing at the point of attack. The individual writer, producer, reporter is self-editing constantly. In the simplest case, in a scrum, the politician will glance at you once. You will get to ask one question. You can think of 15. Which one will you pick?

That's editing on the front-line.

But Assange didn't do any of that. Like the Hollywood scandal sheets (e.g. Confidential) of years gone by, Wikileaks has just published everything slipped to it, raw as meat cut fresh from the slaughterhouse knife.

And that's my problem with it.

Whether or not Assange is captured, prosecuted and sentenced to Devil's Island – or Terrace Bay ON – with only a Commodore 64 at his disposal for communication, it really doesn't matter. Now that he has shown the way to fame and a happy happy joy joy fleeting moment of briefly being The Biggest Story in The World, there will be more imitators than the hydra had heads.

At least the Guardian, my favourite newspaper in the world had the decency to organize the stories, release them with informed commentary, and add the codicil that 'just because Wikileaks is reporting this, its not necessarily true.'

Because – dear God – what if in the middle of all these officially acknowledged as real communications, what if Wikileaks had put out one that was absolutely false. Imagine this headline:

Wikileaks Reports U.S. to Cease Israeli Support: Cites Long-Range Oil Demands as Rationale

Who would believe the denial?

Much of the Wikileaks, er, leaks can be defended on a public right to know. For instance, why in hell is a buffoon like Prince Andrew on the public payroll? Surely there must be a gentleman's private club in London willing to pay for a Prince of the Realm to sit in an armchair and spout silly things in a shout ignored by the card players.

That's all fine.

But if you accept the general notion that a nuclear-armed North Korea run by dictators madder than anything Lewis Carroll ever imagined, then the leak that China was thinking about tossing Pyongyang into the Sea of Japan and cleansing its hands of a client state, well, that leak should make you seriously question the idea of need to know v. wan t to know.

If the story is correct, there is not a chanced that China will now follow through with the abandonment. One truly cannot imagine a greater loss of face than a supposed private communication on a delicate matter … BEING SPLASHED ACROSS THE INTERNET! And so the world will sleep a little more uneasily tonight.

This is the most fruitless proposition I will ever put forward, but I truly beg anyone like Julian Assange who is surreptitiously passed sensitive inform ation, please in the name of humanity, think before you publish.

Be seeing you.

Story of a Brain Injury - CTV's W5

Inside Television 530

Publication Date: 12-03-10

By: Hubert O'Hearn

Those who know me well, or at least regularly follow this space, will understand why I am choosing a particular program to promote this week. I hope that it won't prove a disappointment that I'm not writing about a Christmas special, although as this is a story about will and family and love I do like to think that it matches this season's purported themes.

This Saturday evening and repeated again on Sunday afternoon across the full CTV network, W5's Sandie Rinaldo will tell you the story of Captain Trevor Green. Whilst serving in Afghanistan in 2006, was blind-sided with an axe-blow to the head during what was supposed to have been a routine meeting with village elders. He wasn't killed, but was left with a massive amount of brain damage.

There is no real telling how an injury to one area of the brain or another will affect a person. The old story is absolutely true of a railroad foreman being felled by a spike driven through his skull yet got up and proceeded to yell orders and lead a normal life afterwards; or as normal as one can be with a doughnut hole through the cranium. On the other hand, lobotomies which were performed in the 1940s through the 1960s on the 'uncontrollably mentally ill' with the intent of only slightly dulling the patient's energy often left dull and empty shells where once there stood a man or a woman.

In the case of Captain Green, the axe did not sever his personality nor his will. You see, Green was engaged to Debbie Lepore and damn it, he was going to walk that aisle and stand for that ceremony.

It took four years. I'm not really giving away an ending here; television rarely features noble failures. But the story of Trevor Green's recovery is one that – well, I hope you never have to live through anything similar but if you do, you will be much the better off for the knowledge.

A brain injury is unlike any other illness or physical malady. Improvement and recovery is measured in inches, not in feet. I've recovered from open heart surgery and relatively one is leaping about like a stag from bed to chair, chair to hall and once around the floor. No, a brain injury is inches; it is syllable by syllable, thought by thought, and one second more of memory than there was yesterday, last week, last month, or last year.

As a tale of will and a demonstration of the massive amounts of therapy, community and family support required to assist the patient back into a world with a goal of love, I don;t know how this story can fail to move your hearts.

Be seeing you.

Copyright and the Right to Copy

Copyright and the Right to Copy

Politics for Joe 12

by Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News

For curiousity's sake, I wonder how many readers know what legislative language actually looks like. In relation to the government's Bill C32, amending the Copyright Act, the following is how Parliament describes what you or I know as “a band putting out a CD”:

500. to make a sound recording of it available to the public by telecommunication in a way that allows a member of the public to have access to the sound recording from a place and at a time individually chosen by that member of the public and to communicate the sound recording to the public by telecommunication in that way;

It is for this reason that no Canadian Member of Parliament will never, ever be seen on stage doing a guest shot with the Tragically Hip.

That was a fairly cheap joke taken at a serious issue, but Copyright Law is dry enough to turn an ocean into a beach, so one must squeeze in the entertainment where one can. This week, a Murderer's Row of Canadian writers from Atwood to Yann Martel signed a letter printed as an ad in the Usual Prominent Dailies protesting C32. So what's the beef?

Right at the outset, I do want the reader to know that C32 is a sincere attempt by the Harper government to manage an issue that may well just be unmanageable in the internet age. A computer expert I used to work with told me a basic truth: Anything that can be displayed on a computer screen can be copied. It can be easy, it can be hard, but it can be done. And the issues flow out of the cracks of that truth sneak into all facets of Canadian life. Here are two of the many questions that the Bill writers had to deal with:

1. Because rights of unauthorized reproduction can so easily be broken, an artist's only hopes of being paid royalties are payments made by legitimate organizations that are legally obligated to make honest reporting to scrutinizing authorities. Yes, like schools. So, should schools and their boards (and ultimately you the ratepayer) pay additional copyright fees for material which the students can find for free on their own?
2. To at least take a stand against unauthorized reproduction, one method would be to effectively insert spyware into every possible piece of copyrighted material (pretty hard to do in the case of text) monitoring its usage. You share – you're busted. You disable the spyware code – you're busted. Do you have a problem with that, honest citizen?

Such choices would send Solomon running for the wine cellar. And I have to give an honest thumb's up to Harper for even making an attempt at a solution. They don't have to, you know. And this is not an issue that will swing a single seat in a federal election.

Yet, it is an issue that does directly or indirectly involve every citizen of this country. I invite the reader to do a little personal research and develop your own position. However, I do suggest that whatever Bill is passed by the Canadian or any other legislature, it will be seen as a laughable antique Tinker Toy construction within two years.

Broadly stated, media has become the most pluralistic industry in the world. A million and more individual producers of words, music and film all hoping to catch a wave and 'go viral' thus making a whack of money from advertising. As such, it is quite possible that by restricting access and reproduction in any way, governments are choking back the one thing artists need to thrive: the greatest reach to the greatest number.

So am I therefore advocating tossing Copyright into the bin? No. For the large media production companies will continue to exist, have the loudest voice and pay their dues and royalties. Their market share will just continue dipping. The biggest network five years from now may be as big as PBS is today, but that is still pretty big. As well, one must have success stories in the arts in order to offer artists some objective rationale for what they do. So those who can pay, should; those who can earn, should be protected.

But as the final trades and positions are being staked, I do remind the government and the reader that sometimes the old saw, 'he who governs least governs best' still applies.

Be seeing you.

Hubert O'Hearn

for Lake Superior News

(If you enjoyed this, I also invite you to read and share my Christmas Story for 2010, created to be enjoyed and shared by all families here. - H)

Emma and The Magic Card: Christmas Story 2010

Emma and the Magic Card

A Christmas Story for 2010

by

Hubert O'Hearn

(Every year I write Kimberly a Christmas Story. 'The Walk-Ins' is elsewhere on this site. As our thanks for all the love that has come to us this year, I wanted to share this year's edition with you and your families. I hope that by your sharing it, this story can be a gift to the world. I'm taking no direct money for this, but if you happen to click on an ad if you enjoy the story ... well, I won't mind a bit.

• May your hearts be as warm as a comforting hearth

H)

It would be nice to say these things happened Once Upon a Time, but that would not be strictly true. Rather, these things happened every day. Let's just pick a day at random. Here, I'll just pick up this Ledger of Storytelling I keep by my desk and … (leaf, leaf, leaf)ah yes, this will do. October 27^th. It was a Wednesday which is fitting, for it was full of woe.

We'll skip ahead to the evening. At 7:52 PM Mrs. Kimberly Darling looked over to her eleven year-old daughter Emma and either smiled or grimaced as she asked to Emma to please put down her storybook and go wash her face for bedtime. Emma's expression was much easier to describe. Definite grimace; not a whit of smiling to be found.

A bit of background might be needed. The storybook in question was 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen. Emma was a precocious child, was able to describe herself as such, and was therefore quite capable of appreciating the social commentary of a 19^th century novelist. This was a part of Emma that Mrs. Kimberly Darling and her husband Mr. Kenneth darling loved about her.

Of course there were lots of things they loved about Emma – more than you, me or a roomful of caffeine-charged accountants could count!

They loved the way she laughed.

The y loved the way she swam in the bath.

They loved the way she'd stand on one hip

They loved the dimple at the corner of her lip.

They loved when she would frown and pray

They loved at the new words she'd say -

• (well most of new words anyway.)

Emma had even be named for a Jane Austen novel anyway, so her interest was natural. Both the senior Darlings knew their way around a bookshelf so when she popped into the world eleven years ago, proud Mother all full of sweat and joy, and proud Father all full of dreams and some fears looked at the little pink baby stretching about and said:

Kimberly: “I think she's an Austen.”

Kenneth: “Not a Bronte?”

Kimberly: “Definitely not a Bronte. She looks more wise than … wanton.”

Kenneth: “Good. Heathcliff would make for a terribly awkward son-in-law. All that raging about the moors.”

Kimberly: “She's just been born! We have years – decades I hope! - before we have to start planning the wedding! Could you be a darling, Darling and get me some ice chips?”

Kenneth: “Of course … so which Austen then? Elizabeth is a good name. Comes with options – Liz, Beth, Liza, Queen of England. You know?”

Kimberly: “No, I think she's an Emma. What do you think, little girl?”

She whispered to her daughter.

Kimberly: “Would you like to be Emma Darling?”

Emma: “ - - - “

' – !

Her face looked about as much like a smile with a dimple as that bit of typing, but new parents can be prone to a bit of forgivable over-interpretation, so Emma she became and Emma she remained.

Little did the Darlings know – (and by the way, writers like me love the words 'little did so-and-so know' for it makes us seem smarter than our characters) – that in naming Emma for 'Emma' they had set a match to flash paper.

That, also by the way, is what we call a metaphor. Do not go setting matches to flash paper unless you're a properly trained and licensed magician! For magic used without proper training can get you in trouble, as you shall see presently.

No, the Darlings were in for an unfortunate outcome. As soon as she could read, Emma Darling was naturally curious about Emma Woodhouse this Other Girl for whom she was named.

There are many wonderful lessons to be learned from wonderful books if you take the right lessons from wonderful books. Sometimes, rarely but true enough in this case, one can take away the wrong lessons, Because from reading 'Emma' and the other Jane Austen novels, our Emma Darling learned to be:

Impetuous

Stubborn

A bit self-righteous

More than a bit accusatory

And quite enamored of fancy things

That stubborn business literally raised its head from its book at 7:52:15 PM, stuck out a lower lip like a pirate thrusting a dagger at a frightened hostage and said, “I want to finish my book!” The stubborn head the snapped downwards back towards the book and two blonde pigtails with little pink bows shook like twin scorpions warning the invader back, back, back away now or feel our wrath.

And so began the nightly battle as Mother and Daughter would fight it out for the WWE Title. No, they did not wrestle. The letters WWE here stand for Who Wins the Evening?

It usually took somewhere up to forty minutes to get Emma from the living room to her bedroom via the bathroom. October 27^th was relatively an easy evening. At 8:18 PM, an exhausted Mrs. Darling trudged into the living room, hot-tagged Mr. Darling by tapping him on the shoulder over the back of his recliner chair and saying, “Okay, I've done the hard part. Now you make her go to sleep.” And with that Mrs. Darling moved around to the front of the recliner chair and stood on one hip, with the clear intent of imminently taking over that chair and not moving from it for many hours, as many hours as she pleased. Sir.

Mr. Darling took the hint. He went up the long carpeted staircase to the second floor, feeling like Billy Bigelow ascending to eternity at the end of Rgers and Hammerstein's 'Carousel'. Yes, he was preferring to think about old Broadway musicals than the fight he knew he would eventually win but not without cost to a lost generation composed of, um, himself.

He stood outside Emma's bedroom, adjusted his sweater and swept a hand through his greying hair, wanting to look as Official Proper Daddy as he could, put on his biggest smile (Everything's Coming Up Roses!) and said to himself, 'It's showtime folks.' Kenneth Darling then stepped over their snoozing border collie Monsoon and entered the arena, er, bedroom.

It would do neither you or me any good to go through all the details. I don't need to recall all the grisly arguments and you don't need to hear them repeated. The first two lines will suffice:

Kenneth: It's sleepy time little girl!

Emma: No.

Your imagination can now run wild for ten minutes and I'm sure you'll manage to guess all the high points.

Anyway, after that time Mr. Darling tucked the warm light bulb from Emma's reading lamp into his left pants pocket, realized that wasn't the most comfortable place for it, put it into his sweater pocket – he was a cardigan kind of guy – kissed his daughter on the forehead rather than stabbing her in the neck, turned to leave and … tripped over her Big Red Bear causing him to land in a nest of tossed about stuffed animals.

Removing a Beanie Baby Bunny from his mouth, Mr. Darling said to Emma, “Tomorrow – as soon as you get home from school – you're cleaning this room.” This leads us to the important bits.

Emma said, “I will not clean my room. I will not clean my room. You can ask and ask until your face turns blue, but I will not clean my room.”

Kenneth: And why's that … dear?

Emma: These are my things and my room and I know where each and every thing is so why should I clean my room? No one comes into my room but me -

Kenneth: And me. And Mom.

Emma: And Monsoon too, but nobody important comes in my room, so why really should I be bothered wasting my valuable after-school hours organizing some place that is already organized to its owner's satisfaction?

Did I mention that Emma was a precocious child?

Mr. Darling was working on a rebuttal when Emma concluded with, “And besides, it will look exactly the same as it does now in no time at all so why should we bother with this fruity argument?”

Kenneth: I think you mean fruitless.

Emma smiled broadly. Her trap had been sprung. “There,” she said, “even you agree Daddy.”

There are certain very special moments in a man's life when sailing alone across the Pacific seems an appealing option to present circumstance. This was one of those moments in Kenneth Darling's life. And, there are certain very special moments in a man's life when his spirit is seized by some unknown voice and he finds the inspiration within him to speak words as wise and as eloquent as anything Pericles ever spoke. This was not one of those moments in Kenneth Darling's life.

For a brief flash of thought, Mr. Darling imagined a cartoon coyote with steam whistles sounding out its tufted ears while block letters spelling TILT replaced the pupils in its eyes.

Back to reality.

Kenneth: All right then. Until such time as you can tell your Mother and I – don't tell me, I know it should be your Mother and me but right about now I don't care. Until you can tell us that this room is clean and ready for inspection there will be no tucking in and … and I'm keeping the light bulb so no reading in bed. Good night dear. I love you. (exit)

It was the best he could do. It's not like a parent can retire to chambers like a superior court judge to mull and deliberate. Justice must be meted out quickly at a drumhead trial. But having set sentence, it could not now be broken. To do so would be to invite chaos.

Leaving, Mr. Kenneth very nearly tripped again, this time over the still-snoozing Monsoon, so he said to the little dog, just starting to grow into her wintertime fluffy black-and-white coat, “You talk some sense to her. I can't.” And away he went back down the stairs.

Monsoon yawned a squeaky yawn, stretched up her hind legs, then nudged open the bedroom door and curled up on the nest of stuffed animals. It was 9:05 PM and peace reigned for the rest of the night.

Eight. Weeks. Later. It was now December 22^nd. A Christmas tree had been bought and decorated, stockings hung, most of the presents bought and there was a massive turkey sat like a mountain in the middle of the freezer.

Emma had not cleaned her room. She obeyed the orders to empty her actual garbage bag and to leave dirty sheets outside the room and exchange them for clean sheets left outside her room, same thing with laundry, but neither Mr. or Mrs. Darling had entered this dangerous frontier since that night in October.

From time to time, the senior members of the family of Darling Darling & Darling would miss the good part of bedtime where they would snuggle up next to their little girl for a time until her eyes started to close and they would see all the sweetness inside Emma flow across her face like a warm summer breeze across a field of freckles.

And yes, she hated having freckles.

But, every now and then Mr. or Mrs. Darling would launch an appeal and ask Emma once more to clean her room, but every time she would say as she had said before:

I will not clean my room

I will not clean my room

You can ask and ask until you're blue in the face

But I will not clean my room

She seemed pretty definite in her opinion.

But here we are two nights before the night before Christmas and Mr. and Mrs. Darling were going over the final arrangements for the explosion of wrapping paper and cranberry sauce that was about to arrive. Had everyone been accounted for? Were all presents organized? Was the lock on the storage cabinet where the presents were hidden? Do you know where the key is? Well where the hell is it then? I thought you said you'd looked there already? What about the stocking? Do we need more stuffers?

Kenneth: I got something in the mail the other day … it's here on the desk … right, here it is. This is one of those swipe and pay card things – The Magick Card. It has $10 pre-paid on it. I could throw that in the stocking so the next time Emma's out with you at the mall she can pick out a little something. That would be more fun than just giving her ten dollars.

You know that line about a butterfly fluttering its wings in China and causing a typhoon in Kansas – or is it the other way around? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that butterfly had to have been sitting on Mr. Darling's head when he came up with that bright idea. For Mrs. Darling agreed, the Magick Card was slipped into a red ticket envelope and placed near the toe of the stocking, next to the toothbrush and resting on the mandarin orange...

On Christmas morning, the Darlings sat around the Christmas tree that had been whimsically decorated with old ornaments from Kimberly and Kenneth's childhood, new ornaments picked out by Emma – including a miniature snow globe of two Victorian ladies having tea; why they would have tea in a snowstorm is beyond my understanding – and on the top of the tree, an ornament of retired Boston Celtic great Larry Bird shooting a jumper. It seemed like a good idea at the time but loses some of its charm when you see it in print.

Next to Mr. Darling was a green garbage bag that had tipped its load of torn wrapping paper onto the floor, where Monsoon alternated tearing more of the paper held between her paws and gnawing at a gigantic bone the size of a softball bat. Mrs. Darling was resting on the couch in her feature present: a custom-made robe sewn from the softest green fabric that could be found, with Nature Girl scrowled across the back in a gold silk thread picked to match her gold silk hair. Emma was sat on the small plastic stool that came with her new music keyboard, reading a new book: 'Curiosity' by Joan Thomas, set in the time and home county of Jane Austen herself. There were cookies on the coffee table, two half glasses of champagne and one glass emptied of ginger ale and orange juice and you know everything might just have turned out okay if Monsoon had waited just another few seconds before snuffling up the red ticket envelope and drawing it to her mouth with one paw.

If it had been a few seconds later, Mr. Darling might have not seen Monsoon and the envelope and he then would not have said 'Mon-Soooooon! No!' in that stern dog owner voice he hated to use. The envelope would not have been swept away in Mr. Darling's hand and given over to Emma who would not have used it as a marker in her book.

And so too, if 'Curiosity' hadn't been such an intriguing read for Emma, who loved the story of young Mary Anning bringing fossils up from the coasts of Dorsetshire, she might not have insisted on bringing the book along with her when she and Mrs. Darling in a fit of madness decided to drive to the mall for the Boxing Day Sales.

But none of that didn't happen; therefore all that did happen, did happen.

Now, Emma and Mrs. Darling didn't really drive to the mall for the Boxing Day Sales. No, they got about as close as the next postal code over and hiked the remaining two blocks or so. They made a lovely picture: tall Kimberly Darling and tall for her age Emma, hand-in-hand with matching berets and scarves tossed over one shoulder – purple against a gold coat for Mrs. Darling and stripey candy cane over a pea coat for Emma. Emma's left hand clutched a canvas New Yorker book bag with 'Curiosity' wrapped inside. Mr. Darling didn't get to see that picture. Liverpool was playing Blackpool at 10AM and an earthquake wouldn't move him from his chair and television. Mrs. Darling understood – they referred to the Boxing Day football fixtures as Daddy's unwrappable present.

Because Mrs. Darling and Emma weren't dropped off at the mall and because they had to walk two blocks on a snappingly cold day, they headed straight for the food court when they arrived. So had most of local humanity, but they were able to drop down and capture a table, smiling like two cats who had caught a large fish.

Kimberly: Okay, now Emma I don't want you to move from this table and don't you talk to anyone while I go and get us something.

Emma: No, Mummy. You don't move from this table and don't you talk to anyone while I go and get us something. And it's my treat. So there.

Kimberly: Are you sure? You'll be all right?

Emma: Oh Mother, I am eleven years old.

Most definitely eleven years old, but this was one of Emma Darling's charming qualities. She actually was a quite generous little girl and she enjoyed doing little extra things for her parents, with the important proviso that these benevolent acts were at a time and form of Emma's choosing. On this day, Mrs. Darling wasn't going to argue. She would need all her strength to charge the lines of the stores that surrounded the sunken food court like massed armies about to sweep down the hills.

Emma went to get two crullers and a large hot chocolate for her and a large double-double coffee for her mother. And then Emma reached into the canvas New Yorker book bag to take out her embroidered clutch purse when she noticed the red ticket envelope sticking out from page 183 of 'Curiosity.' It was page 183 because Emma made sure to note the page number when she withdrew the red ticket envelope and the Magick Card inside it. 'I think I'll use this,' she said and swept off into the crowd of gnawers and sippers, smackers and slurpers to purchase the snacks.

Including the Harmonized Sales Tax, the bill paid on the Magick Card came to $4.83. This is reasonably important, which is why I point it out. And while under normal circumstances with a normal credit card, Emma would not have been able to use it. She was a minor, although she would dispute the slightly demeaning terminology. But the Magick Card existed in a hazy financial island somewhere between credit cards and debit cards and so the banking authorities allowed anyone to use it. That too is reasonably important, which again is why I point it out.

After two hours of shopping which produced exactly one sweater (that neither Darling was wildly keen on but fit Mrs. Darling, so what the heck it was 75% off the ticket price), a small bag of Mrs. Darling's favourite skin cream and blush, and a box of festive water glasses that would be forgotten in a basement cupboard when the decorations were put away and would never see the light of day again … after all that effort for so little result, Mrs. Darling and Emma decided to get out while the getting was good. They headed for the entrance but … there was a kitchen store there so Mrs. Darling wanted to take just a quick peek in the window.

Kimberly: I won't take a second!

Next to the kitchen store was the Interac money machine. Bored, Emma stuck her Magick Card in and entered the pin number. The screen offered two choices: withdrawal or account balance. Emma chose account balance.

Whirr whirr whirr whirr flicka flicka flicka flick Out came a white ribbon showing Emma's remaining balance.

Emma: Mummy?

Kimberly: Yes dear?

Emma: the account balance is what you have left to spend, correct?

Kimberly: That's right. You know, I really like that water jug. It'll go well with the water glasses. I think maybe we'll just drop in here.

And yes, the loyal water jug keeps the water glasses company to this very day. The ribbon of paper was dropped into a litter bin so Mrs. Darling never saw that Emma's account balance was at $14.83 and not the expected $5.17. Emma had managed to turn a profit on coffee, hot chocolate and crullers...

School resumed early that year. Everyone was back at their desks on Monday, January 3^rd. Nothing at all important happened at school that day, so we can skip over the events between 9AM and 3:15PM, except that Miss Manley had the children take down all the Christmas decorations which eliminated any doubt that the fun was over and this year was going to be just as bloody awful as the one just passed.

On the way home. Emma stopped at Alley's Corner Store, mostly to just break the walk up a bit. If Boxing Day had been snappingly cold, January 3 was shearing cold, which is much worse I'll have you know. But as long as she was there warming up, Emma thought she might browse a bit. There were Wunderbar chocolate bars on sale 2 for 1.49. Well, why not?

She actually hadn't considered the Case of the Mysterious Magick Card since Boxing Day. There had been more pressing concerns, like just what to pack for the annual holiday visit to Grandma and Grampa's home two hours' drive away. And the packing had been up to Emma as her parents were still not entering That Bedroom.

Yes, it had become That Bedroom in the family lexicon.

So Emma reached in her coat's zippered pocket and pulled out the Magick Card and gave it to the nice old man who ran Alley's Corner Store. He swept it through the debit and credit card terminal – beep beep … beeeeep – and Emma had her chocolate bars.

Emma: Can you tell me what the balance is on this card?

Nice Old Man: No, but the Interac machine behind you can.

Emma: Thank you!

She put the card in the Interac machine, entered her pin, asked for balance and …

whirr whirr whirr whirr flicka flicka flicka flick

$16.51

$16.51!?! Emma thought excitedly. Now the cost of the chocolate bars and the Harmonized Sales Tax had been added rather than subtracted.

Now at this point you might be thinking that Emma was being dishonest, scurrilous, a right proper little reprobate headed right for a future composed of bad waterfront bars and dubious associates for not immediately forming the first responsible adult of what was going on. But Emma truly didn't think she'd done or was doing anything wrong for two reasons:

Reason A): The Magick Card might build up to a pre-ordained amount and maybe the Magick people had sent a card with $100 on it rather than $10 as Daddy thought. Good deal and finders keepers.

Reason B): The news had been full of governments and 'stimulus packages.' Maybe the government was giving out money to people so they'd buy things and put the economy straight, as Daddy would say. Another good deal and another finders keepers.

Emma did not even consider that the Magick Card might actually be a – a – a – A – A – A! (deep breath) Magic Card!!!!!!! She didn't consider it and neither should you. That would be silly. Magic cards, never heard such folderol …

Anyway, Emma knew she was on to something that required exploring, much like Mary Anning and the fossils of the Dorsetshire coast of England. Emma would provide the same effort as Mary did, minus the hauling of massive prehistoric creatures in wheelbarrows up cliffs and sandy paths.

“Hmmm,” Emma thought, “The hobby shop down the street sells dinousaur models.”

One purchased plastic model later costing $14.79 on her Magick Card and Emma now had a balance of $31.40 to spend. How much and how far could this spending reach?

Pretty far as it turned out. After she had returned home and put the tissue box size modeling kit in her room, Emma came down the stairs and sat at the computer. There was a bay-sitter present at the house from 3:30PM until Mr. and Mrs. Darling came home from work around 5:20 or so, but Mrs. Palmerston was old and was honestly much more interested in catching up on what products Oprah was flogging than in what her young charge was actually doing. Therefore, when Emma started logging on to:

eBay

Amazon

The Shopping Channel

Sears

Toys R Us

among others, Mrs. Palmerston was oblivious to what the young girl was getting up to. Specifically, Mrs. Palmerston was oblivious to Emma setting up a PayPal account with her Magick Card and was starting to buy and buy and buy.

By the end of the first day, Emma's account stood at $678.30. And no, it didn't stop there.

Within two weeks, packages started to be delivered to the door in brown trucks, blue tricks, red-white-and-blue trucks. Conga lines of delivery drivers started high-fiving one another as they passed on the house steps as padded envelopes, boxes and even the occasional carefully sealed insulated pack from Omaha Steaks were dropped off in the front porch. Mrs. Palmerston started to feel a bit sorry for Emma, what with the poor child having to haul her parents' luxuries (so Mrs. Palmerston thought) up the stairs and off to the … oh look, Tom Cruise is on 'Oprah'.

At the end of two weeks: Emma's Magick Card balance was at $34,678.89. In other words, she had enough to buy a comfortable car, which was duly delivered to the curb right outside the Darlings' tall, skinny white house.

Kenneth: The nerve of those neighbours. Why do they have to park their car right outside our house?

Kimberly: You should talk to them dear.

Kenneth: I will! … Next time I bump into them.

Three days later.

Kenneth: I was just talking to Haroun next door. You know that's not even his car?

Kimberly: Then whose is it then?

Kenneth: He doesn't know.

Emma: I'm going to take Monsoon out for a walk, woof and widdle!

Kenneth: What? Oh, all right Emma.

Monsoon: Woof squeak yawn woof.

So where was all this stuff being kept?, you might ask. It all went in Emma's room. All of it, except the car of course. At night, Emma would open her door and climb a small mountain of – stuff! - until she was able to squeeze between the ceiling and the pile where she would snuggle in to her very cozy new sleeping bag guaranteed thermal safe up to (or down to) – 50 degrees Celsius.

Here are some of the things Emma had bought:

(deep breath) a shelf of Barbie dolls dressed as classic sitcom characters, a leather bound set of the works of Jane Austen, a silver tea service, two dog beds, Laura Ashley's spring collection, yes all of it, parasols, floppy hats, shoes in three styles and in three colours, a saxophone, a clarinet, and something called a clavinet, clocks and crocks and Elton John singing Crocodile Rock, the sunglasses Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany's, the Bible Katharine Hepburn carried in The African Queen, bracelets and necklaces, rings for her fingers, bells for her toes, and a snazzy pink iPod so she could have music wherever she goes, porcelain french hens, crystal turtle doves and a portrait of a pear tree.

That was some of it.

January's balance: $163,000 exactly and to the penny. Emma was impressed that it ended on such a round number. Fancy that.

But she kept buying. Emma Darling was becoming the eleven year old saviour of the North American economy.

She bought a knighthood.

She bought a plot on the moon.

She bought the rights to name a star. (“I shall name it Monsoon, a brand new dog star.”)

She bought the rights to 'Monday, Monday'.

She bought the autograph of Tuesday Weld.

She bought a Mayflower, a June bug, a bust of Augustus Caesar and if the month of February had a product associated with it Emma would have bought that too.

On February 13^th, the day before Valentine's Day, Mr. Darling and Mrs. Darling were in the kitchen preparing dinner when Mr. Darling looked up and commented -

Kenneth: You know, I think we're going to have to get someone in to check this ceiling. It's starting to look a bit warped to me.

And yes, Emma's room was right above the kitchen. Emma's room was filled to the gills with (oh dear) $1,054,988.81 worth of -

Stuff.

At a certain point, if you have enough things they cease to become individual things and it all just becomes a great big pig pile of Stuff.

But where was Emma? Mrs. Darling called from the kitchen -

Kimberly: Em-ma! Dinner's ready!

Mr. Darling called from the base of the stairs -

Kenneth: Emmm-maaaa! Time for dinner!

Monsoon called from the top of the stairs:

… well you know the sounds a dog makes.

Mr. Darling walked to the kitchen as Mrs. Darling walked to the living room and meeting in the middle they said simultaneously, Where's Emma?”

Ding dong!

Oh now who in blue heck could that be?

Ding dong!

Mrs. Darling went to the back door to see if her daughter was out playing in the snow while Mr. Darling went to see what annoying person was ringing their doorbell at 6:30 at night. There stood a tall man with a neat military mustache and carrying his homburg hat in one hand and a sleek black leather portfolio in the other. He shifted the portfolio under his left arm and held out his hand for a dignified handshake. “I am Harley Davidson (no really) of Barkley's Bank of Boston and Bermuda and I'm here to see a Miss Emma Darling. Would she be home?”

Mr. Darling looked at Harley Davidson with the puzzled look of a man who has just seen a shadow run across the corner of a darkened room.

Kenneth: Emma? Our daughter? Well we're not sure just where she – is – and – is there some kind of problem Mister Honda?

Harley: Davidson.

Kenneth: Sorry.

Harley: May I come in?

Kenneth: I suppose you'd better.

By this time, Mrs. Darling had returned from her unsuccessful search of the backyard and the three of them sat together around the dining room table, Harley Davidson sat at its head like it was a board room meeting. To spare you a lot of back and forth and how people liked to take their coffee, let's jump to what their guest told the Darlings.

Harley: You see, we've made a bit of a banking error. They happen. Not often! Barkley's Bank of Boston and Bermuda was been established and well-established at that since 1958 and I assure you we have an error rate of a mere .0001% of all transactions. We take pride in that. Great pride. But, well, heh heh heh, there is always the human factor to consider. While our banking programs are perfect and our security unmatched in the industry, we do on occasion promote a junior member of our institution to take on added responsibilities.

He continued.

Harley: It seems that our junior was tasked with promoting our Magick Card, the easy and quick solution to everyday consumer needs. Well – heh heh heh – it seems that one of those promotional cards was programmed in error. And that card would be, well, yours.

Kenneth: The one I gave Emma for Christmas?

Harley: Aha! Christmas! We thought as much. That explains the timing of the purchases.

If Mrs. Darling was not a person and instead was a lioness, peacock or wiggly desert lizard, her fur, feathers and spinal scares would have been erect and threatening. Instead, being a person and a Mom person at that, she spoke with the Angry Mom voice that can turn any man into a weeping bowl of warm strawberry jelly.

Kimberly: What. Purchases. Are you. Referring to?

Harley: You see, our $10 promotional cards are actually set to -

Kimberly: What purchases!?! Answer me NOW!

Both Harley Davidson and Mr. Darling simultaneously thought they saw a machete appear in Mrs. Darling's hand before it became invisible while still retaining its formidable imaginary presence across the dining room table.

Harley: I will Mrs. Darling! Right now! These cards are supposed to be set at not just $10 but actually ten point zero zero zero zero zero zero one dollars, just to be sure that covers any ten dollar purchase. Its technical but it works well. Well, it's programmed to work well. But, ahem, our junior made a small error. He thought the decimal point should be set after the last zero instead of after the ten.

Kenneth: So … ?

Harley: So the card you gave your daughter actually has an approved limit of $10,000,000.10 you see. Not ten. Ten million. And Emma has spent over a million dollars of that. So we'd like to collect what we're owed.

In life, there are certain times when time stands still and everything and everyone freezes as though waiting for an old 19^th century picture to be taken. Those times seem to last forever, but actually they pass by quote quickly in real time.

Kenneth: WHAT?

See what I mean? The frozen moment had passed. And the freeze had been replaced by heat - lots and lots of heat - heat such as would emanate from flamethrowers carried by parachuting dragons launched from a volcano kind of heat. Most of the heat came from Mr. Darling's mouth in the form of fiery words.

A brief pause.

Children – for I assume that children will at some point read this – it is never appropriate for you to use inappropriate language. This is why we refer to it as inappropriate language. All right, if a car door closes on your thumb, we'll let you get away with it, but just this one time mind you. But adults sometimes need to, shall we say, emphasize the argument they wish to make. It's sort of like writing in italics or in boldface. Mr. Darling was speaking in italicized boldface, metaphorically of course.

Besides words like 'newspaper' and 'lawyer' and 'wait'll the government gets hold of this', Mr. Darling made the emphatic point that as Emma was a minor and could scarcely be expected to know better, and as the error was the Bank's in the first place (what a beaver builds) it, then how in (hot undesirable place) did Harley Davidson get off suggesting he should pay, tell me that (place where poo comes out)?

Harley: Oh really Mr. Darling? Might I remind you sir, that you are an adult, the card was sent to you, and you irresponsibly gave it to a minor. How is that reasonably foreseeable by the BBB and B?

Mrs. Darling raised her hand and as she was a Mom and therefore had incredible powers over men – who really are still little boys who happen to have jobs – the argument ceased.

Kimberly: Where is Emma?

Everyone blinked at one another like cartoon cats. Where was Emma? Might she have hopped a plane to Tanzania? Or Tasmania? Or even Transylvania? Or good heavens, what if she's gone to – Detroit?

Of course it took the family dog to make sense of all this. Monsoon stepped lightly down the first few steps of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms, peered between the banister rails, uncurled her long tail with the little white icing on its tip and said, “Ewe ewe ewe Ahh-ewwwwwwwwe!” She then went back up the stairs, before turning back, trotting to the same spot she'd been and gave the three adults a hard stare with her bright gold eyes as it to say, “Well? Do I have to send you a memo on this?”

Kenneth: She's in her room! That Room!

Mr. Darling ran up the stairs, followed by Mrs. Darling. Harley Davidson stayed sat at the dining room table, but had his Blackberry poised, his thumb over the speed dial to the Bank's retained law firm, just in case something truly awful was happening upstairs.

Monsoon scratched at the bottom of Emma's door.

Kenneth: I'll handle this! … Emma! Daddy's coming in!

He turned the door knob.

A giant deluging wave of gifts, boxes, wrapped things, rolling things, things with eyes and things to hold ice would come flowing over Mr. Darling -

• usually -

Except in this case, there was so much Stuff that it had all wedged together into something that looked eerily like the combining of modern sculpture with a Borg Cube.

Illustration 1: Artist's illustration of Emma's Room

Nothing moved. Nothing budged. Finally, after the Darlings had done a good deal of gaping, a tiny voice was heard.

Emma: Daddy? I'm stuck.

It was true. Either a passing truck or a low-flying plane or maybe just Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics had caused Emma's great vault of swag to shift against both the bedroom door and the bedroom window. She was stuck next to the ceiling, right beside the light fixture.

Mr. Darling said, “Honey, I think I'm gonna need some gloves and we're gonna need some crates.”

It took the better part of a half an hour to free Emma. It had to be done carefully for two rather important reasons. One, if there was the merchandise tidal wave Emma could really get hurt from broken glass, china and heaven knows what else was buried in there; and also there was still the possibility that the Darling's might have to actually pay for all this Stuff.

When Emma Darling was finally lifted off the now-dwindled pile she was none the worse for wear. There was not a scratch on her, nor a single thread pulled on her smart new lounging outfit of just the sort that Mrs. Darling had always wanted but never would spend on herself. Each parent Darling took one of Emma's hands in a gesture that was equal parts love, equal parts ensuring the prisoner didn't take it on the lam.

They marched her into the dining room where Harley Davidson stood, bowed slightly, and offered his handshake and business card to Emma. After the adults briefly explained the situation to Emma, she had stayed quite calm through it all, she put her right index finger next to her dimple and said simply, “This is a situation best resolved with tea. I'll put the kettle on.” She turned back in the kitchen doorway and added:

Emma: Mummy, there is a nice box of shortbread somewhere upstairs. Don't worry, the change from the original ten dollars would cover it and after all, what's a box of cookies in the greater realm of things?

Nobody was going to argue the point, because they were all exhausted by now. So Mrs. Darling went upstairs and came back with the box of shortbread in a green and red tartan box, followed closely by Monsoon who knew treat potential when she saw it.

I mentioned some of the things that the Darlings loved about their daughter, but perhaps above all they loved (and were occasionally terrified) by how wickedly smart she could be at times. Reading a book a week for five years will do that to you, or for you I should say. Once the tea was ready and served, Emma sat at the opposite end of the dining room table to Harley Davidson, her mother to her left and her father to her right. She absentmindedly swung her left foot back and forth as she spoke.

Emma: It seems to me I can fix this problem. First, you of course have my apologies for any distress this has caused. Granted, I did ask you Mummy about the account balance right at the start, but I suppose I should have tried harder. My bad. As for the money owed to the bank, well as you can see everything is intact, undamaged and can be returned. There's just three of us and you have a whole bank of employees so my thinking is that you are the best person to handle that. That will cover the bill.

Everyone looked quite relieved, to the point that Mr. Darling and Harley Davidson even gave each other chuckling Man Smiles and the latter said, “Quite a little girl you got there, Ken.”

Kenneth: Heh heh.

Kimberly: Oh Emma, what are we going to do with you?

Emma: However -

This was another of those frozen moments I mentioned earlier. Mr. darling broke the ice.

Kenneth: 'However'? What however? This situation is solved. Emma, we don't need any 'howevers'.

Emma: Yes we do Daddy. For you see, our problem is solved. Mr. Davidson still has a greater problem that we should help him with.

Harley: I do?

Kimberly: He does?

Kenneth: And we have to help him with it?

Emma: Yes, yes and yes. If – or should I say when – this scandal gets out the government will insist that you recall every Magick Card out there. Now what you will have to do of course is tighten down your product and don't go putting ten million dollars on cards that children might use. But in the meantime … Barkley's Bank of Bermuda and Boston -

“Boston and Bermuda,” Harley Davidson corrected.

Emma: Sorry, Boston and Bermuda – well, whether its in beanpots or Bermuda shorts your bank stands to lose quite a lot of money doesn't it? Plus – you really should eat with your mouth closed Mr. Davidson – what of the emotional trauma I've endured? There might be long-lasting effects? I feel a case of the vapours coming on …

Harley Davidson realized he may well have met his match. This little girl was capable of turning Donald Trump into a weeping shell of bad hair. So what did she want?

Emma: Not a thing for myself. If there's one thing I've learned from all this it's that there really is such a thing as having too much stuff, regardless of the opinion of conservative people on the news. So I want your bank to make a promise to build a school a year for ten years in Africa, Rwanda and Sudan in particular for girls. And I want you to name the schools for Mary Anning, because if she can do it – be a science pioneer – they can do it. You do that and mum's the word from us. Besides, it's tax deductible. Do we have a deal and may I pour you more tea?

She had a deal but Harley Davidson had already been teed up and driven over the fence. After three calls up the corporate ladder, Emma Darling had a deal. Ten schools over ten years.

And that was another reason why Mr. and Mrs. Darling loved their daughter.

That night, Emma peacefully went to the wash up and peacefully went to her room, and peacefully put on her nightclothes and peacefully waited in bed for her good night kiss. Mrs. Darling came in and sat at the foot of the bed, looking in wonder at her dear little girl. She noticed Emma's Big Red Bear sat in the corner with Emma's used socks from that day draped over its head. Mrs. Darling mentioned that the next day they should work on doing a final tidying of the bedroom, which no longer would be referred to as That Room. To which Emma replied:

Emma: I will not clean my room. I will not clean my room. You can ask and ask until your face turns blue, but I will not clean my room.

The End