Thunder Bay Blues Festival Preview

Admit it - you're glad it's Ana Popovic and not Big Walter Smith

Culturally speaking, the Thunder Bay Blues Festival may well be the greatest success in the forty year history of its host city, in terms of annual short-run events. If the 9th Annual Festival, opening at 5PM this evening at Marina Park, is at like its eight predecessors it will feature absolute A list performers, electric sharp new acts, and well-behaved crowds that rise on the hills surrounding the yellow-and-white striped show tent, colourful T-shirts and hats mixing with the colours of a hot summer’s sunset clouds. Artistic success. Audience success. The swwet spot of the entertainment industry.

Perhaps best of all, the Thunder Bay Blues Festival has become very much a communal event, the sort that its people thrive in. At the very first Blues Festival, I remember chatting with former Mayor Ken Boshcoff - very much a powerful supporter of the Blues Festival from Day One, I might add. Boshcoff made the point, and I remember it vividly, that Thunder Bay could call itself the City of Festvals, for at that point there were 18 of them. From Dragon Boats to Italian Festivals to St. Urho, as a city we do run the gamut. And clearly they resonate with the Northwestern Ontario persona. With an annual attendance of 15,000, the Thunder Bay Blues Festival resonates like a well-plucked electric bass.

I idly asked on Facebook what people were most looking forward to at this year’s Festival. You would think it would be the beyond-legendary guitar maestro Taj Mahal, or perhaps Ana Popovic from that legendary Delta town of - um - Belgrade. Don’t laugh. Well, go ahead, but my gut instinct is that Popovic is going to be the hot act like David Gogo a few years ago. The one that leaves the audience talking about them.

You would think it would be the music, but it’s not. It’s the people, the community, the faces that are seen each year beneath the same flag in the same flat beach chair in the same spot since the days when Big Walter Smith was still just Little Wally Smith. It’s as though the town picnic from some Thornton Wilder piece has come to life next to a brilliant and cooling Lake Superior with a soundtrack of Jack Daniels fueled hurt, anger and loss. Sounds like a party to me, and 14,999 others.

Full credit always must go to Bob Halvorsen’s well-trained crew at the Thunder Bay Community Auditorium. Halvorsen has become a master booker, able to maintain the balance between audience comfort with older acts and audience excitement over new acts. And the wily veteran stage crew led by Rob Jardine on sound can handle with ease he many different styles and weather conditions tossed at them in short order.

The Chronicle-Journal will be reporting each day from the Blues Festival. Do stop by and share any thoughts or memories. I’m easy to spot. I’ll be the one hauling a laptop about in a black case on a hot day. Be seeing you!

Politics for Joe - Chapter Two - A Grateful Nation Expresses its Grief

definitely not the Prime Minister

Politics for Joe
Chapter Two
A Grateful Nation Expresses its Grief


In the end, Walter decided to not drive the black Lexus, but instead take a taxi to the Cabinet Meeting. First impressions. Man of the people. No limo for him! (Not that hye had call for one anyway.)

Because the meeting would involve every ministry and department, it would not be held on Parliament Hill; instead the Government Conference Centre’s schedule had been cleared, so the blue and gold cab headed for the converted old railway station. That beautiful, stone, vaulted and pillared building went back to the Edwardian Age and Laurier. It occurred to Walter that this might even be the biggest constitutional crisis since the time of Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

‘What the hell were they going to do now?,’ Walter thought as they sped along the Queensway. The only cars passing them were media cars, which was fine by the taxi passenger as he damn well wanted the media there first.

But the government ... The leadership race was a given. The Liberal Party clearly needed a leader. Something interrupted Walter’s thoughts.

That interruption being me. Yes, it’s the Liberal Party of Canada and not some made-up wink, wink creation like the Constitutional Democrats of Canada, or perhaps the Progressive Social-Capitalists. Actually, that last one could work. It sounds wonky enough to have appeal to the frightened. But using a made-up Party then would mean changing the names of the other Parties, or adding another national party and then we’re in some strange Star Trek ‘Mirror, Mirror’ world which is not going to improve your enjoyment one shred. Screw it. It’s the Liberals. Names have been changed to protect the obvious. Back to Walter in the cab.

The situation, for once was being neatly encapsulated on CBC Radio by Don Newman, brought back once again out of retirement whenever the impoverished public network felt it needed an adult voice that bore knowledge. The Harper Conservatives had basically put CBC in a fiscal iron lung, and even though the Liberals were in their third year of power, they hadn’t done much to bring it back to life.

But Newman knew how to present a story. “The Liberals only had a working majority of one in combination with the NDP. Now that’s gone, at least until a by-election is held in Winnipeg Centre. But what do they do until then? Will they proroooooouge the House?” (Newman still rolled his vowels like round logs floating downstream to a B.C. sawmill.) “What will the public reaction be to that? Will the people be understanding and allow the Liberals time to re-configure themselves, or will puiblic opinion press towarrrrds a coalition with the New Democrats?”

When hell freezes over, thought the Secretary of State for National Unity. Walter didn’t have anything against the NDP. They’d had a grand time together in Opposition, they really did throw the best parties, and the NDP was useful as a sort of policy test marketing group. Whatever policies the NDP had that were proving really popular, the Liberals would just absorb, as they would the best of the Conservative ideas - not that the latter was a particularly large number. This formula had worked beautifully for decades - the Party’s slogan could well have been ‘We Sample the Best so You Don’t Have To!’ - it was a wonder they ever lost it for a decade. It’s only when Liberals try and be original that they fall apart at the seams.

As they moved down Elgin to the Conference Centre, Walter could see the most incredible sight. People walking slowly up the street towards Parliament Hill bearing flowers, greeting cards, even old record albums given Singer Marley’s love of 1960’s music. It was like some sort of Far Eastern, even farther than Cape Breton, funeral rite. A parade in parkas and ski jackets.

Of course, that had been Singer’s political ace in the hole. People liked him. That still counted for something in politics. And the man could belt out one hell of a rendition of O! Canada. He’d patterned his style after Roger Doucet, who sang the anthem for the Montreal Canadiens for years and years. Singer Marley didn’t have Doucet’s voice, Christ knows, but he did share the man’s enthusiasm for the piece. People could tell he truly loved this big, awkward country - either that or he was a better actor than Christopher Plummer. Because they liked him, they forgave him his mishandling of the budget or the time he was caught on a camera and microphone pointing  at David Cameron of the UK, and mumbling ‘he’s a bit of a turd.’ Marley had said he’d been pointing at the dessert at the state dinner table and what you were really hearing was our Prime Minister pointing at the pecan pie and stating, ‘We’ll have a bit or a third.’ Which made absolutely no sense, unless Marley was completely pissed and that’s scarcely an improvement.  But because they liked him, the people  forgave him.

The cab stopped half a block from the doors, as Walter had requested. As he stepped out of the cab door, his folders in arm and his hair casually tossed, he thought about how much fun things must have been back in the days when there were flashbulbs. Armfuls of tiny cameras the size of Bic lighters waved at his face was more weird than empowering. But yes ... yes it was still fun ...

even in a crisis, a man’s entitled to enjoy himself.

(iDo share with anyone you think might enjoy this odd little political novel aned I invi9te your comments.

Politics For Joe - Chapter One

In a phrase that must have been pre-ordained from birth by a ferociously ironic Fate it came to be written that Prime Minister Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

They’d all been called of course, once Jenny Marley had discovered why her now-late husband seemed to be having a longer morning shower than usual. Had she needed to pee a little earlier, perhaps the Prime Minister might still be alive. Mind you, there’s no telling with heart attacks. There’s a good chance that Gordon ‘Singer’ Marley was dead by the time his forehead was cracked open by the protruding faucet in the Marriott Suite overlooking Harley Street in London - and so many doctors nearby! If not - well, the blow would have left him handily unconscious for whatever otherwise writing and agonized seconds would have remained to him before ... resigning office shall we say.

All of that having happened and all the rest about to happen in Ottawa, made the timing of the Prime Minister’s death in London terribly inconvenient for all concerned. Dying there at 7 meant the Governor-General heard at 2:15AM, the Chief of the Privy Council at 2:20, the Minister of External Affairs at 2:27, the Minister of Finance was rung at the same hotel, as was Ed Lauder of the PMO and so on and so on until it was the turn, at 3:08AM precisely, when the Secretary of State for National Unity watched his alarm clock flip over to that time, picked up his cell and found out that there was about to be a leadership race. Yes, the conclusion reached Walter Smith’s mind even before the now jobless Helen Worth’s words finished entering his ear. It was 3:08. it wasn’t going to be good news, now was it?

the romancing of the Canadian voter begins...

But 3:08 was an awful time to hear about an 8AM Cabinet Meeting that one really could not afford to be fashionable late in entering. No, it would be important to be seen as one of those rushing, slightly hunched figures with their collar turned up (not to hide the face though) and gripping in the crook of the right arm ... what? ... what to carry? Manila envelopes. Stuffed full. In folders. They would photograph nicely against his camel hair coat. Look! Work is so natural to the man it’s reflected in his clothing! Yes. The image must be established early. It would be important that people would know him almost before they knew his name. “Oh you’re the one who ... I know you!” Yes. Be familiar yet fresh. You only get one chance at a first impression. (How was Walter’s? Yes, I’m going to interrupt the story now and then but not too often. Walter does sound like a shit, doesn’t he? Don’t get turned off to soon. Trust me, he’s not all bad. He’s just a moderately successful politician - a junior Cabinet Minister. They’re the worst sort while they’re there. But - onwards.)

Walter knew it was perhaps not the ethically purest thing to be thinking about leadership races and how he’d look on CTV News Channel, rather than tearing up over the passing of his mentor, Singer Marley. Well, mentor in a way. Walter had delivered 54 critical delegates to him at the 2014 convention. Nothing to sneer at. And it’s not like being named the Secretary of State for National Unity was a major portfolio. Quebec had been quiet for decades - oddly, the Bloc Quebecois had destroyed separatism. Their success in playing deal-making politics during the run of minority Parliaments convinced Quebeckers that they could continue to punch above their weight so long as they kept sending the supposedly separatist party off to Ottawa.  So nobody gave a shit about national unity anymore. But it could have been worse. It could have been Natural Resources and Energy aka the Minister of Pollution. If you didn’t turn around global warming in a week you were a pin-striped bastard environmental Holocaust denying son of a bitch sheep who is in bed with Big Oil and Arabs because someone has pictures of you oiling up a big Arab sheep. Baaaaa!

Well, that eliminated Martin Martin from the running anyway. Plus he had a silly name. Plus nobody could ever remember if you pronounced his first name the English way and his second name the French way, or vice versa. Walter looked at himself in the shower mirror and realized that he wasn’t sure which way it went and they had sat more or less across from one another - Walter just slightly further down - at the Cabinet table for three years. Hmm. Imagine that.

Well, on to imagine other things. Walter was not about to start lathering himself up in the shower and find himself thinking about Martin Martin while handling his genitals. Er, his own genitals. Walter’s genitals.

Oh hell.

Now Walter’s mind was stuck on a bizarre image of Martin Martin prancing through a field of dandelions, naked in a sort of Porky Pig way tossing sprigs of wild flowers behind him.

He turned off the water and toweled off. This was going to be a hell of a day.

Walter chose a somber navy suit - nothing flash, although he would stick with the camel coat. Hell, it was December in Ottawa. He debated about what tie to choose. Was it too soon to wear black? Would red be too cheery? Red could be seen as inspirational too. Blue is ... well blue ties are for men who can’t make up their mind. Boring boring, Tory blue. He chose maroon - red with a passionate heart.

Before slipping on his black gloves and grabbing the folders and car keys he looked at himself one last time in the hall mirror. Yes, he looked good for 50 years old, and 50 was early prime time in political years. He drew one greying forelock over his right brow, for a bit of dash, winked one blue eye at himself and quoted from an old Bob Fosse movie ...

“It’s showtime folks.”

(Do click on the always informative and entertaining ads ... after all, I'm giving you a book for free! Cheers - Hi)

Stay Tuned - Up Next We Bomb Donald Trump

Inside Television 508
Publication date: 7-2-10
By: Hubert O’Hearn


Happy Canada Day everyone. Granted, my celebration has been somewhat tempered by virtue of various provincial and federal bureaucracies mishandling or flat-out losing important paperwork over the last several weeks, I do realize that as Bruce Cockburn sand, they call it democracy. There are still a few kinks in the system. And we have stable banking laws. You take the good with the bad.

So let’s celebrate the country. There are two fairly interesting Canadian television stories this week. The first is paradoxically both prominent and obscure. CTV absolutely buried every other network in the world in the Promax/BDA Awards Competition this week in Los Angeles. Er, what’s that?, one might say as I did. Essentially, these are the awards for the ‘look’ of a network, its design, the lead-in music and the promos. They are for network design.

And this is hugely important in terms of the branding feel of a network. Think that’s not important? As grandly individual as you and I both are you and me and the neighbour are all easily captured by marketing and promises of a luminous future if only you and this object are put in union. We are drawn to sample by the packaging. It’s equally why we have drawers full of once-used gadgets next to old photos of former lovers.

stare at me long enough and I will own your mind ... 

The CTV Creative Agency won 36 medals including 13 gold, while the CTV Network as a whole won 41. In second place was NBC (who if you think about it has always been good at that, from the peacock through Must See TV) with a relatively paltry 14 total. Before you read the next paragraph, see if you can guess which particularly CTV promo campaign won 13 awards all by itself? Think about it ... and ...

Time’s up. ‘Believe.’ As in the Winter Olympics. If you hadn’t guessed, you’re smacking yourself in the head right now. Either that or waving your hands around in strange motions so the CGI crew at CTV can draw in balloons or letters in post-production. Regardless, well done CTV. No wonder they’re easily number one in the ratings in Canada.

CTV’s private competitor Global is more or less saying, ‘oh what the hell, let’s try it’ by launching as of yesterday the Reality Channel. The same idea crashed and burned like the Red Baron pursued by Snoopy in the United States, even though it was backed by Fox. Come to think of it, Manfred von Richthofen and Rupert Murdoch never were photographed together, so one never knows. Coincidence? I think not.

But will people really tune in to watch re-runs of The Apprentice and Survivor and all that? Even if you’re drawn in by it all initially, and neither series has ever appealed to me even though I’ve clearly softened my once diamond-hard stance against reality TV. Those are the featured series along with Big Brother, Hell’s Kitchen and the like. Oh good. All my enemies are gathered together in one spot. Launch the bombing run. Bin Laden may still be on the loose but we have Donald Trump in our ratings’ crosshairs.

The consensus of opinions that I have read on the subject think that the project is doomed to failure. We may not all be able to cite every season of Masterpiece Theatre - God knows I can’t - but there is a quivering beaver tail in my soul that still believes that the average Canadian is still slightly more culturally sophisticated  than the average American, so if a Reality Channel wouldn’t fly in the Soo, Michigan, why should it work in the Soo, Ontario?

Enjoy the long weekend and at the Blues Festival next weekend I hope I’ll - be seeing you.

(And remember, clicking on ads is informative AND entertaining :) - ! H)

And They're Great Talking Cars Too

The shirts however leave something to be desired...

I’ve been reading Christopher Hitchens’ new memoir ‘Hitch-22.’ It’s a terrific book and I’ll have more to say about it at a future date. I find I don’t read as many biographies and autobiographies as I used to. This may be a result of advancement into what can be kindly termed, and as I’m doing the terming on my own life it’s going to be kindly, the Mature Years. For one eventually has a basic agreement with the biographer - the life written must be more interesting that the reader’s. And fame itself is not necessarily interesting in itself, which wipes out 75% of everything published: the guy who scored the thing that married the girl who sung the song when they made that movie and he got caught with that roomful of hookers. Who cares?

The interesting thing I’ve noticed over the years in the biographies of lives I have enjoyed - everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Groucho Marx to Franklin Roosevelt (and it appears my prime time would have been a quarter century before I was born) is a strong common thread and Hitchens’ book is no exception. Their Moms make them.

Not that I would want it inferred that Dads can just sneak out the back door and go drown golf balls because they’re off the emotional hook. Not quite. But the fathers really only seem to be the ‘important’ parent when the child moves on in the father’s field: Kingsley to Martin Amis, Henry to Jane Fonda, Kennedys and Bushes in full supply. The Moms either open doors and furnish rooms of imagination in their childrens’ minds, or move like frigates under full sail into society or the social or political world and insist that the world will take her young ambassador seriously. The Queen has spoken.

Queens tended to have worked out better than Kings, generally speaking. In England, Elizabeth I firmly established the British Empire, Victoria saw it reach its greatest breadth, and Elizabeth II has overseen its dismantle in generally peaceful terms over the last six decades. Many a King was a fine General, granted; although they had to be for they were forever invading France every time there was a slow weekend coming up.

I’m not sure that series television has ever really captured the essence of that particular maternal role - the playful Socratic in the house, guiding the novice toward his or her destiny. There is a good reason for this: you would need at least a five year commitment from a network

Still, the TV Moms have had their Hall of Famers over the years. Wouldn’t you have loved Lucy for a Mom? Hey, you’d get a drum kit, lots of cool costumes and Superman’s going to show up at your birthday party. Or Shirley Partridge. Everybody in the family forms a band, if you’re the eldest brother you score like Frank Sinatra, if you’re the middle brother after you recover from years of brutal drug abuse and some jail time for bludgeoning a transvestite prostitute in Vegas you somehow still have a career.

Your ideal Mom might have been Carol Brady. Bring in to the family matched sets of siblings of the opposite sex, just in time to add an exquisite twist on the usual adolescent torture. On the other hand, if Mom maybe isn’t a whiz in the kitchen, that doesn’t matter. Your Carol Brady Mom has the smarts and wherewithal to hire a full-time live-in cook and housekeeper. Clean my room? And cost Alice her job? Are you insane!?

And then there’s our real Moms - the one that turned on an NFL championship game in December 1967 between the Packers and Cowboys and said, ‘I think you might enjoy watching football.’ Or the one that enjoyed playing along solving mysteries from Perry Mason to Columbo to Poirot to Morse. And the Mom that taught you about all those great old movies and stars that made you first fall in love with how first words, then words with images are put together into compelling stories. Or all of the above. Which is my Mom who turns 85 on Monday. Happy Birthday. Be seeing you.


(August 6 - I'm slightly amazed and completely flattered that this newspaper column of mine has been the most visited and shared posting of them all. Thank you. And feel free to share it with friends using the Facebook & Twitter up there on the left by the title. Cheers and I hope you're having a great summer!  - H)

The Baying of My Existence

For review purposes - as well as sheer open-faced amusement and joy - I’m reading Christoper Hitchens’ memoir Hitch-22. In it, he refers to being in Belfast at the very dawn of what became known as The Troubles in 1968. Oddly enough, so was I, at the age of 10 and on a Cook’s Tour with my Mom. I didn’t witness any explosions but Hitchens did. A pub was blown up and out of the wreckage came a strapping huge Belfast fireman weeping terribly because the little mangled body in his arms was a dog.

And yes, that is precisely the reaction one would have. I know I would. I love dogs as I suspect you do - I don’t think cat people read much about dogs, much to their loss. But when you think about it, it really is a rather odd thing to do, now isn’t it? We live in shelters with walls and doors and roofs to keep out, among other things, the wildlife. And then we invite in a representative as a permanent invited guest. It’s like an experimental re-conceptualizing of The Man Who Came to Dinner only this time Monty Woolley wears his last name on his paws and tail.

And dogs are like Sheridan Whiteside. If you don’t know the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, you’re missing a treat. Whiteside is a literary radio pundit who slips and falls on the doorstep of a nice suburban family. The sort of family that might well have a dog. Whiteside can’t leave - he’s injured. He takes over the house and invites in all his louche and absurd friends. He’s a busybody who’s into everything the family does and he’s prickly about what he eats. He is a dog.

Our house had a perfectly respectable living room before Stella, our just turned one year old Border Collie arrived last August. There were five qualities we wanted in a dog: no more than knee height (we got that one), an ability to catch flying things (excels at it), was obedient (we’ll get to that), didn’t bite (does nibbling count) and didn’t shed. We’ll cdeal with the last point first.

I fight a losing battle against enough hair to keep a Perrsian rug maker in business for a year, provided there was a hot trade in rugs colored black, chocolate brown and white. I find curly tumbleweeds of fur bouncing over my foot as they travel across the kitchen floor, my chair is an itchy sweater and the rugs now look like the rugs of that family on the next block that you didn’t want the children to ever walk on. ‘No no, tell Bobby to play over here. We’ll go out and have ice cream.’

The technology has failed. The hair and certain trace elements of substances we don’t choose to think about at this time managed to not just tangle the power head of the vacuum (which is child’s play to clean) or stuff the hose (annoying, but doable). It managed to transform itself into a sort of bomb proof concrete that neatly mortared itself into the one hard plastic elbow that you just can’t get at with pliers and the stuff could stop tanks, so what’s a poor coat hangar to do?

And I do by the way sincerely thank you for allowing me to entertain with tales of my wounded vacuum cleaner. Business will pick up shortly.

To come back to the oddity of inviting these rumoured domesticated animals into your or my home, how on Earth did this ever get started? Anthropologists have fairly firmly settled that humans and wolves started to get along when the wolves would approach the camp or village and not eat the children. Domestication followed, they were handy for hunting companions, etc.

But one thought has always troubled me about that theory. Wouldn’t any other animal that stupidly wandered close to the caveman condominium have been killed and eaten? I’ve never eaten dog nor do I suspect I would, but there are cultures that do so it can’t even taste all that bad. So what was the dog offering that trumped the caveman appetite?

It can’t just be cuteness. And a wolf can wear the garment of many fine adjectives - proud, strong, powerful, majestic,steely, wise, et al - but cute would have trouble making the list. And squirrels are cute, but I don’t know anyone who has a squirrel for a pet.

No I have my own, shall we say, pet theory. It would be cool, it would be plausible, it may have already been the recipient of $50 million in research grants for all I know. Two words: telepathic abilities. Yes they know when we’re happy, sad, furt, tired, sick or just plain pissed off. They read us like they’re crack card players at a World Series of Poker final table staring down Phil Ivey while keeping their tails perfectly still. Beware the dreaded tail tell.

Well we know that one. That’s a principle joy of owning a dog. The dog cares. So we’ve been satisfied with that and haven’t looked further. But if we did I suspect that dogs have perfected the ability of Star Trek Vulcans. They do mind melds. They manipulate our feelings. They make us love them.

Cat people, on the other hand, have a flaw in their DNA that makes them impervious to the canine spell. I pity them. Be seeingyou.

Sun of News

Dad would be so proud ...

As Jim Ross used to say when Stone Cold Steve Austin would come storming into the ring, 'Business is about to pick up.' Quebecor, the media giant whose holdings include the Sun chain of newspapers, twenty-nine other papers in Ontario, Le Journal de Montreal and Quebec, television stations, French cable stations and half of Mystery TV. They're big. Did you happen to know that Brian Mulroney is the Chairman of Quebecor World? Unless you looked it up as I did, that's probably news to you. I haven't seen it printed or reported anywhere else.

Which is surprising, given the context of the story. Quebecor has applied to the CRTC for a licence to offer a 24 hour, English-language TV news service. With Stephen Harper's former spokesman Kory Teneycke as Vice -President of Development (i.e. creating new shows), it appears from all reports that the Fox is migrating north. In fact, this is precisely how Fox News did it. Their programming director and evil genius is Roger Ailes who once upon a happy time was a prewss flack for Richard Nixon, working alongside the ever-jovial Pat Buchanan. 

Well, talk about putting the country into a tizzy. The retired dean of CBC Parliamentary reporters Don Newman put up a column on the CBC website saying that such a right-leaning news network was, 'The absolute last thing the country needed.' Personally, Ill take a bad TV channel over famine or flood any day, but Newman's point is interesting in a twisted yet logical way. He fears that such a channel would make Conservative MPs 'more rabid' and would oddly cause the Liberals to be more polarizing. I don't look at the latter as a bad thing. At least if the Liberals consistently jousted against something it might cause the argument to congeal into a platform, something that got left in a trunk someplace along with Michael Ignatieff's charisma. 

But if Don Newman over-reacted, the reaction from Quebecor was a shrieking war cry. Mr. Teneycke promptly Twittered that Don Newman was Canada's answer to Helen Thomas. I'm not sure if he meant to imply senility or fascism but I do look forward to the explanation. 

A further curiousity is some of the reporting. The Toronto Star, not preternaturally disposed to supporting project offerings of the Sun said the whole enterprise as conceived would be doomed. Advertising dollars might be difficult to find since market research finds that the right-wing viewer tend to be older and down market. One can hear the banjos twanging in the trailer court from here. 

So, a fun week in other words. I can dine out on this story for weeks. Thing is, loathe as I am to admit it, it is going to succeed. And I am loathe to admit it but I cannot add my sandbag to the barricade attempting to block or damn the prospectively titled Sun News. I'm much too on the record for not believing in the fairy tale of unbiased news to step back from my principles now. I just look mournfully at the left and wonder why they are always chasing after the right in terms of electoral smarts and media manipulation. And CRTC approval is a given. Don't waste your breath petitioning. 

And there is a market for it because CBC News Channel is just absolutely dreadful. There was a good special on the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders on TSN last week. CBC News has imploded like the Raiders - proud champions for decades - now a mess. This makes Peter Mansbridge and a very few of the others like Howie Long and Tim Brown, the last connectors from the glory days to the wretched present. For instance, my love of sporting metaphors aside, I don't need sports stories cluttering up my newscast. If somebody wins something, great, report that. But I don't need two minutes of a 52 minute newscast taken up with people in Vancouver feeling upbeat because the Canucks got through to the second round. 

So one down and one to go for Sun News. CTV I tend to think is all right. It is the sturdy, Headline News network for busy people who want to know what's important now. But there is a huge market around that core audience. Quebecor did not get so big by being so dumb. If they put out a bright, engaging product that also gets the substantive headlines out there, I expect them to lead the three news services in ratings within six months. We live in interesting times. Be seeing you.