All posts tagged Margaret Atwood

An Open Letter about Rob Ford to the City of Toronto, from the Rest of Canada

by David Climenhaga on May 6, 2012 in Uncategorized with 5 Comments

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, a political figure so big he has his own gravitational field! Toronto politicians may not appear exactly as illustrated.

Dear Toronto:

It’s time we had a frank talk about that Chief Magistrate of yours.

We are speaking of course about Rob Ford, the big guy who keeps showing up in that lime-green team jacket.

We’re sorry we can’t think of a gentle way to put this, but surely we’re all in agreement that your Mr. Ford is a jackass? First there was that thing with closing public libraries and trying to insult Peggy Atwood. (It must have been embarrassing to a great big man like that to have his butt kicked by a little slip of a thing like Ms. Atwood. Or was that his brother? Well, whatever.)

Then there was that Toronto’s Biggest Loser project, or whatever it was called, with weekly weigh-ins and all that embarrassing stuff. Very unseemly, even before he was caught on phone-cam sneaking out of Col. Sanders’ place with a bucket of eviscerated chicken bits.

Now there’s this business about chasing reporters around and demanding that they hand over up their BlackBerries! BlackBerries, for God’s sake! Why would anybody do that? We mean, other than to check up on who the reporter’s sources are? This was all because Mr. Ford wants to buy some city trees, or out in a fence or something? And why didn’t the reporter just kick his big fat butt? Lord knows, it would have been hard to miss! Well, maybe the Toronto Star has a rule about letting reporters do that sort of thing. Like we said, whatever.

It’s not that we’ve got anything against politicians who aren’t allergic to a little argy-bargy now and then. You know that we loved Jean Chrétien, even after he tried to throttle that protester and especially after he chased that burglar around 24 Sussex with an Eskimo sculpture while his RCMP guards snoozed.

And it’s not that we don’t have any embarrassing politicians out here in the ROC. Or politicians that wear dumb green team jackets, for that matter – just look at Hamilton and Saskatoon, not to mention Edmonton! Just consider Alberta’s recent provincial election and those Wildrose guys, the ones who were all aflutter about the White Man’s Electoral Burden and how gay people are certain to burn in an eternal Lake of Fire if they don’t repent and stop keeping their apartments so tidy. It must have been excruciating to witness that happening if you happened to live in Alberta, but, well, what could we say?

And it’s not as if there haven’t been other embarrassing politicians from Toronto, either, I suppose. Does anybody remember that Mel Lastman fellow? He was officially a Bad Boy too, if we remember correctly. Although, we have to admit, he’s been eclipsed – in every sense of the word – by Mr. Ford.

Nope, it’s none of those things, although we have to admit that from our point of view out here in the ROC, the thing about Toronto is that most of its politicians must have been pretty sensible because you were just so darned successful. Names like Jack Layton spring to mind.

We don’t know if the penny ever dropped for you, but that’s why we always hated you so much, Toronto! You might not have quite been the World Class City you always worried you weren’t, but, by God, you were the closest thing to one north of the 49th. We knew you for your cultural institutions, for your great restaurants, for your efficient public transit system and for your confident multiculturalism – and we deeply resented it.

We resented it – and you – because we knew, in the hearts of our hearts, that we looked like a bunch of chumps by comparison. You know, the sorts of places that if somebody complained out loud that you ought to elect the “Caucasian Candidate” because he’d represent everyone equally badly, lots of our neighbours would say, “What? Whaaaat?!” Well, they’d never get away with that in Toronto, we’d think.

Nowadays, though, thanks to this Ford fellow, we’re starting to feel a little sorry for you. Turns out you’re just another chump like us, only way bigger.

In fact, you may be an even bigger chump! At any rate, some of us out here in the hinterlands have mayors that are pretty reasonable!

And, you know what? From that little seed of sympathy, a great big oak tree of empathy is going to start to grow! Pretty soon we’re all going to love you, Toronto, and that will be just … pathetic!

We’re going to love you because you’re going to be part of the club, just like us, another second-rate Melonville in the frozen north with an embarrassing civic government that’s signed the surrender papers and ended the War on the Car. And this in the place that welcomed Jane Jacobs and stopped the Spadina Expressway!

Where will our bright young people, our authors, our actors, the kids we brutally teased in school when we were growing up, dream of leaving for now? San Francisco? New York? Paris?

I don’t know how this makes you feel, Toronto, but it makes the rest of us feel like we’re missing a limb. Sometimes we can feel our old envy or Toronto twitching, but then we look down and … it’s just gone.

Look, we can’t tell you what to do. But this is starting to have an effect on your Canadian family – all your jealous brothers and sisters spread out across the great land, the part of it within 30 kilometres of the U.S. border anyway. If you can’t bring yourself to skid that guy for your sake, maybe you need to do it for ours! That’s right! Do it for us – your Canadian family! If you don’t get him out of there soon, we’ll never get back to hating Toronto like God and Conservative Party of Canada intended!

We hated you because you grew up to be something better than the rest of us. We hated you because we couldn’t count on you to automatically vote for Stephen Harper and his ilk every time there was a federal election like so many of us did. We hated you because you had better taste than us, because you owned a subway that worked and because you have the only major league baseball team in the country. (And this last point is true even if the only beer you sell at Blue Jays games is Coors and it costs $10 a can!)

Can we make this any clearer? We hated you because you were so big in every way it felt as if you had your own gravitational field. Now the only thing about you with that kind of pull is … your mayor!

If this keeps up, Toronto, we’re all going to have to start hating … Vancouver!

For your sake…. for our sake … for Canada’s sake… do something!

With Heartfelt Sincerity,

The Rest of Canada

This post also appears on Rabble.ca.

Lighten up Doug Ford! Thanks to Margaret Atwood, at least you’ll get a footnote

by David Climenhaga on July 27, 2011 in Uncategorized with 4 Comments

Margaret Atwood on the picket line, shortly before reprimanding your blogger. Below: Toronto’s Ford Brothers.

Lighten up, Doug Ford! It’s good to be given a sound public thrashing by Margaret Atwood. It’s proof that your hitherto meaningless existence has been recognized!

After all, Ms. Atwood is an author of historical stature, the sort of person journalists describe as an icon without even bothering to look up the word. In other words, she’s someone who, unlike you, history will remember as more than a footnote.

So you should treat the talking-to you’ve just received from her as a blessing, a gift from the Gods, proof that you are not merely a gnat, no matter what the rest of us may think.

Let’s pause here for a little background: For Western Canadian readers who may have missed it, Mr. Ford is a Toronto city councillor of a particularly odious neo-Con stripe and also the brother of that unfortunate city’s mayor, Rob Ford.

The Ford Brothers are the sort of people who make the folks who surround Prime Minister Stephen Harper seem like nature’s gentlemen. Alas, somehow they managed to get elected, and now they are busy wreaking havoc in one of Canada’s nicest cities – up to now, anyway.

As the sort of person whose supporters find their lips getting tired when they read, Doug Ford has lately been on a campaign to close public libraries. Ms. Atwood, who can be quite prickly herself, got up an effort to stop him, which by all accounts has been rather successful, with more than a quarter million people sending Tweets to support her.

This in turn got Mr. Ford’s back up, and he responded with this stunning Tweeted riposte: “Well, good luck to Margaret Atwood. I don’t even know her. If she walked by me, I wouldn’t have a clue who she is.” Well, duh! Of course you wouldn’t!

Brother Rob Ford, by the way, has also been in the news, accused of flipping “the bird” and mouthing obscenities at a woman who scolded him for talking on his cellular phone while driving. He blew it off as a misunderstanding, also in a Tweet, but let’s stick with Doug Ford and Ms. Atwood and their Tweeted and re-Tweeted fuddle-duddle battle for the time being.

Getting back to you, Doug: When the bug spray has settled down after the next Toronto municipal election, history will likely not have much to say about you. Ms. Atwood, on the other hand, is someone whom history will remember. But a public slapdown by Ms. Atwood means that at least you might get a mention in a good book or something of the sort that would be kept in a library.

Anyway, as cranky as it makes you feel right now, I can personally attest that the sting will pass away in time. You see, I too have received a good crack across the knuckles, metaphorically speaking, from Ms. Atwood for a mistake less horrifying than wanting to close public libraries, but nevertheless deeply humiliating.

The circumstances were as follows: During Ms. Atwood’s visit to the Calgary Herald picket line some years ago, a matter that oddly enough came up in another context in this blog just days ago, I took it upon myself to tell her how much I had enjoyed the Robber Bride, which had been published not too long before.

Alas for me, I referred to a memorable character in that novel as Xena (as in the warrior princess), not as Zenia (as I really ought to have remembered).

Ms. Atwood regarded me with an icy stare, corrected me sharply in a voice that may be fairly likened to a hiss, and promptly decamped to discuss matters with a picketer of more literary alertness. Perhaps if she were to Tweet about it today, she would say it was all a misunderstanding … but, to her credit, I doubt it.

At that moment, Doug, my mortification was profound! But as time has passed, I have come to see this little vignette as verification of my humble existence.

Indeed, in retrospect, I think I would have forgiven her if she’d knocked out a tooth! I don’t expect you to try reading one of her books, but you really ought to man up and get over it. You’ll be a better man for it!

Remember, Doug, as Oscar Wilde so famously said, “the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.” (And if you don’t know who Oscar Wilde is, ask a reference librarian.)

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NOTE: Sometimes the speed and accuracy of my predictions is frightening. (Then again, might as well just say it, there was the time I forecasted a Barb Higgins victory in the Calgary municipal election.)

Just the other day, in this space, I observed that since all six Alberta Tory leadership candidates were unanimous in their view that there must be no provincial support for a downtown arena in Edmonton, we could safely draw the conclusion that “as soon as the leader is selected, the provincial election past, and the eternal Alberta Conservatives safely restored to power, provincial taxpayers will be ponying up for a new Edmonton arena.”

The Edmonton Journal reported yesterday that “Premier Ed Stelmach signalled … money from a provincial infrastructure fund might help pay for Edmonton’s downtown arena.”

The deal will be done even before the leader is chosen, saving whoever wins the embarrassment of, as they used to say, having to publicly change horses in mid-stream.

This post also appears on rabble.ca.

Is WordFest muzzling a popular author to keep the Calgary Herald happy? Sure sounds like it

by David Climenhaga on July 24, 2011 in Uncategorized with 7 Comments

Brian Brennan, at left, on the picket line during the Calgary Herald lockout and strike in 1999. Behind him, in the centre of the photo, is Canadian author Margaret Atwood, a strong supporter of the unionized Herald journalists’ goals in the labour dispute. Below: Mr. Brennan as he looks today.

Brian Brennan is one of Alberta’s most popular and best-read authors.

The Irish-born writer has been asked twice before to read from his new books at WordFest, the 16-year-old international writers’ festival held in Calgary and Banff.

So why is this best-selling Calgary author being told he isn’t welcome to read from his much-anticipated memoirs at the 2011 WordFest, which is scheduled to take place this year from Oct. 11 to 16?

A combination of servility by WordFest organizers and a nasty hangover from an ugly labour dispute that rocked Alberta a dozen years ago appears to be the answer.

You see, Mr. Brennan was active on the union side in the 1999-2000 lockout and strike at the Calgary Herald and deals with what happened during that important period of Alberta labour history in a key chapter of his memoirs. Add to that the fact the Calgary Herald is a “platinum” sponsor of WordFest and you have all the explanation you require.

At any rate, this was apparently enough for WordFest’s timorous organizers to tell Mr. Brennan he was no longer welcome to read at the event – conscious, as they no doubt were, that the Herald didn’t exactly cover itself with glory in that long-ago labour dispute.

Naturally, that’s not WordFest’s story. They have told Mr. Brennan that with 70 authors reading, gee, there’s just no space for him on the roster. But this is hard to swallow, given his long list of best-sellers, plus the facts they’ve asked him twice before, talked to him about reading again this year and only changed their minds after they’d looked at a draft of the newest book.

So, while it’s a good story, as befits a literary festival, and they’re likely to stick to it, insiders insist the real reason was their desire not to offend a major sponsor, even if that meant “WordFest” had to play the censor and muzzle a well-known author. Anyway, they told Mr. Brennan he could host a reception, an offer that must have been pretty easy for him to turn down.

The last time Mr. Brennan read at WordFest it was from The Good Steward, his best-selling biography of long-time Alberta premier Ernest Manning. He is the author of seven other nonfiction titles, including Romancing the Rockies, which won the inaugural Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award, and Scoundrels and Scallywags, which topped the bestsellers’ lists for more than 20 weeks.

Presumably it’s OK with WordFest’s organizers to let any old piker read from a book about E.C. Manning, but it’s just not done to let a 25-year veteran of the Calgary Herald and the dean of Alberta popular historians read about the Calgary Herald dispute. Please!

“The Herald lockout is a part of Calgary history,” Mr. Brennan says. “Readers are entitled to know why more than 90 journalists walked a picket line for eight months in hopes of securing a first collective agreement with their employer.”

So, is the Calgary Herald behind the effort to try to shut Mr. Brennan up?

Anything’s possible, I suppose, but I strongly doubt it. The Herald would very much like to put that unfortunate part of its history behind it. The lockout and strike certainly hurt its business in Calgary, and did no good to its reputation in journalism. There’s been a high turnover rate in the publisher’s office ever since. Lately, though, the paper has hired some good people and seems to be trying to do better.

So my guess is the that last thing the Herald wants is a controversy fuelled by accusations it’s behind an attempt to silence a respected author who has written knowledgeably about a difficult period in the paper’s history that plenty of potential customers still remember with distaste.

No, this sounds more like the work of some anxious book-biz bureaucrat desperately trying to toady up to a generous sponsor. Well, by dis-inviting one of the host city’s most successful authors because he dared to write about the wrong topic, he or she is going about it the wrong way!

A couple of things need to happen here. Calgary Herald publisher Guy Huntingford needs to pick up the phone and have a private chat with the board and director of WordFest and make it clear they’re not doing the Herald any favours with this kind of foolishness.

As for the rest of us, perhaps we can follow the worthy example of Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood, who has led a campaign by her quarter million Twitter followers to save Toronto Public Library branches from the depredations of the philistine neo-cons now running that city.

Ms. Atwood would surely support this idea. She has been, after all, a frequent participant in WordFest events, as the organizers repeatedly boast on their website. She was also a strong supporter of the Calgary Herald strikers, walking the dreary picket line with them and speaking eloquently about the importance of their fight for union protection and better journalism.

If you’re looking for someone at WordFest to whom to drop a line about this, plenty of names and email addresses can be found on WordFest’s “Contact Us” page.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you’ll soon be able to buy Mr. Brennan’s memoirs, Leaving Dublin, Writing My Way From Ireland to Canada. The book is scheduled to be out in September, in plenty of time for WordFest, published in Canada by Rocky Mountain Books.

This post also appears on rabble.ca.