Stories stories everywhere, all need a drop of ink

Like going to the market

Press releases and the conferences that go with them are an easy place to look.  Some people like calling them news releases, but that's sometimes being overly charitable to the contents.  But whatever they're called, there is something in there that someone thinks is news, so its worth a look.

There is a better rate of return if you look at things like the Ombudsman's office, the public utilities board or  the CRTC.  How else are you going to find out if there are medical documents blowing around a gravel pit, that a hike in transit fares was approved or that a local jazz station is changing to an adult contemporary mix station?

If you have access to the Canadian Press news wire, they publish a list of things worth watching.  Do a search for "News Agenda" and find out what they're looking in on.  Because if they're watching it, its news worthy.

Almost like fish in a barrel

Heading down to city hall, the legislature or turning on CPAC to watch proceedings at the House of Commons is a potential place to find news.  Question period is a good place to start and its good to have a peek at the order paper. Also important is bills that hit third reading or ones that recieve royal assent.  Then there's a media scrum for interviews and you get to hear all about what the shadow minister for intergovernmental affairs thinks about things.

Tune in and turn up a police scanner and you'll get all sorts of stories.  Over the span of about 6 hours one night I heard about two major fires, a gas leak at a high school, several assaults and a woman who locked her kid in the car when parked at McDonalds.  Oh, and a guy with a "rectal bleed" in the basement of the local cop shop.  It's like the original Twitter, only a thousand times better.  It would be more, but I heard people once talk about their lunches so that drags it back down to Twitter's level.

The law courts are full of stories.  Something interesting in always happening in a trial before Queen's Bench and the bulk of stuff that moves through provincial and bail courts almost assures something will turn up.  And of course there is a whole civil side of things if criminal matters don't pan out.

Filing for access to documents through freedom of information legislation is a great, if slow, way to get stories.  Its probably going to be a lot of work and it could get expensive, but there is almost always something to be had.

Really fishing

This is mostly about keeping your eyes open.  Follow emergency vehicles, observe people and maybe even peek in dumpsters.  You don`t know what you`re going to come across, but if you happen across something its probably going to be pretty good.  And better yet, nobody else knows what it is until you tell them about it.

Anyway, we delivered the bomb.

One of the most captivating monologues in film history almost seems out of place in a movie about a giant shark.  It's like plunking Henry V's St. Crispian's Day speech into a Michael Bay movie.

It's about Hiroshima and so is a book by John Hershey.  The first half of Hiroshima was originally published as an entire issue of The New Yorker roughly a year after the first atomic weapon was used against Japan.  It was wildly popular and was converted to book format shorty there after.  The second half, which deals with the same people featured in the first, but 40 years later, was added to the book editions.

The focus of the text is on six people who were far enough out of the blast zone to survive the bombing yet close enough to tell stories about those who didn't.  Their stories intertwine a fair bit, a likely indication that Hershey went in one direction from the centre of the blast rather than travelling around the circumference of the circle of people who survived.  It seems almost hokey at times that the major players have as much interaction with each other as they do.

While it would have been unimportant for audiences of the time, the book could benefit from a forward that sort of sets the scene.  The battle of the Pacific would still be fresh in the minds of readers in 1946 but the absolute carnage of battles on Tarawa, Luzon and Iwo Jima are not necessarily known by modern readers.  The reality is that the Americans believed that losses on both sides would be so great that they felt they had no option other than using the atomic weapons.

Here's a table that summarizes the losses on both sides of the war leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki).  It is adapted from a similar table in The Ghosts of Iwo Jima by Robert Burrell. 

                              American Military               Japanese Military

Battle	KIA\MIA	WIA	Total	KIA\MIA	Captured	Total
Luzon	8,310	29,560	37,870	192,000	9,700	201,700
Tinian	389	1,816	2,205	9,162	0	9,162
Marshalls	711	2,339	3,050	11,087	361	11,448
Leyte	3,593	11,991	15,584	48,790	0	48,790
Okinawa	11,933	39,119	51,052	110,000	10,755	120,755
Saipan	3,452	13,160	16,612	27,000	2,000	29,000
Guam	1,435	5,648	7,083	10,000	0	10,000
Palaus	1,948	8,515	10,463	13,600	302	13,902
Gilberts	1,933	2,725	4,658	5,236	430	5,666
Iwo Jima	6,821	19,217	26,038	18,110	216	18,326
Col. totals	40,525	134,090	174,615	444,985	23,764	468,749

Doing some math on the battles leading up to what could have been the attack on Japan, the table illustrates that Japanese military doctrine of the time of defending to the last man was something they took quite seriously.  In all of these encounters, 5% of the Japanese forces involved ended up surviving and surrendering. The rest, were killed by American soldiers or by their own hand.  Another 40 thousand Americans and that's a total of half a million people lost in the battle of the Pacific.

These numbers do not include civilian losses, either through bombings or suicides.  In particular, 5000 or so civilians were lost on Saipan.  Of the suicides, there were some that leaped to their deaths rather than face what they had been told the Americans would do to them based on the propaganda they had heard at the time.



Had Japan been invaded, the American military had worked out that 500 thousand to a million American combatants would die, Japanese losses would be at least five million and perhaps as many as ten million.  The combined death toll of the sinking of the USS Indianiapolis and the bombings of  both Hiroshima and Nagasaki is about a quarter million and seems rather small in comparison.

And that's just the dead, not the wounded.  The U.S. military had made up half a million purple heart medals in anticipation of the invasion of Japan.  The purple heart is given to soldiers, sailors, air men and marines who are wounded in combat.  The medals that were made for the invasion that didn't occur supplied the Americans with all of the purple heart medals they needed for the Korean War, the Vietnamese War, the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War and they still have some left over.  Nearly 60 years after and they still haven't had as many wounded as there would have been by invading Japan.

That's a lot of history and all of is only barely eluded to in Hiroshima on page 6 of the 1989 edition where Hershey mentions a "squad of soldiers who had been digging into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion..."

One of the things about Hiroshima that is really interesting is the guesses that the Japanese recount as to what has happened to them.  Bombings are nothing unusual for the Japanese, but they have no concept of what an atomic weapon is, or what kind of damage it can cause.  Their lack of knowledge about a major turning event in world history is rather similar to the early reports of the D-Day invasion from American media.

The complete broadcast day can be heard by checking out the archive.org archive of the day's broadcast of CBS. The Americans (at least the Columbia Broadcast System) learned first of this major incident in world history first through German broadcasts, not their own war office.  That makes sense I suppose, its a bad idea to give away military secrets to civilians, but there is definitely a parallel in knowledge between the two incidents that is hard to ignore.

Anyway, I had known a fair bit about the war prior to reading Hiroshima, and had heard some of the stories of survivors.  I have no idea where I read it anymore, but one that always stuck with me from before was of a small girl who, as she grew up, continues to pick glass out of her scalp as it pushes its way upward from her skull.

Hiroshima had a couple of moments like that for me.  At one point some soldiers ask for some water and they are described as having their eyes melted from their sockets.  Another anecdote tells of someone trying to assist a woman (I think) to stand, and in holding her hand, her skin leaves her hand as if it were a glove.  Those are absolute chilling images.

Broadcast News Breakdown

I don't get to see a whole lot of television news as I'm generally not near a TV when the news is on. Even if I were, I'm not convinced that there is enough to be gained in seeing someone behind a lectern make an announcement than there is in just reading about it for me to make the effort.  But I'm not everyone, and plenty of people watch the news, so its probably good to know something about how TV news gets made. So I'm in a class to teach me just that.

Like the learning of anything, there is always more to know than what can reasonably be taught in a classroom. This means work outside of class studying the subject matter. So I started to watch a bit of television news, and it wasn't as helpful as I might have hoped.

The problem with looking at something done by someone who more or less knows what they are doing is that I can see only that it works, but it doesn't teach me why it works. Its the equivalent of knowing the answer to a mathematical problem but not understanding how the answer is obtained.

For me, a major part of learning the process of anything is making mistakes. Compile and stay mindful of enough things that should be avoided and eventually whatever is produced can be measured as successful. It stand to reason then that more mistakes at the beginning of something means a quicker progression to that point of success.

But it can take time to make those mistakes, so in the absence of opportunity to make my own mistakes, seeing the mistakes of others is a reasonably satisfactory substitute. But if the pros aren't making the mistakes at a quick enough rate from which to learn anything, where is there to turn to see the errors of an other's ways?

Naturally, to others who are most likely to make mistakes I should avoid: students. And that means YouTube as there are heaps of broadcast and journalism school students who are eager to show off their work.

And on YouTube I found this, a segment on vicious animals done by Tara Prindiville from Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication:


Now let me be clear here, this isn't a complete loss of a story, but there are a couple of major things I took away from it that I will never do. Also, I'm not suggesting that Ms. Prindiville is a journalist of poor quality or that the Cronkite School is an inferior institution. Her other uploads are much better and what I've seen of the Cronkite NewsWatch leads me to believe they know what they're doing.


Anyway, I think I took a lot away from watching this story with a critical eye.  So, for the benefit of anyone who comes across this blog and is also learning how to make news for television' here's a frame-by-frame critique of the story.

Audio of dog pulling on rope, guy says something like "get it boy, get it" to the dog then a sharp yelp by another dog.

I don't care for the sharp yelp here since its not coming from the dog that can be seen on screen.  It's also a pretty harsh sound.  Not a deal breaker though, but I can't think of any good reason for it to be there either.

Prindiville: When many people think of aggressive animals –

Things aren't off to a great start.  In print, radio, TV or wherever, a phrase like "many people" screams to me that someone didn't do any research and is hoping that whatever they say sounds believable enough that nobody will bother to check and call them on it.  Especially when referring to people in the general sense, as in the whole population.  The word "most" just as bad and "everyone" is even worse.  Like everyone (in the general sense) could agree on anything or be linked in any way other than basic biologic necessities like needing air to breathe. 

This isn't to say that I haven't slipped this sort of thing into my work before, though I make an effort to instead say "some people" and then offer up the counter point as well.  I think this is better, and even if its not, it helps me sleep at night.

Audio of the dog pulling some sort of sled.

Uh, ok.  I'm not really sure what that thing is or why this is happening.  The whole story on YouTube clip exists in isolation of whatever the anchor might have said to throw the anchor to Prindiville before she started her story, so maybe whatever was said there gives this come context.   But based on the rest of the story, the anchor probably mentioned the vicious animal bill.  Because this animal is strong it's also aggressive?  To me, it comes off as a sound-up just for the sake of having one, and I think I'd avoid doing it when it splits up a sentence like this one does.

Prindiville: - pit bulls are one of the first that come to mind. 

Are they really?  Above things like tigers?  Or sharks?  Or tiger sharks?  Maybe Arizona was gripped in a rash of pit bull attacks like Winnipeg was in the early 90s that would make people think first of pit bulls.  If it was, this isn't anywhere near as bad.  But if it wasn't, why single out one specific breed of dog over others?  And especially over other animal species that haven't been domesticated?

Prindiville: But its not just pit bulls that have the potential to be aggressive.

Aside from this questionable assertion and then wasting some time, what she is saying doesn't even match what's going on in the video. That pit bull isn't anywhere near a state of aggression, I'd say it looks pretty content, maybe even happy.

Female voice: Our two kids, Mike and Karen, and uh, Luke, the Brittany spaniel.

Woah, how did we get here?  A medium shot of a dog to a close up of a photograph of a different dog.  And who is talking?  Who are these people and why do they matter?  I'm a bit lost.  Where was the previous place and why did it matter to this photo?

Prindiville: Rhode didn’t know Luke had a history of violence-

If I wasn't watching this story particularly to note its faults I might not have thought much of the stuff I criticised earlier, but I would have picked up on these next two things in even a casual viewing.  First, when the shot cuts from the still of the photograph to the pan to the woman, there is a pop in the audio.  It wasn't cut together all that well, the audio of the two speakers could have been blended into each other to avoid that error.

But the bigger issue is that Prindiville hasn't shown me this Rhode person before she starts to reference her.  I, as a viewer, later learn that Rhode is the owner of Luke, and the woman who was talking before Prindiville told me about the attack.  But at this point of the story, its just an educated guess based on who spoke last.  And I think the problem could have been fixed by simply reversing the order of these two shots.

Prindiville: - until after he attacked a young girl she was babysitting.

Again, Prindiville isn't writing to her video.  I think that's one of the same kids from the first photo, so the viewer isn't being shown the person that she's talking about.  At least the dog is there though.  But is showing the dog at the end of a successful hunting trip really the best way to juxtapose the idea that the dog is sweet and gentle with the attack it made on the girl who was under Rhode's care?

Also, either Rhode's family are horribly dated in their fashion choices and card stock for photos or I'm being told about things that happened at least a quarter century ago.  Are there that few dog bites in Arizona that this is considered new enough for the news?

Rhode: She was laying down with her face on the ground and when I turned her over - - it was just a bloody mess.

With regard to story, this works as its a great clip.  Visually it looks a bit weird.  She appears twisted with her torso facing the left of the frame and her head facing the right.  Giving the benefit of the doubt to Prindiville and her camera operator, Rhode could have shifted into this weird posture just before making the statement.  It's too good a thing not to use.  Though it comes off as weirdly unemotional. 

Prindiville: What Marge didn’t know when she adopted Luke from the Humane Society -

GAZE INTO MINE EYES.  I have no idea why someone would be inclined to use this sort of shot unless someone was crying or their eyes had some special property.  It's not flattering to the point of being creepy.  It's almost enough to distract the viewer from Prindiville switching to referring to Rhode by her first name.  Maybe if you're this close to someone it would feel strange not to call them by their first name.  I don't plan on doing either.   

Prindiville: - was that he had bitten before.

This shot is great if for no other reason than it moves the viewer away from the previous shot.  And Prindiville gives us a fact, and those are good in the news.  It is a bit too dead centre but I'm going to give the camera operate the benefit of the doubt again.  It looks like Rhode would fill the frame on standard definition, which would look better.  This happens with lots of high-def footage and will continue to do so until HD screens are in the majority over SD screens.

Prindiville: But if you do own a dog, and that dog has attacked in the past, yet you still let it wander the streets, this new vicious dog bill is targeting you.  The bill's sponsor says they're going after those who let their animals loose, as well as people who train their dogs to attack.

When Prindiville says "still let it wander the streets" she gestures to her sides, telling me that this is one of those streets that dogs might wander.  I've never been to Arizona, but I was under the impression that they had the technology I know as pavement.  Based on what Prindiville is showing me, I might have to rethink my earlier assumption.  But seriously, I don't see either a street or any dogs.  If the shot had either it would work, both would be even better.  This has neither in it so again she isn't writing appropriately to her video.

She's also giving me a mixed message about the nature of the bill.  Is this a vicious dog bill or a vicious animal bill?  In either case it applies to dog owners, but if its a vicious dog bill, that means any jerk who is into falconry can sic his pet on people without fear of the new bill.  That doesn't seem right, but why am I again having to try to figure this stuff out for myself?  So there's another good thing to keep in mind, don't interchangeably use words that mean different things.

I will say though that she has a very good presence on camera.  She appears quite naturally and handles a 31 word sentence like it's nothing.  I'm not sure that I'd ever write something that long for myself to read, but it works very well for her.  And this despite the fact she is wearing a jacket with sleeves in desperate need of some tailoring.

  Montenegro: [some talking point] 

Story-wise this seems well written into and it doesn't really matter what he thinks about the bill for the purpose of my little review.  If I was shooting it, I'd probably have moved clockwise around him to minimize the windows to the left of the frame.  It's rather blown out on that side of the frame.  Again, maybe the camera operator was stuck where he or she was as part of a scrum, so I'll give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

Prindiville: Once a dog has attacked someone it is labeled as aggressive.

This is the state capitol building, maybe, or city hall.  Some seat of power that the people in the market for Cronkite NewsWatch would recognize but is unknown to someone living hundreds of kilometers away.  I've seen the same shot in other stories done by students producing Cronkite NewsWatch, so its some stock footage they have.  It's a bit bland and something of an orphan right now but...

Prindiville: And under this new bill, if that dog bites again, the owner will no longer be charged with a misdemeanor.  They'll be charged with a felony. 

Hey, that's pretty cool.  She's telling me that it isn't a misdemeanor anymore so it's crossed out and felony is there in big bold letters.  It's driving home the actual news as what she says and what I see reinforce each other.  And there is bonus information too.  The bill is called HB 2044 so if I'm so interested now I have more information at my disposal and I can look up the bill if I felt so inclined.

[Those who know me well will be pleased to know that their guess was right and I did look up HB 2044.  The bill relates only to dogs, so this really calls into question why Prindiville uses the word animals in as general a sense as she does.  To the best of my knowledge the bill is not yet law.  Also, Prindiville is off in Madagascar doing something with the Peace Corps.  She lists her mailing address on her blog if you want to send her letters telling her that I'm picking apart her work.  But don't send any tampons or frisbees, she apparently has more than enough of those.]

Prindiville: Rhode says she's proof that any kind of dog has the potential to be aggressive. 

Back to this meaningless phrase again.  Too bad, things were starting to get better.  Equally bad is that a shot is essentially being reused.  These pictures have been shown to us once before, there is nothing to be gained by panning from one to the next.  It's better than straight up reusing a shot, but not by much.  This reinforces with me the necessity of shooting lots and lots of b-roll.  I never seem to have enough and it leads to including some marginal shots, like this one.

Rhode: Luke was a Brittany spaniel, that's not a, what I consider an aggressive breed.

Noted Chandler resident Marge Rhode serves up some wisdom on the nature of a breed of dog of which she has already had one incorrect assumption.  I have very mixed feelings about asking Joe or Jane Public about something likely beyond their scope of experience and education, but it happens so often that I'm lead to believe that its something that people want.  I can see how the people doing the talking appreciate the chance, but the plural of anecdote isn't data so I don't really know what it brings to the audience. 

I don't go up to random strangers and ask them to influence my opinion on important matters, I don't know why I think it's appropriate to force the voice of a nobody on my audience.  And I'd hate to be responsible for being the guy that allowed the ball to get rolling on some nonsense like autism being caused by vaccines, which is what can happen when people who have no idea what they are talking about are allowed a venue where they can spout their warped and uninformed beliefs. 

But back to the story... her body is twisted again, leading me to believe that the earlier shot wasn't just the best of a bad situation.  Her body, like her head, should be facing the right side of the frame.  In light of her not really speaking from a position of authority on the subject, and the poor look of the video, I'm not really sure why we're back to her what Rhode has to say.  I can imagine good reasons to go back to someone who was seen earlier in a story, but this isn't one of those instances. 

Prindiville: And under this new bill, it doesn't matter the kind of dog -

A puppy!  Puppies bite everything because they don't have hands and that's how they explore the world.  It sucks, but they don't bite hard and they don't do it once their curiosity about a thing is satisfied.  I guess I'm being shown again that place from the beginning, I recognize some of the stuff around the location, whatever it is.  I still have no idea what location this is but I've been given the news of the matter so I don't hold out a whole lot of hope in ever finding out. 

Prindiville: - if it attacks again, harsher penalties will follow. 

So the dog is doing something that could be considered aggressive, I guess.  I still don't know why I'm seeing this and since she's reiterating what it is that she's said already, I'm not ever going to find out what's going on in this video.  If it really didn't matter what was going on in the background, as long as it had dogs doing physical things, the editor could have just cut it any random dog footage.  I'm betting there's actually an angle here that is going unexplored. 

Prindiville: Tara Prindiville, Cronkite News.

That's the end of the story?  But I still have questions:
Where was that place with the pit bulls?
What do they do at that place?
Are they in danger of shutting down if that bill becomes a law?
When did that attack on the little girl that Rhode was babysitting happen?
Was the little girl ok?
Why didn't Rhode know that Luke was a known biter?
How did she even find out that Luke had bitten before at all?
Was Rhode charged under the old law?
If she wasn't, why not?
If she was, what happened to her?
What happened to Luke?
Who cares about the names of Rhode's kids if they don't factor into the rest of the story?

That's about a dozen questions too many to come up from a news story and there is no particularly good reason that any of them should have gone unanswered or even asked at all.

Pucks and Punchups

-I apparently never published this last week, so here it is this week-

As the old joke goes, I went to see the fights and a hockey game broke out.

Hockey is a physical game, as Buffalo Sabres goalie Ryan Miller would be quick to confirm. Miller found himself the victim of an open ice check from Boston Bruin forward Milan Lucic. Lucic had himself a clear breakaway but nudged the puck too far ahead of himself as he crossed the blue line into the Sabres' zone.

Miller skated out of his crease to to play the puck toward the boards. Lucic was still coming in and "ran into" Miller at about the middle of the face off circle to the right of the net. Miller went down, a brawl nearly broke out and Lucic was given a two minute penalty for charging.

Here's a replay:


This hit is going to be talked about for a while, mostly in the context of trying to determine just how dirty it was. Those on one side will say Lucic didn't have time to avoid the hit and that the goalie should be treated as just another player outside of the goal crease. Those on the other side of the debate will say that Lucic had about 40 feet of ice to avoid a collision and that goalies deserve some special considerations to keep them safe. I'm with the latter group, but that's not what I came here to talk about.

I came to talk about the boxing.

The same night that Miller was getting his bell rung by Milan Lucic, there was what passes for a mega-match up in boxing.

Manny "Pac-Man" Pacquiao had his third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. Like Lucic's hit on Miller, there's going to be a lot of talk about this match up.

Not this Pac-Man

The fight went the distance, all 12 rounds, and Pacquiao was awarded a minority. That is, two of the ringside judges awarded more point to Pacquiao and one had the bout scored as a tie. Not quite the one sided victory that many of Pacquiao's more recent fights have been, and not one that many boxing pundits or fans would have given at all.

Fans booed when the decision was announced. This is unusual as Pacquiao is by far the more popular of the two fighters - the crowd should have been happy but they weren't showing it. The commentators in the coverage I was watching thought Marquez had won, the not-so-impartial fans thought Marquez had won, I thought Marquez should have won, so why didn't he?

I've never read the official rules that boxing judges use to determine the winner of a fight, but based on Saturday (and many other similar Saturdays) I figure they can be paraphrased as "give points based on popularity." I don't think I'm alone in my jaded opinion as I've heard allegations of blindness and corruption among the judging panel. This is one of a couple of things that boxing has to address if the sport ever again aspires to interest the public as it did in the days of Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson.

Among the other things, nobody really knows who the boxing champion is. Its understandable that there are weight classes, it would be unfair to match a 260 pound bruiser against someone who barely manages to hit 110 on the same scale. But each weight class has five different titles that can be won. With 17 weight classes, that's as many as 85 men who can claim to be boxing champion. And one of the associations has provisions to have two or even three people listed as a champion, so maybe its even more than 85. But some are vacant so maybe there are less than 85. Trying to keep it all straight is a bit like an Abbot and Costello sketch.

This plays into a bigger problem though: catch-weight fights. These happen when a lighter fighter wants to take on a heavier one so they agree to meet somewhere in the middle. On the surface, that seems reasonable, but it means that guys who are "naturally" 154 pounds have to find ways to drop seven pounds so they can participate. Which is their choice if they want to do it or not, but when the heavier fighter is putting up a championship belt (one with an allowance that permits a fighter to be 154 pounds to fight for it) its an unfair advantage for the smaller fighter.

But that's pretty minor to how fights get made in the first place. There's no league in boxing so there's nobody making match ups other than the fighters themselves (or rather, their promoters). And when you leave this sort of thing up to guys like Don King and Bob Arum, egos play far too large a role and fights that should happen either take too long to set up or maybe they don't happen at all. Haye should have fought Klitschko earlier than he did, same with Mosley and Mayweather. And Mayweather will likely never stand opposite Pacquiao in the ring.

When grown men agree to punch each other, these two men make a lot of money.

Just to float a prediction out there: Mayweather would trade equally punches on his shoulders and forearms for shots on Pacquiao's face and then lose the fight because he never smiles and isn't very good at karaoke.

The official reason that this fight hadn't gone forward was because of a disagreement between the Mayweather and Pacquaio

These problems have made boxing a mess. What fans want to see doesn't happen and if it does, it doesn't have the appearance of a fair contest. Much of the attention that was once given to boxing has been turned towards mixed martial arts. This is despite the fact that the average fight boils down to two burly men hugging each other on the ground for four out of every five minutes.

So when I want to watch boxing, I just turn on a hockey game.

It's pretty much the same:

in the first round the combatants just get a feel for each other;


the combatants are generally evenly matched; and


and sometimes fans even get to see a knockout.



And it has the added bonus in that the athletes ensure that the officials remain honest.

Remember the Fallen and Celebrate the Armistice

A minute of silence is given on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month to remember those who died in the service to their country.  A minute of silence is a pretty powerful thing and this is probably where a lot of minds go when they think of something associated with Remembrance Day. 

But like all observances, there are more symbols and gestures that go with an observance.  And what we do here isn't quite like what happens elsewhere to celebrate the armistice that brought the end to the first World War.

The poppy is probably the next best thing identified with concerning Remembrance Day.  It might actually be better associated with the day than the minute of silence.  Anyway, despite the poppy essentially being a weed, it has become the symbol of fallen soldiers (at least in the British Commonwealth) in large part because of the poem In Flanders' Fields.  The poem was written by Canadian army physician John McCrae and its opening lines can be found on the back of our 10 dollar bank note.  The poppy has also graced no fewer than three Canadian 25 cent pieces, the first of which was the first ever coloured coin made available for circulation.

Anyway, in Canada, the poppy is trademarked by the Royal Canadian Legion and they get some upset if you don't get their authorization before using it.  That said, here's an image of the poppy that shows the best possible way to keep it attached to an article of clothing, a Canada flag lapel pin.

As mentioned, the poppy is a symbol in other Commonwealth nations as well, although I believe it might not be quite as prominent as in Canada.  Britain uses it extensively, Australia and New Zealand much less.  Australia and New Zealand also don't do a whole lot on November 11, their observance in a similar vein is ANZAC Day on April 25.  That day is the anniversary of the first battle action of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps when they attacked Gallipoli.

In case you are wondering, April 22, 1915, is the first time the Canadians saw any fighting in the First World War.  I can't think of anything that has ever happened to commemorate that.  The better analogue to what the ANZACs did at Gallipoli would be what the Canadians did at Vimy.  That was April 9, 1917, which also tends to pass by unnoticed.  Though the Royal Newfoundland Legion observes ANZAC Day as their expeditionary force spent some time in Gallipoli in 1915.

But back to November 11.  Wreath laying is a common element of remembrance services.  They honour the fallen and the tradition dates back to ancient Greece and Rome.  In Canada and in other places, the focus of the national commemoration lies with the tomb of the unknown soldier.  This soldier is said to represent all of the country's war-dead.  In Canada, there is a special tradition of allowing a mother of a fallen combatant lay the wreath on the tomb of the unknown soldier.  The mother is known as the Silver Cross mother and she is said to represent the all mothers across Canada who have lost a child in battle.

Australia has its own tradition, called the lone charger.  A single riderless horse leads a Remembrance Day procession, with boots that are placed backwards in the stirrups and without a saddle.  It's a pretty powerful image that the purpose of the event is to miss someone (many someones, really) that is no longer there. 

Perhaps the most unusual of all traditions comes from the Unites States of America where ravioli has become a traditional meal on November 11.  In the U.S., the day is known as Veterans Day and is the second day during the calendar year where that country recognizes its soldiers (the other being Memorial Day).  Apparently ravioli became a Veterans Day staple after then-President Woodrow Wilson invited 2000 U.S. soldiers to the White House for a meal.  President Wilson is also said to have participated in the preparation of the meal.

Origin of Words

Every word has an origin story.  Some aren't particularly interesting, the particulars of other have been lost to time, but among the more recent additions to the language, there are some interesting stories to tell.

The field of study that concerns itself with the origin of words is called etymology.  Better dictionaries will include a short etymological statement about a word and the more-or-less unlimited nature of the Internet means expanded explanations are as available anytime and nearly anywhere.

Most of the words in the English language have an origin in an older language with Latin, Greek and German being common sources of words.  How these words became a portion of those languages is something that is perhaps unknowable beyond the fact that someone at some point in history made a noise and that noise became that word.

That's how a word like cowabunga exists.  Etymology.com explains its origins as something that a character on the Howdy Doody show would say in a moment of excitement.    Here's a video that kinda goes into it, but it is described as a "magic Indian word."



More recently, there are many words that have been added to English because of the Internet.  Google is a good example.  Even a decade ago people didn't associate a web search so heavily with one engine - nobody ever said Yahoo it.  As Google became the standard, the company's name slowly became a verb.

Internet slang words are also fast appearing in the annual list of things Webster or Oxford are adding to its list of words.  Stuff like "woot" and "noob" were given that legitimacy sometime earlier this year.  I remember when the noise associated with "lol" was just a slight mispronunciation of a town in Massachusetts.   

But my favourite modern origin story is the one behind thagomizer.  This word describes the spikes on the tail of a stegosaurus.  The invention of the word is credited to Gary Larson and his comic strip The Far Side.  

Apparently the thagomizer never really had a name before being dubbed the thagomizer by Larson in 1982.  Wikipedia reports (with links to external sites) that the term has been used by academics as well a the Smithsonian Institute. 

On Being a Canadian

The federal government is thinking about adding in a language proficiency milestone for anyone hoping to become a naturalized Canadian citizen.  The proposed regulation changes state that citizenship applicants should have the ability to fill out forms and express simple ideas in either English or French.

For some classes of immigrant this many not be a big deal as language requirements are a part of their application process.  But for some, particularly refugees, it could be a roadblock to citizenship.  Apparently, that is an important part of being Canadian.

Like any other person born here, these language requirements will never apply to me.  Unless I give it up Conrad Black style, I'll always be a Canadian citizen regardless of how well or poorly I can use either official language.  But it's a good segue into a discussion on being a Canadian.

I've touched on what it means to be a Canadian a couple of time, but never in any great detail.  In the Thanksgiving rundown I mentioned how our very own turkey day pays homage to the outright failure of a Martin Frobisher voyage (he didn't find the Northwest Passage and brought home hundred tons of worthless rocks).  If a reader bothered to follow the link out of the entry on Page One, they would have learned what expat Bruce Headlam, then editor of the New York Times had to say about his home and native land ("not only a lot bigger than Minnesota, it’s just as interesting").

I've never been able to satisfy myself with a definition on what it is to being Canadian.  Aside from something basic like being eligible for a passport, the single best I've managed is that Canadians are a group of people who can spend a lot of time telling anyone who will listen how different we are from Americans.  

Will Ferguson included a quiz in his book How to be a Canadian that assigned a certain number of point towards your Canadianness.  Things like if you remember where you where when Ben lost his medal, or when Wayne was traded.  I recall those things happening, but they predate some of my classmates so they may not be the best litmus test.  Maybe its fairer to ask if they know where they were when Ross lost his medal or where they were when Sidney was drafted.

There is an actual citizenship test that hopeful Canadians must take and pass to become naturalized.  The Richmond, B.C. public library has a practice version of it here: http://www.yourlibrary.ca/citizenship/.  Discounting the questions specific to the Richmond area, I scored a 90% on the test, which is pretty good, though it is hardly a perfect test for gauging culture.

I don't know about the actual test, but parts of this practice one aren't quite correct.  Like this question.

11. How is the Prime Minister chosen?
a. The Queen appoints the Prime Minister.
b. The Governor General with the Senate appoint the Prime Minister
c. The leader of the party with the most elected representatives becomes the Prime Minister.
d. The MP's (sic) vote on the Prime Minister

The "correct" choice is c, but the answer disagrees with how a Prime Minister is actually selected.  Although the Prime Minister is most commonly the leader of the party with the most number of seats, there is no requirement that this be the case.  In fact, two PMs have been Senators who have not led their political party.  Nor is there a requirement that the Prime Minister come from the party with the most seats.  This can happen in a coalition government or following an election that does not result in a majority situation.  If that happens, the current Prime Minister retains the position even if his/her party doesn't have the largest number of seats.

For as wrong as the correct answer is, none of the others are really any better.  Answer d is completely off base, MPs have no say in the matter.  Choice b would be perfect if it didn't mention the Senate.  If the test-taker takes "Queen" to include her representative (the governor general) then it becomes the best fit.  As it is, that puts it about at the same level of incorrect as c.

Anyway, knowing the finer points of selecting a Prime Minister are hardly important to the day-to-day of being a Canadian.  To be honest, there are probably a lot of Canadians who think the PM is voted for in a manner similar to the U.S. president, it’s probably best not to include the issue at all.

And for as much as I like them, history and governance aren't the be all and end all of culture.  Things like food, art, sport and music should be considered.

For food, the only Canadian concoction that springs to mind is poutine.  While not without its charm, I'm not sure it qualifies as a national dish the same way perogies say Ukrainian or pasta says Italian.  If former Prime Minister Joe Clark is to be believed, we don't have a national food, rather a "cuisine of cuisines."  What that means to me is that we aren't original when it comes to food.

Art is important, but I'm sure many Canadians would struggle to name a famous Canadian artist who wasn't associated with the Group of Seven.  Even then, there would be a struggle to name an actual member of the group as neither Emily Carr nor Tom Thompson are members.  Literature can be lumped in here though I'm sure most Canadians have only a passing and probably unfavourable impression of Canadian authors based on having to read something by Margaret Atwood or Timothy Findlay back in high school.  Film too, although it is sometimes joked that the best witness protection program would be to involve someone in the Canadian film industry. 

In the realm of sports, we sure do like hockey.  Lots and lots of hockey.  I think we like it because we're better at it than anyone else.  We beat the Soviets in '72!  We beat the U.S. in 2010!  It's a bit thumbing of the nose, but since some Canadians have rioted because of the outcome of a hockey game, I guess it must be considered.

Musically we have a lot of talent here in Canada.  Acts like Rush, Celine Dion, Nickelback and Ann Murray have all made it big outside our borders, so that has to be worth something.  Then again, because Canada is so massive the bands on the east coast have a completely different sound from those practicing in the basements of the prairies and different still from whatever it is they do out west (I honestly can't name a band from out that way other than Chilliwack).  And Quebec pop music is in a completely different language.  If there is anything there, I sure don't know what it is.

So if it can't be tested or ingested, experienced or played, is there a definition of what it means to be a Canadian?  I still don't think it can solve our identify crisis with a small number of words.  The closest I've ever seen was something historian Frank Underhill wrote in 1964.

"If we are eventually to satisfy ourselves that we have at last achieved a national identity, it will be only when we are satisfied that we have arrived at a better American way of life than the Americans have." 

And maybe that's depressing, but I can't deny the accuracy of it.

RIM offers app-ology

Canada's own Research In Motion will offer more than $100 of free apps in appology to BlackBerry customers following last week's planet-wide service outage.  The program will begin on October 19 and initial offerings from RIM include:

• SIMS 3 - Electronic Arts
• Bejeweled - Electronic Arts
• N.O.V.A. - Gameloft
• Texas Hold’em Poker 2 - Gameloft
• Bubble Bash 2 - Gameloft
• Photo Editor Ultimate - Ice Cold Apps
• DriveSafe.ly Pro - iSpeech.org
• iSpeech Translator Pro - iSpeech.org
• Drive Safe.ly Enterprise - iSpeech.org
• Nobex Radio™ Premium - Nobex
• Shazam Encore - Shazam
• Vlingo Plus: Virtual Assistant - Vlingo

I'm really only familiar with the Nobex Radio app, which is fantastic even in its free form.  I'd even go as far as to suggest that it beats out the station and broadcast company specific apps floating around.  Like the name suggests, it streams radio stations direct to your phone.  Users get the stations in their country for free (and in my experience as a Canadian, you get U.S. stations as well) the premium version will allow listening to stations from over 100 countries.  I still won't be able to listen to CBS programming out of the U.S. but BBC from the UK and ABC from Australia will be nice additions.

SIMS 3, Bejeweled, N.O.V.A., Bubble Bash 2 and Texas Hold'em Poker 2 are all games.  Great for those who'd rather pass their time living fake lives and matching similar objects to whatever else their phone might let them do.  I don't really play games on my phone, and free ones are unlikely to make me start.

The photo editor is probably exactly what it says, can't imagine why I'd try to do something as imprecise as the track pad on my BlackBerry.  The App World page indicates its pretty fully featured, so maybe its for those people who have a touch screen. 

Shazam Encore listens to a bit of a song and then tells you what it is.  This would have been a handy service 10 years ago but now becuase there are dedicated people who archive song lyrics, you can get by just googling the song's refrain. 

I had to look up what drivesafe.ly is, apparently it reads text (SMS, BBM and email) to the phone's user while driving a car. It's free so I'll try it out even though I'm not sure I'll get much use out of it. iSpeech also makes the phone talk, but it translates between languages. That's neat and I'll take it for free, but it also won't see a whole lot of use.

I guess Vlingo balances off what drivesafe.ly and iSpeech do by allowing the phone's user to speak directly to the phone.  It seems pretty powerful and with a retail price point of $20, it certainly seems worth a test drive.  I imagine it has to be pretty hard on the battery though, but it will be fun pretending to be on Star Trek.  That said, customer ratings of the app on BlackBerry App World seem to be pretty down on the app as of late, so maybe it will be like those episodes of Star Trek where the computer doesn't work properly.

So, not a lineup that excites me a whole lot (other than Nobex) but it is nice that RIM is doing something to address the service outage.  They are also promising more apps to come, though it won't be surprising if these end up being the heavy-hitters of the offerings.

Celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving

Until I thought to look it up, I thought the Canadian Thanksgiving shared a similar (and less celebrated) origin story to American Thanksgiving.  European settlers and native people, eating from the same table, celebrating the harvest.  I figured it had only one major difference, that being the holiday is celebrated earlier because our harvest happens sooner.

But like I said, I looked it up.  Apparently there is more to the story than just that.

An unnamed journalist at the Edmonton Journal claims Canadian Thanksgiving also has something to do with celebrating Martin Frobisher's safe return from a voyage to the north in 1578.  Frobisher made three voyages into the north, but never managed to find the Northwest Passage.  He did find tons and tons of ore to ship home to England though, which he thought contained gold.  Turns out it was just iron pyrite (fool's gold) which left Frobisher's face a bit red.  England eventually used it to pave roads, which I guess makes the best of a bad situation.

Frobisher's legacy attacking the Spanish earned him a knighthood, but his legacy as far as Canada goes is failure.  And apparently that failure accounts for one of our national holidays that we are supposed to celebrate.  I guess it speaks well to Canada that we accept, even celebrate, the best of intentions.  We're so polite.

But with our other national holidays being Victoria Day (more or less a celebration of our mom's birthday) and Canada Day (which marks the day we officially moved out of our parent's house) is it really surprising that the nation struggles with its identity?

Bombers Make Diagonal Move

I always thought Michael Bishop had potential to be more than he amounted to.  Maybe getting stuck behind Damon Allen all those years in Toronto hindered his development?  Or maybe getting stuck behind Kerry Joseph that year in Toronto?  Or those wasted years in NFL Europe or the Arena Football League?

He has a cannon for an arm but it always looks like he believes he has to prove something immediately or he'll get released.  In fairness to the man, that does seem to be the pattern that prevails in his life. 

Somewhere I have his Arena Football Card.  Maybe I'll get it signed.  I'm sure I don't have to hurry.  If I miss him this time around, he might actually not come back.  I can't be sure who the CFL will turn to as a mid-season comedy replacement after Bishop, but I have a guess:

 Here's a source if you don't believe me: http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/09/27/bombers-bringing-back-bishop

Turn to Page One to Begin the Lesson

In an attempt to model a blog post after the way Ken Levine does things, here are some thoughts on Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times.

I was a little concerned when I saw a title credit for History Films as the History channel is flooded with shows about pawn shops, semi-trailers and how aliens maybe helped build Egypt's pyramids.  Gladly, no pawnbrokers, truckers or E.T.s to be had.

A more appropriate title for the doc would be Media Desk: A Year Following David Carr of the New York Times. 

Carr is a recovered drug addict that doesn't pull punches.  A TV show of him going about his daily routine would probably be the highest rated show ever. 

This wouldn't be half as interesting if it didn't cover the year the WikiLeaks became important.

Normally I'd be inclined to blur the plate in a picture of a car I took a photo of, but anyone who is that big a supporter of WikiLeaks has an uphill battle proving to me that his privacy is somehow more important than stolen diplomatic cables.

The doc introduced me to newser.com.  Its ok, but I prefer the low-tech and more Canadian bourque.org. 

Watch the background in shots featuring an editor named Bruce Hedlam.  There seemed to be a different bottle of pills on his desk everytime he is shown in his office.

But don't worry about him, he's Canadian so he can always come back for some health care.

Film maker Rossi threw in some archival footage of all those old white guys slaving away working at a news paper.  In 50 years the same could be said of Page One.

Maybe that's not fair, a couple of them weren't old.

The doc points out the paywall.  Google NYTClean if you want to see how $40-50 million of software engineering was undone with four lines of computer code.

But there are no torrents to download Page One.  Give it time.

There were those update cards for a couple guys at the end, but not everyone.  I like it when I find out what happens to everyone, sometimes the most surprising people end up as state senators.  When in New York, visit The New York Times (ask for Dave).