Toronto Culture and Multiculture 6: How to Make Canadian News

Oil industries pandered our convenience regardless environmental impact. Tobacco industries dealt nicotine addictions entirely blasé to public health. Now, big media over-stages cheap sensations – in our own homes – despite degrading discourse and distracting all understanding who we are and what we stand for. So much the better should our entire attention get captivated by spectacular insignificance. It’s just good business as usual. Show business.

Gets hilarious, the way bigger media blames it all on smaller media. Blames it on tabloids, on a radio talk-show host, on rappers and now, in that big way, on small blogs. So misleading But nevermind more general examples. Not particularly the point.

The particular point is Canadian democracy, Toronto multiculture and how we – Canadians and indeed Torontonians – may begin tutoring far and worldwide re tolerance. Except that our own media denies it. Denies Canadian tolerance. So, most particularly right now, the point is how and why our media misleads us when it comes to our own tolerance.

Pretty obvious why. Canadian media shares shock values with its larger cousins – despite acting relatively bashful about it. Also, Canadian media has rather fewer juicy gossiping opportunities. Has to scramble more when it comes to news making – while acting like it never scrambled a day in its life. But wait. Opportunity does come knocking. Tolerant as Canadians are, not much else can so reliably be counted on shocking us as accusations we aren’t. So, since tolerance denying reliably provides high-rating shock values, our media goes scrambling after tolerance denying opportunities. That’s pretty good news making – for Canadian media. Simultaneously covering both tales and trails.

How does our media mislead when it comes to tolerance? Not too hard to uncover. Harder scrambling trails than tales. Here’s one scenic trail. During the final weekend of February, 2007, a referee ejected 11 year-old Asmahan Mansour from an indoor Quebec soccer match because she refused to remove her hijab – religious headscarf. The story of Asmahan’s ejection was seized upon in brazen – i.e., scarcely at all muted – glee by Canadian media. The story was inflated at such meteoric pace that, by early March, it had expanded from local – through provincial and national – to international proportions. This story of Canadian intolerance.

This misleading story. How misleading? Plenty. Of the dozen checked, most articles never disclosed how the ejecting referee was Muslim. Muslim as the ejected player. Most articles never disclosed how not only Quebec but FIFA’s International Football Association Board – that’s right: international – upheld the referee’s decision. And not one – single – mainstream Canadian media article divulged how Google-searching headscarf and soccer reveals the issue arising repeatedly and, yes, internationally. Like in Morocco, even. Like, the first hit on Google-searching headscarf and soccer? An April 27th article titled Soccer game called off over headscarf. Not April 27th next week in Quebec’s future. April 27th, 2004. In Australia.

That’s how misleading. Not remotely legitimate as a story of Canadian intolerance. Not particularly Canadian – whatever international soccer refereeing issues with headscarves may or may not be. Only our media’s scrambling – scarcely muted – seizure at Asmahan’s ejection was particularly Canadian. And it didn’t stop there, our media seizure. The trail goes on.

For instance. On March 8th, 2007, the Globe & Mail published an article titled Soccer headscarf incident sign of intolerance: Egypt. The article began thus:

Egypt warned against racism and intolerance in Canada after a young Ottawa-area girl was expelled from a soccer tournament in Quebec for insisting on wearing an Islamic headscarf, the foreign ministry in Cairo said… Ihab Fawzi, a senior official at the ministry.. express[ed] concern over "mounting signs of racism and intolerance in Canada"…

Egypt? Well, maybe it’s not quite entirely absurd as it sounds. Conceivably, Egypt has sincere legitimate concerns for democracy and multiculture – for Canadian tolerance, even – despite experiencing setbacks practicing the principles. Setbacks walking its talk. At least since the fundamentalist Islamic assassination of Sadat. Since Mr. Mubarak might understandably prefer not getting similarly assassinated. Since Mr. Mubarak likely does some service to tolerance by not tolerating fundamentalist intolerance. Since his intolerance is in self-defence. To which – self-defence – he’s entitled. Obliged, even. Especially if he’d actually prefer tolerance. If he’s one of the good guys. Absolutely. Conceivably, anyway. But still. Egypt?

Just conceivably Egypt’s concerns with Canada’s alleged intolerance are legitimate. Legitimate and, however ignorant, arising through no fault of Egypt’s. Arising entirely from scrambling Canadian media. Scrambling to deny Canadian tolerance. Egypt’s concerns might conceivably be legitimate. But Toronto Canadian media seizing at factual incompleteness – incompleteness however far and poorly fetched – scrambling to deny our tolerance? And then seizing upon yet farther fetched, genuinely ignorant – if even at all legitimate – international reaction? Reaction fomented by Canadian media misleading in the first place? Might as well have titled this article How intolerant are we – even Egypt rebukes Canada. No. Not legitimate. Not even conceivably. Except by archingly grasping shock values. Or from ideologically definitive – fundamentalist – perspective. The sort of perspective so readily flouting at Globe & Mail’s Comment section. Like the perspective of Democratic Dictatorship from United States:

yes i support the fact that the egyptians one of the main human rights abusers have actually told canada that they are abusing their citizens. How blind are we , that a country which regularly abuses human rights has to tell us...

Do testify, Democratic Dictatorship. The press is free. But can we say amen to that? Should we shout no justice – no peace? Ought we shriek silence is violence? Perhaps not. Time is money. And liquor is quicker.

Not to suggest all perspective at Globe & Mail’s Comment section is tin-foiled. Lucid visions do glimmer there. Some. Rarely equal to Stephen McIntosh’s from Winnipeg:

My father's father's father immigrated from Scotland, and my mother's mother's mother moved here from Russia. I am not Scottish, I am not Russian, I am Canadian. And I will welcome anyone who would like to share in the great life we have here. Because in three generations the refugees from abroad will be as Canadian as you and me, but they will remember their ethnic origin and they will honour it. You must be tolerant of others because that is what being Canadian is all about.

Wonderful perspective. Can’t stop to admire, though. Not yet. The trail goes on.

Very same Thursday, also on March 8th, 2007, an article by Haroon Siddiqui – editorial page editor emeritus – appeared in the Toronto Star. Don't give in to prevailing prejudices. Seemed a relatively thoughtful article on first reading. Relative to most other media seizures at Asmahan’s ejection. Siddiqui wrote,

… in Australia and across Europe, several nations have decided that their failure to integrate Muslims because of widespread racism is, in fact, the fault of multiculturalism, a policy they never had, in the sense you and I understand it, namely, extending equality and the dignity of citizenship to all people, regardless of race, religion or ethnicity.

An interested reader, after having read the Globe’s contribution that Thursday morning, might well have thought, “Yeah, right. Who’re we supposed to take our cues from when it comes to tolerance, then? Egypt? Sure. Why not go all the way – for our cues – to Saudi Arabia or Iran?”

But Siddiqui wasn’t saying where to go for our cues. He was saying that even the world’s most tolerant nations are kind’a cueless – and need to be taking cues from us. That when it comes to the principle, our practice of tolerance stands exemplary even among those countries all flee to instead of from. He was saying it’s our job now, schooling not only Egypt but even Australia, Germany, Britain, Sweden or the United States. Sure sounded he was saying so when he wrote,

The world looks up to Canada for its multicultural achievements. Here in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Commission, people routinely invoke Canada to counsel member-states to learn how to achieve integration the Canadian way.

Right on. Stand up for your principles, Toronto Canada. Stand tall and take a bow.

Like Stephen McIntosh from Winnipeg, Siddiqui gets the big picture. The principle. Tolerance. What being Canadian is all about. Which makes it far more difficult comprehending what Siddiqui was talking about when it came to Asmahan’s headscarf case. When he wrote,

In the soccer case.. it has been pointed out by some that the referee in question was a Muslim. That fact alone is supposed to have legitimized his decision… We would not adopt such a tribal assumption about referees of other faiths. We would not presume that their decisions were motivated by their religion.

What a kicker. Siddiqui’s not troubled with so few mentioning the referee was Muslim. Siddiqui’s troubled that anyone mentioned it at all. But why so troubled? This general media seizure wasn’t about any random player ejection. It wasn’t about any random headscarf. It was about a Muslim player. It was about a Muslim headscarf. The media seized at how Asmahan was ejected for being Muslim and wearing a Muslim headscarf. Putative Muslim ejecting was the whole, entire and only issue. Nothing but. Muslim ejecting. So why ought the media seize at the ejected person being Muslim, at her headscarf being Muslim – and utterly avoid all mentioning that the ejecting person too was Muslim?

Why not mention it? Because, according to Siddiqui, it would be intolerant to presume the referee’s decision was motivated by religion. It would be a tribal assumption – inconsistent with Canadian tolerance. Inconsistent with what being Canadian is all about.

Indeed. It would be. Nobody remotely tolerant would assume any such thing. On finding out the ejecting referee was Muslim too, those tolerant in slightest principle would conclude the ref was simply doing his or her job. Entirely and only exercising proper discretion as a referee. Properly and totally regardless to whether any particular player was Muslim – like the ref – or Falun Gong or even atheist – unlike the ref. That’s the tolerant concluding. Like, the ref was Muslim too? Well then, obviously only had soccer issues with the headscarf. No way the ref took issue with Asmahan being Muslim. Or the headscarf being Muslim. No more than the ref would take issue with being Muslim him or herself.

Nobody tolerant in slightest principle would assume the ref was motivated by religion. But Siddiqui believes we’d all think just that. That since religion must necessarily have been the motive for ejecting Asmahan, the ref must have been some sort of self-hating Muslim. That’s what Siddiqui believes and was spelling out when he wrote:

While we dare not cite, say, dissident Catholics or Jews to rationalize discrimination against practising Catholics and Jews, many people routinely invoke contrarian Muslim voices to lecture Muslims on how they should practise their religion.

So we’d better not mention the ref was Muslim too. Because that would be amplifying the ref’s contrarian Muslim voice. That would be rationalizing discrimination. That would be promoting Muslim self-hatred. Egads. How can Siddiqui understand that being Canadian is all about tolerance – while simultaneously believing we’re all out promoting Muslim self-hatred? It makes no sense at all, Siddiqui not understanding we’d conclude the ref was just doing his or her job. Knowing the ref was Muslim, doesn’t Siddiqui conclude the ref was properly job performing? Doesn’t Siddiqui conclude that the soccer ref’s voice must have been a contrarian soccer voice only – rather than a contrarian Muslim voice – since the ref was Muslim too?

Maybe not. Maybe it’s Siddiqui himself making the tribal assumptions he deplores as inconsistent with Canadian tolerance. Maybe Siddiqui himself believes Asmahan must necessarily have been ejected for religious motives. That if the ref was Muslim then no way was the ref properly job performing – and hence that the ref must have been some sort of self-hating Muslim. Out to punish Asmahan for being a Muslim. For daring to wear an Islamic headscarf.

Couldn’t be. Could it? Siddiqui is the Star’s editorial page editor emeritus. Says so right under his article. No way he’s projecting tribal assumptions – precisely those assumptions he deplores – onto his readers. No way.

Way – and no maybe about it. Siddiqui really is out to stop us from giving in to prevailing prejudices. Except, those prejudices he’s out to stop us from giving into? Yeah. Those are prejudices prevailing for him. Not even for the marginally tolerant among us – his Canadian audience. And he doesn’t just want to stop us in the audience, either. He’s out to stop the entire media from giving in to his own prejudiced tribal assumptions. Since he projects his tribal assumptions as liberally onto the media as onto the audience:

The media are an unwitting partner in this dirty game [of making prejudiced tribal assumptions about Muslims]. The quickest way for a Muslim to be quoted these days is to attack fellow Muslims or, better still, Islam.

So there it is. Siddiqui gets some things right on. Like what being Canadian is all about. But otherwise, he comes across almost pathologically unwitting. As if he regards himself doing public service partaking, co-leading this headline grasping media seizure. This misleading story. Misleading and slandering Canadian tolerance both at home and abroad.

Just unwitting. Siddiqui’s not out to deny our tolerance. He affirms it. But Siddiqui does declare that Muslim ref – and the rest of us and the media – guilty of making prejudiced tribal assumptions about Muslims. Not likely he’ll change his mind, either. Sounds like he’ll make sure not to discover those prejudiced tribal assumptions are his own. Won’t be talking to that ref anytime soon. Doesn’t want any of us talking to that ref. Far as Siddiqui’s concerned, that ref’s a rotten bad apple. A self-hating Muslim. Siddiqui came out loud, clear and definitive – how that ref’s contrarian Muslim voice couldn’t conceivably have only been making a soccer call. Definitive how that ref was attacking fellow Muslims or, better still, Islam. Could be that ref was a witch. Ayuh. Could be. Even if Siddiqui’s too polite to say so himself. Someone’s got to.

Why no single report to be found of anyone even attempting talking to the ref? Perhaps because it would interfere with misleading news making to do so. Perhaps because Siddiqui is right about Canadian media playing a dirty game. Except the game isn’t about making prejudiced tribal assumptions. That’s Siddiqui’s – hopefully unwitting – dirty game. The media plays professionally and all too wittingly. Tolerance denying makes the news. And making the news is just good business as usual. Show business.

Our job in the audience is nothing but clarity. To see through the news making once in a while. To not entirely forget who we are. To not forget what we stand for. To remember what being Canadian is all about. Tolerance.

London Culture and Multiculture Part 1: Overheard snippets

Sorry for stealing your series name idea, but it just fits what I want to do here too.

I've been in London (England) for nearly a month now, and frequently walk about on the streets of central London, or in the underground stations. It's pretty crowded here and it's easy to pick up what people walking nearby, or sitting nearby, are saying. Or it would be, if it were in English.

This is funny, since this is the first time in 7 years I've lived in an English-speaking country. Yet my ability to understand the conversations around me has not improved in the slightest. Here's why. Of the overheard snippets I've heard, a rough count would place the languages I hear as follows*

French	******	30%
Polish/Slavic	*****	25%
Arabic/Persian	****	20%
English	**	10%
Italian	**	10%
Other incl. Chinese / Japanese / Scandinavian	*	5%

*I am mostly in certain areas of town, so my distribution is likely skewed. And I can sometimes be wrong, too. And I haven't been counting formally.

**I have excluded conversations with ticket takers, checkout people, bank tellers, panhandlers, and the like, since they are invariably in English but that's not always the people's preferred language.

Now of course I would not expect a mix like this if I went as far as 10 km away from London's centre. But I would swear I never heard this much French in Toronto, even though it's an official language.

Gotta go. The lady next door is having noisy sex again.

Science Made Stupid

Science Made Stupid

A 1986 HUGO AWARD WINNER

Written and Illustrated by TOM WELLER

Presented here in an abridged form.

Introduction
Since the dawn of time, man has looked to the heavens and wondered: where did the stars come from? He has looked at the great diversity of plants and animals around him and wondered: where did life come from? He has looked at himself and wondered: where did I come from?

Later, he began to ask more complicated questions. He looked in his wallet and asked: where did my paycheck go? Am I on the right bus? Who do you like in the series? To the former questions, at least, science has provided answers.

What is Science?

Put most simply, science is a way of dealing with the world around us. It is a way of baffling the uninitiated with incomprehensible jargon. It is a way of obtaining fat government grants. It is a way of achieving mastery over the physical world by threatening it with destruction.

Science represents mankind's deepest aspirations - aspirations to power, to wealth, to the satisfaction of sheer animal lusts.

The cornerstone of modern science is the scientific method. Scientists first formulate hypotheses, or predictions, about nature. Then they perform experiments to test their hypotheses.

There are two forms of scientific method, the inductive and the deductive.


The Chapters
The Universe / Matter & Energy / The Earth / Evolution / The Descent of Man / Appendix / Glossary / Tables & Charts / Further Reading

[Toronto Culture and Multiculture 5]: How to Make the News

Warning: this got out of control. Kept getting longer and longer. More and more theoretical. Nothing much to do with Toronto or Canada, either. What happened was there were a couple general ideas I wanted to start out with by way of introduction. Oh well. Here’s the introduction. Actual article to follow in a few days.


It was August 11th, 2005. I remember it like yesterday. The day Wolf dropped the bag and let all the cats loose.

Happened while he was interviewing Bill Clinton. Sort of interviewing, anyhow. Wasn’t like Wolf Blitzer gave hoot or howl what Bill had to say. Old Wolf, he just wanted Bill to come right out and declare what a big mistake the Iraq war was. And Bill, he was getting mighty vexed. Also irked, peeved and just plain bothered. Would rather have talked about his initiative to help with the AIDS epidemic in hard hit places like Africa. Everyone already knew what a steaming botch the Bush administration had made. Bill wasn’t about to get catfighting – Bush-fighting – at Wolf Blitzer’s instigating. How to stop Wolf, though? That was the trouble. No stopping. Wolf had Bill’s scent, was going just about rabid in Bill’s tracks. Old Wolf wasn’t after taking prisoners that day. Nevermind taking any Bill’s hints to back off.

Wolf: .. [W]e're going to get to all of that [stuff you’d like to talk about] in just a moment, but let's talk about the biggest issue facing the United States, arguably right now. That would be the war in Iraq. Looking back, with 20/20 hindsight, was it a mistake?

Bill: … [T]hat's really not relevant anymore… we got to try to make this work. I still think there's a chance it could work, and it's the only strategy that will work.

Wolf: The reason I ask was it a mistake because in our latest CNN/"USA Today"/Gallup poll, we asked this question, has the war in Iraq made the U.S. safer from terrorism? Thirty-four percent said yes. Fifty-seven percent said no. How would you answer that question?

Bill: … I would agree with that. But independent of that, we are there now, and there now are terrorists operating there. And there is a clear majority of people in Iraq who are supporting the idea that their country should be free, independent and at peace. And they're trying to come up with a constitution and we're trying to train the security and the military forces. So I think – that's what I hope we can do, and do it successfully. And if we can do that, then our people can come home.

Wolf – dogging the bone: So I assume that the answer is, yes, the war was a mistake. Is that your answer?

Bill – losing what little remaining patience: You're trying to get me to make news, and I'm trying to educate people. It doesn't matter whether it was a mistake to go in or not at the time… My answer is, whether it was a mistake or not, we are where we are and we ought to try to make this strategy succeed, support that strategy. It's the only option that will get us out in an honourable way, having made these sacrifices mean something.

Wolf – flustered, looking for that bag he dropped, looking at all the cats running loose, looking anywhere but at Bill: That's my job. I'm a newsman. That's what I try to do, is make news. And you try to avoid news. That's your job.

That’s right. As seen on TV. As heard on CNN. Must believe. News people cease all restraining when it comes to reporting news. They’ve transcended mere reporting. Now they are making news.

Poor old Wolf. So inadvertently admitting, almost bragging his news making. It’s slapstick – when paid professionals fall so clumsily inadvertent. How, afterwards, they pretend it never happened. The way Wolf Blitzer yet simulates impartial objectivity. So factual. But oops – too late. Inadvertence happens. Happen it did. And for those that saw and appreciated it happening – live, on the air – it’s become difficult keeping straight faces when Wolf comes on. Because ever since, whenever Wolf tries coming on as reporting, he more effectively comes across as comedian. Far more effectively.

Ever since, Wolf coming on when we’re watching provokes total comic relief.

“Look Amy,” I say, “it’s Wolf Blitzkrieg.”
And Amy asks, “Is he coming at everyone live, from the stimulation room?”
“Sure is,” I say.
“Is he stimulating?”
“Not sure,” I reply. “Can’t see his hands.”
“Where are his hands?” she asks. “Under the table again?”
“Seem to be. What do you think he’s doing?”
“Well, what else? He’s a newsman. He’s making news!”

Slapstick. Not because news mediators are necessarily laughable when they go above and beyond the facts. Going above and beyond can be admirable. Nothing wrong with inference drawing and editorializing. To the contrary. So long as there’s some semblance of competence. So long as facts don’t get too transparently exaggerated, curtailed or otherwise deranged to conveniently fit hyperbolic inference. So long as incompetent news making does not get concealed in plain sight as just plain facts. As just reporting. As if the incompetence never happened. Because deadpan inadvertence is just laughable. That’s what slapstick is – outrageous deadpan inadvertence.

Got to be that over-reporting and under-reporting – transparent exaggerating and curtailing – in the news seemed like incompetence. Seemed like systematic incompetence, since it kept on pretty much non-stop. The audience started heckling. Started inventing media conspiracy theories. Grey team. Left-wing conspiracy. Right-wing conspiracy. Fifth columny.

Just audience heckling, though. Sure, would’ve been appalling if true. Would’ve been curtains for any semblance of democracy had news making – not mere reporting – turned out ideologically concerted. Media power is such that no democratic electing could survive the demise of media ideological plurality. But that’s just it. Why the audience was only heckling. News making could not be conceived as concerted consent manufacturing since, absent ideological plurality – like under totalitarian regimes – media is powerless to make or manufacture anything. Ideological plurality is the soil from which media power grows in relentless and inexorable profusion. Eliminating plurality desolates the very soil from which media power grows. Lays it sterile barren waste.

Obliterating plurality – ideological, cultural, personal – is first totalitarian priority. Most especially and particularly media plurality. When it comes to consent manufacturing, slashing, burning and salting any soil where media power might grow is what it’s all about.

Not so in relatively open, relatively free and democratic societies. Here, in untrammelled soils of prolific plurality, media power grows inexorably. Media grows overpowering. Overwhelming.

It’s like night and day. Here, media variety grows ever noisier and more pandemonic. Not so there, under totalitarian regimes. While as many television channels might well be available there, those do nothing for variety. Since there but one channel gets credited official. The rest are all unofficial. And when citizens turns to unofficial channels, the announcer looks up, glares and starts screaming.

“Back! Back to official channel, citizens! We know who you are! We’ve got your numbers!”

It is a joke. There’s no comparing. There’s no middle ground. There’s no manufacturing consent absent either reliable consistent truth or, alternatively, force. Making the news – crying Wolf, instigating catfights, exaggerating, curtailing, misleading – manufactures no consent. Neither false making nor even making false news manufactures consent. Even outright lying won’t do for manufacturing consent. Lying sows confusion – and when confusion prevails it can only mean dismal failure manufacturing consent.

Wherever consensus may be realized without being purchased, there’s an alternative between two fundamental, categorically irreducible kinds of consent manufactories. Either genuine imagining, searching, re-imagining and re-searching truth by increasing plurality; or enforcing official falsehood by obliterating plurality. No middle ground. Not for long. Precisely because, regardless how outright and intentional the falsehood – like in propaganda – lying doesn’t cut it. Outright lying best accomplishes the opposite: sowing confusion and, thereby, manufacturing dissent. Thus, when discarding truth, manufacturing consent demands enforcement turn increasingly imperative. That’s the totalitarian imperative. That’s the point of forcing, the meaning of truth at gunpoint. Maintaining lies as-if true. It’s the maintaining that’s imperative, not the lying. That’s what cuts it when it comes to manufacturing consent spiting and disregarding truth. For truth never ceases struggling to emerge. And whenever, inevitably, truth-manufactured consensus arises in opposition, then truth disregarding, force-manufactured consensus must mow it down. Cut it and cut at it until it ceases twitching. Cut and cut again everywhere it twitches to re-emerge. Otherwise force-manufactured consensus maintaining the big, sacred, official lies, falters and fails.

Truth never ceases struggling to emerge. Though not for universal love of truth. Were it only so. Mostly, merely for the inevitable longer-term consequence. Force-manufactured consensus is at both competitive and evolutionary disadvantage. Relative to truth-manufactured consensus it fails to both produce and reproduce. Be it ever so keen and tempting a short-cut, absent continual re-enforcement it dulls, tarnishes and rots. And, in event continual re-enforcement persists too long, force turns from means to ends. It’s total curtains, when force turns from means, to ends, to the only end in itself.

When consensus is manufactured by truth, right makes might. When consensus is manufactured by force, but forcing yet conceivably remains as means to credible ends, might increasingly makes right. When forcing becomes the end in itself, no possibility of consensus manufacturing remains. None. Only obedience and belligerence relative to force. For when powering, overpowering, super-powering become ends in themselves, then there remains no right but might.

So. However overwhelming, news media is not ideologically concerted. Independent whelming by the media hinges on media independence – plurality. Were media merely an appendage of state or other power elites, there’d have to be gunplay forcing us to consensus. Absent gunplay, endless repeating party lies would mean nothing but confusion. So – that’s a relief. Knowing it isn’t ideologically concerted media lying independently subverting our public spheres and partial democracies. Knowing that, rooted in ideological plurality, media influence grows overwhelming. Knowing what lush new feeding grounds the internet medium opens wider for trolling. Knowing that every brand of crock-potter is eagerly at liberty to disseminate lies and nonsense farther and wider than ever before.

Ideological plurality has never been more assured. Yet, as media influence grows increasingly overwhelming, media lying mounts worrisome even if not ideologically concerted. It drives us to confusion. It manufactures ceaseless petty dissenting. It obscures issues, drowning significance in vast-flung mud slides. It degrades all discourse. While amounting only to mischief as yet, while doing nothing to directly subvert public spheres, it is mounting worrisome. The sort of mischief that saps from within. On one hand inflating public spheres. On the other, degrading discourse. Time may come the centre will not hold. Time may come we lose all centre, all sense of who we are and what, once, we stood for.

Not at all suggesting that news media engages in outright lying. Not for a moment. Not as if the pictures were all forged. Way it used to be with the tabloids. Back when you’d see baby Jesus riding three-headed cows at supermarket checkout counters. News making isn’t outright lying. Still. The difference is in degrees, not in kind. Who’s surprised when media images get enhanced for dramatic impact? Who’s surprised when footage turns out to have been repeatedly staged? Who’s surprised how many blind eyes the media turns to veracity?

Nobody’s surprised what media does for ratings. We get to watch daily news making. Especially on slow news-days. When the news is not a pin dropping. Then they get churning. Paula Zahn special reports that everyone’s more comfortable with familiar-type faces; and therefore that we’re all racist. Sure. As if racism were reducible to stimulus-response flinching from the unfamiliar. Then, months and several special reports later, she discovers people tend to self-segregate. Eventually, she may come to appreciate that some of the more thoughtful prefer to dissociate. These are wonderful realizations for a young person to have. But headline news? Only by inference that she reports racism. As if. And Lou Dobbs. Goes American crusading against undocumented workers. Yeah. Against people risking life and limb to work in America. Against people prepared to subsist as outlaws and risk all for the privilege. To work in the land of opportunity. In America. The land whence Lou Dobbs pontificates. At no risk to himself. Against those that so love America, they’d risk anything to work there. But hey, what to do on slow news days? Got’ta make the news. If there’s none other to pontificate against, Lou Dobbs can be depended on to pontificate against those that love America better than he. No point agitating against undocumented workers lacking documentation. Far better making headlines agitating against undocumented workers working. Far better vilifying and scapegoating those working without documentation as if destroying – i.e., destroying American values and valuables. Now, that’s making news. Headline news. And, of course, there’s Anderson Cooper. On slow news weeks, he’ll go exploring the world. Exploring with all the insight of a precocious six year old. That sign, blowing away before him? Must be a sign of really, really strong wind.

Crying Wolf, exaggerating, enhancing, curtailing, misleading, absurd pontificating. Sowing nonsense and confusion. Nevermind issues. Nevermind signifying. Must make better rating news. Wouldn’t be too bad were there laugh-tracks. Lots of ratings to be had for comedians. Even though honest comedians ridiculing events tend to be far more thoughtful than news people about it. And funnier, of course. All the more reason for laugh-tracks. Avoid all the confusing. Stop pretending to be so serious. So factual. What’s wrong with honest comedy?

Alright then. What’s any of this got to do with Toronto, Canada? Fair deal. Since there’s even more slow news days and weeks in Canada. And our military activities don’t much help making news. Certainly, we have casualties. But nothing spectacular like the steaming botch in Iraq. To the contrary. Our men and women in Afghanistan are making us proud. Actually helping things out. What to do? Try to amplify Jack Layton’s bugling that we aren’t talking to the Taliban? No go. Smart alecks in the audience started yelling the Taliban only wants to talk about how and when we’ll surrender. Started calling Mr. Layton Taliban Jack. Though sad, it wasn’t news. How about later, when Mr. Layton tried bugling that we’re spending way more on military security than reconstructing? No go. Audience heckled that there’s no reconstructing without security. So much for making military news. What then? Stick to local news? Not consistently good enough. So.. provincial. Get some Canadian comedian to ridicule American events? Maybe. Might work. Too bad it doesn’t. That guy’s happening like disasters not waiting.

What to do? How to make rating news in Canada? How to sow some that home-grown confusion, commit some head-lining, rubber-necking mischief? There are ways. Particularly one to be explored next instalment.