The story of the week is about a Gatineau man who faces eleven days in jail for not registering his cat despite the cat being a stray and the man caring not at all about the cat. With the ongoing implosion of Postmedia, commentators like Bruce Livesy are asking about what stories aren’t being covered as newsrooms shrink. Answer: It’s cat stuff. In the National Post, Andrew Coyne insists newspapers must improve in quality the way TV has. Again: the answer is cat stuff.
The Gatineau Catman story can teach us a lot. For example, instead of Postmedia CEO and Metaphor for Falling Upwards Paul Godfrey saying he’ll take responsibility for the company’s products, he could instead say that the newspapers are simply strays that don’t belong to him. Instead of penning a shrill editorial to his nemesis, the Toronto Star’s evidently bored chairman John Honderich could live by the Tao of the Outaouais SPCA animal control: “You feed it, you own it.” So, Torstar needs to order $800-million worth of lunches for Postmedia’s newsrooms and that constitutes ownership. I am devoting my life to writing the screenplay of an intrepid cat and his man as they fight the nefarious power of lower municipal courts.
Really amazing how this artist captured what it is like to be a woman on the internet. pic.twitter.com/jy8yE2VQpg
— H.G. Watson (@HG_Watson) January 27, 2016
Scott Gilmore writes for Maclean’s and he has a schtick of writing that the problem everyone says is the problem is not actually the problem; less Hot Take, more Clammy Take. Whatever, everyone has mouths to feed and tickets to Davos to buy. But this week in response to the La Loche tragedy, he shared his big idea for Aboriginal communities: let’s get them out of the North. Don’t they know it’s full of Aboriginals?
If you’re going to do the Clueless Contrarian bit, you have to really commit and inhabit the role the way Conrad Black does. Black’s ‘Aboriginals are the real bigots’ is precisely the sort of thing Gilmore likes. (Conrad Black is the Meryl Streep of acting out white supremacy.) On Twitter, Wab Kinew called Gilmore’s idea “a continuation of the cultural superiority” that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission highlighted. I’ll give the final word to Edge North: “No rational person would deny the very real problems that exist. But amid the trauma and heartache you’ll find welcoming people, laughter, ingenuity and the determination to make home a better place. Gilmore would have us throw up our hands and quit. He may mean well, but that isn’t even remotely helpful.”
We’re now seeing what it looks like when a National Post story is edited for the Toronto Sun pic.twitter.com/6Z2vHSGMEb
— Lauren Strapagiel (@laurenstrapa) January 28, 2016
Stories that are not Catman yet still worth reading: Jonathan Kay is telling CNN on your behalf that we truly like Americans despite being better than them and that we’ve never seen this kind of fascism in our neighbours. Until they change the lyrics of the anthem, Canadian daughters can safely assume that any ‘standing up on guard for thee’ is for men only. The National Post let Barbara Kay send around her chain letter about the 0.01% millions of Muslims you will never meet have to fear. With the Canada Revenue Agency stepping in for the city coroner, it’s nice to see the some efficient governing for these economic times. Bell’s valiant initiatives around mental health doesn’t seem to be practiced in their offices. Can #BellLetsNot raise cell phone prices? Your elected representatives are arguing for an end to clapping so they can stop giving themselves too many standing ovations which get in the way of heckling each other. Canada was a good project delivered mostly on-budget and now we should fold up Parliament and put some wild plants in its place. May I suggest heather?
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Not Sorry is written by Vicky Mochama who promised last week to test out the company’s libel insurance so here goes: [Editor’s note: This was removed but god, it was so good]. Support CANADALAND (and our inevitable legal defence) at Patreon. Subscribe. @ Us.
