Free Advice

The other night, my friend Dave chastised me for using the phrase “Half-Mast” in a previous post. He claimed it was an error on my part, and that the correct term is “Half-Staff”.

A few minutes on Google later, and it seems that “half-mast” is the preferred term in Canada, Great Britain, Australia & New Zealand, while the U.S. considers “half-staff” to be official.

There is an excellent article on the matter at CBC.ca, which reveals that the Globe & Mail Style Book (1998) dissents from the official Canadian usage (“Use half-mast only to refer to ships”).

But the last time I checked, the Globe still insisted on spelling “cigarette” as “cigaret”, which is just weird. It looks retro-futuristic, like how someone from the 1940’s imagined we would spell “cigarette” in the 1980’s.

(Don’t even get me started about The New Yorker’s pretentious use of diaeresis: e.g. preëmptive, coöperate.)

The fact there are thousands of Iraqis proud to defend their country from insurgents doesn’t fit the New York Times’ story arc for Iraq, of ‘quagmire’, ‘worsening situations’, and ‘increasing Sunni rage at the Americans’. So what should a NYT reporter do when a Sunni Iraqi soldier says he is “proud” to be in Falluja to “clean the terrorists out of our country”? Denigrate his contribution to the military effort? Portray him as a MRE-eating freeloader? Question, without basis, the sincerity of his statements? Or all of the above?

This tale begins with the Iraqi soldiers who sat in a circle, cross-legged, within the Great Mosque on Friday, wearing those same tan uniforms…

On this day, the soldiers were not doing much of anything except eating MRE’s, the American military’s “Meals – Ready to Eat.” In fact, they have done little if any fighting at all, but as a gesture to Muslim sensitivities are generally the first to enter each mosque as it is taken.

When approached and asked about themselves, the soldiers reflexively lapse into robotic platitudes. “I joined the Iraqi Army to clean the terrorists out of our country,” said a man who identified himself only as Muhammad, a Sunni Arab from Mosul. “I am proud to be doing this.”

Do you think there is any chance the Times would describe an opponent of the war in Iraq as “laps[ing] into robotic platitudes”?

The Globe & Mail reports that Ontario’s acting provincial auditor examining an Ontario government program for autistic children has found “chaos… lax oversight, millions of dollars in dubious spending and 1,200 children losing precious time on a waiting list”

”Think of how many more kids could have gotten services with $16.7-million if the government had been properly monitoring and running and overseeing this program.”

Dongjoon Kim might have been one of them. Nearly 6, the severely autistic boy sat on the waiting list for two years before his mother, Youngshin Kim, got word this week that he had been approved for 30 hours a week of intensive behavioural therapy.

…

While the total budget climbed from $4-million to $44-million over the past five years, the number of children receiving funding has barely budged. In some cases, money was spent on new computers and furniture without the ministry’s knowledge.

…

At the three agencies it audited — the ministry was unable to provide accurate information for all nine — the cost of putting money straight into the hands of parents was as little as one-sixth the cost of funding the agencies to provide the service. It cost one agency $126 an hour to provide treatment, while parents living in the same part of the province managed to hire private therapists for an average of $20 an hour.

There is still no Canadian politician willing to admit that government administration of health care creates waiting lists, and causes suffering for those that it is supposed to serve.

Kofi Annan has ordered U.N. flags to fly at half-mast.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan praised Arafat’s struggle to win international recognition for the Palestinian cause, as he ordered flags to fly at half-mast at the United Nations.

By signing the 1993 Oslo peace accords, Arafat “took a giant step towards the realization of this vision. It is tragic that he did not live to see it fulfilled.”

Arafat is responsible for the murders of countless civilians. If anything, the U.N. should be mourning the fact they will never be able to prosecute Arafat for crimes against humanity.

I think there might be some editorializing in this news report from CBC Saturday Report, but maybe it’s so subtle I can’t quite put my finger on it…

JACQUIE PERRIN (HOST) :
Two days ago all they wanted was one simple Canadian flag. Today a group of Quebec veterans is being inundated with them. The story began when a Bloc Quebecois MP turned down the local legion’s request for a new flag. Since then a parade of federalist politicians has been denouncing the snub. As Carolyn Dunn reports, at least one has taken advantage of the situation to carve out inroads in the province.

CAROLYN DUNN (REPORTER) :
When political opportunity in Quebec knocked, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper was waiting at the door. A sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois MP refused to give war veterans Canadian flags for Remembrance Day. Stephen Harper was only too happy to deliver…

Oh wait, that’s not subtle, that’s blatant. Can we get our 10-billion dollars back, please? Thanks goodness in a story about the Bloc Quebecois and the Canadian flag, there’s no obvious way for the CBC to bring up social conservatism. Uh, oh…

CAROLYN DUNN (REPORTER) :
Harper’s Conservatives fared very poorly in this province in the last election. Stephen Harper’s hill to climb, says this analyst, is an ideological mountain.

ANTONIA MAIONI (DIRECTOR, McGILL INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF CANADA) :
Clearly Stephen Harper’s party is not Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative Party. It is clear on social issues, for example, Quebecers may not be ready for the conservative brand coming out of Alberta, the social conservatism we see associated with the Conservative Party.