OK, so I can’t reprint all of it without running afoul of the ObWings posting rules, but for the hilarious title alone I must link to this post by the excellent blogger (and ObWi Reader) Double Plus Ungood:
Wall Street Journal Discovers Canada, is Outraged
Reynolds posts a link to a story in the WSJ, complaining about “censorship” in Canada because the government will not allow Fox News a broadcast license, but has just given one to Al-Jazeera.
You can get the links and rest of the story on D+U’s site.
UPDATE: There seems to be some trouble with my link above. But try it again later if you can’t get through now.
UPDATE II: Link seems to be working again. Enjoy!
There are a lot of sites down now. Does this have anything to do with the haloscan maintenance that we were warned about?
They are all blogspot sites so that may be the problem.
I can click through to the post, but there are number of blogs I cannot post to today because they won’t accept my home URL. Including this one (I’m using OBWi’s for this post).
And I do apologize for the language in the linked post, it slipped out in moment of weakness.
Back when the Juno awards were held, and in the wake of the still-fresh Janet Nipplegate brouhaha, Alanis Morrisette (who was the emcee) came out in a flesh-colored bodysuit and made jokes about American broadcasting censorship. I noted on my blog that that was pretty funny coming from someone in a country that not only has the “Canadian content” regulations, but that has strict (“voluntary”) standards regarding portrayal of gender roles and use of sexist language.
That said, American television for young people has yet to produce anything as good as Degrassi.
Hey, ++!
Umm, I am pretty sure that the gopher hunting on Baffin Island comment was meant to be a joke.
You know, seeing as how Baffin Island is up near the Arctic Circle and all. And, on account of Americans having gophers as well.
As in, the humour was in part from the ridiculousness of the statement.
But, go ahead and call people arrogant and self-important and talk about slapping them.
I noted on my blog that that was pretty funny coming from someone in a country that not only has the “Canadian content” regulations, but that has strict (“voluntary”) standards regarding portrayal of gender roles and use of sexist language.
Yeah, except I still remember watching the full-frontal nude scene in “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” on CBC primetime in the early seventies. I was a LOT younger then, but I think that at the time I was okay with self-regulation regarding sexisst language and gender roles if I could see naughty bits on TV once in a while.
But, go ahead and call people arrogant and self-important and talk about slapping them.
Okay, deal!
BTW, the arrogance was noted in assuming that to have 35% Canadian content, they would have to stoop to hunting shows or something equally “Canadian”. We do actually have Canadian political and social issues that could be covered by a major news network. To assume that a network would be able to show just American content to a Canadian audience is pretty arrogant, if you really think about it.
On top of that, the gopher comment would be like me saying that there was Kangaroo hunting in Hawaii.
Umm, I am pretty sure that the gopher hunting on Baffin Island comment was meant to be a joke.
I agree, but not in the way you mean.
Double-plus – is it possible that there are no gophers on Baffin Island because they have been hunted out? Just asking.
Cowboy up, lets go Snipe Hunting (again after a timely delay to avoid claim jumping) another article comparing Cowboys with Mounties.
Go Ahead, Call Us Cowboys
A visit to the Alaska-Canada border brings home the differences between the cultures.
Go ahead read the rest.
“As in, the humour was in part from the ridiculousness of the statement.”
I don’t get it. If you wanted to highlight the paucity of good content in Canada, wouldn’t you have to actually come up with an example of bad content, not arbitrarily make one up?
This would have worked:
“That may have implied too many Halifax Junior Curling Championships”
This would have worked: “That may have implied too many Halifax Junior Curling Championships”
Now THAT I would have laughed at. Because it’s true.
Re: The Stewart/Hyder comparison article. Well, some truth, but a lot of it feeds on American preconceptions of both America and Canada. For example, I lived in the Yukon for several years (home of the Klondike Gold Rush which many Americans seem to think happened in Alaska), and I’d have to say that many of the features that the writers attibute to Alaskans are also attributes of Yukoners. However, a love for freedom does not necessarily mean rejecting good government.
For example, during the gold rush, when thousands of American gold-seekers were flooding into the Yukon over the Chilkoot Trail, the mounties set up a border station, and enforced a rule that all prospectors must carry sufficient goods to keep them alive for a year. As a result, many lives were saved. From Wikipedia:
Well I wouldn’t be on of those Americans who think the Klondike Gold Rush occurred in Alaska. And the Mounties are oftened viewed in the same light as the Marines in this country (an elite force that is).
I am curious wasn’t Canada (excluding the Maritimes) a British Commonwealth in 1897. Just asking.
++,
Regarding the 35% thing, I believe that they assumed that on account of the deal CNN has. I do not see any CC on that network, although I may be wrong.
It does strike me as odd, though, not to have any CC. They may assume that too much competition with CBCNW and CTV would make it unnattractive, I guess.
While we’re on the subject, CBC has Olympics coverage that puts the juvenile American attempts to shame. I can either watch 20 minutes of Costas voicing over a piano-laden biography of the USA’s eighth best gymnast before waiting 8 hours for the tape-delayed coverage, or I can watch 20 minutes of actual competition.
I am curious wasn’t Canada (excluding the Maritimes) a British Commonwealth in 1897. Just asking.
Canada is still part of the British Commonwealth. But we got independence from Britain (or Confederation) in 1867, including the Maritime Provinces, excluding Newfoundland, which joined confederation in 1949.
Regarding the 35% thing, I believe that they assumed that on account of the deal CNN has. I do not see any CC on that network, although I may be wrong.
The Reynolds piece had an update to this discussion about CRTC rulings here. It explains that Fox News was not banned, nor was it required to have 35% Canadian Content, but that CanWest TV decided that it didn’t have enough appeal. So it was the private sector that decided not to show it, not government regulation.
Too bad, because I’ve been dying to watch Bill O’Rielly ever since I read that called the Toronto Globe and Mail a “far-left” newspaper. Which caused guffaws in both the riht and the left in Canada.
On the Hyder vs Stewart article:
Hyder is a cool and funky place with a lot of energy but it is about as representative of Alaska as, say, Baffin Island is of Canada.
Although Alaskans tend to buy in very much to the frontier mythology of rugged individuals out there carving a living from the wilderness without government interference, the reality just isn’t so. As a for instance, the last time I checked, about 36% of Alaska’s labour force was directly employed by government.
Well you can take it up with the Canadian anthropologist, who suggested the visit.
I certainly will, or would if I knew who the Canadian anthropologist was.