three wise monkeys

Mar 31, 2008 04:30 AM
Martin Knelman

STRATFORD

A recent cover of The New Yorker magazine depicted Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sharing a bed, both drowsily reaching for the same fabled red phone at 3 a.m. The image gave one hilarious answer to the question of who would be better equipped to handle the ultimate crisis call. Why couldn’t they share ultimate responsibility at the White House?

Almost as ludicrous, it strikes me, was the notion that several people could share the job of artistic director of the Stratford Festival. But that is what the festival announced, in 2006, with no joke intended.
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By Oliver Whitehead

The Harper government’s latest move to deny support to film and television programming that it deems offensive is an assault on the values of civilization.

As such, of course, it is nothing new; the Harper Conservatives have merely taken their modest place in a long but dismal line of authority figures whose fear and suspicion of the power of creativity has stifled the expression of original ideas for centuries.
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They’re ripping the tops off mountains in West Virginia coal country to feed our insatiable appetite for power. It’s cheaper that way. And the trees and the animals and the flooding? It may not be pretty, but we’ve got all those dishwashers to run

Feb 23, 2008 04:30 AM
Catherine Porter
Environment Reporter

CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA–When you flick on the lights this evening, think of Kayford Mountain. Or what was Kayford Mountain, but now is a sprawling, muddy, trembling construction site 100 metres below Larry Gibson’s home.

Three years ago, Gibson hunted wild boar here, picked gooseberries and peaches, and sat under the shade of white oaks and hickories so thick he couldn’t see the sky.

“Now, you can see the sky below your feet,” Gibson says.
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Rice vows to probe detention at airport

The case of a respected London Muslim leader, detained for hours at the Detroit airport last month, has been brought to the attention of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Dr. Munir El-Kassem, who was detained, interrogated and fingerprinted for hours in Detroit, met yesterday in Ottawa with Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.
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Labia Majora Carnage [Printed in the "Spoof" edition which came out on the 30th of March]
by “Xavier”
Gazette Staff

Last night, local women hit the streets for the first ever Take Back the Nightie march.

The march was led by members of Western’s Women’s Issues Network, who, for the first time all year, left their circle in the University Community Centre, where witnesses claim they perform tribal dances and yell alienating slurs about pussies and cunts.
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Apr 11th, 2007
Gazette ’spoof’ angers readers

By Bob Klanac

The student Gazette’s annual April Fool’s Day parody issue has drawn widespread anger for comments about women and other groups, and the condemnation of University of Western Ontario President Paul Davenport.

In a statement released Wednesday, Davenport said he was offended by material in the issue and he will be looking for ways to ensure the Gazette and University Students’ Council, owner of the paper, prevent such articles from appearing in the future.
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Spoof of campus feminist ‘appalling’

Women’s groups demand retraction as article in Western Ontario student paper blasted
Apr 11, 2007 04:30 AM
Louise Brown
Education Reporter
Jennifer O’Meara
Special to the Star

Just 18 months after a first-year student’s striptease posted on the Internet thrust the University of Western Ontario into the spotlight, the campus has found itself in raunchy waters once more.
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When vodka is your poison
By John Sweeney
BBC News, Russia

Thousands of Russians may have been poisoned by bootleg alcohol containing medical disinfectant causing drinkers’ skin to turn yellow before they fall dangerously ill or die.

Pskov is the end of the line. I got off the Moscow overnight express and the earth started to buckle in front of me.

On the Pskov express I had played chess with a couple of Russians, the vodka bottles had come out, and soon every move of a pawn was celebrated with a toast.

If you’re interested, I was about to win when the Russian bloke nicked my queen - anyway, I had had enough to drink to kill a small horse.
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Mild weather in early winter meant more cats outdoors, more frisky antics, and a population explosion in the GTA
Mar 09, 2007 04:30 AM
Carola Vyhnak
Staff reporter

It’s raining cats and climate change is to blame.

Milder weather in cold seasons means cats are outdoors more, doing what comes naturally, say animal workers on the frontlines. The result is a population explosion that’s stretching GTA pounds and shelters beyond their limits.
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The traditionally neutral Swiss army has staged an unplanned invasion after troops blundered into Liechtenstein.

A 171-strong Swiss company got two kilometres into its neighbour before realising the mistake and heading back.

Liechtenstein authorities made light of the intrusion, saying they only knew about it when the Swiss told them.
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