Pan Am Games coming Toronto will work

The Pan Am Games will leave a positive legacy for Toronto.

Naysayers be damned, Toronto is finally getting an international sporting event, the 2015 Pan Am Games.

Yes, taxpayers will be paying for the infrastructure and any cost overruns will occur.

Yes, most games, whatever their ilk, tend to never be built on budget.

Here is the flip side though: improved transit, infrastructure, waterfront redevelopment, increased housing, improved sporting facilities and a boost to civic pride.

Sure, the Pan Am Games are not the Olympics or even the Commonwealth Games, they are C-level sporting event but it is a first for Toronto, finally, after many failed attempts at Olympics, World Expos and other international track meets.

The best things about these types of games are that they are catalysts for regeneration, improvement and establish fixed deadlines for things to get done by.

The legacy of these games for our crumbling city is worth it. Sure, we have budget shortfalls to contend with right now and thorough and proper due diligence and planning will be needed by 2015. But, if Toronto continues to profess itself to be a world-class city, hosting these games does help us get closer to that claim. However, what moves us up a few more notches higher on that scale is the improvements to transit and infrastructure we sorely need, let alone the waterfront regeneration entailed.

Think back to all the previous bids that were shot down. What has the legacy been FOR NOT hosting past Olympics or similar events?

That money we never ended up spending to make those games was never properly invested, because if it had, we would not have a transit system bulging at the seams, highways and roads crumbling, choking with traffic and band-aid maintenance and construction of this infrastructure along the way.

For every boondoggle of a games like the 1976 Montreal Olympics there are games like the 1998 Nagano Olympics or 1992 Barcelona Summer Games.

In particular, during a visit to Barcelona a few summers ago I was amazed at the city’s subway and transit system, modern public spaces and idyllic waterfront. The city’s old architecture and spots like Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia already made it beautiful but its modern functionality is a credit to the 1992 Summer Games, said many locals in conversation.

The same reflections were shared in speaking with people in Nagano, Japan. They credited the Winter Games held there as helping reconnect the city to a modern Japan, especially hubs like Osaka and Tokyo.

The benefits with the Pan Am score will extend to places like Hamilton and Markham as well, so the legacy will be lasting and large. Bring on the improvements and bring on the games.

Dying 6-year-old girl leaves love notes behind

Elena Desserich left hundreds of love notes to her family around their home. Photo courtesy of Toronto Star via Desserich Family

This is a heart-wrenching story that stopped me in my tracks this morning during my reporting machine gear up of two cups of coffee. Elena Desserich, a six-year-old girl dying of brain cancer left hundreds of little notes hidden around her home for her family to find. They are still discovering them.

It is a painful and beautiful story with a wonderful message we are sometimes reminded of but so easily forget.

Treasure the ones you love. Make amends with those you can. Live life with grace and fairness. Appreciate this life for we never really know how long we have.

Our thanks to the Desserich family for sharing their story with the Toronto Star, and in turn, all of us.

Are you “royally” interested in the Royal visit?

How much do our UK ties matter?

How royally interested are you in “The Royals”?

With Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, arriving in Canada this week the discussion has begun again about our ties to the monarchy and the Queen.

Confusion tends to reign among outsiders of all things Canuck when it comes to our connection with Merry Ole England and the monarchy. Some people think we are still ruled by Queen Elizabeth II, since she is still technically recognized as our head of state through her representative Michaelle Jean, the Governor General (GG).

Interestingly, though not elected, the GG does have a hammer it can swing, as we learned earlier this year.  When Prime Minister Stephen Harper wanted to prorogue the government to head off a hastily created and power hungry coalition by opposition parties he needed to consult the GG. Harper had to convince her that it was in the best interest of the country to have a time out called and she agreed, allowing it to happen.

A nation’s history is important, as are its traditions. The Americans are admirable in their patriotism, the British live and breathe their history to this day, Italians, Greeks and the Japanese revel in the contributions they have made to their world. Canada is still typically humble, unless it has to do with hockey or Tim Hortons.

For Canada, our formative European roots are spread mainly between France and Great Britain with England giving birth to Canada. A recent Angus Reid poll indicated that Canadians really do not care for the monarchy like they once did. In fact, the results were so bad that the current visiting royals will skip provinces like Manitoba and Alberta where response to their visit was incredibly low.

Forty-nine per cent of respondents in that recent poll supported the reopening of the constitutional debate on possibly replacing the GG with an elected head of state. Opening the debate is one thing, but a massive unanimous consent is needed in the House of Commons, the Senate and all the provinces to make any type of change concerning the GG and the monarchy in Canada, report Royal Watcher insiders.

What do you think? Has Canada grown up enough to officially break off the current ties we have, no matter how symbolic they simply are. Does this homecoming really matter? Are you a Royal Watcher excited like a kid on Christmas Eve?

Trick or Treat: The Halloween Saturday Six

If this guys trick or treats at your door...run...fast!

Plan on curling up on the couch tonight or getting together with a group of friends, out of the cold and watching scary movies for Halloween?

Things that go bump in the night have been around us for generations and are not mere trends. Take a peek at the collection of horror movies at your local video store and you see the testament to the fascination with the occult and getting scared witless our society has.

Here are six of our favourite “scary movies” we recommend if you are looking for skin crawling shrieks and fun. What are your’s? :

• 28 Days Later- This post-pandemic zombie flick by Danny Boyle is beautifully shot and structured. A fun, intense romp through London and rural England after a rage virus is unleashed. The sequel 28 Weeks Later is not as creepy but good too.

• The Ring – The American remake of the Japanese hit Ringu (also great) is worth the time. Following the nasty video which delivers death and discovering the story behind this ghoul revenge flick is a lot of fun.

• The Exorcist – A classic horror flick about possession and if you do not know it or have not seen it, exactly what rock have you been living under and is Bin Laden there too?

• The Strangers – A simple loud bangs and jumps horror flick. Nothing complicated here, just bad things happening to a couple in a remote house. Lesson learned- avoid ending your relationship with your significant other out in the middle of nowhere.

• Halloween(1978) – John Carpenter’s Halloween and our introduction to psychotic Michael Myers is creepfest magnified. Haunting theme which can still make your skin scrawl, possibly the best slasher film of them all. Curl up tight and dim the lights for this one.

• Night of the Living Dead (1968) – This George Romero flick is possibly the greatest of them all when it comes to horror flicks. Consider the time it was made and the groundwork it created for all the horror films, especially zombie flicks, that have followed. Strong script and human drama and still has some spooks that have stood the test of the time, a masterful film.

 

Beyond the hocus pocus and voodoo of writing

My writing voodoo doll, don't tell anyone.

The last time I posted I spoke of my daily struggle which involves an elephant and prose, my “pushing an elephant up a mountain” which is getting words down on the page.

Below are the questions a survey of international authors answered recently which explored their “rituals of writing”. Since I spoke of the feel and magic-like quality I sense as I get to writing, I figured a more technical exploration is in order beyond the hocus pocus and voodoo of  the whole process.

How do you get started writing?

When I am filing at the office, coffee is the trick, I need to get at least two cups of java down before I hit the keyboard. Usually, it is during that second cup I get through my final review of notes and material before I tackle the precious and almighty lede.

When I’m writing at home, an espresso and  some peanut butter and toast is a must. I’ll look at the blank page, look away, come back, try and write, feel disgusted with what is on the page, and then I start again…espresso…a snack…stare at the blinking cursor then throw something down, anything really, again.

How do you avoid getting started writing?

Internet. One of our greatest research tools is my worst anchor to getting started. Sometimes it brings that spark of an idea and other times, the variety and options available just a click away slow me down or simply take me away. Once I do my personal online daily check-ins, that is when I enter “avoiding writing” territory.

Where do you write?

Anywhere, wherever and whenever an idea hits me. Coffee shops, libraries, hotel internet lounges and business centres, home and the office. At home, it is in the office or with laptop perched on the coffee table as I sit on the couch.

What is the optimal creative atmosphere?

Background noise is the key for me, not too loud but a nice subtle hum or hiss in the background. At home, bad, bubble gum scripted, peripheral, light movies work best- thank the lord for Michael Bay. Complete silence is a death knell for me and writing.

Idiosyncrasies: dress, food, furniture, etc.

When I’m at home, have to be in pjs bottoms or hospital pants and one of three favourite t-shirts. I can’t write at home while wearing work clothes, just can’t be done. I mentioned Michael Bay movies in the background but other loud action films work too, such as the Matrix or Gone in 60 Seconds. If it is music, has to be something almost folky, ethereal or moody needs to be playing. Johnny Cash, Massive Attack, Neil Young or Bonobo are some of my favourite writing ride-along friends.

Do you actually like writing?

Some days, I am just not sure, remember my elephant analogy? There are days my back and shoulders are tired of pushing it up the mountain and being so close to its backside. Other days I think, “Does a bricklayer actually like laying brick everyday or hope to get something from it…every single day?” I don’t think so, he just lays brick and builds a wall.

So, for me some days, I’m just putting words down and creating a story, a blog post, a poem a short story…sooner or later a house gets built that I can step back admire…sometimes, it is just a forgettable wall.

Pushing an elephant up a mountain.

I'm on deadline and he's laughing and taking a bath, go figure.

Pushing an elephant up a mountain.

The above is how I best describe the feeling and torment I endure pretty much everyday of my professional and recreational writing life.

Sure, in a newspaper environment, especially a daily one, meeting deadline is all the pressure and incentive you really need to write but still, some days, I have to really lean my shoulder into Dumbo’s backside to get him up that mountain.

Most writers deal with procrastination, it is in our writer DNA. When most interns I have trained or family and friends ask how I write as I much as  I do, I usually tell them, truthfully, I have no idea.

The actual process does have a magical quality to it, when I really think about  it. There is this strange “manna from heaven” moment that unfolds. The whirling words, facts and ideas all seem to align, float down and just take over when the time is right to dance the Fandango with your fingertips across the keyboard and to wax poetic….just like that sentence, where did that really come from?

Fandango?

Wax poetic?

I doubt in all my years of writing professionally I have written those words…ever, and now I just tossed them down (and made them work mind you) in one sentence no less.

Whether I am writing my short stories, working on a book, blogging, feature writing or filing daily news, the struggle between the elephant and prose on the page always occurs for me.

I’ve delivered stories under some intense and trying circumstances but there was always that moment, even that minute or two under the time crunch, when I’ve looked at my notes, looked at the screen and thought, “Where do I begin?” Then, it takes one word, one quote, one mining of facts and threading of themes to find that nugget and I am off to the races.

The Toronto Star recently had a great piece about writers sharing their rituals of writing and that is what inspired this post. How about you fellow writers? Is it a struggle? Is procrastination your friend or nemesis? Do you have your own elephant you push up a mountain?

The Saturday Six: Oct. 17/09

Today’s Saturday Six are six television series which On Deadline recommends if you are looking for something new to dive into on your spare time.

Finding a good series to wrap your imagination into is a wonderful find. The characters become your t.v. family and friends and you find yourself thinking what awaits them in their next episode. This is not a list of the “best” but merely a list of “can’t miss” entertainment, emotion and appreciation. Let us know what would be on your’s.

Here they are, your Saturday Six:

• BATTLESTAR GALACTICA : Does not matter if you are sc-fi fan or not, On Deadline isn’t but this series is simply incredible, one episode to the next. The character development and premise of the last of humanity trying to find a new home is gripping. Faith, loyalty, family, tolerance and love are themes explored weekly. The breadth and brilliance of the performances delivered is quite impressive, not one character or episode is wasted.

• DEAD LIKE ME: A short lived series which brilliantly reminds us to love those around us even though it is hard to do so sometimes. The fact you explore this lesson as you follow a team of grim reapers doling out death as if it were a game of tag was genius. Once you watch the series, find the full length movie released after the series was cancelled.

• HOMICIDE: This series is “the standard” when it comes to television cop-show dramas. Based on the David Simon book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets- a great read by the way, watch Baltimore’s homicide unit tackle the underbelly of its city, using plot and character development techniques now merely imitated by current cop shows. Read the book first to gain a better appreciation of the series.

• ROME: A short, two-season series, but about as cinematically beautiful as you will ever find. This series also goes beyond the aesthetic delivering an incredible “fly-on-the-wall” experience of the great empire. Even the greats of the past were prone to the same failings we still have now as people and a society.

• SIX FEET UNDER: Dark, quirky, funny, frustrating and thought-provoking. From the very first episode this series shocks you into not letting go. Some of the finest performances you will ever see  on your television. Exploring the storms of love, family and death through a family that runs a funeral home was wonderfully unique. Ever character in this series is strong and creeps under your skin. Be prepared to be happy, sad and angry every episode.

• THE WIRE: Another brilliant drama based in Baltimore and written by Homicide’s David Simon. This is not just a cop-drama, this series explores every facet of Baltimore, from its beat cops to the mayor’s chair and dockyards. How corruption begets corruption and the individual will and faith it takes to fight it impressively unfold before you. The brilliance of the show is that not a line of dialogue is wasted, nor are the series’ minor characters. Wonderfully cast and genius writing.

Sand Art by Kseniya Simonova

On Deadline tends to not post too many video clips anymore and usually they are news related when we do but here is a wonderful exception.

Kseniya Simonova recently won ‘Ukraine’s Got Talent” competition with her moving and impressive sand art created on a light box. Considering On Deadline’s author cannot even draw a stick person correctly with a pencil, Simonova’s ability to not just draw but create emotion and tell a story with sand as her medium is a wonderful discovery.

If you have 8 minutes and 33 seconds to spare unrushed, treat yourself to this video and explore her other sand masterpieces on YouTube as well.

Enjoy On Deadline readers, would love to hear from you what you think.

Too soon for Obama?

They gasped.

When President Barack Obama was announced as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner reports indicate that some people in attendance “gasped”. What a wonderful debate has now ensued about Obama’s Nobel-worthiness. Is it too much too soon?

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” states the Nobel press release. ” His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”

Obama is currently the commander-in-chief of  a nation involved in two wars. Yes, they are wars he has inherited so some context is in order,  this is not exactly George Bush they are giving the award to. Also, he has indicated he intends to withdraw from Iraq but increase the American presence in Afghanistan.

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honoured by this prize,” – Obama.

“Mr. Hope and Change” is a moniker which can be attached to Obama fittingly  and the domestic wars on his character and administration have earned him a Purple Heart, some could argue.

His intentions and international dialogue, in reaching out to Muslims, addressing nuclear weapons proliferation and managing verbal and diplomatic dust ups with North Korea and Iran have proven to be impressive. Simply imagine Bush in those situations and the fear of disaster was ever so imminent, with Obama, not just a nation but a world appears to trust the man.

“To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honoured by this prize,” Obama has  said in published reports. “But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.”

“He has been a transformational figure already but peace and change in his own  backyard is truly the record he will be judged by…”

Obama is now left having to wade through domestic backlash for winning. The expectations on him are incredibly high and at almost unrealistic levels.

He is measured harshly at home- health care reform, Guantanamo Bay, stimulus spending, unemployment…apparently in his first nine months he was supposed to solve all that and since he hasn’t, some judge him a failure. Those same cynical circles will now hold the Nobel against him.

He has been a transformational figure already but peace and change in his own  backyard is truly the record he will be judged by and he must succeed so he can achieve much more beyond America’s borders.

Terry Fox St. John’s memorial deserves better

The Terry Fox "Mile 0" marker in St. John's, NFLD. photo:Vince Versace

When CBC held its “The Greatest Canadian” competition a few years back my vote was for Terry Fox, to millions of people around the world his run left  us with a most precious gift: hope.

During my recent stay in St. John’s a friend mentioned there was a memorial in town which marks where Fox started his famous, historic attempt to run across Canada. This epic run was the genesis point which has helped raise over $400 million worldwide for cancer research in Fox’s name since. For all the greatness associated with his feat, you would never be able to tell that by how hard it is to find the memorial and its location.

Fox started his run in St. John’s on April 12, 1980 “with little fanfare” report’s the Terry Fox Foundation website. He ran 42 kilometres (26 miles) a day through Canada’s Atlantic provinces, Quebec and Ontario until September 1st, after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 miles). He stopped running outside of Thunder Bay- cancer had appeared in his lungs and he passed away on June 28, 1981 at the age 22.

The memorial for Fox in Thunder Bay is solemn and beautiful, when I first saw it on a cross-country drive, I and others there were moved by it.  This memorial and its location is fitting of Fox’s feat. I’m not saying the St. John’s memorial should rival the Thunder Bay one in scope or size but what currently is there is lacking.

The fact that not one single tourist brochure or map of downtown St. John’s even mentions the memorial is what really bugged me. When I asked a few hotel staff about it, I was met with the “why do you want to see that” gaze, in fact, one said, “no one ever asks about that, I think it is over here somewhere” and pointed at a wide swath of one far corner of downtown.

The memorial is found at the far end of downtown off a parking lot which belongs to the Port Authority of St. John’s.  The location is not very welcoming at all to the public, in fact, you feel like you are trespassing just visiting it.

A closer look at the Terry Fox memorial marker. photo: Vince Versace

The tablet itself is beautiful but there is not a single indicator or marker on how to find it downtown. How did I eventually find it? Well, a letter to the editor in The Telegram gave me all the little clues I needed for my search.

This memorial marks the spot where Fox dipped his foot in the waters of St. John’s to start his epic run. This is where the Marathon of Hope was born. No one is asking for a monolith but at least some better recognition and indication of its location is needed and deserved.