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Terence Corcoran. Kelly McParland. Barbara Kay. They are not so much columnists, as they are caricatures of columnists. They have some good columnists at the post (Coyne, Gurney, Urback, Selley, to a lesser degree Kheiriddin although she wrote a really weak column yesterday on the relative number of women in the Harper and Trudeau cabinets). That second group, even if you don't agree with them and come at issues from a completely different perspective, often write thoughtful pieces that can sometimes prompt one to think about issues differently and which can even challenge one's own biases. The first group, though, are predictable and knee jerk, and ultimately boring. McParland's columns often veer unintentionally into Onion-like satire, so sometimes there is amusement to be had, but that's about it.
 
Terence Corcoran. Kelly McParland. Barbara Kay. They are not so much columnists, as they are caricatures of columnists. They have some good columnists at the post (Coyne, Gurney, Urback, Selley, to a lesser degree Kheiriddin although she wrote a really weak column yesterday on the relative number of women in the Harper and Trudeau cabinets). That second group, even if you don't agree with them and come at issues from a completely different perspective, often write thoughtful pieces that can sometimes prompt one to think about issues differently and which can even challenge one's own biases. The first group, though, are predictable and knee jerk, and ultimately boring. McParland's columns often veer unintentionally into Onion-like satire, so sometimes there is amusement to be had, but that's about it.

McParland won yesterday's stupid prize comparing JT with Kim Kardashian, with a cleavagy selfie of herself in the mirror in the mirror for effect.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-c...-is-a-man-of-many-parts-some-are-even-his-own

Some trash simply writes itself - you almost won't weep for the death of newspapers for that alone.

AoD
 
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McParland can't get beyond his personal dislike of Liberals generally, and Trudeau personally, his columns are almost always rants rather than analysis. I actually was thinking of just that Kardashian comparison when I wrote above that his columns "often veer unintentionally into Onion-like satire". There was a column he wrote during the campaign, "How I Came to Admire Justine Trudeau", which was so full of non-sequiturs and asinine comparisons that I could help but picture poor Kelly foaming at the mouth, raging against reality. There are a lot of substantive criticisms which one could direct at the Liberal campaign and platform, but his column completely missed every target.

My favourite McParland column was much earlier in his career, when Miller was still mayor. He wrote about how he had driven from Union Station to Yonge and Bloor after lunch one weekday, and complained about how long it had taken him to drive and park. And he blamed Miller for it. Putting aside for a moment whether any rational person would expect to be able to get between those two locations midday on a weekday in a car with any reliable degree of speed, there seemed to be no rationale connection between congestion in downtown Toronto on a weekday (a sign of a thriving city) and what Miller had done or had failed to do to help single-occupant cars trying to travel in an area where everyone knows that the subway, walking or even a cab would be faster. It was brilliantly hilarious in its complete lack of logic. The Jarvis bike lanes were still a proposal at the time, and (although I do not recall him mentioning the bike lanes by name) there did seem to be some implication that the proposed changes to Jarvis (and the mayor's support for cycling infrastructure generally) were part of Miller's alleged failure, although he couldn't quite seem to explain what Miller had already done that had delayed him.

Then it occurred to me. You know the comments sections at the bottom of online newspaper articles, how regardless of the article topic there will always be some trolls who want to grind their political axes and blame the problem on whomever it is they dislike. So the article could be about, say, the fire department rescuing a cat from a tree, and these losers/trolls will come out to blame the standed cat on McGuinty/Wynne/Harper/Tory/Trudeau/etc. There doesn't need to be a connection, or even any logic - they just want to rant. It's upon reading McParland's column about how Miller had ruined his drive from Union Station to Yonge and Bloor that I realized that McParland is one of those trolls/losers who somehow has gotten his own column! It really helps to understand the crap that McParland produces when one appreciates that simple fact.

I have no issue with right-wing columnists (some of my favourite political commentators in Canada veer right), but I have no patience for hacks. And McParland is a hack.
 

Funny picture :D.

lib-navdeep-bains-mississauga-malton-mp.jpg
 

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PM Justin Trudeau getting international attention/acclaim for a one-line zinger as to why his cabinet comprised of equal number men to women. In P.E. Trudeau fashion,"Because it's 2015!"

http://m.huffpost.com/ca/entry/8480104
Now this is turning into a his first PR issue....turns out that the gender parity is not quite real.....of the 38 cabinet ministers.....5 of the posts are Ministers of State (which are not full cabinet positions with full cabinet privileges )...of those 5, zero are men. One of the 5 women MoS also has another full cabinet role so it means that the cabinet is 15 men, 11 women and 4 women MoS.....so not quite gender parity.

This saddens me....I thought the symbolism was very important....and spent a few conversations today (mostly with Liberals, actually) defending the move and lauding Mr. Trudeau over this bold move....particularly as he seemed to have appointed very good people overall but still managed to get to that gender parity.....I feel a bit tricked this evening and a little bit disappointed.
 
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Well, at least these posts aren't going to people who know nothing about their job. Most of them have some background in what they were picked for. We have an astronaut in the cabinet!
 
Well, at least these posts aren't going to people who know nothing about their job. Most of them have some background in what they were picked for. We have an astronaut in the cabinet!
Like I said, I am impressed by these people....and as a non-Liberal was vocal today about the quality of people and defended the gender parity as an important symbolic move that was accomplished with quality people......but, it turns, out it was a trick and not true. 4 of those women are junior members, report to male cabinet members and earn 75% of the pay of full cabinet members......the hype yesterday of gender parity turns out to be a falsehood.
 
Like I said, I am impressed by these people....and as a non-Liberal was vocal today about the quality of people and defended the gender parity as an important symbolic move that was accomplished with quality people......but, it turns, out it was a trick and not true. 4 of those women are junior members, report to male cabinet members and earn 75% of the pay of full cabinet members......the hype yesterday of gender parity turns out to be a falsehood.

If you will excuse my jaundiced criticism - there wasn't even the slightest attempt ever, in the history of this country to create a cabinet that is remotely gender equal, MoS or otherwise. To claim that you have been "tricked" and that the whole thing was hyped does disservice to that achievement. It also begs the question why no criticism was leveled against the composition of previous cabinets either, given their lack of even symbolic parity.

If you really want to criticize, it should be directed towards the gendered nature of the portfolio appointment - i.e. no women as Minister of Finance? Defence? It's a bit like blue for boys and pink for girls - we have some ways to go yet. And don't think we as voters are not complicit either - given the sex ratio of the MPs elected, and there is a vast corpus of literature out there on the public expectations of "proper behaviour" from male vs. female politicians - those stereotypical expectations still rear their heads in 2015.

AoD
 
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Yeah, I'm also having a hard time seeing as how anyone was "tricked" or that it's a "falsehood". Cabinet has always had a hierarchy. Never heard the Liberals say that it wouldn't. The real issue, in my mind, is not paycheques or other red herrings, but how the cabinet functions and the degree to which its members can assert some authority over their files. And that's something that will play out over time.
 

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