Rod McQueen's Blog, page 10

Play ball!

I love baseball. With players now in spring training, I begin to look forward to the season. I usually attend half a dozen Blue Jays games as part of a group with shared seats just six rows behind the Jays’ dugout. 
But changes are afoot, and I fear for the game. In the last couple of years, Major League Baseball tried to speed up games by automatically putting a man on second base if the game went into extra innings. That was minor compared with this year’s numerous new rules. For example, pitchers and batters will have fifteen seconds to get set and for a pitch to be thrown. No more batter backing out of the box, taking several practice swings; no more pitcher going to the resin bag a second time. And the pitcher can only throw over to first base twice for pickoff attempts.
In addition, bases will be larger, presumably to allow more runners to slide in safely. There’s no more infield shift, moving players to the side of the infield where a batter usually hits. We’re told all this and other changes will mean that the average game will last about 2-1/2 hours, not the three hours it now takes.
Professional basketball, football, and hockey all have quarters or periods that last a specific amount of time. Baseball is the only major league sport where there has been no clock. As a result, you conceivably could go to a baseball game and never come home, waiting all the while for the game with a tied score to be concluded. To me, such a languid pace is perfect. 
Rogers Centre, home to the Blue Jays, has carried out its own foolish alterations. They’ve reduced the number of seats by 3,000 and put in more dining chairs, tables, and drinking areas. They’ve even created standing room around the spot where a relief pitcher warms up so people can leer down at him. Is nothing sacred? Stadium officials say they’re trying to bring in spectators who wouldn’t normally attend. I can’t see how more non-fans in the stands will improve the game.
Beyond that particular dumbing down, I’m sure you get my point. A baseball game is like Beethoven’s Ninth. You could play it faster, but why would you?

Oh Canada!

A few years ago, I spent most of a day with six men huddled over a bank of computers and green-glowing radar screens deep within Cheyenne Mountain, 500 meters below a rough-hewn granite peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At one point, a buzzer sounded, a bell rang, and a wall light flashed red. An unidentified blip had popped onto a screen in the missile warning centre, a 10m by 10m low-ceilinged room at North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad).
The duty officer snatched a beige phone from its cradle and was instantly linked to Norad command post, another nearby room within the mountain’s hardened core. “Missile initiating,” he said. “Secure com[munications] in progress.” Within sixty seconds, seven officials in the military chain of command were on the line, waiting on every word.
The deputy commander of Norad was a Canadian, as is the case today. They quickly concluded that the missile was just another test, one of more than two hundred fired by the Russians that year. Whether it’s an unknown missile, a friendly launch from Cape Canaveral, or debris tumbling out of orbit and headed for earth, Norad sees every sparrow fall.
Norad was created in 1957 to centralize continental defence against Russian bombers. Recently, Norad has been tracking an increasing number of unknown objects floating across North America. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Twitter to say, “I ordered the takedown of an unidentified object that violated Canadian air space.” After that bit of bravado, it was made clear that Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden had conferred by phone. The announcement was made that both leaders had ordered the takedown over Yukon.
But just how collective is our activity? In 2010, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper talked about buying sixty-four F-35 fighter jets for $9 billion to replace our four-decade-old CF-18s but then did nothing. When Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump met in 2017 they issued a joint statement saying that Norad “illustrates the strength of our mutual commitment.” The statement also said that the U.S. welcomed Canada’s plan to immediately acquire eighteen new Super Hornet aircraft to supplement the CF-18s. That has not yet happened, either.
In 2022, the Trudeau government promised $40 billion over the next twenty years to upgrade Norad. If the past is prologue, most of that money will never get spent as we continue to rely totally on the United States for our defence. Oh, Canada!

Ghosts in the pages

The first ghost-written modern-day book that I am aware of is the autobiography of Lee Iacocca, published in 1984. As CEO of Chrysler Corp., he resurrected the company. Right on the cover are the words “With William Novak.” Novak was reputedly paid $1 million for the collaboration. Every ghostwriter since has sought that same cover line “with.” Few have been paid in the seven figures.
My first role as a ghost was for Sean O’Sullivan. At twenty, elected an MP in 1972, he was the youngest parliamentarian at the time. He won again in 1974 and then, in 1977, resigned his seat to become a priest. In 1985, he asked me to be his ghostwriter. I had written other books, but this was my first as a ghost, or in this case, the Holy Ghost. I called Ron Graham, who had ghosted the successful 1984 autobiography of Jean Chretien, Straight from the Heart. Graham’s recipe: thirty-five hours of interviews yields a 1,000-word transcript, enough for a 300-page manuscript. I followed the formula and recorded O’Sullivan’s recollections, including poignant descriptions of his recent diagnosis with leukaemia. I sat down on May 1, 1986, and by working eighteen-hour days, wrote a 100,000-word first draft in a month. I’ve written many books since, but that month was the most fun I’ve ever had writing. Both my Houses: From Politics to Priesthood, was published that fall.
I’ve done two other ghosting jobs since: Thumper, about Donald S. Macdonald, and The Duke of Kent, about Darcy McKeough. I was a “with” in both cases. The key to such memoirs is to submerge yourself and capture the voice of the subject. You want their best friend to read it and say, “That sounds like him.”
All these thoughts sprang to mind when I read in a recent issue of The New Yorker about J.R. Moehringer, the ghost who wrote Spare, Prince Harry’s memoir. After quoting Harry as saying he once looked at Hamlet and decided not to read it or any other Shakespearean play, the ghost goes on to gild the lily with exact phrases from The Tempest, King Lear and the shunned Hamlet. He also used Americanisms such as “on the fritz.” Such writing is not an accurate depiction of Harry; this is just the ghost showing off. Moehringer is more novelist than truth-teller and the book suffers as a result.

Same old, same old

Canada has been a whipping boy forever. The references to our incapacities are legion. In Sean Connery’s last James Bond film, Diamonds are Forever, Bond’s enemy in that 1971 movie was Blofeld who had taken up a position on an oil rig where he operated a laser satellite that had already blown up nuclear weapons in China and North Korea. As Blofeld sought other targets, the dot on his world map indicating a possible strike point crossed over Canada. He said something like, “If we hit Canada, it would be a long time before anyone knew.”
These days, The Economist ranks us number two (after Hong Kong) among the countries with the best business environment. What a joke! To me, all that seems to be happening is that U.S. firms are acquiring our best and brightest companies. As for the government of Justin Trudeau, daily they announce more money to build Canada’s business environment, but little help actually gets to the firms in need.
That’s just one among the many issues that makes Canadians angry these days. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre rode that anger until his party is seven points ahead in the national polls. Recently, he has wisely begun to expand his talking points so he can convince other Canadians that he is more than just a leader for the cantankerous.
In Winnipeg, for example, he met with a journalist whose opening line was, “You’ve been highly criticized for limiting the amount of questions you take from the media.” Yet, said Poilievre, “I’m taking all your questions.” She admitted she had been given no time constraints and didn’t have to submit questions in advance. Poilievre went on to say that the only journalists he wouldn’t meet were in the Parliamentary Press Gallery because they just “regurgitate Justin Trudeau’s talking points.”
That sounds all too familiar to me. I was press secretary to Opposition Leader Robert Stanfield through two elections, 1972 and 1974, both won by Justin’s father Pierre. After Stanfield was replaced as leader in 1976 by Joe Clark, Clark asked for a memo about the media. My main recommendation was for Clark to stay away from the Parliamentary Press Gallery, they were all cowed by Pierre Trudeau. Instead, Clark should get out into the country where journalists would be more likely to report his message without any filter. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Then and now

Paul Waldie’s story in The Globe and Mail today reminds me how lucky we Globe readers are to have such excellent coverage on the war in Ukraine as well as its impact elsewhere. The piece, a heart-wrenching story about abusive treatment of Ukrainian refugees by Russians living in the former East Germany was just one of many situations on which Globe journalists have recently reported. In addition, Waldie usually manages to write his weekly instalment about someone in Canada who has donated to a good cause.
I don’t mean to focus solely on Waldie because Globe coverage of Ukraine is also carried out by Mark MacKinnon, Nathan VanderKlippe, and Rome-based Eric Reguly who in December landed the “big get,” an interview with Sergii Marchenko, Ukraine’s finance minister. MacKinnon, for example, had a thoughtful piece earlier this week that interpreted how Putin, a former KBG agent, runs the military. When it’s helpful the Globe runs pieces by writers from Associated Press or the New York Times.
By contrast to such intensive coverage as the Globe provides, television networks all tend to sameness: footage of bombed-out buildings, rocket launchers firing at unseen targets, or men moving among walls on their way to who-knows-where. A good print journalist supplies context, information from knowledgeable sources, and depth.
Beyond the war in Ukraine, the Globe has other excellent reporters including justice writer Sean Fine as well as Robert Fife who breaks more stories in a week than most other Ottawa-based journalists produce in a year.
Maybe I’m focused more on the Globe’s coverage at the moment because I just finished reading Big Men Fear Me, Mark Bourrie’s excellent biography of George McCullagh, who owned the Globe from 1936-52 then died when he was only forty-seven.
In those days, newspaper owners were all-powerful, pulling strings at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa. Bourrie conducted extensive research and brings that era to life with vivid descriptions of everyone and everything from Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn to the Klu Klux Klan. I’m happy that newspaper owners are more reticent these days, but happier still that in-depth coverage continues to keep us informed and involved. 

And it shall come to pass

Over the holidays I learned a Hungarian tradition about eating that stands you in good stead for the year. My partner declared that, according to lore, on New Year’s Day you have to be careful what you eat. You can’t eat fish, because it will swim away on you. You can’t eat chicken, because it will fly away. You must eat pork because a pig digs beneath him so stays grounded. We had bacon sandwiches.
With that foresight in mind, here are my top ten predictions for 2023.
No Toronto team will win a championship, not the Raptors, Blue Jays, Leafs or Argos.
The NDP will stop propping up the Liberals. There will be an election. The Conservatives will win.
Summer will be hotter than usual.
I will not win the the Ontario Lottery Gold Ball Draw.
Donald Trump will fade from the scene.
Prince Harry’s book, Spare, will disappoint.
The war in Ukraine will end badly for both sides.
Doug Ford will continue to say and do foolish things.
A good movie will get even harder to find.
There will always be hope.

Season’s Greetings

Dear Readers:
Happy Holidays to all and may 2023 bring you and your families good health and much joy. If it’s not too late, may you do what you have always wanted to do, but never got around to it.
Rod McQueen

Leaving Las Vegas

My maximum bet has always been five cents. You don’t win much, but you don’t lose much either. Well, there was that one time I went to Las Vegas where I gambled $20 on slot machines. I was such a low-roller that the $20 lasted for five hours despite free Coronas handed out by skimpily-clad waitresses. 
Somehow, earlier this year, the federal government and the provinces colluded to permit online betting in Canada. I say somehow because I don’t recall there being an announcement from either Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford about what I consider to be a major change in lifestyle and personal finance. Were there any political donations involved?
I first caught on when celebrities from the Trailer Park Boys to Wayne Gretzky began appearing on television promoting online betting sites. The online phenomenon is now so all-pervasive you can’t avoid the ads while you’re watching a sports event. There are even opportunities to bet on games in progress. I think this whole money-grab is bad for society. Imagine the number of people now blowing their brains out losing money from home. The hit on family incomes as well as the cost of addiction support will never be known, but I would hazard it will be in the billions.
Why did the Ford government do this? I guess because everyone else is. A recent article in the New York Times noted that more than thirty U.S. states have legalized online betting and others are planning to follow. In some cases, the bonanza has been small. In the first year of legalized gambling, the state of Michigan collected only $21 million. By contrast, New York put such a high tax rate on betting that the state collected $546 million in the first ten months of this year.
Doug Ford is doing even better. According to Gaming Ontario, in the three months ending September 2022, Ontario garnered $267 million in gaming revenue from $6 billion bet. At that rate, Ford will earn enough in a year to repay the treasury the money he gave up during the election by making annual licence renewal free. I may be a small voice in the wind, but permitting online betting is not my idea of good government. 

The past is prologue

Sometimes in life you seem to be losing control. When the future is uncertain, the only safe place to go is to the past. Not the places you visited, or the various jobs you held, but the family members you knew who are no longer around. On my father’s side my only recollection of his father is of a moustache and pipe behind the wheel of car coming down his driveway near the small town of Nottawa, near Collingwood. As for my paternal grandmother, I was a scared young lad being pulled to toward her open coffin. My mother might have thought I viewed her, but I closed my eyes.
My maternal grandparents lived in the west end of Toronto, an easy drive from Guelph where we lived, so the visits were more regular. My grandfather was a druggist but suffered several minor heart attacks so retired around the time he was fifty. He was told watching television was bad for his health but he concluded it was okay to stand in the hallway and stick his head around the corner of the door into the living room where the TV was. At 11:45 a.m. on weekdays, no conversations or other noises were allowed as he listened to Gordon Sinclair, the opinionated radio broadcaster.
As an only child, my neighbours were important in deepening my knowledge of the world. On one side was a retired dentist. I would sit on a stool in his basement as he tied flies for his fishing and talked about life. Another neighbour studiously showed me his stamp collection and got me started with a huge bag of stamps from many countries. A third neighbour, whose living room was so full of Victorian furniture you couldn’t move, saw me as a replacement for her son who didn’t come home after the Second World War. He parachuted into France to help the resistance, was captured, and later died in Buchenwald. 
My father used to engage me in work around the house like removing wallpaper and painting. The only handyman things I can do today are what he taught me. My mother and I would often talk late into the evening until my father, already in bed, would call, “Come to bed, you silly people.” I only wish I could recall details of those conversations. What I do know is that from her I learned what matters most in life: kindness, empathy, and caring for others more than yourself.

Star struck

I never paid much attention to the Toronto Star. When I was growing up, we subscribed to the Globe and Mail. Such habits acquired while young tend to remain in later life. But reading John Honderich’s memoir, Above the Fold, makes up for my void on this topic. Honderich was, of course, a foreign correspondent, editor, publisher, and an owner of the Star, so his life story is a fascinating read. The fact that he died earlier this year, after completing this work, makes everything all the more poignant.
The family story begins near Kitchener, Ont., with his Mennonite forbears and moves along to his father, Beland (Bee) Honderich. Bee was both a driving force in John’s life and the newsroom, as well as a curmudgeonly old cuss. There were crucial times when John came up for more substantial roles that Bee actually voted against his son’s promotions. That must have hurt. 
While John’s eventual rise to the top was pre-ordained, he paid his dues in the field. As correspondent in Washington, D.C., for example, when the Air Florida plane crashed into the bridge over the Potomac River in 1982, John was one of the first reporters on the scene. As a result, he was able to describe a rescue that no other journalist saw. After all, storytelling is what newspapering is all about. 
There was one area where John mistakenly followed Bee’s lead. Just as Bee put the paper first before family, so did John. His marriage to author Katherine Govier ended in divorce but not before John took to copying her father’s bowtie habit. That’s where John’s ever-present bowtie was born.
Honderich also reveals gritty details about the internal feuds he had with Torstar executives such as Rob Prichard and David Galloway, always defending editorial interests against the drive for profits and return on investment. In the end, Honderich was terminated by the bean-counters after ten years as publisher and twenty-eight years on staff. However, he enjoyed redemption because he able to shepherd ownership of the paper into the hands of businessman Jordan Bitove who is just as keen as John was in supporting editorial content. Bravo to both!