Gay freakout at The Star

"Nobody Knows I'm Gay" reads the stylized font seen here on Canadian Jewish Congress CEO Bernie Farber's t-shirt as he marches in this year's Gay Pride Parade in Toronto.

It's ironic. I'm betting you got that right away.

It's also ironic to see Farber in the parade at all after all his blather about the parade "not being a political event" and his attempts to lobby against the participation of the actual gay group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in the parade but whatever.

Freedom of expression for everyone, right?

Well not quite.

In a blogpost about Canada Day, a blogpost making no mention of either Farber or the Pride Parade, Star columist Antonia Zerbisias notes a little dent in freedom of expression :

"Excuse me but since when did the interests of Zionist lobby groups determine who or what Canadians can see and hear?

In recent months, to list just three examples, there have been concerted campaigns against the staging of Caryl Churchill's controversial Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza and an academic conference at York University where the so-called "one-state solution'' was to be discussed.

We also saw British MP George Galloway be denied entry to the country for a speaking tour, just because he brought aid to bombed-out Gaza.
Now comes word that the only way the respected Al-Jazeera English news service, currently applying for TV distribution in Canada, can win the support of these same Jewish groups is to have them become consultants.

Journalistically speaking, that is hardly kosher."

Some 20 comments down the page five days later someone brings up Farber marching in the Pride Parade with a political group and Zerbisias retorts ironically :

"Yes imagine my surprise when I saw Bernie Farber identifying himself as queer by joining a pro-Israel gay rights group in the parade ... Funny because I didn't know he was gay.
Not that there's anything wrong with that."

Subsequent comments unnecessarily confirm that Farber is indeed not gay but nonetheless Farber has a letter published in The Star to say he is not gay that Zerb has "a rather stilted agenda" ... not that there's anything wrong with that.

Now today Star editor Kathy English posts this long, fawning, completely over-the-top apology to Farber chastising Zerb under the misleading header :

'Gay' blog post was just not fair :

"It's distasteful to me to repeat what she wrote, but context – and making public amends to Farber – demands it ... an embarrassment for the Star ... tasteless and fell short of the Star's standards ... don't have the right to stereotype or scapegoat ... invective and notions of absolute free speech ... sarcastic nonsense ...Farber is not gay...
The issue was subsequently discussed by the CJC's executive committee, concerned that inaccurate information about Farber was "published under the Star banner."

and a whole lotta blah, please don't hurt me, it's not the Star's fault blah, blah

But distasteful ?

Good lord, Star editor and your pompous publisher Cruikshank too, who previously trashed Heather Mallick at CBC for her piece on Sarah Palin, how stupid do you want to look?

Get a fucking grip.

You think this is about teh gay, or in this case, teh obvious-to-everyone-else not gay?

It's about what she wrote in her original post.

You got pwned and blindsided by the CJC and you panicked and threw your columist under a gay bus to prove it. Shame on you.

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Now what was Zerb saying again about freedom of expression and the Zionist lobby?

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Edited for spledling mitakes doh

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Kady liveblogs the Manning Netwonking Conference

Kady O'Malley liveblogs an afternoon at the Manning Networking Conference and Exhibition 2009 to amusing effect.
Y'all remember the Manning Centre for Building Democracy for Cons, right?

On this the third day of workshops on the importance of successful social netwonking, the afternoon's event naturally featured Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor struggling with technical difficulties in a failed attempt to set up his PowerPoint presentation on simplifying the message :

Ask your readers, "Are you mad?" Assure them: "We are too."

I never doubted it for a moment.

The other panelists were two Republicans from the McCain campaign who apparently shared their tips on the extraordinary success they managed to pull off for McCain.
There was of course also a shooting gallery.
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GO
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The Manning Centre for Building Democracy

Preston Manning, Stephen Harper, and Rona Ambrose with "the first graduates of the Manning Centre's Executive Program in Political Management at the Future Leaders Series Dinner held at the historic Chateau Laurier in Ottawa on April 18th, 2007"

... one of whom appears to be doing up his fly.

I didn't even know about this rightwing think tank till I saw The Cylinder's post this morning with a link to Sooey for a G&M article from 2005 :

"Former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and a small group of friends have raised an initial $10-million from wealthy Albertans to launch a new non-political institution designed to promote conservative ideas in Canada...The aim of those supporting the Manning centre is to have conservative political forces win two of every three elections by changing the way Canadians view public issues, instead of losing two out of three, or three out of four, as conservative parties have done throughout Canadian history."

Ok so who'd ya get?


Preston Manning - founder of Reform and Alliance parties, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute
Gwyn Morgan - EnCana Corp
Rick Anderson - ASCI-Anderson Strategic Consulting Inc and chairman of Hill & Knowlton Canada
Tom Long - chair of Ont Premier Mike Harris’ campaigns, co-chair of the founding convention of the Canadian Alliance Party
Tasha Kheiriddin - CBC Newsworld producer, Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, VP of the Montreal Economic Institute, member Fraser Institute
Nigel S. Wright - Managing Director of Onex Corporation aerospace and defence group

Patrons - Mike Harris, Ralph Klein, Bernard Lord

Fellowships - Blogging Tory Stephen Taylor, seen here being recognized by Preston Manning "for outstanding contributions to conservative online communications"

Advisors - Andrew Coyne, Tom Long, Hon. Tony Clement, Michael Walker - founder of the Fraser Institute, Michel Kelly-Gagnon - president of the Montreal Economic Institute.



Small world, huh?

There's a "Student Leadership Seminar" coming up...
Ottawa, Nov. 21 & 22

"Calling all students: Learn the effective practices for campus activism, and how to plan for political participation
The intention is to ensure each participant develops the social and intellectual skills to realize their respective goals, and be an asset to Canada’s democratic-conservative tradition.
You will hear from some of our country's most respected politicians, campaigners, strategists, journalists, and activists."

Presenters : Monte Solberg, Michael Coren, Tasha Kheiriddin, and Blogging Tories Stephen Taylor and Aaron Lee Wudrick.

Alrighty then.

A page of members' contacts and their specific areas of expertise is provided for media requiring experts to interview, thus going some distance toward answering the question of why the experts interviewed by the media are so often conservative.

They also support an online journal, C2C, featuring the writing of many of those mentioned above plus David Frum, Tom Flanagan, Kenneth P. Green of the American Enterprise Institute, Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute, and a not altogether surprising number of familiar newspaper editors and columnists from across Canada.

Do stop by the photo gallery to see Ottawa mayor Larry O'Brien, Joseph Ben Ami, Dave Quist of the Institute of Marriage and Family, and, of course, Steve.

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