Foreign interests

Last week, the federal natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, came out all rabid attack-doggy on "radical foreign elements" set on infiltrating and hijacking the Northern Gateway pipeline hearings to bring up environmental issues. Some kafuffle, huh?

Northern Gateway would be, if you've had your head buried in the, ummm, sands, these last weeks, a really big pipe for pumping great wads of sludge from the Athabasca tar sands, through some of BC's most pristine remaining wilderness to the west coast, where megatankers (...none, we hope, named Exxon Valdez...) would bug out for China with it.

It's the government's, ummm, better alternative to the now-shelved Keystone XL project, another big-jeezuz pipeline that was designed to pump that self-same sludge through some of Nebraska's most pristine wilderness, and thence to the refineries of Texas et.al. Are you starting to see a theme? And what could possibly go wrong?

Yesterday, in another vaguely-fawning Peter Mansbridge interview, the PM appeared to cool the hot oil cauldrons. Although we should remember that: A) This is a guy who's all about appearance over reality; and: B) He'd have to have approved Oliver's frothy yappin' in the first place. There's a definite strategic messaging advantage in that kind of thing: He looks about as reasonable as he's capable of of - which ain't very - as he sweetly opines that "Canada shouldn't be one giant national park for the northern half of North America."

This is pretty much standard operating procedure. The Prime Minister's Office tells the useful idiots on the back benches and in the ministers' thrones to say the really dumb/incendiary crap, so he can later look prime ministerial while he pours heavy oil on troubled waters.

The troubled waters in this case, though, are in the Athabasca River. As an Alberta doggy, I can vouch for its beauty if you ever get that far north. Not to mention the Beaufort Sea, where it empties. You know. The Arctic Ocean. Where, notwithstanding all those, well-enforced environmental regulations, increasing masses of escaping toxic aromatics seem likely to eventually ooze from the giant settling ponds surrounding a growing bunch of heavy oil mines - pretty much owned by, ummm, foreign elements.

One is China. Judging by the monumentally appalling way that country's government treats its own environment in the name of economic gain, I don't imagine they'd give a rat's ass about screwing up Canada - good - to feed their own strategic oil wants. Ditto the U.S. of A.

If Joe Oliver thinks I'm some kind of dangerous radical for considering that environmental concerns deserve a serious airing in any discussion of the tar sands, let him. He's kind of heavily biased. And kind of wrong. In his own way as much as a fossil as the animals from which all that evil-smelling goo in Athabasca came from. Hey! Maybe he's so defensive about the tar sands because he's related!

Way I see it, Canada being one giant national park may indeed be dreaming in technicolour. But it shouldn't be one giant black national toxic waste dump, either.

Try to occupy *this*

Most mainstream news media (and current perversions thereof... but dear me, I digress...) can't seem to wrap their collective consciousness around Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots.

As OWS went globally local this past weekend, they're finally trying to get to it — but news TV's hair and teeth types continue to deride and whinge over what they see as Occupy's deal breaker: no focused definition, agenda, leader or spokesperson.

Thing is, media and other big-organization complaints are more about fossilized reporting conventions than Occupy's relevance.

See, sometime mid-late last century, many media honchos and theorist types actually fretted about balancing news coverage (so quaint!) in the screaming dive toward daily deadlines. The only way they saw to do that real fast was to pigeonhole every story into a prefab template. One US network news president famously wanted to stereotype every item as a black hat/white hat Old West shootout. Somewhat more thoughtful types — well, okay, media theorists* — felt you might run to maybe a half-dozen prefabs. Still amounts to fillin' blanks with dates, names, a few telling details. Voila! News story! Like any sausage machine, it works adequately as long as you don't get all hung up on finesse.

But to get names and telling details in nanoseconds, which is all anybody on a 24 hour news cycle budgets for anymore, ya gotta have easily-contacted traditional organizations with official spokesthingies, cued to bark out bullet-point "positions" in predigested clips.

It's why many news items are tiny, dumb cartoons. It's also why many are spun to hell by the groups that can pour money into blendering up self-serving bullet points like so much liquid pig shit tasty frozen martinis and firehosing 'em at reporters.

So, the major objectors to Occupy Wall Street's style: people in news who want fast chicken nuggets to slot into a standard story; and people and groups holding some traditional form of power, who seek potshot targets with which to neutralize — or better yet, blacken and bury — a movement and retake what they see as the agenda. To occupy Occupy, as it were.

I'm pretty sure that OWS' amorphous squishiness is as frustrating to old media as its very tangible if unfocused discontent is to business-as-usual forms of power. This rabble ain't so easily cartooned or contained, when you can't find rabble-rousers or messages to pinpoint bomb. Could explain why Occupiers are covering their own revolution rather well in diffuse outlets like Flickr, Twitter, Facebook anonanon. Unhindered by convention, they get it. Anti-antisocial media at its best!

Coyote News, though we sometimes fly with the turkey vultures, is cool with it. Because it really, really pisses off political types desperately seeking some easy in, to either smear or co-opt the whole thing. And our embarrassing, illegitimate cousins at Fox and Sun, ummm, News. Did we mention them? Kinda flailing at the whole discrediting thing. Snicker...

* You, my doggybloggy reader, are of course so interested in this stuff that you will read further, maybe something like Making News (Gaye Tuchman); Deciding What's News (Theodore Gans), or Discovering the News (Michael Schudson). Because you're not the type to take your entire daily news/info/bloggossity hit on a smartphone in that two-minute lineup for your latte. You're better than the mere latte-rati...

Taking Hits for Hits?

In the attached Google Analytics graph, you can see that our daily hits for the past month has ranged between 16 and 125.

There are sites with higher readership.

For example, the Salisbury Journal has received more than 130,000 hits on their story titled "Dog injures nose". [plus update that is not really an update]

Coyote, I know you would like to see our readership increase. Maybe it's time you mixed it up a bit.

Or readers, do you have other suggestions for postings that would bring us high hit counts?

A salty dog

We regret to report the death of Gidget the Chihuahua of a massive stroke Tuesday, at a pubescent 15 years.

She is best remembered as the dubbed-male-voice spokesdog for a fast food chain that shall remain nameless, because at this blog, we don't espouse free advertising for any commercial ventures but our own.

The gender thing is not unusual. Lassie - through all 163 or so actors - was almost invariably played by a male dog in drag. Or perhaps a (shudder) neuter. Regardless, the quality of the show's human actors was such that I almost always mentally rooted for him/her/it to shove Timmy down the lousy well... and maybe dangle a judicious leg over the hole before buggering off. I digress.

I needn't go into details. Mainstream news is on this like cheese on a burrito. But as long as we're hinting conspiratorially at coincidental links between recently expired celebrities - and hey, these are the dog days of summer news, so what else are we gonna do? - I'll just arch a significant eyebrow and mention that the reasonably alert among you will have noted again very recently that one of the contraindications for those who wish to avoid strokes is sodium chloride. The kind that one might find in massively oversalted tacos, f'rinstance...

I'm just sayin'.

A Dog and His Man

Coyote, it's not often that I see a doggie that's cuter than you are, but I'm afraid you have competition - look at that proud muzzle, that shiny pelt, those muscular haunches. His human isn't too bad either.

After I snapped the picture the cute puppy continued to be cool, and his man flashed me a sexy smile.

RNDP 26: Still on the path to happiness

I was beginning to to think that the quest for a revolutionary new dating paradigm (RNDP) should be shelved because other pursuits, like wealth or fame, are more important. But three researchers from the University of Rochester have just confirmed that the pursuits of wealth and fame do not lead to happiness.

Edward Deci, professor of psychology and the Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the University says:

Even though our culture puts a strong emphasis on attaining wealth and fame, pursuing these goals does not contribute to having a satisfying life. The things that make your life happy are growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community. [Press Release 14-May-2009]

And so I am spurred to contribute to the community and help you folks find loving relationships. Because I got too worn out at the garage sale yesterday, I am going to give you more bulletins on recent research instead of doing the hard work of syncretising everything we've learned already in the quest for an RNDP.

Sick of the same old thing? U of Minnesota Researchers finds satiation solution

Joseph Redden, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, recently conducted a study on satiation, the process of consuming products and experiences to the point where they are less enjoyable, as it applies to music.

In one of the three studies conducted for this research, Redden and his co-authors asked participants to listen to the chorus of a favorite song 20 times in a row. Then they were asked to rate the clip. Not surprisingly, after 20 repetitions their enjoyment of the song dropped a great deal. Three weeks later, the participants came back and half were asked to recall any television shows they'd seen since the study, while the other half listed all of the musicians they'd listened to since the first session. The group that listed the TV shows was still just as satiated – they didn't like the song. However, those recalling variety in the music category almost totally recovered. "The participants' comments were the most revealing," said Redden. "Those who recalled the TV shows were actually angry to have a song they like 'ruined,' but the ones who recalled musicians enjoyed taking a study with music, etc. If something seems like 'more of the same,' people are just less interested." [Press Release: 19-May-2009]

Redden thinks this method can also work for things like beverages: "... next time you get sick of healthy smoothies and think about grabbing a burger instead, try to recall all of the other drinks you have had since your last smoothie. Our findings suggest this will make your smoothie taste just a little bit better."

If it works for songs and smoothies, maybe it'll also work for that person you've seen a bunch of times who is beginning to seem a little dull. Just think of all other people you've encountered since the last date or all the people you've been involved with before.

New contraceptive device is designed to prevent sexual transmission of HIV

Remember those free-wheeling days before AIDS?

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have published results showing that a new contraceptive device may also effectively block the transmission of the HIV virus. [Press Release: 19-May-2009]

Dominance in domestic dogs – useful construct or bad habit?

Researchers at Bristol's Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences say that using "dominance" to explain dog behaviour and to train dogs is misguided and potentially dangerous.

Dr Rachel Casey, Senior Lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Bristol University, says:

The blanket assumption that every dog is motivated by some innate desire to control people and other dogs is frankly ridiculous. It hugely underestimates the complex communicative and learning abilities of dogs. It also leads to the use of coercive training techniques, which compromise welfare, and actually cause problem behaviours. [Press Release: 21-May-2009]

I know some of you women out there are using dog training methods on your men. If you've been using "dominance" methods, you may want to rethink your strategy. Or not. After all, this research was on dogs. Not men.

Another study confirms that opposite histocompatibility attracts

Scientists at the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil studied major histocompatibility complex (MHC) data from 90 married couples, and compared them with 152 randomly-generated control couples and found that people with diverse MHCs were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar.

"Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities", says Professor Bicalho, "our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate." [Press Release: 24-May-2009]

Warriors do not always get the girl

Can it be that nice guys may not finish last?

Aggressive, vengeful behavior of individuals in some South American groups has been considered the means for men to obtain more wives and more children, but an international team of anthropologists working in Ecuador among the Waorani show that sometimes the macho guy does not do better.

"In 1988, Napoleon Chagnon published evidence that among the famously warlike Yanomamo of Venezuela, men who had participated in a homicide had significantly more wives and children than their less warlike brethren," said Stephen Beckerman, associate professor of anthropology, Penn State. "Our research among the Waorani indicates that more aggressive warriors have lower indices of reproductive success than less warlike men."

...

The researchers found that more aggressive men do not acquire more wives than milder men. They do not have more children and their wives and children do not survive longer. In fact, warlike men have fewer children who survive to reproductive age. [Press Release: 11-May-2009]

Coyote's new identity

Oh, hi! Taste testing a new personal corporate identity. The old one is so two years ago. Waddaya think?

See, normally I'm a die-hard rabbit ears guy (They're deeelicious deep fried! Especially with homemade aoili for dipping! I digress!) but after a recent splash through the big dirty puddle that is cable TV, the US, ummm, news network with the canine name has not escaped my notice.

I'm amazed at what Rupert Murdoch accomplished by inferring (shades of Joe McCarthy...) that other broadcast and cable TV networks were a buncha suspicious pinkos. He staked out an underused extreme of the political spectrum and pushed the hell out of it with a clever mix of electronic jingoism, theatrics, bread, circuses, propaganda, vicious arrogance, demagoguery and outright lies. Painting a thin coat of faux (heh) news across the whole sorry edifice to (barely) legitimize the sheer extent of the nuttery was evil genius. Basically, a prefab crypto-religious cult has effectively tilted the entire US news industry's centre - already rightish - even further right.

So naturally I'm thinkin' we need something like it in Canada. Except that most of the news industry is already pretty right wing/business oriented. I mean, lately I read the grey, conservative Globe & Mail because it's the most balanced newspaper around. The local Petfinder, a former Southam jewel, retains a (dwindling) clutch of actual journalists, but years ago, in the name of Conrad-Black-style balance, threw select editorial & op-ed columns to a clutch of otherwise-unemployable righty hagiographers.

So given the rightside weight of things here, I'm going straight for the underused left. Huge shock, I know. I figure I already rant most of the time. May as well consolidate myself under a snappy new corporate identity, preach to the choir, build an empire, and sell lucrative broadcast ads. Lots and lotsa ads...

Huh? Whazzat? Whisper louder! Network TV is dying? Oh. Crap! Never mind! Back to Plan B. Watch for me on a certain blog near you. Same time, same channel. In an ever-changing cyberspace, some things dare to stay the same!

Don't worry, spring is just around the corner

Image: Audrey braved Florence traffic to capture this doggone vespa shot

Unfit to print...?

We coyotes like news papers. Probably due to puppyhood training, about which the less said in polite company, the better. So when the vivacious Jo S. began a thread on the health of the media, many, including your faithful/unreliable reporter/narrator, had things to say. I had a lot. You may safely surmise that I have not finished sucking my paws and, ummm, pawndering. And I'm not the only one. Just the only coyote...

Current world economic woes are not themselves killing newspapers and legacy electronic media. They've exposed pre-existing rot. Newspapers were a disruptive technology for their time, an artifact of (mostly) the 19th century, freshened for the 20th by the advent of giant, costly, high-speed presses. These allowed papers to meet radio, then TV, pretty much head-on, even as pundits forecast the end of hard copy.

But papers' attempts to compete with later media on their (newer) terms have lost subtle ground with each new disruption, and the Net changes the game totally. In developed societies, it's faster, more accessible and scalable than its ancestors, and cheaper for content makers. The computers we pay for download many of their distribution costs - legacy media need printing presses, delivery trucks, transmitters - right onto our desks.

And the Net's tuned to the ADD nanosecond. Why write, edit, publish and distribute articles about Paris' latest deep thinkage or Britney's wardrobe malfunctions when they can be fully, ummm, exposed in 140-character Tweets? The Craigslists and Kijijis efficiently nabbed the papers' classified lifeblood from under publishers' noses. Topping it all, media outlets began more than a decade ago to throw up content on the Net - often badly, always for free - hoping to somehow gain beachheads there until they somehow figured out how to make a buck from it. They never really did.

Newspaper presses used to pretty much print money for their owners. The Thomsons, Blacks and Aspers of Canada, and the Hearsts and Knights and Murdochs of the world, got into the business because profits were so amazingly fat. But rather than improving the product when faced with competition or adversity, they too often acted to protect profit margins with chiselling economies that made newspapers less enjoyable and more irrelevant. And unhealthy.

Oh, the Petfinder's former editor in chief tried to regain hip cred by hanging major news stories on movie and comic book leads - complete with movie publicity stills instead of, like, actual news photos. Maybe he could have thought the other way around, instead of trivializing his content. Now the paper's latest owner, Canwest-Global, tries to economize by half-gutting local newsrooms to centralize its newspaper chain's content, inappropriately like the network feed for its TV stations.

These band aids and others do not play to the strength of a good paper, which is to reflect and record local thoughts and events and people. Placing them well within in their larger regional, national and global contexts, yes, but with the aim of really good local coverage. People trying to understand themselves, and their place in the world, are constant. I think.

I'm not saying that that newspapers need to be all serious. There's plenty of room for playful print. But there should be room for context and analysis too. And maybe they could back off a little from brain-dead takes on LiLo and Amy W. That's what the Net is for.

Breaking News: LOL Dogs!

Wandering Coyote reported yesterday that the LOL Cats site has a companion blog for LOL Dogs called "I Has a Hotdog".

What she didn't mention is that the site links to an easy tool to make your own LOL Dogs. Like this one:

Bonus: Pirate Dog