Mediawatch World Apr 05: Toronto Travesty, Clinton Taxes, 100 SIgns, Helen Mirren, Dava Marash, Newseum, Palestinian Genocide?, Euthanasia,Safire, RN

This page is dedicated to 18 local Torontonians who have been arrested, accused and 'charged' since June 2nd, 2006: 3 are kept in solitary confinement at the Don Jail for almost 2 years; 7 are are kept in detention without bail at Maplehurst; one youth is awaiting trial; 3 youth have their charges dismissed / stayed; 4 of the 14 young adults are out on unusually strict bail conditions. All have been or are currently being deprived of their basic human rights. Follow their stories here... Toronto 18 - Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied

The campaign press statement accompanying the release on Friday of Hillary Clinton's 2000 - 2007 tax returns includes some useful summary data for the media: Bill and Hillary Clinton's total income over the past 8 years, $109 million; her Senate salary, $1.1 million; his presidential pension, $1.2 million; her book royalties, $10.5 million; his book royalties, $29.6 million; and his speaking fees, $51.9 million. One big line item is missing from the press summary however: the $15 million paid to Bill Clinton between 2003 and 2007 by Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Global Opportunities Fund. What Did Bill Clinton Do To Get $15M From Ron Burkle? Thomas Edsall

1. These days, you can barely muster the energy to punch each other.
2. Your engagement ring is made of calamari.
3. Your friends refer to you as "Biggie" and "Tupac."
4. You keep a "Go Bag" at his apartment.
5. You finish each other's silences.
6. The erotic highlight of your week is "Whip It Out Wednesday."
7. You think fondly of the sanitation worker who called your butt "redonkulous" this morning.
8. You take separate sexcations.
9. You're making it work for the sake of her stuffed animals.
10. He's stopped flipping over his grandmother's portrait before sex.
It's Not Me, It's You - 100 signs you're in the wrong relationship By Tedd Levin, Jason Roeder, Mike Sacks, and Ted Travelstead


Actress Helen Mirren began her career with the National Youth Theater in Great Britain in 1965, and four decades later is still packing in audiences at cinemas and playhouses around the world. Best known to American audiences for her Academy Award-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 feature film "The Queen," Mirren is out with a new autobiography entitled "In The Frame: My Life In Words And Pictures" (Atria Books 2008). Packed full of scrapbook photos from Mirren's personal collection, "In The Frame" traces the twists and turns of her life from her childhood in Essex to her self-described "amazing year" playing the British Monarch and wrapping a successful run on the detective series "Prime Suspect." Mirren spoke to The Huffington Post about her book, and a selection of her observations are below: In The Frame: An Interview With Helen Mirren Max Follmer

No matter how well you try to hide something from readers, they are quickly able to determine if you are passionate about what you’re doing or not based on your writing style. You can try as hard as you want to, but the fact remains: if you don’t like what you are doing and if you are treating it as a chore then readers can and will pick up on that. As a result, convincing them that your blog is worth following on a regular basis will prove to be next to impossible. The same way, building a community around your blog (yet another aspect which makes blogging special in the first place) will also be out of the question. If you are not genuinely passionate about your work, your writing style will reflect just that and you can rest assured that readers will not exactly be thrilled about returning or about commenting and being active members of the community.

Readers Think, Readers Judge, Readers Decide


In February 2006, David Marash, a veteran correspondent (and substitute host) for ABC’s raised eyebrows in the U.S. journalism world when he took a job as the Washington anchor for Al Jazeera English, the new sister channel of the Arabic-language news operation in Qatar. For American viewers, Marash brought instant credibility to the new channel, even as it struggled to find a cable outlet that would agree to put it on the air. Eyebrows rose again last week when Marash announced that he was quitting Al Jazeera English because of what he considered anti-American bias in the channel’s coverage. CJR’s Brent Cunningham spoke with Marash yesterday. Dave Marash: Why I Quit

For Charles Overby, the Newseum’s chief executive, the purpose is not to create a shrine glorifying journalists or replicating a reporter’s DNA on white walls. Photo: Robert A. Reeder

Since the public supposedly can’t stand the media, and newspaper circulation keeps dropping, it seems an inauspicious moment to open a $450 million museum dedicated to the news.

However, that’s what happens next week, when the Newseum unlocks its doors along Pennsylvania Avenue, the tourist-friendly strip linking the White House and the U.S. Capitol.

But with journalism being about ideas, not artifacts, how does the Newseum justify a $20 admission fee to inform visitors about the news — especially when most Washington museums charge nothing?

For Charles Overby, the Newseum’s chief executive, the purpose is not to create a shrine glorifying journalists or replicating a reporter’s DNA on white walls. No, he’s trying to provide visitors with a memorable — and informative — experience. The fourth estate gets a new home

The Museum Mapping Initiative uses tools such as Google Earth and animated maps to enable citizens to understand Holocaust history and to bear witness to current threats of genocide across the globe. The Holocaust took place across the entire European continent, and for all of Europe's Jews, as well as other victims of Nazism, geography played a major role in determining their fate. The Mapping Initiative shows key Holocaust sites and historic content from the Museum's collections. The Initiative also includes information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments, and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond. Will They Show Palestinian Genocide?
Europe is deeply split over how it treats its terminally ill. The divisions were exposed on one day in March, when Belgian writer Hugo Claus ended his life under medical supervision in Antwerp and French former teacher Chantal Sebire died at home, having lost a legal battle to choose her time of dying.

Here, the BBC News website shows the patchwork of different laws in force across Europe. Euthanasia: a continent divided

Bloxicographers and blogymologists around the world and elsewhere are invited to comment on my choice and submit their own choices for “first blogger”. By virtue of their participation and scholarship, they will be consider “superbloggers” and their votes will be dispositive no matter who else marshals popular votes for Mulliganicus.
There are those who will complain “who are you, Safire the language columnist, to select the first blogger when you don’t even have a blog, and when you have not even found the ‘first columnist’?” The fact is, I have. His name is Simeon Stylites the Elder. According to the OED, a stylite was “an ascetic who lived on the top of a pillar”. (Greek “stylos” means “pillar”.)The sainted Simeon the Elder took up residence atop a column in Syria in AD 423. He remained atop that column and others for 37 years, each loftier and narrower than the preceding; his final column was 66 feet high. The First Blogger - William Safire

Paul Jay from the RealNews presents:

Bush NATO expansion plans blocked Not wanting confrontation with Russia, Germany and France block Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO view Iraqi PM promises more crackdowns Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says "criminal gangs" will be targeted by Iraqi security forces view MLK: Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence A Year to the day before his assassination, King gave this speech at the Riverside Church in New York view Jackson recalls Martin Luther King's last moments AP: Jesse Jackson and Billy Kyle on Martin Luther King Jr. and the moment he was shot view