Lazy Sunday #150: Christmas in Canada

With less than a week until Christmas, I thought I'd give Legion visitors from around the world a taste of what it's like to celebrate Christmas in Canada.

In most ways, we do it the same as everybody else. But because we're where you'll find Santa's North Pole, shimmering lights in the night sky, snow, ice and let's not forget the Polar Bears on all those seasonal Cola bottles, we're pretty much the place Christmas calls home, so we've perfected it.

For example, the guy above is our Prime Minister cutting loose at his office Christmas party.

He normally comes across all boring, helping to make us appear respectable on the international scene. But like most "quiet and polite" Canadians, he's got another side. And it would appear, the mystery of who's buying all those Nickleback albums that none of us will admit to owning has finally been solved.

Every big American city has a Santa Claus Parade to kick off the season and most of ours do too. Victoria, BC on our West coast, however, also holds something called the "Truck Light Parade" where big rigs covered in Christmas lights wend their way through well kept neighborhoods collecting food and toys for the needy.

It's the kind of spectacle that does my shit-kicker heart proud. My favorite's the Septic truck that turns its suction hose into a giant Candy Cane.

A little further East, the Calgary Hitmen hockey team hosts "The Teddy Bear Toss". This is an annual event in every Canadian hockey arena as fans mark the first home team goal by tossing stuffed toys on the ice to be distributed to sick or needy children.

This year the Hitmen collected 23,000 bears. We've featured the Toss at the Legion before. But it's always a fun way to experience the true reason for the season.

Down in the Southernmost tip of the country, in Welland, Ontario, they proved we can flash mob with the best. And don't skip past because you think you're an Internet hipster and have seen it all, because this version will take your breath away.

23 Million Youtube hits in less than a month too. Who says we need government handouts to establish a Canadian presence on the Net.

Moving further East and a little farther North, we come to Quebec City and the heart of our Winter. This was one of the places where Christmas was first celebrated in the "New World" and much of it probably doesn't look or feel much different than it did way back then.

Down on our Eastern Coast, there's another kind of Christmas parade in Wood's Harbour, Nova Scotia. Here it's fishing boats that are decorated and paraded along the shoreline, their way lit by fireworks.

There you have it. A little taste of the ways we do Christmas. There are a million more like moments from a million other places in between, all reflecting the spirit of giving, providing warmth in a cold world and bringing light to the darkness that Christmas and Canada symbolize to so many.

And you get a flavor of those traits in Canadian Jazz Great Oscar Peterson's version of the classic carol "O Christmas Tree". May his talent warm and brighten your own Christmas as much as he did so many of ours.

Thanks for visiting and -- Enjoy Your Sunday.

The Christmas Weather Report

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But the fire is soooo delightful…"

Although it should come as no surprise to everyone that it's Winter in Canada, for some reason the top stories on any newscast you watch in this country are all about blizzards and snow and ice and heavy rain.

TV Meteorologists speaking in hushed, cautionary tones predict snowfalls most of us casually sweep off our driveways without a second thought.

Meanwhile, dour special reports are filed by serious journalists either listing all the items you must carry in your car to survive any once in a generation freak snowstorm or how to find out if nearby seniors are warm enough without looking like a D-bag.

The best philosophy on all this was uttered by Scots Comedian Billy Connelly, "There's no such thing as bad weather. There's just the wrong clothes."

In other words, yeah it's cold and slippery, deal with it. Toss another log on the fire and top up the brandy glass. And don't spend as much time watching depressing weather reports.

Assisting with that, and helping to make Christmas a little merrier at the same time, are the wonderful folks at NMA.tv.

Most of us first learned of this whacked group of Taiwanese animators when they released their chronicle of the Tiger Woods domestic car wreck video that went immediately viral.

The boys have kept at it, now dispensing almost daily segments on current events (All in Mandarin with English subtitles). 

I'm not sure if this stuff is meant to explain complex North American stories to Asian audiences or just to make us look as ridiculous as possible. Either way, it's bent out of shape fun.

One of my recent favorites depicts Barack Obama using a version of the Bat Signal to summon ex-President Bill Clinton for some assistance.

And now NMA is also offering their fans a daily weather report wrapped up in a pretty little Christmas package and frankly, who cares that it doesn't cover any Canadian cities.

Y'know, if Newsworld took this approach they'd get much better ratings and nobody would really care how bad the weather got.

What's My Take From An iPod Tax? Please…

Canadian Artists who've been paying attention know that there's been an ongoing discussion in Canada over the last two years as our Federal government tries to get its act together and haul our copyright laws into the 21st Century.

No matter where you stand on the issues, I think you can agree that the process is not going all that well.

Copyright is hard for most people (even working writers) to understand and just when anybody thinks they've got a firm handle on it, some new technology or a guy with a lot of money invested in a cartoon mouse comes along and completely warps the rules.

Vested interests like record companies and film studios want to apply all kinds of digital locks and other technologies to prevent people who've legally purchased a CD or DVD (or downloaded a digital file) from being able to copy it to another device or media platform (like a hard drive or an iPod) so their product isn't "shared" to the point where they don't make a profit for producing it.

Consumers want to buy something once and watch or listen to it however and whenever they damn well please. Because -- well -- they paid for it and how many times are they supposed to pay for the same song or movie...

Most artists are usually just over the moon that somebody paid for something they created even once. But every now and then you get somebody like Garth Brooks, who used to (and maybe still does) sue 2nd hand record stores that dared to sell any of his catalogue because it meant he wasn't getting the royalties from their customers buying a new CD.

Meanwhile, schools and libraries and people who want to mash-up and repurpose need special dispensations or they can't continue to do what they do.

And us creative types just want to get paid for what we do, so we can afford to keep doing it.

To some people, copyright means outright ownership and for others it signifies participation in the ongoing exploitation of an artistic creation.

Basically, everybody wants a slice of the pie. The point of Copyright legislation is to make sure what they each get served renders them happy enough to keep making or buying more pie.

A couple of decades ago, one of the Canadian solutions to some of these issues was to levy a fee on all blank media that could be used to copy music. So if you bought blank tape, writable CDs or DVDs you paid a few cents into a fund that was distributed to the people who created music.

This wasn't fair to the people who were buying disks to back up their accounting files or send grandma digital pictures of the kids, but it was the best system anybody could come up with at the time and a few cents per disk wasn't breaking anybody's budget.

It also didn't take into account that the technology would evolve so people could copy movies or TV shows. But when is that kind of governmental limit of vision ever a surprise…

According to stats collected, that system has so far delivered $184 Million to music rights holders in Canada. And that would seem to be great news for Canadian musicians and something the rest of us should try to get in on.

So extending this type of levy to digital devices like iPods, Smartphones, even flash and hard drives (the places to which a great deal of both purchased and shared material ends up) became one of the suggestions in the copyright proposals of many artist guilds and unions.

And here's where a subject that's always a little confusing got more confusing to a lot of people -- including -- and maybe especially -- me.

The opposition parties in the Commons Committee studying Copyright law got behind the levy idea. The Federal government opposed it and began referring to it as the "iPod Tax" because they felt it would have a negative impact on a number of levels.

It would make smartphones, hard drives and iPods more expensive and even add an additional charge to the music system in your car. Most Flash drives, for example, would more than double in price.

It would penalize corporate purchasers and individuals who had no intention of using their phone or computer for consuming entertainment media.

And it would piss off consumers who had already paid for their movies and music and now were being told they had to pay even more for the gadgets they needed to access it.

But those concerns were outvoted in Committee because the Opposition parties felt that despite its faults, a levy system would assist individual artists and entrepreneurs.

And although nobody had put any specific numbers in place for what such a Levy/Tax would cost consumers, the ones bandied about during Committee debate had been on a sliding scale based on the storage capacity of the devices. A scale that put the cost of the most common iPod/Smartphone capacity of 30Gb at $75.

Now everybody keep in mind that there's no legislation for these numbers or even a final Levy/Tax proposal for anybody to vote on. It was just an idea people were kicking around.

Until Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement held a Press Conference to announce that the pending Copyright legislation would not include an "iPod Tax". Like every touring musician trying to buy gas for the band's bus they even had T-shirts available.

A line was drawn in the sand and the issue has suddenly gone from being about Copyright to being about convincing consumers the government is trying to save them money.

And maybe they are.

And maybe that's at my expense and I should be really pissed off.

Except I don't know for sure.

As a guy who works both sides of the street, buying movies and making them, I've tried really hard to weigh how new Copyright protections might benefit me as well as cost me money. And I honestly still don't know where I stand.

From the beginning of this discussion, I've been asking fellow artists and my Guilds for some idea of what individual artists have earned from similar levies and how the additional costs affected consumer habits and nobody seems able to enlighten me.

As I said, that $184 Million the music industry has earned sounds fabulous. But nobody appears able to tell me how much individual artists have earned.

I know a ton of musicians who all claim they've never seen a penny of that money. Maybe the cash only goes to the songwriter or that nebulous "rights holder" -- and does that mean a series creator might see some cash but the guys sweating it out in the writers' room won't?

I also can't seem to find any figures that say Bryan Adams got this much and David Foster pocketed that much and even former Toronto Maple Leafs Goalie Johnnie Bower took home a few bucks for "Honky The Christmas Goose". Those numbers just don't appear to be out there.

Or maybe Google just doesn't want me to know.

So I can't estimate what a levy on digital media devices might earn me for a specific piece of work. And therefore, I don't know if it's worth fighting for or not.

If I write the next "Trailer Park Boys" movie and it does as well as the last two, what's my take home from this new revenue stream?

Hard as I tried yesterday, nobody was able to tell me. So I did some math on my own -- always a dangerous activity.

My personal iPod touch has 64 Gb of memory. If I bought it under the suggested Levy I'd be paying $75 into this new Copyright fund for the opportunity to fill it up with Cancon.

And let's say that as a loyal citizen I only download Canadian TV shows. According to the specs, I can fit 80 hours of video on it. For the sake of argument (and because I can be really bad at math) let's say a couple of those shows are in HD, so I only cram 75 hours on it.

That means my levy for each hour is $1. Now, if you had a dollar for every smartphone and hard drive in the country, you'd be a pretty rich guy.

But I don't get all of that dollar.

Since the producers of those series own the copyright of the show and the show is what people are buying, they're going to get something too. Maybe even most of it, since any levy will have to cover every artist who contributes to the show -- the director, the actors, the composer, etc.

Traditionally, screenwriters account for about 4% of a TV show budget, so let's assume I end up with that much. Well, 4 cents from every smartphone and iPod in the country isn't a bad deal either.

If that's my end, I'm packing in the laptop and picking up Yacht brochures in the morning.

Except I'd only get that much if there were only 75 hours of television available. But there's already a lot more than that with more coming all the time.

And since I can dump all 75 of those original hours and download another 75 and another 75 after that, my 4 cents is rapidly declining to maybe .0004 cents per digital device.

And I haven't even begun to calculate what has to be set aside to pay for movies people download. And music. And books (both text and audio) since The Writers Union is looking for a share for their members.

And I'm betting those damn game writers are looking to take home more than as much Red Bull as they can drink.

And if there's a levy and most Canadians (as they do now) download American movies and TV -- can't US Studios and artists make an argument for their share -- and since we don't have a levy on American films at the box office or American series on CTV or Rogers or Global/Shaw/Whatever -- wouldn't they have a pretty good case for a chunk of that change?

So how much do I end up with for my screenwriter's copyright in "Trailer Park Boys III: Origins" or "The Listener"?

The Heritage Minister insists nobody's given him a formula and all the Artist Guilds have spat back, "Oh, yes we have you gun-lovin' artist-hating sonsa…" and apparently there are tons of government minions who've been in all the meetings who have all the paperwork.

So why can't anybody show it to me?

I'm the guy most affected by all this. Okay, me and the kid who wants to watch "Todd and the Book of Pure Evil" in Chemistry class. But he already knows he might be on the hook for 75 big ones.

How much of that am I going to see?

Or would I be smarter just negotiating a little more up front?

UPDATE:

Some great comments coming in on this post. Thought I'd post my response to one of them up front for those who don't want to sift through the reactions and maybe to prevent you from going off on similar tangents…

"Well, first of all, the Google line was a joke. I've been trying to get hard numbers from several sources, for months.

Everybody seems to have the bulk totals but nothing that identifies what it means to individual artists. For all I know that's a privacy issue. But even something in the ballpark would have helped.

So while I'm happy the delightful Sophie makes good money from the levy -- how much? And for how large a body of work?

Nobody's expecting to retire on these payments. But I'm starting to feel like writers would do better standing on the sidewalk with a cup of half used HB pencils.

I'm still looking for some information on which to base a decision and assert my rights.

Not sure how asking that question after two years of cross country input is wildly shooting from the hip -- does somebody asking questions somebody else wishes they wouldn't maybe just sound as menacing as gunfire?

And maybe it's all a pointless debate -- given as Deb Nathan says, we've already been paid an advance against future earnings does that mean producers who own the show copyright will get paid and then they'll do the calculations -- because you know where we end up on that tally sheet.

All I'm asking for is what the formula we're proposing might mean to me. If the Government has been given one as all the Guilds claim it has -- why can't I see it?

Yeah, yesterday's Press conference was complete party politics Bullshit. But if you'd done your own research you'd know all the figures and pejorative terms Big Jim and Little Tony used came from the very committee meetings our own reps attended.

I believe in the ongoing worth of a writer's work as much as you do and I think we both know the net is where ALL of our future earnings will be coming from.

But if I don't have hard facts to combat the oafs running Heritage and Industry and the lawyers for CRIA and the rest of corporate America, then I got no bullets in my gun.

Show me the money. I am your Union brother, am I not?"

The Whale

 

It's Monday and the Christmas season is beginning to take hold, uplifting us in spirit but also entangling us in commitments, lists and errands, work or personal deadlines and all the other issues sent to try us and weigh us down when we'd all just like to cut loose and enjoy the season.

Maybe this will help.

Five years ago today, a very unusual story unfolded in waters not far from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.

A female Humpback whale had become entangled in a web of crab traps. She was being dragged down by hundreds of pounds of rope and lead weights that forced her to struggle to stay afloat and breath.

Thousands of yards of trap lines were wrapped around her body, her tail and in her mouth. A fisherman who'd spotted her radioed a local environmental group for help. They dispatched a rescue team who realized the whale would drown unless they immediately dove in to untangle her.

But that could put anyone who entered the water at risk because Humpback whales can crush a man with a single flick of their tails and they knew that as it got weaker the whale might struggle violently or panic as it tried to break free.

But the team felt they had no choice. They dove in and began to cut away the traps and the weights and the tangles of rope. The job took several hours, but finally the whale was free.

The minute the last of her bonds fell away, she swam around the divers in joyous circles. Then she approached each one individually and gently pushed them around as if she was thanking them.

Some of the divers said it was the most incredible experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth said her eyes stayed on him the whole time and he would never forget the connection he felt with the animal.

As Christmas approaches, may you, and all those you love, be surrounded by people who will help you untangled from whatever may be binding you.

And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude.

The full story here.

Lazy Sunday #149: Before We Get To Christmas…

I start marking the Christmas season about two weeks before it starts. And I thought it might be worthwhile to get this in before getting caught up in all that goes along with this time of year for those of the Christian faith.

I'm a Christian. Not a good one to be sure. But more often than not I stay within the ballpark of what I learned in Sunday school, Confirmation and on an irregular basis from the pulpit.

I think an honest attempt to "do the right thing" is true of most people who were raised with spiritual values, no matter what faith or denomination originated them.

However much you may want to demonize a particular religion or its followers (either casual or fanatic) there's an appeal to basic humanity at the core of every faith that we can all identify with.

To be honest, I don't think I really "got" what it meant to be a Christian until I saw Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ". For all that film's faults and excesses, I'll always cut Mel some slack for conveying the message that Life and the World can be pretty rough on people sometimes and maybe we just don't have to make things worse.

Aging Rocker, Ronnie Hawkins, was all over Canadian television this week recalling the time John Lennon hung at his farm during his "Bed In For Peace" and "War Is Over" period. And it reminded me of one of the best things Ronnie ever said.

When asked, at the height of the "Rock 'n Roll is a tool of the Devil" days if he believed in God, Ronnie answered, "I believe in God as much as anyone on earth. It's his ground crew I'm not too sure about."

Over the next couple of weeks, there will be lots of debate (as there is every year) about whether we as a whole or somebody else has lost or abandoned the whole "reason for the season". A lot of that will come from people who consider themselves part of the "Ground Crew".

So for them, and maybe all of us, some words to think about before we begin our celebrations…

Enjoy Your Sunday.

It's Only Funny When Rick Mercer Does It!

Every time I post a little snippet about how I don't get some part of the Global Warming Panic, I'm inundated with missives from the right thinking and progressive…(wait, how are they "right" thinking while using that particular descriptive -- somebody better call a meeting)…not so much arguing the points or registering disagreement as making sure either me or my source is properly Demonized.

I think I'm on record somewhere (certainly around here) as acknowledging that Sarah Palin is an airhead and Don Cherry's a bullying dinosaur blowhard. Some of those who think their own opinion is the only correct one ought to read it.

But even that doesn't earn me any "Get Out of Jail Free" cards.

So, if you're also a "Denier" avoid the comments thread. And if you're not, that's where you can find me firmly bound to the whippin' post.

Okay, so I'm in lovely and almost balmy Victoria, BC a few days ago and take my charming Sheepdog for a wander. Being a dog, she began looking around for somewhere to do "her business", meaning that she bypassed any number of suitable locations in search of what we dog owners fondly call the "Charmin Lawn".

You know, the ones somebody keeps in immaculate condition, perfectly edged and trimmed with cuticle scissors. Then she does the traditional circular dance to attract the owner to the front window, humps up and drops a steaming pile right where the lawn bowling usually takes place.

Being a responsible dog owner (and environmentalist), I pull a biodegradable bag from my pocket and collect the evidence more thoroughly than Gil Grissom.

Then I look around for a trash can.

There's one not ten feet away, right across the street from a Public Works truck whose operator is fixing something on the trash bin on the other side of the street. I walk over to the one closest and prepare to drop my dog's load. The Public Works guy sees me and screams, "Don't throw that in there!"

I look up to see him racing through oncoming traffic waving his arms frantically. He definitely does not want my poo bag in his bin.

Me: Do you need this one empty to work on it?

PW Guy: No. We don't want people putting dog dirt in Public trash anymore.

Me: Why?

PW Guy: They won't take it at the landfill.

Me: Why?

PW Guy: They did tests and it creates too much Methane gas.

Throughout all of this, he's got his eyes riveted on the bag I'm still holding over the open trash can. It's like I'm carrying this Methane bomb that's gonna go off if I let it fall.

Me: So -- what am I supposed to do with it?

PW Guy: Take it home with you.

Me: (confused) And then…?

PW Guy: Well, we recommend flushing it down the toilet and putting the bag in your own garbage.

I refrain from pointing out that the bag will still contain a little Methane generating residue or that Victoria is without a sewage treatment plant, meaning my dog's doo would be joining all the human waste it daily flushes right into the ocean -- but far enough offshore nobody has to see it.

PW Guy: (cont.) Or you could put it in your composter.

Where it will still produce the same amount of Methane gas -- just not enough for anybody to measure.

I dropped the turd at Starbucks and asked for one of their free bags of recycled coffee grounds for the garden. So I think my furry pal's carbon footprint was suitably offset.

From the beginning, I've felt the drinkers of the Al Gore/David Suzuki kool-aid haven't fully thought through either their science or their solutions to problems that could be real but might be just imagined.

A couple of US senators may be changing all that by introducing a bill which will require public access to all climate data collected by government agencies like NASA in the hope that wider scrutiny will prevent numbers being spun to suit somebody's particular environmental agenda.

Although I don't know what party they're from, if somebody in the climate change movement is opposed to that I'm sure it will come out that they once had coffee with Sarah Palin or maybe owned an SUV.

So until all this rights (sorry, there's that word again) itself, we may have to put up with press releases like the one that came out of the UN Climate Conference in Cancun this week asking Jews to celebrate Hanukkah by lighting one fewer Menorah candle. Apparently, if every Jew did it, it would take something like eleventy billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere. 

But there's intentionally funny stuff coming out of Cancun as well.

Canadian comedian Rick Mercer made a name for himself with a couple of CBC Specials in which he hop-scotched the United States quizzing prominent and ordinary Americans to reveal their complete ignorance about Canada.

We all had a good laugh that both helped heal our national inferiority complex and prop up our smug sense of superiority.

But I'm not sure as many people find that act funny when somebody else does it. Like getting many of those dedicated, deep-thinkers at the Cancun conference to sign petitions which would create environmental chaos and ban ---- water.

Yeah, hang on every word coming out of UN Climate Cancun, dudes! These guys really know what they're talking about!

Would You Just Rather Not Know This?

"When the truth is treason, the problem is the government." -- US Senator Ron Paul

It's been interesting to watch the Main Stream Media contort over the recent release of Wikileaks documents.

First they were all excited, the New York Times and the Guardian and others even staking out exclusive rights for various territories and titillating their readers with the promise of salacious details on what diplomats really say about one another.

There was an initial gush of coverage as they tried to cover everything being revealed.

Then, when the documents began to cast a negative light on some within the political spectrums that different media conglomerates either openly support or oppose, we got conflicting opinions on whether the man behind the dump of secret documents was a saint or a scoundrel.

Some pundits called for him to be assassinated. Others insisted he was the personification of freedom of speech.

That led to an ethical debate about whether the leaks put innocent people in danger or helped others gain wider public awareness of their situation.

And as each day brings new revelations about how our ruling classes behave, I detect a growing concern that the Media might no longer be able to control what news we see or read.

Am I the only one beginning to wonder how you can arrest a man and hold him without bail because a condom broke, but you can't demand a better product from the condom manufacturer sponsoring the newscast obsessed with that part of the Wikileaks story?

Or far more importantly, why the arrest of Wikileaks' Julian Assange is your lead story while there is no mention of new documents he just leaked which prove the American government helped purchase little boys for Afghan police officers to use as sex toys?

Is one story of greater importance than the other? Is the Main Stream Media protecting somebody by not running with that Afghan revelation?

Or has their market research told them that you don't care about that sort of unsettling stuff and would rather watch the "Jersey Shore" version of the news?

Yesterday, the Houston Press ran the following headline:

Texas Company Helped Pimp Little Boys To Stoned Afghan Cops

Kind of gets your attention, doesn't it?

So far not one word in any Canadian news source I can find.

The story details a Wikileaks released document from US diplomats confirming that American security contractor DynCorp, hired by the US Government at an annual cost of almost $2 Billion to train Afghan police officers, used some of that money to procure 8 - 15 year old boys as "gifts" for Afghan police officers who use them for anal sex.

Apparently DenCorp also uses some of their public funding to purchase drugs to get the same Afghan cops in a party mood.

Stunned?

Not even just a little?

You can read the full story here.

Now, this isn't the first time I've heard this tale. It's been a hot topic for months with Alex Jones, an American talk show host who also runs the Prisonplanet.com website.

Prison Planet is the kind of place that inspires people to marry the words "Batshit" and "crazy", being mostly concerned with dangers of Chemical Contrails and Flouride in your drinking water. Yet every now and then Jones ragdolls something that doesn't sound quite as outlandish.

However, the powers that be probably feel as much need to respond to his revelations as they do to "The Weekly World News" reports on President Obama's private meetings with Batboy.

But the story didn't stay within the confines of late night radio and conspiracy websites. Not long after Jones began calling out DynCorp, the PBS series "Frontline" ran a documentary on the practice (known locally as "Bacha Bazi") which is still available on their website.

Again, nobody in the Main Stream Media explored the story further, maybe because they already had their quota of child rape stories what with Roman Polanski and the Catholic Church.  In fact the Washington Post downplayed it as a "questionable management oversight" of those on the ground in Afghanistan.

The only official reaction from the US State Department referred to the Afghan sex slavery of children as a "widespread culturally accepted form of male rape" which also violated Sharia law and the Afghan civil code the cops they were training would soon stop.

Nobody said they were rewarding the Afghan cops they were training by purchasing them their own child sex slaves.

This particular Wikileak raises a huge number of issues.

First, this isn't the first time DynCorp has been involved in the world of child sex. In 1999, one of their own employees, Kathryn Bolkovac, a Nebraska cop, who wouldn't keep quiet about the sex trade of girls as young as 12 in Bosnia. That story has just been turned into a film called "The Whistleblower".

DynCorp, which was also a major player after Hurricane Katrina, has also been criticized for not being able to account for $1.2 Billion in US Federal money paid to them to train police in Iraq.

Which makes you wonder how these guys keep getting hired in Washington.

Or maybe, if you're real good at your job, the government doesn't mind you buggering a couple of orphans.

Then you've got to wonder if some of the ongoing Afghan resistance to NATO forces might have something to do with people not wanting to have their kids ass-raped by the coalition's local partners.

They've already had to endure our troops turning a blind eye to officials ripping off tens of millions in aid money that was supposed to make their lives better, so maybe their corruption line in the sand is Junior's back door.

I've talked to a few Canadian soldiers who've returned from their tours of duty in Afghanistan. The prevailing sentiment was that they felt enormous compassion for the people they were over there to protect but didn't much care for the local officials and warlords they were also instructed to support.

And since Canadian troops will now be staying in Afghanistan to take over the training of the local police, will they have to get into the business of pimping out children in order to get their trainees to play along?

Michael Ignatieff, Jack Layton, you want some sound bites guaranteed to make some cabinet minister squirm on "Question Period", they're right in front of you.

Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and US President Barrack Obama have kids the same age as the boys being abused, raped and murdered in Afghanistan. Shouldn't somebody be asking them why their representatives in Kabul have not only been aware of the practice but enabling it?

But this particular Wikileak isn't in the Globe & Mail today or featured on CBC's Newsworld. Instead both are fixated on the hacking of MasterCard by Wikileaks supporters.

Is that because MasterCard is one of their most important sponsors -- or because they are confident you really don't want to know?

Along the Mink Mile With David, John and Mark

This has been a bad year for losing the friends and acquaintances who were around when I started my career. So far, the count is 13.

Somewhat to be expected when you edge past your 50's. But it's more than the number of soldiers we lost in Afghanistan this year. And yet I don't hear Michael Ignatief or Jack Layton calling for a withdrawl of Canadian artists from the Quagmire of Mainstream Media and negotiating a truce with the American TV and Film hegemony.

Already saddened by the weekend passing of playwright David French, I took another hit opening the newspaper to his obituary and finding another for film professor John Katz. And then, just a few hours later, the news that the voice of CITY-TV, Mark Dailey, had died was being posted online.

At best, only one of those names will register with any given group of Canadians, if they register at all.

If you're a fan of Canadian theatre, you might recall French as one of its early icons.

If you love movies, you might've read one of Katz's books on that medium or caught a film he programmed for some festival.

If you lived in Toronto you were likely aware Dailey anchored a newscast or made an effort to tune into a "Late, Great Movie" in time to catch his inimitable introductions.

Those who knew of all three might well think they didn't have much in common. But they did.

In a lot of ways, they were the same guy walking separate paths through the same point in space and time along a portion of Toronto that's come to be known as the Mink Mile -- and walking it with a purpose.

I don't know who coined the term, but "The Mink Mile" describes a section of Bloor Street in Toronto that stretches West from the city's official center at Yonge Street to a residential neighborhood known as the Annex.

The Mile's first blocks are filled with exclusive stores, the town's version of Rodeo Drive. Then comes the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Toronto Campus before a stretch of funkier stores, beer joints and coffee hangouts that service the Annex's resident students, artists and downtown movers and shakers.

When the city birthed an explosion of Canadian theatre in the early 1970's, most of the theatres were in and around the Annex. It had a freer campus vibe. Beer was still 15 cents a glass at the Brunswick House and big old homes that would later be gentrified were cheap rooming houses and crash pads.

The summer I hit town, Bill Glassco's Taragon Theatre, which would become one of the our most respected, had its first hit with David French's "Leaving Home".

Better writers than I'll ever be have penned thousands of pages on what that show meant to Canada and Canadian theatre. It was basically our "Death of a Salesman" -- only more heart-rending. I had the good fortune of seeing it with the original cast, with bravura performances by Sean Sullivan and Frank Moore in the classic generational battle of father and son.

The play's emotionally shattering final scenes remain a testament to the power of theatre.

Back then, and really for most of the rest of his life, David was a fixture on the Western end of the Mink Mile. I never did one of his plays, but I worked a couple of shows at the Tarragon where he was writer in residence for a while. And he turned up at everything else that played in town, often by himself, always way in the back and usually leaving without saying much to anybody connected to the show.

But I lived in the Annex and would see him from time to time grabbing coffee in the morning or walking Bloor street late at night eternally lost in thought. We'd nod a "Hello". I'd compliment him on something else he'd written and he'd offer kind words about whatever I was doing.

Now and then we'd both have seen a show neither of us had anything to do with and discuss it over a cup of coffee. My reactions were those of an actor, his were the ones that writers have.

But he'd started out as an actor too and had written for TV long before he became a revered playwright with a play now included in the Oxford Dictionary's list of "Essential English Drama". Not bad for a guy who started out writing monologues for Howard the Turtle on "Razzle Dazzle".

What I recall most was how passionate he was about the theatre. Whether it was accurate or not, I got the sense he didn't think he was all that special, but the success of one show had put him in the spotlight and he wanted to make sure he didn't disappoint. He always gave me the feeling that if something he did wasn't dead, solid perfect it would let the whole Canadian Theatre scene down and he wouldn't allow that to happen.

John Katz hung at the other end of the Mink Mile, near ground zero of the Film Festivals he helped program and the offices of the fly-by-night producers who fed off the nearby bankers and lawyers and old money while fueling the break-through of a Canadian film industry.

John had a completely different personality from David French. He was outgoing and ebullient and effusive, always on the move and talking a mile a minute. He'd button hole complete strangers after a screening, not to get their opinion, but to make sure they'd loved it as much as he did. And he wouldn't let them go until they promised to tell their friends and make sure their friends told friends.

He never seemed to stop sparking people to do something to promote or further the film business. He wrote books about films, he taught filmmaking at York University and he scoured the world to find great films he could introduce to his homeland.

In 1979, he programmed Ira Wohl's documentary "Best Boy" for Toronto's "Festival of Festivals" and when it didn't find a distributor bought the Canadian rights himself. It went on to win the Academy Award.

Around the same time, he wrote the first of two books on documentary filmmaking, "Image Ethics" about the responsibilities of those in the film world when they make public the private lives of ordinary people.

It's the kind of book those making most of what passes for reality on Canadian TV completely ignore.

But others did not and many who took John's courses at York University would go on to win Academy Awards and other cinematic accolades of their own.

"Image Ethics" became a seminal work in establishing the Media Ethics Association and it led to required courses in most North American schools of media and journalism.

But John was also often found in the trendy eateries of the Mink Mile and his love of film and writing skills got him into a few script and story deals with the Canadian movie moguls who habituated the same locales. 

We'd often talked about movies. But one night he phoned because one of those moguls was "screwing him around" and he needed some advice. I helped him as much as I could. And I guess it worked out okay. Because a few months later, he sidled up to me at a screening in his trademark white suit, pastel shirt and loud tie to whisper a quiet "Thank you". It was the only time I ever heard him speak in a hushed tone.

A little over a decade ago, John's reputation as a teacher and the academic success of a couple of his other books landed him a job teaching at Penn State, where a new generation of film students were entertained and inspired by lectures that would continue until mere days before his death.

Like John Katz, Mark Dailey was a transplanted American. He'd started his professional career as a cop in Ohio, but gave that up to report on crime in Detroit and eventually brought his act to Toronto and a seat-of-its pants news department at CITY-TV.

Mark became a well known face up and down the Mink Mile and pretty much every other street in the city. While other reporters did their stand ups from crime scenes in a suit and tie, Mark showed up in a trench coat and fedora, like some ink stained wretch from an old Dan Duryea movie.

His voice soon became synonymous with CITY-TV, delivering breaks and bumpers and program introductions in a breezy, refusing to be impressed style that gave the impression the guy was on the street 24 hours a day. He was the reporter who never stopped dogging a story and didn't give a shit if you didn't like how he told it.

If you search Youtube, you'll find dozens of intro's Mark voiced for CITY-TV's "Late Great Movies", most of them pointing out that the film was far from great, starred people nobody had ever heard of and often included spoilers like "Tonight you'll see the guy who now signs my paycheck get shot".

I first met him when he came to do one of those five minute bits on a new play opening in town. That was normally the turf of some young pretty who worked at the station. But I guess she was sick that week because Mark drew the assignment.

Given the location of the theatre, he might have just been nearby because somebody had been murdered in the back alley.

Most entertainment beat reporters doing that kind of thing turn up wearing fashions no real actor can afford and work from a press release because the show hasn't opened yet. Their first question while the videographer sets up is always "So, what's this play about?".

But Mark had attended the previous night's preview performance and asked the tough questions that most entertainment reporters think will either flummox the interviewee or their audience. Like everything else he did, he was a breath of fresh air.

Years later, our paths crossed again when he was anchoring CITY newscasts and I was doing ride-alongs to help make a cop show more true to life. Ever the reporter, he'd caught a call on his police scanner and decided it was a story that needed his touch.

It took a couple of minutes for him to recognize me in this new career configuration. But once he did he went on at length about how much he liked what we were doing, giving me a list of stories and local cops I should look up while also mentioning some he remembered from the mean streets of Detroit. I dutifully followed up and one of those Detroit stories made it onto the show.

What all three of these men had in common was how passionately they cared about what they did and the city they called home. Not that many others didn't or don't. But with David, John and Mark, it seemed to be a calling, something they had to do for all the others they passed as they made their way along the Mink Mile.

Each in their own way gave rise to something that, at one time, defined Toronto; its indigenous theatre, its scrappy film industry, its roving reporter who really was "Everywhere".

Often, when people die, someone will say that their work here was done. And that's a feeling I can't shake about so many of those I've lost this year. For while I know there are men and women of equal talent and passion doing the things that they did, it still feels like those who have gone left because Toronto and the Canadian entertainment world didn't need them anymore.

Canadian theatres are struggling to survive these days, especially if their plays are written by a Canadian like David French.

Despite a sparkling new theatre for Festival films that would have made the heart of John Katz leap with joy -- more people will see "Black Swan" during its opening week in Toronto than will see every single Canadian film released there this year in total.

Meanwhile, the TV station that Mark Dailey symbolized falters in the hands of people who think reporters need to wear suits and be eternally deferential and respectful to owners who only know how to imitate rather than innovate.

The Mink Mile is firmly back in the grip of the bankers and the lawyers and the old money that first established it. Not that it ever truly belonged to anybody else. But for a time, people like David and John and Mark made it feel like it was a place for everyone.

But now their work is done and its time for somebody else to step up before what they accomplished disappears forever.

We Are Now Free To Move About Your Pants

It's not as much fun to catch a plane as it used to be. Time was you could just climb aboard without anybody wanting to see anything more than a boarding pass.

You'd stretch out in extra wide seats, drink as much as you wanted, wander around the aisles, smoke 'em if you had 'em and dig into a full course meal using a razor sharp steak knife and silverware you could've easily sharpened into a shiv before you went up to hang with the pilots and maybe even strap into the jumper seat to watch the landing from the cockpit.

Then around 1969 (the year with the most hijackings on record) out came the metal detection wands and then the carry-on baggage X-ray and departure lounges where your Mom wasn't allowed to come in and give you a final hug.

Since 9/11 and the shoe and underwear bombers, just getting to the plane has become an obstacle course. And once you're strapped in, you know you better be on your best behavior.

I'm sure a lot of that is warranted and it's certainly understandable. But more and more, I'm wondering if the claim that it's all "Security Theatre" isn't just as valid.

I caught a flight to the Caribbean a few weeks after 9/11 and was frankly both impressed and relieved at how much extra attention was paid to what I was carrying on the plane and how many people wanted to double check my ID.

It was probably unlikely that a crowd of drunken Canadian sun-seekers might include a suicidal terrorist muttering "Death to America", but since we were flying over a number of major US cities, you couldn't blame anybody for wanting to make sure.

But on the way home, we didn't even go through a metal detector and departed from an airport without so much as a picket fence around it. The phrase "soft target" came readily to mind and I began to wonder how much of the security concerns were for show rather than an actual defensive strategy.

When you fly from Canada to the States, you usually have to kick your shoes off. But you don't when you're flying domestically. Yet I've been on US bound flights when the Screeners told me they "weren't doing that today".

Maybe shoe bombers don't take advantage of Saturday discounts.

Like many people, I've also gotten aboard and discovered a Buck knife left over from my last camping trip that nobody found. Twice I've gone through three sets of security before the airline employee at the gate asked if I had my real boarding pass instead of the one I was waving around for a later connecting flight.

Either those security people who had sternly studied it couldn't read or they figured I wasn't getting on any plane with what I was carrying so I obviously posed no in-flight threat.

But the most obvious hint that the airport security check might be an elaborate form of performance art occurred one day while I was at the pre-security security check where the guy with a display of correct sized liquid containers checks to make sure you're not carrying any that aren't.

As his partner squinted at my "not actually for this flight" boarding pass, I watched him confiscate a couple of over-sized water bottles and Michael Jordan them into his trash recepticle. I remember thinking that if they'd contained Nitro Glycerin, he, me and about half the airport would've been instantly vaporized. 

Then as he went through my stuff, an airport maintenance guy came by to drop off a fresh trash barrel and pick up the one full of seized cans and bottles. For starters, he wasn't wearing a Hazmat suit.

In fact, he didn't even have a pair of rubber gloves. So like the security agent, he knew there really wasn't anything dangerous in what he was hauling away.

I asked if they got to keep any of the cans of soda or bottles of booze in the trash. He smiled and shook his head. "I wish. But it all has to go into the dumpster."

Me: "Where does the dumpster go?"

Him: (a shrug) "Into a garbage truck like all the other trash."

Meaning if somebody was carrying some airborne botulism, can of radioactive isotopes or whatever else evil genius terrorists concoct, it's now in your local landfill -- or already seeping into the groundwater -- or mutating rats and seagulls into giant, rabid killing machines.

When the latest traveler's indignity, "the pat down", became de rigueur South of the Border, I became convinced the process was more for show than actual terrorist interdiction.

And like all theatre, it's a little more expensive to produce than other forms of distraction.

Perhaps an argument can be made that knowing such a search option exists deters would-be evil-doers, but I still feel sorry for all those folks who have to be groped and re-groped just so they can go somewhere to see their grandchildren.

I also think a lot of the firestorm of protest came from people less upset by the intrusion on their privacy than the realization that their world is changing yet again, and that once respected and deeply held values are being pushed aside with no assurance that what's coming will make life better.

And nobody seems capable of explaining why the completely non-intrusive security screening at Israeli airports with its incredibly higher success rate at preventing terror attacks won't work just as well here.

Maybe, like every teenage girl, Americans are discovering its just far easier to come up with 50 guys who only want to grope you than to find one who can sense what's really on your mind.

Maybe, like so many things that become major media events, the "pat-down" will one day seem as normal as emptying all the change out of your pockets before going through a metal scanner.

Maybe it'll be just one more thing that mediocre stand-up comics endlessly riff about.

Or maybe it'll be one of those things that makes people want to hang onto the life they value a little tighter and fight to make those performing the theatre actually do something real for a change.

Lazy Sunday # 148: Hey, Let's Buy A Satellite!

Three weeks out from Christmas, two questions roll through many of our minds. "What do I get for that person in my life who has everything?" and "Where should I make a charitable donation for somebody who has nothing?".

Can't help you with question #1. But when it comes to #2, I think I've found the best idea anyone has ever conceived for solving the problems of untold millions -- perhaps even billions -- of our fellow human beings.

Let's buy them a satellite.

Gee, wouldn't they maybe like a donation of food if they're starving?

Medicine in they're sick?

A little something to help them get by until they can find a job, get an education or overthrow a corrupt or oppressive government?

How about you give them the ability to do all of those things -- and so unimaginably many more -- with one single small contribution.

Because if we buy a satellite, we can get people without any Internet access at all onto the World Wide Web.

It may be hard for those reading this post on their desktop computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone to fathom, but 5 Billion people who share this planet with you have no Internet access. None. Nada. Zip.

That's 70% of Earth's current population.

70%…!

Almost 3/4 of us have never seen a Youtube video, whether it was telling us to leave Brittany alone or how to make a solar panel out of tinfoil.

Only one human being in four has the opportunity to post information on Wikipedia. Maybe one of the other three actually knows what they're talking about.

If about 2 Billion humans translates into getting cows through Kiva for some farmer in Borneo, or your film crowd source funded, or your band a gig in a town they've never heard of before or make your self published book finally get read -- how much difference could another Billion or two make to helping similar (or bigger) dreams come true?

This is a win-win situation for all of us.

But it must cost a fortune to buy a satellite, right?

How does $150,000 sound -- about the cost of a one bedroom condo in Toronto?

Right this minute, an NGO known as "A Human Right" is raising $150,000 to buy the world's highest capacity communications satellite from the current owners, who have just declared bankruptcy. Their plan is to reconfigure it to supply Internet access to many of the world's poorest people.

Once the satellite is operational, they will then build and supply their own dirt cheap satellite modems to whoever wants one.

And once their bird is up and running, its ongoing operations and upkeep will be covered by allowing established telecom services to purchase and re-sell high speed bandwidth.

As outlandish and astonishing as the whole project sounds, those involved with or backing "A Human Right" include Deutsche Telekom and NASA.

Remember that thing your 3rd  Grade teacher always said when she handed out the UNICEF collection boxes, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."…?

Internet access could teach a lot of men how to fish -- or -- how to spend all day drunk in a boat. The point is they'd finally have some options and some choice, instead of what most of them have got now, which is nothing -- and not even any Lolcats to make having "nothing" easier to bear.

As of Midnight Saturday, "A Human Right" had raised $25,000 toward their goal. If you give them a hand by going here, that satellite could be owned by people who could make a huge difference in Millions of lives by Christmas.

And think about this…

If this can be done -- how much more could be accomplished by purchasing 2 or 3 satellites?

Or maybe just a little one parked over North America so all those telecoms who want to strangle net neutrality or throttle bandwidth or charge you through the nose to download a movie for your bedridden grandmother -- all those guys -- might not have a virtual monopoly of the delivery system anymore and thus have far less impact on your own freedoms -- or your own opportunity to fish.

Help not the few but the many this Christmas. And -- Enjoy Your Sunday.

Less Class

A year ago, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen collapsed amid allegations of falsified research and a growing sense that policies like the Kyoto Accord had more to do with economic and political agendas than actually combating Global Warming.

This after more private jets than could be accommodated by every airport in Denmark and more limos than could be supplied by all of Western Europe had left hefty carbon footprints ferrying the concerned to attend. 

There was also a lot of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in Canada (mostly on the CBC) over Canada being awarded the "Fossil of the Year" trophy for its inaction on environmental issues.

Well, it's a year later and this time the conference is in Cancun. Good thing since despite being the "hottest year on record", most of Europe and North America is already in the deepest throes of winter.

I know, I know, the planet getting hotter is manifested by its getting colder or wetter or dryer or...

And just because the Blue Jays played their first ever game and the one to mark the opening of their 30th season on the same date in a snow storm I shouldn't get the impression that weather patterns aren't shifting so rapidly that half the species on the planet will be wiped out by next Thursday and the Jays 60th season will be played in "Waterworld".

For some reason, those in the business of climate change have always resorted to doomsday scenarios and ridicule to sell their message, implying or maybe outright convinced that the rest of us are just too dumb or self-involved to understand their arguments.

So maybe it's time to take a look at what actually goes on at these conferences, to see how those who talk the talk walk the walk.

The second video will also give you a very clear idea of just how much intellectual effort and reasonable thinking goes into the "Fossil of the Year" award -- which apparently we've got a good chance of scoring again this year.

I'm not saying anybody has to behave like a Monk or a Nobel Laureate here. But maybe if you want the world to change, you could look like you take what you're saying seriously and/or practice what you preach.

 

Class

The first season of the best show on television concluded last night.

If you live in Canada, you might want to ask Canadian networks once again why they are programming reunion episodes of series that concluded just last week or scheduling the "Yule Log" for national broadcast on Christmas day when there is stuff people might actually get excited about still available.

Better yet, just find an anonymizer that gets you around the Hulu geo-lock and watch "Terriers" there.

Canadian networks have repeatedly proven they don't care about their audiences or even buying the best foreign made product available. They're just American network rebroadcasters and imitators who'll soon be out of a job.

Word on various financial pages today is that Hulu is about to go International. And once that happens, Rogers better have a hockey team to pay the bills and Bell might actually have to cut their mobile customers a few deals to keep their own doors open.

Wait. Better option is to buy the series on iTunes. It's actually well worth the money and the people who make the show have families to feed and Ferraris to buy so they can make all of the major network execs who turned them down look as inconsequential and unintelligent as they apparently are.

Nobody knows if FX will renew "Terriers" for another season yet. But if quality and originality count for anything, somebody will find a way.

This was a classy new series in every imaginable category. Everything about it reflected the care and commitment that goes into making superb television. And that sort of class was restated in the letter the show's creators released to their fans just prior to the Finale.

Dear "Terriers" watchers,

On the eve of our season finale -- and, as far as we know, it is a season finale -- we wanted to thank you for tuning in and supporting the show and, most of all, for embracing Hank and Britt with such enthusiasm and devotion. 

We're very proud of "Terriers" and are grateful/gratified it found an audience as intelligent, discerning and handsome as you.  So, on behalf of all the actors and writers and directors and crew members and everyone who worked on the show, thanks.  And we hope to do it again next year.

 
Ted Griffin & Shawn Ryan & Tim Minear

P.S. If you think of it, you might watch tomorrow's episode LIVE if you can; it's called (for no particular reason) "Hail Mary" and we hope you enjoy it.

Also, if you happen to know a Nielsen family, this could be a great opportunity to reconnect by inviting yourself over to watch it at their place.

Super too would be if when you got home after, you Hulu'd the show.  Then gifted it via iTunes to everyone you love/can barely stand.  Just a thought.  It's what our mothers are doing.

As one of those watchers, Mr. Griffin, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Minear, I gotta say thanks to you as well. You restored my faith that good television didn't have to come with a multi-million dollar per episode price tag.

And if FX does throw a little extra your way next season, feel free to keep it. You've earned it because hardly anybody has noticed all the corners you had to cut -- because you cut them with talent and imagination and by understanding that great stories, great characters, great dialogue and tight close-ups hide pretty much everything you couldn't afford.

And to all my Canadian readers -- we're heading into Christmas party season. Take an opportunity to corner one of those network execs who frequently jets South to purchase programming and ask -- nay demand -- that they buy you something worthwhile next time.

If FX makes a little money, "Terriers" lives and watching TV becomes the pleasure it's supposed to be.

Of Wikileaks and A Serbian Film

READER ALERT!!!

"A Serbian Film" by Srdjan Spasojevic is a powerful and challenging motion picture I could probably write about without giving away any salient plot points. But it's one I can't write about without putting some very disturbing images into your head.

If you've got a low cringe factor or score high on the empathy scale, it might be a good idea to skip what follows.

The rest of you may still wish to proceed with caution…

One of my neighbors is a refugee from the Balkan wars of the 1990's. Which side he was on doesn't matter. It was an ugly conflict with shitty behavior from everyone involved. Maybe one group committed more atrocities than another. Maybe one group is more deserving of blame than another.

Wherever you reside on the scale of unspeakable deeds matters little to those who were tortured, raped and made to witness indescribable inhumanity. Just because you weren't as bad as the next guy doesn't really matter to your victims.

Whether my neighbor's side was more cruel or less doesn't change the scars he lives with. He just says it should never have been allowed to happen -- and must never be allowed to happen again.

But we all know it will.

Maybe next time it'll be in Iran or North Korea or someplace most of us have never heard of or can't find on a map. But we all know it will happen again.

And maybe next time what happens will be even more twisted and perverse.

Maybe that's the only way a war can get anybody's attention anymore and attract enough participants to make it worthwhile.

And coincidentally, those terms -- Twisted and Perverse -- are usually reserved for two specific genres of film, the horror movie and the porn movie. The same two genres which apparently have to keep getting even more of both to keep attracting an audience.

Gone are the days when teenagers could be spooked by a vampire or atomic mutant. From "Friday the 13th", "Halloween" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" onward, the bulk of horror films have exhibited a steady march from Scarlet Cinema to Splatter Movie to Torture Porn.

To be sure, there are gifted directors working in the genre who use the advances in CGI, latex construction and animatronics to probe the hidden recesses of our psyches. But many more just want to see a Rottweiler rip off some guy's nuts.

People who work in porn will tell you the same evolution is at work in their industry. Time was, the punters paid to see a good story mixed in with the sex scenes, sometimes there was even an element of romance. But now there's little time for the niceties and a lot more emphasis on pain, degradation and humiliation.

Therefore in both genres, if you want to break in, make your mark or maybe just turn a profit, you know your best shot is to top what the last guys got away with.

When I first heard about "A Serbian Film" it had been banned from some European horror festival because of scenes described as too shocking or depraved even for those who line up for festivals of that sort of stuff.

There were dark murmurings of scenes taken way over the line. A scene of a newborn child being raped. Another of a woman decapitated during a sex act, with the sex act continuing with her corpse.

Now…

Most people would hear about images like those and make a mental note to avoid "A Serbian Film" should it ever turn up at the local multiplex. Which it probably won't because those kind of scenes generally scare off distributors and theatre owners who don't want their names in the papers quite that badly.

And…

Even though I'm the kind of guy who understands horror and not only deeply regrets seeing "Hostel" but is still trying to erase the trailer for "The Human Centipede" from his memory banks, I have no time for torture porn and even less for real porn that includes pain and degradation.

So when I heard "A Serbian Film" was also pushing the boundaries of how much real sex you could fit into a mainstream movie, I figured it was definitely off my list.

And then my refugee neighbor brought over a DVD somebody had sent from his former homeland and said I really needed to see it.  

The plot of "A Serbian Film" is relatively straightforward. It's what is known in the trade as a "Rabbit Hole" story, in which our hero is dropped into a completely unfamiliar world where the normal rules of life and society do not apply.

Milos, a retired porn star now married with a young son, is struggling to get by in modern day Serbia.  A porn actress friend introduces him to Vukmir, a charismatic director who offers Milos complete financial security if he will make one more film.

But there is no script for this film. And the actor's contract stipulates that he must remain unaware of what's happening in the scenes he isn't in. He must simply turn up and roll with whatever happens on the day.

Comedian Bill Hicks used to have a routine where he and his high school buddies would call up the local porn theatre and ask the guy at the box office for the title of the movie that was showing. They'd have a giggle and then they'd ask, "What's it about?"

The height of absurdity, right? I mean everybody KNOWS what a porn film is about.

Or do they…?

Anyway, Milos goes along with the artistic integrity pitch he gets from his silver tongued director and is drawn into a nightmare of depravity and cruelty, suddenly caught in the grip of an unspeakable evil.

Unlike the bulk of torture porn and degradation porn, "A Serbian Film" is exquisitely shot and beautifully designed. The script is intelligent and finely crafted. The actors are remarkable and the direction is concise and bent on delivering much more than cheap thrills.

There is no explicit sex and many of the worst horrors are clearly fake. This is not a film that panders to fans of horror or porn, but it definitely is about exploitation.

The worst kind of exploitation imaginable. The kind entire nations get drawn into with frightening regularity.

Because ten minutes in you realize what you are really watching is a recreation of the Serbian experience of the Balkan wars as well as a chilling indictment of the malevolent sections of humanity who convince people to go to war and commit the ultimate perversities and depravities.

The horrific scenes described above and others that I found far more unsettling are clearly the atrocities of the Balkan conflict molded into horrific set pieces within the metaphor of a porn film gone horribly wrong.

This is a revelation of how those in a completely civilized society can be driven to acts of appalling inhumanity.

You quickly understand how easily people can be convinced that doing something evil is actually an act of courage or individual empowerment. And then you witness how easily you become a part of something you cannot ever justify but at the same time can never escape.

Milos struggles to maintain his sanity, to find some way of saving himself and his family as the sickness of those who now control him gets more warped by the minute.

The final few seconds of "A Serbian Film" literally took my breath away and leave the clear understanding that what happened in Serbia will keep happening because the corruption of those who would run our lives has no limit and never reaches a point of satiation.

This is not a film for anyone who believes they live in a country that has the nice politicians, the leaders who would never act in such a deranged manner.

Or maybe -- that's exactly who needs to see it most.

It was a revelation watching this movie within the context of the recent Wikileaks dump of secret diplomatic cables. Saudi princes who fund terrorists while urging Western nations to attack rival terrorist states. An Italian head of state with an unquenchable appetite for underage girls. American presidents demanding DNA samples and credit card pin numbers of foreign adversaries. Canadian leaders who feel handcuffed by their own court systems.

The entire Global ruling class game of playing one group off against another, of stirring up political, racial, ethnic and national rivalries in order to further personal peccadilloes is illustrated to perfection not only in those leaked documents but in an inspired film where all of those people are embodied in the character of a single deranged porn director; while the rest of us mere pawns become those who are used and raped and tortured at their whim and solely for their enjoyment.

And I have a feeling that clear association has a lot to do with why "A Serbian Film" has garnered the media reaction it has and will not get the mass exposure it deserves. This is a film version of Picasso's "Guernica" and just as deserving of the "Masterpiece" label.

Yes, it is very hard to watch. But coming to grips with being part of acts of genocide and war crimes and sheer mindless violence is likely just as hard. Better to do it now, then when you've become Post-war Germany, post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, post-tribal Rwanda or former-Yugoslavian Serbia.

How could anyone be driven to filling mass graves, systematic rape and institutionalized torture, if they had experienced equating the words designed to lure them down those paths with speeches from a cheesy porn director in a supposed horror movie?

"A Serbian Film" could never have been made in Canada nor anywhere else where the culture is controlled or financed by the state. It has a passion and power of message that would have been as decapitated or raped at birth in the same way as the unfortunate characters it features.

It isn't the gore and rough sex that somebody doesn't want you to see in this movie, it's the workings of the process of dehumanization that gets you there.

If there is anything the Wikileaks dump has taught us, it is that our leaders are far from the fine, compassionate and caring people they would like us to believe they are. And "A Serbian Film" shows us what can happen when they completely convince us they are other than what most of them have always been.

This is a must see film. Find an uncut copy any way that you can.

You may not enjoy the experience. But you will not regret it.