A busy news day poses a challenge for TV news producers. What will open the broadcast? On April 10 at The National, it was easy to choose the first story—the sudden death that day of Jim Flaherty. But what to follow? Big CBC job cuts had been announced that day, so that was on the minds of CBC producers, but putting it second might seem a bit vain. So the CBC went to a story praising Ontario's decision to fund IVF procedures under medicare. That was followed by a story lamenting the closing of the Morgentaler abortion clinic in New Brunswick. The juxtaposition of the two stories was lost on the producers, who apparently found no incongruity in praising public money for labs that make babies and lamenting a lack of public money for labs that destroy them. But they did have to rush on to the story about the CBC itself, complete with Peter Mansbridge conducting a congenial interview with his boss. Sometimes there is so much news to cover that it becomes easy to overlook the real story.
Thankfully, it was Thursday, which meant that Convivium's friend Rex Murphy was on the broadcast. He eulogized Jim Flaherty for bringing a good measure of humanity to politics. Always original, Rex said of Flaherty that he hadfun, and that "fun is a large virtue." I can't say that I had ever thought about fun being a virtue. The cardinal virtues of moral philosophy—temperance, courage, prudence and justice—sound to me admirable, even appealing, but fun? We are inclined, too often, in the other direction, where living the virtues is a duty, perhaps even a burdensome duty, and the path of vice is fun. The moral philosopher Billy Joel put the thought most succinctly: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints." Rex associates fun with the virtues though, perhaps following a more gifted moral philosopher, C.S. Lewis. He taught that it is vice that is boring because all sins are depressingly the same, while it is virtue that is interesting, distinctive and, as Rex might add, fun. Is fun then a cardinal virtue or a theological one? An acquired virtue or an infused one? Perhaps better just to say that it is a large virtue, suitable for those who live substantial lives.
It's always welcome to witness virtue in the world of sports. The Winter Olympics in Sochi are well behind us, forgotten in the clouds of Russian aggression that now hang over the Black Sea. Yet there was a marvellous moment that is worthy of remembering, the victory of Polish double-gold medallist Kamil Stoch, who won in ski jumping. "I always make a sign of the cross before my jumps. Since I was little. It is not because I am afraid, but it is a symbol of faith. Every jump I dedicate to the Lord God. I am not ashamed of that," said Stoch. Hurtling myself off a ski jump, I would be inclined to add an act of contrition. Unsurprisingly, Stoch is inspired by his countryman, Saint John Paul II, and recites one of my favourite quotations from the Polish pope to young people: "You must demand much of yourselves even when others will not demand it of you."
Less virtuous is the tragic tale of a young student at Duke University who acted in pornographic films to finance the—might one use the word?—obscene tuition fees charged by America's elite universities. Her part-time job was discovered by her fellow students, who then exposed her online with crude and vulgar comments. In response, Belle Knox, her nom de porn, wrote a widely circulated essay defending her "sex work."1 "I am not ashamed of porn. On the contrary, doing pornography fulfills me. That said, I vehemently want to have my privacy respected—and I ask that anyone who knows my real name respect the fact that I am only discussing this publicly because it was made a public matter when I was confronted by a fraternity member who chose to tell hundreds of other men in the Greek scene," wrote Knox, rather boldly pleading for privacy in a genre that is all about making that which should remain private public to prying eyes. The eyes need not be so prying today. That Knox's work, on the rougher side of pornography it was reported, was so quickly discovered tells us something about the favoured depravities of young men at Duke. "For me, shooting pornography brings me unimaginable joy," she explained. There is very little that is unimaginable today, alas. And Miss Knox has a very poor imagination if she thinks that is all that joy can be.
In the meltdown of Premier Alison Redford's leadership, MLA Len Webber was the first to bolt the Alberta Progressive Conservative caucus. On the way out, he complained that the Premier was "not a nice lady" and a "bully." As unbecoming as it might be for a grown man in elected office to complain about being bullied, Webber knew that in playing the bullying card he was going nuclear. Aside from being deemed a racist, being a bully is about as bad as it gets. To the Premier's defence came cabinet minister Sandra Jansen. She is something of an expert on the matter as the Alberta minister responsible for anti-bullying. She added to the high-voltage accusations by saying that Webber was a sexist. Bully versus sexist? What's worse? That would take a finely calibrated conscience to discern, but Jansen explained why one shouldn't make the accusation too quickly (of bullying, apparently, not sexism). "Webber had disagreements with the Premier and I don't doubt for a minute they didn't end up in screaming matches," she said. "But here's the thing... when you use the term ‘bullying' to describe what we do in politics, we devalue it. You devalue it for all of those people who have experienced real, traumatic bullying."2 Indeed, the inflated, inflammatory rhetoric of contemporary politics does rob words of their meaning, and accusations of their gravity. Is Alison Redford a bully? Is Len Webber a sexist? I don't know. It makes one long for the day when it was enough to resign because the leader was wrong-headed or incompetent or a simple electoral liability. Declining to play in the sandbox because you are being bullied is sensible enough behaviour in the third grade. Third grade, not to mention third rate, behaviour marks rather a lot of Alberta politics today.
Not being up-to-date on the minister for the anti-bullying dossier, I fired up the search engine for Sandra Jansen, and the face looked familiar. Turns out that before running for office, she was a TV news anchor. Jansen spent 23 years working as a journalist, including 10 years as a news anchor at CTV News Channel in Toronto. Her bio then tells us that she "came home" to Calgary to do a Master of Arts in Professional Communication at Royal Roads University. Royal Roads is on Vancouver Island and offers courses online, so one does not need to "come home" or anywhere else to get a degree. What is striking is that, after 23 years of broadcast journalism, Jansen saw the need for an MA in Professional Communication. She had been a professional communicator—a successful one—for more than two decades. A bit of online instruction surely could not have improved on what she had already learned, you know, communicating professionally. Such is the over-credentialization of all professions that it is not considered absurd for an accomplished journalist to go back to school to learn how to communicate professionally. I don't know if Jansen has ambitions now that Redford has resigned, but Alberta did once have a premier who was a TV journalist before he entered politics. I doubt Ralph Klein ever thought of getting an MA in Professional Communications.
In relation to journalism and the spectacular fall of Alison Redford, former Alberta treasurer Ted Morton—defeated by Redford in the 2011 leadership race—took to the pages of the Calgary Herald to explain the failures of her premiership. It was curious though that Morton's editor reflexively used the style of crime stories in referring twice to the "alleged misuse" of government aircraft.3 It is not as if Redford were on trial for "alleged" manslaughter. She used the planes, she bought the tickets, racking up some $45,000 in expenses to fly herself and her minder to South Africa for Nelson Mandela's funeral. No one, including, belatedly, Redford, contested that it was misuse. She repaid the money in an effort to save her job. So why the "alleged"? It sounds like the kind of formulaic mistake one might learn in a postgraduate course in professional communication. Hyper-caution in journalism is what makes so much of alleged journalism allegedly boring.
Public lectures are to be encouraged to spice up our intellectual culture. The Toronto Public Library hosts a new one, now in its second year, called The Bluma Lecture.4 It's all very fashionable, with TVO's Steve Paikin hosting, and this year's lecturer was Irshad Manji, the urbane atheist who is your go-to pundit for discussing religion and culture. Manji is much celebrated now, but what is remarkable about her biography is that she was advertised as a "professor of moral courage" at New York University. Now that's a title one can be proud of. Does she have colleagues who are professors of disciplined temperance, or of balanced justice or careful prudence? It is good to know that there is a department of moral courage at NYU, for the faculty lounge on campus is not the place one usually finds it. If you can't get to Professor Manji at NYU, perhaps Royal Roads offers an online Masters in Professional Courage.
Obituary writing is one of the neglected forms of journalism but, in the right hands, it can be an authentically belletristic project. Consider the treatment given to Crad Kilodney, described as a "curmudgeonly writer [who] made a meagre living on the streets of Toronto hawking his books and railing against hypocrisy and stupidity."5 The obituary summed him up as a "literary eccentric and misanthrope." Literary eccentric is obituary politesse for crackpot author. But there is no getting around misanthrope. Is it possible to be summed up as simply that—a man who dislikes other people? Perhaps he did, but it is rather stark when it appears just like that, epigraph-like: misanthrope. I suppose when it comes time for my appearance in the obituaries, I might get "literary eccentric" too. But not misanthrope, please, God. If it has to be one word, perhaps a possible antonym: convivialist.
Sources
1. http://www.xojane.com/sex/duke-university-freshmanporn-star, 21 February 2014.
2. "Anti-bullying minister slams rogue MLA 's comments about premier", Calgary Herald, 14 March 2014.
3. Ted Morton, "Three Strikes and Redford is Out", Calgary Herald, 22 March 2014.
4. http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/programs-and-classes/appelsalon/bluma.jsp
5. Martin Levin, "A connoisseur of the bizarre", The Globe and Mail, 10 May 2014.
