Please, just count this time, OK?

It was a Sunday, and the newsroom of the Prince Albert Daily Herald was abnormally packed.
Two "deskers" - an industry term for layout editors, a sports reporter, myself, and a general news reporter gathered around the television on a chill night. (They're all chill at that time of the year: one of the reasons I wanted to move here!)
We knew, we all knew, that the psyche of an entire province lay in the play ahead.
Grey Cup, 2009. Montreal trailing, Damon Duval - the Al's placekicker, who had struggled all day long - was about to try and seal his team's victory.
We all know what happened next. But for readers in this area to truly understand the impact of that last-second field goal, one has to try and wrap one's head around how Saskatchewan views its football team.
Folks on the Prairies bleed one of two colours: green, or white. Take your pick.
As I related in a column recently, it's a passion of unbounded proportions. Little old ladies will gab over offensive formations with a depth of understanding that most football coaches elsewhere can only struggle to obtain.
That's why this time, 360-odd days ago, the newsroom of the Herald was so busy. We had a four-page special section to put out, either celebrating the Saskatchewan Roughriders victory, or, alternately, marking the squad's defeat at the hands of Anthony Calvillo and company.
My job that night was to co-ordinate the feeds from The Canadian Press and Canwest News, as well as our own reporter in Calgary. The press was on alert, long told that we'd be running a little late with a special edition.
But to speed the process, we'd already gathered some images, forged a front cover for either scenario. The one for the Riders victory was super-special, with the nameplate running up the left side of the page: something that had never been done before. Go big, or go home, was the philosophy.
Now all that we needed to do was see whether Duval could split the uprights.
The memories of that moment diverge at the moment of the snap.
All else in the newsroom saw the snap, saw the kick push wide. Bedlam ensued.

Every seasoned football official I have spoken to has reported the same reaction: as others reacted according to fan persuasion, those of us who officiate the game at any reasonable level, were shaking our heads.
There's only one foul that deep officials will call at the snap of the ball.
In any officiating crew of five officials or more, the deep officials will count the defensive players. The referee and umpire will count offence.
Every official has his or own way of counting. Me, I block players out in groups of four.
One, two, three groups of four and all is good: it's basic Grade 3 grouping and number theory in action. More than three groups of four and we have a problem. Less than that - 11 men, not 12 - will usually provoke a "count 'em up" at lower levels of ball. A minor hint. Even 13 players will trigger such a call: it's a concept called "preventative officiating."
But at the pro levels, it's up to someone else to avoid such simple infractions as having too many players on the field.
"Too many men," I mumbled to a newsroom that was rather non-objectively celebrating what it thought was a Rider win.
My sports reporter looked at me, a jaded expression creeping over his face.
"It's a 10-yard penalty, and a re-kick. There's no way Duval will miss."
I lurched into my incredibly cold office to scrap the super-special cover and run with the "Al's win" version, even before the penalty had been announced to the world.

Although I tend not to work the deep positions as an official, I can only recall throwing a flag for too many men maybe two or three times in my career.
It's even rarer to see at the higher levels. At the college and pro levels, there is at least one on-field player who counts the team at every play. Smart special teams coaches make sure that a key player - a kicker for the offence, usually, and a linebacker or receiver for the receiving team - counts.
But not that day, not that play.
I've read some commentary from the deep officials of that game, referee-insider stuff from the Canadian Football Officials Association newsletter. Not one of the three officials responsible for catching that extra man could believe what they were seeing. One guy said he counted the defensive set three times, in disbelief.
Ironic, really, that an icon of Rider culture - the 13th man - would haunt them such. It cost them the greatest prize in Canadian football, and the collective psyche of the Rider nation is still smarting.

There are some odd forces at play, this year. It's not surprising that Montreal would return to the grand stage of Canadian ball: they are the current dynasty in the league, after all.
But the Riders had to fight, claw, and scratch to another Grey Cup berth.
Instead of Calgary, it's Edmonton as the site of the big dance this year. But no difference, for hundreds of melon-headed, green-clad, Pilsner-fuelled lunatics will have made the trek to see the 2009 combatants in a rematch.
And this year, one can be sure that there will be multiple eyes counting every special teams play.
So, if I may offer a wee bit of suggestion to the Riders before tomorrow's big game, this would be it, in Monty Pythonesque fashion:
Twelve is the number. Not 13. Eleven is sort of OK, but 14 is right out.

Thinking pink to prove a point

I’m still trying to piece together what, exactly, happened in St. George involving the assault of a gay couple.
But I can tell you this: it can’t happen again.
What’s more bothersome is that it seems to have stemmed from what the victim says were systemic incidents at Fundy High School, where he “came out” while in Grade 11.
He's graduated now, but says he doesn't want to come home, for fear of persecution by, well, bigots. Those are my words, not his.
As of the writing of this missive, I have left two phone requests for an interview with the principal of Fundy High School to address the state of homophobic bullying at FHS – with no response.
This would be the same school subject to some serious backlash last year when parents effectively muzzled a day aimed at preventing homophobic-triggered violence.
Now, it’s none of my business who sleeps with who in this community: that’s not something I’m interested in, nor something The Courier should care about.
But it is my business, I feel, as a visible figure in this community, to take notice when one of our citizens is treated unfairly, unjustly.
And this is one of them.
On Thursday evening, Fundy High School is hosting a community event. I have been invited. And I shall arrive – but I shall, tomorrow, wear a nice shirt. A nice pink shirt. I’m even going to buy a nice pink tie. And, if I can find one, I’ll also obtain a nice, glittery effeminate ear-ring.
I have no insecurities or questions over my sexuality, my sexual preference or any of those such things. And even if I did, I’m certainly not so much of a coward that I’d gather a few of my like-minded (narrow-minded) bigot friends and beat the snot out of someone who felt the urge to bed someone of a similar sex.
I don’t know who the cowards involved in the weekend assault are, exactly. But consider this an open invitation to step forward and show a little courage. Put your names in the newspaper, if you dare, and tell us all what moved you to track down a gay man and make his life miserable. In the meantime, I figure the least I can do don a wardrobe that might show the small-minded and bigoted of the county that they aren’t going to win.
Given some of the rabidly anti-homophobic comments I fielded when the Courier covered the rainbow flag issue earlier this spring, this may become my official St. George attire.
We in this community need to show those bigots who might be a bit upset over trifling things like sexual preference that violence cannot, must not be a part of our society.
So tomorrow, I’m wearing a whole bunch of pink.
Who’s with me?
And who’s got a really, really girly earring I can borrow?

Ignorance is hardly bliss

As timing goes, a press release issued by a group calling itself the Institute for Canadian Values could not have been worse – nor could it have possibly been better.
On Thursday at 2:19 p.m., the man claiming to be the group’s president, Dr. Charles McVety, issued a press release decrying a federal bill that aims to include transgendered individuals as people protected from discrimination.
What was interesting, however, was McVety’s use of the term “pervert,” to describe transgender individuals.
The irony, of course, is that McVety’s release came almost at the same time local media outlets learned that a transgendered individual, Michelle Rayner, had allegedly been assaulted in a bathroom on the St. Thomas University campus in Fredericton, apparently on the basis of her perceived sex (male).
Now, we fully acknowledge that not everyone is comfortable with transgendered individuals. And frankly, that’s OK. We live in a free society, and should be able to hold individual views that range from one extreme to the other on transgender issues, and to reasonable in-betweens – such as holding the view that governments should not fund gender-change procedures.
The latter is somewhat my personal view, by the way. I have no hatred or animousity towards transgendered people, and once knew a fascinating young lad named Melvin who became a lass named Melody.
Yet at the same time, it is difficult for me to see governments subsidizing $50,000-plus elective sex-change surgery when Grampa is on a 15-month waiting list for a hip transplant, and Samantha needs to have a biopsy done to see if she’s got a cancerous tumour in her breast.
But there is a considerable difference between holding a personal view, even an extreme view, and having an uniformed or inflammatory view, as McVety and the alleged assailant in the St. Thomas University bathroom did.
We teach our two-year-olds to “use your words.” The woman in the bathroom who allegedly assaulted Rayner could have done exactly that.
“Excuse me, but this is the woman’s bathroom,” would have been far preferable to a punch in the face.
McVety’s term “pervert” (the precise quote reads: “... our children will be exposed to perverts entering girls’ bathrooms, change rooms and even showers claiming transgender discrimination.”) is fear-laden and needlessly inflammatory. It also shows an interesting bias, in that McVety (president of the Canadian Christian College), didn’t use the term “boys’ bathrooms” even though there are transgendered individuals who are biologically female but either choose to express, or feel moved to express, as a male.
Although much-debated, some scientists have well-founded data linking genetic traits to transgendered individuals: some people, it seems, are hard-wired to be something other than a black-and-white, girl-or-boy outcome. If so, we note that genetics can’t be altered.
But ignorance can.
Many transgendered individuals experience some degree of psychological trauma, and more than a few suffer from mental illness attributed to challenges with gender identity: trauma directly linked to societal anger and misunderstanding, like assuming transgendered individuals are “perverts.”
Adding to that trauma isn’t going to help.
Understanding, however, will.
A line from an old Rush song, “Witch Hunt” seems appropriate, here:
“Quick to anger, quick to judge, slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice and fear go hand in hand.”
As an aside, evidence as to how attitudes in this country must change lies in location of the Canada.com story on Rayner’s claims.
It was filed under “entertainment.”

Potash decision pits Tory principles against wise governance

These are interesting times for the federal Conservative government.
And for those who watch Ottawa, it seems as if the Stephen Harper government is recognizing that good governance does not necessarily mean following a set of defined political ideals with unswaying passion.
Two mining-related moves underscore this shift in realization.
Last week, Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced that a proposed mine at Fish Lake, in the northern reaches of B.C., would not be allowed to proceed, due to considerable concerns about environmental impact.
The decision flies in the face of the stereotypes cast upon the Tories as a pro-business group unconcerned with the environment. Indeed, given the precursive protestations by environmentalists, one would have assumed that the Tories had all but rubber-stamped the approval.
Not so: and that’s a great thing for the government – and probably a wise outcome, given the very real impacts the proposed mine would have.
Today, however, the Tories are going to be tested on another key issue. The staunch promoters of de-regulated business, free market economies and free trade concepts are going to decide whether to allow a hostile takeover of Potash Corp., the largely Saskatchewan-based supplier of potash. Potash is a vital ingredient in fertilizer, and as such, a valuable commodity in a world that is pressing ever-harder to obtain as much food material from dwindling land resources.
The decision, set to come down today at 4:30 CDT, pits free-market, free-business principles against the very real concern of losing control over a material valuable to not only Canada’s economy (Potash Corp. has a mine in New Brunswick), but the global economy. The state-owned potash producer is a key generator of jobs, revenue and by its role in sustaining the agriculture of multiple economies throughout the world, a key player in the global economic landscape.
Lose control of Potash Corp. to foreign-owned BHP, and we collectively lose control of a valued resource. How valued? If the current hostile bid fails, a group of Russian investors is looking to obtain partial ownership of Potash Corp. to minimize future takeover bids – citing concerns about economic welfare for their nation.
This is heavy stuff.
The Conservatives can stick to their party principles and let the sale proceed.
Or they can follow a moral route and do what’s probably best for not only Canada, but many nations around the world.
In four hours, we’ll find out whether principles or morals win.

Halloween fear oddly ironic

Religion is a powerful force, indeed, it is one of the unifying elements of humanity – although one wouldn’t think so, to see some of the atrocities committed in the name of religion.
But belief is powerful. So powerful that it sometimes over-rides logic and reason, such as what will happen in McAdam this weekend, and what happened here some years past, when towns decided to unilaterally “move” Halloween from a Sunday date to the Saturday before.
The logic, of course, is that Halloween is seen as a non-Christian event, somehow in conflict with Judeo-Christian principles.
This, however, doesn’t bear the test of history.
In my former guise as a long-haired philosopher, I opted for the career path of studying religions. Now, there’s not a lot of want ads for long-haired comparative religions professors, which is why I fled the hallowed halls of higher learning and wiggled my way into the current career path.
But I still have a passion for that field.
Here’s an interesting tidbit: almost every major religion or culture has a celebration where there is a belief that spirits of the dead are somehow “closer” to the real world. Indeed, there’s a celebration in Catholic faiths called “all souls day” which is based on the thought that some of the souls of the dearly departed must be assisted to their final destination.
But back to the original thesis for moving Halloween, shall we?
The general gist, as I understand, is that Halloween is a pagan event and it is a conflict to celebrate a pagan event on a day reserved for Christian celebration.
That’s a nasty can of worms to open. For one, our culture is infused with celebrations rooted in pagan observations. Easter and Christmas are two examples. The very existence of the Christmas tree – a common practice in many households – is rooted in the practices of the British and Germanic Celts. A Yule log – often the same pole used in the fertility rite of the May pole – was burned on solstice night, the longest night of the year, to mark the death and rebirth of the horned consort to the mother goddess. (Variations exist in many European pre-Christian cultures.)
The Easter bunny, however, is likely tied more to Greek practices, and seems to be rooted in the sacrifice of fertility symbols (eggs, rabbits, pigs) to the chthonic (earth-bound) gods and goddesses held to be charge of plant growth.
This is hardly news.
But I find it a bit odd that we would embrace or ignore one pagan-rooted celebration in this culture, and provide another – Halloween – with such power.
It would make sense if churches banned Easter as well as most of the pagan trappings of Christmas.
But for the most part, they don’t, in large part because the pagan/non-Christian trappings of both celebrations have long been lost, removed from the realm of religion and incorporated into custom and culture.
Likewise, this forthcoming celebration of Halloween has long lost its roots in pagan faiths, long lost its history as a time when people would wear masks and costumes to conceal their identity from possibly vengeful spirits reaching across from the “other world” on a day when the veil between here and the afterworld was believed to be weak.
Nope, it’s a day for kids to dress up and gather far too many calories in short-chain, sugary molecules.
Unless, of course, one chooses to believe otherwise. Ironic, isn't it?

Baffled by New Brunswick politics

These few weeks are going to be tough, with general accusations that yours truly is biased, clueless, ill-informed, incompetent, irrelevant and a general waste of oxygen.
No, I’m not talking about the guts of football officiating season. It’s that time that every editor ever to put ink to print dreads: election time.
See, this is the time when various political aspirants want very desperately for newspapers to write stories that make them look utterly amazing. Of course, if we dare to do something to make said political aspirants look like they may not be entirely in touch.
As we edged closer to this campaign, I mistakenly thought I could draw on my previous experience from other areas: almost a score of municipal, provincial and federal elections.
Nope. Toto, we’re not in Kansas, anymore.
Let’s start with the Conservatives. Most times, the PC/Tory amalgam (Saskatchewan Party in my former domain, Liberals in B.C. before that) are skinflints that cut programs, cut cabinet, cut taxes but programs and cut spending.
Not here. Judging by the multitude of press releases I keep getting, the PCs must have the inside line on a whole lotta money, because their spending pledges are bordering on the utterly ludicrous. (If our finances are in dire trouble because of government incompetence, how is spending more money going to help? What happened to the fiscal part of fiscal conservative?)
Then you’ve got the Liberals, who are quietly hoping everybody has kinda forgotten that whole mess about selling off public property without consultation. Isn’t gutting state-owned property more of a Tory gig? And, more recently, the Liberals are pledging 20,000 new jobs. Gosh, nice idea: too bad it didn’t germinate two years ago.
And in recent days, they, too, are starting to spend money we don’t have.
Here’s a clue: when the house is falling apart, the roof needs repair and the electricity bill hasn’t been paid in two months ... don’t suggest going out to buy a 56” plasma TV, because you plain can't afford it.
But that’s just what both the big guns are doing.
And the NDP, frankly, baffles me. Typically, a NDP government taxes more than it should, and spends more than it should, stifles business while driving the coffers into mass deficits – but in the process, the governments build long-term infrastructure such as affordable housing, medical facilities and the like. (Two things this area needs, desperately.)
The NDP here can’t organize a constituency association in a riding that by all rational logic should be an NDP stronghold, and hasn’t a hope of forming even a bare-bones opposition Sept. 27. Yet, it is the only party noticing that gosh, the cost of promises made by both the Liberals and the PCs borders on the utterly ludicrous. Fiscal restraint? From the NDP?
I gotta go find a pair of size 11 red pumps. That’s the only logical explanation for what’s going on right now.

FIFA must address soccer shortfalls

I shall take two powerful and lingering memories from the recent World Cup of soccer, and neither of them are positive.
In the first instance, an Italian striker is streaking towards the opposition goal as a fellow forward is prising a gap on the sideline. Suddenly, just as the man going for open space near the goal is actually in open space, he falls down like he’s been shot, clutching his leg. Calf-muscle pull? Assassination attempt? Nope. The guy appeals to the referee, calling for a penalty kick right at the top of the 18-metre line.
Small problem: there wasn’t a defender within two yards when the striker went into his swan dive.
In the second instance, the Dutch earned a free kick in the dying minutes of the second extra frame of the final. On the ensuing kick, the ball deflected off a Spanish defender and out of bounds for a corner kick ... save that the official, who was seriously tested all game long, incorrectly awarded a goal kick. Two minutes later, the Spanish win the game on the match’s only goal.
The above two instances underscore everything that is wrong with elite-level soccer.
Fortunately, both can be readily fixed.
At the highest level of the game, players insist on embellishing even the littlest bump. This has to be addressed. Other sports have a methodology for dealing with instances of player embellishment of non-fouls. Hockey implemented the “diving” penalty, and I, as a lacrosse official, have administered an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for a similar act. Soccer needs to do something – but I don’t know what: a yellow card seems a bit harsh. Then again, if officials issued a few yellow cards for faking a penalty, maybe people wouldn’t be calling the recent soccer event the World Diving Championships.
Maybe FIFA could borrow a tactic from rugby, and send a player off for five minutes for a diving infraction. I know that will offend soccer purists, but as a sporting purist, the blatant faking of injuries and fouls plaguing soccer is one of the reasons it will never gain better traction in North America where hockey, lacrosse, football and other more forceful contact and collision sports are played.
On another front, let’s be honest: the World Cup featured missed calls, blown calls, non-calls and other examples of poor or questionable officiating. In one game, a goal was discounted that was clearly in. On the road to the World Cup, the French eliminated the Irish on a clear but not-called hand ball.
In the World Cup final itself, Netherlands striker Arjen Robben was involved in a sprint to the net late in the second half. A Spanish defender, Carles Puyol, charged in, and grabbed Robben by his waist as he began a clear-cut breakaway to the goal.
The official - Howard Webb - could only see the backs of the involved players. According to reports, he signalled an “advantage” foul, in which the error is acknowledged, but the play allowed to proceed. However, from my point of view, the foul seriously impacted Robben’s chance to score. In the NHL, a similar play would have been a two-minute minor, if not a penalty shot.
As a veteran official as well as a sports writer, any time I see an officiating error, I immediately ponder mechanics – the positioning of an official. Nine times out of 10, when a call is blown, the arbiter is in the wrong spot. But when I looked at the replays of the Robben non-call, Webb was in a good spot for the flow of the play at the time. He was just in the wrong spot for that particular instance, which is why he didn’t see what everybody around the world saw on TV.
The World Cup featured the best officials in the business, and FIFA (along with its constituent bodies) has some excellent referee-development plans. The competence and quality of officials is not, contrary to the howls one constantly reads on British soccer fan chat boards, a problem. Nonetheless, it’s plain to see that soccer officials are, simply put, overwhelmed.
That observation leads into an obvious conclusion: soccer at its highest levels needs to implement a two-official or even a three-official system. It works in lacrosse, it works in hockey, it works in many other sports.
Were there two officials on-field Sunday, maybe, just maybe, one of them would have been in a better place to the clear and obvious deflection on that late-game free kick, and the Dutch allowed to take a critical corner-kick they were otherwise deprived of.
Yes, the better team won the World Cup. But had that officiating error not taken place, what might have happened? It’s that what-if that FIFA needs to take seriously and address if it is ever to improve the state of the world’s most popular sport.

Vern Faulkner is the Courier/Courier Weekend editor. He has officiated football for 14 years and lacrosse for three.

Reflections on Atlanticade

As a man, there are few times when I can stand up and say, “Hey, gosh, I was right.”

For the previous months and weeks, I’d been trying to explain just how much of an impact a major motorcycle festival can have on a region.

As of Monday morning, more than a few county residents had come to grips with that reality.

The numbers are still being tallied, but so far, it seems like at least 5,000 people signed on for Atlanticade, the five-day motorbike festival that was here in the county for the first time, but in its fourth year of existence in this province. Upwards of 10,000 bikes may have come through the region in a five-day period.

Wow.

I had the delightful duty of riding around on my motorbike and participating a bit, and I can honestly say that this weekend’s impact exceeded every one of my expectations.

Everywhere I went, there were bikes. At stores, at restaurants, parked in the lookout overseeing the Campobello Island lighthouse – everywhere.

There’s a habit among bikers of waving at each other (left hand, of course, as the right has to stay on the throttle) as we pass on the road. There was a lot of waving.

Or, as I said to Dale Hicks Monday, “My left hand got more tired than my right did.”

More than a few businesses reaped the rewards. Appropriately marketed and appropriately placed restaurants were the big winners, as were hoteliers.

Not everyone was happy, however.

Some St. Stephen merchants were underwhelmed. That would, I think, be adequate fodder to plan ahead and create a bigger splash next year – there were a few things done, but for the most part, too little, too late. Simply put, St. Stephen residents and powers-that-be didn't realize the potential.

Now they do, one would hope. It will be better next year.

In a related note, a second-hand report suggested a St. Andrews jewelry store was displeased with the lack of traffic.

Well, what did that business do to tap into the market? Did it flog skull-and-crossbone rings, pendants and “ride free or die” jewelry?

Business requires creative marketing, like the tartan store in St. Andrews that flogged tartan-printed do-rags and bandanas: that, my friends, is smart stuff.

Now, let me address the remaining big issue: noise.

And here’s where some of you may find an intriguing ally.

I utterly and totally despise the loud-pipe crowd.

There are several myths regarding loud bikes, the most pervasive and utterly debunked one being that “loud pipes save lives.”

The thought is that if someone can hear your rumbling behemoth, they’ll see you. It’s a totally false. Motorists still plow into bikes, and they do so for two key reasons: one, the biker wasn’t sufficiently trained in defensive driving and avoidance techniques; two, the driver didn’t see the bike.

Muffler-less bikes will still get munched, in large part because motorcycle collisions usually involve the front of a motorcycle, and noise from a bike usually goes out the back.

Some remove mufflers in the mistaken belief it will improve performance. That, too, is usually false. (If anything, the loss of back-pressure actually reduces power output.)

So yes, I find that too many machines are too loud. There is never a need to remove or diminish a muffler. Someone is compensating for something.

There’s a saying among some of my dual-sport peers, and this weekend’s backlash from Atlanticade underscores the saying: "loud pipes annoy the neighbours."

Unfortunately, there are too many image-seeking individuals who think that a loud bike is part of some lifestyle thing.

That said, even if you don’t like loud bikes (and I clearly don’t), it is unwise to decry Atlanticade.
The buzz in this region was spectacular, and the impact staggering: Atlanticade just put this county on the tourism map of thousands who had no idea what this region had to offer. I cannot tell you how many riders reveled in the delightful roads of this region. Some explored the ridges, others went to the delightful undulating curviness of Deer Island.

As an “embedded journalist” I didn’t have to pay for accommodations. Typically, the Scottish genes in my makeup congregate in my wallet. I’m a cheap guy. Yet in the two days my wife and I participated in the periphery of Atlanticade, we spent $150 or so. That’s dollars into the economy – and our spending was paltry compared to some.

In closing, two things must be stated.
The bikers came here, and spent bucketloads of money. And, more importantly, they’ll be back, if you let them.

Atlanticade, as I had hoped, was, indeed, the biggest boost to tourism this region has ever seen.

And frankly, loud pipes or otherwise, the welcome mat should be readied for this time next year.

Tax dollars, watered down

There are times when you just have to wonder who’s thinking these days.

Tuesday morning, a team of two were busy watering the hanging baskets out front of our office on Milltown Boulevard in St. Stephen.

This would be Tuesday, June 8, the second day after five centimetres of rain deluged the area, and the day after baseball folks were hoping for a string of warm, sunny days to dry out soggy, water-laden baseball fields.

In other words, on a day when the last thing needed was a couple of workers watering already-soaked baskets, the town of St. Stephen sent out two staff to water the aforementioned already-soaked baskets.

Your tax dollars at work.

Why believe a liar now?

I was shocked and stunned to hear a national radio program discussing – with some seriousness – if allegations made by Floyd Landis might tarnish the reputation of Lance Armstrong.
Now, one might be forgiven for not knowing who Landis is, but you’d have to have been living under a rock to not know that Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France, is the world’s most identifiable cyclist.
In a sport mired in more drugs than any other, Armstrong has yet to fail any test, and is largely accepted as the most tested athlete in all of sport.
OK, so here’s Landis, a former team-mate, who earlier this month decided that after years of denying use of steroids changed his tune.
So now Landis is admitting he was, all this time, doped to the gills like every other drug loser in the sport.
Hardly a surprise.
Most of those who protest a failed drug test eventually come clean.
But for years, Landis cried innocent, even raising $1 million in public money, bilking donors who believed his tale that the French authorities were out to get the good-old-Amurican boy.
So he was lying then, but now he’s coming clean?
It’s hard to suggest that Landis is suddenly being truthful when he points his fingers at Armstrong.
Meanwhile, here’s Armstrong, the man who has yet to fail a drug test in his career, saying as he always has, that he’s clean and will always be that way.
Landis is a liar and cheat. That can safely be said, because the trail of evidence is clear: he said he didn't take drugs, and now he admits he did, so he lied. He cheated - not only by racing while doped, but also when he sought donations to mount a legal defense against drug use findings he now admits were true - so he's also cheated innocent people of their hard-earned loot. (We won't even mention the money he made writing a book about his ordeal.)
Landis should be banned from cycling for life, as an example to the clowns who continue to think they can avoid being caught.
I’m not sure what I find more distressful: that Landis is clearly spinning another fanciful yarn, or that one of my media peers was dumb enough to buy the guy’s story long enough to give it air time.

What are MP's hiding?

It’s almost the end of the month, and that means it’s time for me to submit monthly expenses.
There’s not much accrued on the expense account this month, other than mileage for a few weekend trips for sporting events.
Likewise, Courier reporters will soon report expenses to me. It’s a typical corporate chain-of-command process, hardly unique to this business.
Such a process ensures that I don’t frivolously spend loot the company doesn’t have to spend.
Hence, there are several layers of checks and balances: I check reporters’ expenses and send claims to the beancounters.
My expense claims must also undergo scrutiny. It’s hardly something I worry about.
After all, I’ve got nothing to hide. I haven’t balked about submitting an expense report since I got into this business – and that was a heckuva while back.
So why, then, did MPs balk at having the chief government beancounter examine their expenses?
One has to wonder, especially in wake of obvious misuses of political spending systems in Britain and Nova Scotia.
Of course the public mounted protest. After all, like me, most everyone has to answer to someone else.
Why should our MPs be any different?
I find it most interesting that the Conservatives, who gained power largely by decrying the lack of public scrutiny of Jean Chretien regime’s utter misuse of public money, would suddenly change their “we will be transparent if you elect us” theme to the one that’s been bounced around of late.
That the Liberals and NDP would close ranks and join the Tories in protesting Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s examination of expense accounts is, frankly, troublesome.
As a former daily crime reporter had written on a poster above his desk, “News is something somebody doesn’t want people to know. Everything else is propaganda.”
The very vehemence our elected officials protest scrutiny of their expenses suggests they’re hiding something.
And really, what’s wrong with a little scrutiny?
Fraser should be able to see every last penny our MPs spend.
And voters should be hard-pressed to support any MP that opposes such a move.
After all, if I have to answer to my bosses on a regular basis, MPs should answer to their bosses on a regular basis.
And just in case those elected members of parliament forget – as they sometimes do – who they work for, that would be us, the taxpayer.

Love over gold - the Masters

The coverage of the Masters golf tournament pretty much underscored everything that is wrong with the mass media of today’s world.
Journalists covering the event had two choices in the stories they wrote.
As I watched the final rounds of the event, the comparison was obvious.
On one hand, you had a philandering egomaniac who, in the previous half-year, had watched his marriage unravel in wake of numerous instances of marital infidelity.
On the other hand, you had Phil Mickelson, who had likewise been absent from the game of golf for a far more noble reason – to tend to his wife and his mother, both of whom were undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
The emotional merit, and the uplifting message of joy, of hope and of love that was embodied within Mickelson’s third green jacket should have carried across the front pages of every sports section.
But no, too many news stories focused on Tiger Woods, whose selfish, self-serving ways have destroyed too many lives. Why, tell me, does that man deserve any more attention? Why, tell me, did he gain an interview, rather than Lee Westwood, whose plucky and talent-oozing efforts led him to a second-place finish?
Why, does that deserve more media attention than Mickelson, who won after an absence tied entirely to his devotion to his wife?
Because Woods may be philanderer, but he still sells. And that's a sad statement in today's society.
The world is a sad place when good, uplifting stories are lost in a maze of meaningless paparazzi-driven gossip. I honestly expected to hear Woods heartily booed - it's not like he doesn't deserve it. At the very least, there should have been some derisive T-shirts lampooning the man for the idiotic, lying clown he obviously is.
Nope. To make matters worse, the media fawned over Woods. Utterly contemptious, if you ask me.
This, folks, is what’s wrong with the media industry of the day. The news directors and the publishers and the commercial conglomerates sacrifice the good stories for the TMZ-like pablum that will draw eyes. We’re teaching a generation of media consumers to accept garbage instead of good journalism.
But not everybody dove onto the sell-papers-or-else bandwagon. Some outlets, thankfully, got the story right.
That’s the story that everyone else should have written. That, my friends, is the story of the Masters.
Nice going, Lefty.

Manners - you gottem

Last week, I ranted about the lack of logical order at the traffic circle in St. Stephen.
Now, lest folks come to an unfavourable opinion of yours truly, I wanted to note a driving behaviour that I find most abnormal.
Let me describe, if I may.
The other day, I decided that I didn't want to go home for lunch, and hence, engaged in a Courier staff ritual: I went out the door, turned left and set my bearings for Pizza Delight.
The journey necessitates crossing Milltown Boulevard.
Here's where things get odd.
I stepped out onto the pedestrian crosswalk and - shockingly - drivers in both lanes of traffic came to a polite, orderly halt.
What?
Vehicles STOPPING at a pedestrian crosswalk, like the law suggests?
Egad, you'd never see this in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton or Saskatoon.
One would only expect vehicles to stop in a crosswalk in Toronto or Montreal if one were on some form of mind-altering drug.
Yet it happens here, repeatedly. It's almost like people are aware that when they strap themselves into their cars, that there are still other people around them.
And I hope it never changes.

Perhaps the fine folks at Service New Brunswick should contemplate a modest test for anybody in the St. Stephen area applying for - or renewing - a driver's licence.
The test would cover the appropriate behaviour for folks encountering a traffic circle.
Now, for those of you who may not have realized, St. Stephen has a traffic circle.
They're wonderful things and interestingly enough, are proven time and again to be safer than traditional light-controlled intersections. They also provide a greater flow-through (measured as the number of vehicles able to move through the intersection per unit time) than traffic-light-based intersections.
That is, if they're used properly.
Unfortunately, far too many in this area approach the traffic circle near the St. Stephen High School ... AND THEN COME TO A FULL STOP.
Now, this is perfectly understandable, logical and reasonable if there is, say a flood of cars or a logging truck in the intersection.
But this is often NOT the case. Folks seem to stop just for the heckuvit, thus negating the wonderful traffic-flow-through benefits of the circle.
Then there's those who fail to understand the merits of yielding to traffic that is already IN the intersection.
By law and general protocol, a driver should signal a) right to signal intent to turn at the first exit, b) left to signal intent to use the third exit (and yes, the St. Stephen roundabout has four entrance/exits) and not signal to go straight. (Either most users don't know this rule, or simply operate vehicles with non-functioning signal lights. Do get those checked out before the next inspection, what?)
Secondly, if a vehicle is in the intersection, yield. Do not (as the clown in the black sedan did a few days ago) charge towards the intersection without regard for life or limb of those around. If this is a shocking revelation, do consider handing in your drivers licence.
Please.
In the meantime, maybe a refresher course on what a roundabout is, and how to use it, may be in order.

Tonight, the St. Stephen Seahawks will take to the ice in Game 4 of the SHL opening-round series.
It’s an important game, and not just because the local squad is facing elimination.
Now, chances are that today, all the Seahawks players and coaches will utter the time-honoured clichés: they’ll play it “one period at a time,” and “the series isn’t over yet” and other such things.
But the reality is that of course, the series is over. Maybe the Seahawks will win tonight – but it won’t change much.
If they do win tonight, statistics gleaned from decades of best-of-seven series dictate that the squad will simply close out the season on the road in Game 5. Or, less likely, they’ll pack in the season in Game 6.
The finality of the season not in any real doubt, then, the squad takes to the ice tonight with really only one thing to salvage.
Pride.
That’s because the March 12 outing at home was one of the most lackluster efforts many local hockey fans had seen.
In 14 years of covering hockey at all levels, from novice to minor pro, I can’t think of a hockey game that had less passion, less contact and less intensity than the ho-hum outing in Game 2. That includes all-star affairs, for what it’s worth.
Further, I have yet to find a person who thought anything different than my own take on the matter.
By sharp contrast, Game 1 of the junior B playoffs the next night (Saturday) in St. Stephen was a delightful affair, and not just because the home side won.
It had hitting, it had energy, it had … well, it had what hockey fans should expect if they delve into their pocket for a couple loonies and toonies to pay for entrance. Even if the home side lost, no fan could have gone away from the game wondering if their money was well spent.
In that light, the ‘hawks have to show that they care. They have to show some energy, some intensity. Good gravy, losing is OK – but only if there’s some blasted effort, guys.
This isn’t a group of teenage boys we’re talking about. This is a team of grown men. People pay to see ‘em play. This is serious stuff. Or, at least, it should be.
Friday’s game wasn’t any of that.
Hence, the Seahawks have to show the fans – who by all accounts seem to be a loyal bunch – that even though this year is all but over, there’s something worth stumping up season tickets for in the season to come.

- Vern Faulkner is the editor of the Courier and Courier Weekend.