A shirt named Dave

I was going to write about a shirt named Dave. Or else about an author named Kate. Or about a book called A Surrealist Alphabet. Or maybe even about Mashed Poetics, which just celebrated the Tragically Hip.

But all of that seemed less important after yesterday's miserable news -- that the CBC had fired Jian Ghomeshi. Huh?? He's almost single-handedly revitalized our public broadcaster, bringing it -- more than anyone else -- to an audience of people under the age of 50.

The Giller Awards have already joined the bandwagon, announcing Ghomeshi won't be hosting their upcoming award ceremony. And I think now of 'Canada Reads' -- yet another institution that's bound to trickle away into lassitude without the vigour Jian injected into it.

I'm reminded of Good Morning, Vietnam and its story of how a powerful entity -- in that case, the U.S. military -- got rid of Adrian Cronauer, a DJ who was actually connecting with listeners.

I'm also reminded of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's famous statement, presented (somewhat ironically, I suppose, on the CBC archive), "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation." Nor, I contend, does the CBC.

When I was little, I had my own terrifying way of understanding the term 'getting fired'. I thought you got set on fire -- and worried that might some day happen to my dad.

This weekend's firing might as well be that literal, though I don't think it's going to be Jian going up in flames. With this action it seems more that the CBC has set light to its own self-destructing fuse. 

It's over

Last week meant another round of Canada Reads. I know I'm not the only one who looks forward to this annual debate. Face it, it's a tradition, and the place where I've discovered several books I'd never heard of before. Most notable of those would have to be Rockbound and lullabies for little criminals.

Since the theme for this year's competition was "One novel to change our nation," the book I figured would (and should) win was Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood. It's the second in her three-part dystopian trilogy with its predictions of GMO-ed just-about-everything, including people. I thought that might well be the best book to shake things up, maybe even get us thinking about getting off the oil teat sooner than later. And really, with Stephen Lewis defending it, I figured Flood was a shoo-in.

But it turned out to be the first book voted out -- gone at the end of Monday's discussion. I guess my choice was based too much on my particular biases -- some of the things I think we need to change to save ourselves -- like stopping all this mucking around, playing God with genes. 

Still, Wab Kinew did a masterful job of convincing the committee -- and listeners -- that Joseph Boyden's The Orenda was the book to bring about what we most need, reconciliation. And really, if a book could accomplish that, who could possibly complain.