Rose's Cantina

This is the first in a continuing series about my weird career in journalism.  Evidence of my pistol shooting prowess Fri, Mar 2, 1979 – Page 25 · The Ottawa Journal (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) · Newspapers.com When I was a little kid on the farm, my granddad taught me to shoot. He didn't take me hunting for turkeys, or vermin. If he had, I wouldn't have touched the pellet gun. I am a life-long animal lover who would often cry when I saw roadkill. So hunting animals was definitely off the table. Grandpa Loyal set up a shooting range in the basement of the farmhouse where he let me practise shooting cards off a makeshift cork board. I had some difficulty -- hey, I was six! -- so he would prop the rifle on top of a chair back, to stabilize the weapon.  I absolutely loved the time we spent together. Grandpa Loyal was kind, and smart, and world weary, and he still had so much patience with me. Even now, I feel warm and fuzzy when thinking about the bond we shared.  Fast f...

A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."  -- L. Frank Baum It's not easy standing out in a family like the Van Dusens. They are like tribbles; they are everywhere. In politics. In the media. In the fine arts. Even on stage at local fairs raising money for good causes. But Jack Van Dusen is no ordinary Van Dusen. He's a trailblazer. He was the voice of Ottawa anchoring the local news in the early days, with the sidekicks you see in the photo above. He was on Parliament Hill rubbing shoulders with the likes of John George Diefenbaker and making mischief with the relatively small cabal of ink stain wretches who were the first generation to talk to Canadians over the air waves. After a successful time in the media, Jack had a second career as a public relations guy. That's when I met him sitting at the lunch table at the National Press Club with his brother Tom, the columnist Charles Lynch, Sergeant-at-Arms Gus Clou...

Like a lot of people, I grew up listening to the bombastic Fred Ennis on the radio. He was loud, he was colorful, he was confident, as evidenced by his tag  line, "And I'm Fred Ennis." (And you're not!) After I came to Ottawa, I was excited to see him ambling around the National Press Club, beer in hand. With his red hair, and burnt complexion, he looked like a Disney character, maybe somebody you would see in a period piece clutching a flagon of mead, eating a turkey drumstick. But he was nice, sweet, charming, always grinning, quick with a joke. My first personal encounter with the guy was in the games room at the club, where he invited me to sit down with another hero of mine, Craig Oliver. I couldn't believe it. I was sitting with a couple of icons, listening to their take on the issues of the day. There I was, a little journalism student, taking it all in. It was one of the great things about the Press Club. I don't miss the drunken after...

#467876427 / gettyimages.com Last week, I was watching Power Play , the CTV blorgfest chaired by the cherubic Don Martin who was discussing the current state of the job market. According to Martin and panelists, a shocking trend has developed. One third of all people without jobs have simply stopped looking for work. The fate of the unemployed has become a hot button issue in the Ontario election, a hot tamale being tossed back and forth by Tim Hudak who would actually cut cushy public service jobs in favor of good new jobs in the manufacturing sector and Andrea Horwath who would somehow pull jobs out of thin air. The jobless situation also recently turned into a political football at the federal level when it was revealed that employers like McDonald's have been feathering their nests with cut-rate foreign workers rather than hiring Canadians. I was looking forward to hearing some spirited discussion on Martin's program. Instead, I heard this. "Ar...

  The good folks at Bell Media have done this community another solid this week by firing a gaggle of very popular on-air personalities. You might have heard of them: Sandy Sharkey, Steve Gregory (Bob-FM), Red Allen (Majic 100), Eric Longley (weatherguy, CTV Ottawa), Corey Ginther (sportsguy, CTV Ottawa). In the television game, essentially, they've gutted the Saturday news team, with only Kimothy Walker left to carry the can. It's not about "economics" says Bell Media apologist Richard Green. They simply want to go another way. In the case of CTV Ottawa, another way is to downgrade the two on-air positions to part-time. In the other cases, well, I guess Bell is thinking of changing the formats of the radio stations once again. Guess the suits have nothing better to do. The fact is that each of these individuals has long tenure and higher salaries than Bell Media wants to pay. By packaging them, they can hire young folks without families and mortgages, kids ...

A lot has been made about mistakes reported by journalists at the scene of the Newtown child massacre, much of it blamed on today's 24-hour news cycle and the need to get the news out first -- right or not. If you think this is a new phenomenon, you might read this account by Phillip Chalk of Dan Rather's coverage of the JFK assassination. It's long, but worth the read. Also note that Rather himself admitted that he announced the death of JFK before he had actually died. WHEN CBS ANNOUNCED THAT IT will smile through the pain of Dan Rather's dying credibility with an hour-long retirement tribute in early March, the network released an image of a young Rather posing in front of the Texas School Book Depository, looking gravely into the distance. While a little nostalgia was understandable--what, no photo of Rather huddled over a fax machine last October?--CBS still managed to remind those who knew the anchor during his salad days in Texas how tendentious an...

After an exhausting week of lame Christmas specials, starring Canadian ex-pats, I was in the mood for some fresh meat, so I turned on CTV's Interview with the Prime Minister last night. I wanted to see Lisa the Fan Dancer's interviewing skills. Was she up for the challenge? I was impressed that Lisa decided to fly without a net risking the interview without one of the CTV pit bulls, Ginger, maybe Bob Fife, to ask the toughies. Would she ask any hard questions? I'm afraid to say, I was disappointed. Mr. Dressup could have asked better questions. Lisa came off as a rank amateur, the B-movie equivalent of Katie Couric, all doe eyed and lips all a shimmer, cocking her head and smiling like the cat who caught the rat. Unfortunately, her cat proved to be toothless and she let the rat gnaw on her tail. Maybe it was Barbara Walters she was trying out. If you could be a tree, what tree would you be? Or Oprah. When did the abuse stop, Stephen? She wasn...

The nutritionist Leslie Beck reported a study in yesterday's Globe and Mail which reveals too much sitting can lead to cancer. Last week, that same newspaper reported that too much drinking can substantially increase the risk of a woman's dying of breast cancer. According to studies, we can also get cancer from processed meat, farmed fish, barbecues, fat, sugar, diet products, cell phones, computers, overhead lighting, recycled air in sealed buildings and the sun. And, of course, smoking. People most at risk are golfers, swimmers, office workers -- including doctors and nurses -- bloggers and people who go on the Sparks Street mall for the annual Ribfest. The only things that don't cause cancer are plants and grains grown organically under the Alberta tar sands. (This message brought to you by the Alberta tar sands lobby.) So if we don't want cancer, we have to eat a lot of broccoli and quinoa while standing. Enough already. This conversation is givi...