The Media on Trial

LRCv11n3f 2/19/04 9:22 AM Page 1 THE MEDIA ON TRIAL The fictional pyrotechnics of Rui Umezawa LRC VOL. 11, NO. 3 Literary Review of Canada APRIL 2003 $4.50 “McAndrew’s almost total silence on the existence of the English school system in Quebec, and English as a means of communication on a wider basis, is a faithful reflection of the French-language educational system she is describing.” Reed Scowen considers Quebec’s two solitudes and the languages they speak. “Iraq is the wrong place to lead the Arab world from and Saddam is definitely the wrong man to lead it, but even thugs have dreams.” Gwynne Dyer helps us to understand Iraq. “Many of us who embraced literary theory in American graduate schools in the heady days of its beginnings in the 1970s had no idea what was about to be unleashed.” Lorrie Clark takes aim at postmodern theory. “Once I was asked to drive 25 kilometres to change the fuses in an elderly lady’s home where the lights had gone off. ‘But isn’t there someone close by?’ I asked. ‘Well, my son-in-law lives around the corner,’ came the reply, ‘but I didn’t want to bother him.’” John Roberts on the evolving role of MPs. Jeffery Donaldson on two Canadian poets • Preston Jones on empire and irony • The struggles of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor • Poetry and more LRCv11n3f 2/19/04 9:22 AM Page 2 ADDRESS Literary Review of Canada 581 Markham Street, Suite 3A Toronto, Ontario m6g 2l7 LRC e-mail: [email protected] Literary Review of Canada T: 416 531-1483 Vol. ,No. - April F: 416 531-1612 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Lauren B. Davis 3 Tribalism Gone Mad? 16 Racism, Canadian Style Pamela Divinsky A review of Immigration et diversité a l’école: A review of James Bartleman’s Out of Muskoka Lorna MacPhee Le débat québécois dans une perspective compar- by Mark Lovewell Stephen L. McCammon John Roberts ative, by Marie McAndrew Robin L. Roger by Reed Scowen 19 Political Journalists on Trial Geoffrey E. Taylor 6 Through the Looking Fania Urbina A review of Canada’s Democratic Malaise: Are Nipun Vats Glass the Media to Blame? by Richard Nadeau and Patrick Woodcock A review of Private Interests: Women, Portraiture Thierry Giasson, and Who Controls Canada’s CONTRIBUTING EDITOR and the Visual Culture of the English Novel, Media?: A Pilot Study, by Stuart Soroka and Anthony Westell 1709–1791, by Alison Conway Patrick Fournier ASSISTANT EDITOR by Lorrie Clark by Anthony Westell Sonali Thakkar 8 One Cheer for Political 21 Geologist and Giant EDITORIAL INTERNS A review of Spar: Words in Place, by Peter Jonathan Burkinshaw Reform Beth MacKinnon Sanger, and Falling into Place, by John Terpstra An essay COPY EDITOR by John Roberts by Jeffery Donaldson Madeline Koch 11 Spin and Counterspin 26 The Beginning and End of RESEARCH An excerpt from Ignorant Armies: Sliding into American Power Jamila-Khanom Allidina War in Iraq A review of First Great Triumph: How Five ADMINISTRATION by Gwynne Dyer Americans Made Their Country a World Power, Susan Szekely by Warren Zimmermann, and The End of the Khoa Nguyen 13 Lucid Dreaming American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the DESIGN A review of Rui Umezawa’s The Truth about Geopolitics of the Twenty-First Century, by James Harbeck Death and Dying Charles A. Kupchan ADVERTISING/SALES by Wendy Eberle-Sinatra by Preston Jones Michael Wile Telephone: - 15 Elegy for the Dead 28 Reviews in Brief Cell: - A poem by Kam Razavi, Blake Heathcote and [email protected] by Rhea Tregebov Jonathan Burkinshaw PUBLISHERS 15 The Stinger Mark Lovewell 30 Letters [email protected] A poem by James Gillies Helen Walsh by Eric Miller [email protected] 15 Away with the Spoon Published by LRC Inc. A poem Denis Deneau, President by Ann Marie Reszetnik founded in 1991 by p.a. dutil The Literary Review of Canada is published 10 times a year by the Literary Review of Canada Inc.It does not appear in January and August. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Canada and the U.S. .; U.S. and the rest of the world us.. Libraries in Canada .;in Wojtek Kozak the U.S. and the rest of the world us..Price Drawings throughout the issue by . includes postage. 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The Literary Review of Canada is indexed in the Canadian Literary Periodicals Index and the Canadian Index and is distributed by Gordon & Gotch and the Canadian Magazine Publishers FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Association. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Magazine Fund. Literary Review of Canada LRCv11n3f 2/19/04 9:22 AM Page 16 Racism, Canadian Style As experienced by Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor early in life Mark Lovewell During the war, they moved to Welland in feet. Maureen Bartleman (née Simcoe) was very Out of Muskoka southern Ontario, so Percy could try his hand as different from her carefree husband. Intense and James Bartleman a steelworker. But by , his love of the out- serious, she suffered frequent bouts of depres- Penumbra Press doors had reasserted itself, and his family— sion, brought on by childhood hardships at the pages, hardcover which now included two sons and two hands of her alcoholic mother. As an adult, daughters—came back to Muskoka. That sum- Maureen had nothing to do with this woman; her mer, they occupied a tent on the outskirts of Port father died when James and his siblings were still Carling. For six-year-old James and his older quite young. But the rest of her extended family ne summer’s day in , when a sudden brother, Bob, it was an idyllic time. By happy were often nearby, in a collection of shacks storm blew up on Ontario’s Lake coincidence (at least for the two boys), their known as Indian Camp, inhabited by a disparate OCouchiching, there was panic at the home makeshift lodgings were situated near a garbage group of Chippewas and Mohawks during the of the lake’s most famous resident, Stephen dump: summer months. It was a place where Maureen’s Leacock. The adult son of Leacock’s cook had children were always welcome, as Bartleman taken to the water a few hours before in a flimsy We were proud of our large tent, and considered fondly remembers years later: sailing canoe. Leacock launched his motor boat that our location close to the village dump and found the canoe capsized not far from shore. presented opportunities rather than disadvan- The ground was carpeted with pine needles and He hauled the young man out of the water, tages. Granted, the dump had its own distinctive the air was filled with the perfume of giant white pines. The cabins exuded the fragrance of sweet- “We were proud of our large tent, and considered that our grass, fresh birchbark, and strips of white ash that were used for making baskets. The Chippewa location close to the village dump presented opportunities language is, by its very nature, soft, and conversa- rather than disadvantages.” tions were in muted tones. Saturday nights, with their roaring parties, were enlivened by brawls between young Chippewas (always including one impervious to the latter’s insistence that he could fragrance, and the permanent black cloud of of my uncles) and Mohawks, as some vague easily make his own way back to land. Later, smoke from the burning orange crates, card- memory of ancient wars between the two peoples Leacock made sure to inform the Toronto Star of board, scrap lumber, and discarded furniture was surfaced. his heroic exploit, and the story was picked up by not to everyone’s taste. But where else could one the international wire services, even appearing find treasures such as slightly soiled but usable Maureen’s influence on her children extended (doubtless to Leacock’s keen pleasure) in The toys and somewhat torn but still readable comic far beyond her heritage. She became the real head Times. books, and see wildlife (including raccoons and of the Bartleman household, with the tacit The young man involved in this misadventure skunks) in profusion, not to mention flocks of cooperation of Percy’s own parents, who were was the father of Ontario’s current lieutenant seagulls and crows, which constantly circled over devoted to their errant son’s offspring. James’s governor, James Bartleman, whose recently pub- their culinary delights. “white” grandparents moved to Port Carling lished memoirs describe a remarkable life and from Orillia, and built a modest house just next family background. His father Percy was a ne’er- Once autumn brought an end to these warm- to Percy’s own shack. This proximity meant they do-well charmer with a liberal streak of irrespon- weather pleasures, Percy managed to rent a cot- had a significant influence on their grandchil- sibility and a penchant for the outdoors. Having tage for the winter.

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