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Politics, Journalism, Opinion, and Sports from veteran journalists Rod Mickleburgh, Charley Gordon, Carla McClain, Shelley Page, Katherine Monk, and others.

Guide to the 2015 Canadian election

The Ex-Press takes its democratic duties seriously, and is happy to bring you this definitive Guide to the 2015 Canadian election. As a responsible media outlet, we feel obliged to offer readers our considered opinion as to the party and leaders best suited to govern our country. Such choices are always difficult. However, we have been inspired by the Globe and Mail of Toronto, which has endorsed the Conservative Party but not its leader, Stephen Harper. “His party deserves to be re-elected. But after Oct. 19, he should quickly resign,” the Globe wrote. Up until now, members of the Ex-Press editorial board did not realize such distinctions were possible. Now that we know, we are pleased to offer you our choice for Oct. 19. Ex-Press believes that the best choice for Canadians is an NDP government, however, with a different leader: José Bautista. Both deserve consideration but surely Bautista’s beard is less flawed than that of the present NDP incumbent, Thomas ...

The Sick Days: Part 7

Dressing like a lady and other lessons for a cub reporter Looking back, an essential lesson for female journalism students should have been how to deal with sexist notions that our almost entirely male professors held, and that existed in the newsrooms we would soon walk into By Shelley Page In journalism school, we learned how to shape a story into an inverted pyramid, ask open-ended questions and be fair-minded. What if we wanted to get a big important man to talk and we were female? Well, I learned that lesson in my fourth-year investigative reporting class after I was told to interview Liberal Senator Colin Kenny for a book being written by one of my instructors, John Sawatsky. I was nervous and Kenny was impatient and gave short, unhelpful answers. Although it was bitterly cold outside, he opened his window and seemed to lean into the howling winter wind. My tape recorder barely picked up his answers. Back on campus, I told Sawatsky and Professor Joe Scanlon, ...

The Sick Days: Part 6

Sweet Young Thing Seeks Star Job Like crows trying to snag the choicest flesh off a dead squirrel, we crowded around the program head hoping to snag the choicest assignments for our first week. By Shelley Page Does it matter more who we were then or what we went on to do? Graduates from my summer reporting program at the Toronto Star became Editor-in-Chief of the Globe and Mail; a best-selling author of crime fiction; a prominent columnist; foreign correspondents; a journalism professor; a rock critic; and a Pulitzer Prize winner. But almost three decades ago, we sized each other up around a long table in the Print Room, the bar on the ground floor of the Toronto Star building at One Yonge Street. There were 18 of us, mostly in our twenties. Four were women. Two others were from Carleton; both were guys, one a very good friend. At 21, I was the youngest, but one of the few who had daily newspaper experience. Amid us mostly scrappy j-school graduates, was a summer ...

The Sick Days Part 5

Prednisone 101: What the doctors didn't tell me 15 prednisone-fuelled moments from journalism school By Shelley Page 1. I’d only been back in Ottawa a few days and my face was like a pregnant woman’s belly. People couldn’t keep their hands away. Walking with a purposeful bounce across the Bank Street bridge, I waved at an approaching  classmate. She looked at me oddly and didn’t wave back. By the time we were face-to-face, she leaned in, squinted, and then gently poked my face with her finger. “Shelley? What’s the matter with your face?” she squealed. “Are you sick? Did you have your wisdom teeth out?” I imagined my neo-cherubic cheeks popping, squirting prednisone juice all over her. Others simply didn’t recognize me. While sitting in a campus pub, I noticed my former roommate Jen waiting tables. I prepared to launch into my brief explanation that I was on a medication called prednisone and it caused Fat Face. But she served me hot chocolate and ...

The Sick Days – Part 4

Getting the scoop of my life The rheumatologist increases the dose of prednisone to 80 mg, enough to medicate an asthmatic elephant, but fails to mention the life-expectancy side of a lupus diagnosis By Shelley Page This is how the cover-up began. I showed up for my summer newspaper internship, signed some papers, found a desk, took an assignment, only cried in the bathroom. And after writing 1,000 words for a sidebar on a school board matter that should have been just 400—the Province is a tabloid–I slipped out to await my mother, driving up Granville Street in her Ford Pinto. That first week, and many after, my mom spent three hours each day as a chauffeur driving to and from the Province. She deserved a medal for driving; me, for acting. I didn’t tell anybody, editor or the veteran journalists sitting on either side of me, that I’d just been tentatively diagnosed with a serious autoimmune disease. Operating instructions, please The truth is, I had ...

The Sick Days: Part 3

Who's afraid of the wolf? An aspiring reporter gets her first shot at daily journalism, along with a diagnosis that demands a daily dose of prednisone By Shelley Page If home is where the heart is, what about the hurt? Would it follow me there, too? Upon my return from university, I sat in my straight jacket of pain watching my parents take action. My dad pulled out the plaid sofa bed in the basement so I could sleep upright by leaning on the back of the couch. He moved the TV close, pushed the shuffleboard out of the way. My mom brought me warm towels to pack around my chest. When that didn’t ease the hurt, she wrapped her arms around me, trying to minimize the ripping pain that came with each breath. They’d booked me an appointment for the following day with our family doctor, but I was without hope. After five doctors and 18 months, I already viewed the medical profession with doubt and disappointment. But as I unspooled my story to our GP, he didn’t ...

We’re Doomed! A Star Wars Guide to Canada’s Election

The force of apathy awakens, but if you see it as Darth Harper versus Justin Trudeauwalker, things almost look dramatic From the Sith Lord Mike Duffy's allegiance with Darth Harper to rebel insurgents sporting plaid shirts and carrying a cup of Timmy's in their holsters, the election has turned into a stellar war of ideologies featuring a leader who lives behind a mask By Chris Lackner Now, in a galaxy far, far too close. There. Got your attention? My Star Wars ploy worked? Now stay focused, Canada. When it comes to our election, I know most of you are either bored, indifferent, disgusted – or blissfully unaware it even started. Much like the Death Star, I’m going to blow your mind in one shot. With only months to go before the franchise reboot, we can all agree the space opera is waaaaay more interesting than politics. But what if our election was a Star Wars movie?! (Given the cookie-cutter dialogue of recent debates, it already feels like the election was written ...

Yogi Berra: More than Mr. Malaprop

The late legend was a perennial MVP and one of few good reasons to root for the New York Yankees Sure, Mantle might hit a homer, but he might just as easily strike out. Berra, notorious for swinging at balls so far out of the strike zone they might have been in Poughkeepsie, almost never fanned – just 414 times in 19 seasons, writes Rod Mickleburgh By Rod Mickleburgh A few words on the late, great Lawrence Peter Berra, known to one and all, except Yankee manager Casey Stengel, as  Yogi. The Old Perfessor always referred to him as “my man” or “Mr. Berra.” It was his show of respect for the team’s catcher and long-time clean-up hitter. While others might mock and deride Berra’s squat stature, homely mug and lack of verbal sophistication, wise Casey knew just how key Berra was to the success of the Yankees in those long-ago years when they seemed to win the World Series every year. From behind the plate, he guided the team’s often far from brilliant pitching staff ...

The Sick Days: Part 2

Emergency pit stop: the search for a cause continues The first consult with a physician starts with a psychiatric assessment and ends with an overnight admission, anti-inflammatories and a prescription for sleeping pills By Shelley Page The guerrilla attacks of pseudo paralysis continued, random and stealth. Like when my left arm — I’m left handed — went completely limp while playing pick-up, and I couldn’t dribble a basketball or take a shot. That lasted for a few days. Or when I was door-knocking for a candidate in the federal election and I had to use crutches because my legs felt like they’d run a marathon. I worried my friends thought I was crazy. I worried, too. In the late fall, six months after my Easter episode, I was hunkered down in the Charlatan, the student newspaper at Carleton University, working on the next issue. I’d quit basketball to become co-assistant news editor, obviously drawn by the title. We were a polarized group of junior ...

It’s not jazz camp ’til I cry

Sleep deprivation and the democratization of the arts Charley Gordon finds his groove at jazz camp but suffers whiplash on re-entry into the real world, where the noise isn't always joyful and the pros are competing for gigs with the wide-eyed amateurs By Charley Gordon LAC MCDONALD, Quebec -- It’s about two hours before the final concert is to begin at the jazz camp. I’ve finished warming up in one of a dozen cabins set in the woods beside Lac McDonald in the Laurentians. I step out and hesitate on the step. There’s a light breeze and but music is everywhere, floating on it. From every cabin comes music — an accidental meshing of saxophones, pianos, guitars, basses, voices, each playing something different yet somehow blending into a complicated melody that has a simple theme: nothing matters but music and all’s right with the world.   This particular jazz camp, run by an organization called Ottawa JazzWorks (disclosure:I’m a former board member), ...