ALERT: Fun contest further down.

Toronto Mike is a very interesting — and very nice — guy who writes a wonderful, informative daily blog about things in this city and around the world that interest him — and will probably interest you too.

If you go to www.torontomike.com, here are some of the recent posts you’ll find: An MP3 upload of Nina Simone singing Feeling Good, Toronto Mike feeling bad about Justin Pogge’s nightmare in goal, a requiem for author John Updike, a very funny parody of Leafs GM Brian Burke running the team via Twitter, and an inquiry into the mystery of why CBC Radio’s Andy Barrie is off the air for two months.

All good, all interesting.

But the Toronto Mike blog I like best — and one that really stirs people up — is a post he did in honour of Canada Day 2007. After long consideration and due diligence, Mike came up with his definitive list of the Top 100 Canadian Songs.

It’s a great list, but one that drives everyone else batty, both because of the ranking he gives individual songs and because of the songs that are missing from the list.



I like The Tragically Hip and I love New Orleans Is Sinking, but there’s no way in heaven or hell NOIS is the No. 1 Canadian song. I’d probably go for Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah or one of half a dozen Neil Young songs. And I’m wondering why I’m not seeing names like Stompin’ Tom Connors, Murray McLaughlin and Great Big Sea on the list. Or Heart, Nelly Furtado and Buffy Sainte-Marie ...

But that’s just me. I’m sure each of you has your own personal favourites.

Take a look at Mike’s list of Top 100 Canadian Songs below and see what you think.

But before you get started, I’ve got a fun contest for you. As you go through Mike’s Top 100 list, I want you to compile your own list of 10 Canadian songs that are NOT on Mike’s list but should be.

E-mail your list to me at al.parker@sunmedia.ca so I get it before noon on Sunday, Feb. 1.

On Monday, my friend and fellow judge David Newland, editor-in-chief of Canoe.ca (a marvellous musician and walking encyclopedia of musical knowledge), and I will decide which three lists submitted are the best. Include your name and mailing address.

Remember, I’m NOT asking for personal Top 10 lists. I’m asking for 10 Canadian songs that aren’t on the list now but should be.

You’ll be disqualified if you list a song that’s already part Toronto Mike’s Top 100. David and I will also not look favourably on any song that’s so obscure neither of us knows it (a difficult task, given David’s amazing store of musical knowledge).

I’ll announce the three winners on Tuesday in the Nosey Parker blog (with their lists of additions) and will send each winner a really terrific CD of great Canadian music (I haven’t decided what yet, but there’s a lot to choose from).

So here, finally, is the list of Top 100 Canadian Songs from www.torontomike.com:

1. The Tragically Hip - New Orleans Is Sinking





2. Neil Young - Helpless
3. The Band - The Weight
4. Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
5. Gordon Lightfoot - Canadian Railroad Trilogy





6. Stan Rogers - Northwest Passage
7. Sloan - Underwhelmed
8. The Guess Who - American Woman



9. Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
10. Neil Young - Heart of Gold
11. Blue Rodeo - Try
12. Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah
13. The Tragically Hip - Courage



14. Barenaked Ladies - Brian Wilson
15. Cowboy Junkies - Misguided Angel
16. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
17. Gordon Lightfoot - Early Morning Rain
18. Neil Young - Rockin’ In The Free World
19. Rush - The Spirit of Radio
20. The Guess Who - Share the Land
21. Blue Rodeo - Lost Together
22. Death From Above 1979 - Romantic Rights
23. Our Lady Peace - Naveed
24. Arcade Fire - Rebellion (Lies)
25. Blue Rodeo - Diamond Mine
26. Bruce Cockburn - Lovers in a Dangerous Time
27. Gordon Lightfoot - If You Could Read My Mind
28. Five Man Electical Band - Signs
29. Bachman Turner Overdrive - Takin’ Care Of Business
30. Gordon Lightfoot - Sundown
31. The Guess Who - These Eyes
32. Blood, Sweat and Tears - Spinning Wheel
33. Hayden - Bad As They Seem
34. Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl
35. Ian and Sylvia - Four Strong Winds
36. Joni Mitchell - Woodstock
37. Rush - Closer to the Heart
38. Joni Mitchell - Both Sides, Now
39. Our Lady Peace - 4am
40. Maestro Fresh-Wes - Let Your Backbone Slide
41. k.d. lang - Constant Craving
42. The Tragically Hip - Bobcaygeon
43. Neil Young - Old Man
44. Dream Warriors - My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style
45. Sarah Harmer - Silver Road



46. Jeff Healey - Angel Eyes
47. The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
48. I Mother Earth - So Gently We Go
49. Our Lady Peace - Clumsy
50. Joni Mitchell - The Circle Game
51. The Pursuit of Happiness - I’m An Adult Now
52. The Lowest of the Low - Henry Needs A New Pair of Shoes
53. Ashley MacIsaac - Sleepy Maggie
54. Robbie Robertson - Somewhere Down the Crazy River
55. Tom Cochrane - Big League
56. Rush - Tom Sawyer
57. Moist - Push
58. Billy Talent - Nothing To Lose
59. Rusty - Wake Me
60. The Northern Pikes - Teenland
61. Sarah Harmer - Basement Apartment



62. Sarah McLachlan - Hold On
63. The Tragically Hip - Wheat Kings
64. Sloan - Coax Me
65. Spirit of the West - Home For A Rest
66. Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild
67. Crash Test Dummies - Superman’s Song
68. Stars - Ageless Beauty
69. The Tragically Hip - Ahead By A Century
70. The Demics - New York City
71. Barenaked Ladies - If I Had $1,000,000
72. 54-40 - I Go Blind
73. Bryan Adams - Summer of ‘69
74. The New Pornographers - Use It
75. The Watchmen - All Uncovered
76. Treble Charger - Red
77. Sam Roberts - Brother Down
78. Randy Bachman - Prairie Town
79. Sarah McLachlan - Angel
80. Tom Cochrane - Boy Inside The Man
81. Alanis Morissette - You Oughta Know
82. Skydiggers - I Will Give You Everything
83. Men Without Hats - Safety Dance
84. Rough Trade - High School Confidential
85. Hot Hot Heat - Bandages
86. Corey Hart - Sunglasses at Night
87. Loverboy - Working For The Weekend
88. Metric - Combat Baby
89. Rusty - Misogyny
90. k-os - Heaven Only Knows
91. Tokyo Police Club - Nature Of The Experiment
92. Stars - Your Ex-Lover Is Dead
93. Rheostatics - Record Body Count
94. Odds - Heterosexual Man
95. The Gandharvas - The First Day of Spring
96. The Diodes - Tired of Waking Up Tired



97. Feist - Mushaboom
98. Gowan - A Criminal Mind
99. Grapes Of Wrath - All The Things I Wasn’t
100. Max Webster - A Million Vacations

WARNING: There are pictures in this post of lobotomy procedures taking place.


Jack Nicholson (McMurphy) and Will Samson (Chief) in the 1975 film One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, most people's only connection with lobotomy.

A lobotomy is a surgical procedure that begins with two holes being opened in a subject’s head, either by drilling into both sides of the skull or by punching a sharp instrument through the weaker bone area behind the eye sockets.

A sharp surgical instrument is then inserted through the holes and stirred around to cut the nerve bundles connecting the prefrontal and frontal cortex to other parts of the brain, particularly the thalamus.



The prefrontal cortex is a fairly late evolutionary addition to the human brain. In fact, you might say it’s the civilized part of the brain.

It’s the decision-making area that sorts out conflicting thoughts, figures out good from bad, predicts the future outcome of current actions and exerts some kind of social responsibility (i.e. How will this affect other people?).

In other words, it’s the part of the brain that makes us say “please” and “thank you,” that tells us poking our eyes out is a bad idea, reminds us that flashing our privates in public will not be generally appreciated by the people around us.

It also has a lot to do with the “soul” or personality of the individual.



The purpose of a lobotomy is/was ostensibly to treat mental disorders ranging from schizophrenia to depression and anxiety.

From the mid-1930s through the 1950s, about 70,000 people worldwide were lobotomized. More than 40,000 of that number were in the U.S. alone.

It was literally a fad.

Estimates vary, but about 20-30% of the people subjected to this procedure are believed to have been reduced to an infantile, zombie-like state, unable to care for themselves or often even control their bowels.

The other 70-80% were left in various damaged states, some showing less anxiety (“What, me worry?”), others functional but their lives ruined. It’s probably about the same recovery ratio as people shot in the head.

When you include the families of lobotomy subjects (and it was often family members who approved the operation, although the procedure was widely practised without anyone’s approval in mental hospitals and prisons for the criminally insane) there were hundreds of thousands of victims.

Now here’s what blows me away: The guy who gave the world this procedure was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.



And not in the mid-‘30s when he introduced it, but in 1949 when a backlash against this ghastly procedure was already swelling.

The Nobel Prize gave lobotomy a new sheen of respectability and affirmation that overwhelmed the growing body of scientific and medical dissent — as well as the embarrassed mutterings of the families of lobotomy victims.

In the three years after the Nobel Prize was awarded, more lobotomies were performed than in all of the previous years that the procedure had been performed.

Here’s another really shocking thing:

The Nobel Prize organization to this day defends awarding the medicine prize for lobotomy.

On the official website, nobelprize.org, apologist Bengt Jansson has written a long piece outlining the various reasons why the lobotomy procedure was considered ”controversial” but states:

“However, I see no reason for indignation at what was done in the 1940s as at that time there were no other alternatives!”

Here’s the link to the website if you want to see for yourself.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/articles/moniz/index.html

So who was this guy, this monster who won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for churning people’s brains into porridge?

He was a Portuguese neurologist, a very respected doctor who had already pioneered one effective medical procedure. I’m not even going to tell you what that procedure was because it just doesn’t matter — no matter how beneficial it may have been, it ultimately gave him the international credentials that allowed the very “doctored” (now why is that phrase suspect?) results of his wildly unregulated, untested and unconscionable lobotomy experiments to be disseminated around the world.

He called it ”leukotomy “ but so what.


Antonio Egas-Moniz

Dr. Antonio Egas-Moniz went to a lecture in London in 1935 where a couple of Yale University scientists explained how they had pacified aggressive chimpanzees by performing what were essentially lobotomies.

It was well known in medical circles at the time that many aggressive, paranoid and obsessive-compulsive behaviours were affected by activities in the frontal lobe of the brain.

How and why and everything in between was still a mystery.

But Egaz-Moniz went back to Lisbon and immediately started drilling into people’s heads and shaving their frontal lobes — more than 50 people in all. Sometimes anxious and depressive patients became more peaceful (docile and manageable, in other words), sometimes there was little effect and sometimes the patients were left incoherent and incapable.

Supporters say Egas-Moniz was reluctant to propose his procedure in anything but extreme cases but, if so, why did he announce very favourable, very tainted results of his experimentation in six countries simultaneously in 1936?

He was proud of his drilling and digging.

Here’s the really scary part. Egas-Moniz wasn’t the worst monster.

He was just the incubus that spawned the biggest bastard of all brain-busting time.


Walter Freeman

Meet Walter Freeman. I’ll never put Dr. in front of his name.

Freeman was an American physician and neurologist who read of Egas-Moniz’s work and was electrified by it. With neurosurgeon James Watts, he introduced lobotomy to North America.

Freeman was the P.T. Barnum of psychosurgery. He pushed it hard and fast. He was a zealot who would rather cut than consider options. We’re talking brains here.

Freeman and Watts performed their first lobotomy in 1936 and by 1937 were taking the show on the road, performing what was now called the Freeman-Watts Standard Procedure, sometimes with crowds of physicians, nurses and reporters gawking over their shoulders.


A lobotomy begins. All that stuff on the wall is for administering electroshock to knock the patient out

Results were mixed, of course. The operation was still performed by drilling through the skull. Sometimes the patient was knocked out by electroshock, sometimes the patient was awake (under mild sedation) during the procedure.

In those cases where the subject was conscious, Watts would fiddle with cutting instruments inside the brain while Freeman would ask the person being cut to recite things like the Lord’s Prayer and the alphabet. When the subject’s comprehension level was dulled to what Freeman considered the appropriate level, Watts would stop cutting.

That’s when things went well, of course. And often they didn’t.

Such was the case with U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s younger sister, Rosemary.


Rosemary Kennedy, centre, with her younger siblings Jean and Robert in 1938

Rosemary Kennedy was 23 in 1941 when she became the 66th patient on whom Freeman and Watts performed a lobotomy.

The operation was untaken at the request of her father, Joseph Kennedy, the bootlegging Boston millionaire and political powerhouse who founded the Kennedy dynasty.

Rosemary was said to have been considered retarded by members of her family, but that assessment has been widely disputed by subsequent analysts, including Dr. Bertram Brown, then-executive director of the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation.

Rosemary may not have been as brilliant as other members of her family, but she was a fully functioning person, kept a diary, had an active social life, attended balls, plays and operas, and was presented to both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King George VI.


Rosemary Kennedy, shortly before the lobotomy. All that vitality was soon destroyed

Her father sought the lobotomy to cure what he called “moodiness,” fits of irritability and rebelliousness. There also appears to be some fear on her father’s part that she might embarrass the family by becoming pregnant out of wedlock during one of her many escapes from the convent where she was being educated and "cared for."

Well, Rosemary’s moodiness was cured. So was her ability to think coherently, speak and control her bowels.

The operation reduced her to a babbling, infantile state. She was soon shipped to a residential institution in Wisconsin where she died just four years ago. Cause of death was listed as natural causes.

Her mother, Rose Kennedy, was said to consider the butchery of Rosemary’s brain as the first of the Kennedy family tragedies.

Another famous sibling to be lobotomized was playwright Tennessee Williams' sister, Rose. (Are we seeing some weird name pattern here?)

Rose, diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, was one of Freeman’s first victims in 1937. As would later happen to Rosemary Kennedy, Rose Williams was left completely incapacitated by the brain butchery.

Tennessee, who was close to his sister, blamed his parents for authorizing the procedure and was alienated from them for the rest of his life. That traumatic lobotomy made its way into several of Williams’ plays, including The Glass Menagerie and Suddenly, Last Summer.

Freeman, meanwhile, was tiring of the complications and time involved in performing a “standard” lobotomy and began investigating other techniques.

By 1945, he settled on the transorbital — or “ice-pick” — lobotomy.

It was simple, fast and didn’t require a sterile hospital environment to be performed.


Watts (sleeveless left) looks on as Freeman (sleeveless right) is about to pound in the ice-pick while an audience oogles

The operation was performed by inserting a slender sharp instrument into the eye socket above the eyeball. Once the weapon was firmly against the weak area of the skull behind the eye, the surgeon would hit it with a hammer, breaking through the skull and entering the prefrontal cortex of the brain. The instrument would then be swished around and removed. Repeat procedure through other eye socket.

Voila! Lobotomy completed — usually in less than 10 minutes.

It was called an ice-pick lobotomy for a reason: Freeman actually used an ice-pick (for breaking up large blocks of ice) from his own kitchen to perform the early transorbital lobotomies.

Freeman’s first ice-pick lobotomy was performed on January 17, 1946 in his Washington, D.C. office, on Ellen Ionesco, a woman described as “violently suicidal.”

Ellen’s family considered the operation a success and a blessed relief. She lost some memory function but was relatively intact and led a fairly normal, placid life. She was still alive in 2005.

Again, Freeman would use one “success” to justify later hundreds of botched invasions.

Part of Freeman’s reasoning for inventing the new procedure was to deal with the vastly expanding post-war population of patients in mental institutions and prisons for the criminally insane.

He basically saw it as a quick and simple way to pacify large populations of violently disturbed patients without having to deal with the medically and legally messy process of hospital surgery.

Freeman again travelled far and wide, hyping his new technique in a circus atmosphere, sometimes performing the operation on both sides of the brain at the same time with two ice-picks.

Once he operated on 25 women in one day. In a two-week period in 1952, he performed 228 lobotomies in West Virginia.


Freeman strikes again

There was very little clinical followup and little independent analysis of lobotomy, but even Freeman conceded that only about one-third of his operations produced what he considered “positive” results — leaving the patient more docile and manageable but still relatively functional.

Freeman’s obsessive showboating with his new technique finally drove away even his old accomplice, James Watts.

Opposition to lobotomies was growing in the United States when suddenly, in 1949, the Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to Egaz-Moniz for introducing the procedure.

I’ve never understood why, when the tide was turning against lobotomy, the Swedish-based Nobel Prize organization (established and funded by dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel) would do such as outrageous thing.

In retrospect, I think medical politics had a lot to with it. Although the greatest number of lobotomies were performed in the U.S., the procedure had some powerful proponents in the Swedish medical establishment.

In fact, on a per-capita basis, two-and-a-half times more lobotomies were performed in Sweden than the U.S.

Whatever the reason, the Nobel Prize for Egaz-Moniz gave lobotomies a newly polished respectability.

In the three years after the prize was awarded, more lobotomies were performed than in all previous years.

It reached the point that lobotomies were performed to “cure” such conditions as post-partum depression and recurrent headaches.

Freeman performed somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 ice-pick lobotomies (no one will ever know the real number) before his medical licence was revoked when a patient died.

By that time Freeman’s reputation was in tatters and the lobotomy procedure had been repudiated by the U.S. medical establishment. Freeman continued to drive around the States in his “lobotomobile” visiting former patients until his death (from cancer, not an ice-pick in the brain) in 1972.

The lobotomy as a controlling mechanism for mental patients was starting to be replaced in the mid-1950s by the first heavy antipsychotic and antidepressive drugs such as Thorazine. The use and misuse of those drugs is a whole other story.

But lobotomies continued to be performed throughout the 1960s.

Believe it not, lobotomies can still be done in the U.S. (I don’t know about Canada, but if anyone does, please let me know) under strictly controlled and rare circumstances.

Before we leave this terrible time in medical history, I want to tell you one last sad, true story.


Howard Dully as a happy, normal child in the 1950s

Howard Dully was a 12-year-old boy living in California when his stepmother, Lou Dully (the evil stepmother incarnate), approached Freeman about operating on her stepson.

Her reason? He was “defiant” and she felt she couldn’t control him.

Freeman recommended lobotomy as the cure, Lou convinced Howard’s father to agree with the doctor’s recommendation (Howard’s birth mother had died) and the operation was a go.



Howard Dully, 12, under the knife in Freeman's office

Freeman performed the procedure in his office on Dec. 16, 1960. Howard was never told what was happening to him.

Although his stepmother had him institutionalized, Howard, now 60, went on to lead a fairly normal adult life, becoming a bus driver in California.

“If you saw me you’d never know I had a lobotomy,” Dully says in a recent memoir. “But I've always felt different — wondered if something's missing from my soul.

“I have no memory of the operation, and never had the courage to ask my family about it. So two years ago I set out on a journey to learn everything I could about my lobotomy."


Howard Dully in 2005

Dully tells his incredible story in his 2005 autobiography, My Lobotomy.

Dully and thousands of other lobotomy survivors are still alive today, still dealing with the consequences of their surgeries.

National Public Radio in the U.S. made a superb documentary that same year, telling their stories — as well as the stories of still-living former proponents of the procedure — in their own words.

Here’s a link to the documentary's home on the NPR website if you want to know more:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5014080

As for me, I’m done. This has not been a fun exercise for me — quite upsetting, in fact — but it’s a story of our recent past that needs to be told over and over as a reminder for us to be careful what we allow ourselves to do — and to be done to others.

You might consider this Schadenfreude, Part 2. (Remember Shortest Celebrity Marriages? That was Part 1.)

This time we’re going to look at celebrities and their tattoos — especially the ones that were really dumb mistakes.

If there’s one thing you take away from this, it’s this simple rule: “Don’t ever get anybody’s name tattooed on your body no matter how much you think you love them.”


Locklear, Sambora, Richards, Sheen

This composite photo of Heather Locklear, Richie Sambora, Denise Richards and Charlie Sheen is a veritable daisy chain of bad tattoo decisions.

Let’s start off with relationships first: Locklear and Sambora were married from 1994 to 2006, during part of which time Locklear and Richards were neighbours and best friends forever. Richards and Sheen were married from 2002 to 2006. After the splitups, Sambora and Richards started dating, which ended the Locklear-Richards friendship. I don’t know whether Locklear and Sheen were ever involved — but they must have been at some point. Apart from being in a movie (Money Talks) and a TV series (Spin City) together, Sheen has dated practically everyone in Hollywood and Locklear has shown bottom-of-the-barrel taste in men by latterly hooking up with weedy, seedy David Spade.




Heather loves Richie, Charlie loves Denise, Denise loves Richie, Charlie loves ... everybody: A tragic tale of tangled tattoos

Now back to the tattoos.

Bon Jovi guitarist Sambora has the normal quota of rock-star tattoos, the best-known being a winged guitar on his right bicep. That’s all well and good.

But Locklear made the mistake of showing her undying love for Sambora by having “Richie” tattooed on her groin area. She already had a tattoo of a heart wrapped in rose vines on her right ankle, a leftover from her 1986-1993 marriage to Tommy Lee, the living inkblot. When she was later with David Spade, she added the word "Finch" — the name of Spade's character on the TV series Just Shoot Me. Please, somebody ...



So what does Locklear do about the groin tattoo? However so painful, “Richie” is turned into a rose.

Now Charlie Sheen has the dumbest collection of tattoos in celebrity-ville. He has no memory of where he acquired some of the 13 that once adorned his body — including a dragon’s head wearing glasses. Other tattoos are the New York Yankees symbol and what appears to be a note pinned to his chest saying “Back in 15 minutes.”


"Denise" tattoo — and it's upside down too, Charlie!

But the biggest problem was the name “Denise” tattooed across the inside of his left wrist. As divorce proceedings with Richards turned rancid, Sheen had “Denise” lasered out of his life. He also promised new squeeze Brooke Mueller before their 2008 wedding he’d have the rest of his tattoos removed. Charlie was still sporting all of his tats (except “Denise”) on his honeymoon, and I imagine they’ll outlast his marriage to Mueller.


Denise before: "Charlie"...

Richards returned the honour by having an ankle tattoo that said “Charlie” turned into a fairy.


Denise after: ... becomes a fairy

Let’s look at some other ill-advised tattoos that were real bummers.


Paris Hilton and Nick Carter: Backstreet trouble

While Paris Hilton was dating former Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, she had Nick’s name tattooed on her right buttock. After the relationship broke up in 2004, Paris had Nick’s name removed by laser. It was obviously done and healed by the time the 2006 Cannes Film Festival rolled around, as you can from the red-carpet photo of Paris in a lace dress and not much else below.


Paris Hilton after Nick: A clean start

Paris isn’t alone among celebrities in her choice of tattoo locations.


Halle Berry: Spot the sunflower

When actress Halle Berry married baseball player David Justice in 1992, she had his name tattooed on her butt. After their 1996 divorce, Berry had “David” turned into a sunflower. Why? “When darkness descends, they (sunflowers) close up to regenerate,” the profound Berry told Familyfirst magazine.


Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee: From Tommy to Mommy

After Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee divorced in 1998, Anderson had a wedding tattoo reading “Tommy” on her ring finger changed to read “Mommy.”

Tommy's wedded-bliss tattoo was the inscription "Pamela" on his penis. I don't know if he got rid of it, but Pam had already made him alter a "Heather" tattoo on his stomach (for earlier wife Heather Locklear) to "eather."


Johnny Depp: From Winona to Wino

When much-tattooed Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder split in the late ‘90s, Depp had “Winona Forever” revamped to read “Wino Forever.”




Depp pre-Winona, Winona Forever and finally Wino Forever



Geena Davis: Where's the tattoo? It's on her ankle

And, in a move that reinforces the truth that two wrongs don’t make a right, actress Geena Davis rubbed ex-husband Renny Harlin out of her life — by changing “Renny” to “Denny’s” and adding the U.S. restaurant chain’s logo to the mess.


Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon: They don't make a big enough laser to get that off

One mistake just waiting to happen is tempermental diva Mariah Carey, 39, who told Oprah Winfrey before her marriage to actor Nick Cannon, 27, last year that she already had “Mrs. Cannon” tattooed on her back. Cannon had "Mariah" inked on his back at the same time.

"To me rings are special and exciting, but tattoos mean more than anything," Cannon said at the time. "They're forever and ever. They professed our love."

Granted, Mariah has only had one previous marriage (1993-98 with record exec Tommy Mottola), but rumours of strife in the current union were rife within months of the wedding.

I wonder which one will regret the tattoos the most in a year or two? It’s only a matter of time, Mrs. Cannon. Will she just have “ex-” added to the inkwork?

Probably the best-known tattoo change of heart is Angelina Jolie’s.



She had former husband Billy Bob Thornton’s name (and a dragon) removed from her left bicep after their 2003 divorce. Instead of leaving well enough alone, she now has new tattoos on that spot: The geophysical coordinates of the birth places of all six of her children.



If she keeps adopting and procreating at her present rate, the tattoos will extend below her elbow before too long. By the way, if you look closely at the "after" tattoo (the photo was taken before the birth of her twins, thus only four coordinates on her arm), you’ll see the dragon of the Billy Bob tattoo still vaguely visible.

Obviously celebrities are more fun, but let’s look at some tattoo disasters endured by ordinary people.

As well as lovers’ names, Chinese characters can be a source of tattoo tragedy.


Joanne Raine

BBC News reported last year that Brit teen Joanne Raine had the Chinese characters for her boyfriend’s nickname — “Roo” — tattooed on her stomach. After Roo dumped Joanne, she found out the Chinese symbols actually meant “supermarket.” Maybe she lucked out.



(Raine had picked the Chinese characters for “R” “O” and “o” — so all the symbols would be different — but the Chinese for kangaroo (“roo”) would be just one symbol.)

In another case of mistaken calligraphy, American Lee Beck sued his tattooist after finding out the Chinese characters that were supposed to say “Love honor and obey” actually said “This boy is ugly.”

A tattoo that was supposed to say “Blood and guts” was a bit too literal in its Chinese form: “Blood and intestines.”


David Beckham: True lohve

And remember poor old David Beckham’s interface with the Hindi language. The soccer star tried to get his posh wife’s name tattooed in Sanskrit script along the inside of his left forearm. Unfortunately “Victoria” came out as “Vihctoria.”

Some tattooists have trouble with plain old English.

In 1996, Notre Dame fan Dan O’Connor had a tattoo of the university football team’s nickname, “Fighting Irish,” and their leprechaun mascot tattooed on his body. The tattooist dropped a “t” so the words came out “Fighing Irish.” O’Connor sued.



And Joseph Beahm sued New Jersey tattooist James Kastel in 1999 for misspelling “Why not, everyone else does” as “Why not, everyone elese does.” Kastel offered to cover it up, but a dermatologist finally removed it for free as a goodwill/publicity gesture.

Let’s go out on a final celebrity tattoo note.


Daniel Craig: What lies beneath?

The current James Bond, Daniel Craig, was complaining to Tonight Show host Jay Leno a few weeks ago about how much time and trouble it took for makeup artists to conceal his tattoos (souvenirs of his teen years) for movie shoots.

Leno asked Craig how many tattoos he has.

“I have a couple of tattoos where you’d see them,” Craig replied. “There’s another where you wouldn’t — it’s hidden away.”

Without skipping a beat, Leno asked: “Is it one of those where it says ‘OK’ and then it says ‘Oklahoma’?”

Craig: “Yeah, it says ‘Welcome to Oklahoma.’”


No, I'm afraid you're a loser

It’s called schadenfreude in German (“damaged joy” is the translation) and it means taking pleasure in other people’s misfortune.

Most of us try to avoid exhibiting schadenfreude in everyday life, but we revel in it when we watch the rich and famous self-destruct, explode, implode and generally behave badly for public consumption.

So, without further delay, here is the Nosey Parker schadenfreude guide to some of the shortest celebrity marriages.


Bad-marriage poster children Britney and K-Fed

The hands-down winner — as in most schadenfreude categories — is aspiring author Britney Spears.

Britney married childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander in Las Vegas on Jan. 3, 2004. That same day Britney filed for an annulment, which was rushed through the Nevada courts. The marriage officially lasted 55 hours.


Louisiana farmboy Jason Allen Alexander didn't know what hit him


Britney's wedding licence application, dated Jan.3, 2004


Britney's appeal for an annulment, also dated Jan. 3, 2004

Grounds for the annulment were that Britney “lacked understanding of her actions” in marrying poor little Jason. Crikey, based on those grounds, Britney’s whole life could be annulled.


Brit and K-Fed — what a couple

Compared to that whirlwind matrimony, Britney’s marriage to Kevin Federline was positively eternal. Brit and K-Fed tied the knot on Sept. 18, 2004. The marriage lasted two years and produced two children before Britney dropped the divorce bomb on K-Fed on Nov. 7, 2006 (while he was performing onstage). The couple’s second son, Jayden, was born less than two months before Britney filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in July 2007, although the toxic fallout continues to this day.




A close runner-up to Britney Spears has to be that Canadian national resource, Pamela Anderson.


Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee

Her first marriage to rocker Tommy Lee lasted from 1995 to 1998, producing two children, some widely circulated homemade sex videos, an accusation of hepatitis infection from shared tattoo needles, and some really raunchy (but very funny) jokes on Comedy Central’s 2005 televised roast of Pammy.


Pam and Kid Rock (Is he asleep?)

Her second marriage to singer Kid Rock (yawn) lasted less than four months, from Aug. 3, 2006, to Nov. 27, 2006.


Rick Salomon

Marriage No. 3 to Rick Salomon (he of the Paris Hilton web-friendly sex video) was even shorter. Anderson and Salomon were married Oct. 6, 2007. Pam filed for annulment on grounds of fraud in mid-December, and the annulment was granted Feb. 22, 2008.

Contrary to widespread popular belief, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee have not re-married. In fact, they aren’t even together right now. Pam’s selling her celebrity in Australia as we speak and Tommy Lee’s on tour in Europe.


Cher and Gregg Allman

Before Britney and Pamela came around, Cher’s marriage to guitarist Gregg Allman was the nadir of matriminial longevity. Nine days after their 1975 wedding, Cher kicked Gregg out. Their stormy more-off-than-on marriage lasted until their divorce was finalized in 1979.


Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman 1999 arrest photos

Another nine-day wonder was the 1998 marriage between Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra. Their final kick at the can was a reunion that ended in an all-out brawl in a Miami Beach hotel, landing the love-hate birds in jail on Nov. 5, 1999.


This is a wedding kiss? Even his hand's in his pocket

Now look at this wedding picture of Renee Zellwegger and country singer Kenny Chesney from May 9, 2005. Isn’t that the most passionless, asexual wedding kiss you’ve ever seen? No wonder Renee filed for an annulment (again, on grounds of fraud — but I suspect a different form of fraud than Pam Anderson was alleging against Rick Salomon) four months later. The annulment was granted in December 2005.

Renee later said the “fraud” accusation was just a legal technicality and she had the highest regard for Kenny’s personal integrity. Since the annulment, Chesney has repeatedly denied he is gay.


J-Lo's personal low

With the marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony apparently under stress, according to the gossip mags, I guess we should look back at J-Lo’s short-shorts marriage to chorus boy Cris Judd, when the entire world asked: “Is she blind or out of her mind?”

The Sept. 21, 2001 marriage (could it possibly have been post-traumatic shock as a result of 9/11?) officially ended in divorce in January 2003, but J-Lo was already publicly dating Ben Affleck (remember Bennifer before Branjelina?) six months prior to that.

Well, the list of really bad celebrity hookups is almost endless. I’m going to end with two of my favourite malfunctioning marriages.


Elvis wannabe Nic Cage and Elvis's only legitimate child, Lisa Marie Presley

I always thought there was something sort of incestuous about Elvis fan (and impersonator) Nicholas Cage marrying the King’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, on Aug. 10, 2002. Lisa Marie apparently has a high creepiness tolerance since she had previously been married to Michael Jackson for two years. Cage filed for divorce on Nov. 25, 2002, less than four months after the wedding, with the divorce finalized in May 2004.

Just as aside, Cage is supposedly the only person outside the immediate Presley family to have seen the Elvis bedroom in Graceland since the King’s death.


Tom Green breaks up Drew Barrymore

Another fav non-marriage is comedian Tom Green and actress Drew Barrymore. Remember when Tom brought Drew home to Ottawa to introduce her to his parents, then paraded her around in public carrying a pizza box and wearing tinfoil over her head and hands as a disguise?


Obviously a marriage based on mutual respect

Ah, the fun times. The marriage lasted five months from July 2001 until Green filed for divorce in December 2001.

What is it with these weird, creepy guys throwing over beautiful, interesting women only a few months after marrying them?

Well, that’s enough for ill-fated celebrity marriages. I’m sick of ‘em. Thank goodness some celebs make a go of it. Like Reese and ... oh ... um, Jennifer and .... ah, Sir Paul and... Never mind.

Just to end on an upbeat, schadenfreude note, here’s a link to Forbes Magazine’s list of 10 most expensive celebrity divorces .

The list is from 2007, so Sir Paul McCartney’s divorce wasn’t settled yet (he actually paid about $10 million less than the Forbes’ estimate) and Madonna’s divorce wasn’t on the radar. Her $110 million settlement with husband Guy Ritchie would put her in No. 3 spot on the list, moving everyone else down a notch.

Here’s the thing that really gets me: Who’d think it would cost Neil Diamond more to get out of a marriage than Mick Jagger?

Toyota officially became the world's largest auto maker this morning when General Motors released its 2008 global vehicle sales numbers.

GM has been No. 1 in worldwide automotive sales for longer than 95% of the world's population has been alive. GM surpassed the Ford Motor Company in sales in 1931 and has been top dog ever since.

Until today when GM reported its worldwide sales for 2008 were 8.35 million vehicles.

Toyota earlier reported its 2008 global vehicle sales were 8.97 million, about 620,000 more vehicles sold than GM.

The GM decrease in sales (down about 11% overall from 2007) was mainly the result of drops in North American and, to a lesser degree, European sales, according to today's GM announcement. Toyota sales were down about 4% from the previous year.

GM stressed that it was achieving sales growth in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific regions. Last year, 64% of GM's sales were outside the U.S., up from previous years, the announcement said.

Automotive production has been outpacing demand around the world, and backlogs of new cars are piling up everywhere.

Here's a fascinating photo from the automotive website jalopnik.com of Nissan inventory being stored on the company's test track at Sunderland, England.

A while ago I posted a blog about the obvious connections between the hope offered to a troubled world by the inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and Barack H. Obama today.

I quoted part of FDR's inaugural address — the part that includes "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" (NOT NOT NOT "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" as many people misquote it).

I was just re-reading FDR's whole address and it is quite an amazing piece of writing. I'm going to reproduce the whole thing here so you can read it too. Then we can all listen to Barack give his speech and see how it stacks up to FDR's.

Frankly, if Obama says half the things Roosevelt said, he'll be branded a communist or dictator or both — as FDR was in some circles. But then, our depression hasn't been going on for three solid years and we're not as desperate (yet) for an act of salvation as Americans were in 1933.



Here it is — FDR's inaugural address from March 4, 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression:

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.



Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

1. Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Alanis Morrissette and Hillary Rodham Clinton are all cousins.

According to a 2007 report in the Washington Post, they are all descendants of Zacharie Cloutier, a French carpenter who settled in New France/Quebec in 1634. Cloutier had six apparently very fertile children because, by 1800, about 10,000 descendants in Quebec were attributed to him, the most of any early colonist.

The connections can be a little distant. Hillary Clinton and Madonna, for example, are 10th cousins. Clinton and Angelina Jolie are ninth cousins twice removed.





2. The incandescent light bulb was invented in Toronto. Well, one of the earliest efficient light bulbs was invented and patented here in 1874.

Rudimentary forerunners of light bulbs had been created as early 1800 and a few patents for very crude, short-lasting electric lights had been issued prior to the Toronto breakthrough by medical student Henry Woodward and hotel keeper Matthew Evans.

After months of experimenting in a workshop on Adelaide St. W., Woodward and Evans filed a Canadian patent on July 24, 1874, for their lamp with a carbon rod held between electrodes in a glass cylinder filled with nitrogen.


Woodward's 1876 U.S. patent on the light bulb

Two years later, Woodward successfully got a U.S. patent on their light bulb, but the inventors were not able to convince investors that their light bulb could feasibly be brought into mass production.

Finally, in 1879, Woodward and Evans sold their U.S. and Canadian light bulb patents to Thomas Alva Edison for $5,000.

Using their work, Edison was able to file his own U.S. patent later that year for the Edison light bulb that is erroneously thought of as the first light bulb. Edison was the real creator of very few of the thousands of inventions he patented.



3. The electric chair was invented by a Buffalo dentist, Alfred P. Southwick in the early 1880s. The killing machine was designed as a chair because dentist Southwick was used to performing procedures on people in his dental chair. Southwick saw his invention as a more humane means of execution than hanging.

The electric chair was put into use for the first time in August 1890 at Auburn Prison, east of Buffalo. The man being executed was a wifekiller named William Kemmler.


Kemmler frying — literally — in the first electric chair

A short aside: Our old friend Edison was a strong proponent of direct current electricity, while his arch-rival, George Westinghouse, thought alternating current was a much more effective form of electricity. To push his thesis that AC was far more dangerous than DC, Edison pushed hard to make sure the first electric chair was operated on AC — thus reinforcing in the public’s mind that alternating current was a killer. Westinghouse fought hard to block Edison but failed. Used Westinghouse generators were finally acquired to juice the Auburn electric chair.

Back to Kemmler’s execution: Power was ramped up to 2,000 volts and then shot through the condemned man’s body for 17 seconds. When the charge was shut off, Kemmler was still alive, groaning and gasping for breath. The machine was turned back on for over a minute. Smoke rose from Kemmler’s head and witnesses complained of the horrific smell of burning flesh, but Kemmler was finally dead. Blame the dentist.


4. The U.S. Secret Service uses code names to identify the president, his family members, and other VIPS in the American government.

But the code names aren’t so secret.


Rosebud, Renegade, Radiance and Renaissance

The Chicago Tribune reported recently that Barack Obama’s code name is Renegade. His wife Michele is Renaissance. Daughter Malia is Radiance and daughter Sasha is Rosebud.

George W. Bush is Tumbler and his wife Laura is Tempo. Their daughters also have code names starting with T.

Code names for vice-presidents and other top officials start with different letters than the initial letter of the First Family codes.

A few other handles:

Bill and Hillary Clinton: Eagle and Evergreen

Ronald and Nancy Reagan: Rawhide and Rainbow

Richard and Pat Nixon: Searchlight and Starlight

John and Jackie Kennedy: Lancer and Lace



5. What did these three men have in common, apart from being victorious allies deciding the fate of post-war Europe at the Yalta Conference in 1945?


Seated from left: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

Well, they all had tattoos.

British PM Winston Churchill, who had been a lord of the admiralty in his younger days, had an anchor on his arm. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a tattoo of his family crest. And Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had a death’s head tattoo on his chest. How fitting.

Here are five bonus hits, just in case you knew one or two of the first five:

6. The oldest classified document in the U.S. is a 1918 report on formulas for making invisible ink. The CIA as recently as last year blocked a legal bid to declassify the document.

7. Richard M. Nixon applied to be a FBI agent — and was rejected.

8. An individual sperm cell of a squirrel is bigger than the sperm cell of a whale.

9. A blue whale’s testicles can weigh up to 50 kg.

10. In Canada, crematoriums are covered under the same legislation as garbage incinerators.

I’ve put away the baby blue tuxedo — I’m not going to Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the United States next Tuesday.

Up until a few days ago there was a chance. Both Barack and Michelle had invited me to be one of 10 Obama supporters to fly to Washington as their guest, attend the welcome ceremony, the Inaugural parade, the swearing-in, and an official Inaugural ball.

(You might remember from the U.S. election campaign that Barack and I are Facebook friends and I’ve had numerous personal e-mails from Barack, his wife Michelle and even his little buddy Joe Biden over the past year.)

A week ago Michelle wrote:

“Supporters like you made this historic moment possible.
“Thanks to you, this campaign was open to more people than any in history, and we’re counting on you to do the same for the Inauguration.
“You could be there to celebrate your amazing accomplishments and give a strong start to the change you fought so hard for.”

And on Thursday Barack himself took time out of his busy schedule to send me a personal invitation:

“Just like we did on the campaign, we’re relying entirely on supporters like you — ordinary people giving whatever they can afford to make this an event for all Americans.
I know we’ve asked a lot of you. But changing the way business is done in Washington will take a commitment from all of us. Right now, you can help give this administration a strong start.
And if you make a donation of any amount before midnight tonight, you could be selected to come to Washington, D.C., and be part of the welcome ceremony, the swearing in, the Inaugural Parade, and the Inaugural Community Ball....”

Well, damn it, when your president-elect makes a personal plea like that ( and, yes, he is my president-elect since I was born in the U.S.) you have to answer the call. Besides, the cutoff for entering the draw was midnight that night, so I had to act fast.

I went to Barack's Ticket to History website and tried to make a $5 contribution (what did you expect?). I had to answer all sorts of questions. The address part wouldn’t let me put in Ontario instead of a state and I had to affirm that I was a U.S. citizen (well half of me is, anyway).

And then I had to write a little essay on “What does this Inauguration mean to you?” — sort of like, “Tell us in 50 words or less why you think you should be King of the Butterball Ball.”

I’m pretty good at sucking up, so I sucked it up and put all my suck-up powers to work in writing the following suck-up essayette:

“I was born in North Carolina to an American father and a Canadian mother and I have dual American and Canadian citizenship. I’m proud of both of my citizenships but I have never been more proud of being an American citizen than when Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

“As a child, JFK was my hero and I bawled my eyes out when I heard he had been assassinated. Again with Martin and Bobby. I feel like a torch of hope has been passed from the 1960s to 2009.

“I could not be in Berlin for the fall of the Wall. I consider this Inauguration to be just as important an historical event. I would love to be part of it.

“Alan Parker”

Not bad for a suck-up letter, and most of it is true too.



Then I tried to submit the form and — KA-BOOM — my dreams were crushed. The damn xenophobic, insular, alienating official Obama inauguration website wouldn’t accept a contribution from a CANADIAN credit card.

Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuz me. That card’s been good enough to buy breakfast in Red China and lunch in the heart of the most communist-hating parts of the U.S.A. But not good enough to buy $5 worth of good will for (and a chance to win an invite to) the Grand Inauguration. For shame, Mr. President-Elect. For shame.

Wait a second.

I’ve just found a possible out. Way down at the bottom there’s a click spot for people who want to participate but not make a contribution.

Click.

Well, hooray — there’s even a spot to say I’m writing from Canada.

So here’s what my new entry says:

“Congratulations on your big day, Mr. President-Elect.

“I wish I could be there. I tried to make a donation (a small one, granted, but it would have covered a few canapes). Unfortunately, the internet format for making contributions would not accept my credit card — I guess because it’s a Canadian-based number, even though it says “American Express” on the card.

“So I can’t make a financial contribution to the inaugural bash (“buy a plate” as it were .... certainly not “buy a seat” in light of that unseemly affair back in Illinois), but I wish you the best on Jan. 20 and in the days ahead...”

Then I repeated the first part of my suck-up essayette..

And ....TA-DAH ... it went through okay. And it didn’t even cost me $5.

So now I still have a chance to go to Washington as Barack’s guest and enjoy the Inauguration up close and in person. All I have to do is wait for the call .... Hope it comes soon ... Nervous (but in a good way) ... I’ll let you know what happens.

I get a lot of scam e-mail letters for some reason. I know I'm a sucker, but I've never responded to any of these guys. Yet the e-mails keep coming. I guess I'm on some list circulating in Nigeria and Britain — that's where most of the scam e-mails I get are coming from.

Most of the scams use e-address variations on legitimate companies, from Yahoo to Federal Express. I used to contact the real companies and tell them their good name was being abused through criminal acts. They never seemed particularly interested, so I've stopped contacting them.

I keep copies of the better scam letters as sort of a hobby. Most of them are barely literate and quite funny but some of them are pretty convincing works of art.

The original e-mail scam — in which you are offered a huge amount of money to let a high government official hide his secret fortune in your bank account (and all you have to do is send him your bank account number and other information so he can deposit the money) — seems to have faded, but there are still plenty of other schemes out there.

You’ve won the Nigerian national lottery and all you have to do is provide certain personal information to claim it. Or your e-mail address has been picked randomly in a monthly $300,000 Yahoo! promotional draw and all you have to do is send them certain personal information to collect. Or Federal Express is holding a registered package containing a certified banker’s cheque and they will forward it you .... once you provide their agent with etc. etc.

Today I got a real doozy. It claimed to be from the FBI and was even signed by the director of the bureau. They got his name right. They even got the FBI headquarters zip code right (although "D.C." became "Dc").



I decided I had to contact the FBI about this one. I’ll tell you what happened then, but first take a read of the FBI scam letter:

From : FBI admin@federalbureauinvestigation.de.nr
Reply-To : danielwilson70@yahoo.cn
Sent : January 9, 2009 12:14:20 PM
Subject : URGENT RESPONSE NEEDED (805)

Anti-Terrorist And Monitory Crime Division.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation.
J.Edgar Hoover Building Washington Dc

Attn: Beneficiary,

This is to Officially inform you that it has come to our notice and we have
thoroughly Investigated with the help of our Intelligence Monitoring Network
System that you are having an illegal Transaction with Impostors claiming to be
Prof. Charles C. Soludo of the Central Bank Of Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Aziza, Mr
Frank Nweke, Dr. Philip Mogan, none officials of Oceanic Bank, Zenith Banks,
Barr. Derrick Smith, kelvin Young of HSBC, Ben of FedEx, Ibrahim Sule,Larry
Christopher, Dr. Usman Shamsuddeen, Dr. Philip Mogan, Paul Adim, Puppy Scammers
are impostors claiming to be the Federal Bureau Of Investigation. During our
Investigation, we noticed that the reason why you have not received your payment
is because you have not fulfilled your Financial Obligation given to you in
respect of your Contract/Inheritance Payment.

Therefore, we have contacted the Federal Ministry Of Finance on your behalf and
they have brought a solution to your problem by coordinating your payment in
total USD$11,000.000.00 in an ATM CARD which you can use to withdraw money from
any ATM MACHINE CENTER anywhere in the world with a maximum of $4000 to $5000
United States Dollars daily. You now have the lawful right to claim your fund in
an ATM CARD.

Since the Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved in this transaction, you
have to be rest assured for this is 100% risk free it is our duty to protect the
American Citizens. All I want you to do is to contact the ATM CARD CENTER via
email for their requirements to proceed and procure your Approval Slip on your
behalf which will cost you $260.00 only and note that your Approval Slip which
contains details of the agent who will process your transaction.

CONTACT INFORMATION
NAME: MR. DANIEL WILSON
EMAIL: danielwilson70@yahoo.cn

Do contact Mr. Daniel Wilson of the ATM CARD CENTER with your details:
FULL NAME:
HOME ADDRESS:
TELL:
CELL:
CURRENT OCCUPATION:
BANK NAME:
AGE:

So your files would be updated after which he will send the payment
information’s which you’ll use in making payment of $260.00 via Western Union
Money Transfer or Money Gram Transfer for the procurement of your Approval Slip
after which the delivery of your ATM CARD will be effected to your designated
home address without any further delay.We order you get back to this office
after you have contacted the ATM SWIFT CARD CENTER and we do await your response
so we can move on with our Investigation and make sure your ATM SWIFT CARD gets
to you.

Thanks and hope to read from you soon.

ROBERT S. MUELLER, III
DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20535

Note: Do disregard any email you get from any impostors or offices claiming to
be in possession of your ATM CARD, you are hereby advice only to be in contact
with Mr. Daniel Wilson of the ATM CARD CENTER who is the rightful person to deal
with in regards to your ATM CARD PAYMENT and forward any emails you get from
impostors to this office so we could act upon and commence investigation

FBI Director Robert Mueller III: "I'll squeeze their tiny heads"/AP photo


So I went to the official FBI website to report this scam. On the left side of the FBI homepage, under the heading Contact Us, I found Report Internet Crime.

That’s what I was there to do so I clicked on it. That took me to the Internet Crime Complaint Center and on the right hand side of that page was a big bulletin SCAM EMAIL ALERT!



I figured I’d read that before filing my complaint. Here’s what it said.

Intelligence Note
Prepared by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
December 10, 2008
Flurry of Spam Targeting the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Consumers continue to be inundated by spam purportedly from the FBI. As with previous spam attacks, the latest versions use the names of several high ranking executives within the FBI and even the IC3 to attempt to defraud consumers.

Many of the spam e-mails currently in circulation claim to be an “official order” from the FBI’s Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division, from an alleged FBI unit in Nigeria, confirm an inheritance or contain a lottery notification, all informing recipients they have been named the beneficiary of millions of dollars. To claim the large sum, recipients are instructed to furnish their personally identifiable information (PII) and are often threatened with some type of penalty, such as prosecution, if they fail to do so. Specific PII information requested includes, but is not limited to, the recipient’s name, banking information, telephone number, and a copy of their passport.

The spam e-mail allegedly from the IC3 states that the recipient has extorted money and will be given a limited amount of time to refund the money or face prosecution.

Do not respond. These e-mails are a hoax.

The FBI does not send unsolicited e-mails of this nature. FBI Executives are briefed on numerous investigations but do not personally contact consumers regarding such matters. In addition, the IC3 does not send threatening letters to consumers demanding payments for Internet crimes.

Consumers should not respond to any unsolicited e-mails or click on any embedded links associated with such e-mails, as they may contain viruses or malware.

It is imperative consumers guard their PII. Providing your PII will compromise your identity!

If you have been a victim of Internet crime, please file a complaint at www.IC3.gov.

So there you have it. Even the FBI can't catch these guys who are ballsy enough to use the FBI name — and the FBI director's name, for gosh sakes — as part of their scam.

The best the FBI can do is tell me to guard my PII (personally identifiable information). Thanks, guys. I know I'm dealing with an ineffectual bureaucracy when initial code words like IC3 and PII start popping up. Take their advise, but don't expect the FBI to help if you're foolish enough to get involved in one of these schemes.

Good luck and keep a firm grip on your PII.

Here's a link to MySpace where I've posted a 2007 article by my friend Thane Burnett, national bureau writer for Sun Media, on e-mail scams.

I know it seems a little morbid to be trying to figure out who among the 50 celebrities listed below might have died in the past year and who is still alive.

But what the heck — the festive season's over and it's time to get back to reality. What could be more real than life and death?

Besides, I bet you’ll be surprised by some of the answers, so give it a shot. I’ll post the answers at the end of this blog.

We'll start off with some sexpots, hotshots and whatnots of the ’40s, ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s and see where we go from there. (By the way, the year in which each celebrity was born is in brackets after the person’s name.)



BRIGITTE BARDOT (1934) Ultimate Euro screen hottie of the 1950s


MAMIE VAN DOREN (1931) One of the three Ms of the ‘50s along with Marilyn
Monroe and Jayne Mansfield


URSULA ANDRESS (1936) The first Bond Girl, Honey Ryder in Dr. No


HONOR BLACKMAN (1925) Pussy Galore, Bond Woman



ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1932) Most beautiful woman of her day


ZSA ZSA GABOR (1917) No, it was her sister Eva on Green Acres


OLIVIA de HAVILLAND (1916) Melanie in Gone With The Wind


LAUREN BACALL (1924) She whistled and Bogart came running


ELKE SOMMER (1940) A hot Shot in the Dark


RAQUEL WELCH (1940) Acting schmacting


ANNETTE FUNICELLO (1942) Beach movies, but no sizzle in the sand


RUTH BUZZI (1936) Laugh-In


MARGARET THATCHER (1925), British prime minister


KARL MALDEN (1912) From Desire to the Waterfront to the Streets of San
Francisco


ELI WALLACH (1915) Good, Bad and Ugly


OMAR SHARIF (1932) Dr. Zhivago


ERNEST BORGNINE (1917) McHale’s Navy trumped Marty


RICHARD KIEL (1939) Jaws in two Bond films


MICKEY ROONEY (1920) The Mickster



Okay, we’re rolling. Let’s try some TV stars.



JAMES ARNESS (1923) Gunsmoke’s Marshal Matt Dillon


PETER GRAVES (1926) Mission: Impossible TV series — and younger brother of James
Arness


ANDY GRIFFITH (1926) Think Mayberry


JACK KLUGMAN (1922) Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple


BARBARA BILLINGSLEY (1922) Mom on Leave It To Beaver


JERRY MATHERS (1948) The Beaver


GAVIN MacLEOD (1930) The Love Boat


ED ASNER (1929) Lou Grant


MAX BAER JR. (1937) Jethro on The Beverly Hillbillies


DONNA DOUGLASS (1933) Elly May on The Beverly Hillbillies



BURT WARD (1945) Robin on the Batman TV series


RICHARD SANDERS (1940) Les Nessman on WKRP


JONATHAN WINTERS (1925) Comedian — everything from Ed Sullivan to Mork &
Mindy


GABE KAPLAN (1945) Welcome back, Kotter


JAMES MacARTHUR (1937) Hawaii Five-0’s Dano


HARRY MORGAN (1915) Col. Potter on TV’s MASH


JAMIE FARR (1934) Klinger on the TV MASH


LOU FERRIGNO (1952) TV’s Incredible Hulk



Let's switch over to the world of music for a bit.



CHUCK BERRY (1926) Rock legend


LITTLE RICHARD (1932) Good Golly, Miss Molly



LES PAUL (1915) Guitar legend


MITCH MILLER (1911) Sing Along With Mitch



HERB ALPERT (1935) Tijuana Brass


RAVI SHANKAR (1920) Sitar guru


Now what about the cast of Star Wars?


PETER MAYHEW (1944) Chewbacca


DAVID PROWSE (1935) Darth Vader’s body


JAMES EARL JONES (1931) Darth Vader’s voice


KENNY BAKER (1934) R2D2


BILLY DEE WILLIAMS (1937) Lando Calrissian


And don’t forget Star Trek.


GEORGE TAKEI (1937) Mr. Sulu


RICARDO MONTALBAN (1920) Khan in Star Trek ( and Mr. Roarke on Fantasy
Island)
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...ANSWER, ACTUALLY:



Incredibly they all ALL ALIVE and most of them are doing quite well as we enter 2009. Some are showing the normal wear and tear of the aging process (several are almost 100) and a number have survived serious health crises in the past. I tried not to use anyone who has major health issues right now.

I really wanted to make this a celebration of the contributions and durability of a lot of people who may have slipped out of the public spotlight but are still alive and kicking.

Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman and Mamie Van Doren are all still quite hot for their ages and still active in showbiz. Van Doren, as she told Sun columnist Mike Strobel a year ago, even has an internet business selling her used underwear and inkblots of her bare nipples online. That's gotta be a niche market.

Mitch Miller — who I thought had been dead for decades — is approaching 100 but is still active, still occasionally appearing onstage as guest conductor for orchestras.

Elly May Clampett sells real estate and Brigitte Bardot is saving the world one animal at a time.

So bless 'em all. Hope they all have a good year.

Just as the 12 Days of Christmas finally wind down for most people, some of your friends and neighbours are only now about to start celebrating Christmas.

For some Eastern Orthodox Churches still operating on the Julian Calendar, Christmas falls on Jan. 7 (on the common calendar) for the rest of this century. Those Orthodox churches include Jerusalem, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia, Macedonia (republic), Poland and the Greek Old Calendarists. For most of those churches, the big celebration is Christmas Eve tomorrow night.



The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates Christmas on Jan. 6. So I guess tonight is Christmas Eve for many Armenians.

Other Orthodox churches — Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria — started adopting a new system in 1923 that puts Christmas on Dec. 25. (More on that later.)

Now I don’t want this to get complicated and boring, but the big difference on whether Christmas is celebrated in December or January (on the common calendar) is whether the church involved follows the Julian (old style) or Gregorian (new style) calendar.

The Julian calendar was introduced by — who else? — Julius Caesar in 45 B.C. and gave us the basic calendar of 365 days in a year divided into 12 months with a leap day added every four years. Seems straightforward, right?

But it was off just enough that the Julian calendar outpaces the astronomical calendar by approximately 11 minutes a year — adding up to about 13 days over the past two millenia.

So in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII agreed to a new calculation that added one main twist to the Julian calendar: Years that are exactly divisible by 100 are NOT leap years, but years that are exactly divisible by 400 ARE STILL leap years.


Pope Gregory XIII

Go figure. But it was enough to put the calendar back in alignment with the astronomical calendar (equinoxes and solstices — the seasons, in other words) — once they corrected the speed-up of the past 600 years. So Pope Gregory (thus the Gregorian calendar) just wiped out 10 days.

One day it was Thursday, Oct. 4, 1582, and the next day it was Friday, Oct. 15, 1582.

Now this was a papal order and applied only to the Catholic church, but four European countries — Spain, Portugal, Poland and Italy — adopted it immediately and France was on board by the end of the year.

The rest of Europe took a little longer — more than 300 years, in fact — to make the switch, with much confusion involved. You had situations like Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote) and William Shakespeare (You know him) both dying on April 23, 1616, although Cervantes had been dead for 10 days before Shakespeare kicked the bucket. Why? Because Spain was on the new Gregorian calendar and England still clung to the old Julian calendar.

England (and her territories) finally got around to adopting the new (well, it was getting pretty old by this time) Gregorian calendar in 1752. Scotland, by the way, had already adopted the Gregorian system on Jan.1, 1600.

One result of this is that English subjects — including Canadians and Americans — who were born before 1752 and died after that date lost 11 days of their lives, so to speak. Biographies of George Washington, for example, generally list his birth as Feb. 22, 1732, and his death as Dec. 14, 1799. Washington was actually born on Feb. 11, 1732, according to the calendar in use in the colony of Virginia at the time.



One of the last European countries to adopt the Gregorian calendar was Russia. The Bolsheviks introduced the new system in 1918 — but the October Revolution that brought them to power in 1917 happened under the old system. So when the October Revolution started on Oct. 25, 1917, in Russia, it was Nov. 7, 1917, in the rest of Europe.

Greece was the last country of Eastern Orthodox Europe to move to the Gregorian calendar in 1923.

That same year the Patriarch of Constantinople decreed that the churches under his primacy would observe a revised Julian calendar that dropped 13 days and adopted a different leap year formula. So until the year 2800, the Gregorian and revised Julian calendars will coincide.

That’s why the Greek, Romanian and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches and so on celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 — at least until 2800.

So that’s it.

Merry Christmas, С Рождеством, everybody.

Next up — Chinese New Year’s in about a month.

Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin, Tina Fey, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer in 30 Rock

Now what could the hit NBC sit-com 30 Rock possibly have in common with this iconic Depression-era photo of high-steel construction workers casually eating lunch on a girder hundreds of feet above Manhattan?



Lunch atop a Skyscraper, 1932

Well, let’s start with 30 Rock.

Created by Saturday Night Live alumnus Tina Fey and starring Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer, the series’ setting is a fictional live sketch comedy show (much like SNL — and also, like SNL, supposedly airing on NBC).

The Fabulous Fey

And that’s where 30 Rock gets its title — 30 Rockefeller Plaza (30 Rock for short), the GE Building in midtown Manhattan where GE-owned NBC has its New York studios, where shows like SNL, the NBC Nightly News and Late Night With Conan O’Brien are produced. And also the setting for 30 Rock’s fictional series, TGS with Tracy Jordan (formerly The Girlie Show).




Two views of 30 Rock

The 30 Rockefeller Plaza studio where TGS is supposedly shot — Studio 6H — doesn’t exist, but it’s a nod to the legendary Studio 8H where Saturday Night Live has made magic for more than three decades.

The studio number refers to the floor on which it’s located: NBC News and MSNBC take up most of the third floor, where studios 3A, 3B, 3C and 3K are located. On the sixth floor, Late Night with Conan O’Brien is currently shot in Studio 6A (once home to the original Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman, as well) and Studio 6B is being readied to produce Late Night with Jimmy Fallon when Conan O’Brien moves up the food chain to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno in June. Saturday Night Live shares the eighth floor with NBC Sports.

Surprisingly, 30 Rock isn’t filmed at 30 Rock. It’s primarily shot at Silver Cup Studios on Long Island, with the cast moving to the GE Building for occasional specific scenes. Exterior scenes are shot at 30 Rock and in the surrounding streets of midtown Manhattan.

Whew, that’s it for 30 Rock. Now what’s the connection with the vertigo-inducing photo of the lunch-bucket brigade dangling in thin air over Manhattan? (The photo, by the way, is formally known as Lunchtime atop a Skyscraper and, less commonly, New York Construction Workers Lunching on a Crossbeam.)


Lunch atop a Skyscraper, 1932

Well, those are the guys who built 30 Rock and the beam they’re sitting on is part of 30 Rock.

The original Rockefeller Center, developed privately by the Rockefeller family at the height of the Depression, consisted of 14 Art Deco buildings built between 1930 and 1939. The crown jewel of the complex was 30 Rockefeller Plaza, a 70-storey highrise slicing 260 metres into the NYC skyline. It was dubbed the RCA Building when the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and its subsidiary NBC took out a long-term lease as major tenants of the building. (30 Rock was renamed the GE Building in 1988, two years after GE bought RCA, and thus NBC).

The photo was taken on Sept. 29, 1932, a few months before construction of 30 Rock was completed. The 11 workers are sitting on a beam that formed part of the 69th floor of the 70-storey building. If you look closely, you’ll se the guy on the far right is holding what looks like a bottle of booze while the two guys on the far left are lighting up smokes.

The photo was one of a number taken that day by Charles C. Ebbets, a daredevil in his own right, who had been commissioned by the Rockefellers to record construction of Rockefeller Center. A lot of the other photos he took that day are novelty shots — like a golfer teeing off — taken on the same beam as the lunch crowd. I find they diminish the grandeur of the lunch shot, so I’m not going to include them here. You can find them online if you’re interested.


Charles C. Ebbets taking photos on the 69th floor of 30 Rock on Sept. 29, 1932

Ebbets’ photo became famous a few days later when it was published by the New York Herald Tribune in its Sunday. Oct. 2, photo supplement.

Despite the photo’s fame and Ebbets’ uncontestable authorship, for decades the photographer was often credited as “unknown.” I’m assuming that’s because no photo credit accompanied the picture — a handout from a commercial venture, after all — when it appeared in the Herald Tribune.

So that’s it. The GE Building — 30 Rock — is definitely worth a visit when you’re in New York. As well as the glamour of the NBC connection, the building has one of the best observation decks — known as Top of the Rock — in the city. You'll be standing just about where those construction workers were. Compare the view, then and now.