Good things and listeriosis gro-o-ow, in Ontario!

Maple Leaf Foods (not to be confused with Maple Lodge, a mistake I've made in front of too many people) has recalled over 200 varieties of meat after several Canadians started getting listeriosis.

You probably know that. Unfortunately, there's a lot more you don't know.

Maple Leaf management has been commended by the Toronto Sun (among others) for their handling of this crisis - doing everything they can to ensure that there is no risk whatsoever to the public, no matter how minute, and putting a public face (Michael McCain) to the company. McCain is taking full responsibility, rather than blaming the plant manager, or the health department, or anyone else. Good for him.

But there's a bigger problem here. People in grocery stores (and I technically still work in one, so I know what I'm talking about) are now leery of all Maple Leaf products.

Maple Leaf originally recalled about 20 different products, which were the ones they had reason to believe could have come in contact with the bacteria.

Then, a few days later, they upped the list to over 200 lines, but as a measure of goodwill, not because there was any significant (or insignificant) public risk in consuming these products.

Unfortunately, most people aren't aware of that last part, and think there's hundreds of Maple Leaf product lines out there which will make them violently ill - bad PR for the company.

I was at work yesterday, when a customer asked me why we still had Maple Leaf products out. My response was that they weren't all included in the recall. "No, but they've recalled so much, how do you know anymore?" Well, they've recalled everything made in that plant, I'm pretty sure stuff they make hundreds of miles away is safe from at least that outbreak.

Another customer was a little smarter - she'd seen the news that you could tell what was produced in that plant by the 97B at the beginning of the product code. She found one pack of meat that had no code whatsoever, and asked us why it was still out when it might be 97B meat. It wasn't anything included in the recall, therefore not produced at the Toronto plant, therefore not 97B. Better luck next time.

I'm not really (or at all) a business student, but I guess this is what happens when well-intentioned damage control efforts go too far?

--Ryan

kooonin

An Olympian rant

There's something strange going on in Beijing.

If you've followed the behind-the-scenes news stories about the atmosphere around the Olympics, you could be left with one of two pictures. Either the games are a huge success, proving that China is the future of the world - or there's a lot of empty seats, and aside from the volunteers, nobody in China seems to really care about the Olympics. So which is it?

My guess? Both.

I'm sure if you looked hard enough, you'd be able to find plenty of Chinese who don't care about the spectacle going on in their backyard. But at the same time, 1.3 billion Chinese watching the opening ceremony indicates that the vast majority do care.

The bigger problem is what's not being reported at all. Leading up to this summer, all the buildup seemed to be about how this would be China's coming-out party as an open society. No longer the same government that perpetrated the Tianamen Square massacre, we were told that China was the future socioeconomic powerhouse of the world, and these Olympics would prove it.

Instead, we got a tank positioned outside the press centre, people being denied access into the country for fear they might engage in peacful demonstration, all protests forced to be in one of three locations far away from the Olympic grounds, a British journalist arrested for simply visiting one of the three locations, and so on.

I don't expect this stuff to get covered on the Olympic broadcasts, and it wasn't - there were plenty of other stories for them to tell, from the dominance of Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt to the comeback story of Eric Lamaze. And I'll admit that I didn't watch as much news the last couple weeks as I usually do (due to work, vacation, and watching the Olympics)...but I saw virtually nothing on any of the above stories. They were sidebars at best. Doesn't seem right to me, it's almost like the news outlets were willing to ignore anything the Chinese government did in the interests of their feel-good story.

Unlike some people, though, I have no problem with the lip-synching nine-year-old and CGI fireworks from the opening ceremony. It's not like the Chinese are the first to try and pass off lip-synching as real.

And I like to laugh at people comparing China's medal dominance to Nazi Germany's attempt to do something similar in 1936. Of course it's the same thing - but so was the Greek effort in 2004, so will be the Brits in 2012. The host nation always puts in extra effort to have a good showing in the medal count, no matter what their political sytem is.

--Ryan

Boston post-mortem

As I alluded to in the last post, I was in Boston the last few days.

I'd been to Beantown before - a high school band weekend trip four years ago - and had always kind of wanted to go back. So when the opportunity came up, I was on board.

Being on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, Boston is of course a haven of great seafood. Being a big fan of seafood, that's something I was looking forward to. So naturally, The Great Boston Trek's first meal was...a McDonald's off the highway near Rochester, NY.

Things only got better from there, though, as my dinners through the trip went from lobster tail to a fisherman's feast (a big pile of deep-fried seafood) to prime rib to lobster and fettucine. Very, very good food, at some very, very good restaurants.

I was expecting Boston to be sort of a mix of a historical city (such as Quebec City), which is how I remembered it from my last trip, and the Good Will Hunting city that I largely didn't see before. Both of those elements definitely were present this time around, but there was also an undercurrent of trendiness. Particularly in the tourist areas, it was almost as if Boston has become a hip vacation spot - I've never seen so many people in white pants.

Oh, and I went to Fenway Park. The Blue Jays demolished the Red Sox 15-4, which I loved and the majority of the crowd did not (although I did see a surprising number of Jays fans through the day, maybe a hundred or so all told).

I've never experienced anything like the Boston subway to and from Fenway...an hour-plus before the game, and the trains were literally jam-packed with as many people as could possibly fit on, all headed to the same location. It was awesome.

As for the history...Boston was one of the major cities in colonial America, and an important site in the Revolutionary War (not just because Paul Revere lived there). As someone who's not really a history guy to begin with, and especially not 18th-century American history, there was a little too much of that.

Still, great city, great trip. And great food, did I mention that?

--Ryan

I tube, you tube, we all tube for Youtube

If you were on this blog in the last 24 hours or so, you saw something unusually incoherent (even by my standards) - the "Hello My Baby" frog from a few weeks ago, followed by a line of garbage text.

Well, there's a reason for that. Before I made the original post with that video, I tried putting the video on the blog directly through Youtube. When I do this, I include a bit of gibberish which I can then edit to real text after it's been posted. I got the usual message stating that "the video will appear on your blog shortly."

Apparently "shortly" means "three weeks later", hence what you saw earlier.

I'm actually in Boston for the weekend, and I'll have a full report up sometime after I'm home Monday night, but suffice it to say that Americans are fat and seafood is tasty (there might be a correlation there).

--Ryan

A random thought

As far as I can remember, I've never known anybody named Heidi. (Or, for that matter, Fred, but Fred seems to be dying out these days.)

This seems weird to me.

--Ryan

Na na na na na na na na na... BATMAN!

I've been stumbling around YouTube today, and discovered a few clever responces to the new Batman film...




By the same director as the above video is a batman spoof-theme (as well as many other spoof-themes. I just thought I'd recommend it.

No further comments. That's all I had to say.

--
D. Phillips

Let the Games begin!

We are less than 24 hours away from the start of the Beijing Olympics.

I'm psyched.

Because of the 12-hour time difference between here and China (fun fact, the entire country is in the same time zone), CBC (and TSN, bold, and Radio-Canada) will be airing Olympic coverage from whenever I wake up until noon, and from 6 PM until whenever I go to bed. Other than the first few hours of the evening, it will almost all be live. So I'll be watching a lot of the Olympics over the next couple weeks.

(Although I will be in Boston for a few days next week. That'll be weird - watching the Olympics and *not* seeing a focus on Canadian athletes.)

I love the Olympics. I don't know what it is, but something about them is enough to get me to pay attention to track and field events, or swimming races, for a few weeks. Plus you get to see sports that you completely forget about until the Olympics roll around again, like handball, water polo, or fencing.

Canada's chances at the 2008 Olympics...quite frankly aren't that great. We won twelve medals in 2004, and a lot of 'experts' believe that we'll have trouble matching that total in Beijing. Ah well. Still fun to watch.

--Ryan

Mulan II

I have a bone to pick with Disney.

When they made Mulan in 1998, they did their best to respectfully portray medieval China's culture while entertaining the Western audience. Since a Disney audience is young, they effectively taught some good morals to our children; morals like respecting gender differences and understanding that gender roles are not set in stone. (Spoiler alert: For those who don't know, Mulan was a woman who dressed as a man to fight in the army in place of her father.)

All good things that we should learn, right? Respect for differences. Keep that in mind as I explain the subject of my beef.

The sequel, Mulan II (2004), begins with a song as Mulan teaches children how to beat each other up. (Cool!) As the story unfolds, we learn a valuable lesson about an aspect held by many (mostly Asian) cultures: Arranged marriage. (Be prepared, more spoilers to follow!)

Mulan is to escort three princesses from one kingdom to another so that they may be married in hopes of strengthening diplomatic ties. Should these marriages fail, the potentially pending war with Mongolia will begin.

The princesses are content with their situation; their duty is to China, its Emperor, and its people.

Alas, Mulan decides that forcing the princesses to do something that they don't want to do (not that they don't want to do it, mind you... in fact, they consider it an honour and a duty!) is immoral, and schemes up a way to free the princesses out of their (honorable) situation.

Mulan says their duty should not be to the millions of people who probably died in the war to follow, but to their own hearts.

And so (according to Disney) all arranged marriages are immoral.

Even if the fiancées are okay with the idea.

--
D. Phillips

I'm part of a renaissance!

Specifically, the renaissance which is taking place in downtown Brantford, as noted in today's Expositor by Tim Philp. Philp is best known to this blog for being compared to Hitler by perennial election loser John Turmel.

But Philp, much like Hitler, is eloquent - and what's more, he's bang on the money. It's been nearly two and a half years since my first visit to downtown Brantford, and even in that short time, I notice that there's been changes. Even during the summer, when the student population is at its lowest ebb, the people walking around are normal people enjoying their 9-to-5 lives, not the people who contributed to former mayor Chris Friel calling it "Canada's worst downtown".

One of my professors once mentioned that "you [meaning the students] are all here because you're part of a big experiment to revitalize Brantford's downtown." At the time, I took it rather cynically, thinking that it was a pretty stupid reason for me to be forking over tens of thousands of dollars.

After giving it some more thought recently, I realized that it's just the opposite. Had I gone to Toronto or Ottawa, I'd still be spending the money, but I wouldn't be making a tangible difference. In Brantford, every single person who buys a juice at Stir It Up, goes for a skate at Harmony Square, eats a burger at Admirals (because I had to pick one that included me)...they're all making a difference. The downtown is improving, and it's because of every individual person who is down there, be it as a student, an employee, or an ordinary citizen wanting to pick something up at the farmer's market, using a bank, and staying for lunch.

I'm kind of proud to be a part of that.

--Ryan

Review: The Dark Knight

I wasn't quite the last person on the planet to see The Dark Knight, but I was probably in the final dozen or so. I went into the movie expecting something really good - I had only seen one negative review (I believe it was the Toronto Sun), and I'd heard plenty of people talking about how good it was. My expectations for this movie were high - and it blew them away.

I have to confess (and this might come as a surprise) that I've never been much of a Batman fan. Yes, I was a comic book geek up until a few years ago, but strictly Marvel comics - no Superman, no Green Lantern, no Batman. I had never seen a previous Batman movie, and can't remember watching any of the TV shows (although my sister disputes this). So I know very little of Batman's history, major plots, or supporting cast (although I did surprise myself by being able to name a half-dozen or so villains).

In other words, I went into the movie with high expectations, but no preconceptions. I didn't know what a 'true' Batman movie should look like, so I could enjoy the movie for being a good movie, rather than a good Batman movie.

It was a great movie.

Yes, they got quite a bit of bonus publicity in January, when Heath Ledger overdosed and died. And I, presumably like a lot of people, was worried that the movie would be turned into a "last hurrah" of sorts for Ledger, one last chance for everyone to enjoy his skill.

Turns out that he *did* steal the show, but that was going to happen even if he didn't die. Ledger's performance actually is Oscar-worthy on its own merits, leaving extracurricular circumstances out of the equation. The Joker character is able to be scheming, evil, chaotic, insane, intelligent, and a touch tragic - all at once. He's really a character of contradictions - makes up new stories for how he got his scars, says he has no plan but manages to always have a fallback option.

Also, the "disappearing pencil" might be one of the most shockingly hilarious scenes I've ever seen in any movie.

Lest I leave you with the impression that this was Heath Ledger's Miraculous Oscar Machine and nothing else...the pacing was superb. True, it wouldn't have taken a whole lot of fleshing out to turn this film into two solid movies, but it's not like the last half dragged on. There were three separate occasions when I thought the movie was about to end, and only the last one was the real ending. It kept going, but it kept building, kept topping the excitement of the previous scene, and built to a perfect climax.

The "two boats" scene, with the big scary prisoner dude being the voice of conscience, bordered on cliché but never quite crossed the line. The "I'll create a computer program that will blow up after one use" device showed a *little* too much foresight, but it wouldn't even get mention if this movie were on the whole average (neither would Bale's gruff Batman voice).

Not quite sure I can call it the best movie I've ever seen. But best superhero movie I've ever seen? Easily. Best action movie I've ever seen? Hands down. Top ten, maybe even five, overall? Yes sir.

--Ryan

And then there was grammar

Playing the role of Ryan, me.

Playing the role of Dan, Dan.

Playing the role of Marcel the Mime, a cute little hamster.

Dan: Fiddlesticks... I guess I'll catch you next time than.

Now for an exercise in grammar, should the above be "then" because it's at the end of sentence? Someone told me that once, and it stuck with me... but I don't believe them.

Ryan: It should be 'then', but because 'then' is correct in that situation whereas 'than' is not. 'Than' is generally used when comparing two things, 'then' for any other use.

Dan: But I am comparing to things! This time as opposed to next time!

Ryan: Then it's "next time rather than this time", but it shortens to "next time then". Our language is weird.

Dan: I don't believe you!

This conversation continued, but I don't save outgoing messages.

Oh, and the hamster was pretending to be trapped in a box.

--Ryan