There’s a story on the Canadian Journalism Project correctly claiming that journalists dealing with government are becoming mere stenographers. http://jsource.ca/english_new/submitcomment.php?id=3834#commentform

Denise Rudnicki, former PR flack for a federal minister, says “this involves a sophisticated, government-wide, coordinated communications apparatus, well-resourced and professionally staffed, and designed to persuade people of the rightness of the government's position by marginalizing the views of opponents and by using the media to shape and manage public discussion of policy. Calling this effort 'spin' is like calling a tsunami a wave.”

She goes on to suggest "rather than exposing the efforts of government to manipulate the message, journalists should work to understand better how government communicates."

What's wrong with doing both?

What if we insist on telling the viewer, listener and reader EVERY time we come across an example of government spinning, particularly when it's using our tax dollars to distort facts and truth?

That's something journalists can do immediately, rather than wait for workshops (usually run by the least ethical and talented of us who've gone over to the dark side for dollars) on how business and government manipulate us so we lie to the people.

Journalists are the servants of the people. It ill behoves journalists to report anything but the truth -- as far as we can find it.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

The Congo has been a hell-hole for centuries. But don't ever blame the poor bloody Congolese.

Instead, blame the European slavers of 500 years ago who ripped millions of people out of that part of the African continent and shipped them off as slaves to the new world.

Then blame the Belgians whose king, Leopold ll, personally owned the Congo and murdered millions of Congolese in his ravenous quest for rubber, diamonds and gold.

Then blame Pope Nicholas V for a papal bull that, in effect, granted European monarchs the right to reduce "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery and whose church destroyed much of the tribal culture that sustained the Congolese people.

Then blame the hordes of savage capitalists from North America and Europe who reduced Congo to a basket case while they plundered -- and still plunder -- its riches.

Finally, blame us. We did and do almost nothing to try to save the wretched people of the Congo.

But don't ever blame the victims, the poor bloody Congolese.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

US President Barack Obama has declared May 7 as National Day of Prayer for his country so I guess he's not perfect after all.

A little background, if I may.

It was Thomas Jefferson who came up with the magnificent concept of "separation of church and state."

The First Amendment to the US Constitution took it further: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Very liberal and reasonably clear. There must be no state religion and religion itself must be free from state interference.

However, it stops half-way. Surely we've learned from the past eight years presided over by an American right-wing, born-again religious zealot (and a whole bunch of foreign, right-wing, born-again religious zealots) that freedom FROM religion is even more important that freedom OF religion.

All of which is why it saddens me that the otherwise splendid new president should have to (apparently, by law) sign a proclamation declaring a National Day of Prayer.

What horrifies me however, is that Obama felt it necessary to authorize his PR flack to announce that he, the president, prays every day. The flack said it twice. Twice!

Shades of those war criminals Nixon and Kissinger down on their bloody knees praying together on the eve of the disgraced president's resignation!


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Canadian author Pierre Burton: "A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.

Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau: "Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts."

American economist John Maynard Keynes: "Canada is a place of infinite promise."

Time Magazine: "Canada is one of the planet's most comfortable, and caring, societies."

Canadian hockey player Paul Henderson: "Canadians don't have a very big political lever, we're nice guys."

French explorer Jacques Cartier: "I am rather inclined to believe that this is the land God gave to Cain."

American gangster Al Capone: "I don't even know what street Canada is on."

American President Bill Clinton: "In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that tear nations apart, Canada stands as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and mutual respect."

American journalist Andrew H. Malcolm: "It's going to be a great country when they finish unpacking it."

Canadian philosopher and scholar Marshall MacLuhan: "The huge advantage of Canada is its backwardness."

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: "There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its virile, aspiring, cultured and generous-hearted people."

Canadian writer Alberto Manguel: "Until I came to Canada I never knew 'snow' was a four letter word."

American actor Marilyn Monroe: "When they said Canada, I thought it was up in the mountains somewhere."

Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland: "There are few, if any, Canadian men that have never spelled their names in a snow bank."

American comedian Robin Williams: "Canadian money is  called the loony. How can you take an economic crisis seriously?"

American President Barack Obama: "I love this country."


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

The Toronto Globe & Mail recently ran a story headlined “Teen Girls Are Swapping Sex for … Just About Anything” which deplored the fact that lots of teenage girls actually have sex.

Both my female and journalistic instincts tell me there’s something fishy about the story.

My main problem is that it lumps together perfectly normal teenage female behaviour with the way teen drug addicts behave. But they’re entirely different people living in entirely different worlds.

I know. I’ve never been a drug addict (although I’ve known and loved some) and didn’t lose my virginity until I was all of 18. But I experienced almost every other variety of sex, including being paid for it, from my very early teens. And I went a fair bit further in the “paid” column than just being wined and dined for my troubles.

It’s called having sex. It’s what we girls did. It’s what girls have always done when they can. It’s what girls will always do when they can. And since the invention of Penicillin and The Pill, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. In fact, it’s a normal part of female growing up. And since we aren’t blessed with male privilege and male upper-body strength, it’s by far the best way for us females to survive and manipulate a dangerous world to our advantage.

When the hormones hit us and, in fear and trembling, we surrendered in the back seat of the car and no lightning struck us and it actually felt good, we relaxed and decided sex was a really, really good way to attract and even hold the godlike creatures who strutted around our schoolyards with those big, strong shoulders, fast cars and potential marriage licenses.

Since the beginning of time, girls have always been sexual beings exploiting their sexual attraction and its awesome power whenever necessary and possible.

And sometime, just for practice, when UNnecessary and possible.

Forget about blaming parents. If anything, parents today are far more involved in their children’s behaviour than my parents’ generation and their parents’ generation. Back then, our parents told us little more than having sex before marriage was bad (mostly because someone called God said it was) and would lead to all sorts of terrible things including babies, disease and something called “disrespect”.  

Meantime, my journalistic instinct tells me the story’s purely anecdotal and directly contradicts a recent Maclean’s article that actually did a scientific survey indicating today’s teens are having less sex than previous generations.

Personally, I don’t think it matters either way.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

I'm inclined to believe that Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela are the two sexiest men in the world.

As a TV journalist and a woman I’m intrigued by Obama, particularly his incredible assurance and charisma. I haven’t seen anything remotely like it since I shook hands with the great Mandela a few years back and tears welled in my eyes and smudged my mascara.

To me, Obama and Mandela — some 44 years between them — are beautiful brothers from another planet. Each has roots deep in his own country yet each seems bigger, finer, more universal than us lesser, ordinary mortals.

Both Obama and Mandela have visited Canada. And at the dramatic moment when each climbed down those airplane steps, breathed fresh Canadian air and shook important Canadian hands, each somehow seemed to take command of the country and its people.

And me.

The same thing happens when the two men go anywhere in the world. They seize ownership of people, offer something nobler than the petty rationalizations dear to the rest of us, epitomize the Obamian chant “Yes We Can.” And with them, we truly believe we can.

It’s as if these two men have transcended age, race and gender. They’re both notably masculine anima-men (Carl Jung’s term for the female side of all of us) who radiate integrity, trustworthiness and decency. They’re strong, yet gentle. Determined, yet sensitive. Powerful, yet generous. Very sexy when you put it all together.

And if you must know, yes I could.

Either or both.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Barack Obama’s honeymoon is a wondrous thing. In only a couple of months he’s had his way with millions of Americans, Europeans, Canadians and Latin Americans.

But what of the people who changed so much of the world in a few short hours back on 9/11? What of radical Islam and al-Qaeda?

What if -- in spite of the Obama honeymoon and the optimism it spawns -- America and its Western allies have already lost the battle against Al-Qaeda and radical Islam?

And what if the Holy Warriors of the Jihad have already won?

What if?

The American-led attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan (and now Pakistan) were -- publicly at least -- aimed at exporting the delights of democracy to the Muslim world. To win Islamic hearts and minds for Western concepts of freedom.

But they’ve had exactly the opposite result.

Every day the fighting lasts, more and more of the one-and-a-half billion Muslims around the world either volunteer to fight the Western infidels or organize jihadist cells in their own countries. Every day more Muslims are persuaded that the wars are simply a 21st. century version of traditional Western imperialism. That the so-called War on Terror is actually a War on Islam. That resistance against America and its allies is an apocalyptic battle for Islamic holy rights. That holy warriors, righteous believers, are fighting godless infidel crusaders to defend God-given sacred land.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and the US missiles slamming into Pakistan) have turned out to be the perfect recruiting agent for militant Islam. And the holy warriors are making converts -- winning hearts and minds to global jihad -- faster than the mighty armies of the West can kill them.

One reason for all this new radicalism is the Internet, the planet’s most powerful and effective communications system.

It’s flooded with jihadist networks. Thousands of them. Specializing in radicalizing Muslims around the world. Turning them, in the name of Allah, against the corrupt and feeble West. The sites are virtual guerilla training camps teaching how to organize revolutionary cells and kill infidels. Allahu Akbar (God is Great) they say piously and endlessly.

So what happens next?

Over the next couple of years the American pull out of Iraq and the likelihood is that "the cradle of civilization" will fall into even more chaos as ancient blood and religious scores are settled.

Over the same time, the Americans reinforce their battalions to "save" Afghanistan (a corrupt, failed, female-fearing narco-state) and step up attacks on north-west Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban and Qaeda prove again and again that you can neither introduce or enforce democracy with the gun and NATO allies try to sneak off home without being noticed.

If the Americans are actually defeated in Afghanistan -- which is increasingly likely -- all hell will break loose in the Muslim and Arab worlds. Neighbouring Pakistan is already a rapidly failing Bomb-owning state ripe for Islamic revolution and needs no more than a little push. The fragile autocratic regimes of Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan will fall like dominoes and radical Islamic Middle East political groups Hamas, Hezbollah and the Moslem Brotherhood will seize power. Then -- the ultimate irony -- the united  jihadists will turn on America’s only real friend in the region, Israel.

Right now there are only two alternatives for America in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

One is to take the chance of alienating more and more Muslims and keep fighting these unwinnable wars while desperately hoping for a miracle.

The other is to do the unthinkable, the unmentionable -- and sue for peace.

Fortunately, Barack Obama can likely get away with offering an olive branch. His honeymoon remains incredibly powerful. Even so, as the lawyers warn, time is of the essence. Because honeymoons, as we all know, don’t last.

And the consequences of not using this honeymoon period to act forcefully and generously are too awful to contemplate.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

It's a hell-hot night in the Sol Club Rio resort near Holguin on Cuba's north shore.

The master of ceremonies, dressed in a silly Hawaiian grass skirt and no shirt, bounces onto the stage to recorded music and announces in excellent English, French, Italian and Spanish that there will be games tonight. Not any games, he promises. Spectacular games. The finest games anyone, anywhere, has ever played.

He laughs at the extravagant promises and shakes his ageing hips to the music and the young women in similarly silly Hawaiian skirts who are his backup group laugh with him and they prance together for the tourists who pay to watch.

Much later that evening I share excellent rum with the master of ceremonies who is Enrique, has a couple of master's degrees and is professor of philosophy at the local university by day. He works from eight in the morning at the university to somewhere around midnight when the resort bus drives him home to his wife and family.

I ask him why he does the two jobs. "I earn three times as much making a fool of myself for tourists as I do teaching philosophy." He shrugs. "It's because of the American boycott."

Why hasn't Cuba simply become a capitalist democracy like the Americans have demanded for some 40 years?

"Once we open Cuba up like a normal democracy, the Americans invade us. Not with guns. With money. We do that at midnight tonight and by dawn tomorrow the Americans buy the whole island. Everything. We are so poor and they are so rich. We'll be back where we started under Batista. We'll be an American brothel again."

Enrique smiles sadly. "It is a matter of saving our souls" he says and shakes my hand and leaves to catch the bus to take him home to his wife and family.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

This is very worrisome.

We already know that Americans have a bigger army than us, a bigger economy than us (still?) and a lot more influence around the world (see Britney, Paris, Brangelina etc.) along with a much cooler leader and even cooler wife.

And now we learn from Statistics Canada that American kids are having more fun with sex, drugs and booze than our Canadian kids.

Certainly, a vital part of my growing up involved sex, drugs and booze. And I don't know how anyone can truly grow up and march boldly out into the world as a real person without practice, experience (and some abuse) in these areas.

The only consolation I can find is that recent research indicates that the last part of the human brain to mature is the part that governs cause and effect. Apparently it doesn't click in until a human is around 24 years old.

So, thankfully, there's still time for the next Canadian generation to get its act together and make us proud again.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)

Dane-geld (Dane tax) was the bribe paid by eleventh-century England to persuade visiting Vikings not to ravish and pillage there (Vikings considered ravishing and pillaging the English a really, really great way to spend vacations) but go ravish and pillage the French instead.

Barack Obama likely was tempted to pay Dane-geld when Somali pirates seized the US-flagged Maersk Alabama. After all, he had much bigger problems (like the future of the known world) heavy on his shoulders. But he is an educated man and probably remembers Rudyard Kipling's poem, Dane-Geld, which reads in part:

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say:-
"Though we know we should defeat you,
We have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

Seems a dead, white male can be a lot of use to a live, black male these days.


(Samantha Jones is a Canadian journalist publishing her erotic memoir at www.lulu.com)