John Gormley's Blog

We in the media, like every other Canadian, have been justifiably proud of the young Saskatchewan hockey stars of tomorrow who featured so prominently in the Team Canada win in the World Junior Hockey Championships.

Everywhere you turn there are the names:   Jordan Eberle, Colton Teubert and Dustin Tokarski.  And we're proud of them.

But, during the gold medal game, didn't we hear something about the big defenceman Keith Aulie -- pronounced Olley -- his life on the Saskatchewan family farm and raising Clydesdale horses?  

Yes we did. 

And all the hype the past few days seems to have overlooked this Saskatchewan hockey hero from Rouleau.

Sorry Keith (and parents Karen and Bill).  And congratulations!

There's a great story on Keith in last week's Winnipeg Sun:   http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/Junior/WorldJunior/2008/12/28/7866601-sun.html 

As is the inclination this time of year, allow me a few fearless political predictions for 2009.

Closest to home, City Hall elections will held in October.  In Saskatoon, where Mayor Don Atchison told me several months ago that he'd be running for re-election, expect to see Atch handily returned for a third term.

In Regina, where popular three-term Mayor Pat Fiacco has been more circumspect  on his re-election plans, should Mayor Pat run for a fourth time, expect him to be easily returned too.

Both of these mayors share some common political attributes.  They are positive and realistic voices who reflect the new Saskatchewan.  They take nothing for granted politically, work like Trojans and reach out to ensure that they're well positioned across the political spectrum. 

In both Saskatoon and Regina there are voices on the loony left fringe who oppose these mayors but, on balance, most moderate voters from the left, right and centre like what's happening in our cities.  And full credit goes to Pat Fiacco and Don Atchison.

Provincially, the year begins with far greater challenges than one year ago.  Resource revenues are off from the stratospheric levels of earlier in 2008 and, although positioned as the best place in North America to weather an economic downturn, caution will be the watchword for public policy in the first few months of 2008.

When access to capital improves and commodity markets strengthen, it's back to full speed ahead. Recession ... not here, not likely.

As a result, and barring any self-inflicted injuries, Premier Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party government will continue to poll favourably.

Later this year, as the Wall government approaches 18-months in office, look for a Cabinet shuffle as some posts in the Cabinet will be moved, some left alone and others tweaked.  It's the way that a Premier -- like a coach -- moves in new talent, rewards jobs well done and moves on people who have maxxed out their contribution.

Across the aisle, NDP old-timer Dwain Lingenfelter -- first elected back in 1978 -- will move back from Alberta to win the Saskatchewan NDP leadership. He will also handily win a safe NDP seat, perhaps Saskatoon Riversdale to be vacated by ex-Premier Lorne Calvert.  History will be made, though, when Lingenfelter will become the first NDP leader never to become a Saskatchewan premier.

On the federal political scene -- the site of the gong show that was early December -- Stephen Harper's Conservative government will open Parliament on Jan. 26 and will bring down a budget the following day. The government will not be toppled.  Not yet.

The government's survival will be due to the number of Michael Ignatieff Liberals who will either support the budget or be absent from budget and non-confidence votes.

For his part, Ignatieff will spend most of 2009 trying to distance himself from Stephane Dion, the Dion party debt, the Dion Green Shift, the Dion coalition and Dion's insistence that Iggy's own signature appeared on a letter supporting the ill-fated coalition with the NDP and supported by the Bloc Quebecois.

Speaking of the coalition that wasn't, in addition to the ever hopeful members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery NDP leader Jack Layton will continue to talk of the coalition as if it may happen. It won't.

And, in the bigger wide world, starting soon in America and spreading northward, the hyperbole-laden and over the top negative media coverage of the market crisis and the economic slowdown will start being tempered and may even be ratcheted back beginning on January 21st.

That is the day after incoming U.S. President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address, will call on Americans to start embracing a more positive attitude and to stop dwelling on a negative past that cannot be changed. This will promptly cue the New York Times, Washington Post and Keith Olbermann/Chris Matthews of MSNBC to stop comparing today's events to the Great Depression.

Jan. 21 is also the first full day that absolutely everything in the world will improve to some degree, mainly because George Bush won't be there to blame anymore.

And -- as we kick off a brand new year on John Gormley Live -- from the same guy who, one year ago, so fearlessly predicted a Hillary Clinton-Rudy Giuliani face-off in the U.S. presidency, the prediction that I truly hope comes to pass in 2009 is that you are blessed with the best of everything.

Happy New Year!

One of the more interesting internet phenoms is viral marketing, when a corporate campaign launches a smart idea, a slick video or net-based game and then unleashes it on the masses via the web.

By the time a few people see it and then forward it to their friends, within days millions of potential customers have become unwitting promoters of the company or product responsible for the site. 

In the fine tradition of Terry Tate Office Linebacker (the Reebok bit of a years ago) comes a hilarious internet campaign called "Beware of the Doghouse". 

With Christmas coming, the Doghouse campaign is not just funny but fitting. 

MEN, TAKE NOTICE.

If you haven't seen it yet, have a look and enjoy:

As the political parties caucus in Ottawa -- a coalition government in the works to replace the Stephen Harper government (re-elected just 7 weeks ago) -- we're into one of the most fascinating political issues in a lifetime.

Wow.

Mad?  You've got a week to convince MPs from the Liberal party (the only party that can be shaken on the coalition plan, methinks), as sources indicate that all three party leaders from the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois are writing today to the Governor General, asking Her Excellency to allow them to govern if they topple the Harper government next Monday.

Below are the coordinates if you want to contact the Governor General and MPs.  Get at it!

As usual, when something neat happens out doors I happen to be indoor so I missed last night's remarkable light show in the sky -- a big meteor event according to astronomers.

U of R astronomer Michael Beech tells our radio show that the likely site of the meteorite that may have come to earth is probably between Edmonton and Lloydminster.  Why?  Because in Lloyd, like here, the light show was in the western sky.  In Edmonton, it was in the east.

Here is some great video from Edmonton:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6CgWkChPjI

In a "better late than never" book recommendation, I recently stumbled upon an excellent and thought-provoking good read.

It's a 2007 book from Silicon Valley insider and pundit Andrew Keen called “Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture”.  It’s fascinating because much of it rings so true. 

Keen compellingly argues that the Internet is not opening a cultural renaisssance and the digital revolution will not provide people with more viable avenues to become professional writers, musicians and film-makers.  Most importantly, argues Keen, amateurism does not benefit mankind.

In reading "Cult of the Amateur" there was much to agree with,  yet parts I disagreed with.  And so it went, being torn one way and then the other. 

Keen's book is a truly great polemic that attacks the amateurs, the technologically advanced who are armed with plenty of opinions, an inflated sense of self yet no life experience and little if any formal education. 

These amateurs confuse social networking with true cohesion, democracy for merit, personal attacks for debate, opinion for fact.  You get the idea. 

Cult of the Amateur attacks Wikipedia (thank goodness – someone has to challenge this assortment of amateur-led distortion). 

But Keen’s book also goes hard on the blogging citizen journalists who I think often do hold the mainstream media to account.  I'm not quite so quick to dismiss the many brilliant thinkers whose analysis of the media is recasting how we consume information.

If the internet has you wondering about the future of our culture, our thought and our relationships – and it should – check out “Cult of the Amateur".  It will make you think.

After a few days of R&R (where better for a US election hideout than John McCain's Arizona!) it's back home and on the radio show.

In no particular order, here are a few random musings:

- why is golf always played better (or at least scored better) when away from home on unfamiliar golf courses?

- sitting in the breakfast deli, was struck by the proprieter's sense of fair play.  One day the TV was on CNN.  The next day the execrable MSNBC.  Then FOX News and so on.  And for some reason breakfast always tastes better when it's with FOX.

-  in an America that is more politically polarized than usual -- and that's saying something --  message to inimitable El Rushbo and Sean:  I didn't like Barack Obama's campaign platform either but, geez, the guy isn't President yet.  Judge him now on personnel choices, transition and the like.  But for the big policy items, or lack thereof, wait 8 weeks, see what he does and then have at it.

- Obama's election means something -- about the politics of change, race and a great democracy prepared to see itself in the mirror differently than in the past.

- in a Rider Nation without boundaries, the texts started coming fast and furious from Mosaic Stadium.  Only when the words "ass handed to us" showed up on my phone was it time to mourn.  So, ruefully -- for just a few moments -- it was time for thoughts about the end of a 12-6 season, two years in a row with a home play-off game, a team with the heart and soul of winners, a macabre record-setting 8 broken legs in 19 games,  a record number of home game sell outs, a record number of season tickets.  And, yes, a bit of uncertainty about quarterbacks - but I trust real football experts (not fans) to make the right decisions on players.  This entire thought process took about two minutes.  This needn't take days - it really doesn't have to.

- and, caught the story on the Oxford English Dictionary's 10 most irritating phrases, the ones like "24/7" "at the end of the day" etc.  While we're at it, how about "going forward"?  The stock market meltdown may have hit us hard but we don't need to get continually hit by broker/analyst talk, going forward is.  Would it actually be possibe "in the future" to be "going forward"?  And, now that I'm in grouchy word mode, here are a couple of completely mis-used words, usually by people in the legal and political world who should be clever enough to know better.  Penultimate does not mean the "most ultimate".  It's a bit short of that actually.  And fulsome is not a synonym for "fully".  Never has been.

My buddy at the Edmonton Sun, Kerry Diotte, is a good pal.  We regularly keep in touch, he comes to Saskatchewan to golf with me every summer and, when I'm back in Edmonton, Kerry and I always have a lot of laughs.

In his latest newspaper column, Kerry uses our friendship to weave a great story about a great province -- OURS!

Thanks, man.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Comment/2008/10/26/7209571-sun.html