Ouch!
Posted by Kevin on 2/9/2005 @ 10:08 am
Crosbie in the Toronto Sun
I conclude that the Toronto gadflies who inhabit the editorial precincts of our alleged “national papers” should cease to promote incorrect, unintelligent, insensitive, ill-informed and biased views that ignore the history of the problems, and are oblivious to issues not perceived as national by those same Toronto-centric control freaks, who should try to increase their understanding and knowledge of what is happening in Canada outside the heartland.
Got a way with words, that guy.
Which, by the way, is not necessarily the brain-land of our country.
In the opposite corner, Paul Wells is another guy who can serve up a tongue lashing. He has a go at the Premier in Maclean’s Back Page. I wonder if Crosbie would lump Wells into the same category as the Toronto gadflies?
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I’ve seen on the Globe and Mail website that Wente has another article about Newfoundland in Saturday’s edition? Does anyone have access to the piece? I want to hear what she has to say now. You’ve got to know your enemy.
Comment by Sarah — 2/9/2005 @ 6:24 pmWhen she see’s the latest issue of CURRENT it will take a little smugness out of her.
http://www.currentmag.ca
…for quotes from her book and other shots.
Greg
Comment by Greg Locke — 2/9/2005 @ 8:45 pm…sounds like one of Ed Hollett’s speeches to me? Congratulations to Ed!
Greg
Comment by Greg Locke — 2/9/2005 @ 8:55 pmTo read the Wente article, go to google , select news, search for newfoundland wente. You’ll get a link to the article.
Comment by Randy Raymond — 2/9/2005 @ 9:21 pmWay to go John!
Comment by Wayne — 2/9/2005 @ 9:36 pmAren’t you just sick of the way that we are singled out by the national media. HOW ABOUT NOVA SCOTIA , who also benefited from this deal, nothing negative said about them. It appears that if there’s anyhing bad to be said about any province outside Ontario or Quebec, ITS NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR THEY’ll PICK ON!
Yes, Wayne, I agree with you. But remember, pre Danny Williams, we were ignored as not of any consequence. Now all of the Toronto media are beside themselves about our fair deal. Pre the fair deal, they were fine with telling their silly jokes about us, but they are not laughing anymore. I think Danny Williams has respect if not admiration from the media and that respect is filtering down to Newfoundlanders. I myself have always been proud of my Newfoundland & Labrador heritage (with half Quebec thrown in), but now I feel so much better with Danny Williams at the helm. Thanks for listening.
Comment by Anne — 2/10/2005 @ 11:05 amNewfoundland, it turns out, was more than ready to welcome two Margaret Wentes
By MARGARET WENTE
Saturday, February 5, 2005 – Print Edition, Page A21
Last Monday a tremor rattled the streets of St. John’s. Margaret Wente was said to be in town. If true, this was news. I have become infamous in Newfoundland, and so reporters were dispatched to hunt me down.
In fact, Margaret Wente was in town. The other one.
The other Margaret Wente is my niece, also known as Maggie. She is a 29-year-old Toronto lawyer whose views differ from mine in almost every way. She bears the curse of my name.
“Good God, woman, have you considered changing your name?” a friend e-mailed her from St. John’s. “It’s most unfortunate for you to be a Wente in this province at this time. They are ready to burn your aunt in effigy.”
When she checked in to her hotel in St. John’s, she had to explain that she wasn’t me.
“Oh, we were waiting for her!” the desk clerk said. “We were so excited! We were going to be really, really nice to her. We’re nice to everyone. That’s the way Newfoundlanders are. But I’m kind of glad it’s not her.”
My name is mud in Newfoundland because I wrote very rudely about that province a few weeks ago. Ever since, the furious e-mails have been pouring in. “Your name was everywhere,” marvels Maggie. “People were quoting from your column. They gave you credit for rallying people behind Danny Williams.”
After Maggie checked in, her phone started ringing off the hook. She explained to everyone that she wasn’t me. But her presence was big news anyway. “Margaret Wente hits St. John’s!” blared the local radio station, before revealing that it wasn’t me. Reporters asked her how she was being treated, and what she thought about my views on Newfoundland. She told them tactfully that her views weren’t the same as mine. This made news, too. Soon I started getting e-mail saying, “Even your own niece thinks you’re a jerk!”
“I knew my name was apt to be an issue,” she says. “But I never expected it would be news.”
As she was unpacking, there was a knock on the door. It was room service, with a huge plate of cheese and fruit for the other Margaret Wente. When Maggie said she wasn’t me, they said, “Never mind, we want you to have it anyway. We’re kind of happy you’re not her.”
Maggie was in Newfoundland on legal business for her client, a First Nations group. Her small firm does mostly aboriginal-rights law and environmental law. She is part Ojibway, and is a status Indian. She’s been a social activist and advocate for aboriginal rights ever since she entered university. She is extroverted (unlike me), very liberal (unlike me), funny, and strongly opinionated (well, we do have that in common).
I love my niece to bits, even though we don’t see eye to eye on much. For example, I am skeptical about recycling; she has a worm composter in her apartment. “You put the wet garbage in there and they eat it and make poo,” she says. Her idea of a great vacation is backpacking in Cuba. She stopped reading my column years ago because she violently disagrees with almost everything I write. She wants to preserve peace in the family.
As you might surmise, this isn’t the first time our name has been an embarrassment to her.
“I want you to know this is just one incident in a long, long series of incidents,” she says. “There was the time when I was working at the sexual-assault centre at McGill. And that was when you were on your false-memory-syndrome kick. You were mentioned as a disgrace to feminism on Page 13 of Ms. Magazine.”
It must be tough to grow up bearing the name of somebody in the public eye when you violently disagree with that person. What if my name happened to be Michael Moore or Noam Chomsky? It would be torture.
Few people mistake Maggie for me for long, although she did get an e-mail from an old high-school acquaintance congratulating her on landing a big job with The Globe and Mail. But people ask her all the time what she thinks of me. “They pretty much learn from the get-go that we’re not necessarily in agreement on most matters,” she says diplomatically. “If my parents had realized how notorious you’d become, they would have considered naming me something else.” (For the record, Maggie was named after her great-grandmothers, not after me.)
Maggie wound up having a terrific time in Newfoundland. She was a celebrity everywhere she went, even though (or especially because) she wasn’t me. In the town of Clarenville, a couple of hours drive from St. John’s, she met someone who was so thrilled to meet somebody named Margaret Wente that he asked her home for supper.
“Guess who I brought home!” he told his wife. His wife was one of the several thousand people who had written a furious e-mail to me. “You’ll never guess who’s sitting in our living room!” she exclaimed to a friend who phoned. They were all relieved to discover that one of us, at least, is a decent human being, and said they hoped she’d come back soon.
As for me, I’ve solved the problem that’s been weighing heavily on my mind: Will I have to change my name the next time I go to Newfoundland? Obviously, the answer is no. I’ll just pretend I’m her.mwente@globeandmail.ca
Comment by Jean — 2/10/2005 @ 2:49 pm