PEOPLE JUST WANT TO BE HEARD

NEWSPAPERS ARE DYING.

We know they are. And this is hard for me to say, because that's how I make my living.

I delivered the newspaper I now work for as a kid; today, 35-40 or so years later, I work for that same newspaper as a sports editor/writer. So I've come full circle, in a way.

This newspaper was a staple in my household growing up and now, of course, it's a staple of what I do in a much different manner. Either way, this newspaper is part of my fabric.

But in its current form, this and other newspapers are getting old and decrepit in some ways. Not because they've outlived their usefulness, but because the Internet and TV are killing them.

In its current form, the standard newspaper daily is becoming a dinosaur. It isn't immediate, it can't compete with CNN or ESPN on fast news breaks, although I'd argue it's much more reliable and indepth.

But that's another post.

What I want to say here is that newspapers DO still matter. They bind together and are the voice of their local communities. Citizens care about what they read or don't read in their local newspaper every day.

Believe me, I hear about it daily in the form of complaints: how we didn't cover this, how we didn't mention little Johnny scoring four goals in a minor pee wee hockey game, how could we not be here or there...

People care. Right or wrong, there's a feeling that if you're in our paper, you've been properly honoured in our city of 750,000. If you're not, then you feel insulted or wonder why we weren't there.

If you're not asleep yet, read the story below. And understand why the title of this blog is that People Just Want To Be Heard.

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We ran a feature a couple of weeks back on a local boxer/trainer who was built up by others in the boxing community as a role model for younger kids.

It was a nice feature story, a touchy-feely typical tale of a guy who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and who made it in a tough sport with a bad reputation and who has emerged as a hero.

Today, I got a call from a 29-year-old woman who claimed she was the mother of this guy's five-year-old son that he never comes to visit...and what about her story and her son's story?

She says he's making custody payments. They were never married. Apparently she was sleeping with two men, one right after the other as she transitioned out of one relationship and into the next.

And she got pregnant. She also has another son from another man she did not marry.

She said she had seen the story about this boxer guy and wanted us to write another story that took away some of this guy's sheen and spelled out what was really happening.

That he had abandoned his five-year-old son, who she says wakes up in the middle of the night wondering where this guy is and why he has no dad.

If you're me, this is the kind of call you don't want to get, but that you have to deal with, sensitively and properly. What would you have done? I've been through similar situations before.

I tried to be considerate to the woman, who was emotional and often on the verge of tears but also lucid and sensible and open to the truth. I talked to her for half an hour, at least.

This man, based on what she told me, had done nothing illegal. Unfortunately, this happens far too often.

She had gotten pregnant by him. S**t happens. He is paying financially to support the child, but that's all he wants to do. You can talk amongst yourselves about what's right and wrong here.

The fact is, she's left with a five-year-old son who has no father who's present. The father is paying child support. She's left -- and the child is left -- with what they're left with.

She doesn't like that we painted this guy as Mr. Squeaky Clean. But we didn't. We told the story of him and boxing. We didn't know about (I assume) and didn't report the story of him and this child.

I gave her the name of our social affairs columnist. I suggested she consider writing a letter to the editor to put her side of it on the record. But we could not write a story now saying what an asshole this guy was.

Not without delving a lot more into her own history and making the story balanced and fair. And I suggested while it was up to her, that could end up harming her more than helping her and her son.

In the end, after a lot of sobs and just spilling her guts about how she felt this was so unfair, she said she probably wouldn't take it any further. She understood. She would deal with it on her own, she said.

I said to her that was her decision that she had to make alone, not with my help. But I did suggest to her, off the record and not as part of my position at the paper, that maybe she needed to face the facts.

This guy doesn't want to be a part of her life or the five-year-old's. That's crushing and sad, but true, based on what she told me. It just about killed me saying that to her.

She agreed and thanked me and said she might call again.

Goodbye.

I'VE BEEN WATCHING CURLING

YES, INDEED IT'S TRUE.

ALL WEEKEND, I'VE BEEN WATCHING CURLING.

I SO have to get a life, you say...

But what kind of curling have I been watching? It could be this kind...

But it's not.

***

It could be this kind...

Not that kind either, although I should probably be doing both those kinds of curls. My hair has been losing its curl with all this cold weather and my body tone has flown south for the winter.

No, it's the middle of winter, and up here in the Great White North, we play a game called curling. The Scots say they invented it but there's no doubt, it IS our game.

We call it the Roaring Game.

Yes, it is a lot like bowling on ice or shuffleboard or even darts, on ice. Essentially, I've been watching grown men throw 40-pound chunks of granites down thin sheets of ice all weekend.

The object is to get as many of those chunks of granites -- called rocks, or stones -- as close as you can to a concentric circle painted on either end of that sheet of ice.
Nobody's better at it on the planet than we are, although it's safe to say most people on the planet don't even know it exists, likely, or at the very least know little about it.

In fact, Canada's men's team won the gold medal at the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy. That's them to the right. They're from Newfoundland.

America's Peter Fenson, from nearby Bemidji, Minn., won the bronze medal.










Nobody in Canada is better at curling than we in the province of Manitoba are. We can make this boast because no province has won more men's championships than we have in Canada.

And right now, this weekend, the provincial men's curling championship is being held in a place called Dauphin, about three hours from here.

The winner, to be decided Sunday, will play in the national championship in Alberta later this month.

The winner of that title will play in the world championship in April against Sweden, Norway, Scotland, the U.S., Japan, Russia and other countries that have taken up the game.

I curled as a teenager and we won the fourth tier of the provincial high school championships.

I covered curling when it was a demonstration sport at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. I've covered national and world curling championships, both men's and women's.

So I have an interest...and so does a whole country.

I wonder if the rest of the world thinks we've got rocks for brains...

Cars with names like...

I'M THINKING ABOUT BUYING A NEW CAR.

But this raises far more than the obvious questions.

My 1996 Ford Contour appears to be nearing the end of its productive life cycle, having apparently succumbed to -45C windchills and other vagaries of a Canadian winter, now in its 11th year.

It still functions. And I'm prepared to spend quite a bit of money to fix it up so I can hand it over to my 18-year-old daughter, who would gladly take a vehicle I think can survive several more years.

But beyond the mechanics of a vehicle, I have to think about my precious identity and ego. Do I want to be an Explorer, he of the great outdoors and associated with all that name suggests, even though most of the time I'm Mr. Urbanite?

Do I want to be In My Ellement, as two of my fellow bloggers have in recent weeks? The car companies want us to believe we are what we drive. That our vehicles give us or at least reflect who we are.

So should I become a Viper or a Mustang or a Ram, or should I just become a Grand Caravan or something practical or boring? Am I a Model T Ford?

Should I just let it all hang out by buying a Hummer and try to be Mr. Macho (or Thomas the Tank Engine) or should I try to be Mr. Sporty Sexy Guy with a new MG convertible (RIGHT!!!!)

Here are some of the latest models and their names, at least on one website, listing vehicles by best names, most lame names and newest, weirdest names...personally, I like The Naked. What's the name of YOUR car?

And do you feel like it's you?

FATHERS BE GOOD TO YOUR DAUGHTERS

THIS GUY IS COMING TO MY TOWN...

He's John Mayer. I wanted to post some of his songs from YouTube below, but new Blogger won't let it happen.

I've instead posted one of his videos to the right.

He's full of soul and talent and song-writing ability and I AM going to the concert on April 26 because the guy is amazing.

I asked Homo Escapeons if he and his wife might be interested in going. "John Mayer can kiss my ass," he said.

I asked the music critic at the newspaper where I work about Mayer, and he said "He's great, but you'll be surrounded by women. They all love him."

Well, I guess he's a good-looking guy. But I'm going to go to listen to his music.

I don't want to go with my mother or my daughter, as much as one of his most famous songs is about them and fathers.

So I know there's still more than two months to go. That should be enough time for me to find a date -- as long as she's not spending the whole night cooing over him...