So, I went out and downloaded a copy of the new Michael Moore film - the one he released for free in North America - from a third party site. Fine. No problems.

The film came with a registration file, which I checked with a virus scanner before opening. No problem. Good. Carry on.

And then I ran the registration file, unleashing the trojan virus, infecting my boot sectors, and generally filling my computer with hate and porn.

All this is to say:

1) I’m an idiot. I know better than to do that. But I did it anyway.

2) Be very careful if you download the Moore film from any location other than the actual film site (Slacker Uprising) because someone is going Liberal hunting.

Dammit.

It’s odd how a combination of numbers, or a date, can become ominous - how they can take on a weight beyond their intrinsic value and become transcendent, a sound bite short cut for a host of emotions and a common, shared history.

Today is September 11 – 9/11, as it were.

I still remember the day vividly, as most will. Mine began it with a 9 a.m. dentist appointment, sitting bored and impatient in a drab downtown office as rumors began to bubble up, feeling that I was missing something both obvious and important.

Details began to emerge; a thread of a story. A plane had hit. Another followed. Still, something was absent.

The few sitting in that little office shared our common surprise; though, in hindsight, it paled compared to the shock that would follow as the full story emerged. But, right then and there… On with the day. Bring on the poking and prodding. Bring on the floss. Bring on the cold water.

Then a realization from the back of my mind: my wife was in Manhattan.

With no phone service and modern communications severed, I raced to the office. A television had been set up in the kitchen and I arrived in time to see the first tower fall.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of overwhelming and impotent panic that washed over me; that crushing uselessness. Despite some exceedingly clean teeth, I was stuck in Toronto, powerless to have any influence on the situation playing out hundreds of miles away.

I’ve heard the events of September 11 compared to Pearl Harbor, and as a student of military history I can appreciate the strategic and geopolitical implications of such an event. But it’s a simplistic and failed comparison.

I’ve stood over the grave of the Arizona and studied the names on the white wall of the monument that floats above it, and I can only imagine the ripples which that Day of Infamy caused in American society. I can only imagine the waves of telegrams that followed, a tide of misery flowing into thousands of little American towns, each a crushing missive to be hand-delivered to a home proudly displaying a flag that boasted a star for each son or husband serving under arms.

But, for all that grief, it’s a poor comparison still. The ripples that flowed out from New York that day stretched beyond the confines of America. They flowed here to Toronto and parts beyond. And they were felt not as the dull drumbeats of war, nor as empty news items to be grumbled over and forgotten. They were felt viscerally. They shook us all to our cores and tore us from our daily routines – American, Canadian, English, French, German, and all. They caught our breath, clean teeth or none, and paused the entire world.

In the years that have passed, much of the shock has worn off. Much of the legacy of that day has been squandered for political purposes. But it is vitally important that this date be remembered as more than just the starting gun for the latest round of manifest destiny.

It must be remembered as a day when our basest humanity was exposed, and as a race united, we looked towards a burning field and felt the weight of a core and common concern.

Editor, writer, producer and internationally known voice-over artist Don LaFontaine has died at the age of 68. You may not know the name, but I guarantee you know the voice. Check out this clip from YouTube as evidence:

Rest in peace, Don. I always loved listening to you.

I watched Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth for the fourth time last night, and I have to say, it stands the test of time fairly well. Who knew that a few university lectures and a couple of clips of Al Gore pondering his laptop could be so engaging?

But there is one scene in the film that catches me up every time. It’s that moment when Al Gore references a slide from a study looking at the economic cost of environmentalism. It features a scientist looking thoughtfully at a scale that balances the world against a pile of gold bars.

Says Gore: “We have here a scale that balances two different things. On one side, we have gold bars! Mmm… Don’t they look good? I’d just like to have some of those gold bars. Mmm… On the other side of the scales… The entire planet. Hmm…”

Gore makes a joke of it, and fair enough. Inherent stupidity deserves to be mocked. But there is something far more ominous in that slide I can never get past.

What gets me is that the globe is rotated to show Africa and Western Europe in prominence. What that slide actually says is: ‘You can make real money – or you can worry about those goddamn African babies who always seem to be starving; or those weak-kneed, European Liberal pussies who try to control everything.’

I’m not an overly sensitive person, but the inherent racism in that slide just blows me away. (Why wasn’t the world rotated to show America, for example, the world’s largest consumer of fossil fuels? Ah, don’t introduce patriotism into the equation. People might actually try to save the planet if their ass is on the line too.)

Al Gore isn’t a stupid person by a long shot, so I’m always left to wonder if he didn’t notice the slide, or decided to let it slip past, leaving it to the audience to read into it what they will.

It caught me up again last night, and I have to admit that I find it a little annoying. I get so caught up in what Gore is thinking, I stop watching the film for a few minutes.

Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin) turns 60 today. When did everyone get old…? Me included.

I’ve finally had a chance to begin working my way through The Ten Thousand Day War, the 13-hour series about the Vietnam War produced by the CBC and Michael Maclear way back in 1980. The footage and access are remarkable, but I’m really struck by something else - the excellent journalism of series writer Peter Arnett.

Arnett first came to my attention (and probably the rest of the world’s too) during his coverage of the first Gulf War. CNN and Arnett stayed the course as the bombs began to fall, eventually becoming the sole news outlet reporting live from Baghdad. He details the experience in his book Live from the Battlefield - although I have to say Michael Keaton does admirable service to the story in his portrayal of CNN senior EP Robert Wiener in the HBO film Live from Baghdad.

Arnett has since fallen out of favor in North America thanks mainly to three controversial decisions/stories, namely: his coverage of the destruction of a baby milk factory in Baghdad which may or may not have actually been a chemical weapons factory; his limited participation in the Tailwind scandal; and for an interview he gave on Iraqi state television before the current Gulf War. He now spends much of his time working outside North America as the US networks are likely afraid to touch him. (The journalistic bravery of US networks being a whole other story…)

I can’t help but be struck by the irony of Arnett’s eventual fate as I watch Ten Thousand now. Early in the series, much attention is given to the incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin that precipitated America’s full military participation in the war. For a long time, it was common wisdom that the war began in earnest only after Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked US destroyers.

Problem is, it didn’t quite happen that way. The US government made up the attack story in order to sway public opinion. In fact, in 2005, the National Security Agency declassified materials confirming there had been no attack.

So, Arnett relates a false story he believes to be true and begins a storied career. Decades later, he relates stories he believes to be true and his career is blown apart.

I guess you just have to be careful whose narrative thread you’re tugging on…

According to figures released today by the Census Bureau, by the year 2050 the US population will reach 439 million. And, more importantly, by that time it is estimated that Hispanics, who currently make up about 15% of the population, will then account for 30%. For their part, Asian Americans will grow from the current level of about 5% to 9%. Lastly, the population aged 85 and older is projected to more than triple to 19 million.

Those shifts will bring enormous changes in culture, and with them enormous changes in media habits. Beyond the obvious shift - i.e. almost 40% of your viewers speaking English as only one of several languages, and possibly not their first - the way media is consumed will be entirely changed. New cultural influences will be in play that few can even guess at today.

Speaking as a non-American, this evolution will also have a huge economic impact on countries such as Canada. What happens when US business more comfortably looks South instead of North? Will NAFTA expand into South America, and if so, how will that affect Canada as cheaper labor influences the market? What will happen to production sectors in the UK, as nearly half the US population is looking for Spanish-language programming?

I’m nowhere near smart enough to answer those questions, but they are the ones we (and our children) will be struggling with. Those who adapt now will shape the media and economic landscapes of the future. Those who don’t…