Assorted Stuff and Not-So-Nonsense

[dewline]

Some stuff that caught my attention...

• Little Mosque on the Prairie is fun for me to watch on TV. I really hope it sticks around for a long time.
• For more on the Shaw/CTF/CBC situation, check this Playback Magazine article out. Mr. Shaw has not changed my mind about his opinions on this subject.
• mcormond pointed out on his own blog an article at The Tyee on the Treasury Board President-as-was John Baird and his role in the light rail mess of this Winter in progress. As a regular user of mass transit, I find the whole thing distasteful for several different reasons.
• dduane points out an article on germ disposal tech, said tech being something that many of us may have in our homes already. Just not in a place where we'd have expected it. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Comments

Little Mosque

[miraclo.livejournal.com]

I caught a piece on NPR very recently concerning LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE, from the core concept to aspects of the humor, and it sounded interesting. Or, at least, fun. From what I understood part of the humor is derived from seeing some of your countrymen behaving more like people from my side of the border as far as suspicion and intolerance is concerned. That at least one of the people behind the show (a woman whose name I didn't catch) had grown up in a Muslim community and had based a culturally isolated and overly wary Muslim leader on the show on a similarly well-meaning but clueless religious leader (Imam?) from her childhood. Forbidding his followers from drinking root beer because he didn't know what it was and only heard the "beer" part was one of the real life items to carry over into the show that she cited.

The past week's been lightly peppered with Canadian tv, come to think of it, as a short chain of links lead me to read about a show I'd never heard of before: CORNER GAS. My impression is that it's very popular but most of the people working in Canadian television appear to be ignoring it as if it shouldn't be there and they're just waiting for it to go away. Here's the entry that at least laid out that view of it in the course of looking at problems with homegrown television up there:
http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-corner-gas-ruined-everything.html

FYI (you and whoever else might read this) I've signed in using my Livejournal account, but I don't use Livejournal so whatever is out there as my page space is still, to the best of my knowledge, blank.

Mike Norton (http://miraclo.blogspot.com/)

Re: Little Mosque

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Hey, Mike! Good to see you!

Yes, as far as I know from the rest of the coverage to date, Zarqa Nawaz has indeed based a fair chunk of her intra-ummah humour upon her own experiences in Regina. I can well imagine Baber Siddiqui, the outgoing imam and continuing conservative critic of the new imam, being based on such a person. No idea whom it was Nawaz spoke of, but it should make for an interesting tell-all book somewhen down the line for anyone willing to write it!

The creative talent of Canada is apparently very much at odds with the people running the networks and cable and satellite providers over the issue of whether or not Canada ought to be producing any real domestic comedy/drama for TV at all. Denis' commentaries tend to be well-informed, even in those areas where I disagree with him. Sometimes, in fact, especially in those areas where I disagree with him. Makes him someone whose blog I keep on my friendlist, as you may have noticed from its syndicated feeds list. The Corner Gas essay speaks at length exactly as you describe, and anyone looking to keep Canadian content on Canadian TV(and making it saleable elsewhere as such to anyone wanting a look) really ought to read it over.

At length.

Speaking of the definition of "ummah"...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...I think I just demonstrated my lack of knowledge as to what it means to those most familiar with it, if a quick read of the Wikipedia entry on the subject (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ummah).

My apologies for the misunderstanding.