On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

As Mark Dawidziak quotes Arthur Miller: Attention must be paid. Due credit should be given.

Chris Carter paid attention and gave due credit. So did Joss Whedon. And others as well in more recent times.

And so we all shall. For Jeff Rice, creator of Carl Kolchak, author of The Kolchak Papers that begat The Night Stalker, is no more.

I can neither praise nor mourn Jim Flaherty, our former finance minister.

That his passing leaves many - family, friends, and respected adversaries - doing so is something I acknowledge. But I cannot feel as they do about the man. He's done too much.

The top of the fold of today's Toronto Star depicts the reasons why much better than I can say...the passing of the man himself, and the consequences of his actions whilst in office, side by side.



Thomas Walkom also says as much in his column on the subjects and how they are linked together.

Humans are indeed complicated, Mr. Walkom.

But harm has been caused to something dear to me as a citizen, as a student of popular culture and history...and that something dear is not alone in suffering that harm. CBC has lost its orchestra, its radio drama arm, its music album-publishing arm, so much programming on radio and TV that I dare not hope to list everything...and more recently control over the Hockey Night in Canada brand that helped define CBC in so many minds for over 60 years. A brand they built starting before my birth...but will no longer be allowed to continue past my eventual death, it seems.

And this front page shows us some of the further fallout from that loss.

We of Canada will be a long time recovering from the consequences of the beliefs and actions of Mr. Flaherty and his allies.

And so I can neither praise nor mourn him, though I respect that others must and will.

I mourn the consequences of his deeds.

We've lost one of the giants.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/09/01/david-frost-richard-nixon-broadcaster-dies.html

2001-2012

http://www.cbc.ca/dispatches/

We'll miss your work, people.  

Listen to Jian Ghomeshi's obituary on Q.

More on other stuff, also, later today.

I was considering finally uploading a ramble about the Occupy Movement tonight, or maybe the CFL game I watched this afternoon, or a review of one or two books.

But all that can wait.

We lost someone on Thursday whom I've known for about ten years, a guy in Hamburg I considered a friendly acquaintance whom, in my arrogance, I would like to think of as in the process of becoming a friend in fact.

His name was Jens Altmann. Some of us here on Livejournal knew him as black13. He wore a number of different hats in the years I knew him: comics fan, writer, translator, occasional cartoonist, and for a few years, husband.

On Thursday, he ended himself. Personally, without much more in the way of evidence than our interactions over the Net over the years...I suspect - but will never be able to prove - clinical depression.

I never got to meet him in person.

And now that option is off-limits to us all.

Jens, I'm sorry.

Some of you remember him for his novels. Some for his TV work, particularly Due South and Power Play scripts. And as the CBC obituary notes, there's a tonne of other stuff he had a hand in over the years.

I met him briefly once or twice in the course of my volunteer duties with the Ottawa International Writers Festival. I can at least say that I was able to thank him for the work that I saw on the TV screen. For that, I'm glad. I'm sorry that we won't be seeing anything more from his keyboard, or hearing his singing voice in anything not already pre-recorded. He was a joy to watch and learn from in person.

I'm sorry for the pain his closer friends and family must now be dealing with.

Thanks again, Paul. For everything.