Canadian Culture

[vid]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

Do they have male cheerleaders nowadays?!

George Bush was one!

[MissyC]

Originally Posted by ssiguy2

Considering we are up against the most influential country in the world Canada's identity is remarkably strong

so beautifully and thoughtfully said indeed.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

Do they have male cheerleaders nowadays?!

Cheerleading started out as all male, but today is mostly female. Throughout its history, there have always been male cheerleaders.

University is usually always co-ed, especially schools that take cheerleading seriously: Western, Queen's, Laval. The schools that treat it as an after thought tend to be female only: Saint Mary's. The skills level of all female squads tend to be lower. How far can a girl throw another girl? You need strong dudes on your cheerleading squad to do the tricks.

There are all male squads around, but the most talented and entertaining squads tend to be a mixture of male and female.

One of the most highly regarded in north America is Western Ontario:



The science of cheerleading?



Culture? It might be foreign to hockey people, but it's certainly a big part of football culture in this country. I just wish they'd get rid of those 'dancing girl' squads, they demean it all. Real cheerleading has a place in sport, a lot of those dancing girl squads do not.

[Taller, Better]

Ah! Ok, thanks for the info. I thought it was always just a female thing.

[isaidso]

Originally Posted by Taller, Better

Ah! Ok, thanks for the info. I thought it was always just a female thing.

I suppose to be aware of it one would have to be into either college football or college basketball. Male cheerleaders in high school is rare, and it's almost non-existent in pro sports. I have noticed that male cheerleaders are starting to infiltrate pro football in Canada though. Regardless of ones views on the sport, I see it as a positive development.

All female cheerleading often comes off as being merely for the sexual titillation of straight men. If we're to have cheerleaders, let them be there for that purpose. Having both men and women there avoids some of those bad optics associated with cheerleading. If there are to be dancers or some type of entertainment on the field, that's fine too, as long as its appropriate. I just don't want to go to a game, and have to watch a pole dance, while straight drunk males holler degrading remarks at them.

Pro sports would be wise to move towards the co-ed model which tends to be more skills and cheer focused. I love gymnastics, so I've always appreciated what they do on that level. I won't lie though. A lot of those boys are damn cute!

You wanna toss me where?

http://www.varsity.com/images/librar...s_college1.jpg

[MissyC]

Totally agree..... Go Canada Go!

[Looking/Up]

Speaking of men in sports in sports viewed as more in the women's domain, I gotta say, when the men's diving is going on at the Olympics I move mountains to get me to a television screen.

Alexandre Despatie is fantastic. And cute too

[Yellow Fever]

I thought I was looking at the mirror!

[Taller, Better]

Me too! Like a twin!

[vid]

I like to think that Alexandre Despatie is what the skinny person inside me would look like if I ever let him out.

[MissyC]

Originally Posted by Yellow Fever

I thought I was looking at the mirror!

you look far better Yellow Fever!

[Yellow Fever]

That's true! He might has a better body, but I have a better looking face!

[Taller, Better]

It is true that his body is his best asset.

[Plumber73]

Did I just hear all your belt buckles drop to the floor?

[Looking/Up]

I think he has an adorable face, very boyish

It's fall, and time for duelling literary lists



John Barber
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Friday, Oct. 02, 2009 02:39AM EDT
If you don't like one list, have another: The best in Canadian fiction became very much a matter of opinion Wednesday with the announcement of the finalists for the $25,000 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, given in honour of “the year's best novel or short-story collection.”

Only one of the five finalists for the prize – Annabel Lyon, author of The Golden Mean – appears on the long list of 12 finalists for the better-known, $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The two independent juries that developed the two lists seem also to have identified two independent nations.

One difference is easy to explain: Alice Munro, who voluntarily withdrew from competition for the 2009 Giller Prize, made no similar gesture with respect to the Rogers Writers' Trust prize. The nomination for the latter of Too Much Happiness, was no surprise.

But surprises abounded in the Writers' Trust list, including the absence of Margaret Atwood's bestselling The Year of the Flood among the finalists. Among those that did make the cut, Generation A by Douglas Coupland is the first novel by the prolific Vancouver author to draw big-jury attention since jPod made the Giller long list in 2006.

In addition to Munro, Coupland and Lyon, the Writers' Trust finalists include Nicole Brossard of Montreal, nominated for Fences inBreathing, translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood; and Andrew Steinmetz of Ottawa, nominated for Eva's Threepenny Theatre.

“We always claim that our juries are probably the most writer-organized and writer-focused juries in the country,” Writers' Trust executive director Don Oravec said Wednesdayyesterday. “They make very interesting decisions.”

In contrast with the Giller jury, dominated this year by non-Canadians, this year's jury for the Writers' Trust prize was homegrown and younger, according to Oravec. It comprised Edmonton novelist Marina Endicott, 2008 Giller finalist and winner of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Canada and the Caribbean for Good to a Fault ; Toronto writer and Globe and Mail columnist R.M. Vaughan; and novelist Miriam Toews of Winnipeg, winner of last year's Writers' Trust prize for The Flying Troutmans .

The diversity of literary opinion that marks this year's award season will likely grow next week with the announcement of the five-novel short list for the Giller Prize. Still to be heard from is the panel selecting the 2009 Governor-General's Literary Awards, which is scheduled to announce its preferred list of fiction finalists Oct. 14.

The Writers' Trust only recently elbowed into the literary limelight, having transferred its annual awards presentation from the spring to the fall last year to compete for attention directly with the two more established programs.

“We were all alone in the spring and we weren't really helping with book sales, which we really want to do,” Oravec said. “It's one thing to put money into the hands of writers. That's great. But selling books and creating careers is really great, and you can really do that in the fall.”

The move was also designed to raise eyebrows, according to Oravec, and it succeeded. This is the second annual publishing season dominated by the new “Big Three” of Canadian literary awards. “It is a lot of money that goes out to the writing community in a very short time.” The Writers' Trust plans to distribute $147,000 in total at its annual awards dinner in Toronto, scheduled for Nov. 24.

Like the Governor-General's awards, the Writers' Trust also honours non-fiction. This year's nominees are Brian Brett of British Columbia, author of Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life; Wade Davis of Washington, D.C., and “northern British Columbia,” for The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World; Regina's Trevor Herriot for Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds ; Erika Ritter of Toronto for The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships ; and Eric Siblin of Montreal for The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece .

The group's one lament is that no corporate sponsor has come forward to finance the $25,000 non-fiction prize, which the trust finances from a diminishing amount of private donations. “We obviously can't keep doing that,” Oravec said. “We're going to be in big trouble.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1307503/

[MissyC]

you mean Babyface, right?

[Looking/Up]

I'm off to the Cirque next week to see Ovo! Very excited!!!



Varekai:


Ovo, the new show:

[Looking/Up]

Canadian artist, Ed Bartram. Most of paintings are of the Georgian Bay area.







http://edbartram.brinkster.net/

[vid]

What you're looking at in those paintings are what was once the insides of the highest mountains on earth, ripped apart by time and ice. It's a fascinating area.

[Looking/Up]

"Canada could have enjoyed:
English government,
French culture,
and American know-how.

Instead it ended up with:
English know-how,
French government,
and American culture.

John Robert Colombo"

HA!