| Meow! |
[Sep. 13th, 2007|05:16 pm] |
As Warren Kinsella points out in his blog today, it's been exactly four years since the day Ernie Eves' campaign called Dalton McGuinty "an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet" during the 2003 election. I was in the media monitoring section of the Liberal war room that day, watching the story spread like a forest fire from one news outlet to another. By the time the evening news rolled in, that one turn of phrase had consumed and obliterated every policy statement made that day. It was bizarre and hilarious, and made us giddy for days.
It makes me wish I was back in the war room right now, exploding my head by trying to watch television, read news websites and listen to a talk radio station all at once. Those were fun times. *Sigh.* Back to the dissertation. |
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| Good luck Dr. Marie |
[Jun. 15th, 2007|04:52 pm] |
This news makes me sad.
Marie Bountrogianni is the nicest of the political bosses I've henchminioned for, and she does a lot of good work, even when the media aren't watching. About five years ago, when I was working a few hours a week in her office, she went out of her way to help a disabled boy who didn't even live in her riding.
( Read more... )
The boy's father wrote a letter to the government, but unfortunately it was about 2000 words long and he spammed by e-mail to every MPP in Ontario (a strategy that usually ensures that every Member will stop reading by page 3 and think you're someone else's constituent). Marie, bless her, pulled the letter out of all the slush in her mailbox, declared "We have to fix this," and sicced us henchminions on the Health Minister. Within days, the program was reconsidering its policy on walkers.
It's moments like that and bosses like Marie Bountrogianni who make henchminioning more rewarding than many jobs with better salaries. I hope she's able to move on to better, if not necessarily bigger, things after the next election. |
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| Tim Horton's conspiracy? |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|07:59 pm] |
Does Tim Horton's have a war room patrolling the Internet?
( Read more... )
Somebody out there really, really wants us to gamble on our morning coffee. Me, I'm not a betting gal, but if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that the anonymous person is being paid to care about such things.
I'd rant about how creepy that is, but it would be hypocritical of me, wouldn't it? Instead, I offer Big Coffee-Drinking Brother a few tips on the fine art of war room communications. We sinister henchminions gotta help each other.
1. Obtain a sock puppet. Anonymous posters appear to be ashamed of their identity, and that shame triggers my evil henchminionly attack instincts.
2. Speed kills. Or not. A war room is supposed to respond to any new development inside of thirty minutes. It took Anonymous twenty-eight hours to respond to my first comment and five days to respond to the second, by which time no one but me was paying attention anymore. Tsk!
3. Keep the tone light, even when the stakes are high. See, I'm not an opposition party; I'm a Tim Horton's customer too. Implying that I'm an uninformed bozo, even when I am, doesn't make me want to buy coffee. It does, however, make me want to poke fun of you.
There, now I'll sit back and see what happens. Remember folks, when you write about your morning stop at Timmy's, the Forces of Corporate Darkness are watching you. |
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| Henchminionry at work |
[Dec. 28th, 2006|12:18 am] |
How very peculiar. Go and take a look at the movie review in my last post, and then read the anonymous comment that follows it. The comment, being anonymous, off topic and not in the voice of anyone I know, set off my bullshit detector, so I googled the last line. Turns out someone's been posting the same comment on dozens of blogs. The question is, is this one of those infernal comment spammers working for a pharmaceutical company, or just someone with an interest in bipolar disorder and a rather obsessive personality? |
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| Review: The Queen |
[Dec. 27th, 2006|10:10 pm] |
My mother and I went out to the movies and saw The Queen tonight. It has almost left the theatres so this review comes a bit late, but it's worth seeing. It's about the royal family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana in the week leading up to her funeral and Tony Blair's attempts to convince them to make a public appearance and limit the PR damage they were incurring. The brilliance of the picture lies in the actors' abilities to mimic real public figures so believably.
Of course, my favourite scenes were the ones involving Blair's henchminions. The movie totally captured the organized chaos that is a high level political office in reaction mode, with people always running here and there, debating the impact of newspaper headlines and editing speeches on the fly. The only character who rang false to me was Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director. I've read that the real Campbell was considered a bit of an arrogant twat, but I'm having trouble imagining any speech writer coming up with a remark like "Ha! You owe me for that People's Princess line." Coming up with good soundbites is a pretty major part of the job description of the communications director to a Prime Minister. A real life political boss would have just looked at Campbell quizzically and said "Er, yes, that's what your salary is for."
But overall, great movie. Worth seeing on DVD if you don't catch it in the theatres. |
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| I am now partially deaf |
[Sep. 20th, 2005|09:40 pm] |
What do the denizens of the Liberal war room do with their free time between election campaigns? Well some of them have formed a punk rock band.
I went out tonight and heard Shit from Hell play at Sneaky Dee's. They were ... loud.
But now I can truthfully claim to have heard the song "Barney Rubble is my Double". No doubt it will grow on me. |
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| A Henchminion No More |
[Aug. 12th, 2005|10:54 pm] |
Today was the last day at work. I've turned in my security card, logged off my caucus e-mail account and handed over Preciousss the BlackBerry. I think that entitles me to editorialize on politics in public again. :-) |
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| Among the savages |
[Jun. 17th, 2005|09:00 am] |
Last night I had a prime opportunity to do some anthropological research. I went to a lobbying firm's cocktail party. Here are some field notes I made after returning from the wilds of darkest Yorkville.
Lobbyists are firmly attached to their traditional costume, the dark tailored suit. Women are distinguishable by their expensive hair and men by their unimaginative ties. Really daring men wear unusual cufflinks.
Lobbyists also practice the culinary folkway known as the hors d'oeuvre. Last night I saw variations on the traditional artichoke heart, salmon in crepes, miniature hamburger, and calimari. There was also some mystery fruit with a green-black skin and fibrous pink interior.
As I was demurely chewing some purple tentacles, I was able to observe the lobbyists' tribal dance. It's called the Getting Facetime with a Politician Shuffle. It involves circling a cabinet minister in a slow holding pattern while trying to make eye contact with her and subtly elbow one's competitors out of the way at the same time.
For some reason I was more conscious than usual of experiencing culture shock in lobbyist-land. I felt myself wishing I could experience some interactions that weren't quite so highly ritualized. I began to wonder what would happen if the calimari turned out to be a nest of cleverly-disguised space aliens and they launched their attack on earth from the catering table.
I think I'm more suited to being an SF writer than a politico. |
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| Political Communication 101 |
[Feb. 10th, 2005|09:47 pm] |
Here's an interesting study in contrasts.
For Exhibit A, I give you the golf ball incident from Jean Chrétien's testimony to the Gomery inquiry.
And here's Exhibit B, a rather different sort of story. (Warning: do not read while ingesting liquids.)
The lesson? Effective political communication is all about images. If your visual props deliver your message all by themselves, people will remember what you're trying to tell them. If the coherence of your narrative collapses when you take the captions away from your pictures, you can expect someone funnier than you to hijack your message. |
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| I'm famous (sort of) |
[Feb. 8th, 2005|08:28 pm] |
Too bad the ledge's press clippings don't come with photos. I was famous all day and I didn't even realize it until dinnertime.
Yes, that was Henchminion lurking in your morning newspaper. You'd have had to squint to find me though. |
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