It’s in BC, so Andrew Coyne of Maclean’s should start live blogging at 12:30 EST (my time), if not a bit before. As he says, just hit “refresh”.
(Amusingly, the ad beside Coyne’s online blog invites us Canadians to visit New Hampshire; I’m sure Steyn would rather be there, too, with his family, rather than participating in this embarrassing kangaroo court extravaganza.)
The Covenant Zone gang will be outside the courthouse this morning at 8AM PST.
If all goes well, I’ll have insider updates from an Anonymous Source at the scene.
There is no other story today, let alone this week. Check in regularly for any developments.
Michelle Malkin’s readers weigh in.
Unlike Canada’s elite mainstream journalists, who don’t give a rat’s ass, other than calling Mark Steyn “mean”:
I woke up this morning, expecting the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post to carry not only editorials and columns about the Mark Steyn and Maclean’s Magazine show trial starting today before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, but also big, front page news advancers by journalists, perhaps Joseph Brean who has written the most so far.
Nada.
(…)
It’s rather disgusting to me, actually, that some kind of animus towards conservative writers like Steyn is making them ignore the wider implications. I suppose as well, many are concentrating on bogus scandals like the Cadman affair and Maxime Bernier’s ex-girlfriend’s breasts.
I asked a reporter why the Globe and Mail had not covered the human rights issue as a news story. He kind of shrugged it off, as if the deep pockets of Maclean’s somehow mitigated the abusiveness of the process. He also insisted that complainants could get their costs covered. Well, maybe in some jurisdiction that I haven’t heard of, but I reminded him that Calgary Bishop Fred Henry was left paying thousands in legal fees even though the complaints against him were eventually dropped. He told me he thought the complaints were ridiculous, mind you, but otherwise the story was kind of ho hum. All was well in Canada.
(…)For those who are not ignorant of what’s going on, I wonder whether there is a weird Stockholm syndrome at work. Rather than see they are being held hostage by their fear of radical Islam, (and tiptoeing so as not to offend or blaspheme so foreign correspondents won’t get kidnapped or worse) they have displaced their fear and loathing onto the people who write about it. They are like the bank robbery hostages or hijacked plane passengers who get pissed off at police for shooting their captors. They have identified with their captors, even formed a bond with them, for their own psychological survival. If the captors see that I like them, they will like me and I will come out of this okay they tell themselves.
Most of it, though, is massive ignorance I’m afraid. I don’t think most journalists can even conceive that we have such a shadowy, parallel “justice system” that can hand out severe penalties without any of the normal protections in a criminal or even civil law court.
* Via email: the ironically named London Free Press responds to a curious subscriber’s question:
As a subscriber in Woodstock, and a free speecher, I am curious how the Free Press is covering the show trial of Mark Steyn by the BC Human Rights trial in Vancouver this morning?
While the blogosphere is fully aware of the issue those in your coverage area, anyone without the internet may be totally unaware of the crucial issue taking place in Vancouver today.
The response he received from “an Editor-In-Chief of a Sun Chain in the South Western Ontario region”:
“Is that the Maclean’s thing? I’ll look into it, but we would wait for news from the wires and maybe look for a local comment.”
* Actually, “the end of Canada as we know it” sounds damned good to me, but I know what he means…
* Jago reports from outside the courtroom:
Just got back from the rally. Steyn hadn’t arrived by the time I left. We had about 20 people demonstrating with us, lots of good feedback from passersby. Only one really snarky person — who turned out to be an HRT staff member.
The blank signs are a fine touch.
