Clippings will be fewer and further between as I've left my reporter post with Sun Media and Vancouver 24 hours. To follow my musings please visit my Tumblr.
Clippings will be fewer and further between as I've left my reporter post with Sun Media and Vancouver 24 hours. To follow my musings please visit my Tumblr.
Two million eyes, one million laughs – all at Stephen Harper’s expense.
A hilarious website with video spoofs, featuring the hardened Conservative warrior wearing a fuzzy sweater and snuggling an adorable kitten, launched and crashed Wednesday within hours due to overwhelming popularity.
The incongruous image – originally a photograph arguably crafted with keen attention to political optics – served as inspiration for a crew of Vancouver comedians and digital artists who launched www.shitharperdid.com that reached the viral milestone of one million hits.
“It was a half-cooked way to become relatable to this entire nation,” said site programmer Cam Dales, a new Vancouverite whose parents live in Harper’s Calgary riding. “It was just so crazy to see this photo (of Harper snuggling a kitten). We figured we would draw that thing and stick it up.”
Six months of planning, almost 1,000 volunteers and four takes amounted to one viral video that has attracted more than 400,000 views since being posted on YouTube Friday.
University of B.C. students Andrew Cohen and Bijan Ahmadian masterminded the lip-dub video where a roving camera follows the lead of singing and dancing students through a massive air-band performance to songs by Marianas Trench and Pink around the Vancouver campus.
The performance follows the University of Victoria’s video set to Michael Buble’s Haven’t Met You Yet that has drawn more than 219,000 views since its September release.
“Just saying UVic had 900 people come out definitely helped us with our numbers,” Cohen explained Monday. “It’s definitely a friendly rivalry … well, not a rivalry necessarily, but definitely, a little brotherly competition never hurt anybody.”
Breakdowns in the province’s healthcare system are putting hospital emergency rooms on life support, according to a B.C. Nurses Union official.
“If emergency wards are functioning properly the patients come in, get assessed, and treated then triaged to the units or the proper wards where they can be looked after,” said Janice Buchanan, the union’s vice-president. “They’re not meant to have admitted patients languishing in their hallways.”
Buchanan’s comments came Monday outside New Westminster’s Royal Columbian Hospital where a month earlier the Tim Hortons outlet in the institution was used as a sickbay to treat four patients for 90 minutes. At the time, then health minister Colin Hansen defended the use of the coffee shop.
Since then, the provincial government has broken ground for new developments at Surrey Memorial Hospital and B.C. Children’s and Women’s Hospitals in Vancouver.
Vancouver Coun. Suzanne Anton will take Gregor Robertson to task when city council next convenes over a growing perception city staff is bending to whims of the mayor’s financial backers.
Donor Joel Solomon urged non-partisan city staffer Sadhu Johnston to lure to Vancouver, Salt Spring Coffee – financed by his firm Renewal Partners, according to emails obtained by QMI.
When informed of the correspondence, Anton chastised Robertson for installing a new system at city hall “where there’s less distinction between the political and the staff.”
“I think it is completely inappropriate for the mayor’s largest backer to have what seems to be an intimate access to staff,” she said. “There is a very close relationship here between the funders and their man in City Hall, Mayor Robertson.”
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