The Canadian National Anthem
English:
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide, O Canada,
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
Français:
Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
'Big Brother 5' houseguests unveiled
Who would be willing to sacrifice their privacy for a chance to win $500,000 U.S.? 'Big Brother' fans got their answer today as CBS revealed the identities of the 13 'Big Brother 5' houseguests.
Comprised mostly of swinging singles in their 20's, this year's selection of competitors features only two married players and one who is engaged.
Old folks didn't fare well in the selection process either as Mike Lubinski, a single dad and commercial printer from Michigan, is the only houseguest over 40-years-old.
The houseguests do come from a variety of backgrounds though. There is a web designer, a volunteer firefighter, a yoga instructor, a registered nurse, a mortician and a model.
Here is the official list:
Adria Okins
30
Married
Web Designer
Birmingham, Ala.
Jase Wirey
28
Single
Volunteer Firefighter
Decatur, Ill.
Lori Valenti
26
Single
Yoga Instructor
Boston
Will Wikle
26
Single
Registered Nurse
Tupelo, Miss.
Karen O'Neil Ganci
30
Married
Portrait Artist
Saddle Brook, N.J.
Mike Lubinski
41
Single Dad
Commercial Painter
Eastpointe, Mich.
Jennifer Dedmon
21
Single
Restaurant Hostess
San Antonio, Texas
Marvin Latimer
36
Single
Mortician
Conway, S.C.
Diane Henry
22
Single
Cocktail Waitress
Burlington, Ky.
Michael Ellis
23
Engaged Dad
Security Officer
Durant, Okla.
Holly King
20's
Single
Model
Los Angeles
Drew Daniel
22
Single
Recent College Graduate
Urbana, Ohio
Scott Long
26
Single
Sales Representative
Pittsburgh, Pa.
CBS has also announced some changes to the 'Big Brother' house itself. There is a cloud or fluffy bedroom, a wood and cement one. In the cement bedroom, the beds are actually made out of concrete. The houseguests will also not have a basketball court to use this year. It has been replaced by a putting green and a kick boxing station. Small sharks populate the fish tank.
'Big Brother 5' debuts with a special 90-minute broadcast on Tuesday, July 6 (8:00-9:30 PM, ET/PT) on CBS. Following the premiere, 'Big Brother 5' will be broadcast each week on Tuesdays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT), Thursdays (8:00-9:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT) and Saturdays (9:00-10:00 PM, ET/PT).The Thursday broadcast will feature the live eviction of one of the houseguests.
On the 'Big Brother' series, a group of strangers will live together in a house outfitted with dozens of cameras and microphones recording their every move 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As the outside world watches on television and the Internet, the HouseGuests will vote each other out, one by one, until only one remains and goes home a half million dollars richer.
Music biz loses Net royalties fight
The music industry's efforts to recoup money lost from Internet piracy were thwarted yet again Wednesday.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Internet service providers don't have to pay royalties to composers and performers for music downloaded or heard via online radio by web customers.
In a 9-0 judgment Wednesday, the court said companies providing wide access to the web are merely "intermediaries" who are not bound by federal copyright legislation.
At issue was an effort by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) to force Internet service providers to pay a tariff -- known as Tariff 22 -- for music accessed in the online world whether downloaded or streamed for online radio.
The case dates back to 1995, a few years before Napster revolutionized the way fans get their hands on tunes.
The judges noted, however, that Canadian copyright law is archaic and invited Parliament to update it to meet the needs of the modern information age.
It's a message that's been reiterated by several courts in the past few years.
SOCAN said Wednesday's ruling contained some good news for the organization, which collects royalties on behalf of 70,000 Canadian composers, songwriters, lyricists and publishers.
The Supreme Court left the door open for recording artists to sue specific websites that distribute their music without authorization.
That could apply even to sites in other countries, as long as the end users are Canadian or there is some other "real and substantial" connection to Canada.
"We're pleased. Now we can proceed with phase two of this process to have a royalty set," said Paul Spurgeon, general counsel for SOCAN. "We're going full steam ahead."
The case has been closely watched -- by international as well as domestic observers -- because of its potential impact on the recording and computer industries worldwide. A different decision could have seen foreign ISPs paying Canadian copyright holders.
Opposing the effort was the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, including the Canadian subsidiaries of some of the world's high-tech giants like Bell, Sprint, AOL, MCI, IBM and Yahoo.
The service providers, or ISPs, argued that artists should seek royalties directly from websites that offer their works, not from the companies that provide wider-ranging access to the web.
Luc Lavoie, vice-president of Quebec media holding company Quebecor Inc., welcomed the high court ruling on Wednesday.
"We're absolutely pleased by it, but it doesn't mean the fight against piracy is over," said Lavoie, whose company owns Montreal-based Videotron, a major Internet service provider.
Lavoie said ISPs have been wrongly targeted by music companies.
"There's no difference between doing this (piracy) or using the telephone," said Lavoie.
"You cannot blame the telephone company because criminals are speaking to one another over the phone."
He said ISPs are fighting music piracy with a wide-ranging information campaign.
SOCAN's battle contrasted with the legal route taken by the recording industry in the United States, where the usual tactic has been to sue particular file-sharing services and the individual customers who download music from them.
The attempt to collect instead from ISPs was significant because they provide an easier target for litigation than tracking down a myriad of individual websites and customers.
"ISPs have the deepest pockets," explained Casey Chisick, a copyright and entertainment lawyer in Toronto.
He said while SOCAN can now go after online radio sites and other various websites that play music, it will be an expensive process to recoup royalties.
"The trouble is that it becomes a lot more difficult and a lot less streamlined," he said. "The transaction costs could be huge."
Justice Ian Binnie, writing for the Supreme Court, noted the United States, Australia and the European Union have updated their copyright rules to deal specifically with Internet issues.
Canadian judges are struggling to apply legal principles first enunciated in the 1880s to "technologies undreamed of by those early legislators," wrote Binnie.
His interpretation was that -- as a general rule -- the Copyright Act does not impose legal liabilities on ISPs, as long as they act as true intermediaries and take no hand in determining web content.
They could become liable, however, if they are formally notified that a particular website is violating the law, and if they refuse to block access to it.
The best way to deal with that, Binnie said, would be for Parliament to legislate specific rules for "notice and take down," as the United States and Europe have done.
The court also laid down broad rules for potential lawsuits against file-sharing and other services that actually stockpile and distribute music to web customers.
Binnie said a range of factors would have to be taken into account in such cases, including where the content originates, whether the ISP is located in Canada and whether the end user is in Canada.
Those principles could provide a blueprint for future legal efforts to combat music downloading.
They do not, however, deal directly with other contentious issues such as the availability of child pornography on the web -- a hot-button issue in the recent federal election.
The judgment Wednesday was based on copyright considerations and did not touch on the separate Criminal Code provisions on child porn.
It hasn't been a very good year for Canada's music industry. In March, the Canadian Recording Industry Association, which represents record labels, lost a bid to access names and addresses of people it believed were uploading music to the Internet for others to copy freely.
The organization is appealing the decision.
Lost Frank Zappa Unearthed
Joe's Corsage, the first in a series of unreleased Frank Zappa recordings, is available at zappa.com. The album consists of demos from 1965 -- the year before Zappa's Mothers of Invention released their debut album, Freak Out! -- with bits of interviews interspersed throughout.
"We wanted to stay as close to the bone as we could," says Gail Zappa, Frank's widow. "Frank Zappa was a composer, and he had a bad habit, which was writing music. To support that habit, he became a bandleader and began playing other things that he liked to hear in different context, and you can hear that throughout his music."
Joe's Corsage (the title a play on Zappa's 1979 multi-part concept album, Joe's Garage) is the beginning of an avalanche of unreleased material, which will include complete albums like the guitar-solo-based Trance-fusion and the synth-heavy Dance Me This, as well as live recordings and "other little nuggets the fans know about and have been waiting for." Zappa died of cancer in 1993.
"We're sitting on forty album projects in various stages of completion," says Gail Zappa, who adds that the material was put on ice due to a ten-year deal with Rykodisc. "That period ends in October, so we'll open the doors to the vault."
Douglas Coupland solves our image problem
Born on an army base in Germany and raised in Vancouver, Douglas Coupland seemed reluctant for many years to market himself as a Canadian.
In 1991, he set Generation X, his first and most famous novel, in Palm Springs, Calif. His more recent novel, All Families Are Psychotic (2001), is largely set in Florida. But with his latest book Souvenir Of Canada 2, just published by Douglas & McIntyre, and a related art installation titled Canada House that opens tomorrow at the Design Exchange, he comes out of the closet to embrace his Canadian identity.
"Youth culture is completely globalized; it's only when you are in your 30s that you are allowed to be Canadian," he says.
A conceptual artist as well as a writer, he locates this identity mostly in the artifacts of our commercial culture — objects, places, bilingual packaging, buildings and logos that resonate for Canadians as they do for no other peoples.
Billy Bee honey, the Massey-Ferguson tractor, the Sherwood hockey stick, the Robertson screwdriver, Oka cheese, the Eaton's catalogue, the purple Crown Royal bag, plastic Canada geese, and the moose-patterned sweater are to Coupland what the wind-twisted pines of Georgian Bay were to the Group of Seven. Soul food.
"When I see something beautiful, I want to eat it," he says.
Souvenir Of Canada 2, a followup to a similar book he produced two years ago, is filled with photographs of these iconic objects, along with short, quirky texts that deconstruct their meaning and incidentally reveal details about Coupland and his family.
We read about his grandmother, the first woman to drive a car in Sudbury, his taxidermist brother, his doctor father, and are shown a photograph of his mother, wearing the dress she wore to Expo '67. We also see Mom's well-organized kitchen cupboards, featuring the usual Janus-faced Canadian brands such as Canada Corn Starch/Fecule de maïs and Blue Ribbon pure marjoram/marjolaine.
Coupland is 42 now, but he is still close to his family, both emotionally and physically; the Ron Thom-designed house he bought himself in North Vancouver is a short walk from the home of his uncomprehending parents.
"When my father comes over, the only thing he recognizes is the television set," he says, referring to his high-concept modernist furnishings.
In Toronto last week, Coupland took part in a panel on creativity at the Design Exchange, and explained that his art projects are often sparked by finding some telling or bizarre object on a beach, a back alley or in a dumpster. "You have a nugget or kernel of something strange — let's see where it goes, let's develop it," he explained. "I refuse to be bored."
His collections fill his studio at 1000 Parker St. in Vancouver, a sort of art factory where he works with the assistance of a half-dozen friends from his days at Emily Carr College of Art and Design.
In Souvenir Of Canada 2, he devotes 27 pages to Canada House, an installation of Canadian objects he set up in an about-to-be demolished house in Vancouver, having spray painted the interior white.
It displays, too, his unique furniture-with-a-message. "The Treaty Couch," for example, has two seating portions, a broad one upholstered in tartan (a reference to the United Kingdom), another extremely narrow with upholstery made from a Cowichan Indian sweater.
Only a few people ever saw the original Canada House, which was created for the book.
The public will get a chance to see Canada House at the Design Exchange, where the piece has been recreated (admission is free on Canada Day).
Souvenir Of Canada 2 oscillates between the frivolous and the serious. The pages on Coupland's visit to the Terry Fox museum in Port Coquitlam, B.C., are serious and moving. His photograph of the dead runner's shredded sock is presented as though it were the Shroud of Turin.
Coupland has lately been working in the Star library collecting material for a photo book on Terry Fox, to be published next spring by Douglas & McIntyre.
"I can only look at this stuff for about 20 minutes at a time before losing it," he said, when I found him in the Star's library last week, after his talk at the Design Exchange. "These images never lose their initial impact."
He currently has a little essay on Amazon.ca about Canadian stamps and has written a one-man play for the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, which he will perform at Stratford-upon-Avon in October. "It's called September 10, 2001 and it's about the day before the world changed," he says.
In November, his new novel Eleanor Rigby will be out from Random House. "Eleanor Rigby is the loneliest woman in the world — then she gets a phone call," he says when asked about the novel's subject.
Two of his eight novels are in film development and he is preparing to have art exhibitions in New York, London and at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal.
When asked about how he maintains his astonishing productivity, he shakes his head: "I'm as lazy as dirt. I like to sleep as much as possible."
Of course, being self-deprecating is so Canadian.
Score 7 for music biz
At the end of the first half, the music industry is ahead by a touchdown. Nielsen SoundScan figures through June 27 show total album sales up nearly seven points (6.9%) over last year: 305.7 million compared with 285.9 at this point in 2003. But sales are still off 2% compared with 2002.
• Also up: sales of downloaded songs. When Nielsen SoundScan began tracking them a year ago, sales totaled 303,000. They now average more than 2 million a week; this week's total was 2.6 million. Most-downloaded song in the past year: Outkast's Hey Ya, 321,162 downloads.
• Sharply down: First-week sales for American Idol winner Fantasia's first single, I Believe, numbered 142,000. That's enough to become the No. 1-selling single, but it's less than half the initial sales for 2003 winner Ruben Studdard's Flying Without Wings (286,000) and slightly more than a third of 2003 runner-up Clay Aiken's This Is the Night (393,000). 2002 winner Kelly Clarkson's A Moment Like This sold 236,000 its first week. The figures for 2004 runner-up Diana DeGarmo's Dreams will be available next week.
• Big Kiss: Rapper Jadakiss enters the Billboard album chart at No. 1 after selling 246,000 copies of Kiss of Death. Usher and the Beastie Boys rank second and third, followed by the debut of JoJo's self-titled album, Prince, Gretchen Wilson, the debuts of the Spider-Man 2 soundtrack and Wilco's A Ghost Is Born, Velvet Revolver and Avril Lavigne.
Garner is free of complexes in 'Elektra' role
For months, Jennifer Garner tried to ignore the flattering remarks she heard on the set about her performance in Daredevil.
Garner, who played the superhero-to-be Elektra Natchios in the 2003 comic-book adaptation, shrugged the comments off as confidence-boosters.
"This was my first movie where I had a major role," the star of TV's Alias says. "I thought they were just being nice. They even said they could see there being an Elektra movie. But I thought there was no way they'd make that before they made Daredevil 2."
But that project has been shelved while Garner settles into Vancouver to film Elektra, the superhero spinoff due in theaters in February.
The film, which also stars Terence Stamp and Goran Visnjic of Welcome to Sarajevo, picks up right where Daredevil left her — seemingly dead at the hands of the villain Bulls-eye. But as in all comic books, heroes and villains are never truly gone. "I wasn't killed, just really, really hurt," she says. "The movie picks up with my recovery."
Filmmakers haven't decided if Daredevil will make an appearance, but fans of the heroine's comic book will be relieved to know that Elektra, directed by Reign of Fire's Rob Bowman, will follow its origins.
In Daredevil, many devotees were angry to find the assassin in a black costume. She returns to her trademark red leather outfit for Elektra.
And filmmakers plan to keep her character, who straddles the line between villain and superhero after her father is murdered, a dark protagonist. The movie follows her training as an assassin by The Hand, a group of mystical ninjas.
After her turn as a wide-eyed innocent in the romantic comedy 13 Going on 30, Garner says she was interested in trying something a little more menacing. "I kind of like to hopscotch around" in film genres, Garner says. "I'm fascinated by characters who are coping with anger and loss."
While the Web is buzzing over plotlines and characters, Garner has been blissfully unaware of the rumor mill.
"We're really in the woods up here," she says of the Canadian location. "We're at the top of a mountain where my cell phone won't even work. It's nice to be so isolated and peaceful."
Not that she won't remain busy. While Garner has no films lined up after Elektra, she plans to return for the fourth season of Alias, which runs on Sundays on ABC.
"I love doing movies, but it's nice to have a place to come back to," she says. "That's my family."
RETURN TO THE MOTHERSHIP?
William Shatner considering reprising his role as Captain Kirk on UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise next season, according to sci-fi magazine Starburst.
ALREADY?
After just four albums, Britney Spears to release a greatest-hits album in November. The disc will also include a new single.
Kidman: Men Aren't Beating Down the Door
LONDON - Being a single mother makes it difficult to find a mate — even when you're Nicole Kidman.
"I'm hoping to meet someone and be happy with them. But that's not as easy as it sounds. I'm a 37-year-old woman with two children. Men aren't beating a path to my door," she said in an interview published Wednesday in the latest issue of Now magazine.
"I don't want to sound like a woman from a lonely hearts club and I don't want to advertise. The children are my priority. I take them around with me — movies or baseball games or local shows — and that's not so appealing for any new man on the scene, is it?" she said.
The Oscar-winning star of "The Hours" has been single since breaking up with rock star Lenny Kravitz earlier this year.
She denied rumors that she might get back together with ex-husband Tom Cruise, with whom she split in 2001. The pair share custody of their children, 11-year-old Isabella and 9-year-old Connor.
"That whole part of my life is over and done with. We'll always be in contact because of our children," she said. "But I'm single and there's no one out there for me at the moment."
Kidman, who recently starred in a remake of "The Stepford Wives," also wanted to dash speculation that she's suffering from an eating disorder. She has looked painfully thin in recent photographs, but said her hairstyle was to blame.
"I've been wearing it up a lot lately and that seems to make my face look smaller and make my body look even thinner," she explained. "When I wear it down ... then my boy-like figure looks a little fuller. That's the only explanation I can come up with."
Teen Caught with Camcorder at 'Spider-Man 2'
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A 16-year-old boy was caught early Wednesday using a camcorder tape the first showing of "Spider-Man 2" at a Los Angeles theater, the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA) said.
The teen was spotted by a projectionist scanning the audience with night vision goggles. The boy, who was not identified because he is a minor, was arrested on suspicion of violating a California law that went into affect in January, barring the videotaping of movies in commercial theaters.
The MPAA, which represents the interests of the major Hollywood studios, said the projectionists and other employees at the Pacific Winnetka in the suburb of Chatsworth may be eligible for awards of up to $500 under a new program that seeks to enlist theater employees and owners in the fight against digital piracy. The rewards program was instituted earlier this month by the MPAA and National Association of Theater Owners.
Movies captured via camcorder are a source for the copies illegally traded on the Internet and sold worldwide as bootleg DVDs. The MPAA seized 52 million illegally duplicated optical discs worldwide in 2003, when optical-disc piracy reportedly costs the industry $3.5 billion in lost revenue.
"In theaters nationwide there are now thousands of eyes looking for camcording pirates and this incident proves that pirates who use these devices in theaters will be caught," said James Spertus, director of MPAA's U.S. anti-piracy operations. "The swift actions of theater employees will help reduce the number of camcorded films that are made available to organized crime syndicates in Russia, Malaysia and around the world, which in turn convert the recordings into illegally solid optical discs."
After allegedly using the camcorder at a midnight screening, the teen and two friends were escorted out of the theater and turned over to Los Angeles police, according to the MPAA.
"Hundreds of people have put tens of thousands of hours into making a truly great picture and the notion of having it stolen and sent out for free around the world is just plain wrong," said Jeff Blake, vice chairman at Sony Pictures Entertainment, which released "Spider-Man 2."