HE'S BAAAACKKKK!

You know who will play next week in Tucson in the WGC-Accenture Match play, where he is, of course, the defending champ.

Read the story from PGA.com here.

Am I a shameless, unabashed fan?

You bet.

RICHARD WIDMARK

I don't know how I managed to miss the passing of one of my alltime favorite acting heroes in March of last year.

A most interesting man, he was the exact opposite of so many of the characters he played on film. He was a cultured, quiet and learned man who detested guns and violence and he was famous for playing wacked out psychotic killers.

Below is an IMDB bio.

Richard Widmark established himself as an icon of American cinema with his debut in the 1947 film noir Kiss of Death (1947) in which he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination as the killer "Tommy Udo". Kiss of Death (1947) and other noir thrillers established Widmark as part of a new generation of American movie actors who became stars in the post-World War II era. With fellow post-War stars Kirk Douglas and Robert Mitchum, Widmark brought a new kind of character to the screen in his character leads and supporting parts: a hardboiled type who does not actively court the sympathy of the audience (although Mitchum's hangdog demeanor marked him as the most endearing of the three). Widmark was not afraid to play deeply troubled, deeply conflicted, or just down right deeply corrupt characters. After his debut, Widmark would work steadily until he retired at the age of 76 in 1990, primarily as a character lead. His stardom would peak around the time he played the U.S. prosecutor in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) as the 1950s segued into the 1960s, but he would continue to act for another 30 years.

Richard Widmark was born on Boxing Day (the Day After Christmas) in 1914 in Sunrise, Minnesota. He says that he loved the movies from his boyhood, claiming "I've been a movie bug since I was 4. My grandmother used to take me". The teen-aged Widmark continued to go to the movies, and was thrilled by Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). "I thought Boris Karloff was great", Widmark said. Although he loved the movies and excelled at public speaking while attending high school, Widmark attended Lake Forest College with the idea of becoming a lawyer. However, he won the lead role in a college production of, fittingly enough, the play "Consellor-at-Law", and the acting bug bit deep. After taking his bachelor of arts degree in 1936, he stayed on at Lake Forest as the Assistant Director of Speech and Drama. However, he soon quit the job and moved to New York to become an actor and, by 1938, he was appearing on radio in "Aunt Jenny's Real Life Stories". He made his Broadway debut in 1943 in the play "Kiss and Tell", and continued to appear on stage in roles that were light years away from the tough cookies he would play in his early movies. After World War II, he was signed by 20th Century Fox to a seven-year contract. After seeing his screen-test for the role of "Tommy Udo", 20th Century Fox boss Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the slight, blonde Widmark - no one's idea of a heavy, particularly after his stage work - be cast as the psychopath in Kiss of Death (1947), which had been prepared as a Victor Mature vehicle. Even though the role was small, Widmark stole the picture. 20th Century Fox's publicity department recommended that exhibitors market the film by concentrating on thumbing the tub for their new anti-hero.

"Sell Richard Widmark" advised the studio's publicity manual that an alert 20th Century Fox sent to theater owners. The manual told local exhibitors to engage a job-printer to have "Wanted" posters featuring Widmark's face to be printed and pasted up.

He won a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod for the part, which lead to an early bout with typecasting at the studio.

Widmark played psychotics in The Street with No Name (1948) and Road House (1948), and held his own against new Fox superstar Gregory Peck in the William A. Wellman's Western, Yellow Sky (1948), playing the villain, of course. When he finally pressured the studio to let him play other parts, his appearance as a sailor in Down to the Sea in Ships (1949) made headlines: "Life" magazine's March 28, 1949 issue featured a three-page spread of the movie, headlined, "Widmark the Movie Villain Goes Straight". He was popular, having captured the public imagination, and before the decade was out, his hand and footprints were immortalized in concrete in the court outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

The great director Elia Kazan cast Widmark in his thriller Panic in the Streets (1950) not as the heavy - that role went to Jack Palance - but as the physician who tracks down Palance, who has the plague, in tandem with detective Paul Douglas. Widmark was establishing himself as a real presence in the genre that later would be hailed as "film noir".

Having proved he could handle other roles, Widmark didn't shy away from playing heavies in quality pictures. The soon-to-be-blacklisted director Jules Dassin cast him in one of his greatest roles, as the penny-ante hustler "Harry Fabian" in Night and the City (1950). Set in London, Widmark's Fabian manages to survive in the jungle of the English demimonde, but is doomed. Widmark was masterful in conveying the desperation of the criminal seeking to control his own fate but who is damned, and this performance also became an icon of film noir. In that same year, he appeared in Oscar-winning writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's No Way Out (1950) as a bigot who instigates a race riot. As the 1950s progressed, Widmark played in Westerns, military vehicles, and his old stand-by genre, the thriller. He appeared with Marilyn Monroe (this time cast as the psycho) in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and made Pickup on South Street (1953) that same year for director Samuel Fuller. His seven-year contract at Fox was expiring, and Zanuck - who would not renew the deal - cast him in the Western Broken Lance (1954) in a decidedly supporting role, billed beneath not only Spencer Tracy but even Robert Wagner and Jean Peters. The film was well-respected, and it won an Oscar nomination for best screenplay for the front of Hollywood 10 blacklistee Albert Maltz.

Widmark left Fox for the life of a freelance, forming his own company, "Heath Productions". He appeared in more Westerns, adventures and social dramas, and pushed himself as an actor by taking the thankless role of "The Dauphin" in Otto Preminger's adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan (1957), a notorious flop that didn't bring anyone any honors, neither Preminger, his leading lady Jean Seberg or Widmark. In 1960, he was appearing in another notorious production, John Wayne's ode to suicidal patriotism, The Alamo (1960), with the personally liberal Widmark playing "Jim Bowie" in support of the very-conservative Wayne's "Davy Crockett". Along with character actor Chill Wills, Widmark arguably was the best thing in the movie.

In 1961, Widmark acquitted himself quite well as the prosecutor in producer-director Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), appearing with the Oscar-nominated Spencer Tracy and the Oscar-winning Maximilian Schell, as well as with superstar Burt Lancaster and acting genius Montgomery Clift and the legendary 'Judy Garland' (the latter two winning Oscar nods for their small roles). Despite being showcased with all this thespian-firepower, Widmark's character proved to be the axis on which the drama turned. A little later, Widmark appeared in two Westerns directed by the great John Ford, with co-star James Stewart in Two Rode Together (1961) and as the top star in Ford's apologia for Indian genocide, Cheyenne Autumn (1964). On Two Rode Together (1961), Ford feuded with Jimmy Stewart over his hat. Stewart insisted on wearing the same hat he had for a decade of highly successful Westerns that had made him one of the top box office stars of the 1950s. Both he and Widmark were hard-of-hearing (as well as balding and in need of help from the makeup department's wig-makers), so Ford would sit himself far away from them while directing scenes and then give them directions in a barely audible voice. When neither one of the stars could hear their director, Ford theatrically announced to his crew, that after over 40 years in the business, he was reduced to directing two deaf toupees. It was testimony to the stature of both Stewart and Widmark as stars that this was as far as Ford's baiting went, as the great director could be extraordinarily cruel.

Widmark continued to co-star in A-pictures through the 1960s. He capped off the decade with one of his finest performances, as the amoral police detective in Don Siegel's gritty cop melodrama Madigan (1968). Watching "Madigan", one can see Widmark's characters as a progression in the evolution of what would become the late 1960s nihilistic anti-hero, such as those embodied by Clint Eastwood in Siegel's later Dirty Harry (1971).

Im the 1970s, he continued to make his mark in movies and, beginning in 1971, in television. In movies, he appeared primarily in supporting roles, albeit in highly billed fashion, in such films as Sidney Lumet's Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Robert Aldrich's Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), and Stanley Kramer's The Domino Principle (1977). He even came back as a heavy, playing the villainous doctor in Coma (1978). In 1971, in search of better roles, he turned to television, starring as the President of the U.S. in the TV movies Vanished (1971) (TV). His performance in the role brought Widmark an Emmy nomination. He resurrected the character of "Madigan" for NBC, in six 90-minute episodes that appeared as part of the rotation of "NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie" for the Fall 1972 season. Widmark was married for 55 years to playwright Jean Hazlewood, from 1942 until her death in 1997 (they had one child, Anne, who was born in 1945). He lived quietly and avoided the press, saying in 1971, "I think a performer should do his work and then shut up". "Los Angeles Times" critic Kevin Thomas thought that Widmark should have won an Oscar nomination for his turn in When the Legends Die (1972), playing a former rodeo star tutoring 'Frederic Forrest'. It is surprising to think that Kiss of Death (1947) represented his sole Oscar nomination, but with the rise of the respect for film noir around the time his career began tapering off in 70s, he began to be reevaluated as an actor. Unlike Bogart, who did not live to see his reputation flourish after his death, well before he retired, Widmark became a cult figure.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood

POLICE

Mayor Gregor Robertson is rightly putting himself in front of a growing crowd demanding that we wise up in this neck of the woods and implement a regional police force.

Clifford Olson was caught one month after a retired RCMP officer went public and decried the lack of cooperation between local forces.

The Vancouver Mayor - for whom I did not vote and who is to date proving to be one of the best we've had in a long time (look at the excellent results he's managed with his homeless initiative) - is pressuring anyone he can, including other Metro mayors and the Preem, to cut the crap and get in line with the obvious.

A Metro Police Force is a necessity now and foot-dragging from any of the invested neanderthals will be seen for what it is - territorial childishness at public expense.

CRIME

QUOTE: "I want gangs to know they are not welcome here."

The Preem.

Of course, that says nothing about the gang of miscreants posing as a provincial government these days.

PROTECTION?

Last week, Premier Everything staged another tent show to declare war on gang violence.

Of course, he promised one thing or another including more police and more prosecutors.

Not many were overwhelmed.

In yesterday's budget, on the other hand, where the rubber actually meets the road, prosecution and court services are being cut.

Politicians really are amazing creatures, aren't they?

On Friday they can yell, "RED!" from the rooftops...and on Monday, they can claim they really meant "BLUE" all along.

And they do this not only with a straight face, but with a claim of honor at the same time.

And why not?

The sheep are busy watching the Canucks and volunteering for the Games.

The dissemblers are re-elected time and again.

By the way...

On the weekend, I met a man who is in the furniture business.

For many years, he had a good shop going around Eighth and Cambie.

When the tunnelling began, he moved.

Now his store is around Eighth and Granville.

It cost him only $300,000 of his own money in lost income and moving expenses to escape the Canada Line's Big Bore machinery.

Compensation?

Puleeeze.

STILL FIGHTING HISTORY

History will not be honored, at least this year in Quebec.

The planned reenactment of the Plains of Abraham battle that occurred 250 years ago has been cancelled because of threats of violent protests by separatists.

Lovely.

What was the point of building a modern Canada if it is to be intimidated by thugs?

DOWNHILL

I am the organizer and moderator for a monthly series of debates held at the Vancouver Public Library, downtown branch. Tonight at 7:30 we are discussing the STV electoral reform that will be on the May 12th provincial ballot.

I really wanted to schedule a hearty debate about the real costs of the Olympic Games.

Of course, I have had to abandon all hope of doing that.

You know why.

Because no one from the provincial government or VANOC will argue openly in public about the real costs of the Games.

Turns out no one in the provincial or federal governments will even reveal the true costs of the Games in any forum.

Take yesterday's provincial budget, please.

Olympics security tab under cover in budget

In spite of persistent questioning from many members of the press, Finance Minister Colin Hansen would not say a word on this expenditure of your tax dollars.

Nor will the feds.

This is called Taxation Without Representation.

It is a fundamental violation of the ideals of democracy.

But, what me worry?

We've got luges to watch!

THE BAD NEWS

Medical officers seek more injection sites

Oy.

These are the $300,000/year CEO's of the various Health Authorities that soak up enormous portions of our health spending.

They know nothing about addiction problems.

But they are fond of uttering the high-sounding convenient catchphrase of the past decade" "continuum of care."

As soon as I hear this slur on common sense, head for the hills.

As soon as I hear this assault on reason, I know that someone wants to give more addicts more places to shoot up because they are too lazy and frightened to help the addict quit.

Oy.

We have gone so far in the wrong direction.

TERMINATORLAND

You think we've got problems?

You don't like Campbell's budget?

Try California.

The state cannot pass its own budget, facing a $42 Billion deficit and potential layoffs of over 10,000 public employees, among other problems.

Read the entire story from cnn.com here.

ELLA

The President's Visit

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1--compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1.
Published Feb 7, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Feb 16, 2009

The legendary editor of The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a "Boring Headline Contest" and decided that the winner was "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company, which should have taught us Americans to be a bit more humble. Now there is even more striking evidence of Canada's virtues. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1—compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada's more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

Canada has also been shielded from the worst aspects of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the United States. Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn't deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are "non-recourse," which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it's mostly the bank's problem. In Canada, it's yours. Ah, but you've heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs—interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year—because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent.

Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America's by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; "healthy life expectancy" is 72 years, versus 69. American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America's largest car-producing region.

I could go on. The U.S. currently has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away from our shores thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal "permanent residents" in Canada—no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job. Visas are awarded based on education level, work experience, age and language abilities. If a prospective immigrant earns 67 points out of 100 total (holding a Ph.D. is worth 25 points, for instance), he or she can become a full-time, legal resident of Canada.

Companies are noticing. In 2007 Microsoft, frustrated by its inability to hire foreign graduate students in the United States, decided to open a research center in Vancouver. The company's announcement noted that it would staff the center with "highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S." So the brightest Chinese and Indian software engineers are attracted to the United States, trained by American universities, then thrown out of the country and picked up by Canada—where most of them will work, innovate and pay taxes for the rest of their lives.

If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet—OK, sometimes boring—neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach. This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

BAD JOKE DAY

O.K.

Taking a cue from the old radio show days...

Time for Bad Joke Day!

The comments Lines are open.

We await your worst groaners...

THE NEWS

A million dollars a day.

That's the cost of maintaining the sewer known as the DTE, according to an article in this morning's Province.

For 5,000 residents, that comes to $200 a day.

So we could actually pay every single person in the 'hood more than $4,000 a month in wages and let them do what they want with their income.

I guess.

The Premier has targeted these unfortunates in his throne speech. That'll really help.

The social housing component in the Olympic Village is coming in at twice its projected cost.

And Gary Mason has pointed out in another first-rate column in today's Globe that the premier's crime plan is bull.

Oh. And a young woman is gunned down in her car with a baby in the back seat.

Another day in the the greatest place in the world.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Fortunately, my friends are family are dear, my work is rewarding and I am in good health.

The world gets madder and my private little patchwork gets sweeter. Go explain.

Pack Your Bags

Do you have that itch?

Not that one!

I mean the one that says, "Take me away. Show me a new place."

If you have an idle moment or two go back to my travel blog of last May and June, called "Laughing in the Isles."

Many photos and refelctions of Edinburgh and Dublin, both of which are marvelous cities.

Have a wander.

VANCOUVER DISAGREEMENT

Confession.

For a guy who claims to know all or much about drug addiction, I didn't really know until today who were the original authors of that spurious document called The Vancouver Agreement.

This thing - which has accomplished just about nothing since its inception almost nine years ago - has long been held in mysterious high regard as the Bible and Koran of urban renewal for the DTES.

Today, reading a very good item by Robert Matas in the Globe, I learn that the original signatories to this high-sounding, low-landing fluff were Philip Owen, then Mayor of Vancouver, Hedy Fry and Jenny Kwan.

'nuff said?

At the time, Fry was unbelievably a federal Liberal cabinet minister and Kwan was a Provincial NDP cabinet minister.

Owen is the only one of the three who, in spite of too often being on the wrong track, was really serious and dedicated about cleaning up the mess and he has continued in his way to try to find improvements.

But he is clearly as frustrated as the rest of us these days.

Recently he tried to engage the federal government.

"But Mr. Owen said he got nowhere. He could not even persuade the federal government to contribute $200,000 to a new drug-treatment centre for boys and girls that opened earlier this year, despite Conservative Party campaign promises to support treatment and prevention over harm reduction."

STAND BACK

Mark O'Meara, one of the best friends of Tiger Woods says that he has been hitting a few balls with Tiger of late.

Tiger has been off his feet after surgery. This was immediately after winning his last major while hobbling about in pain. He may resume play shortly.

O'Meara says that Tiger is looking better than ever.

Ouch!

Tiger is one of those once-in-a-lifetime performers - say, like a Pavarotti - that brings people who have never looked at a golf ball or listened to an opera to not only watch and listen but to become raving fans.

For the sponsors, tournament organizers, broadcasters, writers and Tiger nuts - like me - this is exciting news.

For the other guys with expensive sticks in their hands...

SNAPSHOT

Women in Iran?

Try this thoughtful op-ed piece in this morning's NY Times from Roger Cohen.

The mountain tells all.

'TRANE ANNIVERSARY

SHUT UP OR LES...I mean, OR ELSE!

When John Les was Solicitor-general of the Province of B.C., he threatened small-town Island business owners to be quiet or not do work with the government.

So says a story in this morning's province newspaper.

The article includes transcripts of Les' email to the operators of local liquor outlets.

We have become so placid and inured to injurious behaviour from people in high places that this strike at the heart of democratic government is not even front page material.

In what gulag exactly did Mr. Les think he was living at the time?

Recently I suggested that all men and women elected to office should be given mandatory seminars on democratic principles. Just as a refresher, of course.

Under such tutelege, Les and other of his ILK (Gee, I didn't know it was ILK season already!) would find Lesson Four: Have a Sense of Humor and Remember that Criticism is an Essential Part of a Healthy Society. Do we Have Public Beheadings? No. Therefore, You will Get Dissent From Time to Time. LIVE WITH IT, YOU SISSIE!

HOW CORRUPT WAS IT?

"Halliburton and its former KBR subsidiary have agreed to pay $579 million in fines to settle criminal and regulatory charges of having bribed foreign officials to win billions in construction contracts. There may be some taxpayer comfort in the fact that this scandal was rooted in Nigeria, not Iraq, where the Halliburton megacorporation (you know, the one Dick Cheney ran before he became vice president) reaped multibillions as the Bush administration’s most favored no-bid contractor"

That's the first paragraph of an editorial in this morning's NY Times.

Here's the full article, entitled, "More Annals of Global Greed Inc. "

By the way...

Speaking (as we were only a few days ago) of Dr. Strangelove, many of us have always associated the Peter Sellers character of the same name with Henry Kissinger.

But how hysterical was it to see this era's Strangelove, Cheney, being wheeled into the Obama inauguration in a wheelchair!

Did any of you notice him trying to stop his right arm from saluting?