Click on the grey icon below to hear the stories we’re following for you today. And remember, you can listen to us on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/a7b39do  and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MontrealAtTheMoment

Meanwhile, disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong reportedly backtracks on years of passionate denials and tells Oprah Winfrey that he was in fact a user of performance enhancing drugs.

In Quebec City, the provincial government makes public the legal opinion it sought on the issue of medically assisted suicide in this province. Gazette Quebec City bureau chief Kevin Dougherty and reporter Katherine Wilton are following the story.

Back in Montreal, the city unveiled its transport priorities, none of which appear to located west of St. Laurent Blvd. Gazette transportation reporter Andy Riga will have the full story later today.

And finally, it was an issue that brought thousands in the streets to protest last year, but Gazette reporter Karen Seidman reports that the issue of university funding remains as divisive as ever.

All that and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com

Gazette municipal affairs reporter Rene Bruemmer sits down for an in-depth interview today with newly elected interim-mayor Michael Applebaum to discuss just what Montrealers can expect from city hall over the next 11 months. You can read the interview later today online as well as view the video of the meeting on montrealgazette.com.

As always, Gazette reporter Monique Muise live Tweets from Charbonneau inquiry into allegations of corruption in the Quebec construction industry. The nuts and bolts of those allegations are being examined today as a parade of construction company executives tell the commission of their experiences trying to land contracts.

As a Quebec police ethics inquiry into how Montreal cops handled a domestic dispute call that ended in death gets under way, Gazette columnist Peggy Curran examines the Montreal’s force’s five-year plan to deal with the issue of conjugal violence.

You can check out the details of Quebec’s newly tabled provincial budget here. And later today we’ll be speaking to Gazette political correspondent Phil Authier on how those us who don’t look after ourselves are helping keep the province’s deficit under control.

And finally, we’ll be keeping you up to date on the latest in the attempts to bring a ceasefire to the Gaza, attempts that were shaken today by a bomb blast in Tel Aviv.

All that and breaking news as it happens at montrealgazette.com.

Click on the grey icon below to get the rundown on the stories we’re following for you today, and remember you can listen to us on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/a7b39do

Click on the grey icon below to get the rundown on the stories we’re following for you today, and remember you can listen to us on iTunes at montreal@themoment. You can get the news and analysis on all the stories we’re talking about at montrealgazette.com

At the time the rate of inflation was pegged at about 2.5 per cent and at the moment, it stands somewhere under  two  per cent.

Whatever the case may be, the 3.4 per cent tax hike proposed Friday to the city’s finance committee is not likely to make the Tremblay administration any new friends. But the man you’re about to hear from has made it clear that when it comes to city finances he’s not worried about making any friends, just getting taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck.

But is that what’s going to happen?

Michael Applebaum is the head of Montreal’s executive committee, the man who announced the proposed tax hike and our guest on today’s podcast.

We asked him why he wants more of your money.

This is what he said:

- Ted.com

Crazy, fun, and some are just a bit WTF… installation and sculpture work from Sarah Moli Newton Applebaum.

“American Artist Sarah Moli Newton Applebaum (b. 1975, California) live and works in San Francisco, California. Internationally recognized, her work has been exhibited from Milan to Reykjavik and featured in numerous books and publications throughout China, North and South America and Europe. She is self-educated as an artist and a profound maker of objects. Her new-psych work bridges the gap between the psychological and the psychedelic, bringing an exploratory ethos to the worlds of art and design.”

Find it here: http://sarahapplebaum.com

DUNSMORE: directing at Factory

Patricia Ellingson (Creative Head of Children’s Programming, TVO); Alan Gregg (Director of Original Content, Teletoon); Jocelyn Hamilton (VP, Original Programming, Kids, Comedy & Drama Corus Entertainment); Kim Wilson (Creative Head of Children’s and Youth Programming, CBC); Daniel Bryan Franklin & Charles Johnston (Creators, Detentionaire); Simon Racioppa (Creator, Spliced!); Brad Ferguson (Director, Almost Naked Animals); Kevin Micallef (Director, Detentionaire); and many more …. when she’s not on stage herself, she’s in the

PORTER: jury duty

wings. Yes. that would be the Rosemary Dunsmore directing the Anosh Irani comedy My Granny The Goldfish, opening tonight at Factory Theatre …  and it’s official – the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize winner will be named on Tuesday October 30 at a gala black-tie dinner, not at the Giller’s traditional home at the Four Seasons hotel but at the still-newish Ritz-Carlton on Wellington Street. This year’s jury members are Dublin-based Roddy Doyle, Toronto-based Anna Porter and New York-based Gary Shteyngart.

NO PEOPLE LIKE SHOW PEOPLE: Irrepressible barfly Buddy Cole (aka irrepressible Kid In The Hall Scott Thompson) sashays back to Maggie

FILLION: Castle builder

Cassella’s Flying Beaver Pubaret this evening for a three-night stand … Gifted Man co-star Rhys Coiro has joined the CBS mystery pilot Applebaum …  Bridesmaids alum Wendi McLendon-Covey is set to co-star in ABC‘s comedy pilot Only Fools and Horses …  Castle star Nathan Fillion is set to play Hermes in the Percy Jackson sequel … ER alumnus Anthony Edwards has signed on as the lead in ABC’s drama pilot Zero Hour, not to be confused with Jim Brochu‘s one-man show about Zero Mostel. In this Zero Hour Edwards plays a character who stumbles into an enormous conspiracy when his wife is kidnapped … and just call him YGL.

STROMBO: B.C.-bound

Yes, your boyfriend George Stroumboulopoulos was recently named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, joining a select group of outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments and commitment to society. Meanwhile, Strombo is off to the west coast next month to tape a series of episodes at CBC Vancouver from Tuesday, April 3 to Thursday, April 5, and yes, some tickets are still available. For more information on how to score ‘em, click here.

ON THE GREAT WHITE WAY: He’s opening on Broadway tonight in the title role, but Paul Nolan (aka Jesus Christ Superstar) confesses he still has baseball on his mind. After his show opens, he wants to play in the Broadway

NOLAN: new Broadway baby

league. “It will not be a successful year unless I’m doing that,” he told Broadway.com. Nolan says Jesus Christ Superstar at Stratford “was one of the first times in my career that I didn’t have to audition, so that was great.” Director Des McAnuff hand-picked him to play the lead, and after he saw Nolan in the show, Superstar composer Andrew Lloyd Webber gave him a hug — “but he looked kind of shocked. I didn’t know whether that was good or bad. But obviously it was good!” Obviously. Here’s hoping he hits it out of the park tonight. Meanwhile, Superstar lyricist and triple Tony Award owner Tim Rice will receive a well-earned Special Award at the upcoming 2012 Olivier Awards in London as a “celebration of his outstanding contribution to musical theatre.”

ECONOMICS 101, or, What I Learned On The Internet Today:  It’s a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit.  A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.  As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the $100  bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. (Stay with this. And pay attention)  The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op.  The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute, who has also been facing hard times and has had to offer her “services” on credit.  The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner.  (Almost done. Keep reading) The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveller will not suspect anything.  At that moment the traveller comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves.

No one produced anything.  No one earned anything.  However, the whole town now thinks that they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere of optimism and glee. And that, dear reader, is how a “stimulus package” works!

*     *     *

Truthfully, I am not a big fan of this time of year. It’s difficult and everyone is running to catch up after the Christmas slowdown. I know there’re strikes to be made whilst the iron is hot, things to sell, money to be made – for sure. But it leaves me worn out. I like the buzz and excitement, of course, but the crazy pace and things that don’t get done properly suck energy out of it. Not very zen at all.

To alleviate that and as a bit of an escapist habit, I often challenge myself at the beginning of each year. In 2011 I took an acting course and found it greatly enlightening. It became a bit of a guilty passion of mine. And this year the Miss Applebaum Committee of Personal Development, Hobbies and General Fun Timewasting decided that it’s time for fencing! I don’t know much about it yet but once I feel a bit more adequate at it I’ll post a ” Learning to Fence – En Garde!”-kind of note. So far it’s been fun and tiring (good tiring!). It has managed to keep my spirits up this year.

And speaking of high spirits, have a listen and have a little be-bop-bop to the souly Bill.

Or could you hardly call her a woman?

She was 16, only just, and she had had her fist child the year before.

She was short of stature, flimsy build, much like the look of the wing section of a basted chicken.

She was not married.

The father of her child did love her, even brought her flowers now and then, but he was far too poor and irregular in his job to be anything of a good husband to her.

“P P” were her initials, “Patricia Petunia”, her mummy’s surname was Applebaum, but she was known simply as “PP Applebaum”.

The “Mrs” in her name was added years back  as a term of endearment by one of the kindly old ladies in her neighbourhood, and so the name stuck: “Mrs PP Applebaum” or just simply “PP”. The name purported to give her an aire of dignity, authority, even experience, although everyone knew none of that was true, as she was after all still only the bastard daughter of a bastard mother, and a mother herself at 15 of a bastard son.

Libyan air strikes prompt Nato rift with Britain and France  (The Guardian)
“Nato must “maintain and intensify” its efforts, foreign secretary William Hague said, while his French counterpart, Alain Juppé, said not enough was being done to combat Gaddafi’s troops. “Nato must play its role fully. It wanted to take the lead in …“

And

- Jacob Applebaum

Are our paradigms shifting?

What’s happening to Europe?!

Anne Applebaum just wrote a piece for the Slate titled: A Tale of Two Europes Forget East and West, Europe is dividing itself into North and South. She makes a case for looking at Europe in a new way. No longer East versus West or even East Meets West rather she’s thinking about Europe in terms of North and South.

North and South you ask? Well, sort of. She’s more interested in what defines Europe today. The Eastern-communist governments and divisions are a thing of the past.

Applebaum suggests a new division. Her division? North vs South. But then she attempts to locate Ireland in the South.  What’s that you say? Ireland in the South? Yes. This is because she’s interested more in the politics of Europe. For her, it’s the issues and attitudes that are the most important. Okay.

So Applebaum focuses on things like outlook and self-control function in the countries rather than clear geographical definitions of North and South function. I think you’ll see what I mean given the following two quotes:

North and South: Not everybody is going to like that concept, especially not the new South, some of whose members are not necessarily in the southern half of the continent. For these are not geographical designations, but political terms of art. The South contains all those countries whose political classes have not been able to balance their national budgets, whose bureaucrats have not been able to reduce their numbers, whose voters have not learned to approve of austerity: Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, and—at the moment—Ireland.

The North contains the budget hawks: Germany, Poland, Estonia, Scandinavia, the Czechs, and the Slovaks. Britain’s new government, with its austerity budget, aims to return to the North, following its recent experience of life in the South. France floats somewhere in between. Wealth, as such, isn’t northern: Much of the South is very rich. But in the North, private wealth has grown more or less in tandem with the public sector. Private wealth and public squalor are more typical of the South.

Sure, I but it. There’s a division in Europe and it functions on the level of economics and attitudes towards budgets  but it seems like Applebaum is also painting with some broad and sweeping brush strokes based not so much on wealth but seemingly on stereotypes related to work and attitudes towards work-life balances.  Hardworking Germany. Beach loving Greece. Strike loving Italy. Coffee drinking Bulgaria. And so on and so on. (And yes, I did just make up those stereotypes.)

Here’s the thing, I like Applebaum’s idea. I too am not sure that the outdated East vs West divide works anymore. Even more so after my recent travels through the Balkans. But I am not convinced that the North South divide works much better. It seems forced.

This said, I don’t have a better division to offer. Mostly because I am not sure that “this and that” or “black and white” divisions are very helpful. I guess the word that I find myself stumbling over is division more than East/West or North/South.  Probably this is naive. But luckily, I can afford to be naive. I am not an economist or a political scientist.

Thoughts about Applebaum’s claim?

A respectable Polish MP has claimed that ‘Russia engineered air crash that killed President Kaczynski’. Classy. Artur Gorski, a member of the Law and Justice party, has also tried to put blame on the Russians, but with less conspiracy twist. Of course, Polish blogs are ablaze with conspiracy theories. For my Polish readers see, “I Have a Terrible Suspicion” and “Catastrophe 4/10 Statement of Facts and Coincidences,” for starters.

Most theories revolve around a video of someone shooting at the plane from the ground, Polish reporters not being allowed at the crash site, the bodies being shipped off to some secret location, something about fuel/fire and the crashed plane, faked Polish pilot tapes, the Lucky Charms leprechaun being involved, and other insane crap. Needless to say the black box has been recovered and it clearly dismisses any possible foulplay. So much for conspiracy.

Of course the American right just couldn’t help themselves either – got to love the Faux News-like lead-in: “Is it irresponsible to suggest that Russia may have had a hand in the death of Poland’s president and other dignitaries?” Is it irresponsible to claim the Republican party is a bunch of child fucking lunatics? See how that little linguistic ploy works for everything?

It seems Belarus president Lukashenko couldn’t resist the opportunity to publicly embarrass himself by blaming Polish president Kaczynski for the crash…yes the president that died in the crash. Lukashenko remembered how en route to Tbilisi in 2008 Kaczynski pressured his pilots to land despite not getting clearance. This is called “VIP syndrome” – a situation in which certain high-profile passengers pressure pilots to make decisions they wouldn’t make otherwise. Whether this was the case or not, it’s hardly worth bringing up now, if ever. But this is Lukashenko.

In what may be the only surprising news to come out of this – Anne Applebaum – Russophobe extraordinaire has decided that it was not a conspiracy. Good for her. I guess she’ll leave her conspiracy theories and Russian-hate for her next post.

Despite the lunatic internet/blog fringe, the errant asshole Polish government official, and professional conspiracy theorists, we should keep in mind for the most part both nations have acted dignified in the wake of crash. Some have even remarked the tragedy could help bring about a further thaw in relations. Let’s hope so – I think a stronger Polish-Russia bond makes for a stronger Europe (as opposed to say a stronger Polish-US bond).

Image: AFP

A respectable Polish MP has claimed that ‘Russia engineered air crash that killed President Kaczynski’. Classy. Artur Gorski, a member of the Law and Justice party, has also tried to put blame on the Russians, but with less conspiracy twist. Of course, Polish blogs are ablaze with conspiracy theories. For my Polish readers see, “I Have a Terrible Suspicion” and “Catastrophe 4/10 Statement of Facts and Coincidences,” for starters.

Most theories revolve around a video of someone shooting at the plane from the ground, Polish reporters not being allowed at the crash site, the bodies being shipped off to some secret location, something about fuel/fire and the crashed plane, faked Polish pilot tapes, the Lucky Charms leprechaun being involved, and other insane crap. Needless to say the black box has been recovered and it clearly dismisses any possible foulplay. So much for conspiracy.

Of course the American right just couldn’t help themselves either – got to love the Faux News-like lead-in: “Is it irresponsible to suggest that Russia may have had a hand in the death of Poland’s president and other dignitaries?” Is it irresponsible to claim the Republican party is a bunch of child fucking lunatics? See how that little linguistic ploy works for everything?

It seems Belarus president Lukashenko couldn’t resist the opportunity to publicly embarrass himself by blaming Polish president Kaczynski for the crash…yes the president that died in the crash. Lukashenko remembered how en route to Tbilisi in 2008 Kaczynski pressured his pilots to land despite not getting clearance. This is called “VIP syndrome” – a situation in which certain high-profile passengers pressure pilots to make decisions they wouldn’t make otherwise. Whether this was the case or not, it’s hardly worth bringing up now, if ever. But this is Lukashenko.

In what may be the only surprising news to come out of this – Anne Applebaum – Russophobe extraordinaire has decided that it was not a conspiracy. Good for her. I guess she’ll leave her conspiracy theories and Russian-hate for her next post.

Despite the lunatic internet/blog fringe, the errant asshole Polish government official, and professional conspiracy theorists, we should keep in mind for the most part both nations have acted dignified in the wake of crash. Some have even remarked the tragedy could help bring about a further thaw in relations. Let’s hope so – I think a stronger Polish-Russia bond makes for a stronger Europe (as opposed to say a stronger Polish-US bond).

Image: AFP

her website

It was a gentle (OK, slightly barbed) poke at the Inauguration lead-up, which quite resembled a royal coronation.

But maybe it wasn’t a joke. Anne Applebaum took to the pages of the Washington Post to say that, while Obama may not have saved that particular plane, we are that plane, and Obama is the pilot that just saved that plane and will save our plane, which actually isn’t that plane but metaphorically is that plane, though we will be saved the same way if Obama saves us, because he is that pilot, though not the actual hero pilot, but the metaphorical hero pilot, or something.

As you listen to President Barack Obama speak today, as you watch him parade down Pennsylvania Avenue and dance at inaugural balls, keep this story in mind, for it describes with eerie accuracy the task ahead of him. He is, in effect, the pilot of a plane whose engine has unexpectedly exploded: Though a handful of people did predict the financial crisis of last autumn, almost no one in mainstream politics did so, no more than anyone would have predicted that a flock of geese would bring down an Airbus.

Now, Applebaum doesn’t take the metaphor too far, and she makes sure we all know our role in helping Obama save our plane. But her metaphor is lacking, to say the least. The pilot on that plane–and the calm, brave passengers–didn’t know the plane had problems until they were in the air, thinking everything was normal. The pilot wasn’t voted in mid-crisis by the passengers of the plane, after constitutional law forced the original pilot to jump out of the window. (And who would be the original pilot of the financial crisis, Bill Clinton? Probably Clinton, which makes this whole metaphor lose even more steam.)

Obama ran on a platform of, essentially, “This plane is going down! Holy crap this plane is headed for the drink!” Though it was spoken in the commanding, smooth, reassuring rhythm of Obama’s made-for-narration delivery. And to take it one step further, much of the economy will turn around even if there’s no pilot. Applebaum surely knows the invisible hand, whether or not she trusts it as much as she tells herself she does. In fact, often it’s better to have no pilot in these situations.

And not to beat a dead horse here, but if Obama steers correctly, the plane will not hit the water. Why would we throw the baby out with the bathwater and abandon the “airbus” of our free-market economy? And is that what Applebaum is suggesting? Surely not. And since George W. Bush (remember him?) released a large portion of stimulus money before leaving office, Obama isn’t really taking control of the plane so much as trying to stick the landing (not easy, but still) and then handing out lifejackets.

I think Applebaum realizes this, and sorta comes around:

My greatest fear is that in trying to repair the economy, the new administration will waste time and money in the mistaken belief that government-funded, centrally planned infrastructure projects will somehow use money more effectively than private or locally inspired equivalents. My second-greatest fear is that multiple company “bailouts” will ultimately result in fewer jobs, and more wasted resources, than the regeneration that could follow a string of intelligently managed bankruptcies.

That sounds like an crisp, lucid, metaphor-free basis for a column Applebaum should write.

Count among the best Anne Applebaum.  Her recent column on presidential addresses goes beyond the usual rhetorical hairsplitting to reveal what is unique about America.

“Nyet! Nyet!” That’s what a Russian bodyguard told a McClatchy news reporter when the latter asked for comment on an incident aboard the Admiral Chabanenko, a Russian destroyer that carried President Dmitry Medvedev to Venezuela last week. Following the pomp, circumstance and 21-gun salute that are mandatory at such meetings, there was, it seems, a bit of a misunderstanding. As Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez boarded the vessel, his beefy bodyguards tried to follow him up the gangplank. They were stopped by their equally beefy Russian counterparts. The Venezuelans, who presumably spoke no Russian, tried to push their way through. The Russians, who presumably spoke no Spanish, fought back.

It was all over quickly. “Everything is fine,” a Russian official said afterward. And indeed it was: The rest of Medvedev’s visit to Latin America proceeded smoothly. During his trip to Venezuela, Medvedev reportedly added a couple of passenger planes to the $4.4 billion worth of military hardware Russia has sold to Venezuela since 2005. In Cuba, Medvedev met the ailing Fidel Castro and went sightseeing with his brother Raúl. Yesterday, Russian ships began exercising in the Caribbean. But more than weapons and armies were at stake in this visit. As Chávez himself said a few months ago, the whole show was designed to send “a message to the empire”: Russia is back, and it can play the imperial game as well as the United States can.

And yet — the lingering image of those thuggish bodyguards, shouting at one another in mutual incomprehension, remains weirdly appropriate.

For Medvedev was in Cuba and Venezuela last week in part because he wouldn’t get that warm a welcome in Tbilisi or Kiev, let alone in Warsaw or Prague — and also because Russian foreign policy is, at the moment, based on a strange paradox. On one hand, the Russians have returned to the language, iconography and even historiography of imperialism. With every passing year, the anniversary of the end of World War II — and the moment of the Soviet Union’s greatest imperial triumph — is celebrated more elaborately. Soviet songs and symbols are back; threats to deploy nuclear missiles are frequent; Russian leaders refer to themselves as “global players.”

But on the other hand, the Russian political system is uniquely unattractive in the one sphere of influence that Russians have always cared about most: Europe. There are, it is true, Russian-speaking minorities across the eastern half of the continent who rely on Moscow for financing and political support. There are also extremely powerful European business lobbies, notably in Italy and Germany, that can be counted on to praise Russia’s leaders, whatever they do. But the Russian political system — based on crony capitalism, democratic rituals without democracy itself, heavy media controls, omnipresent criminality — isn’t of interest to anyone, and the Russians have trouble creating an empire around it. During the Cold War, there were European (and American) communists who admired the Soviet Union and whose support really could be manipulated for Soviet ends. By contrast, I’m not aware of a single popular movement in any European country, east or west, that is calling for a greater economic role for a Russian-style oligarchy, or more Russian thugs of the sort who were lurking on the gangplank of the Admiral Chabanenko last week.

Some dictatorships to the east are more amenable, of course: Many Central Asian regimes do operate on something like a Russian model, some without the elaborate democratic facade. But influence in those countries doesn’t give the Russian ruling class the sense of importance it craves or the domestic legitimacy it needs to survive. Hence Medvedev’s need to travel somewhat farther afield. Venezuela and Cuba may not be as significant as Germany or Georgia from the Russian perspective, but the image of Russians in Cuba evokes a certain nostalgia. At the very least, it proves that Medvedev, like his Soviet predecessors, can play games in America’s back yard.

One only hopes that President Barack Obama will have the good sense to ignore the whole affair, as President Bush has apparently done. In fact, the best way for the United States to deal with this particular Russian escapade is to treat it as the public relations exercise it was designed to be. Let Russian ships practice all they want in the Caribbean, let Russian and Venezuelan thugs fight it out on gangplanks, let Medvedev spend as much time with Chávez and the Castros as he desires: Their friendship won’t last if oil prices stay low, anyway. A Russian visit to Venezuela isn’t a Cuban missile crisis, even if it is supposed to remind us of one — just as Medvedev isn’t Khrushchev and Castro isn’t quite what he was 50 years ago. History repeats itself, as Marx said — but the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Brighton, originally uploaded by minnemom.

Located on Nicollet County Rd 5 just east of junction with Nicollet County Rd 10, east of Klossner, Minnesota.