Third Annual Kenaz Awards

The awards for those who made the headlines in 2007 in the spirit of this site. The nominees where inspired by the many posts I made this year and cover local, Canadian and International stories that made headlines.

Welcome to the third annual "Kenaz Awards". Still no glitz, no glamour, no expensive bling. Just a cold beer and some cheese to celebrate the stories that made you cheer,jeer,get angry,cry or say 'Good lord!".

Top International Stories
The War in Iraq-One statistic sums up the last year in Iraq : 2007 will end as the deadliest for American troops since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, with more than 900 dead.



Politics in Pakistan-


Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in the country in November, arresting political opponents and cutting communication lines. The declaration of emergency came before the Supreme Court was to rule on Musharraf's role as president. The country's constitution was suspended, but Musharraf stepped down as the leader of the military at the end of the month — making him a civilian president. Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth due to the actions of Musharraf, who arrested thousands of lawyers and human rights workers who are not supporters.

Virginia Tech Shootings


China Product Recall-


Iran's Nuclear Capabilities-


Burma-
Thousands of Buddhist monks and activists protested the military junta in Burma in September. The protests were spurred by a decision in August to double the price of fuel, worsening the situation of impoverished people in the country. The government threatened to use force against the protesters, and on the ninth day of the protest, the country's leaders sent soldiers to end the marches. Images of soldiers firing at unarmed protesters were beamed around the world. A military clampdown in the country silenced the protests and many reported the killings of thousands of protesters.

Canadian News Stories

Canada's role in Afghanistan took over the news in June. Roadside bombs killed four soldiers, bringing the total number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan to 61. The three deaths came one day before NATO's secretary general suggested that Canada continue its mission in the region until 2009. A poll was also released showing that 70 per cent of Quebecer's oppose the mission in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that the mission in Afghanistan would not be extended unless a consensus was reached in Parliament. Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion says his party will not support staying beyond 2009.

A jury found Robert William Pickton guilty on six counts of second-degree murder in December. Pickton's victims were women had who disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The judge gave Pickton, who was arrested in 2002, the maximum sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. Pickton also faces charges in the deaths of 20 other women. Pickton had pleaded not guilty to all of the 26 charges.

A judge in Chicago sentenced Conrad Black to 6 ½ years in prison and $125,000 in fines, and ordered him to pay $6.1 million in restitution. Black had been found guilty on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in July. The charges relate to the diversion of millions of dollars in non-compete payments from the sale of his Hollinger newspapers. Black was also caught removing boxes of documents from his Toronto office. The sentence was considered to be at the low end of the sentencing guideline.

The Canadian dollar, on a precipitous rise, finally closed above parity with the U.S. dollar in September. For the first time in 31 years, the Canadian dollar was worth more than the American, closing at $1.0052 US on Sept. 28. The loonie had reached parity with the American greenback on Sept. 20, but had dropped before closing. From January until the end of September, the loonie gained 17 per cent against the U.S. dollar. High gold prices contributed to the rise of the Canadian buck, along with the decline of the American dollar.

A man was shocked with a Taser at Vancouver International Airport in October. Police said he was acting irrationally after being held up at customs for 10 hours. Witnesses say the man was shocked at least twice before being handcuffed on the floor where he went into cardiac arrest and died. Robert Dziekanski was moving to Canada from Poland to live with his mother. In November, an independent reviewer was named to look at the use of Tasers after another B.C. man was shocked by a Taser and later died in hospital.

Maher Arar was awarded $10 million and a formal apology from the government in January. In 2002, Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria, was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy airport on his way home from a vacation. He was deported by U.S. authorities to Syria, where he was tortured. Justice Dennis O'Connor conducted an inquiry and found that Arar was involved in no terrorist activities. He also found that the RCMP gave misleading information to U.S. authorities that could have led to Arar's deportation. The U.S. government has refused to take Arar off their watch list despite the apology from Canada.

Menu Foods, a Canadian pet food company, issued a North America-wide recall of its products in March. Owners said the products were making their pets sick and in some cases, killing their animals. FDA tests found that as many as one in six animals died after eating Menu Foods pet food. Tainted wheat gluten from two plants in China that was used in the pet foods is believed to have killed the animals.

A 13-year-old girl from Medicine Hat was found guilty of the first-degree murders of her parents and eight-year-old brother in July. The girl, who cannot be named, is thought to have killed her family because of their disapproval of her relationship with her 23-year-old boyfriend. The girl's boyfriend, Jeremy Steinke, has yet to be tried on three counts of first-degree murder. The girl, who was 12 at the time of the killings, is thought to be the youngest person in Canada to ever be convicted of more than one count of first-degree murder.

Denny Doherty, a founding member of the 1960s folk-pop band the Mamas and the Papas, died at his home in Mississauga, Ontario. He was 66. The cause was not immediately known, his daughter Emberly said. But she said her father had recently suffered kidney failure after surgery for a stomach aneurysm.


Hamilton News

The passing of Bill Sturrup. Sturrup was Mr. Hamilton. As a reporter, he was everywhere. He was the voice of CHML, the Ticats, Bulldogs and others. His legacy will echoes on. Anyone who has attended a Bulldogs game can atest to the sheer excitement his voice drummed up when he belted out the trademark Hamilton BUULLL-dogs call that shook the walls of Copps Coliseum every time the team hit the ice. Bill Sturrup passed away after a bout with cancer.

I was extremely sad to read that former CHML and CKOC radio personality Bob Sherwin had passed away. He died at Hamilton General hospital after suffering a severe heart attack. Sherwin has been a fixture on Hamilton radio since the 1970's. I have fond memories of listening to his weekly Big 500 countdown on CKOC as a kid. I know god has a master plan for all of us but why take the good souls so young? Mr. Sherwin was only 52.

Three good news stories to report from the 'Hammer' today. A north end park was cleaned up and the area BIA is committing itself to keeping it that way. Hamilton will soon be one local calling area and a shake-up at city hall should bring some respect back.

Wackjob Award


Hamilton Community News columnist Kevin Werner needs to take a few sensitivity courses before his dumb witted opinions do serious damage to either his career or those they are targeted at.

Tragic Story









Loser of the Year




It was a big year for celebrity prison sentences, though not necessarily for actual hard time served. Actor Lindsay Lohan spent 84 minutes in a Los Angeles jail in November after pleading guilty to drunk driving and cocaine possession. She'd been sentenced to one day in prison. In August, Nicole Richie was in jail for only 82 minutes of a four-day sentence for driving under the influence of drugs.

Hamilton City Councilor's-Interruptions, childish out bursts, insults short of "your mother!". A local playground? No, a meeting of Hamilton council. The playpen squabble? Extending local calls to the suburbs. The answer so obvious; to borrow a phrase from a popular info-commercial "so easy, even a child could do it!"

Hamilton city council and the Mayors office continues to fumble their chances to help the city grow and attain new levels of prosperity and optimism. Instead they let it continue to decay with rampant pollution, poverty, corruption and scandal.

Anthony Di Cenzo, a Hamilton landlord, portraying himself as a totally innocent patsy in his role in a sophisticated criminal operation after a massive marijuana grow operation was discovered in his east end apartments is totally unbelievable.

Hamilton Councillor Merulla hails himself as the self imposed deity of the elderly and poor of Hamilton. The truth is Mr. Merulla is a self absorbed "hypocrite" who rarely visits the neighbourhoods he claims to fight for in city council.

The only thing missing was the eerie violin music, the stogies and the dimly lit backroom, but all the characters of a scene straight out of the 'Godfather' where present. Sam 'The Bully' Merulla played the lead thug, trying to persuade Bob 'Red Light' Bratina and Brian 'Flip-Flop' McHattie into back tracking on their decision to agree with a transit fare hike. All under the cover of an off camera, extremely fishy out of chambers meeting.

Injustice Award

Ontario Superior Justice Fletcher Dawson for giving Stephen Papadopoulos only an extra day in jail on top of the five years and three months he has spent in custody awaiting his trial for his part in the beating death of Matthew Daly in 2001.

The families of Lucas Deane, Paul Haggerty and the entire community deserve to read today's report on how Hamilton police botched the surrender of accused double-murderer Corey Rogers.

Wacky and Strange Stories of the Year

Young chimpanzees outperformed university students in a series of short-term memory tests. Japanese scientists from the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University matched up three five-year-old chimps and their mothers against adult humans in a test that asked participants to recall a sequence of numbers from one to nine. In both tests conducted, one of the chimps came out on top.

Think you could survive being shot twice? How about frozen for two days? A Florida duck beat both odds and stunned at least one Tallahassee couple. After Perky the duck was shot by a hunter, he was presumed dead and thrown in the family's refrigerator by the hunter's wife. Two days later the wife opened the fridge to a very much alive and quacking duck.

In an effort to make the act of pizza eating more exciting and to increase pie sales, a Winnipeg company is offering up pornographic images inserted under each pizza. Porno Pizza has raised more than a few eyebrows for its racy gimmick and even claims many of its customers are women. It's all above board, too: customers must show ID proving they are 18 or older.

Artists are often inspired by the most unusual objects and ideas but some inspirations border on the plane morbid and wrong. A project from Eindhoven's Design Academy in the Netherlands takes inspiration from funerals and ways of remembering the dead. Some of the exhibits like Bleeding 'till Death, borrow ideas from ancient cultures who's loved ones erect living memorials to the dead. The piece features flowers arranged like bed-ridden patients and attached to transfusion pouches filled with dye. Another piece consists of seeds for every person who has died in war, to be planted in their memory.

Iron Man Award

The kid with the iron will and the one who had every citizen in Hamilton last summer full of emotion after he was brutally beaten in an unprovoked attack has returned to school. A remarkable achievement for Drew Lee, considering he had to be induced into a coma for 12 days at McMaster Children's Hospital and had casts on both legs because of his injuries from the Aug. 5 assault.

Still Unresolved Story-Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino has a rather sinister track record, one that includes police brutality, racist policing, use of excessive force against protesters and bathhouse raids and other homophobic policing.

And now nearing the two year anniversary of the occupation of Caledonia by native activists protesting a housing development being built on what they claim is their land, the cries for Fantino to resign, once again rage with the ferocity of a banshee cry.

Looking ahead to 2008

It will be a leap year with 366 days, the extra one, of course, in February, which has a rare five Fridays. It will also be the first year in which just over 52 per cent of Canadians will enjoy a statutory holiday in that dark month now that Ontario has joined Alberta and Saskatchewan in legislating a legal Family Day for the third Monday in February.

The U.S., Russia, possibly Britain and perhaps even Canada are all bracing for national elections with the potential to set new directions. After eight years of George W. Bush, a new President is bound to have an impact well beyond the year itself.

China's hosting of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, beginning Aug. 8. With thousands of professional athletes and millions of people from around the world expected at the games, the international spotlight will shine on China as never before. Is it up to the scrutiny? A telling moment will be in March when organizers are set to complete a new Olympic stadium in the shape of a bird's nest.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will no doubt continue through 2008, the White House is expected to lower troops levels in Iraq by the end of the summer. President Bush is coming under pressure from the U.S. military to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Violence is said to be dropping in Iraq but rising in Afghanistan.

Canada's troops, stationed in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, have another full year of fighting the Taliban as they are not scheduled to come home before February 2009.

2008 is the International Year of the Potato, of sanitation, of languages, and of planet Earth. It's also the Chinese calendar's Year of the Rat, officially starting on Lunar New Year in early February. According to astrological descriptions, it means a year of hard work, enterprise, renewal and activity as rats are seen as clever, resourceful and quick-witted creatures.

Later,
Kenaz