Word: martel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Meanwhile, talk about prospective masters has begun to fly around Currier.“There’s definitely talk. The students are very concerned. Especially now that Cole [Crittenden] is leaving. He was kind of like the last bastion of the Joe and Pat administration,” Martel said. Martel said Crittenden’s presence would be missed.“Cole is a very visible figure in Currier. He’s very much a part of Currier life and part of the Currier spirit,” Frances I. Martel...
Perhaps Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper was warned to beware of authors bearing gifts. Recently, Canadian writer Yann Martel, who became a household name when his novel Life of Pi won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2002, announced that he intended to send the Prime Minister a book every two weeks. Martel has already sent Harper two, accompanied by letters about each book's literary merits and meanings, but the PM has yet to thank...
...reason for Harper's response or lack thereof could be that Martel's gifts come wrapped in criticism and might be more accurately described as a guerilla publicity campaign. "This government, and especially the Prime Minister, doesn't seem to have an awareness of the importance of art and culture," Martel charges. His campaign, intended to encourage Harper's Conservative government to make the arts and arts funding a higher priority, was launched with an essay in the national newspaper The Globe and Mail, has its own website, and has succeeded in attracting considerable media attention. Many Canadians regard government...
...Almost no one in Canada, including Harper's political enemies, questions his intelligence. If he were not in politics, he might have become an academic or policy analyst. Nor is Martel charging that Harper does not read, but the author says the endless government reports, bedtime stories the Prime Minister reads to his daughter, and even a book about hockey that Harper is writing, are not enough; Harper needs art. "I'm not saying he has to read all of War and Peace in a week, but to never be engaged in the imaginative work that is fiction...
...Harper has reacted Martel's campaign with a technique that has proved quite effective during his time in power: stony silence. While his staff have countered with a list of new arts funding, including an extra C$50 million for the Canada Council for the Arts, Harper himself has not responded directly to Martel or commented in the media. A Harper spokesperson did say that the PM "reads a variety of books when he has some spare time." Martel concedes that the Prime Minister has a lot of demands on his time, but he is not willing to excuse Harper...