Western Standard Party

While hanging out with fellow Manning conservatives this weekend, Ezra Levant told me about a little party that he was having on Sunday night for the ‘founders’ of the magazine. “Oh, and by the way” he said, “Lord Black of Crossharbour is going to be there.”

Well, no matter who you are (except perhaps Lord Black), that’s an intriguing guest list already.

As it turned out, there were a few other intriguing people at the small and intimate party (about 25 people) which was located in a suite at the Sutton Place Hotel.

I met fellow Blogging Tories Steve “you don’t look Angry” Janke and Bob Tarantino who both brought their charming better halves.

Journalists in attendance included the witty and lovely Rondi Adamson, fellow youngster Michael Taube, our over-worked host Ezra Levant and of course, National Post favourite Andrew Coyne.

Regular freedom fighter (or is that “fighter for freedom”) Gerry Nicholls also made an appearance.

Even CPC party MP Jason Kenney was in attendance. I asked Jason if he wanted to do a podcast one day. “Pot-cast?!” he asked shocked, “You want me to do pot?” Of course, I thought this was funny, so I shot back “I’m game if you are”. Hopefully Jason and I will spark up a conversation one day (to be available in downloadable syndicated MP3 format). I’ll bring the salty snacks.

Some old friends were in attendance as well including Michael Moore plaintiff Kaz Nejatian, Toronto CPC candidate Michael “pull the goalie” Mostyn, and my grade school friend Peter Kroll. My new pal Tasha Kheiriddin was also in attendance charming fellow party guests and promoting her exciting new book.

I had a chance to meet the controversial Lord Black and found him to be surprisingly talkative and I noticed that he still had his trademark streetfighter style. We chatted about the newspaper business and the evolution of the medium. I told him that I represented a group of online “citizen journalists”. He laughed and said that anything could be better than the paid ones.

Some say Lord Black is a hero of the Canadian right for how he provided a real opposition in the press to Liberal governments. However, minority shareholders of his companies have felt abused for years by his business practices. I found Lord Black to be a nice guy (from our 5 minute chat), however, I never invested in Hollinger.

Party guests drank Albertan Trad and Grasshopper, munched on veggies and dip and tried to look natural in front of Ezra’s professional photographer (expect to see us on the “Society Page” of the Western Standard next month). Ezra is one of the hardest working people in Canadian conservatism and I’m glad that he has a lot of fun doing it.

Pictures appear in the extended entry (click the “Continue Reading ‘Western Standard Party'” link below)

Continue reading Western Standard Party

Podcast – Ezra Levant, Marni Soupcoff, Michael Taube, Karen Selick

lss-media-panel-thumb.jpgThis past weekend I attended Peter Jaworski’s Liberty Summer Seminar and had the opportunity to listen to and be a part of talks given by the leading conservative/libertarian thinkers in Canada. Peter recorded eight podcasts from the seminar and I’ll be releasing them over the next couple of weeks. While this particular seminar was attended by less than 100 people, the power of the internet will allow the talk to reach thousands (my Monte Solberg/Andrew Scheer podcasts had a considerable reach).

This podcast was of a favourite seminar: the media panel. This topic is of particular interest because Conservative/Libertarian media is in the process of being born and shaped in this country, and sites such as Blogging Tories will be integral to the new media (while not replacing the MSM, it will redefine it through centralized and propagative efforts).

The panel consisted of:
Ezra Levant – Publisher, Western Standard newsmagazine
Marni Soupcoff – Columnist, American Enterprise Online, and editor of the National Post
Michael Taube – Freelance Columnist, Toronto Sun
Karen Selick – Columnist, Western Standard and Canadian Lawyer Magazine

Remember, you DON’T need an iPod to listen (your computer’s media player will work just fine). To get set up with Blogging Tories podcasts go here for instructions.

Or… if you just want to listen to the audio file (without having to worry about other technical details), click here for the media panel seminar at the LSS.

UPDATE: Odeo doesn’t seem to like the podcast, so please use a standard podcast aggregator insteadsuch as the Blogging Tories iPodder, which can be downloaded here