Monday, April 16, 2007

Media Roundup: Furrowed Brains

As week five of the Conrad Black trial is about to begin, three stories on where the trial's turning have been webbed overnight, as well as a critical look at one of the agencies currently after Mr. Black and a few others, the Ontario Securities Commission:

1. From the Hamilton Spectator's "Business Briefs," an observation that the prosecutors may be close to throwing the trial through boring the jury.

2. 1130 News has webbed a 170-or-so word forecast giving signposts showing who to expect on the stand this week: the end of Darryl Sukonick's cross-examination, William (Bud) Rogers, Paul Saunders, and pre-recorded testimony from Beth De Merchant. The last was videotaped in lieu of her packing her bags and testifying in Chicago, as was the case with Csr. Sukonick.

3. The OSC, an agency that is also pursuing action against Mr. Black, at the civil level, is the subject of a critical look at its workings, as webbed by Investment News.

4. The Chicago Tribune's "Top 5" business stories to watch this week has the trial in spot 4; it notes that the man to watch for is Csr. Saunders, Henry Kissinger's former lawyer.


Also: an article in the New Yorker discusses whether or not the "war on white-collar crime" should be regarded with the skepticism, if not the cynicism, of the war-weary.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have missed a number of posts - but did you ever get around to watching that IdeaCity performance from Lord Black?

Daniel M. Ryan said...

Yes, I have; thanks for asking. It's more of a report than a review, but there is a final comment. This page contains it.

Anonymous said...

That was a great write up. Btw, glad you pointed out that Breeden was appointed by Bush Sr. - The readers of Steyn's work, are usually denied that piquant fact, for obvious picture-painting reasons on Steyn's part. He would like his readers to believe that Breeden was some left wing anti capitalist regulating maven. It fits he storyline - of Lord Black as Capitalist, etc.

Anonymous said...

Just to note - We were very much struck by Conrad's performance in that Idea City show.

He was very impressive - considering the circumstances. What was the crowd like? We guess it was a center-left crowd - like similar events in NYC and DC.

You could tell though - how much the crowd loved it when Conrad got into the grove of things and assumed his character by belting out that Lourdes Pilgrims line.

Daniel M. Ryan said...

Thank you. I put in that item because it's the kind of counter-intutitve factoid that encourages the reader to stop and think.

I don't know who was there at the conference, but it's fairly pricey, so I suspect that the attendees were mostly Liberals, ones who are probably more centrist than left-wing. In Canada, what would be left-liberals in the U.S. have their own party, the New Democratic Party, which is social-democratic in its origins. As a result, the typical Liberal is more pragmatic than the present-day U.S. small-l liberal.

Anonymous said...

Yes - it is counter-intuitive and we noticed immediately how Steyn would conspicuously fail to point that out - Because it would ruin his storyline for his partisan American audience - It would create too much cognitive dissonance for his readers. So he never tells them the truth about Breeden.