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The discerning mediavore’s take on the news of the day, from city hall to Power Ball
As his trial approaches, Conrad Black is wringing his hands. While his lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, is the finest legal mind in Canada, Black is concerned that Greenspan lacks the requisite knowledge of the American justice system.
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After what seems like a million pages (it’s actually 310), Conrad Black has finally been indicted. Boosted by testimony from David Radler (whom Black calls “the nasty gnome from Chicago”), the U.S. government is seeking a 95-year prison sentence. Plot-wise, we expected things to pick up around now—but instead Black just returns to his favourite topics: being poor, being persecuted by the media, and being friends with Elton John.
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Perhaps in a gesture of solidarity to his jailbird dad, 33-year-old Jonathan Black has landed himself under house arrest for allegedly violating his bail conditions. Black was picked up early Sunday morning at Toronto’s Horseshoe Tavern and set free the next day for $60,000. Now he can’t leave home without his mom or stepdad and can’t consume alcohol or access computers, smart phones or the Internet. In other words, he’s been grounded. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
The action picks up with Conrad and Barbara enjoying the pleasant August heat on their Bridle Path terrace and engaging in some amateur nature observations (deer, foxes, raccoons, skunks) with a tipple of white wine. Meanwhile, Barbara gets her job back at Maclean’s and the pair hang with Elton John (again). Sounds like paradise.
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Only in the distorted world of Conrad Black does moving become an ordeal on par with the Hundred Years War or the Rwandan genocide. He admires Barbara Amiel’s “sad and heroic efforts” as they pack up their 800 boxes to ship them to Toronto. Who knew renting a U-Haul truck could be so poetic?
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While reading this useless chapter, we started to wonder whether Conrad Black was being paid by the word. Or maybe he’s being paid by the letter since he’s such a supercilious blowhard—and nothing happens.
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As chapter seven opens, Conrad Black recalls the release of Richard Breeden’s lengthy investigative report called, somewhat hilariously, “A Corporate Kleptocracy.” Surprisingly, the long-awaited publication is a relief to Black—all of the alleged “skullduggery” turned out to just be rehashed accusations. Not much new information came out of the report, which, incidentally, is how we’re starting to feel about the Baron’s memoir (although it is expanding our vocabulary).
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Going on the word of Conrad Black alone (and his long, obscure words are the only ones we have), the Lord has basically become the business equivalent of Charlie Brown (same initials, even!). He’s just trying to do the right thing. But arch-nemesis Richard Breeden keeps pulling that football out of the way before he can kick it.
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Conrad Black rarely misses an opportunity to share his opinion or flex his sesquipedalian loquaciousness, so when Corporate Knights (“the magazine for clean capitalism”) asked for his advice for the Occupy movement, the erudite inmate was all too happy to oblige. In Black’s mind, the protesters behind Occupy—currently an “evanescent magic carpet for a gaggle of hacks, gasbags and kooks”—need to stop spouting “the usual, incoherent, sophomoric grab bag of populist grumbles,” consisting of a “rag-bag of simplistic liberal flummeries.” And even though Black criticizes their unfocused demands (you know, like everybody else has), his own guidance is pretty scattershot. According to the Lord, the cure for humanity’s economic woes include these (because Black has many, many recommendations): have the Occupiers band with the Tea Party “and other reasonably sane protest movements;” impose a tax on the rich that will be only be reduced once poverty is alleviated, thereby motivating the one per cent to fix the problem themselves (we’re not sure if this is brilliant or bonkers); legalize soft drugs; and, um, stop perpetuating the myth of global warming. Read the entire story [Corporate Knights] »
The press comes down hard on Black as news of his unceremonious ousting from Hollinger becomes public. Blackguard Rupert Murdoch is the prime offender, allegedly whipping up negative ink out of nothing, but Black is most disgruntled by the betrayal of his onetime friend (and former lieutenant governor) Hal Jackman, who publicly smears Black with accusations of a death wish, a Napoleon complex and an “absurd” lifestyle.
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Those non-competition payments bite Black in the hiney this week as Hollinger’s audit committee begins a thorough investigation into the company’s funds. To no one’s surprise—except the Baron’s—it is revealed that the payments (totalling $30 million) made when Hollinger sold off its American papers, were not, in fact, formally authorized. But everyone told Black they were okay, you see, and since he didn’t bother double-checking, this development knocked the wind right out of him.
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Conrad Black begins the third chapter of A Matter of Principle by devoting a page-and-a-half of ink to dumping on the old boy from Shawinigan—apparently Jean Chrétien dangled the possibility of the Governor General position in Black’s face and the Lord was none too happy about it. Dear, dear. But Black rises above the slight, acquiring a much more tantalizing title when he’s offered a peerage in the British House of Lords. Naturally, he calls Tony Blair to tell him the news—because, of course, Black’s friends with everyone famous and influential. Get it?
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(Image: Tasos Katopodis/ Getty Images News/ Getty Images)
We already knew Conrad Black was well connected, but we didn’t know just how well until we read this week’s chapter. Black is as casual about his dinners with the Pope and Princess Diana as we are about a Sunday nosh at the Pickle Barrel. No big.
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When we found out that Conrad Black was releasing a book, we smacked our heads and thought, “Of COURSE!” Really, that Black hasn’t published a memoir Read the rest of this entry »before nowsince his first try, A Life in Progress, in 1993 is somewhat shocking—the famously loquacious Lord has never exactly been shy about speaking his mind and nearly twenty years is a long time. To that end, A Matter of Principle is a gift from on high. The gargantuan tome is a timeless, epic tale straight from the baron’s mouth, a juicy catalogue of betrayal (by pretty much everyone), love (for Barbara Amiel), corruption (of the American justice system, naturally), and triumph over adversity (think Dead Poet’s Society reenactments, only Black is Robin Williams and the students are Black’s cellmates). To celebrate this momentous literary event, we bring you the Conrad Black Book Club, in which every week we’ll be discussing a chapter from this seminal work. Read our first recap—and a collection of Black’s most ridiculous passages—after the jump.
Critics of Stephen Harper’s prison corrections plan may have just found an unlikely ally—none other than convicted felon and noted fancy talker Conrad Black. On the brink of his return to prison—the Lord is back in the hoosegow today—Black unleashed his impressive vocabulary on the Conservative government in Ottawa in a diatribe wherein he expressed his “violent disagreement” with Harper’s “so-called roadmap” for Canada’s prison system.
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