Richard Nixon, found out, covering up the truth, nearly impeached, claiming, “I am not a crook!” Poliitico.

I dodged most of the last few months of my university classes to see it. I sensed – as a journalist-in-training in the early 1970s – that reality was more important than theory. So, we all crowded into a student lounge at Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson) to watch the daily TV Senate Committee hearings into connections between the Watergate break-in and then president Richard Nixon.

I specifically remember Committee Chair Sen. Sam Ervin sparring with Nixon’s then White House adviser John Ehrlichman.

“The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere,” Ervin said later. “What he says is executive privilege, is nothing but executive poppycock.” (more…)

Rachmoninoff genius with her hands on the piano... Valentina Lisitsa on her smart phone, not so much. — Valentina Lisitsa with her hands on a piano, a Rachmaninoff genius … with those hands on her smart phone, not so much.

Under different circumstances, classical piano fans in the Greater Toronto Area by now might be raving about a unique performance they’d seen and heard of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2. They might have joined the thousands of concert-goers who’ve witnessed her brilliance on the piano keys at such venues as Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall. They might have been able to say they saw the once child prodigy now internationally celebrated concert pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Instead, she took advantage of her celebrity to offer her pro-Russian view of Ukrainian politics.

“The new school year begins in Odessa with teachers forced to wear tribal dress, a truly European custom,” she tweeted (in 2014) in an apparent slam at the cultural dress of her native Ukraine. (more…)

Ted Barris

author | journalist

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