Mountainfm.com

A Melbourne artist and her family travelled to Europe and visited concentration camps where they made videos of themselves dancing to the disco hit “I Will Survive.” What?? I was initially appalled upon reading this.

My dad took me to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in the Czech Republic when I was 15 and I still remember how sad and eerie it was. Thousands of white crosses covered the lawn in front to honour the people who died there, and blood on the brick walls reminded me of the cruelty that people are capable of. And now we have some twits smiling and dancing around these horrible reminders of the Holocaust?

But my feeling has changed a little upon learning that one of the dancing family members is a survivor of the Holocaust. He is seen in one part of the video giving the peace sign and wearing a shirt with “Survivor” across the front. I can’t help but wonder if this is his weird way of reclaiming his past, celebrating that he did, indeed, survive one of the greatest crimes in modern history.

What do you think? Are they crapping on the injustices suffered by people during the Holocaust or are they free to dance wherever the heck they want?

Read about this family here.

… and her name is Dawna Friesen!

She’ll be taking over when Kevin Newman steps down. I am so excited for this change. I met Dawna in October 2008 when I was interning at NBC in London, England. We had a good chat in her office about starting out (she told me about driving around Brandon, Manitoba when she was a young journalist, desperately hoping for a garage sale to report on), being a working mom (she has one son) and working as a foreign correspondent. I was her stand in at Buckingham Palace when she was doing a live-hit about Prince Charles’ 60^th birthday. It was the highlight of my journalism school career!  

She is smart, experienced and, let’s be honest, has a face made for TV. 

So long boys – hello Dawna and Lisa LaFlamme. LaFlamme will replace anchor Lloyd Robertson on CTV National next year.