Every major Law and Order character, ranked

Yep, this is a thing I did.

JACK MCCOY – In the summer when I was a kid, I would stay up late to watch the San Francisco Giants play if they were on TV. I wasn't a Giants fan but getting an opportunity to watch Barry Bonds swing a bat, even on TV, was great and worth staying up for.

The same thing goes for Jack McCoy, the G.O.A.T. television lawyer. Even in Law and Order's crummiest days, Sam Waterston was awesome to watch as McCoy. He was '01 Bonds. The man could preach in a courtroom and did whatever it took to win the case he believed in, for good and bad. If the show was called Law or Order and I could only pick one part to watch, I'd go with Order because of Jack.

The slow, slow evolution of McCoy from reckless prosecutor, to less reckless prosecutor, to District Attorney was acted and written greatly looking back upon the series.

And now the baseball analogies are out of the way.

LENNIE BRISCOE – Lennie was the Law's answer to Order's Jack. Even when the writing squandered after Rene Balcer left the writer's room around Season 13, Briscoe brought it every episode with his humour around his detective partners, suspects, and lawyers. The most memorable lines spoke in series came from Lennie and he even feels under valued at number two.

ADAM SCHIFF – I don't think a Jack/Lennie combo as the top two would surprise anyone who watched the show but I would lump District Attorney Adam Schiff in with that upper echelon. I've heard this before but the beautiful thing about Schiff was he knew the law and he knew politics, but you never knew what angle was motivating him.

He supported Jack when he needed support and kicked his ass when it needed to be kicked. Terrific fictional boss. Bonus points for his facial reactions when that week's case was going the wrong way.

ABBIE CARMICHAEL – I liked Abbie but I'm not sure she deserves to be so high. Still, out of all of Jack's assistants, she was my favourite. Her line in her first episode (“No deals for anyone, let's hang 'em all”) really set the tone for the character, a strong conservative viewpoint which hadn't been on the show much before. And she could go toe-to-toe with Jack. And win.

MIKE LOGAN – One day he used his fists, the next day he used his head to solve cases. He really carried the early seasons. A shame we didn't see more of him with Lennie.

ED GREEN – A workhorse; he'd be the Mark Buehrle of the L&O universe (nope, not done with the baseball analogies).

REY CURTIS – Rey was a bit of a pain in the ass sitting up on his high horse but he might have been my favourite partner of Lennie's for the same reason Jack and Abbie were my favourite lawyer combo: real contrast. Plus, he was there for one of my favourite stretches of the show (season 7: Double Down, the Hollywood murder trilogy, and Mad Dog).

JAMIE ROSS – I liked Jamie. Like her successor, Abbie, she kept Jack in check while in the assistant's chair. She was the ADA when Jack was bending every rule in the criminal code and Adam was running for re-election. She was the voice of reason for many episodes in the DA's office.

CYRUS LUPO – It's too bad the writing went to crap for a chunk because when the last cast of actors came in, people had stopped watching. But the last cast was really good and Lupo was the best of them: a sometimes gruff, smart detective who was so likeable in the ilk of a Mike Logan.

ANITA VAN BUREN – The solid, tells-her-detectives-what-they-already-know-so-the-viewer-now-knows lieutenant. Plus, she nailed her cancer storyline in the last season. That cast rocked.

BEN STONE – Some people like Stone the way I like McCoy. I'm not one of them but Stone was good. He really knocked it out of the park in a few early season episodes before he was replaced by McCoy.

PHIL CERRETA – Paulie from Goodfellas as a cop? Paulie from Goodfellas as a cop.

CLAIRE KINCAID – Like Ben, Claire is probably another character other people would have higher on their lists. She was a good assistant to Ben and Jack; I just liked Abbie and Jamie more, OK?

MICHAEL CUTTER – It was fun to see Jack ascend to the top of the DA's office, only to have to manage Michael Cutter, a younger version of himself. You loved him in some episodes and you didn't in others. His habit of carrying a baseball bat like Tom Cruise did in A Few Good Men was a minor annoyance because Tom Cruise did it in A Few Good Men.

But Cutter was really good as a part of that cast that grabbed me back into the show. Plus I totally 'shipped him and Connie.

MAX GREEVEY – People will tell me Max is listed too low and I need to re-watch the first season. They're probably right.

PAUL ROBINETTE - “You're the biggest bad ass on the block Jack.” I loved that line when he returned as a defence attorney. He was good as Ben's assistant too.

DONALD CRAGEN – You might remember Donald Cragen from such roles as Donald Cragen on SVU. But he was once on the Mothership. That's what IMDB says.

CONNIE RUBIROSA – Who is Connie you asked a few paragraphs ago? Oh, well, she was the assistant district attorney when Mike was around. When it was her turn for a Connie episode, she was really good.

NORA LEWIN – Oh right, she was the district attorney once. Rudy Guliani liked her!

JOE FONTANA – The impossible task of replacing Lennie Briscoe.

ARTHUR BRANCH – Foghorn Leghorn somehow ascended to the top of New York's district attorney's office. No one needs to hear a five minute monologue why a story about your grandmother's daffodils tells you that Jack should proceed with a murder two indictment instead of manslaughter. However, he did fire Serena.

KEVIN BERNARD – Saint Bernard.

ALEXANDRIA BORGIA – She had a short visit; not too memorable.

NICK FALCO – Remember when Green was shot and Tony Soprano's nephew replaced him for four episodes? Not much more then a guest star but he was in the credits once so we rank him.

ALFRED WENTWORTH – Had CBS picked up the show, we would have had him instead of Adam Schiff. Alfred Wentworth would have been a lousy DA in comparison.

NINA CASSIDY – It's not a good sign when you piss off your lieutenant five minutes into your screen debut and your whole storyline revolves around why you aren't a good detective. It was like the writers hated the Cassidy character as soon as they green-lit her for air.

SERENA SOUTHERLYN – Jamie Ross served as a voice of reason to Jack's wild, rebellious approach to the law. Abbie and Jack clashed because her conservative politics clashed with Jack's more liberal views. Then came Serena, who just argued against Jack for the hell of it. And she wasn't very good at it.

7 Generations

Up until this year, I had never read a graphic novel in my life.

It only took a few pages for me to realize that 7 Generations: A Plains Cree Saga was quite different from Calvin and Hobbes.

The book, written by David Alexander Robertson, was a fantastic and educational read that touched on many Aboriginal issues in flashback and present day form.

Would I call this book journalism? Yes, I would. The story might be presented in a different form but it tells a story, one full of emotion that is drawn from Robertson's own experiences with the subject matter. When he spoke to us about his book yesterday, he recalled many events in his past that helped shaped who he is; to hiding from being Aboriginal in grade school to encountering racism as a young adult. Some of those issues would be included in the book.

In the third part of the stories, Robertson tells a story about the residential schools. While I had noticed the imagery throughout the book (done tremendously by Scott Henderson), it wasn't until this part that I was completely grabbed by the illustrations.

They were powerful and showed something that words simply couldn't do on their own. You could see the violence, the abuse, the sadness on the characters faces. I've read and seen stuff about residential schools but the imagery in 7 Generations, complimented with Robertson's concise wording, told the story like I have never seen before.

The pace of the stories was also great. Everything flowed, the images and text, from one frame to the next. It was a different pace then I'm used to reading but I found the format very enjoyable.

We've been assigned two other books in our journalism program, Nahlah Ayed's A Thousand Farewalls and Jim Blanchard's Winnipeg's Great War. While each book is different (Ayed's a first-hand account, Blanchard's research heavy), they all tell us stories about events in our past and each, including Robertson's book, does a good job of conveying that story to the audience.

Seeing Sochi

The Sochi Olympics are a few days away still but members of the media are slowly making their way over to Russia and are making...interesting discoveries about the living situations at the Games.

Here are some of my favorites.

BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg tweeted a few pictures of the interesting bathroom arrangement in Sochi. Closed quarters, that's for sure.

Also, if you find yourself inside one of the washrooms, make sure you abide by the rules in this picture tweeted out by Canadian snowboarder Sebastien Toutant:

 

No toilet fishing. Or stabbing yourself with a weapon.

If you plan on using water, it's a bit of a lose-lose situation at some places. On one hand, there could be no water. On the other side, the water could be very dangerous as Chicago Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair found out:

My hotel has no water. If restored, the front desk says, "do not use on your face because it contains something very dangerous." #Sochi2014
— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) February 4, 2014

Water restored, sorta. On the bright side, I now know what very dangerous face water looks like. #Sochi #unfiltered pic.twitter.com/sQWM0vYtyz
— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) February 4, 2014

It's certainly a few interesting looks inside this year's Olympics.