Year: 2011

The Red Light District: Café Cleopatre and the Singing Cockroaches

Ever see the slacker classic Joe’s Apartment? That’s the one with Jerry O’Connell starring alongside some well trained cockroaches as a mid west boy in his first foray into quasi-manhood in NYC, conveniently landing a rent controlled apartment, subsequently discovering his landlord is trying to kill him off so they can tear down the building and put up a maximum security penitentiary. Well, the same thing’s happening on the Main. Basically…

BC Supreme Court draws line on freedom of religion when it comes to polygamy

The provincial government of British Columbia basically posed the following question to the court: Is section 293 of the criminal code, which prohibits polygamy.
Liberals always seem to squirm a little bit when questions of religious freedom come into conflict with other rights that they cherish (i.e. gender equality), the way they did last week when the British Colombia Supreme Court handed down its epic reference on the legality of polygamy in Canada. I suppose the situation is bound to cause…

How to Win Friends and Influence People in Washington

When a candidate is running for political office, whether it’s for a seat in the House of Representatives, the Senate or the White House itself, the winner isn’t dictated by their campaign or their policies; technically it’s not even the amount of money they raise. The overwhelming factor these days seems to be the price tag that is attached to their soul. Politics in Washington has become so corrupt and immoral that it is now more important to be bought by the most corporations and special interests as possible…

Enigmatic Zeitgeist: A reflection on the Occupy Movement

I feel we’re not that different you and I, at least I hope not. We’re both here, so there must be something that unites us. And even if it is difficult to pinpoint what precisely brought us here, perhaps that’s only an indication of just how grave the situation truly is. A uniting force we can’t yet properly define is braiding together diverse yet inter-related interests into a solid bond. And yet, all I can see for the moment are individual fibres, weak, limp, useless by themselves. I’ve been reflecting. Haven’t come up with much – nothing but an endless series of questions whose answers elude me…

Eye on Newt

It feels like the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination changes more than I change my socks. Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have all seen their campaign through the driver’s seat. But with the Cain Train derailing over the past couple of weeks, polls show yet another leader of the pack who slowly came from the back of the bunch; Newt Gingrich. The Grinch (pronounced Ging-rich) has a load of experience to bring to Washington…

Black Eyed Friday

Only in America could there be a holiday weekend where the premise is to eat as much as you can only to be followed by a day where people buy as much as they can… and they call it Thanksgiving. That’s right, Thanksgiving Day weekend, a day of mass consumption preceded by a day of mass consumerism. Thanksgiving is America’s second favorite holiday after Christmas and it’s plain to see why…

Some people never change: Tremblay evicts Occupy Montreal

You know when you dislike someone and then they go and do something really cool and you start thinking that maybe you’ve misjudged them? Inevitably, they go back to their old ways and you realize that nope, you were right about them all along and you kick yourself for doubting your preconceptions. That’s exactly how I feel right now about Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay and I doubt I’m the only one. For weeks, Tremblay kept a drastically different tone than the mayors of other major cities with an occupied public space. Following the 1am commando-style raid…