Did you know there’s a war going on? One you haven’t heard of? It’s not a terribly well organized war. Not too many people are dying though this is changing, fast. It’s not very well reported the established media has been slow at coming to terms with what’s actually transpiring here. They are blinded by their own complacency, and this war is partly their responsibility. Yet they, much like the rest of society, continue to look elsewhere…
Archives
Internet on the radio, FTB on CKUT’s Friday Morning After
This morning I woke up a little earlier than usual, had my coffee and took a walk through the already sweltering heat, arriving at the CKUT studios in the heart of the McGill Ghetto around 8am. I was there to talk about FTB on the Friday Morning After. Not to be confused with our very own sex column of the same name, CKUT’s Morning After is a local arts, news and culture radio show running Monday to Friday from 7-9am. The hosts change depending on the day as does the language they speak on air. The Friday edition…
Toronto the Green
Before moving to Toronto for the rest of the summer I was warned about the dangers of biking on its streets. I’d need a helmet and some luck, I was told. And I’d heard plenty about newly elected Mayor Rob Ford’s lack of appetite for cyclists and their paths. In fact, the week I arrived, bike paths were making headlines as city council decided to remove bike lanes on Jarvis street they had set up one year earlier. The irony of the decision is that it will cost much more to remove the lanes than it did to install them…
Rupert Murdoch: The Tabloid & the Damage Done
News of the Screws, Screws of the World, you can call Rupert Murdoch’s former weekly tabloid newspaper whatever you like. News of the World was the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world up until it printed its final paper last week, amid a high profile phone hacking and corruption scandal. While the world seems shocked at the depths of the allegations, I for one am not surprised. The 168 year old News of the World was bought by Mr. Murdoch and News International in 1969. At the time it was a regular weekly newspaper that covered actual news…
Fighting propaganda with critical discussion: Canadians are awakening to the tragedy of Palestine
Reading Ha’aretz, one of the largest Israeli daily newspapers, is a fascinating experience. Here in Canada those who criticize Israel are dismissed as anti-semites, terrorists even. Rather than defend international law and UN resolutions, our Conservative government calls the participation of Canadians in the Freedom Flotilla 2, such as the five activists we profiled earlier this month, an unnecessary “provocation”. Meanwhile, over in Ha’aretz, Netenyahu is called out for his “bullshit”…
Putting the few before the many: why Harper hates the arts…
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Spock, Star Trek II. But when the few control everyone’s cash, their needs seem to predominate. Unfortunately that’s what’s happening in Canada these days, at least when it comes to arts funding. Two recent stories, the Sun News interview with Margie Gillis and what happened to SummerWorks, paint a pretty bleak picture of what might be on the horizon in the next four years of a Harper majority…
Using Socialism to Finance a Transportation Revolution in Canada
The People have a right to move. So too, does the State it’s vital that the State have the ability to move large numbers of people and quantities of materiel to support the population whenever they call for it. And the People and the State are one given that the State would not exist without the People. I find it odd that I would have to go through this diatribe, but given the state of political discourse in this country, this world, it is vital too that the people recognize the State in a democracy must work in the service of the collective. Yes, our society is based on Socialist principles…
Royal Flush or should we just flush the Royals?
I knew I was in for une semaine dans l’enfer when I heard the following hype on CBC with respect to their exhaustive coverage of last week’s Royal Tour/honeymoon/re-conquest of Canada: “See every handshake, see every wave!!!!” In light of this blatant absurdity, I must ask you: how fucking ridiculous is our obsession with the British monarchy? I know all the arguments both pro and con ( Pro: they generate lucrative tourism. Con: they represent a costly relic of the feudal era, etc.). I will not bore you with a rehash of that old, tiresome debate here. I would rather do a wholly unscientific…
From Roswell to Will and Kate: What’s the real reason for dissolving NASA?
Will and Kate: Who cares? I’m not going to protest their visit. In fact, I kind of like the fact that they’ve picked Canada out of all the Commonwealth for their honeymoon. However, it seems lately that Will and Kate’s Royal visit has dominated the news channels coverage since their arrival in Canada. It’s been non-stop Will & Kate this, the Prince and his wife that! I have to get my actual news from the Internet!
Time for America to Pay Off its Credit Cards
For the past few months the two American political parties have been in talks on how to handle America’s growing debt problem, and the ceiling that was initially adopted almost a hundred years ago in order to limit government borrowing and spending. In 1980 the U.S. federal deficit ceiling was a little less than a trillion dollars, and then America was introduced to Reaganomics; In Reagan’s eight years in office the deficit almost tripled to three trillion. Unfortunately the next two Republican Presidents…