THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

Search for:

• FEATURES
• THIS & THAT
• ARTS & IDEAS
• FICTION & POETRY
• LETTERS
• BLOG THIS
•  
• SUBSCRIBE
• BACK ISSUES
• SUPPORT THIS
•  
• ABOUT THIS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• CONTACT THIS
• ADVERTISE
• SITE MAP

Home » Blog This » August 2005 Archives

August 30, 2005

Had to share...

Posted by mason at 01:22 PM ET | Comments (1)

Found at Matthew Good’s mblog:

“This full-color illustrated book is a fun way for parents to teach young children the valuable lessons of conservatism. Written in simple text, readers can follow along with Tommy and Lou as they open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland.”

In a word: Unbelievable.

More entries on: Bushfraud

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Posted by joyceb at 10:58 AM ET | Comments (2)

Oh yeah, not only do those annoying small humans have to return to school this week, the networks are rolling out their new fall schedules. This is my favourite TV time, and the late summer of 2005 has been a doozy. The CBC lockout has been playing near havoc with my Sunday mornings (4.5 hours of Coronation Street? Even I have to draw the line). .. I'm still recovering from the finale of Six Feet Under, and hoping Rome will be half as good as it or as I Claudius...and the one that everyone should be talking about this morning, Prison Break, did not disappoint.

But an interesting thing happened on my way to the runaway hit of the season. I caught the regular network broadcast of the first ep of ReGenesis on Global. Originally made for the Movie Network, ReGenesis boasts a great cast (including Ladies of the Left favourite Dimitry Chepovetsky of Top Gun: The Musical fame), outstanding writing (including This Magazine alum Jason Sherman) and direction (John L'Ecuer). Plus, CSI-style camera-work gets you inside the deadly ebola virus threatening to wipe out Southern Ontario, specifically Toronto and area. Thumbs up. I'll be tuning in again.

This has been your pop culture moment for the day. Please return to considering the credentials of new G-G.

More entries on:

August 26, 2005

Lights on, no one home

Posted by andrew at 01:09 PM ET | Comments (0)

Things are heating up in the Dominion. The Council of the Federation meeting wrapped up in Banff a couple of weeks ago, ending with a loud call for the feds to do something radical, like Fix Education for a Generation. Back in May, they struck an advisory council on the very important, though totally imaginary, Fiscal Imbalance. Meanwhile, Ontario is feeling broke and getting grouchy about that very important, though totally imaginary, $23 billion the feds take from Ontario every year, and McGuinty is glancing jealously westward at Alberta's $7 billion surplus. And Ralph Klein is telling everyone: Hands off the oil!

Let's see what Lucienne Robillard, Canada's Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs has to say about all of this.

Here's her recent press releases.
Speeches!

Open letters? Nope.
Articles? Nada.
Presentations? Uh uh.

It's almost like the country runs itself.

More entries on:

Don't do it, Michael!

Posted by andrew at 01:04 PM ET | Comments (0)

Ignatieff comes to UofT

... those close to Mr. Ignatieff acknowledge he wants to get involved in the public debate in Canada after decades of living and working in England and the United States, and spending only a small part of the year in Canada. But they say he is not yet sure whether he will do that as a writer and academic, or as a politician.

More entries on:

Andrew says “John told you so.”

Posted by john_d at 11:32 AM ET | Comments (7)

Just keeping y’all updated on that little argument we had a while back about whether or not poverty is a problem worth addressing in the world. Yes, people actually argue about that.

Here’s a BBC report about the latest UN findings (I know, I know, how can we trust the UN, and have we taken into account the rise of Asia? Blah, blah—read the article).

The article

And a quote from it for those who stubbornly refuse to read it:

The UN report – drawn up by the UN’s Economic and Social Affairs Department – found that the gap between rich and poor is now wider than it was a decade ago…

Hardly the kind of thing to be saying “I told you so” about. On the other hand, I did tell you so.

UPDATE

Here is the UN Report, released yesterday.

The Inequality Predicament

More entries on:

August 25, 2005

CBC Radio junkies rejoice—picket podcasting is here

Posted by john_d at 04:53 PM ET | Comments (12)

Check it out in the podcasting section of your iTunes music store (under CBC Unplugged). Just listened to an interesting cast from the picket lines in Regina. You can also get them from Tod Maffin’s blog, cbcunplugged.com

Hmmmm, what does it say about management’s position when the locked-out workers can easily produce the company’s product themselves and get it to market?

Who controls the means of production? Who?

That’s right.

More entries on:

Great Moments in Canadian Journalism

Posted by andrew at 12:10 PM ET | Comments (5)

Norman Spector missed this one today, so I'll help him out:

Clouds part for Bombardier
Business jet sales help firm post $117-million profit but investors wary

-- Globe and Mail.

Bombardier expectations crash
Share price falls 8%: To have lowest flagship jet delivery in 13 years

-- National Post

More entries on:

August 24, 2005

waiting for a miracle, or two

Posted by andrew at 09:51 AM ET | Comments (0)

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for the Post about an Ottawa art exhibit about shit. In passing, I made a few snide remarks about some comments that MP Chuck Strahl had made regarding the show, assuming Strahl was just another humourless paleo-conservative. Strahl wrote a good-natured and quite funny reply to the Post clarifying his position, taking it all in thick-skinned stride. I sent Strahl a brief email apologising for jumping to stereotypes, and he replied with grace and intelligence. We had a couple of brief exchanges after that, then that was it.

Strahl has just been diagnosed with lung cancer, and while things don't look good, he's approaching it (at least publicly) with the sort of bluff confidence Canadians have come to expect from him. Strahl has consistently been one of the best-performing MPs in the House, and -- though this won't go down too well with readers of This Magazine -- I've hoped for a long time to see him in Cabinet.

I still hope to see Mr. Strahl in Cabinet, because that would mean that two miracles have ocurred: The Liberals have lost an electon, and Strahl has beat lung cancer.

Miracles can happen.

More entries on:

August 23, 2005

Oh sweet Jim Stanford—take me away! Oh Margaret Wente—go away!

Posted by john_d at 10:07 AM ET | Comments (9)

Writing as one who has choked through each and every one of the 41 Toronto smog alert days so far this year (smog in the middle of winter—now there’s a hopeful trend) I now nominate Jim Stanford for some sort of official position in charge of getting me to work and back. His latest column on rabble.ca brings it all together. Some quotes:

...doctors estimate that smog causes 5800 premature deaths each year in Ontario alone. That’s a stunning toll. Imagine the hysteria if terrorists were to kill even a tiny fraction as many Canadians.

Take Toronto, where well-meaning officials urge commuters (via huge electronic signs over the city’s freeways) to “Reduce Vehicle Use” on smoggy days. Problem is, by the time they see the sign, the drivers are already in their cars. Just turning off the signs would probably save more pollution (through reduced electricity use) than this feel-good message does.

At any rate, if you find it hard to breathe on smoggy days, taking the bus won’t help: it’ll take longer to get to work, and you’ll spend longer outside, without air conditioning, until you get there.

Exactly! What’s a truly concerned, good environmental citizen to do in this city? Take a bullet for the environment by waiting outside in the smog for the streetcar for the twenty minutes (on a good day), and pay only about two bucks less per day than it costs to park at a Green P lot downtown. I know, I’ll ride my bike—that’s cheap—except all that heavy breathing on smog days, directly inhaling the exhaust from Toronto’s SUV driving majority, means I die sooner than jerkboy in the Hummer (of some lung disorder if he doesn’t run me over first).

As Margaret Wente recently reminded us, it ain’t like SUV drivers are really hurting for the extra gas dollars they willingly spend. Bring on $1.10 per litre and give that extra ten cents towards Stanford's free transit. Hell bring on $1.50 or $2 per litre and let’s see a real commuter train service in Ontario. It’ll never happen says Wente, because groceries are heavy and we don’t want to smell each other.

Balls. I've seen the morning bicycle rush hour in Copenhagen. Give people real alternatives and not everyone displays Wente's remarkable laziness. If the streetcar actually arrived on time and frequently enough for me to have a seat, I’d never drive in the city again. I love my car, but for the most part it is a necessary anchor around my neck. Give me a workable option and it stays underground until I go camping next time.

41 days of smog—has there ever been a better time for radical change?

More entries on:

August 22, 2005

The Death of NAFTA?

Posted by mason at 11:04 AM ET | Comments (4)

At last, nearly 20 years into free trade with the United States and with things really not going our way in the softwood lumber dispute, even the architects of the Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, are sounding free trade’s death knell.

Apparently, these politicians, policy analysts and negotiators believed in 1988 that free trade would be worthwhile for Canada, not imagining that its partner, the U.S. government, might screw us over when rulings (or in the case of softwood lumber, too many rulings to keep track of) didn’t go its way. Some of them still have the gall to remark that on the whole, free trade works for Canada. But at least they’ve admitted that the U.S. has “betrayed” them, and started to question the whole agreement as a result.

Curiously, Bruce Campbell of the CCPA says Canada has options within the agreement to stand up to our grouchy neighbours. I say the only way to preserve our sovereignty and prevent a corporate takeover of our health care system and cultural industries is to gradually wean ourselves off free trade and explore bilateral fair trade agreements with other interested parties.

Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see how this softwood lumber affair plays out in the end.

More entries on:

August 18, 2005

Told you so

Posted by andrew at 11:13 AM ET | Comments (24)

Instead of settling for yesterday's three-paragraph news release, or quibbling with this or that word in the three-paragraph news release, or complaining about the differences between the French and English versions of a three-paragraph news release, I do wish I'd heard from more readers who believe the Canadian people deserve more than a three-paragraph news release. It's profoundly depressing to have a government that thinks we can't handle an adult conversation. It's more depressing to suspect they're right.

Paul Wells, on his blog today

Whether it is about health care, missile defence or the war on terror, Canadians are incapable of having an adult discussion, and woe to any politician who dares do anything so radical as obey reason. Our political discourse takes place in a dogma-addled environment that would swallow up an intellectual alien like Ignatieff, and it would be a shame to see him forced to mouth the banalities that are required for survival in Canadian federal politics.

Andrew Potter, National Post
Thursday, July 21, 2005

More entries on:

August 17, 2005

Holy Crap! THIS Magazine Summer Party is Tomorrow!

Posted by kellym at 12:22 PM ET | Comments (1)

It's just one more night until the THIS Magazine Summer Party!

Join us at Cadillac Lounge (1296 Queen Street West) on Thursday, August 18 to celebrate the LAUNCH of our fabulous summer issue-come out to the party for your free copy!

THE DETAILS...
Where: Cadillac Lounge, 1296 Queen Street W
When: Thursday, August 18. Doors open at 8:30.
Just $5 to get in-and that includes a copy of the summer issue. Or,
subscribe for our lowest rate offer -just $20- and get in FREE!

Win INCREDIBLE PRIZES donated by THIS Magazine supporters.

Prizes will be drawn between 10:30-11:00. You've gotta be there to win. Call 416-979-8400 for details.

More entries on:

August 15, 2005

What's going on at the CBC?

Posted by annette at 01:55 PM ET | Comments (21)

Looks like CBC management has actually gone ahead with the lock out. It seems like a bizarre move, especially since CBC's radio ratings have been on an upward incline lately. Will the damage (both PR-wise and in terms of employee morale) done by locking out employees really be justified by gaining a bit more wiggle room with hiring practices? Management claims it needs more flexiblity to hire temps in order to remain competitive and efficient, while the Canadian Media Guild argues that the current 30% temp ratio is more than enough.

While I recognize that management has fewer and fewer dollars to work with and has to figure out ways to cut costs somewhere, I'm inclined to agree with the CMG -- allowing for more use of temps does seem to open the door to fewer full-time, secure jobs down the road.

But, I'm just observing from the sidelines. And, media coverage of the strike hasn't been too comprehensive. Thoughts, anyone?

More entries on:

August 11, 2005

Missiles with Great Names

Posted by john_d at 09:56 AM ET | Comments (4)

Babur the cruise missile was launched on a test flight today in Pakistan. Not to be confused with Babar the elephant king who wanders around spreading a message of peace, or Babur the restaurant, which has a supertasty Indian buffet on Queen Street in Toronto, Babur the cruise missile is a death delivering device that flies below radar with a range of 500 kilometers.

Now, aren’t we proud of ourselves that Canada helped develop this technology a couple of decades ago. Good for us. Good for the world.

Wait, is it just a weapon of peace, a deterrent, some sort of anti-attack shield? Well, let’s check the story in today’s Globe & Mail:

The military statement said the Babur missile flies parallel to the surface of the ground, can hit its target with “pinpoint accuracy” and can be fired from war ships, submarines and fighter jets.

“The technology enables the missile to avoid radar detection and penetrate undetected through any hostile defensive system,” it said.

Oh, yes, those hostile defensive systems—they can be nasty when they’re, um, defending.

Anyway, an interesting sidenote on the great Mughal King Babur (for which the Pakistani missile was named). According to wikipedia:

During the end of Babur’s life, his son, Humayun, became deathly ill with little chance of survival. Babur was devastated and began to constantly pray for his son. In these prayers, Babur said that he wanted to take the disease away from Humayun, and die in his place. Strangely enough, Babur’s prayers were “answered.” Babur died at the age of 48 from this disease. Humayun inherited the throne.

There’s an anti-war metaphor in there somewhere, I’m sure of it.

More entries on:

August 10, 2005

Arar sends lawyers, hopes they'll be allowed to return

Posted by john_d at 11:17 AM ET | Comments (4)

Good work by Tim Harper at The Toronto Star, following the Arar court case in Brooklyn, which opened yesterday. I can’t find any mention of it in any other source, American or Canadian (anybody?). Maher Arar is suing John Ashcroft and others over his extraordinary rendition to Syria in 2002.

How are the Americans, with at least 14 lawyers working on the case, countering his arguments?:

Government lawyers never once conceded yesterday that Arar had been tortured or that the United States had been complicit in his treatment, but they argued they should not have to tell the court why they thought Arar was a member of the terrorist network, because to do so would be to divulge state secrets.

And we all know how seriously these guys take the keeping of state secrets.

Interesting sidenote -- Arar cannot even appear in court himself, as he is still banned from entering the US, who maintain he is an Al Qaeda agent.

More entries on:

iStrike? iLabour Dispute? iArbitration?

Posted by joyceb at 11:08 AM ET | Comments (6)

As the Telus Communications strike enters its third week, reports out of Edmonton this morning that this city's workers have been offered an incentive to cross the picket lines: an iPod.

No word yet on whether any of the workers have put the soundtrack to their lives ahead of their livelihood. I wonder is it the new colour screen iPod with the camera? Or just a Shuffle?

More entries on:

August 09, 2005

THIS MAGAZINE SUMMER PARTY

Posted by kellym at 11:42 AM ET | Comments (1)

IT'S THE SUMMER PARTY!

THIS MAGAZINE IS 39 YEARS OLD AND IT'S STILL GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO GET YOU GOING.

JOIN THIS MAGAZINE at Cadillac Lounge, 1296 Queen Street West Thursday, August 18th at 8:30

YOU CAN WIN INCREDIBLE PRIZES! LIKE,
A Cinamatheque Ontario Dual Membership;
an Art Gallery of Ontario Family Membership;
and Royal Ontario Museum Passes.

THAT'S HOT! BUT THAT'S NOT ALL...

Four rounds of home delivered yummy organic produce by Front Door Organics ($140 value); and dinner by the talented and locally minded Guerrilla Gourmet.
Cd's by Neko Case, the stars, Death From Above 1979 and so many more.

THE DETAILS...

WHERE: CADILLAC LOUNGE 1296 QUEEN STREET WEST, TORONTO
WHEN: 8:30PM, THURSDAY, AUGUST 18th

JUST $5 TO GET IN-AND THAT INCLUDES A COPY OF THE SUMMER ISSUE. OR, SUBSCRIBE FOR OUR LOWEST RATE OFFER -JUST $20- AND GET IN FREE!

THIS MAGAZINE. BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL
This Magazine is the leading alternative Canadian magazine of politics, pop culture, and the arts.

CALL 416-979-8400 FOR DETAILS, OTHERWISE, SEE YOU AT THE PARTY!

THIS Magazine thanks our prize donors for their generous support.

Toronto International Film Festival Group
www.e.bell.ca/filmfest

Art Gallery of Ontario
www.ago.net

Royal Ontario Museum
www.rom.on.ca

Front Door Organics
www.frontdoororganics.com

Guerrilla Gourmet
Maria Solakofski maria@guerrilla-gourmet.com

ECW Press
www.ecwpress.com

Arts and Crafts
www.arts-crafts.ca

Mint Records
www.mintrecs.com

Last Gang Records
www.lastgangrecords.com

am public relations
rishma@ampr.ca

More entries on:

August 08, 2005

Go ahead, take a vacation -- what could happen?

Posted by john_d at 11:10 AM ET | Comments (4)

Not much going on over the last week, as I toured Ontario wine country and swam in Al Purdy’s glorious Roblin Lake. Oh, except I managed to be watching CNN just as conservative columnist Robert Novak misplaced his brain, swore, and wandered off the set like someone looking for the coffee station. So that’s something. And wasn’t there some story about an airplane and Toronto last week? I heard something about that in between the Geisenheims and the Reislings. Oh, and the shuttle not making it back just yet, there’s a new Governor General, and Peter Jennings died, and Ibrahim Ferrer as well. Also, it seems we sent troops to Afghanistan again.

Yep, the summer news lull is in full swing. But I’m back now, so hopefully something will happen this week.

BTW—I watched an hilarious CNN piece on the Air France crash. The CNN correspondent who covered the crash, Jeanne Meserve, was interviewed about how hard it is to cover such a story in an unfamiliar country. She told how she received the phone call while in Ottawa researching surveillance techniques (Ottawa? surveillance?). She and her camera guy immediately rented a car and hit the 417, consulting maps to try and find that Toronto place (for future ref—417 to 416 to 401, speed like the devil and it’s four hours). Their Blackberries wouldn’t work during the drive (damn third world cell coverage), so they “followed” the crash story on Canadian all news radio. Apparently the highway around Pearson airport is very confusing, but they managed to get a stand-up done within minutes of their arrival, interviewing folks who happened to be standing near them about what they had seen and how they felt. She then admitted that she didn’t actually see the crash site until she was driving away the next day. Asked by another CNN reporter if she had feared terrorism as the cause of the crash while she was desperately driving to Toronto, she said “it never crossed my mind.”

So, apparently, this blog covered the Toronto crash story as well as CNN did last week. I don’t feel so bad anymore.

More entries on:

August 03, 2005

Another big tory gaffe

Posted by annette at 03:04 PM ET | Comments (11)

Looks like another conservative leader has royally screwed up a half-assed attempt to reach out to Canada's aboriginal community. The Toronto Star reports that Ontario's PC leader John Tory sent a letter addressed to Matthew Coon Come at the Assembly of First Nations, asking for invitations to aboriginal events and boasting of his party's efforts to be more inclusive. If he or any of his staffers had bothered to do a bit of research (or even read the papers), he'd know that Phil Fontaine replaced Coon Come a couple years ago. Yeesh! This would almost be funny if it wasn't so offensive.

This is all very similar to Stephen Harper's big gaffe last year when he wished Canada's aboriginal community a "Happy India Day" [the day marks the anniversary of India's independence from Britain]. Maybe it's time for the conservatives to think about adding some basic Canadian education seminars to their next conventions....

More entries on:

Previous month: July 2005
Next month: September 2005

---

 Subscribe to the feed

---

Blog This Must-Reads

---

---

---

Blog This Archives

April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
March 2000

---