BLOG THIS | blog.thismagazine.ca: June 2007 Archives

We love libraries, all those books! But every once in a while we get impish and think, "man wouldn't it be fun to race book carts? Or play games of jenga with the books?" Apparently there's a competition for people like me.

There is one mysterious quote here:

"It's all about the image that librarians are stodgy, stern, always shushing," said Caroline Langendorfer of Madison, Wis., a competitor in the previous two world championships. "Cardigans. Hair buns. I love shaking up [that] stereotype."

Uhm. I find librarians really awesome (and dare I say it, hot!). But what do I know, I'm a geek.

The Rideau Canal is a UNESCO site! Worldchanging looks at the state of sustainable transportation in our nation's capital.

Sao Paulo is cracking down on billboards! Even Beijing is staging a takedown of outdoor advertising. So when is it our turn?

More entries on: Weekend Links

June 28, 2007

Finkle Free! -- Writers' rights upheld in Ontario

Posted by john_d at 03:29 PM ET | Comments (2)

(book image courtesy Amazon.ca)

I'm just back from a courtroom on University Avenue in Toronto where a judge in the Robert Baltovich re-pre-trial threw out a subpoena demanding a local writer hand over his research materials. It's a very good day for a free press in Canada.

Derek Finkle, former editor of TORO Magazine, succeeded in protecting his background work for the book No Claim to Mercy, after months of pre-trial wrangling. No Claim to Mercy covered the 1990 Elizabeth Bain murder case, in which Bain's boyfriend Robert Baltovich was convicted, only to be released from prison after eight years when new evidence threw speculation for the crime at Paul Bernardo. Bernardo was unknown at the time of Bain's murder, but hindsight shows he was active as the Scarborough rapist when Bain disappeared from the University of Toronto's Scarborough campus. Baltovich is being retried, and his prosecutors were very interested in seeing all of the confidential interviews and research materials Finkle collected to write his book. For more info on Bain, Baltovich and Bernardo see this CBC page.

At the press scrum after the hearing, one TV reporter asked this question:

"What's so wrong with turning over this material to prosecutors anyway? I mean, they're the prosecutors -- the good guys, right? They're trying to nail a murderer."

I'm pretty sure the question was rhetorical, but in case it wasn't and others out there wonder if it's possible to always know who the good guys are in a court case, just ask one of these dudes:

Wrongfully Convicted in Canada

But the protection of a writer's confidential work is less about good guys and bad guys and more about the public good, which is best served, I think, when police and courts do their own investigative work, rather than relying on the heavy lifting of writers.

Oh, and now seems like a good time to remind everyone that there's more than one way for a press to lose its freedom and independence.

More entries on: Generally Interesting

You fiddle, they die

Posted by shawnsyms at 11:15 AM ET | Comments (0)

Ottawa pols care more about working on their seasonal tans than getting AIDS drugs to the global poor, according to the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. Jean Chretien's outgoing humanitarian gesture, the "Pledge to Africa" (now called the Access to Medicines Regime), has amounted to nothing. The law passed three years ago with the alleged aim of getting cheaper HIV drugs in the hands of those who need them in the developing world. Since then, not a single generically manufactured pill has left our borders under the auspices of the regime.

The problem? Red tape. Generic drugmakers are forced to make short-term applications to make finite amounts of a specific drug to a particular country and have to disclose all of these details to the pharma industry, giving it (and the U.S. government and other agencies hostile to generic drug manufacture) ample opportunity to enact punitive sanctions against the country in need. And if a poor nation is not a member of the World Trade Organization, it suffers second-class status and even more bureaucratic barriers, regardless of how many people are desperately ill.

The Legal Network wrote a brief that outlined precisely what needed to be changed to fix the problem, right down to the exact wording of the Regime, and submitted it to Parliament several months ago. What happened? Nothing. According to the network's Richard Elliott, "We gave Parliament a detailed brief on how to fix the Regime. But instead of passing what amount to straightforward amendments to streamline the law and make it useful, parliamentarians have left Ottawa early to hit the barbecue circuit."

Maybe while MPs are sitting by the pool, they could do some summer reading. 28, Canadian journalist Stephanie Nolen's poignant and powerful survey of the deadly devastation wrought by HIV in Africa, might be a good place to start.

More entries on: HIV/AIDS

June 25, 2007

Making sex work safe

Posted by Ariel Troster at 02:29 PM ET | Comments (5)

goodhandys cropped.JPG

I just returned from Toronto's gay pride celebrations, and I was so thrilled to spend a few hours on Friday night at Goodhandy's, Toronto's "pansexual playground." The bar is only one year old, but in that short period of time has established itself as a gathering place for trans people and their allies, alternative burlesque performers, feminist activists, queer musicians, and sex workers. It's rare to find a space that serves so many functions, and proves that diverse communities can co-exist in harmony.

The bar, which hosts more mainstream musical events and dance nights, also features a members-only Diamond Room, where sex workers (largely trans women) can entertain clients in a safe space -- one that is protected by a security guard and, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, shielded from raids by the cops.

In December 2005, the Court overturned the conviction of Montrealer Jean-Paul Lebaye for running a "common bawdy house" for the "practice of acts of indecency" after police busted his club, L'Orage, in 2000.

"Consensual conduct behind code-locked doors can hardly be supposed to jeopardize a society as vigorous and tolerant as Canadian society," wrote Justice Beverly McLachlin at the time, opening the door for the establishment of businesses like Goodhandy's.

But the refreshing thing about Goodhandy's is that the owners don't try to hide the fact that the space is used as a meeting place for sex workers and their johns. In fact, they celebrate this fact, and recently started opening at 4pm on Thursdays, "to develop an after-work crowd of businessmen who want a discreet chance to meet t-girls," according to co-owner Todd Klink.

As it is, it's quite difficult for sex workers to find clean, safe spaces to work in, where they aren't likely to be harassed by bad dates or by the cops. The Sex Professionals of Canada are currently launching a constitutional challenge to Canada's solicitation laws, which they say are discriminatory and expose sex workers to danger. They recently held a fundraiser to support their cause at -- where else -- Goodhandy's.

After spending some time in a space that represents a real jewel in the crown of the sex workers' rights movement, I was disturbed to read this police bulletin about a recent "prostitute/john sweep" in my neighbourhood (Hintonburg, an inner city community to the west of downtown). My 'hood has a history of anti-sex worker vigilantism, which I took to task in a recent column for Capital Xtra.

How long will it take for the Ottawa police and city officials to realize that criminalization of sex workers only exposes them to further abuse and mistreatment?

Hooray for Goodhandy's for supporting Toronto sex workers. Is anyone in Ottawa willing to make a similar statement?

-- Cross-posted to Dykes Against Harper

More entries on: LGBT

Sanitized Bacon -- do kids need protection from gay art?

Posted by john_d at 09:55 AM ET | Comments (2)

Francis Bacon, Self-Portrait (image courtesy The Telegraph)

On a day when even the stodgiest of media crews, the CTV television folks, covered the Toronto Pride parade like Santa Claus might show up at any minute, I enjoyed a few hours touring the closet. I happened to be in Buffalo, New York (great town, everyone should go -- wonderful architecture), so took in the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The Albright-Knox provides one of those fantastic American juxtapositions -- drive through not-the-nicest part of a U.S. inner city and suddenly find yourself standing in front of a Cezanne. It's a gorgeous building, set on pristine parkland, and it will give you your marble column and fine art fix before you spend the evening wolfing chicken wings and Genesee Cream Ale at the Anchor Bar.

The Bacon show is a fine retrospective, well-curated and intelligently hung. Entitled Raw Human Emotion the show divides Bacon's work into thematic categories, touching down on his obsession with screaming mouths, Popes, the male figure, violence and mortality. I confess to knowing very little about Bacon when I entered, but it would be difficult to get through the show without one Bacon fact entering the consciousness. He liked men. Of the dozens of paintings on display, I think I counted three that depicted women, and they were all of the same woman. The rest were dark, threatening, beautiful and highly-sexualized representations of men.

And if Bacon's sexuality isn't apparent from the paintings themselves, the audio tour wand is plainly educational on the subject. "I like men," Bacon says, in response to a British interviewer's question. The painter's sex life is discussed in sometimes lurid detail on the audio tour (he had a rather violent lover during one phase of his life, and the relationship had an effect on his work), unless of course, you happen to be taking the "youth tour." That's right, depending on which code number you enter at each painting, you get either the "adult" version of the painting in question, or the kid's version, and it was hard not to notice that in the kid's version, the whole idea of liking men had been, well, cleansed from the record.

I get the point of a kid's tour. Art can be difficult and intimidating, and you want a kid to enter a painting on her own terms -- you want to start with some basic discussion of shapes and lines and colour before tackling "ideas." Okay then. But this kid's tour turned just plain silly in front of one painting that was clearly depicting two men, um, wrestling? You show adult content and then ignore the adultness of it in your kid's tour? That's a recipe for very confused kids, is it not? I contrast this show with one on Jean Cocteau I saw in Montreal a couple years back. In Montreal, as you entered the show there was a clear warning to parents about the adult content and ideas on display. At that point, it's up to the parents what the kids see and how they themselves respond to the inevitable question about what those two men are doing to each other.

Loved Buffalo; loved the gallery; hated the kid's tour.

More entries on: Generally Interesting

June 22, 2007

All hail Edward Tufte, can marketers be good?, idea stock exchange

Posted by ron at 10:17 PM ET | Comments (3)

In the hands of Al Gore Powerpoint is a force for good but in the hands of thousands of middle-managers everywhere the ever-present Microsoft program is downright insipid and evil. Professor Edward Tufte would probably agree with me. Read this New York magazine article to find out more about the design guru.

Marketing guru Seth Godin asks do marketers have to be so evil? No, and they should be taken to task when they are.

We've heard of the marketplace of ideas but that's a metaphor, right. Then someone goes out and makes this "stock exchange of visions." What's next a cornerstore of cogitation? mall of musings? Seriously though, there are some great thought exercises here. A number of thinker pose big questions like "what if humans disappeared from the planet?" and what will the global economy look like in 2050?

More entries on: Weekend Links

June 21, 2007

Guerra contra el Terror?

Posted by shawnsyms at 09:46 AM ET | Comments (1)

One thing that initially seems refreshing about visiting Cuba is the lack of commercial advertising. Not that there are no billboards; in fact, huge placards are omnipresent. They're populated instead with political propaganda. I'm sure many Canadian leftists might savour the idea of progressive viewpoints brandished everywhere instead of airbrushed models toting Gucci bags. After all, isn't advertising really a form of propaganda as well?

"How barbarous—they liberated a terrorist!" A billboard on the streets of Havana

In this arresting image, the subject at hand is Luis Posada Carriles, an enemy of the Cuban government who has been accused of involvement in a number of terrorist attacks—including the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane, and the attempted assassination of Fidel Castro. Posada has admitted to a 1997 string of bombings of Havana nightclubs and hotels intended to deter tourism in Cuba. Posada, seen as a hero by many Miami-based Cuban exiles, was recently released from US prison after being held for two years after allegedly entering the country illegally.

The USA's much-ballyhooed "war on terror" is a war of ideology. The L.A. Times recently quoted Wayne Smith, a retired U.S. diplomat and Cuban affairs analyst: "Posada's release shows the Bush administration's position against terrorism for the cynical sham it is. It takes us back to one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter."

Indeed. Still, it's strange for an outsider to see the Cuban government's position posted on every wallspace, near and far.

PHOTO CREDIT: JEFF BRIGGS

More entries on: Global politics

June 19, 2007

If Starbucks is the new record store please just shoot me now

Posted by Lisa at 06:11 PM ET | Comments (10)

I have to admit that I don't pay much attention to the CDs for sale at my local Starbucks. I'm usually in desperate need of caffeine and trying to figure out whether eight grams of fat in coffee cake really does make it "low fat." Does it?

I know they're currently selling some sort of new Paul McCartney CD cause his face is all over the gift cards they're selling. Unless it gives the buyer insider access to his dirty divorce details, well quite frankly I'm not interested.

I'll pay more attention to the music selection from now on after learning that my beloved alt-rock band Sonic Youth is doing a CD for Starbucks. Nooooo! Say it isn't so.

The band is asking fashion designer Marc Jacobs, some random actors and musicians like Beck and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy to pick their favourite Sonic Youth songs which will then appear on the compilation, along with one new track from the band. Sounds like a kind of cool project and I'm sure bandmember Thurston Moore is being sarcastic when describing Starbucks as the "new record store", but something about the union of Starbucks and Sonic Youth seems wrong. It's creepy, like when Bob Dylan did those commercials for Victoria's Secret. Yuck.

More entries on: Cultural industries

The right to choose where to direct our political energies

Posted by shawnsyms at 09:10 AM ET | Comments (3)

What do you get if you cross the CBC with Facebook? A colossal waste of energy.

Keen to tap into the youthful energy of online social networking, the CBC set up an experiment—The Great Canadian Wish List. (Note: A Facebook account is required in order to view links on the Facebook website. If you haven't yet succumbed to the online world's newest addiction, you can read more about the Wish List here.)

The idea borrowed from the online consumerist killer app, the Amazon Wish List, but with a twist: make a wish for Canada's future. As an incentive, the CBC offered to publicize the most popular wishes on a Canada Day broadcast. In a nod to the seeming organic nature of online community, the broadcaster pointed out that the outcome of the wish contest was solely user-driven and unmediated by the CBC.

Based on that standard, the CBC has judged the contest a huge success. But activists on the left are giving it a failing grade. Why? Because the number-one wish to date is "abolish abortion in Canada." Close on the heels of that troublesome desire? "Restore the Traditional Definition of Marriage" and "For a spiritual revival in our nation."

Hmm. Same-sex marriage is the law of the land, and the courts ruled the same for abortion rights back in 1988. Similarly, Canada is increasingly secular and decreasingly religious. Many people may hold wishes to the contrary, but they are not in the Canadian majority, despite what the Facebook wishlist may suggest. A counter-wish, that abortion remain legal, has been established on Facebook and it's quickly gaining ground on the anti-choice wish.

Charges have been laid that the contest has been hijacked by right-wing special-interest groups. But if anything, the debacle just indicates the extent to which politics has become organized online just as it has in the real world. All the time, I receive links from friends to polls on news-media sites and other websites, asking that I add in my vote to help tip the balance one way or another. The notion that activity simply emerges organically and more democratically on the web is naive.

No matter what your specific beliefs, the emergence of the online world has been an enormous boon to organizing to change the world. It is easier to become informed, easier to make donations, easier to try and influence events and actions around the world.

It's also easier to participate in political discussions—but just as easy to misdirect your energies. On some levels, adding your voice to the "Me too" chorus of people who are offended by the anti-choice wish is about as useful and debating with those who seek to squash abortion rights. Not very.

A wish contest on Facebook is not really representative of Canadian values. Our time would be better spent not only thinking about more useful ways to harness tools like Facebook more productively for social change—it would be more valuably spent actually doing things in the real world to promote better and more consistent access to abortion and other health services for women across the country who need it.

More entries on: Activism

June 17, 2007

Fatspiration!

Posted by Ariel Troster at 05:01 PM ET | Comments (6)

Beth Ditto.jpg

Whenever I hear media commentators bemoaning the scourge of childhood obesity, I always wince a little bit. Even though I understand how important it is for kids to get active (and for parents to help them eat nutritious, unprocessed food), the reality is that there are many factors that affect a person's weight and girth. In many cases, poverty and food insecurity are an issue. In other cases, it's a simple matter of genes. There are many of us who work hard to stay fit and healthy, but will never ever fit into a size 8 -- which is the biggest size in Kate Moss' new clothing line for Top Shop in the UK.

Still, I am so happy to see so many foxy and fierce women bucking the body-hating trend. Beth Ditto, the uber-cool lead singer of the indie band The Gossip recently posed in all her naked, curvy glory for NME Magazine. Feminist icon Germaine Greer praised Ditto for her courage, saying, "Her intention is to force acceptance of her body type, 5ft tall and 15 stone, and by this strategy to challenge the conventional imagery of women."

Lilly Allen, the British pop star who achieved fame after posting her songs and writing on MySpace, has spoken out repeatedly about her desire to maintain her sanity in the face of celebrity body-obsession. She sings, "I want to eat spaghetti bolognese and not worry about it for days and days."

But like many of us, Lilly had a "bad body day" a few weeks ago, and posted an entry on her MySpace page claiming that industry pressure had led her to emotional collapse, and that she'd spent a day researching gastric bypass surgery. Her fans responded in droves with words of encouragement.

When I'm having a "fat day," I take my inspiration from the amazing Leslie Hall, fearless gold pants-wearing hip hop artist and keeper of the biggest Gem Sweater collection ever.

Or I watch this:

-- Cross posted to Dykes Against Harper

More entries on: Feminism

June 16, 2007

Friday links: Buying land to save it?, Development 'porn'?, Help McSweeney's and a classic redone

Posted by ron at 11:02 AM ET | Comments (5)

It's an old idea but one that's worth re-exploring: buying land to save it.

American multimillionaire and North Face founder Douglas Tompkins bought up huge chunks of Argentina earlier this month. Tompkins says he wants to prevent these ecologically sensitive areas from being developed and exploited by corporations. He even intends to eventually turn them over to the Argentinian government as nature reserves.

But Tompkins has also been accused of ignoring the rights of natives and locals who live in the area, some even accuse him of trying to gain control of the significant water resources in the area. We think there must be a way for philantropist and eco-activists like Tompkins and forward thinking governments to work together. The potential for ecological preservation is much too great to let disputes be a permanent stumbling block.

Late last week, Boing Boing posited a very interesting question., "Why are most of the images of the third world being taken by first world photographers?" It brings up any number of issues of race, neo-colonialism, representation and indigenous empowerment.

The Yes men strike again. Their latest prank has shades of Soylent Green and A Modest Proposal. It'll bring a (mischievous) smile to your face.

McSweeeney's, one of our favourite indie publisher, needs your love and your help.

Finally, we rediscover this 80s classic.

More entries on: Weekend Links

June 14, 2007

Vulture funds undermine African debt cancellation

Posted by mason at 12:51 PM ET | Comments (0)

Behind the G8 leaders’ photo ops and trumped-up commitments to cancel African debt, the dirty business of so-called “vulture funds” are making real debt relief impossible. As reported by investigative journalist Greg Palast on the BBC and Democracy Now, companies have been allowed to buy debts owed by African countries at a discount, and then sue those countries for more than the value of the debt:

In February, BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast exposed on Democracy Now! how one vulture fund, Donegal International owned by US resident Michael Sheehan, was trying to collect $40 million dollars from Zambia after buying one of its debts for $4 million dollars. Soon after, Congressman John Conyers and Congressman Donald Payne brought this up with President Bush, and urged him to ensure that the G-8 summit would close the legal loopholes that allow vulture funds to flourish.

See (or listen to) a transcript of Palast’s interview on Democracy Now here.

PHOTO OF GREG PALAST: FROM HIS FLICKR PAGE

More entries on: Poverty

June 08, 2007

Friday Links: Not for all the planes in the sky, green skyscrapers and Katrina in comics

Posted by ron at 10:58 PM ET | Comments (0)

Seattle-based artist Chris Jordan has created a series of works we like very much. He represents abstract statistics in gorgeous visuals. We're not talking charts and graphs here.

Below is a detail of a piece that envisions 11,000 jet planes (about the number in America every eight hours). Wow.

When people think green most people don't think skyscrapers. After all, what's so green about steel girders and glass panes? Here are ten buildings that might change your mind.

Smith magazine has a beautiful web comic on Hurricane Katrina.

Finally, if you got a few books lying around (and we have tons!) maybe we should consider recreating this little book distribution scheme from London.

(Plane contrails by Chris Jordan)

More entries on: Weekend Links

June 07, 2007

Inside Toronto's social housing action

Posted by mason at 10:30 AM ET | Comments (4)

On Sunday, This Magazine writer Jennifer O’Connor participated in a march for social housing leading up to the takeover of an abandoned house in Toronto. Here is her account of the action.

(PHOTO: KRISZTINA KUN)

"How would you like to live with roaches, no heat, no water and no money to cover basic necessities?" asked one of the signs clothespinned to a fence in Toronto's Cawthra Park.

Hundreds of people came here on Sunday for a rally before marching through downtown Toronto and arriving at an abandoned house on Howard Street (near Bloor and Sherbourne streets) that had been taken over by the Women Against Poverty Collective.

The collective, a group of women and trans people, organized the takeover to provide "safe and affordable community spaces where women can live." A tent city was also set up in the park across the street from the house. WAPC's eight demands include federal right-to-housing legislation, universal childcare and a 40 per cent increase to social assistance rates. (The complete list of demands is available here.)

The facts connecting violence and women's poverty are shameful. According to the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, one in seven women in this country is living in poverty. Plus, recent research from Statistics Canada states that women report just over one-third of physical assaults to police. The CRIAW has also found that the early death rate for homeless women is 10 times that of women with housing. "Any plan to reduce or eliminate violence against women," reads one of the institute's fact sheets, "must deal with the issue of creating safe, affordable, accessible housing."

At the housing takeover, I joined in the chants: "Housing by women, for women, now!"; "Our housing, our right, we want a place to sleep tonight!"; "Poor women under attack, what do we do? Stand up! Fight back!" I grooved along when "Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves" was played. I tried to figure out the answers to the speculative questions: Did the police just take the horses in the trailer up the street or come back down? The police had blocked the house as soon as we'd arrived, and I waited to see what was going to happen.

Just after 7 p.m., in the middle of a rainstorm, the police began moving those of us in front of the house back onto the sidewalk across the street and the horses were brought in. "Many, many of the women that were there yesterday were injured," WAPC member Anna Willats said on Monday. We shouted and cheered for the four women who were arrested when they came out. (Another woman was arrested outside of the house; they were all released.)

Those of us in tent city were going to move out of the park, as we'd been invited to another location, but I found myself scrambling to get my tent and my belongings out of the way of the horses as we were chased through the park and out to Sherbourne Street while most of the demonstrators were being forced straight down Howard to Sherbourne. We walked back to Cawthra Park, with the police following us on bicycles, before disbanding.

On Monday, the WAPC held a lunch/press conference at the 519 Church Street Community Centre. The idea was to keep the focus on the demands, and the collective has promised to "demonstrate for change until it happens."

More entries on: Feminism | Human rights | Poverty

June 05, 2007

all out of proportion

Posted by john_d at 01:47 PM ET | Comments (30)

GetFile.aspx
(Billy Ballot image courtesy of the Citizens' Assembly site)

I think I work in the most interesting building in the country. 215 Spadina in Toronto is home to the Centre for Social Innovation, a crazy collection of tiny groups and operatives all on the sharp edge of social change. The Lunch 'n Learn schedule alone is worth the price of Spadina rent. Today's topic, a proposed Mixed Member Proportional voting system that will go to a referendum in October. Throw that and a chicken roti together and you have a Toronto policy geek's perfect lunch.

The Ontario Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform gathered a representative sampling of Ontarians and gave them a lot of studying to do. They looked through different designs for democratic voting, and have come up with a recommendation for changing Ontario's current first-past-the-post system. Of course, not everyone hates first-past-the-post, but those of us still rubbing our Mike Harris electoral scars are more than willing to try out a new system, especially one that encourages political parties to work together and not indulge in what the MMP folks call "policy lurch," that dramatic, some might say catastrophic rush to discard the former government's work like some enraged spouse tossing an errant partner's belongings into the street.

Their recommendation is, simply put, to give everyone in Ontario two votes in each provincial election. One vote goes to the local candidate of choice. This maintains the traditional Ontario system. If you are a longtime Liberal and you want to keep your riding Liberal, you vote Liberal, no matter who's running -- just like always. As long as your local candidate gets more votes than any other single opponent in that riding, that's your MPP. First past the post remains, locally.

The difference comes in the second vote. With your second vote, you vote for a party. Each party publishes a list of their candidates prior to the election. You check out the lists, decide which party you like best no matter who they might be running in your own riding, and give them a little taste of your second vote. These "list candidates" are then proportionally assigned "list" seats in the legislature according to the percentage party vote.

Sound complicated? It is -- but is it any more inscrutible than a system that gives majority power to a party pulling in less than 40% of the popular vote in any given election?

I know of at least one deep thinker who has already scoffed at this new voting design, and I have similar concerns -- but they are little more than concerns.

Has anyone out there ever actually worked as an election officer, pointing folks to the little booth, handing out ballots, scrutineering for a party, etc? I have. Put an X beside your candidate of choice is too complicated for a surprising proportion of the population. I'm not sure adding another column and asking for two X's will push us over the edge on voter confusion, and if the net result is a more balanced legislature reflecting actual vote proportions, then why not?

Andrew Potter's doubts over the high-minded claims about increases in women and visible minority politicians inherent in the MMP system came up at today's lunch 'n learn as well. If I understand it correctly, a rise in female and minority proportionality is not built into the design of the MMP system; rather, it is simply something that has occured as a result of introducing MMP in other jurisdictions. It has happened reliably elsewhere, therefore the MMP folks feel they can confidently predict it would also happen in Ontario -- as a natural reflection of the actual will of the people.

In effect, an MMP voting system gives voters a powerful tool for punishing parties that do not design their slates equitably. If the people want equitable slates, they will use their party vote to vote against slates composed entirely of white men -- theoretically.

Anyhoo -- referendum's on October 10th. I'm voting yes... and then travelling back in time to that moment in 1995 when I shook Mike Harris' hand safe in the knowledge that he was unelectable. So, so naive.

More entries on: Provincial Politricks

June 04, 2007

Blackle aims to brighten your days by darkening your searches

Posted by mason at 02:27 PM ET | Comments (4)

Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. For example, April’s federal and Ontario government decisions to ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs struck me as a bit of a drop in the bucket when compared with other changes that could be made to save energy, such as turning off lights in office buildings overnight.

The value of small changes is well illustrated, though, with the introduction of Blackle. According to the site’s “About” page, Blackle was inspired by a January blog post calculating the energy used by a white screen versus a black screen:

Take at look at Google, who gets about 200 million queries a day. Let’s assume each query is displayed for about 10 seconds; that means Google is running for about 550,000 hours every day on some desktop. Assuming that users run Google in full screen mode, the shift to a black background will save a total of 15 (74-59) watts. That turns into a global savings of 8.3 Megawatt-hours per day, or about 3000 Megawatt-hours a year.

Three thousand megawatt-hours a year. That’s no small amount. Motivated by this big number, Blackle was set up by Sydney, Australia’s Heap Media as a search page powered by a Google custom search.

Unfortunately, the two queries I tested it with turned up different results than the same google.com or google.ca search. (One was “pronger suspended,” the other “incandescent light bulbs ban.”) I’m not sure what accounts for the difference. Maybe it’s the Australian factor. Nevertheless, Blackle demonstrates original thinking on the day-to-day problems of climate change.

More entries on: Interweb | Planet Earth

June 02, 2007

Friday links: Greening books, biofuel blowback, grey water grey water everywhere

Posted by ron at 10:43 AM ET | Comments (0)

We love our books but let's face it. With all that paper and printing they're probably not all that green. Well, with the help of the Green Guide Girls maybe publishing can change their ways. Some publishers already have.

Maybe those biofuels aren't such a good idea after all. AP is reporting that robust German biofuel initiatives might be driving up the price of beer as fewer farmers plant barley. A harbinger of things to come? We hope not.

The Grey Water guerrillas are a group that seek to use "grey water" (the water we've used for washing, cleaning, etc.) more efficiently. They teach people how to build small water reclamation projects but also raise awareness of the insidious movement to privatize water. Turns out they also have a book with a very snappy title (Dam nation)

Finally, the National Magazine awards want you to help them pick the best Canadian magazine cover of the last 30 years.

More entries on: Weekend Links

June 01, 2007

Need a place to test your meningitis meds?

Posted by shawnsyms at 04:06 PM ET | Comments (0)

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is on the receiving end of criminal charges in Nigeria's largest state of Kano in the aftermath of what the Nigerian government says was an unethical drug trial.

According to a Washington Post report:

The government alleges that Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from crowds at a makeshift epidemic camp in Kano and gave about half of the group an untested antibiotic called Trovan. Researchers gave the other children what the lawsuit describes as a dangerously low dose of a comparison drug made by Hoffmann-La Roche. Nigerian officials say Pfizer's actions resulted in the deaths of an unspecified number of children and left others deaf, paralyzed, blind or brain-damaged.
The lawsuit says that the researchers did not obtain consent from the children's families and that the researchers knew Trovan to be an experimental drug with life-threatening side effects that was "unfit for human use." Parents were banned from the ward where the drug trial occurred, the suit says, and the company left no medical records in Nigeria.

In another report on the case, the Post noted that Pfizer expected to gross $1-billion a year on Trovan in the United States. Revenue targets for Africa were likely a little bit smaller.

The Nigerian government says other health-promotion efforts in the nation have suffered as a result of the controversy. An 11-month boycott of efforts to vaccinate children against polio sprang from the mistrust that emerged from the Pfizer trial, they allege.

Pfizer denies any wrongdoing.

More entries on: Pharma

Previous month: May 2007
Next month: July 2007

THIS MAGAZINE. BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

Please note that all writers hold the copyright for their pieces and it is illegal for any portion of them to be copied or distributed without their expressed permission. So please don't steal.

THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

June 30, 2007

Weekend links: Library drill teams, down with billboards, make your own award

June 28, 2007

Finkle Free! -- Writers' rights upheld in Ontario

You fiddle, they die

June 25, 2007

Making sex work safe

Sanitized Bacon -- do kids need protection from gay art?

June 22, 2007

All hail Edward Tufte, can marketers be good?, idea stock exchange

June 21, 2007

Guerra contra el Terror?

June 19, 2007

If Starbucks is the new record store please just shoot me now

The right to choose where to direct our political energies

June 17, 2007

Fatspiration!

June 16, 2007

Friday links: Buying land to save it?, Development 'porn'?, Help McSweeney's and a classic redone

June 14, 2007

Vulture funds undermine African debt cancellation

June 08, 2007

Friday Links: Not for all the planes in the sky, green skyscrapers and Katrina in comics

June 07, 2007

Inside Toronto's social housing action

June 05, 2007

all out of proportion

June 04, 2007

Blackle aims to brighten your days by darkening your searches

June 02, 2007

Friday links: Greening books, biofuel blowback, grey water grey water everywhere

June 01, 2007

Need a place to test your meningitis meds?