The March-April 2009 issue arrived at the office yesterday and will be in stores next week; subscribers will also receive it very soon. This will be my last entry on the redesign for now, although we'll continue tweaking details and refining the look as we go. There will also be some exciting news about our website in the next little while — but our pending online redesign is a story for another day.
After the jump are a couple of spreads as they appear in the March-April issue. The really exciting thing about this redesign, which wasn't true of the facelifts we've done before, is that there is now colour on every page, instead of just a few. (For most magazines, full-colour publishing is old news, but we wanted to make sure it wasn't a fad. That's our story, anyway).
The temptation early on was to saturate every page with colour, as if we were making up for decades of plain black and white in one fell swoop. Needless to say, these great splotchy pages were pretty ugly to look at, and hard to read too. Much of the redesign has been a process of paring the design elements back to their bare essentials, simplifying the colour scheme, and eliminating as much clutter as possible.
The colour palette is a simple one, with yellow and blue dominating.
Yellow is used to mark headlines and other display type.
Cyan is used to mark sections and other navigation elements.
Red is used as an accent colour.
And that's it, really. Three simple colours to tie the whole magazine together, so that the words and pictures can do the heavy lifting.
OK, enough talk: here are the spreads. They're not big enough to read the articles, so you'll have to buy the magazine (subscribing is a great way to do that, by the way). Thanks for reading these little updates. Please let us know what you think of the new look and the new features by emailing me any time at editor at this magazine dot ca.
This is a spread from the columns section of This & That, featuring Bruce Hicks on proportional representation and RM Vaughan on the Baby Boomers:
This is a feature spread of Jordan Heath-Rawlings' story on new ideas in car-free urban design:
This is a spread from Carolyn Morris' feature on health care for uninsured refugees and migrant workers in Canada:
This is a new regular feature we're introducing, "In Profile." It's dedicated to profiling individual artists and the political context of their work. Naturally, for our first colour issue, we chose to profile Jillian Tamaki — who does a lot of her art in black and white.
And this is a spread of a new short story by Mike Spry:
The Aperture Foundation Gallery in NY is hosting photographer Jonathan Torgovnik's show, Intended Consequences, which includes interviews and photographs of Rwandan children born of rape during the genocide and personal interviews with the mothers. Torgonvnik, contract photographer for Newsweek magazine, and prof at the International Center of Photography School in New York, is also co-founder of the non-profit Foundation Rwanda.
Foundation Rwanda exists explicitly to serve women and children who have been stigmatized as a result of rape during the genocide. It is estimated that 20,000 children were born as a result of rape.
A satellite of the show will also be used at the UN on April 7th of this year to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. Testimonials and stories of those who suffered during the genocide will be read by UN officials and will include some of the interviews conducted by Torgovnik. A corresponding book will also be published in April.
Torgovnik was moved by an interview he heard in Rwanda with a woman who was a victim of rape during the genocide while he was working on another story for Newsweek. Through that story he was able to make parallels to his own family's suffering during the Holocaust and returned to complete this project. A selection of the testimonies are available to be read on the Foundation Rwanda webpage.
The current issue of National Geographic features a harrowing feature article on the Alberta oilsands which is well worth your time. Don Martin writes in a CanWest news service wire story that privately, many government and energy industry insiders regard the piece as a public-relations disaster. National Geographic is widely read, and any article like this, especially one with some pretty amazing and disheartening photography, will expose millions of readers around the world to the stark devastation being wrought in Northern Alberta. Some are apparently calling this the industry's "baby seal moment," in that a few well-chosen images will do more to damage Canada's environmental reputation than decades' worth of environmental campaigning thus far.
You'd hope that people wouldn't have to wait for National Geographic to do an epic photo essay to start giving a damn about the devastated hellscape that is metastasizing around Fort McMurray, but here we are. The oil industry PR forces will be spinning hard to try and contain the message that this is, in Martin's words, "an emerging dirty-oil holocaust" — so what are we going to do to make sure that message keeps spreading?
Here's part one of a documentary made by Vice magazine on the same topic. Thanks to AJ in the comments for pointing us to it. The whole series is available here.
The report about ten days ago that a French submarine and a British submarine carrying nuclear weapons collided, albeit slowly, in the Alantic, is "worrying" to say the least. The two subs are equipped with sonar detection devices, but it was reported that their anti-sonar devices, used to hide the subs, may have been "too effective." Ya think? The unlikeliness of this happening is both mystifying and laughable. The potential harm of this collision is terrifying. The subs, the HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant were both launched in the early nineties.
The United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain all have nuclear subs on patrol, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. The embarassing event was apparently reported first in a tabloid paper, the UK's Sun. What next?
Since last week's entry hit the blogosphere, I've gotten an overwhelming response from the BLOG THIS faithful. Tons of people have e-mailed and messaged me in the last week to relay stories about someone they know, or someone in the family, who gets income support from the government, but never has enough to live on. To those who posted a comment or participated in the conversation with me,I feel your pain, and for those who haven't the faintest idea what I'm talking about, you can read last week's entry here.
As a follow-up to last week, I'm here now to tell you that help is here. There is a savings tool out there now that in almost every province, including B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitobia, Yukon, Newfoundland & Labrador and now, Ontario,which can be an investment for people with disabilities without being seen as an asset by the government and affecting a disabled person's eligibility for income support.
It's called the Registerd Disability Savings Plan [RDSP] and it has the potential to secure a financial future for many people with disabilities, thanks to contributions from friends and family combined with the matching power of the government's own funds.
What is this supposed "Godsend"? How does it work? and How can you cash in? All of the details are in this article I wrote for www.bankrate.ca Go there, read it with fervor, but come back because there's some additional information I need to let you in on right here.
Ready?
Okay, here we go. Since that article was written, both RBC and BMO have begun offering the RDSP at their respective banks, so once you present them with your last tax return and are receiving the disability tax credit, they will open your new RDSP account. The deadline to make RDSP contributions for 2008 is March 2nd, but even if you miss the deadline for contributions, you can still open an account and start contributing for 2009.
Of course, it all comes down to your eligibility for the disability tax credit. You can see the form, to be filled out by a doctor, here. Now, in order to qualify for the disability tax credit you must either be receiving "life sustaining therapy" like kidney dialysis, or be "markedly restricted" in basic life activities, such as walking, for a prolonged "more than a year" period of time.
Normally, I would call myself markedly restricted in walking as compared to an able-bodied person. However, the CRA definition of markedly restricted means that walking would have to take me an inordinate amount of time, even with adaptive devices, like my cane, all, or mostly all the time. There's also the category of "significant restriction" that I would fall under for my walking ability. However, to get the tax credit, I would have to be significantly restricted in not one, but two basic activities of daily living, or markedly restricted in one. Weirdly, the CRA criteria does not take into account congenital disabilities that will remain unchanged, but also have the possibility of getting worse due to the natural aging process, possibly right around the time you can start taking out your RDSP money (without penalty) at age 60.
So, while the RDSP will help a lot of people with disabilities overcome the cycle of dependence on the government, it will not help everyone. There are still people with disabilities who need the money, but may not be disabled enough to be eligible for the disability tax credit and cannot get the RDSP. There is an actual panel that evaluates all of the disability tax credit applications and seriously considers each one of them before granting a person the disability tax credit, so this all must be taken very seriously.
However, there is help out there for those questioning their eligibility. You can go to www.plan.ca (as mentioned in my article) and they can refer you to a group of accountants who are experts in filling out these eligibility forms for your benefit and can give you great advice on what to tell your doctor to write. They also have www.rdsp.com, which will allow you to see how your contribution can grow.
Don't dismay, help maybe on the way!
Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.
Yes, that's right. I've blogged acoupleof times about the upcoming redesign of This which will be unveiled with the March-April 2009, which is in the mail right now (if you're a subscriber, that is).
To celebrate the new look, we're hosting a party on Tuesday, March 10, 2009, at 8 p.m. It all happens at Supermarket (268 Augusta Ave., Toronto). We'd love it if you'd come and meet the staff, writers, readers, and other members of the This extended family. $5 at the door gets you a copy of the March-April 2009 issue (cheaper than buying it on the newsstand) and a blank cupcake on which to design your own full-colour masterpiece in icing.
[Editor's note: this is the last of Emily's dispatches from Antarctica. She is now safely back on land and working on a feature article for the May-June 2009 issue of This Magazine. You can go back and read the full run of Emily's "Polarized" blog here.]
We received word that a commando ship was after us in the Antarctic Ocean. It was the night of February the 7th, and the Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, had chased the Japanese whaling fleet for seven days and nights, stopping them from killing more whales. The chase had come to a climax the day before when there was a collision with the Sea Shepherd ship and a harpoon vessel. But our battle had to end now. News came through that a Japanese security ship would be in the area within a day. The goal of the commando: to board the Sea Shepherd vessel (potentially violently), arrest the crew and destroy video footage, as well as any photographic evidence we had of the hunt.
Many of us onboard wanted to keep fighting. We were willing to risk injury, arrest, perhaps our lives for the cause we had been pursuing since December. And the Sea Shepherd ships have always been expendable: they have been used in ramming and sinking vessels they oppose since 1977 (in non lethal ways, i.e. sinking ships in port with no crew aboard). But the real risk was to our cameras.
The camera has been a tool for change in the environmental movement for over 35 years. The footage we have now showcases the killing of whales, an illegal act in itself — but one that groups like Greenpeace have already shown the world. But we also had captured the whalers on film violating other laws, including their aggressive, violent, and potentially lethal tactics to harm people. The last few days' worth of events had provided a wealth of footage that the world needs to see.
To save our cameras, and to save the footage we've captured with them, might force more governments into action on the issue. So Captain Paul Watson decided to head away from the fleet. We headed southwest for McMurdo base, a U.S. research station near the Ross Ice Shelf (the largest free-standing ice mass on the planet — it's the size of Texas). Slowly, we lengthened the distance between us and the Nisshin Maru, the flagship of the Japanese whaling fleet. At first, we charted a course away from McMurdo, in order not to give away our destination and our course. By falling behind the fleet, it would look like we had mechanical problems and were still tailing the fleet, instead of leaving.
It was February 9th at 9 a.m. when we arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf. It appeared we had escaped the fleet unharmed and the ruse seemed to be working: the fleet had not whaled for another day after we left. It seemed we could relax and enjoy the Ross Ice Shelf, which is an amazing sight. It looks like an ice wall, glowing neon blue, that goes as far as the eye can see on either side of it. It towers a hundred feet above the water, so that you can't see the top of it without a helicopter. The ice goes 900 feet below the water line. We were ending the campaign on a high note, or so we thought.
Out of the fog ahead, we could see a ship. At first the spotters thought it was nothing, an Antarctic mirage. But it wasn't. We thought it might be a legitimate research vessel, a tourist boat, a supply ship — anything but the commando vessel after us. Luckily, it wasn't what we feared, but in a way it was just as bad: the mystery ship was a spotter vessel from the whaling fleet, the Kyoshin Maru 2. Instead of spotting for whales, it was now spotting for us.
Knowing our coordinates were being relayed to the fleet and commando ship, we left the Ice Shelf and ran full-tilt to McMurdo. But it soon became clear that wasn't going to be possible either: hard ice surrounded the base, and all other bases near the Ross Sea. At that point on February 9, Captain Watson decided to head due north to Australia. We would head straight for land and hope that the commando ship did not intercept us. We had no other choice.
I'm writing this 72 hours into our journey north, and we believe we're in the clear. At this point, if the fast commando ship were going to board us, they would have already done so. We are out of the area of the fleet and heading home.
The battle this year is over, but the war continues. Its a war for the whales, but its also for a larger ecology. This is a war because the political conflict over whaling has spurred dangerous confrontations this year, the most dangerous in the history of this conflict. The two sides battled it out for their opposing visions, and national leaders have also chimed in, condemning and condoning the actions of both sides. Some lives — the lives of whales, which Sea Shepherd believes have as much worth as human lives — have been lost, but others have also been saved. The activists could claim this much as victory, for now. But the war still rages on.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
The list is linked from a recent article in Xtra last week about gay porn studio Lucas Entertainment's battles with CBSA over their line of fetish films (titles include "Piss!" and "Farts!" — I'll leave the details to your imagination).
Censorship is full of grey areas that make it hard to come down on one side or the other of the debate, and it's particularly complex from a queer perspective, because it hasn't historically been in our interests to advocate censorship (Little Sister's bookstore in Vancouver had a much harder time of things than Lucas Entertainment; their troubles with the CBSA span more than two decades), but there are queer groups out there advocating for the censorship of homophobic speech.
The most high-profile example is the campaign against "Murder Music" — Jamaican dancehall music by artists including Sizzla, Elephant Man, Buju Banton and Beenie Man — that contains violently homophobic lyrics. Stop Murder Music, who have been leading the campaign in Canada (and OutRage! who are doing the same in Britain), claim that these songs constitute hate speech and have been putting pressure on HMV and iTunes to stop selling their albums. The artists have had to cancel shows in Britain and the US because of the success these groups have started to have in their campaign.
I have nothing to say in defence of songs like Banton's "Boom Bye Bye", and I'd be behind SMM 100% if it wasn't for my suspicion that rallying in support of any form of censorship would come back to bite us in the ass.
In some ways, Murder Music is a bad example because the SMM campaign argues that Elephant Man's lyrics, for example, are not only distasteful but socially irresponsible, and that they actively contribute to a culture of violence in which gay people are profoundly unsafe. But ultimately, it all comes down to the same thing: the policing of the entertainment industry.
Honestly, I have a hard time formulating an unproblematic defense of Lucas' fetish films. The only argument that has real force for me is that if you ban out-there fetish porn, you're going to set a precedent for banning less extreme porn. And that seems like a dangerous road.
When I hear dancehall tunes calling for the violent murder of gay people, instinct tends to take over. I want to draw lines, bold lines in black Sharpie that stop this sort of thing from ever reaching my, or anyone else's, ears. And when I read that fetish porn I personally find entirely unappealing isn't making it to the shelves of 24-hour video stores, I find it hard to get too riled up about that.
But none of these things happen in a vacuum. Murder Music attacks a minority that is still fighting for its right to exist and to be free from danger: that's the context that makes it absolutely indefensible. Banning it outright is a limitation of the rights of artists to speak their minds. And I can't help worrying that there will come a point at which limiting the speech of people we don't agree with starts to impede on that of people we do.
Cate Simpson is a freelance journalist and the web editor for Shameless magazine. She lives in Toronto.
The battle gets ugly. The whalers are desperate. Sea Shepherd keeps blocking the transfer of dead whales, making further whaling impossible in the Southern Ocean. The Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, stays close to the stern of the whaling fleet's "mother ship," the Nisshin Maru, preventing any harpoon vessels from transferring their whale cargo to the processing ship.
Desperate for their product not to be spoiled as whales hang dead off the side of two harpoon ships, a third harpoon ship is sent to attack us. Yushin Maru No. 2 closes in on the Steve Irwin, coming within 20 feet. The crew throws metal bolts and uses high-pressured water-cannons on the Sea Shepherd crew. They send blasts from the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), the non-lethal — but extremely painful — sound cannon mounted on board. Then the Yushin cuts dangerously close across our bow several times, and finally, the two ships collide.
"It was a slight nudge, but gangster tactics if I have ever seen them," says Laurens De Groot, a policeman from Holland.
After hours of this chase, the Nisshin Maru ahead turns to circle around. The Irwin, as well as all the harpoon vessels follow, and it becomes a bit like a lethal marry-go-round. We went around in circles like this for hours, nearly causing me to get sick. But my adrenaline was pumping, which kept my seasickness at bay.
Eventually all the ships straighten out, at which point the harpoon boats carrying dead whales attempted to transfer their cargo, with us 100 metres away. The harpoon ships wedged their way between us and the Nisshin maru, and within seconds ropes and lines were being tossed back and forth between the Nisshin Maru and the harpoon ship to begin the transfer.
Unwilling to allow this to happen, Captain Paul Watson took the helm and attempted to get the Steve Irwin between the two vessels ahead, cutting the transport line in the process. Within twenty feet of the vessels, the Irwin shook wildly in their wake. Defiant and unafraid it appeared, the whalers stood their ground and successfully sent the whale up the Nisshin's slipway.
But all was not lost, sailors on board the Yushin Maru No. 3 were getting ready to hastilyy transport a second dead whale onboard. This would be the fifth whale delivered to the Nisshin if successful. We believed this would be the final straw — the whalers would know they could continue their illegal operation with or without the activists around.
Again the harpoon ship came alongside the Nisshin quickly and within seconds lines were being exchanged. Captain Watson steered the Irwin closer than ever, 15, perhaps 10 feet behind the ships ahead. He was attempting to wedge between the ships and cut the line: we were so close it looked like it would be successful. But then I saw it — the whale was in the water on its way to the slipway. Before I could turn to tell anyone, the Irwin was out of control from the choppy waves the harpoon ship produced.
Suddenly, the ship was ten degrees on its side.
Both ships had collided. It looked like each ship was halfway headed into the ocean and halfway up in the air. I was on portside, the side headed for the ocean. But all I could see was the starboard side up in the air. Water cannons were sprayed onto the crew of the Irwin from the harpoon vessel, while the Sea Shepherd activists threw rancid butter cans onto the decks of the harpoon ship. There was a lot of screaming and yelling from both ships, and the screeching of metal as the two vessels slid off each other. This truly felt like war.
Once our ship was off the harpoon vessel, the whaling ships steamed ahead. We fell back to check the damage. The crew found holes in the ship's hull, but they were all above the water line, and there were no serious injuries to the crew. We're safe — just barely. But the Sea Shepherd crew made their stand for the whales.
At that point, whaling stopped. The whalers did not attempt to kill or transfer any more that day. It was 6:30 pm and the battle had ended. But the war goes on.
Five whales lost their lives in this battle on February 6th. But many more would live, because forty individuals from around the world and one black ship made a stand against whaling at the bottom of the world. They stopped a six-ship whaling fleet and its 240 person crew in their illegal hunt for over five days, and put the government-run Japanese organization, the Institute of Cetacean Research, at a stand-still. And they cost the private company, Kyodo Senpaku, that profits off the hunt, tens of millions of dollars. They hurt the whaling industry by making its business less feasible.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
Yes, today's the day: President Barack Obama visits the capital of our fair dominion. Air Force One just landed in Ottawa, and we'll keep an eye on things and post any notable happenings here, including links to good commentary or other interesting tidbits. But Obama's visit is so short — less than seven hours — and the agenda so constricted, and the president himself will be so removed from the public, that we're not expecting much of interest.
We'll also likely post links and commentary on our Twitter feed at twitter.com/thismagazine, so you may want to follow us there today.
FEBRUARY 20 UPDATE: Yeah, there is not much to say here. An awful lot of TV talking heads having to fill an awful lot of dead airtime, since nearly everything took place behind closed doors. Move along, nothing to see here.
Call me a hippie, but on days like today, the work of advocates for those with intellectual disabilities like Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche International and the Globe and Mail's Nationbuilder of 2008 seems too few and far between.
The abuse and discrimination of those with intellectual disabilities makes it clear that better understanding and education is needed for the general public, and for youth in particular on this issue. Disturbing accounts of a man being tortured in a Hamilton apartment for several weeks to the point of near-death peppered the newspapers this morning. The man had not been reported missing. Those being charged are between the ages of 17 and 30, and the man who was held was only 22.
This kind of horrific scenario makes it obvious that there is a pressing need to advocate on behalf of those with intellectual disabilities at all levels of community. Cases of torture and abuse like this one are hate crimes, but are also a sign of the unresolved misunderstanding and phobia of those with disabilities. This fall, another man with an intellectual disability was tortured in Minnesota by four young people, aged 19 to 33. In both the Minnesota and Hamilton cases, the authorities were stunned and said they had never seen anything as severe.
An Australian report from the Law Reform Commission just over ten years ago reported that 25% of people with an intellectual disability are likely to be assaulted, as compared to 10% of the general population.
It's 6:30 in the morning, I fall out of my bunk to the zigzagging motion of our ship and loud sirens coming from outside. I run to the bridge and see high-pressured water-cannons spray the entire port side of the ship. With our crew and my friends outside getting swamped by the water. We pass the Nisshin Maru, the 'mother ship' of the Japanese whaling fleet, on our port. Crew on our eco-ship toss over stink cans to contaminate the whalers decks. I find out from an officer that a whale has been killed under our watch. It's now being chopped up and packaged onboard the mother ship. The Sea Shepherds are fighting to stop it from continuing.
It's February 6th and after five days chasing the Nisshin Maru through the Antarctic Ocean, the fleet finally retaliated. For five days, Sea Shepherd had disabled the fleet's whaling operation by chasing the fleet's ships so they couldn't effectively hunt whales. But today, they tested their ground and killed a whale. The Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, was two nautical miles away from the Nisshin Maru when it happened, making it impossible to stop.
One of the fleet's harpoon ships, the Yushin Maru No. 1, had a dead Minke whale lashed to its portside. Within minutes, the whalers transported the dead, bleeding carcass up the slipway to the Nisshin Maru for processing. In thirty minutes, there was nothing left of the whale but a spinal cord and the harpoon.
Keeping the processing ship, the Nisshin Maru, on the run had shut down whaling for eleven days during 2008's anti-whaling campaign by Sea Shepherd, and five days this year. But now the Sea Shepherd activists had to improvise a new strategy — and fast. The fleet was now whaling again, the very thing Sea Shepherd had come here to stop them from doing, and they were doing right it in front of us. We were no longer intimidating and the group had lost its ground in this whale battle.
Within two hours, the fleet had transferred two more dead whales to the Nisshin for processing. During this time, the Irwin was still narrowing its distance to the mother ship, but was unable to do anything but watch the blood and guts come pouring out of the "death ship" ahead. Reports of two more whales killed and on their way to the Nisshin come in from our helicopter in the air. But before they can be transfered, a plan is hatched.
"Blockade the stern. Allow no more whales to go up that slipway — that is our objective," says Paul Watson, captain of the Irwin and founder of Sea Shepherd. Blocking transfer would make killing any further whales impossible for the fleet. First Mate Peter Hammarstedt, a Swede, brings us within 200 meters of the mother ship's stern, blocking the fleet's transport. And stopping whaling once again. But will it work? For how long? Can we gain our ground back again in this whale war?
...Read Part Two in tomorrow's blog post.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
[Editor's note: From time to time we feature guest bloggers on a variety of topics. To enquire about contributing, email editor at this magazine dot ca.]
BY MITU SENGUPTA
Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire is one of the most celebrated films in recent times. The cinematically spectacular film tells the rags-to-rajah story of a young, love-struck Indian boy, Jamal, who, with a little help from "destiny," succeeds in overcoming his wretched beginnings in Mumbai's squalid slums. Riding on a wave of rave reviews, Slumdog is now poised to win Hollywood's highest honour, the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Nabbing this honour, if it indeed does so during Sunday's Oscar ceremony, would probably add some US$100 million to Slumdog's box-office takings, as Oscar wins usually do. It will also further enhance the film's already-robust reputation as an authentic representation of the lives of India's urban poor. So far, most of the awards collected by the film have been accepted in the name of "the children," suggesting that its own cast and crew regard it (and are promoting it) not as an entertaining work of fiction, but as a powerful piece of advocacy. Nothing could be more worrying, since Slumdog Millionaire, despite all the hype to the contrary, delivers a deeply disempowering narrative about the poor, which undermines, if not totally negates, its apparent message of social justice.
Many Indians are angered by Slumdog because it tarnishes their perception of their country as a rising economic power and the Third World's beacon of democracy. India's English-language papers, read by its middle classes, have carried bristling reviews of the film that convey an acute sense of wounded national pride. While understandable, these are not defensible. Though at times embarrassingly contrived, most of the film's heartrending scenarios are inspired by a sad, but well-documented reality. Corruption is, indeed, rampant among the police, and many will gladly use torture — though none is probably dim enough to target an articulate, English-speaking man who is a rising media phenomenon. Beggar-makers do round-up abandoned children and mutilate them in order to make them more sympathetic, though it is highly improbable that any such child will ever chance upon a $100 bill, much less be capable of identifying it by touch and scent alone. Indeed, if anything, Boyle's magical tale, with its unconvincing one-dimensional characters, greatly understates the depth of suffering among India's poor. It is near-impossible, for example, that Jamal would emerge from his ravaged life with a dewy complexion and an upper-class accent. Nonetheless, the real problem with Slumdog is not its shallow, impressionistic portrayal of poverty.
The film's real problem is that it grossly minimizes the capabilities, resourcefulness and even the basic humanity of India's slum-dwellers. It is no secret that large chunks of Slumdog are meant to reflect life in Dharavi, the 213-hectare spread of slums at the heart of Mumbai. The film's depiction of the legendary Dharavi, which is home to some one million people, is that of a feral wasteland, with little evidence of order, community or compassion. Other than the children, the "slumdogs," no-one is even remotely well-intentioned. Hustlers, thieves, and petty warlords run amok, and even Jamal's schoolteacher, a thin, bespectacled man who introduces him to The Three Musketeers, is inexplicably callous. This is a place of evil and decay; of a raw, chaotic tribalism.
Yet nothing could be further from the truth. Dharavi teems with dynamism and creativity, and is a hub of entrepreneurial activity, covering industries such as garment manufacturing, embroidery, pottery, and leather, plastics and food processing. It is estimated that the annual turnover from Dharavi's small businesses is between US$50 and $100 million. Dharavi's lanes are lined with cell-phone retailers and cybercafés, and according to surveys by Microsoft Research India, the slum's residents exhibit a remarkably high absorption of new technologies. Governing structures and productive social relations also flourish. The slum's residents have nurtured strong collaborative networks, often across potentially volatile lines of caste and religion. Many cooperative societies work together with grassroots associations to provide residents with essential services such as basic healthcare, schooling and waste disposal, and to tackle thorny issues such as child abuse and violence against women. In fact, they often compensate for the formal government's woeful inadequacy in meeting the needs of the poor. Although it is true that these severely under-resourced self-help organizations have touched only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, it is important to acknowledge their efforts, along with the simple fact that these communities, despite their grinding poverty, have rich, valuable lives, a wealth of internal resources, and a strong tradition of resistance.
Indeed, the failure to recognize this fact has already led to a great deal of damage. Government bureaucrats have concocted many ham-handed, top-down plans for "developing" the slums based on the dangerous assumption that these are worthless spaces. The most recent is the "Dharavi Redevelopment Project" (DRP), which proposes to convert the slums into blocks of residential and commercial high rises. The DRP requires private developers to provide small flats (of about 250 sq. ft. each) to families that can prove they settled in Dharavi before the year 2000. In return for re-housing residents, the developers obtain construction rights in Dharavi. The DRP is being fiercely resisted by slum residents' organizations and human rights activists, who see it an undemocratic and environmentally harmful land-grab scheme (real-estate prices in Mumbai are comparable to Manhattan's).
Though perhaps better than razing the slums with bulldozers — which is not, incidentally, an unpopular notion among the city's rich — the DRP is far from a people-friendly plan. It will potentially evict some 500,000 residents who cannot legally prove that they settled in Dharavi prior to 2000, and may destroy thousands of livelihoods by rendering unviable countless household-centred businesses. If forced to move into congested high-rises, for example, the slum's potters and biscuit-makers, large numbers of who are women, will lose the space they need to dry their wares. For the government, however, the DRP will "rehabilitate" Dharavi by erasing the eyesore and integrating its "problem-population" into modern, middle-class Mumbai.
It is ironic that Slumdog, for all its righteousness of tone, shares with many Indian political and social elites a profoundly dehumanizing view of those who live and work within the country's slums. The troubling policy implications of this perspective are unmistakeably mirrored by the film. Since there are no internal resources, and none capable of constructive voice or action, all "solutions" must arrive externally. After a harrowing life in an anarchic wilderness, salvation finally comes to Jamal, a Christ-like figure, in the form of an imported quiz-show, which he succeeds in thanks to sheer, dumb luck, or rather, "destiny." Is it also "destiny," then, that the other children depicted in the film must continue to suffer? Or must they, like the stone-faced Jamal, stoically await their own rescue by a foreign hand? Indeed, while this self-billed "feel good movie of the year" may help us "feel good" that we are among the lucky ones on earth, it delivers a patronizing and ultimately sham statement on social justice for those who are not.
Mitu Sengupta is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. She has also worked as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and as an editorial writer in New Delhi, India.
The second annual Radical Innovation in Hospitality Awards have announced this years top winner: A luxury oil rig hotel and spa, designed by Morris Architects. Judges were amazed at the fresh, innovative and sustainable concept, which promises to save some of the 4000 oil rigs currently floating in the gulf of Mexico after they are decommissioned later this century, and turn them into luxury aquatic holiday settings.
Maybe it's just me, but the idea of spending my precious vacation time marooned somewhere in the gulf of Mexico on the remains of a floating oil rig sounds like the worst kind of vacation hell. I will concede that refurbishing a decommissioned oil rig is more favorable than the alternative explosion (the typical method of removing rigs,) but why not a floating wind farm? A bird sanctuary? An oceanic research vessel? The possibilities seem endless, but I will note that none of them involve me, a margarita, and the sweet smell of crude.
Am I the only one who thinks this is laugh out loud ridiculous? Would you spend your vacation this way?
It's about time someone cracked down on the masses of weight-loss orgs trying to take advantage of everyone who's down on themselves. If you didn't already have an eating disorder because of the onslaught of fashion ads that greet you everyday in magazines, on TV, and on the billboards in your local town center, the weight-loss gurus will make sure you get one. If you weren't already worried about being overweight, internet advertising for weight-loss programs will get you every time. Seductive headlines and before/after pics reel in the unsuspecting reader: Biggest Loser Diet Plan; Lose weight forever; #1 Trick to lose weight; Great frozen meals help you lose weight... dare I go on (ok, one more - Using the Bible to lose weight). You're just one click away from a whole new you, no?
Everyone is talking about the Canadian Medical Association Journal's editorial, published today, that says consumers need to be protected against these companies who prey on the insecurities of teenagers (I distinctly remember the first weight-loss ad I saw in a magazine around age 10 - and the photo of a bronzed, bikini-clad babe about my age), postpartum mums (please, your baby fat is lovely!) and worried parents (i'm afraid little tommy is eating too much fudge). The CMA journal reports that the North American weight-loss industry grosses $50 billion in annual revenue. Despite this, obesity is still on the rise. What the author, Yoni Freedhoff, is really worried about is the lack of substantive evidence to support claims made by weight loss companies. Only a few days ago, Freedhoff published another paper entitled "From plunger to punkt-roller: a century of weight-loss quackery in which he explored the rolling-pins, a "relax-o-cisor" (electrifies away your weight), and "knead-away" machines that are the 1800s equivalent to expensive herbal supplements and vibrating fitness machines ("you can still have a good workout even if you aren't moving!") and claim to do away with "undue fleshiness."
Freedhoff suggests that governments need to make legislation that will protect citizens against this kind of quackery which ultimately keeps people who struggle with obesity further away from their goals as healthy individuals. He writes, We call on governments to require formal accreditation of weight-loss providers to ensure quality and to provide consumers with an easily recognizable means of identifying evidence-based services. Simultaneously, governments must pass legislation to subject weight-loss products to regulatory approval before they can be marketed, as has recently been proposed for other therapeutic products not presently covered by current drug-approval regulations.
Hopefully this is just the beginning and instead of busting flab we can begin busting companies that only make matters worse by messing with folks' expectations, self-image, and feelings of self-worth.
The government of Ontario and other provinces across Canada recognize that many people with disabilities are unable to work and need income support in order to cover their living and medical expenses. In Ontario it's called the Ontario Disability Support Progam (ODSP) and it provides a maximum amount of $900 a month, along with a monthly dental and drug voucher. On its face it sounds excellent, and it does really help those with no alternative. But needing your every need provided for is only one extreme on the entire ability spectrum.
Way back in the day, I wrote a ThisAbility entry called Walking Between Worlds that this same phenomenon affects many people with disabilities in a major way when it comes to their potential employability and their need for income support. Most people are capable enough to have a job, but disabled enough to need income support because if you can, have, or do work, your disability, in many cases, still restricts your options. I couldn't just take a job in construction or as a server in a restaurant, and I always have to be mindful of how far my place of employment is from my home. I have to make sure I can either drive my scooter there or that public transportation is nearby. I also have to make sure I can actually get into the building and that there are only a few stairs. These factors greatly restrict where I can work compared to the able-bodied population, so I do qualify for income support. However, like most government programs, there's a lot of fine print you don't see from the outside looking in. In fact, ODSP doesn't really give you a hand up under my circumstances. It does a lot more to keep you down and dependent.
ODSP takes full advantage of the phrase "some restrictions apply". Just because you have a disability and qualify for the program doesn't mean you automatically receive the stipend every month. In order to get the maximum amount, all of your assets, bank accounts, and investments can't exceed $7,000. You can work, and ODSP will even provide you with a wardrobe and transportation budget, but you must disclose every dollar you make so that every month they can deduct 50 cents of every dollar you earn from the ODSP allowance. The real salt on the wound is that as long as you still need the income the government provides, you can never get ahead and save money. As soon as your total asset limit exceeds $7,000, you must notify them and they stop sending cheques. If you forget to report that your assets have topped $7,000, you must pay back every last dollar over that amount. Plus, if you happen to feel that the government should not be privy to all the ins and outs of your finances and knowingly omit your asset total and they happen to find out, they could put you away for fraud.
Unfortunately, life is not an either/or scenario. For many with disabilities, it's not the case that you can work and you don't need the cheque, or you need the cheque and can't work at all. Most people aspire to be free and clear of the cheque one day, but are still on the way. The way the system works though, you stay dependent while the government gives with one hand and takes with the other. How can you ever overcome the cheque and move toward fully employed financial independence if you're always hitting the $7,000 ceiling? How can a government pretend to be progressive and encourage people with disabilities to work, when their actions say, "Oh yeah, you can work, but don't work too much. Don't try to build a future for yourself at all. If you need a house, please apply for subsidized housing, and do not attempt to pay for it free and clear."
Of course, it's already a given that if you only get income support, you'll need subsidized housing. If you don't, your entire monthly amount of $900 would be needed just for the rent, and forget ever owning your own house as long as you still are trapped in the noose of ODSP. They may be providing a small amount for your work wardrobe and transportation, but if the job you're applying for isn't paying a rate significantly above the maximum amount of the cheque, you might as well stay home and not even bother, because 50 cents off of every dollar will be clawed back. This system actually discourages you from working. Of course, our capitalist system is hierarchical, so you need the lesser paying jobs in order to get the higher paying jobs that give you any hope of overcoming the cheque. Instead of concentrating on your financial future, you spend all your time calculating and tabulating your finances so that you don't go over $7,000, or get nailed for fraud. All this work so that you can keep getting the help you need. I ask, what kind of hypocritical B.S. is that? This is the very antithesis of empowerment and helping people rise above their circumstances. It's like they're waiting for you to slip up and baiting you to make a mistake. Some people are so outraged that they create hidden bank accounts that they never reveal to the government brass as a form of protest against this cycle of dependence. It's their middle finger to the establishment and if they're brave enough to attempt to get away with it, I say, "Wave it proud."
However, ODSP income support is only the symptom in a greater societal mentality. People are under the mistaken impression that disability comes from a diagnosis. They think that disability is the space between those with a normal physical or mental capacity, and those who don't have those functions at a normal capacity. However, real disability exists in the wide breadth between a society's current accessibility, and what it would take for them to be fully accessible.
Think about it. If I could get in to every building the able-bodied population can, and every opportunity open to a regular able-bodied citizen was one I could take advantage of, then suddenly, whatever differences my diagnosis created from birth are nullified. My disability suddenly becomes a non-issue and has no bearing on my life's success or failure.
Instead, the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is still three to four times higher than it is in the able-bodied world, and we support those who can't work by just giving them money. Why set up a system like income support, where you are continually giving a man a fish, but within that system you're putting up barriers and restrictions that prevent you from teaching that man to fish for himself?
The only explanation is that someone wants to maintain the disability population. They are happy placating and plying us with $900 cheques, and have no real desire to see us move past our diagnosis and become fully self-sufficent, contributing members of society. The income support system was built with the intention of aiding us toward equality, but instead it just emphasizes how different we really are — and if nothing happens, how different we will stay.
Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.
I love pink. I look good in pink. In fact, I think everyone looks good in pink. And that's good news, because February 19th marks the first international Day of Pink, an annual event to raise awareness to stop bullying, discrimination and homophobia around the world.
This Thursday, a quarter of a million people will go about their daily lives wearing pink. "The reality is that homophobic bullying makes up over 60% of the bullying and discrimination in North America, but the majority of the research and funding is directed to unrelated forms of violent and social bullying" says Nadiajah Robinson, Day of Pink Director of Education. "The only way we can solve this problem is to raise awareness, talk about it and create local solutions. That's the brilliance of the Day of Pink - each community can make it their own."
Alas, when I stopped by the website to grab some photos of people in pink, I was sadly disappointed. The background was pink, the font was pink, the logo was pink, but the photos of the organizers themselves were not pink. They donned whites, greys, blacks and blues, but there was a decided lack of the colour pink.
I guess it will be up to us in the office of This to get our pink-freak on. Stay tuned for Thursday's photos...
Environmental innovation is often focused on big, costly projects — a massive wind turbine farm, a smart grid, or perhaps a policy change on carbon emissions. But when it comes to going green, it's often the bare bones, DIY projects that have the greatest impact.
Enter Solvatten, a simple jerry can that harnesses solar energy to purify drinking water. By using energy from the sun, the container is able to heat and purify up to 10 litres of water. When the water is safe the drink, a small indicator light changes from red to green. The pathogen-killing process takes between 3-4 hours.
Access to a stable, clean supply of drinking water is a major issue in the developing world. 1.6 billion people world wide do not have access to electricity. That means that drinking water must be boiled over firewood or charcoal in order to destroy pathogens. Using Solvatten just once a day, 250 days in a year, could save up to 2,500 kg of firewood. That means less soil erosion, less CO2 emissions, and a truly green approach to development.
Think you're tough? Think you're frugal? Think you could live on only $80 worth of food for an entire month? That's what three Edmontonians are doing; spending a mere $80 on groceries throughout February as part of an experiment called the Working Poor Diet (the $80 figure was calculated using Alberta's minimum wage rate of $8.40 and an assortment of cost-of-living studies and surveys, including this one).
Oh, and if you're thinking you could do it, you'd just eat at your friends' houses or survive on bulk candy, think again. Like any diet, this one comes with some rules, including no free food and perhaps the most challenging one, following the Canadian Food Guide's daily recommendations as closely as possible.
The Working Poor Diet started as a way to draw attention to "the connection between poverty, nutrition and health" as well as raise funds for the Edmonton food bank. Over the past week, it's proven to be a particularly relevant experiment given the Heart and Stroke Foundation's recent annual report that revealed the high cost basic food items in some parts of this country and how these discrepancies are impacting our nation's health.
According to that report, you might be paying six times more for basics such as apples, milk and lean ground beef than someone living in another part of the country. The report also found that 68 percent of those surveyed said that the price of an item was "extremely" or "very" important when choosing what product to buy, which only makes sense when you're watching your pennies, as many people are these days. Unfortunately, cheap foods tend not to be healthy foods, the stuff we should all be eating more of. This is something that the Working Poor Diet participates have noticed first hand.
"In two days we will reach the halfway point of this project and I have about $15 to spend on fruits, vegetable and dairy," participate Tracy Hyatt tells me over email, "Am I scared I'm not going to make it? You bet. I won't starve but I won't be eating a healthy diet in the remaining days." I don't believe she's exaggerating one bit. A mere $15 wouldn't even cover what I spend on milk every two weeks.
Her experience, along with that of follow participants Jeff Gonek and Jennifer Windsor, is currently being documented over in the Working Poor Diet blog, a great look at not only this experiment, but at our relationship with food in general.
Earlier this week I wrote about some of the magazines we surveyed when we started talking about our own redesign. Today I'm going to stop acting all coy and actually show you what our redesign looks like. Some of it, anyway. Yesterday, a reader told me that these redesign diary posts were, um, at risk of becoming long-winded, so I'll keep this one brief: It was important that we test the new design under a bunch of different circumstances to make sure it worked, so our Art Director, Dave Donald, combed through our last few issues and reproduced them as they would look with the new scheme.
The important things to note are: "This" is much bigger because that's our name and we think it's important. "Magazine" is much smaller because, c'mon, obviously it's a magazine. Duh.
Click through the jump to see the new look in action. Next week I'll show off some of the inside pages of the upcoming issue and explain some of the new features you'll find in the redesigned This.
As you can see, some things change, some things stay the same. Here are another few recent issues as they would have looked if we'd been designing them now:
You like? You hate? Tell us what you think, with comments below or by emailing me at editor at this magazine dot ca.
It is day 5 of chasing our target, the Nisshin Maru, the "mother ship" of the Japanese whaling fleet. On the message board near the ship's kitchen, it reads: "Five days of no whaling!" Every day that the Sea Shepherd ship has the mother ship on the run is another day the entire fleet (made up of six vessels) can't catch whales.
It's estimated that 10 to 12 whales are killed per day by the whaling fleet here in the Southern Ocean. Their quota for the season is nearly a thousand whales, including some endangered species. Day five of chasing means about 50 to 60 whales have been saved, And up to US$15 million has been lost to the Japanese whaling industry. It would appear we are winning the battle for the whales. In lives, minds and against destructive capital.
In these five days it hasn't been just a chase, but more like a running battle between our ship and the fleet. With any chance the Sea Shepherds have, they deploy their high-speed Zodiacs and helicopter to harass or gain evidence. Zodiac teams throw rancid butter cans and cellulose powder (a slippery substance) to contaminate the decks of the whaling ship. The helicopter captures video and photographic evidence of the illegal hunt.
The mother ship in return sends three harpoon ships to confront the Sea Shepherd vessel and its zodiacs. Maneuvering close to the Sea Shepherd boats in an attempt to intimidate, the boats' bows hammer down some 10-15 feet away from the zodiacs. Crew on the harpoon boats throw pieces of metal at the zodiac teams.
The harpoon vessels use something called a Long Range Acoustic Device when they came alongside the Steve Irwin. The LRAD produces powerful sound waves that penetrate the skull, muscles and body, and can cause disorientation, headaches and pain to the Sea Shepherd crew. One cameraman on one of the Zodiacs was hit by high-pressure water cannons, suffering an eye injury and disorientation.
A photographer from the UK, Steve Roest, was affected by the LRAD on another Zodiac, causing him to lose his balance and hit his head on the console. He suffered a cut to his forehead and recieved five stitches. By day five, almost half the crew has cuts and bruises of some kind, but they believe it's a small price to pay to prevent more whaling.
For years, Sea Shepherd's stated intention has been that they do not aim to harm any of the whalers, and they have interfered with whaling in this way for thirty years. Recently, the same cannot be said about the whalers themselves. The whaling vessels' responses over the past few days have not only been aggressive, but approaching lethal.
"They're not just looking to stop us, they are out for blood this year" says David Nickarz, the ship's third engineer who hails from Winnipeg.
Last year, in Sea Shepherd's confrontation with the mother ship, the captain was shot at and flash bangs were thrown at the crew. This year, the whalers have shown their intentions to harm again. But Sea Shepherd is unwilling to back down, so the battle for the whales continues, human blood-shed and all.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
In a working paper published last week, Manhattan President Scott M. Stringer and a coalition of food activists called for the city to take further measure to ensure that New Yorkers have a economical, reliable and local food source during the current recession.
The Food in the Public Interest report [PDF link] called for the creation of a New York City Foodshed, in which farms located within a 100-200 mile radius of the city would receive preference and incentive from government food purchasers.
Borough President Stringer said, "Our food system in New York City needs a radical overhaul. Our stores are full of apples that come thousands of miles from New Zealand and Washington State, rather than hundreds of miles from New Paltz in Ulster County or Whitehall in Washington County, New York. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers live in 'food deserts' where there isn't enough fresh food; meanwhile, food prices are going through the roof, and yet thousands of eligible families cannot get food stamps."
New Yorkers spend an estimated $1 billion on groceries annually.
Today is "Food Freedom Day," February 12th, which marks the day of the year in 2009 on which the average Canadian will have earned enough dough to pay their grocery bill for the year. The day is certainly one of celebration and gratitude for the affordable and safe food that we can access across the country. It's also a day to mark the awareness that Canadians pay substantially less for their food than many other nations and that farmers take home a measly portion of the money that their products earn. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture writes, "Member countries within the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), on average, spend 8.3% more of their disposable income on food than Canadians." They also say, for example that "in 2005, a grain farmer received $0.07 for the corn in a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and $0.11 for the wheat in a loaf of bread."
One way to ensure that more money goes into the pockets of local farmers to buy seeds and tools for next season is to buy from your local farmer's market. Alternatively, joining a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) group means that your pre-paid groceries are helping farmers with their start-up costs. This kind of arrangement can also have the added benefit of getting more connected to your food system by helping out with the harvest.
We're all pretty major magazine nerds around here. This Magazine's office subscribes to a lot of publications from all over the world, and individually, we all have personal subscriptions of our own. I recently totalled up all my own subscriptions and discovered that I'm getting 10 different magazines delivered, and I buy others at the newsstand.
So when the decision was made to overhaul This Magazine's design, everyone had an opinion, based on what we liked and disliked about our own magazine's current look — and what we were finding stuck through our own mail-slots month after month.
I talked about our initial redesign meeting earlier this week, where we talked about the essential essence of the magazine we wanted to preserve throughout the redesign process. But we started from the premise that everything — everything — was on the table, at least in terms of the magazine's appearance. So we all brought in some of our favourite publications to talk about their look, why we liked them, what their visual identity said about their content, and so on.
Here are some of the titles that people talked about:
When you think about serious and august journals of contemporary news and commentary, there are a few that float to the top, and they all made appearances. The Economist is admired, and rightfully so, for its consistency, the no-nonsense clarity of its layout, and its emphasis on function over form. Everything about it says that it is made to be a reader's magazine: it won't knock you out graphically, but its look instantly tells you that it doesn't expect to do that, or even desires to. OK, OK, so The Economist is the bible of capitalism, which doesn't quite sync with our mandate around here, but in this new era of bipartisan understanding, we can at least appreciate their rock-solid three-column layout:
In our own backyard, our friends at The Walrus and Geist have also traditionally embraced a style that emphasizes text, again mostly in three classic columns. There are magazines that you buy to flip through (more on that in a minute), and there are others, like The Walrus, that you buy to read. We've always belonged to the latter category, and that's not likely to change.
A personal favourite of mine is The Believer, a strange and whimsical publication from the U.S. It's the literary-criticism cousin to the influential McSweeney's literary journal, and deals in lengthy, text-heavy articles with consistency, restraint, and a dash of ironical humour.
Of course, the gold standard right now for attractive, accessible design in the progressive media landscape is The Guardian from the U.K. This paper is doing a lot of things right, from its design to its online presence to its robust international reportage, and its influence is much bigger than the size of its readership would lead you to believe.
Other progressive magazines we like the look of lately include the venerable Mother Jones, which has always had such a talent for provocative covers like the one above. MoJo has recently renovated its website, too, (a trend we should be shortly joining them in).
A younger upstart in the progressive media ecosystem is Good. A slick-looking number published out of New York, Good combines social conscience with high-production runway-model looks. Perhaps they could cut back on the info-graphs and charticles a bit, but their bouncing-puppy optimism and "let's put on a show!" attitude is infectious.
Another young entrant to the industry is Monocle, published out of the UK by former Wallpaper* editor Tyler Brule. Aimed at absurdly upper-class jet-setters who think nothing of dropping £600 on an engraved lapis lazuli business-card holder or some junk like that, well, it doesn't apply directly to anyone around here. But Monocle is bucking the trend of miserablism and gloom that pervades the print industry right now, concentrating on putting together an assured and highly focused publication that isn't scared to put ink on paper and sell it to you for $12. And as a magazine, it's a beautiful object to hold in your hands and flip through, and the attention to detail is evident on every page. However, they also have a pretty squishy relationship with their advertisers, mixing up editorial and advertorial and advertisement in a way that I would say is not acceptable. I don't think This Magazine is going to be facing an onslaught of corporations demanding that we endorse their products through ethically ambiguous advertisements in the near future, though, so I think I've dodged a bullet there. Just a hunch.
Other titles that we find eye-catching, even if their content bears almost no resemblance to what we do, included Condé Nast Travel + Leisure, Explore, and Wired. All very pretty, beautifully art-directed, with some of the most stunning photography you'll see in magazines today. On a relatively small budget like ours, we don't get to do as much photography as we'd like, but we still have these magazines lying around the office for daydream purposes.
Finally, the attention-grabbers. What, you think we only read wholesome, diligently researched, socially responsible stuff? Think again. Making a cover that screams "buy me!" on a newsstand is a strange and mysterious art, and titles like US Weekly sell, literally, hundreds of thousands of copies a week by harnessing that dark voodoo. I sincerely doubt This will be reeling in those numbers any time soon, but we still want to jump off the newsstand if possible, so we looked at how these kind of huge-sellers do their covers. Personally, I believe Hello! magazine is among the ugliest publications ever to stalk the land, but it gets read by more people per week than we get read by in a year. I can respect that: even if it doesn't appeal to me, it's doing something right.
What do you think? Does this work?
OK, maybe not.
In the next blog entry I'll show you some actual mock-ups that we made during the process, to demonstrate what our last few covers would have looked like under the new design. As always, leave a comment or email me at editor at this magazine dot ca.
We had been told for days that confronting the Japanese whaling fleet could happen at any moment. A battle was imminent in the Southern Ocean. A final round in the war for the whales was beginning. Every day the crew on the Sea Shepherd ship, the Steve Irwin, believed "today was the day." But it never was.
I started to think the group had missed its chance. The fleet had escaped us, and there would be no stopping the whalers, and more whales would be taken this year. But on the morning of Sunday, February 1 the day came — the eco-battle began.
Sea Shepherd began their campaign to save whales last December. A campaign destined for the bottom of the world, Antarctica, aiming to stop a whaling fleet from Japan. Within the first leg of our voyage to the Southern Ocean, Sea Shepherd had intercepted three vessels: two harpoon ships and one spotter vessel.
None of these instances concluded with the victory they had hoped for. Their goal was to find the mother ship, the Nisshin Maru, an 8,000 tonne processing ship that works like a floating factory. Stopping the Nisshin Maru would effectively stop the entire whaling fleet. Unsuccessful in their first attempt to find her, Sea Shepherd embarked on the second leg of the mission after a short stop to refuel in Australia.
After eleven days at sea, at the beginning of February, the Sea Shepherd spotters found what they were looking for: At 10 a.m., they saw the Nisshin Maru and a harpoon ship 10 nautical miles ahead of the Steve Irwin. The chase began.
It was a slow chase at first, taking 18 hours to catch up to the mother ship. But even a long, slow chase was worth it for Sea Shepherd, since keeping the mother ship on the run is the main strategy for preventing more illegal catches. As long as the Nisshin Maru is running, the fleet isn't whaling.
A year ago, the Steve Irwin found the Nisshin Maru on February 3 and shut down whaling for 11 days using this tactic. About 500 whales were saved and the quota for the fleet was cut in half. This year, the Sea Shepherds plan to chase the mother ship until their fuel tanks run dry. It could prove to be a lengthy battle, but it's an important one. For now, the chase is on.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
TEXTILE MUSEUM OF CANADA
Cat Mazza Nike Blanket Petition 2003 - ongoing, crocheted wool and synthetic yarn 183 x 427 cm.
Today feminists who thread a mean warp -- or admire those who do -- will be gathering for the opening of She Will Always be Younger than Us. The show is a celebration of contemporary fabric arts and is curated by textiles guru Allyson Mitchell. The Textile Museum of Canada write-up explains that the pieces at the gallery are by "young artists whose work is explicitly engaged with feminist politics through the use of textile, thread and fibre." Artists showing at the exhibit include Orly Cogan, Wednesday Lupypciw, Cat Mazza, Gillian Strong and Ginger Brooks Takahashi.
The work exhibited is also a tribute in some ways to Judy Chicago and is influenced by her bold interweaving of feminism and art. Chicago is most famous for her work "The Dinner Party," which opened in the 70s but has a place at the table at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in NY. The Toronto event includes a panel discussion with Judy Chicago on February 12. The opening marks a recognition of the inspiration, dialogue, and diversion between second wave feminist artists and contemporary queer expressions along with contemporary feminism.
It's Valentine's Day this week, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to address a topic that doesn't get enough play in the disability community — sex. That's right people: we do have it, and if we're not having it, we want it (shock of shocks). Of course, our current cultural landscape has other ideas, just take a look at this long decried commercial from Mothers Against Drunk Driving that made me want to sponsor an organization for Fathers Against Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
According to MADD, as soon as you acquire a disability you're screwed. But worse than that, no one is screwing you. (Well, some people are, but not in the way that feels good.) For MADD, if someone was ever having sex with you, you can bet they've long since re-invested the future of their family tree into strong, capable, 100% pure, grade A, able-bodied stock. This type of rhetoric is all over the place.
There's a scene in an episode of Sex in the City that has always stuck with me. Steve shows up at Miranda's apartment an emotional basketcase because his doctor just removed a cancerous testicle. With only one ball, he questions whether he'll be able to perform, or if any woman would ever sleep with him again. Putting his worries to rest, Miranda gives him the ultimate confidence boost and mauls him right there. Now, that's a great message to send. The only way anyone would sleep with a disabled guy is out of pity. (Of course, they're doing us a favor out of the goodness of their hearts, we should applaud their effort.) I think I'd rather pay for it, thanks.
It's not just that the culture takes us out of the game as viable sexual partners and possibilities, (Ladies, how many times have you been in a club and mentally undressed a guy in a wheelchair? Maybe you stopped at the waist? Or maybe you continued, but your practical side stopped short of the approach) it's our biases and preconceived notions, on both sides of the ability line, that do too. A relationship with a disabled person means different things to different people.
Maybe you think you'll have to help them physically, but you don't think you're strong enough. Maybe you just don't have the patience to wait for things that might take a little longer, or maybe your life's going along swimmingly, so why complicate things when the abundance of able-bodied candidates could potentially eliminate the hassle.
Even I have reservations about dating someone with a disability because I feel like I don't want to take on the extra challenge of assisting someone else, when my own disability already gives me enough to manage. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't think dating an able-bodied person wouldn't make my life easier in a practical sense. Of course, all of these care giving/home management issues can be solved by a third party — A fact so many forget to think about. If someone who hates to clean can hire a cleaning lady, then someone who needs help can hire a staff person. No one else knows how to manage their disability better than the person who has it, so why not leave it to them? (Unless they ask for your help specifically.) All of this then leaves you both time to make the relationship the primary focus. In some ways it's more complicated than that (As much as I try, I can't manufacture attraction or chemistry). But maybe next time you walk into the club, you'll make that approach, and know that everything else can be handled as you both go along.
Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.
At Obama's inaugural news conference last night, the President answered questions including a direct question by Helen Thomas, the most senior member of the White House press corps about nuclear arms in the Middle East (The woman was no doubt a thorn in Dubya's side, calling Bush the "worst president in American history." She has brought questions to 10 presidents in her time at White House press conferences).
It was the first time a President has recognized a question from a blogger at a presidential press conference -- in this case, the Huffington Post's blogger, Sam Stein, who drew attention to the Senator's proposal. (go bloggers, go!)
Retired Santa Cruz Politics prof. Bruce Larkin asks on his blog Political Design, "Would truth and reconciliation, rather than absolution or prosecution, best serve the people of the United States?"
Says Obama,
"My view is also that nobody is above the law, and if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen. But that generally speaking, I am more interested in looking forward that in looking backwards."
Although the President's statement offers an all-are-equal kind of tone, it makes you wonder whether Bush and his administration can be considered "ordinary citizens" in the first place. I admire his visionary stance as much as the next gal, but let's hope Obama knows it's important to right past wrongs as well as pursue visions for the future.
These days Twitter is on the tip of everyone's tongue. Message boards are abuzz with strategy on how to use Twitter to build your business, and every tween this side of the Atlantic is frantically answering the simple question upon which the site is based — what are you doing?
Now, Wired reports that Twitter is about to outgrow its simple interface and go 2.0. A series of new apps designed by enterprising users will allow inanimate objects to communicate with you via Twitter.
Hardware hackers have set up household appliances to send status alerts over Twitter, like a washing machine that tweets when the spin cycle is through, or a home security system that tweets whenever it senses movement inside the house. Others have incorporated Twitter into their DIY home automation systems. Forgot to turn off the lights? Send a tweet to flip the switch by remote control.
These applications can also help you quit smoking or loose weight. Tweet what you eat is an application that allows individuals trying to lose weight tweet everything that passes through their lips.
But just exactly what this will mean for the average net surfer remains to be seen. As the web and its various applications continue to develop at breakneck speed, it seems only reasonable that at some point the rest of us won't be able to keep up. When it comes to Twitter, how much is too much?
Cook's skill as a historian and a researcher is evident in every page of Shock Troops, and the level of detail with which he describes the battles of the war's final two years is impressive. His ability as a writer though sometimes fails to live up to the stories he wants to tell. For the most poetic and vivid descriptions of war, Cook turns to hundreds of personal accounts from soldiers' notebooks and letters from the front, which nicely counterbalance and serve to personalize the mind-numbing statistics on Canada's war injuries and fatalities sprinkled throughout the book. But where Cook ventures into more poetic language himself he often misses the mark, lapsing into cliché or getting caught up in extravagant mixed metaphors.
Shock Troops is an account of war from the front lines. There are few digressions into the politics behind the conflict; instead, Cook concentrates on the planning and execution of battles in which the Canadian forces' involvement was significant. Some, like Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and Amiens, have passed since the war into Canadian popular vocabulary.
Cook's painstaking descriptions of military tactics and strategies will turn off some readers, but their inclusion is necessary to the author's thesis that it was the sophistication of the Canadian forces' tactics and preparation that ensured their effectiveness. His accounts of the machinations of battle are often surprising in their familiarity with individual soldiers' experiences, although some aspects are hard to visualize in the detail Cook intends without some sense of the war's inherent geography, and the significance of those efforts to the war at large.
More interesting to some will be the collection of chapters focusing on trench culture and soldiers' downtime on the front lines. Cook doesn't spend much time on these discussions of shell shock, trench discipline and soldiers' superstitions, which have been covered far more extensively in other writing on the Great War. But they provide a welcome interlude between the battles of the first and second half of 1917, which are harder going and the book would be a struggle if its entire 648 pages consisted in them.
Shock Troops' length and lack of linguistic sparkle make it a sometimes tough ride, but its importance lies in the quality of the research, and the detail in which Cook's two-volume work lays out the years that arguably established Canada as a nation.
Click "Play" above to listen to an audio segment from a hearing of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage from earlier this afternoon. It's committee member Charlie Angus asking the Minister of Canadian Heritage, James Moore, whether he would consider opening CBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 for advertising when the CBC's licence renewal comes up soon.
The answer is, well, not too heartening, although it's not definitive either way. Earlier today we Twittered about this idea, based on a tip from a friend of the magazine who was listening to the proceedings. The Minister says that yes, he would consider such a move — "I would frankly consider anything," he says — but no, it's not on the radar right now — "It has not been discussed...it's not something I'm looking at doing."
Crisis averted? We'll see. Will update if anything further rolls in today.
The details of a UK detainee's torture at Gitmo still under wraps. Binyam Mohamed's case has recently brought pressure on the Obama Administration to clean up more of Bush's legacy. This past Wednesday it was made clear by a British High Court that secret information concerning the details of Binyam Mohamed's torture should be kept behind closed doors, at least for now. Under the Bush Administration, the US threatened to "break intelligence cooperation" with the UK if the details were made public.
Writes the Boston Globe, "While President Obama has promised a new era of transparency and vowed to end torture, there has been no move to disclose information previously hidden during the Bush administration."
Scott Horton asks the Harper's blog, No Comment, whether the Bush Administration concealed these kinds of details because of national security concerns or out of "concern that the disclosures would fuel further demands for a U.S. criminal investigation of their own conduct, followed by their possible indictment and trial."
Although charges were dropped against Mohamed in 2004, he is still awaiting release from Guantanamo. Since his capture in 2003, Mohamed has been subject to torture and moved through prisons in Morocco and Afghanistan as well as Guantanamo.
I'm not sure what happened. We waited for days then weeks, but the invitations never arrived. Yes, that's right, none of us in the office of This were invited to TED2009.
If you haven't heard of TED, don't despair. The annual invitation-only event brings the best and brightest in Technology, Entertainment and Design together to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes or less). The goal is to foster and spread great ideas. Why? Consider this:
* An idea can be created out of nothing except an inspired imagination.
* An idea weighs nothing.
* It can be transferred across the world at the speed of light for virtually zero cost.
* And yet an idea, when received by a prepared mind, can have extraordinary impact.
* It can reshape that mind's view of the world.
* It can dramatically alter the behavior of the mind's owner.
* It can cause the mind to pass on the idea to others.
Fortunately for those of us not quite brilliant enough (yet) to get the coveted TED invite, many of the talks are posted online. For a taste, check out the video above of a talk on spaghetti sauce given by fellow Canadian Malcolm Gladwell at a past TED conference. Or better yet, head to their website and check out the talks for yourself!
[Editor's note: To mark the announcement of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction on Monday, we'll be running reviews of the three nominated finalists, contributed by guest bloggers. This is the first of three; look for the other two next week.]
BY JORDAN HEATH-RAWLINGS
Like the best of historical narratives, Ana Siljak's Angel of Vengeance paints a vivid picture of pre-revolutionary Russia, while staying close enough to her characters to assure that it never veers towards textbook territory.
After beginning with an account of a fateful day during the winter of 1878 when a young noblewoman named Vera Zasulich calmly strode into the office of the governor of St. Petersburg, drew a pistol from her clothes and shot General Fedor Trepov, Siljak then pulls back her lens to offer a look at a country bubbling with unspoken anger.
Siljak's descriptions of life in the hierarchies of Russian nobility and poverty are as fascinating as they are depressing. The reader can almost see the hues of grey and brown that would be the cinematographer's best friends should Angel of Vengeance ever capture the imagination of a film studio.
And it should — not because it would allow for those depressing colours — but becuse Zasulich is a complex heroine who conducts herself with a quiet dignity that makes her failed assassination attempt and her subsequent trial (featuring a colourful lawyer who more than makes up for the more reserved nature of his client) that much more fascinating to behold.
Despite a revolutionary zeal, Zasulich doesn't come across as a grandstanding character, and Siljak — a professor of history at Queen's University in Kingston — simply presents her life, and the subtle differences between Zasulich's life and that of the average Russian noblewoman, and lets her actions speak for themselves, the same way her subject did 130 years ago in a cramped governor's office.
It's not difficult to find a solidly researched book about what life was like in a given place and time. What Siljak has captured here, though, is different. Her prose crackles with a life not often found in stories like these and her snapshot of a country quietly priming itself for upheaval fosters the sort of urgency in readers that is not often achieved in tomes that chronicle stories more than a century old.
It's easy to understand, by the time you're halfway through the book, why Zasulich became a martyr to the people of both her country and much of Europe, and an early face of revolution in Tsarist Russia. Siljak's chronicle of Zasulich's rise from ordinary noblewoman to the first female face of the revolution and subject of authors such as Dostoyevsky (who also attended her trial) is a fascinating examination of how, exactly, those smaller matches that start tremendous fires are sparked.
"Sometimes men like women, and sometimes men like men. And then there are bisexuals but some say they're just kidding themselves."
A line from one of Phoebe's famously quirky songs in Friends, this actually doesn't strike far from the mark in terms of how bisexuality is viewed both inside and outside of queer communities.
People like to joke that bisexuals have the best of both worlds. In actual fact, the reverse is often true. They face the same prejudices in their same-sex relationships (along with their own particular set of challenges, because they have to deal with folks who don't understand why they can't just ignore their "gay" side). At the same time, they do without widespread support from other queer people, who scorn bisexuals for their easy access to heterosexual privilege (or, to put it another way: bisexuals get to turn out for Gay Pride and then go and date someone they can hold hands with in public without being stared at).
Two weeks ago I talked about the shortage of lesbian characters on television. When it comes to bisexual characters though, the situation is even more grim. In fact, the only character who comes readily to mind is Alice from The L Word, who has so far dated only one male (who identified as a lesbian man, to much ridicule from just about everybody else on the show) in the show's six-season history.
We do see the odd character who dates men and women, but the switch is always presented as a dramatic changing of sides. Case in point: Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who declares herself to be "gay now" once she falls for Tara — a state of affairs that leaves mysterious her obvious love for and attraction to Oz, the boy-werewolf she dated for two years.
And then there's the episode of Sex & The City where Carrie dates Sean the bisexual. Miranda takes the opportunity to point out that all the bisexuals she knew in college, male or female, ended up with guys, and concludes that she just doesn't "buy" it. Later, Sean introduces Carrie to his friends, all of whom have dated or hooked up with one another, implying that all bisexuals are terribly modern and sexually indiscriminate.
The show's gay characters, by contrast, are portrayed as uniformly conservative and traditional, as anxious to settle down and buy property in the Hamptons as the straight couples.
What is most interesting about all this is that the scant data we have suggests bisexuals are proportionately vastly under-represented. The 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey, the largest survey of its kind to include a direct question about sexual orientation, reported that 1% of Canadians identify as gay or lesbian, and only slightly fewer (0.7%) as bisexual. Interestingly though, among women there are actually more bisexuals than lesbians (0.9% compared to 0.7%).
Maybe part of the reason bisexuals get overlooked is that they are rendered invisible as soon as they start dating, because as soon as it turns serious they're perceived to have "picked a side." Try marrying or settling down with someone of the opposite sex and holding onto your bisexual identity in the eyes of everyone you know. It sure didn't work for Ani DiFranco, whose queer street-cred has never fully recovered from her marriage to Andrew Gilchrist.
Ultimately though, the issue comes down to good old-fashioned prejudice. There wouldn't be the same pressure to "pick a side" if bisexuality was recognized in its own right, rather than as a stop between more legitimate stations.
Cate Simpson is a freelance journalist and the web editor for Shameless magazine. She lives in Toronto.
When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time at public rallies and protests. Back then I really believed that if I raised a little hell the world would become a better place. I travelled all around North America, mobilizing other youth and standing up for what I believed was right and true. I've been shot at close range by rubber bullets (painful) pepper sprayed until my skin started to rot (very painful) and hit by flying canisters of tear gas (extremely painful). I don't go to protests any more, not only because they've proved to be physically painful experiences, but also because I view them as contextually ineffective. Naomi Wolf agrees. She argues that protests always work when they raise the stakes, but that today's protests can't due to the "Disney-fication" of political dissent. Check out her nine minute clip above to learn more about what she views as the end of democracy as we know it. Is the end of true political dissent and discourse upon us?
On January 29th, we have a crew meeting on the Sea Shepherd ship, the M/Y Steve Irwin, and the officers notify us that they believe we are close to the fleet. The final battle in southern ocean whaling could be near. After five years of anti-whaling campaigns in the Antarctic waters, three confrontations this year with whalers, it could finally all end. The Sea Shepherds' goal has been to stop the "mother ship" of the Japanese whaling fleet which would disable the entire fleet from operating. We now believe we are closing in on our target.
But as we near to the possible end of this whale war, news comes in that the war in the southern ocean could end through other means — and the whaling fleet could emerge as the victor. Information leaks that there have been secret meetings by six members of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), including the United States, Australia and Japan. The purpose of the meetings are to settle the issue of the legality the fleet's whaling activities and bring Japan back into the fold of international law.
If the present talks are realized, there would be a deal struck where Japan would be allowed to commercially kill whales, both coastally in Japan and in the North Pacific. Right now, Japan is attempting to catch 935 Minke whales and 50 Fin whales in the southern oceans. But this new possible deal would allow the Japanese whaling fleet to catch at a higher level than their present quota. The deal would mean that Japan would phase out their hunt in the Antarctic waters over the next five years by twenty percent per year.
It's a strange deal, because the fleet has been catching less than its stated quota for two years already. They have only been reaching 50 – 60 per cent of their quota, and that is already the cause of global protest. The IWC's moratorium on commercial whaling, established in 1986, has not been lifted. So allowing commercial hunting by Japan in this new deal would make the 1986 ban effectively moot. Such a deal would also then recognize that the so-called "research" hunt that Japan claims to have been running over the last eight years as a commercial one, with no repercussions.
Which leads to the question: why is environmental law established if it can just be turned upside down when it becomes inconvenient for one country? How is it that there is no enforcement or repercussion towards those that kill whales illegally? Why is it that the real eco-terrorists here, the whalers, are potentially going to be given carte-blanche to continue their activities?
So the southern ocean battle for the whales may end soon — just not in the way the Sea Shepherd activists had hoped for. Will this war ever end? It seemed earlier this year as if it might, but now, perhaps not, if this deal goes through. Regardless, Sea Shepherd will continue their fight for the whales, just as they have for 30 years. They will continue in the North Pacific and in the waters of Japan if they have to.
But when we've come so close to winning this war for the whales, it's hard to swallow for me that things have only come full circle, instead of to a sensible conclusion. My parents, co-founders of Greenpeace, began the fight for the whales in the North Pacific by targeting Russian and Japanese whalers. We believed we'd won the war in 1986 with the IWC ban, but it simply began again under the guise of "research" by Japan. The 21st-century activists believed we were close to finishing this war for good. But it could just be the beginning of another chapter.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
The center for Environmental Systems Research at the University of Kassel, Germany, just released a comprehensive mapping system outlining areas that may experience high levels of water shortage stress in the next seven or so decades. These suggestions about projected per-capita water availability follow on the heels of a wealth of new books on the subject over the last few years including Water: The fate of our most precious resource (2003) by Marq De Villiers; Maude Barlow's Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (2007); and Vandana Shiva's Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (2002).
These expectations are based on projections about future temperature and rainfall changes; economic and societal changes; and population growth. Projections of this kind by their nature can never claim unerring accuracy, but the implications remain grim and suggest a need for more awareness about the future of this resource worldwide.
Looking for an alternative to carbon offsets to save the climate and go green? Well look no further, the smart grid has arrived.
Actually, it hasn't arrived. And it probably won't arrive for a very long time, although President Barack Obama recently encouraged congress to pass a bill that could see the beginning of the smart grid in as few as three years. But for now, it remains an ideal vision for a far off future.
The smart grid is an electrical grid that uses digital technology to distribute and allocate electricity directly from producers to consumers, based on demand and efficiency. Studies estimate that updating the current U.S. electrical grid to make it only five percent more efficient would be the equivalent of removing 53 million cars from the roads. The United States Energy Department estimates that an updated power grid could result in savings between 43 and 117 billion dollars over the next 20 years, saving that would make even a Republican weak in the knees.
So what's the hold up? Surely it can't be cost. The first and only smart grid, currently located in Italy, was produced and executed at a cost of 2.1 billion dollars, but currently delivers savings of 500 million annually. Moreover, the technology used in smart grids has been in play for years, primarily in the manufacturing and telecommunications sector. It seems the only element holding the smart grid back is regulation.
Many of today's utility companies are reluctant to take a leap of faith and invest in the digitization of the power grid without substantial government incentive. Last Tuesday's Clean Energy Venture Summit in Austin, Texas, saw many of the energy industries leading executives calling for immediate action. "We're sitting on an aged, old infrastructure while emerging countries like India and China are moving to the next generation of networks and generation sources," said Brad Gammons, vice president, IBM global energy and utilities industry group. And in this case, that means subsidies.
The smart grid isn't perfect. Implementation will require nation-wide cooperation. But I like the smart grid. It's the best solution to the energy crisis I've seen in a long time, certainly better than the practice of carbon offsetting, which simply redistributes CO2 emissions instead of actually reducing them. We live in a digital age - why shouldn't our electrical grid be digital too?
Journal of Aesthetics and Protest #6: in three sections (2008) Christina Ulke, Robby Herbst, and Marc Herbst, editors.
Part one (or two)
I've been lugging around the most recent, brick-heavy publication of the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest put together in LA. It has been worthwhile company for long streetcar rides. This book is divided into three portions, and I think I might offer a three-fold blog entry on the book instead of trying to gulp it all down and comment in one go.
As I said in my first blog post ever, the Journal is one of my favorite places to come and get thick ideas about activism and then come back and think about them. It offers a creative space for resistance thinking. I originally came upon the journal when I was writing a piece for Geez magazine about Neil Harrison's art. They self-describe as a "weirdo thinktank" but come across as a sincere but kind of tortured struggle for creative collaboration and resistance in a country that has been until recently crippled under the weight of fear and empire (a contentious label, i realize) and the frustration of embarrassment from a destructive leader. From the looks of it, this issue was less painful to produce than the first full-length book.
The book is also available online for free, so anyone can read it too and feel free to create a conversation.
Like a kid in front of the cake at their own birthday party, I'd like to take a chunk out of the middle to start: The Antiwar Survey, an attempt by the editors to give a picture of the cultural expressions of anti-war sentiment in California. The editors describe the journal as three books in one, so for fun let's start with number two.
By way of an introduction, Robby Herbst describes what the Antiwar Survey section aims to do. He says that the anti-war sentiment in the States since 2003 can't exactly be described as a movement. The anti-war struggle had and has pushed past being an activist thing to being the opinion of the majority of Americans, and certainly much of the rest of the world.
Much like many of the activists I've chatted with, Herbst agrees in his introduction to this section that the anti-war movement in the States is not so much a "movement" with leaders but a splintering of committed individuals and individual nodules of effort, spontaneous, creative eruptions against perceived injustice. Herbst concludes that maybe it was/is not so much a movement but a culture.
The Survey
The Antiwar survey simply documents the results of a survey that was sent out to groups in California. Each group answered the where and why of their anti-war action, and included what they learned from it, how they measured success, and what it would take for them to do it again. The actions include everything from pottery, postermaking, and dance to more traditional forms of "direct action."
What I found striking about the survey is the question that asks "Are you connected to any other organization?" The number of respondants that said no is equally as moving as those who listed a host of other connections. It's amazing to think of so many groups and lone individual artists needing to express their rejection of the unjust war, even if they did it alone.
Some of the projects included Hillary Mushkin's "Far from War" video project where the artist interviewed folks about what their neighbourhood might look like if it was at war. The video was initially displayed in a barber shop in Eagle Rock, CA for a month. Other projects included improvised postering campaigns; "holding up" business at a Wells Fargo bank by keeping the lines jammed with volunteers; and a still dance collective that staged resistance theater in public space.
Another artist, Ehren Tool, made "war awareness art," printing war imagery onto tea cups. Tool has distributed over 7,000 cups and sees it as a way to sneak war awareness literally into people's hands and homes. It's a way for the art to linger with them.
Another moving part of the survey is the way that artists and activists (also a contentious term) responded to the questions "What was the outcome of this activity?" and "How did you measure success?" Equally poignant was the answer of those who felt their action had made a significant difference, and those who answered "I don't know." Bringing these creative actions together in one volume gives them a place and a context within the broader anti-war culture.
The first thing we did when we set out to redesign This Magazine was get together all of our staff to talk about what we wanted at the end of the whole process. The magazine has been around for a while, after all, and you don't survive in the magazine business unless you're doing something right. We wanted to identify that secret sauce that's kept people reading and subscribing, to make sure that the things people love about This didn't get thrown out in the flurry of activity to follow.
We all felt kind of goofy about it, but we sat around and drew up a list of adjectives that we felt applied to the magazine — and another list of terms we'd like to add with the refresh. I won't post the whole list here, but here's a telling selection:
Keywords that we felt This Magazine already embodied:
Keywords that we want to add with the redesign:
serious
smart
progressive
contrarian
curious
national
skeptical
fearless
lefty rag
middle-aged
alternative
poor [financially! -- ed.]
hip
visionary
prescient
attractive
investigative
provocative
idea-generator
web-savvy
rich
sexy
It's an interesting pair of lists. Now, you and I may disagree on which of these adjectives actually apply to the new incarnation of the magazine, and its previous iterations, but you can see a general trend here. I should note that the crowd around the table was a youngish one (just like most people working in the magazine industry) but that we had quite a range of ages, backgrounds, talents, and professions represented. The feeling generally seemed to be that the magazine does a lot of things right: it's a home for serious, long-form reportage; it has a clear and stated progressive perspective without being pigeonholed; it values its independence and aims to speak truth to power; it loves discovering new things, especially new talent.
But oh, we take ourselves awfully seriously sometimes. Often, that's the right attitude: when you're taking on issues of social justice, poverty, racism, governmental negligence, environmental degradation, violence, and the other kinds of issues we care about, a certain seriousness is necessary. But other times, especially in the realm of politics, you'd better laugh — because otherwise you'd cry. Overall, there was a strong appetite for lightening our touch sometimes, to make the magazine a pleasure to read, and not a slog through a 48-page mire of despair. Does that mean we're going to be flippant or frivolous? Not for a minute. But we pledge to cheer up a bit: after all, progressive politics is about changing the world for the better, and that's worth smiling about.
Mostly the feeling around the table at that first meeting was that we wanted the magazine's existing strengths to be amplified by its design, not be swamped by it. We're going full colour, of course, and that's a big step for us after decades of mostly black, white, and grey. But frankly, colour will only serve to get us up to par with nearly every other publication on the newsstand. We believe what the magazine says is still the most important thing, and the design choices we've made are intended to reinforce the contributions from our writers, illustrators, and photographers. It's what's on the inside that counts, but that doesn't mean we don't want a nice outside too.
Early on in the great 1941 Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan's Travels, the earnest director, John Sullivan, explains how he wants his movie to deliver important social messages, while his producer pushes for crass commercial appeal:
Sullivan: I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity — a true canvas of the suffering of humanity. Producer: But with a little sex. Sullivan: With a little sex in it.
We want to be a serious document of the dignity and suffering and struggle of humanity — but we also want our magazine to be read by lots and lots of people. That calls for a dash more sex appeal, which is what we hope our new design brings.
This will be a delicate balancing act, so as always, tell us what you think by emailing me at editor@thismagazine.ca.
In the next blog post I'll be talking about some of the other magazines we looked at for inspiration as we embarked on the redesign. Look for it here later this week.
Via the excellent Canadian law blog Slaw comes this hilarious/appalling story of the ineptitude of so-called security officials, especially when it comes to treating everyone with a camera as if they were a potential terrorist.
A recent example is where a photographer was detained and arrested for taking photos of an Amtrak train. His reason? He was taking photos to enter an Amtrak photo contest that called for people to take and enter photos of Amtrak trains.
On Saturday night in any major city the world over, it's not uncommon to see long line ups outside local kebab restaurants. With a belly full of beer, urbanites head bleary eyed to the nearest falafel shop in search of delicious ethnic cuisine. This practice is more than a tradition - it's an institution, with kebab houses the world over staying open into the wee-morning hours.
But now the citizens of Italy can kiss their late night shwarma goodbye. In a move many are calling "gastronomic racism," the right wing Italian government has moved to ban all ethnic foods in urban centers. Proponent of the campaign claim they brought forth the restrictions "to protect local specialties from the growing popularity of ethnic cuisines".
Critics are citing the recent move as an alarming attempt at "culinary ethnic cleansing". Top Italian chef Vittorio Castellani is concerned that the ban on ethnic food could harm Italian cuisine, instead of help it. "There is no dish on Earth that does not come from mixing techniques, products and tastes from cultures that have met and mingled over time."
It is well documented that many of the foods Italians enjoy today were first imported from foreign lands. It is believed that tomatoes were originally a gift from Peru in the 18th century, whereas Spaghetti was probably brought back from China by Marco Polo.
Still, the government maintains that cracking down on foreign food is the only way to preserve Italian culture and cuisine. Luca Zaia, the Minister of Agriculture and a member of the ruling right-wing Northern League believes that the new measures will safe guard tradition. Asked if he had ever eaten a kebab, Mr Zaia said: "No - and I defy anyone to prove the contrary. I prefer the dishes of my native Veneto. I even refuse to eat pineapple."
Refuse to eat pineapple? Now THAT'S culinary dedication....
As I rushed to Union Station on Friday to join the throngs of commuters brushing by each other to get a seat on the gotrain, thousands of Sri Lankan protesters were just ending off their successful protest in downtown Toronto. The crowd hoped to draw attention to what is being called the genocide in Sri Lanka. Peaceful protests drew thousands in other cities worldwide as urbanites in London, Australia, and Paris also witnessed human chains that reached several kilometers long and hunger strikes, all in efforts to help bring an end to the violence.
PHOTO: CITYNEWS.CA
The demonstrations were a public outcry, and protesters are asking governments to help end the military offensive against Tamil civilians in the north of Sri Lanka. Both the CBC and the BBC mistakenly reported that the protest was to end violence against the Tamil Tigers, much to the discouragement of protestors. The protests brought Sri Lanka to the media for the second time in 2009, following the death of Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickramatunga, editor-in-chief of The Sunday Leader, which occurred last month.
Democracy now reports that over 250,000 civilians are caught in the middle of this conflict. Reports of attacks on hospitals have also come to the forefront of the news. The Red Cross describes the situation as a humanitarian crisis. In part Friday's protesters at Union Station hoped to draw commuter and travellers' attention to the Tamil cause. The protests certainly grabbed headlines, but we'll have to wait and see what kind of intervention comes of the peaceful demonstrations.
Earlier today the Obama camp revealed a new plan to increase funding to the highway and transport sector in the U.S. as part of a national economic recovery plan. The details are still under debate in the senate, but at present $25 billion has been set aside for infrastructure projects, namely building new roads.
This all smacks of hypocrisy to me. Obama has long been lauded as a new "green" president. There has been speculation that he may refuse oil and gas products from Canada due to the "dirty" nature of our extraction practices. He recently created a "green task force," lead by vice president Joe Biden, and charged with the task of creating green jobs for middle class Americans that pay well and can't be outsourced. Yes, Obama is green. Or at least he's green on paper.
While a $25 billion dollar road construction project will create jobs, those jobs will only be temporary. On the other hand, the long term costs such a project would have on conservation efforts within the U.S. will last several generations. Roads expose wildlife to human encroachment. They barricade animals and divide up roaming territories. They contribute to emissions of harmful greenhouse gases. And while infrastructure is certainly a critical component to nation building, arguably the U.S. already has more than enough roads.
If you read ThisAbility #8: Condo Conundrum, you'll know that I recently moved into a one bedroom condo. Since my former place was a one room bachelor apartment, it was time to fill my condo with some furniture. I wanted a one-stop shop, so I went to everyone's favorite Swedish furniture self-serve community,IKEA, and suddenly my place was a little more unboring. Like Edward Norton's apartment in Fight Club, my rooms started to match the catalogue. I now had the GAlANT desk, the RAMVIK coffee table and the HOPEN dresser and night table set. All in, it was $1,191.21, which is shipping, handling, delivery and furniture pieces. The price wasn't too bad, but they forgot to mention what my friend calls, "The Disability Tax."
To an able-bodied person, having the option of getting your furniture built, through an IKEA referral to an outside contractor, is a nice, optional perk for shopping there. For a disabled person, getting their furniture built is not an option -- it's a necessity. With all the parts and pieces of varying weight, you just can't physically get it done any other way, and you have no other option. Obviously, these IKEA furniture building companies are not charities and they charge for their services, but, as a disabled person, you're not paying for a privilege, your paying for a need. IKEA furniture only comes out of the store one way, so why should I have to pay to compensate for circumstances I can do nothing about? If I didn't have a disability, I wouldn't have to pay this disability tax that comes just because I need functional furniture.
I understand that people should be paid for the labour it takes to build furniture. IKEA should pay them, not me. IKEA chooses to provide their furniture in disassembled form and they want the business of seniors and disabled people. As far as I'm concerned, offering free assembly to those who can't build it themselves is nothing but the cost of doing business. This could also be a marketing opportunity for them. They could offer free assembly to anyone who buys furniture over a certain dollar amount.
The phenomenon of The Disability Tax isn't just limited to corporations like IKEA. The government is notorious for giving with one hand, and taking with the other. I'm currently in the throws of getting a new scooter through funding provided by the Ontario Adaptive Devices Program. In order to qualify for funding, you have to be assessed as a true disabled person by a regestered physio therapist. This is a requirement that can't be avoided.
So, when on the way to do the assessment yesterday, the physio said, "Oh by the way, I hope someone told you, but my normal fee is $125," I almost dropped the phone. Once again, someone was profiting from my disability. If I didn't have a disability, I wouldn't need a scooter. If there weren't barriers to employment because of my disability, I could probably afford to get a scooter without funding. In that case, I wouldn't need the physio, who wouldn't get my hard earned $125.
Thinking about the cycle that way, shows that there's an entire industry built around my circumstances: physios, O.T.'s, doctors and cleaning ladies could all salivating at the earning potential my disability provides them. It could make you crazy just thinking about it.
Requiring people to buy other services in order to benefit from funding, means your just taking advantage of their desperation. Those who provide the funding and require proof of disability, should pay the physio therapist they require to do the assessment. It's not like filling out forms is labour intensive, all the physio really needs to pay for is gas and postage. Other than those expenses, she's getting her expertise from a degree she has already earned. Filling out forms is not even a physio's primary job description. She's only exploiting a need, and in my case, leveling her fee at the last possible moment, when it's too late.
"Whoever invented the term, 'let the buyer beware' was probably bleeding from the asshole."-- George Carlin
Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.
Sitting on green grass with my back resting on a tree, I pat the earth and look out at the calm world on a sunny day. The Sea Shepherd campaign I had been documenting for over a month, a campaign to save whales in the Antarctic waters, returned to land in mid-January to restock and refuel for a second trip to the southern ocean. Finding myself in Hobart, Australia, I took a break from the ship and crew I had lived with for the past 40 days at sea. But I was restless. After weeks on the heaving ocean, the land seemed calm — too calm. I think to myself: are people on land not aware of the war that has been raging south of them? The war for whales, the war for the fragile Antarctic ecosystem? Or were we on the ship too consumed by it, believing we had already won?
The reality is we have not yet won or lost. Despite the successes the Sea Shepherds had achieved in their whale-saving operations over the previous 40 days, the Japanese whaling fleet continues to operate, whales are still being harpooned, and the Sea Shepherds have not yet found their main target, the "mother ship" of the whaling fleet. However, there are real signs that this could be the year that southern ocean whaling is shut down.
"I'm very excited about this year, I believe this campaign could be the one that sets the course for shutting down the Japanese whaling fleet," says first mate Peter Hammerstedt, as he readies the ship for the second leg to the Antarctic ocean.
On the Sea Shepherds' first trip the southern ocean, they confronted the whalers three times: twice with harpoon ships and once with a spotter vessel. Confrontations included a ramming, rancid butter cans thrown on the whalers' decks, and intimidation by circling whaling vessels. Ultimately they put the hunters on the run for over three weeks with their radical tactics.
"Every day the whalers are on the run means another day they cannot kill whales. This not only saves lives but costs the fleet as they only have so many days out here to make their catch. Losing economically could mean the end of this industry," says Hammerstedt.
Limiting the whalers' quota is one goal of the Sea Shepherds. The other is to put the whaling vessels themselves out of commission. Both goals appeared to have been achieved as news came through that the Yushin Maru No. 2 (a harpoon ship) had propeller damage after a confrontation with the Sea Shepherd on December 20th. Having no choice, the harpoon ship had to stop at the closest port to be repaired, in Surabaya Harbour, Indonesia. It left the whaling fleet with one less "killing ship" while the Yushin Maru seeks repairs.
News of another set-back to the fleet surfaced with weather readings forecasting a "red" storm in the southern ocean while while we were docked in Australia. A red storm means 50-knot winds, 15 metre swells, hail and poor visibility — all swamping the area the whaling fleet was operating in. The storm would make whaling impossible. So while the Sea Shepherds themselves had to abandon the battleground temporarily, it appeared the forces of nature took over for them.
"The whalers are having a bad year. We found them within their first week of whaling, chased them, cost them and now they are in a violent storm unable to whale. Soon the storms will rest and we will be back there to stop them," says Hammerstedt.
On January 21, the Sea Shepherd crew began their second trek down south to confront their main target: the Nissin Maru. This is the mother ship that processes the whales and without this ship, the rest of the whaling fleet cannot operate. Their goal, to end southern ocean whaling, could very well be realized in the next month.
Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors and a documentary on illegal whaling in Antarctica.
The March-April 2009 issue arrived at the office yesterday and will be in stores next week; subscribers will also receive it very soon. This will be my last entry on the redesign for now, although we'll continue tweaking details and refining the look as we go. There will also be some exciting news about our website in the next little while — but our pending online redesign is a story for another day.
Aaron is a freelance journalist living in Toronto. His work has appeared in Financial Post Business, Investment Executive Newspaper, and TV Week Magazine, along with Askmen.com. He is a regular contributor to Abilities Magazine and is currently plotting a weekly web comic called GIMP, with artist Jon Duguay, about a handicap school bus driver who wakes up after a crash to find he's the last able-bodied person on earth — and he's being hunted.
If you're looking for some unconventional reading material this week, 
BY MITU SENGUPTA
And then there's 
On January 29th, we have a crew meeting on the Sea Shepherd ship, the M/Y Steve Irwin, and the officers notify us that they believe we are close to the fleet. The final battle in southern ocean whaling could be near. After five years of anti-whaling campaigns in the Antarctic waters, three confrontations this year with whalers, it could finally all end. The Sea Shepherds' goal has been to stop the "mother ship" of the Japanese whaling fleet which would disable the entire fleet from operating. We now believe we are closing in on our target.
