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This picture of two McDonald's hamburgers is making the rounds of the blogosphere, but it's germane given Margaret Webb's story in the current issue. She visited an organic, family-owned bison farm in Saskatchewan that has been driven out of business by shortsighted government policies. The Legault family, along with their herd of organic grass-fed bison, is out of the food business now — while McDonald's thrives selling hideous frankenfoods like these two burgers.

The hamburger on the right was purchased recently by Karen Hanrahan, an Illinois-based ~~nutritionist~~ "wellness consultant" and educator. She says the burger on the left was purchased in 1996, clocking in at 12 years old and counting. She uses both as props in her classes. There is something seriously wrong when real farmers growing real food are being driven out of business while robot food like this flies off the shelf.

[first spotted at BoingBoing]

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March 13, 2007

the culture of catastrophe

Posted by john_d at 11:31 AM ET | Comments (0)

(image courtesy Rocks on Fire)

Heading for a bar on Queen Street two nights ago, my friend and I caught sight of a streaking ball of flame flashing across the southwest sky. Lots of shouting and pointing later, we settled on the idea that we had just seen a meteorite of some kind. Very cool. I'd seen one before in the early nineties... strangely, heading in the same direction across the same section of sky. That one had a bluish edge, while this one was yellowy orange.

Yesterday I checked the news for any reports, but found nothing. Today there is this in the Toronto Star.

Glad to have it explained. But this article raises another question. Read this bit:

"Oh my God, I think I just saw a plane crash," she declared to her husband, running inside.

A ball of light, seething white, had careened overhead, spitting out dazzling debris. She called police, the government, airport authorities. Seeing his wife so frantic, Russell Crowther imagined worse.

"I thought it was a nuclear warhead," he recalls. "I was just squinting, waiting for us to evaporate."

Great age we live in, when a beautiful natural display is immediately interpreted as the the end of the world. And I'm not saying these folks were wrong to think what they thought. After all, it was their over-reaction that made a story about pretty basic science something far sexier. But have we really advanced so little in our comfort with existence that we are still waiting for the hand of god to reach down and smite us?

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February 16, 2007

Colonizing Africa, one clitoris at a time

Posted by Ariel Troster at 07:08 PM ET | Comments (0)

The Raelians are in the news again. This time it's because the alien-worshipping tribe is selling their $2.95 million compound in the Eastern Townships. Apparently their expansion plans include the U.S., so they're packing up and leaving behind a prime piece of property, including a spaceship-shaped condo complex, and a replica of the UFO that Rael says he encountered while hiking along a volcano in France in the 1970s.

They were last in the news in 2002, after claiming to have cloned a baby, which never actually materialized. I remember attending the gay pride parade in Montreal in the mid-90s, and the Raelians put on quite a show, trying to attract us queers to their compound. Their float included a 6-foot naked woman mounted on a cross. And I remember one of their recruiters trying to convince me that human cloning was a viable option for gays who want to be parents.

Now, they are following in the footsteps of the celebrities who have been setting up vanity charities in Africa based on fringe/trendy religions. But instead of adopting African children, they have chosen to sponsor a specific body part, with the launch of their new Clitoraid campaign, which aims to build a "pleasure hospital" in Burkina Faso to perform genital reconstruction on women who have been circumcised.

Now, those sponsor-a-child programs are bad enough with their saccharine portrayals of bloated children -- but this is too much to take. I mean, really, would you want this guy to have anything to do with your tender parts? It's so ICKY. White man (with strange top knot on his head) has arrived, and he will restore sexual pleasure ... I wonder, will they perform surgeries in their spaceship?

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December 12, 2006

keep an eye on that coffin

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

From The Guardian online:

Thousands of mourners queued for hours yesterday to pay their last respects to the former Chilean General, Augusto Pinochet, who died of a heart attack on Sunday.

Pinochet, who ruled Chile as military dictator from 1973-1990, was placed in an open coffin, wearing a blue Chilean army uniform and surrounded by a military honour guard as a stream of admirers slowly passed by, some weeping.

The government refuses to give him a state funeral, there are riots in the streets of the capital celebrating his death, it's accepted history that his rule was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Chilean citizens, he could not travel widely in his later years for fear of international prosecution, and still there are thousands of mourners.

I smell a broadway musical.

Pino! Pino! Pino!

oh, better... Gusto! Gusto! Gusto!

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November 21, 2006

say what you want, God's got some moves

Posted by john_d at 10:19 AM ET | Comments (14)

Almost lost in the media parade recently was this fascinating debate that Time Magazine arranged on the nagging minor question of the existence of God. They put preeminent Darwinist Richard Dawkins (author of the bestselling The God Delusion) together in their board room with preeminent geneticist (and devout Christian) Francis Collins. Collins is responsible for a little thing called the Human Genome project. You may have heard of it. Very scientific stuff.

Time, never shy about using Christ as a cover model, can reasonably be expected to sit in God's corner at such a cage match, but to their credit they play this debate with remarkable fairness, asking simple questions to get things started and then letting each man define their own positions with their own words.

I think both men are brilliant scientific minds, but judging by the transcript of their discussion (clearly edited, for what that's worth), Collins has it all over Dawkins in the philosophy department. I'm kind of shocked by the really rather simple-minded argumentation from Dawkins, which begins with an attempt to link the concept of religious faith with the scientifically fallacious belief in intelligent design -- as though he forgets that he was asked to debate a fellow scientist, not the Pope, or George Bush.

Why both dudes insist on calling God "he" is an interesting side question.

Here's a sample:

COLLINS: By being outside of nature, God is also outside of space and time. Hence, at the moment of the creation of the universe, God could also have activated evolution, with full knowledge of how it would turn out, perhaps even including our having this conversation. The idea that he could both foresee the future and also give us spirit and free will to carry out our own desires becomes entirely acceptable.

DAWKINS: I think that's a tremendous cop-out. If God wanted to create life and create humans, it would be slightly odd that he should choose the extraordinarily roundabout way of waiting for 10 billion years before life got started and then waiting for another 4 billion years until you got human beings capable of worshipping and sinning and all the other things religious people are interested in.

So, God can't exist because the evidence we have of creation suggests that God takes way too much time to do things, within our concept of time?

If this were a chess match, Dawkins would already be running his king.

On the topic of fundamentalist approaches to the Christian Bible, we get this:

DAWKINS: ... It would be unseemly for me to enter in except to suggest that [Francis Collins would] save himself an awful lot of trouble if he just simply ceased to give [fundamentalists] the time of day. Why bother with these clowns?

COLLINS: Richard, I think we don't do a service to dialogue between science and faith to characterize sincere people by calling them names. That inspires an even more dug-in position. Atheists sometimes come across as a bit arrogant in this regard, and characterizing faith as something only an idiot would attach themselves to is not likely to help your case.

...annnnnd checkmate.

If, as I suspect, Dawkins' real motive in writing his book and advancing his views is to force organized religion to take responsibility for its horrifying dogmatism and the very real damage it has caused in the world of humans, he fails utterly.

What a waste.

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October 31, 2006

Don't worry, we're doomed

Posted by mason at 11:29 AM ET | Comments (3)

Two bits of pretty scary news in the past two days:

1. World hunger ‘intolerable,’ with scant progress in decade: UN

2. Slumping Flames fall to Capitals. Er, no. Scratch that. Global warming will devastate economy: report

Not that any of us are necessarily that surprised, but the news hardly comes as a welcome reminder. I’ve often been pretty amazed at the collective optimism (ignorance?) of entire populations when things are at their worst, with no hope in sight. It’s bad enough to have to hear about it from afar, but with something as awful as abject hunger one question is never asked, let alone answered: Why aren’t more people worried? Can ignorance really be to blame when you hear warning after warning about how much trouble pollution is getting us in?

In North America there is nothing even approaching urgency toward fixing the problem of global warming. In the past, naysayers have been unwilling to sacrifice jobs and the economy to save the planet in some distant future. Now it looks like we’ll lose both. Stuff like this makes me want to banish any thought of procreating—why bring a child into a place like this?

Not that I’m writing my suicide note—I’m too inspired by the communities around me that actually care about social change—but sometimes it makes me wonder why more people aren’t giving up.

More entries on: Human rights | Planet Earth | Signs of the Apocalypse

October 27, 2006

Grunge Pays. Who Knew?

Posted by Lisa at 02:34 PM ET | Comments (3)

So Forbes just released it's annual list of the top earning dead celebrities (surely you've been craving such a list for a while now). The top spot went to Kurt Cobain. Fifty million dollars. Wow. He'll surely be on the list again next year since his sober (ahem, cough, cough) widow sold 1/4 of the Nirvana song catalogue to Primary Wave, a company that will place the band's songs in television shows and commercials. Could be a bit of a challenge for a song like "Rape Me," but I have faith that if anyone can find a way to make it happen Primary Wave can. For those worried the band will be selling out (something they were always so scared they were doing), the company's CEO is quoted as saying,

"You will never see Kurt Cobain's music in a fast-food hamburger advertisement -- that won't ever happen. We're looking at things that relate to cutting-edge technologies, products that are green and eco-friendly, products that Kurt would have liked to have his music represented by."

Right. Coming soon to an episode of The Gilmore Girls, "Smells like Teen Spirit." It's the perfect background music for those touching mother and daughter moments.

Here's the list
1. Kurt Cobain ($50M)
2. Elvis Presley ($42M)
3. Charles M. Schulz ($35M)
4. John Lennon ($24M)
5. Albert Einstein ($20M)
6. Andy Warhol ($19M)
7. Dr. Seuss ($10M)
8. Ray Charles ($10M)
9. Marilyn Monroe ($8M)
10. Johnny Cash ($8M)
11. J.R.R Tolkien ($7M)
12. George Harrison ($7M)
13. Bob Marley ($7M)

More entries on: Cultural industries | Ear candy | Signs of the Apocalypse

September 13, 2006

Britney births second son, raises average Spears-Federline household IQ by 27%

Posted by calvin at 10:17 AM ET | Comments (1)

From the presses of the Globe and Mail article "Britney's done it again" where the journalist kindly removed the word "Oops".

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September 01, 2006

welcome to my double espresso -- the film festival approacheth

Posted by john_d at 03:30 PM ET | Comments (2)

Spotted in the Lettieri at Queen and Spadina in Toronto early this afternoon -- Alice Cooper. Looking... very much in need of coffee.

Outside on a nearby bistro, as though performing an homage, a young starlet in training tried to place her Paris Hiltonesque chihuahua on the patio railing, it fell off as soon as she turned her head and dangled, by the neck, from its leash. Passersby alerted the, um, distracted young lady to her pet's dilemma.

Silly season begins in the temporary centre of the film world.

I believe the dog was looking for the easy way out.

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August 17, 2006

Snakes on a -- whaaaaa?

Posted by mason at 09:47 AM ET | Comments (6)

9:40 a.m. The phone rings. Not being an early riser, I’m lying in bed listening to CBC Radio. I pick up and say, “Hello.” Naturally, it’s Samuel L. Jackson. He’s calling to tell me I might remember him from a few films, but that he really, really wants me to go see his new movie (which might be the “best movie ever made! It’s that good,” he growls). That movie? Snakes on a Plane, of course. But wait, it gets weirder. Much weirder. Sam implores me to stop doing certain things, like listening to my crazy music and playing with that ratty beard(!), call up my girlfriend (he calls her Michael, but he’s close), hop on my greasy bike (hey, it’s not greasy!) and go see his movie. “Do as I say, and you live,” he warns. I can’t get a word in edgewise.

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August 10, 2006

the banality of gone-wildness

Posted by john_d at 11:20 AM ET | Comments (1)

Brave, chilling journalism from Claire Hoffman in the LA Times Magazine last weekend. She spends a day with Joe Francis, founder of the third-wave feminism challenging Girls Gone Wild video porn empire. The eternal fratboy, Francis' ability to talk barely 18 year old girls into lifting their shirts for the camera has made him super-rich and, apparently, tragically unacquainted with any reality I understand.

Here's an understatement. There's a lot going on with sexuality these days. Liberating? Absolutely. Dumb taboo busting? Sure. Certainly that day almost thirty years ago when my buddy and I stole a Playboy seems just beautifully quaint by comparison to some of the stuff in this article:

Francis has aimed his cameras at a generation whose notions of privacy and sexuality are different from any other. Nursed on MySpace profiles and reality television, many young people today are comfortable with being perpetually photographed and having those images posted on the Internet for anyone to see. The boundaries that once contained sexuality have also fallen away. Whether it's 13-year-olds watching a Britney Spears video, 16-year-olds getting their pubic hair waxed to emulate porn stars or 17-year-olds viewing videos of celebrities performing the most intimate acts, youth culture is soaked in sexuality.

Nothing new here. Until:

It seems like Francis spends a lot of money on lawyers. I guess that comes with the territory of filming strangers who take off their clothes. More than a dozen women have sued him, alleging that his company used images of them exposing their bodies on "Girls Gone Wild" videos, box covers and infomercials without their permission. Only a few have convinced the courts that they were unwitting victims. For the most part, judges and juries have sided with Francis' 1st Amendment argument that the plaintiffs' images were captured in public places and that the company was free to use them as it pleased, particularly in light of the fact that the women had signed waivers.

And here's one for all of us who learned our feminism in the 80's:

...teenagers, like the ones in this club, see cameras as validation. "Most guys want to have sex with me and maybe I could meet one new guy, but if I get filmed everyone could see me," Bultema says. "If you do this, you might get noticed by somebody - to be an actress or a model."

I ask her why she wants to get noticed. "You want people to say, 'Hey, I saw you.' Everybody wants to be famous in some way. Getting famous will get me anything I want. If I walk into somebody's house and said, 'Give me this,' I could have it."

It gets worse.

Read the story. Take a shower.

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July 19, 2006

Remember this story for when he runs for office...

Posted by mason at 12:48 AM ET | Comments (16)

Funny, why haven't we seen this article about John Bolton saying there is no moral equivalent between Lebanese civilian deaths and terrorism victims published anywhere but the independent media?

More entries on: Bushfraud | Human rights | Media navel-gazing | Signs of the Apocalypse | War and peace

July 11, 2006

an evolutionary meander

Posted by john_d at 03:00 PM ET | Comments (2)

Perusing Andrew Potter's blog can be such a fruitful exercise sometimes.

This post from yesterday sent me off to the online Asia Times to read about New York Times writer Nicholas Wade's book Before the Dawn, which, according to the Times "charts the recently compiled genetic evidence for the evolution and history of our species" and, more to Potter's point I think, also offers a critique of popular views of primitivism.

Which reminded me of the article I read in the Times Literary Supplement while camping this past weekend at Presqu'ile Provincial Park in Lake Ontario. I'd link you directly to the article but even though I'm a subscriber I have yet to scale the TLS' byzantine online subscriber wall. Anyway, the TLS was rather joyously celebrating the 30th anniversary edition of The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, the book that legendarily explained evoluton to a generation (the one slightly older than me). My generation learned most of what we know about evolution from Richard Dawson (pictured above), host of the Family Feud and former charming POW on Hogan's Heroes.

Then, of course, I had to check out more on the Wade book, which brought me word of this critique of evolutionary theory -- Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of Evolution by Australian philosopher David Stove, of whom I had not heard, so I looked 'im up on wikipedia, which brought me this gem:

Stove's attack on Darwinism was not as radical as it appeared - he accepted evolution was true of all living things, and said he had no objection to natural selection being true of more primitive organisms. What he wanted to attack was the distorted view of human beings put about by some Ultra-Darwinists. For example, W. D. Hamilton, the Oxford biologist and (Richard Dawkins' mentor) famously said that no-one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers, a claim for which Stove thought was false, or at the very least, unverified.

Which reminded me of how happy I sometimes am to be both out of university and not living in a rural Kansas school district.

So you see, Andrew Potter makes me smarter and happier. He's, like, an agent of my own personal evolution.

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June 19, 2006

Vancouver UnReal Estate prices

Posted by calvin at 11:02 AM ET | Comments (1)

I was just in Vancouver the past week and happened to take a tour de-ville with a real estate friend of mine. She happened to inform me on the various prices of average homes and condominiums. Is it possible that tag team of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics combine with cottage industry grow-ops are inflating the Vancouver real estate market? The thought of it is totally bustin my trip.

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Listed in

THIS MAGAZINE. BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL

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

THIS MAGAZINE: BECAUSE EVERTHING IS POLITICAL

February 18, 2009

Strategies for the coming apocalypse

September 26, 2008

Decade-old McDonald's burger is an insult to food and farmers

March 13, 2007

the culture of catastrophe

February 16, 2007

Colonizing Africa, one clitoris at a time

December 12, 2006

keep an eye on that coffin

November 21, 2006

say what you want, God's got some moves

October 31, 2006

Don't worry, we're doomed

October 27, 2006

Grunge Pays. Who Knew?

September 13, 2006

Britney births second son, raises average Spears-Federline household IQ by 27%

September 01, 2006

welcome to my double espresso -- the film festival approacheth

August 17, 2006

Snakes on a -- whaaaaa?

August 10, 2006

the banality of gone-wildness

July 19, 2006

Remember this story for when he runs for office...

July 11, 2006

an evolutionary meander

June 19, 2006

Vancouver UnReal Estate prices