Writings, Reviews, Cultural Criticism
Michael Geist reports that PM Stephen Harper has resolved a dispute between Industry Minister, Tony Clement, and Heritage Minister, James Moore, by siding with Moore and opting for DMCA-style copyright legislation. This would bring us more in line with American policy notwithstanding the fact that copyright consultations last summer suggested that popular opinion favoured something less stringent.
A warm and blustery wind from the southhas caught me full on my mouthand turned to red and black and bluea cheek that once shone white for you. I wanted a single room apart,but you demanded all my heart.What you asked I gave for free,withholding nothing, me to thee. On flat stomach and virgin monsran…
This blog does not provide services to women who wear certain head coverings. If you are a female Viking, your browser will no longer work properly and you will be redirected to more suitable web addresses. Here are the reasons: 1. I am a white dude and it’s my god-given right to treat with suspicion…
In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul offers another account as to why we find it so difficult to engage one another without recourse to polarizing habits. In brief: Canada has inherited from both France and England a colonial perspective. In fact, Canada is doubly colonized when one considers Trudeau’s statement that living in Canada is like sleeping beside an elephant; in subtle ways, we have been culturally and economically subjugated by the U.S.
MP Gerry Byrne thinks that throwing a pie at a public servant falls within the definition of terrorism. This brilliant suggestion came after Fisheries Minister, Gail Shea, got a cream pie full in the face while speechifying in Burlington, ON on Jan. 25th.
Why have our conversations become so polarized? Think of the news this year. Think of how the stories have lined up depending upon the source.
Barack Obama is our latest Nobel Laureate. The world (or at least that part of the world that thinks the Nobel prize has more credibility than the medal the Wizard pins on the cowardly lion’s chest) is abuzz with the news. Opinions vary.
Yesterday I went to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit which the ROM has mounted with the cooperation of the Israel Antiquities Authority and which will continue until January 3rd, 2010. As an educational experience, it’s first-rate, top-drawer stuff, the perfect follow-up to last year’s Darwin exhibit. But then again, being the perverse person that I am, I don’t think I got out of the exhibit quite what the exhibitors intended.
In its military “defensive” against Gaza, Israel’s chief weapon is spin. Like shells that soften the ground before the troops move in, Israel started lobbing little media bombs to soften up international opinion. Like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, Israel has its National Information Directorate.
I had promised myself I wouldn’t write a “morning after” commentary, but I’ve grown tired of the grandiose electioneering rhetoric and of the even more grandiose claims of the election commentators. I can’t help but burst the bubble: Obama will fail.
With federal elections running both north and south of the 49th parallel, it’s interesting to note differences in these two democratic processes. And never have the differences been so stark.
Today, we hear from the Toronto area that a new idea is being floated. With a provincial election coming in October, Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty, is seriously considering the proposal that we rename the 172 kilometre stretch of Highway 401 from Trenton to Toronto. We should call it Highway of Heroes.
Yesterday my daughter graduated from junior high school. There were the usual presentations and the usual boring speeches from grown–ups. The customary shtick—you are our future—you are our hope—utterly forgettable. And then the Honourable Kathleen Wynn, MPP spoke.
In my previous post I touched on a question of propriety in writing: is it acceptable for an author of fiction to allow her work to be influenced by politics? In this post I want to turn the question on its head and ask: is it acceptable for an author of politics to allow her work to be influenced by fiction?
In his book about the emergence of Islam as a global presence, Ali A. Mazrui opens with a question that is apt to raise eyebrows. He begins with the Toynbean theory of challenge and response—in the case of the Roman empire, it failed to find creative responses to the challenge of emergent Christianity.