redjenny

Food Politics and American Elections

2011-11-14T13:47:00.003-05:00

I find it fascinating how often American election campaigning features the cultural politics of food. Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said in an interview with GQ out Monday that one can tell how "manly" a man is by looking at how many toppings he puts on his pizza. He also said a pizza covered in vegetables is a "sissy pizza." "The more toppings a man has on his pizza, I believe

On Innovation and Capitalism

2011-08-23T18:25:00.001-04:00

So in theory the profit motive drives innovation. Too many taxes, it is said, diminishes innovation. (Never mind that entrepreneurship - particularly among women - benefits from a strong safety net.) The government is supposedly inefficient and, having no incentive, incapable of innovation; this is a common justification for the drive to privatization. Because of private enterprise and the

DIY, Homesteading, Radical Housewifery/Homemaking

2011-07-19T09:47:00.000-04:00

Though I haven't read the book yet, the lifestyle described in Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming domesticity from a consumer culture by Shannon Hayes is kind of seductive. I've flirted with these ideas a bit. Screw the rat race and 70 hour work weeks (all in the attempt to make partner, or get an elusive tenure-track position or not get fired). Instead focus on a slower pace of life, gardening,

Of Plastic Bags and Things

2011-06-15T20:51:00.002-04:00

As described in this article, Rwanda is one of several places in the world that has banned plastic bags. Kigali, the capital of Rwanda is a beautiful and clean African city (I was highly impressed when I visited last year). This is due in part to the plastic bag ban. Rwanda is not alone; apparently 25% of the world either restricts or bans the bags. And people still manage to carry things!

How useful am I?

2011-05-10T11:26:00.001-04:00

As an academic, I question my usefulness. Society will always need carpenters (or plumbers or tailors or nurses or farmers). Their benefit is pretty clear and obvious. Will it always need historians? How important is my obscure research that might only be read by a handful of other obscure historians? Am I a producer or a parasite? I think it is a normal to want to be a productive member of

Hello blog, I have missed you

2011-05-05T10:57:00.004-04:00

I think I feel like blogging again. My last post was about a year and a half ago. What have I been doing in that time? I have been working on my PhD in history. I found I was too busy, and had too little energy for writing. Also my eyes hurt. I just passed my comprehensive exams. To give you a sense of the scope, this involved reading 200 books over the last year, and then being examined on them

This must be a joke... please tell me this is a joke

2009-12-03T23:36:00.000-05:00

Nature's laws of shopping: Men hunt, women gatherUniversity of Michigan psychologist Daniel Kruger has found that how we shop has an awful lot to do with how we once found our food. Men hunt. Women gather. Conjugal chaos ensues.[...]As a scientist, he refused to do the sensible thing – shrug his shoulders. He wanted to know the reason. He combed over studies of aboriginal tribes and did a battery

Ending Africa's Hunger... by funding Monsanto?

2009-09-13T20:13:00.002-04:00

More than a billion people eat fewer than 1,900 calories per day. The majority of them work in agriculture, about 60 percent are women or girls, and most are in rural Africa and Asia. Ending their hunger is one of the few unimpeachably noble tasks left to humanity, and we live in a rare time when there is the knowledge and political will to do so. The question is, how? Conventional wisdom

Mass Murder of Women

2009-08-09T09:31:00.003-04:00

Bob Herbert: Women at Risk"I actually look good. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me," wrote George Sodini in a blog that he kept while preparing for this week's shooting in a Pennsylvania gym in which he killed three women, wounded nine others and then killed himself.We've seen this tragic ritual so often that it has the feel of a formula. A

Blame CUPE

2009-07-22T17:12:00.001-04:00

Are you tired of blaming fate, the vagaries of nature, or God for your misfortunes? Try blaming CUPE. It's fun and easy.Here's an example, provided by the Toronto Sun. CUPE killed summer. That's right. Summer is dead, and CUPE perpetrated the murder. Try it yourself. Car won't start? Blame CUPE. Weather too cold? Blame CUPE. Miss the bus? Stub your toe? Spill your coffee? You know who to blame.

Solidarity with City Workers

2009-06-24T15:09:00.005-04:00

In my inbox today:OCAP STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH TORONTO CITY WORKERS The members of CUPE 416 and 79 who work for the City of Torontoare now on strike. The business media has begun its inevitable campaign ofmisinformation to produce the greatest possible backlash against theseworkers. We are encouraged to focus on uncollected garbage and suspendedservices but not, of course, to give any

Entitlement

2009-06-21T21:30:00.002-04:00

Puzzle me this: Why is it that the same people who bitch about workers sense of entitlement (you know, workers wanting decent treatment and wages) themselves feel entitled to free plastic bags? (It's true)I think its a marvelous success so far: Toronto's new 5 cent plastic bag law has reduced the use of plastic shopping bags by something like 75%.

First the Recession didn't exist...

2009-06-11T16:38:00.000-04:00

First the recession didn't even exist (No recession for Canada, er.. well maybe a "technical" one), and now the recession is going away.yep, ok, uh-huh, sure, I believe you StevieAfter all, your finance minister has such a good track record

It isn't surprising...

2009-05-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

... that 'Status Indians' face threat of extinction, since the Indian Act was implemented specifically for the purpose of eradicating indigenous peoples and culture. Indian Status was designed to reduce the Indian population, a neat solution to the "Indian Problem".Within a few generations, it was assumed, the Indian population would nearly disappear. This was ensured through the restrictive

ACTION ALERT: Keep Terminator Seed out of Canada

2009-05-09T15:55:00.003-04:00

Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko (NDP) has reintroduced his Private Members Bill (C-343) to ban the release, sale, importation and use of Terminator technology.What is Terminator? Terminator Technology genetically engineers plants to produce sterile seeds at harvest. It was developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government to prevent farmers from re-planting

The Power of Poetry

2009-04-30T10:52:00.001-04:00

A while back, I posted a poem written by Drew Dillinger. It begins:it's 3:23 in the morningand I'm awakebecause my great great grandchildrenwon't let me sleepmy great great grandchildrenask me in dreamswhat did you do while the planet was plundered?what did you do when the earth was unraveling? Words have power. And these are powerful words.I am not the only one who think so. Recently a

The media have finally discovered homelessness. Not surprisingly, they get the story wrong

2009-04-21T10:14:00.001-04:00

One of the fundamental human requirements is shelter. How do homeless people survive? Where do they sleep? On friends and family's couches and floors (if they are lucky), at shelters, in churches, in parks, on sidewalk grates, in abandoned buildings, in doorways, under bridges, in cars, or wherever else they can. And of course, they sleep in tents. The burgeoning tent cities in the U.S. have

Early Farmers in the Americas - Farming because they wanted to, not because they had to

2009-04-16T21:25:00.001-04:00

This is an interesting article, especially for me, with my interest in indigenous precolumbian agriculture in the Americas.Three thousand eight hundred years ago, long before U.S. plains rippled with vast rows of corn, Native Americans planted farms with hardy "pioneer" crops, according to new evidence of the first farming in eastern North America.Because the area appears to have been well

If Janitors Were Like CEOs - Comic

2009-04-06T11:13:00.000-04:00

haha! I wanna be a janitor. By Matt Bors

Sometimes not knowing is better

2009-03-31T22:58:00.000-04:00

At least when you're talking about these. I am convinced we are seeing end times when slapping peanut butter on bread is too much work for us.And I thought Bagelfuls, precooked eggs and Lunchables were bad.

Impatient for Spring

2009-03-24T11:35:00.002-04:00

March 2, 2009 - Impatient for spring and inspired by Mother Earth News, I planted three kinds of lettuce (obtained at Seedy Saturday). Green oak, red deer tongue, and mystery lettuce (from the seed exchange).March 21, 2009 - Off to a respectable start:The first to germinate was the mystery lettuce, followed by the oak leaf. Red deer tongue still hasn't germinated. Bad seeds? Wrong germination

Canada's Banks: Accidentally not in Crisis Yet

2009-03-17T23:27:00.000-04:00

Hahahaha!From Rick MercerThe National Post agrees:Canadian banks – saved from stomping around as monoliths on a world stage backed by Canadian taxpayers -- are the least ugly in what can only be called a reverse beauty contest among banks.You know how we used to laugh at the guy who keeps all his cash in a big old sock, or the woman who has all her savings under her mattress? Well, the

Post-Civilization

2009-03-13T20:54:00.002-04:00

Post-Civ! A brief philosophical and political introduction to the concept of post-civilization is an interesting read. Post-civilized thought is based on three simple premises:1 – This civilization is, from its foundation, unsustainable. It probably cannot be salvaged, and, what’s more, it would be undesirable to do so.2 – It is neither possible, nor desirable, to return to a pre-civilized state

'Tent cities' of homeless on the rise across the US

2009-03-10T11:09:00.002-04:00

Homeless encampments dubbed "tent cities" are springing up across the US, partly in response to soaring numbers of home repossessions, the credit crunch and rising unemployment, according to a report. Homelessness, car camps and tent cities are certainly not new, but they are growing rapidly. In Reno, Nevada, the state with the nation's highest repossessions rate, a tent city recently sprung up

Great Depression Cooking with Clara

2009-03-05T17:19:00.005-05:00

Celebrity cooking is HOT and, lately, so is the Great Depression. 93 year old Clara reminisces about the Depression while showcasing cheap, nourishing food. I love this online cooking show. Maybe it's because I'm a big fan of history, food, frugality, and stories. Here she makes "Poorman's meal" which is potatoes with hotdogs (her grandkids love it, she says). Clara, peeling potatoes, explains

Sharing Work and Food - Imagine That

2009-02-28T09:59:00.001-05:00

Here's an article by Wayne Roberts of the Toronto Food Policy Council, quoted in full because I don't know how to link to it on Facebook. SHARING WORK AND FOOD CREATES AN UPSIDE TO THE ECONOMIC DOWNBY Wayne RobertsUnlike most people, Thomas Homer-Dixon doesn't think today's world economic crisis is very complicated. He thinks it's very complex, which makes for a world of difference in

BBC's The Big Read top 100 books

2009-02-27T15:40:00.000-05:00

A friend passed this on. She says the BBC believes the average person will only have read 6 books from this list. At least 6 of these I had to read for school. It is definitely a British list but there are several important books on it.1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings X3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4 Harry Potter series5 To Kill a Mockingbird – X6 The Bible - X (though

Worst Headline Ever

2009-02-21T19:41:00.002-05:00

If there were an annual worst headline award, The Sun would probably win pretty much every year. Today's paper screamed "'Enormous' fraud at City Hall"It makes it sound as though the city council or mayor has been caught doing something corrupt or fraudulent. Reading the article, one finds out there were 9 civil servants (working in social services) who are accused of insurance scams with

Call for Submissions to Briarpatch

2009-02-18T13:58:00.001-05:00

I like this magazine and it seems they are looking for submissions for their upcoming edition "How I learned to stop destroying the planet and love the global recession"What if the economic recession we're presently experiencingis not just a regrettable temporary setback in the never-endingmarch of growth-fuelled prosperity, but the beginning of apainful but ecologically necessary process of

Gender, Jobs, Recession... and bad math

2009-02-10T12:36:00.003-05:00

Usually the Toronto Star has pretty decent writing, but this was one of the poorest pieces I've seen in a while. There are some good points made, but the headline ("In shrinking workforce, women may surpass men") is misleading, and the writing jumps around without leading to any reasonable conclusion.Perhaps this is nitpicky, but there is some sloppy math here. The article claims "there's a

The Art of Don Simon

2009-02-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

Don Simon, The Herd 2This is from a series called Unnaturalism, which he describes:Throughout history, particularly since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, mankind has been less than kind to our cohabitants on the planet. We build, produce, and consume with little or no regard to the impact it has on the environment. It is the nature of nature to adapt and evolve in order to survive,

Controversial Bestseller Shakes the Foundation of the Israeli State

2009-01-29T11:10:00.002-05:00

This interesting article reviews some of the main points in When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?, a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand (or Sand)What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same "children of Israel" described in the Old Testament?And what if most modern Israelis aren't

WW2 Cooking Lessons

2009-01-27T11:17:00.000-05:00

Via Treehugger: Invisible cricket balls, thrifty grandmothers, and unbelievably spoiled and lazy young boys – there’s nothing like a bit of 1940s nostalgia to get you in the sustainability mood. “Two Cooks and a Cabbage” is a war time public information film from the UK’s Ministry of Food, and it's just one of the lessons we can learn from our grandparents.Lessons learned: Shred the cabbage, add

Back from Blogging Hiatus...

2009-01-26T10:54:00.005-05:00

I know it has been a long time since I last blogged.... In that time, apparently the world didn't pause itself to wait for me. In Canada the word "prorogue" suddenly entered everyone's vocabumalary. Obama is in the White House, a historic and relatively positive development (since even if his politics are pretty centrist, he looks damn progressive next to the Bush & Co). The oscillating denial

Visual Hybridity

2008-10-26T20:45:00.003-04:00

Apparently not everyone gets or agrees with the social construction of race. There are still people who are shocked when they find out that there's no biological basis for our racial categories whatsoever. These interesting photographs illustrate how we construct the race of people of blended heritage. All via Sociological Images. First, the image on the right is of little Barack Obama with his

Anti-Capitalist, Anti-statist Goals and Strategies

2008-10-19T13:10:00.003-04:00

It should be quite obvious, but apparently it’s not, that we can’t devise an anarchist revolutionary strategy until we have a clear idea of what it is we’re trying to achieve.Regrettably, there has been a vigorous ban on thinking about the future society we want[...]This lack of attention to the goal is a tragedy, because although it’s true that we live in potentially calamitous times, what with

The Illusion of Independence - A Rambleogue

2008-10-12T18:14:00.004-04:00

More than ever I am convinced that Marx (and others, including many feminist thinkers) have been right when they remind us that humans are quintessentially social. We require community, in the most robust sense of the word, and human nature can only be understood relationally. Indeed, without living in community, can we even truly be called human?Thrown out alone in the wilderness, the human

Liveblogging Debates

2008-10-02T21:21:00.008-04:00

Yeah, I'm getting in on the action too...So far, so good - nice pacing. Checking the jobs stat that Harper threw out...What's with Harper's blue lasers-for-eyes? Creepy the way he looks at his opponents while they talk.I'm tired of Stevie lying about the Green Shift. I hope Canadians DO go and read it, as Harper recommended, so they can see it is revenue-freaking-neutral. I'm not even a Liberal

Blame the Poor (and the minorities, and social justice movements) for the Financial Crisis

2008-10-02T10:22:00.002-04:00

Did you know the current financial crisis is the fault of poor (which means lazy and immoral) Americans and brown and black people. Not only them, but evil socialist Carter and Clinton and probably Obama, too. ... whaaaa?Have you noticed recently everywhere you look, someone is blaming visible minorities and the poor (or organizations and governments that support them)? New talking point starting

Canadians far more progressive than politicians think

2008-09-29T13:34:00.000-04:00

Stephen Harper says Canadians have become more conservative in the past 20 years but he provides very little evidence of this.In fact, even facing the weakest and most ineffective Liberal party in a generation, he cannot persuade more than 40 per cent of Canadians to say they will vote Conservative. In fact, all kinds of polls and in-depth studies of Canadian values suggest just the opposite:

Economic Crisis?

2008-09-15T21:09:00.001-04:00

For decades we've watched passively as poor people and people of color have lost jobs, and faced a weakened net of social protection in the U.S. as the conservatives seemed to convince the American majority that the marketplace was fair, and that hence people who were not doing well had no one to blame but themselves. It was wrong to over-tax rich people, we were told, because they had taken the

Drawing Away the Pain - US Election Edition

2008-09-10T10:17:00.001-04:00

At least this crazy election gives the cartoonists lots of good material to work with. Tom Toles From Cagle CartoonsFrom Boiling Point Blog From Matt Bors' Idiot BoxFrom BendibI think you get the point.

Misspelled Signs at the RNC

2008-09-07T23:23:00.001-04:00

Did anyone else notice the number of signs at the recent Republican convention that had words misspelled? This one from English failblog:Got any more?Of course, speeeling correctly is elitist...

History Lesson: Mugabe and Zimbabwe

2008-09-06T10:31:00.001-04:00

This is from a review of Dinner with Mugabe by Heidi Holland, which I haven't read but which looks pretty interesting. It also happens to be a pretty good historical summary of Mugabe's Zimbabwe.In 1957, Ghana became the first European colony in Africa south of the Sahara to gain its political independence. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s new prime minister, invited young Africans from countries still

A Pox on the Age of Digital Media!

2008-09-01T20:27:00.002-04:00

Damn digital camcorders and youtube! Damn independent media! How can we run a good old fashioned repressive regime when you are constantly reporting the truth?...........................................A little tip: if you are going to make a ridiculous arrest of someone at a protest, you might want to make sure that the person is not a reporter for one of the biggest independent media outlets in

Blinky's got competition

2008-08-19T18:25:00.001-04:00

No longer can Blinky claim to be the most famous mutant fish. At least not in Alberta.Mutated fish alarms delegates at northern Alberta water gatheringDays before a conference on water quality began in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., last week, residents say a strange fish with two mouths was found at the nearby lake.The deformed fish, which residents say children had caught off the dock at Lake Athabasca

Pray At The Pump movement brings down our gas prices

2008-08-17T09:15:00.002-04:00

Praise be to Market Forces Rocky Twyman and his homedude, God. The Pray at the Pump movement, previously blogged about here, is taking credit for the recent drop in oil prices.I'm not making this up.[Twymans's] first pilgrimage to the pump was prompted by fellow volunteers at the First Seventh Day Adventist Church in Petworth, a working-class neighbourhood of the US capital, who were struggling

If Orwell Were a Blogger

2008-08-09T21:15:00.004-04:00

Today I saw the first post of the Orwell Diaries (in which he catches a snake). Originally written August 9, 1938, now published in blog format. Keep an eye on the blog, as each of his entries is published exactly 70 years later. The idea is to get an impression of the man behind the words. What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be

The Inside and Outside of Bodies and Transgression of Boundaries

2008-08-08T17:55:00.002-04:00

I'm reading a really interesting book right now by Robyn Longhurst, called Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries. She is attempting to embody geography, to bring material bodies into academic discourse, and she makes some very interesting points. So I thought I would like to share a few cool quotes.First, on "managerial bodies in public space", she writes:I argue, first, that highly tailored,

Conserving Racism: The Greening of Hate at Home and Abroad

2008-08-03T16:19:00.004-04:00

This is a very interesting piece:Conserving Racism: The Greening of Hate at Home and AbroadBy Betsy HartmannThe greening of hate - blaming environmental degradation on poor populations of color - is once again on the rise, both in the U.S. and overseas. In the U.S., its illogic runs like this: immigrants are the main cause of overpopulation, and overpopulation in turn causes urban sprawl, the

NYPD Officer Assaults Cyclist during Critical Mass

2008-08-02T09:16:00.003-04:00

This is nuts. But wait, it gets worse. Initially the cylist was arrested and charged with assaulting a police officer. The police officer said in an affidavit that the cyclist deliberately ran into him (though you can clearly see the cyclist trying to go around him). The cyclist was held in custody for 26 hours.At least the cop's father is proud of him: "These people are taking over the streets

Why Critical History in a Postcolonial World? Part 3

2008-08-01T14:14:00.003-04:00

Continued from Parts 1 and 2This is exactly why history as critical practice is so crucial. Without a relationship to the past (historicity) we assume things like culture are natural, immutable. Something which is the product of history is naturalized as the eternal human condition and then used to justify oppressive practices, as if it is in the nature of people of colour, women, and non-Western

Why Critical History in a Postcolonial World? Part 2

2008-07-31T21:34:00.002-04:00

Continued from Part 1... In order to effect comparisons and determine positions in a hierarchy, differences must be made commensurate, usually by the application of a universal category. If by definition universal (Encarta: "applicable to all situations or purposes") means there is nothing outside the universal, how do universals deal with difference? Partha Chatterjee shows that under

Why Critical History in a Postcolonial World? Part 1

2008-07-27T19:18:00.003-04:00

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post.Let nothing be called natural In an age of bloody confusion, Ordered disorder, planned caprice, And dehumanized humanity, lest all things Be held unalterable! Bertolt Brecht The past has passed, meaning it is no more. By definition not present, it no longer exists. So why bother attending to it? Whether we attend to it or not, we cannot escape the past,

Why I Study History

2008-07-26T21:29:00.003-04:00

When I was younger (19 or so) I had an.. um... let's just call it a mind-expanding experience. It became so clear to me all of a sudden just how far we as a society are from our roots, or from our foundations. I mean this in a pretty concrete way. From a handful of extended family tribes living close to the earth, we built up these incredibly complex civilizations - technology, religion,

"War on Terror" turns into war on charities

2008-07-23T22:55:00.002-04:00

NGO "Blacklist" Unfair and Arbitrary, Groups SayAfter the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., Congress gave the government sweeping new powers to crack down on not-for-profit organisations that were using their charitable status as cover for funneling funds to terrorist groups. These powers include the authority to designate any charity as a material supporter of terrorism. This action

He Really is Quite Savage

2008-07-20T17:00:00.000-04:00

Who said this? [W]hy was there an asthma epidemic amongst minority children? Because I'll tell you why: The children got extra welfare if they were disabled, and they got extra help in school. It was a money racket. Everyone went in and was told [fake cough], "When the nurse looks at you, you go [fake cough], "I don't know, the dust got me." See, everyone had asthma from the minority

How Walkable is Your Neighbourhood?

2008-07-19T17:28:00.002-04:00

To answer that question, you could go outside and try walking around and see how well it goes, or for those who prefer the virtual to the physical, go to Walkscore.com and type in your address. Based on things like density and proximity to shops and services, the software will give a ranking. It works for the US, Canada and the UK.Of course, the really cool thing is seeing how walkable other

Zen Moments in the City

2008-07-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

This evening, eating ice cream outside near Mel Lastman square, there was a baby falcon sitting on a telephone wire. There were a couple of people taking photos, and one guy told us that this baby had just flown for the first time yesterday. The family of three live atop a highrise at Elmwood (on the small green roof that we could see from the ground). Apparently there are only 74 of these

Interested in becoming more self-sufficient

2008-07-14T11:20:00.002-04:00

but live in an apartment? or don't have time to make that commitment? How about trying self-sufficientish living?The idea behind self-sufficientish-ism is although many of us would love to live on a farm, grow all our own food, brew pea pod wine, live the 'Good-Life'. Not all of us have the means the space or are perhaps unwilling to give it all up and suffer the highs and lows of going it alone

Post #503

2008-07-11T09:55:00.001-04:00

This is my five-hundred-and-third post on this blog. I started it in early 2005. Boy I have a lotta crap to say!Nobody ever celebrates 503. Poor left out number. Let's have a toast to #503!

From Uprising to Movement: Five Ideas

2008-07-10T10:45:00.005-04:00

This is a pretty good, simple, article pointing out some of the problems and potentials with the left right now, and offering 5 important suggestions for change.1. "Think Global, Demand Local" - He suggests working with state/province and local powers for progressive change. (I think the local level has a lot of potential for progressive action, with all the fantastic grassroots community

Flat screen TVs really really bad for the environment

2008-07-09T11:33:00.006-04:00

...not to mention our brains...If you came and you found a strange man... teaching your kids to punch each other, or trying to sell them all kinds of products, you'd kick him right out of the house, but here you are; you come in and the TV is on, and you don't think twice about it. ~Jerome SingerThe rising demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the

The latest from our crazy world

2008-07-08T18:18:00.003-04:00

Did you know the "latest data and research" shows: * Liberals are more self-centered than conservatives.* Conservatives are more generous and charitable than liberals.* Liberals are more envious and less hardworking than conservatives.* Conservatives value truth more than liberals, and are less prone to cheating and lying.* Liberals are more angry than conservatives.* Conservatives are actually

They didn't even do a good job

2008-07-03T22:17:00.001-04:00

If you're going to Photoshop someone, so as to play on your witless viewers' prejudices, at least a) start with an original photo that isn't published anywhere, and b) hire a decent graphic artist so the picture looks halfway believable.Geez.Fox News airs altered photos of NY Times reportersDuring a segment in which Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times

Cycling Against the Occupation

2008-06-28T10:56:00.000-04:00

Photo of the day: Palestinian cyclists tour the West Bank city of Qalqilia in protest of the closure of that city. (Khaleel Reash, Maan Images). Via Institute for Middle East Understanding

Safety video for cycling in traffic

2008-06-26T10:13:00.001-04:00

I thought this was well done, demonstrating how to operate a bike as a vehicle, under all rules of the road. In particular, controlling the lane is demonstrated well here. This was a hard lesson for me to learn when I first started bike commuting as I didn't want to delay anyone or be "in the way". However, nearly getting doored when feeling pressured over to the right taught me a valuable lesson

What's New on the Green Scene?

2008-06-24T22:13:00.002-04:00

"We have reached a point of planetary emergency," says climatologist James Hansen. It seems the earth is near a tipping point. Busy doing the most tipping are the richest Canadians, the tar sands, and businesses.Imagine the whole human family squabbling about whose turn it is to scrub the atmosphere.So what is a regular Joe or Jane to do?Well, this summer, you could green your travel, or avoid

Jim Prentice lies about Digital Copyright on national radio, then hangs up

2008-06-19T18:44:00.005-04:00

Oh my, this would have been hilarious, if it wasn't real. CBC's Search Engine finally got an interview (10 minutes promised, 10 8 minutes delivered) to ask some questions about the digital copyright. Cory Doctorow from Boing Boing sums it up nicely:[Prentice] delivered nothing but spin and outright lies about his legislation and ended up hanging up on Jesse Brown, the interviewer.You have to

So What About Iraq?

2008-06-18T22:17:00.001-04:00

What with the subprime mortgage crisis, the Democratic primaries, and the spiking food and fuel prices it seems as though everyone has forgotten about Iraq. Here's an interesting post from Last of Iraqis, one of the few Iraqi bloggers still left in Baghdad:I have been asked by many westerner friends and readers so many times about the reality of the situation in Iraq and especially in Baghdad.

The Story of Stuff

2008-06-16T17:33:00.003-04:00

I realize this is a few months old, but for those of you who haven't seen it yet, The Story of Stuff is worth watching. It is a free 20 minute online video that connects the various aspects of all the stuff we consume, in a cute and simple way. Questions of environment, politics, social justice, health, and equity are raised. Although somewhat simplistic it is tightly presented, and I have to

Masculine, Feminine, or Human?

2008-06-12T19:38:00.001-04:00

Robert Jensen on categories of masculinity and femininity:In a guest lecture about masculinity to a college class, I ask the students to generate two lists that might help clarify the concept.For the first, I tell them to imagine themselves as parents whose 12-year-old son asks, "Mommy/daddy, what does it mean to be a man?" The list I write on the board as they respond is not hard to predict: To

The Intrepid Explorer Returns, plus links about The Apology

2008-06-12T10:38:00.003-04:00

As you may have noticed I have posted very little in the past few weeks. This is because I have been away exploring touristing the far reaches of the world Europe. Regular blog posting to resume shortly.The big story today is the federal government's apology for the residential schools, and of course the disgusting remarks of Pierre Poilievre. This has been well covered both in the mainstream

FEMA v BURMA

2008-06-06T05:50:00.002-04:00

Carfree Times issue #50 is up

2008-05-21T16:08:00.000-04:00

This month has some good stuff on offer. Aside from beautiful photographs of carfree places, you'll find interesting articles about carfree living like:Expensive Gas Drives Down Suburban Housing ValuesBuy a McMansion? Bad idea. But they are cheap. And probably getting cheaper. Housing prices are probably nowhere near their bottom. (There's a scary thought.) But some neighborhoods are holding

Howard Zinn on Anarchism

2008-05-19T11:18:00.001-04:00

Abridged from an interview with Ziga Vodovnik: Ziga Vodovnik: From the 1980s onwards we are witnessing the process of economic globalization getting stronger day after day. Many on the Left are now caught between a "dilemma" - either to work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital; or to strive towards a non-national

Too Many People?

2008-05-16T17:10:00.004-04:00

You know, I get really irritated when people talk about overpopulation. So does this guy. To me it seems like a way of shifting blame. It is about blaming people who live in the global south for environmental problems that were caused by exactly not them. I think a far more pressing need is to reduce our constant striving for unlimited economic growth and overconsumption. The places where

Thursday Thoughts

2008-05-15T10:13:00.001-04:00

From Torontoist: Tory MP Jason Kenney complained that Romeo Dallaire was overly harsh when Dallaire criticized the federal government's handling of the Omar Khadr case. Kenney is a former general who is credited with using meagre resources to save the lives of over 20,000 people during the Rwandan genocide in the face of massive indifference from the west…no, wait, sorry, that was Dallaire. Jason

An Open Letter to People Who Smoke While Driving

2008-05-12T20:38:00.002-04:00

Dear smoking drivers,When you are finished smoking your cigarette, please do not throw it out of your window. There may be a cyclist right in the trajectory of its burning ember.Sincerely,Your friendly nonsmoking cyclistp.s. You could also be a real pal and refrain from honking a cyclist out of her lane so that you can illegally pull over into said bike lane where you aren't supposed to be,

Love Food Hate Waste

2008-05-09T09:26:00.002-04:00

My new favourite site: Love Food Hate WasteAround a third of all the food we buy ends up being thrown away and most of this could have been eaten – it's not just peelings, cores and bones.90% of us just don't realise how much good food we throw out, yet in the UK we throw away 6.7 million tonnes of food each year.It's not just an issue of good food going to waste, or that this costs us as

Bigotry: it's not just for adults anymore

2008-05-08T10:59:00.004-04:00

New! "God Hates Fags" T-shirts, now in toddler sizes. You know what they say: if you want 'em to grow up without a shred of care or compassion for fellow human beings - start 'em early. If you want 'em to become hate-filled, rage-filled, closed-minded, we suggest you work on 'em while they're still malleable. Start with these tees, so the message burns itself into their soft, innocent hearts. Ah,

Howard Zinn makes me swoon - even when he's a cartoon character

2008-05-01T15:33:00.001-04:00

Seriously, he's my hero.Check out the cartoon version of Empire or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me about the American Empireby Howard ZinnNarrated by Viggo Mortensen

On Rising Food Prices

2008-04-23T12:49:00.002-04:00

Kissinger made a chilling 1970 comment that explains a lot about what's happening now - "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." Combine it with unchallengeable military power and you control everything, and Kissinger likely said that, too.Hugo Chavez is calling the food crisis a "

Internet Traffic "Shaping"

2008-04-02T09:39:00.000-04:00

Ma Bell, we really got the ill communication...CBC's the National does a segment on traffic shaping (a euphemism if I ever heard one)Take Actionhttp://stopthethrottler.caRead moreVia Campaign for Democratic Media

Earth Hour - Because We Hunger to be Part of Something Bigger than Ourselves

2008-03-28T09:29:00.004-04:00

Cynics love to attack popular campaigns, and that is exactly what is happening with Earth Hour."Won't Earth Hour be a failure if the entire city doesn't go dark?" a friend asked last week of the campaign to have residents and businesses in the Greater Toronto Area and around the world turn out their lights at 8 p.m. this Saturday for an hour to show support for action on climate change."Do you

The "Good Good War" Is A Bad War

2008-03-27T20:47:00.002-04:00

We, the women of Afghanistan, only became a cause in the west following 11 September 2001, when the Taliban suddenly became the official enemy of America. Yes, they persecuted women, but they were not unique, and we have resented the silence in the west over the atrocious nature of the western-backed warlords, who are no different. They rape and kidnap and terrorise, yet they hold seats in [Hamid

Random Thoughts on Race, Crime, and Human Resilience

2008-03-22T12:09:00.002-04:00

I'm currently working on a project on memory and South African exiles. I was reading Lewis Nkosi's Home and Exile and other Selections when I came across a passage that sat with me. It's in the essay "Apartheid: A Daily Exercise in the Absurd". After describing some of the odd, horrible and certainly absurd things that went on in Apartheid South Africa (like the court wrangling over such

The Stupifying World of Fox News

2008-03-21T11:08:00.004-04:00

So I was reading about the mainstream media's lack of coverage of Winter Soldier. In a way I was surprised, since the winter soldier testimonies were all over my feed reader, from Democracy Now to Common Dreams to The Real News. On the other hand, I guess it isn't so surprising after all.I thought I'd check Google News, and indeed, the only coverage of Winter Soldier was from the independents and

Half a Decade in Iraq

2008-03-19T13:24:00.001-04:00

A lot can happen in five years. In five years, a toddler will grow old enough for her first day of school. In five years, a schoolboy of eight will become a teenager.In five years, a proud country and its vibrant population has been reduced to a desolate killing field. Ellen Weinstein - Camouflage, 2007 Collage Lies, hundreds of them, that led up to the war in Iraq have been revealed. Five

Hurrican Katrina and American Diaspora

2008-03-13T19:19:00.001-04:00

Hurricane Katrina caused the biggest mass migration in U.S. history. More than than 1 million people were forced to evacuate. Although many people have been able to return home, many are still displaced. Thousands will not be able to return for years, both because the damage is so catastrophic and because so many were already living in poverty. Many experts are telling churches and other groups

The tragedy of having more money than you can spend

2008-03-11T22:40:00.004-04:00

People, the suffering has gone on too long. No more should our celebrities have to deal with the horror of having far too much money. They have run out of ways to spend it. Tons of time, energy, initiative, Swarovski crystals and other valuable resources are being used up trying to come up with the latest ridiculous, meaningless bling to ensure that our sad, pitiable celebrities don't have to

Alberta Oils Sands Land

2008-03-07T16:56:00.002-05:00

Did you hear about the hottest new vacation destination? It's Alberta Oil Sands Land, with a travel review by Thomas King:Personally, I was more interested in the Ralph Klein Earth Mover rides, but the lines were always much too long. In the end, I spent most of my time at the Waste Water Park, watching happy families relaxing and enjoying their tax dollars in action.But the best part of the

US Plotted To Overthrow Hamas After Election Victory

2008-03-05T09:58:00.006-05:00

In the Guardian UK:The Bush administration, caught out by the rise of Hamas, embarked on a secret project for the armed overthrow of the Islamist government in Gaza, it emerged yesterday.Vanity Fair reports in its April edition that President George Bush and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, signed off on a plan for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to remove the Hamas authorities

A Mormon Guide to Overcoming Masturbation, or How to avoid Self-Love

2008-03-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

Are you concerned about the tussle with your muscle? Fortunately, here's a Mormon guide to Overcoming Masturbation (although to be accurate, it should really be called undercoming). 1. Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal washing and using the bathroom.2. Avoid being alone as much as possible. Find good company and stay in this good company, especially when you are

Toronto: Homeless Man Frozen to Death

2008-03-01T08:07:00.004-05:00

Shelter is not an option. It is a matter of life and death, especially on long Canadian winter nights. OCAP: Wednesday night an Aboriginal man who was homeless was found frozen to death in a stairwell around Yonge and Charles St. Another man was found in Chinatown with serious injury from exposure.Just six days ago the City heard 12 deputations from agencies and community members about the

I Hate to say I Told You So...

2008-02-27T09:36:00.004-05:00

But I told you so. Or to be more accurate, everyone who cares more about people than profit told you so.From a post in 2005 about biofuels: Not only inefficient, but "a humanitarian and environmental disaster", says George Monbiot, presenting a chilling vision, in which "most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people." He reminds us that markets

One person, one body, one count

2008-02-25T19:59:00.005-05:00

Who has fought hardest to prevent violence against women, if not feminists? And it is advocates for women, like the beleaguered Status of Women Canada, who have been working to alert the public to the prevalence of violence against pregnant women.From the SWC publication, Assessing Violence Against Women: A Statistical Profile:Women are particularly vulnerable when they are pregnant and when they

Torture in 60s South Shows Error of Waterboarding

2008-02-23T09:46:00.006-05:00

Tom Gardner: When I read about the increasing acceptance of waterboarding as a form of torture, I vividly recall how in 1968 members of the Memphis Police Department believed I could tell them information about civil rights insurgents arriving to create havoc. Forty years later I still hide my serrated scars.I was 14 years old and forgot I was a black boy living in racist America and heading for

City Planet - Housekeeping the Bookmarks part 1

2008-02-22T11:05:00.005-05:00

I have a whole pile of fantastic links in my bookmarks that have been hanging out and going stale just waiting for some attention. I think it is time to share them. So, here is the first in a new series.This 2006 article, City Planet, is about urbanization, squatting and slums. "Pavement dwellers" living in open-air homes in Byculla, a Mumbai neighborhoodCity infrastructure and housing in the

Watch the War Child trailer, the story of Emmanuel Jal, a Child Soldier turned Hip Hop Artist

2008-02-13T20:09:00.002-05:00

Much attention at the 58th Berlin Festival has been on 'War Child', a documentary by first-time director Christian Karim Chrobog. It relates the stunning story of singer Emmanuel Jal who, in the space of a decade, made a remarkable transition from child soldier in Sudan to international hip-hop musician. Jal, now 28, was seven when his mother was killed. Soldiers raped his sister, and he was