This Thursday is World Water Day, and you may have read the gushing announcement from Starbucks about how the company is planning to donate 5 cents from every bottle of their new Ethos bottled water to “benefit India and Kenya.” Starbucks says its goal is to donate $10 million by 2010 to organizations that “are […] More »
(photo of Dorothy Day at a draft card burning, courtesy of the Culture of Peace website Here is a poem by THIS mag contributor, Brian Joseph Davis, from his very funny book Portable Altamont (Coach House 2005): Philip Roth I never should have trusted you When you told me that you were David Lee Roth’s […] More »
Should I be shocked by this? That a recent incident at Montreal’s Bordeaux correctional prison barred a recently hired prison guard from wearing her Hijab (a tradiitonal Muslim headscarf) on the job? There are a number interesting political angles here: Muslim religious attire, Quebec multicultural tolerance, employee safety interests. Is this really a Quebec specific […] More »
Canada’s place on the world stage has never been more scrutinized than right now. A military campaign in Afghanistan and a federal government that is changing our traditional foreign policy positions are just two of the issues at hand. The March-April issue of THIS examines Canada on the world stage from several angles: What should […] More »
Despite a comparatively small population, Canada has one of the world’s largest Gross Domestic Products (a key indicator of overall economic health). Yet over 1.2 million of our children across the country live in poverty. The problem is the federal budget, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Rather than reflecting the needs of most […] More »
Stephane Dion is much taller in person. He still looks like a mouse but only in the cute sense. In fact, he’s so unintimidating up close, it’s hard to imagine him being anything more than maybe your second favourite uncle. Not the one who gets drunk at Thanksgiving and offends your mom (he’d be the […] More »
When Big Pharma doesn’t get its way, it takes its toys and goes home. When the “toys” in question are life-saving medications, the results can be grim. People with HIV in Thailand are finding this out first hand. Most medications are protected by 20-year patents that allow a drugmaker the exclusive right to produce them […] More »
NY Times columnist Nick Kristof wants to take you to Africa. No this won’t be some cushy first-class vacation. Kristof wants to show you, first-hand, the devastation that international ignorance, war, disease and famine has wracked on parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. This is apparently the second time in a row that he’s done this. This […] More »
(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. […] More »
God, this feel like so-20-years ago. Censorship is rearing its ugly head in Ottawa once again, after a father complained to the Hunt-Club Riverside Community Centre, after his son picked up a copy of Capital Xtra, Ottawa’s gay and lesbian newspaper. He is, of course, objecting to an ad for a gay chat line, which […] More »