The sweet irony of Sup Pop records is that the defiantly indie Seattle record label came to prominence during the era of Generation X disaffected slackerdom. Now eighteen years old and still repping some of the finest indie artists, the label has gone 100% green energy. That means that all energy consumed by the company […] More »
BabyTalk, a free publication in the U.S. aimed at new mothers hoping to illustrate the controversy surrounding public breastfeeding in the U.S. by publishing what is said to be the first American magazine cover to break the taboo about showing a woman’s breast, has done exactly that. According to this AFP report, 25% of some […] More »
From The Guardian online: Don’t look now Images I have seen recently include a close up of a suicide bomber exploding in two, an insurgent being shot through the head by an American sniper, full scale firefights between US patrols and insurgents plus endless images of body parts scattered about in the aftermath of the […] More »
image courtesy Slate magazine There’s a good debate going on over at the Euston Manifesto site concerning how the left should think about Israel/Lebanon. While the good folks of Euston figure out my opinion on that, I’ve been doing some more thinking about another of my geo-political preoccupations – Americanism, minus the anti. The following […] More »
I believe somewhere on this blog recently, our own Andrew Potter mocked my uncoolness re: appreciating the music of Bruce Springsteen. I think he doesn’t like saxophones, or moody, highway-based extended metaphors. I can take the mockery. I’ve always known Potter is cooler than me. Except now he has a new blog over at Maclean’s. […] More »
A small raise for civil servants may not seem like a big deal, but when you were elected on a promise of a more open and transparent government, quietly posting news of pay hikes for senior government officials on a departmental website seems a little odd. Such was the case this week in Ottawa, and […] More »
Pico Iyer, Canada’s expat book noticer, has a piece on Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing in a recent Times Literary Supplement (no link, sorry — subscribers only. I know, I know). He has much praise for Cohen, which makes me happy. I think Lenny deserves the Nobel, easily as much as Dylan. However, I disagree […] More »
Go now and read Andrew Potter’s latest column in Maclean’s. In it, he outlines some of the basic tenets of the Euston Manifesto, which he calls “a statement of broadly left-liberal principles cooked up last spring by a collection of London-based journalists, activists and academics.” Quick full disclosure– Potter blurbed my book, and I do […] More »
In September of 2003, North America’s first safe-injection site opened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Operated by the local health authority, Insite is allowed to exist thanks to funding and support from all three levels of government. Ottawa’s role includes a three-year exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. The success of the facility has […] More »