In an age when CNN can get away with quoting Twitter as “a source” in its coverage of Iran’s high-stakes political bedlam, it’s more than fair to assume that as a society, we’re still ironing out the kinks in our relationship with interactive media. For some of us that might mean, say, late-night microblogging about […] More »

Ever the  moral hinterland, the U.S. state of Texas has recently been in the news for an exceptionally despicable practice: charging victims of sexual violence up-front payments for their own rape kits, which pack a financial wallop of up to $1800. No one has conducted an official poll on the matter, but I’m fairly confident […] More »

Wired magazine’s current issue contains an interesting essay that’s worth a read, called (in Wired‘s loveable hyperbolic style) “The New Socialism.” With the U.S. economy still in a tailspin and “socialism” back on the political radar there (Obama: is he, or isn’t he?) the time is ripe to seriously ask whether the various political ideologies […] More »

Canada’s second mostly-coast-to-coast newspaper, the National Post, turns 10 years young today. It published its first issue on October 27, 1998, and has been keeping the country entertained with its amiably loony notions ever since. Despite corporate owner CanWest’s current cash-strapped status, we hope you’ll be around for many years more, scrapping and quarreling with […] More »

I went last night to the relaunch of the new Rabble.ca, a pretty swank bash held at the Steam Whistle Brewery in Toronto. The main attraction last night was a panel discussion with Maude Barlow, Murray Dobbin, Jessica Yee, and Anne Lagacé Dowson, and moderated by Duncan Cameron. It was a pretty good discussion. I […] More »

Today CBC Radio 2 launches its new format, a controversial repositioning of the national broadcaster’s commercial-free, all-music station. The overhauled lineup of programming reduces the amount of classical music and adds more jazz, pop, rock, folk, hip-hop — enough of a jumble, essentially, to make the station not really listenable for anyone. The changes have […] More »

If you’re reading this on Monday, you’re likely able to check out live coverage of Amnesty International’s Global Write-a-thon in association with the brand new rabble endeavour, rabbletv. Wrongly accused Canadian Maher Arar will be among those speaking during the day’s events. To mark International Human Rights Day, AI is hosting letter-writing events in Ottawa […] More »

Oh dudes, I finally got a new username/password! Lookout, internet! I am so happy to be on here again, because I have a lot of fury to share with you! To commemorate December 6th this year, Barbara Kay wrote this annoying article where she talks about how women need to get over themselves about being […] More »

The September/October issue of This was given some airtime on CBC’s The Hour. Stephen Lewis offers his insights, and cradles that magazine like a newborn baby. He can’t seem to put it down. Check it out here, at about 4:48 into the segment. More »

The CRTC’s “Diversity of Voices” hearings kick off this week to review Canada’s current media cross-ownership regulations. They arrive in the wake of CTVglobemedia and Rogers divvying up CHUM, while CanWest Global (along with Goldman Sachs) took over Alliance Atlantis. The Tyee has a thoughtful analysis by mass communications prof Marc Edge, titled Big Media’s […] More »

An article in the current issue of Mother Jones magazine, a stalwart of independent media in the United States, has created something of a stir in a rural part of Nova Scotia. The story is a Canadian military doctor’s diary of one month at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, and in it is a detailed and […] More »