A feature in the current issue of the magazine, entitled “Staying the course: Why Canada shouldn’t pull its troops out of Afghanistan,” has generated its fair share of discussion, as our next issue’s Letters pages will attest. The discussion continues to evolve as Canada’s involvement in the NATO mission in Afghanistan carries on — and […] More »
Hi I’m Ron Nurwisah, This Magazine’s Arts Editor. This is the debut of Friday Links, where I pick a handful of links that have piqued my interest this week. Without further ado. Toronto rapper K’naan has the best life story of any Canadian artist, hands down. He left Somalia in the early ’90s, didn’t speak […] More »
I know all this is just deadly serious, and I don’t want to downplay any of the anguish of the familes of the British sailors, nor in fact the concerns of Iranians regarding sovereign waters, etc., but the stories out of Iran today are just flat-out strange. From The Guardian: In a surprise announcement during […] More »
This magazine has talked about the 100-mile diet before. Ok, well, what about the 100-mile suit? If you look at the labels on your clothing you’ll quickly realize that a lot of oil was burnt to ship those items to you. Factor in the cost of growing, processing and shipping the materials and it gets […] More »
Toronto Mayor David Miller’s proposed “City of Toronto Act” may include sin taxes on items like booze, cigarettes and…movies? While I’m not a fan of paying more for my booze, that’s a sin tax I can wrap my head around. But movies? Going to the cinema is already so expensive, I’m sure people really don’t […] More »
Does the insanity ever end? This seems like the perfect combination of corporate greed and religious whacknuttery (wow, I just invented that word). Here’s my favourite quote from their website: “WATER IS TWICE AS VALUABLE AS OIL. Now you can import this valuable commodity to your country, already bottled with your own private label or […] More »
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 »
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 »
The CounterCulture lecture series is organized by the Simon Fraser University School of Communication. Last thursday the speakers were Donald Gutstein and Jamie Peck, two leading researchers of neo-liberal think tanks. While I already knew how evil the Fraser Institute was before, it’s never been put to me in such an urgent way. These think […] More »
In the queer community, we have a lot of discussions about the intersection between sexuality and gender. I’ve been party to many dinner parties where we natter on about what really defines “us” — is it our sexual orientation or our gender identity? We talk a lot about how as “the movement” is broadening its […] More »