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January-February 2010

Print media woes claim another victim: the obituary page

Christopher Olson

Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs’ conspicuously detailed death announcement, accidentally published by Bloomberg news service in 2008, revealed a little-known fact about the craft of writing obituaries: the blood doesn’t have to have gone cold before someone writes the first draft of your final epitaph. In fact, there doesn’t even have to be a reason […]

Booming trade in “slum tourism” dispels some myths, creates others

Mariellen WardWebsite

It can be an eye-opening experience that helps everyone involved move towards greater understanding…. It’s been happening in Rio’s famous favelas for some time. Now slum tourism—which turns a real-life ghetto into a “hot” tourist destination—has spread to Johannesburg, Manila, Cairo, and, in the wake of the blistering success of Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai. But it’s […]

Banned at home, Canada continues exporting deadly asbestos worldwide

Jasmine Rezaee

Over the past two decades, Canada has spent millions stripping asbestos from the walls and ceilings of schools, the Parliament Buildings, and hospitals. The national outcry against asbestos has led to some government restrictions on its use and production, causing many Canadians to believe its heyday is over. Yet while the government has put effort […]

Review: This American Drive by Mike Holmes

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

When Mike Holmes passed through Toronto on his reading tour last fall, he warned the audience, “I’m a cartoonist, not an author.” Holmes is, in fact, both. His latest work, This American Drive, is not just a novel with pretty pictures. Weaving traditional storytelling and elements of the graphic novel with unexpected ease, the book […]

“I think I might be a little bit racist. And I’d like to change.”

Lisan Jutras

When one writer found herself sinking into a mire of prejudice and resentment, she set out to find a cure. But maybe 12 steps aren’t enough. The first step to getting help, they say, is admitting you have a problem. That part took me years of halting, painful introspection and self-doubt. Later, I told friends—just […]

Fiction: “Toupée” by Michelle Winters

Michelle Winters

I saw him on the subway for the first time the day I brought the meat bomb to work. He wore the most glorious toupée. It was the colour of a fox with the front curled under in a Prince Valiant thing that continued on around the sides and back of his head. It didn’t […]

Why does Europe tolerate its artistic geniuses committing sex crimes?

Daniel TencerWebsite

Among the remarkable details of Roman Polanski’s arrest last fall was the notably different reaction to it on the two sides of the Atlantic Ocean. While the North American media published explicit and condemnatory accounts of Polanski’s rape of a thirteen-year-old girl, in Europe the reaction was much more ambivalent. The governments of France and […]

Innu village of Sheshatshiu out of crisis, into the classroom

Denis CalnanWebsite

Many Canadians associate Sheshatshiu with images of children sniffing gas from paper bags. The troubled central Labrador Innu community received nationwide attention in the ’90s as a place in crisis. Now, years later, with the opening of the new Sheshatshiu Innu School, members are working to shed the reserve’s negative image and turn life around […]

A modest proposal: turn all Aboriginal lands into the 11th province

Bruce M. Hicks

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 included a clause prohibiting British colonists from purchasing “Lands of the Indians,” so as not to commit more of the “Frauds and Abuses” that characterized colonial takeovers of Aboriginal territory. To my reading, this measure was intended to make clear to the English colonists that Aboriginal Peoples enjoyed equal status. […]

Olympic Countdown: B.C. teachers fight Games’ classroom hype

Raina DelisleWebsite

[This post has been amended, see note below] They were told to wear red and white, to cheer loudly and smile. They were handed little Canadian flags and instructed to wave them with gusto. “This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” they were told. Some 540 students at L’École Victor Brodeur in Esquimalt, B.C., where […]

Olympic Countdown: Quick guide to Vancouver 2010 protest do’s and don’ts

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

Why yes, officer, I can hand out this leaflet. Maybe. It’s no doubt that clashes between protesters and police will end up being the big story of the 2010 Olympics. There are new bylaws on the books, the usual International Olympic Committee rules, our own Canadian Charter rights, and official statements from the Vancouver Police […]