I have to admit that I don’t pay much attention to the CDs for sale at my local Starbucks. I’m usually in desperate need of caffeine and trying to figure out whether eight grams of fat in coffee cake really does make it “low fat.” Does it? I know they’re currently selling some sort of […] More »

Sleepy-eared this morning, I wasn’t sure if I was hearing right when William Thorsell, emperor of the Royal Ontario Musuem, was quoted on CBC radio slagging Toronto mayor David Miller’s request for a reasonable return on the sales tax monies collected in Canada’s largest city. Miller’s One Cent Now campaign has been big news lately […] More »

Lots of talk on the old Internet tubes about the de-professionalizing, or even ‘democratizing’ of art (and journalism, said the blogger). It is the age of the self-taught amateur, yes? Good for all of us. What do we mean when we talk about professionalism? For the professional freelance writers I represent in my day job […] More »

It’s my birthday, and as I officially become a middle-aged crank, I wish to marvel at the incredible Dorian Gray act of someone older than me (if it’s even possible to be older than me). Ted Rogers, namesake and honcho over at Rogers Media, has kicked off the shackles of time and age and joined […] More »

So Forbes just released it’s annual list of the top earning dead celebrities (surely you’ve been craving such a list for a while now). The top spot went to Kurt Cobain. Fifty million dollars. Wow. He’ll surely be on the list again next year since his sober (ahem, cough, cough) widow sold 1/4 of the […] More »

It’s no surprise that Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, is none too happy with Sacha Baron Cohen’s popular yet politically very incorrect character Borat. What is odd is that Borat has apparently been deemed worthy of an “official talk” item when Nazarbayev meets with Dubya, president of the good old US and A. I’m sure […] More »

Tired of all that boring old painted on graffiti? Bored of tagging with sharpies on old stickers and mail labels and plastering them around town? Why not try knitting? Yup, a new brand of street art is popping up, and it’s made of yarn. Knitta, is a self described “tag crew of knitters, bombing the […] More »

In the latest Walrus, Don Gillmor writes about how Canadian winemakers in the Niagara region are betting heavily on the Pinot Noir grape to carry their business a few more rungs up the ladder of global wine success. According to the article, the Canadian wine industry’s domestic sales represent only 44 percent of the total […] 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 »

Most people have heard this by now but Chapters/Indigo has pulled this month’s issue of Harper’s off its shelves. It seems that Art Spiegelman’s critique of the Danish Muhammad cartoons that angered many in the Muslim world is also too hot for the delicate sensibilities of management at Chapters. DB Scott over at the Canadian […] More »