Briarpatch articles from July 2000

Briarpatch archives from July 2000

Golden Piggy Awards: Victoria celebrates the 4th Annual Corporate Golden Piggy Awards.
July 1, 2000... Victoria, B.C. went hog wild again at this year's Corporate Golden Piggy Awards. A quartet of snorting singers led the audience of 300 in a more relevant version of our national anthem: Oh Poverty. Other sing-along songs included The...

Warning! Don't eat this food.
July 1, 2000... Genetically modified food labels are now available on-line. The good folks at Stay Free magazine are so sick and tired of waiting for food processors to put labels on their genetically modified foods, that they made their own. If...

Sulphur limits needed.
July 1, 2000... After finding that fuels refined in Canada contain up to 993 times more sulphur than the new gasoline standard allows, Friends of the Earth (FOE) called for federal environment minister David Anderson to use his new powers to fast-track the...

Global rift: the widening gap between what CEOs are paid, and what their employees are paid.
July 1, 2000... Do the CEOs of the largest U.S. multinational corporations make too much money? The AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch project certainly thinks so. The latest bulletin on their website (www.paywatch.org) shows that in 1999 the average CEO of a...

Breaking the silence: silence is essential in maintaining homophobia. That's why gays and lesbians are breaking the silence in the school system.
July 1, 2000... The chair was empty. Instead, the recorded voice of the high school teacher filled the room. He had wanted very much to join the panel, at this, the third Breaking the Silence conference, held in Saskatoon in March, but it still wasn't safe for...

School's out in prison: prisoners might be able to break the cycle of crime if they could receive quality education while they're still behind bars.
July 1, 2000... How would you feel if you enrolled in an educational program with the idea of gaining skills and knowledge for a specific job, or to be accepted into another training program, only to be told that your previous training wasn't worth the paper...

Is history history? Mike Harris and the future of the social studies curriculum.
July 1, 2000... Ontario premier Mike Hams and his ilk tell us that the humanities should have a diminished role in the high school curriculum. Clearly, history, or social studies as it is increasingly being known, is entering a tumultuous period that will...

Stockwell Day from pastor to politician: inside Bentley, Alberta: the little town that nurtured a would-be prime minister and some of the most notorius hate-mongers in Canada.
July 1, 2000... On the surface, Bentley, Alberta looks a little like a set from an old western movie: a single main street rolls through the centre of town alongside old store-fronts and residences. An old beer parlour and hotel sits downtown, and you...

How the West wasn't won: they started Reform to stop slick professionals like Tom Long - that's why they won't make him their leader.
July 1, 2000... Canada may yet be saved from Tom Long, the slick operative turned pretender to the prime minister's office. And it's an unlikely constituency that can do it -- they're the very soul of the party he wants to lead. Sadly for the man who more...

East Timor in the new millennium: the world is watching, If a tiny wartorn country can deliver some measure of social and economic justice for its people ...
July 1, 2000... The sign "Welcome to Timor Loro Sa'e, the World's Newest Country," greets the eye at Dili's small international airport. Blue-capped United Nations officials supervise the Timorese as they stamp passports and inspect luggage. The atmosphere at...

Tug: Rebecca Campbell.
July 1, 2000... Tug a CD by Rebecca Campbell Tug and Stumble Publishing distributed by Festival Distribution.parA musical artist's first foray into a solo career can be a daunting task. Some take the plunge and never work in a band environment while some work...

Pay the rent or feed the kids: the tragedy and disgrace of poverty in Canada.
July 1, 2000... Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids: The tragedy and disgrace of poverty in Canadaparby Mel HurtigparMcClelland & Stewart Inc. 2000, $34.99 hc.par"The most important reason that the poor in Canada are so badly ignored is that we have now had fifteen...

Say what?? (People say the darndest things).
July 1, 2000... COMRADE CONRADpar"We're dealing with a union movement whose methods consist principally of intimidation, defamation and vandalism. They are trying to swaddle themselves in the clothes of oppressed workers seeking respect for their rights." ...

Einstein revisited: the shaggy-haired socialist.
July 1, 2000... Everybody knows that Albert Einstein was brilliant, that he worked on the A-bomb, and wrote the theory of relativity. What most people don't know is that Einstein was also a socialist. It was in the early 1970s that some of my...