This Magazine articles from January 2004

This Magazine archives from January 2004

Copywrongs.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Preoccupied as I am with issues of copyright and ownership of cultural works, I was thrilled to see a consideration of current Canadian copyright laws (Sept/Oct 2003) come in the form of a popular and highly readable cultural magazine rather...

Icebreaker.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... "On Thin Ice" by Gordon Laird (Nov/Dec 2003) is a wonderful article on a subject that has worried me a great deal for the past decade. I have forwarded the piece to my MP, David Anderson. A point at the end of the article, which was...

A brand new look.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2004... Late one Thursday night last April the This Magazine team sat down to finalize the cover for our May/June issue. It's a very hands-on process at the end, fine-tuning and fiddling until we get everything just so. On this particular occasion,...

What's mine is yours: Ontario lawyer takes Inco to task.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... Port Colborne is a mining town overlooking the grey, cold water of Lake Erie. Between 1918 and 1984, Inco's nickel refinery was one of the town's biggest employers. But in early 2000, Inco revealed the other side of its legacy. A series of...

Aren't we resourceful.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... Half a millennia of colonialism has made Canada an industry leader in the natural resources business. Today, Canadians are hewers of other people's wood, drawers of other people's water--and exploiters of other people's copper, oil and gold....

Alberta retort.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... Even wacky right-wing journalists need a little solidarity from time to time. Campaigning against "feminazis," the "heterophobic" International Criminal Court and "Asian crime" is hard work. And as recently laid-off hacks from the now-defunct...

Land of the free?(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... LAND OF THE FREE? Incarceration rates in George W. Bush's America and Stalin's U.S.S.R. U.S.S.R. (1950) 1,423 PER 100,000 U.S. (2002) 2,298 PER 100,000 Incaceration rate of black men in apartheid South...

Pressing the issue.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... There's a new American Revolution underway, but hardly anyone knows. Ironically, that's what the insurrection is all about--the selective suppression of news by an increasingly concentrated media. Last summer, the Federal Communications...

Random acts of stupidity: why our private members leave something to be desired.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... CANADA'S ELECTED OFFICIALS CLEARLY DON'T THINK the calendar is cluttered enough. Apparently what this country really needs is special "Samuel de Champlain" and "Congenital Heart Defect Awareness" days. Parliamentarians you've never heard of...

Getting burned: First Nations politics after the B.C. fires.(This & that: information, insight & innovation)
January 1, 2004... The summer of 2003 was a wildfire for British Columbians. Hundreds of homes destroyed. Thousands of hectares of forest charred. Now that burnt timber is at the centre of a new debate between Aboriginal bands in the Okanagan Valley and the...

Killed bills: Ottawa report.
January 1, 2004... Never far from the sandbox, Paul Martin and Jean Chretien have once again allowed their petty rivalry to imperil the work of governing. Two days before Martin was crowned Liberal leader, Chretien shut down Parliament. That killed 13 bills,...

Another day older and ...
January 1, 2004... In Canada, a minimum wage means toiling long hours for the privilege of living in poverty. In Canada's major centres, minimum wage workers would need to work as many as 24 hours overtime just to reach what Statistics Canada calls the Low Income...

The product is you.
January 1, 2004... When Aveda trademarked the word "indigenous" last summer, native groups and intellectual property nuts got right sniffy that the word had been claimed by a line of shampoo and scented candles. Thankfully, trademarks--as Fox found out in its...

Radio active.
January 1, 2004... While the labour movement's dream of starting a newspaper of its own continues to languish, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is taking its message to another medium. The union has put together a new program called SEIU Radio...

Breeding discontent.
January 1, 2004... A FEW YEARS BACK I WROTE THIS POEM CALLED "Keep Away From Children," which pointed out that the warning was good advice, not only for matchbooks but for me as well. I was well into my 20s when I wrote it, at an age when my mother was already...

A little hope: as the AIDS crisis deepens across Africa, millions of children are growing up without parents. Wilson Lee reports from a small orphanage on the front lines of an international disaster.
January 1, 2004... EVERY TIME A BABY DIES at the Ethembeni Children's Home in downtown Johannesburg, a volunteer stitches a quilt patch. At such a young age, there are few details to include other than a name and a date. But in a small effort to preserve the...

The parent trap: is the hot new trend in progressive parenting recreating the same old feminine mystique?
January 1, 2004... MY FRIENDS have decided that it's time to try moving their six-month-old baby out of their bed and into his own crib. Fortunately, I am over for dinner and--though childless myself--ready to offer information and moral support: "Put him in his...

Crib notes: resources for commie mommies.
January 1, 2004... Becoming a parent turns you into a roiling ball of love, anxiety and paranoia. Desperate for information and empathy, you will be tempted to spend spare moments not used for sleeping or crying surfing the net and obsessing over your copy of...

Hip Mama.(Books And Magazines)
January 1, 2004... Hip Mama was started by Ariel Gore in 1993 as a zine aimed at activist, young, poor, single, pierced and/or tattooed parents. Sisterly and generous in its tone, it has become the best known of the mama-power publications, and now attracts a...

Yo'Mama--a magazine by young mothers for young mothers.(Books And Magazines)
January 1, 2004... Yo'Mama--A Magazine By Young Mothers For Young Mothers--is a new Toronto-based small magazine that (aside from its name) aims less for coolness than practicality. There is an abundance of public health-type resources (another "sun sense" piece...

The East Village Inky.(Books And Magazines)
January 1, 2004... The East Village Inky, put out by Ayun Halliday is an illustrated zine chronicling her New York wanderings with a hyper toddler and a baby in a backpack. Her tales of bohemian parenting are cute and self-deprecating, and she clearly aspires to...

Brain, Child.(Books And Magazines)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The sexy, fun, creative, empowered young mums--however dishevelled they may admit to occasionally becoming--may not feel particularly affirming to you if you are caught in the grips of the Feeling that your baby is going to chew you up and spit...

The Centre for Research on Mothering.(Books And Magazines)
January 1, 2004... For those with an academic bent, The Centre for Research on Mothering (www.yorku.ca/crm) publishes a journal of "feminist maternal scholarship"--presumably not to be confused with maternal feminist scholarship. (Why is it again that we take no...

Mommy Queerest.(Books And Magazines)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Lesbian and trans parents will find Canadian print magazine Mommy Queerest (archived at www.mommyqueerest.com) a pragmatic and slightly earnest blend of articles on legal struggles, homophobia, conception how-tos and useful resources you might...

Spiritual Midwifery.(Books And Magazines)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... If natural childbirth is your definition of alternative, why not go directly to the source: Ina May Gaskin's 1976 classic Spiritual Midwifery. The book is pure hippie lyricism, filled with beautiful stories of birth as a natural, empowering...

Hip Mama collaborator Bee Lavender has created a number of useful web resources for mums.(Websites)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Hip Mama collaborator Bee Lavender has created a number of useful web resources for mums: www.mamaphonic.com, where mothers share and (very gently) critique each others' poetry and fiction; www.girl-mom.com for teenage rooms and...

philosophicalmother.com.(Websites)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... The online magazine philosophicalmother.com is devoted to "intelligent thoughtful, creative, feminist and open-minded mothers," though the contributors appear to be primarily of the white, middle-class, college-educated variety. First-person...

www.salon.com/mwt.(Websites)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... In the spirit of integrating mothers into the world of normal people, Salon has collapsed their "Mothers Who Think" section into a general-interest Life section. The mother-identified can still find their top-notch collection of articles...

Want to learn more about vaccination safety, natural remedies, non-punitive boundary setting and how to knit your own diapers?(Websites)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Want to learn more about vaccination safety, natural remedies, non-punitive boundary setting and how to knit your own diapers? Everything you need to become a freaked-out earth mama or papa is online at www.femiliesfernaturalliving.org or...

www.geocities.com/mamasunidasdistro or www.msppress.com.(Website)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... If you're a parent who's wallowing in time or someone who just takes an unhealthy interest in parenting, check out www.geocities.com/mamasunidasdistro or www.msppress.com for links to many more underground publications. The latter is...

Family Pride Canada at familypride.uwo.ca offers a variety of queer parenting resources.(Websites)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... Family Pride Canada at familypride.uwo.ca offers a variety of queer parenting resources. Among other things, you will find a rousing essay by TJ Bryan on transgressive parenting, challenging you to consider what real radical parenting might...

Made by children, for children: are your kids' clothes and toys made by tiny hands?
January 1, 2004... TARIQ was 12 years old when he had a fleeting month of fame. In 1996, a Life magazine photographer found him in a Pakistani village sewing panels on Nike soccer balls for 79 cents a ball. Tariq helped push the issue of child labour into the...

What unbearable means: infertility and other misconceptions.
January 1, 2004... The first hot flash struck at a party, the happy occasion of the opening of a new arts centre for street kids, full of drumming demonstrations and store-bought hummus, bright paintings on the walls and the goaty smell of excited teenagers. ...

The secret life of Sally.(Fiction)(Short Story)
January 1, 2004... I WORK ACROSS FROM PETER. MY JOB IS TO PICK ALL OF the grapes from the grapevine after they have been rinsed and to toss them into an enormous bin. When the bin is full, I wheel it away and collect an empty bin and new grapes. My hands have...

Exit Music (Poem For a Film).(Poetry)(Poem)
January 1, 2004... Exit music (poem for a film) The winds break against the docks, creating seagulls. Lakeshore of condo living pods. Cascading face of airy-glass pods. In patiolights, at night, the masqueraders. With...

Interview.(Lauren Bride)(Interview)
January 1, 2004... Lauren Bride lives in Mississauga with her parents and her sister. She is 23 years old and is studying English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. She has been writing fiction and "nonsense poetry" all her life. "The Secret Life of...

Reel life: Sally Lee, executive director of the Reel Asian International Film Festival and bassist for The Magnetars.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)
January 1, 2004... Movie maven by day: Lee has been at the Reel Asian helm for two years. The five-day festival, now in its seventh year, presents the best in independent Asian cinema to Toronto audiences. "We're busting at the seams right now. We could easily...

This is not a Degas: dead men can't sculpt.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)
January 1, 2004... "LITTLE DANCER, AGED 14" IS AN UGLY LAWN ORNAMENT. With her pert nose and hokey muslin tutu, she lacks the charm of dreamy brushstrokes and the subtle tensions of motion and stillness that make Edgar Degas's painted works such timeless...

Killer paintings.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)(Luft Gallery exhibition of paintings by Andre Ethier)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2004... It's no small coincidence that Jagermeister, the harsh tipple favoured by rockers the world over, translates as "master of the hunt." In the paintings of Andre Ethier, hunters who look eerily like rock dudes take down large prey and sometimes...

Warsawpack, Stocks & Bombs.
January 1, 2004... (G7 Welcoming Committee) With song titles like "War on Drugs" and "Market Steward Living," calling this a "political" record would be an understatement. The second full-length release from this seven-piece Hamilton collective features more...

The Constantines, Shine a Light.(Sound Recording Review)
January 1, 2004... (Three Gut Records) After topping campus and community radio charts and critics' best of lists, the only person I can think of who doesn't like Shine A Light is my neighbour, who's been forced to listen to the album incessantly. These...

Polmo Polpo, Like Hearts Swelling.(Sound Recording Review)
January 1, 2004... (Constellation) Polmo Polpo is the project of Toronto musician and producer Sandro Perri. Slow unravelling layers of sound and slide guitar never sounded so good. The song, "Sky Histoire," is 13 minutes of subsonic bliss. Electronic music...

The Barmitzvah Brothers, Mr. Bones' Walk-in Closet.(Sound Recording Review)
January 1, 2004... (Weewerk) It's hard not to feel like a failure when you listen to Mr. Bones' walk-in Closet, a winning combination of country twang, bluegrass, sugary pop and polka music. Unless of course you also released your second album when you were...

Pom-Pom poems.(Arts & ideas: this is independent culture)(The Aging Cheerleader's Alphabet)(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... With the exception of A.E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young," sports simply didn't exist in my undergraduate English-lit world. When the volume of shouting in bars started to go up, we knew some playoff season or other was happening in a...

I, Shithead.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... by Joey Keithley (Arsenal Pulp) It's been 25 years since Joey "Shithead" Keithley founded Vancouver punk band D.O.A. Like Dave Bidini's On A Cold Road, I, Shithead is an extended tour diary that doubles as a social history of Canadian...

The Haunted Hillbilly.(Book Review)
January 1, 2004... by Derek McCormack (ECW) In The Haunted Hillbilly, author Derek McCormack suggests that, rather than simply succumbing to alcoholism at the height of his Opry success, Hank Williams's demise was engineered by a wonderfully conniving gay...

The Dark Time of Angels.
January 1, 2004... by Pier Giorgio Di Cicco (Mansfield Press) I became familiar with the poetry of Pier Giorgio Di Cicco through his excellent 2001 collection Living In Paradise, featuring poems that searched for meaning and divinity in this terrestrial...

Heated argument: Prof. Raymond Bradley drags the climate change debate out of the dark ages.(Question Authority)
January 1, 2004... FOLKS IN THE "GLOBAL WARMING? Don't sweat it!" camp often cite the Medieval Warm Period as grounds for their don't-worry-be-toasty philosophy. The argument goes that between 1000 and 1200 (or thereabouts) global temperatures were about as hot...