This Magazine articles from July 1998

This Magazine archives from July 1998

Always Coca-Cola (exclusive selling rights at UBC).
July 1, 1998... The following transcript is from a video shot during a May 6 protest at the University of British Columbia. Students had intended to confront Henry A. Schimberg, the CEO of Coca-Cola Enterprises, to show their opposition to the use of their...

Great escape.
July 1, 1998... SOMETIMES THE CITY GETS so damn hot, so sticky and irritating, so thoroughly unpleasant, that I just want to get out to the country. And even though it would probably take me more than a few motivational tapes, I occasionally dream about...

Word on the street (Reclaim the Streets).
July 1, 1998... WITH DRUMS POUNDING, streamers whirling and men in leopard-print thongs dancing on stilts, a downtown Toronto neighbourhood was transformed from the usual Saturday morning spring bustle into loud street theatre. "What is this?" someone...

Office lingo bingo.
July 1, 1998... OFFICE JOBS, WHILE NOT without their mitigating perks (superficial patina of respectability, free staples), are traditionally exercises in tedium and frustration. Enter Office Lingo Bingo--a fun and easy way to stave off mental atrophy and...

I'm going to explain it one last time: the Canadian Bankers Association, the MAI, the Ontario PCs, Nike.
July 1, 1998... What lies behind the public's distrust of banks? Our outrage over corporate power? Lack of confidence in government? Could it be the patronizing loans officers? The CEOs' unfathomable salaries? Policies that favour profit at the expense of...

Death and the martyr (the funeral of Juan Gerardi).
July 1, 1998... THE DECAYING, SMOKE-SPEWING, 1950s buses were forbidden access to the large central plaza in Guatemala City on the day of the funeral. Police spread out into the adjacent streets, their presence made more ominous by the black bows of mourning...

She got game: women's sports are the latest hype vehicle for corporate sponsors and the media.
July 1, 1998... THE NIKE AIR SWOOPES basketball shoe, which hit the market in 1995, comes in black with a white stripe and a red logo for winter, white with a black stripe and red logo for spring. ("Black is a symbol of toughness to me," the shoe's namesake,...

All I really need to know I learned at MBA school.
July 1, 1998... AN INSIDER'S TALE BY JAMES O'BRIEN MBAs rule the world. They determine what we buy, where we work and how we live. So where are they learning all this stuff? As for the MBA thing, you have my deepest sympathies. I'm sure the thing has...

New work order: a roundtable on the future of work.
July 1, 1998... When the Great Depression struck in 1929, many people believed that the cause was the rapid development of new technologies such as the assembly line, which eliminated people's jobs while increasing business's profits. Today, we're again...

Capitalist crunch: ... are ethical mutual funds just the latest sugar-coated financial hoax?
July 1, 1998... During last winter's RRSP blitz, Vancouver-based Ethical Funds Inc. (EFI) launched an aggressive ad campaign with the slogan "Not in my portfolio," offering investors the "winning combination" of "profits and principles" and the opportunity to...

No good reason: when three Calgary kids killed themselves in custody, the police, social workers ... had some explaining to do.
July 1, 1998... ON THE AFTERNOON of May 16, 1996, a 14-year-old boy named Jesse Payne was picked up by police at a Calgary shopping mall after security staff received complaints that a group of teenagers was causing a disturbance. Payne, it turned out, was...

When art needs a spanking: there are two kinds of theatre critics in this country. The great encouragers, and the old-fashioned believers in harsh discipline ...
July 1, 1998... I have two recordings of 20th century works for the musical theatre that are very different. One is the Emmerich Kalman operetta Die Csardasfurstin, and the other is the Samuel Barber opera Antony and Cleopatra. The works exemplify different...

Ice cream man.
July 1, 1998... You think you must not look the way you feel. People the same height as you still sometimes place their hands on their knees and lean their faces into yours and ask: "And how old are you?" You must somehow still look like you're small, a child....

Passing the buck (squeegie kids).
July 1, 1998... THERE'S AN AD PLASTERED all over bus shelters this spring that shows a Pepsi truck stopped at a light while a motley horde of kids scramble to offer their squeegee services. Apparently, what squeegees really want is not money, but a cool and...