This Magazine articles from July 2002

This Magazine archives from July 2002

To all the grids I've loved, before. (Under The Hood).(various articles on energy conservation, privacy, and health care)
July 1, 2002... WAS IT KEANU REEVES OR SANDRA BULLOCK WHO REALLY BROUGHT IT HOME that with the electronic age came the total loss of any sense we could escape this crazy world? Bullock's The Net helped update our fear of Big Brother, showing us we were nothing...

Sissy-fit. (Salvo).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... IN THE BARRAGE OF SEPTEMBER 11 COVERAGE, a funny thing happened to a little wire story about the victims of the attacks. It was your basic backgrounder--interviews with victims' relatives and spouses. Pretty straightforward stuff. But it was...

Warming to the idea. (Red-Handed).(effects of global warming on shipping industry)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... SINCE THAT ICE SHELF COLLAPSED, THE SO-CALLED debate about climate change has taken a turn for the bizarre. Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal recently urged Canadians to look at the "opportunity side" of global warming. To wit, the...

Death rays. (Up Next).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... WATCHING THE WORLD'S FIRST ATOMIC MUSHROOM cloud climb high into the New Mexico sky in July 1945, Robert Oppenheimer was reminded of a line from Hindu scripture: "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." When he met U.S. President Harry...

Be a broadcast bandit. (How-To).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... FLICK THROUGH THE RADIO DIAL AND SEE HOW many stations you can endure for more than 12 minutes at a time. A bit of obnoxious music, a lot of mindless chatter and advertising ad nauseum. All of which amounts to a cacophonic contest to see who...

Deja vu all over again. (Chart).(economic development in Africa)
July 1, 2002... SOME CALL IT A MARSHALL PLAN FOR AFRICA, WHILE OTHERS say it's a blueprint for Africa's recolonization. The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), discussed at the G8 meeting in Kananaskis, is the latest plan to jumpstart the...

Funny money. (Context).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... THERE ARE PLENTY OF FUN THINGS MONEY can do--talk, make the world go round, buy material girls. Just think, without money, Cameron Crowe would have had to compose some other catchphrase for his hit date flick. And "Show me the gold bars"...

Remembering Nunavut. (Letters).
July 1, 2002... I read Gordon Laird's article ("The streets of Iqaluit" Mar/Apr) with great interest this morning as I am from Nunavut, but originally from Northern Quebec. I am one of the people who was relocated to the high Arctic when I was five years old....

Iqaluit's colder war. (Letters).
July 1, 2002... I was deeply moved by Gordon Laird's "The streets of Iqaluit" (Mar/Apr). I was only two when my father, an Italian immigrant, went to Iqaluit (then called Frobisher Bay) in an act of desperation to find work. Dad was offered the job and...

What dissent? (Letters).
July 1, 2002... There may be some validity to the desire to expand the definition of charitable activities ("Dissent should be tax-deductible," by Bronwyn Drainie, Mar/Apr). But if charities were using their existing rights to peak out, I would feel more...

Ed's no red. (Letters).
July 1, 2002... I was surprised that Jim Stanford should be surprised that Ed Broadbent would have the NDP embrace the market economy ("My Day in the Market," Mar/Apr). Ed Broadbent's political career was an endless pursuit of anything middle-class and...

Aw, shucks. (Letters).
July 1, 2002... I have had a subscription to your magazine for about eight months, and have enjoyed each issue. I am a teacher and in my forties. I find This Magazine very informative: it really seeks to get at the facts of a story. When so many businesses are...

It's an honour just being nominated ... (Letters).
July 1, 2002... This Magazine received three honourable mentions at this year's National Magazine Awards. Congratulations to Chris Tenove, who was nominated for his essay "The weight of evidence" (May/June 2001) and Jocelyn Brown, whose story "Miss Canada"...

Who's this. (Letters).
July 1, 2002... David Armstrong is a printmaker, writer, and bookbinder living in Halifax where he teaches, builds, and fixes things. He has a dog named Lupo who is cantankerous. His website can be found at www.yellowdog.org Rebecca Atkinson is heavily...

Hot air over Kyoto: business leaders say reducing emissions will kill jobs and wreck the Canadian economy. Jim Stanford says their forecasts are off--it might even make things better. (Economics).
July 1, 2002... SUBVERSION BY THE NUMBERS CANADIAN BUSINESS LEADERS ARE SOUNDING more like anti-globalization protesters every day. They're overflowing with angst about an international treaty that they say will erode Canadian sovereignty and destroy our...

The story of O: across North America, citizens are being implored to learn to love to read all over again, by reading One Book together, as a community. It's hard to argue that getting more people to curl up with a good book is a bad thing. So why, asks Hal Niedzviecki, does it seem so creepy? (Culture).
July 1, 2002... NANCY PEARL IS NOT EVIL. BUT SHE GOT US into this mess and her lame disavowals aren't helping get us out of it. Oprah Winfrey, on the other hand, probably is evil. But her evil is as diffuse and appealing as a cosmetics counter. Which of her...

The green machine: think going off the grid means a big cash outlay for secluded land and solar panels? Think again. Vancouver eco-activists have figured out a way to go easy on the earth, and the pocketbook.(Statistical Data Included)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... EXPENSIVE AND EXCLUSIVE, GREEN HOUSING IS TOO OFTEN RESERVED for those in the middle-age, high-income bracket. Fortunately for the rest of us, there is Andy Thomson, an architecture graduate hell-bent on making off-the-grid housing accessible...

The real wilderness: anybody can survive in the wild with a little bit of training. But for David Armstrong, the toughest test was when he left the woods for the urban jungle.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... THE SKIES ARE TURNING RED, THE SEVENTH SEAL IS BROKEN, DEER hunters are stockpiling porn, and financial collapse is imminent. Bin-diving becomes de rigeur and your breath smells like cat food. The truth is irrefutable: the end times are nigh....

Winds of change: once as quaint as wooden clogs and little white bonnets, wind power is quickly changing from a small, off-grid power source to a big, on-grid business. As turbine technology improves, Canada's vast, untapped wind resources are attracting energy prospectors big and small. Jason Brown meets one eco-entrepreneur who may have just struck gold.
July 1, 2002... IN THE EARLY SPRING OF 1998, CARY SANDFORD HAD HIS LUNCH ON THE crest of a low hill in the middle of a clearcut in Northern Ontario. A long, flat valley stretched out below him meeting up with another hill topped by an abandoned fire tower. At...

Cafe resistance: in downtown Winnipeg, a group of radicals is trying to create a different kind of cafe/bookstore. But as David Leibl finds out, even when there are no bosses, some things in the service industry never change.
July 1, 2002... THERE'S A DISHEARTENING TRANQUILITY ABOUT AN AFTERNOON STROLL through Winnipeg's Exchange District, the locus of what was once western Canada's largest metropolitan centre. Many of the palatial brick buildings that sprung up during the city's...

Cashing out: offshore secret accounts used to be a preserve of the ultra-rich. No longer. Thanks to our friends at the Royal Bank, it's now so easy that even the IRS is alarmed.
July 1, 2002... LET'S SAY THAT I HAD SOME MONEY I WANTED TO HIDE FROM THE government. Say it's maybe, oh, $215,000--a little sum that I'd made by shorting some Enron stock after getting inside tips that the company was about to implode. Let's also say...

The great democracy drop out: in the last election, woeful voter turnout suggested Canadians had grown as apathetic as our neighbours to the south. This is bad, but as Gregory Boyd Bell argues, it's nothing compared to the mistake made by a group of informed activists.
July 1, 2002... WHEN BRITISH COLUMBIA'S NEW LIBERAL GOVERNMENT TOOK POWER last year, one of its priorities was to undo the previous NDP government's work on treaty negotiations with First Nations. The crowbar of choice was a referendum that sought, through...

Prayers for Edmond.(Short Story)
July 1, 2002... EDMOND BOURCIER AND PIT COTE HAVE HAD A FEW. They totter towards the boat. They are going fishing for ouananiche. ([dagger]) Behind them glimmer the blue and yellow lights of Saint-Coeur-de-Marie, the fields of ripe hay. It's a cool August...

Cultural worker: a random review of alternative culture.(Brief Article)(Critical Essay)
July 1, 2002... MARIKO TAMAKI's writing isn't easy to describe. One could be tempted to call it "funny commentary on the foibles of society," but these days, you could describe just about anybody's work that way. Still, any writer who can frankly admit that...

Pussy purses. (Stuff).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Like showing your private parts to strangers? Vancouver artist Rachel Brett does, and the result is PUSSY PURSES--sharp designer bags in three styles with one common characteristic, their soft suede interiors look just like vaginas. While...

Chore. (Music).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Punk's not dead, especially in Canada where there's been a massive upswing in the number of young bands bursting onto the scene. To prove it, This Magazine is proud to give you a little taste of the plethora of vibrant punk bands crisscrossing...

Moneen. (Music).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Many a touring Toronto punker has been asked, "Do you know Moneen? Are they cool? They're so cute!" Trust me. I friggin' know. Brampton's MONEEN have become the darlings of the Canadian punk circuit. The band converts even the most jaded punk...

The Getaway. (Music).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Barely two years old, THE GETAWAY is one of Canuck punk's hottest commodities. A high-octane mix of hardcore-influenced pop/punk, The Getaway is that band that'll rile you up faster than a drunken redneck in the bar on karaoke night. Then...

Cherrymag.com. (Web).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... Content is king, internet visionaries once boldly proclaimed, but even at the height of dot-com mania, content fit for a queen proved more difficult to find. Post-meltdown, text-driven sites have abandoned dreams of billion-dollar IPOs and are...

Hydrogen hype: why fuel cells aren't all they're cracked up to be. (Artifact).(Brief Article)
July 1, 2002... IT WAS WITH CONSIDERABLE DISCOMFORT THAT I BOUGHT MY FIRST car a few months ago. I've maintained a driver's license for nearly 18 years but never owned what is commonly known as the single worst investment a person could ever make. I've been...