This Magazine articles from March 2007

This Magazine archives from March 2007

Small consolation.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... Andrew Potter's suggestion that it's time for the left to dream small, not big, is a welcome breath of fresh air ("Small Ideas," November/December). Activists have been flinging themselves at ideological windmills for too long, and don't ask...

Too cool.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I picked up This Mag again after about 15 years of ignoring it only to find it has gone quite tepid indeed--starting with the "Because everything is statistical" column (November/December). It's awfully self-congratulatory. But what the hell,...

Tax talk.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... I feel that your coverage of potential income trust taxation changes could have offered greater insight than was in fact the case ("Trustworthy," January/ February 2006). Since the surprise announcement last October, the media on the left seem...

More big ideas.(Letter to the editor)
March 1, 2007... How about an expanded four-lane Trans-Canada Highway from St. John's, under the Strait of Belle Isle, down the south coast to Quebec City and on across the country, with island-hopping bridges to Vancouver Island, terminating in Victoria? The...

Spring renovating.(EDITORIAL)
March 1, 2007... WELCOME TO the "Canada on the world stage" issue of This Magazine. It's a hot topic right now, of course, with our involvement in the war in Afghanistan dividing public opinion in the country almost down the middle. It was the number one story...

Carol Mark's revolution: Toronto gallery owner uses art to fund literature--in Afghanistan.(PROFILE)
March 1, 2007... CAROL MARK, a 52-year-old nurse, art gallery owner and humanitarian powerhouse, was committed to Afghanistan before the landlocked country of perpetual turmoil was thrust onto the front lines of the global arena. Inspired by the number of women...

CARE's new wave: development group puts its money on the middle class.(NEWS)
March 1, 2007... FOR DECADES, development work has focused on those hit hardest by poverty, HIV/AIDS, famine and the like. But CARE Canada, the Canadian branch of the international development giant, is spearheading a new project that aims to help with the...

Courthouse confidential: author Derek Finkle won't give up secret sources without a fight.(NEWS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... DEREK FINKLE, the author of the best-selling book No Claim to Mercy, which follows the police investigation of Robert Baltovich, may have to hand over his research materials to prosecutors or face jail time. Finkle, who's fighting the...

Barbies gone bad: the jailbait Bratz line are no baby dolls.(ARGUMENT)
March 1, 2007... THERE'S A WAR going on, a hair-pulling, eye-gouging war of the dolls--Barbie versus the Bratz. Mattel, the maker of Barbie, launched a lawsuit on November 20 against MGA Entertainment, the creator of the Bratz, claiming that MGA stole its...

Passport 101.(GRAPHIC)(Canadian Passports)
March 1, 2007... WITH NEW U.S. travel restrictions about to come into effect due to recommendations from the 9-11 Commission, Canadian passports this past Christmas season were hotter than the Nintendo Wii. The travel documents were issued in record numbers...

Four things that may not be as good for you as you think ...(LIST)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Juice We all know that while juice is a beverage, "juice beverages" aren't necessarily juice. However, Minute Maid Pink Grapefruit, which does contain the juice of its namesake, somehow manages to contain almost no vitamin C. Vegetarians,...

Blame it on the rain.(WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ... ACID RAIN)
March 1, 2007... TWENTY YEARS AGO you couldn't open a newspaper without reading about acid rain--the toxic mixture of pollution and precipitation that devastated forests and lakes across Canada in the 1970s and 1980s. Now the issue seems to have completely...

Democracy fever: take two polls on electoral reform and call me in the morning.(CONTRARIAN)
March 1, 2007... If the political left and right in this country agree on anything, it is that Canada's system of parliamentary government is outdated. And if anything confirms Canadians' appalling lack of understanding of elementary civics, it is the dopey...

We're stilt friends, right? With Harper so wrong about Arar then, why so righteous now?(Stephen Harper, Maher Arar)
March 1, 2007... Given Stephen Harper's recent efforts to distance himself from the wildly unpopular Bush Administration, his remarkable change of heart on the case of Maher Arar shouldn't have been all that surprising. Starting with the contrived low-level...

Empty net economics: how the Tories are deking the debt issue.(ECONOMICS)
March 1, 2007... Like any good hockey fan, Stephen Harper dreams of playing the hero. But so far he hasn't scored any highlight-reel overtime winners. Instead, he has recently tried to convince Canadians that an empty net goal is just as worthy of being named...

No place for home: after years of neglect, Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside now faces a development boom that is threatening to displace thousands of low-income residents.
March 1, 2007... One by one, the tenants of the Burns Block hotel pour out of the building and onto the street, their belongings tucked under their arms and their faces carrying looks of shock and anger. It's a warm afternoon in March 2006, and the Vancouver...

Staying the course: why Canada shouldn't pull its troops out of Afghanistan.
March 1, 2007... Camp Julien was set down on a barren plain on the outskirts of Kabul, against a stark, mountainous backdrop. Across the road sat the ghostly, bombed-out remnants of Afghanistan's royal palace. Once a majestic building surrounded by immaculate...

Mining misery: Guatemala is one of many countries that has attracted the investment of Canadian mining companies--but at what cost to its people?
March 1, 2007... THE TOWN of El Estor, on the shore of Lake Izabal in eastern Guatemala, was founded at the time of the conquistadores. The lake's strategic location on the Rio Dulce, the gateway to the Caribbean, allowed its denizens to prevent pirates from...

In summer tense.(Fiction & poetry)(Short story)
March 1, 2007... THE PRESENT Here, then, come the Petrowskis covered in bites: the mother, the father, Effie and the boy. Their cottage sits a short distance from the shore of Lac Croche. Mrs. P. looks up "croche" in Harrap's Concise French-English...

Fish of rage.(Poem)
March 1, 2007... O Toaster of the water, Toaster of the water, your toast is a mystery amidst the reeds. O slotted henge for fish, fins brush your dials in love and wonder. Your pushed lever is set to darken all underwater with toast. This in a lake far...

Sorrow for frogsong.(Fiction & poetry)(Poem)
March 1, 2007... They have achieved the size and shape of empty mouths. They are millions of wild green tongues. They are blue poison darts and ripe strawberries. Tongues, bull and leopard, striped and pitted with scarlet eyes, humble,...

Plotting an escape route: Greg Greene goes back to Suburbia.(PROFILE)(to release Escape from Suburbia)
March 1, 2007... FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS filmmaker Greg Greene has been a man consumed. In 2004, he released the documentary The End of Suburbia, a wake-up call about peak oil--the idea that the global supply of oil will soon fail to meet the demand,...

Audio books from the rock.(from biologist Janet Russell)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Three years ago, Newfoundland seabird biologist Janet Russell decided she wanted more literature in her life. An experienced radio host, Russell used her talents to start Rattling Books, an audiobook company Focusing on Canadian literature,...

Like peas in a pod.(MUSIC)(Wassabi Collective )(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... "It's hard to count the times we've toured Canada; at least 10," says Brent "Gisto" Hongisto, guitarist and one of three vocalists for the five-piece Nelson, B.C., band Wassabi Collective. ("Wassabi?" is urban for "What's up?") And it's...

Fashion forward.(Worn Fashion Journal)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Worn Fashion Journal may exude glamour, but unlike the Vogues and Elles of the world, the magazine tries to take the long view on fashion. Editor Serah-Marie McMahon, 27, started Worn in 2005 with little experience and even less money, churning...

Casting on, doing good.(ACTIVISM)(Sheltering Stitch by Nancy Lee)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Vancouver's homeless are keeping warmer thanks to a few good-hearted knitters. Nancy Lee, author of the short-story collection Dead Girls, picked up knitting two years ago and is now using the skill to provide hand-knit goods for the homeless....

Emergency contact.(READ THIS)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Emergency Contact by Tara-Michelle Ziniuk (McGilligan Books) Emergency Contact, a collection of 50 poems by writer, performer and activist Tara-Michelle Ziniuk, uses sharp humour, radical honesty and an anxious heart to reveal an...

A history in the making up: as long as it looks cool, who cares if it's accurate?(Movie review)
March 1, 2007... OK, see if you can spot what's wrong with this story. Life is simple and tranquil in the late-ninth-century New York state. The Wampanoag Indians go about their daily lives as they always have--hunting, gathering and generally living wisely...

Flirting with disaster: doom and gloom keeps books jumping off the shelves.(Pandemonium)(The Upside of Down)(Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning)(Book review)
March 1, 2007... Pandemonium by Andrew Nikiforuk (Viking) The Upside of Down by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Knopf) Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning by George Monbiot (Doubleday) If you've scanned the shelves you've seen them: disaster books....

Socialism, internet style: how the web will transform the world--again.(WEB)
March 1, 2007... The single greatest development with the internet this past year has nothing to do with code. It has nothing to do with geek executives drowning in blow and Buffy box sets, and nothing to do with any product that starts with a lower case "i."...

Born again Bolshevik? Once a noted free-enterprise lovin' politician who worked to de-throne the NDP, B.C. political commentator Rare Mair is now an environmentalist and self-proclaimed "21st century socialist".(THEN & NOW)(Biography)
March 1, 2007... 1975 The 43-year-old Kamloops, B.C., alderman,--a criminal lawyer by trade--joins the right-of-centre Social Credit party and wins his seat in the 1975 election. 1976 As minister of consumer affairs, Mair unpopularly changes the rules to...