This Magazine articles from May 2000

This Magazine archives from May 2000

Under the hood: interior designs (reviews attempts to profit from patents on genetic research).
May 1, 2000... IT SHOULD COME AS SMALL SURPRISE: WITH THE OLD colonies--of land, water and the atmosphere--all exploited, eroded and polluted, as Vandana Shiva writes, what's left are the "interior places," the bits of genetic information that form a...

All-new dating game (companies are branding days of the month and even years as their own).
May 1, 2000... FOR SOME, THE TURN OF THE MILLENnium was part holiday, part history. For M&Ms, the year 2000--Roman year MM--was simply the perfect extension of the brand. It's a new millennium and, according to their huge New Year's campaign, M&Ms are the...

Baby on board (marketers aim Web site at parents of newborn babies).
May 1, 2000... Who needs teens or "tweens?" Kansas-based Web company 3buddies.com and its partners are starting the marketing game a few years earlier, making sure they are there from day one. Their Web site, www.thefirstday.com, sponsored by big brand...

Missing link: the God Squad (review of attitudes and beliefs of religious-right, neoconservative Canadian Alliance Party members).
May 1, 2000... EARLY IN HIS BID FOR THE LEADERSHIP OF THE NEWLY NAMED CANADIAN Alliance party last March, Alberta Treasurer Stockwell Day argued he was a democrat at heart. "My social policy is built on people having freedom of expression," said Day. But if...

In a league of their own (reviews rise of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin).
May 1, 2000... IF GEORGE W. BUSH AND VLADIMIR PUTIN HAVE ONE THING IN common, it's that two years ago, we couldn't have predicted they might one day be the future leaders of their nations--or even picked them out of a lineup. But Putin, the hard-nosed former...

Who wants to leave a millionaire? (open letter to Rupert Murdoch).
May 1, 2000... Dear Rupert, I'm leaving you. The book we had... well, it was special. I was willing to give it a try even though we were very different people--me, an anarchist zinester and you, a right-wing media magnate--but it's just not working out....

Party of our dreams: forget the NDP, say the Canadian Auto Workers, it's time to discuss a new party for the Left.
May 1, 2000... Forget the NDP, say the Canadian Auto Workers, it's time to discuss a new party for the Left. Socialist scholars are debating the idea at a conference this spring. That's all very well, argues MEL WATKINS. But is this a pipe dream the Left can...

Resistance is fertile (People's War Group, a Maoist, Naxalite organization).
May 1, 2000... On the eve of U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit to India earlier this spring, Western media were full of reports about cooperation and economic progress. But behind the public-relations facade, a small but fiery armed-struggle uprising was...

Anatomy of a tax rage campaign.
May 1, 2000... If you believe our business leaders, our national newspapers and their pollsters, Canadians are in the throes of a seething, frothing tax revolt. Health care is ailing, education is flailing--but it's tax cuts we want. ANDREW POTTER finds out...

In (John) Roth we trust (President and CEO of Nortel Networks leads campaign for tax reduction).
May 1, 2000... JEAN CHRETIEN? STOCKWELL DAY? JOE CLARK? IT PROBABLY doesn't matter who emerges as P.M. in the next federal election. A quick glance at the past year's headlines shows who's really setting Canada's political and economic agenda: unelected...

Labour's big break (reviews Canadian Labour Congress president Ken Georgetti's plans to reposition the labour movement).
May 1, 2000... Business-friendly rhetoric, a sophisticated communications plan, union-sponsored venture capital projects: it's all part of Ken Georgetti's vision for bringing the Canadian labour movement out of the wilderness. It could put unions back in step...

"Hey, there's this new thing called the Internet --": debunking the myths of digital Nirvana: a discussion with K.K. Campbell, Catherine Connors ...
May 1, 2000... IT'S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO BUY A BUSINESS MAGAZINE THESE DAYS WITHOUT stumbling on a rather joyful iteration of all that digital networks have accomplished. Indeed, there's a delicious riot of stuff in most media about small entrepreneurs...

Pulp friction (newsroom workers at Conrad Black's Calgary Herald fight for a first contract).
May 1, 2000... I'M ONE OF THE GANGRENOUS LIMBS THAT MY BOSS, MEDIA mogul Conrad Black, seeks to amputate. He described his striking employees at the Calgary Herald in those terms in a sparring match with union leader Andy Marshall in Calgary in March....

Before, after.
May 1, 2000... The birthday party for the boy from the building next door is winding down on the front lawn, dissolving into sprinklers and ashes. Cake and pop still lard the card tables. Someone is trying to recruit for croquet, but the children are...

Frederick Street: life and death on Canada's Love Canal.
May 1, 2000... When Maude Barlow and Elizabeth May sat down to write FREDERICK STREET: LIFE AND DEATH ON CANADA'S LOVE CANAL (HarperCollins), they must have loaded up on antidepressants. This sad and all too true account of the gradual environmental poisoning...

Pepper in your eyes: the APEC affair.
May 1, 2000... Although protesters at the 1997 APEC conference in Vancouver have cleaned the pepper spray from their faces, the sting still lingers. PEPPER IN YOUR EYES: THE APEC AFFAIR (UBC Press) is a collection of riffs on the myriad political and social...

We want some too: underground desire and the reinvention of mass culture.
May 1, 2000... In reality, Hal Niedzviecki is too young to be a grumpy old man, but after his book WE WANT SOME TOO: UNDERGROUND DESIRE AND THE REINVENTION OF MASS CULTURE (Penguin Canada) hits the stands, he will probably play one on TV. Witty, snarly and...

Cereal killers (Quaker Oats Company reorganization moves it out of the real-food business).
May 1, 2000... FORGET DEPARTMENT-STORE NOSTALGIA. I'M OVER THAT. I still feel a little choked up when I pull on one of my button-down shirts from Eaton's, but I know it's a silly reflex. I was taught early on that retail, no matter how venerable, is pretty...