This Magazine articles from May 2003

This Magazine archives from May 2003

Home alone. (Under the hood).(single person households on the rise and so are the costs)
May 1, 2003... LIVING SINGLE? YOU'RE NOT ALONE. RISING INCOMES, HIGHER DIVORCE RATES, lower fertility rates and fewer multi-generational families living together are all contributing to a shrinking household. In Canada, the proliferation of single-person...

Waste of space. (salvo).(the cost of space research is too high for Canada)
May 1, 2003... SINCE THE SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA BLEW itself to pieces more than 80 km above Texas in January, questions have surfaced ranging from the obvious to the obscure. NASA asked technical questions (why and how the 22-year-old craft fell apart), while...

Implausible denial. (Red-Handed).(Defense Secretary denies U.S. supplied Iraq with chemical and biological weapons components)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... THERE ARE LIES, THERE ARE DAMNED LIES, and then there is Donald Rumsfeld's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last fall. Here's what the U.S. Defense Secretary said, under oath, no less: "I think it would be a shame to leave...

Beat the press. (How to).(websites containing alternative media coverage and opinion)
May 1, 2003... IT'S OFTEN SAID THAT THE FIRST CASUALTY OF war is the truth. As the mainstream media treats the Iraq war as little more than the latest reality TV hit (Survivor Baghdad?), and embedded "journalists" enthuse about their military protectors,...

Gag order. (Sign of the Times).(lesbian magazine censored over photos)
May 1, 2003... FANCIERS OF LESBIAN FETISH PORN MIGHT have to settle for cheesy, hetero boobie mags like Juggs and Hustler--unless they want big black stickers slapped over the centerfolds, that is. San Francisco-based lesbian mag On Our Backs recently...

Duck and cover-up. (Chart).(effectiveness of personal security measures in the face of terrorist attacks)
May 1, 2003... DURING THE LEAD UP TO THE 1991 GULF WAR, while many Iraqis hoarded food, U.S. newspapers ran stories about Californians turning their old bomb shelters into wine cellars. For many North Americans, that sense of security disappeared after...

Trash talk. (Up next).(dumping Toronto's garbage in the Adams Mine)
May 1, 2003... LAST SUMMER, THERE WASN'T A BOOKMAKER in the world who would give odds that the Adams Mine might be revived as a potential dump site for Toronto's garbage. For years, a group of North Bay businessmen with Tory ties touted the waterlogged pits...

Funny funding. (In the House).(Bill C-24 proposes to change federal fundraising law)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2003... HEADING TO PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE this month is the Prime Minister's proposed political fundraising package, Bill C-24. The new rules, if parliament chooses to play by them, will be the first major changes to federal fundraising law in 29...

Blowing off steam.(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... From the headline on the cover of your latest issue, "North America's Best Bathhouses," (Mar/Apr) I was looking forward to comparing my list to yours. All I could find was the article "Steamed Up" by RM Vaughan. How boring! Mr. Vaughan's idea...

Arresting development.(Pete Townsend should not be ruined by allegations of child pornography)(Brief Article)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... In her article about indecent behavior on the internet ("Virtual vice" Mar/Apr) Nora Young made reference to Pete Townshend and the suggestion that he was caught doing something immoral on the internet. It is not quite that black and...

Getting testy.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... I have never read This Magazine before tonight and I may not again. I was in the library tonight with my daughter and while she was doing her thing I decided to take a look a my favourite news magazine. As I was walking by the rack I noticed...

No joke.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... I would like to commend This Magazine for its consistency. I can always count on you to run articles that are a complete insult to my intelligence. "I chink, therefore I am" by Kate Rigg and "Am I Racist?" by Arif Noorani (Jan/Feb) present...

Protesting too much.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2003... Chris Koentges's "Indirect action" (Jan/ Feb) is right on! I've seen the "Capitalism Kills" and All Lies" stickers on newspaper boxes, but what does this mean to the average voter who lives in the suburbs, who is trying to raise children, pay...

Who's this.
May 1, 2003... Charlie Angus is editor of HighGrader in Cobalt, Ontario. He is the author of a number of books on northern mining culture. Raymond Biesinger's prime fixation is illustration, but he still enjoys writing a piece every once in a while. He's...

Bombs away? Has the non-proliferation treaty given the world nuclear security--or just the illusion of it? Mel Watkins examines our ongoing failure to unbuild the bomb. (International Affairs).
May 1, 2003... AUGUST 6, 1945. IT WAS SUMMER HOLIDAYS. All through the school year, I remember avidly following the news of the Second World War with my classmates, for daily "Current Affairs" presentations. For we British North Americans, the war had ended...

Spin off: how do you turn a brainy, interior novel into an effective piece of cinema? Hal Niedzviecki on the transition from printed page to silver screen. (Culture).(Movie Review)
May 1, 2003... IT'S POURING RAIN OUTSIDE. DIRTY WATER overflows the Manhattan gutters. The streets are empty, reminding me of the dark drives and abandoned alleyways that Spider wanders down. It's morning, but it looks like evening. It is, I can't help...

Suite relief.
May 1, 2003... IT'S ALWAYS WITH A SENSE OF DREAD THAT I RETURN MY landlord's calls. The message that Friday morning was non-specific--never good news. When I got him on the line, it was worse than I imagined. He didn't need to install a new smoke detector, my...

Close to home: Toronto's infamous Tent City was the very public face of mass homelessness in Canada. Gordon Laird reports on the final days of the squatters' camp and the housing crisis our institutions have failed to curb.
May 1, 2003... A RED CAMARO TEARS ALONG THE POTHOLED MAIN street of Tent City, leaving clouds of dirt and screaming residents. It is 10 a.m. and the crack dealers have already done their business. They will return, rolling slow into drop-off spots, as will...

Come together: contemporary experiments in alternative living challenge the 1960s commune cliche. They're highly organized and efficient--and far from being marginal, they're tackling some of today's most puzzling social problems. Cheri Hanson tours a few of the best examples.(cohousing projects)
May 1, 2003... WHAT DO INTENTIONAL COMMUNITIES LOOK LIKE? maybe your mind has already hit image overdrive: hippie crash pads littered with bongs; tie-dye decor; Jimi Hendrix wafting through the marijuana haze; blenders clogged with organic sludge; dogs, goats...

Sharing resources.(resources on intentional communities)(Bibliography)
May 1, 2003... LOOKING TO START YOUR OWN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY? Diana Leafe Christian is the editor of Communities magazine, and the author of Creating a Life Together (New Society Publishers), which offers practical, how-to information based on the...

Decisions, decisions: for many co-operatives, the biggest challenge is the interminable meetings. Marcus Youssef on losing hours taking minutes.
May 1, 2003... I GLANCE AT THE CLOCK POSITIONED MENACINGLY above the 8x4 chart hanging on the wall of our 1980s-institutional common-room wall. The hand-drawn chart delineates the 40 or so commonly assumed maintenance chores assigned to each member. It's...

Better living: too many social experiments start with the best intentions and end in disaster. Dan Lazin gathers advice from the experts on growing a successful community.
May 1, 2003... When Erin * was 22, she and her female lover and her lover's boyfriend set up a polygamous collective in semi-rural Manitoba. Over the next seven years, they meditated, made art, inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars, had a baby, bought a...

Noah on the 17th day.(Poem)
May 1, 2003... Noah on the 17th Day So Noah 600 years old and sick of it all is standing on his boat his Pandemonium three stories high and quite literally full of life finally tired of the way his...

Deans list.(Iain Deans)(Brief Article)(Interview)
May 1, 2003... IAIN DEANS IS A POET LIVING IN TORONTO. He was born on a Friday in the early seventies in Montreal. After graduating from Queen's University, he worked as a copywriter for about five years ("as did Hart Crane and James Dickey," he is quick to...

John.(Excerpt)
May 1, 2003... I MET JOHN WHEN I WAS 15. I WAS working in this cafe on the weekends and he started coming in every Saturday, always waiting to order from me. Then he'd sit there drinking his coffee for at least an hour, looking out the window, looking at me....

Nicole Steen is one busy little tart. (Art).(Vancouver based painter and musician)
May 1, 2003... NICOLE STEEN is one busy little tart. As half of Vancouver's art duo The PopTarts and lead singer for the local "noir lounge" band Coal, she's always got something on the go. Steen is a key member of Vancouver's low-brow art scene, an...

With her art-project-cum-bookwork MY DEMANDS, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design student Emily Holton has created a series of 19 pseudo-haikus that twist and tangle our envies and desires. (Zines).(Book Review)
May 1, 2003... With her art-project-cum-bookwork MY DEMANDS, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design student Emily Holton has created a series of 19 pseudo-haikus that twist and tangle our envies and desires. One request reads "a saw and cello bow to make music...

If you just want to direct, why wait for the Hollywood moguls to come calling? (Film).
May 1, 2003... If you just want to direct, why wait for the Hollywood moguls to come calling? Just join your local KINO club. Four years ago, Montreal filmmaker Christian Laurence challenged some friends to produce one original video short per month for...

Hovering World. (Books).(Book Review)
May 1, 2003... In his debut novel, HOVERING WORLD (DC Books), Peter Dube manages an unusual juxtaposition of the mundane and the sublime. Its matter-of-fact setting--gossipy friends, fabulous parties, gay bathhouses, anonymous sex and anonymous brutality--is...

Game theory: Dr. James Rilling proves that co-operation really is its own reward. (Free Thinker).(Interview)
May 1, 2003... PSYCHOLOGISTS, ECONOMISTS AND POLITICAL SCIENTISTS HAVE long used the Prisoner's Dilemma game to explore rational decision-making. Dr. James Rilling and a team of behavioural neuroscientists at Emory University, however, have used it to find...