This Magazine articles from May 2005

This Magazine archives from May 2005

Knockout punch.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I was heartened to receive my first issue of This Magazine. I plowed my way through Harper's for three years and gave up, through Le Monde diplomatique and gave up (and I won't even mention The Walrus). Here, at last, some editing for message!...

From one oligarch to another.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... What was the point of your article "Free at last?" (March/April), which was replete with disinformation, misuse of words and questionable "sources," other than to attempt to distort and malign the reputations of President Viktor Yushchenko and...

Shocking and disgusting.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... Your recent item on psychosurgery ("Magical mystery cure," January/ February) was shocking and disgusting. Keep up the good work. When someone says psychiatry is "getting back to its roots," that only shows it has been in the dark ages all...

Watching and learning.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... Thank you for your article ("Watch and learn," January/February) and enthusiasm for Saint Ralph. However, some quotations were used to support arguments that I don't feel qualified to make about Telefilm and Canadian filmmakers. Michael...

Food for thought.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I've been thinking about jumping into the street cart vending business, selling vegetarian curry. Your article ("Dogged determination," January/February) is pretty helpful, although it does put a crimper on my dreams. Sammy Lao ...

Tax the rich.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2005... I have to disagree with Ellen Russell's column, "Cut to the chase," in your January/February issue. Income tax was brought in with the promise that it would be set at levels such that only the rich would be taxed. Then, of course, the rich set...

Female complaints.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHTS & INNOVATION)(Editorial)
May 1, 2005... LOYAL READERS MAY RECALL A LITTLE ESSAY WE PUBLISHED WAY BACK IN OUR November/December 2002 issue. That issue, called The Rebel Sell: The real reason you can't stop shopping, rang in as our top seller of the year, and the piece by the same name...

Mall makeover: will the transformation of Edmonton's Heritage Mall into a new high-density development finally get commuters out of their cars?(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
May 1, 2005... Although malls were once touted as the shopping experience of the future, that was never the case for Edmonton's Heritage Mall. Today, it's a big, empty white elephant in the city's south end that's been in decline for years, losing major...

Help from above: how aboriginal leaders can promote healing in native communities.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
May 1, 2005... Former Northwest Territories premier Stephen Kakfwi, best known as a staunch advocate for the Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, is on his way to being known for something else. He is speaking up about the abuse he suffered as a child and is...

Your money, your choice.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)(Bank of Montreal's credit card partnership with LifeCanada)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... Big banks are bad enough, but when they team up with radical anti-abortion groups, well, that demands action. The Bank of Montreal has a partnership with LifeCanada, an Ottawa-based "advocate for those not yet born," with a fetus and a...

War of words: Palestinian and Israeli students shoot their mouths off during university debate.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
May 1, 2005... Calling its five-day February lecture series Israeli Apartheid Week was all it took for the University of Toronto's Arab Students' Collective to set tempers on edge. Besides boldly stating its agenda, the name was undoubtedly meant to bring out...

Three for the road.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2005... You may think you toil in isolation, your troubles unseen by the larger labour movement. But, then, you probably haven't heard about the plight of the three municipal workers in the Northern Ontario township of Plummer Additional who threatened...

School of hard knocks: why Cole Harbour District High School still has a lot to learn.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
May 1, 2005... Eight years after a riot at Cole Harbour District High School, in which students fought each other with iron bars, the deep historical divisions between black and white residents in Nova Scotia continue to cause tension at the school. "I call...

Race to the bottom: how Ontario schools can fight racism in the classroom--and win.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
May 1, 2005... It's so rare for students in Ontario schools to learn about racism in the classroom that Robin Pearson started an Equity Club in the southern Ontario high school where she was a teacher, to supplement the curriculum's failings. "We saw all of...

Crisis of concentration: what Vancouver can learn from the diverse media landscape of Whitehorse.(MEDIA)
May 1, 2005... SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO LEAVE TO SEE THINGS FOR WHAT they are, and from about 33,000 feet, Vancouver's monopolized media landscape looks like a mess. When I left that city for Whitehorse last year, I grabbed the complimentary Yukon News on the...

Money for nothing: how no-strings-attached transfers leave provincial budgets tied in knots.(ECONOMICS)
May 1, 2005... THERE IS AN INTRACTABLE FISCAL PROBLEM IN CANADA. OTTAWA enjoys large annual budget surpluses (eight by the last count) while everyone else (with the exception of oil-land Alberta) copes with mounting budgetary pressures. But it just may...

Hear no evil: deaf since childhood, Bobby Suwarak grew up in isolation, able to understand no known language. Now charged with a crime, he has presented Nunavut's court system with a problem. But the form of charades he uses to communicate is being used by deaf Inuit across the territory, leading one researcher to call for the court to recognize it too.
May 1, 2005... "When you are in court, are you sometimes confused?" Tim Kavanagh leans over the defense table in the bright Iqaluit courtroom as he asks the question. A lawyer with hair the colour of orange Pez, Kavanagh is questioning David Kautaq, the...

Feminism for sale: find out the real reason the women's movement is losing momentum, and why political action is the only way to take down the patriarchy.(Cover Story)
May 1, 2005... BACK IN THE '70s, we were obsessed with a band. We both had copies of their album and we listened to it constantly, memorizing the lyrics and then singing long. The record was such a huge hit that one of us even sang some of the songs in his...

PK and fly: Parkour is one serious sport. Mixing urban athleticism with an appreciation of architecture, it's about connecting with the concrete and, with any luck, landing on your feet. Now, as corporations come calling, traceurs, as they're called, must decide which way to run.
May 1, 2005... Ferret sprints toward a railing overlooking a staircase in the concrete playground behind the College Park condominium/shopping complex in downtown Toronto. He vaults over the railing onto a landing about eight feet below, dropping into a squat...

The Inner World of the Orange.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... My mother's most beloved trick: take a simple orange, turn it into pure sorrow. She did this in the manner of a spell, a story (the same story over, over). The dark handkerchief of her words whisked away, and presto-- the dour '30s, a girl...

Fundamentals of Oxygen in Intimate Situations.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... Fundamentals of Oxygen in Intimate Situations The land languished. The Inseminator parked his small truck, its doors painted: We spread the seed, we meet your need. The cows were lined up. I was told: weed the peas...

Twiggy's Prayer.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... Twiggy's Prayer Excuse me, Supreme Slender Deity-- You'll know me as Lesley Hornby of North London. Here's what happened-- I was rinsing a shampoo in the salon, this bloke says, "Follow me, Miss." For not eating...

Summer Waitresses, Bucko's Resort, 1986.(Poetry)(Brief Article)(Poem)
May 1, 2005... We were fat. Our midriffs wobbled, our twin chins debated with each other. Pecans vaulted from pies right to our thighs. The one we called Bones said saying "pecan" cost 100 calories. Bones rose above things. We were circuses of the flesh. Our...

Pom-poms and poetry.(POETRY)(Interview with Jeanette Lynes)(Interview)
May 1, 2005... Originally a citizen of southern Ontario, Jeanette Lynes now lives in Nova Scotia, where she teaches and co-edits The Antigonish Review. Her poetry books include Left Fields (Wolsak and Wynn), The Aging Cheerleaders' Alphabet (Mansfield Press)...

Phoolan Devi in Mount Pleasant.(FICTION)(Fictional Work)
May 1, 2005... CONTRARY TO NEWS REPORTS, INDIA'S infamous Bandit Queen ended up in a suburban neighbourhood in North America. Her sons ran a limousine company so, often when business wasn't too up, there'd be two or three parked on the block along with a tow...

Culture shock: how a former Ontario Hydro mail clerk got the jolt she needed to make feature films.(ARTS & IDEAS: THIS IS INDEPENDENT CULTURE)(Ruba Nadda)(Biography)
May 1, 2005... Ruba Nadda was on the verge of emotional burnout. She'd been working full-time as a mail clerk at Ontario Hydro, with every penny she could spare going to finance her independent films. She'd tried--and failed--to get two features onto the big...

Fear and loathing in Toontown: don't be fooled by those fuzzy little faces - animated entertainment is filled with filth. It's time to bring morality back to Saturday morning.(ARTS & IDEAS: THIS IS INDEPENDENT CULTURE)
May 1, 2005... WHEN I WAS A YOUNGSTER, I SPENT THE BULK OF MY SATURDAY mornings in front of the television, entertained by the hand-drawn shenanigans of a host of animated cartoon characters. I remember so many of them fondly, like family members or good...

Montreal gazetteer: the city is the most dynamic character in John Lavery's linked collection of stories.(BOOKS)(You, Kwaznievski, You Piss Me Off)(Book Review)
May 1, 2005... In his book of connected stories, Quebec writer John Lavery concentrates, for the most part, on the myriad trivialities that constitute the lives of police officers and criminals, and ends up with one of the year's weightiest and most ambitious...

Monsters from the id.(ARTS & IDEAS: THIS IS INDEPENDENT CULTURE)
May 1, 2005... More than 30 years before Jim Carrey donned a mythical mask to unleash the green-skinned party animal within, a similarly titled Canadian film provided its own twisted take on this idea, with far more eerie--and eye-popping--results. Both the...

Building blocks.(ARTS & IDEAS: THIS IS INDEPENDENT CULTURE)(Blocks Recording Club)
May 1, 2005... Blocks Recording Club is not your typical record-releasing outfit. "The word 'club' suggests people working together in a way that a label does not," says Blocks co-founder Steven Kado. He and former partner Mark McLean started the club in the...

Survival instinct: Darrell Anderson wasn't a fighter until he became a US war deserter--and found something to fight for in Canada.(QUESTION AUTHORITY)(Interview)
May 1, 2005... DARRELL ANDERSON WAS A 20-YEAR-OLD FATHER WORKING odd jobs to support his daughter when he joined the army. For four years of service he would receive $50,000--enough to pay for college. He had been in training for a year when the US invaded...