This Magazine articles from November 2002

This Magazine archives from November 2002

The goods (the bad and the ugly). (Under The Hood).(consumer apocalypse now)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... THE LATEST SIGN A CONSUMER APOCALYPSE IS UPON US? IT COULD BE the $9,500 gold-and-burgundy, floral-patterned shower curtain former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski bought for his New York City apartment. Then again maybe it's the $2,400 milkmaid dress...

Take back the knit? (Salvo).(feminist mystique)(Brief Article)(Column)
November 1, 2002... OVER LUNCH A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, A colleague started telling me about her exciting new project--going back to university to study how women are reclaiming domestic arts. She was inspired by Bust's "Home Girls" issue and these knitting circles...

Tainted T-shirts. (Red-Handed).(Make Trade Fair by Oxfam and Gildan Activewear Inc.)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... OXFAM INTERNATIONAL IS KNOWN WORLDwide for its relief efforts and awareness campaigns, including "Make Trade Fair," which calls for reformed international trade rules. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that my snappy new Make Trade Fair...

NDP off-track betting. (Chart).(New Democratic Party, Canada)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... SINCE 1935, THE NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND ITS PREDECESSOR, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, have contested 20 federal elections--and won none of them. There's something about the federal New Democrats; they lose when times are good,...

Get a free education. (How-To).(college and university tuitions Canada)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... "A CHILD ONLY EDUCATED IN SCHOOL IS AN uneducated child," said philosopher George Santayana. Good thing, because these days a formal education will cost you big time. Over the past 10 years, tuition has risen by 126.2 percent. That's six times...

Robots attack! (Sign Of The Times).(World 2002 Robotics Report)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... IF YOU THOUGHT A SHAKY ECONOMY WAS your only threat to job security, you've got another thing coming. Just ask the UN. In October, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics, released the...

Politicians for sale (cheap!). (Context).(O! Canada)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... THERE'S AN OLD JOKE IN OTTAWA: WHAT'S the difference between lobbying and influence peddling? About two years less a day. The perfect crime is undetectable, so any list of Canadian political criminals is, by definition, a litany of losers. The...

Nuclear welfare. (In The House).(United Kingdom)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... PITY THE POOR NUCLEAR INDUSTRY. THE billions Canadian taxpayers have spent keeping it afloat just aren't enough. Enter Bill C-4, An Act to Amend the Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which would shield financiers and insurers from any liability...

Pat on the back.
November 1, 2002... Thanks for a great (Canadian) alternative mag! I'd love to see such strong opinions and fluid expression in every aspect of Canadian media, from the local to the national levels. Alternative media should be made more accessible to all. Sadly,...

Money talk.
November 1, 2002... In the July/Aug issue, there were two references to "pocketbooks" Now, I've lived in Canada a long time and I've never put my money in a "pocketbook." That's American usage. I know it's hard to stem the tide of American cultural imperialism,...

Hopelessly de-voted.
November 1, 2002... My congratulations to Gregory Boyd Bell for the "The great democracy drop out" (July/Aug). I have had the same opinion about the need to participate in the current political system. Democracy is not to vote (or drop out) once every X years. It...

Missing half the story.(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2002... Gregory Boyd Bell raises an important point: how are we going to change the world if we are politically apathetic? He is wrong, however, to apply this generalization to the protesters at the G8 Summit in Calgary. I know several people who...

Gridlock.
November 1, 2002... I found it rather ironic that your excellent issue on getting off the grid contained Gregory Boyd Bell's sorry plea to get back on it. I suppose we have to give the other side an opportunity to make its case. It's too bad that he presents...

Electile dysfunction. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... As a general principle, all citizens should vote during elections. Failing to vote might reasonably be characterized as anti-democratic. However, like many `general principles', the devil is often in the details. And it's the details of...

Novel approach. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... I had heard about the One Book movement, but knew little about it before reading Hal Niedzviecki's excellent story ("The Story of O," July/Aug). Even though I'm a great supporter of the CBC and public broadcasting, there are times when my...

Who's this. (Letters).
November 1, 2002... Mark Bourrie likes dogs better than people, but makes an exception for the editorial staff of This Magazine. He lives in Ottawa. Aaron Freeman is an Ottawa-based NGO consultant. Rachel Giese's writing has appeared in The Toronto Star,...

Business as usual: whether they're pushing fair trade coffee, ethical funds or environmentally-friendly toothpaste, companies have figured out that social responsibility sells. But should you buy in? (Economics).(analysis)
November 1, 2002... AS I CUT THROUGH STARBUCKS OUTSIDE Toronto's Union Station, a poster caught my eye. It read "Starbucks and Fair Trade" and featured a comforting illustration of a healthy Mexican coffee farmer amid luscious rain forest greenery. Impressed that...

Artist as bogeyman: the nimby crowd takes aim at me. (Culture).(not in my backyard syndrome)(Column)
November 1, 2002... I LIVE IN WHAT I LIKE TO THINK OF AS A COOL and diverse neighbourhood in downtown Toronto. My immediate neighbours are Italian, Portuguese and Korean, mostly family types with interesting opinions about lawns and other people's gardens. Up the...

The legend of Pepsi A.M.(narrative)(Column)
November 1, 2002... IN WHICH our intrepid young hero embarks upon a quest to find an elusive aluminum grail. Within the dark confines of an industrial park in upstate New York, Chris Turner encounters the last resting place of abandoned consumer products, a...

Consuming passion: Rachel Giese meets a man who makes his living satisfying guilty pleasures.(Amrick Autwal, Le Chateau)
November 1, 2002... EVERY TWO WEEKS, THE LE CHATEAU ON Toronto's trendy Queen Street West changes its window display. This season, the look is 1930s gangster, so the five-person display team is dressing skinny mannequins in wide ties, fedoras, pinstriped pants,...

Money for nothing: even though it hasn't come into force, the Kyoto Protocol is already creating a huge market for phantom carbon. But if there's no treaty yet, why are Canada's biggest polluters paying big bucks for a whole lot of empty space?(Natsource L.L.C.)
November 1, 2002... BEN FELDMAN WORKS FOR A COMPANY THAT SELLS nothing. More precisely, it sells something, but that something is nothing. But actually, what you get is the absence of something. It isn't very expensive, just $3 a tonne. But the price is going up...

The rebel sell: if we all hate consumerism, how come we can't stop shopping?(North America)
November 1, 2002... DO YOU HATE CONSUMER CULTURE? Angry about all that packaging? Irritated by all those commercials? Worried about the quality of the "mental environment"? Well, join the club. Anti-consumerism has become one of the most important cultural forces...

From The Girls Who Saw Everything. (Drama).(Interview)(Excerpt)
November 1, 2002... Romy and Neil wait. They poke a little through the junk. Darger comes. He's not an old man, but has the distracted cast of mind of an eccentric. Perhaps he's a bit of a hunchback. He arrives with a photocopy machine on a dolly and a long...

Cultural worker: a random review of alternative culture. (Music).(Disenfranchised by Rod Bailey)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2002... VANCOUVER'S ROD BAILEY INSISTS HE'S A HAPPY GUY. REALLY. I Just don't read too much into the hip hop artist's music, which, with its minor key piano passages, suspenseful string arrangements, and mournful horn samples, sounds like the work...

Coast-lines: The Poetry of Atlantic Canada.(and Landmarks: An Anthology of New Atlantic Canadian Poetry of the Land)(Book Review)
November 1, 2002... From roughing it in the bush to painting Georgian Bay, geography has always been central to Canadian arts and letters. Small wonder that oceans, bays and shores, and the resulting influence on people's livelihood, are the wellspring from which...

Be A Cog. (Video).(Video Recording Review)
November 1, 2002... At the tender age of 16, I was the upsell queen at my fast food job, convincing unsuspecting "restaurant" patrons that for an additional quarter they really did want extra sour cream on their bean burrito. How did I learn the power of the...

Canzine. (Zines).(independent publishing festival picks)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... It seems that CANZINE--the annual festival of independent publishing--offers better regional representation every year. This year, almost 150 exhibitors from across the country made the trip to Toronto to hawk their wares. For those who were...

Big steal man: Dr. Will Cupchik explains why otherwise upstanding citizens opt for the five-finger discount. (Free Thinker).(an emotional response to loss)(Brief Article)(Interview)
November 1, 2002... EVER FELT LIKE POCKETING SOMETHING AND JUST WALKING OUT OF THE store? Did you wonder what came over you? Well, Dr. Will Cupchik has a couple of theories about it. The Toronto psychologist has spent the last 26 years studying what he calls...