This Magazine articles from November 2006

This Magazine archives from November 2006

Canadian broadcasting context.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... There are several inaccuracies in your story ("Canadian broadcasting corpse?" September/October) that we would like to take the opportunity to clear up for your readers. Rather than "cutting corners and programs," we are in the midst of...

Not so black and white.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... "The rap battles" (March/April) by Dave Morris, while critiquing the "the white media," ultimately ends up defending woman-hating patriarchal white culture. The fact that this type of cultural expression is part and parcel of a culture that has...

Straight stuff.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... Great issue of This Magazine this month! (September/October) I'm so pleased to see This Mag giving more attention to the internet. I do wonder, however, how you managed to miss Canada's longest running independent online newsmagazine, Straight...

Free U.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... The excellent piece, "Flunking out the schools" (September/October) refers to universities as "corporations." In fact they are monopolistic ventures that are failing to adapt to changing times, despite all the PR stuff they pump out. If...

This space for rent.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... While MySpace and its users appear at first glance to be somewhat resisting intrusive advertising, the fact is that instead the site is becoming full of viral marketing ("Whose space?" September/ October). More and more users are adding...

Hey, what about me?(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... A long-time This supporter I was disappointed the other day as I made my first post to the This magazine blog, or rather tried to make a post. A reader, of both the magazine and the blog, I was annoyed at myself for never having before noticed...

Happy birthday to this.(Editorial)
November 1, 2006... A FEW DAYS BEFORE I STARTED THIS JOB EIGHT MONTHS AGO, I GAVE AN INTERVIEW to a student journalist about my impending career move. Most of his questions elicited a gushing response--I was thrilled to have been offered the position, and the lots...

What would Jesus ride? Will Braun pedals spirited social change.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
November 1, 2006... IF YOU HAPPEN TO PASS A GUY RIDING his bicycle on the Trans-Canada Highway, there's a good chance it's Will Braun. The editor of Geez, a "magazine of spirited social change" with a Christian bent, gave up flying four years ago and now bikes...

Because everything is statistical: this Magazine then and now.(THIS & THAT: INFORMATION, INSIGHT & INNOVATION)
November 1, 2006... Solidarity forever: During the first 10 years after the morph from This Magazine is About Schools, This ran 80 articles on labour and workplace issues. In total, it has covered the subject more than 140 times, including 1998's special Work...

Twister.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... The first board game that required people to use their bodies as playing pieces caused quite a stir when it first (rather hesitantly) launched. Critics called it "sex in a box," but after Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor delighted audiences by...

The Black Panthers.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... "We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our black and oppressed communities." This was the first point of the militant civil rights group's 10-point plan, which also called for housing, education and employment for black...

Optical fibre.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Two British scientists working for Standard Telecommunication invented the very fine glass fibre that has the ability to transmit data or images over long distances through refracted light. Fibre optic cables have revolutionized long-distance...

Star trek.(THIS & THAT)
November 1, 2006... Would we ever have had William Shatner's poignant rendition of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" if we didn't have the womanizing Starship captain first?

Canadian colour tv broadcasts.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Long before there was TV Turnoff Week, there were many exciting advancements in TV technology. While the United States began broadcasting in colour in 1954, the CBC started its own colour broadcasts in July 1966.

Life is a frozen highway: climate change threatens northern roads.(THIS & THAT)
November 1, 2006... "THE WORLD IS A MINE AND THE NORTH IS A CANARY," Northwest Territories Premier Joe Handley warned the UN Climate Change Conference last December in Montreal. "The land is literally melting beneath our feet." Canada was about to experience its...

Indeed, crony capitalism featured Foucauldian flaneurs.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... These are words you will not typically find in This's pages. While the origin of the "forbidden word list" is a mystery, we suspect it's of a 1990s, post-socialist vintage. Successive generations of editos have problematized their own pet...

No choice: Fredericton hospital suspends abortion services.(THIS & THAT)
November 1, 2006... The state of publicly funded abortions in New Brunswick was dealt a blow this summer when the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton suspended services. The hospital, which provided about 400 of the 404 medicare-covered abortions...

An ounce of prevention: black activists step up HIV/AIDS outreach.(THIS & THAT)
November 1, 2006... ENLISTING BLACK BARBERS TO HAND out condoms. Talking to strangers about the AIDS epidemic in reggae and jazz record stores. Asking gay men to lecture to their African- and Caribbean-born elders. Across the country, black-led AIDS prevention...

Blog log.(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... The literary world and the internet shouldn't get along. After all, the internet has led to advances like online retailers, teased us with the idea of print-on-demand and unleashed the forces of Google--whose plans to digitize the contents of...

Harper index.(THIS & THAT)(Stephen Harper )
November 1, 2006... After an unusually eventful summer break, the fall session of Parliament began on September 18, with Stephen Harper and his minority Conservative government continuing to lose support for its mission in Afghanistan and lack of an environmental...

Progressive detective: investigating the politics behind everyday things.(THINGS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Q I'm tired of giving and receiving gifts no one for Christmas--what are good, charitable alternatives, and how can you tell what's legitimate? A There are indeed some great organizations out there that will use your money to purchase...

We thinks they doth protest too much: challenging the Cold-fx cure for the common cold .(THIS & THAT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... WITH COLD AND FLU SEASON UPON US, CANADIANS ARE trickling into local drug stores nursing scratchy throats and runny noses, searching for a magic pill to quell their symptoms. And Cold-fx, the Canadian product whose active ingredient is a...

Bring on the Novocaine: why the Harper tax cuts will leave a bad taste in your mouth.(Stephen Harper)
November 1, 2006... "Root-canal economics" is the catchy phrase used to describe incredibly painful economic policies. Think of an IMF austerity package imposed on a third-world country, and you get the idea of root-canal economics. But if you are a...

No glove, no love: a user's guide to safe surf practices.(MEDIA)
November 1, 2006... I have a confession to make. I have an STD. I'm not even sure how I got it. It's not like I was sexually reckless; I was innocently surfing websites and suddenly it popped up without warning, my Server Transmitted Disease. Now, when I use...

Because not everything is political: contributing editor Rick Salutin challenges This Mag's conventional wisdom.
November 1, 2006... I was in Poland in 1986, during the Cold War, just after the Chernobyl reactor melted down across the Soviet border. I went mainly out of interest in the opposition movement, Solidarity, which shook the Soviet-controlled government and...

40 ideas we need now.(Cover story)
November 1, 2006... ON THE OCCASSION OF OUR 40TH BIRTHDAY, This Magazine asked 40 past and present contributors--and some distinguished guests--for a big idea whose time has come. Some particularly inspired folks contributed more than one idea; sadly we couldn't...

It's high time for ... jet packs!(Cartoon)(Cartoon)
November 1, 2006... Say goodbye to tedious and occassionally invasive airport security checks. Kindly remove your thong, sir. Easily avert catastrophes. Let the eagle soar... You don't have to be a rocket scientist to select the model that best...

The good, the bad and the just plain bizarre: This Magazine contributors, past and present, reflect on their moments of glory, shame, stress and admiration over the years.
November 1, 2006... Who knew that a little magazine formed by a group of radical Toronto-area teachers in the '60s would still be around today? While today's This Magazine is quite different from its original incarnation, This Magazine is About Schools, it still...

Fiction & poetry.(Editorial)
November 1, 2006... For readers of This Magazine, the inclusion of fiction and poetry offers an opportunity to explore human, political and cultural issues in a form outside of journalism. Or simply to explore the pleasures that imaginative juxtapositions of words...

Squirrel.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Squirrel A crow descends on Queen's Park Circle at rush hour. He tries to pluck the stubborn stringy liver from a squirrel. Previously the squirrel had direly underestimated the pep of a Honda Civic. Prior to...

Quayside.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Quayside After hearing the news of your cancer, for days I felt hungry. The tulips hung their heads in the hot room. Sunlight pressed my forehead like a feverish hand, and the white bed came unmoored, a raft on a...

Market Place Religion.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Market Place Religion Sell us something oh Great Big Face Sell us something to end waste Sell us something so we can protest Sell us something to numb the silence that frightens us Sell us something to...

The boy who waited three minutes.(Bobby Rottenhead)
November 1, 2006... Bobby Rottenhead knew that in three minutes everything would be different. Just like his name was different than when his parents had arrived in this country. If they'd kept their original name, he'd now be Bobby Weinberg, but the guy in...

How I relate to American poetry.
November 1, 2006... At the beginning of the new century, my wife and I drive the 10 hours from Toronto to New York City. It's a sunny day in September--all Catskill Mountains and fly-fishing streams. Everything reflects. We hit Manhattan near the end of the...

Declarations of War.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Declarations of War (for Bess, a mutt, hit by a car on the Don Valley Parkway the same moment I sat down to write) I'm sorry I never told my old black dog much of anything. We walked for literal years, both on what we knew...

Sundial.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Sundial You drop into conversation like an afternoon dives into an empty swimming pool--gamely but down an element. It's a spring day and a short week, the streetcar's cavern backlit with heads & arms: a turkey...

Old Postcard.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Old Postcard Says The gate is all wired up--I will be home by daylight anyway O khaki reunions on porches--X that fossil of happiness Notes in fat logging-pencil--fires floods wrecks parades blurry b&w floating...

Brother Dumb: an excerpt.(Excerpt)
November 1, 2006... When I finally did decide to write a story--or an extended story in a series of stories really--about a particular family with a Jewish name, I got killed. Nobody liked it. One critic actually said that my writing about that particular family...

They Give Evidence.(Poem)
November 1, 2006... They Give Evidence (After a room-sized installation by Dadang Christanto, 1996) They give evidence in an empty room sixteen of them, eight men, eight women, four rows of four, unlucky number. They are all...

Satchel Paige.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Satchel Paige July 7, 2006, according to some books Satch is a hundred years old today. He's pitching somewhere. It's from Leroy we learned that looking goofy is a way to be hip as you'll never be. We knew...

Dufferin Grove Park.(Poem)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Dufferin Grove Park Under a tree is as good as a hotel room, library Versailles or truck stop to finish an affair leaves will cup to catch your threats, excuses twigs too thin for Martins can carry your poor lies,...

The idea machine that never sleeps: Tyler Clark Burke gets the party started.(ARTS & IDEAS: THIS IS INDEPENDENT CULTURE)
November 1, 2006... FRESH OFF THE HEELS OF HER LATEST project, a city-wide scavenger hunt called Santa Cruz: Eagle Eyes that took place in October, Tyler Clark Burke is both exhausted and obsessively enthusiastic--such is the life of an idea machine. Widely...

Playing God: Coupland characters take to Vancouver stage.(Douglas Coupland's 'Life After God')(Theater review)
November 1, 2006... CAN A PLAY ABOUT THE OPTIMISTIC BUBBLE THAT WAS THE early '90s have relevance in our post-9/11 world? How does one adapt a story where nothing really happens into a full-length piece of theatre? These were just two of the questions the creative...

If at first you don't succeed ...(ARTS & IDEAS)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... USUALLY, ARTISTS DESTROY WORK THEY FEEL HAS FAILED--rarely would they think of showing it to anyone, let alone encouraging a gallery to display it. "We tend, as a culture, to anaesthetize our failures as quickly as possible, which I think...

Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet, by Carol Off (Random House) Bitter Chocolate rests largely on a single, poignant irony: that the primary ingredient of first world children's favourite...

Every Inadequate Name.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Every Inadequate Name, by Nick Thran (Insomniac Press) As any writer knows, language is an imperfect medium; describing inner and outer landscapes using words can be like inscribing your initials on a grain of rice using a paint roller....

The Fearsome Particles.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... The Fearsome Particles, by Trevor Cole (McClelland & Stewart) Are there too many novels about fractured families spinning out of control? Not if they're written by someone with as sure a hand as Trevor Cole. In his second novel, Cole offers...

Suburban Pornography and Other Stories.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... Suburban Pornography & Other Stories, by Matthew Firth (Anvil Press) Whatever you do, don't label Matthew Firth's new collection erotica--most of these stories are clearly sex fiction, which he defines as accurately portraying how people...

How long must we sing this song? The struggle for social justice has always had a rousing soundtrack--from solidarity inspiring union hymns to folk songs to hardcore anthems. To mark This's 40th anniversary, we've put together a list of 40 essential songs of resistance from 1966 to the present. Download this playlist and fight the power!(MUSIC)
November 1, 2006... 1960s 1966 Love Me, I'm A Liberal, Phil Ochs 1967 Respect, Aretha Franklin 1968 Revolution, The Beatles Say It Loud--I'm Black And I'm Proud, James Brown 1969 Give Peace A Chance, John Lennon and the...

New Dark Age Parade.(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2006... New Dark Age Parade, Subhumans (G7 Welcoming Committee) I heard your rhetoric again today / I don't believe a single word you say / Telling us you're gonna make the world free / But I know my history, belts Brian Gable on Moving Forward,...

Home.(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2006... Home, Neon Tetra (Noise Factory) Neon Tetra is Liam Brennand, an experimental musician from Regina who started making music at age 13, using sounds from video games. After a stint producing dance music when he was 15, Brennand's musical...

Isolator.(Sound recording review)
November 1, 2006... Isolator, Two Hours Traffic (Independent) Rarely does a band from PEI gain national attention outside of the Maritimes, but Charlottetown's Two Hours Traffic is already being praised nationwide as one of Canada's finest young bands--and...

Innis memorial column: Staples theory still holds.(BACK STORY)(Harold Innis)(Column)
November 1, 2006... HAROLD INNIS, WHO WAS TO BECOME THE GREAT ECONOMIC historian of Canada, was born in 1894, near the end of a two-decade long period of slow and unsatisfactory growth of the Canadian economy. By the turn of the century, with the gold rush to the...