» Archive: June 2003

Stonewall History

Allison Gifford of Rabble.ca has compiled an interesting reading list on the history of the gay rights movement, starting with Stonewall (or disputing the recognition of Stonewall as the start).

CUPW says Charest planning to cut child care

CUPW: "Jean Charest and his new Liberal government think the cost of the province's five-dollar-a-day universal educational service and child care system, along with its Centres de la petite enfance (CPEs), is too high. (Centres de la petite enfance are programs that include both family child care and centre base care.)The Quebec government is now thinking of: Massive funding cuts to the CPEs; Increasing the daily fee parents will have to pay for the program; Ending the programme's universality and forcing families that are financially better off to pay more for the programme; Leaving it up to the private sector to develop new services."

(Wasn't that, like, one of the PQ's good programs?)

Real Women

Real Women Online features commentary from "ordinary" women from all over the world on public issues of the day. Their recent high-profile addition was Zainab, the first female Iraqi to start a weblog.

National Missile Defense

Parliament of Canada: Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs discusses National Missile Defense

Lloyd Axworthy:

If I may be indulged for a moment, let me say that I think that the terms of reference of the committee are too restrictive. By simply looking at these issues within the context of Canadian-U.S. defence relations, it doesn't really encompass the full impact, significance, and consequences. The reality is that in dealing with a decision on missile defence systems, it is not a stand-alone, one-off, singular, silo-type policy, but is part of a much broader, seamless, interconnected military doctrine being put forward by the present U.S. administration, which challenges the ways in which this country and many others have been going about trying to deal with security over the last several decades. It's not possible to deal with it just as a Canada-U.S. issue, and to do so I really think ignores the full fallout and consequences of whatever decision is taken. It has major significance for issues of international peace and security, it has implications for multilateral treaty arrangements, and it has implications for very important decisions related to tackling the causes of terrorism and civil conflict.

So this is not something that can be designed purely within a Canada-U.S. context. It certainly is important, and because of our close relationship with the United States, it certainly is a major factor; but I would suggest that seeing it exclusively in those terms would not give the full weight or full understanding to what is really engaged in this discussion. Any decision the Government of Canada eventually makes will have a ripple effect internally, in terms of what we do as a country, but it will also have major implications for a wide variety of Canadian activities in other international relations. I also believe that because of the role we have played up to now as a major advocate and proponent of multilateral agreements, becoming part of a missile defence program would certainly influence and affect our standing, capacity, and reception as an advocate

Let me simply point out that a missile defence system as presently being put forward by the U.S. administration is integrated into a much larger set of issues. You can call them counterforce issues, you can call them spectrum dominance, or you can call them pre-emptive, but they basically are a repudiation of the notion that security can be fostered and developed through a series of verifiable restraints that countries agree to on limiting the supply of weaponry in the world. That's been a basic notion we've worked on assiduously; rather than dealing with threat and risk by counterforce and counter-threat, it's important to introduce into those discussions restraint, agreements, covenants, and protocols. That is not the position of the present U.S. administration.

Therefore, when one looks at missile defence, you have to put it in the same context as the recent decisions to seriously consider the resumption of nuclear testing and the development of mini nuclear devices. You have to look at it in the context of the substantial reduction in export controls on missile technology; and you have to look at it in the so-called pre-emptive strike capacity, coming out of national security defence, which was clearly expressed as part of the rationale for the invasion of Iraq. All of those things are tied together; they are not separate pieces, but are woven into a strand. You can't take one piece of that strand and one thread and pull it out and say that's what we belong to. If you become attached to that one piece, you get involved in or woven into the entire fabric.

Alexa McDonough:

 I do want to say that the assurances that the foreign affairs committee has conducted a comprehensive foreign policy review are simply not accurate. In fact, despite the urging of some opposition members, two of whom are here at the table, the call for a comprehensive review of NMD was strenuously resisted. In fact, they weren't even prepared to reinforce the status quo by saying we should take extreme caution with respect to Canada entering into some kind of participation in NMD.

This really brings me back to this sense—which I think we all have and which was certainly expressed by witnesses this morning—that we seem to be barrelling ahead with this with a sense of inevitability. At the foreign affairs committee, we've heard government members say both formally and informally, we don't agree with it and we don't think it makes any sense, but you know what, I think we have to do it to repair relations with the United States, for having had the audacity to chart our own independent course with respect to the war in Iraq—and besides, it won't cost Canada anything.

Sources, Primary

Virtual Library - Parliamentary Research Branch Publications

The First Nations Governance Act

Objectivity?

YellowTimes.org: 'American journalism: Objectivity and reverence''. A piece on the difference between American and British approaches to journalism.

As I observe it, the mainstream American approach to objectivity has two levels to it:

First, you have to choose a story. Since objectivity is important, you can't just make up a question and answer it (even if you do so objectively). You have to choose news that is objectively important. Otherwise, you're biased. Objectivity, though, is not a way of coming up with questions, but a method of answering questions, so it doesn't suit this purpose at all. But that would involve admitting bias, which makes things complicated, so they fudge it: whatever seems to be important to most people, is important.

This starts off innocently enough; it's almost democratic, in a hamfisted way. Everyone agrees that the president is important. Therefore, we cover what the president says.

The second level of objectivity has to do with answering the question that the report is implicitly asking. But the question has been obviated by the procedure of objectivity: it becomes a tautology. "The president is holding a press conference" becomes "what did the president say at the press conference?"

What remains of objectivity, then, is relegated to the accurate rendering of what the president said.

The problem with this, which should be completely obvious to everyone, is that what is objectively important to cover is what people with power and influence say. The reporter can't just ask a question, and answer it.

"Did Ari Fleisher just tell a lie on behalf of the President?" Even if there is a perfectly objective way to answer this question, the reporter can't ask it, because it's not objective. "What?" you ask, "how could a question possibly not come from one standpoint or another?" I don't know, but this is the inane justification for a large part of the complete toothlessness of our journalists.

Of course, much worse abuses take place on a daily basis. Entire reports are assigned and written just to placate advertisers or those with power or influence (boardroom pals, rotary club buddies... whatever the scale). This bizarre definition of objectivity doesn't make that happen. People make that happen. But the bizarre interpretation provides a structure that makes pleasing those in power a lot easier.

What's wrong with this: ask any question you think is worth asking, as long as you answer it in a way that is fair and well-documented. There would still be plenty of room to ask extremely limited or leading questions, but there would be just a bit less justification for not asking the really uncomfortable questions.

Thurmond Dead

Strom Thurmond Dies. "As the tributes flowed in yesterday, Mr Thurmond's controversial racist past was mostly forgotten. "One of the greatest people I have ever known," was the judgement of Orrin Hatch, his fellow Senate Republican from Utah."A giant oak in the field of public service has fallen," said Ernest Hollings, Senator Thurmond's colleague from South Carolina..."

Greg Palast on Venezuela. "Friday, January 3, 2003. The New York Times ran a long 'News Analysis: Venezuela Outlook.' Four experts were quoted. For balance, two of them don't like Chavez, while the other two despise him."

Vandana Shiva on Monsanto's use of the Bush administration. "Monsanto through the U.S. government, is trying desperately to reverse its failing fortunes by creating markets for its genetically engineered crops (GMOs) through coercion and corruption. The E.U. has not yet cleared GM crops for commercial planting or GM food for imports. Brazil has had a ban on GM crops. And India has not cleared GM food crops and has stopped the spread of genetically engineered Bt. Cotton to Northern India after its dismal performance in Southern India in the first season of commercial planting in 2002. E.U., Brazil and India are all under attack overtly and covertly, for not rushing into adopting genetically engineered crops without caution and ensuring biosafety."

A Dominion Poster

Download the poster [89k, pdf] Suitable for posting.

Unemployed Iraqis

The Union of Unemployed Iraqis is planning a major demonstration on July 3rd.

Fundamentalism in Iraq; Americans Support Invading Iran

Washington Post: Cover Your Hair

Women did relatively well under Saddam Hussein (when they weren't being tortured or executed, penalties that the regime applied on an equal opportunity basis). In the science faculty at Basra University, 80 percent of the students are women. Iraq won't follow the theocratic model of Iran, but it could end up as Iran Lite: an Islamic state, but ruled by politicians rather than ayatollahs. I get the sense that's the system many Iraqis seek.

Washington Post: "Most Americans would support the United States taking military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons despite growing public concern about the mounting number of U.S. military casualties in the aftermath of the war with Iraq, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll."

Interview with Duff Conacher

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Duff Conacher of the Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition about the increasing fees charged by banks for basic services. Dru Oja Jay conducted the interview.

Conacher has just explained that though there are many banks in the Canada that are nominally competitors, these banks do not actually compete with each other. Canadians choose their bank based on convenience, he says. According to Conacher, if competitors can not steal each other's customers by improving services, then they are not really competitors. According to a poll done by the Competition Bureau, less than 1% of Canadians have ever switched banks. "The polls have shown that people bank based on convenience; what's close to home, school, or work: that's where they have their bank; you're not going to switch to save $10, if you have to drive ten minutes to get to your branch." Banks know this, and are gouging customers.

read more...

I Love the smell of napalm in the morning!

Reuters: 'Apocalypse Now' Music Fires Up U.S. Troops for Raid

U.S. troops psyched up on a bizarre musical reprise from Vietnam war film "Apocalypse Now" before crashing into Iraqi homes to hunt gunmen on Saturday, as Shi'ite Muslims rallied against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.With Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" still ringing in their ears and the clatter of helicopters overhead, soldiers rammed vehicles into metal gates and hundreds of troops raided houses in the western city of Ramadi after sunrise as part of a drive to quell a spate of attacks on U.S. forces.

Not quite as deeply sick as showing porn to fighter pilots before sending them on bombing missions. For those who haven't seen Apocalypse Now, here's a description of the scene in question:

In one of the most famous scenes in Apocalypse Now Lt Col Kilgore's [played by Robert Duvall] troops attack a VC village. They have loudspeakers attached to the helicopters and right before the attack they turn them on. As Kilgore says : "We'll come in low, out of the rising sun, and about a mile out, we'll put on the music... Yeah, I use Wagner -- scares the hell out of the slopes! My boys love it !" The song is of course "The Ride of the Valkyries", from Wagner's opera Die Walküre.

Strange that the army of liberation would make a direct reference to "freaking out" Vietnamese civilians.

Security Certificates

Apparently, CSIS can now arrest immigrants and detain them indefinitely without charges or due process with something called a "security certificate". Indeed, they have done so recently to a man named Adil Charkaoui, who alleged has ties to Al Quaeda.

Some TAO folks have some background information on the certificates, CSIS, etc.

The name of the legislation which makes this possible? The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Canada, Arms Dealer

Stephen James Kerr: Canada the Global Arms Dealer

According to the Canadian Defence Industries Association, (CDIA) "Under the existing conditions, Canada can expect, at a minimum, about $270 million in NMD-related exports over the next 15 years. With appropriate levels of Government and industry action, (emphasis mine) there is a potential for that to increase to more than $1 billion in exports."

CDIA figures show that Canadian 'defence' industry revenues grew 35% between 1998 and 2000, far outpacing growth of the rest of the economy, which grew at approximately 3%. Canada's 'defence' market grew from $3.7 billion in 1998 to $4.08 billion in 2000, up 22.6%. Exports to the USA grew by 17% from just under a billion to $1.25 billion. And our arms exports to the rest of the world grew a staggering 75% in the same period from $798 million to $1.5 billion.

Meet the Canada you never knew, the global arms dealer with a heart of gold.

More American Polls

Some poll results, compiled by Bob Harris of the Tom Tommorrow weblog.

Of American adults, at least 18 years of age...

65% couldn't describe the basic facts about Watergate
56% think in war, the media should support the government over questioning it
48% say the news media acted responsibly during the Clinton Wars
45% characterized Watergate was "just politics"
43% attended religious services in the previous 7 days
40% believe the media was biased in favor of Bill Clinton
35% say the government should not fund stem cell research
34% think Rock and Roll has had an overall negative impact on America
33% believe a wife should "submit herself graciously" to a husband
30% say the Bible is the "actual word of God" to be taken literally
29% think people will be "more likely" to afford college for their kids in 2020
28% disapprove of labor unions on principle
28% say the government should have the right to control news reports
27% believe divorce is "morally wrong"
26% thought various disasters in 1999 might "foreshadow the wrath of God"
26% think grade-school teachers should be allowed to spank their kids
24% describe themselves as interested in what celebrities think
21% told a pollster they'd never met that they had cheated in a relationship
21% say justice was served in the O.J. Simpson case
20% approve of the how the Catholic Church handles pedophilia
20% believe that the killing of civilians in Vietnam was "relatively rare"
15% were upset at Diana Spencer's death like "someone you knew"
12% think the United States should have a British-style royal family
11% stockpiled food and water in advance of Y2K
11% think "Titanic" was the best American movie of the 20th century
11% would like "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" as their personal physician
10% would eat a rat or an insect on a "reality" TV show
10% think it's advantageous to be a woman in American society
10% believe Oswald acted alone
10% say they are "very likely" to become rich someday
8% could not name a single TV network
8% fear they are "very likely" to be shot or badly hurt by a stranger
7% think Elvis is possibly still alive
6% say Garth Brooks is the best male singer of the 20th century
5% are ?very afraid? of thunder and lightning
5% would be "more likely" to buy food labeled as genetically modified
3% wanted to see the questions on "Millionaire" become less difficult

US in Iraq for 10 years, and other Iraq News

USA Today "Two top U.S. defense officials signaled Congress on Wednesday that U.S. forces might remain in Iraq for as long as a decade and that permanent facilities need to be built to house them there. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave no explicit estimates for the time U.S. forces would stay in Iraq, but they did not dispute members of Congress who said the deployment could last a decade or more. The comments were among the most explicit acknowledgements yet from the Bush administration that the U.S. presence in Iraq will be long, arduous, costly and a strain on the military.

[...]

Wolfowitz said the size of the supplemental funding request will be determined in the fall. But he did not dispute an estimate by Rep. John Spratt (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C., that the military would need an annual budget of $54 billion -- $1.5 billion a month for Afghanistan, $3 billion a month for Iraq."

NYTimes: "American marines had built makeshift wooden ballot boxes. An Army reserve unit from Green Bay, Wis., had conducted a voter registration drive. And Iraqi political candidates had blanketed the city with colorful fliers outlining their election platforms — restore electricity, rehabilitate the old quarter, repave roads.But last week, L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the American military occupation in Iraq, unilaterally canceled what American officials here said would have been the first such election in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Overruling the local American military commander, Mr. Bremer decreed that conditions in Najaf were not appropriate for an election."

Washington Post: "The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism. They're making us less secure, not more secure," said Beers, who until now has remained largely silent about leaving his National Security Council job as special assistant to the president for combating terrorism. "As an insider, I saw the things that weren't being done. And the longer I sat and watched, the more concerned I became, until I got up and walked out."

Washington Post: "The death of a U.S. soldier yesterday near Baghdad brought to nine the number of troops killed in Iraq this month in a string of sporadic rocket and sniper attacks. Fifty-four Americans have died in accidents or military action since President Bush declared the war ended on May 1, equal to more than one-third of the 139 wartime deaths."

Washington Post: "U.S. and Iraqi officials have confirmed the theft of at least 6,000 artifacts from Iraq's National Museum of Antiquities during a prolonged looting spree as U.S. forces entered Baghdad two months ago, a leading archaeologist said yesterday."

Moscow Times: "They were digging mass graves in Iraq last week. No, not the mass graves that George W. Bush now reflexively invokes to justify his murder of up to 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and the needless deaths of more than 200 American soldiers in the aggressive war he launched on the basis of proven lies and outright fabrications. Those mass graves, containing victims of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, were dug years ago, back when powerful U.S. officials like Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and Paul Wolfowitz were pursuing "closer ties" to the Saddam regime at the signed, insistent order of another president named George Bush."

Telegraph: "British military vehicles were stoned in the southern city of Basra yesterday as 10,000 people took to the streets to demand self-government.Led by prominent local Shia clerics, the crowd chanted threatening slogans such as "Answer our demands or you will regret it". Last month the British disbanded the town council and installed in its place a committee of technocrats chaired by a senior British military commander."

The Observer: "A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll, and 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons."

Guardian: "The Taliban were supposed to have disappeared from Afghanistan 18 months ago, but in recent weeks they have begun a comeback with a series of primitive but deadly attacks on officials and the government's military allies. Last week a suicide bomber blew up an explosives-filled taxi next to a bus full of German peacekeepers in Kabul, killing four of them. It was the deadliest attack on the international forces in Afghanistan so far."

Weekly Chomsky #2

Weekly Chomsky #2 has been posted. Another nugget from Noam.

Europe Spending Money to Keep Illegal Immigrants Out

Swiss Radio International: EU targets illegal immigrants

Hailing a decision to spend 140 million euros (97.7 million pounds) on external borders, European Commission President Romano Prodi said: "Public opinion now can be really tranquillised by the action we have taken...We have put our money where our mouth is."

"The Commission has made an effort to find extra money because our borders are very, very long and difficult to guard," he told a news conference on Thursday.

After eastern enlargement next year, the EU will have much longer borders with the ex-Soviet Union and the Balkans, bringing the bloc's total population to about 450 million.

From the Independent, A brief story of globalization.

Senegalese farmers do not have the machinery or technology to compete on an equal footing. It means that countries such as Senegal are being trapped in a vicious circle, where cheap imports are driving people out of business, into poverty, and making them more reliant on foreign aid.

Thieboudienne (pronounced cheb-oo-chen) is made up of rice, tomatoes, fish, onions and groundnut oil. Three quarters of Senegal's 10 million people depend on farming for a living, with fish the top export. Fishing also provides 600,000 people with employment - but those jobs are now under threat.

With no money for its schools and hospitals, the Senegalese government sold the rights last year to its fish-rich waters in the Atlantic to the European Union. There are concerns that the fishing rights were sold off in return for guarantees on aid.

Local fisherman are supposed to have the exclusive rights to waters within six miles of the shore - but they say EU trawlers frequently flout this rule.Ibrahim Gueye, 21, a fisherman, said: "The fish are becoming more and more scarce. At one time we would only have to fish for a matter of hours. Now we often have to stay out for two or three days or longer. Some days we return from the sea with no fish at all."

New European Constitution

Christian Science Monitor: Set for 2006: e pluribus Europe

The constitution offers something both to those seeking a closer union, and to those jealous of national sovereignty, but it seems unlikely to end the permanent and often acrimonious debate between the two sides.Though the word "federal" was excised from the draft in the face of British complaints, changes in the EU's voting system that will make it harder for any one country to block a common initiative clearly expand the authority of EU institutions.Since the European Parliament is the only one of those institutions to be directly elected, this worries skeptics like Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish delegate to the convention. "Now we have a constitution like the Americans made in 1787," he says caustically. "But the one thing we missed out was democracy."

Two Sites

IATP Trade Observatory (formerly WTOWatch)

Factivism, a weblog by Dan Doucette in Vancouver.

HRW Report on Fallujah Killings

Human Rights Watch:

The conclusions of Human Rights Watch's investigation challenge some of the assertions made by the U.S. military. Significantly, Human Rights Watch did not find conclusive evidence of bullet damage on the school where U.S. soldiers were based during the first incident, placing into serious question the assertion that they had come under fire from individuals in the crowd. In contrast, the buildings across the street facing the school had extensive evidence of multi-caliber bullet impacts that were wider and more sustained than would have been caused by the "precision fire" with which the soldiers maintain they responded, leading to the civilian casualties that day. Witness testimony and ballistics evidence suggest that U.S. troops responded with excessive force to a perceived threat.

Fish in a barrel, or: media criticism in Canada

A fun game: count the number of native fishermen or DFO officials quoted this Globe and Mail story about a court ruling on Native fisheries, which appeared on page A1 today.

By my reckoning: zero. Everyone quoted in the article unambiguously affirms the exact same opinion.

Almost Half of US Senators are Millionaires

CNN: "The U.S. Senate showed once more why it's sometimes called the millionaires' club. Financial disclosure forms released Friday by the nation's 100 senators show there are at least 40 millionaires among them -- 22 Republicans and 18 Democrats. All but six of them are men."

Knight-Ridder: "A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons. Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001."

US curbs press in Iraq

Christian Science Monitor: "At least some of the fuel for the anti-American fire, US officials here charge, is being pumped out by new Iraqi media outlets.

Paul Bremer, the top US official here, says a new edict prohibiting the local media from inciting attacks on other Iraqis - and on the coalition forces - is not meant to put a stopper on the recently uncorked freedom of speech."It is intended to stop ... people who are trying to incite political violence, and people who are succeeding in inciting political violence here, particularly against women," Bremer said at a press conference Tuesday.Iraqi journalists are not taking kindly to the restrictions. Among the scores of new publications that have flooded Iraq's newsstands since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the broadsheet As-Saah is one of the most widely read. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, the paper's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads."

13,000 Arab and Muslim men face deportation

WSWS: Of the more than 82,000 Arab and Muslim men who came forward to register with US immigration authorities in recent months, more than 13,000 now face deportation, according to government officials. The men were responding to a special government program that required male non-citizens, aged 16 and older, from 25 countries to register with immigration authorities between December 2002 and April of this year.

Flooding in India

ENS: Monsoon rains have dislodged some 400,000 people in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, causing them to flee their homes along rivers that are flowing above the danger level. The Indian Army has detailed troops to serve as rescue workers for those left homeless in 450 villages along the Brahmaptura and Barak rivers. Railway tracks and roads are under water across Assam, and Assamï¿•s Lokapriya Gopinath Borodolai International Airport soon could be under water if a mud dyke on the edge of Guwahati is flooded over.

Indonesia

Things are deteriorating in West Papua

And while everyone's worrying about Jemaah Islamiyah, the Indonesian military is organising thugs from Laskar Jihad to harass and kill indigenous West Papuans.  Laskar Jihad see themselves as fighting a holy war against Christians, so they are considered an asset by the Indonesian military, because West Papua's indigenous people are largely Christian.  Leading West Papuan human rights activist John Rumbiak has told the US and Australian governments about this [as if they didn't already know], but it doesn't appear to be concerning them very much.  Just like it didn't concern them in the late 1970s when the Indonesian military was organising Jemaah Islamiyah.

"Greens, Run" -or- "Run, Greens"?

A brief discussion of whether the Green Party should run a candidate in the US 2004 Presidential election.

My own hunch is that the Greens will not try a "serious" presidential candidate in 2004; they may run one of their party functionaries as a means of retaining favored ballot status in some states. The shocking thing, to me at least, is that so many people seem to want the Greens to run someone despite the threat of inadvertently helping Bush. Right here, right now, I find that stunning. I don't think there is any overestimating the disgust that Americans from across the political spectrum have for the Democratic party.

Roy in DC

Arundhati Roy speaks in DC.

Never mind that after the first Gulf War, the Allies fomented an uprising of Shias in Basra, and then looked away while Saddam Hussein crushed the revolt and slaughtered thousands in an act of vengeful reprisal. After the invasion of Iraq, Western TV channels' ghoulish interest in the mass graves they discovered evaporated quickly when they realized that the bodies were of Iraqis who had been killed in the war against Iran and the Shia uprising...The search for an appropriate mass grave continues.

Ideas, Not Money

The founders of the ReLit Awards ('Re' for 'Regarding Literature, Reinventing Literature and Relighting Literature ... ') have just announced this year's shortlisted titles. The awards sport the motto 'Ideas, Not Money', and were founded in 2000 'as an alternative to the big-money prizes'. The competition is open to books published by independent Canadian literary publishers. There is no entry fee, and there are no cash prizes; the winners 'will be trumpeted at bonfire beach parties in Newfoundland and British Columbia' on June 21.

In an essay published in the Winter 2001 issue of The New Quarterly, John Metcalf writes: 'The literary world has been undergoing rapid changes over the last few years. It has become ever more shallow. As Steven Heighton said to me recently: "Literature used to be about literature. Now it's about money."'

Will the ReLit awards prove antidotal?

Each of the winners will receive a 'specially-designed ring by Newfoundland goldsmith Christopher Kearney'. Each sterling silver ring is set with `four moveable dials, each stamped with the entire alphabet, that can be revolved to fashion four-letter words.' (The ReLit press release does not, of course, specify which four-letter words.)

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