» Archive: August 2003
Land Claims Until 2058
Georgia Straight: New Native Land-Claim Act Appalls Experts
At the existing rate, it will take until 2058 to settle the existing claims, and 60 new ones are being filed each year. Half of the new cases are in B.C., where the backlog is the worst of any province.
Baghdad Burning
Baghdad Burning is a weblog written by an (anonymous) female programmer in Baghdad.
I say: well written, insightful, scathing.
HaidaBucks Takes The Day.
For Starbucks executives and lawyers, it may have been simple: force HaidaBucks, a small, under-funded business in a tiny Canadian village on a remote island, to change its name. Unfortunately for Starbucks, it has turned into a "David vs. Goliath" legal and PR nightmare that won't go away, with thousands of people across Canada and the US boycotting the company because of its tactics.
Mel Hurtig Coming to Greater Vancouver
Author and Canadian Patriot Mel Hurtig will be coming to the Vancouver suburb of New Westminster.
The author of the stirring read, The Vanishing Country - Is It Too Late To Save Canada? - will be speaking at the Justice Institute of British Columbia.
The event is being hosted by the Council of Canadians on September 12 2003 at 730 PM. Entrance will be by donation and there is plenty of parking available.
Leading off the evening will be a speech by BC Regional Coordinator Claudia Medina-Culos. A live to tape presentation by Maude Barlow from the Cancun round of the WTO meetings will be an interesting addition. Mel Hurtig will then round out the evening, including taking questions from those in attendance.
Address:
Justice Institute of B.C. 715 McBride Boulevard, New Westminster
U.S. may launch more pre-emptive strikes
According to the NY Times, Bush told veterans Tuesday that Iraq may not be the last strike.
From the article:
"We've adopted a new strategy for a new kind of war," Mr. Bush said, to loud applause. "We will not wait for known enemies to strike us again. We will strike them in their camps or caves or wherever they hide, before they hit more of our cities and kill more of our citizens."
Martin becomes a senior
On Thursday Paul Martin turns 65, and officially becomes a senior. Although Martin's own crew has lambasted the current PM for his age in the past, his people are being fairly quiet about the milestone (Martin is only four and 1/2 years younger than Jean Chretien) .
For more, see: Martin becomes a senior on Thursday
More racial profiling
In an example of how Canada is copying the new U.S. practice of detaining Muslims on "immigration" charges in order to investigate their alleged links to terrorism, CBC reports that 19 Muslim men are being held on "unproven allegations."
An anti-terrorism task force arrested the men after an investigation by the RCMP and the federal Immigration Department.Some of the 19 are foreign students who came to Canada on student visas, while others are refugee claimants. They arrived between January 1998 and September 2001.
The government lawyers' claims are based on fragmentary information. They are still looking for more evidence.
However, under new immigration laws, such unproven allegations are enough to persuade judges to detain the men.
Muslim groups have said that the detentions are an example of racial profiling and that "These practices are simply placing us outside the … protection of the Canadian laws."
Of course, a lot of Canadians aren't concerned about issues like this because they feel like it can't happen to them--it's just happening to "the Muslims" or "the terrorists." Here's a great, often-printed quote that may be relevant:
"When they came for the communists, I was silent, because I was not a communist;
When they came for the socialists, I was silent, because I was not a socialist;
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not protest, because I was not a trade unionist;
When they came for the Jews, I did not protest, because I was not a Jew;
When they came for me, there was no one left to protest on my behalf."
- Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
"Empire Builders"
The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting online feature--entitled "Empire Builders"--which looks at neoconservatives, what they think, and who they are.
Afghanistan: Officially a Disaster
Reuters: "Aid and reconstruction is suspended across swathes of territory in the center, south and southeast, giving Afghans the impression the international community has abandoned them now the Taliban has been formally ousted. 'Once people are discouraged, that is the point of success for them, as no one will collaborate (with the authorities)' said Khalid Pashtun, director of foreign affairs in the south of the country. Local power brokers are also behind lawlessness in southern and central provinces, further tarnishing the image of U.S. forces in the people's already skeptical eyes. The United States recruited warlords to help it topple the Taliban in 2001 and still works with some of them in pursuit of the hard-line militia and the al Qaeda network it sheltered."
Mars to Earth
Tomorrow night, that tiny red dot in the sky will be closer than it has been in 60,000 years, but it'll still be a tiny red dot.
What would Earth look like from Mars?
For more incredible images of the red planet than you have time to look at, go here.
Some folks want to terraform Mars, which means to introduce life, build up a thicker atmosphere, and generally make it more Earth-like. In support of this, some folks note that Mars' day is only 28 minutes longer than Earth's, and the gravity is 1/3 of Earth's. These characteristics, along with its relative proximity to earth, make the planet more suitable for terraforming than any other planet in the solar system.
UN Wire
UN Wire is "an independent service covering the UN and the world". Neat.
LOOKOUT
Naomi Klein writes about how Canadians have been enjoying their status as "Hippie Nation". Yet when Paul Martin comes into power he will undoubtedly try and cozy up to the Americans, perhaps at the expense of our new "coolness". As she puts it:
This much is predictable. The wild card is how the Canadian people will respond. Will we embrace obedience once again, or will we demand more of this whole independence thing? Well, so far there are no signs of retreat.
NAFTA law reference
Todd Weiler, an attorney who has been involved in a number of the earliest NAFTA claims, runs a website called NAFTALAW.org which is actually at the URL naftaclaims.com. A little confusing maybe but worth a look.
If you're wondering what a NAFTA claim is, the site offers a definition:
A NAFTA claim is a legal complaint submitted by a NAFTA Investor who has suffered loss by reason of a breach of certain NAFTA provisions by a NAFTA Party. The claim is heard by an international tribunal, normally composed of three members appointed by the Investor and the NAFTA Party being sued. Tribunals are formed under the Investor’s choice of commercial arbitration rules laid out by either the World Bank (through its International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes – the ICSID) or by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (under the UNCITRAL Rules).The site allows users to get info on NAFTA claims, including copies of recent claim documents. Weiler is also available for interviews.
American drilling for oil in Canadian waters?
Beaufort drilling a U.S. test, says Lang
( CBC North ) - The Yukon's acting premier hopes the federal government can fend off an American oil grab in the so-called disputed zone of the Beaufort Sea.Archie Lang says the U.S. government has asked for expressions of interest for oil drilling in part of the Beaufort Sea also claimed by Canada.
Canada is no stranger to disputes of this nature, the United States also disputes Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage although it is clearly within the boundries of the Canadian Territory of Nunavut.
Private Member's Bill Opposing FTAA Chapter 11
MP Pierre Paquette of the Bloc Quebecois introduced Motion M-391 in the House of Commons on April 3 2003. It draws on the public petition campaign demands and reads:
"That in the opinion of this House, any free trade agreement entered into by Canada, whether bilateral or multilateral, must include rules for the protection of foreign investments which do not violate the ability of parliamentary and government institutions to act, particularly on behalf of the common good, and must exclude any investor-state redress provisions; and consequently
"That, the Canadian government must enter into negotiations with its American and Mexican partners with a view to bringing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in line with the aforementioned principles
Who's Open?
George Soros: "In the past, my philanthropy focused on defeating communism and helping with the transition from closed societies to open societies in the former Soviet empire. Now I would go so far as to say that the fight for a global open society has to be fought in the United States."
Charkaoui
Under public pressure for holding a closed trial, CSIS released a testimony from another convicted terrorist (Ahmed Ressam), saying he had seen Charkaoui at a training camp in Afghanistan. Charkaoui's lawyers are saying it's not credible.
One lawyer said, "we have received no explanation on how and when these statements where made." Since the US has all but admitted to torturing suspected terrorists, it's a valid question.
Charkaoui has claimed that CSIS was blackmailing him because he refused to spy on members of Montreal's Muslim community.
(The Dominion covered this a few issues ago.)
Palast without Power
When the lights went out, Greg Palast used the remaining battery power in his laptop to write about "The Tale of The Brits Who Swiped 800 Jobs From New York, Carted Off $90 Million, Then Tonight, Turned Off Our Lights"
This was the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer Insull created the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FDR gave us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set profit. The laws banned power "trading" and required companies to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to hike rates. Of particular significance as I write here in the dark, regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit?Or as Kellan put it, "argue with Palast's tone, but you can't argue with his facts."
Damn right we did. Most important, FDR banned political contributions from utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.
But then came George the First. In 1992, just prior to his departure from the White House, President Bush Senior gave the power industry one long deep-through-the-teeth kiss good-bye: federal deregulation of electricity. It was a legacy he wanted to leave for his son, the gratitude of power companies which ponied up $16 million for the Republican campaign of 2000, seven times the sum they gave Democrats.
The Effects of FTA and NAFTA
Mel Hurtig analyzes the actual effects of the FTA and NAFTA on Canada's sovereignty. He shows how politicians pushing free trade run counter to the general population's opinions, and assesses what effects Paul Martin will have on the continuing trend.
Orchard
David Orchard's take on conservatism (and Conservatism) in The Road to Power is pretty fascinating.
The opening on the political spectrum today is for a voice defending our sovereignty. This was the terrain of the Progressive Conservative Party, from the 1850s until the 1980s. I advocate we reclaim this powerful and successful position. The idea of “uniting the right” in Canada, one of the most stable and tolerant societies in the world, is doomed. Canadian politicians capable of holding the broad centre ground are those who succeed.
August News
It being mid-August, the news gets a little more weird and alcohol-related.
Calgary Sun: "A club for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts has found itself in a catch-22 because it may have to sell booze if it wants to allow smoking on the premises. A city bylaw dictates that all restaurants must be smoke-free. Clubs and lounges serving liquor are exempt from the bylaw."
CP: "A former beer-promoting Bud girl who was fired for drinking and driving on the job has been deluged by the international media, including an interview request from CNN. 'I've been completely bombarded,' said Lisa Mitchell, 23, adding the attention has been 'really stressful.'"
Good Reading
Some interesting articles, shamelessly lifted from Arts and Letters Daily.
The Guardian has an adapted version of Edward Said's new introduction to Orientalism
But there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation. It is surely one of the intellectual catastrophes of history that an imperialist war confected by a small group of unelected US officials was waged against a devastated third world dictatorship on thoroughly ideological grounds having to do with world dominance, security control and scarce resources, but disguised for its true intent, hastened and reasoned for by orientalists who betrayed their calling as scholars.
Without a well-organised sense that the people over there were not like "us" and didn't appreciate "our" values - the very core of traditional orientalist dogma - there would have been no war.
Martha Nussbaum's analysis of Judith Butler's work is quite interesting.
If Butler should reply that her argument pertains only to speech (and there is no reason given in the text for such a limitation, given the assimilation of harmful speech to conduct), then we can reply in the domain of speech. Let us get rid of laws against false advertising and unlicensed medical advice, for they close the space within which poisoned consumers and mutilated patients can perform their resistance! Again, if Butler does not approve of these extensions, she needs to make an argument that divides her cases from these cases, and it is not clear that her position permits her to make such a distinction.
For Butler, the act of subversion is so riveting, so sexy, that it is a bad dream to think that the world will actually get better. What a bore equality is! No bondage, no delight. In this way, her pessimistic erotic anthropology offers support to an amoral anarchist politics.
NYRB: The Decline and Fall of Literature
The field of English has become, to use a term given currency twenty-five years ago by the redoubtable Stanley Fish, a "self-consuming artifact." On the one hand, it has lost the capacity to put forward persuasive judgments; on the other hand, it is stuffed with dogma and dogmatists. It has paid overdue attention to minority writers, but, as Lynn Hunt notes in her essay in What's Happened to the Humanities?, it (along with the humanities in general) has failed to attract many minority students. It regards the idea of progress as a pernicious myth, but never have there been so many critics so sure that they represent so much progress over their predecessors. It distrusts science, but it yearns to be scientific—as attested by the notorious recent "Sokal hoax," in which a physicist submitted a deliberately fraudulent article full of pseudoscientific gibberish to a leading cultural-studies journal, which promptly published it. It denounces the mass media for pandering to the public with pitches and slogans, but it cannot get enough of mass culture. The louder it cries about the high political stakes in its own squabbles, the less connection it maintains to anything resembling real politics. And by failing to promote literature as a means by which students may become aware of their unexamined assumptions and glimpse worlds different from their own, the self-consciously radical English department has become a force for conservatism..
The Question.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "But if we are the rugged individualists, why do we spend so much of our time trying to get everyone to march in lockstep? And if Canadians are so reserved and moderate, why are they so progressive about letting people do what they want to?"
BC Liberals Concerned Over Ethnic Enthusiasm
When the three quarters of the BC population that is referred to as caucasian votes "en masse," as it did for the Liberals in the last federal election, it isn't considered an event in itself. But the caucasian portion of the BC population only represents 20% of the BC Liberal membership. If the minority population of BC that consists of Indo-Canadians and Chinese-Canadians were to vote as an "ethnic block," this would be a cause for concern. At least, according to the four prominent BC Liberals who issued an open letter scheduled to appear in the National Post yesterday. This is because these ethnic groups now represent an estimated two thirds of the Liberal memberships in BC.
One of the letter's authors, Matin Collacott, a former abassador to Sri Lanka, said " there was no reason to gather so many votes in ethnic communities because the Liberal party is in no danger of losing its majority in the House of Commons." Is there cause for concern over the negative implications of this statement? The Vancouver Sun
Update: Here's the original letter to the National Post and Liberal Party President Stephen LeDrew's response, which appeared today.
Ask a stupid question.....
"Why should the Inuit be exempt from the licence fees all other Canadians have to pay?" asks Tanis Fiss, director of the Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change for the group.
( CBC North ) - The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is denouncing Nunavut Tunngavik's efforts to see Inuit exempted from the federal firearms registry.The Federation describes itself as a non-partisan organization that acts as a watchdog on government spending and taxation.
The Federation believes that if Inuit are exempt from registering their guns, all Canadians should be.
"Why should the Inuit be exempt from the licence fees all other Canadians have to pay?" asks Tanis Fiss, director of the Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change for the group.
Fiss says she takes exception to the argument that requiring Inuit to register their guns could interfere with their traditional way of life. Fiss says firearms were not used by native Canadians prior to European contact.
Says Fiss:
"We do not feel that based on what your ancestry is or where you happen to live in Canada that you should be granted an exemption over and above other Canadians,"
The only thing is that it's based on a signed contract between the Inuit of Nunavut and the Government of Canada compensating the Inuit of Nunavut for a great many injustices..... including the take over and exploitation of Inuit lands and ill-conceived attempts at cultural assimilation.
The Nunavut Land Claim Agreement specifically grants Inuit in Nunavut the right to harvest "without the imposition of licences or fees", given what Canada gained from the deal (legal ownership of a sufficient amount of land to claim sovereignty over the Arctic) it's not such a big deal now is it?
Maybe if Fiss had bothered to do a little bit of basic research she (and the CTF) could have avoided asking a question with such an obvious answer.
Hitchens on Said
Christopher Hitchens is a convincing writer. After reading his lambasting of Edward Said in The Atlantic, I feel the need to point out the components of his argument without the elegant but ultimately empty rhetoric.
250,000 protest WTO in Southern France
Indymedia Netherlands is reporting that more than 250.000 attended an anti-WTO rally on Larzac, in the south of France. It also helped that Manu Chao and Asian Dub Foundation played afterwards.
As usual, media reports quickly whittled the number down the crowd estimate to "100,000", though police estimates were 200,000.
Libération called it an "Anti-Globalization Woodstock".
More navel-gazing material
The Brunswickan, student paper at UNB, ran a decent story about the Dominion. A few things are off, but that probably has to do with the way I answered questions.
Iron-fisted approach? Alienating?
Quote of the day, from Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of "allied forces in Iraq".
"It was a fact that I started to get multiple indicators that maybe our iron-fisted approach to the conduct of ops was beginning to alienate Iraqis. I started to get those sensings from multiple sources, all the way from the governing council down to average people."
Surrey's Safer Status
In 2001, Surrey led Canada's 15 largest municipalities in incidents of violent crime with 1,567 incidents per 100,000 people. Though still not the safest place to park your car, the 2002 statistics find it in second place with 1,310 incidents per 100,000 people, the leader being Winnipeg which reported 1,325 incidents. That's a nineteen percent drop! More from Canadian Press
Yukon's bishop opposed to gay colleague
( News North ) - Yukon's Anglican bishop says he's disappointed his American counterparts have elected an openly gay bishop.Terry Buckle says the move is wrong and will increase tensions within his church.
The American wing of the church elected a gay man, Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire last week.
The bishop of the Yukon diocese, Terry Buckle, says his U.S. counterparts should not have done that.
Given their extensive track records of sexual abuse against aboriginal children within the Canadian residential school system (and many northern communities) a "holier than thou" attitude towards same sex couples coming from either the Anglican or Catholic churches would be laughable were it not quite so sad.
Heat wave hits circumpolar north
( Nunatsiaq News ) - Residents of northern Norway and Finland have been sweltering this summer during one of the hottest seasons on record.
As noted earlier the Canadian Arctic has been facing its own heat wave this summer seeing 30+ degree temperatures not to far south of the Arctic Circle and mid-20's on Baffin Island.
I did not [want to] have belligerent relations with that country
Dick Cheney: "Events leading to the fall of Saddam Hussein are fresh in memory, and do not need recounting at length. Every measure was taken to avoid a war. But it was Saddam Hussein himself who made war unavoidable. He had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He bore a deep and bitter hatred for the United States. He cultivated ties to terrorist groups. He built, possessed, and used weapons of mass destruction. He refused all international demands to account for those weapons."
And there's a debate about whether the Bush Administration lied?
George W. Bush: "Yes. No, to answer the last part of your question.
First of all, let me -- just a quick history, recent history. The stock market started to decline in March of 2000. Then the first quarter of 2001 was a recession. And then we got attacked in 9/11. And then corporate scandals started to bubble up to the surface, which created a -- a lack of confidence in the system. And then we had the drumbeat to war. Remember on our TV screens -- I'm not suggesting which network did this -- but it said, 'March to War,' every day from last summer until the spring -- 'March to War, March to War.' That's not a very conducive environment for people to take risk, when they hear, 'March to War' all the time."
(!!)
[emphases added]
Operation Quebec Freedom
Michael Century: A non-revisionist note on Operation Quebec Freedom, 1775
Hoping to snatch Quebec as a 14th colony in a swift pre-emptive strike, the first Continental Congress had sent a manifesto to the people of Quebec in March 1775 inviting them to "unite with us in one social compact, formed on the generous principles of equal liberty". The pamphlet begins by warning that under continued colonial administration, "even the Inquisition itself" could be re-established. Hardly a savvy insinuation to a mainly Catholic population to which King George had, in the Quebec Act of 1774, just granted re-establishment of all its customary legal and religious institutions. The American entreaty was to an "Unhappy people! Who are not only injured but insulted Nay more!" In a darker register, the Canadians are urged to "Join us as brothers in revolt, or to risk "becoming tools to assist the British in taking that freedom from us, which they have treacherously denied to you"". A small expeditionary force was sent north in the fall of 1775, for whose prospects Washington wrote that he had "the greatest Reason to expect that Quebec will fall into our Hands a very easy Prey."
Quebec Moviegoers Act Locally
The The Globe and Mail reports that movies made in Quebec are outpacing Hollywood "blockbusters" at the box office.
What's more, the U.S. blockbusters are rapidly losing momentum at the wicket in Quebec. Terminator 3 has taken in only $37,000 in the province last weekend. But La Grande Séduction, produced by Roger Frappier's Max Films, is still going strong, with a $300,000 take. It could become the summer's top grossing film in Quebec. "The movie has a lot of legs," said Alex Films president Simon Beaudry.Will endless Hollywood mediocrity spawn a global resurgence in highly decent regional filmmaking (Miramax aside)? Would that it were so!
Remarkably, it is not the first time this summer that a local movie has outclassed big-budget Hollywood films at the box office. Gagnon executed a similar coup in May, when he released director Denys Arcand's new film, Les Invasions barbares, a week after X2: X-Men United and a week before The Matrix Reloaded opened. Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions) took in about $565,000 in its opening weekend, leaving it virtually tied for first place with X-2.
(On an tangential note, Les Invasions Barbares is really quite a good film.)
Climate Change Accelerating?
The Age (Australia): Heatwave sparks greenhouse alarm
The heatwave could be consistent "with a worst-case scenario (of global warming) that nobody wants to come true", said Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief scientific adviser to the German Government and now head of Britain's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall centre.
The Tusked Beast Breaches
The Walrus, an extremely well-funded attempt at "Harper's North", now has a redesigned web site, with more hype, but not much more content.
Quoth Z. David Berlin, Editor in Chief, in this Vancouver Sun article:
It’s as intimidating as hell. The expectations are tremendous, and I’m sure we’ll disappoint everybody.So far, their web design is kind of neat, though putting the titles in columns to the left of the content is awkward.
They seem to be trying out a Slashdot-style, audience participation, submit-interesting-links-and-discuss, model. They're using a karma system, but calling it "Social Capital". And they haven't customized everything yet, so the possible topics are Linux, News, Slash, Slashdot, and User Journal.
It'll be interesting to see how that works with a literary crowd. My guess: it won't be pretty. (KarmaWhores with English degrees, anyone?) More seriously, it seems completely misguided to allow people to rate each others comments on subjects that as politically and subjectively divided as politics, art, literature, essays, and news. It seems slightly more misguided to turn those ratings into "Social Capital", which has consequences for the placement of one's future comments. A good way to quickly rid a forum of any independent or well-considered contributions.
But who knows?
The other thing they've done is set it up so that every user can create their own journal. Positively, this means that anyone with a valid email address can share their thoughts and contribute links and wisdom to the Walrus' web site.
Negatively, this means that anyone with a valid email address can spew forth and soil the Walrus' web site with their own rantings. In its current (and obviously unfinished) state, there is no clearly displayed policy about what can be acceptably posted. Nor is there any disclaimer seperating (for example) my remarks from the official Walrus site.
I'd like to congratulate the Walrus folks for their willingness to embrace audience participation from the get go, but this seems like a legal disaster waiting to happen. One person with a hotmail address and an imagination for libelous comments about high profile folks... All easily fixable, but since they didn't fix it before making the site public, it just makes them look a little naive, that's all.
Arctic sizzles in summer heat
IQALUIT, Nunavut - The bitter, forbidding Arctic has been downright hot this summer.
Environment Canada has recorded several record-breaking temperatures in Nunavut, including a high of 31.5 C in Baker Lake on July 28 – beating the old record of 29.7 in 1991.Iqaluit has broken two records. On July 29 the temperature hit 26.1 C, breaking the record of 20.8 in 2001. And last Friday the temperature in Nunavut's capital went up to 20.8 C, setting yet another record.
Little is published in the mainstream media about the effects of global warming and climate change in the arctic however those effects can be far more significant than in southern areas. This document (PDF 3.2 Mb) is a transcription of a conference held in Cambridge Bay (Nunavut) March 29-31, 2001. An interesting read from people who are seeing the changes in their daily lives.
Getting Warmer
Independent: Britain bakes, Europe burns. Is this proof of global warming?
Independent: "After more than a year of complaints by some US anti-war activists that they were being unfairly targeted by airport security, Washington has admitted the existence of a list, possibly hundreds or even thousands of names long, of people it deems worthy of special scrutiny at airports."
The Understander
(Review of Ursa Major: A Polyphonic Masque for Speakers & Dancers, by Robert Bringhurst [afterword by Peter Sanger]. Kentville, N. S.: Gaspereau Press, 2003.)
I tend to think of printed play-scripts as utilitarian things: as tools for scholars, for actors and directors, not as things one might pick up for pleasure. But Robert Bringhurst's Ursa Major, published by Gaspereau Press, is something different.
Paul Martin's Canada Steamship Lines
CBC's Disclosure has an extensive bit of background on Paul Martin's company, Canada Steamship Lines (CSL).
On CSL's use of "flags of convenience":
For example, the CSL “Innovator” had a labour agreement, a Bahamanian flag and an Indian crew. But when CSL pooled some of its ships with a German company, it sold them the Innovator as part of the deal.CSL responds:
The Germans gave it a new name, a Liberian flag, and a Filipino crew. CSL then leased the ship right back – and its labour agreement no longer applied.
...
"It’s no different that dealing with sweatshops, he uses sweatships – same thing. He applies the same kind of rules –he may not apply them but he knows what they are– that is why he goes offshore with his vessels."
"The re-flagging and the change of crews are all, were all required in order to remain competitive in the international market. All our competitors all employ foreign crews to – and we must be competitive."
I wonder if the executives took a pay cut in order to "remain competitive"?
Monument remembers Inuit who died anonymously in the South
Makivik builds Inuksuk in Quebec City cemetery.
( Nunatsiaq News ) - Sixteen thousand graves pepper Mount Hebron, the 155-year-old cemetery that lies on the banks of the St. Lawrence River, just outside Quebec City. Headstones mark the majority, carved with the name of the deceased, the year they were born, and the year they died.But in the Inuit section of the cemetery, a grassy plot no more than 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, the graves are marked with plain, cedar pickets. No dates or names are engraved on these wooden crosses. Numbers alone distinguish one cross from the next.
This is, unfortunately, far from a unique situation
"There are Inuit graves not just in Quebec City but all across Canada in large cities like Montreal and Hamilton — Inuit people who had been sent to hospital centres or sanitariums for tuberculosis. Often, many died and were buried in the city, in chosen cemeteries, because in those days it was very difficult to bring bodies back to the North," she said.
Little work has been done in identifying the remains of Inuit who died and were buried in the south, and to this day many of their relatives still have little or no idea where their loved ones may be resting.
The practice was simple, those diagnosed with tuberculosis were sent south for treatment, contact with family in the north was non-existent, and if they did not survive they were buried in the south.
Families could go years without news of relatives and often children returned unable to talk to their parents... they had been away from their culture for so long that they had forgotten how to speak Inuktitut. Others found out much later that their relatives had died and that rather than returning the remains to the family the government had arranged for burial in the most expedient and economical way possible - an unmarked grave in the closest cemetery.
Suicide task force begins work
In follow up to Rankin residents Hit the road to combat suicide the Nunavut Suicide task force has begun its work.
The Government of Nunavut's suicide task force will begin community consultations this month. The consultations will run until mid-September and will focus on the issue of suicide, as well as prevention and community healing.During the March session of the legislature, MLAs passed a motion to support the fight against suicide.
And in mid-July, Ed Picco, the minister of health and social services, appointed a task force of youth, elders, healers, educators and justice workers.
Strafing and Death Threats
Robert Fisk: "A day after Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, claimed that the Arabic Al-Jazeera television channel was 'inciting violence' and 'endangering the lives of American troops' in Iraq, the station's Baghdad bureau chief has written a scathing reply, complaining that in the past month his offices and staff in Iraq 'have been subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests, all carried out by US soldiers'.
Financial Times: "Halliburton, the second biggest oilfield service company in the world, on Thursday said work in Iraq had boosted revenue as it swung from a loss to record second-quarter net income of $26m , or 6 cents a share, compared with the year-earlier period."
Rankin residents hit the road to combat suicide
RANKIN INLET, Nunavut - About 50 Rankin Inlet residents are walking to raise awareness about suicide.
The walk began at the hamlet office with a prayer and speeches from the mayor and organizers.The participants will end up 13 kilometres away, at the Elder Cabin in Meliadine Territorial Park. There, they will spend the weekend in workshops and healing sessions.
Tera Tootoo Fotheringham was one of the many who turned out for the walk. Her cousin, Terrence Tootoo, committed suicide a year ago this month.
The suicide rate in Nunavut (Canada's newest Territory) is six times the national average, the same article notes that:
If the Inuit are lucky enough to have a home, they usually are crammed into houses. Only one third of the people living in Nunavut own private dwellings. Most of the owners are not even Inuit. In the small community of Gjoa Haven, families of 15-20 people are living in one house. There are over 15 families like this in Gjoa Haven. They often have to make their beds on the floor or anywhere there is room, and there are many other communities like Gjoa Haven. Home life is an important factor in how the Inuit deal with life.In addition, home life can affect teenagers and adults making them depressed. This is one of the reasons for extremely high rates of substance abuse and suicide. The depression can come from the lack of privacy, space, and ownership. Many of these people do not own the bare minimum. They live in poor conditions and who would not be depressed about that? This is why improving home life in Nunavut is imperative. If we increase the quality of home life in Nunavut, it will in turn help it prosper.
Sharon and al-Khafaji
Guardian: "Ariel Sharon shrugged off President George Bush's request to halt construction on the security fence through the West Bank yesterday, vowing that the work would continue. Addressing journalists after his eighth White House meeting with the president in 30 months, the Israeli prime minister said the barrier 'will continue to be built with every effort to minimise infringement on the daily life of the Palestinian population'."
Isam al-Khafaji: 'I did not want to be a collaborator'
On July 9, with deep sorrow, I submitted my resignation as a member of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development Council to US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz.I did this with great sadness but, in doing so, I was able to leave Iraq with a clear conscience. If I had stayed any longer, I might not have been able to say that. I feared my role with the reconstruction council was sliding from what I had originally envisioned - working with allies in a democratic fashion - to collaborating with occupying forces.
Israeli Settlements
Ha'aretz Op/Ed: Primordial illogic and primitive cruelty
It is logical to lock people up in their homes and villages, and to sabotage the farming of their land because it is logical to subsidize the Jewish settlement in the land of the forefathers of Gush Katif and northern Gaza. It is logical to connect Jewish settler homes to electricity and water while forbidding Palestinian neighbors from connecting to the electricity grid and the water and sewage lines.
It sounds cruel to lock people up in their homes and uproot their groves and orchards that they spent decades nurturing. But it's a logical cruelty, Israel is convinced, if that is what it takes to foil the cruelty of others - to prevent an armed Palestinian attack on a nursery school or a plant nursery or to plant a landmine on the route of a tank that is patrolling to protect the nursery school and the plant nursery. During the Oslo years, many good Israelis made do with the logical thought that "eventually" the settlements in Gaza would be dismantled. Logic and policy are two different things. Meanwhile, even before the bloodshed broke out in September 2000, the settlements in Gaza expanded, their infrastructures were improved and their security required the army to dictate various Draconian prohibitions of movement for a million Palestinians.
Shopping Without Branding
"Between 1986 and 1990, I made approximately 8,000 color, Hasselblad images on the streets of Communist Europe. I purposely avoided dramatic moments and newsworthy events. In a cityscape without commercial seduction, banality seemed to signify everything. At first I was interested in simple pedestrian traffic. Later I doggedly documented store windows. These seemed to signify the real difference between East and West. Without the garish ad campaigns of the West, these streets felt more neutral... devoid of trumped up and pumped up urgency."
More Sites
A few sites, mostly found through dominionpaper.ca referer logs, which seem to be worth linking for future reference.
The Atlas of Canada (.ca)
BlogsCanada (.ca, weblog, good list of links to other canblogs)
Canadian Information News Network (.ca, weblog)
The Freewheelin' Reader (.ca, weblog, many good links)
wood s lot (.ca, weblog)
Robert Sim (.ca, weblogish)
19th Floor (weblog)
Project Fallout (weblog)
Flying the Bullet (weblog)
gordon.coale weblog (weblog, many good links)
Orcinus (weblog, "Policy, Culture and Journalism in the 21st Century")