Archive - Dominion Article

OCAP's John Clarke on the "Queen's Park Riot" and the changing rules of class warfare

[From a talk given by John Clarke in Halifax last December, at a public discussion on the criminalization of dissent.]

If we're talking about the criminalization of dissent, the first thing that must occur to us when we look at those kinds of examples is that we live in an insane world, where people who go out and challenge injustice are the ones who must defend themselves from the charge of being criminals.

When we marched on the Legislature, back in Toronto, we were aware that so far that year, 22 homeless people had died on the streets of Toronto. When it comes to the crimes of the G7, even the known ones would fill volumes. Those that we don't know about would probably fill volumes more.

To say that anyone who stands up against such acts of theft and murder and violence - and fights back against them - must defend themselves from the charge of being criminal is astounding, and insane. We should keep that in mind.

David Fuenmayor reports on Venezuela's deep political divide, US intervention, and issues surrounding a potential referendum.

"Neighbour," by Heather Meek

Geoff Berner has played in a punk band. Geoff Berner has written for Sesame Street. Geoff Berner plays the accordion and prefers to drink scotch out of a wine glass. The canuck's latest release, We Shall Not Flag or Fail, We Shall Go on to the End, has quickly gotten the attention of campus radio stations across North America and Europe. The record features his trademark stew of diverse and previously incompatible styles.
- by Henry Svec -

The Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI), launched at the end of last year, is a common vision for the largest conservation agreement in the world. It proposes a plan to protect approximately 265 million hectares of forest and to manage a further area of equal size according to stringent ecological standards of development.
- by Yuill Herbert -

Less than a decade after the end of Apartheid in South Africa, popular resistance movements are growing again. This time, the enemy is privatization.

"Snow," by Heather Meek

I recently had the misfortune to watch a man die on the street.

One result of this experience is that I started thinking about Ernest Hemingway. In the early pages of Death in the Afternoon, his famous journalistic account of the bullfights in Spain, Hemingway explains why he wrote it: "I was trying to learn to write, commencing with the simplest things, and one of the simplest things of all, and the most fundamental, is violent death."

by Matthew Trafford

In a surprise announcement on January 22nd, Citigroup signaled its intention to adopt a comprehensive environmental policy that even the company's staunchest critics are calling "the most significant environmental commitment to date in the financial services sector."

- by Ted Rutland -

"Blues 2004", by Heather Meek

Ben Sichel visits Chiapas, Mexico for the tenth anniversary of the Zapatista uprising.

Kazimi's Shooting Indians questions "authenticity"
In Ali Kazimi's 1997 documentary Shooting Indians, a whole sequence of studying is going on. Kazimi studies Iroquois photographer Jeff Thomas, who is mining the century-old works of white photographer and filmmaker Edward Curtis. The three are transformed.
by Jane Henderson

Legislating the integrity of British Columbia's parks
After spending decades establishing its world class park system, British Columbia may be leaving its wilderness up to expressions of good will in lieu of legislation. On Thursday, January 22, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the BC and Yukon Chamber of Mines, the Mining Association of British Columbia, and the Council of Tourism Associations of British Columbia. The memorandum is not binding, though.
- by Kate Kennedy -

Citizenship as "contribution" and alternative economies

Think about 'contribution,' outside of the box.

The box is economy. The dominant economy–capitalism–is only one among many possible models of social organization. How we think about economy and how we structure our activities as economies shapes what we think a contribution is, what kinds of activities are contributions, and who a contributor is.

by Karen Houle

The Right Whale Program of Peninsula Valdes

Each September, right whales gather off the coast of Peninsula Valdes in Argentina's Chubut province. Since 1971, researchers have gathered there, as well: an unlikely group of biologists, conservationists, and whale-lovers, engaged in one of the world's longest-running studies of a marine mammal population. This past September, photographer John Haney and I spent a week on Peninsula Valdes, and got a window into the history of this study, onshore and off.

by Amanda Jernigan
photographs by John Haney

A letter from the editor: Every media organization has a way of deciding what stories are important enough to be news. The editor of the Globe and Mail, Edward Greenspon, has said that "if it happened yesterday, it isn't news."

"Archipelago", by Heather Meek

When looking silly is worse than looking evil
Webster's Dictionary credits literature as the traditional medium to use "trenchant wit, irony, or sarcasm to expose and discredit vice or folly." Yet in today's multimedia world, satire has entered the mainstream via theatre, television, music, newspaper cartoons, radio, and the internet. Satire is an important tool for those frustrated by the corporate, sponsorship, and political agendas mixed up in their media.- by Jane Henderson and Max Liboiron -

I am writing to express my disappointment at your decision to eliminate the poetry category in the National Magazine Awards. It seems to me that in doing so you are not only turning your back on the literary magazines that form an important part of your constituency, you are turning your back on journalistic tradition. - by Amanda Jernigan -