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Quebec
State Repression of Sexual Minorities
In 1996 Justice John Wesley McClung, Q.C. ruled against Delwin Vriend in the famous case prompted by his dismissal from a religious college owing to his sexual orientation. Warning against sanctioning “deviant practices,” McClung asserted that the province had appropriately refrained from “the validation of homosexual rights, including sodomy, as a protected and fundamental right, thereby rebutting a millennia [sic] of moral teaching.” Fifty-four years earlier, his father John W. McClung, K.C., led the crown’s prosecution of 12 men for same-sex activities, also in Edmonton.
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Canadian Politics, Economy and Foreign Policy
Canadian Idle?
Inflation is spiraling out of control in Canada. A huge ego-bubble has developed on Sussex Drive and Bay Street, where chests have been expanding dangerously with every new media report extolling Canada’s success in weathering the global economic storm. First, there was Fareed Zakaria’s laudatory article in Newsweek, followed by Paul Volcker’s call for a banking model that “looks more like the Canadian system than the American system.” And then there was Obama’s visit to Ottawa, during which he reportedly told Harper he was thinking of changing his next campaign slogan to “Yes, we can…ada.”
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Queer
Contempo Abo
Noam Gonick spoke on Alert Radio with aboriginal artists Kent Monkman and Adrian Stimson about Two-Spirit in their contemporary art practice. Adrian Stimson is a Blackfoot performance artist living in Saskatoon who works in installation and photography and is well known for his persona “Buffalo Boy” who often appears at the Burning Man festival in Nevada. Toronto-based Kent Monkman plays the role of “Miss Chief Eagle Testicle” in a performance context and is a painter of Cree descent, raised in Winnipeg, who also works in video installation and film.
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Queer
Why Queer? Why Now?
First, there hasn’t been a super political queer mag since the Body Politic ended over twenty years ago in 1987. There have been a number of more academic inclined queer theory journals, special journal issues and a steady stream of queer articles. One could say that that there has been an explosion in queer theory and queer studies. This explosion of queer into the public from the 1990s onwards has simultaneously been breathtakingly exciting and boringly normalizing.
Inside the July/August 2009 issue of CD:
Canadian Dimension is finally out of the closet! In fact, we’ve always been queer and proud of it. Challenging capitalism and standing up to bosses, politicians and patriarchy for nearly a half-century is queer indeed. So why a queer issue? Why now?
Episode 124 (April 30th) — In Alert’s final show of the season, Noam Gonick interviews queer artists Kent Monkman and Adrian Stimson about Two Spirit in their work; a taste of CD’s Queer Issue (July/August). Sid Shniad, just returned from Geneva, tells what really happened at Durban II. Robert Albritton talks about his new book Let Them Eat Junk, How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity. Music is the Weapon profiles The Internationale, the most dangerous song in the world.
- The cultural boycott: Leonard Cohen and beyond by Leon Rosselson – Labournet
- The necessity of cultural boycott by Ilan Pappe – The Electronic Intifada
- Canada to consider settlements suit – Al Jazeera
- Saskatchewan NDP divided on nuclear power by Don Kossick – Rabble.ca
- Protests in Iran: Not Just About Stolen Votes by Shourideh Molavi – Socialist Project
- Undermining Mexico: Canadian Gold Mining Companies vs. Farmers, Ecologists and Indians by John Ross – Counterpunch.org
- The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama by Ian Brown – Globe and Mail
- South African Political Power Balance Shifts Left Though Not Yet Enough to Quell Grassroots Anger by Patrick Bond – Socialist Project
- Daily Links Archive
