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Culture
The Power of Myth
“Winnipeg is an oubliette,” says Guy Maddin in his mythical memoir “My (Other) Winnipeg” in Border Crossings magazine. It is? The conception of a cold city populated by sleepwalkers, perpetually astonished at its own age may work for the city of Maddin’s mythologies. Yet, this author left Winnipeg for Montreal five years ago quite ready to forget the place — but forgetting Winnipeg has been impossible. It is impossible because, in the realm of art nowadays, Winnipeg is everywhere.
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Culture
Winnipeg’s North End
Winnipeg’s historic North End was a contradictory place. Poverty was widespread and deep; out of its midst grew a rich and vibrant culture. Today’s North End is similar in many respects — deep poverty and racism, and an emergent culture of resistance, for example — yet different in important ways.
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Canadian Business
Whose Bread You Eat, His Song You Sing
The sad fact is that virtually all of modern medicine floats on a sea of drug company money. So when your doctor pulls out her prescription pad, chances are high that the doctor’s decision to prescribe a particular medication will have been influenced by industry-sponsored clinical trials, published in industry-funded medical journals and extolled at industry-funded continuing medical education events.
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Culture
Radical Winnipeg
As you cross the Slaw Rebchuck bridge, a cement arch straddling the vast rail yard that in earlier times cut off the city’s north from its south and center, a sign is visible. Opposite a high school named for a prominent organizer of the Winnipeg General Strike, on the sloped, brown roof of Nepon Motors, it reads “Welcome to the North End: People Before Profits.” Only an aspiration, I know — but where else but in Winnipeg would you find this welcoming?
Recent articles
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Web Exclusive: On Avatar
We have a new biggest-box-office-hit-ever on our hands. More people have been recorded to have seen this movie than any other movie in history. Avatar is a story of an interaction between aliens and humans. In very general terms it can be said that the aliens are represented as good guys while humans represent the bad guys. This is not entirely true as the special few, led by a classical ‘hero’ figure, are both human and good. (more)
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Web exclusive: The Debt that Obama and Clinton Owe to the Haitian Poor
Under the leadership of President Woodrow Wilson, who would subsequently be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States pursued the established policy of “stabilizing” the Caribbean under American control. In 1912, since neither Wilson nor his Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, knew anything about Haiti, they asked John H Allen, the American manager of the Banque nationale in Port-au-Prince, to brief them. Bryan’s reaction to Allen’s description of Haiti was, “Dear me, think of it! Niggers speaking French.” (more)
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Web Exclusive: Really inconvenient truth
In the documentary The Inconvenient Truth, Gore advised citizens to recycle and buy gas-efficient cars. Inconvenient? How about shutting down most of the factories belching smoke around the world, which contribute little to global health? Or abandoning the high rise office buildings that require heating and cooling 24/7? (more)
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Web Exclusive: The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat AntiSemitism
The CPCCA has been meeting since last fall. “What Coalition?” you may be asking yourselves. Exactly this entity has been almost totally out of the public eye since its inception. Few Canadians are aware of this committee whose main aim is, to quote one critic, “an attempt to curtail freedom of speech and academic freedom across Canada, and to possibly criminalize certain kinds of human rights discourse.” (more)
Episode 142 (February 4th) — Is Harper A Dangerous Man? Political Scientist Dennis Pilon makes a case that the minority Harper government is changing the face of Canada and getting away with it. Why is the Canadian Jewish Congress putting so much pressure on the United Church of Canada to terminate its relationship with the upstart Independent Jewish Voices? Sid Shniad, co-chair of IJV gives the inside story.
- Wars sending U.S. into ruin by Eric Margolis – TorontoSun
- Sidelining Cap and Trade’s Green Critics by Neil deMause – fair.org
- We have a floor, now we need a ceiling: Reducing Canada’s Income Inequality by Errol Black, Jim Silver – CCPA MB
- Ottawa squanders energy economy by By: Frances Russell – winnipeg Free Press
- Vancouver’s Olympics head for disaster by Douglas Haddow – guardian.co
- The Challenges of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela: by William Robinson – zmag.org
- United We Stand by Myron Benvenisti – haaretz.com
- A Memory of Howard Zinn by Daniel Ellsberg – truthdig.com
- Daily Links Archive
