Above and beyond the spin used by GM and Treasury to convince taxpayers that GM had used its own profits to repay a public loan, the larger questions remain, ones not raised since the famous equation of GM’s interest with those of America.

How is it possible that none of World Vision and Vision Mondiale, CARE, Free the Children, Oxfam Canada and Oxfam Québec, Centre d’étude et de coopération internationale, Save the Children, Canadian Red Cross, UNICEF Canada and UNICEF Québec, once alerted to the problem of an entire neighbourhood in desperate need, cannot coordinate any help whatsoever four months after the earthquake?

Dr. Jeff Schmidt, author of Disciplined Minds, has written individually to all 66 directors, executives and board members of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to ask that they publicly distance themselves from their organization’s recent attempt to justify the firing of dissident University of Ottawa physics professor Denis Rancourt.

Back in 1980, I took a writer’s workshop at NYU with a third-rate spy novelist named Roy Doliner. There’s one thing he said that sticks with me. He said that comedy is much harder to write than serious fiction. You can learn the craft of writing, more or less, but you can’t learn to be funny. That observation was confirmed once again by Jacob Tierney’s The Trotsky.

Dr. Nada Elia, academic and activist, a Palestinian from the Diaspora of millions, spoke in Victoria and Nanaimo recently. She said she was not going to give Palestine 101, we should all know the situation there by now.

Journalist Paul McKay has done his homework and reveals all in this comprehensive but easy to read exposé of our nuclear history. Add another bag of nails to the coffin of Canada’s image as “a nice peace loving country”.

Download our 2010 Mayworks events calendar.

This past September, just a few months after the bombardment of Gaza by Israel, John Greyson, Naomi Klein and 1,500 others including myself signed the Toronto Declaration: No Celebration of Occupation to protest the Spotlight on Tel Aviv at TIFF 2009. The controversy surrounding the Declaration conflated censorship, boycotts and political protest. As the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is only five years old, this seems like a good time to make some important distinctions.

DAM, or Da Arabian MCs, the premier Palestinian rap group, were in Winnipeg on September 30th, 2009. Jonah Corne, a co-organizer of the event, spoke with the Tamer and Suhell Nafar - two of the three MCs of DAM.

Movement for equity is disappearing from the labour agenda. Acknowledging the issues facing women, lesbian, gay, and trans people, workers of colour, differently abled workers, and Indigenous workers is increasingly becoming lip service. Our issues are not being integrated into labours agenda, and often appear as add-ons in our communications and action strategies.