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The Right Stuff
Par David Solway le 6 août 2009
Many people today seem unable to discriminate politically between what we might call a “good Right” and a “bad Right.” From their perspective, the Right is one seamless, monolithic, invidious bloc, admitting of no distinctions. This is especially the case in Europe whose cultural and political blindness will predictably lead to protracted social upheaval in the foreseeable future. The plot goes something like this.
Newspapers and the internet
Par Mischa Popoff le 6 août 2009
My great-granddad bought the first radio in his neighbourhood back on the farm in Saskatchewan. Far from being a hayseed, he was literate and subscribed to many newspapers and magazines. He spent the equivalent of $10,000 in today’s money to own the best radio money could buy, about a quarter of the value of a new small tractor. It had a shortwave band on which he could listen to Radio Moscow in the evenings.
The neighbours said, “That’s it! The newspapers’ days are numbered.” Of course, they were wrong. Even when radios came down to the price of a wood stove, then later to the price of a good bottle of vodka, the radio never replaced the newspaper. And neither did TV when it made its way into every North American home.
No honour in murder
Par Beryl Wajsman le 6 août 2009
We need to take a step back and think about the use of the term “honour killings”. It has been much in the news of late as the horror of the deaths of the Shafia sisters sinks in.
On the one hand, the term gives a perverse cultural frame of reference for an act that can have no justification. On the other , since it is invariably used in reference to Islam, it denigrates a faith. Nothing in Islam justifies murder for the sake of a family’s “honour.”
Shame!
Par Joel Ceausu le 6 août 2009
I’ve walked by the home a thousand times. I’ve parked in front of it; knelt by its driveway to readjust heavy grocery bags in my hands; stopped my bike to tighten my kids’ helmet; and dragged my children on their sleds over the mounds of snow that lay in front of it.
In a neighbourhood that has seen its share of tragedies – albeit mostly of the règlement de comptes and the occasional corpse-stuffed-in-trunk types – this one has shaken the reserve of Canadians beyond the H1P postal code.
“I was molested!” An airport security check worthy of Penthouse Forum
Par Dan Delmar le 6 août 2009
I was molested. Seeing these three words in print is a stark reminder of my ordeal, from which I may never fully recover. He caressed my inner thigh, cupped my buttocks in his large, burly hands and gently ran his fingers through my hair. This trauma didn’t occur during my childhood; it happened just last week.I had managed to string together five days in late July to vacation in New York City and was making my way through a security checkpoint at Trudeau International Airport when it happened. A U.S. Homeland Security agent pulled me aside and informed me that I had been selected for a “random” search. I was separated from other passengers and, with apologies to actual victims of sexual assault, was fondled by the guard who evidently had mistaken me for a terrorist – or for his lady friend.
Statistical recovery masks suffering millions
Par Robert Presser le 6 août 2009
One could be forgiven for being optimistic these days. The stock markets are up 30% from their lows of March 2009, even taking into account the recent correction; housing starts and new home purchases showed surprising strength in Canada in June; job losses in the US and Canada seem to be slowing; lower mortgage rates and gas prices have freed up cash in consumer’s pockets and allowed more people to keep their homes; auto sales seem to be bottoming out
No value in paper-based organics
Par Mischa Popoff le 6 août 2009
I’m the first and only organic inspector to blow the whistle on the organic industry. My story was first covered by The Western Producer and then picked up by the CBC, CTV, Maclean’s and Barron’s. I paid a high price for going public, but it was the right thing to do.
Now comes news about a study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine saying organic food is no more nutritious than regular food. The immediate response from top representatives of the organic industry has been that they never said organic food was more nutritious, only that it contains fewer harmful chemicals.
Piperberg's World
Par Roy Piperberg le 6 août 2009
SUITE READ
Par Alan Hustak le 6 août 2009
Eric Siblin has a foot planted firmly in two musical worlds. A film maker and widely travelled Montreal Free-lance journalist and documentary film maker who cut his teeth as a newspaper pop-music critic, Siblin, 48, has entered the so-called classical sphere with his first book by deconstructing J.S. Bach’s cello suites. It is an extraordinary effort, a free-wheeling literary riff about the art of making music . Like travel writer Bruce Chatwin, Siblin condenses worlds into pages and leaves a reader hungry for more. He became fascinated with the “dark moody tones’‘ of the cello suites nine years ago after hearing them for the first time played at the Royal Conservatory of Music In Toronto .. “I had no reason to be there,” he writes, … “but I might have been searching for something without knowing it. Top 40 tunes had overstayed their welcome in my auditory cortex, and the culture surrounding rock music had worn thin. I wanted music to occupy a central part in my life, but in a different way.”
Darwin: sur le fil très ténu d’une humeur simple
Par Louise V. Labrecque le 6 août 2009
C’est tout bête?
La sélection naturelle, l’adaptation au milieu, l’évolution des espèces, et quoi d’autre encore ? Ah oui : les histoires de fous aux Galapagos, les singes qui parlent (on en connaît tous !), l’architecture de l’embryon, les fleurs musicales, les hirondelles de Tchernobyl et les batailles de mouches, constituent quelques exemples figurant au palmarès de ce livre extraordinaire, Darwin, cest tout bête, qui relate, avec un humour imparable, la vie du célèbre naturaliste et scientifique Charles Darwin. L’auteur, Marc Giraud, a frappé dans le mille, en proposant aux néophytes en la matière toute la rigueur de l’activité cérébrale de Darwin, mais sous une forme ludique particulière, où l’interrogation se dresse de tous bords, tous côtés.
Le charme de la Polonaise Malgorzata Kubala séduit au Canada La soprano
Par Zénon Mazur le 6 août 2009
La tournée qu’a effectuée la cantatrice Malgorzata Kubala au Canada n’est pas passée inaperçue, notamment dans la communauté polonaise. La présence de cette grande cantatrice polonaise au Canada au cours du mois de juin 2009 constitue une preuve supplémentaire de l’engagement du nouveau consul de la Pologne dans la métropole québécoise, Tadeusz Zylinski, en faveur de la culture.
Tehran protestors in downtown Montreal.
Par Alan Hustak le 2 juillet 2009
Les héritiers (suite) : cadavre à bord
Par Pierre K. Malouf le 2 juillet 2009
Minoritaire, voire marginal, le rejet du capitalisme constitue au Québec une tradition plus que séculaire, dont je donnais dans mon dernier Brasse-camarade deux menus échantillons tirés au sort à l’époque de la « Grande noirceur » : Gérard Filion directeur du Devoir, Mgr Desranleau, archevêque de Sherbrooke. J’aurais pu trouver mieux chez les ultramontains de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle ou parmi les élites traditionnelles des années vingt à quarante du XXe, qui voyaient d’un bon oeil les régimes d’extrême droite qui sévissaient en Europe...
Le vrai fondateur d’Hydro-Québec, c’est lui
Par Daniel Laprès le 2 juillet 2009
Le 11 juin dernier, dans le « blogue de l’éditorial » sur Cyberpresse, André Pratte répétait un mythe qui, bien que grotesque, est savamment entretenu par les indépendantistes.
En effet, Pratte affirme que « Jacques-Parizeau-est-l’un-des-architectes-du-Québec-moderne », ce qui, soit dit en passant, est l’une des nombreuses hyperboles complètement ridicules auxquelles les nationalistes nous ont habitués quand il s’agit de mousser la gloire des semi-divinités qui trônent dans leur Panthéon imaginaire...
Montreal’s war on cars endangers citizens
Par Dan Delmar le 2 juillet 2009
With a municipal election only months away, anti-car policies are being forced on citizens, notably in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges-NDG, where merchants are left scratching their heads..
Heed Neda's ‘call’! Tehran matters
Par Beryl Wajsman le 2 juillet 2009
The pictures flood us. They flood us with pride, poignancy and pathos. A people struggling to be free. The images come from around the world. From citizens of Tehran confronting the terror of theocratic tyrants, to students marching in the streets of Paris to Montrealers — some using walkers — standing up and being counted. The palpable reality of mankind’s transcendent yearning for redemptive change...
Open letter to the people of Iran
Par Nazanin Afshin-Jam le 2 juillet 2009
To my fellow compatriots, the brave Iranian men and women, who for the last few weeks have unleashed a spirit of energy that has been repressed for 30 years under an oppressive and undemocratic regime... we love, admire and support you.
Oh how we, living in exile, wish we could be at your side at this critical juncture in history...
Iran's revolt; Grassroots green
Par The Hon. David Kilgour le 2 juillet 2009
Among many e-messages coming from Iran in recent days, I found one from a woman especially moving: "...this is the most authentic, grassroots and beautiful movement from the people, by the people and for the people."
Iranians have spoken, with defiant demonstrations in the hundreds of thousands, and in rallies elsewhere, including one last weekend near Paris of 90,000, in protest against widespread election fraud and the fist of a regime unleashing terror..
Of Persians and power
Par Akil Alleyne le 2 juillet 2009
In politics as in so much else, talk is cheap; it is deeds that have coinage. This has been one of my key criticisms of US President Barack Obama since the spring of 2008, when the luster of his political ascendancy began to fade in my eyes as his gaseous campaign rhetoric burrowed deeper and deeper under my skin. I looked askance as his handlers and speechwriters set him up in one vainglorious set-piece after another—promising to “heal the planet” and “slow the rise of the oceans” after the last Democratic primary, speaking in front of a row of ridiculous Roman columns at the Democratic National Convention, and so on. Windy rhetoric in politics has never sat well with me, no matter how young, intelligent or charismatic the politician...
Human dignity, religious rights, and Obama
Par The Hon. David Kilgour le 2 juillet 2009
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 without dissent. It proclaimed: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.....Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."..
Montrealers take to streets to support Iran’s people
Par P.A. Sévigny le 2 juillet 2009
Over the past 10 days thousands of Montrealers have marched through the downtown core to protest what they described as a “stolen election” and Iran’s “Islamic coup d’état”. As the march made its way through the downtown core on its way to the Guy Favreau complex on Réné Lévesque Blvd, many participants told The Métropolitain they were there to support all their friends and relatives who were facing gas, water cannon and police bullets on the streets of Iran’s capital city, Teheran...
The Abousfian Abdelrazik Puzzle
Par David T. Jones le 2 juillet 2009
What was I missing? What was it that I didn‘t understand?
The continuing saga of Abousfian Abdelrazik, marooned in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum for over a year, had a “Kafkaesque Catch 22” quality to it that sounds more like the opening scene of some comedy/suspense thriller than a “we’re telling you this with a straight face” diplomatic explanation. Even with his return it leaves an outside observer head shaking...
Save Our Suburbans! How the Obama Administration is going to change what and how you drive
Par Robert Presser le 2 juillet 2009
Visitors to Havana marvel at the American automobiles of the 1950’s that have survived five decades of revolutionary communist rule to continue to ply its streets. Some are still running due to modified Russian auto parts, while other have had their lives extended by craftsmen who lovingly reproduce each fallen piece of chrome so that the autos appear as pristine as they did on Batista’s last day in the Presidential Palace...
Will you get your money’s worth from “green” food?
Par Mischa Popoff le 2 juillet 2009
There are three basic types of “green” farming. On June 30th, one of them will receive the golden stamp of approval from the federal government. Will this have a positive impact for farmers, consumers and the planet? Sadly, no...
Piperberg's World
Par Roy Piperberg le 2 juillet 2009
“Montreal needs the main”
Par Jessica Murphy le 2 juillet 2009
Surrounding Cabaret Café Cleopatre is a sex store and a nightclub, a vacant lot and sagging, boarded-up buildings with decades of grime ground deep into concrete and stone. On cloudy days the corner looks squalid. Sunny days don’t suit it.
To get inside, you push through a gaggle of tough-talking strippers on a smoke break and through the music and black lights filtering from their ground floor establishment...
City taxi bureau’s RCG 08-022
Par P.A. Sévigny le 2 juillet 2009
As the poorest of the city’s working poor, Montreal’s cab drivers are caught between a rock and a hard place. Once a cab driver gets behind the wheel and puts the key into the ignition, city by-law RCG08-022 will define the next 12 hours of his working life. In section 1 of the city by-law, article #59 defines a working taxi as any vehicle on the road with a dome, a working meter, a working radio and a visible pocket number. As article #59 draws the line between the city’s working taxis and everybody else on the road, city cab drivers are warning city authorities there could be serious trouble if police don’t stop their discrimination against them and their business. While everybody is supposed to be equal under the law, several city cab drivers say the city’s by-law turns them into second class citizens subject to a series of rules and regulations which is ruining their business and their means to make a living...
The Unintended Consequences of Buy American
Par Robert Presser le 2 juillet 2009
Last October this column reviewed the possibility of a trade war between the US and Canada if Obama were to take the White House. While the exact form of the dispute was not known at the time, some form of economic nationalism was inevitable as the US rustbelt demanded payback for delivering the electoral votes required to secure a decisive victory in the Electoral College. Congress crafted a stimulus package designed to create US jobs related to infrastructure and manufacturing, and in their expedient haste to curry political favour with their constituents they created the Buy American (BA) provision that related to municipal investment projects...
Wasserman’s Yiddish festival a North American first
Par Alidor Aucoin le 2 juillet 2009
It was touch and go whether the troupe from Poland would make it; translating two dozen Yiddish plays into French and English proved to be a bit of a headache and the logistics of meeting the specific requirements of eight theatre companies and 200 actors, artists, musicians and scholars from around the world was an enormous challenge. Still, in spite of a few last minute glitches, and some anxious moments, all of the world’s major Yiddish players came together under one roof in Montreal for last week’s opening of the International Yiddish Theatre Festival which wrapped up Friday June 25. “We’ve learned a lot, and I think we’re going to put that knowledge to use,” said Bryna Wasseman, artistic director of the Segal Centre for the Performing Arts who came up with the audacious idea...
Un éléphant dans un magasin de porcelaine
Par Sébastien Dhavernas le 2 juillet 2009
Radio Canada-CBC et ses artisans traversent en ce moment des jours sombres et qui doivent susciter une réflexion et un débat de fond au sein de la société civile québécoise et canadienne.
Monsieur Bernard Derome honoré pour sa grande contribution au métier de journaliste à l’antenne de Radio Canada a lancé un appel en ce sens et je tiens à l’en remercier et à répondre présent à ce cri du cœur d’un homme réputé pour sa réserve, sa rigueur et sa crédibilité...
The Lure of Victorian Landscapes, the MMFA goes Green.
Par Alan Hustak le 2 juillet 2009
Who would have imagined that so many fusty, gilt-edged landscapes that have been out of fashion for so long could be so resonant to our times? Expanding Horizons, a terrific summer exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts combines painting and photographs of the North American wilderness done, for the most part, in the last half of the 19th century. Taken together, these bucolic, dreamlike vistas have been restored to their rightful position as potent masterworks. Such an exhibition could hardly be more appropriate...
Therefore choose courage! (DATE DE PARUTION 16 OCTOBRE 2008)
Par Beryl Wajsman le 18 juin 2009
Veterans Week this year, culminating in Remembrance Day on Sunday, has a special resonation. Canada lost more of its bravest and boldest in foreign fields than it has in a long time. As we remember and pay tribute to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom, we need to reflect on exactly what that sacrifice was for. What is at stake when a horrible evil is loose in the world and must be subdued. How our fate is tied up with others around the globe fighting the same fight. Too often in our smug comfort we think the world beyond our borders has little to do with us. We don’t feel it viscerally.
Un appel aux citoyens engagés – join us and help us!
Par Beryl Wajsman le 18 juin 2009
We are proud to present you with our first year anniversary retrospective. It has been quite a ride.
We started the Métropolitain to celebrate individual spirit and initiative that seeks to free itself from the suffocating constraints of the culture wars. We have advocated for the restoration of the sovereignty of the individual over domains which the state should not have entered and on which it should not have legislated. We have opposed rule and regulation aimed at social engineering. We have helped the vulnerable. We have given so many who have felt marginalized for so long a sense of community by speaking across the language divide. And we have reminded Montrealers—so long imprisoned in Quebec’s mentality of self-doubt driven by a jealousy of others self-belief—that our unique multiculturalism and multilingualism needs a broader international vision that does not reflexively reject the liberal pluralism of those western nations from whose philosophical and historical traditions we sprang.
Nationalisme: Haine de la culture (DATE DE PARUTION 1 MAI 2008)
Par Daniel Laprès le 18 juin 2009
Je ne suis pas nationaliste, et je prends le droit de le dire. Le nationalisme, c’est surtout l’exigence imposée à l’individu de devenir en tout et pour tout le serviteur de la tribu — ce qui est essentiellement déprimant et asservissant. Aussi, rien n’abêtit autant que la vanité tribale. À preuve, la nullité de plus en plus généralisée de la culture québécoise « officielle »—par là je veux dire l’essentiel de ce qui monopolise l’espace public et médiatique ; il faut regarder ailleurs que là pour trouver l’intéressant, et ça ne manque pas, heureusement...
Le patriotisme perverti (DATE DE PARUTION 15 MAI 2008)
Par Daniel Laprès le 18 juin 2009
Depuis longtemps déjà, un groupe de brutes épaisses fait partie du paysage idéologique québécois. Elles ont d’ailleurs encore fait parler d’elles ces dernières semaines : dans la nuit du 25 au 26 avril, elles ont profané la sépulture de l’ancien premier ministre Pierre Trudeau. Mais la souillure aura été double : les brutes épaisses ont aussi sali le nom de Louis-Joseph Papineau, qu’elles ont barbouillé sur le caveau de la famille Trudeau...
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