JANUARY 27, 2007 – So, we renew our membership at Alliance Atlantis, to secure free parking for the year and a 15 per cent discount at Il Fornello’s – and we get a free DVD – “Lucky Number Slevin.”[1] Unlucky us. I’ve trolled the Internet, and checked out a few of the reviews. It’s supposed to be a “film noir” thriller. A movie that makes you think. It’s a movie that makes you think that our society is really sick. The gratuitous violence is non-stop. But that seems to, now, go without saying in what passes for “entertainment” from the…
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APRIL 11, 2006 – The tiny space of Bathurst Street’s best bookstore could barely handle the overthrow crowd of more than 100 people March 30, there to help Grace-Edward Galabuzi launch his new book. Canada’s Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups in the New Century,[1] is a revised and updated version of a study which, when it was released, sparked a much-needed debate on racism in this country. “Between 1980 and 2000” said Galabuzi, “there has been a 361 per cent increase in poverty for racialized groups in Toronto. “Too often we think of racism as something experienced…
Comments closedAPRIL 10, 2006 – Two of the best films of the last year are now available on DVD. Crash, directed by Paul Haggis and with an all-star cast including Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock and Matt Dillon – is a very fine exposé of the racism which permeates modern U.S. society. For viewers from racially profiled Toronto with its creeping economic apartheid, there is no question that its message resonates here as well. The film won three Oscars, and mostly deservedly-so. But when viewed side by side with the really great DVD released this month – it’s pretty clear that one…
Comments closedMARCH 16, 2005 – Tomorrow, March 5, will see marches across the country to celebrate International Women’s Day. Your paper (The Toronto Star) will undoubtedly cover these events. But to really cover issues of women’s rights, your paper should also cover a story a little closer to home. Since December 6, 59 mostly women workers – members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers’ Union (CEP), Local 87-M – have been on strike against Brabant Newspapers, a company owned by TorStar – the owners of your newspaper. These workers earn a top rate of $8.99 an hour. But they have been offered…
Comments closedMARCH 7, 2005 – The Toronto Star likes to market itself as a progressive voice, including a progressive voice for women’s rights. But its owner – TorStar Corp. – is now 14 weeks into a bitter labour dispute with 59 low-paid, mostly women workers at Brabant Newspapers in Stoney Creek. And not one line about the strike has appeared in the pages of the “progressive” Toronto Star. The strikers – members of local 87-M, Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) – include inserters, whose top rate is $8.99 per hour. Mike Sullivan of CEP says that in 1993,…
Comments closedJANUARY 4, 2005 – Many readers will be familiar with the reputation of the Toronto Star, centre of Canadian liberalism. It portrays itself as pro-women, progressive, and pro-labour. But its parent – TorStar corporation – is currently engaged in a dispute which puts a lie to this entire reputation. Sixty members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP), Local 87-M, have been on strike since December 6 last year against their employer, Brabant Newspapers which since 2003 has been owned by TorStar.[1] Many of the strikers are women working in the inserting department. According to a flyer distributed on…
Comments closedDECEMBER 7, 2004: TORONTO – In the first big labour mobilization since Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals took office, just over one year ago, almost 4,000 trade unionists marched to Queen’s Park November 27 under the slogan, “times up, keep your promises, Dalton.”[1] While there have been pro-labour changes under the Liberals – including “a rollback of the 60-hour work week (implemented by the Tories) and a hike in the minimum wage (frozen by the Tories)”, there is frustration at the slow pace of rolling back other of the anti-labour measures introduced by Mike Harris. In addition, labour leaders in the health…
Comments closedJANUARY 6, 2004 – The $80-million Civil War era drama, Cold Mountain, is being praised as the movie of the season. But behind the lush production and excellent acting performances is a disturbing and profoundly reactionary message. The central characters are a white soldier in the Confederate Army (Inman, played by Jude Law) and his romantic fixation, a white preacher’s daughter named Ada (played by Nicole Kidman). Separated by war, each survives the terrible war years by focussing on their love for each other. Ada struggles to keep her farm going in Cold Mountain after the death of her father,…
Comments closedAUGUST 4, 2003 – Here’s the thing. I did see the Rolling Stones — in the summer of 1975. This year I gave their July 30 “SARSstock” appearance In Toronto a miss. For those of us who attended their 1975 concert, it was already clear that the Stones, 29 years before SARSstock, were well past their “best before” date. They were, and are, a travelling corporation, not a travelling rock band. Not all the concerts of 1975 and 1976 were like that. There were great concerts, and there was a gang of us in Toronto who took them all in.…
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300 – A Propaganda Film for the Pentagon
Published April 19, 2007 by pkellogg
APRIL 19, 2007 – There are few words to describe the movie 300.[1] One that comes to mind is awful. Some are seeing it as the next Lord of the Rings. But if racism and imperialism were implicit in Tolkein’s work, in 300 these are explicit. The movie portrays a “brave group of free white” men holding the line against a slave-holding empire where the emperor is … Black! “We are fighting “for all Greeks and the promise this country holds” we are told at one point. But wait a minute. This “brave group of free white men” are from…