Series: Fall 2004

While working at the Edmonton Journal in 2002, Lisa Gregoire’s editors told her to “cover the riots” at the G8 Summit in Kananaskis. But there were no riots. Instead, there were peaceful rallies and playful campaigns like, “I’d rather go naked than wear Gap.” Gregoire produced articles about these non-violent demonstrations and about the effects of globalization, all… Continue reading Rabble, Straight Goods, Indymedia

A little newspaper turned up on my Toronto doorstep at Yonge Street and St. Clair Avenue in September 2004. It was only 16 pages long, scarcely bulky enough to contain the colour flyers tucked inside. Big corporate flyers, too, like Canadian Tire, No Frills, and Pharma Plus. The flyers outweighed the newspaper four to one.… Continue reading Elephant in the Room

Remember your high school science teachers, the lab-coat-wearing nerds who always said, “Science is all around you”? It might be an illuminating statement, but it never helped you remember the periodic table any faster or identify the inner workings of a formaldehyde frog, now did it? Still, you suspected then – as you now know… Continue reading The Science of Cool

On January 23, 1975, Quebec police finally cornered the elusive local gangster Richard Blass. The handsome fugitive was laying low at a cottage in the Laurentians after setting fire to a Montreal nightclub, killing 13 people. Police surrounded the house and demanded that Blass give himself up. He refused. At 4:30 a.m., two officers broke down… Continue reading Crime Takes a Bullet

“Terrorist.” The first time I remember hearing the word, I was 12. It was 1995, and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City had just been bombed. For many years after, whenever I heard the word terrorist, I pictured a shady white man in a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. Following the tragedy of… Continue reading Weighty Words