Salon.com > The Tyee

Be employable, study philosophy

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:45:00 +0000

It must be summer. In anticipation of fall course schedules, several people have asked what I think someone who wants to be a journalist should study.

A few years ago I realized my favourite answer -- not journalism -- was depressing for someone who had already reserved a seat for himself or his child at one of Canada's more than 50 journalism programs.

That's right: 50. According to J-Source, the journalism website, there are 1,600 J-students at any given time preparing to work in an industry that has lost anywhere from one-third to half of its jobs in the last decade. The U.S. is always slightly ahead of us in trends, and in June the Chicago Sun-Times fired its entire photography staff, replacing it with iPhones for the remaining reporters. Since most reporters shoot about as well as most photogs spell, I'm breathlessly awaiting the next report of their declining circulation.

Now the dead can send Facebook messages too

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

As a little girl, Jamie Cuthbertson, now 26, had a fear of being eaten by insects -- spiders especially. After her 17-year-old cousin was killed by a drunk driver, young Jamie's thoughts turned to her own mortality. She talked with her mother Pauline about how she could keep the carnivorous insects out of her coffin when she died.

Soon after, she declared to her parents at their Brampton, Ontario home that she'd come up with a solution to her phagophobia.

"I want to be cremated," she said. "That way I don't have to worry about the bugs eating me."

Jim Cuthbertson looked down at his 10-year-old daughter and reluctantly told her that there are also bugs that live in and feed on ashes.

Sixteen years later, this memory re-surfaced as Jamie sat down to prepare what will be her last digital will and testament using the If I Die app.

The resulting three-minute video shows Jamie smiling into her webcam, her long bangs framing her dark brown eyes. "A bug-proof coffin is totally worth it," she says. "You can also throw in some of my favourite things and photos of the people and animals I loved."

Mandela’s death will expose a divided South Africa

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 18:55:00 +0000

The news that former South African president Nelson Mandela is once again gravely ill in hospital requires us to reflect on what the country will be like without him. While he is elderly and frail and everyone knows that his passing is not far off, Mandela is not just another former president to be mourned with ceremony and nostalgia.

During his decades of imprisonment under apartheid, Mandela was an unswerving beacon for the African liberation movement, refusing all National Party offers of compromise without a guarantee that South Africa would transition to majority rule. Since his release from prison in 1990 and his election as president in 1994, Mandela has become a moral compass for the country -- indeed, for oppressed peoples everywhere. His statesman-like attitude, free of the slogans of revenge, was universally praised for raising the hope that a history of hatred need not define our futures. In short Mandela was not just the head of state, but a symbol of peace whose moral authority has defined South Africa.

Humor is a science

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 14:00:00 +0000

A straight-faced academic with a crew cut and sweater vest is making the packed room laugh using a projector and the branch of mathematics known as set theory. Up goes another Venn diagram. The left circle says "grandpa". The right, "erection". The grey area where they intersect is labeled "funny", and the crowd confirms that with guffaws and hurried tweets to their social circles.

This is the custom here at the gruelling conference triathlon that is the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, a 10-day arts and technology affair that this year drew more than 30,000 people, many of them 20- and 30-somethings in the technology, film and music sectors.

"Pull my finger" reads the left set of the next diagram. "Leprosy" offers some overlap, and again grinning faces watch their thumbs smear touch screens. I am but a wallflower at this social media party, for my devices are out of juice and the closest wall outlets are already dangerous tangles of smartphones. Next year I vow to pack a power bar, like the guy at the next outlet over who's getting swamped with kudos and high fives from new friends.

Hollywood sexism is somehow getting worse

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 13:05:00 +0000

Every time I look at the film listings lately my heart sinks. It's hard out here for a woman. If you're packing a pair of ovaries, might as well pack it in mama. There's very little here for you.

Let's take a look at the films currently playing at the Scotiabank Theatre -- Fast and Furious 6, Star Trek, Iron Man 3D and Oblivion. All of these films star men, were made by men, and are principally about men. Not only that, but when they're released in the theatre, they're critiqued mainly by even more men (91 per cent of critics writing for major entertainment magazines and/or websites are of the male persuasion). These critiques are then published in magazines and aired on TV and media outlets that are also owned by almost entirely by men (women make up more than 50 per cent of the population but they hold less than seven percent of all TV and radio station licenses in the U.S.).

Fighting greedy bankers, an American tradition

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 00:00:00 +0000

The Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement have more in common than they realize. Patriotic followers of the Tea Party exalt the vision and courage of America's founding fathers. The common element uniting the diverse interests of Occupy Wall Street is rage against greed and corruption within the banking industry.

In fact many icons of the American Revolution were worried about the same thing and battled mightily against the unfettered power of the banks more than 250 years ago -- a struggle that continues to this day.

Even before the Declaration of Independence, the passage of an obscure British law called the Currency Act of 1764 was a major colonial grievance that contributed to the American Revolution. This law prohibited American colonies from issuing their own legal tender and was seen as an effort to lock the colonies under the monetary control of the Bank of England. Benjamin Franklin was a colonial agent in London at the time and lobbied strenuously to have the law repealed.