tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63103909029914629992024-03-18T03:14:45.498-04:00The Organic Intellectual [Tribute to an Idea...]A spectre is haunting the world - the spectre of neoliberalism! But workers, environmentalists and social justice activists are rising up to confront it! In Canada and abroad, neoliberal policies have brought growing inequality, environmental demise and the end of social democracy. It’s time to build a new world order, one that is marked by justice! This blog thus pays tribute to Antonio Gramsci’s notion of the “organic intellectual”, one who joins the masses in conceiving of a better world!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger98125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-57553280668914773702012-05-31T11:36:00.001-04:002012-05-31T11:36:59.416-04:00[Art] Digital Comic by Franke JamesThis latest art piece by Franke James, titled What is Harper Afraid Of? is really worth checking out! Well illustrated, well-written, and poignant! What a freaking mess we're in....
Check out Franke James' piece here.
A little taste:
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-59238121427467166512012-03-02T17:20:00.000-05:002012-03-02T17:20:19.808-05:00[Embarrassment] My Government's Approach to Environment is Subversive and Incompetent
As a Canadian citizen I want to apologize to citizens of the world out there... for my government's dysmal, deficient, incompetent, underhanded approach to all environmental matters. I've blogged recently about how since the rise of Stephen Harper's Conservative Party the government has had trouble even upholding its own environmental laws, and has become a shameless apologist for corporations Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-11123281195011078672012-01-10T12:03:00.000-05:002012-01-10T12:03:40.009-05:00[Hogwash] On The Minister of Natural Resources Open Letter to Canadians
Yesterday the Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, published an open letter to Canadians on the Ministry's Press Room Website. It was also published on numerous official government websites, and throughout the day sound bites were played on the news in which the Minister essentially claimed thus:
The Canadian regulatory review system (in particular the review of Enbridge's proposed Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-3887875051897137602011-12-13T13:02:00.003-05:002011-12-13T13:03:49.663-05:00[Criminality] Problems Upholding Our Own Environmental Laws
Two of today's leading headlines on CBC News read as follows:
May Accuses Harper of Breaking Law Over Kyoto
Environment Canada Struggling to Enforce Law
The basic finding in the first article is that the Harper government is violating domestic law by withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol without any kind of parliamentary debate or discussion, since the Protocol was ratified by the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-32539195043034726372011-10-19T23:48:00.001-04:002011-10-19T23:49:38.850-04:00[Occupation] Rethinking Grotesque Inequality
I went out on Saturday to support the Occupy Ottawa movement. Notwithstanding the slow decision-making process of the protesters (in order to ensure all ideas were heard and to make the most of fairness and democratic order), it was interesting and inspiring to be taking part in a movement which is essentially about social and economic justice. Despite all the ridiculous rhetoric from Canadian Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-61269412154806607212011-09-22T11:00:00.001-04:002011-09-22T11:00:46.523-04:00[Hack Job] Conservatives Take Out The Knife
This is what happens when we allow the Conservatives to steal absolute power: Not only do they gut valuable public services, but through corporate tax cuts limit the government's revenue stream in the first place. It's the beginning of a downward spiral towards high unemployment, degraded public services, and minimal public revenues. A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for this triad of hellUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-30229552748517953302011-09-22T10:54:00.002-04:002011-09-22T10:54:38.580-04:00[Sit In] Anti Tar Sands Demonstration
Last month thousands of social justice and environmental activists organized a sit-in in Washington DC in front of the White House to ask the Obama administration not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. A group of activists in Canada is now organizing a similar event here in Ottawa, scheduled for Monday, September 26th.
Check out the details at OttawaAction.caUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-64337563454943501902011-05-04T13:15:00.000-04:002011-05-04T13:15:50.055-04:00[Trickery] Turning a Minority of Votes into a Majority of SeatsMa-jor-i-ty [muh-jawr-i-tee, -jor-]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the greater part or number; the number larger than half the total (opposed to minority): the majority of the population. 2. a number of voters or votes, jurors, or others in agreement, constituting more than half of the total number. Like any magic trick, it's based on deceiving and tricking the faculties of the audience's mind. TheUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-82068320591313712262011-04-29T16:43:00.001-04:002011-04-29T18:45:11.549-04:00[Dialogue] Advertorials and ObjectivityThe following is from an exchange I've been having with Alternatives, a leading environmental magazine in Canada that brands itself as part popular mag, part academic journal. I initiated my first letter after discovering an 'advertorial' for Suncor in the November 2010 issue of the magazine. The magazine has published two shortened versions of my letters. My words in green.
Dear Editors,
I was Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-54707937870801026722011-03-23T12:24:00.001-04:002011-03-23T12:24:45.981-04:00[Recommendation] Required ReadingWith the Conservative budget likely to be brought down today by the opposition parties it seems we are headed for a spring election. As we prepare for a new political reality in Ottawa, one required reading is a compilation of essays edited by Teresa Healy on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The 47 contributors detail Harper's numerous attacks on democratic governance,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-36766789039444575732011-03-16T12:22:00.000-04:002011-03-16T12:22:03.207-04:00[Strategizing] Fighting Sarah Palin's Conception of 'Sound Science'In December 2009 Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "Sarah Palin on the Politicization of the Copenhagen Climate Conference", where she basically argued that the USA should boycott the international climate change negotiations because the science on climate change wasn't 'credible' (she doesn't deny the existence of climate change; she merely doesn't believe humans play anyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-76489512369497720022011-03-10T19:18:00.003-05:002011-03-16T10:40:56.143-04:00[Video] Making sense for more than four decades...The makers of Mad Men weigh in on the future of high-speed rail in America. Enjoy the clip!
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-12820007340423578392011-03-10T12:40:00.001-05:002011-03-16T10:40:35.606-04:00[Sympathy] A Very Sad Day for WisconsinIt's an extremely sad day for Wisconsin. The Republicans have used slimy and insidious tricks to take away the rights of people to bargain collectively with their fellow workers. A very sad day indeed:
The New York Times article by Monica Davey is quite informative in this regard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10wisconsin.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-14316503175294407452011-03-07T20:30:00.001-05:002011-03-08T16:52:30.655-05:00[Redefinition] Rethinking ResilienceThe word 'resilience' sounded like a fluffy term the first time I heard it... and in fact it still has a cotton candy texture. But I've been rethinking resilience this last week, and now I'm wondering whether it's a concept that critical geographers and social nature theorists can use as an operative goal, perhaps even a replacement for the overused and increasingly meaningless "sustainable Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-52145107917597607892011-02-21T11:43:00.001-05:002011-02-21T11:49:00.831-05:00[Social Nature] The Hydrosocial CycleAt the Association of American Geographers (AAG) annual meeting in Boston in 2008, a session was held on the "hydrosocial cycle". Not to be confused with the "hydrological cycle", the "hydrosocial cycle" was defined in the agenda as follows:"The 'hydrosocial cycle' is a way of representing the deepening entanglement of flows of water and social power relations (e.g. Bakker, 2003; Swyngedouw, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-65309874433671294962011-02-16T12:29:00.003-05:002011-02-16T16:30:11.169-05:00[Geography in a Photograph] The End of the Line
A photograph of the train station (foreground, right) in St. Paul, Alberta; year unknown; taken by Ron Brown, and published in the 3rd Edition of The Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore: An Illustrated History of Railway Stations in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Group, 2008): p. 41.
Sometimes, ordinary photographs have an uncanny ability to capture our attention. This one (above) captured mine. I was Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-51014475717837973512011-02-04T13:47:00.000-05:002011-02-04T13:47:29.820-05:00[Urban Geography] Ottawa’s Spatial Crisis
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The City of Ottawa is suffering from what I suppose we could call a ‘spatial crisis’. Yet the crisis is largely a manifestation of human decisions. The problem is partly of our own making – and as such, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-33322971021670956762011-01-31T19:46:00.001-05:002011-03-16T10:41:24.332-04:00[Cultural Geography] On The Canadian
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PART I (Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Travelling ‘Comfort’ Class on VIA Rail’s Cross-Country ‘Land Cruise’, and More…)
Welcome to The CanadianVIA Rail is a crown corporation that owns and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-42372632193080757332011-01-25T15:19:00.002-05:002011-01-25T15:19:54.528-05:00[Good News] See Ya!Good news for once: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2011/01/25/edmonton-stelmach-resigns.htmlUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-12454261713529607342011-01-13T11:00:00.000-05:002011-01-13T11:00:42.699-05:00[Confusion] Historical Geography or Environmental HistoryHistorical Geography and Environmental History share some common threads; the line between them is perhaps more accurately described as a permeable gradient.
Take these Wikipedia statements:
"Historical geography is the study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and 'real' geographies of the past"
"Environmental history can be divided into three key components... First, nature Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-58075346471016079192010-12-07T12:11:00.001-05:002011-01-11T15:51:59.619-05:00[Bid-Matching] If China can do it, why can't Canada?Let's do a little comparison:
The distance between Windsor and Québec City, with a slight detour to hit up Ottawa on the way is approximately 1250km. The Québec City- Windsor "corridor' is not only Canada's busiest transportation corridor, it also is one of the busiest transport routes in the world, and the cities along this route contain over half of Canada's population.
The route between Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-70593914639430651602010-11-27T19:25:00.002-05:002011-01-11T15:52:16.778-05:00[Hermeneutics] Understanding the Understanding of UnderstandingsFor too long the word "hermeneutics" has suggested (in my mind) something along the lines of the study of fictional hobbit communities. Needless to say, this is not really what the term means. Luckily, some of the readings that my colleagues and I looked at this week have enabled me to transcend (at least to a small degree) my former ignorance on this matter!
We were reading about the turn from Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-79243743300759360772010-11-17T14:01:00.000-05:002010-11-17T14:01:33.124-05:00[Mapping] Janus: God of Maps?Over the weekend, a friend who I hadn't seen for a while poked fun at me when he learned that I was doing a PhD in Geography: "So, you just sit around and look at maps all day?" Despite the antagonistic jibe, the reality is that most people out there associate geography with an intensive study of maps... yet in reality, most geographers (both in the human and physical streams) tend to be less Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-42280106586574190672010-11-08T21:13:00.001-05:002010-11-08T21:13:59.776-05:00[Musing] A Brief Foray Into the Name of Political EcologyWhen Piers Blaikie wrote The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries in 1985, he helped lay the groundwork for what eventually would come to be known as 'political ecology' (so argue Raymond Bryant and Michael K. Goodman, 2008). Before then, explain Bryant and Goodman, the assumption in geography and other disciplines was that the environment could be understood and managed Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6310390902991462999.post-58300577686928815522010-10-31T13:56:00.003-04:002010-11-02T19:08:18.304-04:00[Methodology] Historical Materialism as a Geographical MethodI've been reading a lot of David Harvey lately. In particular, I've looked at some of his earlier works when he more closely identified as a Geographer (today Harvey is technically a Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate Center - but his formal training was in Geography). It may strike some readers as 'news' that Harvey is a geographer. After all, today Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0