By Rachel Goodine The FSAs, or Foundation Skills Assessment tests, administered annually in British Columbia since 2000 to students in grades 4 and 7, are once again under way. They began on January 14 and will continue until February 22, 2013. In the meantime, the debate is on. For many,
Continue readingTag: Corporations
Politics, Re-Spun: How Millennials Can Improve Everyone’s Job Satisfaction
Quack. It’s 9am, do you know where your millennial employees are? No? No worries. It’s all good. They’re not factory chickens. People who study characteristics of different generations have some incredibly important things to say about how different groups work. Organizations, however, are typically run by older people with their
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Rogers and Me Part 2: When You Have A Monopoly I Guess You Don’t Have to Tell Your Customers What They Are Paying For
After my original attempts to get Rogers to answer my questions via e-mail failed I posted my questions to Google Drive (originally Google Docs) and tweeted the location to them and finally got answers via Twitter, 140 characters at a time. That brought me to the next stage of the
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Rogers and Me Part 2: When You Have A Monopoly I Guess You Don’t Have to Tell Your Customers What They Are Paying For
After my original attempts to get Rogers to answer my questions via e-mail failed I posted my questions to Google Drive (originally Google Docs) and tweeted the location to them and finally got answers via Twitter, 140 characters at a time.
That bro…
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Rogers and Me Part 2: When You Have A Monopoly I Guess You Don’t Have to Tell Your Customers What They Are Paying For
After my original attempts to get Rogers to answer my questions via e-mail failed I posted my questions to Google Drive (originally Google Docs) and tweeted the location to them and finally got answers via Twitter, 140 characters at a time. That brought me to the next stage of the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What If We Treated Harper Like We Treated Haiti’s Aristide?
Supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide chant and display signs outside the courthouse in Port au Prince on Wednesday, Jan. 9. When they learned that the prosecutor, Lucmane Delille, had gone to Aristide’s home to question him, a river of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people marched
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Conservatives Bad At Selling Out
What’s worse than oil companies spending millions to buy off politicians? Oil companies getting them for free. The oil sector is vital to Canada’s economy, but so are a lot of industries and you don’t see them drafting government policy. From the CBC: A letter obtained by Greenpeace through access
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What Does Adbusters Ask of You in 2013?
From the people who suggested the modest idea of occupying Wall Street, Adbusters has sent out a new half dozen suggestions to fix the economic cancers of capitalism. Here’s my favourite, and it’s a little policy wonky:
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Listen to the December 2012 Politics, Re-Spun Panel on Human Rights and Consumerism
December 2012′s Politics, Re-Spun panel on Co-op Radio included Julie McArthur, Alnoor Gova, Imtiaz Popat, Anna Davey, Kevin Harding and Stephen Elliott-Buckley discussing: International Human Rights Day, experiencing “My Voice, My Right, My Voice Counts” Over-consumption, just consumption, Christmas consumption, sexism, quality of life, consumption as a proxy for enhancing our relationships and happiness. And we enjoyed
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Privatization Via Blackmail
If you want to see why there isn’t much of a real left wing in the USA, this graph of those seeking the White House in 2008 pretty much covers it. 2008 US presidential candidates show little actual left wing juice. If you want proof of how the neoliberal US
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Rogers and Me: Father Corporation Knows Best in Mister Rogers Neighbourhood
I prefer to deal with companies using email because it allows me to carefully ask questions and carefully consider the answers before asking follow-up question, as well as providing a written record of the information received. I was quite surprised to find that Rogers Communications, which considers itself to be
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: “Female Characters Are Still Sidelined, Stereotyped, and Sexualized in Popular Entertainment Content”
If you think popular media is still chauvinist or even misogynist, but you didn’t know about the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, you should look into them. I found out about their latest research study, Gender Roles & Occupations: A Look at Character Attributes and Job-Related Aspirations in Film and Television, and was not […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: No, Taylor Swift. No.
[Here is what some of us have been wanting to say about Taylor Swift, but didn’t because A. Lynn did it first, and perhaps best, reposted her with her kind permission. Thanks to Jarrah Hodge for pointing us to this piece of brilliance! Enjoy! – seb] I’ve been mentally composing this blog for forever and […]
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Join Elizabeth May on Politics, Re-Spun Radio Tonight
If you care about Stephen Harper giving China a veto over our democracy for 31 years in the FIPA sellout, tune into Politics, Re-Spun radio on Coop Radio tonight at 6pm Vancouver time to listen to federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May tell us what kind of despotism Harper has in store for us all. […]
Continue readingThe corporate counterrevolution rolls on
In the 1960s, a phrase was being bandied about that included the two words that most terrify corporate executives: consume less. A substantial number of people, particularly young people, were coming to the conclusion that the road to nirvana may not necessarily lie through endlessly consuming more stuff. Indeed, consuming
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: PowerShift 2012 Conference Day 1 (VIDEO)
More than 1000 youth from across Canada are currently gathered in Ottawa for the for the PowerShift 2012 conference. The 4-day conference seeks to push the Harper Government to act to stop climate change and social injustice, and end annual handouts of “$1.4 billion in taxpayer money to the richest, dirtiest corporations in the world.” More on The Canadian Progressive’s
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: 1000 youth converge in Ottawa to demand just solutions to climate and economic crises
by We Are Powershift From October 26 to October 29, 1000 youth from across the country will converge at Power Shift 2012 in Ottawa to galvanize a broad movement pushing the federal government to aggressively reduce carbon emissions and tackle the corporations that are fueling climate change, building on the momentum
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: The Canadian Progressive covers Power Shift 2012
The Canadian Progressive’s publisher and progressive political blogger, Obert Madondo, will be reporting on the 4-day Power Shift 2012 conference taking place in Ottawa and Gatineau on October 26-29, 2012. More than 1000 youth from across Canada are expected for the conference, which seeks to “galvanize a broad movement” pushing the
Continue readingCanadian ProgressiveCanadian Progressive: Rolling Stone: Inside The FBI Plot Against Occupy
On this one year anniversary of the Occupy Canada movement, here’s a magnificent piece of reporting by Rolling Stone‘s Sabrina Rubin Erdely, on how the United States government “turned five stoner misfits into the world’s most hapless terrorist cell.” Five Occupy Cleveland activists “who had grown disenchanted with the Occupy movement, which they considered
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: WTF, UBC? – University says it’s easier to cross picket lines with friends
Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Teaching Support Staff Union, COPE 378, and other unions are escalating job action at universities across British Columbia because of bargaining impasses and refusals on the parts of universities to budge on any items. Today, six unions engaged in job action
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