One of the main failures of western understanding of the Middle East and South Asia, and the subsequent failures of actions taken by the west in these regions, stems from viewing these regions through the lens of terrorism. This terrorism-centric view…
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Progressive Proselytizing: Social Media, Part II: The Value of Social Media
Like it or hate it, social media is now a potent force in society that is legitimately changing the way people interact with information, with news and politics, with each other, and ultimately with the world. In part one of this series, I considered …
Continue readingExcited Delirium: Media Messaging – Using the ‘Right’ Terms
What language do you think progressives should use to try to communicate with the average Canadian viewer?
Continue readingcmkl: Dear commerical media quit using “union boss” to describe our leaders
I know y’all are into brevity and everything. I’m with you. But is the pain of adding three extra characters to your titles and content really so onerous that you have to completely misrepresent the relationship between someone who is the head of a uni…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Misled
Angela Hall makes the fatal mistake of presuming that right-wing spin has anything at all to do with reality:Returning to the city where he made a recent campaign promise to crack down on violent offenders, Saskatchewan Party Leader Brad Wall expressed…
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The CBC’s 75th Anniversary – Part of What Canada Is.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is an integral part of Canadian culture. Canada’s national broadcaster helps bring the nation together and provide a common media space for Canadians to interact and share their ideas together. Canadians are so very lucky to have a public broadcaster to provide a voice of relative sanity in the cluttered media […]
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Social Media, Part I: Information Flows
It is truly an empowering experience to live at at time with our neary effortless access to unprecedented amounts of information. More than just this, however, we are able to be multilaterally engaged with the information we receive as we can also infl…
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Take Off, Eh?
As a Halloween treat, Ezra Levant attempts to be funny by masquerading as an obnoxious “Barge Delahunty” intruding on a Rob Ford look-alike (who knew?) in a series of increasingly awkward encounters. I have to admit that this parody had … Continue reading →
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Unrest in Bill’s Republic of Doyle
PotashCorp CEO Bill Doyle waded into Saskatchewan’s election campaign on Friday with an op-ed in the province’s two largest newspapers. It was accompanied by a paid advertisement from PotashCorp in Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix. The company got some free advertising in Regina’s Leader-Post through Bruce Johnstone’s column, which repeated Doyle’s op-ed. The Saskatchewan Party is parroting the […]
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: OWS – Media Bias at its best.
Liberal viewer does his usual exemplary job of describing the media. Faux News never fails to deliver when it comes to making sure that the interests of the people are marginalized and put forth in the worst possible light. The OWS movement has brought new life into the economic debate in the US opening […]
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: Rainbow Pipeline Leak — Six Months Later…
It has been 6 months since Plains Midstream Canada reported that there had been a Rainbow Pipeline leak, 100 km NE of Peace River, Alberta. Initially, the Alberta media were told by Plains Midstream Canada that only a few hundred barrels of oil had leaked from the Rainbow Pipeline… There
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: Rick Mercer: "It gets better" isn’t enough
Frankly, Rick says it way better than most of us. The crap that leads 300 students in this country to commit suicide every year because they can’t stand the bullying over their being LGBT has got to stop.(Transcript here, thanks Rick …
Continue readingBlast Furnace Canada Blog: CBC v Quebecor — at least wrastling’s fake
The ongoing between Quebecor Media and the CBC has gotten really intense this week, if the Toronto Star is to be believed. I agree that the CBC has some issues with transparency and that it would be wise to answer at least some, if not nece…
Continue readingRusty Idols: First lets shoot all the …nurses?
There are thoughtful and important pieces to be said and written about the state of long term care in this country and the funding decisions by governments hostile to the public service that has brought it to the state it is. Christie Blatchford’s moronic and vicious rant that ignores funding
Continue readingTerahertz: Oh Georgia Straight, why do you publish such crap?
Sometimes I appreciate the local coverage that the Georgia Straight provides. They’re coverage of the Vancouver election is extensive, and they’ve provided pages for every school and parks board candidate so far to get their word out. Hell, they questioned Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts on whether she though George Bush should be arrested for torture. […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What if Potash Tanks?
Regarding the NDP platform’s reliance on additional potash revenue, columnist Murray Mandryk asks, “What if potash tanks as it did in 2009?” Of course, budgets are necessarily based on assumptions about future commodity prices. Saskatchewan Finance estimates that each dollar of change in the price of oil alters provincial revenues by $20 million (page 35). […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Saskatchewan Platform Comparison
Saskatchewan’s two major parties have unveiled their election platforms. The NDP’s fiscal plan is to collect higher potash royalties and reinvest the proceeds in public priorities like healthcare, education and housing. Columnist Murray Mandryk notes the spectre of Erin Weir. The NDP has expressed a willingness to discuss sharing resource revenues with First Nations. The […]
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: The Price of Western Media Complicity – War in Iraq and Afghanistan
Media Lens does fantastic, if grim work, in describing the system we live in. We are insulated from other narratives other ideas, other peoples sufferings. How can a public become informed with no other sources to cross reference? You cannot triangulate with only one point. Media Lens, Al-Jazeera and other alternative news sources provide […]
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The media’s questionable coverage of the Occupy movement
It can’t be said that the mainstream media isn’t covering the Occupy Wall Street et al protests. Indeed, a major difference between these protests and so many others that came before it is that the media has given it quite extensive coverage. Ho…
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Sask Party’s 0.1% Health Plan
The banner headline, in block capitals, on the front page of yesterday’s Regina Leader-Post was “SASK. PARTY HAS FIVE-POINT HEALTH PLAN.” That’s accurate reporting, as far as it goes. The Saskatchewan Party did announce a healthcare plan featuring five points. It would have been similarly accurate to report that this announcement was accompanied by a […]
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