Harper and the CBC

sigh.

i really never wanted to blog about ‘the economy’ or ‘the recession’ but now i feel the need to. this morning i read that steven harper is using the economy issue to swing the axe to  many programs at the cbc. the latest is that the cbc will have to cut 800 jobs. harper has already cut funding to the cbc and now it is reported that although the government is prepared to bail out media giants like canwest global communications and ctv, there will be no economic assistance for our public broadcasting treasure.


CBC, according to Stephen Harper... Flakaderm from Friends of Canadian Broadcasting on Vimeo.

in an awesome article that ian morrison wrote for the georgia straight, he posits that harper’s agenda was to privatise the cbc all along.

i would like to echo the sentament of two tewnty-something canadians who wrote the globe and mail, stating that “We are both in our early 20s and have grown up suffocated by U.S. media. The CBC is where we look to define our culture and our distinct Canadian voice. We fear these cuts will push young Canadians further away from Canada’s stories and their own identity.”

check out watchdog friends of the cbc for more info on harper’s latest smooth move.

reflections on family

today is my niece Rome’s birthday. and it is my sister’s birthing-day. she gave birth to little Rome-a-loo one year ago today. so, congrats to her and hooray, our clan gets larger.

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i am working on a family oral history project where i interview mother-daughter pairs to get their reflections, ideas, ad memories on what it has been like to be a woman. my brother josiah has been helping my capture these stories on film. we spent two days over the weekend filming; what an awesome help he has been. thanks to him, i was able to focus on asking the right questions and being really present in the interviews. i have found out some pretty awesome, inspiring, saddening, and interesting things.

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on top of the oral histories that my female family members have shared, they have also given me old family photos which i am in the process of scanning. they are all available on my flickr account.

this project has a long way to go, but i am excited as to what it will turn in to.

keep ‘em scared, keep ‘em stupid

i can’t help but think that ‘they’ are trying to turn my city into another police state.

DTES rally

the average vancouverite or lower-mainlander can’t seem to pass a media outlet without hearing news of yet another gang-related gun-toting showdown. with each story seems to be a louder cry form the public  for more cops on the streets.

cammon.

while i do understand the reality of a bunch of power-crazed, money-hungry drug doods driving around the city in their pimped out, bullet proof gangsta mobiles are shooting each other up, i do not  feel that this should cause me to be more afraid to leave my house and go about my normal routine. nor do i believe that this calls for an increase in police.

i do, however, think that the media has done a great job of painting a real scary picture for the public. this article was titled “Streets of Fear” until the publisher changed it after it ended  up on a local blog. as long as the general public is scared, chances are they won’t be bothered to dig deeper into uncovering real issues. they are scared stupid.

what are the realities of an increase of police presence on  the ground? definitely not a decrease in gang shootings. most likely an increase in broken taillight fines and jaywalking tickets followed by a decrease in personal privacy.

you do the math.

ps. today is march 15th and it snowed again in vancouver. if i wanted snow in mid march i’d live anywhere else in canada.

catching up…

ack! long time, no blog.

school has been keeping me pretty busy, plus i got a new job at the Museum of Anthropology!!! I’ll be working as a technical writer for their Reciprocal Research Network which will open a lot of doors for me :)

beyond that, i’ve been having a blast in all my classes (most of the time) and crunching to get everything finished before the end of the term. in anthropology, we’ve been learning about coffee again- suprise! it’s always an interesting subject as classes have sutdents with varying degrees of knowledge on the subject.

this year my prof showed the film Black Gold.

Wake up and smell the coffee

The film is an interesting, basic overview of one coffee co-op’s battle to get a fair price for their raw coffee beans. For people who are not aware of the plight of coffee farmers, I would really recommend this film as a great primer to the industry.

that’s all the time i have to update, i’ve got to get back to the books ;)