Canada’s Debate

Well here is the finished copy, in all of it’s glory. It scored me an A so it has to be worth something. References are below.

Introduction
When it comes to assessing the impact of the internet � and information and communication technology (ICT) as a whole � on political systems, most scholars tend to align themselves into one of two camps. The first espouses the unlimited potential of ICTs to empower and expand democracy, with some researchers suggesting that ICTs represent, �the single most important technical fix for the failings of Western democracy� (Hand & Sandywell, 200). At the same time, another interpretation forecasts the subjugation of those same technologies to global capitalist enterprises, reinforcing non-democratic political flows. Taken to an extreme, this view states that,

If official changes are made to our systems, it is governments who will make those changes � the same governments who are currently presiding over the dismantlement of their own infrastructures and systematically selling out national sovereignty to corporate globalism. (Moore, 56)

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Ok, picking up where I left off yesterday…

As I was saying, it is difficult to understand the “anti-punk” phenomenom without making crass generalizations or broad, unsubstantiated sociological assumptions. Besides, I’m not that profound. Perhaps I can play a smaller role in slaying this beast. St. George had his horse afterall. The best I can hope for without actually doing any work is documenting isolated examples of the “anti-punk” as I see it, and making it clear for all to see. And of course I can think of no better place to start than the wellspring of faux-culture; pop music. (Continue reading…)

Come swish around, my pretty punk,
And keep me dancing still
That I may stay a sober man
Although I drink my fill.

I’m no huge fan of Yeats, but I wanted a way to work the word “punk” into the post title. I wanted to do this because I want to talk about punk (sort of) with you. The subject has been weighing on me since I came across a contest over at The Rebel Sell. The writer was asking people to come up with “punk” moments in Canadian history. Try as I might, the best I could come up with was the Fisheries Minister impounding a portugese fishing vessel about eight years ago over illegal halibut fishing. My failure to come up with anything has pissed me off, and got me thinking. (Continue reading…)

I swear to god, it’s the end of the world. The trumpet has sounded, the horseman are riding nigh, the turtle is tipping over… We have come to the end. How do I know this? Because it seems that we have actually run out of culture. That’s an odd statement, I know, but it’s true.

As I was watching Muchmusic the other day, commiserating the days when they played good music and didn’t cater exclusively to angry teenagers and hormonal tweenies, I saw a video from a band called Fall Out Boy. Now, I’ll get to their music in a bit. Right now I want to talk about their name. For those of you who don’t know, “Fallout Boy” is a character that appeared in a single episode of the Simpsons (and arguably one of their best.) As near as I can tell, that is the source for their name. I make this assumption because that is the only place I can find where that name has been committed to the annals of history, and pseudo-punk pop bands aren’t exactly known for their trailblazing cultural contributions. Their bio says someone screamed it out at a college concert, and that only reinforces my belief in the name. (Continue reading…)

I read something interesting in Maclean’s yesterday.

Ok, now that you’ve had time to register your shock and surprise, I should explain. Paul Wells, who Andrew Potter (see blogroll) has been having an intellectual affair with for months, wrote in the September 26th issue of Maclean’s that Stephen Harper is basically afraid of the newsmedia; or at least is wary of the perceived “liberal bias” in the Canadian news industry. Here’s what he wrote, parsed to keep my ass from getting yelled at:

Last week I ran into a Harper adviser I’ve known for a decade. Howabout lunch? The guy’s eyes grew haunted. “Well, they’re pretty strict about us talking with the enemy.” [[The media]] Harper guru Tom Flanagan, a cheerful Calgary academic who used to be fun to chat with, now scuttles along Sparks Street occassionally, shoulders hunched, eyes hidden behind wraparound shades. His coversations with journalists last eight seconds and end with the words, “No, sorry.”

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I’d like to consider myself fairly comfortable with the blog thing by now, but alas… The last four posts I’ve made were sitting unpublished on this site the whole fucking month collecting dust. I finally realize today that I haven’t gotten any emails about new comments, so I check back in and realize that they haven’t been published. Fuck! (Continue reading…)