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In a New York Times  op-ed , I've learned that BuzzFeed has announced the hiring of its first book editor, and will start publishing book reviews. But  it will not run negative book reviews. Isaac Fitzgerald (formerly of The Rumpus and McSweeney's ) said: BuzzFeed will do book reviews, Fitzgerald said, but he hasn’t figured out yet what form they’ll take. It won’t do negative reviews: “Why waste breath talking smack about something?” he said. “You see it in so many old media-type places, the scathing takedown rip.” Fitzgerald said people in the online books community “understand that about books, that it is something that people have worked incredibly hard on, and they respect that. The overwhelming online books community is a positive place.” He will follow what he calls the “Bambi Rule” (though he acknowledges the quote in fact comes from Thumper): “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” This is welcome news for serious readers. It doesn't mean, as

Three days ago, Iraq War resister Kimberly Rivera gave birth to a son, Matthew Kaden, in a military hospital in San Diego. As soon as her hospital stay ends (which may have already happened), Kim will be taken back to prison. Her newborn baby will stay with his father and his siblings... but his mother will be forced to finish her prison term. Her release is scheduled for mid-December. The US Army has rejected all appeals for clemency, and is insisting Kim serve the final weeks of her sentence, even though it means separating a mother and a newborn infant. On Sunday, December 1, people of peace and conscience around the world will be holding actions in solidarity with Kimberly and her family. See Free Kimberly Rivera on Facebook for updates on vigils and actions. In Toronto, a vigil will be held at 12:00 noon at the US Consulate, 360 University Avenue. Please note this is the correct time. Actions in most other locations are taking place at 3:00 p.m. If, like me, you cannot attend a

According to this news story , a Canadian woman named Ellen Richardson was refused entry into the United States because of a prior medical condition. That is, when the US border guards swiped her passport, information taken from her health records  came up. Now, the US can refuse entry to any non-citizen for any reason or no reason. The more important question is why was a Canadian's confidential medical information in the Department of Homeland Security database??  How did it get there? How many of our health records are in the DHS database? You don't need to wear a tinfoil hat to ask these questions, and imagine the troubling scenarios they raise. When Richardson and the Toronto Star  asked for an explanation, they were told: U.S. Customs and Border Protection media spokeswoman Jenny Burke said that due to privacy laws, "the department is prohibited from discussing specific cases." How's that for irony? Richardson contacted her Member of Parliament. MP Mike Sull

What with the Red Sox winning the World Series (!!!) and Allan's book being completed ( available for pre-order on Amazon !!!), I forgot to announce the official opening of Movie Season. Since changing to streaming-only, and since I'm out one or two nights a week, we really don't binge on movies anymore - no more three movies a week for months on end - but we still need a go-to list. Movies: well-made documentaries, quirky indies, suspenseful noir, crime thrillers or capers, mind-benders, smart comedies - post them here. Series: We are psyched for the long-awaited Sherlock S3 ! We're going back to The Wire; we've seen Season 1, and a bit of S2, now we'll restart S2. We're in the middle of Downton Abbey S4 but I've lost interest, as any pretence to historical drama has been tossed, and now it's just a soap opera with cooler clothes. We liked the first two or three seasons of The Big C and Weeds, but gave up both when they stopped being great. House o

We've just seen "The Central Park Five," the Ken Burns film about five young men of colour who were wrongfully arrested, indicted, and convicted of rape and attempted murder, and who served seven, and in one case, thirteen years, in prison for a crime they didn't commit. There was virtually no evidence linking the five teenagers to the crime, and enormous amounts of evidence showing they could not possibly have committed it. They were convicted on the strength of illegally obtained, coerced, false confessions. In one sense, this story is one of the oldest in the United States. As former Mayor David Dinkins says in the film, it's Emmett Till . In another sense, that this happened in the late-20th-Century New York City still has the power to shock. Indelible memories I feel connected to the events depicted in this film through the timeline of my own life. Even before watching it, I could recall every detail. The "other rape" that occurred the same night, o

This week we finished Ken Burns' excellent documentary " Prohibition ," and I recommend it highly to everyone who enjoys history. Most of us know at least something about Prohibition, especially how it failed, but I'd bet that much of this film will be eye-opening. And, if you aren't a regular viewer of Ken Burns' documentaries, this three-parter could serve as a wonderful introduction to his signature style. It's on US Netflix, on PBS, and probably at your local library. I did know that the early movement against alcohol was deeply rooted in the early US women's movement. Women's anti-alcohol groups, especially the Women's Christian Temperance Union - which still exists ! - were the first women to speak out publicly about domestic violence. In the pre-Prohibition United States, the saloon was a male-only domain. Men drank away their family income, then came home and abused their wives and children. Organizing against alcohol was a way of asse

Last week, while enjoying a lovely lunch at a restaurant with my mom and my partner, an oily sauce jumped out of a bowl and splattered on my shirt. All right, it didn't actually jump out, truth is I can be a clumsy eater. But the sauce went on my shirt. Ugh. This wasn't one little dot, which can be annoying enough. This was an entire collection of splats, re-decorating the front of my shirt. Double ugh. Because I was busy with family and friends, I wasn't able to immediately soak or stain-treat the shirt. It ended up sitting for a couple of days before I washed it. When I got home a few days later, I stain-treated and washed the shirt several times. I used my preferred stain-removing spray, OxiClean , and also soaked the shirt in a solution of OxiClean powder, each time putting it in the washing machine on warmer water than I would normally use. The stains did get lighter, but they did not come out. Next I Googled "how to remove oil stains from clothing". I found

Low-wage workers in North America are on the move. This movement has been building for more than a decade, and it's beginning to reach a critical mass. And could any workers need it more? Fifty-two percent of fast-food employees’ families rely on public assistance to put food on the table or to get medical care. McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC - hugely profitable, multibillion dollar corporations -  are being subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of almost $7 billion a year! Ordinary working Americans are picking up the tab so that these corporate giants can pay poverty wages. (Don't believe it? Watch what happened when a long-time McDonald's employee called the company's help line. ) We're not talking about teenagers picking up pocket change. A full 89% of low-wage workers contribute at least 50% of their family budget. It would be a full-time blogging job to keep up with all the organizing, between Walmart workers, fast-food workers, retail

Here are two excellent, heartbreaking stories about what happens to those who survive and don't survive war. The first, excerpted from Ann Jones' book They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — the Untold Story : An older Army officer calls me over and gestures toward the empty seat by his side. He sits ramrod straight, wrapped in his blanket, and speaks through tight lips as if he fears what might come out of his mouth. “I’ve been in the Army twenty-six years,” he says, “and I can tell you it’s a con.” He has been an adviser to the chief counterterrorism officer in Iraq. It’s hard even to imagine what’s involved in work like that, but his version of his job description evidently failed to match the official checklist of his boss. He doesn’t think much of military bosses or politicians or Americans in general who send the lowliest 1% to fight wars that make the other 1%, on the high end, “monu-fuckin’-mentally rich.” He says he’s going home for “psych rea

Justin Doolittle, writing in Salon , takes down the military lovefest currently enveloping professional sports in North America: " Stop thanking the troops for me: No, they don’t “protect our freedoms!” " Doolittle makes the point - extremely important and almost always overlooked - that we do not owe our present "freedom" (whatever that word is taken to mean) to "the troops". (This is a point I recently quoted from Noah Richler 's book What We Talk About When We Talk About War .) Doolittle writes: Freedom has become one of those politically charged terms that means whatever people need it to mean. There is no coherent conception of freedom, though, in which it only exists at the pleasure of the U.S. military. It’s simply a non sequitur. The “freedoms” most Americans think of when they hear the term are enshrined in constitutional and statutory law. They are in no way dependent on the size, scope or even the existence of the U.S. military. If John Le

If you haven't read anything by Zadie Smith, I highly recommend finding White Teeth , her debut novel, and diving in. Smith wrote White Teeth while still attending university, and it was published to great acclaim when she was only 25 years old. It's a wonderfully sprawling novel, by turns wry, satirical, and poignant, crammed full of vibrant characters, multiple themes and threads, and brilliant, surprising language. It deals with the cultural clashes and changes of immigration, generations, and class differences. If you read White Teeth and didn't like it, stop right there; you're not going to like anything else by Zadie Smith. I loved White Teeth - despite its strange and problematic ending - and I'll probably follow Smith down any literary path she travels. I've just finished NW , Smith's fourth novel. NW is another polyphonic trek into northwest London, and it is another masterpiece. The book is full of finely drawn, fully realized characters, start

For Canadians who fear and distrust the steadily growing militarism suffusing the culture of our country, two recent books are indispensable: What We Talk About When We Talk About War , by Noah Richler, and Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift. Richler's book focuses on the re-writing and re-framing the distant past. And as the title (with its homage to Raymond Carver) suggests, Richler focuses on language. He analyzes how Canada's image of itself, in relation to war-making and the military, has been radically altered, bit by incremental bit. The book is not a play-by-play of the process; Richler assumes you know the general outline and the major players. It's a deep analysis of the language and symbolism of a right-wing cabal intent on discrediting Canada's history of peacekeeping, and changing its national self-image through revisionist history, from the War of 1812 to Vimy Ridge to Remembrance Day, right on up to the re

From Noah Richler's What We Talk About When We Talk About War : We have a duty to be honest and rigorous, with ourselves and with others, and to be able to brook contradiction and argument in our discussions of past wars and the present one in Afghanistan. But instead, in today's Canada, we have arrived at a point where the use of any language that is not euphemistic is greeted as an assault on the work of soldiers, on a singular view of our past, and therefore on the character of the nation itself. Ideology thrives. History hardly comes into it. . . . . Among the traditional words and phrases prone to high diction that [Paul] Fussell [author of The Great War in Modern Memory ] lists are: Friend... comrade Obedient... brave Earnestly brave... gallant Cheerfully brave... plucky Bravery considered after the fact... valour ... Not to complain is to be... manly A soldier is a... warrior The legs and arms of young men are... limbs The dead on the battlefield are... fallen The object

[The over-emphasis on Canadian military history] distorts and downplays the significant roles that Canadian politicians, diplomats, jurists and a variety of other civilians (such as artists) have had in shaping not just the domestic Canadian polity but abstract, universal ideas about statehood that have served as examples internationally - in Scottish constitutional development, for instance, and of course in the development of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, drafted in 1948. The nature of this contribution is significant specifically because the truth of Canadian history is that our military's stake has not been inordinate. Resolution through discussion and compromise, and the recognition of the interests of others that such an approach entails, is seen to contribute to the greater good and to have characterized not only the relationship between the government and Aboriginals, between English- and French-speaking Quebeckers (and between the British government a

In my fine tradition of watching TV shows and movies - and then writing about them - months or sometimes years after their release, I recently finished the final season of The Office (U.S.). I had seen many episodes of this show in re-runs and in random order over the years. When we started streaming Netflix, I re-started the whole series from S1e1. (Watching shows and movies end-to-end is my favourite thing about streaming. I'm completely gaga over it.) There was a brief pause while I waited for the final season (S9) to hit Netflix, then I finished it last week. I was surprised by how satisfying I found the final two episodes of the show. But I was not surprised to see that these episodes were written by Greg Daniels, who developed the US version of the show. When I first started the final season of The Office, I thought the show had jumped the shark. The writers were resorting to cheap gimmicks and repetition, not to mention the dreaded New Characters Out of Nowhere. I was still

I found the preceding rtod post buried in Blogger drafts, something Allan saved there years ago. I never got around to posting it, but I never had the heart to delete it, either. If you're not familiar with Bill Moyers , he is an American independent journalist, producer, and public intellectual. Earlier in his career, Moyers served as White House Press Secretary under the Johnson administration, but he's better known for the many shows he has produced and hosted on PBS . Moyers has always been liberal, but over the past decade, he has become increasingly radicalized as he reacts to the excesses of endless war and unchecked capitalism. (That's my own observation. I've never heard Moyers describe himself as radicalized, and I doubt he would.) The thing about Moyers is he rarely thinks or speaks in sound bites. To follow him, you must be willing to read or to listen at length. In that sense, he reaches a small minority. On the other hand, the more that minority - i.e., u

Revolutionary thought of the day: The Gilded Age returned with a vengeance in our time. It slipped in quietly at first, back in the early 1980s, when Ronald Reagan began a "massive decades-long transfer of national wealth to the rich." As Roger Hodge makes clear, under Bill Clinton the transfer was even more dramatic, as the top 10 percent captured an ever-growing share of national income. The trend continued under George W. Bush – those huge tax cuts for the rich, remember, which are now about to be extended because both parties have been bought off by the wealthy – and by 2007 the wealthiest 10% of Americans were taking in 50% of the national income. ... You will hear it said, "Come on, this is the way the world works." No, it’s the way the world is made to work . This vast inequality is not the result of Adam Smith’s invisible hand; it did not just happen; it was no accident. As Hodge drives home, it is the result of a long series of policy decisions "about

Some years ago, I analyzed the "Discover Canada", the most recent guide for immigrants studying for the Canadian citizenship exam. I compared the booklet to the previous citizenship guide, "A Look At Canada", and found within its pages the Harper Government's vision of Canada. Later, we learned that the citizenship exam itself uses a significantly higher reading level than past exams, and functions as a barrier for many newcomers who wish to become citizens: " jason kenney gets his wish: the anglicising of canadian citizenship ". More recently, columnist Heather Mallick analyzed the new Canadian passport. Unsurprisingly, she found the Harper Government's fingerprints all over it. Mallick: Canada is increasingly becoming unrecognizable to me. I don’t mean this just in an abstract sense, when I read about shameful things like Ottawa trying to avoid taking in refugees who have been tortured, because they require extra medical care. Foreigners who wak