Near the end of the protest of George W. Bush this evening, the organizers played John Lennon's Imagine, and it made me wonder if protests have lost some of their effectiveness since the 1960s.

I hope this reads as weariness rather than cynicism, but it's been a while since I got a real sense that a protest was changing the course of events. That's not to say I don't think protesting Bush was an important thing for Edmontonians to do, I just wonder about how effective the action is. Will 200 people shouting "shame" at police outside the Shaw Conference Centre get Bush arrested as a war criminal?  

Doug Meggision, one of the organizers of the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism was at the … Read More

According to the Guardian, Afghanistan has passed a law that legalizes rape within marriage, along with several other anti-woman provisions.

From the legislation: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."

It had looked like international pressure was going to squash the law. With the Afghan election coming up on August 20, this really looks like a bid on the part of Hamid Karzai to win over more conservative voters and power brokers.

Actually, the run up to this election … Read More

Now here's a media company that knows the newspaper business. 

From the company's first quarter report, from thetyee.ca story on Glacier Media possibly buying more newspapers:

"The demise of many North American newspaper and media companies has in part been self-inflicted. The Internet has been a factor, but the reduction of content and quality through continual cost cutting has played a significant role. It has weakened the product and the value of many North American metropolitan newspapers for readers, which has resulted in reduced effectiveness for advertisers, which has reduced revenues."

The full story is worth a read.

I wonder if Premier Ed Stelmach knows there's a brand of bread out there that has stolen his personality — or at least his nick name. No doubt this company will get a letter from Stelmach's lawyers when they find out, just like Alberta political blogger Dave Cournoyer did.

This graduation speech given by Barbara Ehrenreich made me feel so good about journalism, I had to pass it along. Read the entire text here.

"We are not part of an elite. We are part of the working class, which is exactly how journalists have seen themselves through most of American history — as working stiffs. We can be underpaid, we can be jerked around, we can be laid off arbitrarily — just like any autoworker or mechanic or hotel housekeeper or flight attendant.

But there is this difference: A laid-off autoworker doesn't go into his or her garage and assemble cars by hand. But we — journalists — we can't stop doing what we do.

As long as there is a story to be told, an injustice to be exposed, a mystery to be solved, we will find a way to do it. A … Read More