December 23, 2004 to January 19, 2005 •  No 104

• Since when did talking become so bad? by Kevin Potvin The Canadian Senate signals a serious derailment of Canada's tried-and-true tradition of pouring water, not fuel, on fires. The American way, clearly disastrous, has captured the imagination of Senators nonetheless   As Prime Minister Paul Martin insisted just recently, Canada has a long experience in talking conflicting parties down off their respective ledges, and has championed parliamentary democracy—a forum of words in place of violent conflict—around the world.
  	Marriage is, and always was, a political act by Kevin Potvin Marriage, of the official and blessed kind, always was political. For defenders of the restricted man-woman definition of marriage to accuse of political manipulation those who defend a wider definition that includes same-sex marriages is tantamount to conceding complete ignorance of the history and origins of the sacrament they feel so strongly about The special religiously-blessed marriage, as opposed to the ordinary common-law marriage, was invented by the church during proceedings of the Council of Trent in order to arm the church/state entity with the power to grab control of the comings and goings of its citizens and to equip the entity with a good tool for social control generally
  Those in glass houses . . . by Michael Nenonen POLITICAL SOUL Canadians struck by their American neighbour's behavior toward besieged peoples should refrain from falling into hate, for they themselves have much to remedy as well The children often made the long trip to the schools en masse in cattle trucks and railroad cars, a fact seldom-reported, likely because of the obvious historical parallels.	Make do, grunts by Jennifer Matsui REP SHEET Whether you're a soldier sent in harm's way without sufficient protection or a single dating woman left beside a phone that won't ring, the message is the same: too bad for you.   Having wrested control of the Senate, the House, the Congress, and every other significant political body, the nation's emboldened and swaggering leadership no longer feels it necessary to conceal their scorn-filled spitballs from those they consider beneath them.
  	Settlers, snow, and I don't know by Sonya McRae Aan excerpt from the 'zine Kicking at Clouds , a collection of e-mails and diary entries written by Sonya McRae as she traveled through the occupied Palestinian territories. They walk through the village with their guns, children and pregnant wives. The settlement itself is 8km away. On Bet'selem's settlement map you can see the brown dot of Yanun, a Palestinian village swallowed by a sea of blue indicating settlement land.
  Why'd the mayor stay? by Reed Eurchuk CITY BEAT In a surprise to most observers, COPE mayor Larry Campbell opted to stay inside the party. Old power plays between parties of the left may have resurfaced in that decision The problems continued through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Writing in 1983, Don Gutstein reported civic NDP mayoralty candidate Mike Harcourt “made great efforts”to “distance” himself from COPE and its left wing.
  Fish farm fiasco brings in heavy hitters by Kevin Potvin Quietly, the farmed salmon industry has grown into a multi-billion dollar business worldwide, involving some of the planet's biggest companies. Those who fight to fix its problems have a fight on their hands   They also have a great deal of in-house expertise in dealing with legislation they don't like, including effective strategies to confront global environmental groups that battle them directly over local government regulations.
  When will China pull the plug on the US? by Kevin Potvin The Chinese government has been purchasing US treasury bills to keep US consumers flush with cash to buy Chinese goods. They won't keep loaning the cash forever	Turner's Movies reviewed by Scott Turner The Machinist and Grande Ecole Books we're reading this month reviewed by Chris LaVigne and Kevin Potvin Got Game and The Bubble and Bear
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