Idle No More

University of Winnipeg students marched from the University's downtown campus to the legislature grounds where they held a rally in solidarity with Aboriginal groups around Canada opposed to bill C-45.

Speakers at the rally included Wab Kinew and Michael Champagne AKA @northendmc. Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs was also in attendance, Nepinak has been a vocal opponent of bill C-45, calling it illegal, colonial, and paternal.

Although the rally was spurred by bill C-45 it is part of a bigger reengagement of politically conscious people. Similar to the Occupy and Québec student movements, the aboriginal rights movement is regaining energy and taking advantage of social media to get people engaged.

You can see more photos from the rally here.

Murder for business

Alex Paterson, writing at The Uniter:

A Canadian Senate committee recently recommended the termination of 70,000 grey seals in order to benefit the country’s cod fishery, raising the ire of scientists and environmentalists from coast to coast.

Despite the evidence indicating that overfishing is actually the main cause of the declining cod population the Canadian Government has sided with business and the Newfoundland/Labrador Minister of Fisheries.

In essence the government has decided that in order to continue killing more cod they need to kill more seals, their logic fails to compute. Given the people involved, like Minister of Fisheries for Newfoundland and Labrador Daren King, it's not surprising. In response to the Russian ban on Canadian harp seal products King has been quoted as saying

"Our government has expressed its concerns to the government of Canada and urged action to be taken against any proposed restrictions on the trade of harp seal products."

He also claims that the those opposed to the hunt have been misinformed, that it is a sustainable and humane practice.

Anyone who has seen photos of video of the hunt knows that this simply is not true, there's nothing humane about killing a young seal with a large hook. For anyone paying attention this decision is just one of many that have blatantly ignored scientific data and professional recommendations in favour of politically and economically motivated decisions on the part of the Harper Government.

Conflicts of interest and fluff news

By now anyone from Winnipeg reading this has surely heard all about the local journalists and blogger receiving gifts and discounts from IKEA and the controversy that blew up on Twitter. Lindsey Wiebe questioned her peers who accepted the invitation and gifts.

Then CBC chimed in.

CBC declined the offer to shop because of a policy against employees accepting gifts. However, reporter Nelly Gonzalez went to the event to pose the ethics question to Ikea.

CBC were then criticized for being self-righteous, after all they were just as guilty for spending an inordinate amount of time covering the opening of a retail store. Just look at the CBC Manitoba homepage.

Nevermind the fact that Winnipeg's Mayor is facing a potentially similar fate as Toronto's Rob Ford, or that First Nations groups are contesting treaty rights in order to acquire Kapyong Barracks. Why read about real news and issues that affect more than your lust for consumerism? WE HAVE AN IKEA!!!

Before the whole debate broke out, I had read one too many Rah! Rah! IKEA tweets by news organizations and took my frustrations out on CBC Manitoba's twitter account.

To me the issue is deeper than a few journalists and bloggers filling their faces and going home with grab bags, it's about whether these are the type of events the press and serious bloggers should be covering. Given recent cutbacks at the local newspapers you'd think their priorities would be streamlined. What is and is not newsworthy should be held under a tighter standard. Muckraking takes time and effort whereas regurgitating press releases and corporate jargon is relatively easy (it's even easier when your stomach is full of meatballs and your desk is being perfectly lit with the free LED lightbulbs).

We all need to stop acting like spoiled children after watching a toy commercial.

Winnipeggers rally in support of Palestine

Although there were somewhere between a hundred to two hundred people gathered outside the Manitoba Legislature Sunday afternoon there was little said of the event in local news.

The rally, organized through social media and word of mouth, was a response to the recent escalation of violence in Gaza by the Israeli government.

The mainstream media is pretty much sticking to the same store being fed by Israel, as well as its allies (especially the United States and Canada), which is that Israel has the right to defend itself. However this war is not about defence. Simply looking at the death toll reveals how weighted the violence is in Israel's favour.

The above photo is my favourite among the dozens I took during the rally. What was most apparent to me at the rally was how many families were there, how many had relatives still living in Gaza, and how many children where standing in protest. It's easy to paint Palestinians as the bad guys when the media only print photos of Hamas and rockets being fired on Tel Aviv, but the distortions become apparent when you see the people being affected.

You can see the rest of the photos from Sunday's rally to end Israeli apartheid on my Flickr page..

Storyboard Podcast interviews Kim Stanley Robinson

Wired's Storyboard Podcast, has a great interview with Kim Stanley Robinson.

I've been on a huge speculative fiction kick, reading several of Robinson's books in the past couple months. It started with 2312, so I very much enjoyed hearing K.S.R. elaborate on some of the themes and scenarios in the novel.

Anarchists targeted after Seattle's May Day protests

Kim Murphy, writing for the Los Angeles Times

What bothered Plante was that they weren't just looking for sticks and black masks. The FBI search warrant also listed "anarchist" and "anti-government" literature and material among items to be seized.

With news articles like this it's hard to buy FBI's story that they no longer carry out COINTELPRO-like operations.

Activists, anarchists, environmentalists, and anyone who doesn't conform to the status quo is now a terrorist and can be treated as such.