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Raisa Bhuiyan's Bi-Weekly Dosage

What do you think Canada?



Hey guys,

I was reading the Toronto Star the other day, and was struck by an article written by Star Reporter Haroon Siddiqui. Its titled, "Tory Zealotry unhelpful to Israel and Canada"
Having an avid interest in all things Global Politics, I just have to transcribe it...here.

Excerpt A
"Those with an authoritarian and/or vindictive streak don't know when to stop. That's what makes them dangerous. That's also what proves their ultimate undoing in a democracy. Ottawa's decision to axe funding to a group apparently because it criticized Israel has enraged enraged many Canadians and has fully exposed the zealotry of Stephen Harper's government in supporting Israel and attacking those who don't"

Excerpt B
"KAIROS, an ecumenical group promotes social and economic justice in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Its $7 million contract to set up a rape clinic in the Congo, among othe projects, was killed by Harper because the group was said to have backed a boycott of Israel for oppressing Palestinians. As Jason Kenney admitted: "We've de-funded organizations, most recently organizations like KAIROS, who are taking a leadership role in the boycott."

Excerpt C
"Criticizing Israel is a crime in Tory books. The authoritarian designation is also a Tory flag of honour to be waved in Jerusalem, as Kenney just did. Here's an equivalent. An ad agency wins a federal contract to promote terrorism. Ottawa learns that the agency, or those close to it, had been critical of the Alberta tar sands. The Tories kill the contract---and crow about it in Calgary."

Is THIS the NEW McCARTHYISM?



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Seeing as to the awful summer we Torontorians have just experienced in this past year (awful in terms of weather, I'm lead to prophecize an equation for equivalent weather exchange.

Since it was barely 8 degrees at one point this past July, does this mean that it might 40 degrees in the forthcoming October? (fingers crossed)

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I recently completed a Call-to-Action for the abolishment of child labour in Kurshumpur, Bangladesh. One of my tactics was to hand out flyers to individuals passing by the entrance of a well-known mall. Seems like an innocent intention with innocent measures, right?

Little did I know that I would receive such a violent and aggressive reaction. :S Perhaps it was something in the water that day? Maybe I was targeting the wrong group of people at the wrong time? Maybe this is just the natural chain reaction to modern individualism?

Or maybe, just maybe, people are afraid of flyers?


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I'd have to profess that it has been an absolute pleasure attending the webinars that have been made availible to myself on TakingItGlobal. Though I initially had my reservations about the actual impact that webinars could have on audiences, I soon began to realize how marvelously efficient the whole idea of an "online class" was.

The change of heart was ushered in when I was in the process of presenting my bit on Journalism & Democracy in the "How to write like a Journalist" webinar and in the "Web 2.0" webinar that was presented by Liam.

Truth be told,I only had a vague idea of journalistic formatting on the blog platform prior to the "How to write like a Journalist" webinar. But with the aid of two lovely summer interns, I was able to grasp a more refined sense of how citizen journalism was drastically changing the nature of old media reporting with it's no-holds-barred style.

Naturally this got me thinking about how modern technology (Stuff like the internet, satellite devices, cell phones)has truly changed everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.

Then Liam said something in his webinar about the internet mirroring nature, and it put me in a epistemological rut all day. He was right. I mean, the internet is man-made after all, So it would make sense for man to imitate his environment, consciously or not. Hackers and viruses for example are like the criminals and natural disasters we have in reality.

Thinking about it in a broader sense, I came to the conclusion that the internet actually behaves like an organic system or a living entity have you will. To be healthy it needs to be cleaned, scanned for viruses and updated on a regular basis. For us, I guess you could say that regular updates are like regular exercise, and the cleaning and scanning is like maintaining a healthy diet.

In summation, this internship month has definitely awakened my inner Socrates. :) Can't wait to see what the next month has in store.

-Raisa

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Related to country: Canada
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I work in retail.
Actually, its something more like retail purgatory.

On June 1 2009, we (undisclosed store name) started charging 5 cents per plastic bag. Up till that point, the only other entity that employed a smiliar tactic were the grocery stores.

From what I can gather, the aim of putting a surcharge on plastic bags is meant to dicourage proliferation of more plastic bags into our environment. This is a good thing.

But don't we still need plastic bags to throw away our garbage? Doesn't that mean that they still end up in the environment anyways?

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