TIME to chill out, eh?

So the March 12 TIME Canada got a little over-enthusiastic in its canuckitiness, or a little paranoid of CRTC censors, or something...



What stands out? (Yeah, I kind of spoiled the search.)

See, the thing is, when I'm on the Dufferin bus, and not next to my calculator, even if I do vaguely know that an inch is about 2.54 cm, and that 180 cm is roughly six feet, what the fuck is 170 cm supposed to mean to me in two seconds or less? Or ever? Is it tall or short? How many centimetres is Stephen Harper anyway? What kind of a headline is that? How many Canadians would actually understand what this headline is saying? I didn't! And I'm young! (And patriotic enough to spell metre just so.) And how many Canadian magazines would print a howler like that? I'm guessing none. So there you have it.

(I checked, and yes, in the American TIME, it's written right; the deck isn't given, but it's there in paragraph four. Ps, my roommate thinks the vegan mention is weird too. He had veal tonight...)

Terrorist corporate violence -- literally

Chiquita, which sells bananas and used to be called United Fruit Company (in the olden days when it helped overthrow Guatemala's democracy), just admitted to conspiring with Colombian terrorists (from the NYT wire):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Banana company Chiquita Brands International admitted in federal court Monday that for years it paid Colombian terrorists to protect its most profitable banana-growing operation.

Read the full story. (The story equates leftist rebels with right-wing paramilitary groups, though it suggests the bulk of the payments went to the former.)

Enthusiasm in Advance

So a copy of the book -- pictured right -- came in the mail last week. Pretty slick. And the orange is arresting. For lack of anything better to do about this, I'm posting our (surprisingly?) excellent blurbs. Get ready to get this book. Here it is at the publisher's page (it's Greystone Books) and with an old cover sketch at Amazon.

Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians:

"Filled with passion, insight, pain, celebration and hope, Notes from Canada's Young Activists is proof positive that social justice in Canada is in good hands."

Wade Davis, author of One River:

"These remarkable essays, so heartfelt and rooted in experience, are the poems of our children. Honour alone demands that we listen."

Velcrow Ripper, Genie-winning director of SacredSacred and upcoming documentary Fierce Light:

"A treasure trove of possibility, offering much-needed hope in this time of global crisis. A heart expanding must-read."

...

For the record, I didn't actually write any of the stories in the book, I was just the craft kid. So this isn't completely self-promoting and boasting. I don't want to pull a Paul Wells here.