June 24, 2008

Insight From Someone Else

The esoteric mind of Sam Wiebe is worth acknowledging. The boy knows how to mince. His latest litany against Reality TV and the death of the arts, aptly titled Idolatry offers up insightful, sarcastic rhetoric--the good kind.

He's younger, meaner, probably more intelligent than myself...and he's been known to double-fist Jack Daniels in between his bouts of genius, before class, during, after. Take your pick. Of course this is all hearsay as he attends Simon Fraser University while I flounder away, a pissant at Kwantlen--now also given the auspicious credentials of university.

Read his blog, 2882: The Ennui Years.

Agree or not.

Let him know your thoughts.

But most of all, make fun of his inability to summarize.

Kidding.

June 5, 2008

Understanding Canada: Strings Attached for Funding

How subtle is the shift from writing to war? You'd think it would be a calamitous event, the kind to scar deep furrows into the earth. Not so. Attaching strings to funding cries all the necessary havoc. It appears those scholars and writers who publish and present their work abroad, can now only obtain crucial government funding if they culture their presentation(s) of Canada with "...Canadian foreign policy and priorities," as Jean Labrie (Foreign Affairs official in charge of the program) puts it.

Read the Article.

What does it mean when the funding of "academic freedom" is contingent upon following certain government suggested topics? Is that really academic freedom? What and who's version of Canada gets represented?

What say you?