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MEDIA Best place to learn to be a filmmaker: York
Philip Hoffman, Ali Kazimi, Amnon Buchbinder, Janine Marchessault, Michael Zryd, Toronto's NOW Magazine declared York and the Department of Film in the Faculty of Fine Arts the "Best place to learn to become a filmmaker" in its annual "Best of Toronto" feature Oct. 25. NOW said: Once better suited to a Cronenberg dystopia than a seat of higher learning, the York campus has lately become the most concentrated source of expert film knowledge in Canada. Since hiring filmmakers like Philip Hoffman, Ali Kazimi, Amnon Buchbinder and Laurence Green, scholars Janine Marchessault and Michael Zryd, and accomplished switch-hitters like Brenda Longfellow, Lynne Fernie and John Greyson, they've got theory and practice covered better than anybody. In the same package, NOW also named Nina Levitt, an artist and sessional instructor in photography for York’’s Department of Visual Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, as Toronto's "Best Multimedia Artist". Levitt balances traditional and new photographic techniques with video in ways that show her smarts and ingenuity, NOW said. Her work appeared in the brilliant anthology The Passionate Camera: Photography And Bodies Of Desire and she was instrumental in facilitating Gallery TPW's recent move to new digs in Toronto. And she has a ton of upcoming shows, including Thin Air, loosely based on the experiences of two Jewish women who worked for British intelligence in Europe during the Second World War, at Toronto’s Koffler Gallery Jan. 11 to Feb. 25. Don't miss it. Go, fight, win – but choose your mates carefully New Saskatoon city councillor has youth on his side Clark, who has a master's of environmental studies from York University, agreed more needs to be done to make sure the city focuses on "green and people-centred development." He said making sure all neighbourhoods, especially those in the core, have access to an adequate grocery store is crucial to cutting down on the need to drive to a mall or big-box store. "There's a lot of people living in downtown without cars (and) they're finding it difficult to get what they need," Clark said. "It's almost a human rights issue."
This is all pretty exciting for a 24-year-old songbird who hates reality TV and calls the Idol shows little more than "karaoke contests." "I've always been against these," the outspoken Strong admits sheepishly over lunch, "but I always said that if I did one of them, I'd do 'Nashville Star' – they actually encourage you to play music and they encourage you to write your own songs." Next Friday, she will perform in front of a live audience in Nashville in a bid to become one of the final 10. Strong has been singing "forever" and writing songs since she was 13. When she is not teaching guitar to kids, she is performing gigs around the GTA. At the regional finals, she plans to sing What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts and Pumpkin, and a touching song she wrote for her dad when she was a struggling York University music student without enough money to buy him a Father's Day gift.
A Hamilton, Ont., native who played three seasons with the York Lions from 2002-2005, DiClaudio came into McMaster coach Joe Raso's office last month and asked if he could join the team. "I was here (at Mac) attending classes last year," DiClaudio said before a recent practice. "And I did some volunteering, coaching boys' basketball at Bishop Ryan, my old high school." DiClaudio got the necessary letter of permission from York officials in order to pursue collaborative credits from the Hamilton school. "It was a great experience for me at York," the 5-foot-10, 190-pounder said. "But at the end of my third year, I wasn't enjoying playing as much. It had nothing to do with any of the coaches or the players or playing time. When I left, there was no bad feelings. I just wanted to take a year off." Grad running for Oakville council was a class president
In all dialogues of this sort, it is crucial to keep in mind the power relations among those who are doing the talking, wrote Laxer. What I see is something far from benign. A great deal of pressure is being brought to bear on a few women for reasons that extend well beyond the niqab. What gives the narrative about the niqab its traction in the media is that it is the thin edge of the wedge in a critique of Muslims in general, not just those who wear the niqab. The question that is being asked, in a highly coded way to be sure, is whether Muslims constitute an alien presence in our society. Can they be relied upon to fit in as immigrants, to assimilate and become members of our society? Or will they be a dangerous, separate people, and even a source of terrorist recruits for attacks on us, with repeats of attacks like the suicide bombings in London in the summer of 2005? People have a perfect right, of course, to subject the streams of thought within particular religions to scrutiny and to critique their social implications. When the powerful within a society begin a narrative of the kind we have seen about the niqab, however, that is not what is going on, wrote Laxer. Muslims are being set apart as the "other." Though we may pride ourselves on our liberalism, in our civilization when people are set apart and critiqued as not really belonging in our midst, the consequences can be terrible.
Who is Rudy Quazar?
Szpirglas, who wrote Gross Universe: Your Guide to All Disgusting Things Under the Sun and They Did WHAT?!: Your Guide to Weird and Wacky Things People Do, said he began writing for children while in high school. After finishing his first two books, the Bathurst Street and Glencairn Avenue area resident approached his publisher about writing a kids guide to science fiction. "They said how about fear instead?" Szpirglas said. "I said sure." Szpirglas, who teaches at a Thornhill elementary school, originally wanted to be a horror movie maker, and even studied film & video at York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. York Lions notch season’s first hockey wins York student gets US hockey scholarship Student project takes aim at police misconduct via small claims court A third-year law student at York's Osgoode Hall Law School, Charney fought back with the tool he knew best: the law, said the Globe. He launched a $10,000 lawsuit against the Waterloo force in small claims court. On the eve of his trial in June – legal arguments finely honed and 20 witnesses lined up to testify – Charney, 34, rolled up his sleeves to play hardball with police lawyers. "They offered me $3,000," he says. "I laughed at that. I said, basically, 'It's $9,000 or nothing.'" The police ponied up. It was a capitulation that both the Waterloo and other local police forces will soon come to rue, since it convinced Charney and a handful of fellow law students that they had stumbled across an ideal vehicle to keep police misconduct in check. The Police Accountability Small Claims Collective was born. While their small-claims project has played havoc with the group's studies at law school, "it's a priority, I guess," Charney says. "And we do see value in this as part of our legal education. You get to apply what you learn in class in a very real way." He says the collective is actively searching for recruits at Osgoode and the University of Toronto's law school in order to ensure that it lives on after the current members are called to the bar and disperse. "This is definitely the kind of work I want to continue doing," Charney says. "The more this group is active and has a presence, the more other students are going to come out of law school with an interest in this kind of work. Hopefully, we can play a role in making police more accountable." Ricky Foley was country before it was cool Glendon teaching graduates buck downward employment trend $200 million the goal for York U fundraiser Canadians have a right to assess Afghanistan mission What began in 2001 as a mission promoted under the banner of "reconstruction" and a "Three-D" approach, integrating defence, development and democracy, has become a combat-oriented mission. Canadian soldiers are putting their lives at greater and greater risk, yet the federal government has yet to clearly explain the long-term objectives of this mission or the criteria that is being used to measure its success or failure. Canadians have good reason to demand answers about the long-term goals of this campaign. If democratic reform is a primary goal, why have alliances been struck with drug barons and warlords who are now members of the new Afghan government? A new approach is needed, one that focuses less on combat missions and more on the facilitation of humanitarian aid, poverty relief and development. This would encourage Afghans to see our military as a stabilizing force rather than an occupying one. Such a plan requires working more cooperatively with countries and aid agencies which can commit resources and knowledge, wrote Oddie. Slowing growth forecast could kick-start subway to York In delivering his fall economic outlook and fiscal review to the Legislature, the finance minister struck a cautionary tone. "There's slower growth in the U.S. economy – that's Ontario's largest trading partner. A slowdown there has an immediate impact here," said Sorbara. Juries have the right to refuse to convict The Supreme Court stressed that a jury cannot be openly urged to ignore a law or the evidence in a case – they must arrive at that decision on their own. Judge Morris Fish said that jury nullification should be seen not as a right, but as "the power to do so when their consciences permit of no other course." Young said the Krieger ruling is a major relief. "I'm happy about the ruling because, over the past 10 years, we have seen more and more cases where courts are questioning the importance of juries." "This case had the potential to create dramatic changes by taking away the constitutional right juries have to change the law," Young said. "The Court has said that you can do what conscience tells you do to in order to reach a verdict – but that we can't actually tell you to do it. You have to figure out what your conscience tells you. I'm happy about the ruling because, over the past ten years, we have seen more and more case where courts are questioning the importance of juries." Horváth guides Schulich School of Business to top ranking At first glance, Horváth is the anti-Martin, the antithesis to the U.S.-trained former management consultant, said the Globe. At 63, the Schulich dean is a career academic and Euro-intellectual. While some academic critics still sneer at Horváth's pretensions to business-school supremacy, no one denies his ambition and drive. He has given the feisty, suburban Schulich a profile that, for the first time, rivals its snootier downtown rival. The proof is in the numbers: Horváth guided his faculty to No. 18 in the widely followed Financial Times rankings of global MBA schools for 2006, six spots ahead of Rotman. Arthurs Report expected to urge labour standards update The code covers some 15,000 employers and about 10 per cent of the Canadian workforce employed in federally regulated industries such as banking, communication, telecommunication, air transport and trucking. Reforms, if adopted, may spill over to the provinces, which have jurisdiction over the rest of the country's 16 million workers. A former president of York and former dean of Osgoode, Arthurs was appointed to conduct the review by former Liberal labour minister Joe Fontana. He now will report to his Conservative successor, Jean-Pierre Blackburn. More workers – an estimated one in three – are temporary or contract workers, part-timers or self-employed who often fall through the cracks of labour rights and protections. Critics hoped Arthurs would address the situation where an employee is laid off and rehired on contract or their job is filled by a contract worker. Thomas Wolfe Postcards: A Ghost Story At The Hotel Chelsea Swan wrote, in part: Thomas Wolfe doesn’t knock. Why bother? He’s home. I hear his tubercular cough as he lets himself in. He floats through the wood and on down the curving vestibule until he is right where he wanted to be. Of course I scream and clutch the sheets to my chest. "It’s just me…a shade of my former self." His ghastly head inclines back and forth and I realize he is laughing at his own joke. Once his writing was synonymous with American prose. But today his books are an "undergraduate indulgence." Today his name is so faded on the mattering map of American literature that it is no bigger than the bottom row on an ophthalmologist’s chart – the tiny letters that only those with perfect vision can see. I, too, worry about my reputation in American letters. Especially now that my book had been savaged in the Times. Following a silence of 15 years, I had brought forth a new work and heard it dismissed as "inconsequential, plodding novel & neither original nor memorable", "brittle & overwhelmingly self-pitying" had been some of the dismaying phrases. "At least they didn’t say I couldn’t write my way out of a paper bag." Thomas Wolfe replies. "The only thing a writer needs to concern himself with is staying open to experience. If we aren’t vulnerable we can’t write." Professor’s study kills interest in coporate campaign donations While no one from Newmarket, Aurora, East Gwillimbury and King Township made MacDermid’s Top-20 list, it was a very different situation in the south. In 2003, seven Vaughan candidates, including incumbent Mayor Michael Di Biase and opponent Linda Jackson, were on the Top-20 list to receive the most corporate funding across the GTA. They are both accepting donations from the development industry this time, although opponents Paul Stewart and Savino Quatela are not. Two Markham politicians made MacDermid's Top-20 list in 2003: retiring Mayor Don Cousens and Frank Scarpitti, who is campaigning to replace him. Miller prefers buses and streetcars but still backs subway to York
Longtime love of politics fuels alum's mayoral bid Retired Osgoode professor runs for council in Mono Township
Mayoral candidates spar over subway Miller said that Pitfield's promise to spend on subways while cutting business taxes and freezing residential taxes "doesn't add up." He said the city has to look at less expensive solutions such as dedicated lanes for buses and streetcars. That drew a mocking response from LeDrew. "If David Miller had been mayor in 1954 (the year the Yonge Street subway opened) we wouldn't have any subway at all," he said. Raises are high at the top The Toronto Board of Trade's annual Executive Compensation Survey, released on Thursday, found that 68 per cent of Toronto companies offer bonus systems and 88 per cen of their executives received a bonus based on performance in 2005. "It's hard to believe that every person who got a bonus comes from a company that is doing well and they themselves made a significant contribution to their company's success," says Burke. Author’s chapter on violence sparks debate Law reform panel making a comeback
The renowned Canadian tenor, whose international career has taken him all over the world, from Europe to New Zealand and Japan to Israel, is putting down slightly reluctant roots for the first time in two decades. Butterfield, 41, has taught for two years part-time at York University and frequently holds master classes – but admits it feels a little bizarre to be back home. Guaranteed retirement income costly
Newton’s tree at York makes Bluffers’ apple guide York U librarian faces luring rap
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2006 |
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One of the newest faces on Saskatoon city council is also its youngest. Charlie Clark (right) (MES ‘02) was elected to city council in Ward 6, reported The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) Oct. 27. Clark, 32, said he doesn't see any challenges arising as a result of his relatively young age. In fact, he said he sees his age as an opportunity to get more young people involved and interested in civic matters and the role of government in general. "I'm hoping to get to know the other councillors and (find out) how the process works and learn where I can be most effective," he said.
Comedian met troupe laugh mates at York
Country songbird Dani Strong makes 'Nashville Star' finals
York U student plays for Mac
The issue of Muslim women's veils has been provoking a great deal of national angst in the Western world, wrote Susan G. Drummond (right) , who teaches Talmudic and Islamic law at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, in the Toronto Star Oct. 26. Star columnist Rosie DiManno yesterday felt moved to express her worry for the souls of veiled women, wrote Drummond, even if they themselves "apparently have no confidence in their own character" and seem oddly untroubled by their narrow horizons. The idea that real women, stripped of layers and layers of false consciousness, essentially read off the same Western, liberal, rational, enlightened page even leads DiManno to perceive the otherwise real Marion Boyd, former attorney general of Ontario, as a pale, duped shadow of a woman.
Once upon a new millennium, there were five young Port Colborne friends who wanted to make music, wrote the Welland Tribune Oct. 25. They formed their own rock band and dubbed themselves Rudy Quazar. So who exactly is Rudy Quazar? Technically, it’s a band with vocalist Jives (James) Standish, lead guitarists Rod Standish and Eric McKay (BFA ‘04), bass guitarist Ryan Mattie and drummer Phil Bosley (right) (BFA ‘02). But the real ‘Rudy’ isn’t really real at all…he’s a fictional character pulled from a short story written by a band member’s sister, and he became the band’s running joke throughout Port Colborne High School days. Phil and Eric both received their music degree from York’s Faculty of Fine Arts. Eric is currently taking courses at Niagara College to teach English as a second language and has recently returned from Korea and Thailand.
Author’s latest book is to be feared
Wednesday evening, then beat the University of Toronto Blues 2-0 the next night. Both games took place at the Canlan Ice Sports Arena at York (formerly Beatrice Ice Gardens). The Lions now have five points in four games. The Ryerson game marked the return to the rink of Graham Wise, who took over as coach of the Rams during the off-season after spending 19 years at York. New Lions coach Bill Maguire (right) said seeing his predecessor behind the other bench was an emotional experience at first. "Graham's a friend. I played for him. I was an assistant coach for him. We're pretty close. But once the game got under way, they were just another team that we were playing."
cow muck, actually, wrote The Vancouver Sun Oct. 21. On a 200-acre family farm east of Toronto, the farm boy who dreamed of a career in professional football had the task of mucking out the barn after the cows had done their business, a chore complicated when the mechanical stable cleaner broke down. Needing $5,000 to repair the machine, at a time of economic difficulty for cattlemen across Canada, the Foleys made do. Ricky grabbed a shovel and a wheelbarrow. "We didn't have any money to fix it," says Foley, a rookie defender with the BC Lions. "I told my dad I'd clean it up by hand. I did such a good job, he put off buying a new one. Five years later, I was still cleaning the barn the old-fashioned way."
A veteran labour mediator on Monday is expected to recommend reform of 40-year-old federal minimum labour standards that were designed for long-term nine-to-five workers and don't protect the growing army of self-employed, contract, temporary and other modern workers, reported CanWest News Service Oct. 27. A report by Harry Arthurs (right) , professor at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School who led a two-year review of Part III of the Canada Labour Code, is also expected to contain proposals to tighten the labour law compliance system and address the fashionable issue of stress from "work-life" balance.
Novelist Susan Swan (right) , humanities professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, visited New York’s Chelsea Hotel last summer, wrote Ed Hamilton, editor of Living with Celebrities: Hotel Chelsea Blog, in an entry dated Oct. 25. Swan, said Hamilton, stayed in Thomas Wolfe's old room (you remember Thomas: he wrote "You Can't Go Home Again" in room Swanwolfe3829). She considers Wolfe a literary father-figure, and, as you can see from the following story, her stay at the Chelsea was for her a profoundly spiritual experience.
study by Robert MacDermid (left), political science professor in York’s Faculty of Arts, who wrote a well-publicized paper analyzing the amount of business money in campaign war chests in the Greater Toronto Area during the last municipal election.
Business professor says he’s optimistic about corporate boards
An active member of the community since his arrival nearly 14 years ago, Jean-Gabriel Castel (left) , professor emeritus at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, decided the time was now right to take the next step and run for councillor, wrote the Orangeville Banner Oct. 24 in a profile of the local candidate for town council. The retired law professor feels his experience would be useful at council, and his presence would help diversify the background of decision-makers. "I just fell in love with Mono. It's a green oasis, a beautiful place. I became quite taken by it, so I felt I wanted to keep it that way," he says. "I just retired and felt I could devote more time." He retired last year from Osgoode, though he continues to maintain an office there and works on a freelance basis. If elected, he says he will stop freelancing and dedicate his attention to "the local scene."
Mothering conference started 10 years ago
Top executives in Toronto received pay raises last year of more than twice the inflation rate, and more than half of them were given performance-based bonuses, according to a study released this week. But experts say the trend toward giving CEOs and top executives these kinds of bonuses may have peaked, reported the National Post Oct. 21. Ever-increasing bonuses have become standard fare at companies over the past two decades, says Ron Burke (right) , a professor in York’s Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. "But it has probably reached its peak in terms of the number of companies that are going that way," he says. "If companies end up giving everyone a bonus, in some ways, the merits of using performance to discriminate tends to get lost."
Tenor makes time to teach
Ungar presents 'Painting the War' at museum
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