MEDIA

Theatre alum knows he made the right choice
Sitting in the third row of the Theatre Passe Muraille, Soheil Parsa (right)(BA ’89) is trying to keep his voice down and his energy up, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 13. It is the weekend before previews of his production of the acclaimed drama The Sheep and the Whale, and the cast is trickling in for rehearsal. He still has to tinker with some details and it's obvious he is tired.

Parsa enrolled in the theatre program at York’s Faculty of Fine Arts and supported his family at a variety of jobs – bus driver, newspaper deliverer and doughnut shop employee – scraping by in order to realize his dream. Parsa says the theatre was where he first found something familiar and discovering like-minded people let him know he made the right choice – even if it was a frustrating journey at times.

Former student appears on CSI:NY
Former York student Rachel Perry (left) is featured in an episode of “CSI:NY” to air tonight at 10 pm, wrote her hometown Brockville Recorder and Times Feb. 14. Perry, 31, plays a drug-addicted singer. Perry studied art and photography at York for three years before getting hired as a MuchMusic VJ in Toronto in 1998. After her five-year stint at MuchMusic, she was a VH1 VJ for four years in New York City. She has also appeared in the TV shows “Heist” and “Dirty Jobs”.

Getting a taste for food business
Business owners Chris Bower and York alumnus Tal Rosenbloom (right) (BBA ‘00), founders of Chris & Tal's Better Foods, drive around town with the tools of their trade in the trunk of their cars: portable barbecue with small propane tank, coolers loaded with freezie packs and frozen beef-soy burgers, flippers to turn the burgers, boxes to demonstrate their product line and plates, knives, forks and napkins to feed potential customers, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 12. They set up their wares at grocery stores, cook up sizzling free samples of Chris & Tal's Better Burgers and attract hordes – who never guess this tasty burger has half the calories, fat and cholesterol of a regular burger.

Schulich student and pan performer to appear in Ajax
Local musician Joy Lapps (left) presents “Praise on Pan” at the Ajax Public Library main branch March 4, wrote the Ajax-Pickering News Advertiser Feb. 15. The pan is perhaps better known as the steel drum. Lapps, now completing her fourth year at York's Schulich School of Business, began playing the pan in 1997 at Malvern's Church of the Nativity. She joined the Nativity Steel Angels and soon began a solo career. She has released two discs: Praise on Pan: How Great Thou Art and Make a Joyful Noise.

Welcome back to the mat
Niki Voskakis knows she continues to make a difference, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 14. A fourth-year student at York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science, Faculty of Health, the 22-year- old honours student has had a passion for wrestling since her days of slamming bodies on the mat at Father Bressani Catholic High School in Woodbridge. During her high school career, she won three York Region championships in the 51-kilo (112-pound) weight class, was twice selected MVP and was named athlete of the year. When she graduated, however, there was still something missing. She had never won a medal at the provincial level. So Voskakis went back to high school three years ago, this time to coach.

Selling fertilizer a long way from Bay
At Practical Action, the nongovernmental organization in Nakuru, Kenya, where I am working, my boss and I eagerly await the arrival of a report from the Ministry of Agriculture's district officer, wrote York alumnus Jacob Kojfman (LLB/MBA ’03) in Kenyan Sabbatical, his ongoing column for the National Post Feb. 14. February is a big month for the organic fertilizer industry, which I am helping to set up a marketing plan. March is the start of the long rains, which is the time when farmers begin planting, and when they are most likely to use fertilizer. So it is do-or-die time for the organic fertilizer sellers. If the farmers can use the product this planting season, even on a trial basis, and if the NGO carries out my recommendations, the results may actually be those intended. Otherwise, another year will pass before the farmers can try it.

Kojfman, as the Post notes at the end of each column, has an LLB/MBA from York University's Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

He likes action, but pirates give him grief
York alumnus Ellis Jacob (right) (MBA ’76) is a big movie fan – just what you'd expect from the president & CEO of Cineplex Entertainment LP, the multiplex monster that controls 65 per cent of the country's movie box-office revenue and 30 per cent of its screens, wrote The Globe and Mail Feb. 12. Jacob, a Calcutta native who immigrated to Canada as a teenager, likes nothing better than spending a couple of hours in the dark with a roomful of strangers. India's Bollywood now makes more movies than Hollywood, Jacob told his interviewer. It's starting to come out of its shell and we've been very supportive. In some cases, such as in Surrey in British Columbia, we actually do more money from Bollywood films than Hollywood films.

GO is the most comfortable bus system
I am a third-year student at York University and I choose to commute to school, wrote Andrew Gadsby in the Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner Feb. 3. Do I choose York Region's Viva or do I choose GO? Hands down, it's the GO. Why? Aside from the obvious direct route, the GO has more than three stops in the entire town and accepts payment on board. I can easily walk to Savage Road South and catch the bus to school on one side of the street and be dropped off on the other. Viva? I'd have to walk up to Mulock Drive for the nearest payment terminal because, heaven forbid, you pay a driver. Convenient? I think not.

York star gets taste of ‘the show’
York Lions soccer player Jamaal Smith (right) is learning how long the leap is from the Ontario University Athletics league, where he was an all-star, to the Major Soccer League, where he's a boy playing with men, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 9 . "They expect the game to be played faster here and I'm willing to adapt to that," Smith said after practice. "I've been told I'm going through a learning curve."

Toronto FC coach Mo Johnston says the team likes Smith's raw talent but isn't thrilled with his grasp of soccer's subtleties, like timing and touch. "The kid's still learning," Johnston said. "It's still way too early for Jamaal Smith." After a week of playing against grown men with international experience, Smith – who also was recruited by only one US school – seems to realize his limits, too. "I think I have a good chance to make the youth team," he said. "I'm hoping they're banking on me developing as a player."

Cross-dressing prof 'makes a whole lot of lives easier'
Professor Michael Gilbert(right) is a husband, a father, a grandfather and a well-respected philosophy professor in York’s Faculty of Arts with more than 30 years of service at York, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 12. He's also a lifelong cross-dresser who for about a decade has come to campus at least once a semester en femme to teach the philosophy of gender and sexuality.

Judy Pelham (left), Chair of York’s Department of Philosophy, told the Star there's been "zero" pushback or complaint from faculty about Gilbert cross-dressing on campus, noting philosophy is about engaging people in thought-provoking discussions that challenge their pre-suppositions. "What I've always found quite remarkable is that he commands the class just as well as Miqqi [his femme name] as he does as Michael," Pelham said. "You have to have a personal connection with the class to pull that off."

"It's obviously a brave thing to do," said Joshua MacKay, 23, a third-year philosophy major. "We're kind of lucky for him to be willing to be out there and be an example." Classmate Ekta Talwar, also 23, called Gilbert "a front-line spokesperson for political appropriateness and positive space for everyone on campus." But Talwar said some friends in other programs "would become very uncomfortable" in a class where he showed up as a woman. "He'd win them over if they gave him a chance," said the fourth-year philosophy and English major. "But they'd never be willing to give him a chance."

"It's been a cakewalk, frankly," Gilbert said of his decade of cross-dressing on campus. "I'm not surprised because York is a very affirming institution." Many in the transgendered community say Gilbert deserves some of the credit. He also chairs a committee called SexGen York, which deals with issues affecting sexuality and gender on campus. It has advocated for gender-neutral washrooms and regularly holds "positive spaces" workshops to combat homophobia and eliminate gender stereotyping.

"He's made a whole lot of lives easier," said Lynnette Dubois, 42, a transsexual, third-year English and political science major and external co-ordinator with the TBLGAY (Transgendered/Transsexual, Bisexual, Lesbians and Gays at York). "When they see somebody like Professor Gilbert out there, it makes them feel York is a more accepting environment."

York tutor loses by-election in Markham
Michael Chan, is the newly elected Liberal MPP for Markham after a by-election in the riding held Feb. 8, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 9. NDP candidate Janice Hagan (BA '86), a York graduate student and English tutor, had hoped that Markham voters would be fed up with both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives. She finished a distant third.

Local author has the 'write' stuff
Good things come to those who wait, wrote the Lindsay Daily Post Feb. 9. Just ask author and York graduate Collette Yvonne (left) (BA ‘96), who's been on a wild ride of success the past year launching a new book and seeing a short film based on one of her stories nominated for a 2007 Genie Award. It wasn't until she graduated from York with an BA (Honours) in creative writing that everything started falling into place. Since then, her articles, reviews, essays and interviews have been featured in national publications and various community newspapers in Ontario. Yvonne also began building experience as an editor, photographer and writing workshop leader.

But the moment of truth came when she began penning “Scarlet Runners”. "That was an emotionally draining experience," said Yvonne of the short story. Yvonne was thrilled when she learned the short story was to become the basis of a short  film titled Snapshots for Henry by Toronto-based director and scriptwriter Teresa Hannigan. Yvonne is also buoyed by response to her recently released debut novel, The Queen of Cups. "It took me years to write it. I kept rewriting it and rewriting it – I'd probably still be rewriting it if I hadn't come to the realization that I just couldn't spend the rest of my life working on it," quipped Yvonne.

York graduate serves up a marriage proposal
York alumnus Ryan Dirracolo (BA '06) thrilled dozens of people by making a surprise marriage proposal to volleyball player Linda Zelek during a team reception at McMaster University Feb. 3, wrote the Hamilton Spectator Feb. 9. She said yes. "He got down on one knee, pulled out his trusty cigar band (a diamond engagement ring) and proposed," said coach Tim Louks who, along with the assistant coaches, knew ahead of time, what would be happening. The players were caught unaware.

"He's been my No. 1 fan since we started going out," Zelek explained. "He presented me with [some pictures], I gave him a hug and a kiss and everyone clapped. I kind of thought that was the end of it; the next thing I knew he said, 'I have another award for the player who stole my heart.' He got down on one knee and asked me to marry him."

It's about resiliency, not smarts
So what makes an entrepreneur? the National Post’s Gary Schwartz asked Leonard Brody (right) (LLB '97) in an interview for Schwartz’s Feb. 12 Silver Bullet column. "Resiliency," Brody says and sets out to explain. "When I graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School in 1997, I began articling at a large firm in Toronto. While working a 14-hour day with the firm, I started a small sports agency called Prodigy. With Prodigy we pioneered the business of representing North American soccer talent into the European market." One spring morning, a partner at the law firm took Brody aside and asked him to make a decision. The moonlight project now had seven affiliate offices across Europe and Africa. "I think the firm was noticing," he says. "Of course, it is a difficult decision: high stakes poker. Many of my law school peers are making partner at the firm this year." Brody chose to walk away.

Lights, camera and, finally, some action
Last April, an elite gathering of filmmakers and producers came out to a Telefilm press conference at Toronto's members-only Spoke Club to meet York/Osgoode alumnus Michael Jenkinson (left) (LLB '85), a Toronto-bred, LA-based studio exec whom Clarkson had just hired as the go-to man for Anglophone filmmakers seeking government cash, reported The Globe and Mail Feb. 10 in a feature about young Canadian filmmakers. The hire was a disaster, with Jenkinson bailing on the position (due to "business complications in California") the day he was slated to start. Clarkson was left red-faced. The industry – used to mayhem and missteps at Telefilm – was wryly amused.

Aaron Woodley (right) (BFA ’95), who directed 2003's charmingly askew Rhinoceros Eyes, got fed up with trying to scrounge money through Canadian sources for the film, and eventually turned to American financiers. His second feature, Tennessee (currently in production, and starring Mariah Carey as a waitress who dreams of becoming a country-music star) has also been financed by Americans.

"You take what you can get," says the 35-year-old York film grad and nephew of David Cronenberg. Woodley believes the Canadian English-language film industry is on the cusp of a significant mend. "I feel a huge groundswell," he says. "I had to go to the States to get my movies made, but as soon as I can start making films in Canada, I will. I refuse to get sucked into the [American studio] system."

York grad directs Forever Plaid
At the Herongate Barn Theatre in Pickering, the spring season features Forever Plaid, a musical about four guys who've just got their first professional gig when they're killed in a car accident, reported the Oshawa-Whitby-Clarington This Week Feb. 9. The Plaids perform classic 1950s hits in the work, directed by York University theatre graduate Jacqueline Mitchell (BA '00).

Early retiree cannot benefit from pension plan improvements
“[Pension plan] administrators are not required to communicate potential benefit enhancements to members and are not liable to members who do not receive those benefit enhancements as a result of leaving the plan prior to the effective date of the enhanced benefits," said Simon Archer (left) (LLB ’01), a graduate of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, commenting on a provincial court decision for the Companion employee benefit newsletter Feb. 8. "The decision will be a welcome confirmation to plan administrators. It provides further certainty in planning benefit enhancements and other changes to pension plans without incurring liability."

Study says Pearson needs lower rent
Toronto's Pearson International Airport needs a break in rent from Ottawa to compete against major US hubs, according to a study to be released today, wrote The Globe and Mail Feb. 12. If Canada's largest airport were to receive an annual rent reduction of $58 million, the payoffs in "economic stimulus" would more than make up for the lower levies, says the 34-page report by Fred Lazar, business professor at York’s Schulich School of Business, who specializes in the airline industry.

Lazar estimates that Pearson, which handled 30.9 million passengers last year, would be able to attract another 214,000 travellers annually, if the rent were slashed. It isn't just Toronto's role as an aviation hub that is being hurt by the government's rental charges, but airports in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax are part of the rental regime too, the report said. Lazar added that overseas airports are also benefiting from what he views as Canada's onerous rental charges.

• The report, commissioned by the Air Transport Association of Canada (ATAC), is to be released today just as the Greater Toronto Airports Authority prepares to kick off a new campaign – dubbed "Let's get a fair deal" – that aims to put pressure on Ottawa to reduce Pearson's Crown rent obligations, wrote the National Post Feb. 12. It's the third such study in as many months that calls on the federal government to cut rent payments at Pearson, which has the dubious distinction of being one of the world's most expensive airports to land planes.

"The federal government will have to choose between two courses of action," wrote Fred Lazar, the report's author and an economics professor at York's Schulich School of Business. "Either it can develop an air transportation policy that will provide the framework for Canadian carriers to thrive globally...or it can continue to pursue the path of the past 25 years – one of confusion and lack of purpose."

For street signs, it's in the letters
There are considerations to be made about road signs other than size, wrote Marian Regan, research associate at York’s Centre for Vision Research in the Faculty of Health, in the Toronto Star Feb. 12. In response to a letter of Feb. 10, Regan wrote, it has been known for more than 30 years that it is often easier to recognize a word that is printed in upper- and lower-case letters rather than all in upper case.

For example, "Wildthing" can be read from a greater distance than "WILDTHING." "Toronto" would not have that great an advantage over "TORONTO," but any word involving letters such as b, d, p and g will be easier to read. It also helps if there is a good contrast between the letters and the background, particularly for the elderly but also for a significant number of the younger drivers in our population. Of course, the major consideration is that the signs be placed so that they are visible and at an appropriate distance.

York prof writes about his evolutionary take on depression
As the theoretical debate over evolutionary psychology continues, some researchers are developing evolution-based therapies, wrote the Los Angeles Times in an article published in the Toronto Star Feb. 16. In Toronto, Leslie Greenberg (left), professor of psychology in York’s Faculty of Health, is testing "emotion-focused therapy," which seeks to replace unhealthy, or maladaptive, emotions with healthy ones.In an article in the summer issue of the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Greenberg offers a case study of a woman suffering from major depression, anxiety disorder and interpersonal problems after having been raised by emotionally and physically abusive parents. Greenberg encouraged the woman to engage in imaginary conversations with her parents in which she expressed her feelings about their sadistic behaviour. In therapy, the anger she felt, an adaptive emotion, eventually replaced her fear and feelings of worthlessness.

Gutsy Chicks
Three years after an off-the-cuff remark about the war in Iraq alienated their main audience of country music lovers, the Dixie Chicks have shown that a public relations blunder can be overcome, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 11. All it takes is a good product and strong brand management. Rather than apologize, the Chicks spent the next three years working on a new album, aimed at a new audience. Ashwin Joshi, marketing professor at York’s Schulich School of Business, says what's remarkable about the Chicks is they have tackled two major business problems at once: creating a new brand and finding a new customer base.

"Their (original) product is country music and the core audience for this type of music would typically be characterized as cultural conservatives clustered in the American Midwest," Joshi says. The Bush controversy, however, created brand awareness among other segments of the listening audience and the new brand attempts to capitalize on that. "Their current actions are designed to communicate with these new audiences (young, urban, progressive politics types)."

Foot-dragging on rights of the disabled is an 'act of bad faith'
Rights advocates across the country have reacted with outrage to the news that Ottawa says it won't sign a landmark United Nations treaty on protecting the rights of people with disabilities until it has input from the provinces, reported the Toronto Star Feb. 10. "For the federal government to hide behind the smokescreen of federal-provincial agreements, on a Convention that is precisely in line with Canadian values and with Constitutional guarantees, is very simply to act in bad faith," says Marcia Rioux (left), head of York University's postgraduate program in disability studies.

Bridezilla feeds monster cynicism
Videos such as "Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out" and those posted by Lonelygirl15 on You Tube may help sell products or kick-start a budding actor's career, reported the National Post Feb. 10 in a story about the latest You Tube video sensation. But they also have a more pernicious effect on our tendency to trust what seems genuine. "This is part of the overall trend toward stealth marketing," says Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University's Schulich School of Business, who says the trend is driven in part by concerns that traditional forms of marketing are losing their allure among certain target groups. He says that even though stealth marketing is still in its infancy, it has already made everything online suspect: "How can you tell anything from any source isn't a shill?"

Unclear that Ottawa mayor violated election act
If Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien had promised Terry Kilrea a job in exchange for dropping out of last year’s mayoral race, he would have violated the election act, reported the Ottawa Citizen Feb. 11. The newspaper made this point in a story about Kilrea accusing O’Brien of offering to cover his election campaign expenses if he dropped out of the race. Upon reading the Citizen's article detailing Kilrea's accusations, York University political science Professor Robert MacDermid, an expert on municipal campaign financing, said it was unclear whether O'Brien had offered an inducement to Kilrea. "I couldn't say whether this happened," said MacDermid. "What occurred would be difficult to establish given the circumstances of the meeting between the two."

Glad to be Canadian, most Muslims say
More than 80 per cent of Canada's roughly 700,000 Muslims are broadly satisfied with their lives here and only a very small percentage – 17 per cent – feel that many or most Canadians are hostile toward their religion, wrote CBC.ca Feb. 13. Many of these concerns are more strongly backed by young Muslims under 30, the survey suggests, and Haideh Moghissi (left), a sociologist in York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies who has worked extensively in this area, says these should probably be seen as more of a "political gesture than a religious one" by those who have felt their community "bearing the brunt of this suspicion and fear" since 9/11.

• In its coverage of a survey on Muslims in Canada, CBC’s “The National” spoke with Haideh Moghissi, professor in York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies, who studies the integration of Muslims in Canada and Western Europe. Below is a sample of her comments Feb. 13 on the Environics/CBC survey while speaking to anchor Peter Mansbridge:

"If we take integration or blending in as a two-way process on the part of Muslims, it requires accommodation and adjustment to certain social norms such as, for example, the principle of gender equity. On the part of the larger society, they should also look at themselves and see that they should overcome the fear of difference generally, and be prepared to accept that their way is not always the best way or the only way."

"Many people who come from majority Muslim countries see the foreign policies of western societies as the continuation of the colonial policies of the past, and the way the Muslim societies are being arrogantly treated, the sense of superiority that goes with these policies in terms of taking democracy, respect for human rights, and tolerance to Muslim majority countries. So it causes resentment among the people who come from Muslim majority countries."

"Muslims really want to be part of this society, and it is up to the general public, the society, to also look at them as such and not as, you know, specific groups that need specific kind of treatment."

New artist-teaching course launched
The Stratford Festival of Canada, York University and the Ontario Arts Council will launch a certificate course in arts education on Feb. 11, wrote the Stratford City Gazette Feb. 9. The Richard Rooney and Laura Dinner Artist Training Program is a five-day course for artists who teach elementary and secondary students through the festival's Teaching Shakespeare School and other outreach programs. The course will be delivered by faculty from York with guests from Shakespearience (a literacy program), the University of Waterloo and the OAC.

"Many of the participants are established actors who have been working in schools for years," said Kathleen Gould Lundy (right), co-director of the certificate course in arts education, a course director in York's Faculties of Education and Fine Arts and coordinator of Destination Arts (a joint venture of the two Faculties).

• The course was also featured in a story in the Stratford Beacon-Herald Feb. 12.

Are these women victims of public indifference, too?
Alan Young, professor at York's Osgoode Hall Law School, has contrasted the Robert Pickton trial with the heavily publicized trial of serial sex killer Paul Bernardo, wrote columnist Andrew Hunt in The Record (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo) Feb. 10. Public interest in the Bernardo trial was stronger, Young argues, because Bernardo and his accomplice wife Karla Homolka "were young, attractive, upwardly mobile and…their victims were also young and attractive." Based on his observations of media coverage and the small public audience at the Pickton trial, Young has concluded, "the majority of Canadians feel…that the victims in this case are less worthy than other victims and that is why it's not as interesting."

Kyoto bill may force election, says Monahan
A Liberal-sponsored bill that would legally require the Conservative government to abide by the Kyoto protocol's short-term targets will be debated for the final time in the House of Commons before going to a vote when it is all but guaranteed to pass, wrote the National Post Feb. 9. Constitutional experts say the implications of passing the bill could see Prime Minister Stephen Harper forced to choose between implementing measures to meet Kyoto targets he has called unrealistic or calling a general election.

Patrick Monahan (right), dean of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and a renowned constitutional lawyer, said that the bill, if passed, would legally bind the government to meet its Kyoto obligations. "I don't see how the government would be able to ignore it. It seems to me it will pose a significant problem for the government," he said. "This is significant and far-reaching – much more far-reaching than most private member's bills." He said he was not clear what options the prime minister will have if the bill passes, although calling an election is one possibility.

• In rulings that he re-iterated this week, Peter Milliken, a Liberal MP and speaker of the House of Commons, overturned government objections to two private member’s bills – one on the Kyoto Accord, the other on a Aboriginal development agreement known as the Kelowna Accord – arguing that there is "a distinction between a bill asking the House to approve certain objectives and a bill asking the House to approve the measures to achieve certain objectives," wrote the National Post Feb. 16.

Yet how can the two be separated? As Patrick Monahan, dean of York’s Osgoode Hall School of Law, said Feb. 15: "The question is, can the bills' objectives be achieved without spending money? If they can't, then it's a money bill, surely?"

• If Prime Minister Stephen Harper ignores a law passed Feb. 14 forcing his government to meet its Kyoto commitments, Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez says he will take him to court, reported CBC Television’s “The National” Feb. 14. He could, said Patrick Monahan, dean of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School. “Any citizen or group in Canada could sue the government; take the government to court…. The government could refer the legislation to court and say we don't think this legislation is valid. There are some serious legal arguments the government has raised.”

Polygamy warning issued on head tax
The Conservative government, which last year announced a Chinese head tax redress program, had earlier received internal warnings that the initiative might raise "huge" legal problems and possibly risk offending community members over the issue of polygamy, wrote The Vancouver Sun Feb. 12. The warning referred to concerns that the government could expose taxpayers to enormous costs if it provides retroactive compensation for rights violations before the Charter of Rights' equality provision came into force in 1985. and also could expose the government to legal action from numerous ethnic minority groups seeking compensation for racial injustices.

Patrick Monahan, dean of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, said it's not clear if other groups will be able to use the Chinese head tax package in court. "I'm inclined to think that ex-gratia payments do not give rise to a legal obligation in other cases," he said. "But the more such payments are made, I think the more difficult it is to resist claims of equal treatment. So I think there is some risk associated with that."

Tories under attack over right-wing judges
The Conservative government is facing accusations it's trying to pack the country's courts with right-wing judges by manipulating the membership of the advisory committees that vet candidates for the bench, wrote the Orillia Packet and Times Feb. 13. Patrick Monahan, dean of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, also found cause to worry about the Tory approach. "Certainly, if the government is appointing to committees individuals who are there for partisan political considerations, I think that would be a matter of serious concern," said Monahan.

• The Canadian judicial system is one of the most respected in the world, admired for its professionalism, impartiality and freedom from partisan political influence, which is why its judgments are cited regularly by the American, British, South African, Israeli, Australian and other high courts, wrote John Ibbotson in The Globe and Mail Feb. 12 in a column about the politicization of the court. "It's an indication of the very high regard in which our courts are held around the world," Patrick Monahan, dean of Osgoode Hall Law School, observed in an interview. "We have a very strong court."

Global warming pitch on the front burner
An Italian fashion designer that sells $225 jeans put its considerable marketing muscle behind a high-profile ad campaign featuring images of global warming juxtaposed against youthful bodies dancing the night away, wrote the Toronto Star Feb. 13. The campaign stole the spotlight from another product launch by a firm that sells recycled toilet paper. Consumers can expect to see a lot more of these types of ads now that global warming is on the front burner, said Allan Middleton, marketing professor at York's Schulich School of Business. "It's hot. Everyone wants to hop on board."

Wide discussion on Canada's tax policy is useful
Leaders of some political parties are cutting taxes and casting their nets out for voters. With taxes used to fund needed social programs, these ongoing cuts are not in the public interest, wrote John McConnell in The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) Feb. 13. Academics Neil Brooks of York’s Osgoode Hall Law School and Thaddeus Hwong of York’s Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies compared tax policies in Canada and other OECD countries and found that Canada's economic and social indicators are falling behind those of other nations. I agree with their assessment that tax cuts are the reason. Brooks and Hwong's research, done for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, also found that people in higher-taxed Nordic countries used fewer illegal drugs, had more leisure time and higher life satisfaction.

Model schools for inner cities
The Toronto District School Board recently launched an innovative program to better support inner-city students in their quest to succeed in school, wrote The Toronto Sun Feb. 12. The Model Schools for Inner Cities Initiative is now in place at the first three participating schools – Nelson Mandela Park, Firgrove and Willow Park Junior public schools. The City of Toronto, Toronto Public Health, the TDSB's Foundation for Student Success, the Faculty of Education at York University and the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto all partner with the TDSB in research, professional development and staff support in the model schools.