• • Eco Speak
  • Film Reel
  • Media Savvy

  How much would you pay for a basic human right?

  July 17, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  What if you lived by the largest body of fresh water in the world but could no longer afford to use it?

  In Liz Miller’s video documentary, The Waterfront, residents of Highland Park, a struggling community on the shores of Lake Michigan are shown looking with distress at water bills totalling between 3 and 9,000 dollars.

  One woman sits on a porch with her children and grandchildren and explains that on a fixed pension she will be unable to pay her bill, and since the city has decided to attach water bills to mortgages she faces eviction and foreclosure on her property.

  (more inside…)

• • Wired Wednesdays

  iPhone hype?

  July 9, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  This being the last Wednesday before the iPhone’s (insanely over-hyped) release in Canada I thought I’d cover the issues that surround the sleek little 3G hockey puck.

  First things first - what exactly is 3G and why is it so important?
  3G refers to third generation wireless capability. The little cellfriend you have now is probably (unless you bought it somewhere in Asia where 3G enabled phones are the standard) a 2G machine, which is why when you hear ‘internet-enabled’ what you really get is ‘darn slow transfer rates’. 3G phones change all that because as Wikipediastates:

  “3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.”

  Wicked cool right? 3G iPhone users will literally have no down time away from the internets. That is, not if they carry their phone with them everywhere they go (and don’t we all?)

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Happy Canada Day Everyone

  July 1, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  Joanne Byfield, president of Life Canada, said many people will be offended and appalled if Dr. Morgentaler is honoured.

  From: Outrage brews as Ottawa set to honour Morgentaler

  Well jeez, many people will also be offended and appalled if they have to deal with abortions performed by shady types at midnight at the local laundromat. So I guess we’re at a bit of a stalemate here eh?

  This is a sad story to read on Canada Day.

  Comments are closed on the G & M article (oh I wonder why?). So register your feelings here or send a letter to the G & M editors. I am especially troubled that the piece ended with a quote from a pro-life group, and nothing from someone who supports the award. Judy Rebick is great, but she’s buried in the middle of the article.

• • Geek Chic
  • In My Opinion...

  Little what?

  June 28, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  So this is a new charitable organization called Little Geeks: “Little Geeks is a philanthropic organization and registered Canadian charity that collects, refurbishes and re-distributes donated home computers to children in need.” How about that graphic design - like Toys R’Us on poppers. I feel like Joe Matt must have done the illustrations since no-one has eyeballs. Seriously though, “Little Geeks”? I can’t say I like it.

  Though it may seem harsh to take shots at a good-hearted enterprise, I strongly believe that people from the corporate sector, (and take a look at the board of directors if you want to know who’s backing this project) need as much educating about social change as people who barter for used monitors need educating about interest rates and borrowing to save.

  (more inside…)

• • Geek Chic

  If my ringtone had a haircut it would be a fauxhawk

  June 26, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  This is one day late for Wired Wednesday, maybe we can call it post-Thursday? For all you Electro fans out there, check out toneShared, it’s a library of ringtones by Electro artists available for free. Yeah that’s right, dump Rihanna and go for Caribou, or if you’re feeling experimental maybe Chris Herbert?

• • Wired Wednesdays

  AMC 2008 Round-up

  June 25, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  So this is my first Wired Wednesday post (I forgot it was Wednesday last week, summer’ll do that to you), and in classic Miriam fashion, I want to really stretch the definition of what constitutes a “wired” subject.

  See, I just came back from Detroit, where I was attending the Allied Media Conference, and I brought my computer and everything, because I am a technophile (with mild ADHD, natch) and I figured I would spend a lot of time listening to people talk and display PowerPoint presentations, leaving me with ample opportunity to do stuff like surf Metafilter or Favrd. That’s what you do at conferences, right? Show up, wear the badge and try to network. When not networking, stare at your laptop and “take notes” on the speakers.

  Oh how wrong I was.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  The Bad Old Days are they here again?

  June 7, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  
  
  With the Supreme Court becoming more conservative, many people who support women’s right to choose an abortion fear that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave them that right, is in danger of being swept aside.

  When such fears arise, we often hear about the pre-Roe “bad old days.” Yet there are few physicians today who can relate to them from personal experience. I can.

  Waldo L. Fielding, M.D is a gynecologist who spent the early part of his career (1948 - 1953) working at a New York City hospital. His recollections of the days before abortions were safe and legal is a chilling reminder that the fact of a women’s unwanted pregnancy is often mistaken for a moral issue.

  And this isn’t just a problem stateside. Here in Canada, we have our own private members Bill C-484: “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence)”. What this means in plain speak is that if a pregnant woman is attacked or killed and the fetus also dies, then the person who attacked the woman is on the hook for two attempted homicides. Sounds fair, right? Except that according to current Canadian law a fetus is not a person, and therefore termination of a fetus does not constitute murder. If a fetus were a person then abortion would be murder.

  (more inside…)

• • In My Opinion...

  Love and Strategy?

  June 5, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  So my little brother got married last week, and despite my total and overwhelming love for him and for my new sister-in-law, (and the fact that I was an awesome bridesmaid IMHO) there are moments when I was less then appreciative of the institution of marriage.

  I loved their wedding. I loved the seven course Italian meal with scallops and steak (sorry vegetarians, that’s how I roll). And I loved dancing with my cousins to Michael Jackson. There is something about dancing with family members that is much much more fun then dancing at a club or a party. I think it’s because you’ve known then since you were two so they’ve already seen you do the “you put your right foot in…” dance, and they’ve already seen your awesome Milli-Vanilli lip sync routine for camp, so nothing you could possibly do dance-wise is going to embarass them anymore, it’s like free to be you and me with a DJ.

  I digress, post wedding blitz I was feeling if not pro, then a little less anti-marriage, when I stumbled on this comment in the Globe and Mail this morning: Looking For Mr. Good Enough
  

  Such is the new thinking from the front lines of modern dating. Forget about finding Mr. Right. You should settle for Mr. Good Enough. Heck, go for Mr. Just Okay. Don’t expect a head-spinning courtship. You should not even want love. In fact, you’d be wise to borrow a few pointers from arranged marriages.
  

  It seems that getting married is hipper than skinny jeans these days, and maybe since matrimony is such a hot commodity, hooking up “for ever and ever” takes precedence over actually loving your partner?

  (more inside…)

• • All About Shameless

  Hello Shameless nice to meet you

  June 2, 2008 • Mir Verburg

  My name is Miriam and I live in Montreal at the top floor of a very rickety walk-up with a cat and a dog. This summer I will be writing for Shameless on a variety of topics, but primarily on media, technology and young people. Being as this is Shameless Mag, and not some rando tech blog run by a bunch of l33t-speaking programmers who haven’t left their basements in nine years (although they can be fun folk too, in their way), I will pay particular attention to how gender and power figure into geek/media/youth culture.

  Why geek/media/youth? Well, IMHO as our technology becomes more and more media-oriented the concepts of media and technology get harder to keep separate. I don’t know about you all, but I do a lot more with my computer then just compute. So as a writer and an activist, I like to think about how the stuff I watch, make or listen to, and the platforms (computer, television, cellphone) that I use, interact with each other and with the world that we live in.

  Technically, I am not a youth (although I won’t be buying any anti-aging bajizness just yet). But I have spent the last while creating a program where groups of young people get together to make media projects, such as videos, photo galleries or hip-hop albums, and working with those groups was some of the most fun I’ve had in life. Which is where my MA and Shameless fit into the picture.

  So there you have me, in a 268 word nutshell.

  When not geeking out or trying to figure out iMovie codecs, I like to write about animals, cooking, sports for the athletically challenged and books.

  
  

Contents copyright © 2004-2012 Shameless Magazine.
Questions? Comments? Contact us.