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Out of Print
It’s a pity that in “Breaking (into) News” (March 01), you were seduced by the glitz and glamour of television at the expense of some Concordia journalism graduates who have toiled anonymously in the drudgery of print. Some of us ink-stained wretches have done nothing else but work at — if I may indulge in a bit of elitism — a purer form of journalism. I worked in TV for a few years, behind the scenes, and was politely told, after inquiring about doing som on-air work, that I have a great face for radio. No matter. I’ve recently become the first person anyone knows of to freelance simultaneously for The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail and National Post. It ain’t TV, but it’s a living.
Ron
Csillag, BA 79
Toronto
Defending Canada
Mr. Bujnowicz’s ad hominem attack letter (Dec. 00) illustrates the view that provincialism has been used by those who back separatist aims while reaping the benefits of Canadian freedom in various regions of our country. These politicians rely on being allowed to sound insulted when they are merely insulting our intelligence by manufacturing a cause which allows them to take our money under false pretences.
Demonizing the opposition, and wearing it down by continuously attacking individuals, remains the favourite tactic of indignant separatist demagogues who dare not expose the weakness of their own position. Those of us who want Canada to continue with its present policies cannot afford not to answer side attacks or threats to thoughtful people like Stéphane Dion because we may well be next.
R.V.
Heller
Montreal
Global Thoughts
Your article on the Global Responsibilities project (“Acting Global, Thinking Noble,” March 01) was very enlightening. The participation of developing _or transitory nations in the process of economic globalization from above — the IMF, WTO and other Western bodies of “governance” — implies that the social fabric within these countries is being decentralized and rendered less effective.
True, the presence of a large corporation in the developing world usually means an injection of capital that is more substantial than the foreign aid packages which the developed world had hitherto provided to emerging economies, but one is entitled to ask whether corporations have the will, let alone the moral responsibility, to fill the “social void” of whatever existing form of government there had been before their arrival.
I have strong doubts. The very concept of market-oriented corporations is diametrically opposed to the pursuit of social justice. Not that the two cannot be reconciled, but to do so we need (a) a form of government; or (b) objective governance by other means, such as organizations that have no interests in the corporations in question. Respect for the whole spectrum of human rights — those of individuals and groups, past and future — needs to be internationalized and must encompass non-Western realities as well; otherwise, the arrival of corporations on certain territories (Islamic countries, Africa) will smack of colonialism.
Maybe, in the future, economic globalization from above will meet human rights globalization from below, leading to a safe and equitable environment for all. Until this becomes the reality, countless people are bound to suffer as a result of the free and unbridled intrusion of corporations into the developing world. The environmental, political and social consequences are shrouded in the mystery of unknowns and unknown unknowns. Unless we engage in preventive measures, we run the risk of having to react — when it oftentimes is already too late — to a series of _unexpected catastrophes, both man-made (refugees, conflict) and natural (global warming, pollution, and so on).
J.
Michael Cole, BA (English) 98
Montreal
Clarifications
In “Breaking (into) News” (March 01):
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Gwen Tolbart’s regional Emmy was for a weather special
• she was co-anchor, not
host, of a morning news show for CBS Dallas/Fort Worth
• Tolbart and the five
teenaged girls whom she took under her wing met Coretta Scott King, the
wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Association News (March 01), the photo from Concordia’s fundraising dinner in Hong Kong included Y.P. Tsang, the new Hong Kong chief of police, and his wife, Betty. Christopher Hyde, president of the WWF Canada Foundation, arranged the dinner and enlisted Concordia professor Adrian Tsang and his brothers, Y.P. and Donald, the Chief Secretary for Administration in the Hong Kong SAR government.