As Tim mentioned, tonight Cinema Political and the doc fest RIDM are premiering the Alberta oil sands documentry H2Oil. The movie starts at 9pm, it’s showing in Hall-110, 1455 de Maisonneuve West, Concordia.
“Ultimately we ask what is more important, oil or water? And what will be our response?”
Category : Blogroll
After a couple years in the making, the new CitizenShip dossier Cyber Bullying is up on the Internet. You can read/see/listen to it here.
Still interested in this issues? Definitely worth checking out the Digital Respect website made by collaborators on the Cyber Bullying dossier.
Remember you can always contribute to dossiers by becoming a member of CitizenShift. It is free and really easy. Surf the internet for unique and relevant content and upload it. Make your own stories. Report. CitizenShift is yours for the making.
Cinema Politica premiered The Experimental Eskimos in Montreal last Monday.
For folks who haven’t heard of Cinema Politica, they are great people who screen documentaries that “speak truth to power.” Just about every Monday evening Concordia’s Cinema Politica screens a new, enlightening film in the Hall building. Movies are free (pay only if you want to) and open to the public. Sometimes if you’re lucky they’ll even have a Q&A with the director.
Click here to see what docs are playing soon.
Category : Blogroll
Tags: activism, documentary-film, human rights, social justice
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdewolf/2562444469/
With Montreal’s mayoral race looming near, the Comité des citoyens du Mile-End (Mile End Citizens’ Committee) has organized a debate between various city councillor hopefuls about the future of one of Montreal’s most lively neighbourhoods, the Mile End. The agenda will include discussions on the environment, cultural investments, and quality of life.
The debaters will be:
Richard Marquis, Guillaume Vaillancourt, Miche Pauzé, Juliana Contreras, Jean-François Larose, Michel Labrecque, Robert Pilon, Luc Ferrandez, Alex Norris, Richard Ryan and Elena Fakotakis-Kolaitis.
While the Comité has held many informal debates in the past, one with so many officials participating is rare.
One of the issues that the Comité is known for criticizing is the rejuvenation project set for the industrial area just East of St. Laurent Blvd. along St. Viateur St. The Comité presented concerns that gentrification of the area will increase rent prices and make the multicultural neighbourhood less affordable for middle-class households.
The debate will be held on Monday, October 26 at 7:30PM in the Sport Montréal Benfica, 100 Bernard St. Organizers are asking for $2 donations at the door to cover the cost of renting the hall. The debate will be in French.
The Montreal Gazette made a nifty electoral district map of the Mile End, see it here.
A blog called Mile End Memories that’s on topic, here.
Category : Blogroll, events
Tags: climate-change, community, Culture, Garbage, Montreal Matters: Youth, recycling
The 5th annual International Symposium on Hip Hop Culture begins this month, running October 29-November 2. The bilingual event is hosted by Concordia University in room H-110 of the Hall building, located on 1455 de Maisonneuve West.
The symposium will include panel discussion fare as well as movie screenings, parties, and of course great music. Organizers say the event looks beyond mainstream understandings of hip hop culture.
Category : Blogroll, events
Tags: Add new tag, canada, community, Culture, Montreal Matters: Youth
Dr Devendra Gupta, an organizer of the III World Congress Hypospadias and Disorders of Sex Development and member of IHSID, when asked about whether or not doctors should perform surgery on infants to change the appearance of their sex organs wrote this: “It should be the wish of the patient and the parents that has to be honoured. Doctors only advise according to the knowledge they have acquired.”
Gupta went on to say that the procedures for dealing with patients are always specific and depend on answers to these questions: “How much is the experience does the surgeon have on the subject? What are the norms of the society? What do the parents want? Will the parents have the major role to play to rearing the child and rehabilitating him/her?”
Gupta summarized his approach to intersex infants and said, “There is no single rule applicable.” Gupta’s official position is not to advocate for a single, universal way of treating all intersex children and he claims to support the wishes of parents and patients.
Also CBC has produced some interesting work on intersex issues in Canada, you can watch it here.
Category : Blogroll
The organization Intersex International is not happy with Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital. In November the hospital is co-sponsoring—along with the Cleveland Clinic and IHSID—the III World Congress Hypospadias and Disorders of Sex Development.
Intersex International takes issue with the term “disorders of sex development” in the conference title. They say this term undermines the rights of children born intersex, or children with both male and female sex organs.
The advocacy group explains that the term encourages parents and society in general to consider intersex like a cleft pallet—a minor DNA mix-up that can be easily remedied with a snip here and cut there. Intersex International is not against surgery per say but thinks a child should have a say in what sex they are ultimately assigned.
Curtis Hinkle, a spokesman from Intersex International, said the IHSID (the International Society on Hypospadias and Intersex Disorders) recommends ‘correcting’ sex ambiguity in infants within the first six months of their lives. Hinkle said the University of Toronto’s is legitimizing IHSID’s recommendation and this should send a chill down the backs of Canadians. “Most Canadians aren’t aware of the retrograde practices coming out of Ontario,” he said.
Hinkle said the surgeries are sometimes irreversible and that doctors can often guess wrong when deciding whether an infant is male or female. “Gender identity is not science it is a pseudo-science,” he argued.
According to the Intersex Society of North America about one in every 100 babies are born with bodies that differ from the “standard male or female.” About one in every 1500 is born intersex.
I sent an email to a representative from the ISHID and will update if there is any word back.
More to think about at CitizenShift…
http://citizenshift.org/borderless-me
Category : Blogroll
Tags: Add new tag, Children, girlhood, Toronto
Updates from the basement, courtesy of the CITIZENShift team.
Andrea is a Communication Studies student at Concordia University in Montreal. She has a background in photography and visual arts, and is interested in web-media as a tool for social change.
Currently living in Somoto, Madriz, Nicaragua. I work with children victims of child labour or at risk in the nearby town of Totogalpa, mainly helping out with photography workshops. I also participate in the development and promotion of sustainable community tourism.
Eve B. St-CyrMontrealer in her mid-twenties. Freelance journalist and photographer, with an interest in human rights and sustainable living. Has a cheerful disposition.
Genevieve is a second year Communications Studies student at Concordia University. She is interested in graphic design, photography and fashion. Genevieve also enjoys creating social media and riding the slopes whenever she gets the chance.
KathleenKathleen Jayme is a film production student at the University of British Columbia and is currently interning at CITIZENShift in Vancouver.
Laura GlowackiFrom Winnipeg, I now live and study in Montreal. I really, really like sci fi television and tobaggonning. I intern here at CitizenShift.
ryanRyan Spence is a Montreal based filmmaker/editor working primarily in documentary and independent fiction.
timTim McSorley is CITIZENShift's podcast coordinator and freelance journalist. He's also a contributor to CKUT radio and The Dominion newspaper.
TyneshaTynesha is CITIZENShift's summer intern from Concordia University's Communication department (Mtl., QC). Brimming with interests, she states "I enjoy school, I sing in a choir and I am also involved in community radio and volunteer work with youth. In the future, I look forward to developing a company that merges my three great passions in sound, community engagement, and music."
widgeDavid Widgington was the event coordinator for the Citizen Media Rendez-vous 2010 (http://citizen-media.ca). He is a mobile journalist (MoJo) who is well-versed in community radio, video and print and web-based media practices. He has a particular interest these days with diaspora communities returning to Southern Sudan since the end of the war. He is script-writing a documentary project on the subject. (http://southsudaninfo.net).
