I’m teaching a class at Concordia next year – Citizen Journalism. I’m taking a class all this week on course design and lesson planning.

I’m going to start a blog for the class (and the students), but I thought I’d mention it here first.

If you know anyone taking journalism at Concordia, tell them to take my class – I’m really looking forward to it. The curriculum is shaping up nicely – we’ll be dealing with a lot of issues I’m really passionate about. It’s listed as a third year elective – hopefully the students will be just as excited.

Peter Bagge’s got another one of his brilliant graphic-essays in Reason magazine this month. Read it over here.

The comic reminds me of Million Dollar Murray, an article on homelessness by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell says that about 10 per cent of homeless people are considered chronically homeless; meaning, they end up back on the street repeatedly due to mental or physiological problems.

Medical emergency services and end up spending in excess of $100,000 on a single chronic homeless person each year. So in many cases, it’s cheaper and better for everyone if they are simply given free accomodation.

This week, the NFB Quebec Centre is holding its annual in-house film festival, where employees like myself get to skip meetings and watch this year’s crop of releases. There were some great films and I feel kind of compelled to write about them. So…

Here’s what I watched:

Citizen Sam

A documentary about the 2006 mayoral race in Vancouver. The film follows paraplegic, Sam Sullivan, in his underdog bid for City Hall.

The film presents all of Sam’s anger and his vulnerability, side by side, in alarming relief. In one scene, we listen as he metaphorically fantasizes about killing his adversary, and in another we see him struggle for an awkward duration, as he takes off his shirt before going to bed.

I was surprised when some of my peers expressed sympathy for Sullivan – who, in many ways, is a very unsympathetic character. For example, Sullivan’s municipal coalition is called the Non-Partisan Association, but, in spite of this, Sullivan constantly assails his opponent – a charming, bearish anachronism named Jim Green – with personal attacks composed with little political substance.

The film almost never deals with the issues of the campaign; nor does it delve too meaningfully into Sullivan’s personal life. Despite this, it’s a pretty fascinating film. It apparently hasn’t been released yet in Vancouver; I expect it will cause quite a stir when it is.

Cottonland

Glace Bay, Nova Scotia – In the late 90s, doctors over-prescribed oxycotin, a pain-killer with the addictive qualities of heroine, and a community is scourged with addiction. In one year alone, 22 people die from illnesses related to their addiction.

This is an amazing film; one of the the most moving documentaries I’ve seen in years. Through a former addict, Eddie Buchanan, the film-makers gained unprecedented access to other addicts in the community, so their honesty and pain comes through in vivid detail. It is at once a hopeful film and a hauntingly intimate portrait of addiction.

Radiant City

I’ve wanted to see this film for some time. It’s a film about the suburban sprawl that’s choking the Canadian landscape. Through the lens of one suburban family, we discover how we have made a series of compromises that have led us out of the city and into the horrifically unsustainable suburbs.

It is perhaps edited a little on the long side, but it’s still a very compelling look at the decline of urban planning in recent decades. It would work well as a companion piece to the excellent TVO doc from a couple years back, The End of Suburbia.

Whew! Okay, that’s my round-up.

Filed under Life imitating art: Al Gore suggested a “carbon freeze” as a means to end global warming in a recent speech to NYU law students.

Han Solo, of course, was first carbon-frozen in the climactic moments of my favourite movie of all time, The Empire Strikes Back.

I’m all for it. Which anti-Kyoto villains should we carbon freeze first? Stephen Harper? George Bush?

I just read this brilliant profile of Al Gore written by David Remnick. The article was written during the 2004 election campaign and Gore, finally out of the spotlight, had the freedom to be unusually candid about the Bush administration. His view of Bush is the most eloquent and true that I’ve ever read:

The real distinction of this Presidency is that, at its core, he is a very weak man. He projects himself as incredibly strong, but behind closed doors he is incapable of saying no to his biggest financial supporters and his coalition in the Oval Office. He’s been shockingly malleable to Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and the whole New American Century bunch. He was rolled in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. He was too weak to resist it.

Some uplifting viewing for those of us without televisions:

Why We Fight, the documentary by Eugene Jarecki – co-produced by CBC and BBC – is available on Google Video in its entirety. The film explores the military-industrial complex and its dependency on war.

Also, Loose Change, a very provocative documentary about September 11, is worth watching. It raises a lot of valid questions about the events of that day along with video evidence.

I’m attending an ‘autonomous media jam session’ this week at the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT] (1195 Saint-Laurent, Montreal).

The event will feature screenings of short films, networking, and a panel about autonomous media and its power to change society. This is your chance to meet Citizen Media thinkers, designers and users, and discuss how media makers can harness the web.

I’ll be hanging with my peeps from CITIZENShift. In this instance, the revolution will, in fact, be podcasted.

Find out more.

In his recent account of Iran’s growing nuclear capability, Sy Hersh relates comments by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert and Bush administration policy advisor:

‘We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.’ Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as ‘industrial accidents.’ But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, ‘given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.’