Montreal Gazette : Hello, Y2K blues line ?
"This year it's like if you're not celebrating with a lot of people there's something wrong, which is going to make a lot of people feel intensely alone."
Shirley L. Thompson : Why the public must fund the arts
"The modest support from the Canada Council to young artists has frequently paid off in spades. In film, consider Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg and François Girard. In literature, dance, music, theatre and the visual arts, the list could go on and on. As Margaret Atwood pithily said: 'If anyone says these were free handouts at the expense of the taxpayer, I'd tell them to stuff it up their jumper. The taxpayers didn't just get their money's worth. They got way, way more.' "
CBC : Tobacco companies charged with fraud, racketeering
"Justice Minister Anne McLellan announced Tuesday the government is taking R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc., RJR-Macdonald Canada, the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council and several related companies to court in the U.S. The charges are fraud and racketeering. ... McLellan said the evidence now exists to prove that in 1991 the big tobacco companies established an "elaborate network of smugglers and shell companies." Their aim, she said, was to "undermine" Canada's policy to reduce tobacco use by increasing the price of cigarettes." I don't remember anyone actually buying cigarettes in the stores around that time. People just went to the bars and waited for the guys with the hockey bags full of butts selling for 3$ /pack (they were 7.50$ at the
dépanneurs.)
I've been working with a Finder-less Mac
for about four hours now. I finally got around to installing OS9 and today the Finder bailed, but left everything else running. I can't see anything on my desktop, but I seem to be able to do pretty much everything I want with a quasi command line using Finder-Pop, the Script Editor, Frontier and DAVE. I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or impressed, but it's been fun.