Three movies that helped me understand terrorism
Brazil, The Green Prince and Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam
If movies are empathy machines, can they help us understand the incomprehensible reality of intentional violence against the innocent masses? Veteran film critic Katherine Monk says maybe, and offers a list of titles that helped her gain a better understanding of the big picture.
By Katherine Monk
A drunk man reels backward in a burka as the random thump of a bass drum ricochets through the basement walls, sweating from the heat of writhing humanity. “This one is called Sharia Law in the USA!,” screams the shirtless, bearded man on the mike. “I am an Islamist! I am the Anti-Christ!!”
It’s a scene from the 2009 Omar Majeed documentary Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, a film that didn’t make much of an impression the first time I watched it, but something pulled me back to the movie about young, thoroughly westernized Muslim men who found a sense of tribal belonging in a form of vocal and violent ...
Primed and preened for the Presidency
Mob Rule: Part 27
I felt like a prize poodle just before the big dog show. They clipped and razored and washed my hair a few times, applied something foul smelling to it... I shut my eyes through most of it and thought murderous thoughts.
By John Armstrong
When I say campaign, obviously we couldn’t do it in the traditional electioneering style, rolling up with brass bands playing and banners flying. This was going to be what Bobby called a “stealth campaign”; as one of the conspirators, a hardware chain tycoon from Des Moines put it, “like we’re coming into town on a wagon pulled by cats.”
Regardless, it was an all-out blitz to get out the vote. Bobby said, “We’ve got a comprehensive list of potential supporters in the key cities and what we need to do now is go out and meet them in person and lock them in,” he said. “We know who to approach, and who’s going to be receptive – or a good idea, anyway. What we have to do is convince them to get on board ...
A train pulls out of the station
Mob Rule: Part 26
With a cigar and a stiff drink, Jack boards the Kennedy campaign train with full knowledge the contest won't be won on merit
By John Armstrong
They cheered and jumped up from their chairs. Someone stuck a cigar in my mouth, and several of them called out “Speech! Speech!” Someone else began filling the whiskey glasses and stuck one in my hand. Bobby held his hands up for order and got nowhere. Finally Joe stood up behind his desk. I didn’t know he actually could but then I saw he was using his arms only to support him.
“Order – Order, goddamnit!” Joe was used to being listened to, and it worked both ways – people were used to listening to him. They settled down but stayed standing, all smiles and backslapping and handshakes. You’d have thought I’d already been elected, I thought. Then I corrected myself – as far as the old man and his cronies were concerned, I had. I wasn’t to be elected; I was going to be installed.
It ...
The Ultimate Christmas Music Playlist
Or, Learn to Love Christmas Music in Just 15 Songs
By Misty Harris
“I don’t care about a war on Christmas but I could totally get behind a war on Christmas music.” So said my friend Shauna Wright, a Someecards writer who’s brilliant and funny even when she is wrong.
Christmas music, you see, is simply misunderstood. Like spotting a pit bull at an off-leash park, people recoil at its appearance thanks to years of media conditioning, and in doing so, are denied the chance to make a real emotional connection. DO NOT DENY YOURSELF LOVE, PEOPLE.
There are countless reasons to love Christmas music – a genre I defend in this month’s Pop Culture Decoder. But for those who need extra help learning to love the much-maligned genre, I offer these 15 songs to kick-start the holiday reprogramming.
The Christmas Song by Mindy Gledhill
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings by Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan
O Come, O Come Emmanuel by The Piano Guys
I ...
Pop Culture Decoder: Christmas Music
Christmas music is more maligned than soul patches; Misty Harris jumps to its defence
By Misty Harris
Every holiday season, the masses profess their hatred of Christmas music with a level of zeal normally reserved for discussions about politics, refugees, or Starbucks cup designs. As with hearing police sirens in a song on your car radio, the genre has a way of unsettling even the most mild-mannered of folks.
I, however, am not one of the masses. Call me punk rock but I LOVE Christmas music – so much, in fact, that it’s virtually the only thing I listen to between mid-November and Boxing Day. Cut me and I’ll bleed tinsel.
Why, you ask? Allow me to decode.
* Happiness: Admittedly, most holiday tunes lack complexity in terms of lyrics, melody and variety of plant life. But like Hugh Hefner bedding women in their 20s, Christmas music isn’t there to impress so much as to belabour a point: Fa la la la la (la la la la)! Surrendering to its unshakable optimism ...
The Man Who Would Be King
Mob Rule: Part 25
After receiving an offer that could put him in the Oval Office, Jack takes a moment to reflect on the big picture, and the twisted route to power
By John Armstrong
Well, of course he is. Why not? My grandfather wants to drag the country back into the Dark Ages and he sends the daughter of the Prime Minister of England to seduce me so I can become president. Let’s not even mention this is the country we fought a war with to gain independence from in the first place, and now they’re the allies of the new revolution.
You’ve heard the expression, “the mind reels”? Let me assure you that it does, and “reel” is scarcely the word for it. Mine was doing the Lindy Hop, as demonstrated by spastics.
“Your father is the prime Minister of England,” I said.
“Yes, he is,” she replied. “Edmund Hilliard, the Progressive Conservative party.”
“Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? What’s a ‘progressive conservative’ believe in?”
...
Syrian refugees face a new life and old ghosts
Fear of the 'foreigner' all too familiar
Recent Remembrance Day tributes included a special acknowledgement of 120 Japanese-Canadians who fought for the Allies while branded "enemy aliens"
By Rod Mickleburgh
VANCOUVER, B.C. -- Last week, two days before the numbing atrocities of Paris, I went to the annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Japanese-Canadian War Memorial in Stanley Park. It was a simple, almost homespun occasion, far removed from the military-like precision of the packed event at the main cenotaph downtown. A black-robed priest gave a purification prayer, clapped three times and performed a spiritual cleansing by waving about a long baton festooned with white paper streamers. He then talked six minutes past the proscribed 11 a.m. time for the two minutes of silence. No one seemed to mind. Beside me, a teen-aged girl wiped away tears, while an elderly Japanese-Canadian woman in an ordinary gray kimono stood with head bowed, eyes tightly closed.
There was also a ...
Make Christmas Crunch with Maple Granola
Olive Oil & Maple Granola
Retailers waste no time putting up the wreaths and red bows, but surviving the holiday season can be an emotional marathon that demands a hearty breakfast
By Louise Crosby
Apparently Christmas is coming. Here we were, meandering our way through a long, leisurely fall full of colour and unseasonably warm temperatures, gorgeous afternoons with soft light, long shadows, beauty all around. Then suddenly, out of the blue, it seems, we’re bombarded with evergreen boughs, sparkly lights and commercial enticements to spend money. Bing Crosby and I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas piped over the sound system in my grocery store five weeks before the big day. It’s enough to put you off the whole thing.
Grumble, grumble. Christmas will get you in the end, though. It’s inevitable that one of these days a switch will go off, and I’ll be all for it, heading out to get a tree, setting out the candles, baking cookies. In fact, I’m already planning the ...
The Secret in Their Eyes lacks vision
Julia Roberts removes makeup in U.S. remake
The Oscar-winning film from Argentina gets an American reboot with the help of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman and the star of Pretty Woman, but director Billy Ray fails to craft the chaos in a meaningful way
The Night Before leaves blurry impression
Superbad with seasonal wrapping
Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt rip a page from Charles Dickens and Timothy Leary in a well-intended holiday comedy that would have been Scrooged if not for Michael Shannon's performance as angelic weed dealer
