A portion of Ryerson’s campus was shut down this morning after part of a brick building at the corner of Yonge and Gould Sts. collapsed.
The bricks fell from the second floor facade of the three-storey building which is also home to Salad King and Tatami Sushi, both popular student lunch spots.
Police and firefighters have been on-site since 1 p.m, attempting to clear the debris, which completely covered the sidewalk and bicycle racks below. Thankfully, nobody was hurt.
Authorities also closed traffic along Yonge from Dundas north to Gerrard, and along Gould from Yonge to Victoria.
Al Jazeera has an extensive network of field correspondents around the world. Here's a map to illustrate where some of the organization's reporters are located.
Toronto-based magician and sleight-of-hand James Fulford, 52, demonstrates misdirection and the techniques and secrets behind some of his card tricks. He also explains assumptions: why we make them and how he manipulates them.
I recently talked to Nick Spicer an Al Jazeera English Washington correspondent, about his experiences with the channel. Spicer has more than 10 years of international reporting experience with organizations such as the National Public Radio, the BBC and CBC Telvision, where he spent three years working as foreign correspondent in Moscow.
What’s Nick Spicer’s typical day at AJE like? I’ve been here for two years, I was with CBC Television before in Moscow and before that I was with national public radio in Europe, and a typical day here… is looking at what the White house is doing. We pay a lot more attention to foreign policy decisions than would American broadcasters—so the war on Afghanistan the war on Iraq—because we have a lot of people watching us there. We are appealing to a global audience so we tell different kinds of stories. How do Al Jazeera reports differ from a Western media organization's? Al Jazeera stories that you wouldn’t find on American media or mainstream media here, would be stories about disenfranchised people, for instance the black kids who are victims of gun violence in Chicago…we try to be the voice of the voiceless and put people on TV who usually are not in front of a camera, instead of just having the usual marry-go-round of analysts and politicians. How do you think Canadians will react to the channel? I don’t think it would be a big surprise for people who can remember the kind of journalism the CBC used to do 20 or 30 years ago which was hard hitting internationally minded globally aware reportage. I used to work at the CBC, and I love the place, but they no longer have the money to do this type of reporting, and anybody whose working there can tell you this much. We do have the money, thankfully, and this is the kind of thing we are able to do. Canadians live in a democracy. They are used to having a plurality of voices. The alternative to that is a dictatorship. So there is nothing to be afraid about having a voice that is somewhat different from what they are used to seeing. My contention is that Canadians will be pleasantly surprised to see that this is the kind of journalism they used to see 20 or 30 years ago on the CBC, but it’s on steroids. It has a lot more means, it has a lot more ability to reach corners of the world that all of the new Canadians are coming from. It’s addressing itself to the new Canadian audience in a way that the old CBC never could. Can you explain how 9/11 and AJ’s coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq war affected the way the channel is perceived by the American public? AJE certainly suffers—I can say this from having gone out in the field and reported— from the fatwas of the former secretary of defence Donald Rumsfield, who in a moment of peak—at our sister network AJA daring to show civilian causalities in Afghanistan and Iraq—suggested that we were somehow aligned with America’s enemies. The images we were showing then are now shown non-stop on American TV. All the Arab network did at the time was to have a scoop because we are much closer to the ground and we are sort of ideologically committed with the people being bombed rather than hanging out with the generals talking about their next bombing run. That’s the case for AJE. We still suffer to a certain extent in some of the corners of America where people have not been exposed to us in their cable packages or they may not be so internationally minded and the last think they can remember is what Rumsfield said in 2003. But Americans are generally well meaning open minded people and once they meet you, they’ll give you a fair shake. I’ve run into that time and time again, where people will be sceptical and you’ll talk to them and send them some links to what you’ve done and they’ll go “Hey, that’s good stuff, I’m happy to be a part of it.” It’s almost universally the case. That kind of rejection is based on ignorance. Will AJE help bridge the gap between the East and the West? It’s a giant leap to do that, but it’s probably a baby step in the right direction. I’m sure it’s in the right direction.
A strong attachment to a celebrity is not necessarily a bad thing, as these three girls' stories show
by Rebecca Burstein
When Cara Steiner was fifteen, she tried to kill herself. This 17-year-old from Baltimore, Maryland, now thanks young singer-actress Taylor Swift for getting her through that. “Taylor is my inspiration and honestly I do believe that she has saved my life,” said Steiner, calling Taylor Swift a “miracle.”
“I was going through some rough times with my family and I attempted suicide. My family rushed me to a local mental hospital. While I was there, I couldn't listen to much music but I always would think about Taylor and how she would handle that situation,” she said. “One day while I was in the hospital, I was in an Art class and one of her songs came on and it was fate. From then on, I was obsessed. I learned everything I could about her. I haven't tried to hurt myself since I've left the hospital because every time I get depressed, I listen to a Taylor song. I usually don't like to talk about my time in the hospital but if there's even a chance to get my message out there about how amazing Taylor and her music is I want to take it.” Steiner wears her Taylor Swift sweatshirt as her uniform to the grocery store she works at and thinks about her often. “I've controlled myself though, because if I think about her too much, I get excited and I can't calm down and I can't sleep,” she admitted.
“I first discovered Taylor's music in 2006. I remember thinking that she had something special. I made sure to remind myself to check out her music when I got home. I did just that and that was probably the smartest Google search I ever made.”
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Carmen Reyes is a 14-year-old girl from Mexico City who says Miley Cyrus is her life. “Last Christmas my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her that I didn't want anything, that I just want Miley and her family to be happy,” she said about the Disney actress-singer.
Reyes grandmother recently passed away. “I’m proud to say that the only person that keeps me strong is Miley. Just listening to her music, I know that everything is going to be okay,” she explained. When she is sad, she talks to her Miley posters in her head, saying: “Thank God you're here. You're the only person that keeps me strong in this moment." “Everything I am today is because of Miley. I don't know what I would do without her. My life without her would be just miserable.” If she had never discovered Miley Cyrus, Reyes imagines she would be living “without a role model, without inspiration and without reason to follow dreams.” “That's why it’s not that I’m afraid to die, it is that if I die who will tell Miley how much I love her every single day?”
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Sally Akhtar’s Twitter bio is all about teen Disney star Demi Lovato. “I love Demi,” it reads. “She saved and made my life. She means the world to me.”
Akhtar, a 16-year-old from South London, England, reveals that Demi Lovato’s lyrics and personal history are the reason she is happy today. “I was going through a hard time in my life. I was losing people, I was getting bullied, I was unwell; everything was going wrong. I wanted to close the book in my life at that time. Then she came a long and her music helped me a lot, especially her song Believe in me. It made me feel good about myself,” she said. “It's not only her music. She has been through the same things I have, like bullying. I get bullied a lot, but it's not as bad as before because I listened to her and turned the other cheek and also stood up for my self. The things she says get me through the day.” When Akhtar was at her lowest, she hurt herself by cutting her wrists. “She was the one who stopped me from cutting,” continued Akhtar. “I didn't tell anyone about my problems, not even my friends. I can't trust them and they would judge me. They're not exactly real friends. So I kept it to myself, but luckily Demi came and helped me.”
I talked to John Stanton, founder of the Running Room, about the threat barefoot running could pose to the footwear industry.
He said shoes are like eyeglasses — in that when you visit a running store, you are getting a prescription for your biomechanics. And it is not the first time shoe companies have faced off against barefoot running. "It comes up about every 10 years. This time it's because of the book that came out [Born to Run] and it has brought another focus to barefoot running," he said."We have been wearing foot coverings since ancient times so I don't think this is something that will instantly change."Stanton is not discounting the merits of barefoot running. It is popular among elite runners and can be useful in training. He just doesn't believe the world will suddenly kick off their shoes and run in the streets without protection. "I don't think running barefoot in Canada, in downtown Toronto for example, is practical. From a safety standpoint - we have snow, extreme heat, I don't think it would catch on."There will always be people who like to try alternative ideas, he said, but when it comes to the general running public — the footwear industry is not living in fear of a barefoot running takeover."I know people think Nike spends a lot of money on marketing, which they do, but they also spend millions on research and development," he said. "But I can tell you that the mainstream is not going to run barefoot. I'll stick with science. There is great science behind today's footwear industry."
As part of my feature on social media and feminism I interviewed Katie Stanton, co-organizer of Fem 2.0 the conference about feminism and social media. The conference first took place in 2009 in Washington D.C. and their activism and lively discussions have continued on their blog.
Q: Why is it important to have a conference like Fem 2.0?
A: I think the conference makes it very real for people – that it’s a very serious thing. One of our priorities was to get people physically in the same room sitting next to each other because if you do everything online, there is a little bit of a disconnect; sometimes you forget these are real people. I just think that it’s very powerful to have people physically looking at each other face-to-face and talking to each other and networking.
Q: The Fem 2.0 conference explored the culture of linking and how linking between feminist blogs. How does this create a tight knit community?
A: In my day job, I work on new media and social media for a PR company in D.C. We’re very interested in how people are connecting with each other online and how you can kind of pull communities together in that way. What we noticed with the feminist world was that it was a little disjointed; people tend to only hangout with their so called friends online.They call that “echo chambers.” They’ll only link to certain people or they’ll only read certain other blogs. At a certain point, you’re going to lose your perspective when you’re doing that too much. You need to be able to link to a lot of other people to share traffic, to show they’re reading their blog because they can see it when you link to them – it pops up on their website – that’s a good way to network without actually having a network…The more you do that the more of a close connection you make with those websites. During the conference, [we brought] all those [feminist] organizations into the same room and bringing a lot of bloggers and online voices in the room with them. It really showed them, “Hey, we’re all working on the same thing and should be working together and sharing our networks and sharing our efforts.”
Q: I read that you were broadcasting #fem2 Tweets on a big screen.
A: To be honest, when we were doing the conference we didn’t have a lot of money. All the money we raised was total grass roots like me pulling my hair out…One of the big things we did before the conference to regularly involve people was Twitcasts which means every week on Twitter we would invite people to come in and discuss women’s issues for an hour…it really started pulling the community together. People knew we were hosting this and they would come and talk with us and they were so interested in the conference. So we wanted to engage them even though they might not be able to actually attend [the conference]. When you broadcast these conferences online, you get a lot more impressions made. People pay attention, they re-Tweet what you’re saying, they pass it onto their friends and you can make a big impact very quickly. We put Twitter on the screens so people could see themselves participating and so the speakers could watch and see what the audience.
Q: How does re-Tweeting make a big impact?
A: In terms of people seeing their friends Tweeting about something, they’re going to pay attention. If they’re interested, they’re going to ask them” hey what’s that? What are you talking about?” and they’ll Tweet them out. The most powerful thing on Twitter is a re-Tweet. When you post something interesting, you are posting it to your network. When someone in your network finds that interesting and re-Tweets it, they post it to their network –that’s potentially hundreds of people with a single re-Tweet. So that’s a very valuable tool in terms of spreading your message and getting people to be engaged in the conversation and then they’ll come back to you for more.
Q: How is social networking and open source technology a natural extension of grassroots activism?
A: If you think about what grassroots activism used to be, it’s people getting together and sharing a cause. People, all of them, are doing the same thing at the same time and making their voices heard. When you’re talking about online networks, it’s the same thing. In many cases, it’s a lot easier because people…might not be able to get outside and go to a protest but they can go online and blog about something or re-Tweet something or sign a petition or e-mail their senator. What organizations are really trying to do is use those online tools and get the same results that they did with grassroots work. That’s not to say grassroots isn’t important because it is, it’s crucial and you need to have people on the hill and you need to do all those things but when you have an online component, you can share it with that many more people all over the globe.
Q: It’s also a good way to get people who may not know a lot about feminism learn about it through blogs.
A: Exactly. That was an important issue for me. I’m 23 I graduated from school two years ago and when I was in college…I was interested in women’s issues but I didn’t feel a whole lot of community. I didn’t know what was online because organizations weren’t reaching out. So when we were putting the conference together, that was a huge priority to me. [I] was calling college students and calling people in the D.C. area getting students out, getting women’s studies programs letting them know like here – you can meet the president of the Feminist Majority, you can meet the president of NOW you can come directly and hangout with ALW and talk to them because they want to hear from you.
Q: How can action-oriented feminist organization and online feminist communities work together to achieve equality for women?
A: I think that organizations like NOW and organizations like Feminist Majority have to understand that if they’re not online, the people they’re trying to reach out to are. They need to make an effort to connect with those people. There are millions of women who are online and who are talking and care about these issues…If you reach out and network with them and say, “Hey I want to help you. I want to pass on information to you. I want to make you a source for us. I want you to share these with you readers.” treat them like a journalist in way but give them that respect for having their voice and you can use those networks for so many great things they have so much energy. You just need to reach out to them.
Q: Do you think it’s important to teach older feminists who don’t know how to use the technology?
A: If they’re open to it, absolutely. I think that everyone should make an attempt to get familiar with this kind of thing because if you don’t do it now, you’re going to be left behind. More and more organizations are starting to realize this – not just feminist organizations but everybody. It’s funny because that is my day job, teaching people how to do this.
Q: How is the internet a valuable tool for feminists?
A: It’s incredibly valuable because it allows us to connect with women that we didn’t have the opportunity to before. We can get very caught up in our own bubble so this is an opportunity to reach out and talk to new people…Being online and new media is about creating relationships with people and it’s a great opportunity to take the time and do it. I also think that we tend to forget the women who aren’t online – there is a digital divide – and I think that part of the feminist movement should be focused on reaching out to people face-to-face doing community work, doing international work. Really finding those women, reaching out to those women and knowing what they’re going through because a lot of people are online but not everybody, not by a long shot.
When I asked tweeps if they knew any musicians who've found creative ways to promote themselves online, a music writer from Milwaukee, Evan Rytlewski, immediately directed me to a delightful accordion player by the name of Pezzettino. So, this is what went down:
First off, can I just say you have a beautiful webpage? And with a lot of web content to boot. Can you tell me about how much of the stuff that goes up are your ideas?
Thank you! For better or worse, it's 100% Pezz.
I also want to know more about the request show you do on YouTube. How did you come up with that, and what's the reception been like?
The covers started as "thank you" cards for a fundraiser last summer. The tour vehicle needed repair and I was in a tight spot. Initially people requested personalized videos of Pezzettino songs, then the cover requests started rolling in... I resisted at first, don't want to be thought of as a gimmicky cover artist who plays accordion (think Al Yankovich). Then I realized that music is about connecting with people, and involving the audience in the creative process enhances that connection, as long as I can be sincere with the performance. It's become a game- people throw gangster rap or screamo and I have to somehow identify with the lyrics honestly. I had no idea that the project would take a life of it's own, I was just embarrassed about the fundraiser and looking for a way to show personalized gratitude! In the end the series has been an excuse to nerd out on video editing and audio programming, develop some skills...
How important is it for indie artists to reach out to fans via the web?
Each artist seems to have their own way of doing things... Some scenes are totally lo-fi, others are all about the live scene... It all depends on where your audience tends to spend their time. In my case, I realized that my fans are Internet nerds like me, so Twitter, Facebook and blogging has been just as important as live shows. Besides, the Internet is a major method of communication these days, what else is there to do- send pigeons?! There's so much talk in the music industry about Internet marketing and promotion and if it's a good idea, as if we have a choice, as if we're all in denial... The way I look at it is this: an artist's role in society is to focus on channeling creativity and articulating human thoughts, emotions and experiences. The benefit in this is assisting universal connection, ways to relate with others. So if your community exists on the web, then yes, I think it's a responsibility and obligation to reach out that way. I don't believe in sitting back and expecting fans to come to you while you tool around in the basement, waiting for people to call you a genius. I know there are a lot of amazing, introverted musicians who don't reach out at all... It's just not my philosophy. Call me a hippie, sharing is caring.
I've talked to a couple local artists here who say they wish they didn't have to do all this Twitter/Facebook/MySpace stuff.They miss the old-school way of promoting their music. Have you gone into this embracing social media and the digital age, or do you feel it's more of a necessity?
Tell them to stop being so lazy and get with the times. Suck it up campers, if you want to churn butter your whole life go ahead. Perhaps there's an audience out there who is also mourning the past, it'd make for a good commune turned tourist spot in 2050. Times change, humans adapt, we have to go with the flow and try to navigate this new strange territory along the way. It's like the Oregon Trail! It's a new, exciting, terrifying adventure!
Do you think it's possible for an artist to gain a following without promoting themselves online?
Yes, I do, if the artist is constantly visible and in people's face in other ways. If you're a Luddite, there's hope yet. Play shows, spread recordings, get the word out... Tell me about your vlog, and why you decided to have one. Remember Tom Hanks and his Wilson volleyball stranded on a deserted island? I was touring solo, driving around for hours in silence, the vlog kept me occupied, gave me an object to talk to!
People were reading the blog, so i figured you might as well go one step further and open a wider audio visual door into what was happening on the road. It started very simple, then like the cover request videos, became more involved, visually expressive. I stopped vlogging on tour a while ago because all the editing became too time consuming with performing, sleeping on someones couch and driving the next day... It was fun though, should bring it back... After I get a hot, bare-chested roadie...
Do you have a sense of what kind of word-of-mouth has been more helpful -- through the internet or through playing gigs?
Both have been equally helpful. Ultimately the live concert experience is what all the web content is based around... Peanut butter to the jelly. When someone goes to a show, loves it, it's nice to have web content that they can watch at home and share with friends.
And has it been a steady growth of fans, or did you notice it jumped after a certain show, or after you decided to start, say, a Twitter account?
It's been a pretty steady growth of fans. Some days it seems slow then I step back and realize how much has happened in a relatively short amount of time. Like watching hair grow.
I'm also curious how you find music.That's what friends are for! Burned CD's and YouTube videos. I used to download music before the whole Napster scare, but i always downloaded more than I could ever digest. New music seems to seep into my veins better in small, concentrated dosages.
Can you tell what you have in store for the next little while?
Playing at SXSW this week, fly home to finish new album this month...Moving to NYC, plenty of adventures ahead!
