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“The Revolution Will Be…Live.” and The Co-Creation of Value

You’ll recall Marshall McLuhan, the “medium is the message” man.  He knew. He knew what the computer could do… this extension of ourselves.  Like so many fruits hanging on vines… unpicked…disconnected in our connection.  Could he have foreseen what we […]

Images Shift the Discussion!

This is how it all started. As Tunisia and Egypt were followed by Yemen and Bahrain  and as  I remained glued to  Al Jazeera, Facebook,Twitter (notice I do not state the CBC, BBC or CNN or mainstream TV) and as […]

Foto-historieta

Most news is just a…                      web.me.com/carlosferrandz

The Dumbing-Down Revolution will be Televised

The anomaly that is Italy– where a media mogul can have total control of the private and public television, print media and have friends filling in the abyss– is something that the rest of the world cannot fathom. What if […]

Everyone is a Journalist Today

The original saying went, ‘Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.” Well, the perception seems to be changing. One of the stalwarts of communication of our times, Arthur C Clarke wrote about the phenomenon of Citizen Journalism […]

The Command Line is Mightier than the Rubber Bullet (fear me)

A few months ago, fearing terminal unemployment, I emailed some of my coder friends a query: “So, things were a no-go with writing, law, medicine. Hell I even looked into joining the army. I’m considering computers. Where should I start?” […]

Tiny Blue Ball

The world isn’t what it was ten or even five years ago. Technology has taken our planet and transformed it from an immense collection of cultures and peoples into one tiny blue ball more interconnected than ever before in its […]

“An Introduction to Visual Culture”

An Introduction To Visual Culture, Nicholas Mirzoeff. Routledge, New York, 1999. Visual culture can be described as the mix of different modes of media. In today’s world, a person is not left with a choice and is greeted by a […]

I hear you Sis!

My sister, all of four years older than me, kindly informed me very early on that Santa Claus didn’t exist, thereby converting me into a life-long  skeptic. She also let me know in no uncertain terms that I had been […]

Un précieux repas

The text below is from a collection in progress of yet unpublished short stories, entitled “Fragments”. Les rayons du soleil sont diffus en cette matinée fraîche. Ils dissipent l’humidité du printemps naissant et jettent leur lustre sur l’angle de ce […]

Nasser

These days I can’t but remember Gamal Abdel Nasser.  The Arab people are now finding unity in demands, hopes and aspirations, real unity from the bottom up not from the top down. Was this his vision?  Even if it wasn’t, […]

The Journey, The Market & The Manuscript

The Journey I marched through thick snow until leaves began to reappear on deciduous trees, pine needles protruding from toes Dragons scuttled across walls dented free forms, shapes through cloud patterns against the canvass of azure Before it was all […]

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An Interview with filmmaker Jeff Barnaby

Jeff Barnaby was born on a Mi’gmaq reserve in Listujug, Quebec. He has worked as an artist, poet, author and filmmaker who was recently nominated at the Genie awards for best short film – File Under Miscellaneous (2010). His work […]

Stewards of the land

The words aboriginal, indigenous, native, primitive, adivasi, tribal  and first nations are used almost synonymously although there are subtle differences setting them apart. The word aborigine or aboriginal is associated with Australia, indigenous makes us think of  Latin America even […]

Keena – Native Indian Artist

Keena – Native Indian Artist – 1949 – 1995 Keena was born to a Mohawk father and French-Canadian mother in 1949.  She was given up to be adopted and, until she was a young teenager, grew up in an orphanage. […]

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The Curse of the Corn People

More than half of the population of Guatemala is indigenous, heirs of an ancient culture and trustees of centuries of ancestral knowledge and traditions. However, to be an indigenous person in Guatemala means, more often than not, to be a […]

Meditations on what it means to be indigenous

What is it to be indigenous? Indigenous to the land or to your self. Indigenous even to your heart. What is indigenous? Who is indigenous and to what? For we are metaphors of our minds, but the reality is that […]

A Mask

Unknown to perhaps many of us in this part of the world, there is a significant population of aboriginal people living mainly in the central swathe of India for centuries. Their plight has been recently been brought to the forefront […]

Opinion

I have a Question…… Twenty-nine organizations in Canada came together on November 16th, 2010 to issue a joint statement in response to Canada’s much postponed endorsement of the UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, originally adopted in 2007. […]

Norman Bethune and Montreal

Norman Bethune was a world-reknowned Canadian surgeon, a passionate humanitarian, and a brilliant medical innovator. Born in Ontario in 1890, Bethune studied medicine in Canada and Britain. In 1925, he contracted tuberculosis, epidemic at that time. He recovered and dedicated […]

3 Poems

De Maiz… Everyone is igualdad Said the man of the wise mind And the old hands He told me We are getting lost This is the way to find ourselves You grab this maiz You use the coa of free […]

4 Poems

SAND PLAINS, 1848 When deer are mating: The clatter of antlers. Sound of the drum beating- Log house where the family lived. Planted maize, sunflowers, and squash. Plum-red forest berries, wild rice. To woo a yakon:kwe- A woman of the […]

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My hands can still plough the fields.

My hands can still plough the fields. He was a teacher, my younger boy He taught me to write my name Suddenly for days he lay on the bed Malaria in the brain, they said We waited for a miracle […]