Last week, I had a dream.

I dreamed that Stephen Shaw and I were fighting crime together in the green zone in Baghdad. There was an underground ultimate fighting competition going on, and it was our job to find and stop it. The mission handed down to us by a baby wearing oversized glasses and holding a newspaper. We spent hours trudging through the Sahara desert until we found them - two mathmaticians, fighting to the death with geometrical shapes in the fourth dimension. Doggedly, Stephen and I began researching, trying to find the best way to stop a fight. Then, just when the fighting started to get dirty (as dirty as a New York City fireman), Kevin Newman arrived and kicked some mathamatical ass.

Maybe I should explain.

As a fourth year student with grades just low enough to ensure that I wouldn't be going into a graduate program, I recently came to the shocking realization that my dental plan would soon be ending. What a perfect time to have my wisdom teeth taken out. Sure, a week before deadline on your review piece isnt exactly IDEAL timing, but I figured a week at home would be good, if only to catch up on some reading. So, mid-january, I spent a gauze-packed week with jello, journalism, and strong medication.

I learned a lot from my week at home, and this I will share with you all.

Journalism and Drugs don't mix.

So, friends, please heed my advice. I have nothing against journalism. I have nothing against drugs. But please, people, keep them separate. Mix the two, and you'll get the equivilent of a Doonsbury cartoon - sure there's pictures, but it will never make any sense.

Peace out.

Kary

Posted by at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today I got school credit for taking a picture of a two-year-old child dressed as a sophisticated, well-read adult, and it was quite possibly the best day of my university life.

Posted by at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by samantha at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We all remember the iceberg photo Tim sent for our class on research. I found that very clever. Being so full of piss and vinegar that second or third week of school I felt certain I grasped the point he was making. Four months and 60 interviews later standing almost knee deep in research I think I'm starting to understand what he was talking about. My first draft was a fiery train wreck because I was so overwhelmed with information. My second draft was almost completely different in terms of content. That didn't surprise me because Bill kept saying that would probably happen. What did surprise me was when I sat down to hammer out the third draft. I settled down again with my notebooks and fluorescent post it notes. I'm on a sixth colour. I had to buy a new pack with different colours. After reviewing my interviews I had another little meltdown about all the points that had not yet made it into my draft. I remembered that Jon Wells wrote a 160,000 word serial for the Hamilton Spectator and interviewed 70 people. How on earth would my article be 3000 words? It dawned on me then that with the material I have from all my research I could probably write 3 or 4 medium sized articles on long-form journalism. It was a Zen like moment of clarity when I pictured that iceberg photo. Another such moment followed when I realized that a strong theme would allow me to pick and choose what I needed from the mound of research. Even though I say I've "realized" that I bet I don't get it just like that class on research. These four years at Ryerson learning to write has been like a long-form article. All the experiences, little details, dialogue and character development accumulates over time to make a point and teach me something.

Too bad I don't know how to post that photo. Anyone know how to?

Posted by at 08:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Journalists have it pretty tough. It's one of the few professions that require what seems to be super human abilities. I mean, they have to be able to pick up at the drop of a hat to chase that all important story, often staying up into the wee hours of the morning to meet that looming deadline. So the question becomes what happens when journalists get sick? Really sick. It's not like the story is just going to hang around and wait for them to feel better and I don't think a freelancer can afford to miss a paycheck. Are journalists expected to be invincible? Or maybe I just missed the secrect inoculation. I wonder, did Superman ever have the flu?

Posted by at 09:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I can't believe the writing process is almost over. True, I'm more than ready to wipe my hands of this thing, but at the same time, I'm dreading the end. This isn't because I can't let go -- believe me, I've read enough about blogs for an entire lifetime. It's because no matter what, a piece is never complete. There's always so much more to add and so many different perspectives, I could go on forever. The constant updates are unbelievable. With the National Post blog dying out to CBS firing 4 key executives, the story never stops. Imagine how much will happen between now and April when the mag comes out. It'll be "so three months ago."

Posted by samantha at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When: Thursday, January 27th, 8 p.m.
Where: Rivoli Pool Hall, 334 Queen West (upstairs)
Cover charge: None

Posted by samantha at 03:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I did my Review piece on newspaper youth sections and during my research I kept coming back to one big question, how does "great journalism" appeal to people who don't want to read it? I didn't really have the space to explore this question in the detail it deserves but I did think about it a lot because obviously it's an important one, not just for journalism but also for intelligent thought as a whole.

Now, when I say that people don't "want" to read great journalism, I don't think that it's a conscience, educated decision. I think very few people have ever sat down, read a few issues of Harpers, the New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly and gone, "Nope, not for me, this great journalism stuff." It's a far more complicated than that.

Part of it is an issue of time. Great pieces of journalism are often long and are best read in one shot. Most people are convinced that they simply don't have enough time to do all the things they need to get down, let alone sit down and read a 10,000-word article. I don't buy that; I think they're just disorganized but that discussion is for a different blog. While working on my Review article, I looked at the growing trend in the US for major dailies to create youth-oriented commuter papers. These papers, I was told, were created for a society that was being increasingly pressed for time and couldn't fit reading a regular newspaper into their schedules. If newspapers, with their 500 to a 1000-word articles can't make it, what chance does a 10,000-word (or more) piece have?

But I think more of an issue is that we live in a world that doesn't really encourage us to think. I don't mean that society doesn't encourage us to learn, that it definitely does, but thinking is different from learning, at least to me. Learning is what I did in high school math class; I could do the problems correctly and even show other people how to do them but I never truly understood what was going on, any variation and I was lost. But with thinking, you're going beyond just the facts and the formulas. You're analysing and your challenging your own, and society's, belief system; you're using logic and information from a wide variety of sources to come to some sort of conclusion. This is also exactly what great journalism does. If you're not comfortable with thinking, with having your ideas and beliefs challenged, with considering two opposite ideas at the same time, you're going to have a hard time with great journalism. Of course, this doesn't just hold true for journalism, but any kind of creative, intelligent work.

This is why I don't see reader disinterest in great journalism as strictly a journalism problem but a sign of a bigger problem: a society that doesn't think. You can try to make great journalism as appealing as possible; redesign the pages, throw in more pictures, shorten the word length; but to truly boost circulation you're going to have to dilute the writing. This is because the problem isn't with the product; it's with the audience. Get people thinking again and watch sales of Harper's, the New Yorker and good non-fiction books soar. Hey, maybe even Canada could support an Atlantic Monthly of its own.

So how to get people thinking again? While, since this is just a blog entry, I don't really have the space to look at that here. And anyways, before you can find the solution, you need to find the cause. But fortunately, that's the easy part of this problem. When people don't think, they don't challenge, they don't speak out, they don't compare, they don't slow down and consider. In other words, they just accept the status quo and shop.

Posted by at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I get closer and closer to wrapping up my final draft, I'm really surprised by my reaction to finishing the writing stage of the Review. I expected to be hyperventilating with excitment - absolutely losing my mind with relief. I'll never have to read these exact words in this exact order EVER AGAIN! I'll never call 40 interview subjects again as long as I live - hell, after the Review, I won't have to KNOW 40 people! But, instead, I have a queasy feeling in the pit of my gut. I may never have to read these exact words again, but thousands of other people will. Thousands. As in 998, 999, 1000. More than one. Many. I was talking to our art director about my fear of the reader, and he said, "When you put your work in a national magazine, you might as well be walking around naked." You research and you interview and you analyze to death, and you write until your fingers fall off, but no matter what kind of expert you become, when you present your words to the public you are at your most vulnerable as a writer. It's intimidating, but it's exhilerating, and I can't wait until that copy is finally ripped out of my hands and printed in the magazine and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it but breathe - enjoying the memories, learning from my mistakes, and walking around naked.

Posted by at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm patiently waiting for the re-run of George Stroumboulopoulos' debut on his new CBC show, The Hour. I missed the first airing at 8 p.m. and I'm curious to see if the last cool MuchMusic VJ lives up to the hype and draws the young audience the CBC is looking for.

I have faith in George. I trust him even though I think he speaks a little too quickly for television and radio. If The Hour fails, it won't be because of him, I'm already blaming the CBC. It's a small detail but I'm already suspicious of the show's intentions because of it's single web page - I don't think it's effective, in fact it's annoying. It reads:

Ok. So before you jump down our throats about our lack of a web page, you gotta realize that we don't even have a show yet - but we will. So bookmark us now! (Or don't.)

The Hour airs live, Monday through Thursday at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT), on CBC Newsworld. And, because we love you, if you miss it the first time you can catch it again at 11 p.m. (8 p.m. PT).

I'm assuming that I, an educated 24-year-old young woman, is part of the demographic the CBC seeks to entice. And as a member of the potential audience, I think that if the above copy is what I should expect from The Hour then we are in bad shape.

It is my personal opinion that news outlets don't attract young audiences because they just don't understand how to speak to us. There seems to be an impression that in order to get the attention of young people, you have to speak in "our language," which means using slang and lame humour and I just end up feeling talked down to. If you want us to watch your show, don't talk to us like we're stupid. The language of young people extends beyond words such as "like," "anyway" and "words in quotation marks."

OK. It's almost time for the re-run and I'm sure I'll have an opinionated update aftewards. In the meantime, did anyone else watch the show? What did you think?

Posted by at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sunday Star is now Canada's first maga-paper: "a hybrid magazine-newspaper that blends what is best of both mediums," Alison Uncles, new Sunday Star editor, writes in an editor's note. Today's cover has a huge pic of a plant (at first glance it was a marijuana leaf, but no such luck), and three magazine-like headlines pushing stories. I think it's pretty.

Posted by samantha at 06:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm one of those people who chuckle when she hears things like "Oprah for president" or "Arnold for governer" (understandable, I was horrified when I heard the latter wasn't a joke). So, when I saw "Jon Stewart for president" on Maisonneuve's site this month, I thought it was worth a gander.

Then I realized that they were serious. Oh gosh. Jon Stewart isn't even a real journalist! He said so on Crossfire. He said he doesn't feel any journalistic responsibility and that's why he didn't ask any tough questions of John Kerry when he made an appearance on The Daily Show last year. And someone wants the guy to be president? Come on, man. Wouldn't it be more productive to think of some real contenders? Whatever happened to dicussion of policy?

Posted by at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A victim impact statement in Stephen Williams's trial Friday denounced Williams as an "exploiting bastard." It read: "At least Bernardo was honest in his rape. He made no pretence that it was anything but. Williams lacks that class." It's an extreme and misguided statement, one driven by anger rather than reason, but it's not an unprecedented one.
The idea that a journalist can be more heinous than a murderer is corroborated by the trial of Joe McGinnis, who was sued by murderer Jeffrey MacDonald for breach of trust in the late eighties. All but one member of the jury sided with MacDonald after hearing that McGinnis had gained the murderer's trust by befriending him and expressing his anger over what he considered a wrongful conviction, before turning around to write a book painting his former friend as an incurable psychopath.
Honesty is a trumping value in our society. We are often more upset by the fact that a person lied about an action than the action itself. In Desperate Housewives, for example, we're not mad at Gabrielle for fooling around with the hunky gardener, we're pissed off at her for pretending to be the self-sacrificing wife and daughter-in-law.
Not surprisingly, society's requisite for honesty is more demanding of journalists - the people who claim to be purveyors of truth - than it is of the general public. Journalists need to be aware of the standard (especially since it's one they arguably set) and do better to live by it, not only in terms of what they report but how they report it. If we want to be truthful to the public, we need to be truthful to ourselves, and critically examine our own intentions.
Stephen Williams claims he posted court documents on the Internet (some containing the names of Bernardo's rape victims that were protected by a publication ban) because he felt the public had the right to them. He presents himself as a victim, assaulted by police and prosecutors who were so upset by his unfavourable coverage that they tried to muffle his free expression.
I don't by it. In my opinion, Williams wanted to show that he'd managed by wit to gain access to documents that most reporters never saw. He wanted to prove his research-backed expertise and thus portray his two books chronicling the Bernardo and Homolka rapes and murders as definitive accounts. He wanted to become a Bernardo research consultant for journalists all over America, and he did, selling documents to shows like the Fifth Estate and W5. Williams is not a martyr, sacrificing his time for the Charter right to free expression; he's an ego-driven journalist after prestige and power.
But it's not so much that he published the names of the victims that angers me. It's that, even after his guilty plea, he still tirelessly lauds himself as innocent.

Posted by at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

1. Even if you think you're going to record and transcribe everything, that's probably not going to happen, and if you do think so, you'll probably spend two days you should have spent writing transcribing and cursing yourself for not writing down at least a few memorable quotes.
2. Some writers are incredibly interesting and concious and articulate about their work and purpose.
3. Most, however, are not. And when I say not, I mean, "I don't really know. I just wrote it like it happened. I don't really care what people think it is."
4. Just because you leave it out, probably doesn't mean the editor will forget he asked for it in.
5. Sometimes you should just make an excuse and end the interview. My point that this should have happened at was when the lady on the other end of the phone said, "Slow down when you talk. Slow... down. Ok. Let's try that again. Don't they teach you to speak at journalism school? Haven't you done interviews before?"
6. Stunt journalism rocks! I mean... impartiality is key.
7. 2,500 words is a lot. A LOT. It's a ton of information. And a ton of interviews. More than you would ever think if, say, you'd never written something that long before.
8. Every subject is fascinating.
9. The reference library is God. Except they don't reference the Globe. The Star has bought the reference library! We need to do something!
10. Speling's important.

Anyone else care to add to the list?

Posted by at 06:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I encourage you to draw your own conclusions about this one:

E! Entertainment Television announced yesterday that it will partner with British Sky Broadcasting to show daily half-hour re-enactments of the Michael Jackson trial, scheduled to begin in California Jan. 31. The 46-year-old King of Pop has pleaded not guilty to intoxicating and molesting a minor under the age of 14.

Posted by at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

attempting to finish much overdue online piece on allo police! (late smutty quebec crime tabloid) but am making very little progress as many challenges impede my advancement. the following things have been a problem:

1. i have to interview in french. now, yes, it is true that i went to french immerson for a good part of my life and that, yes, i did start a french master's and, again, yes, i did spend a chunk of my childhood in france (not on riviera-spanning boats like dickie greenleaf but in a small town in the south where stories about incest abounded and we were like the yearly carny show that locals sampled tres bonne marche.) but i've always had horrible french grammar and i need at LEAST a couple weeks to get into the groove of speaking french. right now, i have little rhythm. so, when i conduct my interviews, i end up coming off like a pre-me frog--gesticulating like a madwoman (despite the fact that this is a PHONE conversation), blarghing and blurbing all over the place. its very demoralizing.

2. allo started up in the 50s. obviously some people who were originally associated with it are now dead. leaving no signs of their demise. this leads to embarassing convos like the following:

me - hi, im looking for jacqueline daooossst, former editor of photo police!
secretary - *charming quebecois accent* uhm, oui. jacqueline DAOU.
me- err, yes. sorry.
secretary - yez, she iz det.
me- oh, shit. i mean, sorry, thanks? uh...

*sigh*

3. the reason allo had such great (albeit terrifically raunchy) coverage was 'cause, allegedly, they got a lot of help from local police. michel auger related to the star this story about how two surete du quebec photographers apparently kept two rolls of film--one for work, the other for allo. erm, as you can imagine, this does not lend itself well to getting an interview with aforementioned police service. i was, however, granted the following email response:

Bonjour.

Selon les informations recueillies, il ne semble pas que vos allegations soient vraies ou fondees. Par consequent, nous ne pouvons pas vous mettre en contact avec une personne ressource.

Desole!

[TRANSLATION]

F*%$ off.

so, ultimately, instead of writing my piece, i spend the majority of my time downloading the second season of dead like me (brill, by the way) and gorging myself on cadbury's mini eggs. at the end of the school year i fear i will be without story and, instead: have bad marks, an embarassingly in-depth knowledge of a show about death (am already pessimistic enuff, this may qualify as grounds for disownment by friends and family) and a very, very large ass.

Posted by at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Feeding the Hand that Bites You: What should Investigative Reporters do when the State comes calling? Four Case Studies.

When: Tuesday, January 18, 2005, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Jorgenson Hall: L-72, Ryerson University, 350 Victoria St.

Featuring: Author Stevie Cameron, Juliet O'Neill (Ottawa Citizen), Andrew McIntosh (National Post), and Ken Peters (Hamilton Spectator)

Moderator: Peter Desbarats, former Maclean Hunter Chair of Media Ethics, Ryerson Polytechnic University

Presented by: Poking the State With a Stick Enterprises in association with the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and the Ryerson School of Journalism.

For more information or to arrange interviews with any of the panelists, contact Bill Dunphy @ 905.526-3262 or bill.dunphy@gmail.com

Posted by samantha at 12:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The day I set up my first interview for my RRJ feature, I bought myself a shiny Sony digital voice recorder. I knew that I needed something better than what I had been using to record interviews -- an unreliable mp3 better. The recorder can hold a whopping 11 hours and 35 minutes of recordings.

After interviews, I simply transfer the files from my recorder to my computer, using the cable that Sony provides, and voila! I have all my interviews arranged neatly in a file, and when I want to refer back to an interesting point in an interview, I simply drag the "play" cursor to the desired time in the sound wave (which I often jot down during interviews)...no futzing around with tapes.

There are tons of timesaving features, so check it out. The voice recorder is my third-favourite purchase of all-time; it has saved me loads of time, which has, in turn, improved my quality of life. I recommend this contraption to all journalists. It costs about twice as much as you would pay for a good tape recorder, but it will pay for itself because of the amount of time it will save you (time is money, right?), and because you don't have to buy any more tapes.

Posted by at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

While writing the feature, I took it upon myself to keep a daily journal. I thought it would help me track my progress and organize my thought process. Of course, in the end, it served as a way to avoid thinking about the RRJ. Here is an excerpt, a little long but evidence of my mental state these days:

14 DAYS UNTIL THE FEATURE IS DUE:
I am still deluding myself into believing that I have ample time to write something decent, something I wont feel ashamed of after giving it the once-over. This entry is going to be short. I am studying for a philosophy midterm and Im getting nowhere. There is a huge piece of goldfish shit that has floated to the top of Coco's fishtank that I keep looking at. It's sickening. I am gagging right now observing it. I've had Coco for over a year and I have yet to change the water in his tank. Coco grew extra fins at one point - he still has them - they look like wings. I always ask myself if that's normal. I tell myself he grew them because he is treated well, fed daily, talked to, you know. I tap the glass at least twice a day, just to let him know there's someone here, on the outside. I don't know, maybe it gives him hope. But, I feel nervous looking at those fins sometimes, when the thought enters my head that he might have mutated because of the dirty water. I try not to think about that much. I also try to avoid touching the water with my bare hands. The scary part about the shit, by the way, is that it'll be gone by tomorrow morning.
So, the feature is moving along - it seems a story might actually be starting to emerge. Only problem: no scenes. Still haven't heard from Jaggi, my main character (who i think is intentionally trying to screw me).
I'll just end by saying that I saw a middle aged man get handcuffed by the police inside the Ryerson Bookstore today. I don't really know why I mention it, only that I've never seen a middle aged man get arrested before. There were 2 officers and 4 Ryerson security guards just standing around this poor bastard. Anyway, the klepto was wearing this windbreaker and these big, but not too big, glasses. He just looked too old to be going through that kind of humiliation. It was really sad. I wonder what he stole, anyway? Maybe an atlas. I think every man needs an atlas and the current version of a Webster's Thesaurus.

Posted by at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hey, it's not all crap. Jason Gross of rockcritics.com writes about the best music writing of the year and lo and behold, there's some Canadian stuff on there...

...you'll find about 130 wonderful articles cited below (not including dozens or hundreds of others that I missed), which leads you to wonder why or how this could still happen. I have a theory that's not totally bonkers, if only because I've seen it in practice many times: like the musicians that are the subject of these articles, the writers themselves are so obsessed with the subjects, the artists, the songs, and the albums that they have to write about them and spread the word. OK, that's pretty corny and romantic but don't discount it--I can attest that it's happened to me sometimes as well. Don't forget that the editors also make sure these prime nuggets get out and will almost never get credit for a great story finding its way into their section. With less space to express yourself and more competition for the smaller columns (not just other writers and non-arts sections, but ads), there has to be some kind of rabid commitment at play here. This is something we should all be grateful for because, in the end, we're all richer for having these great pieces of writing at our disposal.

Check it out (as if you didn't have enough reading to do already)...

Posted by at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Funny how now, when we're about to spread our wings and embrace new journalistic opportunities that may whack us on our way as we reach the end of four (and for some only two!) long years at Ryerson's journalism program, we took the time to seriously discuss the inevitable truth through our Media Ethics class: you don't need a journalism degree to be in the biz. Perhaps that's changing. But to think that 20 years ago editors would hire general reporters and ask them to cover the Real Estate beat, for example, knowing these reporters had no shred of knowledge on the topic whatsoever. Heck, at least they can tell a good story about that experience now. What does it mean anyway when reporters are assigned to a beat? Who are they really?

I asked a columnist from a certain beat what I thought was a legitimate question, although, perhaps, phrased wrongly, "What makes you qualified to write on this topic?" I was referring to his professional or personal background in relation to the subject he was writing about. "That's a silly question," he replied. I explained my reasons. "Well, I'm sure you know being in journalism school that you interview different experts and those experts have opinions and that helps you form your opinion," he said.

If there's anything I really value having learned from this program, it's probably the laws behind our work, but, most importantly, ethics. I wonder how often discussions at editorial meetings revolve around the ethics behind getting a story. Perhaps that columnist was the right person to write about that certain topic. But it seems as if one thing many journalists have learned to maintain over the years is a big ego, which many of my classmates seem to still attempt to avoid.

Journalists have become the new CIA, or so they wish. What makes us think that we have not only the power, but also the right, to repeatedly harass people with calls and e-mails just to get them to spill the next juicy tidbit out of their mouths? Or write an 800 word opinion piece about someone just because we feel like it'll sell papers? And people will believe you're a journalist, too (but more on that another time). Where do we cross the line? I surely hope I won't have to hear another terror victim complain about how her mother was almost breaking down because a reporter continuously questioned her about such things as the colour and weight of her husband's remains from 9-11.

Posted by at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As a kid, four months was a lifetime. Summer holidays were only two months, but they felt like forever. Remember? Now the mag kids (and the broadcast and print kids, too, I guess) have a mere three and a half months til we're done with Rye high.

To someone who's been in school for twenty years (excluding some resting and a stint in Montreal), this is unbelievable! Not to mention that many of the people I know that graduated from j-school haven't found jobs yet or took about a year after graduation to find jobs.

This is scarier than Stephen King in a clown suit.

Posted by at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have run out of readers in this country. You may have heard about the recent, mind-blowing study by the National Endowment for the Arts in which it found that book reading has decreased 10 percent since 1982. Fewer than 47 percent read any form of literature in the previous 12 months. A similar statistic exists in the magazine world, but it is usually tucked in among other, more palatable facts. It is called the "Annual Combined Paid Circulation Per Issue," and it hasn't moved since 1990.

Check out the rest.

Posted by samantha at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Globe and Mail's Saturday editorial, entitled "Fukuyama was right: We've come a long way" , which is an otherwise exceptional analysis of Fukuyama's monumental 1989 treatise "The End of History" Greenspon writes:

"Though democracy is spotty in Africa, shaky in parts of Latin America, all but non-existant in the Arab world and outlawed in China, the number of true despots left in the world is down to a handful and the general trend to political liberty is unmistakable."

This trend towards political liberty is especially palpable in the Palestinian territories, where a vibrant civil society has flourished despite living under Israel's 37-year-old occupation and Arafat's repressive rule since the Oslo Peace Accords were signed in 1993.

Ultimately, the Palestinians are best positioned in the Arab world to serve as a catalyst for change in the region, and to demonstrate what can be acheived through perseverance, commitment and unity, because they have direct experience with democratic development that has been fostered internally.

This is evident through the strikes and demonstrations they've held to protest their discontent with the occupation, and their commitment to the advancement of human rights, which we see through joint initiatives with other like-minded Israeli organizations, as well as independent ones.

With the much anticipated second round of elections over in the Ukraine, it is without a doubt that international attention will now turn to the upcoming Palestinian election on January 9.

I'm personally hoping Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, (not to be confused with his jailed distant cousin in an Israeli jail)will triumph.

Posted by at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)