On July 27, 2008, Common Cause and the Industrial Workers of the World organized an informational picket in support of CNT union members in France who were sacked with no compensation by the owner of De Serres / Loomis.

More information can be found at http://linchpin.ca/events/Toronto-Picket-Solidarity-CNT-F-workers-France

University Fees

The Globe and Mail highligted a seies of hidden service charges in Canadian universities today that should be considered tution increased by stealth. The highest comes in at an insitution in Nova Scotia where students pay $1,960 on top of average tutition fees of $6,000 all to subsidise the sort of community and work faciltiies you'd think the original fees were covering: technology, gyms, funding student associations and other core supports to student life. The article really highlights how modern education systems can contribute to excess credit card debts, double jobbing and ridiculous work hours rather than the assumed social mobility associated with them.

Mute which I drew attention to on this blog before also tends to publish some quality articles that don't make it into the print version, here are some recent ones..

In the Bowels of the Fun Palace
By Mark Crinson

Architect Cedric Price's designs were seldom realised but his vision
inspired 'fun palaces' from the Beaubourg to the Millenium Dome. Mark
Crinson looks at two recent publications which deal in different ways
with Price and his legacy

French Banlieues and Urban Guerrillas
By Yves Coleman

Mute recently published Italian sociologist Emilio Quadrelli’s long
text
on the 2005 riots in the French banlieues, ‘Grassroots Political
Militants: Banlieusards and Politics’. Here, Parisian activist Yves
Coleman responds to the claims and arguments made by Quadrelli and the

After reading a list of hip hop provided by one of our other members here on the blog I'm reminded of discovering the wonderful BBC 4 recently and a documentary on the role of hip hop as a networked form of communication in the suburbs.