Old 355ml (right) and new 295ml Five Alive frozen juice can from Minute Maid

If, like me, you went to the grocery store recently and thought that frozen juice can felt a bit odd in your hand, it's not your imagination. Minute Maid has decided to reduce the size of its frozen juice cans as a cost-saving measure.

The move is, of course, not being announced. There's no obvious indication on the cans that their size has been reduced (the only real difference is that the logos have been rotated so they're upright when the can is standing), and at least one major grocery store isn't selling it for cheaper. On a trip to Loblaws last weekend, I confirmed that both the new and old size of can (the old ones were still in stock) were on sale at $1 each (the two have different bar codes, so it's not a technological limitation).

And, in case you're wondering, it hasn't just been ultra-concentrated like those liquid laundry detergents. They still recommend emptying the can's contents and three cans worth of water to mix the juice. So now instead of getting 1.42 litres of juice, you get 1.18 litres, a reduction of 17%

When asked about the change, Minute Maid (which is owned by Coca-Cola) said this:

"With the increase in commodities, rather than pass the total cost on to the consumer, the decision was made to adjust the package size to offset some of the increase the consumer would have had to pay if this adjustment wasn’t made."

I then asked why this change wasn't made clear to the customer. I didn't get a response.

Loblaws also didn't respond to a query about why it didn't make the change clear to customers and why it was charging the same for both sizes of can.

I can understand commodity prices, inflation and the increased cost of doing business. One could even make the argument that some of these frozen juices could stand to be diluted more, mainly for health reasons (I usually dilute them to a full 2 litres, and even then they're quite sugary). But households aren't going to reduce the size of their juice jugs or how much they drink, so this move seems strange to me.

Except when you consider how subtle it is. When you see it in the context of tricking the customer into buying less and expecting more, it all makes perfect sense: It's a ripoff.

At least a few posts on Minute Maid's Facebook wall (which is otherwise clogged with posts from people who joined under the apparently false impression that doing so would get them a coupon) agree. None of those posts got a response.

Minute Maid's brands include Five Alive, Fruitopia and Nestea. Other brands (including No Name, which is still at 341ml) are unaffected ... yet.

So if you're at the store and you're about to grab a Minute Maid concentrated frozen juice, check the can to see if it's actually smaller than you think it is. And if you see a 355ml can (especially if it's still on sale for $1), stock up, because they won't last.

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Over-the-air carriage fees

The big one for broadcasting companies like Canwest/Global, CTV, TQS and Quebecor is the decision to reject the suggestion that "broadcast distribution units" (i.e. cable and satellite companies) should be required to pay fees to TV broadcasters who broadcast over the air freely.

This idea came out of the whole TQS saga, when the network's owners decided that it needed the ability to somehow blackmail cable companies into giving them money. Since cable specialty channels get per-subscriber fees in exchange for their content, shouldn't broadcast networks - whose budgets are supposedly higher because they need to produce local news - get money too?

The flip side of the coin is that these network broadcasters are broadcasting freely, using public airwaves. Cable and satellite companies are required by law to carry local broadcast channels on their basic packages. Subscribers don't get any added value from getting over-the-air stations on cable (except, perhaps, not having to deal with rabbit ears), so why should they have to pay for them?

The CRTC's decision was tough (emphasis mine):

CTVgm and Canwest proposed that any FFC only be made available if broadcasters meet monthly local programming requirements. However, they did not commit that the FFC, or any portion of it, would result in incremental spending on Canadian programming.

While OTA broadcasters have shown a recent decline in profitability, they, as other enterprises, might first look to their own business plans before making a request for increased revenue from the Commission. In the Proceeding, no business plans suggesting new sources of revenue were provided to the Commission. Neither the rationale for strategic initiatives by OTA broadcasters, such as recent major acquisitions, nor the basis for financing those initiatives or the impact of those initiatives on profitability were explained to the Commission at the public hearing.

The CRTC did cave on one point though: It said that so-called "distant signals" (e.g. CTV Vancouver for us Montrealers) should be able to "negotiate" carriage, in order to offset the trouble that this time-shifting business has caused. What that effectively means is that broadcasters can set rates for out-of-market broadcast stations and simply not allow their channels to be carried on other regions' cable networks unless they pay their fees.

Broadcasters are happy with the parts of the decision that give them money, and unhappy with the ones that don't. They're for less regulation in the broadcasting industry, but they want corporate socialism for the "ailing" over-the-air broadcasting sector.

TV packaging

The CRTC wants to streamline rules for TV packaging to make it easier for subscribers to choose what they want to see. The basic rules would still apply: A basic package, which includes things like CBC Newsworld, RDI, CPAC, etc. would still be required, porn channels can't be packaged with non-porn channels, and more than half of all channels in a subscriber's lineup must be Canadian.

Another point of contention is over so-called "U.S. 4+1 signals", which permit cable operators to carry four nearby stations of major U.S. networks (usually ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX) and a PBS station in their lineup. Recently, this was expanded to allow a second set of such signals for time-shifting purposes. Providers use this to offer east-coast and west-coast feeds of these networks.

Tellingly, the Canadian networks aren't happy about U.S. stations being allowed to broadcast their U.S. programming when they're trying to broadcast the same U.S. programming:

CTVgm and Canwest, in their final written submission, requested that the Commission simply prohibit the distribution of the second set of U.S. 4+1 signals.

A slight compromise would require subscribers to have corresponding Canadian stations to their out-of-market U.S. ones. For example, if I wanted to add the Seattle stations, I would have to also add the Vancouver stations to my lineup.

Local programming

The CRTC took broadcasters to task for the fact that they're not investing in local news:

The Commission’s own data demonstrate that private broadcaster spending on local programming has been flat since 1998. Between 1998 and 2007, the spending on local programming by English- and French-language commercial broadcasters increased by 22.8%. However, as the growth in the consumer price index (CPI) during this period was 22.1%, there was no real increase in local spending. This contrasts with spending on non-Canadian programming, which, after adjusting for CPI growth, increased by 61%, as well as spending on other Canadian programming, which increased by 8.3% over the same period. The data indicate an inability or unwillingness on the part of OTA broadcasters to invest in their local stations.

The Commission has also examined broadcasters’ spending on local programming by market size. In the six metropolitan markets with a population of over one million, spending on local programming, after adjusting for the CPI, has increased by 11.8% since 1998. However, in markets with a population of less than one million, local program spending has declined by 15.6% since 1998.

In other words, CTV and Global have more money than God with which to buy simulcasting rights to House and American Idol, but are constantly tightening their belts to the point where weathermen have to be shared.

Their solution, naturally, is a new government-controlled fund that people are forced to pay into that will be used to subsidize local news in smaller markets.

In addition to the 5% of gross revenue they have to put toward community channels (like Videotron's VOX network), cable and satellite providers would have to add an extra 1% which would go to a Local Programming Improvement Fund. This fund would be distributed to TV stations in small markets to get them to produce more local news.

This extra tax would be levied on the oil companies cable and satellite providers, whose profit margin the CRTC estimates at 40% and 17% respectively. Because they're making so much money gouging customers with their monopolies with their efficient service, the CRTC expects that the oil companies cable and satellite providers will simply absorb the cost instead of passing it on to the consumer. Yeah.

The other problem is whether or not this fund could be used by the CBC. They have plenty of stations in small markets. But then, if the CBC could make use of the fund, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (of which the CBC is not a member), which would administer said fund, would be in a conflict of interest. And then it gets complicated.

The idea for this fund sounds good-natured, but I wonder how much of it will actually go to local programming and how much will be used to line the pockets of the broadcasters' parent corporations.

Despecialization of specialty channels

One decision that seems to be welcomed by all parties is a very common-sense one to lessen the regulations on two genres of specialty channels that have become competitive: news and sports networks.

Currently, all specialty channels have genre protection, which means we have one comedy network, one weather network, one history network and one science-fiction network (in each language). As the number of channels increased, these genres became more specialized. One science channel became different channels for health and nature. One sports channel became a national sports channel, regional sports channels and sports headline channels, as well as channels for individual sports. One news channel became a news channel, a headline news channel and a business news channel.

News and sports, even if they are not supposed to directly compete, have been effectively doing so for years now (TSN vs. SportsNet, CBC Newsworld vs. CTV NewsNet, RDI vs. LCN). The CRTC's decision reflects reality, and opens up the field to more competition. New channels in these genres are more than welcome, as long as they play by the same rules (i.e. CanCon).

In addition, specialty channels will no longer have to apply to the CRTC every time they want to add a new programming category (like Discovery did in January to add game shows). These categories specify what kind of programming (news, sports, documentaries, dramas, comedy, etc.) each channel can select from (the subject of such programming should still fit the channel's genre), and are usually specified with maximums and minimums as a condition of license. Generally, channels are severely limited in terms of things like feature films, sports and music unless they are meant to focus on those things, to prevent a channel from going to the cash cow too often.

Instead, the CRTC suggests a standard provision that channels be able to take up to 10% of their programming from these categories:

• Long-form documentary;
• Professional sports;
• Drama and comedy;
• Theatrical feature films aired on television;
• Animated television programs or films; and
• Music video clips and Music video programs

Taming the VOD squad

Video on demand is such a new technology that even the CRTC realizes the existing rules are way out of date. And because even the industry has no idea how it wants to do things, the CRTC is sending out an "anyone got any ideas?" public notice for comments. Among the issues are whether VOD providers should be able to include advertising, whether packaged "subscription VOD" should have CanCon requirements, and what kind of competition regulations VOD should have.

Honestly, there's already a VOD service that has no regulation and a wealth of Canadian content. It's called the Internet.

But still, the fact that my Videotron VOD library contains only TVA and VOX programming (Quebecor owns TVA, VOX and Videotron) kind of bugs me, and it would be nice if the effects of media convergence weren't so obvious there.

You can read all about these crazy decisions in the CRTC's massive public notice.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere:

• Patrick Lagacé likes cable competition
• Bill Brioux thanks the CRTC for not fleecing customers to pad TV networks' pockets

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National Post Page 1: October 27, 1998

If there's anything the National Post can cover brilliantly, it's the National Post. Yesterday, Canada's conservative voice turned 10 years old, and they're going all out with a special anniversary section on their website talking about how awesome they are.

Everyone and their cat is producing first-person retrospectives of how new and cool the Post was back in its time. Kirk Lapointe, who worked at the Post during its launch, also chimes in.

Among the other anniversary features:

• Page One highlights, including such factually-correct never-to-be-proven-wrong headlines as:
  • "Rogers, Videotron to merge" (1998)
  • "Bush declared president" at "2:20am today" the day after the 2000 election. (Followed the next day by pictures making fun of other newspapers calling the race wrong)
  • "France, Germany lose taste for (Iraq) war" (2003)
• Best of arts and culture (English only, of course)
• Best of adorable animal stories
• Most scandalous business scandals
• The greatest Canadian athlete tournament
• Gary Clement's editorial cartoons
• I guess this has something to do with predictions or something
• Shinan Govani Govanis a Govani
• Rebecca Eckler writes about how she The Post revolutionized journalism by writing about herself (I honestly don't know if this one is supposed to be self-satirical)
• The Post's successful campaigns, like uniting the right and ... uhh ... uhh ...
• A look back at what happened to the people on their first front page (above). It gets the title of "Sex and the City" wrong.
• East vs. West (can't be the Post unless it's pitting regions against each other)

The Post, naturally, also has a bunch of story ideas of questionable journalistic value or relevance, like talking to 10-year-olds about what it's like being 10 or a story about how Google's also 10 (they're like the Post, only not evil).

My take

Love it or hate it, journalists like myself always welcome new voices, and the Post is no exception. It was a bold new paper that took off with a bang. It had big design ideas, it gave a focus to opinion, often promoting such pieces to its front page, and it took some risks.

My biggest problem with the Post has always been its typefaces. Awful, awful fonts. Nothing annoys me about newspaper design more than bad fonts (except, perhaps, long blocks of all-caps text).

As an employee of another Canwest newspaper, whose profits are used in part to keep the money-losing Post afloat, there's perhaps a bit of resentment. But, like the Ferengi, it's cute and I'd hate to see it die.

Goodbye, Toronto

The news isn't all cheery though. Thanks to budget cuts (the Post is widely known as a financial black hole for Canwest), the paper has been forced to cut its Toronto magazine section. Some content will be incorporated back into the rest of the paper, but that still means cuts. (Insert joke here about the rest of the paper becoming the Toronto section of the National Post.)

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Those are among the selling points, apparently, of being hired as a reporter for the Journal de Montréal. And if such ... let's call it "journalism" ... appeals to you (and you write well in French), you're in luck: Montreal's biggest newspaper is hiring.

Check your dignity at the door and send an application to Gazette turncoat traitor managing editor George Kalogerakis.

UPDATE: I see I'm not the only one to notice this.

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Looking at the website of the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois, I admit it's possible this comically awful kerning job was done on purpose. But if so, it looks silly.

And the fact they misspelled "québécois" inconsistently (note a missing accent on the second version), I'm thinking maybe Astral Media was just incompetent designing these ads.

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Is coming to Concordia a sign that you're no longer a sovereignist?
What are you getting at?

Well, I don't know, a lot of people say that a sovereigntist might have rather chosen to go to Universite de Montréal or UQÀM to teach.
Why is that?

Well. Because they're French universities.
Are you defending the principle of segregation sir?

Boisclair also says pretty definitively that he's done with politics.

No word on whether he spent any time doing lines with CSU executives or checking out the stalls in the Hall Building's 8th floor men's bathroom (ok ok, that one was unfair).

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Though the article is unsurprisingly negative in tone, it provides quite a bit of insight into the situation at the paper, as well as what the future holds for print media in general.

A couple of things though:

1. While The Gazette's lobby is very pretty and there are some shiny yellow surfaces, I doubt it's actually made of solid gold as the article implies.
2. Sorry Mike Gasher, but "linkalism" is not a word.

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Naturally, the facts make it clear that pur laine Quebecers don't have anything to fear from a few thousand immigrants.

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Some of the options being considered:

Abolish school boards entirely: This is the ADQ's solution to the problem, and the excuse for reason why they want to force a real election. Administration of schools would fall to municipalities, the provincial government, and the schools themselves, removing a layer of bureaucracy. Unfortunately, as municipal mergers should have shown us, it's not that easy. The bureaucracy created by the change might be as large or even larger than the bureaucracy it's replacing.

Give school boards more power: For those (like me) who complain there aren't any issues to be decided here (things like school taxes and curricula are set by the Quebec government), this might make elections more interesting. But it would also make the boards inconsistent, and that could lead to problems down the road.

Tie school board elections to municipal elections: I can't see how this isn't a good idea. Let's reduce the amount of times we need to go out, update a voters' list and wait in line to cast our ballots.

Here's one I'd like to suggest adding to the list: Have school board commissioners appointed by municipalities instead of elected by the populace directly. This may sound anti-democratic at first, but the system it's replacing isn't perfect either. This solution would keep the bureaucracy as is, but the decisions about how local schools would be run would be left in part to the municipal governments they're in. (Municipal politics aren't high on voter turnout either, but it's better than school board elections -- and most people can name their mayor at least.)

Just a thought.

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The problem isn't so bad on paper. Universities reserve more than half the seats on their governing boards for members of the community. This can mean businesspeople, community leaders, people at other educational institutions, retired educational industry professionals, doctors, lawyers, etc.

The problem mainly lies in the fact that these seats are self-selecting. They're the highest governing bodies at their institutions, answerable only to the government, and so the boards basically control themselves. Nominations as members of the community are dealt with by a nominating committee of the board.

This causes two related problems: the people who are nominated tend to be friends or business associates of people already on the boards, and dissenting views get actively or passively shut out.

When I was at Concordia, I wrote a piece about the corporate connections of the members of Concordia's Board of Governors. A little bit of Google searching found a lot of associations between most of the members' companies. One acted as a lawyer for another. One serves on the board of the company whose CEO is the wife of another member. And so on.

In some cases, these associations are perfectly reasonable, having been formed after the two were appointed to the board together. But the chronology doesn't solve the problem that the fat cats are friends and do things together.

There's also other problems: These connected rich people tend to be more likely to receive honourary degrees, have buildings and academic programs named after them, or receive other official praise from the universities they're connected to, in exchange for their generous donations. (Technically, board memebrs can't receive honourary degrees while they're on the board, and paying for such degrees isn't allowed either. So we see a lot of anonymous donations, or PR people stressing that donations aren't made with strings attached. And degrees are handed out after people retire from the board.)

The government needs to step in and solve this problem with new rules. Representation from academics and students needs to be increased. More non-business types need to be brought in. Academic decisions need to be deferred to academic bodies. And tough conflict-of-interest rules need to be established.

Business leaders should be on boards of universities. They have experience running large organizations, and have a lot of expertise they're willing to share. But the power this gives them is very big, and it needs to be kept in check.

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Plastic shopping bags, especially those from grocery stores, are considered one of the bigger environmental issues facing us (they're not actually such a huge issue, but they're treated that way). They line streets, clog sewers, choke children and make crank-calls to your boss. They have a high volume and low weight, which makes recycling them inefficient.

So various jurisdictions are looking into ways to reduce or even eliminate this urban blight. Quebec is considering imposing a tax on them to reduce their usage, while a Maxi store in Sherbrooke has decided to eliminate them in favour of reusable bags, bins and favourable publicity.

Other countries around the world have taken different approaches to these bags since bout 2002 (Wikipedia has a roundup), most being a mixture of financial disincentives and voluntary compliance. So far (unless I missed one), no industrialized Western nation has banned them outright.

No magic answer

Plastic bags are clearly detrimental to the environment and their use should be heavily reduced. Even the plastics lobby thinks so (though their propaganda literature suggests otherwise). But the proposed solutions all have problems:

Taxes: Serge Lavoie of the plastics industry makes some good (albeit extremely self-serving) points about why this is problematic. Well, actually he makes three points, two of which are bullshit. He says plastic bags aren't a problem, but then says they're a minor problem, and then points to other problems and asks why we aren't tackling those (I've heard similar arguments about why we shouldn't criticize Israel for human rights violations). He also points to legislation and public opinion polls, which only proves that their lobbyists are working hard. But the point that makes a lot of sense is that people are going to find ways around the law. It's already happened in Ireland, where people are using bags that are worse for the environment but not subject to the tax. Simply put: when money is involved, the market will find a way around it.

Voluntary compliance: The argument against this one is simple: People say things that make them look good, but greed and laziness set in when nobody's looking. People are already aware of the problem, and many are changing some of their habits, but voluntary compliance alone isn't going to solve the problem.

As someone who does most of his grocery shopping lugging around a big green bin, I can attest to other problems with the system as it is now:

• Bags are still considered proof-of-purchase. It's ludicrous when you think about it, because it's easy to slip something into a bag, but it's how many stores distinguish between stuff you've bought and stuff you haven't. Re-using bags leads to confusion and suspicion. Half the time when I go by the cash at Loblaws, the cashier has to ask me whether or not I've purchased the reusable bin I'm using.
• Minor inconveniences at the cash. Aside from the aforementioned suspicion, there's other annoying problems. Groceries are placed in bags automatically unless you ask for something different. Rebates offered for not taking plastic bags aren't always applied. My favourite is when trying to use the self-checkout at Loblaws. Not only is the system geared for bags (using a bin means balancing it on the scale and hoping it doesn't fall), but you need operator assistance before you can start scanning your groceries. If a big chain like Loblaws makes it difficult, imagine what it's like for smaller places.
• Remembering to bring your bags. I don't own a car, and a lot of the time I do groceries it's on the way home from something. So I don't have my big cumbersome bin. Plastic bags are small enough to put in your pocket, but not everyone will think ahead necessarily.
• Merchants give good PR about protecting the environment, but in reality they just don't care. They have no problem polluting as much as they can behind the scenes. They build massive buildings with ultra-high ceilings and keep them super-heated in the winter and super-chilled in the summer with wide open doors. Merchants in San Francisco promised to put a lid on their plastic bag use to avoid a tax on them, but ended up doing nothing.

Outright banning: This extreme step has been proposed in some developing countries as well as many small cities and towns. But they run into similar problems as taxing above: people will simply find a way around the problem, and that way might have even worse environmental consequences.

Finally, any drastic measure also ignores the fact that most households have already found ways to reuse plastic bags. There are two most common:

1. Garbage. Put the bag in the kitchen garbage can, dump everything unrecyclable in it, tie it up and throw it in the big garbage bin at the curb. Depending on your output, households can go through at least a couple of these each week. (That would survive a reduction, but not an elimination of plastic bags)
2. Poop scooping. One or two bags a day, per dog, are used to scoop and dispose of dog poop.

In both these cases, an alternative would need to be found. Using no bags would be impractical, because humans would have to get their hands dirty touching the slimy grossness. Purchasing bags is an option, but would probably be unpopular since we currently get them free. Instead, I can imagine a lot of dog poop going unscooped as a result of this ban.

Biodegradable bags: This is the solution that seems to be the magic solution to all these problems. BioBag Canada certainly thinks so. But these bags are still in development, and very expensive compared to plastic bags. The industry also argues that biodegradable isn't necessarily better in landfills, because it releases methane and carbon dioxide, while plastic bags just sit there and do nothing. Despite that, I think this will eventually be a favourable option.

Hypocrisy

Finally, I'll add one bit of ludicrous hypocrisy to this debate: Cities who are starting green projects are requiring use of disposable bags where they aren't necessary:

• In Côte-Saint-Luc, residents who are part of a pilot curbside compost pickup project are being given a short supply of compostable bags, which they will then have to replenish by paying for them out of pocket. They then place these bags in a special bin that will be emptied into trucks. But why the middle man? Why not just throw your food scraps directly into this container? Yeah, stuff might stick to the inside, but what's the worst that'll happen? It'll decompose?
• Even worse, Ville-Marie has phased out recycling bins in favour of clear plastic bags that look a lot like garbage bags. They seem to think it's better that way. Maybe they're right, but I see a lot of confusion between garbage and recycling, bags ripped open by raccoons looking for food and homeless people looking for returnable containers. Not to mention that it costs money and looks awful.

Baby steps

So what's my solution? Everything in moderation. Voluntary measures will probably be the most successful in the short term. You don't want plastic bags clogging your sewers? Don't bring them home from the grocery store. Bring reusable canvas bags when you shop. Get retailers to do more to encourage use of reusable bags and bins, as well as collecting used bags.

Innovative ways to reduce bag use, combined with phasing in of compostable/biodegradable bags where preferable, will probably be the eventual solution to this problem. But any solution has to be cheap, convenient, practical and aesthetic if it's going to succeed. Trying to force it is asking for it to backfire.

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The winner gets half this blog's gross revenues from last month and the pride of being smarter than an advertising agency.

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So you can imagine the gall this guy has to sue his former colleagues for $600,000 for their actions that somehow forced him to go on a shooting rampage. He's demanding access to his computer so he can pursue his case.

Considering he has a 0% success rate in court (mostly because he represents himself), I don't think anyone has much to worry about. But it's still annoying that we have to keep hearing from this guy.

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• The Quebec council on the status of women seeks to impose a dress code on all public employees, preventing them from wearing "visible religious symbols" like a scarf over their head or a little hat. Of course, it goes without saying that Catholics wearing crosses around their necks are specifically exempt. They get special treatment because they believe in the correct God.
• The group also wants the Quebec charter amended to make sure that gender equality usurps religious freedom. This makes sense, but does that mean that women could sue for the right to become priests? If they're for gender equality in all religions, then they must be in favour of that as well.
• Pauline Marois is opining that the solution to reasonable accommodation is ... wait for it ... Quebec independence. In a statement that sounds almost Third Reich-ish, she suggests that independence would remove "ambiguity" concerning what Quebec is. Instead, immigrants would see it as the racist, intolerant, French-only haven of backwards ideas we all know and love. And if these ethnics want to join us, all they have to do is rid themselves of their religion, their culture, their language and anything else that makes them different.

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• sovereignistgirl15

Suddenly, it's no longer taboo to express an irrational, paranoid fear of immigrants flooding in to take over your country. To suggest that a few dozen quiet immigrants with cloth over their faces settling in a town hundreds of kilometres away is going to somehow radically alter the way of life in a place that is 96% Catholic might have once been considered ignorant racism. But now that the commission is coming along, it's giving these lunatics a forum in which to express their paranoia.

Tonight in a park, as I watched a free movie screening, one of the spectators shouted at the end, complaining that the film was not in French and that Quebec is a French-only province. The man was clearly off his rocker, and the crowd stayed silent in response. The young moderator of the evening, in an attempt at diplomacy, repeated an invitation to a post-screening party in the province's official language, but the man was still yelling as she spoke in his tongue. He wasn't interested in accomodation, he just wanted to yell.

Now if that same man were to walk into a commission hearing room and give those opinions into a microphone, suddenly it would become news. It would get into the newspapers, and would require acknowledgment and analysis.

I realize I'm generalizing here, but normal people have better things to do with their lives than attend these hearings. It's the unemployed crazies who want someone to blame for their crappy lives that come to these town halls and blame immigrants they've never seen or met.

Perhaps there's no alternative to this. We're dealing with questions of morality, and that requires public consultation. But it still irks me that we're giving an open mic to racist, xenophobic extremists and pretending like their opinions are justified.

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Called "School Schmool" (education is a tool of the proletariat!), it commemorates the invention of the pipe bomb and encourages vandalism of advertisements.

Those of us with long memories might remember "Uprising", the 2001 Concordia student agenda, which had a similar ultra-activist slant, titles in Broken Typewriter font for that extra edge, the same "alternative" calendar anniversary notes, and encouraged people to vandalize advertisements, dismantle the capitalist system by firing their "bo$$e$" (l33t!), squat in abandoned buildings, steal expensive cars to take for joy rides and then crash into other expensive cars and setup pirate radio stations.

It also, of course, demonized Israel, the U.S., the media, the university, police, heterosexuals, capitalism and just about any large company.

Unfortunately for Concordia's student handbook, it was released in September 2001, which was pretty horrible timing. It eventually helped lead to an unprecedented student revolt that took the student union's executive out of office. (This one probably won't generate a reaction on the same level, if only because it wasn't the official student union agenda.)

Like all stupid student ideas, after five years when everyone's graduated, they start repeating themselves. Embezzlement of student funds, patronage appointments, election fraud, all tend to come and go on a five-year cycle. As do all the election promises that later turn out to be too complicated to accomplish or too impractical to be worth the time.

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It makes sense. Take 5 never really had a purpose. It was just a section where they threw together DVD reviews, electronics, gaming, the puzzles page and comics. It wasn't really clear what tied them together.

So after realizing that few people read the section (they had a survey about it earlier this year) and that even fewer people care, they're gutting it and redistributing its contents:

DVD reviews join the Friday Preview section as a single page, though it keeps the funky Take 5-style layout, which makes it look out of place.

Mark Saltzman's electronics advertorials column moves to Thursdays in Arts & Life, where it will apparently be once every two weeks, rotated with other articles like those of photography columnist Martin Coles.

Tyler Todd's In the Game column is being replaced by a blog of the same name. This makes sense considering the way Todd has been writing his columns. And considering they were always published in a tiny font, maybe this means people will be able to read it. (It also means Todd can do fun stuff like include pictures with his rants.)

Video game reviews, as far as I can tell, will no longer appear in The Gazette. That's kind of a step backwards, but it's another step in the continuing alienation between newspapers and younger generations, which will lead to newspapers' downfall once the baby boombers die off.

The puzzles and comic pages will move back to Weekend Life, where they were before Take 5 was launched.

What do you think?

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Are these risks serious? Technically, nobody knows for sure. Studies of cellphone use haven't found a definitive link between long-term use and any cancer, but cellphones have only been in widespread use for about a decade.

But here's what we do know:

First, apologies for the technical nature of this explanation, but you'll need to learn a little bit about electromagnetic radiation.

The spectrum 101

Everything that transmits a radio wave does so on a particular frequency, whether it's over-the-air television signals, broadcast AM/FM radio, cellphones, walkie-talkies, cordless phones, satellite signals or remote controls. All the frequencies combined form the electromagnetic spectrum, which goes from low-frequency shortwave radio to microwave to infrared, visible and UV light and eventually X-rays and gamma rays. The latter categories are dangerous in high doses because the rays penetrate the skin and start messing around with your cells, but frequencies below visible light don't have that problem because they are non-ionizing.

To prevent interference between two groups trying to use the same frequency (close enough that they can hear each other), governments allocate spectrum for specific purposes and assign licenses to companies to use specific frequencies or frequency bands.

Industry Canada, which regulates the allocation of spectrum, has a chart on its website (my favourite chart ever) that tells you what frequencies are allocated to what type of services.

As you can see from the chart, every bit of usable radio frequency, from 9 kilohertz to 275 gigahertz, is already assigned to one or even multiple purposes. This makes it difficult for new services like cellphone providers or cordless device makers to avoid interfering with existing services.

There are, however, areas of the spectrum where people can play around without as much restriction. These bands, called "ISM bands", are allocated to uses where the purpose isn't communication. Because of that, there's no problem with interference. (However, devices using this band for communication have to accept interference from ISM devices.)

One of these bands is at 2.4 GHz, which is pretty ideal for high-bandwidth short-distance radio communication like cordless phones and home wireless networks. So companies started making low-power devices that uses this band to communicate over short distances. Because they are low-power and the signal doesn't carry far, there isn't much interference, and coordination isn't necessary.

So what's special about 2.4 GHz? It's the frequency used by microwave ovens.

Microwave ovens work by bombarding food with electromagnetic radiation, which causes water molecules to vibrate and heat up. A metal cage prevents the radiation from escaping the microwave and heating up your face.

It's all about power (and distance)

The difference between microwave ovens and 802.11 WiFi is power. Microwaves require a lot of it: between 500 and 2,000 Watts. But wireless routers use maybe 10 Watts less than 1W. And they're not always-on in the same way microwaves are.

With the cellphone debate, the argument is that long-term exposure to a heat source can cause adverse effects. There's no question that some EM radiation is absorbed by the brain when using a cellphone. And that causes a slight temperature increase. But then so does putting your head on a pillow.

Though they operate at about the same power levels, there's a big difference between cellphones and WiFi transmitters: cellphones are a potential danger because the antenna is inches from your brain. Unless your face really is glued to your laptop, this isn't the face for WiFi. The amount of energy absorbed decreases exponentially with the distance to the source of radiation, so even an inch or two makes a big difference.

Electromagnetic radiation has been with us for decades, and isn't going away soon. There's no conclusive evidence that non-ionizing radiation at low power has any adverse health effects, and until some shows up, there's really no sense in worrying.

(Note: It should be noted that the network being created in Montreal is actually WiMAX and not WiFi, which operates on licensed frequencies near the ISM bands, but the potential effects are the same.)

UPDATE (Sept. 11): A response to the Gazette article points out that you'll get more EM radiation from standing out in the Sun. Though, funny enough, aluminum foil hats would be pretty effective at blocking the radiation from getting into your head.

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Mike Boone, today on A6:

"...it is easier to throw a pork chop past a wolf than it is to slip an error or ambiguity past the crackerjack Gazette copy desk."

From another article on that same page about burials resuming:

"The 129 gravediggers and maintenance staff, members of the Confdration (sic*) des syndicats nationaux, have been without a contract since Dec. 31, 2003. The workers' last contract expired on Dec. 31, 2003."

And in today's corrections box:

"An Agence France-Presse story in Friday's paper said former U.S. president Richard Nixon was impeached. In fact, Nixon resigned before the impeachment resolutions could be heard by the full House. The Gazette regrets the error."

* The Gazette still doesn't know how to upload articles with accents to its website.

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Yet this province seems to be the largest battleground for student protests in North America. They protest tuition fees, which are too high because they're above zero (some protests involve CEGEP students, whose tuition fees actually are zero). They protest government cuts to loans and bursaries. They protest the colonial capitalist imperialistic racist empire bent on ... evil of some sort.

And, of course, they protest each other.

Five student associations from Concordia, McGill and Dawson are suing each other over control of the Quebec chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students. Concordia's graduate association is planning to pull out of the organization over this dispute which has seen two competing executives appointed. (UPDATE Sept. 13: The Concordian -- yeah, I know -- has a detailed story on what's going on)

"Regional" (read: not Montreal or Quebec City) groups at UQTR, UQO and UQAR are threatening to leave the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) over their concerns the group is too Montreal-centric, and create their own lobby group to represent just their interests.

Currently there are three post-secondary lobby groups in Quebec. In addition to FEUQ (considerd the grown-up group because they sit down and negotiate with the government) and CFS-Q (considered almost renegade by its parent national organization and with little weight in Quebec because it only represents the two anglophone universities and an anglophone CEGEP), there's ASSÉ, the Association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante, which is a newer, more militant group that accepts nothing short of free education for all.

To give an example, the Concordia Student Union has been a member of all three organizations over the past few years, paying student money to three redundant organizations. They recently dropped ASSÉ (which was the cheapest of the three but also the most ineffective), and now pay money only to two.

And yet despite this, Jean Charest was returned to power with the clear intention of raising tuition, and fees are going up. FEUQ is threatening strikes, but they've already lost the battle. The public voted for tuition increases, and a few hundred students choosing to waste their money by not going to class isn't going to get anyone to change their mind.

All three groups need to take a moment to figure out why they're losing (even many students don't support their positions -- though I don't see too many of them lining up to donate money to the universities), and change their strategy before they become even more irrelevant than they already are. Once that happens, student unions will start pulling their funding and the Quebec student activist movement will implode.

UPDATE (Sept. 25): A judge decides to keep the offices off-limits to both groups until the issue can be reviewed further. The SSMU is happy, while the CSU is not.

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