Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

These Days Problematic Information  is Often Called Alternative Facts This article is based on an exam answer I submitted to my University of Windsor Poli-Sci Media course on June 20st By Stephen Weir Blame it on   Kelleyanne Conway , the former counsel to the past president of the United States. Back on January 22, 2017, while being interviewed on the well-watched Meet the Press television programme, Conway was asked why Trump’s press secretary would “utter a provable falsehood”. Her response? Spicer was just providing “Alternative Facts”.     In just two words, Conway had   main streeted   the business of politicians lying to the media.   There is an old meme (which ironically, given this topic, is a lie) that says there are 500 different words in the Innuit language for SNOW. The meme could easily be retooled to say “that there are 500 different words in the English language for  Problematic Information . The list is so long that one could jus...

  Henry, so how do we get to hear the music? Last week the Caribbean Camera published a news story about 55 Still Alive, a Calypso song written by performing artist King Cosmos, that is meant to commemorate the 55 th  anniversary of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival. Last week the song was still being worked up and we didn’t tell readers how to hear the new music.  Bad mistake, you the readers let us know that it was unfair to hold back on the tune. Well, we hate to do this again but Calypso fans will have to wait until the end of the month.  The song drops June 1 st  on Spotify, Apple Music and all the other social media music platforms. What will you hear? The call-and-response style song pays tribute to  Canada’s largest multi-cultural festival from past to present. Composed, written and produced by King Cosmos (Henry Gomez) is all about the originators, artists, organizations and stakeholders who nurtured the festival since its inception in ...

Linked Stories From Nassau.  People Just Don’t Understand By Stephen Weir Wow – the young-uns knew a long time ago what an incredible story-teller Bahamian Canadian author  Janice Lynn Mather is. Later this month it will be the adults turn to discover this  Governor General's Literary Award-winning novelists with the release of her new book Uncertain Kin. The Vancouver based writer first made a name for herself here in Canada with her first two books, Learning to Breathe and Facing the Sun. Not only did the Young Adult titles make a splash with junior high schoolers they won awards and were nominated for some biggies too. Now she is about to return to the bookstore shelves with her first adult work of fiction.   Uncertain Kin   is a collection of linked   stories about the lives of women and girls living in The Bahamas and Canada. Eighteen strange haunting stories introduce us to women and girls searching for identity and belonging during moments of profou...

  ASTROTURFING: YOUR LYING ASS IS FAKE GRASS   This article is based on an exam answer I submitted to my University of Windsor Poli-Sci Media course on June 20th 8pm Even though the root of the word  Astroturfing  has largely disappeared from our current vocabulary, here in Ontario it is a term that is very much a part of the political lexicon. Back in 1968 the  Houston Astrodome  became the first NFL stadium to install artificial grass on its indoor football field. First called  ChemGrass , the phony turf soon was dubbed AstroTurf by sports announcers. Fans watching the first game on Astroturf liked what they saw, a perfect green field with clearly marked yard lines and unsmudgeable advertisements. What they didn’t see was the concrete and dirt underneath.   The players hated it: despite looking like soft turf it was all a lie - it really hurts when tackled on the Astroturf. Injuries abounded. Makes sense that now in the 2020’s the term...

  CANADIAN CARIBBEAN PHOTOGRAPHERS EXHIBITION Beyond The Carnival Before The Carnival At Station Gallery   “Beyond the Carnival 5” is the latest exhibition of photographs of the Canadian Caribbean Photographic Arts Collective (CCPAC) and is now on at the Station Gallery in Whitby. The show of photographs by seven well known Toronto photographs opened early this month and runs until July 2nd.  This show, the groups fifth, features the work of Jenny Baboolal (pictured above),   Anthony Berot, Ian Grant, Horace Thorne, Peter  Faure, Gilbert Medina and David Lewis.  There are more than 60 photographs hanging in the gallery which is located in the Iroquois Park Sports Centre at 1450 Henry Street in Whitby. CCPAC was founded in 2017 by Anthony Berot and Ian Grant. Its objectives include exhibiting the photographic works of the collective and creating a legacy that highlights the excellent work of Canadian Caribbean photographers.Their work has been...

Ongoing Caribbean Tourism Travel Shorts  (fill written for Caribbean Camera but no room this week)  ·        The tri-island state of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique welcomes back its world-famous  Spicemas Carnival  honour its ancestral heritage in August this year.  It runs August 8 th  and 9 th . ·        The Government of Grenada announced earlier that week the resumption of the  Air Canada direct service from Toronto to Grenada . The nonstop service, which will commence on October 30, will be twice weekly on Sundays and Thursdays. ·        The Government of  The Bahamas  is  removing another COVID requirement for international travelers. Effective at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, June 19, 2022, travelers will no longer need to apply for a Bahamas  Travel Health Visa  in order to enter the country. Travelers will, however, still be req...

Taking their hopes and dreams on down that long York University road By Stephen Weir This past Wednesday, 500 graduate students with parents, teachers and principals cheering them on celebrated their last day in Grade 12 by walking up to gates of York University and marching right in. The students came from four high schools in the Jane Finch corridor district – C.W. Jeffreys, Westview, Emery and Downsview High. The point of the annual parade is to mark the graduation of the students and to encourage them not to end their studies after Grade 12.   Many of the students had probably never toured York – until Wednesday, and the university laid out the red carpet and red lion to ferociously make it a fun, memorable visit. I made that walk too for the Caribbean Camera. Olympus camera in had I marched with Itah Sadu, the MC and Ringmaster of this scholarly parade from C.W Jeffreys to York University. Here are four pictures from that Walk with Excellence. Pix 1. It All Started Here – T...

Two galleries is Just not enough for the genuis of the late Claire Wilks TWO seperate Yorkville exhibitions of the work of the late Claire Wilks opening in nine days in two different galleries on the same street must be a record of some sort for a Toronto artist! Wilks was a figurative artist and once called women’s bodies her 'chosen landscape,' but she did not consider this a political statement: "The female form is my line, the form lives in the brain of my finger." Yet, during the 1970s her erotic  images of women were rarely accepted in conservative Toronto galleries because of their intense, carnal imagery. These drawings nonetheless contributed to a new dialogue about sexual desire from a female perspective, which happened to coincide with the first major wave of Feminism. Wilk’s devotion to the naked female form kept her largely out of most Toronto galleries in the70s and 80’s. The novelist Timothy Findley wrote: “Looking at these drawings, women are going to...

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS  By Stephen Weir  Photographer Anthony Berot is taking his art to the streets, even if it means that he and his Mas Model must be prepared to dodge cars, bikes, and bell ringing streetcars.     For the past 12-years Berot has been the official photographer of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival taking pictures of it all, costume launches to the Grand Parade. And now as of Sunday night as the last costume launch ends, Berot is posting samples of all of the 2022 costume events. Pictured above is Mas Model and NBA Dancer for the Toronto Raptors Mohogany Brown poses for Berot on Queen Street West outside of the LuLu Lounge after the end of Sunday night’s SugaCayne costume fete. The portrait was taken without flash, instead he used street lights, shop window reflections and the glare of oncoming traffic did get the trick done.   “It is SugaCayne on the road!” explained Berot. “ Mohogany is wearing  one of the beautiful designs showed ear...