I spent the week Oct 25-Nov 1 at the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF). Because a friend of mine gets the occasional free ticket, I have attended the Toronto International Film Festival a few times - just for one film, usually. But I have never thrown myself into a film festival the way I did this one, with possibly one exception - the London (that's London, Ontario) Palestine Film Festival, which I attended as part of a panel in 2005, when I discovered that I love Palestine film festivals.

Hi folks. This is not a substantive post. I wanted to explain my absence and a few things that I hope to do here in the next few days.

I have had a few weeks in a row that have been busy, one of which is well worth writing about here (the others are not for this blog). The week in question is Oct 25-Nov 1, the week of the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, which was an amazing experience. I will do a detailed review here.

A couple of posts ago I reported on a talk by Pervez Hoodbhoy (who I will now call "my friend Pervez Hoodbhoy") that he gave at the University of Toronto on October 6. I sent my post to him to elicit reactions and corrections. He made a correction and posted a response in the comments section - but I want to make sure everyone sees it, so I am putting it here as well.

Below is Pervez Hoodbhoy's response:

***

Justin Podur
October 23, 2008

Talk given at rabble.ca media democracy day. University of Toronto.

Colombian riot police surround thousands of indigenous and labor activists in Cauca, in southwest Colombia. The number of protestors remains around 10,000, and has been that high for a week, according to on-site reports. Most of the demonstrators are indigenous Nasa people from the region, struggling to stay on their land. Others are sugar cane-workers fighting for their rights. The riot police have attacked them repeatedly, injuring dozens with tear gas and killing several with live ammunition.

On October 6 I was lucky enough to finally meet Pervez Hoodbhoy, the Pakistani activist and physicist, who I have long admired and corresponded with a little. He was going to be in Ottawa and on short notice people at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre managed to organize a talk for him. The talk was called "Can the Taliban Win?" As usual with these blogs, I will summarize what he said, and follow with my reactions.

It's too bad that liberals don't look to leftists for advice. Every once in a while in this blog I come up with brilliant ideas for what Canada's Liberal party should do. The following is another instalment in that long and futile tradition.

“This extraordinary capacity to finance not on past wealth but on the present value of future anticipated cash flows is at the core of America's dynamic approach to wealth creation” - Edelstein, R., and Paul, J.M. Europe needs a new financial paradigm. Wall Street Journal Europe June 12-13, 1998. Quoted in The Fisherman and the Rhinoceros.

For those in Toronto, please come to the Media Democracy Day conference and my workshop. Callout below.

MEDIA DEMOCRACY DAY WORKSHOP
33 ST GEORGE ST
TORONTO, ON
2:30-3:30

Organized by OPIRG U of T

Left punditry: doing and presenting political analysis.

This workshop is for the rogue opinionated radical, or (better), the activist with an organization working on some aspect of communication.

I have written a bit about Canadian foreign policy over the past few years. The big piece I wrote and built on since, I called "Canada for anti-imperialists". That was about four years ago now. Since then, I learned two things.

1) Films can reach audiences that written articles can't, and
2) I have absolutely no skill, ability, aptitude, or enjoyment in filmmaking

Luckily for me, others do!