Here is the project that explained why I have been so quiet here in the past weeks… With my colleagues at Influence Communication, I have been working on publishing an annual news report for Quebec (in French), Canada, and internationally. You can find those three reports at the links below :
Here are some links to help you understand the situation in Hong Kong:
South China Morning Post – LIVE: Tens of thousands brave storms to protest in Hong Kong as National Day begins
Le Monde – Hongkong : pourquoi les « parapluies » se rebellent
The Guardian – Hong Kong’s umbrella revolution – the Guardian briefing
The Washington Post – Hong Kong protesters could change Beijing’s thinking
The Globe and Mail – With youth in revolt, older generation finds new hope
Last week, a 20-year-old Nova Scotia man pled guilty to one count of manufacturing child pornography. In an agreed statement of facts read in court, the man acknowledged that nearly three years ago, when he was 17, he threw a small, booze-fueled party at his house with three other teenage boys and a 15-year-old girl. That night, he took a photograph of one of those boys, then 16, penetrating the girl from behind. She was naked from the waist down, and was leaning out of a window to vomit onto the ground. The 16-year-old boy was smiling into the camera, holding the girl’s hip with one hand, and giving a thumbs up with the other. The person who took the photo is awaiting sentencing. The boy in the photo is now 19, and is awaiting trial for distributing the image. The girl died last year.
In court last Monday, Nova Scotia’s Chronicle Herald reports, the “girl’s parents and their supporters” sat in the gallery wearing “T-shirts emblazoned with the girl’s name.” Across Canada, you’ll find her name printed on bumper stickers, etched into rubber bracelets, and painted on decorative rocks in memorial gardens. But you won’t find her name in the local newspaper. In the Herald, she is the “victim” in a “high-profile Nova Scotia child porn case,” the girl “who later died after attempting suicide.” On Canada.com, her name is hailed as “synonymous with a nation-wide push for better laws around bullying, revenge porn, consent and how police respond to allegations of sexual assault,” but her name itself does not appear.
Photo courtesy Leah Parsons
That’s because the judge in the case has barred Canadian journalists and everyday citizens from repeating the girl’s name in newspapers, on television, over the radio, and on social media. He cited aportion of Canadian criminal code that bans the publication of a child pornography victim’s name in connection to any legal proceeding connected to that alleged crime. After several Canadian news organizations protested the ban last April, a second judge acknowledged that the victim “has achieved quasi-celebrity status where she is known by just her first name,” and that her own parents had “expressed their most vehement disagreement with the imposition of the publication ban.” But in a May 20 decision, he shrugged that the law is the law, and that Canadian judges are compelled to follow it. (Because the case is being tried in youth court, the names of the accused are banned from publication, too.)
For the full text:
This began in 1997, when the United Kingdom handed over Hong Kong, one of its last imperial possessions, to the Chinese government. Hong Kong had spent over 150 years under British rule; it had become a fabulously wealthy center of commerce and had enjoyed, while not full democracy, far more freedom and democracy than the rest of China. So, as part of the handover, the Chinese government in Beijing promised to let Hong Kong keep its special rights and its autonomy — a deal known as “one country, two systems.”
A big part of that deal was China’s promise that, in 2017, Hong Kong’s citizens would be allowed to democratically elect their top leader for the first time ever. That leader, known as the Hong Kong chief executive, is currently appointed by a pro-Beijing committee. In 2007, the Chinese government reaffirmed its promise to give Hong Kong this right in 2017, which in Hong Kong is referred to as universal suffrage — a sign of how much value people assign to it.
But there have been disturbing signs throughout this year that the central Chinese government might renege on its promise. In July, the Chinese government issued a “white paper” stating that it has “comprehensive jurisdiction” over Hong Kong and that “the high degree of autonomy of [Hong Kong] is not an inherent power, but one that comes solely from the authorization by the central leadership.” It sounded to many like a warning from Beijing that it could dilute or outright revoke Hong Kong’s freedoms, and tens of thousands of Hong Kong’s citizens marched in protest.
Then, in August, Beijing announced its plan for Hong Kong’s 2017 elections. While citizens would be allowed to vote for the chief executive, the candidates for the election would have to be approved by a special committee just like the pro-Beijing committee that currently appoints the chief executive. This lets Beijing hand-pick candidates for the job, which is anti-democratic in itself, but also feels to many in Hong Kong like a first step toward eroding their promised democratic rights.
For the full text:
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/28/6856621/hong-kong-protests-clashes-china-explainer
I have friends who have been gifted thousands of dollars worth of shoes, purses, clothes, jewelry, cars and condos from the men they are dating. Most of my friends make a living working jobs as models, playmates or sugar babies.
That’s right, being a sugar baby is a JOB and it’s not an easy one. One of my friends just told me about having to wipe her sugar daddy’s ass because she gets a $5k monthly allowance from him and felt obligated.
You may think that sugar babies are no different than prostitutes.
Wrong. Being a prostitute is easier.
For the full text:
You’re going to hear the question “What’s your greatest weakness?” on a job interview before long, if you haven’t already.
It’s an unspeakably rude question for one person to ask another. We don’t hear the impoliteness in this question on a job interview, because we’ve been trained to think it’s normal for recruiters and hiring managers to ask job-seekers very personal things.
They ask you what you were earning before, at your last job. That’s obviously none of anyone’s business, but they ask it anyway. You should have seen the screechy, outraged email messages I got from recruiters all over the world when I wrote to advise job-seekers not to spill the beans about their past salaries.
If people don’t get you, they don’t deserve you. In your career and in life in general, stay away from anyone who says “You need me. You’re nothing without me.”
Sadly, lots of fearful and insecure people play that card in their professional lives. They use the tired old script, “You need me.” They say things like this:
“If a candidate told me that he wouldn’t give up his past salary information, the interview would be over.”
Heck yes! Get it over with. Who has time to waste with a person who believes that only they control your access to a job — a job you’re qualified to do and one where you could help an organization in dramatic ways?
For the full text:
What’s the best language for learning math? Hint: You’re not reading it.
Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish use simpler number words and express math concepts more clearly than English, making it easier for small children to learn counting and arithmetic, research shows.
The language gap is drawing growing attention amid a push by psychologists and educators to build numeracy in small children—the mathematical equivalent of literacy. Confusing English word names have been linked in several recent studies to weaker counting and arithmetic skills in children. However, researchers are finding some easy ways for parents to level the playing field through games and early practice.
Differences between Chinese and English, in particular, have been studied in U.S. and Chinese schools for decades by Karen Fuson, a professor emerita in the school of education and social policy at Northwestern University, and Yeping Li, an expert on Chinese math education and a professor of teaching, learning and culture at Texas A&M University. Chinese has just nine number names, while English has more than two dozen unique number words.
For the full text:
http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-best-language-for-math-1410304008
Concept bars have popped up like daisies in Hong Kong, where big spenders are plentiful but competition is ferocious.
Thus, fads (and rental budgets) quickly burn out in this ever-changing city.
In other words, that amazing bar you hit up on your last business trip might no longer exist.
Looking for a post-meeting pint or a wild night out before you hop on a plane to head home?
Here’s a list of the hottest new bars in Hong Kong — ambiance and creative drinks included. :
For the full details:
MANY FANS BELIEVE female athletes lack the skill, speed, strength, and overall entertainment value that males display. And women’s pro sports are partly to blame for this perception, as they originally marketed their players more as role models than great athletes. Understandably, it’s hard to sell a product widely perceived as inferior. But it’s not impossible.
Marketing expert David Schmittlein, dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, suggests light beer as a case study. “When light beer was invented, it was terrible,” he says. “If anything, it was for girls, because real beer drinkers didn’t drink light beer. Ironically enough, that changed with football players like John Madden characterizing it not as light but as less filling. . . . The challenge for light beer was to create a distinctive value for the product. That is to some degree the challenge for women’s sports.
“What makes it a different and, in some respects, a better kind of experience than the men? How is it better? I don’t think women’s sports leagues are very diligent about asking that or knowing the answer to that.”
Even if they could identify what makes women’s pro sports superior, Schmittlein recognizes that changing perceptions and building an appetite likely will take generations.
For the full text:
The city’s social contract was shredded long ago and everyone knows time is running out – but some Detroiters have hope.
The city is composed almost uniformly of such inner-city suburbs, low-density developments stretching for miles. Given Detroit’s 60% decline in population since 1950 – including a higher proportion of married, middle-class and well-educated residents – such neighbourhoods are pockmarked by more vacant structures and empty land than a shrinking tax base can handle.
Detroit’s social contract was torn to shreds long ago. Residents receive paltry public services from the local government. And they return the favour. A Detroit News analysis last year found that nearly half of all property owners in the city don’t pay taxes. And herein lies the city’s greatest challenge. Without diminishing the greater downtown area’smodest revival of recent years, as Ligon says: “Until you get a handle on the neighbourhoods, it really doesn’t matter what happens downtown.”
For the full text:
Weekly Press Review 