A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Great event coming up April 30 - Family Connect, a version of the Project Connect event I've done for the street community these past three years, but this time with a focus on the region's poorest families.   Family Connect co-ordinator Mary Gidney could really use some help collecting donations of family items to be handed out to participants that day (they're expecting to see 700 people there, and kids of all ages).  So if you and your co-workers, book-club friends, running group or whoever would like to take on a little side-project, how about a little collection drive for some of the following items? If you can help out in any way, contact Mary at mgidney@shaw.ca. The event is sponsored by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness in conjunction with Burnside Gorge Community Association and the Victoria Native Friendship Centre. 400 packages of diapers, all sizes   100 packages of baby wipes    100 diaper cream   600 tubes of toothpaste ...

Just in case you haven't had enough of the Japanese quake/tsunami images yet, here's an amazing video clip from  the moment the tsunami hit . Grim reminder of the power of the ocean. 

Who will you trust in the wild-west information age? I’ve been doing bits of some work over the last year for a tough little on-line taskmaster called Demand Media. It’s kind of like working at a digital factory, with writers labouring for a few bucks per piece doing what Demand calls “service journalism.” The work has been enlightening. The role of a Demand writer is to find answers on-line for the many strange questions people ask in Internet searches.  I figured I’d be a natural fit for the work after all these years in journalism. But it’s been much more challenging than I anticipated. In particular, I’ve come to see how difficult it is to assess your sources of information when the only place you can look is on-line. I suspect that’s something we all need to think about more. Traditional media are no longer the dominant source for news. A 2010 survey on the CNN Tech site found 61 per cent of Americans report getting at least some of their news on-line, compared to just 54 per...

Big Society, or small government? *I'm gone after this for a couple of weeks - back blogging March 12   Britain’s “Big Society” initiative has been showing up as a story line in Canadian media in recent weeks. Not surprising, really. Our federal and provincial governments are promoting the same principles that British Prime Minister David Cameron is putting forward in his Big Society vision.   He calls it a Big Society and we call it social entrepreneurship, but the goals are the same: More social enterprise; more collective responsibility for societal ills; more use of the tools of capitalism to fund social care. Canada is suddenly awash in task forces, strategies and policy debate related to social innovation, including a new high-profile advisory committee in B.C. I like much of what’s being talked about. I’m all for innovation, and for a better way of funding community services if it gets us out of the uncertain, short-term, destructive and inefficient process we’ve got...

Andre Picard is easily the best health reporter in Canada in my opinion, not only because he writes great stuff and takes the serious measure of issues, but because he gives a public platform to important issues that we need to know about. Today's column in the Globe and Mail is a good example of that - he's highlighting a study that pokes big holes in the prescription drug industry's assertion that the reason drugs are so expensive is because the industry is spending vast sums on creating them.