A Cultural Issues Forum

[Higgly]

Please vote on whether you feel MapleLeafWeb could benefit from a Canadian Arts Issues Forum

Thank you

[Charles Anthony]

Forgive me but you are making a mistake by assuming what the goals or intentions of the forum owner should be. Greg may likely want the forum to deal exclusively with a limited subject matter.

[August1991]

I voted Yes in this poll.

A long time ago, I suggested that Greg make such a change. I think he's still working on it.

The suggested line up would be:

Canadian Politics

-Federal Politics

-Provincial Politics

International Politics

-Canada/US Relations

-US Politics

-Rest of the World

Philosophy, Religion, Culture

-Moral & Religious Issues

-Movie/TV Reviews

News and Support

-Support and Questions

-News and Announcements

[geoffrey]

Arts issues? You mean critical issues to society like whether Dylan sold out when he switched to electric?

Pfftt... arts.

[M.Dancer]

Yeah I was looking for a place to express my disgust of the Toronto Hollywood Film Festival....

....but there was no appropriate place to vent

[Remiel]

I think you guys are taking the idea out of context. Since this is a political forum, it should be obvious that a forum for " pop culture " would and should still be taken from a political standpoint, as art imitates life and life imitates art. There are an awful lot of movies, books, and television programs that document and examine history and politics. If you could find a political angle for a supposedely non-politcal piece, that would be a good topic for discussion as well.

[Charles Anthony]

If you could find a political angle for a supposedely non-politcal piece, that would be a good topic for discussion as well.

Thank you. I like that opinion.

I have now voted YES to the poll for your reason -- without which I would have continued to abstain.

The problems I see are:

1) who wants the task of moderating such discussions???

2) without moderation, what would it become???

3) I do not care for moderators who also participate in the discussions

Having said that, I would LOVE to discuss artsy-fartsy stuff but my hesitancy comes from the logistics.

[M.Dancer]

If you could find a political angle for a supposedely non-politcal piece, that would be a good topic for discussion as well.

Thank you. I like that opinion.

I have now voted YES to the poll for your reason -- without which I would have continued to abstain.

The problems I see are:

1) who wants the task of moderating such discussions???

2) without moderation, what would it become???

3) I do not care for moderators who also participate in the discussions

Having said that, I would LOVE to discuss artsy-fartsy stuff but my hesitancy comes from the logistics.

I nominate Hardner. His moderating skills are legendary and especially valuable in a forum as inflammatory as film and culture.......

[kimmy]

Yeah I was looking for a place to express my disgust of the Toronto Hollywood Film Festival....

....but there was no appropriate place to vent

You just have to use a little creativity. Like the time when I got my review of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith into the Federal Politics section by likening Anakin Skywalker to Paul Martin and Darth Sidious to Jean Chretien.

-k

[M.Dancer]

Yeah I was looking for a place to express my disgust of the Toronto Hollywood Film Festival....

....but there was no appropriate place to vent

You just have to use a little creativity. Like the time when I got my review of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith into the Federal Politics section by likening Anakin Skywalker to Paul Martin and Darth Sidious to Jean Chretien.

-k

Yes but...art is political. Anyone who says otherwise may know what they like, but they don't know art. And cultural itself cannot be separated from politics....after all, our cultural is inherently political....

I like this site, but I think there are too few forums for subjects to be properly discussed. Cultural Issues is one I would like to see added, Business and Economics would be another.

This site could also use a good cocktail bar....

[Greg]

I'm open to all these ideas,

however, they will have to wait till I am finished the redesign and migration of MLW to a new content management system. There have been some setbacks lately, however, I'm still optimistic that we can have a new site up and running by mid to late fall.

I am also batting around the idea of migrating this forum to a different forum software, to combat some of the spammers that have been hitting the forums lately.

[kimmy]

to combat some of the spammers that have been hitting the forums lately.

But then where will I go for herbal breast enhancement and foreign exchange investment advice?

-k

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear kimmy,

But then where will I go for herbal breast enhancement and foreign exchange investment advice?

Indeed, I raced home from work today because I saw a thread about "Horny, cheating housewives looking for group sex" this morning. I was hoping to find a better deal than what I'm paying now, but alas, the thread (actually, all three of them) had been deleted. I guess it's back to my 'fistress'.

[Higgly]

I think you guys are taking the idea out of context. Since this is a political forum, it should be obvious that a forum for " pop culture " would and should still be taken from a political standpoint, as art imitates life and life imitates art. There are an awful lot of movies, books, and television programs that document and examine history and politics. If you could find a political angle for a supposedely non-politcal piece, that would be a good topic for discussion as well.

Good point. There is also a lot of stuff that is overtly political. For example, issues related to the CBC. I can hear you hitting your keyboards now. And then there is funding for the arts - large amounts of money are put into subsidizing various media projects - just look at the credits as they roll by for a made in Canada effort like 'Trailer Park Boys' - was made possible by funding from this level of government, that government agency, .... And you're probably watching it on an Alliance Atlantis cable channel that is making its shareholders rich.

There are also a lot of cultural events that get pretty political - Caribana comes to mind.

Then we have issues related to the press. Take for instance the concentration of newspapers in the hands of one organization. Look at Vancouver. Both major newspapers run by the same guy. How about editorial policy matters?

Maybe the topic should be called Culture, the press and the media. In any case, I think there is a lot of rich material to be explored here. Might broaden the audience of MLW and that's bound to be a good thing

[Remiel]

Last night in a dream, I was looking at Maple Leaf Web and there was a cultural issues forum... of course, every actual detail of the dream was completely different from the real thing, but I knew what I was looking at, . Of course, in this dream next to the large non-computer screen were vague images of computer games and other not quite related stuff, but that doesn't matter. The focus was on the forum, hehehehe....