“A piano can be an orchestra, a big band, it’s a great vehicle for personal fulfillment – really, it’s unlimited,” said Richard Whiteman, music professor, in The Toronto Star Oct. 3, on the release of a new CD and prior to a Montreal gig Oct. 12. “When you go solo you’re naked. You’re up against the legends…. You have to have the rhythm and you juggle more balls in the air when solo,” he mused.
Ad agencies don’t get it
“[W]hat the end of advertising is really, in my view, is the shift to different forms of communication, more subtle forms of communication. People distrust the main mechanisms of advertising. So we’re looking to communicate with them in other ways. And also, frankly, the advertising agency industry hasn’t learned that yet because they still pump stuff out that looks good on creative reels, that looks sexy in boardrooms, but hasn’t understood the shift in consumers,” Alan Middleton, marketing professor, said of the creeping ubiquity of ads, on CTV News and Current Affairs, Oct. 2. CTV’s Canada AM interviewed Middleton on the same topic Oct. 02.
A dangerous UN game
“The UN is not an honest broker in the Middle East, and never has been. Even after Sept. 11, it is unable to define terrorism. The Arab bloc, along with Russia, France and China from the permanent five on the Security Council, think blowing up Israelis is legitimate — according to the UN Human Rights Commission resolution of April 15,” writes Anne Bayefsky, political science professor and international lawyer, on the value of bilateral vs multilateral peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, in The Globe and Mail Oct. 3. “Multilateralism is not an end in itself. The UN does not deserve the responsibilities of peacemaking and democratization when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It should be shown the door before it’s too late.”
A delicate balance
In his The Globe and Mail column Oct. 3 on new books advising how to find the right asset balance for you, Rob Carrick quotes Moshe Milevsky, finance professor at the Schulich School of Business: “It’s almost a dark secret of ours. We teach asset allocation and diversification, and yet it’s all over the map.”
Flying high
Air Canada’s strategy to divide the carrier into a number of niche players and a handful of other operating units makes eminent sense, Fred Lazar, business professor, has long contended, reported The Globe and Mail Oct. 3. Eventually, he said, Air Canada will be a parent company to the various airline brands and other units, such as Aeroplan, Destina.ca (the travel Web site), ground handling operations, technological services.
Who should do legal aid?
Fred Zemans, Osgoode Hall Law School professor, spoke about the Ontario government’s introductory legislation to allow public defenders to take on legal aid cases now handled by lawyers in private practice, on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning and Ottawa Morning Oct. 1.