Nov 19, 2009

INDEPENDENT MEDIA by Steve Anderson It was just over two years ago that, along with a network of organizations and individuals, I launched what would be the first of many public campaigns to keep Canada’s media open and democratic. The “Stop the Big Media Takeover” campaign was focused on the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications...

Nov 19, 2009

NUTRISPEAK by Vesanto Melina If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. – Sir Paul McCartney It baffles me that so many ‘animal lovers’ can chow down on a chunk of animal flesh. People attribute human emotions to their pets and take their beloved pup, cat or bird to an animal clinic when medical care is needed and then...

Nov 19, 2009

ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot Warning: this article will make your mouth water. Every year, I tell myself to cut down on the number of tomato varieties I grow. I still ended up with 35 different varieties this fall and it was a bumper year. You may know I’m an avid seed saver, so I’ve been busy saving the seeds from multitudes of ripe...

Nov 19, 2009

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young Sometimes, there are people in our lives with whom we have painful connections. It might be a parent, whom we hold responsible for a difficult childhood, a friend who has betrayed us, an ex-partner or a supervisor or colleague in the workplace. These relationships may remain unresolved either because raising the issues...

Nov 19, 2009

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead A highlight of last month’s Vancouver International Film Festival was the potent little documentary Burma VJ (www.burmavjmovie.com). The good news for those who missed it is that it’s showing again at the Amnesty International Film Festival (November 12-15, Vancity Theatre). The reality of news...

Nov 19, 2009

EARTHFUTURE by Guy Dauncey Over the past many years, David Suzuki and I have been doing our best, in our respective columns, to alert you to the immensity of the looming climate crisis. Now, we are just weeks away from the critical conference in Copenhagen where the world’s leaders will attempt to reach a new global agreement. To be honest, I am not...

Nov 19, 2009

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki with Faisal Moola Developed countries including Canada and the US have benefited tremendously from fossil-fuel exploitation. Resources like oil, gas and coal have allowed us to industrialize and expand our economies, making life easier for citizens. However, just as developing nations started to follow suit in raising their...

The Charter seeks to change the conversation so that compassion becomes a key word in public and private discourse, making it clear that any ideology that breeds hatred or contempt, be it religious or secular, has failed the test of our time.   The Charter for Compassion is the result of Karen Armstrong’s 2008 *TED Prize wish and made possible by the...

Nov 19, 2009

photo and story by Kami Kanetsuka “We, the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come. We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our Mother Earth and the...

  by Alan Cassels This season’s flu bug known as Swine flu or H1N1, seems to have prompted a lot of people to ask me, “Should I get vaccinated or not?” I have been quite loathe to write anything on the Swine flu for the simple reason that Canada’s media is already doing a superb job of filling daily newspaper pages and the airwaves...

Nov 19, 2009

by Laura Cook and Rayna Sagness The strength and effectiveness of your immune system are directly controlled by 80 percent of your digestive system’s ability. In other words, if you eat well-balanced nutritional foods and you do not have any digestive issues affecting your body’s capacity to properly digest those nutrients, proteins and enzymes, you...

DRUG BUST Alan Cassels It recently came to my attention that some people react badly to prescription drugs. Really? Perhaps I was having a Homeresque “doh” moment when I found myself tripping over this fact as I examined the burgeoning world of Internet-based home genetic testing. If you haven’t noticed, there are all kinds of helpful...

Nov 19, 2009

by Geoff Olson This month marks the 10th anniversary of protests against the World Trade Organization’s conference in Seattle. In preparing for the November 30th opening of the WTO’s “millennial round of talks,” the mayor’s office and local police had no contingency plan for one inconceivable possibility: that protestors would...