A Back-To-School Wishlist for Society
Simply, two things. Let’s make sure our public school system recognizes two things: Our children are priceless individuals with immense capacity to excel, not standardized, interchangeable commodities who can be warehoused in assembly line learning factories. Thinking matters, not just filling up heads with data. A week before the new school year starts is a [...]
Harper Ignores Positive Trade Opportunity: ALBA
Trade has occurred for thousands of years, not just in the capitalist context of the last few hundred years, and not just in the current neoliberal, free trade context of the last 30 years. For over five years I have been tracking Latin America’s ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, as an alternative model [...]
The New Normal and the End of the World?
“This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.” – T.S. Eliot An Apocalyptical Cliché Large swaths of Pakistan are in ruins. The same is still true of Haiti, to say nothing of the long-standing devastation [...]
Building Community as a Tonic for Political Cynicism
More than just political burnout, there is a malaise of cynicism present in many progressives across Canada right now. Instead of just being tired from fighting many battles with social and economic conservatism, more and more progressives I’m encountering have become disillusioned with those who ought to be our champions. There are number of head-scratching [...]
More Bad News for Dreams of Solid Journalism
A little over a year ago, I wrote about the importance of supporting and encouraging community papers, even in this electronic era with the ascendance of ambient media. But today we’ve seen another fail in the possibility of quality community journalism in BC with the announcement of another shakeout in community papers in BC. Black [...]
2010 Already Beats 2007 in Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Working from the premise that we [the collaborative society of humans] aren’t actually too stupid to avert climate breakdown, let’s look at the new bad news on Arctic Ocean sea ice melt. This year’s sea ice meltdown is well ahead of 2007 in loss of both area and thickness. The ice is failing at a [...]
Sipping Purple Kool-Aid with the Fraser Institute
Those whacky folks down at the Fraser Institute are at it again. The Fraser Institute’s latest report is a shining beacon of vagueness and generalities, touting their usual stance that the holi polloi have been misguided, and led down the path to ruin and destruction by the evil anti-HST movement. Amongst the vast piles of heifer-dust [...]
Vancouver’s Livability Delusion/Denial
Vancouver’s website has a link to the civic themes we’re promoting at our pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai. The spin [see below] is almost totally unbearable. I take issue with the the city’s PR claims of sustainability, livability, an urban sanctuary and our awareness of our impact on nature. I don’t care what kind [...]
Canada Impedes Mohawks’ Right to Return Home
This is what integrity looks like. Three Mohawks from Quebec travelled to Cochabamba for April’s climate summit. They left on the Haudenosaunee Passport since they accept neither Canadian nor American citizenship. They were easily allowed out of Canada with those credentials. But then Canada wouldn’t let them in unless they signed a Canadian document. Their story [...]
Is a Car Free Vancouver Possible?
CarFreeYVR posted a nice video [below] discussing the motivations and inspirations for car-free days in Vancouver. With car-free days festivals coming again on June 20 on Main Street, Commercial Drive, Kits and the West End [happy Father's Day!], I’m excited to see hundreds take over the pavement. But how does Vancouver ever become the first [...]
Why Teens Give Me Hope
In the category of young people who keep me from weeping for the future, we have Jamie Keiles who is living an experiment to let Seventeen magazine “run” her life for a month. Her high school English teacher should be proud of the media critique she is already pumping out. Jessalynn Keller once interned with [...]
When Conservatives Question Corporate Motives
I am always pleased when conservatives question the social commitment of corporations. You don’t actually have to be a radical left winger to reasonably question whether corporations care about us, profits or the damage from oil in the Gulf. I know it is irresponsible for any sensible person to adopt the radical left wing stance [...]
For Everyone Saying “I Told You So” About Facebook
Infrastructures via xkcd: Infrastructures. Share the Love: Twitter del.icio.us email RSS Facebook Google Bookmarks Digg LinkedIn StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Buzz
Eco-Leaders Kerala, Sikkim and Montgomery County
In an era when effective global agreements on addressing climate breakdown are still elusive, it’s encouraging to see sub-national groups taking a lead. Kerala and Sikkim in India and Montgomery County in Maryland are working on organic farming and carbon taxes. The southern Indian state of Kerala has officially announced a new farming policy which [...]
Banks’ Obscene Profit = Child Poverty
First quarter (3 month) bank profits in Canada were $5.3 billion for the big six banks. The Conference Board of Canada reports that Canada ranks 15 of 17 in the developed world regarding child poverty rates. The child poverty rate increased by 2% between the mid-90s and the mid-00s. Should the world really Follow Canada’s [...]
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