Dec 5, 2010

INDEPENDENT MEDIA by Steve Anderson On the brisk morning of October 21, a vanguard of media innovation made its way into CBC/Radio-Canada’s Annual Public Meeting (APM) in Vancouver. The plan was unspoken, but each of the wry smiles we exchanged was more than enough to acknowledge our purpose. After all, although insidious, our goal was quite simple:...

ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot My life changed after my new book The Zero-Mile Diet was released in June. I was invited to speak to many communities around Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands, which suited me perfectly because I was talking about a Vancouver Island Diet. By year’s end, after all my travels and many conversations,...

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young The greatest degree of inner tranquillity comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being.  – Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama If we look back over past generations, we see many areas where progress has been made....

Dec 5, 2010

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead In the 10th Whistler Film Festival, which ends December 5, it is worth noting that cult Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald has three new feature films in the festival: 1) the world premiere of Hard Core Logo 2, the sequel to his popular Hard Core Logo (1996); 2) the jailhouse blues documentary Music From the...

Dec 5, 2010

Sustain ban on Gulf drilling SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki with Faisal Moola We saw what happened when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico for three months. Imagine a similar incident in an inland sea one-sixth the size of the Gulf of Mexico. It’s a very real fear...

  by Lucy Sharratt   Starting with the humble alfalfa seed and ending with a genetically engineered (GE) Atlantic salmon, the controversies in 2010 over genetic engineering multiplied and tumbled over each other, with the year ending in unprecedented uncertainty. This year, the GE Atlantic salmon and GE “Envriopig” began lurching towards...

Dec 5, 2010

Protecting habitat by linking human and environmental security will save tigers by Dr. Keith Martin Tiger Summit:  the outcome The goal of this high-profile Summit, initiated by Russian president Vladimir Putin and World Bank chief Robert Zoellick, was to galvanize the public into supporting the goal of doubling the number of tigers in the...

Dec 5, 2010

by Daniel Keeran Across Europe and North America, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of homeless people, especially in recent years in Vancouver and Victoria in BC. A growing body of information also indicates our current approach to homelessness has led to an inefficient use of public resources; it costs more to leave people homeless than to...

Dec 5, 2010

by Farah Moolji Nazarali I didn’t know what I was searching for until I found it. And on that auspicious day, I realized I had found what I had been looking for my entire life. The details of that day are so vivid for me, deeply etched into my mind and into the memory of every cell in my body. It was the day I met myGuru, Paramhans Swami...

  A federal bill purporting to make Canadians safer will actually make them less safe and, if passed, will likely face a barrage of constitutional challenges in the courts, according to a leading constitutional lawyer and a growing number of concerned citizens, health consumer groups and legislators. Bill C-36: The Canada Consumer Product Safety Act gives...

by Jacqueline Marcus It’s amazing what our government has forced us to accept in the name of “security.” They’ve bankrupted our treasury to chase down a hundred or so Islamic extremists hiding in the mountainous caves of Afghanistan. The reasoning for this insanity: “We must get them before they get us.” In the last year...

  On Thursday December 9, Banyen Books hosts a 40th birthday celebration at the Ridge Theatre. Features include a special live “skype-in” with Ram Dass from Maui, a new short film of Ram Dass, a rare screening of Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie and a book signing (and talk) of Ram Dass’ new book Be Love Now by co-author...

  WRITING ON THE WALL by Joseph Roberts   The word publish means “to make publicly known,” from the Latin publicare. I have been watching events unfold in the world, with the intention of understanding the big picture. I struggle to grasp these events in order to be better informed. This edition of Common Ground is dedicated...