November 2013

Father of Canada’s natural health movement • Across Canada and beyond, people associated with natural health are sharing the sad news of the loss of Siegfried Gursche, who passed away on October 2. They are also exchanging personal stories of being inspired, mentored and educated by a true pioneer and visionary. And while celebrating the remarkable...

November 2013

by Bruce Mason • Humanity is awakening to the dire straits in which it finds itself. On many fronts, grassroots movements are searching for solutions to myriad, mind-boggling problems and battling corporate greed that is rapidly choking life on the planet. For more than three decades, Common Ground has bucked this tide, informing and engaging our...

November 2013

It’s time for healthcare to wash its hands of Big Pharma’s influence DRUG BUST by Alan Cassels • The people’s briefing note on prescription drugs Charles Delucena Meigs (1792-1869) was a very well regarded American obstetrician with some very strange ideas. He might be best known for saying anaesthesia was not appropriate for women in labour because, he...

November 2013

UNIVERSE WITHIN by Gwen Randall-Young • Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding. – Mahatma Gandhi Anger is a biological response designed to help us protect ourselves in threatening situations. It would be entirely appropriate if someone were trying to steal our wallet or abduct our child. In the wild, the ability of...

November 2013

Mexico bans genetically engineered corn • A federal judge has ordered Mexico’s government departments to immediately “suspend all activities involving the planting of transgenic corn in the country and end the granting of permission for experimental and pilot commercial plantings.” Mexico is the world’s centre of corn diversity. To read about what this...

November 2013

The insider story of transgenic bovine growth hormone by Shiv Chopra, B.V. Sc. & A.H., M.Sc., Ph.D. • The following is derived from his talk “Five Pillars of Food Safety” given at an international conference on Food Safety, Food Security, and GMOs, hosted by Vandana Shiva in New Delhi 2008. It is even more relevant today. In early 1988, while manager...

WILD SALMON WARRIOR NEWS Adam S. Sealey • When it comes to the precarious relationship between wild salmon, farmed salmon and the looming spectre of heavy oil pipelines and super-tankers along BC’s coast, would it surprise you that one of the world’s top 100 richest men, Norwegian born John Fredriksen, is not only the owner of the world’s largest oil...

November 2013

12 reasons I prefer the non-traditional variety by Geoff Olson • Like most people, I have worn a red poppy before and on Remembrance Day, almost as a seasonal reflex. Yet in recent years my enthusiasm for the custom has dimmed, even while my respect for Canadian military veterans has not. The poppy first appeared as a symbol of remembrance of World War 1 in...

November 2013

the Nobel, explosion and aftermath by Bruce Mason • Despite all you have heard and read, Alice Munro didn’t actually win the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. She earned it. There’s a big difference – a pertinent distinction. People win lotteries all the time; all it takes is one ticket and luck to strike like lightning. In marked...

November 2013

READ IT JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass (Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, 2010) reviewed by Ralph Maud • I had been waiting for this book for a long time. It finally answered, to my satisfaction, the big questions about John F. Kennedy’s assassination on November 22, 1963. The best we had to...

November 2013

The new ‘urgency’ of Remembrance by Bruce Mason • Hopefully, as you read this, you will pause at some point to remember those who helped make the freedom to read, write, speak, vote – and other precious gifts of our fortunate lives – possible. Gifts that are too often taken for granted, in virtually every breath and day beyond that short silence that...

November 2013

SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki • Following Japan’s devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, fear spread about risks of leaked radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant… Shunichi Tanaka, head of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, told reporters radioactive water has likely been leaking into the Pacific Ocean since the disaster hit....

November 2013

FILMS WORTH WATCHING by Robert Alstead • Retiring VIFF artistic director Alan Franey said he was amazed only four 35-mm films screened at this past fest. Two years ago, he never expected digital projection to be adopted so quickly. Technology is also fast reshaping the way films are funded. Crowdfunding sites such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter, which launched a...