change pretense

There are still plots left at the NEBCA community gardens in North Burnaby. Each veggie plot is $20 dollars per year (tools and mushroom manure provided.) The gardens are situated by the Stoney Creek School at the foot of Burnaby Mountain. If you are interested in getting your hands in the soil, e-mail me at 
westlakes@shaw.ca
There is nothing better that

What: ~soil is a living skin~

When: Saturday, March 24 at 10:00AM

A new big budget documentary is about to hit the market all about Peak Oil called "A Crude Awakening"
Check out the awesome trailer at:
http://www.oilcrashmovie.com/film.html

These days everything is about climate change. But what passes down the wire is so selective. For example, the united nations has determined that raising livestock for food creates more greenhouse gasses than all the cars and trucks in the world combined!! Then there is the issue of animal farts and methane production... All really, really inconvenient truths! But what does Mr. Gore say about this? 

As every day passes I become a little more aware of the challenges we are going to have to face very, very soon. To survive in a post-peak oil/gas environment we need to collectively learn and disseminate knowledge. Indeed, a good portion of this aforementioned knowledge is stuff that my Grandfather's generation took for granted: that's to say, growing vegetables and preserving food by canning, root cellaring, smoking and drying; concerns such as collecting and maintaining a water supply, applying first aid and using herbal lore to heal. Of course, there are rather more dare-I-say "modern" technological issues to grasp too. Things such as harnessing and storing energy from active and passive solar systems (and other renewables.)

FAMILIES FOR THE FUTURE NEEDS YOU!

Families For The Future is a fledgling organization (actually it’s still in the egg) that’s about to burst upon an unsuspecting world and make a major contribution to reducing carbon emissions that cause global warming.

The reason FFF will work is because it’s simple and accessible. It is aimed squarely at middle Canada and middle America, in other words, the big consumers. It’s a grass roots concept with a global vision.

This Sunday, March 18th is our inaugural meeting and we need as many people as possible who believe in this idea to be there. It’s being held at Kensington Community Centre (5175 Dumfries St., Vancouver) starting at 11:30am. (In the Boardroom).

Please make an effort to attend and if you can’t, please pass this along to others whom you think might like to be there.

Thanks!

Andy Vine

Click this link below and see how Vancouver's underbelly is attracting the world's attention. Not quite what the Olympic committe wants the world to see!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6355285.stm
As far as I am concerned, the DTES is where the money for the Olympics should be going. Any claim to the contrary is merely immoral white noise.

I just came across this and found it touched my heart.

Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed two skeletons thought to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old, locked in an embrace.

The pair from the Neolithic period were discovered outside Mantua, about 40km (25 miles) south of Verona.

I stuck this bizarro cartoon on my fridge about 3 years ago. I thought it was hilarious. Back then I assumed that environmental concerns were for "others" to care about. Then one day I woke up to the fact that there is no other. THERE AINT NOBODY HERE  BUT US CHICKENS... Now, I find the cartoon bittersweet at best.

Lordy! Another day, another 'cause du jour." First it was: "We need to save our park and the poor trees therein." Now it is: "We need to set up a fireworks fund; we cannot seem to find a corporation generous enough to fund our roman candle habit!" What's next? "The Bard on the Beach wants to restore a few long lost rhyming couplets. Please give generously!?" I cannot help but feel all this is a case of "fiddling while Vancouver is burning..." In the Downtown Eastside there are vulnerable, dually diagnosed people sleeping beside dumpsters in the freezing cold.

Dear Mr. Hagel,
I just watched your comments on the Iraq resolution on 01.24.07. As a matter arising from the aforementioned broadcast, I want to offer my sincerest thanks: thank you, sir, for being a man of conscience and conviction. You see, I and many other people around the world are having a great deal of trouble holding in our negative emotions over the warrant-less deaths and war-crime grade atrocities your country is currently committing in Iraq. 

A recent blogger has posited the notion that extremism resides within the church in North America. To this end, I believe we need to realign our semantic relationship as regards some of these aforementioned church-goers.  Yes, we often hear about the christian right in the U.S. - especially the ones in the midwestern states. To wit, the intelligent design espousing, homosexual harrasing crowd; those sure-as-hellfire denizens of the homeland who need the added "security"; the oft-flaky demographic that even Cheney - allegedly - calls " the crazies."

Friends, something to lift your spirits!

From: Christopher Flavin: WorldWatch President

BEFORE
There will come a time. Trust me, it will happen. Eventually, you are going to venture out of your fear. And when you do, you know what? You are going to look our human predicament straight in the eye. Suddenly see. Understand.
The universe will nudge you, you can count on that.
As the pink contact lenses fall, you will see that the collapse of our civilisation is imminent. That Hubbert's theory of peak oil is not one that suits the conspiracy moniker. You marvel at the incandescent rainbow arching across the housing bubble - filmy and taught. You cannot help but gasp: "What if, the price on my house drops by 50 percent - like they say it' s going to? Why, in just two years, I could be broke! And then what am I going to do? Especially when the US dollar becomes wothless and no one has real jobs anymore?"

Yes, we have heard these words before, seen them posted, etc. Still, lets reacquaint ourselves with Marianne Williamson's words; let them wash over you and feel their resonance.

I was in the Brentwood Save On Foods today. At the checkout I asked the clerk how many people use their amazing quality (yet inexpensive and sturdy) recycleable shopping bags. "Actually, not many people use them," was the reply. I was shocked.Truly. "Once in a while I see people with them," she continued, rather too matter-of-factly.So I decided to  wait around a while. Indeed, I  watched streams of people loading provisions into plastic. And not one of the bright green bio-degradable bags were to be seen. Okay, here comes the lecture: Wake up folks! The bags are only about $1.49 and they will last you for years. Sure, they do not say "Prada" along the side, but so what? Next time you are in Save On Foods buy a few and keep them in the back of the car. Be in a state of environmental readiness. Buy some and give them away, to your friends, just for the heck of it. Look at it this way: the "Vancouver Sun" has now dropped the 'allleged' when speaking of global warming; and if CanWest Global is waking up to reality, then we really are in deep do-do. So, I reiterate - buy the bags already! What's more, get  Eckhart Tolle's new book. Realize: we do not need more "stuff."  The Wii's, HDTV's, iPod's - whatever. Drop the bling and the inferiority complexes. We are in serious crisis.Think of the children. Think of your son. Your daughter. Your granddaughter. Your favourite nephew, even. The small ones you love so dearly. Now imagine them forty years from now, dying slowly of hunger, or of thirst, or murdered, even, at the hands of bellicose migrants fleeing the rising waters. Now imagine: YOU may be able to alter the course of their future. And yes, a buck and a half is all it costs.

Whew. I have had a week to recover from my Saturday morning at the BodyWorlds exhibit at ScienceWorld, so I feel ready to talk about it.

I cant say I was dying to go in the first place, I just kind of found myself drawn there. In fact I was sort of frightened that it would be really grotesque. I was surprised that when I entered the exhibit, my immediate experience was relief; the bodies didn't seem real at all, they seemed like they were made of resin or plastic or some synthetic substance. My mind had a hard time reconciling the information it was receiving: what I was looking at had, at one time, been living, breathing humans each one with a set of stories, a network of other people who loved them and each one with their own voice.