As I wrote in my previous post, I'm working with ForestEthics, Greenpeace Canada and Sierra Club of BC to help preserve a vital area of coastal rainforest in BC called the Great Bear Rainforest.

Please sign my petition:http://sites.google.com/site/lastexitforgateway/Home

Hello, Readers --If you are a Vancouver resident who chafes at the lack of affordable housing, you can imagine the hopelessness of my dtes neighbours as nearly half of the barely-affordable housing for low-income people has been wiped out in the past short while, in favour of development.

For those disappointed that SAINTS didn't with the $1000 (but congrats to Working Gear) here's a chance to help anyway.

Update: Blog entry about this event here

The first get together of a new guerrilla gardening group. Come discuss strategies for attack and brainstorm ideas. Bring with you ideas to share such as: your motivations for getting involved, creative ways to provoke interest, nurseries which sell cheap native seeds, locations to target, plant lists for exposed and sunny sites with poor soils…and anything else you can imagine that relates to the cause. The meeting takes place at 1:00pm. For further info email orenATearthtonedDOTnet. To sign up for the event, or to learn more about the group, visit: http://commgardens.meetup.com/56/?gj=sj5. A small meeting fee of $1 per person covers the first month of this meetup’s online posting. An additional cost of $5 will go towards having the event catered with healthy snacks.

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

Dear Group Members,

I want to share my article with you. This is about the link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues. The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

One of the problems with establishing dignity as a fundamental value is that everyone's idea of dignity is different. My friend Bob Fuller has been attempting to define it in the breach as the removal of rankism. Recently, I've been trying to supplement this abstract approach by enumerating specifics. As I jotted down images and ideas, a common theme emerged. I realized that the one thing I needed most to be able to maintain my sense of dignity in life was the ability to preserve my integrity. The idea that I put integrity first explains a lot in my life, and the constant pressure to sacrifice my integrity explains why I never feel like I'm living in dignity. I often feel like I've been asked to choose between integrity and survival: choosing the former threatens my survival, while choosing the latter guarantees my indignity.