margonaut.com
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April 2004
Wednesday, April 28, 2004Vancouver IslandI have been having some amazing adventures here on Vancouver Island this week. I don't have time to write about them in detail today, but I've seen scenery that literally took my breath away with beauty, and clearcuts that broke my heart...    posted @ 01:31 PM PDT Monday, April 26, 2004taste of the futureI have been thinking of moving to the West Coast for awhile, but now that I'm here I'm feeling ready to actually do it. The logistics of it all are fairly overwhelming, but day by day I know I can make it happen. There will always be struggles in life, but I might as well experience them in a place I want to be if I have the chance! I ran into this quote yesterday, which I agree with 100%.... Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. -- Helen Keller posted @ 12:26 PM PDT Thursday, April 22, 2004springtime in paradiseOne of the things I love about this place is how I keep finding art everywhere I go...   posted @ 10:36 PM PDT Wednesday, April 21, 2004the Sunshine CoastI'm visiting a friend of mine on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. It's a region that is accessed via ferries, as there are no roads across the mountains attaching it to the rest of the mainland road network. But that's not really a hardship, as it makes the place a bit of a universe onto itself. Plus, the view on the ferry trip is nothing short of breathtaking.  I spent the day yesterday in the town of Roberts Creek, which I am now in love with. The bookstore was magical and so were the vistas from the beach.    In the evening, I watched an artist work.  Today I did some hiking to the top of Soames Hill where I saw some cool big trees and an amazing view of the channel.      Wow, eh? posted @ 09:20 PM PDT Tuesday, April 20, 2004back home in the forestThe B.C. coast is definitely the perfect vacation spot for any true treehugger...  posted @ 03:18 PM PDT Monday, April 19, 2004the journey to B.C.I have made it to British Columbia, and am currently staying on Gabriola Island. My journey consisted of several modes of transportation: streetcar, subway, taxi, 3 buses, and 2 ferries. It was a bit of a grueling day, but I made it. The ferry from Vancouver to Nanaimo was stunningly gorgeous. The trees are enormous, the area is surrounded by mountains, and seagulls surf the wind currents along the sides of the boat along the way:   More to come... posted @ 11:14 AM PDT Friday, April 16, 2004TV Turnoff WeekThis year's TV Turnoff Week starts next Monday. I dare you to try it. posted @ 02:34 PM PDT Thursday, April 15, 2004new toyI just got my first digicam, something which is long overdue. I'll be adding photos to the blog regularly from now on! Here's my first shot with it, a picture of Toronto taken on my way home from w*rk yesterday. Still no leaves on the trees yet...  posted @ 10:35 AM PDT Wednesday, April 14, 2004leaving the cityI leave Saturday for a two-week trip to British Columbia, Canada. I have been stuck in grey, wintery downtown Toronto for months now and haven't had a vacation in four years. I especially need a nature fix. I'm going to do a bit of touring around and want to visit a variety of people and places but Carmanah Valley is definitely on my list. Scroll down on this page and look at the 2nd picture! posted @ 11:14 PM PDT Tuesday, April 13, 2004the real welfare cheatsI think it's ridiculous that some people get so upset about "freeloading" single mothers on welfare but don't seem to notice that rich corporations often get away with paying no taxes. Who are the real welfare queens abusing the system here? Free Riders http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10220/view/print As the recently released study by the General Accounting Office (GAO) shows, most corporations not only don't pay their fair share of taxesˆ…they don't pay anything at all. Among foreign companies operating in the U.S., almost three-quarters (73.3 percent) paid absolutely nothing in taxes in 2000, and 88.5 percent paid less than five percent of their U.S. earnings. Among U.S.-based corporations, more than three in five (63 percent) paid nothing. And a remarkable 93.9 percent owed less than five percent of their income. It's a rate that's been slowly growing since 1996, the report found. posted @ 09:45 AM PDT Monday, April 12, 2004anyone can drumThis weekend I went to a community drum circle. About 40 or so drummers were there and though the beats weren't always quite 100% together, it was a fun evening. It was fabulous to see families in attendance, and there's something beautiful about grey-haired neighbors dancing around wildly in bare feet with their pants rolled up... posted @ 02:37 PM PDT Thursday, April 8, 2004planetary Ctrl-Alt-Del?Some people think that we're due for a pole shift. This means that the North and South Poles would move to new places. This would affect the tilt of the Earth which would in turn drastically affect oceans, land masses, and life on Earth. On the web, you can learn how to prepare yourself, find out where the best places to be are when the time comes, and how it relates to the disappearance of Atlantis. I personally can't buy into any of this too deeply, but I find the concept fascinating. Here's a recent news story about the subject: Earth's magnetic field "flip" takes 7,000 years http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/04/08/1081326831006.html?from=storyrhs No one knows what would happen to life on Earth if the "flip" occurred today but the speculation borders on the doomsday. Many aspects of life today would be literally turned upside down, both for humans, given our dependence on magnets for navigation, and for migrating animals which use an inner compass. We would also be more exposed to deadly busts of solar radiation, from which we are normally protected by Earth's magnetic field. And the loss of that shield would cause solar particles to smash into the upper atmosphere, warming it and potentially causing wrenching climate change. There was a scare in 2002 after French geophysicist Gauthier Hulot discovered a weakening of Earth's magnetic field near the poles, which could be interpreted as an early sign that a "flip" is near. Polarity reversals "seem to occur randomly in time," says University of Washington scientist Ronald Merrill. The shortest interval between "flips" is between 20,000 and 30,000 years, the longest a mighty 50 million years. posted @ 02:05 PM PDT Wednesday, April 7, 2004it's a free country?The freedom to protest is one of the most important parts of the First Amendment. Unfortunately, this right is being chiseled. Don't like it? You must be a terrorist! Oakland Cops Under U.N.'s Watchful Eye http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0406-13.htm Firing on peaceful demonstrators. Illegal searches of protest organizers. Interrogating protesters about their political and religions affiliations. It's not Uzbekistan. It's the United States, and it's pretty scary. posted @ 11:48 AM PDT Tuesday, April 6, 2004small scale victory over GMOsThere is a lot of controversy surrounding genetically modified foods. They haven't been adequately tested and most people don't want to be guinea pigs. However, companies who make money creating new life forms and patenting them want you to think that GMOs increase yields and "feed the world" even though hunger has more to do with politics than anything else. A California county stood up to the GMO giants and won. This isn't enough to protect everyone, but it's a definite start. The Mendocino Rebellion http://www.jimhightower.com/air/read.asp?id=11333 The good folks of Mendocino County, California, took the lead, proposing a March 2nd ballot initiative, Measure H, a ballot initiative to ban all GMO crops and animals from being raised in their county. It was supported not only by consumers and environmentalists, but also by local merchants, farmers, and wineries. The pro frankenfood forces were led by the bucolic-sounding CropLife America. Who? It's a lobbying and political front funded by (I'm sure you've guessed) Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Bayer, and the other multibillion-dollar biotechies. These outsiders dumped half-a-million bucks iinto their campaignˆˆwhich is a ton of cash in a county with only 47,000 people. The corporate opponents also resorted to all sorts of campaign nastiness, including sending their lawyers to try to censure the ballot language, disguising the source of their funding, and using negative push polls. CropLife outspent the local proponents of Measure H by seven to one. But, as campaign spearhead Els Cooperrider put it, "They had the money, we had the people." And the people poured it on, winning by a sweeping 12-point margin. posted @ 02:55 PM PDT Monday, April 5, 2004country music that does not suckLast night I went to see Neko Case and The Sadies at Lee's Palace in Toronto. Neko is one of my musical heroes, as I love her voice and the delicious way she mixes influences of country, bluegrass, and rock. She also has a fabulous sexy redhead goddess thing going... They were recording an album during the show, and though the startovers and excessive tuning sessions disrupted the momentum of the performance a bit, the music was amazing and I look forward to adding another of her albums to my collection. posted @ 10:15 AM PDT Sunday, April 4, 200404-04-04Despite the news reports and grim stories of death and uglyness the first flowers of spring have come stretching up to the sun blooming on schedule this year like always posted @ 01:06 PM PDT Friday, April 2, 2004talking the talkHere's a story out of Europe that illustrates the fact that "corporate social responsibility" (aka CSR) is generally more about talk and PR than real action... Shell Leads International Business Campaign Against UN Human Rights Norms http://www.corporateeurope.org/norms.html A burning question remains: if Shell has really come so far in embracing human rights, why is the company dedicating resources to a campaign to undermine a UN initiative that would help businesses implement their commitment to responsible business conduct? Is this not the kind of campaign one could expect only from companies lagging behind and from free-riders refusing to adapt to social and environmental concerns? How to explain that it is self-proclaimed CSR frontrunner Shell that is leading this campaign, together with the ICC, which has dozens of other well-known CSR-enthusiastic TNCs as active members? posted @ 02:05 PM PDT |
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