Common Ground September 2018 by Common Ground Magazine Canada

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Healing Products, compares to water that is tumbling down a waterfall— Bellicon Rebounder: healthy, safe andit fun! if you can capture a glass and drink it, you feel invigorated. “Our tap water is dead. It sits in a holding tank and is then forced through old he philosophy at Triangle Healing Products is: You will never regret buying assembled individually tested, German-made quality. Handpipes inand order to get intotheour homes.Bellicon Structured water is the most impressive thing Rebounder is an example of that quality. I have found, after four decades in the business,” says Diane. So much more than the mini trampoline it appears to be, the Bellicon Rebounder is the result of extensiveNatural research byAction an engineer, a metallurgist, lymphologists, Water units are easy to use in your shower, under your sink, in and kinesiologists. Together they created a rebounder that not only gives very your garden or at your house’s water main inlet. The most popular is the handeffective lymphatic drainage, but also generates a profoundly life-giving electro magnetic field whenheld used.portable Simply stated,unit. users find that the up andyour downwater move- into the unit, where it tumbles through Simply pour ment—more like toe raises than jumping—will trigger every cell in the body into geometrically-designed balls, becoming structured along the way, mimicking the life-producing mode, effectively opening up the lymphatic system. Triangle Healing Products owner Diane confirms, “It is one the healthiestThe and safest wayRegan water moves in aofwaterfall. water itself is the only thing that moves— things one can do.” there are no mechanical parts and Available in five different weight classes, up to 440nothing pounds, the to replace. Bellicon Rebounder also comes When water is “structured” in this with folding or screw-in legs to allow you to easily roll itall away way, its “negative memories” are between uses. A stabilizing support erased, allowing it to return to its natural bar is available for those with balance issues, andstate an accompaof perfect balance. Anything unsupnying workout DVD will get you portive to life (such as chloramine) becomes started. Diane invites you to come to the store and trybenign, one out. its harmful effects neutralized, While you are there, check out and all beneficial mineral activity is the Urban Cultivator. “People who like having their enhanced own garden and more easily absorbed. indoors year round, and those The Sedona Food Dehydrator, the highest Positive effects are numerous. Structured who like fresh greens, are fans of quality, most versatile food dehydrator the Urban Cultivator,” says Diane. water prevents and removes corrosion you can buy. And it’s quiet! And with the option of either a of pipes; improves crop and garden built-in model that will fit under Triangle Healing Products your counter in a dishwasher growth;size coffee tastes better; cut flowers 770 Spruce Avenue, Victoria, BC slot or a standalone model that There are 638 muscles in the human body last longer; pets and livestock are healthier; 250-370-1818 • www.trianglehealing.com is available with a variety of coun- and bouncing on a Bellicon® rebounder engages of them. People find tertops, you will beand able to grow fish tanks are all cleaner. high quality herbs and microthat they drink more water yet make greens year round in your own kitchen. And, you are in control—no pesticides, no chemicals and no waste.trips to the bathroom. This is because fewer If you are looking for a smaller investment, consider the Freshlife 3000 to grow structured water is properly absorbed by fresh sprouts on demand. This easy to use model has an automatic watering system and will fit into a corner your kitchen. the ofcells within your body, making it a Your fresh sprouts or greens can be used to make fresh juice from your new truly effective hydrator. Athletes love it. Slowstar Slow Juicer and Mincer, another quality product available at Triangle. Simple to use and with aDiane small footprint on your counter, Slowstar rapidly cuts invites you to the visit Triangle

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Helping people attain optimum health

iane Regan, owner of Triangle Healing Products, researches alternative health and then she markets cutting-edge products to help people attain optimum health. The Swiss-made IQAir HealthPro Plus is one such product. IQAir has received more #1 product reviews than any other air purifier on the market. It is endorsed by the American Lung Association, trusted by hospitals (the only one powerful enough to be used in the SARS outbreak), clinically proven as effective for allergic asthma and is 100 percent ozone-free. The filters are not cleaned—they are replaced. Diane says, “So many air cleaners make a lot of noise and they just move the air. This one really cleans the air.” She gets emails from customers who tell her that someone in the family is breathing better for the first time. Diane reminds us that both air and water quality play vital roles in our every day well-being. For a simple and effective means of achieving balanced water, the Kenrico Forever Alkaline Water Stick Purifier is a “magic wand that lasts forever.” Place this stick into your water bottle, thermos or water pitcher in the fridge, and it will transform regular water into alkaline water. Triangle also offers Natural Action Water units, which will transform tap water into energized pH-balanced water. This maintenance-free water structuring system works without chemicals, filters, salts, electricity or magnets. You will find that you use less soap when washing; that coffee and juices taste better; flowers last longer; and pets and fish tanks are healthier. Part of maintaining optimum health is finding a way to detoxify and rejuvenate in order to deal with every day stresses in life. “People don’t do enough today to create a good sweat,” states Diane. Radiant Health Saunas are a new generation of infrared saunas, designed to help you detox; relieve chronic pain Clockwise from top: Kenrico Water Stick; conditions; lose weight; and relax, Radiant Health Sauna; IQ Air purifier without exposing you to excess electromagnetic radiation. If your only experience with a sauna is at the gym, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Diane lists the differences in a Radiant Health Sauna: “The air is cooler, you can stay in longer, and you can even read a book.” If you don’t have the space for a sauna, consider an Amethyst Bio-Mat to achieve the same therapeutic benefits. It produces high quality infrared rays by means of super fiber and natural amethyst. One woman bought a Bio-Mat with a gift certificate she had received from work colleagues. When she reported her first good night’s sleep in years, Diane says, “Guess who came in and bought some?” Diane says simply, “The Bio Mat sells itself.” Come in to Triangle for a complementary session in one of their treatment rooms. Watch for the Bellicon Rebounder and the Urban Cultivator to be featured in upcoming issues.

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Global climate action

September 8

We simply cannot

riseforclimate.org

solve the climate

ocal action is leading the way. Be part of the movement that’s ending the era of fossil fuels and building 100% renewable energy for all.

crisis without building

Join a global day of action on September 8 On September 8, riseforclimate.org is planning thousands of rallies in cities and towns around the world to demand our local leaders commit to building a fossil free world that puts people and justice before profits. In city streets, town squares and capital buildings across the world, people will rise up to demand politicians stand with their communities and deliver more than just words. No more stalling, no more delays: it’s time for a fast and fair transition to 100% renewable energy for all. Real climate leadership rises from below. It means power in the hands of people, not corporations. It means economic opportunity for workers and justice and dignity for frontline communities that are the hardest hit by the impacts of the fossil fuel industry and a warming world. This September, cities, states, businesses and civil society from around the world are gathering in California for the Global Climate Action Summit. The Summit has invited every mayor, governor and local leader in the world to make a bold climate commitment to help the world reach the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. We know what those commitments need to achieve: a fast, fair and just transition to 100% renewable energy and an immediate end to new fossil fuel projects. Plan or join an event in your community. If your elected officials commit, your rally can be a celebration. If they fail to act, it’s a chance to hold them accountable. We are at a crossroads. By acting together, we can end the era of fossil fuels and save the climate we all depend on.

is fair, equal and works for all of us.

Rise for Climate graphics by artists worldwide. Clockwise from top left: Mundano, a Brazilian graffiti and street artist from São Paulo. Chela, a Nairobi-based artist specializing in graffiti and fine art. John Hillary Balyejusa a Ugandan poet and cinematographer. Christi Belcourt, a Michif visual artist of Mânitow Sâkahikan ancestry, living in Anishinaabeg territory on Lake Huron.

We believe that the Global Climate Action Summit, being held in California September 12-14, 2018 presents a unique opportunity to pressure local governments and

institutions to raise their ambition and do more for climate action. Every city and local leader has been invited to make a commitment around the summit. continued p.5…

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Why are people mobilizing on September 8? We are at a tipping point; 2020 is a threshold for meeting global targets to tackle the climate crisis. We are fast running out of time to act, but meaningful action from national governments has been slow at best. With climate impacts escalating, we don’t have the luxury to wait to see what bureaucratic negotiations have to offer. We need our local leaders to step up and do everything they can right now to stop the fossil fuel industry and build 100% renewable energy for all.

a new economy that

Contributors: Marie Aspiazu, Janet Currie, David Feinstein, David Ray Griffin, Robert Inchausti, Jeff Jewell, Diana Jewell, Bruce Mason, Mac McLaughlin, Vesanto Melina, Geoff Olson, Gwen Randall-Young, David Suzuki, Elizabeth Woodward

The tragedy of thalidomide Janet Currie

Vote Yes for Proportional Representation Diana Jewell & Jeff Jewell Now is the summer of our disconnect Geoff Olson

Hard to be a saint in the city Robert Inchausti

Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s victory

Advertising & Resource Directory Joseph Roberts | Tel. 604-733-2215 joseph@commonground.ca

Energy Psychology saves a marriage David Feinstein

Sonya Weir | Tel. 778-227-2939 editor@commonground.ca

Wildﬁre smoke and sensory overload Bruce Mason

9/11 unmasked David Ray Griffin & Elizabeth Woodward

Events listings: editor@commonground.ca Classiﬁeds: editor@commonground.ca Publications Mail Agreement No. 40011171 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to Circulation Dept., Head office ISSN No. 0824-0698 Head Ofﬁce Common Ground Publishing Corp. 3152 West 8th Ave. Vancouver, BC V6K 2C3 Reach Common Ground’s great audience Over 200,000 readers per issue. Survey shows 3 - 4 readers/copy, plus online at www.commonground.ca and our Facebook link. 100% owned and operated by Canadians. Published 10 times a year in Canada.

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CULTURE

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Global climate action September 8 riseforclimate.org

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Climate Hell’s public relations “new normal” Justin Trudeau & Bill Morneau ignore climate change caused by burning fossil fuels delivered by pipelines. Media relation handlers discussing the massive forest fire crisis slid a new con in for social acceptance. “In the past we had a forest fire season at the end of summer, but now it’s a year-long fire season... we need to get used to having a year-long forest fire season. Look at California’s out of control forest fires.” What was glaringly missing from the industry commentators was any connection to greenhouse gases, global warming, or climate change. No mention of pipelines and burning fossil fuels. The wealthy energy companies buy huge ads and train “news outlets” to not bite the hand that feeds. Petroleum industry’s rhetoric pollutes both media and politics. Fossil fuel apologists could say “Fires don’t cause forest fire, forests do.” Blame it on the victims. No mention that pipelines are highways for fossil fuels that create heat and CO2 greenhouse gas which in turn throws a blanket over the planet locking in the sun’s rays heating up the planet to tinder temperatures. Then lightening strikes. Hey, it’s the New Normal. Get used to it stupid! No way ! Bruce Cockburn sang “The trouble with normal it always get worse”. With BC’s forests burning the trouble with global warming’s climate change is “It always gets worse”. We need to cool it.

Wireless market update overdue INDEPENDENT MEDIA Marie Aspiazu ENVIRONMENT

Cool solutions for a hothouse planet SCIENCE MATTERS David Suzuki HEALTH

Getting kids to eat their veggies NUTRISPEAK Vesanto Melina PSYCHOLOGY

All in the family UNIVERSE WITHIN Gwen Randall-Young

STARWISE

RESOURCE DIRECTORY

EVENTS

CLASSIFIED

Design bu Kris Kosak

Publisher & Senior Editor - Joseph Roberts Managing Editor - Sonya Weir Accounting - Maggie Si Layout & Production - perubluesky.ca

in every issue

Cover artwork by Jhon Cortés

features

CMCA AUDITED

…Climate action from pg. 3

We think this is an opportunity to set a new bar for climate leadership, drive ambition and close the gap between what justice and science clearly tells us and the achingly slow action by our national governments. Our actions won’t stop with this mobilization; we will keep the pressure on our local, state and national leaders to turn words into deeds for a fossil free world. Every local leader has the power, and a moral obligation to do everything they can to stop the fossil fuel industry. What are we asking for? The bar for real climate leadership is simple: public, actionable commitments to a fast and fair transition to a fossil free world, powered by 100% renewable energy for all. We can’t keep powering our lives with dirty fuels from the last century. It’s time to repower our communities with clean, renewable energy from the sun, earth, wind and water. We need every local government and institution to commit to building 100% renewable energy and stopping new dirty energy projects in their community. Anything less than that is out of line with what science and justice demand. Global Climate Action Summit September 12-14 The Global Climate Action Summit is a gathering of mayors and local governments, business and civil society in San Francisco September 12-14, 2018. Its stated goal is to showcase climate action taking place around the world

and inspire deeper commitments from each other and from national governments. It will be the largest gathering of its kind and we believe it’s an opportunity to pressure local leaders to step up and do much more to stop the fossil fuel industry and build 100% renewable energy for all. But this summit needs to be about more than just words. We need communities, cities, regions, governments, businesses, institutions and places of worship to significantly increase their ambitions and go beyond the Paris agreement to close the gap left by slow national action. But time is running out; the time for false solutions is over. We need a global, just transition away from fossil fuels. Who is organizing Rise for Climate Action? Rise for Climate Action is a global moment organized by hundreds of local leaders and dozens of partners. It’s coordinated by a global steering group in conjunction with our global and national partners. See the full list of groups involved at https://riseforclimate.org/#partners Every individual action is different, but most are organized by local groups who are leading the way for climate action in their communities. You can host an action in your community; register it at riseforclimate.org If your organization would like to support Rise For Climate Action, contact the steering group via https://airtable. com/shrw9mDCGNB13AC6U What about climate justice? Climate change is both a result of and a cause of injustice. We simply cannot solve the climate crisis

without building a new economy that is fair, equal and works for all of us. The weight of the climate crisis falls on those who have the least to do with perpetuating it, including indigenous communities, frontline communities in vulnerable countries, low income communities of colour and poor communities who are bearing the brunt of fossil fuel extraction, overburdened with unsafe and unfair levels of exposure to pollution and on the frontlines of the climate crisis. A fast and fair transition away from fossil fuels to a renewable energy economy must protect the most vulnerable communities, including where that shift immediately impacts people and their city or state. Workers must be truly heard by companies and governments working together to develop employment plans that include training, support and, if appropriate, re-skilling of workers. The shift away from fossil fuels is urgent and it must happen without harming some of the most vulnerable people. Add your organization at: https://airtable.com/shrw9mDCGNB13AC6U To see all global actions happening on September 8: Check out the action map at https://riseforclimate.org/#map Get text updates and event logistics: Text RiseCA to 83224 j

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The tragedy of thalidomide Big Pharma’s deceptive tactics continue today

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source photo © Zatletic / montage by Tom Voydh

by Janet Currie

ecently, I came across an article in the Sunday Times about how Germany has reneged on a decades-old agreement to pay for the health needs of 465 surviving British victims of the drug thalidomide. These adults, now between 55-65, were born with severe birth defects after their mothers used the drug for morning sickness during the first three months of their pregnancies. As thalidomide victims age, their health needs become more serious, complex and costly. Their parents, if still alive, are elderly. In many cases, these parents have borne the brunt of their children’s care and are no longer able to do so. In 1956, thalidomide was synthesized, marketed and sold by Chemie Grunenthal, a West German drug company that had an unsavoury past. Two of its founders had been prominent Nazis and a number of its scientists had carried out drug experimentation in German labor camps. In the 1950s and 1960s, thalidomide was sold in 46 different countries, including Canada, under a wide variety of trade names including Contergan, Kavadon, Distaval and Talimol (in Canada). Thalidomide was described as

a “wonder drug” and was said to cure insomnia, eliminate pain and headaches and reduce nausea in early pregnancy (an unapproved or “off-label” use). In Germany, it became the second best-selling drug after aspirin, partly because it was cheap and available without a prescription. Over 700,000 people were using it on a regular basis. Parents gave it to their children to sedate them and it earned the name of “West Germany’s babysitter.” Grunenthal marketed thalidomide by showing peaceful nature scenes and suggesting the drug could combat work stress. Over 24,000 babies born to mothers worldwide who were prescribed thalidomide during the first three months of pregnancy were victims of a variety of serious deformities, including misshapen, rudimentary or deformed limbs and hands and feet, deafness, sight problems, (including blindness) and defects of the heart, kidneys, reproductive and digestive systems. At least 123,000 other babies affected by thalidomide were stillborn or the women miscarried. The greatest number of victims were from Germany (6,000). There were about 200 victims in Canada, but the actual number is unknown

because record-keeping at the time was poor. In Canada, legal battles over victim identification and compensation exist to this day. Thalidomide has the dubious title of being the largest global man-made drug disaster. Sales of the drug did not begin in Canada until the drug was approved in April 1961. However, in 1959, the company was already providing free samples of thalidomide to Canadian doctors to give to their patients. At the time, there were no Canadian laws that regulated the distribution of free samples by doctors. Doctors who agreed to distribute the drug were called “clinical investigators” and the company used these relationships to build brand loyalty. Similar methods to build brand loyalty to specific drugs among physicians exist to this day. Canadian mothers who received thalidomide through free samples were never given prescription records and, because of this, victims were often ineligible for compensation. Thalidomide was never approved in the US due to the efforts of Canadianborn pharmacologist Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey. She had just been appointed as a medical reviewer by the US Food and Drug Administration and one of the first drugs she was given to approve was thalidomide because it was considered to be “an easy file.” The US company licensed to sell the drug was so confident the drug would be approved that it had already started a huge promotional campaign. But Kelsey refused to approve the drug because the company did not provide satisfactory clinical evidence on its toxicity. When the company learned it had to resubmit its application, there was enormous pressure exerted on the FDA and on Kelsey. The young scientist was called “nitpicking, stubborn, unreasonable and obstructionist.” And many of the attacks were gender-related. By the time the company’s re-application was reviewed, reports were already appearing in the British Medical Journal about the drug causing nerve damage in adults. It was never approved. Kelsey saved thousands of babies from the effects of thalidomide and became a national hero. But even though

thalidomide was never approved in the US, the company gave 20,000 free samples to doctors to give to patients. Fortunately, only a few of these patients were pregnant and there were only about 17 victims.

ɶ In 1956, thalidomide was synthesized, marketed and sold by Chemie Grunenthal, a West German drug company that had an unsavoury past. Two of its founders had been prominent Nazis and a number of its scientists had carried out drug experimentation in German labor camps. Chemie Grunenthal told the public and patients that thalidomide was completely safe and non-toxic to fetuses. However, in a subsequent seven-year trial in Germany, the company said it never tested the effects of the drug on fetuses because that wasn’t common practice at the time. This was later shown to be untrue; the effects of prescribing drugs to pregnant women had been researched since the 1940s. Results from this trial also found evidence that when the links between thalidomide and nerve damage were discovered by the Grunenthal, it gave out false information and hushed up any internal knowledge it had about the drug’s risks. It also came to light that, by the time the BMJ published information about the drug’s toxicity, Grunenthal had already received hundreds of reports of

serious side effects. This report concluded that, since the drug was so profitable, the company wanted to keep it on the market for as long as possible. The first documented thalidomide victim was identified in 1956. Ironically, it was an employee of Grunenthal, who received it before the drug was publicly sold. After increasing evidence that the drug was causing deaths and serious malformations in babies, the company withdrew it from the West German market on November 27, 1961. UK and Australia withdrew it a short time later. Canada, however, did not withdraw the drug until March 1962, a full three months after the manufacturer had withdrawn it in Germany and well after its adverse effects were known. With only a few exceptions, the rights and needs of thalidomide victims and their families in most countries, including Canada, were ignored or delayed. The first compensation package for victims by the Canadian government was in the 1990s when the government distributed lump sum payments of $52,00082,000 to 109 victims. In 2015, after pressure from the Thalidomide Victims Association, the Con-

servative government added a one-time $125,000 lump sum payment with a yearly pension depending on the level of disability. However, the requirements to claim this support were so onerous that many thalidomide victims were ineligible. Parents (now elderly) were required to produce doctors’ records from the 1950s or have a sworn affidavit from a doctor practising at that time! In the 2018 budget, the current Liberal government agreed to expand the eligibility for thalidomide assistance. However, the attitude of many countries and health regulators seemed to be to wait it out until the majority of victims and their caregivers had died. Perhaps this also explains why it took 50 years (until 2012) for Grunenthal to issue an official apology about the harms thalidomide had caused. Although it occurred almost 60 years ago, the thalidomide tragedy reflects many aspects of our troublesome relationship with pharmaceutical companies and health regulators that remain relevant to this day, including how drug companies sometimes hide, ignore or minimize serious adverse drug reactions, how the promotion of drugs to doctors

and the public sometimes exaggerates benefits and downplays risks, the problems of using drugs for unapproved uses, how the withdrawal of unsafe drugs is delayed to maximize profit and how efforts to hold drug companies accountable for the damage they do are frequently inadequate and unjust. The stories of drugs like Vioxx, an arthritis pain medication withdrawn from the market after it caused heart attacks and strokes, or Prepulsid, a drug used off-label that caused deaths due to heart arrhythmias and was kept on the Canadian market after its risks were known, are two recent examples of some of these problems. Thalidomide reminds us that, even though drugs are often helpful and can be life-saving, pharmaceutical companies are private corporations that want to get through the drug approval process as quickly as possible so they can market and sell their products to the widest audience possible for as long as they can. We need to rely on our own healthy skepticism rather than relying on Health Canada to ensure the drugs we use are necessary, effective and safe. In terms of Health Canada, this means better and

more transparent ways of monitoring drug safety and taking unsafe drugs off the market in a timely way. j Resources Documentaries and web-based information on thalidomide: • Thalidomide: how men who blighted lives of thousands evaded justice www.theguardian.com/society/2014/ nov/14/-sp-thalidomide-pill-howevaded-justice • Canadian documentary on the forgotten thalidomide children: www.youtube. com/watch?v=uIwvCLGrREw • The story of Vanessa Young, who died because an unsafe drug wasn’t taken off the market in time by Health Canada: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=17hHFLmQsj4 Janet Currie is a writer, policy analyst and researcher. She works in the fields of justice and health and has a specific interest in medication (its use, safety and effectiveness). She is completing a PhD on offlabel prescribing at UBC. While she cannot answer specific health concerns, if you have comments about the article, please contact her at note123@shaw.ca

SEP TEMBER 2 018

Vote Yes for ProRep - it’s about power We the People vs the FPTP System

e will win the Referendum on Proportional Representation by focusing on the paramount Question #1: do you want a new proportional representative (ProRep) electoral process. Winning the vote for ProRep, BC will be the first province to free itself from Canada’s colonial era First Past The Post (FPTP) winner-takes-all voting system. British Columbia will become the real standard for democracy and inspire the rest of Canada. When you really think about it, who wants to keep a disproportional electoral system. The stakes for liberty could not be higher. Either the people finally win an honest voting system, or the prevailing disproportionate FPTP System continues to control our lives, run by the major parties political powerbrokers, on behalf of their patrons and corporate lobbyists. Most people think BC’s upcoming mail-in ballet referendum is about voting systems. But it’s really about political power and control. It’s about more fairly sharing power. It’s people-centred democracy vs the preservation of the old divide-and-dominate colonial ‘Sys-

by Jeff & Diana Jewell

tem’. The two old electable parties, and their patrons are the power-brokers behind the NO campaign. They love their crony voting system (FPTP) which provides unfair advantage and power. It’s way easier for corporations and their lobbyists to do backroom political deals with a quasi-dictatorship under FPTP fake majority, than with an open, transparent ProRep government. Question #1 will determine the future of democracy in Canada that’s how important voting Yes for ProRep is and what BC’s Referendum on ProRep is really all about. The government received over 40 submissions from ProRep advocacy organizations making very clear and specific recommendations: A) The referendum should have one simple question—not requiring massive knowledge of ProRep details, to avoid distracting voters or suppressing participation. [Fair Vote Canada BC: https:// engage.gov.bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/271/2018/01/ FVC-BC-Submission-2018-01-23.pdf] “We recommend what some have called a “mandate question” that is precise enough to ensure that voters know what they are voting for but avoids drawing vot-

ers into the arcane technicalities of PR voting systems.” [Fair Voting BC: https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/ uploads/sites/271/2018/03/Fair-Voting-BC.pdf] “Ballot Question: The ballot should include a specific question requesting a public mandate to adopt proportional voting that is linked to a transparent public process to choose a specific proportional system.” B) Only ‘open party list’ forms of ProRep are acceptable .[Fair Voting BC: https://engage.gov.bc.ca/app/ uploads/sites/271/2018/03/Fair-Voting-BC.pdf] “Closed party lists…British Columbians have expressed no interest in voting systems in which political parties have the power to place candidates in favoured positions on a list such that those closest to the top are highly likely to be elected regardless of whether or not voters specifically select them. … We strongly recommend that the government explicitly exclude these features”. Why the government ignored both of these recommendations is unknown. Still we the electorate need to take power and just vote for Question #1. Voting Yes for ProRep will be absolutely clear and your ballot will be 100% valid. continued p.11…

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Vesanto Melina and Kristen Yarker

Getting kids to eat their veggies

hile many toddlers and preschoolers aren’t fans of vegetables, thankfully, there are effective, helpful strategies less forceful than the age-old techniques of forcing kids to eat two bites of broccoli or allowing dessert only after they’ve finished their peas. The following techniques will help kids enjoy veggies now and appreciate these nutrition-packed foods when they grow up. Be a veggie-eating role model: Actions speak louder than words. The most impactful technique for getting your child to eat vegetables is to eat them yourself. There are two parts to this advice: 1) Eat vegetables. 2) Eat with your child. Sitting down and eating together sends the subtle, but strong, message that your child is a member of a family that eats vegetables.

The most impactful technique for getting your child to eat vegetables is to eat them yourself.

Vesanto Melina and Kristen Yarker (MSc) are registered dietitians and authors. Get Kristen’s picky eater solution book at www.kristenyarker.com. Vesanto is coauthor (with Claudia Lemay) of Stargold the food fairy: the Plant-Based Edition, www.stargoldfoodfairy.com

Achieve the accreditation of Certified Nutritional Practitioner (CNP) Qualify for the professional designation of Registered Orthomolecular Health Practitionar (ROHP) Full & Part-time Programs Professional Co-op Placement Continuing Education Student Clinic

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Repeat, repeat, repeat: We learn to like new foods through repeated exposure. It can feel like a waste of time, money and food to prepare something your child doesn’t eat. But don’t stop offering it. View it as exposure therapy. Studies show that kids need between 10-30 exposures before they eat a food. We’re also big believers in the word “yet.” If your child says, “Yuck. I’m not eating that,” respond along these lines: “It’s okay that you don’t like it yet. One day, you might like it.” Prepare vegetables in different ways: Foods prepared in different ways can net very different results. For example, imagine the difference in taste and texture of raw carrot sticks, raw, grated carrots, steamed carrots or carrot-parsnip mash. Often, children will enjoy a food prepared in one manner, but not in another. If your child has rejected a food, don’t rule out serving that food in a different way. Hiding vegetables: While on the topic of offering veggies with different preparation methods, you may be wondering if it’s okay to hide vegetables in other foods. The answer is a qualified “yes.” A study showed that kids who are served foods containing hidden vegetables do eat more servings of vegetables. But, if you choose to use this technique, there are two important aspects to using it correctly. First: Be sure to also offer obvious veggies. You may know there is butternut squash hidden in the mac and cheese and beets in the chocolate cake, but if you don’t also serve some broccoli on the side of that mac and cheese, your child might learn that they only need to eat mac and cheese and cake. Even if your child doesn’t take a single bite of the broccoli, you are role modelling balanced meals. Second: Don’t deny that a veggie is an ingredient. I’m not saying you need to share a list of ingredients, but if your child asks you, “what’s this?” don’t lie. Pretty presentation: Toddlers and preschoolers are in a developmental stage where visual input is very important. While we don’t all have to be Michelin-star chefs or Instagram-worthy food stylists, putting a little effort, creativity and fun into how veggies look on the plate can go a long way towards kids being willing to try a food. If you’re drawing a blank tapping into your inner child, look to Instagram, Pinterest or Stargold for inspiration. j

Earn a Diploma in Applied Holistic Nutrition

Now is the summer of our disconnect First they came for Alex Jones, but I wasn’t an alt-right gasbag

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photomontage by Tom Voydh

“I

disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” wrote Evelyn Beatrice Hall in 1906. Not a line you encounter often in today’s culture of snark. I doubt it’s ever graced the message feed of President Twitter Thumbs or brightened the alt-radio rants of his bilious, bellowing advocate, Alex Jones. Or decorated placards of protestors wanting University of Toronto professor Jordan Peterson packed off to a gulag in Sudbury. Speaking of Alex Jones, his online portal InfoWars got the boot this August from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms. “InfoWars is the tip of a giant iceberg of hate and lies that uses sites like Facebook and YouTube to tear our nation apart. These companies must do more than take down one website. The survival of our democracy depends on it, “ said Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut. Twitter’s on it. In August, the social media platform suspended numerous accounts associated with the Proud Boys, a right-wing group represented at last year’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and have turfed others of a similar stripe. Hooray, right? Hang on. I don’t feel for flagged confederates, and I was never won over by Alex Jones’ foghorn freak-outs about “Pizzagate,” Hollywood Illuminati, and government putting chemicals in juice boxes to turn children gay. It’s all well and good when the mike is grabbed from someone you reject. But what about when it’s from someone you endorse?

ɶɶ A sweep is underway online, taking out alternative voices from both ends of the political spectrum. Social media accounts of leftist activists are being scrubbed across Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and other platforms. A sweep is underway online, taking out alternative voices from both ends of the political spectrum. Social media accounts of leftist activists are being scrubbed across Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and other platforms. BDS supporters and feminist videobloggers are as much fair game as white supremicists.

The recent Twitter purge included Scott Horton, the new editorial director of antiwar.com. Aussie leftist blogger Caitlin Johnstone was also banned by the bluebird of hypertext (and then unbanned after a backlash from followers) for “abusing” US senator John McCain. Brian Feldman of New York Magazine argues the vector for this pattern is no further than your iPhone. “While Facebook and YouTube and Spotify can all cite hate speech or policy infractions as their reasoning publicly, the unspoken reason is that to not follow Apple’s lead could get their own apps booted from the App Store. Federal law shields platforms from responsibility for what users post; Apple’s policies don’t.” The mission creep of policed speech is likely to move the online world closer to the manufactured consent that’s a signature of traditional, plutocrat-controlled media. As MIT Media critic Chomsky observed, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum...” So don’t applaud the InfoWars implosion too enthusiastically. As one anonymous online commentator put it with devastating precision, the lesson the left should take from the Jones Affair “is that if you’re organizing on social media platforms you’re building movement on a trapdoor that will open beneath your feet the moment you become a threat.” (Take note, pipeline protestors organizing through FaceSpook.) Meanwhile, President Trump continues to demean the NYT, Washington Post, CNN et al as “fake news.” Even a stopped clock is right twice a day: one recent example of a thoroughly debunked mainstream story is the chemical gas attack in Douma Syria, attributed to Assad’s forces. Conversely, the journals above call out Trump-endorsing media organizations like Breitbart and Fox News for trafficking in “alt-facts.” And again, hardly without reason.

by Geoff Olson

The result is a convenient binary in people’s minds of genuine versus bogus news organizations, with opposing sides screaming ‘fake’ and demanding censorship. (In an August poll, 43 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they believed “the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behaviour.”) So we can hardly lay all the moves for restricted speech – from university “social justice warriors” to Republican and Democratic Congressthings to the Troller-in-Chief – on the doorstep of Apple. This is a much bigger story than Tim Cook’s bottom line. My ‘aha’ moment came with notice of European publishers’ effort to censor a Canadian advocacy group for Internet free speech. “A corporation has issued a “takedown notice,” using overreaching U.S. copyright rules to demand that our Save the Link campaign website be blocked from Google search results… That’s right – they’re trying to censor our efforts to stop censorship,” writes Laura Tribe at OpenMedia. In recent weeks, according to Tribe, “dozens of freespeech advocates, journalists, legal academics, and other experts have been the target of similar harassing takedown notices – all aimed at shutting down debate about free speech online.” The moves to curb free speech are suddenly coming in force from government and corporate bodies on both sides of the Atlantic – a pattern that may confound even the staunchest of coincidence theorists. Is this just the wider zeitgeist of “I disapprove of what you say, and I will defend to your demise my right to silence you,” or a pan-global, top-down effort to corral free speech on the Internet for the sake of profits and/or social control? Facebook banned the leftist Latin America news site Telesur without explanation, and recently decreed a partnership with the shady Atlantic Council to fight “disinformation” on its platform. Zuckerberg’s pet panopticon is reportedly giving users a reputation score, rating them on their trustworthiness (shades of China’s Orwellian “Sesame Credit”). “In a corporatist system of government, wherein government power and corporate power are not separated in any meaningful way, corporate censorship is state censorship,” writes the Twitter-banned-andunbanned Caitlin Johnstone. With many websurfers focused on a giant blimp going down in flames – Alex Jones – the smoke has conveniently shrouded smaller lights going out. Oh, the humanity, indeed. j mwiseguise@yahoo.com

Universe Within Gwen Randall-Young

PSYCHOLOGY

All in the family Sometimes, problems don’t require a solution to solve them; instead, they require maturity to outgrow them. – Steve Maraboli

s a therapist, I have seen virtually every kind of conflict that can happen in families. Sometimes, a family can resolve the conflicts and move on, but more often it seems an undercurrent is always there and can flare up at any time. While all relationships can be complicated, it is more often the case in families. This is because a conflict between two family members generally affects everyone in the family. Family members have long histories together. When old wounds are triggered, it is likely because they were never resolved in the first place.

Patterns are laid down by the age of seven. Unconscious patterns can be handed down for generations.

Gwen Randall-Young is an author and psychotherapist in private practice. To read more articles or to order books, “Deep Powerful Change” hypnosis MP3s or MP3s for Creating Effective Relationships, visit www.gwen.ca or check out her Facebook inspirational page.

So who’s behind the NO campaign, and what interests do they represent? The official NO campaign is led by a former NDP strategist/ lobbyist, a former BC Liberal cabinet member, and a former senior bureaucrat. While this may appear as an odd coalition of partisan political interests, they’re all loyal servants of the ‘System’. Their mission is to keep power with FPTP – even defending it against peoples’ democratic interests. The No side will run a FUD campaign to maximize public Fears, Uncertainties and Doubts about ProRep. Having a second Question on the ballot is a gift to the FUD campaign. Did the “party back-channel powers” invent a referendum format that appears to be neutral BUT is secretly designed to loose? Remember this referendum is about power and those who presently control the power don’t plan to share it more equitably, more proportionately with us the electorate. Forewarned is forearmed. By voting Yes we will overcome No’s fear tactics and bring in a fair voting system. Here’s why ‘We the People’ should vote for ProRep to replace FPTP: • Most Canadians recognize that our FPTP voting system produces distorted results that are unfair to many if not most voters, candidates and political parties. • FPTP usually gives the winner not always the party with the most votes a ‘false majority’ government, with a disproportionate 100% of the power based on a majority of seats (i.e. with FPTP Trump wons with a minority of the vote). In BC typically only 40% voteshare from the 60% of citizens who still have faith in the old FPTP system make the effort to vote. So FPTP routinely gives us quasi-dictatorships only supported by about 25% of the vote. We can do better. • Because votes for losing candidates are ‘wasted’ (having no impact on the balance of power in the legislature), many voters are coerced into ‘strategic voting’ (for the ‘lesser of evils’). This results in the ‘two-party’ system, where any number of parties can run but only two have any chance of forming government. • Hence, under FPTP voters aren’t really free to vote their conscience. Any ‘third party’ is accused of playing spoiler role that interferes with the main contest between the two dominant parties. Remember First Past the Post history based on elite’s horse racing where the

first horse past the post got it all. FPTP condemns elections to be a two-way horse race where one horse (political party) leaves all others in the dust. We the people want a fair sharing of power. Not like Ontario’s recent election where Doug Ford got 40% of the vote and took 100% of the power with a fake majority. In BC’s last 17 majority government 16 were fake majorities, only one was real. We deserve better! In summary, FPTP lacks electoral justice, due to its many flaws: ‘false majority’ dictatorships; ‘wrong winner’ elections; ‘blowout’ elections; ‘wasted votes’ (about half of all votes) and ‘strategic voting’ (about one-third); ‘safe seats’ (about two-thirds); gerrymandering etc. All such systemic defects of FPTP are alleviated by ProRep. In conclusion, we advise voters to not sweat trying to understand the government’s three choices on Queston 2 – none are fully specified anyway. Just vote YES for ProRep on Question #1,leave Question #2 blank, and mail-in your ballot. If a majority votes for ProRep and none of the government’s alternatives receives a majority, the government will need to initiate a transparent and non-partisan process to select the best ProRep alternative for BC – as was recommended by the majority of proportional representative advocates in the first place! Share this referendum analysis and voting strategy with your friends. ‘We the People’ will win this referendum for ProRep by putting the first question first and skip the unnecessary second question all together. It’s just clutter. Be clear. We want proportional representation where every vote counts and more people participate in democracy. NOTES: Question #2 is optional, deliberately confusing, and should simply be ignored by the 99.99% of us who aren’t voting system wonks. Question #2 appears to be a sincere invitation for public participation in the democratic process. Yet the opposite is true, as it draws an apolitical electorate into the political swamp of voting system technicalities and unknown consequences. j Jeff and Diana Jewell are long-time activists, with a special commitment to Electoral Reform. Please send any questions or comments to: info@ElectoralJusticeNow.ca www.ElectoralJusticeNow.ca

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Further, it is within families that we learn how to communicate, how conflict is handled and how others are treated. The family is the crucible in which patterns of behaviour are formed. Those patterns are laid down by the age of seven. Unconscious patterns can be handed down for generations. If insight and the ability to communicate or solve problems is limited in parents, children will grow up thinking that is how to do it in the world. It is sad to think children have the ability to model any kind of behaviour and that they could just as easily model evolved behaviour as they do primitive behaviour. They live what they learn. If a family experiences ongoing conflict, family therapy is a way to provide all members with a more productive way to deal with it. A family may be stuck in blame, criticism and judgement. Effective communication and problem solving skills in relationships are not a standard part of educational training. There are excellent books, websites and workshops available, however, it does take a level of emotional maturity to want to learn a better way. Often, there is anger, hostility and judgment; the goal is not to make it better, but rather to tear down another. Whether it is within the nuclear family or the extended family, it creates dis-ease and polarity. A family may decide they do not like another family member’s partner. They then resort to gossip and put-downs just like junior high girls often do, but junior high girls are children. We need to honestly assess our behaviour and ask ourselves if we are being mean or acting as a bully. Sometimes, people think the object of their disdain and meanness deserves to be treated that way, but if we are retaliating, we are no better than that person. No one can be happy when there is ongoing conflict. And it can be very hard to look at our own role in contributing to the problem, but it does take two. We cannot change anyone else, only ourselves. Most of us are familiar with the concept of taking the high road, but ego will get in the way and ignore that road and we end up taking the low road. That only generates more misery. Instead, it is time to recognize we are not kids anymore and we are not fighting in a sandbox. Maturity means reining-in those ego reactions and modelling a more grown up way of handling life’s challenges. j

…ProRep from pg. 8

Mac McLaughlin

StarWise

ZODIAC

September 2018

t’s Virgo time. What a wonderful sign! Ruled by Ceres, goddess of the harvest, and with planetary ruler Mercury, Virgo is the sign mostly related to health, hygiene, order, organics, systemization, regulation, moderation, humility, cleanliness, wholesomeness and every other thing that has to do with making our world work in a proper and good way. I always think of Virgo to be somewhat like Leo, minus the ego. Whereas Leo loves and needs the attention and aggrandizement to feed their voracious sense of self, Virgo abhors it vehemently. It’s kind of like been there, done that and they’re not really interested in drawing a whole lot of attention to themselves. Having been given the gift of discernment and discrimination, the saying, ‘Virgo cannot see the forest through the trees’ really does fit them well. Thank God they have the gift of analytical observation. Although they are often put down for it, it is a most wonderful gift, wrapped in humility, patience and compassion. Virgo needs to be needed and they are at their best when they are being useful and helpful. Often, they fear rejection and will undersell themselves, even when it is obvious they are excellent at what they do. Many years ago, I gave a talk on karma and metaphysics. Deep into the discussion, a Virgo commented I had spelled the word karma wrong on the blackboard. I had written carma. Well, many of us fell apart laughing about it, but to her, the word was not spelled right. Never mind we were in the deep end of the pool about life, death and reincarnation. In the Virgo mind, the word wasn’t right and had to be corrected, end of story. Painstaking, hardworking and always ready to serve and help is the Virgo way. Yes, they are perfectionists to the T. Of course, if they get it wrong, and get things too convoluted, things can go bad as they did for (Virgo) Andrew Cunanan. He went into a murderous rage when he perceived he had been rejected by designer Versace. So the story goes. Being overly analytical can turn out to be quite the spider’s web to get stuck on. Like Leo, Virgo can manifest tremendous dreams and visions of creative beauty. The mad King Ludwig (Virgo), although very odd and eccentric, designed castles in Bavaria that, to this day, bring a sense of awe and wonderment. Oh, by the way, Virgo is not a wimp, by any means. The undefeated world heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano was a Virgo. Hard punching, in perfect condition and relentless. Yep, a Virgo.

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Mac McLaughlin has been a practising, professional astrologer for more than four decades. His popular Straight Stars column ran in Vancouver’s largest weekly newspaper for 11 years. Email mac@macsstars.com or call 604-731-1109.

A RIES Mar 21 - Apr 19 Money you didn’t know was coming your way could come your way. You may be keenly aware of what you must do in order to bring your health up to par. In essence, it’s time to put it all together, body, mind and soul. What comes may be something you value more than money.

LIBRA Sep 23 - Oct 22 The Libra Full Moon on September 24 occurs one day after the fall Equinox. However we look at it, things look good for you. Lord Venus is in your money house with generous Jupiter close by. The planets are in strong positions urging you to get a move on and work hard towards your goals.

TAURUS Apr 20 - May 21 Children and relationships are key figures now. Maybe it’s about your relationship with your children. Whatever it is, you have an excellent time in which you can heal a lot of wounds that have been festering for a long time. Love and romance loom large on the horizon. Let your love light shine. Give and forgive.

SCORPIO Oct 23 - Nov 21 The two benefic planets, Venus and Jupiter, are in your sign. The urge will be to relax and enjoy the days, which certainly isn’t a bad thing at all. It might pay dividends though to increase your effort towards whatever goals you have in mind. Don’t waste this precious time on frivolous activity.

GEMINI May 22 - Jun 20 You’re on the move and that might be literally. Home, family and real estate are big features now. It’s also time to take a deeper look at any health issues that need your attention. It’s a time of new beginnings and endings. Say goodbye to what was and greet the future with open arms.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 22 - Dec 21 All social activities get a boost especially towards late September and into October. It’s a good time to join up with similar-minded people. Groups and societies and large gatherings are featured. Creative energies are high and romantic energies get a boost. Career potential looks good throughout the month. Your empathy for those less fortunate is strong.

CANCER Jun 21 - Jul 22 A special time has arrived in which you can get a good glimpse into how you affect other people. Actually, it’s a perfect time in which you can make great strides and garner large amounts of love and respect. If you insist on being right and give no concession, you could be in for a fight.

CAPRICORN Dec 22 - Jan 19 As Elvis would say, “There’s a whole lot of shaking going on.” Mars, Saturn and Pluto are visiting Capricorn. Any one of them would be plenty to handle, but with all three, you can bet there’s a lot of changes happening. You may look forward to the process and truly embrace it as well.

LEO Jul 23 - Aug 22 Your solar house of personal values is lit up strongly this month. Everything related to family, home, land and real estate takes on a special shine. Basically, it’s time to get back to the basics of love and practical living, giving and forgiving. Health and attaining a healthy lifestyle will be of interest now.

AQUARIUS Jan 20 - Feb 19 Mars enters Aquarius September 11 and promptly squares off with Uranus. It’s a bit of a hairy astro combination and the remedy is to go slow, measure twice, cut once and don’t forget to duck. Better still, avoid confrontation; as Chuck Norris said, “The best defence is to not offend.” Otherwise, high energy is indicated throughout September and October.

VIRGO Aug 23 - Sep 22 The Virgo New Moon on September 9 heralds a new start in your life. The stars are harmoniously aligned, sweetly so. You can just slide by and enjoy it all or do something special with the energy and go for the gusto. You can party now and pay later or pay now and party later.

PISCES Feb 20 - Mar 20 September is a time of nurturing and nourishing and basically taking good care of yourself. You are well known for caring for everybody else and now it’s time to minister to your own needs. Music and the arts are featured and your dreams may be rich in meaningful symbolism. j

Independent Media Marie Aspiazu

MEDIA

Wireless market update overdue

hy are we stuck paying sky-rocketing bills while Big Telecom’s narrative is all about increased investment and providing quality service? The simple answer is the lack of choice in our wireless market and the well-established dominance of the Big Three – Bell, Telus and Rogers – which have received decades of government subsidies to build out their infrastructure. To better understand how we keep paying some of the highest cell phone bills in the industrialized world, let’s quickly walk through the tragic story of what are known as WiFi First Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs). WiFi-based MVNOs are cell phone providers that primarily rely on a WiFi connection and lease wireless capacity at wholesale rates from other providers that own the infrastructure (in Canada’s case, the Big Three), which allows these MVNOs to resell wireless services to consumers at a discounted price. This is a common model in the US and Europe. Unfortunately, in Canada, things like your home internet, which uses cable, DSL or fibre, it is not mandatory for Big Telecom to provide wholesale access to the smaller guys at a reasonable price. So in the Canadian telecom arena, this practice is more like an act of goodwill and it simply doesn’t happen. The closest we’ve come to these kinds of providers in Canada is an innovative wireless startup called Sugar Mobile, which was using this model before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ruled this setup was not allowed. However, this

is by no means the end of affordable MVNOs in Canada! Here’s how it all went down, where we are now and where to next: December 2015: Sugar Mobile was founded by Iristel (majority shareholder of Ice Wireless). It offered unheard of cell phone plans starting at $19 CAD per month. Ice Wireless, its parent company, owns networks in Canada’s North and has reciprocal roaming agreements with the Big Telecoms. Sugar relied on these agreements to allow its customers to roam on Rogers’ networks outside of Ice Wireless’ area of coverage. However, Rogers wasn’t too happy about thatm as you can imagine.

This lack of affordability and choice could all be solved with enough political will. February 2016: Ice Wireless files a complaint with the CRTC arguing Rogers is planning on blocking it and other MVNOs from roaming on its network. Rogers argues it didn’t have a roaming agreement with Sugar. February 2016: The CRTC sticks to its original decision from 2015, arguing that mandatory wholesale access would hinder investments from companies building their own networks.The dispute between Rogers and Sugar Mobile continues. March 2017: The CRTC rules Sugar Mobile can no longer access Rogers’ roaming network to provide service. June 2017: The Sugar Mobile decision is kicked back to the CRTC for reconsideration, by order of Min-

ister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains. March 2018: The CRTC shuts the door on MVNOs yet again, rejecting Minister Bains’ order to revisit the Sugar Mobile Decision, instead asking the Big Three to put forward proposals for a low cost, data-only plan as a means to provide an entry-level data plan for the market. April 2018: The Big Three propose their outrageous low cost data plans of only 500 MB/$30 per month and the public begins to weigh in on these plans with their frustrations. Fall 2018: A CRTC decision on low cost data plans is expected. In the meantime, this lack of affordability and choice could all be solved with enough political will. Minister Bains already has the authority to bring more choice to our cell phone market and to lower costs by just mandating full MVNO access at fair rates. OpenMedia has recently launched a new tool that shows you how little you get for your money compared to elsewhere in the world and lets you call Minister Bains directly and ask him to take action. See https:// lowermycellbill.ca/ The goal: If we can get thousands of people to use this tool and call Minister Bains, his office will be flooded and he will not be able to further delay action. Spread the word by sharing the tool on Facebook, Twitter or emailing your friends the link. j Marie Aspiazu is a Digital Campaigner and Social Media Specialist for OpenMedia, a non-profit organization that works to keep the internet open, affordable, and surveillance-free.

the haven

Come Alive

1 800 222 9211 x1 haven.ca/ComeAlive

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Experience

The Beats reconsidered I am Buddha come back in the form of Shakespeare for the sake of poor Jesus Christ and Nietzsche. – Jack Kerouac

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ɶ To be beat is to live a spiritual (i.e. cultural) life in a civilization increasingly deaf to its own ideals – a civilization gaining in worldly power, but losing its character and its soul.

by Robert Inchausti

have tried many times to share my admiration for Jack Kerouac with my Catholic and Buddhist friends. But as a rule, his reputation as a know-nothing Bohemian so precedes him that they simply refuse to take me (or him) seriously. And I can understand their skepticism. His most famous novels are written in a self-invented “bop-spontaneous” prose – a jazz inspired meld of improvisation and stream of consciousness. And the stories he tells are largely autobiographical accounts of his interactions with various social misfits and outsiders. So when Kerouac says, “I have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion,” it is easy to take him at his word. Yet serious readers should not be so easily fooled. Kerouac’s Dionysian revels and Dostoyevskian reflections lend weight to his work rather than detract from it. And there other are reasons to consider Kerouac among the most important American spiritual writers of the last half of the twentieth century. Not only did he refashion American Transcendentalism through the modern idioms of jazz, haiku, and memoir, but he also inspired a small army of imitators and disciples who carried his literary project far beyond anything he could have accomplished on his own. Ethan Hawke (the actor) once said that Kerouac “made it cool to be a thinking person seeking a spiritual experience.” And there is no doubt that the writers Kerouac knew and inspired – iconic figures like Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gary Snyder, and Michael McClure – did just that. And taken together, they have produced one of the most profound bodies of spiritually oriented literature since the American Renaissance – with Jack playing “Emerson” to Ginsberg’s “Whitman” and Snyder’s “Thoreau.” At the heart of this re-visioning of American Letters resides Oswald Spengler’s eccentric, magisterial opus The Decline of the West – a book that greatly influenced both Kerouac and Burroughs and provided the vocabulary and conceptual framework for very idea of a Beat Generation. Central to Spengler’s thesis is the notion that all cultures begin as “cults” – spiritual enterprises designed to convert the “zoological struggle for survival” into a pursuit of various high ideals. In India, for example, life is organized around the transformation of the interior life; whereas in the modern West, it is organized around taming nature to produce the greatest good of the greatest number. As cultures age, Spengler observed, they inevitably decline into “civilizations,” which means that the mechanical operation of their institutions come

to replace the idealistic zeal that fueled their collective endeavors in the first place. Altruism gives way to the imperatives of practical life, and over time everyday existence becomes less and less of a heroic adventure and more and more of an “irreligious” routine. This “decline” can go on for hundreds and hundreds of years. In fact, according to Spengler, most civilizations spend the greater part of their lifespans “in decline.” And yet, Spengler also noted that a “second religiosity” often emerges in the twilight of waning civilizations when the old symbols take on a new meaning and renewed vitality. These cultural revivals are normally short-lived, but during them a more inclusive interpretation of the founding tradition takes place that serves as a preview of the next great world civilization waiting in the wings of human history. A good example of this can be seen during the Axial Age when the Buddha refurbished what had become a rigid Hindu religious system into a method for universal Enlightenment and when Elijah united the twelve tribes of Israel around a more inclusive, visionary interpretation of the Mosaic Covenant. The Beats came of age just as the United States – in order to win a world war against its fascist enemies – had reorganized itself into a security state. The ensuing Korean War only increased this move away from democratic values, and as a result, the Beats found themselves, like every American coming of age in the late forties and early fifties, caught between a new mass mediated consumer society and their own aspirations for a life of personal freedom and self-expression. As Norman Mailer put it in The White Negro, post-war America was rapidly dividing itself “between the hip and the square,” between the status-seeking “Mad Men” in their grey flannel suits and Allen Ginsberg’s Angel headed hipsters seeking “the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.” Spengler called these idealistic culture-bearers living on the margins of civilization “The Fellaheen.” Originally a derogatory term used to describe displaced Egyptians living within the Roman Empire, the fellaheen represented a more inclusive interpretation of the prevailing cultural myths, images, and memes than the conventions of the prevailing civilization allowed. And although Spengler himself was an arch-conservative who saw the fellaheen as essentially powerless retrogrades doomed to fail, the Beats admired their sincerity and the deep piety that “filled their wakingconsciousness with the naive belief that there [was] some sort of mystic constitution to reality.” When Allen Ginsberg began Howl with those memorable lines, “I have seen the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness,” he was speaking for those fellaheen idealists not yet recognized

was Hafiz or Scientology – sometimes even LSD. But whatever their interests of the moment, these mystics without portfolio were never – as charged – spiritually promiscuous. For the most part, they took each one of their enthusiasms seriously as a separate and distinct experiment in living. In Hard to be a Saint in the City, many of the Beats’ most compelling ideas are arranged in an order that gives significant shape to what first must have appeared to be a disheveled attempt to wrestle with an angel. I have proceeded entirely inductively – collecting passages and then sorting them into categories to reveal (I hope) hitherto unseen patterns. I have juxtaposed different yet similar Beat voices – one against another – to bring the old works together in a new way so that readers can discern on their own the deeper connections and the values of their ideas. This update is necessary because the Beat achievement, although popularized, has also been defamed and distorted. A moribund nostalgia threatens to recast these serious religious writers into icons of pop culture hedonism. And yet when we read what they wrote in their own words, we can see, perhaps for the very first time, what they truly stood for: an important moment in Western cultural evolution when a declining civilization got a peek at its own impending Apocalypse and took an important step back from the looming abyss. Sixty years ago, we were not quite yet ready to see what we now can no longer ignore – the world as Buddha glimpsed it from under the Bodhi tree and Jesus saw it from Golgotha – a burning, power-driven world run by bureaucrats and oligarchs increasingly indifferent to its saints and the highest ideals of their very own culture. It is hard to be a saint in the city because the city no longer has any use for its saints. And yet, Kerouac believed that The Diamond Sutra and The Sermon on the Mount were signaling to us through the flames. This book begins with a diagnosis of the spirit of our age and then proceeds to a defense of those inclusive, universal human values forged in the forty thousand years before written history when our genome and all the world’s mythologies first came into being. j From Hard to Be a Saint in the City by Robert Inchausti © 2017 by Robert Inchausti. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com Robert Inchausti is the author of Thomas Merton’s American Prophecy, Subversive Orthodoxy, and edited The Pocket Thomas Merton and Hard to be a Saint in the City.

Tsleil-Waututh Nation applauds fCA decision quashing Kinder Morgan pipeline approvals

fter more than 10 months of waiting for a decision, in late August, the Federal Court of Appeal agreed with the Tsleil-Waututh Nation’s view that the federal government’s consultation regarding the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline was inadequate, and marine shipping was illegally excluded from review. The court revoked the federal government’s permits for the project. “We are very pleased to see the historic decision made today by the Federal Court of Appeal,” said Chief Maureen Thomas of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation. “We went into consultations with the federal government with open hearts and minds, but sadly the process could best be described as window dressing. We had a strong sense that the decision had already made before we even sat down. It was clear from the timing of the decision that they did not meaningfully consider much of the information we provided. The court has agreed with us on every issue. “We are hopeful that this can be a turning point for recognition of Indigenous rights and respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It is an opportunity to work together with First Nations communities on better projects and other opportunities we can all be proud to support. Now that Canada has to make a new, fresh decision with an open mind, we are confident that they will see that this project does not make sense for the economy, the climate, the environment, for First Nations and everyone who is impacted by this project.” The three-member panel of the Federal Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with Tsleil-Waututh that the NEB and federal Cabinet approval illegally excluded a marine shipping review under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, and that the constitutional duty to consult, accommodate and seek consent “fell well below the mark set by the Supreme Court of Canada.” The court’s decision came over five years after the TsleilWaututh Nation first formally rejected the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project after undertaking an exhaustive risk assessment grounded in their own unextinguished laws. “For many years, we have made it clear that this project represented a risk too great to accept and the rejection of these permits today is a big win for everyone who loves this coast and this inlet” said Chief Maureen Thomas said Chief Thomas.j Source: Tsleil-Waututh Nation, twnation.ca

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as a progressive force in contemporary history – a fellaheen avant-garde, as it were, whose story had already been told in six unpublished novels by Jack Kerouac. The Beats saw themselves as living in the middle of two very different historical epochs. On the one hand, they spoke for a new, international spiritual community coming into being and on the other, for an old-fashioned candor and tenderness seeking expression within the new regime. When Kerouac admitted that, “I had nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion,” he wasn’t being nihilistic – just offering an honest, “hip” characterization of what it felt like to be caught between cultural idealism and “civilized” order. As one might surmise, not many grasped the Spengler meta-historical perspective behind the Beats’ revolt, and so the intellectual sources of their work remained mysterious – even to many of the Beats themselves. The Buddha taught there were two sides to the truth: one absolute and the other relative – one religious and the other political. Little wonder then that, for the Beats, Buddhism became the new realism, poetry a tool for enhanced perception, science a critique of ideology, and Spengler’s meta-history their founding metaphysic. Literature was always to be something more than literature, something more akin to scripture. Kerouac once even described it as the Vedic yoga of the West having more in common with the sacrament of confession than the rhetoric of Aristotle. To be beat is to live a spiritual (i.e. cultural) life in a civilization increasingly deaf to its own ideals – a civilization gaining in worldly power, but losing its character and its soul. By defending altruism over cynicism, the Beats reanimated hope and turned popular novels from escapist entertainments into memoirs of personal liberation and poetry from the exquisite expression of stoic sentiments into popular prophecy and public declamation. Over time, they became less focused on reconstituting American democracy and turned towards articulating an explicitly syncretic universal religious vision informed by the latest breakthroughs in ecology, biology and anthropology. Jack Kerouac’s original devotion to order, tenderness, and piety was carried into the future by Gary Snyder’s Practice of the Wild and Michael McClure’s Meat Science Essays. And so, to speak of the spiritual vision of the Beats today is to speak of an international amalgam of values and practices religious in nature, improvisational in form, and democratic in aspiration. The Beats roamed their own interior landscapes as freely as they hitchhiked rides across the country. Sometimes, the Buddha captured their imagination, sometimes it was Saint John of the Cross or Wilhelm Reich. Other times it

How Energy Psychology saved a marriage by David feinstein, PhD

hen June was 24, her high school sweetheart and then husband was killed in a traffic accident, the victim of a drunk driver. The loss was horrendous. She was depressed and almost inconsolable for the next two years. Eventually, however, she returned to school, started a new career, and was able to rebuild a meaningful life. At age 31, she met Ralph and after dealing with her sense of being disloyal to her first husband, she allowed herself to fall deeply in love with him. They married and had two sons.

While energy psychology is still a controversial therapeutic approach, more than 30 peer-reviewed clinical studies show it to be effective with a wide range of conditions.

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June’s worry about their well being became problematic. If Ralph was late coming home from work, she would be a bundle of frayed nerves. It was very difficult for her to allow either of their sons to part from her sight, and their going to school was agony for her. She would ruminate about all the terrible things that might happen. Earlier in their relationship, Ralph had been very patient with June when her worry was primarily about him. He understood the loss she had suffered. But now her worry was stifling the boys as they became more independent and he insisted they attend therapy.

After taking a thorough history in the first session, it became clear to me that while June had received grief counselling following her husband’s death and had healed in many important ways, the shock of learning of his death still reverberated within her in nightmarish proportions. As difficult as it might be, the treatment had to revisit that moment and I was going to use a method called “energy psychology,” which involves stimulating acupuncture points by tapping on them. Fortunately, when working with a devastating memory using this tapping technique, you don’t need to relive it, only activate it slightly. So June’s first round of tapping simply used the words “that horrible day.” Her rating of how distressing it was to recall the memory went from a 10 to a seven after a few rounds of tapping, but then other losses came into her mind. We focused on each until the emotional charge had dissipated. In the next session, we returned to the moment June learned of her first husband’s death. It had come back up to a nine and was quickly lowered to a six after a bit of tapping, again using the reminder phrase “that horrible day.” At this point, the approach was refined. First June was asked to describe what she was doing just prior to learning of her husband’s death and to tell the story of that day. She had already done enough work that she was able to manage this, not without tears, but without being totally overwhelmed. Then we took the account she had just presented in stages, using language that was more specific than had been used in the ear-

lier tapping. We began with her shopping in a grocery store prior to receiving the call on her cell phone. That was not hard to neutralize. Then hearing the cell phone ring and taking it out of her purse. She could recall exactly what aisle she was in. The distress triggered by this memory was neutralized within a couple of rounds of tapping. Then hearing the doctor identify himself and say the awful words, “I’m afraid your husband has been in an accident.” Everything that followed was addressed in segments, from the anxious drive to the hospital to learning he had died to insisting on seeing his disfigured body to the long and terrible night of being home alone after it was all over. Because overwhelming emotion is not compatible with the signals sent to the brain during tapping, the signals turn off the emotion without distorting the memory. The memory becomes manageable and stops intruding into other areas of one’s life. This emotional processing and healing changes the person’s psychic landscape. From there, it was relatively easy to identify several of the most recent times that June had been obsessively worried about Ralph or one of the boys and to tap each down to zero. While energy psychology is still a controversial therapeutic approach, more than 30 peer-reviewed clinical studies show it to be effective with a wide range of conditions and that it is one of the fastest and most powerful therapies around. j Adapted from The Energies of Love by Donna Eden and David feinstein (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2014).

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Reflexology Training Courses Reflexology is taught as an intuitive healing art for professional practice, or, for use with friends and family. Courses provide structure that allows you to develop your own intuitive sense in your reflexology practice. We have a holistic orientation. Holistic Reflexology: An Introduction -

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Reflexology: The Core of Natural Healing Reflexology is practiced as a potent, safe way to free you from stress and tension, and relieve your pain and discomfort. Stimulation of your foot, hand or ear reflexes will deeply relax you to revitalize your whole body, and thereby facilitate natural healing. Let us tailormake your session to address your unique

health concerns and preferences. Our holistic approach can assist you to address the source of your disease or discomfort, and/or, simply indulge in blissful relaxation. Our sessions enable you to embrace your natural health and vitality. Reflexology safely complements all other therapies. One-hour private sessions: $75, or 5/$325.

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PSYCHOLOGY, THERAPY & COUNSELLING

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them to connect with their higher selves and to reclaim joy and personal power in their lives. Lorraine has returned to Vancouver after 10 years living, studying and working on Kauai and Maui. 778-331-8860 transformance@mac.com www.creativetransformations.ca

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Cool solutions for a hothouse planet ing warming and its consequences at an even greater rate than we’re currently experiencing. Beyond a 2 C increase, tipping elements could be activated, “raising the temperature further to activate other tipping elements in a domino-like cascade that could take the Earth System to even higher temperatures.” That would pose “severe risks for health, economies, political stability (especially for the most climate vulnerable) and ultimately, the habitability of the planet for humans.”

Changes in demographics, consumption, behaviour, attitudes, education, institutions and socially embedded technologies are all important. A well-known feedback loop occurs when polar and glacial ice melt, exposing dark land and water, which absorb more heat than ice and snow, accelerating warming and melting more ice. The research is profoundly disturbing. But the media coverage often missed or downplayed a crucial element: the solutions the report outlines toward a “stabilized Earth pathway.” This “would require deep cuts in greenhouse

gas emissions, protection and enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, efforts to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, possibly solar radiation management and adaptation to unavoidable impacts of the warming already occurring.” Because our current socioeconomic system is “based on high-carbon economic growth and exploitative resource use,” the study’s authors argue that “changes in demographics, consumption, behaviour, attitudes, education, institutions and socially embedded technologies are all important.” They also warn, “if a planetary threshold is crossed toward the Hothouse Earth pathway, accessing the Stabilized Earth pathway would become very difficult no matter what actions human societies might take.” In other words, we have to act now. The choices we make over the next decade will determine our future. We’ve already locked into substantial warming and are seeing the consequences, but it’s not yet too late to change course. We must insist that politicians represent the interests of citizens rather than corporations. We must stand up to the fossil fuel industry and climate science deniers.j David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation senior editor Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

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n the midst of worldwide record heat, devastating wildfires, droughts, refugee crises and torrential rains and flooding, some particular disturbing headlines have hit the news: “Planet at risk of heading towards irreversible ‘hothouse’ conditions” the CBC announced. Similar headlines appeared in other media outlets. As CBC explained, “Scientists from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the University of Copenhagen, Australian National University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said it is likely that, if a critical threshold is crossed, several tipping points would lead to abrupt change.” The study, “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” confirms global warming has accelerated during the current epoch, when humans have become a driving force in geophysical changes to Earth: “The Anthropocene represents the beginning of a very rapid human-driven trajectory of the Earth System away from the glacial-interglacial limit cycle toward new, hotter climatic conditions and a profoundly different biosphere.” The most troubling part of the research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is its prediction that, beyond a 2 C rise in global temperature above pre-industrial levels, “intrinsic biogeophysical feedbacks in the Earth System” will kick in, accelerat-

Worsening wildfire smoke causes sensory overload A democratic citizen science revolution looms on by Bruce Mason our hazy horizon

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ur so-called leaders are announcing a “new normal” as if we’ve suddenly arrived on a plateau we have to “get used to” living on. That’s as nonsensical as the notion that wildfire smoke choking the planet is a “wake-up call.” We’ve slept through that, hitting the snooze buttons for decades, wilfully ignoring obvious red flag weather extremes, including massive fire tornadoes created by increasingly intense and ubiquitous toxic haze. As our world transforms into a “hot house” and “sixth mass extinction,” knowledge of the unprecedented global wildfire smoke phenomena is like a drop in our endangered oceans. Even our warning alarms, including emergency air alerts, are woefully inadequate, even deceptively faulty. We’re well aware, or should be, that British Columbians have been breathing some of the worst air in the world. The most common attempt to quantify it is the equivalent of smoking between 7 and a full pack of cigarettes a day. For a quarter century, Dr. Michael Mehta has been in the thick of what he refers to as a “continuous, ongoing battle against pollution.” It would be wise to read his warning label for what, without any choice, we’re all breathing: “Wood smoke is 12x more carcinogenic than cigarette smoke, contains 200+ toxic chemicals and releases radionuclides and many heavy metals. People don’t realize that metals, naturally occurring radioactive materials, including polonium and lead and other chemicals, get picked up by plants from soil, air and water and stored in plants. When burned, they are released and also undergo significant transformations during

combustion to form dioxins, PAHs (Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), benzene.” Among many other things, Mehta is a professor (geography and environmental studies with a joint appointment in sociology and anthropology) at Thompson Rivers University and founding director of the international Doctors and Scientists Against Wood-smoke Pollution. He’s installed monitors – 30 in Kamloops, eight on Gabriola Island – which are part of a new, lowcost technological “swarm” of thousands more around the world, making up the PurpleAir network, to provide more detailed air quality data. He’s sharing lifesaving information with a rapidly growing number of eternally grateful people. (See www.purpleair.com/ map#1/25/-30) Mehta reports, “Over the past couple of years, there’s been a ‘mostly’ quiet revolution in air quality monitoring, democratizing it at the community level, often leading to new and sometimes difficult insights.” Using a new generation of laser particle counters to provide measurement, these sensors are easily installed, requiring only a power outlet and WiFi to report in real time to the PurpleAir Map. “When high smoke events occur, people need timely information,” says Mehta. “Hence my emphasis on real-time data and distributed networks. Additionally, not everyone is equally at risk or affected. Averaged government communication is inadequate and somewhat evasive, to say the least.” Using multiple independent sensors in a region determines how air quality varies by elevation, proximity to a pollution source, and other factors. Mehta advises, “Longer periods of pollution at high levels are highly problematic, but spikes of pollution create their own problems. Air pollution has cumulative effects and some may find this summer is worse because of what they were exposed to last summer.” In 2017, in Kamloops, for example, there was a longer duration of continuous wildfire smoke. This sum-

mer, our second consecutive state of emergency, has registered dramatically higher 24-hour averages of PM2.5 (atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers, about three percent of a human hair and easily ingested from the air into lungs and bloodstreams). Meeting WHO standards for it would have the same results as eliminating all cases of lung and breast cancer. Why not do that? I recall former Socred cabinet minister, Phil Gaglardi, before the life-saving ban of beehive burners, a previous deadly ‘fact of life in BC’ making an all-tootypical comment: “That’s the smell of money.” Follow that smell, as fossil fools seek to justify the status quo and discredit Mehta and other fully aware and informed experts and climate activists.

ɶɶ British Columbians have been breathing some of the worst air in the world…the equivalent of smoking between 7 and a full pack of cigarettes a day. Surely, by now, we know short-term profit is being valued over long-term sustainability and life itself. We see, smell and breathe wildfire smoke with our physical senses and we know it’s getting much worse by utilizing our sixth sense, intuition. But we won’t or can’t summon the collective common sense to stop the insanity. We have all we need, including the solutions, but continue to swallow the lies of corrupt politicians and complicit media. Swallowing wildfire smoke may help more of us connect the dots and lies and to act in our existential crisis. The truth, now being spoken to power, is coming in. Copious peer-reviewed research, along with ongoing comparisons to satellite images and official data,

prove PurpleAir is bang on, again and again, as governments utilize broken, too-slow risk assessments, akin to setting smoke alarms on delay, activated after the fire has started. “It’s scandalous, farcical, deliberately dishonest, criminal,” Mehta has noted at various times. “Beijing declares “red alert” days when levels hit 150. Real-time air pollution levels in Kamloops and other areas are too often in the 200 range. Even when government monitors (finally) show an hourly average of 166, the Air Quality Health Index is 6 (moderate), when their own formula indicates that it should be 10+ (very high). “It’s an inconvenient truth when smoke problems catch them with their pants down, lagging in advising communities about the risks,” he adds. Officials admit risk depends on sensor location, but in Kamloops, for example, there’s only one government monitor, which typically cost tens of thousands of dollars to purchase, let alone maintain and monitor. “I find it horrifying, and an example of systemic racism, that BC doesn’t have any air quality monitoring in the northwest part of the province, where many First Nation communities reside,” says Mehta, selecting just one of myriad examples of the deep doodoo we are in and being led even deeper. Justin Trudeau is being blinded by smoke as he teeters on his insane, reckless and netless tightrope attempt to balance unlimited economic growth and resource extraction with catastrophic climate implosion. John Hogan babbles nonsensically about a “new normal” while chasing and flogging LNG, which plays a role in ever-increasing wildfires. “All part of a systematic campaign to downplay the risk of forest fires and other sources of wood smoke, during our current era we could call the Pyrocene,” Mehta warns. Like the majority of us, his trust in government has hit rock bottom. But he envisions sensor networks to avoid pollution daily, hourly. In the meantime, since government won’t act, the least it could do is advise us on what masks to wear (which are N95, by the way) and maybe even distribute some to the poor and most vulnerable among us.

Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and GabriolaIsland based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic.

he panel members have approved the following statement of purpose and goal. The purpose of the 9/11 Consensus Panel is to provide the world with a clear statement, based on expert independent opinion, of some of the best evidence opposing the official narrative about 9/11. The goal of the Consensus Panel is to provide a ready source of evidence-based research to any investigation that may be undertaken by the public, the media, academia, or any other investigative body or institution. Their work began in 2011 and took seven years of research to compile this most extensive independent evidence on 9/11 to date. The Procedure Used by the 9/11 Consensus Panel Applying a standard best-evidence consensus model used in science and medicine, the 9/11 Consensus Panel examined a growing number of claims made in the official account of the 9/11 attacks. Each chapter examines an official claim. The chapter is divided into “The Official Account” and “The Best Evidence” about some aspect of the 9/11 attacks. The Official Account especially includes statements by (a) the White House, the FBI, and the Pentagon, usually as conveyed in the mainstream media; (b) statements in reports by U.S. agencies, especially The 9/11 Commission Report and reports by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) about the Twin Towers and WTC 7, and reports by other U.S. agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), unless contradicted by a higher government authority; and (c) reports by the mainstream media, unless corrected by the government. Claim that No Steel Recovered from Building WTC 7, Ch. 15 More than ample evidence shows that NIST’s claim – that no steel from WTC 7 was found – is false. This includes a photo of NIST’s Dr. John Gross examining Swiss cheeseappearing steel from WTC 7 in a scrapyard. By denying this evidence (which was even cited in one of NIST’s own reports), it could claim that there was no evidence that the building had been brought down by explosives. Claim that the Four 9/11 Flights Were Hijacked, Ch. 22 Pilots are trained to “squawk” the universal hijack code (7500) on a transponder if they receive evidence of an attempted hijacking, thereby notifying FAA controllers on the ground. But leading newspapers and the 9/11 Commission pointed out that FAA controllers were not notified. A CNN story said that pilots are trained to send the hijack code “if possible.” But entering the code takes only

by David Ray Griffin and Elizabeth Woodworth

two or three seconds, whereas it took hijackers, according to the official story, more than 30 seconds to break into the pilots’ cabin of Flight 93. The fact that not one of the eight pilots performed this required action casts serious doubt on the hijacker story. The Claim That No Information Could be Obtained from the Black Boxes of any of the Four 9/11 Planes, Ch. 25: Given the strong official evidence contradicting the extraordinary claims that: • the two sets of black boxes from the World Trade Center were never found and that the Cockpit Voice Recorder from the Pentagon Flight American Airlines 77 was too damaged to be readable; • that the flight data file for AA 77 was made before the flight data recorder (FDR) itself was reportedly found; • that the official report contradicted the public stories about where the black boxes were found (by 300 feet); • and given the failure to provide the required serial numbers for any of the allegedly retrieved black boxes; therefore, the official account’s claims about black boxes from the 9/11 planes cannot be trusted. j David Ray Griffin is professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University and School of Theology, director of the Center for Process Studies, and authour of 40-some books, including Unprecedented: *Can Civilization Survive the CO2 Crisis? And, most recently, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World,and The American Trajectory: Divine or Demonic? Elizabeth Woodworth is a professional sciences librarian and has written books and articles in the fields of nuclear disarmament, climate change, and 9/11. Her “What Can I Do?” Citizen Strategies for Nuclear Disarmament was carried by UN bookstores and discussed in Canadian Parliament. The 9/11 Consensus Panel began work in 2011 and produced 51 points of “best evidence” refuting the official claims. The Panel includes people from the fields of physics, chemistry, structural engineering, aeronautical engineering, piloting, airplane crash investigation, medicine, religion, psychology, and journalism. Every piece of evidence by the 9/11 Consensus Panel is documented, and there are 875 references and a very detailed index. consensus911@gmail.com available on amazon: www.amazon.ca/11-Unmasked-International-Review-Investigation/dp/1623719747/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=15357516 65&sr=1-1&keywords=9%2F11+unmasked

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For more information visit: https://woodsmokepollution.org/phone/ index.html http://gabriolacleanair.ca/ https://www.purpleair.com/ j

The purpose & goal of the recent 9/11 Consensus Panel

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SEP 8 Join a Global Day of Action: “Rise for Climate to Build a Fossil-free World.” Real climate leadership rises from the grassroots up. Local action is leading the way. Be part of the worldwide movement that’s ending the era of fossil fuels and building 100% renewable energy for all. Find an event at: https://riseforclimate.org/#map

SEP 14 & 15 Dan Kovalik, anti-war activist, labour rights lawyer and peace activist, gives two talks: Sept. 14: 7:30PM, Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, 800 E. Broadway. Sept 15: 2PM, Strawberry Hill Public Library in Surrey. Co-sponsored by the Vancouver Peace Council, the Fraser Valley Peace Council and member groups of the Canadian Peace Congress.

SEP 9 21st Annual BC Walk to Cure Huntington Disease. Registration 10AM. Walk 11AM, BBQ 12 Noon. Olympic Village Square, Vancouver. Registration/ Info at www.hscevents.ca/BCWalk

SEP 14-16 Indian Head Massage Weekend Workshop with Susan Allen. Course fee: $395 + GST. Pacific Institute of Reflexology (604) 875-8818, www.pacificreflexology.com

Kevin Taft Democracy Tour Kevin Taft Tour | Oil’s Deep State & the Capture of Canadian Democracy kevintafttour.ca The Takeover of our Democracy: Who’s Really in Charge? Kevin Taft draws on his personal experience as leader of the official opposition in the Alberta legislature to expose the deep influence that big oil has on government decision making. Talks by Kevin Taft followed by a discussion & Q&A. All events: 7-9pm. Doors 6:30pm. More details at kevintafttour.ca SEP 9 North Shore Unitarian Church, 370 Mathers Ave. West Vancouver. Host: Deanna Lewis. SEP 10 SFU Downtown, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. SEP 11 Meaden Hall in Ganges, 120 Blain Road, Salt Spring Island, BC Host: Ronald Wright. SEP 12 First Metropolitan United Church, 932 Balmoral Road, Victoria. Host: Elizabeth May. SEP 13 Native Sons Hall, 360 Cliffe Avenue, Courtenay, BC. Host: Damien Gillis.

SEP 20 Join the Caravan! Journey to your life’s mission. Daniel Goodenough reads from The Caravan of Remembering: Banyen Books, 6:15-8:30PM. http://caravanofremembering.com SEP 22-23 John Lockley: Leopard Warrior. Tickets/info at banyen.com, 604-737-8858. SEPT 24 & OCT 24 Experience a free Shamanic Power Initiation at an Open House in Vancouver. Dunbar/17th Ave, 7:30PM. Hosted by Institute of Shamanic Medicine. RSVP: info@shamanicmedicine.ca, www.shamanicmedicine.ca SEP 27-OCT 12 The Vancouver International film festival (VIFF) is one of the largest film festivals in North America. Tickets info at viff.org SEP 28-30 Basic Holistic foot Reflexology Certificate Weekend Course. $395+ GST. Pacific Institute of Reflexology, (604) 875-8818, (604) 875-8818, chrisshirley@pacificreflexology.com OCT 4 Winston & Saklikar: Listening to the Bees: Free talk at Banyen, 6:30-8PM. 3608 W. 4th Ave., Vancouver. banyen.com, 604-737-8858. OCT 4 (4 weekly classes) Learn to Meditate: A series of 4 FREE weekly classes beginning Thurs. Oct 4, 7PM, Kits House, 2305 W. 7th Ave. To register, call 604-704-2720. As the classes form a structured series, kindly do not begin attending after the second class. Offered as a free community service by the Sri Chinmoy Centre. OCT 12-14 Basic Holistic Hand Reflexology Certificate Weekend. 70-hour certificate course. $395 + GST. Pacific Institute of Reflexology (604) 875-8818, www.pacificreflexology.com

OCT 13-16 Live Blood Analysis full training certification Including Quantum Hematology in South-Surrey by Dr.Diane Blackburn, DNM, PhD. www.Livebloodcourse.com 604-531-3480.

OCT 14 Stephen Jenkinson: “Come of Age” – 10AM-4PM, tickets/info at banyen.com, 604-737-8858. OCT 20-21 T & T Spiritual & Wellness Connections present Spiritual & Wellness Event. Capitol Hill Community Hall, 361 S. Howard Ave., Burnaby BC, (corner of Hastings St. & Howard Ave.). Seminars, readers, energy healers & vendors plus a special event on Saturday evening. For more info, please visit: fair.tandtvancouver.com OCT 27-28 Vancouver Health Show: Canada Place, East Facility, Hall B. Sat 10-6PM, Sun 10-5PM. Featuring Cannabis writer & journalist Amanda Siebert & Michael Losier. Sat: Law of Attraction. Sun: Emotion Code. Tickets: $15. Seniors/Military $10. Under 12 free. (Present display ad on pg 2 & get 2 for the price of one admission.) NOV 10 free Open House hosted by the Institute of Holistic Nutrition (Vancouver): Course/Career opportunities, exhibits, talks & more. 9AM-5PM, 604 West Broadway, Ste. 300. 604-558-4000. Lecture descriptions at www.instituteofholisticnutrition.com DEC 1-2 Become a Certified Life Coach or Executive Coach: Century Plaza Hotel & Spa, Vancouver. This 2-day intensive will teach you everything you need to know to succeed. Only Certified Coaches Federation graduates earn the esteemed Certified Life Coach Practitioner designations. Register at 866-455-2155 or 403-389-1190 or www.certifiedcoachesfederation.com ONGOING Karma and Business Karma: Find out how it all works. Actions and intentions. For workshop dates, contact Teya France, teyafrance@shaw.ca, 604-765-7571. Past Lives & Spiritual Regressions with Rifa Hodgson, CCHT. The first certified & practising Life Between Lives therapist in Canada. Offices: West Vancouver and Gibsons. 1-888-606-8463, www.lifebetweenlives.ca Two Past Life Regressions for the price of one. Treatment that’s affordable, fast and effective. Clinical hypnosis. Extended health coverage. With Louise Evans, sparkhypnotherapy.com 604-773-5595 or 604-522-0257. THURSDAYS Women’s Sufi Circle: A Contemporary Study of Ancient Wisdom. A time to connect with your heart, revive your spiritual being, discover hope and understand the purpose of your life. Thursdays 7-8:30PM. False Creek, Vancouver. RSVP nadia@pureintentions.net

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6-Weekend Shamanic Power Initiations Program Vancouver, Calgary & Edmonton Programs begin fall 2018

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What is Democracy? dir. Astra Taylor

Astra Taylor’s philosophical documentary reflects on a word we too often take for granted while spanning millennia and continents: from ancient Athens’ groundbreaking experiment in self-government to capitalism’s roots in medieval Italy; from modern-day Greece grappling with financial collapse to the United States reckoning with its racist past. This urgent film connects the past and the present, the emotional and the intellectual, and the personal and the political in order to provoke and inspire. Proudly presented by

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