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Politics

Garth 21 Mullins 11

Alternatives to Vaccines?

The Driftwood Chronicles Miguel Burr 23

The Single Mother Makeover

Did Some Unknown Intelligence Park Our Moon? Jim Marrs

Free Will In The Age of Neuroscience

Kevin P. Miller 20 4 Ways To Fight Depression Without A Prescription

While We Were Sleeping

Drug Enlightenment?

Adam Elenbaas 28

New Autism Study

Artists and Government Funding

Fishers of Men: Ayahuasca

Leah Webber 23

Jeremy Arney

Walker Morrow 8

David Beattie

Barry R 26 We Won’t Chill Out

Dan Merchant 12

Bruce Macdonald 13

Patrick Borden

Home Births and Midwives are a Growing Trend 25

The 2010 Crop Circle Season

Rail For The Valley

Enjoy the Secret Health Benefits of Chocolate 29

Red Collie

The Left/Right Paradigm is Over

History of Vancouver

Kevin Annett

Matt Berkowitz 7 9 Years After 9/11 Patrick Borden 6 No Justice, No Peace - Update Dan Merchant 5 BC Rail Scandal Trial Robin Mathews 24

Malcom Johnston 11 Reality of Violence

Letters

Ending the Lie, Forever

The Venus Project World Tour

Dear Carole

Dee Nicholson 21

Naomi Wolf

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The Aftershocks of G20

Dr. Eldon Dahl

Vancouver

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The Doctor is In

October 2010

Sid Ishon

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Vancouver

October 2010

We Wont Chill Out

Co-op Radio Tries to Chill The Agora s progressive journalists and activists we expect to get some heat from the establishment’s powerful institutions. We have an equal expectation that other activist groups and progressive institutions will be helpful and sympathetic towards us. Which is why we were surprised when the Agora recently received a legal letter from CFRO Co-op Radio’s lawyers ordering us to cease and desist. Well, sort of. That’s what we thought it said at first glance, yet after careful reading, we realized that the letter had been sent to our email address by Co-op, then made no further direct reference to us, just a generic “Sir/Madam”. What it did do was refer to the content of our recent articles about Kevin Annett and his having been banned from his Hidden from History show and imply that this was “false and defamatory information”. The letter recommends that we “consider seeking legal advice in this matter”. Why didn’t Coop simply phone us up and talk to us? We would have been happy to try and work things out with them. More baffling still is why an institution which draws more than half of its funding base from donations made by Vancouver’s progressive community would act in a way hostile to those values. Progressives who identify with the station because they see it as sharing common values, such as freedom of speech and cooperation, not values represented by lawyers and legal briefs. Co-op’s behaviour seems to be a betrayal of its members. If they were a private corporation they would have every right to refuse to speak to us and refer us to their lawyers. But Co-op Radio describes itself on its website as: “a non-commercial, co-operativelyowned, listener-supported, community radio station [which] is a voice for the voiceless that strives to provide a space for under-represented and marginalized communities.” Hardly corporate. We wonder how many of Co-op’s progressive donators would approve of Co-op shifting towards a lawyer-heavy, corporate culture? We did criticize Co-op in last month’s article about their banning of Kevin Annett from

the station. But what made us feel the article was important was the apparently authoritarian and arbitrary way in which the banning was carried out. After speaking to several volunteers at Co-op – the people whose voices you hear on the radio – I learned that Annett was both loved and hated at the station. But several people expressed their concern about the station management’s lack of transparency in reaching their decision. Readers of last month’s article will remember that his banning was based on an alleged videotape which supposedly shows Annett behaving in an inappropriate way at the station after midnight. Co-op says they have the tape, it is real, but they cannot show it to anyone for privacy reasons. Annett says that if any such tape exists it has been fabricated. Since the authenticity of this tape seems to be so important, we asked Annett to grant us permission to view the alleged videotape so that we might make our own judgement, but he said that they don’t need his permission to disclose the details. Similarly, Co-op has asserted repeatedly that privacy legislation prevents them from allowing us to see the video – even privately after we offered to sign a non-disclosure agreement – yet they refuse to specify what those laws are exactly. In the interest of transparency, we asked that they specify the relevant legal statutes and any relevant case law that apply here so that Co-op members and listeners and Agora readers might decide for themselves if Co-op’s management is behaving appropriately. That might sound like a lot of work for us to expect of them, but in reality, their lawyers should have it already prepared – and it seems safe to assume their lawyers are close at hand. Back to the legal letter that arrived in our mail box. The one addressed to Sir/Madam... but lets assume for the moment that we are intended to see it as addressed to us. The last paragraph of the letter begins: “Any communication of this false and defamatory information including posting the information on the WWW and/or forwarding the information to other individuals will

The legal letter goes on to state that: “you are directed to cease all defamatory comments and notify all of the individuals whom you may have contacted about this matter [we assume that means you, our readers] and inform them the information is false.” One problem with that: to the best of our knowledge, all of the information we published is correct and since Co-op has provided no evidence to the contrary – just a bullying legal letter – we stand by what we have published. be considered as defamatory actions, and all legal options will be considered.” We assume that means we are not supposed to publish any more material about either Co-op Radio or Kevin Annett. However, believing strongly in the right to free speech and the necessity of speaking truth to power, we decided to respond by informing our readers, and especially those who also listen to Co-op (probably the majority of our them!), of Co-op’s actions so that they may judge for themselves. The legal letter goes on to state that: “you are directed to cease all defamatory comments and notify all of the individuals whom you may have contacted about this matter [we assume that means you, our readers] and inform them the information is false.” One problem with that: to the best of our knowledge, all of the information we published is correct and since Co-op has provided no evidence to the contrary – just a bullying legal letter – we stand by what we have published. It’s not like we haven’t asked them for said information. We have sent them several emails including two very detailed letters outlining our position and making specific suggestions for moving forward. We have repeatedly phoned for interviews. During the two weeks prior to publication we phoned daily, but received no response until, with five days to go, we were finally promised a phone interview the next day. Sure enough, when we called she was in a meeting. The next day, after three more calls, we were finally promised that the staff had written us a letter which they were sending us. Need I tell you that it never arrived? This is the sort of brush-off response one expects when calling a corporation or the Prime Minister’s Office. It is so familiar to us as a part of the left-right divide that film maker Michael Moore has been able to make a career out of satirizing it. Somehow, the same behaviour seems inappropriate for an alterna-

tive media outlet which sees itself as belonging to the progressive community. We are still stuck with the question of who exactly this letter was addressed to. Yet it seems obvious to us that the intent was for us to assume that we were being accused, that we might be dragged into court and that the resulting legal proceedings might be costly in time and money. That alone is a fairly vicious thing for one alternative media outlet to do to another. Last time I checked we were supposed to be working towards a better world, not imitating the dog eat dog corporate culture. There is also the imprecision of the accusations. If there are not specific things to avoid, then one must avoid the topic entirely to be safe – effectively, we are being asked by Co-op’s lawyers to self-censure. There is a word for that type of institutional attack on good journalism: libel chill. Okay, that’s two words, but you get the idea. We hope that no one at Co-op sees libel chill as a good thing and that no one there, neither management, nor volunteers, nor members wants to see journalists become afraid to investigate things because they might be sued. We would very much like to discover that Co-op’s current apparent policy of stonewalling other alternative media and promoting libel chill have been the unfortunate result of a few carelessly made decisions and that they are not indicative of what Co-op wishes to do in the future. We would like to make it clear that we would very much like to sit down with Coop for that interview they promised us. Hopefully, a frank and open discussion will move things forward. If not, then Co-op’s members need to be looking forward to their next AGM as an opportunity to replace the current directors. They owe as much to every activist and progressive minded person in this city.

The proverb warns that, “You should not bite the hand that feeds you.” But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself. - Thomas Szasz

Reality of violence by

CONTENT ADVISORY

ost thinking-people will acknowledge denial as absolutely necessary to function in the world today. Perhaps it’s always been a major part of the human condition but it’s water to fish in our glorious modern age. Civilization consumes many renewable resources; dignity, integrity and sanity to name a few, but denial is what facilitates everything else. For proof, just look at the towering wall of lies we’ve built around the issue of violence. Violence is an intrinsic natural process, far older than our concept of time. It has no positive or negative value without the context given by circumstances surrounding it. People must

ists with too y neighbourhood anarch dl en fri ur yo of e on is hing Sid Ishon s turns-on include smas Hi h. alt he od go n ow s retired for many opinions for hi politicians who’ve been ng hi nc pu ly om nd ra reat the state and eets. He lives for the th str r ou h ug ro th d rte ll learn years and walk unesco logic that humanity wi all st ain ag s pe ho d an e of a good exampl s ... . The struggle continue before it destroys itself

assign value to violence, and they invariably do so based on their own prejudices, conscious or otherwise. When the universe was created in a massive explosion of something from nothing, there was of course, nobody around to judge whether this violence was good or bad, it just was. Moving ahead, we can protest the cruelty of nature when predator takes down prey, or when volcanic ash buries entire cities and their inhabitants, but it seems silly to argue about the moral value of this violence. It just is. Philosophers will ply their trade, but what they think, is insignificant compared to such a fundamental property of existence. Gravity for example, serves a function more important than our stupid little opinions about all the people it kills every day. This takes nothing away from the tragedy of

bad luck or the responsibility of human negligence, but gravity itself is beyond such things. Nobody would dispute this but the same is true for violence. So why then, do people make absurd statements like “violence is wrong” or “civilized people don’t use violence”? How are these arguments given the authority they seem to enjoy? The answer is denial. Denial which allows subtle prejudices to creep in. These biases make certain types of violence “legitimate” to the point where society refuses to acknowledge it’s character at all, while at the same time, the media reports how “the public” is outraged by the slightest hint of violence that falls outside the accepted protocols. This is how police and military monopolies on the use of force are rationalized, where-as

the woman who shoots her would-be rapist has committed a crime. She has broken the protocols. The state would much rather she allowed herself to be raped and then report it, delegating to one of their agents. People defending themselves runs too much risk of authority’s legitimacy being called in to question. Stay passive and the professionals will come to save you. (usually they arrive too late and can only clean up the mess) Civilization requires the widespread and sustained application of violence to exist. This violence is externalized as much as possible, preferably overseas so few of us will ever have to look the victims in the eye. But it features prominently on the home front in class conflict, where its run through an extensive normal-

Continued on page 7

October 2010

www.BabylonYoga.com

No Peace: Update

www.Eiriu-Eolas.org www.TheVenusProject.com www.MonikaBlichar.com www.VirtuMortgages.com www.JamesClayton.ca www.FoodLandTheMovie.com JeremyArneysBlog.Wordpress.com www.HiddenFromHistory.org

One Man’s Fight Against Big Pharma and the Health Care System: Justice and Peace One Step Closer.

www.BloodAndIron.ca www.Axiomatica.org www.TheArtOfLoving.ca www.SuperNaturalWoman.com www.RedPillPress.com www.Sott.net www.BeforeItsNews.com www.WhatReallyHappened.com www.Vancouver.Mediacoop.ca www.SubMedia.tv www.TheTyee.ca www.CanadianActionParty.ca www. ReFedBC.com www.NaturalNews.com www.Infowars.com www.PrisonPlanet.com www.CommonDreams.org www.ThePirateBay.com www.atdhe.net www.AliveWater.net www.VigilantCitizen.com www.CanadiansForHealthFreedom.org www.GlobalResearch.ca www.HarmonyProjects. Dragonsuntech.com www.PhysOrg.com www.FairTradeVancouver.ca www.Rabble.ca www.AgoraNews.org

by Dan Merchant he Agora has been following the story of Tim Moorley for the past 3 issues. Last month we reported the growing support from political figures, such as MP for Vancouver South,Ujjal Dosanjh, MP for Vancouver Kingsway Don Davies and, MP for Surrey North Donna Cadman. They all have professed support and sent letters to the B.C. Legislature calling for a public inquiry into Mr. Moorley’s allegations. Mr. Moorley alleges that doctors at Surrey General Hospital faked test results to show that he did not have a hole in his heart. It is believed that Pfizer Pharmaceuticals is putting pressure on doctors in the Fraser Health Authority to refuse him as a patient, and deny him any tests that would show the hole in his heart. Mr. Moorley is the leading plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against Pfizer. In it he alleges that Pfizer put the pain killer Celebrex on the market, knowing that it caused blood clots and had the potential to kill or seriously injure anyone with a patent foramen ovale (PFO.) PFOs occur in about 20% of the population, but usually cause no symptoms, and can only be detected by specialized tests. A PFO allows venous blood (low oxygen count) to enter directly into the arteries, which can increase the risk of deadly blood clots. Pfizer did not warn doctors prescribing Celebrex of this potentially fatal side effect. Mr. Moorley has also filed a lawsuit against the Fraser Health Authority(FHA). Last month he submitted a letter to the judge and FHA lawyers from his previous doctor, Dr. McCuiag. The letter states that in Dr. McQuaig’s opinion, the standard of care was not met in Tim’s case. This letter was the piece of evidence Mr. Moorley needed to move his case forward. To date no response from the FHA and Pfizer’s lawyers has been forthcoming. Mr. Moorley is now one step closer to getting his public enquiry, which will prove once and for all, that the FHA was coerced by Pfizer to deny him adequate treatment, in an effort to protect themselves from a muiltmillion dollar lawsuit.

Ending the Lie, Forever: Massive anti-Pope Protest Rocks London

Hot LinX No Justice, www. Life-Choice.net

Vancouver

by Kevin Annett

www.hiddenfromhistory.org

he Ten Thousand and more of us wound slowly through downtown London, past the stony Imperial edifices that seemed to frown on our banners and placards calling for the arrest of the Pope. Amidst the cheering, singing, drumming throng, I and three strangers held aloft the banner that has flown proudly outside churches and the Vatican, as hundreds of Londoners smiled from the sidewalks and waved their support. It was a moment, to quote Nelson Mandela, when hope and history became one. Nobody had ever challenged the oldest criminals on the planet like that, so clearly and proudly. Our numbers might have been as many as 20,000 on September 18, for we were more than a mile long, and fifteen abreast. Most of it was unorganized. Young and old showed up in unexpected numbers, from everywhere, revolted at the child rapists and murderers in “holy” garb. Something about our own violated innocence bellowed that day, unafraid, and echoed all over the City, and beyond. At one point, our march came close to Charing Cross, where my ancestor Peter Annett had been locked in the public stocks and pelted with garbage in 1769 after he had been charged with “blasphemous libel” for publicly challenging the Bible and the

ment and its leashed public media, the Lie is not simply exposed, but parades itself around naked, like some arrogant pervert displaying himself atop Nelson’s column for the world to see. I don’t know how many of the speakers that day grasped this simple truth. The usual moral outrage was heard, the naïve alarm at taxpayers’ money being wasted on a criminal. Some very eloquent atheists reminded us that, well, this is what comes from believing in an unseen deity. But no-one used the word Lie. I remember once in an aboriginal healing circle hearing an old man say, “The first time I was touched by a priest, my innocence died. After that my whole life became a lie.” His words have plagued me ever since, maybe because they reminded me of what I, like you, want to forget: how terribly vulnerable we are – and how the precious sanctity within us can be punctured and destroyed in a moment. We don’t heal from that first violence. We don’t recover our original innocence. We learn to cope. We learn to rely on mere words, and protests. But I have seen dead men and women stand up and walk, and I did that day we marched in London for the children, and for an end to the Lie that hides convincingly behind papal pretense, incense and prayers. The miracle of being human is that we do carry

church’s authority. My tearful pride in him caused me to turn to the stranger next to me and tell her about Peter. “It never changes, does it?” she replied in a thick Cockney accent. “Those bloody Christians and their bloody hypocrisy.” Then she added, “How brave he was.” Her words jolted me deeply, and clarity came after that with each footstep, as we moved towards 10 Downing street to hear speeches. This is not about human rights, or the latest victims of the Lie, something spoke to me. This is about ending that Lie, once and for all. Jesus the Christ, and the Cowichan Indians of Vancouver Island, taught simply that whoever violates a child should be killed, immediately. But most of the Cowichans were wiped out by the Christians, and Jesus’ prescription of tying a ten ton millstone around the neck of the violator and casting him into the sea is one of those, you know, inconvenient scriptural passages relegated to about where the command to “Give all that you have to the poor” finds itself within church doctrine. Jesus once called children the ones who were closest to the kingdom of heaven. So when a Christian Pope, and his church, protects child rapists and is publicly honoured and funded for doing so by a govern-

on, despite what has been done to us, and we find answers not in a doctrine but in one another. I served a Public Summons on Joseph Ratzinger, “the pope”, the day after our march. It calls on him to appear before a Tribunal we’re holding in London next April 4, and explain to us why he shouldn’t be behind bars. But think for a moment of who and what else will stand in the dock with him that day, and you will begin to grasp the epic enormity of what we are doing. Our third and final exorcism of the Thing that inhabits the church takes place this October 11, one year to the day that I held presence outside the Vatican, and called on the Thing to reveal itself, and depart. The ground has been tilled, and the soil made new to receive the first seeds of our recovered humanity. But who will plant them, and care for what is emerging so beautifully among us? When will we truly leave the dead to bury their dead, and choose a new world? ……………………………………………… Kevin Annett is a community minister, film maker and author who works with The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State. His new book “Unrepentant: Disrobing the Emperor” can be ordered on Amazon Books. His website iswww.hiddenfromhistory.org .

Vancouver

October 2010 DISCLAIMER: The information presented herein is for informational purposes only. Consult your naturopathic physician, medical doctor, and/or pharmacist for any health problem and before using any supplements, making dietary changes, or before making any changes in prescribed medications.

Contact Dr. Dahl with your question : docisin.doc@gmail.com Hi there, I read your article in The Agora about B vitamins. That was helpful to me, thank you! My question is, what nutrients do you recommend to help boost collagen in the skin? I think I’m lacking in minerals and I’m not sure if that will make a difference or not. Thanks so much, Jessica Dear Jessica, You’ve asked an excellent question, because many people don’t understand what an important role collagen plays in our health. It accounts for nearly a third of all the protein in our bodies! Keeping us wrinkle-free, which is the only purpose for collagen most people know, is only one of its talents: in fact, it is a criti-

cal element in healing wounds and surgical incisions. Collagen is the main supportive protein of the skin, tendons, bone, cartilage and connective tissue. If we are lacking collagen these tissues do not have the ability to heal. This is why those awaiting surgery and those in post surgery are in desperate need of collagen. That said, when our skin lacks collagen, it loses firmness and texture. But external applications are poorly-absorbed through the skin, so it’s preferable to assist the body to make its own. Here I recommend you investigate taking supplements to build your own ability to make collagen, two amino acids called L-Arginine and L-Proline. Amino acids are essential to us because they promote the creation of proteins, which form tissue. Both L-Arginine and L-Proline are supportive of collagen synthesis, so they are

worth considering for the sake of your skin, but more importantly for the sake of your whole body. In case studies involving rats, Arginine supplementation was given for 3 days before, and for 10 days after surgery. The researchers were stunned by how much more rapidly the rodents’ incisions healed in the rats given Arginine than in the nonsupplemented group, with greater collagen synthesis produced. Further study revealed that when animals are deficient in L-Arginine, they rapidly lose collagen, and their ability to heal from any injuries, to grow new tissue, diminishes with that supply. Since, as much as we like to ignore the fact, humans are animals too, it makes perfect sense for us to supplement with LArginine, so as to ensure our ability to heal. Another nutrient that helps support collagen production is the amino acid Proline. Collagen accounts for 25 to 30 percent of the body’s protein. Since Proline is the second most abundant nonessential amino acid (followed by glutamine), it is fair to say our body’s collagen reservoir needs to be rich in Proline. This makes it an excellent dance partner for supplemental L-Arginine, so I would suggest you consider taking both. If you are one of those who like to nourish the body with food, instead of capsules,

there are a number of delicious options to include in your diet, yummy additions to soups, salads, main courses, and desserts. Foods rich in collagen include dark green vegetables like kale, spinach, and asparagus. It’s also abundant in the red vegetables, such as beets, red peppers, and tomatoes. If you prefer your collagen sweet, eat blueberries and blackberries. Fish, especially varieties like salmon and tuna, isn’t just for Friday’s dinner any more: our finny friends are rich in omega fatty acids, which create the ideal environment for collagen production. Nuts, avocadoes, and olives are also excellent sources. Of course, one may always take supplemental products which supply these acids, as well as including them in one’s diet. Much has been said lately about boosting and maintaining our immune systems, but it is, I think, as important to make sure we can heal from things as it is to make sure we don’t get sick. And while I’m sure we all want to have a great complexion well into our elder years, it’s nice to know that while putting our best face forward, we’re also giving our body its best chance to heal from injuries or surgeries, and to sustain us from the inside out! Best of health, Dr. Dahl

9 Years After 9/11 by Patrick Borden

nniversaries have always provided an excuse to celebrate, usually a welcome one. But the process of examining another year gone by can quickly lead to new ideas. The Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society was out in force this September 11th for the 9th anniversary of the events of 2001, staging a multi-level event. On the street level was their familiar tent with their books and DVDs spread out on the table. But a new addition was front and centre on the table – a video monitor hooked up to the day long list of speakers presenting at a lecture hall downstairs in the UBC campus. The activist group always has a dedicated cadre manning its tent at Robson Square on the 11th of every month. They are there rain or shine, on a cold and dank February day or in bright summer sunshine. Not immediately apparent to the many passersby on Robson Street, is the fact that they are participating in a world-wide campaign, one in which activists head to the street on the eleventh of every month, talking to people, selling t-shirts, handing out literature and DVD’s, informing and confronting the passerby. A powerful addition to the activist toolbox has been the DVD. It seems to be in the nature of this controversial subject that the majority of people are inclined to believe the the authoritarian voices of government and mainstream media over the impassioned pleas of truth activists. No matter how much they argue that a crime has been committed, a monumental crime by the state, against its people on behalf of powerful moneyed interests, no matter how articulate they are, no matter how logical their argumentation, no matter how much evidence they provide, clearly proving that the government’s version of events does not correspond to the facts of the matter, some people shake their heads and say I just can’t believe it. But when those

same people can see the evidence for themselves on DVD, when they can do so alone, at home, without the need to win any argument, when they have take the time to actually look at the evidence and think it through for themselves, then they begin to know something different. This DVD based campaign has slowly but surely changed the public’s perspective on 9/11. All of the 9/11 activists I have spoken to point out that when the activist campaign gained its current momentum, back in 2007, the average person who approached the table had no idea why they were there, were surprised or even shocked that some people questioned the idea that bin Laden and 19 young amateur terrorists were responsible for the events of 9/11. Some people even took offence, shouting that the activists were unpatriotic or were disrespectful of the dead. That rarely happens now. And it is rare to talk to someone who is a complete neophyte. Instead, people come to the tent to thank the truthers for their work, or to ask detailed questions, or to get the latest DVD. Three years later almost everyone is aware of the truth movement. Regardless of their own personal opinion on what really happened, people know that the government’s version doesn’t add up, that the 9/11 commission was a whitewash – as the commissioners themselves have asserted – and that a third of the population openly believes that the government was involved in some way, be that making it happen, or simply having prior knowledge and letting it happen. Some citizens believe that the truth remains hidden for reasons of national security and that is for the best. But others want to know more and many show up at the 9/11 tent looking for help with their quest for knowledge. Many have found that learning the truth about 9/11 has led them to seek out alternative infor-

mation on an array of topics: vaccination, chemtrails, the Bilderberg Group, the historical use of false flag operations to start wars, and the extent to which the world is controlled by its presidents or its bankers. This evolution of the movement towards an examination of related issues – and the extent to which the group should maintain its focus or change and grow – is a source of tension. Some argue that it is the natural evolution of the movement, that asking these questions is inherent to their campaign to reveal the crimes of the establishment and to know what is really going on. Others see it as a distraction and fear that talking about less well proven topics, such as chemtrails may give their enemies ammunition. Both sides have a case. But those who argue that they can win if they just stick to the known facts have a point: as Richard Gage and his group of 1100 architects and engineers argue so well, the argument for controlled demolition is now almost indisputable. But the awakened public interest is of great satisfaction to members of the truth movement, it is a vindication, a sign that they have made a profound impact on society, an impact far beyond anything acknowledged by official sources, mainstream media, academia or other activist groups and disproportionate to their numbers. That increased interest was reflected in the strong turnout for the anniversary event

the group held this year. While manning the tent upstairs, they packed a room downstairs in the campus of UBC Robson Square. Noteworthy was the format, something that may turn out to be as significant an innovation to truth activism as the DVD. Rather than spend thousands of dollars on airfares to bring in speakers, they filled a day long line up with speakers who called in via Skype and the hookup was projected onto a screen at the front of the room. This allowed the group to invite the participation of major figures in the movement such as Richard Gage and Will Thomas. The new format allowed for a second innovation: upwards of 200 people following the days events online. That is a number which is expected to grow in the future. Organizers saw this event as a trial run and hope to see future versions more tightly organized and better publicized. As host Kevin Kelso put it, “This was all new to us, but we can do it anytime now.”

Vancouver

October 2010

Jacque Fresco By Matt Berkowitz

ince April 2010, Jacque Fresco and Roxanne Meadows have been embarking upon an historic world lecture tour that Canada will have the privilege of witnessing the conclusion of. Fresco, a 94-year-old industrial designer, social engineer and founder of The Venus Project, is traveling with his associate throughout nearly 20 countries on 5 continents to speak to thousands of invigorated people who are realizing the importance of what the organization proposes. Beginning with a lecture in Colombia, followed by a series of lectures in New Zealand and Australia, and now having completed a three-and-a-half month European stint, the pair will undertake five lectures across Canada. Vancouver is the second last stop with the lecture taking place at the Maritime Labour Centre on October 23 at 1pm. Tickets can be purchased at www.zeitgeistvancouver.com or in person from the Zeitgeist Vancouver booth during one of our promotional events at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of our broadest social problems (war, poverty, violent crime, environmental destruction, technological paralysis, etc.) from the lowest common denominator, identifying the social root cause that is at the heart of most problems, while proposing a bold new attainable direction for humanity. The

proposal involves the integration of the best of science and technology into a comprehensive plan for a new society based on human and environmental concern. Maintaining our current socioeconomic system will simply result in a continuation of the same patterns of problems over and over again, perpetuating needless suffering, depleting the natural resources we need to survive, and plundering the environment. Fresco’s professional background includes design consulting for Rotor Craft Helicopter Company, serving in the Army Design and Development Unit, research engineering at Raymond De-Icer Corp, technical consulting to the Motion Picture Industry, industrial design instructor at the Art Center School in Hollywood, California, and working as an associate and colleague of Donald Powell Wilson, the noted psychologist. Some of his inventions include systems for noiseless and pollution free aircraft, a new aircraft wing structural system, an electrostatic system for the elimination of sonic boom for Raymon De-Icer, boundary layer control and electrodynamic methods for aircraft control that dispenses with ailerons, elevators, rudders, and flaps, “The Alu-

Roxanne Meadows

minum Trend House”, an ultra energy and resource efficient prefabricated house, the development of numerous components and systems for architectural construction, the development of equipment ranging from 3-dimensional x-ray units to electronic surgical instruments for the medical field, the development of a technique for viewing 3-dimensional motion pictures without the

use of glasses, and countless others. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness Jacque Fresco in a live setting. The Zeitgeist Movement, as the activist arm of The Venus Project, encourages any person who cares about the future of the species to attend this special event.

namics at a street protest turned violent can be very educational. Absurdity is everywhere you look. People who’ve never experienced state violence before will often politely ask the police to stop beating, gassing and tasering them, their voices wracked with pain. It is truly someone new to violence who tries to reason with it. Next they might ask “Why?!

What did I do to deserve this?” which also speaks to their naivety. After a lifetime of fairy tales about state justice, they struggle to comprehend the knee on the back of their neck, or their shoulder separating with the sound of tearing gristle. Hours and days later, they’re still in awe that someone in a uniform brutalized them for refusing to obey, as if that wasn’t the job description of Officer Friendly and the foundation of the society they’ve lived in their entire lives. The dynamic of the threat of violence is also far older than the authority of the state. In the wild, animals use sophisticated bluffing techniques to avoid a real confrontation. But there is a hysterical reaction from “the public” when people meet the state’s constant threat of force with one of their own. Violence itself isn’t even required, just the fact that protestors would show up to a demonstration prepared to defend themselves from police is enough to raise the ire of moderate reformists everywhere. “We can’t use violence!” they scream. “You’re discrediting us by resorting to violence!” which conveniently shuts down all dialogue about different types of violence with different motivations. A major distinction that deserves attention is defensive violence. The presence of the infamous black bloc is almost never acknowledged as a defuse, and yet it happens. The cops think twice about getting lippy or grabby when a demon-

Continued from Violence, page 4 ization process until its almost invisible. The social hierarchy is largely designed to be the parameters by which this violence is dealt out. When witnessing an arrest by police, it’s very telling how the clothes and appearance of the person being detained affects their emotional reaction. Whether it’s bombing poor people on the far side of the planet and taking their resources, or beating and jailing the poor people living within the neoliberal capitalist “paradise”, you’re expected to accept some types of violence, and rush to condemn others. But who decides the protocols? Who benefits? The threat of violence always looms over every peaceful moment in our society. It’s most obvious manifestation is the “officer of the peace” on patrol. Regardless of your political analysis, he or she is ultimately an agent of authority with a gun, whose presence is about deterring behaviours deemed anti-social. When the threat fails, the real thing is applied with brutal efficiency and overwhelming force. A single person who hides in a building after breaking the protocols, will find a small army in the street outside in a matter of minutes. This is so normalized as to be beneath critical thought for most people. When walking down a street, see the uniforms and flashing lights and detour around the event, or else move quickly past. Some people will of course, stop to gawk, but very few will question it. If they do, orders are

barked at them to piss off, and if they insist on being an “obstruction”, guess what happens. But you’re not supposed to be thinking about that. Another function of the agents is to insulate you from these realities. Denial is so much easier if no-one brings it up. The less time you spend thinking about it, the easier you are to control. Watching the crowd dy-

JackBooted cops break up a protest against California’s gay marriage ban

Continued Next Page

Vancouver

October 2010

Continued from Violence, page 7 stration is supported by a group of militants with weapons and glittering eyes. The message is; if you come at us, we’re ready, so you’d better be sure that’s what you want to do. That’s not to say the militants necessarily expect to win a direct confrontation, but a street battle involves a lot of paperwork, injuries and potentially bad press. It ups the ante for all concerned, so the end result is everyone behaving themselves. This dynamic is perfectly acceptable for international diplomacy, so why not in the streets? Everyone thinks twice when they realize they’ll have to fight, and thinking twice is good for everyone. Any theoretical mass-movement in the political sphere would need some sophistication in discerning different types of violence. A reliance on platitudes and oversimplifications will only result in underdeveloped social consciousness and make the movement weaker, more likely to fracture. Hard-line pacifists always cluck their tongues and say violence alienates “the public” which sounds plausible, but this reduction skims across some very interesting issues. If the argument is that people are scared to come to demonstrations because of violence, doesn’t that speak to an intolerable situation and a very unhealthy society? If violence is the barrier to this theoretical mass-movement, where was it during all that time of relative peaceful complacency before the global financial crisis ratcheted-up social tensions in our privileged part of the world? What if “the public” is an abstract concept and ideological weapon used to manipulate opinions?

The idea that you can effect lasting and significant social change by reason and moralistic arguments alone is THE childish delusion of the left. Social change occurs by force or threat of force, however unpleasant this truth might be for the more delicate psyches out there. But leftist social movements in north america are bogged down in this pacifist doctrine, trumpeted by middle-class moderates. The moderates are granted prestige and resources to promote their message because they serve a very useful function in keeping everyone docile. This generates a lot of the perception of “public opinion” which is nothing but an echo chamber for the political views that can afford expensive advertising space. Power concedes nothing without a demand, and this is how good people with the best intentions are co-opted in to being one more set of demagogues, hustling for the state and corporate interests. Authoritarian pacifism says there’s only one true way to express oneself politically and solve the world’s problems. The very idea discredits itself. Such a variety of problems and perspectives can never be reduced to the one true way, so this ideology’s prominence is highly suspect. Why is it so prevalent? Who benefits? You say that you’re a peaceful person and you live in a peaceful society? Only privilege allows you to entertain such fantasies. There are other people out there, acting as your violent proxies, removing you from the reality of violence but not the culpability. May the future deprive you of your delu-

The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. - Niels Bohr

Guided

Of The

Tours

Describing a neighbourhood or community as unique is commonplace, but in the case of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the distinction is full warranted. Arguably the developed world’s largest open drug colony, and an unofficial urban First Nations reserve, the DTES is home to as many as 10,000 long-term drug-addicted, many of them suffering concurrent addiction and mental illness, and another 4,000 or so long-term low-income and no income residents. Like so many Vancouver neighbourhoods, the Downtown Eastside is threatened by gentrification, displacement of its vulnerable residents by market forces. David Beattie, an anti-poverty activist and journalist, offers guided tours of the DTES, by donation. You will see the surprisingly large variety of services clustered in this special area, go inside the buildings, see residents, meet social service providers and residents if you choose to, and learn about the forces at work in this intriguing community. The tour is usually made on foot, and takes from one to three hours, depending on what level of detail you opt for. If walking is challenging, it is possible to reduce that by either taking the bus or driving. Tours are arranged on an ad hoc basis. Please contact David Beattie at davidbt2001@gmail.com to make arrangements.

Arts Community Shouldn’t Depend on Government Funding by Walker Morrow

n my very first article for The Agora I have to say I respect her taking a stand – I got all cranky about arts funding although she’s offered her assistance should in British Columbia, and the outcry the government wish to reconfigure the Arts over government cut-backs to spending for Council’s role. the arts. Now, I’m quite willing to say that I agree The reason I got so up in airs is that, such bodies as the BC Arts Council should be essentially, I don’t think too highly of such arms-length from the government. The more funding. I think it removes personal stakes decentralization, and the more direct, indefrom the artistic process, robbing it of a deep pendent involvement of people who actually influence – a little suffering – and creating a know about art, as opposed to government conflict of interest in that the government’s spokespeople, the better. oft-times most vocal critics – artists - are, But, although I hate to say I told you so oft-times, getting their funding from same. ( not really ), this is precisely the problem Boiled down, I just think that art should with government arts funding: not enough be independent, and should be funded based autonomy. That’s what happens when someupon independent donations from people one gives you money. They get a say, they get who appreciate the art they’re funding, involved, and you lose your independence as rather than having an impartial figure hand- a result. If that’s a price you’re willing to pay, ing money out to anybody who can fill out fine, but I’m not sure how healthy a depenan application. I think dent mind-set is for our that it does a disservice arts and culture comThat’s what hapto the artistic culture munity. pens when someto remove it from that Jane Danzo has reone gives you mondirect link and appeal ceived a lot of support to the public – are we from that same comey. They get a say, such philistines that munity - groups like they get involved, we cannot be trusted the Headlines Theatre and you lose your to keep art alive withand the Canadian Conindependence as out government investference for the Arts for ment? instance - which seem a result. If that’s I guess I’m still a to feel that this depena price you’re willlittle cranky. But I’m dence is something ing to pay, fine, but not nearly as upset as necessary, and that the I’m not sure how some. According to the problem lies with unVictoria Times Coloeven, unfair funding, healthy a depennist, the chairwoman rather than with the nadent mind-set is of the BC Arts Council, ture of the funding itfor our arts and Jane Danzo, resigned self. The problem isn’t culture community. last month due to “devthat artists are getting astating” cuts to promoney from the govvincial arts funding and what she saw as a ernment, the logic seems to go. Instead, the lack of council autonomy. problem is that this funding isn’t being disFrom what I gather, Danzo was frustrat- tributed evenly enough across the board. ed with the continued reduction in money Perhaps this is true. But, speaking as for the arts, despite recommendations from someone hoping to make a living as an artist the BC Arts Council and the standing com- himself, I have to say I’m not particularly enmittee on finance and government services couraged. Is this all that our arts community to beef up funding. Although the BC gov- can accomplish, more desperate appeals for ernment has since restored a sizable chunk ramped-up funding and even-handed treatof the council’s funding since Danzo left, ment? Have they not learned a lesson in deat the time of her resignation its budget had pendence from Jane Danzo’s example? been slashed quite considerably. Surely more could be done. Some truly Furthermore, Danzo was unhappy with independent, autonomous art might be a the fact that the BC Arts Council did not good place to start. have a voice independent of the government’s – a power which she had previously To view article sources please visit believed the council possessed. She would http://agoranews.org/sections/arts-communihave rather had a lump sum of funding ty-shouldnt-depend-government-funds from the government to dole out as the Arts Council saw fit. ________________________________ So she quit, saying in a discussion with the Georgia Straight that she, “thought I Any comments, hate mail, or love notes? could probably effect more change by step- Drop me a line or four at dresdenmorrow@ ping down than I could by staying.” gmail.com, or give me grief on Twitter @ And even though I disagree with her vi- wmorrow1. sion of British Columbian arts and culture,

Dear Carole

t has been bought to my attention by too many economists that BC Hydro is in deep financial trouble which is due to get even worse under this Dictatorship we now have in BC. I am, of course, not reading this in the Times Colonist, or for that matter in any other MSM. I do hear about it on such programs as Face to Face with Jack Etkin on our local Shaw community channel 11, or the Dialogue from Nanaimo, The Flying Shingle, www.TheTyee. ca, www.thecanadian,org or even the Lower Island News. I hear about it from such concerned citi-

by Jeremy Arney zens as Rafe Mair, Damien Gillis, and your own Corky Evans before he retired. From Save our Rivers, WC2, Sierra Club, Dogwood Initiative, and several e-mail news chains to which I belong. But I do not hear about it from you. Are you not aware of what is transpiring under your very nose? Or are you in agreement with the destruction of BC Hydro? You of all people in this province have the ability to do and say things that will awaken the public as to what is happening. I would go so far as to say it is your duty as the leader of the opposition to inform us of

these criminal and treasonous actions. At the time of my writing this I, like so many other residents of BC, am very angry (HST rebellion) with what is happening in BC politics; with the lies, deceptions and with the selling off of everything we have been thinking of as ‘ours’ for the sake of a few directorships for a few corrupt people. Why are you not using this anger, indeed even fueling it, by getting this sort of deliberate destruction out into the open? Are you afraid of something Ms. James? Perhaps you fear being treated like Betty Krawczyk, who the crown is right now trying to say is mentally insane because she

will insist on fighting for the environment and is willing to do jail time again and again for her beliefs, and so they wish to send her to jail for life as criminally insane! Since the BC court system is in such a shambles anything is possible here now. Even something as senseless and blatantly unconstitutional as this. Are you OK with that or are you ready to stand up and be counted as a real person fighting for real people in BC? I think it is time for you to show us if you are premier material Ms. James, and this means listening to and responding to the people of BC. The BC Hydro ball is in your court Ms. James, as maybe is Betty Krawczyk’s future.

October 2010

Vancouver

Is that Drug Enlightenment We Hear Knocking?

The decriminalization of all drugs is sure to lessen the misery of thousands of Vancouver Downtown Eastsiders. In fact, keeping drugs illegal is blocking any meaningful progress in tackling a slew of social ills that hurt every level of society.

by David Beattie

t’s going too far to say there is an imminent surrender in the War on Drugs, but the forces of continued criminalization must be having thoughts of either the white flag or a renewed offensive. In recent weeks there have been at least four significant developments in favour of decriminalization. It is hard to think of any better news for the thousands of long-term, deeply addicted denizens of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). The DTES is not just a desperate low-income neighbourhood, it is also a special open “drug colony” where North America’s largest concentration of addicted souls spend their days in some or other drug-related activity. Of course there are thousands of non drug users in the DTES - the working poor and even not so poor, welfare recipients, the disabled and pensioners, but there is no doubt that the 6,000 to 10,000 addicts and “dual diagnosis” mentally ill and addicted are the core population that defines the community. And keeping drugs illegal is the “harm maximization” that other measures are designed to counter. It is the most significant single hurdle to breaking the cycle and working to widespread systemic recovery. Because drugs are illegal, society does not treat drug addiction as it should be treated – as another disease and health care challenge that should be treated as cancer is treated, or asthma, heart disease or obesity, for example. This in turn means that drug addiction gets only a fraction of the money spent on other diseases. Lack of prevention, intervention and effective treatment means many drug addicts pass the condition onto following generations, and being illegal it means many end up in jail or die in drugrelated violence. This chain reaction plays havoc in communities where the poor are clustered. The constant need to get money to pay the high cost of illegal drugs almost forces addicts into a life of crime or prostitution, creating a vicious cycle that keeps the afflicted trapped, and sucks in those on the periphery. Trouble with the law blocks employment chances, undermines education efforts and adds to the size of the already growing under class that in BC is becoming ever more entrenched. Further, prejudice against drug users and addicts masks the fact many suffer from mental illness, which either led them to drugs in the first place or which they developed due to drug abuse. Being poor, many are either uneducated or have poor social skills. But, back to the good news. One, at the world’s premier HIV/AIDS annual conference, held this year in Vienna, leading health officials from around the globe issued a declaration calling for decriminalization of drugs, and a sciencebased approach to drug policy. Two, more recently Mexican president Felipe Calderon, faced with rising public anxiety over the horrific carnage of the inter-gang and cartel wars in that country, suggested it is time to re-examine the pros and cons of the War on Drugs.

Three, Toronto city council has formally endorsed the Vienna Declaration, the first city to do so. Will Vancouver follow suit? And fourth, the Assets to Action plan drawn up by downtown eastsiders themselves, to guide the community’s future, calls for a legal drug market to replace the black market one that causes and aggravates so many

challenges in the area. Legalization of all drugs or at least decriminalization is not a new idea, but until recently it has not been taken seriously at high levels of government. Perhaps much of this resistance to such a monumental change is because the world’s major stuporpower always threatens to punish any country that even dares raise the idea. We all know this is because the CIA and other departments of the US government make a fortune by being major drug dealers themselves. It also gives the US government an excuse for

ter of time before all drugs are either legal or decriminalized. I am far more interested in the consequences for the poor and the DTES in particular when that happens. My main point is this: given that at least half of drug addicts suffer at the same time from a mental illness, and that half of the mentally ill have serious drug issues, then decriminalization opens the door for transformative improvements in the welfare of many DTES residents. Of course drug addiction affects people of every social class, as does mental illness, but the way they manifest and are dealt with in affluent society is very different from how they play out in the lives of the marginalized. Discrimination against drug users and the mentally ill is still a major problem, as many people with little or no insight blame them both for their conditions. If people don’t mess around with drugs, the thinking goes, they won’t get addicted, and then they won’t go crazy. As for the mentally ill, unless they are so out of it they don’t know anything, they should at least have the discipline not to touch drugs, because they know they are more prone to becoming addicted. I was at the media conference where the above-mentioned Assets to Action plan was launched. Mainstream reporters asked Wendy Pedersen of the Carnegie Community Action Project, which oversaw the development of the plan, why residents of the DTES should not be

bullying whichever regime it doesn’t like in any given week. Burma not doing what its told? Just declare the junta is headed by high-level drug pushers (it is actually) and you can justify any action against it. Remember Panama, Manuel Noriega and “Operation Just Cause?” Say no more. It seems the rest of the world is losing patience with this bogus old schtick, and forces are coalescing against one of the most damaging and unenlightened policies of the 20th and early 21st Century. This is what Wikipedia has to say on the matter: “A poll on October 2, 2008, found that three in four Americans believed that the War On Drugs was failing.” Critics cite a large number of unnecessary deaths and imprisonments, increased levels of violent crime and gang activity, wasted government funds, violation of civil liberties, lack of public support, illegality of current drug policies, environmental destruction from drug eradication programs, lack of effectiveness, and a number of other issues. Supporters claim that the War on Drugs is effective, protects families and communities, makes people more productive, and that social conditions are better as a result of it,” says the encyclopedia site. My report is not intended as a focus on the WoD and legalization – I assume it is only a mat-

expected to take responsibility for themselves and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I could scarcely believe my ears – and at first I thought it was a joke. Here are some questions I’d like to ask most reporters from the corporate media and other people who think they understand the DTES. 1. Do you know at least half of all people have the genes that make them either obviously mentally ill from birth, or that will have them experience some sort of mental health challenge at some point in their life? Have you yourself, Reporter, ever been Clinically Depressed or diagnosed with anxiety, some mood disorder or more serious mental illness? 2. Given the answer to the first is yes, and that therefore about half of the reporters would answer yes to the second, I would ask - do you think people and you yourselves are to blame for that? The answer clearly being no, the second query is – do you accept that the same level of mental illness affects well educated and affluent people differently than it does the poor and under-educated? 3. Given the answer is obviously “very differently” my question is – if you were born to parents living in poverty, do you think you’d be exposed to drug use more often and at an earlier age than people living in middle class and affluent areas?

4. Given the answer is likely yes, my next question is – do you know that the same areas of the brain implicated in mental illness are involved in drug addiction, making some people more prone to it than others? 5. The answer being yes, I would then ask –for the half of you that have had a mental illness (or have one now), how confident are you that if you were born into poverty or fell into it later, you would somehow find the discipline not to take drugs even though most of your peers were taking them? 6. Given the answer must surely be, “not very confident at all,” we must conclude that under similar circumstances, the vast majority of humans would also succumb to drug use, and many would become addicted. Discrimination against drug users, the mentally ill and especially those with both at the same time – dual diagnosis or co-occurrent disorders, does not help anybody. Keeping drugs illegal is even worse. Drug use and all substance abuse are often symptoms of stresses in society, not the cause. They do extreme damage to the addicted themselves, families, friends and community yes, but punishing addicts is counter-productive. Workaholism and gambling addiction, to mention just two other addictions, also do incalculable harm, but we don’t treat them with anything near the same prejudice and phobia. Indeed, bosses often encourage the former and governments feed on the latter. Okay, if you accept this, the next step is to treat drug addiction in exactly the same way that other diseases are treated. This means a huge increase in its share of funding, just as the treatment of mental illness and disability deserves just as much funding as physical illness and disability. That also means a huge increase in its funding. Much of the money could come from reductions in spending on law enforcement, courts and prisons, and from the revenue generated by the legal and regulated sale of drugs. Also, billions could be redirected away from corporate welfare and expenditure on giant investment in concrete and steel things, infrastructure, and invested in flesh and bone infrastructure – human development. With any luck in future the corporate media will treat even the drug addicted who are poor and the poverty-stricken mentally ill with understanding and compassion, instead of fear, contempt and pig ignorance. Like other diseases drug addiction can be beaten completely, and patients rehabilitated. If they are also mentally ill, with modern medicine (Big Pharma has contributed something) many conditions can be entirely managed, and the patients able to function very highly indeed. Winston Churchill, voted the most famous Briton of all time, was profoundly mentally ill – a chronic Depressive, not to mention hardcore alcoholic. As always, the way to appeal to politicians and bureaucrats, and most in society, is to show how some course of action benefits their pocket – not because it is the right thing to do, and because we shall all be judged by how we treat the least among us. Those are outdated fundamentalist or hippie notions that are now almost universally sneered at. It is only the bottom line that counts – does it make us money, or at least save us money? As Woody Allen famously said, no matter how cynical you are, it’s impossible to keep up. If I was writing this in the Middle Ages I would probably be lamenting the prejudice against “witches”, which so often led to women being burnt alive at the stake. A few moons have passed since then, but our society is still afflicted with attitudes almost as unfounded and damaging. For the love of God, make drugs legal, and provide them free to those who want treatment to free themselves from this particular manifestation of the existential misery of our species.

Vancouver

In the House Concerts Series-October 5th, Jazzy Nights

Address: 2054 Pandora St. tickets @ inthehousefestival.com The main objective of the In the House Festival, is to create intimate, interesting, and unique venues where artists can freely explore their genre, perform to an attentive audience, and promote their talents. Within the intimacy of these venues, the general public is given the opportunity to widen their scope of cultural experience. The transformation of private living spaces into public cultural spaces is a hugely enriching experience both on a community level and a cultural one. The intimacy of the home provides an ideal setting for people of all walks of life to come together and share in an original experience. It not only provides an accessible space to enjoy performances of all kind, but also fosters a sense of community, a feeling of belonging, and a kinship with the arts. Exposure to such eclectic and multicultural programming creates a buzz and excitement about the growing cultural life in Vancouver. Chris Gestrin Trio: Vancouver-based pianist Chris Gestrin is unquestionably one of the major jazz talents in the country and is in high demand as a musician, composer and producer. With a delicate touch and an ear for texture and subtlety, Gestrin also swings hard and is equally comfortable playing straight-ahead jazz and free improv. West Coast Art Trio: The West Coast Art Trio has been performing as a unit for the last 20 years. The music is a blend of free form concepts contrasted with structures, both organic and written. At times ferociously intense, there is a sensitivity that pervades. Members are each veteran players on the Vancouver scene and have performed nationally and internationally. They have a recently recorded CD, ‘The West Coast Art Trio.’

Splash 2010 | Arts Umbrella’s 28th Annual Art Auction & Gala

Performance Works, Granville Island, OCT. 16, 2010 - 6:30pm to midnight One of Vancouver’s most established charitable art events featuring a stunning collection of works by some of Canada’s most prominent artists. Splash is an experience. It is a feast for the senses, including a cocktail reception, a fine wine and food experience, performances by Arts Umbrella students, a hot DJ revving the party up and of course, 100 engaging contemporary artworks. More than 500 guests attend for the chance to bid on coveted artworks, raising much-needed funds for Arts Umbrella. Artwork for Splash 2010 will be online soon! artsumbrella.com

Vancouver Antiquarian Book Fair

Over 30 top booksellers from across Canada Vancouver Public Library- 350 West Georgia Street, Fri. Oct. 15th 3-6 pm, Sat. 16th 10-5 pm Admission $5 for both days vancouverbookfair.ca

International Writers and Readers

Festival- October 19-24th writersfest.bc.ca Many wonderful writers in town to read and talk. One writer in particular to watch for is David Mitchell, who wrote the widely acclaimed Cloud Atlas. He has written five novels, two of which were short listed for the Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World.

Theatre for Ears

One of the best little music festivals around! 21-23 October 2010 Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street) Shows at 8PM Free artist chats at 7PM Tickets $20 regular, $15 students & seniors Tickets will be available soon at Zulu Records (1972 West 4th Avenue), Scratch Records (726 Richards Street), Tickets Tonight ( www.ticketstonight. ca/604.684.2787) and at the door. Three-night passes $50/$35 available only through Vancouver New Music (604.633.0861) and at the door. Theatre for the Ears explores intersections of sound and image with a festival of visual music, abstract cinema, experimental animation, lumia, cymatics and interactive live audiovisual performance. The festival will feature international, national and local artists, including: Aerostatic & vade (US), Robin Fox (Australia), Pierre Hébert & Stefan Smulovitz (Quebec/Vancouver), Carrie Gates & Jon Vaughn (Saskatoon), jamie griffiths & Viviane Houle (Vancouver), Herman Kolgen – Inject (Montreal), Joost Rekveld (Netherlands), Kristen Roos & Josh Hite (Vancouver). Artist Carrie Gates will lead a free Intro to VJ Software workshop on October 23, 2010 at 11AM. Space is limited; please call 604.633.0861 or email info[AT]newmusic.org to register. FULL SCHEDULE

Events

October 2010 Thursday 21 October 2010 8PM -Kristen Roos & Josh Hite (Vancouver) Kristen Roos’ performance uses sound sculptures that house modified speakers, and send sound vibrations into water contained in plastic drum skins. He explores the idea of transducing sound across mediums, allowing the audience to see subtle variations in the vibrations that are created in the water. For this performance Roos will be collaborating with video artist Josh Hite. kristenroos.com 9PM – Carrie Gates & Jon Vaughn (Saskatoon) This collaboration between Jon Vaughn (audio) and Carrie Gates (video) is an intimate, risky, dynamic, and colourful presentation of live video and audio mixing using “no-input” techniques. Created live, without using any external sources, such as cameras, microphones, or source tapes and CDs, the audio and video affect one another in surprising ways, while the intensity of the matrices of the complex feedback system is carefully controlled through delicate physical interactions with the machines. The work pulsates with both human warmth and mechanical error-surfing. www.vimeo.com/carriegates www.jon-vaughn.blogspot.com 10PM – Pierre Hébert & Stefan Smulovitz (Quebec/Vancouver) While visiting Stefan Smulovitz on the Sunshine Coast in February 2009, Pierre Hébert filmed images of the area’s powerful nature, which have since become the basis of an improvisational performance piece for film and sound. Hébert blends a mixture of live improvised animation over processed live action shots, while Smulovitz improvises on viola and laptop, creating a sonic and visual meditation on the creek that runs in the back of his house. pierrehebert.com www.kenaxis.com Friday 22 October 2010 8PM – jamie griffiths & Viviane Houle (Vancouver) Jamie Griffiths (interactive visuals) and Viviane Houle (voice, Papillon vocal processing software) perform an intimate visio-sonic duet that delves into the two artists experiences of the pain, and ecstasy of change. griffiths creates interactive visuals using live camera, remote still photography, and particle systems triggered by sound and motion, while Houle draws on extended vocals, improvised song and custom software to create instant compositions. The two softwares are able to communicate with each other, and allow either performer to control processing, enabling a truly interactive conversation between visuals, sound and movement. Together these two artists explore how deep listening can be used to navigate the perilous journeys of change. www.primaldivine.com/ www.vivianehoule.ca/ 9PM – Herman Kolgen – Inject (Montreal) A human body is injected in a cistern. Over the course of 45 minutes, the pressure of the liquid exerts upon him multiple neurosensorial transformations. In 2008 Herman Kolgen initiated the INJECT project, a modular performance in HD format and multichannel audio. The genesis of the principal visual material for this project was a shoot which lasted six consecutive days. Yso was immersed for over eight hours a day in a glass cistern filled with water, oscillating between weightlessness and lack of oxygen. With the aid of various digital video recording and photographic systems Kolgen assembled many temporal sequences; images that he then assembled into a flexible and modular body. www.kolgen.net/ 10PM – Aerostatic & vade (US) Experimental video artist vade (aka Anton Marini) joins Terry Golob, one half of electronic duo Aerostatic, for a live a/v performance. Using custom software of his own design, Vade performs realtime manipulation of video and moving images to play, bend, rip, tear, shred, morph, mold, blend and synthesize pixels to form new visual experiences, while Aerostatic uses artifacts of sound generated by digital and analog processing along with a variety of interactive technologies, to compose a hybrid style of electronic music. Saturday 23 October 2010 8PM – Vancouver A/V Artists Showcase We will begin the evening with a showcase of emerging local artists working at the intersection of audio and visual arts. Please go to www.newmusic. org for programming details. 9PM – Joost Rekveld (Netherlands) In what will be his live-cinema debut, Joost Rekveld will explore his ongoing fascination with visual renderings of growth processes. Inspired by the first attempts of computer pioneer Alan Turing to model the differentiation of cells in an embryo, the agents in this performance are similar to chemical oscillators and slightly more complicated fluid automata. They both define and navigate the pixel space around them, and adapt to a landscape that is constantly changing. For this performance Giorgio Magnanensi will create live, layered sounds that in-

teract with Rekveld’s visuals. www.lumen.nu/rekveld 10PM – Robin Fox (Australia) Robin Fox’s “visually stunning” (New York Times) laser show describes, in three-dimensional visual space, the geometry of sound. Enveloping the audience in synchronous sound and light information, the experience resembles a synaesthetic experience where what you hear is also what you see. The same electric signals that emanate from the speakers as heavy, fractured sounds are sent to an audio controlled laser projector, swathing the audience in sculptured planes of light. www.robinfox.com.au

VJ Software Introductory Workshop with Carrie Gates

Saturday 23 October 2010 11AM-1PM – This workshop will demonstrate several different types of VJing software and some of the native capabilities of each system, including special effects, special layering qualities, and image mixing modes. If time allows, there may be a section on experimental techniques for different types of mediums. The workshop will also give a brief overview of important information about optimizing video clips for the best performance in different systems. Workshop participants will receive installation files for demo versions of the software being used. As space is limited; please email info[AT]newmusic.org or call 604.633.0861 to participate. Tickets $20 regular, $15 students & seniors Tickets will be available soon at Zulu Records (1972 West 4th Avenue), Scratch Records (726 Richards Street), Tickets Tonight ( www.ticketstonight.ca/604.684.2787) and at the door.

Fall Book Sale

Thursday October 21, 10:00 am-9:00 pm, Free Alice MacKay Room, Lower Level ,Central Library ,350 West Georgia Street Friday October 22 ,10:00 am-6:00 pm Come browse though the thousands of books on sale each day. All items are cash and carry. Bank machine located on the promenade. Materials sold as is. All sales final. Please bring your own bags. Prices range from .55 to 2.25.

Sarah Foulquier: Angle Mort

Showing until October 23, 2010 | Opening: September 9, 2010 7PM The Western Front is pleased to present Angle Mort (Blind Spot), a solo exhibition by emerging artist Sarah Foulquier. Drawing on the vocabularies of architecture and design, the exhibition includes sculpture, video and photographic works that consider the ways in which we sense the physical world. For Foulquier, ideas take shape through a process of material investigation and experimentation. An instinct to push materials to their physical limits is demonstrated in Foulquier s newly completed work Wall of paint (2010). Constructed through a moulding process, Wall of paint is carefully proportioned to resemble its real world counterpart. As you approach it a friction can be sensed. The wall seems to struggle under its own weight, resituating an a priori knowledge of familiar forms and the ways they should behave in a given space. As well, it gives the viewer subtle but tangible signs of their own presence in face of the work.

Lawrence Scanlan-A Year of Living Dangerously

Tuesday October 26, 7:00 pm-8:30 pm-Free Peter Kaye Room, Lower Level,Central Library,350 West Georgia Street Can one person make a difference? Join us as one of Canada’s finest journalists and best selling authors, Lawrence Scanlan, reads from A Year of Living Generously: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Philanthropy.

Global Pathology - How Crazy are We?

Wednesday October 27, 12:00 pm-1:00 pm, Free Alma VanDusen & Peter Kaye Rooms, Lower Level Central Library ,350 West Georgia Street Lecture by Peter Prontzos. This talk will examine both the irrationality of individuals and global capitalism, as well as the links between them.

SOLD DOUBT

Thursday Oct. 29th, 12 noon, Scotia Bank Dance Centre Performed to instrumental renditions of iconic rock group No Doubt’s Greatest Hits, SOLD DOUBT blends high-octane physicality with witty theatrics, as it plays on public perceptions of the popular music industry. Making it’s way through the hits, the ballads, the dance remixes and the obscure songs you never knew you loved, SOLD DOUBT blurs the lines between art and entertainment, dance and theatre, and comedy and tragedy. Using No Doubt as a platform from which to explore society’s greater addiction to the idols we create - and then dispose of - the work juxtaposes the power of

by nakedcty

the fans against the power of the suits. The perfume ads, photo shoots, product placements, clothing lines, YouTube homages, lights, costumes and the dance, all come together to reveal the unofficial tale of a girl, her band and a shopping cart full of oranges. Choreography: Josh Beamish

Parade of Lost Souls

Oct 30 6-10pm- is a powerful antidote to the cartoonish, commercialized version of Halloween (aka All Hallows Eve aka Samhain aka Day of the Dead) that predominates in our North American culture. The event was born out of Paula Jardine’ research into the different cultural traditions that celebrate this time of year in one way or another. From Eastern European harvest festivals, to the Day of the Dead in Latin America, to the Celtic traditions that place the end of October as the New Year, Parade integrates these diverse myths and rituals into a celebration that is equal parts raucous and contemplative in the multicultural community that thrives on Commercial Drive. Defying definition or description, this festival has to be seen to be believed. How can such a macabre display delight children and adults alike? How can such unrestrained revelry simultaneously touch the stillest parts of ourselves? These paradoxes are grist for the mill at this time of year when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Honour the Dead and Wake the Living! Is the cry that rises up from the procession winding its way through alleyways and schoolyards, peopled with the hideous and the beautiful in their sublime splendour. They light fireworks to frighten away the evil spirits and paint their faces with devilish grins. They make shrines to loved ones and pray for the peace of their souls. They celebrate the creative power inherent in death and the dark places, rebirthing themselves by letting go of the fear that these concepts universally engender. Grandview Park, 1200 Commercial Drive Call the Public Dreams office for information 604.879.8611

The Horrific Home of Beatrice Stainsbury

October 31st, 2009 Halloween Extravaganza Address: 1940 Napier St. Although calmly nestled in a quiet, unsuspecting Commercial Dr. neighborhood, no one has dared set foot in the Horrific Home of Beatrice Stainsbury since the early 1900s... until now. On one night only, this house of ill-repute will open its doors to worlds previously unheard of and unexperienced in any haunted house you may have visited. Your senses will tingle with fear, laughter, repulsion, sadness and curiosity, as the macabre, the terrifying and the outrageous join up with moments of heart-wrenching beauty, soulstirring sadness and unavoidable mirth. inthehousefestival.com

Inhabitants: Residency + Performance

November 1 November 6, 2010 | Opening: November 5, 2010 8PM Juno nominated Drip Audio Recording Artists Inhabitants are a dynamic quartet who continue to evolve and transform their music while becoming one of Vancouver’s most original bands. Through solid ensemble musicianship and brave compositional prowess they have pushed into new sonic territory with recordings and live performances of spacious and expressive explorations of chaos and form. Inhabitants come to the Western Front to participate in a residency and performance where they will utilize a week of recording at the onsite sound studio culminating in a performance in the Luxe Hall. The project revolves around a new major composition commission by the band’s trumpeter JP Carter. During the recording residency and live performance Carter will be joined by band mates Dave Sikula on guitar, bassist Pete Schmitt and drummer Skye Brooks.

Us and Them

November 5th, Address: 5570 Blenheim St. by donation Founded in 1981, Vancouver’s Headlines Theatre, directed by David Diamond, uses THEATRE FOR LIVING to help living communities tell their stories. THEATRE FOR LIVING has evolved from Augusto Boal’s “Theatre of the Oppressed”. Since 1989 Headlines’ work has slowly moved away from the binary language and model of “oppressor/oppressed” and now approaches community-based cultural work from a systems-based perspective; understanding that a community is a complexly integrated, living organism. Headlines Theatre’s work is a worldwide leading example of theatre for social change, with projects in collaboration with First Nations and multicultural communities through hundreds of theatre workshops, Power Plays and Forum Theatre events around the world on issues such as violence and suicide prevention, anti-racism workshops, youth empowerment, bullying and community development. inthehousefestival.com

Vancouver

October 2010

by Malcom Johnston

http://railforthevalley.wordpress.com/

Ground breaking report on Interurban light rail

he Rail for the Valley/Leewood study is indeed historic, for it is the first time in over 30 years that a truly independent transit study, free of political and bureaucratic influence, has been done in the region. The study shows that the region can build a large ‘rail’ network cheaply, with an affordable vision for future, cost effective extensions. SkyTrain’s Achilles heel is cost and when one compares the per kilometer cost of the RftV TramTrain and SkyTrain, a full build TramTrain is less than 10% the cost per km. to build than SkyTrain light metro. Being affordable to build, enables TramTrain to penetrate to areas, that would otherwise remain unserved by ‘rail‘. The ‘density’ argument, used successfully by TransLink and the provincial government to deter ’rail‘ expansion South of the Fraser, disappears as TramTrain easily uses existing railway lines, without any need for expensive ‘greenfields’ construction (like using the median of the Number 1 Hwy.). If on-street operation is desired in town centres, TramTrain can play the role of a streetcar or LRT, yet retaining the ability of cost effective operation to widely spaced population centres using existing rail lines.

The Evergreen Line has demonstrated that funding for SkyTrain is becoming harder and harder and if we look at the ‘full build’ RftV/Leewood Study, a Vancouver/ Richmond to Rosedale TramTrain would cost less than one billion dollars or put another way, for the over $1.4 billion Evergreen line, we could build the ‘full build’ TramTrain, plus a Vancouver to Port Moody TramTrain service as well! More rail service, servicing more customer destinations, is the best recipe for achieving a true modal shift from car to transit. One hopes that the ‘powers that be’ understand that planning for expensive, ‘pie in the sky’ metro is becoming a fools game as there is just not the money to fund such grandiose schemes and in todays economy, TramTrain becomes a most viable option. The RftV/Leewood Study paves the way for a real and cost effective alternative for transit expansion in the METRO and Fraser Valley Regions and one hoped that the politicians will jump on board TramTrain, lest they be left at the station platform, waiting for a SkyTrain that will never come.

Mr. Campbell Responds to the Rail For The Valley/Leewood Report With Deceit

ordon Campbell has a very bad reputation for not telling the truth, in fact he is a habitual teller of very tall tales. The Premier’s statement made in the Burnaby News Leader, “But you know the operating costs of the SkyTrain are about 50 per cent a year less than with light rail. And the ridership is two and a half times greater with SkyTrain.” is a complete falsehood! A 1996 comparison with Calgary’s CTrain LRT shows that the Expo Line costs 40% more to operate than Calgary’s LRT (both about the same length), yet the CTrain carries more passengers! Mr. Campbell, to restore your credibility, please provide the same type of – accurate – data for SkyTrain as can be found on the Calgary Transit website for its light-rail system. http://www.calgarytransit.com/html/ technical_information.html Operating costs, Calgary C-Train (2006) -Vehicle Maintenance costs: $13.9M (2006) -Station Maintenance costs: $2.8M (2006) -Right of Way Maintenance costs: $2.9M (2006) -Signals Maintenance costs: $2.4M (2006) -Average annual power costs: $4.8M (2006) -Annual LRV Operator wages: $6.0M (includes fringe benefits of 21.57%) (2006) -Total – $32.8 million A 2009 study done by UBC Professor Patrick Condon also showed SkyTrain as being very expensive to operate and in his study, SkyTrain had the highest cost to operate than any other transit mode in the study, which reflects much higher operating costs.

Mr. Campbell’s other statement that ridership is two times and half a much as LRT’s is pure fiction, both SkyTrain and LRT have the same potential capacities. To remind everyone, capacity is a function of headway & train length. This comment from the Toronto Transit Commissions 1980’s ART Study sums up SkyTrain potential capacity: “ICTS (which SkyTrain was called at the time) costs anything up to ten times as much as a conventional light-rail line to install, for about the same capacity; or put another way, ICTS costs more than a heavy-rail subway, with four times its capacity.” There is no independent study that shows that SkyTrain attracts more ridership than LRT, in fact at-grade/on-street light rail tends to be very good for attracting ridership. There are other erroneous claims being made in the article and they will be dealt with later. Mr. Campbell demeans himself with such claims, as he continues to demonstrate that truth is not in his lexicon. SkyTrain was built and will be built for reasons of political prestige and not what is best for the transit customer or the taxpayer. SkyTrain has failed to find a market domestically,in the USA and in Europe because it is both more expensive to build and more expensive to operate than its chief competitor modern LRT. Mr. Campbell, Rail for the Valley demands honest debate for the future of transit in the region, not your half baked statements based on fiction, to pursue your political aims. “Oh, what tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to deceive”, Mr. Campbell, your tangled web of anti-LRT propaganda stops here, next time, deal in fact.

Tram Train in Porto, Portugal

Vancouver

October 2010

Interview by Dan Merchant

Recently interviewed the creator of the Vaccine Resistance Movement ( VRM), Joel Lord. During the 2009 H1N1 False Flag Flu pandemic, Joel Lord was on the front lines combating Government, Medical, and Media propaganda. His activism helped educate countless people about the dangers of not only the H1N1 shot but vaccines in general. Using the network he built on educating people about the H1N1 vaccination, he created VRM to continue rasing awareness about the dangers of vaccines. DM = Dan Merchant JL = Joel Lord DM: What led you to organize this study? JL: I felt something more wide-reaching than just reacting to the daily headlines & writing more articles had to be done. Autism coincides precisely with most intense period of standard immunization. By 15 months the average child has received over 25 injections including: 3 doses of Hepatitis B, Rotavirus, HIB (Haemophilus Influenza.), IPV (Inactivated Polio Vaccine) & Hepatitis A, 4 doses of DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis, Tetanus) & PCV (Pneumococcal Conjugate), 1 dose of Varicella + Meningococcal & 2 doses of MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella).

Vaccine Resistance Movement Creates Independent Autism Study

Autism Study Details

accine Resistance Movement is a grass roots, non-profit organization striving for safe alternatives to vaccines; both empowering citizens around the world with the means of self sufficiency while determined to expose vaccine fraud & pharmaceutical industry malfeasance. This study is the culmination of two years of inspired research, energized with the support of a growing community of responsible activists learning how to stand independent of Corporate & Government misdirection. Hypothesis: It is our goal, through this study, to determine an accurate percentage of those unvaccinated autistic children & adults vs. those unvaccinated children & adults who have not become autistic. Essentially what we are trying to identify is the healthy trend in unvaccinated children & adults. Based on the Centre For Disease Control’s ‘Recommended Immunization Schedule for Persons Aged 0 Through 6 Years—United States • 2010’ we are also charting the common denominators in those vaccinated children & adults who became autistic (ie. vaccines received, dietary issues, family health problems, breast/bottle feeding) vs. those vaccinated children & adults who did not become autistic (diet, family health history cross referenced, breast/bottle feeding). As this is a worldwide census type study it is felt the CDC 0-6 model comes closest to an official standard to which most nations subscribe. Variables nation-nation (ie. particulars of vaccine schedule) will be noted accordingly. An ‘Additional Comments’ category will accompany each section for any discrepancies. Just to clarify this study is open to EVERYONE. The absence of autism in your family/household or the fact you haven’t vaccinated your children does not preclude you from taking part in the study. The control parameters are wide open this time. All the data we receive will be pertinent in determining the paths that lead to autism. VRM will be continuing to collect your invaluable data for as long as possible. That being said we still encourage everyone to enroll in the study while it’s openly available.

To give you a sense of the complexity of Auseveral encouraging e-mails from nurses in have not become autistic in addition to charttism Spectrum Disorder these are some of the skin turning pale or blue), 23. Rett’s Syndrome (symptoms include the field. All in all the criteria & data have ing the common denominators in those vaccisymptoms: slowing of development, loss of purpose- been met with keen approval. So I’m really nated children & adults who became autistic ful use of the hands, distinctive hand move- positive about that aspect. This project took (ie. vaccines received, dietary issues, family 1. chronic rash, chronic eczema, ments, slowed brain & head growth, prob- months of careful preparation. I’ve learned health problems, breast/bottle feeding) vs. 2, floppy limbs, cracking of joints, 3. chronic constipation, Inflammatory Bowel lems with walking, seizures & intellectual a tremendous amount about autism, and those vaccinated children & adults who did disability), with the study results pouring in a lot of the not become autistic (diet, family health hisDisease (Crones, Colitis), 24. Mitochondrial Disorder (symptoms in- hidden aspects of this sometimes devastat- tory cross referenced, breast/bottle feeding). 4. Sub-Clinical Epileptic Seizures, 5. Macrophagic myofascilitis, Gastroenteri- clude muscular weakness/Hypotonia, devel- ing disorder will be explained. DM: Once the study is complete, what do opmental delays, epilepsy, vision & heart tis, DM: How many people are a part of the you plan to do with the results? 6. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Fybromyalgia, problems), 7. rolling on the back, refusal to lay on stom- 25. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (acute study so far? How many are you getting per JL: We’ll be deep analyzing all the informasensitivity to commonly used chemicals day (or week)? How many people do you tion we gather, matching together the patterns ach, we identify, categorizing all the co-factors & 8. fixation on repetitive motions, tearing up products including perfumes, air fresheners hope will participate? & laundry softeners. The symptoms, which JL: So far mostly parents from the Unit- ultimately sifting through the huge stack of paper repeatedly, 9. long stretches of silence/withdrawal, com- are chronic include fatigue and respiratory, ed States have participated, on behalf of material, eventually down to a measurable plete absence of speech/verbal communica- digestive, cardiovascular, dermatological & their children & also representing them- set of trends. This study has included criteria neurological problems) selves. The study is worldwide so I expect which, to my understanding, has never before tion, the ripples to broaden to encompass many been brought together in this manner. We 10. acute difficulty relating to people/objects/ DM: What has been the response from the countries & communities from the farthest hope to gain new insights into the causality events, reaches of the globe. I’m anticipating thou- & manifestations of autism with an exhaus11. serious mental & physical developmental medical community so far? JL: So far I’ve received several letters of sands of reports. We’ll leave the study open tive, scientific approach. I also want to enable delays, 12. prolonged difficulty using/understanding support from doctors, mainly chiropractors as long as possible to achieve the optimal re- families of children with autism to utilize the in favor of the anti-vaccine philosophy; one sults in terms of a broad cross section; those results in some capacity in vaccine court. language, 13. acute sensitivity to sound/light/surround- or two from mainstream doctors as well giv- unvaccinated autistic children & adults vs. ing the study a firm thumbs up. I also got those unvaccinated children & adults who ings, 15. difficulty with changes in routine or familiar surroundings, We at Agora would like to reiterate our commitment to rights and dignities. As an outlet with a solemn dedication to free16. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder dom of expression, it is important to remember that our dearest of rights are little more than excuses unless internalized (symptoms include impulsiveness, hyperac- equally emphatically are the responsibilities which give them meaning. Agora reminds readers that the views and opintivity, inattention, fidgeting, excessive talk- ions expressed within these pages are the authors own, exclusively. Readers are encouraged to heed disclaimers which ativeness, impatience, physically reckless, may protect them from what might be considered offensive material. Content which oversteps the bounds of reasonable delayed social & motor skills, plus extreme discourse is not desired by Agora, though, like none too few publications in the primoridal phase, there are known to be sensitivity to sensory stimuli), 17. Hypotonia (decreased muscle tone: the growing pains along the way. Agora does recognize value in the following; As Section 7 of the BC Human Rights Tribuamount of resistance to movement in a mus- lal code states: cle), 18. Echolalaia/Echophrasia (immediate & in- Discriminatory publication voluntary repetition of words/phrases spoken 7 (1) A person must not publish, issue or display, or cause to be published, issued or displayed, any statement, publication, by others), 19. Epstein Bar Virus (symptoms include fe- notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that ver, sore throat, swollen lymph glands, swol(a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a group or class of persons, or len spleen or liver), 20. Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (symptoms include sudden loss of motor/so- (b) is likely to expose a person or a group or class of persons to hatred or contempt cial/language skills, bowel & bladder control because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, at age 2), 21. Encephalitis (symptoms include dizzi- sexual orientation or age of that person or that group or class of persons. ness, confusion, vomiting, high fever, weakness or paralysis, impaired speech & hearing, (2) Subsection (1) does not apply to a private communication, a communication intended to be private or a communication delirium, excessive drowsiness, brain inflam- related to an activity otherwise permitted by this Code. mation, coma), 22. Febrile Convulsions (symptoms include You can contact the Tribunal at: loss of consciousness, stiffening of the body, 1170 - 605 Robson Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 5J3 Phone: 604 775-2000 Fax: 604 775-2020 legs & arms, jerking of head, legs & arms,

October 2010

Vancouver

Vancouver: A Visual History: The 1860’s

tence of coal on the shore of Burrard Inlet. This caused great excitement in the listener since at that time finding coal was the equivalent of discovering oil today. A survey ship was immediately dispatched to investigate under Captain Richards. In letters to Rear Admiral Bayne and Governor DougThis article is the second of a series exerpt- las, Richards reported that he thought ed from Vancouver: A Visual History. Being the coal “may exercise a considerable and possibly immediate influence on a decade-based history of the city, the book the prosperity of Queensborough” employs a rigid format for each ten years of the city’s modern history. Beginning with (New Westminster). Robert Burnaby, the 1850s, before there were any non-First Moody’s secretary, and Walter MoberNations settlers in Vancouver, each decade ly, superintendent of public works, also exis presented with a large detailed colour amined these reported coal deposits in Coal map of Vancouver showing the city over Harbour and English Bay. These events and the decade. Each decade treatment is acthe high value of coal at this time seem to companied by explanatory text keyed to the maps and many illustrative photographs and have caused the flurry of pre-emptions made graphs. Each article in the Agora series will by officials of the government and military also cover one decade.

lumbia Coal Mining Company a short-term right to explore for coal on Kitsilano Beach. In 1808 Simon Fraser had been the first non-Native to visit the large First Nations settlement of Musqueam in southwest Vancouver, but it was soon reduced in size after the ravages of smallpox epidemics and other severe disruptions. Since Fraser’s account we have very few written details about what Bruce Macdonald is a Vancouver-born writhappened in Vancouver until a trickle of er and a historical consultant specializing in non-First Nations people began to settle in Vancouver’s past. In the late 1980s he won the area in the 1860s. It apa $100,000 university research grant that pears the smallpox epidemic enabled him to put 10,000 hours of effort that swept up the BC coast into producing a colourful award-winning in 1862 was the most devashistory of the city on his home computer— tating of them all. This was Vancouver: A Visual History. also the year that immigrants from Great Britain first bentil the Gold Rush of 1858 there gan to permanently settle were only a few hundred nonin what later became the First Nations people living in the city of Vancouver in 1886. whole of mainland British Columbia, mostly In September 1862 the McFrench Canadian fur traders. In what is now Cleery brothers, Samuel and Vancouver, there were still only First Nations Fitzgerald, became the first to peoples. buy land and become farmThe situation changed when the Gold ers, pre-empting hundreds of Rush attracted a sudden influx of transient hectares of land in the flood miners and speculators hoping to get rich plain of the Fraser River near quick through new-found gold. They came to Musqueam. Another of the sandbars of the lower Fraser River mainly the first non-Native settlers from California, Australia and China. Panwas Peter Smith, who locatning for gold on the Fraser was only possible ed in what is now the eastern part of Standuring the few summer months of the year ley Park in 1860, near the ancient village of when the water level was low and the sandKhwaykhway. Known as Peter the Whaler, bars were exposed. In those early years the beginning in January of 1860. it is thought that he and another Portuguese This Coal Rush to Vancouver was short- man, Dacosta, quit a ship’s crew, married miners returned to Victoria or San Francisco The Hollow Tree in 1923, one of the last surviving big cedars in Vancouver, for most of the year. about 1,000 years old and today still located right on the Stanley Park Drive. local Native women, built homes and surIn an effort to encourage these non-First vived by fishing and whaling. Several othNations to remain in the newly formed mainers took up farming along the Fraser and beland Colony of British Columbia, inexpen- lived, as no large amounts of coal were ever gan supplying food to the small immigrant sive land was made available for settlement found. None of the speculators actually settlement at New Westminster, where the beginning in January 1860. Under the new settled on the land and almost all let their Fraser River first meets the Pacific Ocean. law instituted by Governor James Douglas claims lapse. This group included Colonel A site chosen by Colonel Moody in 1859, and implemented by the head of the mili- Moody who was commissioner of lands in 1860 this village became the first incortary in New Westminster, Colonel Richard and works, his assistant Robert Burnaby, porated city west of the Great Lakes in what Moody, it became legal for settlers to later became Canada. claim land not currently settled by First Despite the early Coal Rush, what Nations. This was done by “pre-empting” really brought non-Native settlement to the land—marking off up to 65 hectares Vancouver was a Timber Rush. Vancou(160 acres) with four stakes. After setver and its surrounding area were home tling on the claim, building structures to some of the finest, most easily accesand improving the land, the pre-emptor sible timber in the world. There is some was allowed to buy it for about $2.20 speculation the Douglas firs of Vancouper hectare ($1 an acre). Many prime rever may have been some of the tallest source sites used seasonally by the First trees in the world, some in the range of Nations for untold millennia were lost to 400 feet tall (122 metres). Certainly the pre-emptions because the First Nations red cedars of the Pacific Coast are still traditionally did not occupy year-round the largest trees by volume in the world homes at these sites. outside of California. In 1865 the first logging camp in In the 1860s the First Nations popu‘Vancouver’ was built at Jericho Beach lation of what is now BC was cut in half, next to the site of the ancient First Nadropping from over 50,000 to about tions settlements at Ee’yullmough. This 25,000. The non-First Nations populanew camp brought some of the first tion, from a few hundred in early 1858, groups of non-First Nations to Vanshot up to about 20,000 in 1864 at the One of the last big cedars in Vancouver, about 1,000 years old and 14 feet across (4.3 couver. Under Jeremiah Rogers logpeak of the Gold Rush and then dropped metres). gers cut thousands of top quality spars to near 10,000 by the end of the decade. The new population of miners was highly Attorney General George Cary and Rear for sailing ships. In 1867 they began supmobile, moving to new areas as word of new Admiral Lambert Baynes, commander-in- plying logs to the first industrial building, strikes spread. For a time the gold rush town chief of the British Navy’s Pacific Station. a sawmill at Kumkumalay, near the north of Barkerville had the largest population in Nevertheless in 1862 coal attracted the first foot of what is now Main Street. The mill British settler to downtown Vancouver, the manager was Captain Edward Stamp, the the west north of San Francisco. Meanwhile the Vancouver area had been potter John Morton. Morton hoped to find Member of the Legislative Council for left unnoticed until the summer of 1859, clay and use the coal to fire bricks. The last Lillooet, and the directors of the company when a local First Nations person in New serious interest in coal was in 1864, when included the resourceful Colonel Richard Westminster happened to mention the exis- Governor Seymour granted the British Co- Moody and his partner Robert Burnaby.

The success of Stamp’s Mill led to the establishment of the first small business in what later became known as Vancouver, Gassy Jack’s saloon. Located at the Native site of Luk’luk’i, it became the point from which the modern city of Vancouver began its rapid growth in 1886. Although the easiest way to travel locally was by canoe or boat, the main overland link to the BC capital at New Westminster was an ancient First Nations trail. It linked Burrard Inlet at the northeast corner of Vancouver to the berry grounds around Burnaby Lake and continued on to the Kwantlan/Musqueam settlements on the Fraser River. At the Burrard Inlet end of the trail was the First Nations site Khanamoot. Here in 1865 the first modern settlement in today’s Vancouver was established called New Brighton, later ‘Hastings.’ The activity generated by loggers and sawmills on the inlet resulted in the trail being upgraded to a stagecoach road in 1865 and New Brighton became the point where stagecoach and ferry met to transfer overland travellers and supplies between Burrard Inlet and New Westminster. When the Squamish people began to resist incursions by non-First Nations into their territory, Colonel Moody threatened to destroy them. Through the efforts of Chief Snatt and Father Leon Fouquet from New Westminster, an Indian Mission in North Vancouver was established and the situation subdued. At the end of the 1860s the site of Vancouver lay between 3 new areas of activity: some kilometres to the east was New Westminster, the capital of the mainland Colony of British Columbia until 1868; to the north along Burrard Inlet were 2 sawmills and their associated logging camps; and to the south, a few farms scattered along the Fraser River’s North Arm. In the Fraser delta region, New Westminster City continued to be the largest non-Native settlement in the Lower Mainland with a non-Native population of roughly 300. On May Day 1865, for Queen Victoria’s birthday celebration 6,000 local First Nations travelled to the city in 1,000 canoes. With the help of 500 Chinese labourers the Telegraph Trail was built through New Westminster in 1865 on its way from California to Russia and Europe. The first electrically transmitted message to reach New Westminster was news of the assassination of the American president, Abraham Lincoln. Through the 1860s disappointed miners drifting down from the goldfields began to settle on the low lands surrounding New Westminster to become farmers, trappers or squatters. These areas later developed into Richmond, Surrey, Delta and Coquitlam. By the end of the 1860s about 600 to 700 First Nations people lived on Burrard Inlet, recently joined by 400 non-First Nations from all over the world. The commercial part of Gastown, the beginnings of Vancouver’s Central Business District, consisted of 8 small wooden buildings. At Hastings there were just 4 buildings. <bruce1m@shaw.ca> Bruce Mcdonald

World october 2010 14 Did Some Unknown Intelligence Park Our Moon? By Jim Marrs

water or even water molecules bound into Did Some Unknown Intelligence Park Our the minerals. Yet Apollo 16 astronauts found Moon rocks that contained bits of rusted iron. Moon? Since oxidation requires oxygen and free hyEditor’s Note: This essay from Jim Marrs drogen, this rust indicates there must be water exploring a number of controversial ideas somewhere on the Moon. Furthermore, instruments left behind about the Moon was originally published in Above Top Secret: Uncover the Mysteries of the by Apollo missions sent a signal to Earth on March 7, 1971, indicating a “wind” of water Digital Age (Disinformation, 2008). had crossed the Moon’s surface. Since any arthshine MoonDespite six an- water on the airless Moon surface vaporizes nounced visits by U.S. astro- and behaves like the wind on Earth, the quesnauts between 1969 and 1972, tion became where did this water originate? the Moon remains a riddle to The vapor cloud eruptions lasted 14 hours scientists in many regards. The solutions to and covered an area of some 100 square these riddles could indicate an alien aspect of miles, prompting Rice University physicists Dr. John Freeman, Jr. and Dr. H. Ken Hills to our familiar Moon. Called “the Rosetta Stone of the planets” pronounce the event one of “the most exciting by Dr. Robert Jastrow, the first chairman of discoveries yet” indicating water within the NASA’s Lunar Exploration Committee, sci- Moon. The two physicists claimed the water entists had hoped by studying the composition vapor came from deep inside the Moon, apof the Moon, to resolve some of the mysteries parently released during a moonquake. NASA officials offered a more mundane, of how our planet and solar system came into and questionable, explanation. They specuexistence. However, six Moon landings later, science lated that two tanks on Apollo descent stages writer Earl Ubell declared, “… the lunar Roset- containing between 60 and 100 pounds of ta Stone remains a mystery. The Moon is more water became stressed and ruptured, releascomplicated than anyone expected; it is not ing their contents. Freeman and Hills declined simply a kind of billiard ball frozen in space to accept this explanation, pointing out that and time, as many scientists had believed. Few the two tanks — from Apollo 12 and 14 — of the fundamental questions have been an- were some 180 kilometers apart yet the waswered, but the Apollo rocks and recordings ter vapor was detected with the same flux at have spawned a score of mysteries, a few truly both sites although the instruments faced in opposite directions. Skeptics also have underbreath-stopping.” Among these “breath-stopping” mysteries standably questioned the odds of two separate or anomalies as scientists prefer to call them is tanks breaking simultaneously and how such the fact that the Moon is far older than previ- a small quantity of water could produce 100 ously imagined, perhaps even much older than square miles of vapor. Moon rocks were found to be magnethe Earth and Sun. By examining tracks burned into Moon rocks by cosmic rays, scientists have tized—not strong enough to pick up a paper dated them as billions of years old. Some have clip, but magnetic nevertheless. However, been dated back 4.5 billion years, far older than there is no magnetic field on the Moon itself. the Earth and nearly as old as the solar system. So where did the magnetism come from? The presence of maria, or large seas of The Moon has at least three distinct layers of rocks. Contrary to the idea that heavier smooth solidified molten rock, also presented objects sink, the heavier rocks are found on a mystery. These maria indicate nothing less the surface. And there is a definite disparity in than a vast outpouring of lava at some distant the distribution of minerals. Ubell asked, “If time. It has now been confirmed that some the Earth and Moon were created at the same of the Moon’s craters are of internal origin. time, near each other, why has one body got all Yet there is no indication that the Moon has the iron [the Earth] and the other [the Moon] ever been hot enough to produce volcanic not much?” asked Ubell. “The differences sug- eruptions. Another puzzle is that almost all gest that Earth and Moon came into being far — four-fifths — of the maria are located on from each other, an idea that stumbles over the the Moon’s Earthside hemisphere. Few maria inability of astrophysicists to explain how ex- mark the far side of the Moon, often erroneactly the Moon became a satellite of the Earth.” ously referred to as the “dark side.” Yet the far The Moon is extremely dry and does not side contains many more craters and mounappear to have ever had water in any substan- tainous areas. In comparison to the rest of the Moon, the tial amounts. None of the Moon rocks, regardless of where they were found, contained free maria are relatively free of craters suggesting

that craters were covered by lava flow. Adding to this mystery are the mascons — large dense circular masses lying 20 to 40 miles below the center of the Moon’s maria. The mascons were discovered because their denseness distorted the orbits of our spacecraft flying over or near them. One scientist proposed that the mascons are heavy iron meteorites that plunged deep into the Moon while it was in a soft, formable stage. This theory has been discounted since meteorites strike with such high velocities, they would vaporize on contact. Another mundane explanation is that the mascons are nothing more than lava-filled caverns, but skeptics say there isn’t enough lava present to accomplish this. It would seem these mascons are huge disk-shaped objects possibly of artificial construction. It is unlikely that large circular disks located directly under the center of the maria like a giant bullseye happened by accident or coincidence. Between 1969 and 1977, Apollo mission seismographic equipment registered up to 3,000 “moonquakes” each year of operation. Most of the vibrations were quite small and were caused by meteorite strikes or falling booster rockets. But many other quakes were detected deep inside the Moon. This internal creaking is believed to be caused by the gravitational pull of our planet as most moonquakes occur when the Moon is closest to the Earth. An event occurred in 1958 in the Moon’s Alphonsus crater, which shook the idea that all internal moonquake activity was simply settling rocks. In November of that year, Soviet astronomer Nikolay A. Kozyrev of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory startled the scientific world by photographing the first recorded gaseous eruption on the Moon near the crater’s peak. Kozyrev attributed this to escaping fluorescent gases. He also detected a reddish glow characteristic of carbon compounds, which “seemed to move and disappeared after an hour.” Some scientists refused to accept Kozyrev’s findings until astronomers at the Lowell Observatory also saw reddish glows on the crests of ridges in the Aristarchus region in 1963. Days later, colored lights on the Moon lasting more than an hour were reported at two separate observatories. Something was going on inside the volcanically dead Moon. And whatever it is, it occurs the same way at the same time. As the Moon moves closer to the Earth, seismic signals from different stations on the lunar surface detect identical vibrations. It is difficult to accept this movement as a natural phenomenon. For example, a broken artificial hull plate could shift exactly the same way each time the Moon passed near the Earth. There is evidence to indicate the Moon may be hollow. Studies of Moon rocks indicate that the Moon’s interior differs from the Earth’s mantle in ways suggesting a very small, or even nonexistent, core. As far back as 1962, NASA scientist Dr. Gordon MacDonald stated, “If the astronomical data are reduced, it is found that the data require that the interior of the Moon be less dense than the outer parts. Indeed, it would seem that the Moon is more like a hollow than a homogeneous sphere.” Apollo 14 astronaut Dr. Edgar Mitchell, while scoffing at the possibility of a hollow moon, nevertheless admitted that since heavier materials were on the surface, it is quite possible that giant caverns exist within the Moon. MIT’s Dr. Sean C. Solomon wrote, “The Lunar Orbiter experiments vastly improved our knowledge of the Moon’s gravitational field … indicating the frightening possibility that the Moon might be hollow.” Why frightening? The significance was stated by astronomer Carl Sagan way back in his 1966 work Intelligent Life in the Universe, “A natural satellite cannot be a hollow object.” The most startling evidence that the

Moon could be hollow came on November 20, 1969, when the Apollo 12 crew, after returning to their command ship, sent the lunar module (LM) ascent stage crashing back onto the Moon creating an artificial moonquake. The LM struck the surface about 40 miles from the Apollo 12 landing site where ultra-sensitive seismic equipment recorded something both unexpected and astounding—the Moon reverberated like a bell for more than an hour. The vibration wave took almost eight minutes to reach a peak, and then decreased in intensity. At a news conference that day, one of the codirectors of the seismic experiment, Maurice Ewing, told reporters that scientists were at a loss to explain the ringing. “As for the meaning of it, I’d rather not make an interpretation right now. But it is as though someone had struck a bell, say, in the belfry of a church a single blow and found that the reverberation from it continued for 30 minutes.” It was later established that small vibrations had continued on the Moon for more than an hour. The phenomenon was repeated when the Apollo 13’s third stage was sent crashing onto the Moon by radio command, striking with the equivalent of 11 tons of TNT. According to NASA, this time the Moon “reacted like a gong.” Although seismic equipment was more than 108 miles from the crash site, recordings showed reverberations lasted for three hours and 20 minutes and traveled to a depth of 22 to 25 miles. Subsequent studies of man-made crashes on the Moon yielded similar results. After one impact the Moon reverberated for four hours. This ringing coupled with the density problem on the Moon reinforces the idea of a hollow moon. Scientists hoped to record the impact of a meteor large enough to send shock waves to the Moon’s core and back and settle the issue. That opportunity came on May 13, 1972, when a large meteor stuck the Moon with the equivalent force of 200 tons of TNT. After sending shock waves deep into the interior of the Moon, scientists were baffled to find that none returned, confirming that there is something unusual about the Moon’s core, or lack thereof. Dr. Farouk El Baz was quoted as saying, “There are many undiscovered caverns suspected to exist beneath the surface of the Moon. Several experiments have been flown to the Moon to see if there actually were such caverns.” The results of these experiments have not been made public. It seems apparent that the Moon has a tough, hard outer shell and a light or nonexistent interior. The Moon’s shell contains dense minerals such as titanium, used on Earth in the construction of aircraft and space vehicles. Many people still recall watching our astronauts on TV as they vainly tried to drill through the crust of a Moon maria. Their specially designed drills could only penetrate a few inches. The puzzle of the Moon’s hard surface was compounded by the discovery of what appeared to be processed metals. Experts were surprised to find lunar rocks bearing brass, mica and amphibole in addition to the near-pure titanium. Uranium 236 and Neptunium 237 — elements not previously found in nature — were discovered in Moon rocks, according to the Argone National Laboratory. While still trying to explain the presence of these materials, scientists were further startled to learn of rust-proof iron particles in a soil sample from the Sea of Crisis. In 1976, the Associated Press reported that the Soviets had announced the discovery of iron particles that “do not rust” in samples brought back by an unmanned Moon mission in 1970. Iron that does not rust is unknown in nature and well beyond present Earth technology. Undoubtedly the greatest mystery concerning our Moon is how it came to be there in the first place. Prior to the Apollo missions, one serious theory as to the Moon’s origin was that it broke off of the Earth eons ago. Although no one could positively locate where on Earth it originated, many speculated the loss of material explained the huge gouge in the Earth, which forms the Pacific Ocean. However, this idea was discarded when it was found that there is little similarity between the composition of our world and the Moon. A more recent theory had the Moon created out of space Continued Next Page

debris left over from the creation of the Earth. This concept proved untenable in light of current gravitational theory, which indicates that one large object will accumulate all loose material, leaving none for the formation of another large body. It is now generally accepted that the Moon originated elsewhere and entered the Earth’s gravitational field at some point in the distant past. Here theories diverge — one stating that the Moon was originally a planet which collided with the Earth creating debris which combined forming the Moon while another states the Moon, while wandering through our solar system, was captured and pulled into orbit by Earth’s gravity. Neither of these theories are especially compelling because of the lack of evidence that neither the Earth nor the Moon seem to have been physically disrupted by a past close encounter. There is no debris in space indicating a past collision and it does not appear that the Earth and the Moon developed during the same time period. As for the “capture” theory, even scientist Isaac Asimov, well known for his works of fiction, has written, “It’s too big to have been captured by the Earth. The chances of such a capture having been effected and the Moon then having taken up nearly circular orbit around our Earth are too small to make such an eventuality credible.” Asimov was right to consider the Moon’s orbit — it is not only nearly a perfect circle, but stationary, one side always facing the Earth with only the slightest variation. As far as we know, it’s the only natural satellite with such an orbit. This circular orbit is especially odd considering that the Moon’s center of mass lies more than a mile closer to the Earth than its geometric center. This fact alone should produce an unstable, wobbly orbit, much as a ball with its mass off center will not roll in a straight line. Additionally, almost all of the other satellites in our solar system orbit in the plane of their planet’s equator. Not so the Moon, whose orbit lies strangely nearer the Earth’s orbit around the Sun or inclined to the Earth’s ecliptic by more than five degrees. Add to this the fact that the Moon’s bulge — located on the side facing away from Earth — thus negating the idea that it was caused by the Earth’s gravitational pull — makes for an off-balanced world. It seems impossible that such an oddity could naturally fall into such a precise and circular orbit. It is a fascinating conundrum as articulated by science writer William Roy Shelton, who wrote, “It is important to remember that something had to put the Moon at or near its present circular pattern around the Earth. Just as an Apollo spacecraft circling the Earth every 90 minutes while 100 miles high has to have a velocity of roughly 18,000 miles per hour to stay in orbit, so something had to give the Moon the precisely required velocity for its weight and altitude … The point—and it is one seldom noted in considering the origin of the Moon — is that it is extremely unlikely that any object would just stumble into the right combination of factors required to stay in orbit. ‘Something’ had to put the Moon at its altitude, on its course and at its speed. The question is: what was that ‘something’?” If the precise and stationary orbit of the Moon is seen as sheer coincidence, is it also coincidence that the Moon is at just the right distance from the Earth to completely cover the Sun during an eclipse? While the diameter of the Moon is a mere 2,160 miles against the Sun’s gigantic 864,000 miles, it is nevertheless in just the proper position to block out all but the Sun’s flaming corona when it moves between the Sun and the Earth. Asimov explained: “There is no astronomical reason why the Moon and the Sun should fit so well. It is the sheerest of coincidences, and only the Earth among all the planets is blessed in this fashion.” Is it merely coincidence? How does one explain this and many other Moon mysteries? In July 1970, two Russian scientists, Mikhail Vasin and Alexander Shcherbakov, published an article in the Soviet journal Sputnik entitled “Is the Moon the Creation of Alien Intelligence?” They advanced the theory that the Moon is not a completely natural world, but a planetoid that was hollowed out eons ago in the far reaches of space by intelligent beings possessing a technology far superior to ours. Huge machines were used to melt rock and

form large cavities within the Moon, spewing the molten refuse onto the surface. Protected by a hull-like inner shell plus a reconstructed outer shell of metallic rocky junk, this gigantic craft was steered through the cosmos and finally parked in orbit around the Earth. In their article Vasin and Shcherbakov wrote, “Abandoning the traditional paths of ‘common sense,’ we have plunged into what may at first sight seem to be unbridled and irresponsible fantasy. But the more minutely we go into all the information gathered by man about the Moon, the more we are convinced that there is not a single fact to rule out our supposition. Not only that, but many things so far considered to be lunar enigmas are explainable in the light of this new hypothesis.” Outrageous as the spaceship moon theory might first appear, consider how this model reconciles all of the mysteries of the Moon. It would explain why the Moon gives evidence of being much older than the Earth and perhaps even our solar system and why there are three distinct layers within the Moon, with the densest materials in the outside layer, exactly as one would expect of the “hull” of a spacecraft. It could also explain why no sign of water has been found on the Moon’s surface, yet there is evidence it exists deep inside. This theory also

october 2010 would explain the strange maria and mascons, perhaps the remnants of the machinery used to hollow out the Moon. The idea of an artificial satellite could explain the odd, rhythmic “moonquakes” as artificial constructs reacting the same way during periods of stress from the Earth’s pull. And artificial equipment beneath the Moon’s surface might be the source of the gas clouds that have been observed. Intelligent “terraforming” of the Moon could prove the solution to the argument between “hot moon” and “cold moon” scientists — they are both right! The Moon originally was a cold world, which was transformed into a spacecraft by artificially heating and expelling vast quantities of its interior. This theory also could explain the seeming contradictions over the question of a hollow moon. If the Moon originally was a solid world which was artificially hollowed out, there would be evidence of both phases—exactly what we have with current Moon knowledge. An artificially hollowed-out Moon would explain why the satellite rings like a bell for hours after striking and why specimens of tough, refractory metals such as titanium,

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chromium and circonium; “rust-proof” iron; Uranium 236 and Neptunium 237 have been found there. In fact, the spaceship moon theory may come closer than any other in reconciling the questions over the origin and amazing orbit of the Moon. But we are not supposed to consider this thesis. The circular logic of modern science regarding the origins of the Moon runs something like this: We know that extraterrestrials don’t exist but we do know that the Moon exists and has been mentioned throughout human history. We humans did not create it or place it in Earth’s orbit, so it must have been done by extraterrestrials. But since we know they don’t exist, we will simply call it an anomaly and will not publicly say anything more about this.

Jim Marrs is a journalist from Ft. Worth, Texas, who has been an active student of the JFK assassination since the day it happened. His book on the subject, Crossfire, has been extremely popular for many years, and was used by Oliver Stone in planning his movie JFK . Marrs has attended numerous JFK conferences in Dallas and is known for his friendliness and accessibility. In early 2000, HarperCollins published Rule by Secrecy, which traced the hidden history that connects modern secret societies to the Ancient Mysteries. In 2003, his book The War on Freedom probed the conspiracies of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.

world

october 2010

The 2010 Crop Circle Season “What is a book without pictures?” said Alice.

he vast majority of humans living on Earth today probably do not believe that modern crop circles are any more than what the multinational media tells them: just pranks made by two old geezers from the pub, late at night like Santa Claus, all across southern England while no one is watching. Other people believe that crop pictures may be no more than field art, planked out by groups such as the Circlemakers to help companies sell their commercial goods. For example, there was an advertisement shown all across north America recently for Pringle’s potato chips, where a group of healthy young people dance out into some farmer’s field in order to make a “potato chip” crop picture using rope and boards. In addition to the Pringle potato chip company, who else keeps telling us that modern crop pictures are human-made? We have Wikipedia, the BBC, the Guardian, National Geographic, or the Discovery Channel. Yet public opinion on this controversial issue may be changing rapidly! For example, during the week of July 23, 2010, Yahoo News showed a disinformational movie about crop circles that immediately generated 2300, mostly vitriolic, reader responses (here). The current situation appears to be as follows: a great many “authorities” on Earth have been telling people for over twenty years from 1990 to 2010, that nothing strange or mysterious is happening each summer in the fields of southern England, or elsewhere across Europe. Yet a small but ever-growing proportion of people have begun to rebel. They are defying peer pressure and group opinion, as if to say: “Yes, something strange is indeed happening there, and you are refusing to tell us the truth about it. Why is that? Are some of the people in power on Earth today afraid of what might happen if everyone learned the truth?”

Figure 1. Binary ASCII coding at Wilton Windmill on May 22, 2010 Crop e^(hi)pi)1=0 Euler i(pi)+1=0

If the readers of this article would like to see an independent assessment of crop circles, current to the end of 2008, please see “What Do Modern Crop Pictures Mean?” by Harold Stryderight and Charles Reed. Those are two of my various pseudonyms. As a professional scientist with a Ph.D. from Caltech, and having worked in research for 35 years at places such as UCLA, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology Cambridge, or the national Australian science laboratory, I find that I need to protect myself from a small proportion of people who follow crop pictures, but do not adhere to the usual rules of human social conduct. Daniel Pinchbeck and his famous book “2012:the Return of Quetzalcoatl” are certainly mentioned in that long review, because: (a) the entire crop circle phenomenon often seems to be focused on a year, 2012; and (b) symbols for Quetzalcoatl sometimes appear in crops, most spectacularly perhaps on July 5, 2009 near Silbury Hill (Figure 11). So begins my progress report on new crop pictures which have appeared during the summer of 2010. It has certainly been a season of

from . com

showed spectacular, highly elaboratefield details, or what most researchers call the “lay of fallen crop.” Thus from a purely technical point of view they would have been hard to fake. We have a known fake from 2010 with which to compare, that was made with rope and boards in East Field on July 29-30, 2010. It shows considerably less field detail than any of those three “cubic” croppictures, while close-up photographs taken on the ground reveal a stomped-out mess. Still, one cannot really be sure whether any or all of those “cubic” crop pictures might be paranormally authentic. That issue has driven a small (but vocal) minority of crop circle researchers into social turmoil this year. Some of them have argued (without any evidence) that all crop pictures from 2010 have been human-made fakes, and that there exists a huge “secret conspiracy” among mainstream crop circle researchers, who have been studying the subject since 1990, to commission large teams of workers to go out into the fields at night, in Figure 2. This figure shows three crop pictures from the summer of 2010, in addition to those discussed in the main text. At upper left we can see a order to make fake crop pictures that can later “feathered serpent returning to Earth”, which appeared at Walbury Hill on June 12 (see www.cropcircleconnector.com/2010/Walbury/Walbury2010a. html). At lower right we can see a star-like astronomical diagram that tells about eclipses, which appeared at White Sheet Hill on June 25 (see www. be shown on calendars or jewelry, simply for cropcircleconnector.com/2010/whitesleethill/WhitesheetHill2010a.html). Then at upper right and lower left we can see an orbital-like astronomical the purpose of making money! diagram that may predict a future comet, which appeared at Pewsey White Horse on August 8 (see www.cropcircleconnector.com/2010/pewseywhitehorse/pewseywhitehorse2010a.html). We would like to thank Lucy Pringle, Matthew Williams and Nyako Nakar for use of their aerial photographs No doubt a little of this goes on. Yet one or artistic diagrams. can only note here that the long-term researchsocial turmoil among the small band of dediCley Hill showed us another cubic art ers in question (who sell calendars or jewelry) cated individuals who research or take pho- motif, which was made famous by Leonar- are relatively poor by normal human stantographs of crop pictures. But more on that doda Vinci: dards, and would hardly have enough funds later. to pay for such The 2010 season began spectacularly large-scale efat Wilton Windmill (Figure 1) in southern forts! Those crop England on May 22 with a crop picture made pictures which in yellow oilseed rape, which is a plant with are known to thick celery-like stems that is almost imposbe”fake” usually sible to bend smoothly (rather than break) seem quite obviwith rope and boards. Nevertheless, many ous, and hence are plant stems in that remarkable crop picture not visited or rewere found to be bent smoothly, much like an garded well by seiron bar subjected to high temperatures and rious researchers, then re-cooled into another shape. What did only by tourists. the new crop picture at Wilton Windmill tell Figure 6. Cley Hill, July 9, 2010. Based on a famous cubic model made by Leonardo da Vinci in 1500 AD. Finally, the intelus? lectual content of It showed a famous mathematical forFosbury showed us a third cubic art mo- modern crop pictures can sometimes be quite mula known as “Euler’s Identity”, using a bi- tif, which was made famous by Archimedes high, as shown above for Euler’s Identity, E = nary form of computer ASCII code (Fig 1.). (Figure 7). mc2 or the golden ratio. “Are we really talking Even British newspapers could not ignore Let us see now: Metatron, Leonardo about the same people here, who would not this. Then a few weeks later on June 13 at da Vinci, or Archimedes, None of those have received an education in higher mathPoirino in Italy (Fig. 3), we saw the image “cubic”crop pictures look alien to me! Could ematics?” of a six-month lunar calendar, in which all the skeptics be right? Could all three have Now in order to close this progress reof the small “stars”coded for another famous been made by local human fakers with rope port, let us delve into the heart of the subject. equation “E = mc2”, this time using a deci- and boards? Or might there besomething Three crop pictures at Woolaston Grange on mal form ofASCII: wrong with our intellectual presumptions reJuly 18, Beggar’s Knoll onJuly 27, or Windmill Hill on July 27, seemed to show the first and second stages of a “proton-proton nuclear fusion reaction” which powers our Sun, or is used in man-made hydrogen bombs (Figure 8). Are they adFigure 3. A new astronomical crop picture in Poirino, Italy vising us to deFigure 5. Danebury Hill was based loosely on the the shape of Metatron’s Cube, except using a 1-6-12-6 variant cosdes E=MC^2 never before imagined by geometers on modern Earth. CMM Research. Photo Credit: Steve Alexander Proceeding to a look-up table for “decimal ASCII”, we can find velop new methods six characters: 69-E. 61-=, 77-M, 67-C, 94-^, 50-2. for energy generaThese total out to E = MC^2 in total. CMM Resaerch. garding this subject? tion, or might they be warning us about an Eight days after that on June 21 at PewsAll three of those “cubic” crop pictures upcoming nuclear war? There is little doubt in ey in southern England, we saw a cleverly mymind that the real “paranormal crop artists” coded version of the “golden ratio phi to ten can somehow predict the future:see for examdigits”, or 1.61803399 (Figure 6). ple the first two slides here, which show how Whatever anyone chooses to believe several crop pictures from 2007 anticipated about this controversial subject, it would the BP oil spillin 2010. have to be said that the “crop artists” (whomFinally, just a few days ago on July 30, ever they might be) are great mathematicians, 2010 at Wickham Green in Berkshire, wesaw and also great graphic designers! two circular crop pictures which showed apThen in July of 2010 we saw three “cuparently the “face of Jesus” asit appears on the bic” crop pictures at Danebury Hill (here), Turin Shroud, along with a complex, unsolved Cley Hill (here), or Fosbury (here). message inbinary code for everyone on Earth The Danebury crop picture showed a (Figure 9 & 10): clever version of “Metatron’s Cube”,which Does anyone seriously believe that those is a famous shape in what is called “sacred Figure 4. The inner part of Pewsey on June 21, 2010 codes for two highly-elaborate crop pictures were localthe golden ratio, 1.61803399. Solves by “Strob”. Photo Credit: geometry” (Figure 5). ly human-made? Continued Next Page John Montgomery.

october 2010 to show a “message from above” that is intended for everyone on Earth, if we can figure out what it means. Where do modern crop pictures come from, if they are not made by local human fakers with rope and boards? There is no current consensus on this point, nor have the crop artists clearly revealed their identities in their pictures (except maybe Figure 7. July 17, 2010 at Fosbury. The “outer hexagon-circle-Inner hexagon” symbols shown at on July 30). Some people beFosbury come from a famous geometrical construction used by Archimedes in 200 BC to estimate pi. lieve that they are being made And what might their underlying binary code by extra-terrestrial visitors to have to tell us? Earth, while other people believe that they This summary diagram was prepared by may come from some other space-time diCMM Research on August 8, 2010, based on original work done by George Costanza and Marius Zemaitis on the ‘Circle Chasers’ Facebook website. In summary, the 2010 crop circle season has been an exciting time (so far). It has included many new crop pictures of a mathematical or geometrical nature, along with several other pictures which show nuclear fusion from subatomic physics, plus a recent pair Figure 8. Woolaston Grange and Beggar’s Knoll show the first two stages of a proton-proton nuclear of pictures which purports fucion reaction. Photo credits to Olivier Morel and John Montgomery.

Continued From ences blossoms. Movements fragment, cannibalize themselves, demobilize, turn inward and at the end of a cycle of struggle a small cadre of hardened activists is left isolated. This cannot be reduced to any single explanation, but certain-

world

Figure 9. Did the face of Jesus appear at Wickham Green on July 30, 2010, with a still unsolved message for all people on Earth encoded in binary form?

mension, whether physical or spiritual, which overlaps our own. One thing seems certain however: our current way of thinking about “consensusNewtonian reality” must be fundamentally in error, in order for those beautiful field pictures to keep appearing year after year in diverse places, almost as if by magic, never showing any mistakes, never being found half-finished, and their perpetrators almost never being caught, despite intense surveillance of the fields in England where they most commonly appear.

We would like to thank the Crop Circle Connector website runby Mark Fussell and Stuart Dike, and all of their contributing photographers (especially Julian Gibsone, Steve Alexander, Olivier Morel and Lucy Pringle) for permission to reproduce their original images here. None of these Figure 10. How an unknown crop artist first designed Wickham Green, then laid it out in the field with one images are permitted to or two still unsolved hidden codes. be used for commercial purposes. Visit This article ly the aftereffects of trauma at RealtySandwich for extensive links. Page 21 play a role.

But this is changing. Small islands within larger movements are addressing trauma. Natalie Grey, an activist friend returned from the G20, showed me her arm and torso, distorted by two nasty lumps, surrounded with bruises in pallets of turned-off TV grey, jaundiced journalism yellow and bankers’ pin stripe suit blue. She was hit by two rubber bullets, fired while she tried to follow police orders. Just after returning, Nat seemed unfocused, frayed at the edges and even a little manic. She said as much. But unlike me, she did something about it.

She told me about the healing circles she participated in held spontaneously in Toronto parks and elsewhere during the G20; about free acupuncture provided in an East Van collective space; about talking to other wounded comrades. In Toronto and Montreal activists are accessing resources such as the on-line peer support of CLAC (www.clac.2010.net). Street medics are increasingly prepared to treat mental as well as physical trauma. Another way Nat is healing herself is by suing those who hurt her. Regardless of one’s opinion of the legal system, taking back our Figure 11. A crop picture which appeared on July 5, 2009 was called the “Quetzalcoatl headdress”, because it resembled a crown of Mayan kings. agency is important. In 1997, 27 of us likewise filed suit against the RCMP and the Prime Minister’s Office as clouds of pepis looking for people who per spray dissipated at UBC after the Asia want to get off their asses and Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. dare to become the change Nat is also reading “Aftershock,” by Patthey have always dreamt of. trice Jones, who provides analysis and adHere at Agora we’ve built a vehicle that is primed and ready vice for activists facing traumatic events. for human beings with courage, daring and discipline to combine Jones argues that trauma impacts us as their creative energies in making this a force to be reckoned with. it does any other animal. She writes that The career options available (director, ad reps, designers, web people, journalistic entrepeneurs) coupled with an open policy dealing with the aftershocks of traumatic for volunteers in all related fields, promise an exciting and re- events is crucial, not self-indulgent. Aniwarding opportunity for those with the spirit and heart to seize mal fear trumps rationality every time. the day. We work with websites all over the net in bridging the Dealing with trauma is culturally deterdigital gap with one of the last bastions of freedomized expres- mined and has a strong class dynamic. sion left to us in these interesting times. Our internship program There is no one way to recover. But there offers a priceless opportunity to build portfolios and gain dy- are some pretty common routes to disasnamic real life experience. Together we can achieve greatness. ter. I’ve mapped a few. By expressing and exercising our freedoms we make them real. Old habits die hard. Post-G20, much more of the movement has been engaged in unhealthy and adversarial debates about Organization Information: The Agora is changing the face of print media in Canada. An unusually comprehensive array of journalists, writers, and artists tactics and post mortems than in healfrom all age groups, ethnic backgrounds and political perspectives cohabitate the common pages of the Agora. We provide a ing. Tired old patterns of blame, accusavenue for numerous websites and publications, all with a shared vision, yet distinct perspectives on a better world. Our open access and Internet interface approach has created a truly revolutionary new genre of print media. Open source philosophy combined with quality content, collaborative relationships, and a desire to provide the tion and recrimination continue. Factions widest possible array of information to the reader all make Agora an opportunity unlike any other for those with integrity and the resolve to see their vision manifested. form around tactics and accuse each other With a current monthly circulation of 20,000 copies every month distributed to all the high traffic areas of Vancouver as well as communities throughout BC, Agora of being cops or thugs. This happened afis looking to go National. We seek working relationships that are respectful and harmonious. The Agora is a combined effort of Harmony Projects & Paradoxical ter the G20, the WTO, the Summit of the Publications Inc. Americas in Quebec City and probably the Skills & Assets: Respect for and appreciation of freedom of speech. Tolerance of said speech within reason and within legal limits. Exceptional communication Spartacus rebellion. To progress, we must skills, both verbally and written. Must be self motivated, self directed and assertive with a willingness to take initiative in identifying and acting assess our actions but in a respectful, caron opportunities for improvement; ability to work under minimal supervision. Collaboration skills: ability to initiate collaboration, to be supportive and constructive ing and comradely manor, with an awarein group decision-making process and hold people accountable for their obligations. Demonstrated ability to synthesize complex information. Demonstrated ability ness that many are dealing with fresh to work effectively as a single unit or as an integral member of a communications team; adaptable to change with a focus. Demonstrated ability to multi-task, meet wounds. Unexamined collective trauma critical deadlines, and balance competing priorities while maintaining attention to detail. Demonstrated ability to keyboard at 999 wpm. Ability to laugh at weird jokes can poison the way we discuss actions and if necessary. Ability to instill confidence in your competency and maintain relationships with volunteers, employees, and clients that are respectful and enjoyable yet even what we do next. Many of us have maintain vision of purpose, accomplishing short term tasks and long term goals without distraction or drama. Ability to be up front in communications with individuals and cut to the heart of matters in the interest of efficiency while maintaining rapport that is both respectful and personable. Patience and perseverance in the face of become hardened, able to tolerate this trying situations or people. Ability to take or give criticism non egoically. Inquisitive disposition. Ability to ask what may be perceived as difficult questions inspired harsh model and only really speaking (or by a sincere desire for the truth and the sharing of valuable knowledge with everyone. slurring) our hearts in the bar afterwards. When we experience violence at the hands Salary Range: $20,198 - $35,000 annualized of police, we must put it front and centre Commission: 30% of all ad sales. Profit Sharing: 30%+ after 6 month period. on the agenda of our movements, not deny Opportunities for collaboration with autonomous projects. Inc. or relegate it to the periphery. This is beHours & Days of Work: Irrelevant! ginning to happen and as usual we are beMonday to Sunday; however, hours may vary according to the requisites of your career choice. hind the Global Application Information: To apply, send your resume to: RyanFoster@AgoraNews.org or call 778-840-4050. Ryan aradoxical

ublications

Agora

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october 2010

~News Blitz~

See Sources For Full Articles

Aother Oil Platform Explodes Global food shortage fears as Washington Passes Secret EnGuilty after six-year trial, PorIn The Gulf Of Mexico, Somebody ergy Tax Russia extends wheat ban tugal’s high-society paedophile Is A Slow Learner ring www.bbc.co.uk Reported: “An explosion has torn through an offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, west of the site of the blast in April that caused a huge oil spill.” “The blast occurred around 130km (80 miles) south of Vermilion Bay along the central Louisiana coast.” “All 13 workers who fell into the Gulf are accounted for, the Coastguard said. One person is reportedly injured.” “[They] are all wearing some sort of an immersion suit that protects them from the water,” Coast Guard chief petty officer John Edwards told MSNBC” “The platform is owned by Mariner Energy and is located in approximately 2,500ft (762m) of water, the Coast Guard said.” “Right now we’re focused on search and rescue and then, ultimately, as this thing progresses we’re going to be looking into the cause,” Mr Edwards said.” “Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two planes, and three cutters were sent to the site of the explosion from the states of Louisiana, Texas, and Alabama.”

iPhone app to replace the stethoscope www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “Peter Bentley invented the iStethoscope application which monitors heartbeat through sensors in the phone as just a bit of fun. But it took off and now 500 apps are being downloaded everyday after a free version was introduced last week.” “Everybody is very excited about the potential of the adoption of mobile phone technology into the medical workplace, and rightly so,” said Bentley.” “Smartphones are incredibly powerful devices packed full of sensors, cameras, high-quality microphones with amazing displays,” he said.” “In the furture it could be possible for people to conduct their own ultrasounds or monitor blood pressure through smartphones”

www.rumormillnews.com Reported:

“It looks like the climate bill debate has already been decided by Washington and voters didn’t even have a chance to say “NO!” “A staggering $65 billion dollars has been transferred from the private sector to fund the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI.) RGGI is government created entity that is choking companies in the northeast with huge tax increases in the name of the environment.” “Our tax dollars are funding this secret climate initiative. Soon RGGI will expand to every state and stick you with astronomical energy prices.” “RGGI is the nation’s first mandatory greenhouse gas cap and trade regulating entity. This waste of tax dollars is responsible for “making an impact on climate change” in 10 Northeast states. “Each state is capped on their carbon emissions and taxed if they use them up. RGGI added a 0.9% increase in energy prices in New England.”

“The Russian prime minister said that it was “necessary to note that we will only be able to consider lifting the grain export ban after next year’s harvest ... and we have clarity on the balances”.His announcement came after deadly protests in Mozambique and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation calling an emergency meeting to discuss the shortages.” “The export ban from such a key global exporter sent wheat prices to 231.5 euros a tonne, just short of last month’s two-year high of 236 euros, sparking worries of a crisis in global food supplies.” “The rising prices around the world have raised concerns about a return to the political instability in 2008, when Haiti, Kenya and Somalia were among those that saw rioting over the cost of living.”

Dinosaurs ‘wiped out by meteor shower lasting thousands of years’ www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “Scientists had previously identified the a giant Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the site of a single meteor strike thought to have obliterated prehistoric life on Earth. But evidence for a second impact in Ukraine, dating back thousands of years before the Chicxulub impact, has raised the possibility that the dinosaurs may have been blitzed with a shower of meteorites”

theintelhub.com Reported: “In a scene reminiscent of a Brave New World and despite numerous concerns, health officials are advising basically everyone in the United States to get the flu vaccine.” “The CDC is openly demanding that you take a vaccine that is, on record, extremely dangerous.” “Multiple countries throughout the world have BANNED flu vaccines due to their dangerous side effects.” “Australia, Finland, and Sweden have all either banned flu vaccines outright or opened investigations into their dangers.” “Why is the United States still pushing vaccines that have been linked to seizures, instant death, low IQ, and side effects that slowly kill you?” “The European Medicines Agency said Friday it was probing whether there is a link between the Pandemrix swine flu vaccine and the sleeping disorder narcolepsy amid concerns in Finland and Sweden. Due to the tremendous amount of people who have refused this poisonous vaccine, the elite have attempted to sneak it in with the normal flu shot. While everyone must make their own decision in regards to vaccinating their family, all evidence points to the fact that it

By Jerome Taylor “To most people Portugal’s state-run orphanages seemed like a safe haven for thousands of children who had been robbed of their parents. They were called the Casa Pia, or Houses of the Pious.” “But for an elite paedophile ring, which included a former ambassador and a prominent television celebrity, Casa Pia orphanages were something entirely different. They were supermarkets stocked with children to abuse. Yesterday, at the conclusion of the longest trial in Portugal’s history, seven defendants were convicted of using the orphanages to rape and abuse scores of teenage boys in a case that has sent shockwaves through the country’s political elite and raised serious concerns over the efficiency of Portugal’s judiciary. Six of the seven were given jail terms of between five and 18 years.” “The trial, in Lisbon’s top criminal court, is thought to be the largest ever undertaken by Portugal’s court system. Over five and half years, more than 800 witnesses, including 32 alleged victims, gave evidence detailing how a paedophile ring used the orphanages to source children for wealthy and influential clients. The sentencing document alone, of which judges spent most of yesterday reading a summary, runs to 2,000 pages.”

Animals Avoid GM Soy And The hurricane was a breeze Corn compared to the bedbugs www.dirtdoctor.com Reported:

www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “nothing has grossed out New Yorkers more than this summer’s epic infestation of bedbugs. Normally, New Yorkers have the stoicism of Brits during the Blitz, but now pavements have been lined with discarded furniture and mattresses.” “Luxury department stores and even the Empire State Building were supposed to be infested. Then someone inside Google’s headquarters tweeted that employees there were scratching, too.”

“The GE-corn and GE-soy mentioned in this article are Monsanto’s. The “food safety” bill in the Senate, S 510, is also Monsanto’s. Monsanto’s idea of “food safety” includes geengineered food, pesticides, hormones, Low temperatures tie records netically antibiotics, or slaughterhouse waste, all toxic.” at LAX, Oceanside “Different species of wildlife and farm animals are trying to tell us something by clearly preferring not to eat Genetically Engineered latimesblogs.latimes.com Reported: foods when they have a choice of naturally grown “Record low temperatures for the date were corn, soybeans and other crops as the following tied Wednesday at Los Angeles International Air- wisdom of nature anecdotes confirms. They are smarter than people when it comes to the right port and Oceanside in San Diego County.” “The temperature was 58 degrees at LAX, choices for eating.” tying a record set in 1951, the National Weather Service said. Oceanside dropped to 66 degrees, tying a record that has stood since 1914.”

Flu Vaccine: CDC ignores the dangers, instead wants to needle everyone

is impossible to realistically say that they are safe.”

telegraph.co.uk Reported:

Nasa to send probe into Sun’s 1,400C atmosphere for first time www.dailymail.co.uk Reported:

“Nasa is to fire a space probe directly at the Sun to answer some of the most important quesAsteroid Strikes Colombia - tions about our solar system.” “A small car-sized spacecraft will plunge American Media Buries It! into the sun’s atmosphere approximately four million miles from its surface, exploring a region no other spacecraft has ever visited before.” rabbithole2.com Reported: “The unprecedented project, named Solar Probe Plus, is scheduled to launch by 2018.” “Such a colossal event, so little media cov“A telescope on board will make 3-D imerage.” “Around 3:10PM Sunday afternoon resi- ages of the sun’s corona, or atmosphere. The dents of Colombia were awestruck when the experiment actually will see the solar wind and clear sky was cracked open by a massive fireball provide 3-D images of clouds and shocks as they that exploded upon impact leaving a 300 foot approach and pass the spacecraft.” wide crater and a lot of rattled nerves.” “This is not the first time this year that an impact event has been underreported.”

october 2010

Continued from previous page

Lazarus’ toddler returns to life after heart had stopped for 60 Minutes when he fell into icy water www.dailymail.co.uk Reported: “When her two-year-old was found facedown underwater, Gore Otteson’s mother was convinced he would die.” “He had been submerged for 25 minutes and although family members and doctors tried to resuscitate the child, she was told his chance of survival was less than 1 per cent.” “Astonishingly, although the toddler’s heart stopped beating for almost an hour, he has not only survived, but been given a clean bill of health.” “Doctors say a reflex which allows mammals such as seals and dolphins to stay underwater for a long time, helped him live.” “Cold water causes the body’s heart rate to slow, especially in children, creating a kind of hibernation.” “Dr Roger Sherman, the emergency doctor who treated him, said: ‘It’s a fascinating thing that happened.” “The valley where the drama unfolded, in Gunnison, Colorado, is one of the coldest places in the U.S.” “Temperatures dip to 2C at night, even in summer. The average temperature of the Gunnison River is between 2C and 8C.” “Gore had been at the family’s holiday home in the Rocky Mountains when disaster struck.”

White House solves the problem of global warming overnight... by officially changing the phrase to ‘global climate disruption’ www.dailymail.co.uk Reported:

“Global warming could be a thing of the past, thanks to the Barack Obama administration.” “No, the White House has not singlehandedly managed to stop the apparent rising temperature – but it does think the terminology oversimplifies the problem.” “According to U.S. science adviser John Holdren, the public should start using the phrase ‘global climate disruption’ because it makes the situation sound more dangerous.” “During a speech in Oslo, Norway, Mr Holdren said global warming is a ‘dangerous misnomer’ and is not an accurate description of the issues facing the planet.” “It comes as Congress prepares to adjourn for the season without completing work on the stalled climate bill, which, after facing a barrage of obstacles, was declared effectively dead in the Senate in July.” “But advisers believe using the new terminology could help to drive the message to ordinary people - and put the bill back on the agenda for next year’s legislative session.” “Referring to the Democrats launch of a new logo, Republican pollster Adam Geller told Fox News: ‘They’re trying to come up with more politically palatable ways to sell some of this stuff.’” “Mr Geller added that the phrase ‘global warming’ is easy to criticise.” “‘Every time we’re digging our cars out – what global warming? (Global climate disruption is) more of a sort of generic blanket term, I guess, that can apply in all weather conditions.’” “Mr Holdren is not the first scientist to make the recommendations. In 2008, NASA said the term ‘global warming’ should be avoided because temperature change ‘isn’t the most severe effect of changing climate’.”

world

tated the flares the flares did not pose any threat to Earth. Images taken by the space agency show Hong Kong Hit By Record 13,000 Lightning Strikes in One Hour the the prominence flaring from the sun.” Bloomberg.com reported: “The auroral lights’ colours were created “Record lightning strikes pounded Hong Kong today (sep. 9) in its most violent electrical storm, through a series of reactions between atoms and which caused flooding and left people trapped in elevators.” molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.” “The Hong Kong Observatory reported 13,102 bolts of lightning struck ground across the city “The green colours stem from oxygen molin the hour after midnight. That’s the most since such data was first collected in 2005, said David ecules while the more unusual purple colour is deHui, a scientific officer at the observatory. The storm raged from 9 p.m. yesterday to 4 a.m. today.” rived from molecular nitrogen.” Cyber-criminals “Wind gusts of more than 100 kilometers an hour were recorded in Tai O district at 12:40 a.m., steal identity of one of the world’s top security according to an observatory weather bulletin. More than 40 milchiefs using Facebook limeters of rain an hour was recorded across the territory during the storm, according to the observatory website.” “Police and firefighters responded to flooding in a village Space travel opens to all as in the northern New Territories shortly before midnight, said a Boeing asks tourists to reach for police spokesman who declined to be named citing government policy.” the stars “Five reports of people being trapped in lifts were received, www.guardian.co.uk Reported: according to a spokeswoman for the government’s Information Services Department.” “The weather was linked to Tropical Storm Meranti, which is moving north through the South China Sea, according Chan Sai- tick, acting senior scientific officer at the observatory. The weather pattern ahead of Meranti caused high temperatures across Hong Kong and southern China yesterday.” “That led to a large accumulation of energy and very unstable conditions during the afternoon,” Chan said in a phone interview. “That energy was subsequently released last night.”

Weber warns crisis is ongoing as fears mount over Ireland www.independent.co.uk Reported: “Europe’s financial crisis is not yet over, one of the single currency bloc’s most senior policymakers warned yesterday, as he urged further reform of banking regulation.” “Axel Weber, the President of Germany’s Bundesbank and a leading member of the council of the European Central Bank, said he was frustrated more had not been done to tackle the risks posed by very large banks.” “The financial crisis is still with us – we are not in year one after the crisis, we are in year four of the crisis,” Mr Weber said. “Moral hazard is in the financial system. I want to get to a situation where the term ‘too big to fail’ does not exist.” “Mr Weber’s warning was echoed by Ewald Nowotny, one of his colleagues on the ECB council, who called for European governments to begin stepping back from the emergency support, in the form of cheap funding, they have been extending to banks for more than two years.” “Mr Nowotny warned that policymakers across the eurozone would soon have to make decisions about how to wind down their support of the financial system. “Interest rates as they are now are not in a long-term equilibrium, but in the process of an exit policy this is to be discussed only at a later stage,” he said.” “The first thing to discuss is with regards to specific non-conventional measures, since they are not part of the general instruments of the ECB.” “The cautions come amid concern in the markets that the eurozone’s financial crisis could be about to break out once more. In particular, there is nervousness about the public finances of Ireland, where the Government is continuing in its efforts to bail out several banks stricken by the collapse in the property sector.”

Solar flares could paralyse Britain’s power and communications, Liam Fox says www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “The Defence Secretary will next week attend a summit of scientists and security advisers who believe the infrastructure that underpins modern life in Western economies is potentially vulnerable to electromagnetic disruption.” “Such disruptions, which can shut down electrical equipment and cripple orbiting satellites, can be triggered by man-made nuclear blasts or natural events on the surface of the sun. Dr Fox will tell the conference he believes there is a growing threat, and he wants to address the “vulnerabilities” in Britain’s high-tech infrastructure.” “As the nature of our technology becomes more complex, so the threat becomes more widespread,” he will say.” “While we all benefit from the products of scientific advances so we also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our enemies. However advanced we become the chain of our security is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Ahmadinejad questions U.S. Government’s complicity in 9/11 on the floor of the U.N. Andrew Steele America 20xy During a speech at the U.N. on Thursday, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed that elements within the U.S. Government may have been complicit in the 9/11 attacks, prompting the U.S., British, and other European Union delegations to walk out. First mentioning the official story as one viewpoint to explain 9/11, Ahmadinejad went on to elaborate on others — that elements within the U.S. Government orchestrated the attack, (“the majority of the American people as well as other nations and politicians agree with this view,” Ahmadinejad declared of this viewpoint), or that the U.S. Government learned of the terrorist plot and allowed it to happen and/or quietly assisted it. He also said that the U.S.’s response to the attacks was the firing up of a propaganda machine aimed at convincing the world to back the wars that followed after 9/11. “We were all saddened for the 3,000 lives lost on 9/11,” said Ahmadinejad, adding “since then hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.” By evening, Fox News was in full spin mode, using his comments as fuel for its usual rhetoric against Iran, stoking the PR fires for when the White House and the Pentagon decide to take the next step in furthering the neocon vision of an American Empire in the Middle East. Other mainstream news sources have included in their coverage of Ahmadinejad’s speech a rehash on the official story of 9/11, written in a tone of unquestioning authority in order to convince the reader that there is absolutely no debate as to what happened on that day, despite scientific evidence that the three buildings that fell in New York City on 9/11 were not brought down by fire. Fresh food that lasts from eFoods Direct

Spectacular Northern Lights display pictured after violent space storm

“The US aircraft company Boeing is to offer passengers the chance to fly into space on a vehicle it is developing for travel in low-Earth orbit.” “It said yesterday it had reached an agreement with the Virginia-based Space Adventures company to sell passenger seats on commercial flights aboard Boeing’s CST-100 space vehicle, being developed for Nasa.” “The spacecraft could carry seven people and fly in low-Earth orbit as soon as 2015, Boeing said. The company said that potential customers could include private individuals, companies, non-governmental organisations and US federal agencies.” “Space Adventures, which specialises in selling commercial tickets for private space travel, said it had arranged for seven participants to fly on eight missions to the International Space Station.” “The companies said that pricing for the planned space flights had not been set but were expected to be competitive.” “Guy Laliberte, founder the Cirque du Soleil, paid more than $35m (£22m) to travel into space last year on a Russian spaceship from Kazakhstan.” “Virgin’s Richard Branson has already announced plans to offer commercial trips into space for tourists costing around $200,000.” “The US space shuttle programme, which carries astronauts and supplies to the ISS, is being shut down next year. Barack Obama’s administration has launched an initiative to replace Nasaowned and operated launch services with commercial space taxis.” “Until a replacement vehicle is ready, the US will be solely dependent on Russia to fly crews to the ISS, a $100bn-project involving 16 nations, which has been under construction 220 miles above Earth since 1998.” “Russia currently charges Nasa about $51m

Vegetative state patients may soon be able to communicate Lin Edwards reported for Physorg.com: Communication in the vegetative state (Owen et al., Science, 2006; Monti et al., NEJM, 2010)

www.telegraph.co.uk Reported:

“The stunning auroras, witnessed on Wednesday night, are the first of the season following the area’s light summer nights.” “The displays were created from bursts of activity on the Sun earlier this week.” “The subsequent magnetic activity, above a sunspot numbered 1105, produced an explosive flare that was recorded by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.” “The flare then sent a stream of charged particles racing towards Earth at 250 miles per second.” “After the sunspot rotated away from Earth, the explosive region erupted once more, creating a second solar flare, a fantastic prominence that sent a coronal mass ejection into space.” “Nasa said because the Sun had already ro-

“Researchers from Cambridge University in the UK have been able to communicate with brain-injured patients in “locked states” commonly referred to as persistent vegetative states (PVS). They predict such patients will soon be able to communicate and perhaps even move themselves around in motorized wheelchairs.” Continued Page 30

National

october 2010

FREE WILL IN THE AGE OF NEUROSCIENCE

Kevin P. Miller is an international and Emmy award-winning Writer/Direc-

tor. His latest film is called A QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY. T WAS LARGELY A BOOK ABOUT EVIL, the Holocaust and His blog can be found at kevinpmiller.blogspot.com one man’s decades-long obsession with finding the most genocidal tyrant to ever walk planet Earth. In 1982, literary critic and their beloved children as the side effects of tion.” By doing so, they ignored the potenessayist George Steiner took his fixation with ADHD drugs, antipsychotics and antidepres- tial for abuse, for addiction, and of atrophy Adolph Hitler and delivered The Portage to sants take their toll. They have tried every of the vital organs, especially the heart. San Cristóbal of A.H., a daring and disturbing philosophical fantasy about one man’s belief that Hitler had survived World War II and the destruction of Germany. In the novel’s opening pages, the Führer is discovered in the jungles of South America. He is an an old man and looks a lot like the images we recall of a wild-eyed Saddam after he emerged from his subterranean existence and was forced into the arms of his American captors. While I have not read Portage for over 25 years, the most memorable passages of the book explore German sensibilities during the war itself, in a time when Nazism began to eviscerate human rights and human lives. The Germany Steiner richly details is one of societal dualities; on the one hand, the nation had been considered among the most culturally rich societies on earth; yet from this beauty, there existed a dark and inescapable brutality that was evident for all to see. As we know, Germany offered the world the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the late Middle Age art of Albrecht Dürer, and technological achievements such as automobiles with gas-powered combustible engines. They even developed one of the finest university systems in the world, so how, Steiner asks, did these people — rich with wealth, culture, education and technology, allow this horror to occur? In one very powerful chapter, Steiner meticulously paints a portrait of the country’s elite, perched at windows far above a popular theatre, as they witness the extermination of commoners and Jews on the streets below the playhouse. The same people who “shed tears during a tragic play,” Steiner wrote, displayed an odd ambivalence to the tragedies of real people crying for help as the Nazi atrocities unfolded. I am reminded of Steiner’s work once again because as I approach the two year anniversary of my documentary GENERATION RX — a film about the wanton use of psychotropic drugs among children and teens — I realise that the same indifference abounds as it pertains to the health and futures of our young people. Every day — for two years — I have been bombarded with horrifying letters and tales of real people affected by the trauma these powerful drugs have caused. . .and they keep coming. . .from parents and teachers and students and loved ones. Yet, there is silence — from doctors who should know better, from educators, from elected officials , government agencies, and yes, most horridly of all, from the media. In the wake of this realisation, I will admit to be absolutely stunned at how little North Americans understand about the drugs they are forcing down the throats of so many young Galileo’s. For reasons of public politeness, we bow before profit-based science and ignore the journalistic cowardice which surrounds us. This “disconnect” between what medicine has told us about ADHD, bipolar and the “plague of mental illness” — and the reality of the life-changing harm these drugs often inflict, is a gulf so wide that it is, well, maddening. JUST THIS MORNING, I received a phone call from a health food storeowner and nutritionist. Every day, she is approached by parents who are desperate to find help for

drug the “experts” have recommended, only to see their loved ones slip further away. . .drunk with dark images and in need of help. She told me the tragic tale of yet another teenager whose health has been stolen from him by the deadly thief called methylphenidate, or Ritalin. One year ago, the young man apparently possessed the good looks of a soap opera star, and teenage girls swooned as he walked the halls of his high school. He

IN THE HEALTHFOOD STORE, the young man was extremely sick by the time his parents finally decided they needed another opinion. Worried to death about their son — and saying they were not sure if he would live to see his next birthday — they pleaded to speak with the owner and nutritionist. They had followed the advice of their doctor and psychiatrist , they told her, but their son continued to decline.

by Kevin P. Miller The parents stood before the health food store owner with tears streaming down their cheeks. It is a scene she has witnessed innumerable times since the 1990s, and each time she discusses disease conditions like this, she never knows for sure whether the people standing before her are undercover agents for Health Canada. . .or just what they appear to be: people in distress. . .people in need of answers. When I produced Generation RX, I did so to arm parents with the facts they need in order to make a fully informed choice about healthcare. I produced the film to amplify the ‘cries from the street’ — to give a voice to those who are being ignored by society at large, and to provide the tools to enable parents to fight back if necessary. But I wonder — in this age of neuroscience — if we haven’t brought George Steiner’s commiserations to life? Whether we’d shed tears watching It’s a Wonderful Life, but not for real the traumas of a tortured child or his parents? Will futurists ask, “How did these people, rich with culture, education and technology allow this horror to occur?” I wonder. Like Steiner’s book, though, one thing is very clear: citizens of this planet must choose — whether to exercise our freedoms in ways that do not conform to the wishes of those in power — or whether to take part in a history from which we avert our eyes away from the horrors on the streets below. Kevin P. Miller is an international award-winning Writer/Director. His latest film is called A QUESTION OF SOVEREIGNTY. His blog can be found at kevinpmiller.blogspot.com © Kevin P. Miller 2010

Former Stasi Cryptographers Now Develop Technology for NATO Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark Spiegel Online reported:

Photo Illustration by Buckner Sutter http://intao7.wordpress.com

was a superior athlete and student, but that was all prior to him being diagnosed with ADHD. Ten months later, his weight has dropped to around 100 pounds and there is a real possibility he could die while under a doctor’s “care.” Since Methylphenidate was classified in the U.S. under the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances as a Schedule II drug, we can’t say we didn’t realise the dangers. Many times since that seminal report, methylphenidate has been characterized as “Speed” — as highly addictive and risky. In 1971, despite the warnings, psychiatrists and MDs began using speed for the pre-ADHD condition called “Minimal Brain Dysfunc-

The owner explained to the parents that her store could be shut down by Health Canada for simply speaking with them about ADHD, pulled them into her office and then continued in whispered tones. The methylphenidate, she said, had taught the boy’s body not to eat. “This child is starving,” she told the mom, noting that Ritalin, with its cocaine and speed-like properties, was the obvious culprit. “But the psychiatrist diagnosed his lack of appetite as depression,” the mother said. “So they added an antidepressant to his regimen.” A few weeks after taking antidepressants, the mother said between sobs, the young man uttered aloud, “I just don’t want to live like this anymore.”

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West Germans were desperate to prevent the Stasi’s top codebreakers from falling into the wrong hands and set up a company to hire the East German cryptographers. Now the former Stasi scientists develop technology used by Angela Merkel and NATO.” “Every morning, while going to his office in Berlin’s Adlershof district, Ralph W. passes a reminder of his own past, a small museum that occupies a room on the ground floor of the building. The museum could easily double as a command center run by the class enemy in an old James Bond film. A display of coding devices from various decades includes the T-310, a green metal machine roughly the size of a huge refrigerator, which East German officials used to encode their telex messages. “The device was the pride of the Stasi, the feared East German secret police, which was W.’s former employer. Today he works as a cryptologist with Rohde & Schwarz SIT GmbH (SIT), a subsidiary of Rohde & Schwarz, a Munich-based company specializing in testing equipment, broadcasting and secure communications. W. and his colleagues encode sensitive information to ensure that it can only be read or heard by authorized individuals. Their most important customers are NATO and the German government.”

While we were sleeping… By Dee Nicholson National Health Federation of Canada

ver the past ten years or so, I’ve been an activist with one overarching concern, that of stopping Codex Alimentarius, a WHO brainchild, from foisting draconian rules for food safety on Canadians… including me. Codex has been on the table in one form or another since about 1962; it has been looming over us with a promise of useless potencies in natural supplements, ridiculously low allowable dosage limits, and the requirement of prescriptions for simple vitamins, for a start. The rules go on and on, each of them removing some right or other to choose what form of nutritional supplement you want to take, and in what amounts, and all of them are to be synthesized under “Good Manufacturing Processes” to assure “quality”. This, notwithstanding the longstanding proven safety and efficacy of all these products, as well as the fact that anything synthetic is not well-tolerated by the human body. Now, all along, we health freedom buffs (Health Canada once called us “Nutri-terrorists”) were aware that the Codex guidelines, once accepted by our government, would be enforced by trade sanction via the World Trade Organization. And because our nation is signed to the WTO Agreement, Canada could be dragged kicking and screaming into the morass of international food standards which do nothing for health but ensure its diminishment, or pay millions for our non-compliance. This triggered a few stalwart individuals, this writer included, to spot the fact that Canada’s own health legislation would become meaningless under these guidelines, yet we were practically helpless to stop the process, being obligated by our signing of the trade agreement. I’ve said it before and will say it again: trade agreements are enforceable international contracts, not social clubs. Boy, we thought we were smart. But we all got hornswoggled here, big time. That Codex freight train is not the only one on the track, and something else is appearing on our radar as a more immediate threat. It’s a whole other train, and we can already see the headlights. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that Codex is not a threat. It definitely, absolutely, really, really is. But Codex is only half baked, and is not likely to be in any enforceable form for a good couple of years. Meanwhile, CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union, currently under negotiation, has in its back pocket the European Union’s own version of Codex Alimentarius, guidelines as bad as Codex or worse, which have been in place since 2005. Bear in mind, CETA has been much more than a twinkle in the eye of globalists everywhere for ten years now. It’s only recently that word got out about what was on the table: Opening up Canada’s water utilities to privatization by foreign bidders; privatizing Canada Post; energy plans by the provinces; domination by Monsanto of our agriculture and forced acceptance of genetically-modified seeds. When they said “comprehensive”, they meant it. But somehow, none of us even thought about those EU food guidelines, probably because we didn’t see a mechanism by which they could be applied to Canada…. until we heard about CETA. You’ve got to understand how simple it is for multinational influence to worm its way into our governance system. One trade agreement = one enforceable contract = disappearing sovereignty. It’s easy. Wherever our laws run counter to what a trade group wants enforced, a majority vote at the table forces us to govern the sovereignty of our nation according to the wishes of the group, as the WTO

forced the USA to alter its corporate tax law, some years back. The World Trade Organization is indeed a prime example. There are about 193 nations in that group, and Canada has only one vote. Our delegate goes to the meeting, presumably (but not necessarily) to present the wishes of the Canadian people, translated by our MP’s, to the assembly. If more than half of the guys at that table, each presenting their own nation’s stance, happen to disagree with Canada, Canadians are forced, by

law, to surrender to their decision, even if it means repealing or amending our laws. And remember, the WTO is the enforcement arm of Codex Alimentarius. Now the rubber meets the road: Canadian legislation, shaped, ostensibly by our votes, is rendered obsolete and of no effect, the moment the group says something different. At that point, what happened to our sovereignty, our ability to decide and make and enforce our laws? It’s as obsolete and toothless as that lost vote, by contract. Consider this: Canada is signed to ten international trade agreements, and is negotiating twelve more, including CETA. What possible areas of our sovereign legislation might be overturned because of them? And when all these agreements are in place, of what use is your vote? And this: For whose benefit are these “agreements” (contracts) signed? It sure isn’t ours. Hint: they’re called “trade” agreements. Since the government does not engage in trade, but only promotes it, and since if one wants to find a prime motivator, one should follow the money, only one group can possibly benefit, and that group is made up of multinational corporations. These are the same multinational corporations whose head honchos regularly consult with our elected “representatives”. Some are members of our Privy Council. Now might be an appropriate time to mention an old quotation from the King of Fascism, Benito Mussolini: ““Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” So Big Oil, Big Energy, Big Pharma, and Big Agriculture triumph, and get to set their own rules, while we are left scratching our heads over how democracy has gotten so weird lately. It isn’t weird. It’s non-existent. And it’s being rapidly swallowed by Mussolini’s dream, and our worst nightmare. Back to CETA, and how it threatens, at the very least, our health freedom. And to cover all the bases, we need to examine how our own Health Ministry is opening the door to legitimizing CETA’s influence and those

october 2010

EU guidelines, through a clause in Bill C-36, soon to have its second reading in the House of Commons. The Legislative Summary of Bill C-36* states: “the definition of ‘government’ in this bill encompasses not only federal and provincial governments in Canada, but also federal Crown corporations, Aboriginal governments in Canada, foreign governments, and international organizations of states, such as the United Nations.” (Emphasis is mine) It also says, “Clause 3 provides the bill’s purpose, which is to “protect the public by addressing or preventing dangers to human health and safety” posed by consumer products. This clause expresses the federal government’s constitutional authority to enact this bill. Because it has a “public protection” purpose, Bill C-36 likely falls under the ambit of section 91(27) of the Constitution Act, 1867,14 the federal government’s criminal law power.” My lay person’s translation of all that is first, our Health Ministry is mandating itself to take direction from foreign entities (Notice, they mention the UN, but not trade groups… do you think they want you to grok that trade groups are “international organizations of states” too?), and second, since they’re talking about “public safety”, Constitutional rights don’t mean a whole hell of a lot either. In case that doesn’t sound familiar, you might recall the “notwithstanding” clause in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms: sounds like they just tacitly invoked it, to me. This nation is a democracy, you say? How could it be, with our own government having kicked it into an early grave and shoveled dirt on the only thing that makes democracy possible, which is our sovereignty! While we were sleeping, somebody stole our democracy. And I hate to tell you, but that “somebody” is us, just like the old Pogo cartoon said. You read right, we’re to blame here, because we not only slept like Rumpelstiltskin through the entire metamorphosis and now are awakening to a fascist nightmare. Bill C-36 must not pass. That doorway to health serfdom must be closed, and CETA must be stopped. Together, they pose more than a threat to our treasured, but waning, freedom to choose what is done to our own bodies, and those of our children, which by itself is a dismal enough outcome: they end a piece, a precedent-setting piece, of our democracy. The clock alarm is blaring. Are you going to hit the snooze bar and roll over? Or are you going to remind our government that we never gave permission for anyone to sneak our democracy out the back door, and give them a broad hint that to you, it sounds a wee bit treasonous? Choose it, or lose it. *You can read the Legislative Summary of Bill C-36 for yourself at: http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/ LOP/LegislativeSummaries/Bills_ls.a sp?lang=E&ls=c36&source=library_ prb&Parl=40&Ses=3#a5

National

The Aftershocks of G20 Protest: Social Movements and Trauma By Garth Mullins

n the World Trade Organization protests of 1999, I was gassed, concussed and if not for a dear comrade and a complete stranger, would have been run over by an armored personnel carrier. After the protests, I went on as if it was no big deal – we all did. On a rainy November morning at the end of the millennium, I was sitting in a Seattle intersection with a few hundred others, part of an overall action of tens of thousands organized to block trade delegates from their opening ceremony. Seattle Christmas shopping gave way to a city occupied, shrouded in tear gas, choked by curfews, shops behind plywood, manic news anchors, mass arrests, dumpsters drafted into service as defensive barricades, hospitals clogged with rubber bullet wounds, blunt force trauma and respiratory emergencies, other people’s blood, meetings and houses raided, bystanders and activists brutalized indiscriminately, national guard called in. After being injured, I would black out, without warning, over the rest of that week, in mid-syllable crashing face-first into my pancakes. For months afterwards I couldn’t sleep, write properly or concentrate. My email posts back to Canada were full of more that the usual spelling mistakes and lateral mental drift. I swallowed the trauma hard. This was just another in a series of violent situations that are part of the gig. To winge about it would be self-indulgent I thought, especially when so many have it so much worse. I have never written an account of the Seattle drama, although someone got an award for the footage of the armoured personnel carrier incident and after-action interview with one of my rescuers, me chundering forcefully in the background.. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) describes a wide collection of symptoms. PTSD is also part of a fraught paradigm usually focusing on the individual. But the root concept is sound. In Seattle (and at the G20) there were thousands of traumatized individuals, but a movement is more than a collection of individuals. At its best, it is an organism that mobilizes together but is also traumatized together - in ways we are just coming to acknowledge. The anti-globalization movement was scattered in its infancy by the tectonic shifts of 9/11, but cycles of struggle return, and so too the repressive apparatus of the state and the collective trauma it can deliberately inflict. Anticipating mass arrests for the G20, Toronto authorities secured a cavernous former film sound stage and packed it with cages. Then filled them. Terrorizing people out of activity is a very old tactic. After returning home from such actions, some people seek help from their friends and family, some stoke addictions, many manically return to activism, PTSD distorting their efforts. Many more go home and don’t come back. Still more witness the violence and how it disfigures movements and do not get involved in the first place. Often the specter of police violence becomes a tactical and political obsession. Or fear of police infiltration and agent provocateurs paralyses us with paranoia. But there is an element of truth in all this- you’re not paranoid if they’re really out to get you. The untreated rage, frustration, fear and pain we collectively carry back from the streets and repress has often prevented us from analyzing and discussing these things clearly and respectfully. The aftershocks of these altercations reverberate through campaigns, infecting the character of debates and echoing across discussions. Anger is directed inwards. The narcissism of small differ- Continued Page 17

Vancouver

october 2010

> Letters <

Is there any way to fix the House of Commons? On a recent Cross Country Checkup program on the CBC, we were asked about the long-gun registry and what Canadians think about the way the legislation is being dealt with by the Members in the House of Commons. It was one of those times when many of the Canadians who phoned in talked such good sense, and showed such an understanding and willingness to cooperate and find solutions that would work for everyone, that the guest host sitting in for Rex Murphy, and the callers themselves, became aware of the irony. Compared to the House of Commons, it was beginning to sound like Canadians could do a better job of resolving this issue than our elected and well-paid “representatives.” I couldn’t resist writing this message to the program as it was winding up. “Hello! I have a suggestion to help the endearing and wide-awake lady (from St. Albert, Saskatchewan, I think) who spoke so well on CBC’s Cross Country Checkup program today about the gun registry and how it is being mishandled by our MPs. I was moved by her comments and empathize with her gentle and kindly frustration, and I wish to offer something so she doesn’t feel limited in her thoughts to the “politically incorrect” or even “illegal” solutions that she, with reluctance and many chuckles, alluded to but left to our imaginations, as the only possibilities to fix the dysfunction of our House of Commons in Ottawa. What would happen if we let democracy be real by giving everyone the ability to place and change their votes whenever they think it is in their, their community’s, and their country’s best interest? I submit that it would motivate all of us to inform ourselves and make better and more responsible use of our votes and our relationships with each other and our representatives. It would, at the same time I think, motivate our

representatives to understand that we expect them to represent us, not to ignore, silence, or manage us for the unknown ultimate ends and goals of the Prime Minister, the Premiers of our provinces, or whoever is pulling their strings. This idea of everyone having a vote we can change at will is an electoral reform that is being developed by individuals through a grass roots effort in British Columbia as well as being experimented with in a very small federal political party (the Canadian Action Party). The suggestion is that this electoral system could be implemented securely and inexpensively by having an electoral office in each community or neighbourhood, wherever we vote periodically now to elect “representatives” to a term of office, but as a permanent full-time office instead. It would register voters and their votes, both to elect representatives with a vote they could change at will and to initiate and have referenda on legislation when appropriate or necessary. Each local electoral office would also provide a place where citizens can access and share all of the information they and their fellow citizens and potential representatives want to discuss with each other, including their ideas and aspirations, and a community space in which those discussions could conveniently occur. We need this type of space to help us create healthy relationships in our communities and to allow self-governance to happen. I think this would have an enormously positive impact on our society, locally and nationally. The underlying problem with the House of Commons under our present system is that the MPs are sent to Ottawa and paid well by us but they are not accountable to us. They do not represent us. They are accountable to the highly-financed and advertised major partisan political machines that, like corporations, have Leaders who put the party’s bottom line

Sent Copy of PDF To My MP

Essiac Tea and Big Pharma etc...

Reader Response To “A Question of Balance”, September Issue I have written my MP many, many times about many of the points made in your article and I have heard nothing back from him. I am going to request a face to face meeting with him as soon as I can. I am so angry at how powerless I feel as to what is happening regarding these issues. I work to get my MP elected and believed that this government had Canadian’s best interest at heart but that has not been the case. But then all 4 parties voted on Bill C-6 with out missing a beat and now the Senate is stacked in the Conservative’s favor. If they have not listen to what Canadian’s wanted in 1997 when will they listen?

Here’s another new update on Big Pharmaceuticals who tried to get rid of this nurses documents.This nurse name Rene Cassie who now goes by this Ojibwa tea called Essiac Tea. http://naturalnews.com/026928_cancer_essiac_tea_health.html or you can access this one, http://www.essiacinfo.org/index.html That what I read anyways. Go to the Common Grounds and Read Allan Cassell’s excerpts to on these dangerous drugs that have what they call side effects. C.T., Vancouver

Elmer Fudd to the rescue

Reader Response to “UVIC RabReader Response to “One Man bits, The Battle Continues”, Online VS. Big Pharma”. September Issue. This is not surprising but very upsetting. It just reinforces that Big Pharma and the government are corrupt. It would be great if it got media attention but it will not! The media only shows the injury or death of a patient when it happens with natural doctors but when supposed real doctors kill or injur there patients it is not on the news! Think about it why is that? Tracy, Vancouver

Dear John B.

Reader Response to letter from Reader Response to “One Man John B. VS. Big Pharma”, September Issue John, your are an id**t. Your embarrass-

Wendy, Vancouver

Corruption

(winning votes, seats, power, and money for the party, and pleasing their corporate sponsors who own the media and international mega corporations) ahead of the quality of life and well-being of our nation’s citizens. Our MPs listen to their party’s Leader, who is controlled by a small number of powerful corporate and elitist groups, instead of listening to their constituents and producing collaborative solutions that work for all of us. Democracy, in my opinion, should be designed to work for everyone, not just for some, or the majority, or those with the most money and influence. In a democratic society I think it should be the responsibility even of those with the “majority” of support on one issue or another to consider everyone’s needs and find solutions that really do work acceptably for everyone. Assuming this can’t be done, and therefore not even trying, isn’t going to help us do it. Giving everyone a voice and a vote they can change might help us do it. It would encourage us to communicate with each other, with the candidates offering to represent us, and to listen to each other and contribute ideas for collaborative solutions, instead of fighting and trying to win one-sided decisions that polarise and separate us instead of creating a healthy cohesion amongst us, both in our communities and nationally. Ultimately, even in Canada, having a meaningful voice in our lives and self-determination, including having meaningful and effective self-governance at all levels, is going to become necessary if we are going to avoid violence. People are capable of thinking for themselves and working cooperatively together for their mutual benefit. Much more capable than the partisan system that has developed in our House of Commons would lead us to believe!!! This reality makes it necessary to replace what we have now: elected dictatorships and impotent, unrepresentative MPs. This is a dysfunctional system and was originally chosen, hundreds of years ago, to

The animal rights madness over the UVic rabbit population is becoming embarassing. They (the rabbits) ceased to be abandoned pets generations ago and the present unmanageable rabbit population should be seen for what it is; a pestilential blight. If the problem was a surfeit of rats on the campus you can bet it would be resolved rather expeditiously. Perhaps a mixitosis outbreak amongst the rabbit population will bring similar results. For God’s sake, just shoot the critters and eat them. They taste like chicken.

John Blenkiron., Vancouver

ment should be due to the fact that for decades your fellow humans irresponsibly bought unspayed pet rabbits and abandoned them on the UVic campus. Does that bother you? You also have no idea how many of today’s rabbits are descendents of the originals or how many have been dropped off lately. The comparison to rats is similarly ridiculous. Why don’t you compare them to cats or dogs? If abandoned cats or dogs began appearing on campus the SPCA would have picked them up immediately and began a large campaign to change pet laws. As for your reference to myxoma - “The two factors, attenuation of the virus and inherited immunity to the virus, have led to the situation where, today, the myxoma virus may kill only 50 per cent of the rabbit population during an epidemic.” You can’t screw around with mother nature - the rabbits have, and are, increasingly developing immunity. As for ‘just shooting the critters’ - do you intend to give everyone a gun to go out attempting to shoot a fast moving little rabbit? You have to hire sharpshooters at great expense and they would have to kill every rabbit. A bit impossible and irresponsible not to mention you will be polluting the ground with lead shot as well as poisoning other animals and birds which will ingest it and get lead poisoning. I think you should save your embarrassment for deserving causes and if they are so embarrassing I expect you will actively involve yourself in them instead of just ranting on what others are doing.

Marion Ambler., Vancouver

give the semblance of self-governance without the substance of it. This was done, in my opinion, to quiet the unrest of a growing awareness by citizens that they wanted this. But instead of allowing them to elect representatives with a vote they could change, making the representatives accountable to their electorate, the term of office system was designed to give the appearance of having a voice without really taking the power from the elites and giving it equally to everyone, along with the opportunities, information, education, and responsibilities for organising society. I sincerely hope we act to avoid it, but at some point there may be some who choose rioting or assassination out of frustration and loss of confidence in our system, if we don’t accept the fact that the only way to avoid tyranny or anarchy is to provide a fair and equal voice for all. We need to reform our electoral system. It just isn’t working. Thank go to CBC for another stimulating program. I definitely think that the majority of discussions on Cross Country Checkup put the House of Commons seriously to shame.” I sent a copy of this letter to some friends and to the B.C. Refederation Party, and was asked for permission to send it around to their contact list, which I gave. I also brought these ideas to the attention of the people working on the Fight HST petition a short time ago, and they responded very positively. They are eager to work with me and put this on our B.C. citizens’ initiatives agenda, along with drawing up a B.C. Constitution and helping British Columbians make self-governance a reality in this province. Ultimately, it’s up to us, in our communities, towns, and cities in B.C. and across Canada. If we want self-governance, accountability, and self-determination, we have to make it happen. It’ll never be handed to us from the top. We have to do it for ourselves...and for our children. Doris Foster, Victoria BC

23 The Driftwood Chronicles (Scenes from along the way to Haida Gwaii) Vancouver

october 2010

4 Ways to Fight Depression Without a Prescription

by Leah Webber

ost people will experience depression at some point in their lives. In cases of mild to moderate seasonal depression, there are some natural ways to treat the blues without a prescription pad. The most commonly prescribed anti-depressant medication is called an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reputake Inhibitor) and is designed to slow the body’s natural depletion of serotonin, making more of it available for brain function. Treating the symptoms with a pill makes for a good band-aid, but it also comes along with a host of side-effects such as weight gain and loss of sexual desire, to name just two. Aiming to raise your serotonin levels naturally through diet, exercise and supplementing with herbs & amino acids, is a natural and healthy way to treat the root of the underlying physical issues. Evaluate Your Diet The most basic thing you can do for your body is to avoid food allergies. Most commonly caused by wheat products and cows milk, food allergy reactions affect the body’s energy levels and moods. Chemicals found as contaminates and additives in food directly affect brain function and neurotransmitter levels. Buy your produce organic and opt for ‘un-packaged’ when shopping for groceries. Stay away from sugars and refined foods like pop and candies. These highly processed treats cause a raise in the body’s glycemic index (the rate at which the sugars from food are absorbed into the blood). This causes a sudden increase in blood sugar, and results in a following decrease which causes rapid mood changes, irritability, and leaves the body feeling sluggish. Eliminate stimulants such as alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine as they are all addictive, toxic, and disturb the body’s ability to relax.

Vitamin B6 (baked potato with skin, bananas, garbanzo beans) is a good support for neurotransmitters. B12 (eggs, poultry, fish) and Folic Acid (asparagus, spinach) helps to support nerve structure and function. Vitamin C, (red berries, kiwis, bell peppers) directly supports the adrenal glands. Calcium (milk, cheese) and Magnesium (yogurt, almonds) support a good night’s sleep when taken at night, and an energized start when taken in the morning. Iodine (seaweed, fish oils) supports good thyroid function. Tyrosine (avocado, fish, poultry) is an amino acid found in protein which supports energy and thyroid function. Tryptophan (turkey, peanuts) is directly related to the production of serotonin. Most people who suffer from depression are found to be low in this essential amino acid. Tryptophan can be found as a supplement called 5-HTP. Methyl-containing nutrients such as methionine, choline, and trymethylglycerine (sesame seeds, fish, cauliflower, tofu) are particularly important because adrenaline cannot be produced in the body without them. A quality vitamin supplement should provide all the above suggestions and supply a good daily dose of each. Meditation and Alternative Medicine

Meditation is recommended because it increases tolerance to stress and promotes a healthy self-image. Orthomolecular Medicine is a practice which incorporates psychiatry with natural supplementation to balance brain chemistry. (see http://www.orthomed.org/) Cases of severe, chronic, or long term depression should contact a health care professional to discuss the most natural treatment possible for your individual needs. Make Time for Exercise Elson M. Haas, Buck Levin (2006) Staying Healthy with Nutrition: The ComRaising your heart rate while exer- plete Guide to Diet and Nutritional Medicising stimulates your body’s natural elimi- cine. US, Ten Speed Press. nation process, leaving the body feeling energized and cleansed of naturally occurring Leah Webber is a freelance writer, part toxins in the blood and bowels. time student, and full time mother. Currently Regular, moderate exercise encour- studying with the Canadian School of Natuages a natural production and release of en- ral Nutrition, she aims to earn her diploma dorphins (a protein molecule) which promote as a Registered Holistic Nutritionist within a natural feeling of well being. 2 years. tion

Natural Supplements for Brain Func-

leah.bmw@gmail.com

by Miguel Burr 1 – Nanaimo to Port Hardy...

e meet at the Greyhound terminal around ten when he jokingly hands me a pamphlet that says: Memo to an Inmate Who May Be an Alcoholic. “Are you sure you don’t need this?” I ask. “I’ve got tons of ‘em, eh,” he returns. He reeks of alcohol, something cheap that sweats out through his pores, almost instantly. He’s young, First Nations, wearing a lightweight athletic shirt and warmup shorts with a pair of white hightops. His hair is brush-cut with lines shaved in the sides. “I just got out of jail at seven-thirty this morning,” he says loudly, causing all of the other conversations around us to stop cold. We are sitting next to one another on a Greyhound bus from Nanaimo to Port Hardy. “I met some guys in the centre of town where they dropped me off and got really fuckin’ drunk.” The hush around us is palpable, but he keeps talking at top volume. I know this is going to be a long bus ride. “It’s not so bad inside, eh,” he rambles. “I cut hair for five bucks and always had money for the prison cantina, beef sticks and protein powder. My homeboy hooped a cellphone on the way in and was selling phone calls, eh. I called my mum and told her I was coming home, but she didn’t sound too happy. She said, “Whatever, see you,” and hung up. No ‘I love you son.’ or ‘Welcome home’. “Where’s home?” I enquire politely. “Courtney,” he says. “I got eight brothers and seven of the nine of us are in and out of jail all the time. I got only fifteen charges so far and I’m already nineteen. My older brother Norbert got pages and pages of charges. I hope I don’t go back in through. Longest I been out since I turned eighteen was twenty-three days.” “You should go for a month,” I say. He smiles and and nods. “I don’t wanna go back in, but every time I get out, something happens and I just say ‘fuck it’... Next thing I know I’m back in. “You’d probably have to renounce alcohol completely to turn it around,” I say. “What does ‘renounce’ mean?” “You know, like completely turn against it for the rest of your life.” He smiles at me like I’ve said something funny. “Well, I got out with a check for $150, so I’m getting fuckin’ fucked up as soon as I get it cashed.” Then he shows me a half-finished drawing of a stylized Orca and I offer to buy it for ten bucks, which he gladly accepts. The drawing is signed ‘Ernest Joseph, #17’. 2 – Port Hardy to Prince Rupert

over her shoulder and a giant husky standing dutifully by her side. We disembark into the cool Prince Rupert night. I stop at the closest campsite, but they want $21 just to pitch a tent! I leave and find myself setting up my tent behind a monument in the middle of downtown, overlooking Cow Bay. The next day in Prince Rupert is gorgeous, like a day at the beach. I spend the morning gathering supplies and the afternoon drinking sweet ruby port from my tin cup in the same sunny downtown part, looking out at the Hecate Strait which glows like a fresh oil painting. Sometime around mid-afternoon I look up and see her, the girl from the boat with the banjo and the dog. She’s got the banjo out, plucking a cheerful tune. I stroll over to say ‘hi’ and offer her some wine. She gladly accepts. We are both stuck here for three nights and so start hanging out, smoking joints and drinking coffee and tea. She is Stevie and her banjo is an Alabama with a slightly cracked neck. She’s worried it might give out at any moment, but it doesn’t stop her from plucking Big Rock Candy Mountain and Folsom City Blues, which she sings with the twang of a Nashville chanteuse. Stevie says she just turned twenty-one, homeless since she was fifteen. She is the daughter of an illiterate schizophrenic from the streets of Edmonton who tells her he writes songs for Lady Gaga and a stern mother who works as a Prison Guard. She talks fondly of riding the Canadian rails and living the rambling lifestyle of a wandering minstrel. Her dog Naya has kept her safe for years now, and makes her unfettered lifestyle possible. Naya becomes my new best friend when I share a bit of salty Hungarian dried sausage with her. Imagine a wolfish white husky with one milky blue eye and one burnt umber orange. I could tell from the way she eyed my sausage that it tough to be the companion of a wandering vegetarian. On our second day in the park, Stevie and I meet a Frenchman named Stephan. A gangly middle aged fellow with hawkish eyes and a friendly demeanour, yet slightly strange, as if he’s hiding something. Nevertheless, he invites us to camp in his yard tonight, and not wanting to overstay our low-key welcome in the public park, we accept. Later that evening, Stevie and I make our way to Stephan’s little blue house behind the Napa Auto Parts. He tells us that he’s been up here for over a year, but is ready to move back to a city, maybe Vancouver, where he has a girlfriend. He tells us he spent the winter in Haida Gwaii, but left because it was too ‘harsh’. “Zee locals really want to fuck you hard!” he exclaims with his fists pumping at his hips. “Zere eez no food to buy that eez not expired, and zen you must steel pay zee highest price!” That evening as we linger over coffee and a spliff, I ask, “What are you doing up here? You seem like you’re hiding out. Why?” At this Stephan smirks sheepishly and says, “I leeved in LA for eighteen years. I was a professional photographer at the top of zee game! I was zee mutherfukker in zee Armani suit and driving the Lexus. When Brittany or Madonna steps out of zee limo, I am zee mutherfukking eagle who gonna get the shot! People Magazine front page exclusive two-page spread!” “You were a paparazzi?” He nods with a wolfish smile. “A lot of celebrities want to keel me!”

We rode the ferry from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert for sixteen hours, missing the connecting ferry to Haida Gwaii by a half hour! This meant that I would have to spend three nights waiting for the next boat out. The ferry ride itself was filled with that pristine Northwestern beauty of endlessly repeating pine vistas punctuated by the occasional orca sighting. When the ferry docks I stand ready with my overloaded bike, panniers stuffed full, bungee-corded milk crate wobbling on the back. I see her, a young woman I hadn’t noticed all day among the European tourists on the boat. She is slight with auburn dreadlocks, a banjo case slung 3

–

Prince

Continued Page 26

national

october 2010

Morning in Courtroom 54. The BC Rail Scandal Trial By Robin Mathews

Sept. 23, 2010

ithout Mr. Berardino in the courtroom this morning, matters forged ahead. Two subjects occupied the core of cross-examination by Kevin McCullough, first, and then Michael Bolton – who will occupy the rest of the day. The two subjects may be stated simply as, first, the question of Mr. Brian Kenning’s accuracy in testimony (former director, Chair of the Evaluation [preparation for sale] Committee and Chair of the audit committee). And second, the matter of “payoffs”, or “greasing the palms” of insider Liberals or even – perhaps – cronies of Gordon Campbell … and others getting favours. Citizen Reporter 54 reported on September 22 to BC Mary’s site, the following. “We have heard how BC Rail paid BC Liberal insiders Randy Wood. Patrick Kinsella, Nancy Spooner and Judy Kirk hundreds of thousands of dollars. We have heard that the BC Government approved huge salary increases for the members of BC Rail board. All evidence that points to a railway run as a political tool for the friends of Gordon Campbell to play with.” Mr. McCullough and Mr. Kenning fell into stern disagreement about the profitability of BC Rail – and the reporting of profitability by Mr. Kenning to the jury. Mr. McCullough stated on the basis of reports that BC Rail was in much better condition that Mr. Kenning had suggested to the jury. Indeed, Mr. McCullough used the word “bogus” when referring to operating ratios as presented by Mr. Kenning.

Mr. McCullough asked repeatedly if management told the directors that BC Rail did great in 2002 and would do well in 2003 – and that Kenning and government were told BC Rail could manage with no new debt, no debt forgiveness, and no new subsidies. Did Kevin Mahoney vice-president of BC Rail tell you that? Mr. McCullough asked. Mr. Kenning couldn’t recall if that had been the case. But he assured Mr. McCullough that much work had been done by management and the statement would be germane if government decided not to take the Board’s recommendation and sell BC Rail. Mr. McCullough told Mr. Kenning that he had told the jury that BC Rail couldn’t manage and that it couldn’t meet its debt obligations. Mr. Kenning denied both statements. He said the future depended upon what happened to the business. Mr. McCullough asked why CN has told investors it is making “a ton of money” off the operations of what was previously BC rail? Mr. Kenning said he doesn’t know. Mr. McCullough asked Mr. Kenning if he knew that Brian Kierans , lobbyist for Omnitrax lived next door to Paul Taylor, deputy minister of finance on Pender Island (2003-03), that KPMG was doing an investigation of Mr. Taylor and Mr. Kierans in 2006-07, and that an e-mail among Eric Bornmann, Jamie Elmhirst, and Brian Kierans (all of Pilothouse lobby group working for Omnitrax around 2002-03) referred to “a blabbing deputy minister”? Mr. Kenning did not know, nor did

Alternatives to Vaccines?

he know if Mr. Taylor had access to confidential information. On the question of leaks, Mr. Kenning said that the Evaluation Committee never recommended an investigation into the sources, though it discussed the matter from time to time. Though the Board of Directors and the Evaluation Committee intervened in no way in the “sale”, stayed at arm’s length from negotiations, and seemed not to know what government was doing in bidding and such like, according to Mr. Kenning - repeatedly - yet they recommended the hiring of ‘fairness evaluation’ entity (about which Mr. Kenning knew nothing when it was appointed). And then when the bid from CN came in, they recommended that CIBC tell CN its bid was far below the leading bidder. The Board of Directors appears to have stayed at armslength from all aspects of the transfer of BC Rail to CNR (and knew nothing about any of the details) – except when that wasn’t the case. A humorous exchange – though deeply serious in fact – was conducted on the times and the relevance of Mr. Kenning accepting a place in the CIBC hockey box. Mr. Kenning couldn’t remember if he had accepted a seat before or during CIBC contracting with BC Rail, nor could he remember who else had sat in the box on those occasions. When Mr. McCullough remarked that those boxes are pretty nice, the judge, first, and then prosecution intervened. As an introduction to Mr. Bolton’s cross-examination Mr. McCullough had Mr. Kenning recall that he was appointed to the Board of Directors of BC Rail on

treat. When the epidemic came through Leipzig as the army pulled back from the east, Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, was able to Now there are many Homeopaths treat 180 cases of Typhus, only internationally working with HomeoWhat are my options? A personal losing two (1.11%). This was at a time pathic Remedies for Immunization. quest. when the conventional treatments were having a mortality rate of over Homeopathy has been well known for By Elena Cecchetto DCH, CCH 30%. its incredible results during Certified Homeopath epidemics. In the era of the 1912 epi2. Within three years of the Diphtheria or a while I had been reading demic, the Homeopathic Remedy outbreak in Broome County, NY called Gelsemium had high success about homeopathy and knew from 1862 to 1864, there was a report rates among the Homeopathic Doctors of that the day. Yes, in the early 1900’s, in of an 83.6% mortality rate amongst Homeopathic Remedies for Immunithe conventional medical Doctors and zations existed (Homeoprophylaxis). I a 16.4% mortality rate amongst the knew that somehow you could use HoHomeopaths. meopathic Remedies for the purpose of protection against targeted infectious 3. The May 1921 edition of the Journal diseases. I just didn’t know of the American Institute for exactly how to do this. My fear of neeHomeopathy had an article about the dles (specifically the vaccine use of homeopathy during the dangers) sent me on this quest. So I Influenza Pandemic of 1918. Dr. T. A. called a few people to find out if McCann, from Dayton, Ohio reported they knew how. I called my friend’s that 24,000 cases of flu treated with cousin who had studied Homeopathy. I conventional medicine had a called a few Homeopaths listed in the mortality rate of 28.2%, while 26,000 North America, Homeopaths were yellow pages (yes, back in the cases of flu treated considered Doctors. Some excellent days of the yellow pages). I told them homeopathically had a mortality rate anecdotes and statistics that stick what I would like to do and asked of 1.05%. in my mind describing the use of Hoif they knew how. I got a few different meopathy for epidemics go something responses. My quest wasn’t successful and I got like this: the shots to go travelling. 1. One of the earliest tests of the hoThey all agreed that indeed it is entireLuckily, I had no side effects that I meopathic system was in the ly fitting for the system of know of, so far. Even better, I treatment of Typhus Fever (spread by medicine known as homoeopathy to be spent months reading the Homeopathlice) in an 1813 epidemic which able to perform this function. But ic literature that I carted around followed the devastation of Napothey just weren’t sure exactly how to with me and became completely enamleon’s army marching through Germany to do this. Keep in mind that I was ored with the Philosophy of Homeopathy. attack Russia, followed by their reinvestigating this many years ago.

September 11, 2001. It may not be without relevance that Gordon Campbell set up new directors, soon to recommend the sale of BC Rail. Mr. Bolton drew from Mr. Kenning the fact that Patrick Kinsella, who was cochair of the Liberal campaign in the 2001 election of Gordon Campbell, was appointed “to assist” BC Rail. He drew from him, too, that Mr. Kinsella was hired to assist in advising how to deal with government. Since BC Rail had easy access to the premier’s office, the appointment seemed somewhat redundant. Mr. Bolton pointed out that Mr. Kinsella wrote offering to sell some “savvy” to BC Rail about the government. Mr. Kenning replied that since the Board (fairly new) didn’t have background on the Liberal government, that might have been a good idea. Then Mr. Bolton pointed out that over a few years Mr. Kinsella and his company were paid $200,000.00 for assisting BC Rail. Mr. Bolton remarked that it is a large sum paid to a man who ran Campbell’s election campaign – especially when the government owned BC Rail and may not have needed “savvy” either way. Where were you as head of the Audit Committee seeing such a payment, Mr. Bolton asked? Did you know Mr. Kinsella had apparently been advising CN? Did you know that Mr. Kinsella was obviously a political link? On all those questions and matters Mr. Kenning had absolutely no knowledge, was not involved, knew nothing about what happened, knew nothing about conversations, and so on.

More than a decade later and I am finally one of the handful of Homeopaths in Vancouver with the level of education and accreditation that gives me the title of “Certified Classical Homeopath”. Even better, I have the opportunity to offer Homeopathic Remedies to help people be protected for specific infectious diseases. There are various protocols that can be used depending on the disease.

There is a great personal satisfaction that I get when I receive postcards from the travellers who have received excellent Homeopathic Care. Imagine going to India without experiencing any gastro-intestinal complaints! Amazing! Fun! That is how travel is meant to be. I am determined to be able to support people in attaining this kind of travel experience.

october 2010

world

Home Births and Midwives are a Growing Trend

by Allison Biggar

t. John’s Pleasant Valley Hospital’s recent ban on midwifery has been met with impassioned community protests at its sister hospital, St. John’s Regional Medical Center. In early March, protester signs exclaimed, “St. John’s we want our midwives back,” and “Our Babies, our Births, our Choice.” Critics of the recent ban value the important niche that midwives occupy within a birthing world dominated by obstetricians. More expectant mothers are exercising their right to give birth in a more relaxed, drug free, less costly and, arguably safer environment. In the past 20 years, the amount of women giving birth with a midwife has doubled. Heidi Teeple of San Anselmo, California had baby Logan with her husband and two midwives at home where they set up a bath-

Continued From Page 17

South and the traditional indigenous approaches, where the starting point is the health of the social, not a reduction to the individual. As movements mature, we are re-traumatized by repression at new actions. Often for marginalized people in our movements, such police violence can trigger pain from previous experiences, such as sexual assault, violence fled by refugees, the scars of residential school survivors, or previous encounters with police in our neighborhoods. I have been part of cycles of resistance, police repression, trauma and denial. I have

tub for the birth in the couple’s living room. “It was much more relaxing,” said Teeple. “There was no anxiety about when to go to the hospital.” Obstetrician-led births are increasingly being viewed as an unnecessary cost and a cash cow for hospitals. One in three births now involves a cesarean section, among the most costly of medical procedures. In 2008, national costs for a cesarean section averaged $14,894 versus $8,919 for vaginal births, according to a recent article in the Boston Globe. In contrast, home births can be limited to modest midwifery fees. Of greater concern than costs is the rise in maternal mortalities. In California, the mortality rate of women dying during pregnancy has tripled in a decade, according to the report authors from California Watch which conclude: “it’s more dangerous to give birth in California than it is in Kuwait or Bosnia.” Major causes cited include obesity and complications from cesarean sections. Post-cesarean births pose even greater risks due to scarring that can cause birth complications. In response, natural birth watched dozens of activists and organizers leave the movement from trauma or from the toxic environment that blooms in the aftershocks. I have denied the impacts of such trauma in myself, developed unhealthy coping strategies and, with others, have soldiered on to the next campaign, bringing our wounds with us. Once I just hid at home for six months watching the Wire on DVD. Too often the culture of our movements is “just cowboy up.” There is a machismo and bravado that goes with confrontations with police. Taking such experience in stride and normalizing the violence became a prerequi-

The Single Mother Makeover

advocacy groups such as Birth Connections ca has trained far too many obstetricians, and are supporting the growing trend toward far too few midwives.” vaginal births after cesareans (VABC). As the protesters outside of St. John’s Many argue that childbirth had been hospital demonstrate, many Americans agree with Ramparte’s observation that childbirth does not require ob/gym “swat teams.” Before women visited hospitals to give birth, midwives and other informal specialists helped pregnant mothers deliver their babies. Anthropologically speaking, some women in different cultures (including parts of New Guinea and Africa) have been known to successfully give birth by themselves, without assistance from doctors, midwives, or family members. The statistics clearly support a growing preference for natural child birth. According taken out of its natural setting. European to the National Center for Health Statistics, journalist, Evita Ramparte, who is spear- the number of women giving birth with a heading a Media Campaign for Conscious midwife has been steadily increasing since Motherhood, explains, “In Europe, women 1975 and has doubled since 1990. St. John’s deliver with midwives. Midwives handle ban may be a result of insecurity from docmost deliveries naturally, with great suc- tors. “Are doctors feeling insecure? They cess! Doctors intervene only in emergen- surely should be, seeing how peacefully bacies. In America- it’s exactly vice versa! bies are born without their high-tech interMidwives are pushed to the margin, and inventions,” notes Ramparte. stead young, college-graduates ob/gyn swat teams assist at regular birth. It seems Amerisite for membership. But at the same time, there is humility and a tendency to think of our own experiences as insignificant compared to those in more repressive situations elsewhere. The idea is to organize in a way that reflects the world we’d like to live in. And I don’t want one where we have to just accept police violence. I want a world where we take care of each other and take care of ourselves collectively. If we do not heal ourselves, as people, as communities and as movements, we risk allowing the fragile, beautiful thing we all labour so hard over to be distorted, robbed from us along with some

ture dad. Even Jennifer Aniston, whom Brad Pitt left because she did not want kids, now by Naomi Wolf sighs in interviews, as she nears 42, that she has stopped waiting for Prince Charming, Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: and that she, too, could be ready to adopt and go it alone. about them one way or the other). In US Likewise, advertisements for conveEW YORK – In the 1992 pop culture, the single mother has evolved nience food and insurance – which used to United States presidential from selfish yuppie or drug-dazed slut into feature only intact nuclear families – have election, George H. W. Bush’s a woman who is more fun, slightly more begun to showcase single mothers lovingly campaign made a political splash by going heroic, and certainly less frumpy than her spooning out meatballs, or protectively after the television show Murphy Brown married counterpart. buying a life-insurance policy. – one of the first times, but far from the Indeed, single mothers are the new The glorification of single mothers last, that a fictitious character was intro- maternal ideal – women whose maternal represents a collective exasperation on the duced to score political points in America. drive is so selfless and intense that they part of women in America – and women Murphy Brown, played by actress Candice choose to raise children even under the who make decisions in the mainstream Bergen, was a TV anomaly at that time: a burden of their solitary status. media. The 1990’s produced a demeaning sympathetically portrayed single mother. Angelina Jolie’s photo spread with narrative of women waiting in frustration So Bush’s vice president, Dan Quayle, her toddler son, adopted from Cambodia, as their “biological clocks” ticked, cursing attacked the show for normalizing rather in Vanity Fair heralded this shift: the sexy themselves for putting career first at the than stigmatizing single motherhood. young woman and her son in a luxurious expense of finding Mr. Right and having Much hand-wringing followed, with hotel bedroom made single motherhood children. In a post-sexual revolution world single mothers (never, at that time, single look fun and glamorous. of marriage-shy men, women would supfathers) cast as harbingers of doom for core Suddenly Hollywood stars and starlets posedly do anything to secure the blessings American values. The implication was that who were otherwise unattached began to of a wedded father for their children. selfish me-first feminists (if they were af- sprout little offspring: Calista Flockhart, The message from the media was one fluent white women) or feckless social who played TV’s ultimate desperate childof constant nagging and blame, such as parasites (if they were low-income wom- less single woman, adopted a son – and, the famous Newsweek cover that asserted en of color) were putting their own inter- like a fairy tale, later met and married Har(wrongly) that an older single woman had ests above their children’s. Daniel Patrick rison Ford. Kourtney Kardashian of the more likelihood of being in a terrorist atMoynihan’s widely reprinted study The reality show The Kardashians had a baby tack than of finding a husband. The whole Negro Family: The Case for National Ac- as an “unwed mother” – a stigmatizing narrative, as the writer Susan Faludi cortion painted a picture of single motherhood term that has gone out of fashion – and is rectly perceived, was not about marriage as the primary instigator of inner-city and depicted as bravely holding down the fort at all; it reflected a backlash against femiespecially African-American criminality, and staying up all night with feedings as nism. illiteracy, and drug use. the child’s irresponsible father parties. At some point, women became powerHow times have changed. Just as sinThe tale of Sarah Palin’s daughter, ful enough that they collectively rejected gle mothers were irrationally castigated Bristol, has also been spun as a tale of an the high social value this narrative placed then, so today an equally irrational hagi- admirable single mother and a loser father. on a male offer of a ring and flipped the ography has risen around them. (Europe When they split up, the story line cast the stereotype on its head. It started to occur has more single mothers than the US, but, heroic young mother against what was ofto women that they could be employed and characteristically, has less need to moralize ten depicted as the beer-drinking, imma-

of our dearest comrades. I’m turning off the DVD player and coming out now. Garth Mullins is a writer, activist and threechord propagandist in East Vancouver

have a family – and that it could even be pretty nice. Glamorizing single motherhood is not realistic, but it allows female pop culture to express a revenge fantasy at all the potential husbands and fathers who walked away, or who were not the dream husband and father after all, or who wanted the sex but not the kids and the tuition bills. When Bill O’Reilly of Fox News recently accused Aniston of making a movie about single motherhood – The Switch – that seems to say “to a twelve or thirteen year old girl, ‘You don’t need a man,’” he is right. These images do appeal to overworked, exasperated, baby-hungry women who may have spent years waiting for “the offer,” telling them that, in fact, you don’t need a man. This trend hardly signifies the end of civilization as we know it; all things being equal, most women would still prefer the simple fantasy of a supportive partner in childrearing. But the new image of single mothers – and of single motherhood – does show that it is getting harder – if not almost impossible – to coerce women by trying to fix upon them the scarlet letter. Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010. www.project-syndicate.org

vancouver

october 2010

The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations

By Barry Ritholtz Ritholtz.com

very generation or so, a major secular shift takes place that shakes up the existing paradigm. It happens in industry, finance, literature, sports, manufacturing, technology, entertainment, travel, communication, etc. I would like to discuss the paradigm shift that is occurring in politics. For a long time, American politics has been defined by a Left/Right dynamic. It was Liberals versus Conservatives on a variety of issues. Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice, Tax Cuts vs. More Spending, Pro-War vs Peaceniks, Environmental Protections vs. Economic Growth, Pro-Union vs. Union-Free, Gay Marriage vs. Family Values, School Choice vs. Public Schools, Regulation vs. Free Markets. The new dynamic, however, has moved past the old Left Right paradigm. We now live in an era defined by increasing Corporate influence and authority over the individual. These two “interest groups” – I can barely suppress snorting derisively over that phrase – have been on a headlong collision course for decades, which came to a head with the financial collapse and bailouts. Where there is massive concentrations of wealth and influence, there will be abuse of power. The Individual has been supplanted in the political process nearly entirely by corporate money, legislative influence, campaign contributions, even free speech rights. This may not be a brilliant insight, but it is surely an overlooked one. It is now an Individual

Continued From Page Page Rupert to Charlotte City to Sandspit The ferry to Haida Gwaii is different than the luxurious trip up from Port Hardy. The boat crew seems cranky, the passengers sparse and more haggard on the whole. When Stevie and I smoke a joint on the upper deck one of the crew nearly busts us when she approaches from behind and I’m forced to swallow a burning roach. We arrive on Haida Gwaii later that day, greeted with sunshine and an instant feeling of remoteness. Stevie is headed North to visit her friend in Tlull and I south to Skidegate lake to make a little travel money harvesting golden chanterelles. We say our goodbyes and part ways with a knuckle bump. I head into Charlotte City, buy a six pack and then on to a local campsite to hunker down. As I pass through Charlotte City on my bike, a grizzly guy on a highriding chopper style mountain bike bounces up alongside me. His ponytail is flapping in the breeze as he swerves and dips on his bike, which is clearly rigged up from two or three different bike frames welded together. When I get to the campsite this local kook introduces himself as Floyd Harder, master wood-turner and local character. I give him a cold bottle of cider to drink and he chatters incessantly, often howling maniacally at his own jokes. The

vs. Corporate debate – and the Humans are losing. Consider: • Many of the regulations that govern energy and banking sector were written by Corporations; • The biggest influence on legislative votes is often Corporate Lobbying; • Corporate ability to extend copyright far beyond what original protections amounts to a taking of public works for private corporate usage; • PAC and campaign finance by Corporations has supplanted individual donations to elections; • The individuals’ right to seek redress in court has been under attack for decades, limiting their options. • DRM and content protection undercuts the individual’s ability to use purchased content as they see fit; • Patent protections are continually weakened. Deep pocketed corporations can usurp inventions almost at will; • The Supreme Court has ruled that Corporations have Free Speech rights equivalent to people; (So much for original intent!) None of these are Democrat/Republican conflicts, but rather, are corporate vs. individual issues. For those of you who are stuck in the old Left/Right debate, you are missing the bigger picture. Consider this about the Bailouts: It was a

most coherent thing he says is a reminiscence about the time his old man pulled him aside and sternly said, “I will weld a rock to your asshole!” It soon becomes clear that Floyd is off his medication and the drinks and joints me and the other campers are sharing with him aren’t helping, so we politely send him on his way. The next day as I cycle back through Charlotte City, Floyd waves to me from a bench outside the Adult Day Centre. I wave back and make my way to the small ferry that will take me south to Moresby Island. An hour or so later I cycle into Sandspit, the only town on this giant Island, most of which is Gwaii Haanas National Park. There at Super Value, ostensibly the island’s only grocery store, I stock up on some last minute supplies, namely a six pack and some cheese. There out front a woman and a troll of a man with the body of a weeble-wobble with arms and legs but no neck are laughing uproariously. I say, “You two don’t have too much fun now.” “Oh, we’re just getting started,” he says. Loaded down with all my gear and a map that is probably too simple I head out on the fifteen km logging road that leads to Skidegate Lake and the fabled chanterelle mushroom camp. My poor groaning bicycle is loaded down with gear and threatening to career off the gravel road as I peddle over large piles of loose rocks. Nevertheless I press forward rumbling along in low gear. Minutes later a white pickup pulls up and the same dwarfish guy from the Super Value says from the passenger seat, “Need a ride to mushroom camp?” The guy with no neck is Ron and the driver of the truck

our policy debates framed in Left/Right terms? In many ways, American society is increasingly less married to this dynamic: Party Affiliation continues to fall, approval of Congress is at record lows, and voter participation hovers at very low rates. There is some pushback already taking place against the concentration of corporate power: Mainstream corporate media has been increasingly replaced with user created content – YouTube and Blogs are increasingly important to news consumers (especially younger users). Independent voters are an increasingly larger share of the US electorate. And I suspect that much of the pushback against the Elizabeth Warren’s concept of a Financial Consumer Protection Agency plays directly into this Corporate vs. Individual fight. But the battle lines between the two groups have barely been drawn. I expect this fight will define American politics over the next decade. Keynes vs Hayek? Friedman vs Krugman? Those are the wrong intellectual debates. Its you vs. Tony Hayward, BP CEO, You vs. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs CEO. And you are losing . . .

right-winger who bailed out all of the big banks, Fannie Mae, and AIG in the first place; then his left winger successor continued to pour more money into the fire pit. What difference did the Left/Right dynamic make? Almost none whatsoever. How about government spending? The past two presidents are regarded as representative of the Left Right paradigm – yet they each spent excessively, sponsored unfunded tax cuts, plowed money into military adventures and ran enormous deficits. Does Left Right really make a difference when it comes to deficits and fiscal responsibility? (Apparently not). But my bottom line is this: If you see the What does it mean when we can no longer world in terms of Left & Right, you really aren’t distinguish between the actions of the left and seeing the world at all . . . the right? If that dynamic no longer accurately distinguishes what occurs, why are so many of

is young Albert, two locals who’ve picked several baskets of chanterelles and hope to sell them for beer money. They load my bike in the back of the truck and let me sit in the centre of the cab, as long as I hand them cans of golden lager from a plastic bag. No sooner as we’ve set off down the road does Albert swerve to get around a giant black bear and its cub. By time I fumble around and produce my camera it’s gone. Albert and Ron take me to the mushroom buying station on the north side of Skidegate Lake, around the nine mile marker. There an older fellow named Wolfgang happily buys their mushrooms. They show me what golden chanterelles look like and Wolf says he’ll give me some picking buckets if I come by tomorrow. Then Ron and Albert take me to a nearby campsite that is empty. It’s tucked back in the forest, about half a click north of the lake. The moss-covered landscape is like something out of a fairy’s dream, an endless terrain of lush rainforest contours. Ron and Albert get a fire started for me and say they’ll come back to check on me in a few days. The next morning, I wake up early and want to start picking. I take the milk crate off the back of my bike and march off into the forest, putting every mushroom I see in the basket. After four hours of uphill hiking, my arms and back are pooched. I have a basket full of golden chanterelles, plus some other interesting looking shrooms I hope will be even more valuable. I take the basket to the buying station and some of the experience pickers start laughing

when they see it. A Polish guy named Tomas starts picking out mushrooms and tossing them in the forest. “These are poisonous. You’ve got to get these out of here!” I take my full basket into Wolf expecting to walk away with a fist-full of cash. But he takes one look and becomes furious. “Get these out of here! I don’t have time for this!” he screams. “Dave, Tomas, show him what we’re looking for!” The more experienced pickers take me aside and sort through my basket. Apparently I’ve picked every wormy, slug-eaten overripe mushroom left behind by all of the other pickers. After sorting them to a pile one-fifth the size, I take the basket back to Wolf, who has calmed down. His friendly demeanour has returned and he pays me $20 for the shrooms that are the result of my four hours of labour. I wonder how anybody can make a living at this, but look forward to trying it again the next day. To be continued...

October 2010

OCTOBER 2010

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SAT. OCT. 16 2010 1-7 PM $5 at the door Includes a copy of the fall issue of Broken Pencil.

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Tickets: $10-$20 sliding scale Available soon at People’s Coop Books 1391 Commercial Dr. Followed by After Party with DJs, Live Afghan music Cash Bar & Food - 9 PM Malalai Joya was the youngest woman elected to Afghanistan’s parliament in 2005, but was expelled from her position and has faced five assassination attempts because of her opposition to the warlords in the Karzai regime and her fearless advocacy of women’s rights. She has emerged as one of the most prominent voices against NATO’s war, with TIME magazine recently naming her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Your contributions to: The Canadian Boat to Gaza & Malalai Joya’s Defense Committee.

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october 2010

Fishers of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest

Brzezinski scary. Laughter during an ayahuasca ceremony is the reunion of thousands of lost Adam Elenbaas children and is often accompanied by tears The following is excerpted from Fishers and sobs like earthquakes, until you laugh of Men: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision so hard you vomit again like the birth of Quest, published by Evolver/Reality Sand- a star. This purge is soul shifting. It is the plate tectonics of your reality. People don’t wich in partnership with Tarcher/Penguin. just lose it when they purge. They feel every shred of their existence, of what it really La Purga means to be human, until they might burst, urging during an ayahuasca cer- and then they explode and survive anyway. I remember how my very first ayaemony is not like performing husaca purge started, evolved, and finally normal bodily functions. In hofinished my first night at El Puma Negro listic health and yoga communities the mind lodge. and body connection is emphasized. People It was raining hard outside the mesa. meditate to be more present, thinking less Thunder boomed over the tops of the trees. and experiencing more, clearing the head of Branches snapped and fell as the larger senmental detritus. More extreme detoxifying tinels of the jungle ran for cover, stirring up hot yoga classes have become more popular birds and the sounds of flapping wings in the all across the United States. Bikram’s yoga undergrowth. class, for example, a 90 minute workout inThe rodent-sized lodge dog, Cucaracluding 2 sets of 26 postures and 2 breathing cha, growled and barked. The vibration of exercises in a 100+ degree room, with 50% the crickets grew louder and then vanished. humidity, was designed to detoxify the body Several splashes sounded off one after anand mind. People go to saunas to sweat out other, and reptiles disappeared into the holiday debauchery, while ecstatic dance and brown river. The sound of rain ricocheted Pilates awaken the repressed feminine. The off the water. list of metaphors and exercise practices reThe icaro had changed. The pace of lated to detoxification both psychologically Ethan’s melody had quickened. As if Ethan’s and bodily could go on, but nothing I have icaro was stirring the soup of a large boiling experienced comes anywhere close to what it cauldron, gradually building momentum, feels like to purge and detoxify the body and the medicine song gathered everybody in mind in an ayahuasca ceremony. Ayahuasca the circle into the same vision. Each time purging is in a league of its own. the melody dipped into the haunting minor When I purge during an ayahuasca cernotes, I could feel myself getting sicker. emony, it is not just the physical release, and I saw the mesa sitting inside of a cait is not just the emotional, spiritual, or psynoe, each one of us lying limp on the hull. chological release, but the phenomenal comIt was the same canoe my family took onto bination of all of the above into an astronomithe lakes during my childhood. The waters cally unique event that makes the purge life were dark and the banks of the river covered altering. I mean never ever the same again. A scream becomes the unique story of an en- in shadows and trees. Red eyes peered at us tire lifetime, reaching out into the periphery from the forest. Ethan had morphed into a of individual freedom and diva-like melody. life-size golden hornet. He hovered above By screaming you claim back something re- the canoe. His translucent wings buzzed at the speed of light. Small sparks of electric pressed, fragmented or forgotten. A vomit sounds inhumanly grotesque, white and silver burst off from their tips as painful, relevant, funny, and finally desper- he paddled us down river. Each stroke of ate, until somewhere a mountain crumbles Ethan’s paddle fell in synch with the rising and boulders drop like rain off the side of a and falling of the icaro melody. Each stroke cliff centuries old and steeped in words like was also the sound of his chakapa leaf rattle, “karma,” and “original sin.” Every muscle the vague but persistent reminder that I had of the body forces bile and stress out of taken ayahuasca. As the speed of our journey downriver your soul. And it’s not just vomit. It’s everyincreased with each paddle stroke, I felt dizthing you’ve been holding onto for the past zier and dizzier, until I woke in the mesa six years. People releasing baggage like tyto find myself on my knees, hovering over http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niqrrmev4mA phoons and avalanches. my purge bucket in the dark. I choked on At the same time it’s not all painful or

stomach acid. My jaw unhinged so wide I thought my eyes might burst. A giant black snake poured out of my mouth. I fell forward as mucus spilled into my bucket. “Nice healing,” Ethan said to me. His chakapa whisked over the top of my head. For a moment I saw the glowing red of his cigar near my face. A cloud of mapacho smoke suddenly covered me, and although it was dark I could see the smoke as if it were a glowing, white halo. It smelled sickly sweet. The black snake swam inside of the bucket. Ethan’s face gyrated in front of mine, half hornet and half human being. Thousands of golden sparks danced around his face. “How ya feeling?” he asked me. “I don’t know,” I said. I looked down at the bucket to see the black snake was gone. In its place were rainbow strands of light shooting back and forth. Up until that moment I had only ever read about the purging of an ayahuasca ceremony in books and magazines. I knew the purge could be life-changing, violent, and terrifying. I had read that people could purge addictions and old “stuff,” the lifebaggage each one of us carries, but nothing could have prepared me for it. Watching my jaw unhinge and a black snake pour out of my mouth, my body clenching like a medieval bone crusher and geysers of unknown substance evacuating my stomach (we had fasted for the entire day before ceremony, what was it?), I had sat squarely situated in not just the fear of death by consummation of ayahuasca, but a fear of death so primitive it had simultaneously conjured up the most timeless visions of finality: Hubble-like pictures of dead stars; forest men killing animals and drinking their blood; the underground plates of the earth moving back and forth; the blank stare of a decomposing body; and the nebulous floating black of that which is not physical but always present, that blank container from which all life passes in and out, the place I sat experiencing for the first time as I watched myself purge every last inch of a giant black snake. Realizing such little time had passed since drinking my cup of ayahuasca, I wondered if I would make it through to the other side. Could I make it until morning without losing my mind? And if I did lose my mind, would it ever come back? “We have to learn how to say yes to our experiences. Especially if we want to stay centered during an ayahuasca ceremony.” Ethan blew smoke over my face again, and I felt the leaves of his chakapa rattle brush across my cheeks as another out-of-body vi-

Ayahuasca Vine - Banisteriopsis caapi

sion ensued. Spouts of flame shot up from the oily muck of a black-red fire swamp. Back in the mesa my body sweated profusely. Each reminder of my body, each droplet of sweat translated itself into the spouts of flame that shot up from the swamp. Next to the swamp was a stairway that reached from the pits of the bog into a far-away light. Each step upward was painted in silver hieroglyphics, like nothing I had ever seen before. The letters and words on the stairway were more coherent every ascending step, but the light in the heavens seemed too far away from me. “I can’t do this,” I said. “Believe in yourself,” Ethan answered.

“It’s too much to expect of someone,” I argued. There was no reply. I woke in what must have been the ceremonial lodge. It was strangely quiet. The rain was gone. The jungle noises were gone. The icaro was gone. Cucaracha was silent. I could not sense Ethan’s presence or anybody else in the mesa with me. For several moments everything was empty, and then I heard the sounds of one man purging. I tried to determine which group member was struggling, but I could not trace the sounds back to anybody specific. Whoever the man was it quickly ceased to matter. He was purging so hard that his plight seemed insignificant. Beyond reach and impaled upon the most arrogant delusions of grandeur, an unseen hand squeezed toxic waste out of the man like a wet sponge in the humid jungle grass. As the man continued to purge I saw the dragon again, wrapping and coiling around the man’s chest and throat (now I could see the man’s body but still could not make out his face). The rainbow colored serpent squeezed chunks of black matter from the man’s stomach into his purge bucket. I saw the man’s inner organs. They were pink and red. His veins and arteries and nerve branches glowed and trembled. Each time he vomited the dragon squeezed its grip tighter and his eyeballs jut further out of his skull. Still I couldn’t identify the man purging. The purging sounds were so impersonal they were almost beautiful. Almost transcendent. But trying to relax into the sounds, I felt something tugging at my very essence, as if I were a grey puddle pushed by the wind. Then I cupped my hands over my ears and momentarily saw myself curled into the fetal position, somewhere, disoriented and trying to escape. But escape from what, exactly? Not the effects of the ayahuasca or the visions, but something deeper, something residing at my core: the malignant feeling of being insignificant and alone in a universe far too vast and vicious for me to make headway. If it was my responsibility to find happiness, then I would never succeed. Who could? “I can’t do it,” I blurted out. “Yes, you can,” Ethan’s voice answered. As if on command from Ethan’s voice, I found myself kneeling again in front of my purge bucket. I could feel my body. Thunder clapped above the mesa. Rain pounded the lodge roof so hard I could barely hear Cucaracha howling outside. People vomited around me. The medicine song darted through the circle like a jungle snipe. I saw piranhas swimming through the air and devouring demon like entities as they left people’s bodies. The rainbow serpent circled the mesa in the lodge rafters, looking down and watching over us. The guardian creatures were being commanded by Ethan’s singing. Somebody screamed, “I can’t do this!” “It’s impossible!” another man yelled. It became clear to me, like a black-velvet curtain had been slowly pulled back, the person I could not see purging in the dark had been each one of us, suffering in exactly the same way. The man I had not been able to identify in the darkness was not anybody in particular, but rather the entire mesa together. The illusion of absolute individuality was exposed. Like all of the existentialist philosophers I had read and loved instantly became people no different than me, suffering was revealed for what it is: an impersonal state of being; something we each feel despite our stories and reasons, not because of them. “We can all walk toward the light,” Ethan said. “One moment at a time. We make it through the night by focusing our minds and believing in ourselves and each other.” “I don’t believe in myself,” I said. My words choked in my throat as another stream of vomit left my mouth. “I don’t believe in any of you, either. I’m sorry,” I said. I pounded my fists on the floor of the mesa. “I’m a tourist; I admit it. Please make this stop!” “Don’t exagCont Next Page...

gerate. Life gets easier when you stop lying to yourself. It took courage for you to drink ayahuasca,” Ethan said. “And you’re being honest right now, not cowardly. This is your moment. Right now, you’re becoming a man. You wanted to drink ayahuasca. This is what ayahuasca medicine is about. It’s about getting real.” I vomited once more. I could see myself changing before my eyes. I saw visions of myself as an adult, calmer and more reflective. What did I know, anyway? I was experiencing something so far out of the ordinary, so transcendent of my everyday boundaries, what could I possibly claim to know with absolute certainty? Knowing I would never be the same again, and knowing I could never capture the profundity of what was taking place in the mesa, I knew that I would become a kinder and more humble person. I would not become kinder because the ayahuasca was imparting a moral lesson, but rather because there would be no other choice. I would have to admit, from that moment forward, that I didn’t have the slightest grasp on anything. My only truth would be the simplest statements: I’m breathing, and my heart is beating. I’m alive. Ethan sat in his rocking chair, collected, linear and professional. “That last icaro melody was Domingo’s,” he said. “And it was taught to him by Arturo. They taught me the icaro during my apprenticeship. So that was an official medicine-song greeting from my teachers. They hope they can meet you the next time you visit El Puma Negro.” “Next time?” a woman asked. “Of course,” Ethan joked. “You’ll be ready to do this all over again by tomorrow afternoon!” The woman vomited and then began to laugh uncontrollably. “I had no idea,” I said. In the brief moments of clarity that followed my first round of purging, I reflected on the difficulty of explaining ayahuasca to empirically minded, “scientific,” people. I thought specifically of my best friend back in the United States, a PhD Chemistry student

About The Book

and intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Before I had left for Peru he had said to me, “You know your brain can produce some pretty amazing things. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be entering the spirit world.” As I briefly thought of my friend I felt an overwhelming sense of love for him. I imagined hearing his commentary next to me in the mesa and knew that he would probably not be able to rely on his empirical reductionism to quite the same extent. Even if my brain was firing randomly and creating the spirit world I had entered, even if it could all be reduced to some “thing,” then what chance occurrence of reality had created creatures so puzzled by their own existence? But the more I pondered in the mesa, the more I felt that perhaps all my philosophical questions and answers were no more than a self-made virus, the equivalent of pulling my own hair on the mesa floor, pounding my fists until I would purge by the help of a gringo shaman and a rainbow colored serpent. “I had absolutely no clue about any of this,” I said. “Of course not,” Ethan replied. “You can’t know until you find out.” “You drank a full cup, didn’t you?” “That’s right,” he answered. “How did you learn to do this?” “With good teachers and a lot of hard work,” he said. Throughout the course of nearly five years, Ethan had lived and trained in the jungle: fishing for his food in the Amazon River, bathing with natives, collecting and harvesting his own plants and healing herbs, and learning the medicine path from his maestros. After hundreds of ceremonies and dozens of rigorous plant diets in training, Ethan had earned the title of practitioner only months before I arrived to the Amazon. Arturo and Domingo had given him full responsibility over the mesa and instructed him to perform ceremonies alone for the time being. From the first day Ethan began studying, whenever Mayor locals asked Domingo and Mr. Arturo about training a white man, they would say, “We’ve seen that he has a good heart, and we’ve received the vision to train him correctly. The ayahuasca medicine vine was first given to the people of the forest as a gift from the one who planted the garden. It was given to the people for healing, and it should be given to the rest of the world in the same way. Let fall on us what will. We are going to train this man to be a master ayahuasca shaman.” It was only the mid-point of my first ayahusaca ceremony. While the rain softened, each of us in the mesa enjoyed a small break: the sounds of shared laughter and the feeling of our body on the solid earth. Ethan was quiet in his rocking chair, rocking back and forth in the dark, whistling lightly under his breath and puffing a mystical mapacho cigar.

From Jim Carroll’s The Basketball Diaries to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, the best memoirs not only immerse us in the life of another; they reflect a moment in time and in our culture. Adam Elenbaas accomplishes both in his engrossing, no-holds-barred memoir, FISHERS OF MEN: The Gospel of an Ayahuasca Vision Quest (Tarcher/Penguin hardcover, August 2010). Call it a spiritual memoir, a psychedelic memoir or just an eloquent read, FISHERS OF MEN weaves together two compelling threads. The first tracks Elenbaas’s harrowing coming-of-age— from his troubled youth as the son of a Methodist Minister to his embracing of Christian fundamentalism to his eventual abuse of sex and drugs. The second thread casts light on a vibrant cultural movement—a growing renaissance of spiritual seekers who are looking to connect with a worldwide revival of shamanic practices, including the use of entheogenic, or psychedelic, plant substances for religious insight. Elenbaas becomes closely acquainted with this movement while seeking recovery and enlightenment in Peru. There, while taking part in a number of shamanic ceremonies and ingesting the mind-expanding South American jungle vine ayahuasca, Elenbaas is finally able to purge his past, renew his faith and embark on a healthier path. Elenbaas’s writing is compulsively readable—and his tale full of twists and surprising spiritual insights. A talented and singular new voice, Elenbaas conveys in FISHERS OF MEN a powerful journey that engages, inspires, and demands introspection.

Originally from Minneapolis/ St. Paul, Adam Elenbaas holds a BA in Philosophy, an MA in English Language & Literature, and an MFA in Creative Writing. A recovered Christian fundamentalist, Elenbaas lives in New York and is currently working towards the publication of his book, Fishers of Men, a memoir based upon his recent years of recovery work with Ayahuasca shamanism in the Peruvian Amazon. Adam is a Contributing Editor for RealitySandwich.

october 2010

world

Searl Effect Generator device promises free energy Ethan A. Huff The solution to the world’s energy crisis might be found in a magnetic device that utilizes both ambient temperature and magnets to generate power. In theory, the “Searl Effect Generator” (SEG) has the potential to run completely on its own through a complex interaction between various materials, resulting in an unlimited supply of free and clean energy. Discovered by John Roy Robert Searl in 1946, the “Searl Effect”, as it is called, effectively captures the kinetic energy generated by natural changes in ambient temperature, and uses it to create electricity. The technology works based on a precise design that utilizes the unique characteristics of various materials to create continual motion. These materials include magnets, neodymium, Teflon and copper. When joined together in just the right way, these materials are capable of perpetuating a cycle of electron movement that is virtually infinite, which gives the device the potential to create more power than it uses to power itself. In other words, if successful, the SEG could one day replace our dependence on fossil fuels as a primary and superior energy source. So how does the device work exactly? The SEG is composed of a series of circular cylinders, all of which have small magnetic rotors spaced evenly around them. The circular pattern allows the rotors to have continuous movement around the cylinders, and their spacing and design prevent any mechanical wear or friction. To get a better idea of how the device works and what it looks like, check out the following video: http://challenge.ecomagination.com/... The device in the video is merely a demonstration of how the technology works, not an actual working machine. But it offers a helpful and fascinating look at how the technology works in theory, and represents the first time since 1963 that a roller has rotated around a ring continuously. One of the neat things about Searl technology is that it is scalable, meaning it can be designed in varying sizes for different applications. According to the company, SEG sizes range from a one meter in diameter machine capable of power an average house, to a 12 meter in diameter machine that could power an entire city. The team says machines even larger than 12 meters are possible as well. The team is currently working on developing an actual prototype of the device, but the concept has not received the level of support and funding over the years that it has needed to carry the project forward. However things seem to be changing in that regards, as some doors have

opened up to continue research. Searl Magnetics, Inc. soon to open in Nevada Although it has been a long and tough road for the Searl, his concept has finally generated enough funding and support to open up an industrial space in Nevada that will serve as the company’s corporate headquarters. At this facility, the Searl team plans to install all the laboratory equipment that it has been accumulating, and continue developing an actual working prototype of SEG. You can track the progress of the company and its work by visiting the following website: http://www.searlsolution.com/ Invest in SEG technology and help change the world Searl’s energy concept has the potential to revolutionize the way the world generates electricity, but none of it will be possible without the continued support of investors who are willing to help turn a viable concept into a working reality. Though it finally has a facility, the company will still need thousands, if not millions, of additional dollars to help fund the development of a working prototype. There is testing, analysis, precise material development and other things that take time and money to accomplish. The company recently petitioned for support as a contender in General Electric’s (GE) “Ecomagination Challenge”, a contest offering $200 million dollars to businesses, entrepreneurs, innovators and students with the best ideas for how to tackle the energy needs of the next generation. Joanne Summerscales from Searl’s media team even wrote a letter to Prince Charles asking him to consider Prof. Searl’s work and help support the cause. You can view that letter here: http://www.searlsolution.com/member... One thing is for sure, it doesn’t take long to realize that Searl’s dedication to his idea is not rooted in making a lot of money or generating fame. On the contrary, his firm conviction that the technology works and that it will change the world for the better is what drives him, and such a cause is worthy of consideration. To learn more about what’s happening with the company, visit the following link: http://searlsolution.com/investing.html You may also wish to check out the recent documentary about John Searle and his ideas called the “John Searl Story” by visiting the following website: http://www.johnsearlstory.com

Enjoy the Secret Health Benefits of Chocolate by Elizabeth Walling, NaturalNews.com

hen it comes to forbidden foods, chocolate often hits the top of the list. Although it tastes sublime, everyone knows that chocolate is a worthless junk food... isn’t it? Some experts disagree and claim chocolate actually offers a myriad of health benefits. It makes sense that most of us want chocolate to be a health food, and perhaps that is why researchers have taken to studying chocolate to examine this beloved treat for any potential health benefits. And here’s what they’ve discovered: - Chocolate is rich in flavonoids, which have been shown to increase blood circulation. One study even demonstrated that eating chocolate could improve brain function, possibly due to improved blood flow to the brain. - The flavonoids in chocolate also have powerful antioxidant properties that may offer protection against degenerative diseases. Studies have shown that high levels of flavonoids in the blood are associated with a lower risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, asthma and certain types of cancer. - Some research indicates that chocolate can increase good cholesterol and prevent bad cholesterol from oxidizing. Since oxidized cholesterol is linked to heart disease, you can bet your heart loves chocolate as much as your taste buds do!

- Another study found that people eating a small amount of dark chocolate on a daily basis had lower levels of a protein associated with inflammation. Other studies demonstrate that chocolate may reduce the occurrence of blood clots and can lower blood pressure. This adds up to a lower risk of stroke. Get the Right Stuff Realizing that your favorite treat might actually be good for you can cloud your judgment, but don`t rush to the store and fill your basket with conventional milk chocolate candies. Beneficial components in chocolate are mostly found in dark chocolate. A high-quality organic dark or bittersweet chocolate is ideal, since it will contain the most flavonoids and less of the refined sugar commonly found in chocolate. Eat The Right Amount While chocolate may have untold benefits, this is not a license to eat as much chocolate as you can. Think moderation. Studies on chocolate show that one ounce of dark chocolate daily is enough to produce results, so don`t think you need to have several bars a day. But if you`d like to indulge in some dark chocolate from time to time, your splurge can be more guilt-free knowing there are some actual health benefits involved.

World

october 2010

Could magnet on head turn Out of mind, out of sight: The Babies breastfed for six months Physicists Cross Hurdle In you from right to left-handed? blind man who can ‘see’ obstacles have fewer infections: research Quantum Manipulation Of Matter www.independent.co.uk Reported: “In a darkened room, a blind man walks along a white line in the shape of a large ellipse.” “He is taking part in an experiment which I have been invited to watch, at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. At one point, the scientist running the experiment, Beatrice de Gelder, asks me to stand on the white line, in the man’s path. I mustn’t move or make a sound. When he is about a metre away, he comes to a halt and asks: “Is somebody there?” “TN, as the blind man is known, suffered a stroke in 2003 which destroyed an area at the back of his brain that processes visual information: the primary visual cortex. The stroke affected only one hemisphere of his brain. What places TN in a category of his own, at least as far as the annals of science are concerned, is that about a month later he suffered a second stroke which wiped out the primary visual cortex on the other side of his brain. Suddenly, though his eyes were healthy, he became blind.”

Sealand skull photos released www.unexplained-mysteries.com Reported: “The July 2007 discovery of the skull in Olstykke on the Danish island Sealand did however not make headlines and remained largely ignored by science until 2010. The researchers who in 2008 examined the skull at the Veterinarian High School in Copenhagen merely concluded that “Although resembling a mammal, certain features make it impossible to fit the animal into Linnaean taxonomy”.” “Dug up during the replacement of old sewer pipes, the finder at first believed that it was some horse bone, as the house formerly belonged to a horse butcher, and the garden is full of remains. It was not until refilling the trench that he noticed its humanoid shape. Later excavations at the site have not uncovered further remains with connection to the creature, only identifiable animal bones, stone axes and other Neolithic tools which are common to the area. The fact that the skull was found among Neolithic remains does however, not reveal its age. Carbon 14 dating at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen has shown that the creature lived between 1200 and 1280 AD. Furthermore, the skull was found above the old pipes, whose age suggests that it wasn’t buried until after 1900. Also the absence of other skeleton parts of the creature, together with the skull’s state of preservation, has led the scientists to suspect that it has not been buried for long, probably only a couple of decades.” “Perhaps to conceal the secret behind its existence someone stored it for ages and later deliberately buried it. It is interesting to note that residents in Olstykke and nearby villages have from former times told about a local member of l’Ordre Lux Pégasos (the Order of Pegasus’ Light), whom accordingly on behalf of the order protected various items – among them a mysterious cranium and several devices made of extraordinary light, albeit unbreakable metal or ceramics. The skull is said to have originated from the Balkans, but it has also been stored in Paris, France, and in Munich, Germany, before arriving in Denmark.”

www.telegraph.co.uk Reported

“Resaerch on 1,000 babies found those exclusively breastfed for six months had significantly fewer common infections than their peers who were either partially breastfed or not breastfed at all.” “They had fewer respiratory infections, ear infections, and thrush, even after adjusting for other factors that could influence infection rates.” “Partial breastfeeding did not exert the same protective effects, the study, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood found.” “Women in Britain are recommended to breastfeed exclusively for six months to give their baby the best start in life but only a minority do.”

“Russia’s Federal Protection Service, an elite government agency that traces its roots back to the Soviet KGB, reserved twenty two Russianlanguage internet domain names in late August for the 57-year-old former KGB spy including the Cyrillic equivalent of Putin-2012.rf and Putin2012.rf.” “The move fuelled speculation that Mr Putin is planning to contest a presidential election in 2012 which opinion polls show he would be sure to win. The Russian prime minister has stopped short of saying he will definitely return to a job that he did for eight years from 20002008 but has made it clear he wants to continue to play a frontline role in national politics.”

Placing a magnet on your head can temporarily turn you from a right-hander to a lefthanded person, a new study suggests. In an extraordinary experiment researchers used a powerful magnetic field to temporarily confuse the brains of volunteers and change their hand preferences. The effects lasted only while the magnet was switched on and appears to have caused no lasting changes. But the experiment sheds light on the origins of hand choice in the brain and highlights once again how easy it is to alter people’s behaviour with magnets. Earlier this year, a similar study showed that magnetic therapy can alter people’s moral judgements - and make them behave more thoughtlessly.

beforeitsnews.com Reported: “A collaboration of experimentalists from the Kavli Institute of Nanosciences at Delft University of Technology and theorists at the US Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory made a breakthrough in the area of controlling single quantum spins. The researchers developed and implemented a special kind of quantum control over a single quantum magnetic moment (spin) of an atomic-sized impurity in diamond. “ “Finding ways to control matter at the level of single atoms and electrons fascinates many scientists and engineers because the ability to manipulate single charges and single magnetic moments (spins) may help researchers penetrate deep into the mysteries of quantum mechanics and modern solid-state physics. It may also allow development of new, highly sensitive magnetometers with nanometer resolution, single-spin transistors for coherent spintronics, and solid-state devices for quantum information processing.”

A Chilean telescope fires a laSpace Veggies for Astronauts Is Gravity from a Parallel Uniser into space to create a virtual Grow in Arizona Desert star in the heart of the Milky Way verse Creating “Dark Energy”? www.io9.com Reported: “The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope is shooting a [...] big laser into space, to create a virtual star to compensate for the Earth’s atmospheric interference.” “The resulting star appears to be in the center of the Milky Way, although it’s just 56 miles up. This commonly used technique allows the VLT crew to adjust their adaptive optics system, a set of adjustable mirrors that compensate for the blurring caused by the Earth’s atmosphere.”

The laser is precisely tuned to energize a layer of sodium atoms found in one of the upper layers of the atmosphere. This sodium is thought to be a remnant of countless streaking meteorites. When hit by the laser’s light, the sodium atoms start glowing, forming a virtual star the VLT can use as a reference. Astronomers use this technique to obtain sharper observations. For example, when looking toward the center of our Milky Way, researchers can better monitor the galactic core, where a central supermassive black hole, surrounded by closely orbiting stars, is swallowing gas and dust.

Weber warns crisis is ongoing Putin in 2012 websites regisas fears mount over Ireland tered by the Kremlin Saturday, 18 September 2010 www.telegraph.co.uk Reported:

www.dailymail.co.uk Reported:

www.independent.co.uk Reported

“urope’s financial crisis is not yet over, one of the single currency bloc’s most senior policymakers warned yesterday, as he urged further reform of banking regulation.” “Axel Weber, the President of Germany’s Bundesbank and a leading member of the council of the European Central Bank, said he was frustrated more had not been done to tackle the risks posed by very large banks.” “The financial crisis is still with us – we are not in year one after the crisis, we are in year four of the crisis,” Mr Weber said. “Moral hazard is in the financial system. I want to get to a situation where the term ‘too big to fail’ does not exist.”

www.dailygalaxy.com Reported:

news.yahoo.com Reported:

“Astronauts flying to Mars or beyond may be able to grow their own veggies during the long trip using new technology tested in the Arizona desert.” “During a two-week trial, NASA put a compact vegetable-growing unit through its paces as part of the agency’s annual Research and Technology Studies demonstration, also known as Desert RATS. The unit, developed by the Wisconsin-based company Orbitec, grows salad-type crops using a minimum of space and energy.” “We’re very excited about it,” said Paul Zamprelli, business director for Orbitec. “It’s an“String theorists Neil Turok of Cambridge other piece of the puzzle for long-duration misUniversity and Paul Steinhardt, Albert Einstein sions, and for habitat missions on the moon and Professor in Science and Director of the Center Mars.” for Theoretical Science at Princeton believe that the cosmos we see as the result of a Big Bang was actually created by the cyclical trillion-year collision of two universes (which they define as three-dimensional branes plus time) that were attracted toward each other by the leaking of gravity out of one of the universes.” “n their view of the universe, the complexities of an inflating universe after a Big Bang are replaced by a universe that was already large. flat, and uniform with dark energy as the effect of the other universe constantly leaking gravity into our own and driving its acceleration. “ “According to this theory, the Big Bang was “The new Orbitec unit, which the company not the beginning of time but the bridge to a past filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolu- calls “Veggie,” contains LED lighting and a mattion, each accompanied by the creation of new ting that delivers water and nutrients to a plant’s matter and the formation of new galaxies, stars, roots. Each Veggie unit provides up to one square meter (about 10.8 square feet) of extremely proand planets.” ductive growing area, according to the company.” “By controlling lighting and humidity, we maximize plant growth and can turn over crops Magical Beans: New Nano- very quickly,” Zamprelli told SPACE.com.”

Sized Particles Could Provide Mega-Sized Data Storage beforeitsnews.com Reported:

“Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered an entire new class of phase-change materials that could be applied to PCM and optical data storage technologies. The new materials, alloys of a metal and semiconductor, are called “BEANs,” for binary eutectic-alloy nanostructures.” “The ability of phase-change materials to readily and swiftly transition between different phases has made them valuable as a low-power source of non-volatile or “flash” memory and data storage. Now an entire new class of phasechange materials has been discovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley that could be applied to phase change random access memory (PCM) technologies and possibly optical data storage as well. The new phase-change materials – nanocrystal alloys of a metal and semiconductor – are called “BEANs,” for binary eutectic-alloy nanostructures.”

Ozone layer ‘is no longer disappearing and will return to full strength by 2048’, says UN report www.dailymail.co.uk Reported: “The ozone layer is no longer disappearing and could be back to full strength by the middle of this century, UN scientists have confirmed. The phasing out of nearly 100 substances once used in products like refrigerators and aerosols has stopped the ozone layer being depleted further, although it is not yet increasing, according to a new United Nations report released last week.” “And it claimed that international efforts to protect the ozone layer has averted millions of cases of skin cancer worldwide. The ozone layer outside the polar regions is projected to recover to pre-1980 levels by 2048, although the annual springtime ozone hole over the Antarctic is not expected to recover until 2073.” “Ozone in the stratosphere is important because it absorbs some of the Sun’s dangerous ultraviolet radiation.”

october 2010

World

Is the age of scientific discovChina grants new freedom to Cyber-criminals steal identity of Social Engineering Bill In Senone of the world’s top security chiefs ate Will Force You Into City ery ending? its writers www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “Xie Chaoping, a 55-year-old author and journalist, was released just before the weekend in Weinan, Shaanxi province, after 29 days in detention.” “Mr Xie, who had been a state investigator and public prosecutor in Sichuan for over two decades before becoming a writer, was arrested in August for “illegal commercial activity”.” “His book, “The Great Migration”, infuriated local officials in Shaanxi by accusing them of stealing compensation money that was supposed to help rehouse people who had been moved to allow the building of the Sanmenxia Dam across the Yellow River in the 1950s.” “Zhao Shun, a publisher who helped serialise the book in Huohua, a newspaper, was also rumoured to have been arrested.” “However, Mr Xie’s lawyer, Zhou Ze, said he had been released and was travelling back to Beijing, where he lives. “They could not find sufficient evidence for their case, and hopefully nothing will happen in the future,” he said, adding that he was not sure of Mr Zhao’s position.” “He was released partly because of the overwhelming public anger at his arrest. Almost everyone condemned the government for locking him up, and the local justice department may not have wanted the case to become a big issue,” he said.” “Because of the internet in China, there is space for people to express themselves and the government does pay attention. Whenever these cases happen, the public get angry and give their support because people are more and more sensitive about their rights being violated,” he added.”

using Facebook

vaticproject.blogspot.com Reported:

www.dailymail.co.uk Reported: “The head of Interpol has warned that cyber-crime is the ‘most dangerous criminal threat we will ever face’ after fraudsters stole his identity on Facebook.” “Security chief Ronald K. Noble revealed that two fake accounts were created in his name and used to find the details of highly-dangerous criminals.” “The embarrassing security breach saw one of the impersonators used the false profile to obtain information on fugitives convicted of serious crimes including rape and murder.” “The police chief has now warned that there could be devastating consequences of a terrorist cyber attack as he addressed officials at the first Interpol Information Security Conference in Hong Kong.” “He said: ‘ Just recently Interpol’s Information Security Incident Response Team discovered two Facebook profiles attempting to assume my identity as Interpol’s secretary general.” “‘One of the impersonators was using this profile to obtain information on fugitives targeted during our recent Operation Infra Red.” “‘Cyber-crime is emerging as a very concrete threat. Considering the anonymity of cyberspace, it may in fact be one of the most dangerous criminal threats we will ever face.’”

Price of baby food has 31% growth spurt www.guardian.co.uk Reported:

Scientists to drill 13,000ft into active volcano in test that could cause earthquake www.telegraph.co.uk Reported: “But experts have warned that the project could trigger an explosion of red hot magma or even an earthquake.” “The team of scientists wants to insert a borehole inside Campi Flegrei, a huge volcanic formation outside Naples, in the hope of gauging how active it is.” “Also known as the Phlegraean Fields, Campi Flegrei is an eight-mile-wide caldera lying west of Naples.” “It comprises 24 volcanic fissures and craters – one of which was believed by the ancient Romans to be the home of Vulcan, the god of fire - although much of it lies under water as it extends into the Bay of Naples.” “It last erupted in 1538, and recent seismic activity in the area has raised fears that it could be ready to blow again.” “The project is due to start early next month, when the team will drill 1640ft into the ground at a site in Bagnoli, near Naples.” “The second phase, due to start in the spring, will involve the drilling of a 4,000 metre deep borehole at the same location.” “Scientists will use sensors to measure seismic activity and the temperature of the rock at different depths in an attempt to understand how unstable the area is.” “Calderas are the only volcanoes that can cause truly catastrophic eruptions with global consequences, yet they are still poorly understood,” Giuseppe De Natale, the project’s coordinator and a geophysicist at Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Volcanology, told the science magazine Nature.”

“New parents may be noticing something else besides their baby increasingly in size: the cost of feeding them has increased by nearly a third in three years, according to research published today.” “Mums and dads are paying 31% more for baby food than they were when the recession hit households, according to research by price comparison website mySupermarket.co.uk. In 2007, the average price for 100g of baby food was 68p, but this has since jumped to 89p. The same amount of baby formula has also risen 20% in the past three years from 75p to 90p.” “But there is some relief for parents in the toiletries aisle. Nappies and wipes increased by just 4%, with the cost of a single nappy rising by a penny and the cost of wipes unchanged at 3p each.” “The website recorded the monthly price change for all baby food, formula, nappies and wipes products sold by Sainsbury’s, Ocado, Tesco and Asda between September 2007 and September 2010.” “The research also paints a regional picture of internet shopping habits for babies. London babies are the most expensive, with households spending an annual average of £162.17 online. Scots were the second biggest spenders at £122.20, with the Midlands and Yorkshire not far behind on £120.64 and £119.65 respectively. The north-east was the only region where households spent less than £100 online annually at £88.53.”

A social engineering bill to restrict residence in the suburbs and rural areas and force Americans into city centers has passed the United States Senate Banking Committee (?) and is on the fast track to passage in the Senate. The bill is called the Livable Communities Act (SB 1619) and it was introduced by corruptocrat outgoing Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). It seeks to fulfill the United Nation’s plan Agenda 21, adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and signed onto by “New World Order” President George H.W. Bush.

Homebuilding industry years away from recovery finance.yahoo.com Reported: “WASHINGTON (AP) -- The homebuilding industry is years away from recovering from the excesses of the housing boom.” “Even with a modest rise in construction last month, the pace of building would need to at least double to signal a healthy market and contribute in a meaningful way to job growth, according to most economists. They don’t see that happening until the middle of the decade.” “Builders are competing with millions of foreclosures and other distressed properties that show no signs of abating. They are unlikely to ramp up construction until those are cleared away and demand for new homes picks up.” “Home construction did rise 10.5 percent in August, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 598,000, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. The results, however, were boosted by a 32 percent jump in apartment and condominium construction, a volatile part of the market.” “Construction of single-family homes, which represented about 73 percent of the market in August, grew only about 4 percent from a month earlier. While overall housing starts are up 25 percent from their bottom in April 2009, they are still 74 percent below their peak in January 2006.” “Homebuilding activity remains at an astoundingly weak level,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist with Capital Economics.” “Most economists agree that construction has to be at least double current levels for the market to be considered healthy -- between 1.2 million and 1.5 million each year. Dales doesn’t

Sperm donor mix-up: Where do these two girls come from? www.theglobeandmail.com Reported: “He was known only as donor number 3168, a laboratory identity with flesh-and-blood consequences.” “Three years ago, Trudy Moore found that her daughter, Samantha, conceived using her husband’s sperm and her sister as a surrogate, was not a genetic match to her husband. Frantic for answers, she confronted her doctor, who suggested in e-mails to Ms. Moore that he may have contaminated her husband’s sample – possibly with 3168.” “Ms. Moore consulted an online registry which connects donor-conceived children with others conceived using the same donor. There she found Jacqueline Slinn, a patient of the same doctor and a single mother whose daughter Bridget was supposed to have been conceived using donor 3168. Ms. Moore asked to test Samantha against Bridget to see whether their DNA matched.” “The results stunned both of them: The two girls are not related – nor is either a match to 3168.”

www.telegraph.co.uk Reported:

“Experts say the “low hanging fruit” of scientific knowledge, such as the laws of motion and gravity, was attained using simple methods in previous centuries, leaving only increasingly impenetrable problems for modern scientists to solve.” “Uncharted areas of science are now so complex that even the greatest minds will struggle to advance human understanding of the world, they claim.” “In addition, the remaining problems are becoming so far removed from our natural sensory range that they require increasingly powerful machines, such as the Large Hadron Collider, even to approach them.” “Russell Stannard, professor emeritus of physics at the Open University, argues that although existing scientific knowledge will continue to be applied in news ways, “the gaining of knowledge about fundamental laws of nature and the constituents of the world, that must come to an end”. “He said: “We live in a scientific age and that’s a period that’s going to come to an end at some stage. Not when we’ve discovered everything about the world but when we’ve discovered everything that’s open to us to understand.” “In his new book The End of Discovery, which is released on Thursday, Professor Stannard argues that it is impractical to go on building ever larger and more powerful machines to keep seeking new breakthroughs. M-Theory – Stephen Hawking’s preferred explanation of the content of the universe – could not be tested

FBI raids war protesters’ homes www.twincities.com Reported: “The FBI raided the homes of five political activists and an office Friday in Minneapolis as part of an investigation into possible links between local anti-war activists and terrorist groups in Colombia and the Middle East.” “An FBI spokesman said agents were “seeking evidence related to an ongoing Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.” “There is no imminent threat to the community, and we’re not planning any arrests at this time,” said FBI Special Agent Steve Warfield of the Minneapolis office.” “The homes of Anti-War Committee organizers Mick Kelly, Jess Sundin and Meredith Aby were among those searched. The organization’s office also was searched.” “I have no idea what all this is about,” said Kelly’s attorney, Ted Dooley. “Mr. Kelly is an activist; he’s a socialist or perhaps a communist and has been forever. He never hides his political views. They’re fishing. They’re casting big nets into the sea of political activism.” “They can harrass us until the cows come home but we will not stop,” she said Friday at a news conference outside her home amid about 50 supporters carrying signs — with statements that included “Stop FBI harassment” and “Working for justice is not a crime.”

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