It wasn’t surprising when the UN’s expert on food reported gaps even in Canada — food banks here are hardly a secret. You can’t easily hide the fact 900,000 people need them to eat every month.

What was surprising was Canada’s response, which sounds like the equivalent of a spoiled child’s playground taunt.

Our problem is not [...]]]>

It wasn’t surprising when the UN’s expert on food reported gaps even in Canada — food banks here are hardly a secret. You can’t easily hide the fact 900,000 people need them to eat every month.

What was surprising was Canada’s response, which sounds like the equivalent of a spoiled child’s playground taunt.

Our problem is not food security, according to the conservative government. It’s “fighting environmentalists.”

Canada News: UN food envoy blasts inequality, poverty in Canada – thestar.com.

Gulf seafood deformities alarm scientists – Features – Al Jazeera English.

Now, [...]]]> You’ve heard about the sad plight of bees, and how important they are to our food chain because they pollinate a lot of the plants we live on, and how scientists aren’t sure whether it’s pesticides or cell phone towers or mites or a combination or something else altogether behind the dreaded colony collapse disorder.

Now, according to this Guardian post, they do know more about one suspect, certain pesticides, which they’re now calling out by name: “neonicotinoids.” They’re also calling for an outright ban, in order to save the bees, and us.

Grave threat of pesticides to bees’ billion-pound bonanza is now clear | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk.

Who knew, until this survey was published, that people across the political spectrum oppose poison lawns and gardens?

It’s been 53 years since the first March 10 uprising against the Chinese invasion. Since then the world has mostly ignored Tibetan appeals for justice (correct that: the world’s governments, bowing to Chinese interests due to realpolitics, its economic might and their own lack of moral courage, have largely ignored Tibet, even [...]]]> Tibetans don’t give up.

It’s been 53 years since the first March 10 uprising against the Chinese invasion. Since then the world has mostly ignored Tibetan appeals for justice (correct that: the world’s governments, bowing to Chinese interests due to realpolitics, its economic might and their own lack of moral courage, have largely ignored Tibet, even while their citizens would tend to side with the Dalai Lama).

Much has changed in Tibet in those 53 years, but not the fact that China still needs an army in Tibetan streets to prevent people from saying out loud what everyone thinks.

What to do against such powerful odds?

The tragic answer for more than 25 Tibetans has been self-immolation. Of all the sad stories in the news everyday, the plight of a young mother shouting “We want freedom” before lighting the match is crushing. If only more people could have heard.

From an LA Times story on self-immolation:

Until last year, self-immolation was almost unheard of among Tibetans, unlike with Vietnamese Buddhists. One case was reported in 2009, and then none until March 16 last year, when a 20-year-old monk set himself on fire at the Kirti Monastery.

Although Chinese authorities swamped the monastery with riot police, building a barracks outside the front gate and posting 24-hour guards inside, the self-immolations continued. By October, they had spread to other monasteries and nuns began joining in.

“Now it is moving from the clergy to the lay people, and at that point it gets hard to stop,” said Robbie Barnett, a Tibet scholar at Columbia University.

Stand Up for Tibet — Students for a Free Tibet.

Can’t wait for one of our First Nations builders to choose cedar, as in a traditional longhouse, and win with 99 miles to go.

One of the frequently asked questions I get when I promote community orchards is…won’t people take the fruit?

The answer is: Yes, if all goes well.

People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we [...]]]>

One of the frequently asked questions I get when I promote community orchards is…won’t people take the fruit?

The answer is: Yes, if all goes well.

People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.”

From TakePart, a brief look at a community orchard about to bloom in Seattle.

It’s Not a Fairytale: Seattle to Build Nation’s First Food Forest | TakePart – News, Culture, Videos and Photos That Make the World Better.

The decay of Canada illustrates two things. Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries.

Remember back in the good old days when Canada stood for something? Sure, we were always going to be a pipsqueak among the big nation-states in the political game, but we had [...]]]>

The decay of Canada illustrates two things. Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries.

Remember back in the good old days when Canada stood for something? Sure, we were always going to be a pipsqueak among the big nation-states in the political game, but we had a spine, and some grit, and we even gave freethinkers in other countries something to be inspired by. Remember when Bono himself declared “The world needs more Canada”?

Now? The world needs Canada like a hole in the ozone layer. We’re home to the biggest industrial pollution project on the planet. We have a government determined to re-draw the cultural lines we once smugly thought set us apart.

Journalist Chris Hedges writes in TruthDig about where we went wrong.

Chris Hedges: Corporations Have No Use for Borders – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.