A new bill that would give the federal Heritage Department the power to deny funding for films and TV shows it considers offensive is creating shock waves in the industry.
Changes now before the Senate to the Income Tax Act that would allow the federal government to cancel tax credits for projects thought to be offensive or not in the public interest. The amendments have already been passed in the House of Commons.
The amendment to Bill C-10 would allow the Heritage Minister to deny tax credits for Canadian productions, even if federal agencies such as Telefilm and the Canadian Television Fund have invested in the production.
Representatives from the Heritage and Justice departments would determine which productions are unsuitable and therefore ineligible for tax cuts.
David Cronenberg, the Canadian director behind the critically acclaimed Eastern Promises, said the proposed plan doesn’t belong in Canada. Read the rest of this entry »
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is a 2002 documentary about the April 2002 Venezuelan coup attempt which briefly deposed Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
A television crew from Ireland’s Radio Telifís Éireann happened to be recording a documentary about Chávez during the events of April 11, 2002. Shifting focus, they followed the events as they occurred. During their filming, the crew recorded images of the events that they say contradict explanations given by Chávez opposition, the private media, the US State Department, and then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. The documentary says that the coup was the result of a conspiracy between various old guard and anti-Chávez factions within Venezuela and the United States.
Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously.
Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers’ jobs.
Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.
The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value. Read the rest of this entry »
Good news from Pakistan — opposition parties pledged to restore civilian democracy won the elections for which we campaigned.1 But outrageously, President Musharraf has hinted he may try to “get rid of” the new government if it challenges him.2 After imposing martial law last year and dismissing the judiciary to lock in his power, his survival in the presidency now rests on backing from Western powers like the US and the UK, along with Pakistan’s army.
As the horse-trading begins, tensions are high — and Musharraf has not yet convened Parliament. The Pakistani people have cast an undeniable vote for change and they must not be betrayed. Let’s give them our own vote of global support with big advertisements in Pakistan’s The News, a respected broadsheet read by politicians, ambassadors and generals alike, calling on all parties- the US and the UK in particular- to support not undermine the people’s vote. We need to raise $10,632 for this — so click here to view and endorse the ad, then please give a donation if you can:
Already last year, over 83,000 of us called on the international community to condemn General Musharraf’s crackdown and press for constitutional rule and free and fair elections. Avaaz campaigners delivered that message privately to high-level contacts in the US Congress and the British government, key supporters of the General who have since begun to shift. The election and polls suggest that 75% of the population want President Musharraf to go3 — but the Bush administration and other elements are still propping him up.
This is a golden moment, in which Pakistan’s voters have overcome widespread vote-rigging to set a course for civilian democracy. Now opposition leaders face the challenge of reinstating the free media and independent judiciary, undoing martial laws, and building the institutions and legitimacy that are essential for any lasting security in Pakistan.
Pakistan needs the international community to pledge greater help for this democratic effort, not to bully and meddle. So let’s send a ringing global message to the leaders, generals and ambassadors now politicking in Islamabad, and make sure they don’t bungle the transition that citizens of Pakistan, and of the world, demand. View the ad and give it your support at this link:
I’m starting to read an amazing book by John Perkins, titled, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”.
Here’s the Prologue:
Quito, Ecuador’s capital, stretches across a volcanic valley high in the Andes, at an altitude of nine thousand feet. Residents of this city, which was founded long before Columbus arrived in the Americas, are accustomed to seeing snow on the surrounding peaks, despite the fact that they live just a few miles south of the equator. The city of Shell, a frontier outpost and military base hacked out of Ecuador’s Amazon jungle to service the oil company whose name it bears, is nearly eight thousand feet lower than Quito. A steaming city, it is inhabited mostly by soldiers, oil workers, and the indigenous people from the Shuar and Kichwa tribes who work for them as prostitutes and laborers.
To journey from one city to the other, you must travel a road that is both tortuous and breathtaking. Local people will tell you that during the trip you experience all four seasons in a single day. Although I have driven this road many times, I never tire of the spectacular scenery. Sheer cliffs, punctuated by cascading waterfalls and brilliant bromeliads, rise up one side. On the other side, the earth drops abruptly into a deep abyss where the Pastaza River, a headwater of the Amazon, snakes its way down the Andes. The Pastaza carries water from the glaciers of Cotopaxi, one of the world’s highest active volcanoes and a deity in the time of the Incas, to the Atlantic Ocean over three thousand miles away.
In 2003, I departed Quito in a Subaru Outback and headed for Shell on a mission that was like no other I had ever accepted. I was hoping to end a war I had helped create. As is the case with so many things we EHMs must take responsibility for, it is a war that is virtually unknown anywhere outside the country where it is fought. I was on my way to meet with the Shuars, the Kichwas, and their neighbors the Achuars, the Zaparos, and the Shiwiars—tribes determined to prevent our oil companies from destroying their homes, families, and lands, even if it means they must die in the process. For them, this is a war about the survival of their children and cultures, while for us it is about power, money, and natural resources. It is one part of the struggle for world domination and the dream of a few greedy men, global empire.
That is what we EHMs do best: we build a global empire. We are an elite group of men and women who utilize international financial organizations to foment conditions that make other nations subservient to the corporatocracy running our biggest corporations, our government, and our banks. Like our counterparts in the Mafia, EHMs provide favors. These take the form of loans to develop infrastructure —electric generating plants, highways, ports, airports, or industrial parks. A condition of such loans is that engineering and construction companies from our own country must build all these projects. In essence, most of the money never leaves the United States; it is simply transferred from banking offices in Washington to engineering offices in New York, Houston, or San Francisco.
Despite the fact that the money is returned almost immediately to corporations that are members of the corporatocracy (the creditor), the recipient country is required to pay it all back, principal plus interest. If an EHM is completely successful, the loans are so large that the debtor is forced to default on its payments after a few years. When this happens, then like the Mafia we demand our pound of flesh. This often includes one or more of the following: control over United Nations votes, the installation of military bases, or access to precious resources such as oil or the Panama Canal. Of course, the debtor still owes us the money—and another country is added to our global empire.
So get out on your roofs with your friends and family, pass some love around, and absorb the mystical postive energy that an astronomical event like this dishes out in waves. Lunar eclipses were times of spiritual celebration, meditation and introspection in almost every spiritually organic culture. Get outside and soak it in.
Shit, People are already ahead of the game: (but this is more about the industry…)
Of course, marijuana is illegal in this country, but it is a huge business. Seven billion dollars a year, and that’s just in British Columbia. We’ve got two guys who made a documentary about the pot industry. Adam Scorgie and Brett Harvey, are the makers of the documentary, ‘The Union – The Business Behind Getting High.’
CBC Link: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1956
Ever wonder what British Columbia’s most profitable industries are? Logging?
Fishing? Tourism? Ever think to include marijuana? If you haven’t, think again.
No longer a hobby for the stereotypical hippie culture of the ’60s, BC’s illegal
marijuana trade industry has evolved into a seemingly unstoppable business
giant, dubbed by those involved as ‘The Union’. Commanding upwards of $7
billion Canadian annually, The Union’s roots stretch far and wide, directly and
indirectly affecting all areas of our society. With 65% to 85% of all ‘BC Bud’
being exported to the United States, it’s clear that the BC marijuana trade has
become an international issue with consequences that extend far beyond our
borders. When there are record profits to be made, who are the players, and
when do their motives become questionable?
•Why is marijuana illegal?
•What health risks do we really face?
•Does prohabition work?
•What would happen if we taxed it?
•Medicine, paper, fuel, textiles, food, etc. Are we missing something here?
Follow filmmaker Adam Scorgie as he dives head first into Canada’s most
socially acceptable illegal activity. Along the way, Adam demsytifies the
underground market and brings to light how such a large industry can
function while remaining illegal. By interviewing experts from around the
globe, including growers, clippers, police officers, criminalogists, economists,
psychologists, medical doctors, politicians and pop culture icons, Scorgie
explores the cause and effect nature of the business behind getting high.
Nobody’s innocent in this exploration of an industry that may be profiting
more by being illegal. Join Adam Scorgie as he unravels the mystery of The
Union.
Check out the video Powerplay: The theft of B.C.’s Rivers to learn more about the privatization of B.C.’s rivers to produce hydro electricity. Thanks Gord Campbell for another wonderful example of the type of leadership that is just plainly irresponsible and motivated by greed.
Humans have the most fully developed intelligence and self-awareness of all animals. At times this has been used to distance us further from nature. Ever since we have believed in a soul separate from the body, or in a special role allocated by God, we have seen ourselves as superior to the material world. We have seen nature as there for our use only, to deal with as we please.
But full consciousness does not have to mean separation. It may give us an opportunity that is denied to other animals – the chance to embrace a conscious re-unification with nature and the universe.
When we began our journey we were hunter-gatherers. We were part of nature and subject to her rules.
But once we began to assert control over nature through agriculture, we ceased to be a harmonious part of nature. And when we began to burn fossil fuels on a mounting scale, and to disrupt every ecosystem on earth through pollution and interference, we started to undermine nature.
Two revolutions – the agricultural and industrial – set us over against nature.
A third, environmental revolution, now in its early stages, will begin the process of re-integration into nature.Read the rest of this entry »
The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating of extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in most people. The movement took as its premise the belief that through the development of “human potential”, humans can experience an exceptional quality of life filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment. As a corollary, those who begin to unleash this assumed potential often find themselves directing their actions within society towards assisting others to release their potential. Adherents believe that the net effect of individuals cultivating their potential will bring about positive social change at large.
Commentators sometimes classify the human potential movement as being categorised under the broader umbrella of the New Age movement. HPM distinguishes itself ideologically from other New Age trends by an emphasis on the individual development of secular human capabilities — as opposed to the more spiritual New Age views. However, participants rarely make this distinction, and most who embrace the ideas of the human potential movement also tend to embrace the other more spiritual ideas within the New Age movement.
Christopher Lasch notes the impact of the human potential movement via the therapeutic sector:
The new therapies spawned by the human potential movement, according to Peter Marin, teach that “the individual will is all powerful and totally determines one’s fate”; thus they intensify the “isolation of the self.” [2]
I received this poem from one of the most inspirational 14 year olds one could ever meet after I lectured about the importance of love in one of my lessons. Too often we adults do not give children enough credit; we believe their values and ideals are naive and unattainable. I beg to differ….
“Love is kind and generous;
It is not jealousy or envy
Love is happy
Love is family and friends
Love is not hatred
It is not anger
Love is medicine, not sickness
Love is not opaque, but transparent.
Love is making the right choices
Based on your own judgement
It is not patronizing each other to do wrong.
Love is patient and affectionate
Love is loyal and honest.
Love is not lying to make yourself more interesting
TORONTO – An aging population, lack of free time and family commitments all contribute to Canadians watching – rather than actually participating in – sports, a new study indicates.
Barely three in 10 Canadians aged 15 and over participated regularly in at least one sport in 2005, down dramatically from nearly half in the early 1990s, Statistics Canada reported Thursday.
The study estimates that 7.3 million people, or about 28 per cent of the adult population, participated in some form of sport.
That’s down substantially from 8.3 million, or 34 per cent, in 1998, and 9.6 million, or 45 per cent, in 1992.
While a busy life may have diminished our taking part in sports, lack of time didn’t curb out enthusiasm for watching sports.
“Many more of us were spectators,” the study reported. “In 2005, an estimated 9.2 million adults were ‘involved’ in amateur sports as spectators, a 20.3 per cent increase from 1998.” Read the rest of this entry »
“I think that the love revolution is something that starts within each of us. It starts right in our own spirits and from there it has to be something that we exercise in our homes, in our families, in our small communities, and then it grows outward. But the revolution is a discipline. It means that I’m going to let love rule my life. I’m going to wake up each day and I’m going to try my best to give love, to put some positive energy into the universe. And the revolution is the discipline to keep doing that every day, to love myself, to love God, to love the people that are around me and to just start exercising that within your own environment.” – Lenny Kravitz
Yesterday, the leading candidates for the next President of the United States became clear. They are Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, and the winner will decide whether the nightmare of the Bush foreign policy is reversed or continued for another 4 years.
US citizens will choose their president, but global public opinion matters to them–they know that US respect in the world has plummeted under Bush, and they want a President who can deliver change. In the next few days, our uniquely global community has a real chance to influence the finalist candidates as they develop their campaign strategy. Click below to read and endorse our letter to the candidates. We’ll publish it in US newspapers and deliver it personally to the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns–we need at least 100,000 people to sign it this week – so please sign and forward this email to friends right away:
The message of the letter is simple: we are all in this together. The world is ready to partner with the US, but we need to see a real change of course from the Bush years. The letter is based on a poll of the Avaaz community, which found that our top 3 requests for change in US policy are:
Help the world stop global warming
Respect universal human rights
Use diplomacy to prevent war and resolve conflict
There is a real chance that the candidates could adopt this simple agenda for change, but every day brings more risk that they will commit to another direction. Sign below and forward this email to all your friends and family:
American power is declining in the world, but it still has enormous ability to do good or do harm. It will take decades to undo the global harm done by George Bush’s disastrous Presidency. Let’s help make sure America’s next leader takes a different path.
With Hope,
Ricken, Iain, Pascal, Ben, Galit, Graziela and the whole Avaaz team.
The Whale Hunt is an experiment in human storytelling.
In May 2007, I spent nine days living with a family of Inupiat Eskimos in Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost settlement in the United States. The first several days were spent in the village of Barrow, exploring ramshackle structures, buying gear, and otherwise helping the whaling crew to prepare for the hunt. We then traveled by snowmobile out onto the frozen Arctic Ocean, where we camped three miles from shore on thick pack ice, pitching our tents about ten feet from the open water. Boats were readied, harpoons prepared, whaling guns loaded, white tunics donned, a snow fence constructed, and then we sat silently in the -22 °F air, in constant daylight, waiting for whales to appear.
Instead, it’s all about machines—desiring machines: “Everywhere it is machines—real ones, not figurative machines, with all the necessary couplings and connections”. (AO 1)
“Everything is a machine” (AO 2):
In the first section of the first chapter process and desire are defined in relation to both production and machines.
“A machine may be defined as a system of interruptions or breaks (coupres)…related to a continual flow (hyle) that it cuts into…like a ham slicing machine, removing portions [prelevement] from the associative flow: the anus and the flow of shit it cuts off, for instance” (AO 36).
Hyle: “designates the pure continuity that any one sort of matter ideally possess” (AO 36).
The break or interruption of flows is not a rejection of that continuity; instead, it is constitutive of it—“it presupposes or defines what it cuts into as an ideal continuity” (AO 36). Thus with each machine there are other machines that are connected to it and the form of that connection is conditioned by how (and which) breaks-flows function in that relation. Also, there is always a “third machine” that perpetually produces an infinite flux. This scope of these processes are essentially the law of the production of production at work; machines connected to other machines, producing and encountering breaks-flows.
The notion of desire that emerges in the first chapter is still somewhat unclear. This has much to do with the fact that I continually find myself clinging to desire as something that emerges from a subject-object relationship: the individual who tries in his life to satisfy his desires by seeking, projecting, working towards, discovering the objects of desire. This also brings out my second confusion, what it means to displace subjects and objects—the implications of situating the subject adjacent to(/outside?) of and after desiring-machines…as products of production.
Smokers, the obese cheaper to treat than healthy, long-living people: study
Preventing obesity and smoking can save lives, but it doesn’t save money, researchers reported Monday.
It costs more to care for healthy people who live years longer, according to a Dutch study that counters the common perception that preventing obesity would save governments millions of dollars.
“It [the finding] was a small surprise,” said Pieter van Baal, an economist at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, who led the study. “But it also makes sense. If you live longer, then you cost the health system more.”
In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.
Van Baal and colleagues created a model to simulate lifetime health costs for three groups of 1,000 people: the “healthy-living” group (thin and non-smoking), obese people and smokers. The model relied on “cost of illness” data and disease prevalence in the Netherlands in 2003.
The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.
On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years, and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.
Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000 US, from age 20 on.
The cost of care for obese people was $371,000 US, and for smokers, about $326,000 US.
Big phone and cable companies are trying to get rid of Network Neutrality, the fundamental principle that prevents them from discriminating against your favorite Web sites and services.
Our broad coalition wants to keep the Internet free and open for everyone.
Huge news out of Japan: a top newspaper is reporting a major shift in climate policy, and citing Avaaz members as one of the reasons why!
The paper reports that at a critical, high-level meeting on global warming, the Environment Minister held up Avaaz’s “Titanic” newspaper ad from the Bali summit–showing Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda, with Bush, steering towards climate disaster… along with a call for tough 2020 emissions targets, signed by 90,000 Avaaz members.
“The world sees Japan as a force resisting change! Are we okay with this?” the minister asked. The Chief Cabinet Minister suggested setting a target. Days later, Prime Minister Fukuda announced his decision: at last, Japan would set a 2020 emissions target!
This is a genuine victory. Japan is a huge polluter, a key Bush ally, and host of this summer’s crucial G8 summit. Congratulations to everyone for the positive role we all played!
Japan’s not the only example. Here are some other moments when rapid-response people power made a difference in 2007:
Burma: When news broke in October of the violent crackdown against protesting monks, Avaaz members scrambled into action. Within 96 hours, more than half a million people called on the Chinese government to intervene, and Avaaz ran the total count in a full-page ad in one of the most influential global newspapers. Shamed, China successfully pushed Burma to start talks with the UN and with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The Burma campaign continues to build.
Global poverty: When World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz’s personal corruption undermined the Bank’s programme to encourage good government, Avaaz members joined the cry for new leadership. With global media looking on, we hand-delivered 50,000 signatures to World Bank Headquarters. Wolfowitz resigned days later.
Global warming: In addition to the “Titanic” ad that moved Japan, more than 320,000 Avaaz members took action in real time during the Bali summit–successfully reversing Canada’s obstructionism and isolating Bush as he attempted to scuttle any agreement. While just a first step, the “Bali Road Map” set the stage for climate breakthroughs this year and next.
What urgent moments will 2008 bring? Some we can predict–most we cannot.
What we do know for certain is that the new year will bring serious threats and golden opportunities. We know that in those critical moments, acting quickly can make all the difference. And we know that if we all contribute a little bit now, we’ll be sure that whatever comes–and whatever is required of us–we will be ready.
Avaaz depends on Avaaz members like you to fund our campaigns. Don’t wait for “someone else” to step in–we’re it. To make a secure, online contribution to the 2008 Crisis Action Fund, just click the link below:
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The Fungus 