Friday, February 29, 2008

The Other News

Police Say Smeltit Dealt It

VANCOUVER, BC—Police have caught a man suspected of causing an early morning explosion last Wednesday, February 13. The blast obliterated the Broadway Street Taco Del Mar, and caused major damage to surrounding businesses, including a Starbucks and an adjoining dollar store.
Initially thought to be an of terrorism, the police now say the explosion was the accidental result of a break-in gone wrong.
“The suspect broke in to raid the cash register,” said Det. Brock Coxalot. “But he made the mistake of lighting a match to see his way around inside, instead of using a flashlight.” Coxalot explained that years of dormant methane gas had built-up in the Mexican food establishment. “The guy didn’t have a chance,” he said.
The suspect, Denis Smeltit, 25, was made available for comment from his hospital bed at Vancouver General. He is being treated for second-degree burns to 40 per cent of his body.
“I blame the beans,” said Smeltit. “If I had just stuck to robbing burger joints instead of going spicy I wouldn’t be here right now. But no, I had to listen to my friends who kept making fun of me, calling me the ‘Burger-ler.’ Now look at me; I’m more toasted than a chicken quesadilla.”
The owner of Taco Del Mar, D. Sanchez, said the franchise will rebuild.
“‘Delicious’ may be our middle name, but so is ‘Diligence,’” said Sanchez. “We won’t let this hooligan stop us; we’ll show the world what our tacos are made of.”
Investigators believe there were more than 102 PPM of methane gas lingering in the Taco Del Mar. Although such gas is non-toxic to inhale, the smell of the built-up gas was covered up by the exceptionally fragrant food available at the restaurant.
“Sometimes our food smells like fart,” admitted Sanchez. “There are a lot of beans in our burritos.”
Experts agree that beans, although good for your heart, will cause excessive flatulence that, in severe cases, can become explosive around open-flame.
Smeltit claims that he can’t be solely responsible for the explosion since hundreds of patrons had also contributed to the toxic time bomb.
“There’s no way we could sort out whose toots are whose,” said Det. Coxalot. “I don’t think the technology is available yet. Besides, the offending gas was burned up in the fireball, taking our evidence with it.”

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Command and Control




Choice is Freedom

NOTE: This was part of a new segment in the paper, "War of Words." I was challenged to defend the first hot topic, abortion, against a very conservative (Republican-supporting) guy. The situation is fictional and the name was one of a few common names I use in my writing and has nothing to do with anyone I know. But although it was a fictional situation in this case, it mirrors the lives of millions of women around the world. I'm not going feminist on everyone, just presenting an article. For more information, visit the following:

http://www.wavaw.ca/informed_stats.php

http://www.rapereliefshelter.bc.ca/statistics/index.html

Jennifer was 13 years old when she was raped and beaten—by her uncle. She was so ashamed of what had happened she couldn’t tell anyone. She hid from the world, crying and screaming into her pillow to hide her despair.
It was six weeks later when Jennifer found out, in the seclusion of her bathroom, that she was pregnant with her uncle’s baby; not only that, but Jennifer was only a baby herself: How could she raise a new life?
Sex is the simultaneous bane and blessing of human existence; it brings pleasure, and ultimate pain. Although children aren’t always planned and many people are conceived by lust alone, fear and harm should never be a part of reproduction.
Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW) reports one in four Canadian women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, which is a lot of possibility for forced conception.
There are limits in Canada as to how far-along a fetus can be before an abortion can no longer be performed; abortions after 12 weeks are generally frowned upon, although some states in the U.S. allow them later in pregnancy. Abortions for medical reasons are a unclear: How old and what illness are the subject of harsh debate between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, and medical professionals. When does life really begin: Conception or birth? All heavy issues, but not the real concern.
If a woman aborts because of rape, health, or accidental pregnancy, it shouldn’t matter. Society risk their basic freedoms when people allow governments to have a say over their own bodies—that’s something even a conservative could agree with.
Conservative values are based on freedom. The 2004 U.S. Republican Party Platform even states the following:
“We choose strength.
We choose results.
We choose optimism.
We choose opportunity.
We choose freedom.”
Isn’t an individual’s body his or her ultimate personal sanctuary, therefore granting the freedom to make the choices necessary to ensure its best interests? If a child is born into a world with restricted rights then it is not really living.
Letting heads of state decide whether or not 13-year-old Jennifer has to keep her incest baby—causing a lifetime of torment for her as a mother and a questionable future for her child—is unimaginable. Asking government for the consent to prevent a child a woman cannot look after from spending his or her life in foster care, or to stop the birth of a child with severe physical or mental defect should be just as inconceivable.
An abortion is not a form of body modification, and should never be taken lightly; it should be used as a last resort method to avoid bringing a life into the world that will not be properly cared for—abortion is not a form of common birth control. Great care should always be taken to avoid unwanted conception, and the proper methods and barriers be used.
But throughout history, people have sacrificed their lives for freedom. Freedom comes at a price, and unborn babies, along with soldiers, are part of that cost. If people allow government to make such a personal decision for them, they take away the freedom that government themselves claim they fight for.
If the War on Terror is for personal freedoms, then the War on Terror is also for abortion, because if women don’t have a choice, then the terrorists win.

No More Meat

It’s tough to be a vegetarian. Not only are humans conditioned omnivores, but refusing meat often labels a person an environmental extremist.
It’s been over ten years since I last ate beef; I have never eaten seafood, lamb, rabbit, or anything other than pigs and poultry. But three weeks ago, after extensively studying the process by which animals are readied for human consumption, I decided to quit meat “cold turkey.”
Recently, professors and scientists have joined environmentalists in the vegetarian cause. Two University of Chicago professors, Gidon Eshel and Pamela Martin, claim the amount of energy and greenhouse gases required to produce even the smallest amount of suitable animal protein are astronomical, and the meat and fishing industries are main contributors to global warming. In a 2005 issue of Physics World, British physicist Alan Calverd announced we could cut 21 per cent of carbon emissions by eliminating production of livestock. Calverd said, “Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels.” So why isn’t anyone listening?
I blame barbeque pork ribs.
Barbeque pork ribs are tasty as hell. It is easy to grab a rack of ribs and forget about the land used, carbon emitted and animals tortured while indulging on them; the only immediate problem the customer has is the sticky fingers the ribs cause.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states, “The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops.”
Not only is livestock polluting our atmosphere, water, and land, but meat may be directly causing major health problems in consumers. “Hormonal substances” are widely used by industry for the “development of more lean meat with less fat deposited on the meat”, “more growth using less feed,” and, “reduced cost for the cattle producer and less expensive beef for the consumer,” according to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and Beef Information Centre.
The effect these hormones have on humans has been the subject of great debate in the health and scientific communities, and many groups claim the injected hormones are carcinogenic. Widespread illness has also been known to crop up in our mass production livestock, such as mad cow disease and avian flu.
On top of health and environmental issues, with expanding human populations, it just isn’t practical to devote vast sections of land to food that is then fed to food; it is a sort of worldwide double handling. Why not just stop at the grains and beans, instead of passing them on?
Then there is the humane aspect to this meaty issue. Chickens, for example, seem pretty stupid. They have small, beady eyes and act as though they are just walking vegetables. They even keep running around when their heads are cut off. I, as a devourer of many chickens, used this excuse and justified my diet with the “stupid animal” argument.
Every living thing on this planet, including chickens, barnacles, and people, only gets one lifetime, one chance to experience anything and everything they can. Humans may have conquered other animals, but they need to keep respect for other creatures that share the planet. Keeping a bird in small cage all its life, chopping off its beak, and then stringing it up on a production line and boiling it alive is not respect. Separating calves from their mothers and shacking them up in pens to be fed on all-liquid diets before slaughtering them is not valuing life. And manipulating animals in painful ways so they may die for our dinner is wrong.
So, how does one know what is ethically edible? Free-range, cage-free, organic—who regulates what? Which meat is more environmentally friendly? Which one saves more lives? Who can be trusted?
It’s much easier to simply cut meat out of a diet all together—it really isn’t that hard.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Deal With Ivy Before Replant in Stanley Park


On Dec. 15, 2006, an intense windstorm swept through the jewel of Vancouver, Stanley Park. The storm knocked down over ten thousand trees and left the park in utter disrepair. But why?
Trees can live a long time; they boast being some of the oldest living organisms on the planet. Trees stand patiently through colonization and all sorts of weather conditions. The fact that thousands of trees fell because of one storm should speak to the public in more ways than one: If trees that have lived through many past storms are now falling during one night, the cause must be epic—or us.
Global warming has been touted as one cause of ever-increasing storm-strength. And the storm on that night in December was particularly ruthless, throwing 120 km winds at Vancouver. So, if the storm was caused by climate change, then we have ourselves to blame. But is that the only reason why this park was destroyed?
In 2004, the Stanley Park Ecology Society (SPEC) and the Vancouver Park Board started an environmental initiative called Ivy Busters. They realized the park had been inundated with English ivy, a plant not native to North America.
Alien or introduced species of plants are much more common than people realize, and many gardeners cultivate and contribute to the problem in their own backyards. Invasive plants, like ivy, replace the natural vegetation of a forest, which can have major negative impact on the ecosystem: Yet another problem humans can blame themselves for.
SPEC states on its website that English ivy also “can prevent the regeneration of understory trees and shrubs, and as it climbs trees, the weight of ivy will increase the likelihood of blow-down.”
There is still a significant ivy problem in Stanley Park, and obviously there is a correlation between trees falling and ivy growth. So why is replanting going forward before the ivy problem is dealt with? Not only could this happen again during a storm, but the young, replanted trees will be hindered by the copious masses of ivy along the forest floor.
Eventually all trees will fall, whether from wind or saws, but it is becoming apparent that ivy plays a significant role in destroying our British Columbian woods. The forest along the shores of the Coquitam River is an excellent example of the wreckage caused by these green invaders. The foreign ivy is weakening our native land, and it needs to be dealt with.
There are a few local groups devoted to stopping alien plants from taking over, including the Coastal Invasive Plant Committee (CIPC) and the Incasive Plant Council of B.C. (IPCBC).
Next month, the replanting of Stanley Park will begin again in full-force. The public can only hope the Vancouver Park Board has taken battling aliens into their strategy, as well.


So Heath Ledger is Dead

During the summer of ’97, I became obsessed with a television program (a rarity for me to care for TV). The show was called Roar, an epic drama that took place around 400 A.D. in Ireland. There were only 13 episodes, but during its short run, many North American viewers got their first glimpse at the young, handsome leader of the clan and star of the show: Heath Ledger.
The show was incredibly cheesy, which probably explained its quick cancellation. Ledger played Conor, a Celtic hero who was always too honourable for his own good; and he was the only in the cast to go on to bigger and better things in his career—although it had its ups and downs.
In 2000, he starred alongside Mel Gibson in the war drama The Patriot. The movie won several awards and brought Ledger praise from critics. But from there, besides having a role in acclaimed film Monster’s Ball, Ledger starred in a slew of slumps, including A Knight’s Tale and The Order.
That all changed with the fabulous wonder that was Brokeback Mountain. Ledger went from little known Aussie to big-star hottie overnight, and his career looked on track and promising. But some thought he played a lost soul a little too accurately, and the fact his body was found on Tuesday, Jan. 22, attests to the parallels between the character he played on Brokeback and his real life—not as a gay man, but a man that hurt so deep he couldn’t even act his way out of it.
Ledger was high school dropout, and supposedly struggled with different sorts of drugs for a long time. Watching him on-screen, it was sometimes hard to find his characters believable because something else was going on inside his head while he was acting. Whether it was his eyes or his subtle movements, Ledger had the aura of someone who had been broken and was having trouble rebuilding.
So, he is dead now. Gone the way of many stars: Monroe, Dean, Joplin. And he leaves behind a two-year old daughter who will never get to know the real him. She will only know him as we, the fans, do. She will see him in his movies and wish she could meet him, just like I did when I saw him in Roar.
In a way, all celebrities are already dead to their fans. Fans know them through the roles they play, and will never really know their true personalities; they are unattainable to us, just as the dead are to everyone. Good-bye to a man I never met, and good luck to his daughter, Matilda, who just left Hollywood and entered reality.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Dear Everyone

STOP CHASING BRITNEY SPEARS AND START FOLLOWING THE TRUTH.