Sunday, September 25, 2005

Environ Mental - Alter Eco Newsletter

Sept. 23/05

“Environ Mental” - Definition:

1. A condition of various degrees of hysteria in response to environmental forces. E.g. Giddiness from deep breaths in morning woodlands; hilarity of sharing a boss joke around the office cooler; voluntary temporary suspension of sanity (front row rock concert seats or full volume stereos); insanity of fuel prices and driving downtown, etc.

2. Obsessed with the Environment and all things related!

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Hi! Welcome to my long overdue newsletter. Here is how I have been ‘environmentally coping’ since Groundhog Day this year.

Summary:
1. Blog: “Worth Fighting For”
2. Bookstore with search
3. Café Press merchandise
4. Singer/Songwriting – “Red Rocket Roll” sound file
5. “Hanging Bush” sculpture
6. Planet in Focus International Film and Video Festival Eco Fair – Sunday, Oct 2nd


1. In Feb I was inspired to start a blog, "Worth Fighting For". I decided it was healthier than talking to myself.


2. In Mar I decided that I needed extra avenues of revenues to support my computer habits and called upon some old habits to make themselves useful. One is my old compulsion to collect books. Having noticed that my living accommodation would soon suffer, not to mention Marie’s observation that there will soon be no room for me and the books, we have the Bookstore of good used, out-of-print and antiquarian books at irresistible prices. Predominantly Arts, Humanities & Politics
Not to mention 40% of the sales of our good used books will be donated to:
20% - Oxfam Canada for its humanitarian work
20% - Toronto Environmental Alliance for its environmental work

For your convenience I added a site search engine that will take you where you want to go 'faster than a speeding bullet'.

3. Another compulsion of mine is to indulge in a bit of satire. This too is a compensation for a persecution complex at the hands of corporate and government so-and-so’s, such as my ISP’s monthly money grab for a less than stellar performance. So I fight, compensation with compensation (like fire with fire) and I have been sublimating my fruitless desires to trip them on a staircase into exacting vengeance upon them with digital graphics on t-shirts, hoodies, coffee/beer mugs (Canada’s beverage of choice), thongs and other intimate apparel, mousepads, calendars, cards, prints, etc. I have set up a number of shops at Café Press as follows:

Alter Eco – Environmental Art (no thongs here)
It’s in the News (current events & Bush)
No Sex Please… (general humour & Bush)
Jolly Roger’s Scurvy Crew (Political Humour)
Jolly George (100% Bush)
Jolly Tony (100% Tony Blair)
Jolly Dick (100% Dick Cheney)
Jolly Condi (100% Condi Rice)
Jolly Karl (100% Karl Rove)
Jolly Rummy (100% Don Rumsfeld)
God Created… (Creationism/Darwinism)
Delta Blues (New Orleans Catastrophe)


4. Playing guitar. I have been taking a little time from metal art and have been spending time on an old 'art' of mine - singer/songwriting. I used to do this sometimes, off and on, over the most part of my life and was recently sparked to taking it half seriously when there was a TVO (TV Ontario, our PBS sort of thing) to submit a song. I was encouraged by friends to enter a song I wrote when I was travelling in Europe. It is called "Night Trains". I'll upload it soon to the site soon but in the meantime I have just finished my first self produced and room to be improved (but I’m still pickled tink about it), "Red Rocket Roll". This version is the first take and is a 9.6mb download. I'm about to do the 'streaming audio' learning curve which will result in a normal download and a better sound. All comments welcomed and maybe even appreciated.
(Note: Different sounds come out of different machines - speakers, cards, stereos, etc. What I hear ain't what others hear so it's good to get feedback.)

I am in the process of recording 7 or 8 other songs for a cd. And for the record (no pun intended) I claim title to "Toccata and Blues in E Minor", a work in progress, as the composition is anyone’s guess at this point but sounds too cool not to.

5. I haven’t totally abdicated my passion for metal as I have completed a sculpture titled, "Hanging Bush" which can be found here in the Decorative Sculpture page, and at the Eco Fair in a week. Who in their right and just mind can keep quiet? Not me.

6. And last but not least and probably should be first, We are doing the Planet in Focus International Film and Video Festival next Sunday, Oct. 2nd from 10am to 4pm at the University of Toronto, Courtyard @ Innis Town Hall, 2 Sussex Avenue. (1 block south of Bloor W. on St. George)


Well? If you made it reading this far then you are environmental as well and good on you.

But if you skipped all the in between parts you have the option of opting out of the newsletters upon request – you will be missed.

All the best for now… John

Sunday, September 18, 2005

CBC - 'America's Own'

Bowling For Columbine

Copy:
Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
Minister Frulla
My Blog - http://worthfighting4.blogspot.com/

8:08pm EST, Sept. 18/05

As you are airing “Bowling For Columbine” at this moment, I think it appropriate that I am NOT, and emailing you with respect to my “flexibility”.

I had been looking forward to your Docs, particularly “Bowling”, since I first saw your adverts. I am letting you know that I am supporting Michael Moore’s ‘moral’ position of withdrawing his creation as a protest of your “lockout” and I, choosing instead, to compose and send my position.

CBC is less and less being “Canada’s Own” (my own) and more becoming ‘America’s Own’. Not only do I find myself watching less and less, your URL in my history bar is sinking lower and lower.

Sadly and sincerely,


CBC Official Negotiations Page

End the CBC lockout

September 16, 2005
rabble.ca

Authors Alice Munro and June Callwood, former Prime Minister Joe Clark, Nobel Prize-winning scientist John Polanyi and actor R.H. Thomson are among those who will join forces on September 21 to show their support for public broadcasting and to encourage an end to the CBC lockout. >by Staff >press release

See also...

September 18, 2005

Michael Moore weighs in on CBC lockout

American documentarian Michael Moore has demanded that the CBC drop plans to air his Academy Award-winning film, Bowling for Columbine, Sunday evening because of the month-long lockout at the public broadcaster. >The Globe and Mail

Monday, September 12, 2005

Canada's Democracy Hypocracy in Haiti

I find it neccessary to apologize for Canada's hypocracy of democracy in Haiti. I find the recent articles below, representative of my thoughts and FYI if you haven't already been informed.

Sincerely

John Warren

emails to:
The Right Hon. Paul Martin, Martin.P@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Pierre Pettigrew, Pettigrew.P@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Irwin Cotler, Cotler.I@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. M. Aileen Carroll, Carroll.A@parl.gc.ca
The Hon. Dr. Carolyn Bennett, Bennett.C@parl.gc.ca
Carolyn Parrish, parric@parl.gc.ca

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Journalist Kevin Pina jailed in Haiti

Having reported from Haiti on and off since 1989, Kevin Pina has been one of the precious few voices reporting from on the ground since the February 29, 2004 coup d'état that overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide.



by Derrick O'Keefe
September 12, 2005

Kevin Pina, an independent journalist, filmmaker and associate editor of the Black Commentator, who has reported from Haiti for several years, was arrested by Haitian authorities on September 9. Jean Ristil, a Haitian reporter, was himself arrested shortly after he reported Pina's arrest.

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Murdering the poor: Canadian tax dollars at work

A fast-growing movement in Canada is demanding that the Canadian government support the return of constitutional democracy in Haiti.


by Isabel Macdonald
August 11, 2005

Imagine if the U.S. were to hold elections after the Republican Party had rounded up Senator John Kerry and other prominent Democrats and thrown them in jail without charges, while waging a campaign of violence and political assassinations in all “blue states.” To hold Haitian elections under present conditions would be comparable to this, according to one of the panelists at the launch of the Toronto Haiti Action Committee (THAC).

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