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• Kick-starting the environmental movement –Some serious socio-economic changes have to be made. We’ve got this unsustainable way of life, particularly in the Western world, particularly in North America. The atomization of the population and the drive towards unwarranted consumerism and indebtedness have created very serious social, economic and cultural problems which have to be…
• Slower by design –The world economic crisis has nations around the globe in panic mode, working feverishly to get their economies growing again. But as Peter Victor suggests in his book Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, citizens of the richer nations may actually be better off if they stop trying…
• Shifting down –The current state of human affairs, characterized by rising levels of joblessness, depleted natural resources and deep-rooted attitudes of indifference and powerlessness to do anything about it, would prove little surprise to E.F. Schumacher, author of _Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered_, a seminal text of ecological environmentalism…
• Generation LESS –This recession has helped me redefine personal achievement - from the number of purchased goods I have to the intangible “goods” I have contributed to society. Those of us in our early to mid-20s have never experienced a recession as seemingly apocalyptic as the one we are in now.
• July/August 2009 –What if the ongoing economic recession is not just a regrettable temporary setback in the never-ending march of growth-fuelled prosperity, but the beginning of a painful but ecologically necessary process of scaling back our footprint to a more sustainable level? How would we go about reorganizing our society and economy…
• Letter from the editor –Crime dominates the news, but the standard political pronouncements on the subject seldom move beyond empty, knee-jerk vows to “get tough” on the perpetrators. This approach to the issue only stokes the politics of fear, of blame, of poor-bashing and insidious racism. An obsessive public focus on the bogeyman of…
• The detestable solution –Under colonial rule, Ghana’s multiple traditional systems of justice were replaced by a single, expensive, incarceration-based penal system. Now, 52 years independent and among the poorest 15 per cent of nations, Ghana is at the mercy of foreign countries for financial support in maintaining its overcrowded prisons, retraining prison staff…
• Anger in action –I first heard about fathers’ rights groups when I was working at a Vancouver drop-in centre for women several years ago. A family law advocate for a similar organization in a neighbouring community told me about a group of men who would show up at court in matching T-shirts to…
• Class-war games –On February 12, 2009, exactly one year before the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, the grim future of political freedom in British Columbia was on full display. Military and police flanked by helicopters rehearsed manoeuvres in Vancouver, where escalating harassment, intimidation and surveillance of activists…
• Between home and a hard place –Public outrage over the treatment of Canada’s “security certificate” detainees has receded with the seemingly good news that four of the five detainees are now living at home. But the reality of house arrest is almost worse, because it effectively extends the almost total loss of freedom the men endure…
• Policing mental health –Twenty-four-year-old Chris Klim was shot to death a little over a year ago, when seven armed men came to his apartment in Vernon, B.C., a town of 40,000. Two men stayed outside the apartment while the leader and four others smashed the door in with a battering ram. Bewildered, Klim…
• Examining the past honestly –What does “history” mean to you? A list of names and dates? Great deeds of long ago? “History,” says historian Margaret MacMillan, is something we all do.” Formerly at the University of Toronto, now at Oxford, Professor MacMillan is well-known for her Governor General’s Award-winning book, _Paris 1919_, and, more…
• Law & order –Irvin Waller, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa, has made it his career and mission to get governments throughout much of the world to shift their emphasis from law enforcement to prevention, with some limited success. His book is a plaintive cry for movement by government in…
• Dark days –_Dark Days_ is about the imprisonment and torture of four innocent Canadians in Syria in the furtherance of the so-called “war on terror” launched by George W. Bush. The four men, all Muslims, are Maher Ahar (361 days in Syrian detention), Abdullah Almalki (more than 22 months in Syria), Ahmad…
• Modest investments, immodest returns –Everybody’s looking for a lifeline to pull themselves out of the global downturn. But with giant bailout packages failing to provide stability in the U.S. and grim predictions for the remainder of 2009, what are the emerging opportunities for secure and lucrative investment?
• May/June 2009 –In our crime & punishment issue, Briarpatch brings you a variety of ethically engaged perspectives on questions of crime, punishment, and the justice system, from policing mental health to securing the Olympics, from the fathers’ rights movement in Canada to the drive for prison reform in Ghana — plus some…
• Letter from the editor –This issue of Briarpatch is a temporary androgynous zone in the no-man’s land between male and female. It is addressed neither (just) to women nor (just) to men, but to anyone who is serious about putting principles of social justice into practice.
• Polyamory in practice –Conversations about polyamory - the practice of having more than one intimate partner at a time - are slowly finding their way into public consciousness. Two newly published books (_Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage_ and _Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships_) reflect…
• Queering the scene –On the third Saturday of every month, a throng of self-identified queers descend on an East Vancouver community centre in search of cheap drinks, good music, and the chance to dance off the month’s drudgery in a safe and inclusive environment.
• A pound of flesh –Yesterday I received a long-awaited item in the mail: an application package for admittance to the Gender Identity Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. This is the golden ticket for Canadian transsexuals who are in need of medical care (including hormones, surgeries and counselling) and…