I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E L E T I M E S * * *** *** ***** *** **** * * * * * * * * * * * * * ***** * *** * * * **** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *** *** * *** * * * ¥ Vol. 3 No. 1 January 1994 ¥ ------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Features -- AUSCHWITZ: CONFRONTING THE HORROR "It was like visiting a crime scene and seeing the chalked outlines of 4 million bodies." - by Jon Gould WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA "If you listen to some of the press folks here, you'd think that this is the center of the universe. However, they are a little modest and call it the capital of the free world." - by Prasad Dharmasena WINNIPEG: A BLOT ON THE HORIZON "When it finally became clear that the strikers would not just bow to the government 8 of the 10 strike leaders were arrested." - by Dr. Euan Taylor VIENNA SINCE 1859 - by Dr. Michael Schreiber -- Departments -- DEJA VU "Indeed, one would think that if NAFTA were truly about free trade, it could be written in a single paragraph, and yet it is over 2000 pages long!" - by Johnn Tan NEWS ROOM "You may know her name, Karla Homolka, from your newscasts. Unless you live in Canada, that is..." - by Ryan Crocker THE QUILL "...I resolved that the next best thing to being able to sprout gills and follow the fishes would be to learn scuba diving." - by Madurai G. Sriram SPECIAL REPORT "When I heard about a place in Winnipeg called the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) I was intrigued. It sounded worthy, interesting, important, but what did such a grandly named organization actually do?" - by Dr. Euan Taylor CUISINE "Soup is the ultimate comfort food. Soup can be a meal in itself, the start of a fancy meal, or just a snack." - by Billy Magic ------------------------------------------------------------ EDITOR'S NOTE ------------------------------------------------------------ -- A Teletimes New Year -- The New Year is generally a time for looking ahead, for commitments to the future, it's a time to prepare for fresh new beginnings. The New Year is a time for recovering from your New Year's Eve hangover and resolving to quit smoking, lose ten pounds and become a better person. Well, at least for a week or so. The New Year is also a time for reflection, for remembering the past, accepting mistakes and praising achievements. That is why I'd like to welcome you with pride to our January issue simply entitled History. This is a rather short issue as many of our writers dissapeared for the holidays. However, rest assured that when I find those romantics who would rather spend some quality time with their families instead of working (unpaid) for me, they will feel my wrath. Bah, humbug! Ian Wojtowicz Editor-in-ChiefÊ ------------------------------------------------------------ MAILBOX ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Yeah! Our First Angered Reader! -- I was absolutely horrified by Jon Gould's article, if such rubbish can be called an article, entitled "American in Denial". His statement "A boy growing up in the US today is more likely to die from a violent confrontation than from almost any known disease." is a lie, period. - Gerry Roston, Pittsburgh, PA, USA MR. ROSTON GOES ON TO TALK ABOUT SPECIFIC DETAILS IN JON'S ARTICLE, BUT I HAVEN'T INCLUDED THEM HERE SINCE HE HAS AGREED TO WRITE A FULL BLOWN REBUTTAL TO "AMERICAN IN DENIAL". WATCH FOR IT IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE! -- Milder Reader Feedback -- Congratulations on your move to WWW! Best thing you could've done. We have to move beyond the "downloading" paradigm! Anyway, I enjoyed it in DOCmaker, but it's so much better in Mosaic... - John Maxwell, North Vancouver, Canada I read Teletimes over Mosaic and the photos are fantastic. - John Pescatore, Rockville, Maryland, USA Just saw Teletimes on WWW: Fantastic!! The photographs in "The Keepers of Light" are beautifully done. But Mosaic and other browsers do restrict the range of colors used for inlined images, and especially when there are several they may not render as well as the originals. Why not link the inlined image to the image file itself? It would still have the look-and-feel of the magazine and clicking on the image would send a new copy off to an individual external viewer where the colormap isn't compromised. Your reader response card and the raw HTML files are all being received as one long line without breaks. - Paul Mende, Providence, Rhode Island, USA THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR REPLIES REGARDING THE WWW VERSION OF TELETIMES. I AM QUITE PLEASED WITH IT DESPITE THE FEW MINOR PROBLEMS. I AM CURRENTLY IRONING OUT THE LAYOUT AND STRUCTURE AS WELL AS ATTEMPTING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH RESPONSE CARD. I HOPE TO TURN THE RESPONSE CARD INTO A FILL- OUT FORM AS SOON AS THIS FEATURE IS SUPPORTED BY THE MAC VERSION OF MOSIAC.Ê ------------------------------------------------------------ FEATURES ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Auschwitz: Confronting the Horror -- Those who don't study history are bound to repeat it. I've heard that expression hundreds of times, but this time I couldn't stop thinking of it. There we were, diplomats and human rights activists discussing ethnic tolerance, when just three hours south stood a monument to the worst impulses in human nature. Auschwitz. I had heard about it, even studied it, but as a grandchild of the Word War II generation it just didn't resonate in me the way it did with my parents or grandparents. That would soon change. I hopped a train to Krakow and was met by a driver who took me to Auschwitz. I quickly learned that Auschwitz is, in many ways, a misnomer. "Auschwitz" is the German pronunciation of a Polish town where the Nazis established three concentration camps. I had the opportunity to visit two: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, better known as Birkenau. The third, of somewhat lesser significance, was attached to a chemical plant, the inmates providing the plant's workforce. Auschwitz I is the one I had seen in pictures. It was built before the war as an army barracks, and I was surprised at its relatively small size. The camp began as a detention camp for Polish political prisoners and was only later expanded to include Jews, Gypsies and others. To be sure, Auschwitz I was a horror, but in a strange way it was a comforting horror. For the most part, the punishments inflicted there had already chronicled in human history. Prisoners were worked hard, food and clothing were sparse, and solitary confinement was a way of life. Indeed, I was hardly surprised to come across the gallows. If not for the laboratory of Dr. Mengele and one relatively small gas chamber, Auschwitz I could almost have been written off by history as just another terrible prison. I realize that it is strange, if not absolutely bizarre, to speak of such a horror as being, in some sense, a relief. But by that I mean that Auschwitz I was, in many ways, a confirmation of the known ability of human evil. One could walk among the buildings and think "yes, these things have been done before." We already knew that humans throughout history were capable of such terror. Even the horrible irony of the sign above the camp's gate -- "work makes you free" -- was a testament to the cruel regimes that have dotted our period on the earth. Still, the displays at Auschwitz I brought the terror home in very personal ways -- the clothing made of human hair, some of it with traces of the gas used to kill its victims; the suitcases with the victims' names stenciled on the side, signs of their false belief that they would be released in time; the clothing of children stripped off before they were killed; the photographs of those liberated, many subjected to crippling experiments. When I say that Auschwitz I was comforting, I probably really mean that it was confirming -- that as horrific as it was, it confirmed what we already knew about the human potential for evil. Birkenau, however, was entirely different. It is difficult to explain the feel of Birkenau. On its face, it could pass for a UN refugee camp. Less than half of the original buildings still stand, and these are the former barracks of its victims. In fact, at first glance, Birkenau might even appear benign. But as I looked beneath its layers, an utter and depraved filth poured forth. This camp, this horror, was literally a factory of death. The mechanization of Birkenau shocks the conscience in a way that I have never encountered before. Like many Americans, especially American Jews, I had heard tales of the concentration camps, but they had never settled in like viewing the remains. It would be too easy to say that the Nazis were animals, and in fact, animal would be too kind and non-judgmental a label. I cannot even think of a word that properly describes the utter depravity of these Nazis. They constructed an efficient, almost business-like mechanical system for exterminating a whole line of people. They had a goal, they had a plan, and they were carrying it out -- and very well until the Soviets liberated the camps. It is almost as if the Nazis thought of themselves as ranchers preparing cattle for market. But their goal was extermination -- complete annihilation of a people. The railroad tracks still run through Birkenau. Trains would pour in, and the victims would be let out before a line of SS. Able-bodied men and women were picked out and placed to side. They did not realize it at the time, but they were the lucky. They were being culled out to work. Their jobs were excruciating, usually with little nourishment, but at least they had a chance to survive. The vast remainder, including almost all of the children, were destined for immediate death. The SS instructed them to leave their belongings on the platform and then marched them to the end of the platform. There the victims were told that they had to shower before entering the camp. These, of course, were the gas chambers, where all were killed immediately. Once the gas dissipated, dentists and others were sent in to extract gold from the bodies and teeth of the dead. Then, the mass of the dead were moved to an adjoining room where they were fed into the crematoria. The Nazis had four crematoria at Birkenau, none than 200 yards from the train platform. It was a death science: off the train, out of one's clothes, into the gas chambers, off with the gold and into the oven. It was here that the horror overcame me. Although the Nazis had tried to destroy evidence of the gas chambers and crematoria, two still remain, although crumbled. The other two have been replaced with a monument to the dead, nearly 4 million at Birkenau alone. As I stood there in the cold November wind, I couldn't keep my mind off the picture of those innocent victims being herded to their deaths. It was like visiting a crime scene and seeing the chalked outlines of 4 million bodies. I knelt down in front of the monument and started to cry -- for the dead, for the horror of it all, and for the human race in general. I cannot understand how such evil impregnates one to do what the Nazis did there. I still get shivers as I write this. Nothing I have ever experienced was like Birkenau. I doubt I could ever have been prepared for it. I know that I will never understand how the human spirit can become so utterly depraved. But I did come away from this experience knowing that I, and indeed the rest of us, must learn from Birkenau. Especially now, with the rise of ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, Russia and even Germany. Everyone should have to come to see Birkenau. Not necessarily for political reasons, not to chastise the Serbs or to warn the Germans, but rather to confront the possibility of evil in all of us. It is not so much that we must ensure that a holocaust never happens again, but rather that we do not allow ourselves to become such wretched beasts as the Nazis and their death machine. For those of us who believe in human rights, the first step begins with ourselves. - Jon Gould, Chicago, USA [If you enjoyed this article and would like to enrich yourself even more, I highly reccomend that you go and see the movie Schindler's List. If you have already seen it, go and see it again. I will be writing a review of it for next month's issue on TV and the Movies. - Ian] -- Washington, District of Columbia -- Silver Spring, Maryland is an insignificant suburb of the Washington, DC metropolitan area. It is so insignificant that there isn't even an old, Civil War time fort in my back yard. Washington, DC, on the other hand is where history is being made, "fresh from organically grown produce," every single day of the year. If you listen to some of the press folks here, you'd think that this is the center of the universe. However, they are a little modest and call it the capital of the free world. The truth of the matter is that decisions effecting the course of this whole planet are being made right here in Washington, DC by people who wouldn't have passed even the kindergarten level if there were 12 years in driving school. It is with pride, inspiration and a hint of faith that I take my out-of-town visitors to the city to look at the monuments and to do the "touristy" thing. Pride, in knowing how the events in the past have shaped the system of this country, inspiration, in knowing that we can learn from the great Presidents and leaders of the past and a little bit of faith in that at least half of us were right more than half the time when we "supposedly" did everything the democratic way. Most people would think that the Washington monument is the center of the town. That wasn't the plan. According to the plan, the Capitol building where the House of Senate and the House of Representatives of the US congress meet was supposed to be the center. Historically, they wanted the city to be built on the east side of the Capitol Building and that's the reason why the Statue of Freedom atop the building is looking away from the rest of today's city. (Maybe it is really hoping that someone would bring the "freedom" to this city full of wheelers and dealers.) The capitol building is a working historical artifact. Paintings and sculpture in the chambers are testimonial to the quest to preserve the past for the benefit of the future generations. Not only that, if you visit the building on a working day, you may get a glimpse of the present day history being made by the representatives of the highly paid lobbyists. The Washington Monument, the tallest completely masonry architecture in the US (boy, am I glad that there are no earthquakes in DC area to crumble this thing to ground) is the Cleopatra Needle created in honor of the first President of the US, George Washington. The bottom third of the monument saw this country engulfed in the greatest internal conflict to this day, the Civil War in the 1860s, while waiting to be completed after the conflict was over. While Washington's name is very much intertwined with this city, he never got to stay at the White House. But George Washington's private mansion and his farmland (now historic landmarks) are only a few minutes drive, even on a horse driven carriages, away from this "center of the universe." A monument giving tribute to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the "Declaration of Independence" and the US Constitution, is directly to the south of the Washington monument. One of the most eloquent writers of his time, he made quite clear to the British empire that this one group of people would not put up with undue restraints of a far away king. From his other writings it is quite clear that he was a deeply religious person with his own convictions based on Christianity and God. However, it is very significant and interesting to note that he did not bring the faith into the Constitution and in fact, kept the church and the state quite separate. "We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal." A statement that would be used again and again by other great leaders such as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King in this same city, originated from Thomas Jefferson's mind in an era when slavery was a part of life. "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." With these words in his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln urged the people to heal the wounds of the terrible civil war. As the President, he never knew of these United States as a peaceful nation. Yet, after his untimely death, even his opponents agreed that this self-made lawyer became one of the greatest presidents this country has ever had. Not only did he safely guide the country out of a great difficult time, he used opportunity to free the southern slaves and prove to the world that this nation is indeed "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." It is with deep admiration that I always visit the Lincoln Memorial where "as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever." One hundred years after Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation proclamation freeing the southern slaves, on the steps of the Lincoln memorial Martin Luther King echoed the sentiments of the forefathers of this nation. It was in his now famous "I have a dream" speech that he expressed his desire for a country where his children, and all children, "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." If we are to learn from the history, as every child who has ever gone on a road trip with parents, we must ask ourselves, "are we there, yet?" Among other things, this city has intimately known both World Wars, rise and fall of the communism, Cuban missile crisis, death of President Kennedy, defeat in Vietnam, victory in Iraq, and the NAFTA debate between Al Gore and Ross Perot on Larry King Live. Is this a history making town or what! - Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA -- Winnipeg: A Blot on the Horizon -- That is how Manitoba was originally described, a blockage in the way of the anticipated North West Passage. It was in this way that Manitoba was discovered in 1612 when Captain Button saw land on the horizon somewhere in the vicinity of present day Churchill. By 1738 the great explorer La Verendrye - still commemorated in La Verendrye Park - had set up a fort at the junction of the Red River and the Assiniboine, the first European station in the confines of the later city of Winnipeg. La Verendrye had just laid out the water highways , but it was the early 1800's before the land fell to the plough at the instigation of Lord Selkirk. A unique reminder of those days of the fur trade, the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, is Fort Garry on the banks of the Red River. In the summer it is a kind of living museum with folks in period dress talking as if it is still the 1800's. The fort took eight years to build with walls seven and a half feet high and three feet thick. Even though it ceased to be the governmental centre of the area, it remained the social centre of the Red River district for years. The province of Manitoba came into existence in 1870, and the remaining years of the century saw the Metis rebellion, and the capture and execution of the Metis Leader Louis Riel who had been elected President of the Provisional Government of the North West Territories. He is still remembered and commemorated by a statue outside the legislative building here. One of Winnipeg's best recognised landmarks, the legislative building itself with its distinctive statue of the Golden Boy on top only dates from 1920. However, socially important historical events occurred before that date. Between 1900 and 1919 there was increasing labour unrest in the city. In 1906 there was a streetcar strike which ended in violence and reading of the riot act, backed up by a show of riflemen and machine guns. But it was on May 15th, 1919 that the relatively well known Winnipeg General Strike happened. Demanding higher wages, employer recognition, and better working conditions the workers of the city brought the place to a halt. This culmination of labour unrest and discontent that had made strikes commonplace by 1918, was aggravated by the visit of the Minister of Justice later in May. The police force were all fired for refusing to sign a pledge saying they would not strike, and 2,000 special constables were signed up. When it finally became clear that the strikers would not just bow to the government 8 of the 10 strike leaders were arrested. In June a "silent parade" of protesting war veterans apparently became "unruly" and was broken up by policemen with baseball bats and rifles. Two men died and an unknown number were injured, the strike was over by June 26th. In terms of it's immediate aims the strike was a failure, but the subsequent commission of inquiry concluded that the strike arose from discontent due to "genuine and legitimate grievances, long hours and low pay and bad housing". In the long run the strike has had a tremendous impact on the social and political history of Canada and established the power of labour as a force. Today the city is rightly or wrongly something of a byword for inactivity and isolation. Winnipeg is city of about 700 000 people with Polish, Chinese, Ukrainian, Latin-American, French, English and Vietnamese communities, a large university, an agriculturally based province around it, and a typical continental climate of hot summers and freezing winters. Life and commerce no longer revolves around the rivers. Always something of a backwater in North American mythology its attractions and interest remain dictated largely by the eye of the beholder. That is true of its history too, there is more there than strikes the causal inquirer. - Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada -- Vienna Since 1859 -- :: .1860 convers!oN .walls leve2leD .a str!ng of stylE :: 1859 a company. .W. A. R!chter«S. .Meta2l !ndustrY. Lathes !n rows, :: .900, now 50 peoplE. .Full-cost!ng 11. .MBO-turnarounD. .cheap east-labor. :: .1994 l!ke 1900 .gardens & workshopS .scal!ng t!me warpS :: - Dr. Michael Scheiber, Vienna, Austria ------------------------------------------------------------ DEPARTMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Deja Vu: Opposing NAFTA -- [You've read Andreas Seppelt's articles praising NAFTA, now here is an article from the opposite point of view! - Ian] "The entire logic of free trade rests on the mobility of capital ... and the lack of mobility of labor and communities. In a free-for-all in which the lowest bidder 'wins,' workers in all countries end up competing with each other to offer the lowest-cost, least militant, most obsequious labor conditions possible, while countries vie with one another to repeal environmental standards, safety and health measures, and the right to organize." -- Ron Reed, Alaska Greens I find it amazing that the arguments for the North American Free Trade Agreement (recently passed in the U.S.) completely miss the point. Come to think of it, even arguments against, like those by the two-faced Ross Perot, divert the focus from the real issue. The NAFTA has little or nothing to do with illegal immigration (a racist remark on the face of it); workers' rights; human rights; consumer protection; leveling of safety and health standards; or even environmental protection. It certainly has very little to do with free trade vs. protectionism. See Noam Chomsky in The Nation or Z for proof positive that the NAFTA is very highly protectionist. Indeed, one would think that if it were truly about free trade, it could be written in a single paragraph, and yet the NAFTA is over 2000 pages long! All of these issues are important, but they are all rooted in the more fundamental question: the ascendancy of capitalism. If the conditions and wages of workers in the U.S. are merely "side agreements" and if the condition and health of the environment are also merely "side agreements," then one wonders what exactly are the "front agreements" of the NAFTA? When the level of analysis is brought to this depth, the NAFTA treaty comes undone and its true purpose exposed, namely, the free and unrestricted flow of capital and profits for transnational corporations -- in short, "corporation rights" (and you thought animal rights were bad!). NAFTA is less about free trade and more about power. Who will control the flow of capital? Who will control the wages of workers? Who will control the benefits gained by workers in the past 100+ years in the U.S and the past 50+ years in Canada? Who will have control over domestic trade? Who will control the balance between international trade and the quality of the environment? Who will control the state of education in the coming years? After all, through privatized education (AKA, brainwashing) the corporations will have overcome the last impediment to maximal profits. Ultimately, the question is simply "Who will decide?" Even with Clinton's band-aid side agreements on labor and ecology, public participation is effectively shut out under the NAFTA, with decisions made by free market econocrats behind closed doors. Now that NAFTA is passed, the answer to all of the above is simple. The Transnational Corporation. Says Sierra Club member Rick Lamonica: "The greatest danger with free trade is the empowerment of transnational corporations to transcend political governments and expand exploitation everywhere. It institutes methods for corporations to circumvent environmental, labor, and consumer protection regulations through appointed, unaccountable international trade bureaucrats that can declare laws 'hidden trade barriers.'" The NAFTA will create the largest trading bloc in the world in order for U.S. corporations to remain competitive in the global market with Japan and Germany (which, like the U.S., would have hegemonic standing under a united European market). Without challenging the capitalist logic undergirding this convenient arrangement, movements for social justice and especially environmental protection are already lost. Murray Bookchin, in particular, notes in his excellent book The Ecology Of Freedom that "the notion of the domination of Nature by man stems from the very real domination of human by human." Furthermore, as corporations roam the continent in search of low taxes, government subsidies, cheap labor, and environmental permissiveness, when the NAFTA econocrats now speak of "comparative advantage," they are no longer talking about a nation's ability to specialize in a particular commodity, but rather a government's willingness to short- change its own citizens to accommodate corporate demands. This is something which President Carlos Salinas, ruling under Mexico's 80-year, corrupt, one-party system, has consistently expressed interest in doing, not to mention Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien going back on his promise to renegotiate the NAFTA. Finally, something that you certainly won't hear from the NAFTA ideologues is the fact that under this treaty, agreements will be negotiated in secret, with a narrow composition of dispute resolution panels and no publication of the texts presented to those panels. In short, the NAFTA engenders a threat to national and local sovereignty, a preempting of the right of communities to political self-determination, the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few, and the imposition of trickle-down economics on the entire continent. So what can one do in the face of this corporate onslaught? Since the NAFTA went into effect on January 1st 1994, then one might wonder, what's the use? Why struggle against it? Perhaps there is not a whole lot that we each can do individually, but our collective efforts can make a difference. We need to seek ways to restore an inner locus of control, to regain power over our own lives. Gardening, buying locally, quilting, cooking (vegan or otherwise), sewing, bartering, walking, biking, reading Usenet News, doing street theatre, crafts, art, self- directed construction, housing and food cooperatives, play, mutual aid, communal child-care, farmer's markets, and above all, community trading systems -- all of these activities and structures are political in nature. They re-value those endeavors that are neglected in the corporate frenzy for unlimited economic growth. They take back decision-making power from the wealthy business elite and place it where it belongs: in the hands of individuals and communities. The fact that the NAFTA has passed is irrelevant. Those who are concerned with environmental destruction, privatization of education, and erosion of workers' benefits must, as always, continue the struggle for social and economic justice. In our opposition to unmitigated greed and corporate control of society, each one of us must be willing to make a change in lifestyle. We must challenge the ascendancy of classical economics and its emphasis on materialism, and instead create decentralized, non- hierarchical, egalitarian alternatives, with production based on need, not profit. Power should be with the consent of the governed. As Joan Roelofs stated, "If we look at what needs to be done to sustain human existence, instead of what we can sell or export, nurturing of children and communities looms large." This was and remains the real reason to oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement. - Johnn Tan, Ogden, Utah, USA -- News Room: The Teale-Homolka Controversy -- In Canada, as in all democratic countries, the right to know the truth is sacred, if unspoken. In many charters that are the basis of democracies, the freedoms of speech, and of worship are spoken of. But for a democracy to truly work, the truth is paramount. Like politics, the justice system is reliant upon the truth. And even more than politics, the search for truth in justice is paramount. Without the truth, there is no justice, only ambiguity. In Canada right now, there is a controversy brewing. A Vancouver man, Paul Teale, stands accused of sex crimes and murder relating to two teenage girls. His wife is currently on trial for complicity in these events. You may know her name, Karla Homolka, from your newscasts. Unless you live in Canada, that is. This is due to the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling that the truth, as has been found so far and used in Karla Homolka trial, may prejudice jurors for the future trial of Paul Teale. We have been shut out of the process, and may not know what really happened for years. There are two sides to every argument, and I will attempt to give them to you. On one hand, the ban on publication will serve the interests of justice. It will keep the future jurors of this case relatively free of bias. The chances for a fair trial are thus increased, giving Mr. Teale chance for a fair trial of his peers. On this level, the system works. On the other hand, the need to know the truth still stands. In a recent court case before the British Columbia courts, a person suing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for, shall we say, an unsavory report done on him, succeeded for a short time to have a similar ban on publication enforced. The resulting outcry from the press and public caused a minor furor. The truth was finally released when a judge reversed the ban a week or so later. The truth, the argument goes, is not really the truth until it has had it's day in court. This is an interesting argument, since small truths, called "evidence" in criminology, are what brings the subject to trial in the first place. We already know that the list of crimes revealed in the courtroom disturbed and repulsed the most seasoned law enforcement and judicial staff. Circumstantial, some may say. Unproved, say others. But previous cases, equally horrible in scope, did not require a ban of publication. And that, friends, is the thrust of my argument. I do want to ensure that Paul Teale receives a fair trial. But I resent the Supreme Court of Canada telling me what I may, or may not, reflect on. I dislike the fact that there are certain truths that I may not know. The truth will find a way to get out anyway. I can find the truth through CompuServe, by simply scanning Buffalo newspapers, using keyword search techniques. The truth can be found by rooting around for it. But is that the idea behind a free society? I can understand the fears that some rather unsavory journalistic types might turn this story into the tabloid headline producer of the decade, in Canada at least. But, the truth can generally look out for itself if it is set free. Influence jurors? The details of the murders is already public knowledge. What is there to fear in a full accounting? This may seem like a tempest in a teapot, but think about it for a moment. Is an abuse of a judicial system possible? History has shown that it is possible. Could it be perverted into a way for the truth to be withheld from us? Again, I think it possible. Is it likely to happen? I hope not, but where is the certainty? If you live in a democracy, the truth is what you need. Your power as a free person is diminished without unimpeded access to information. There is an old maxim, used by the United States' CIA of all places, that states that the truth can set you free. I contend that the truth is the only way to stay free. If nothing else, remind yourselves that the truth is the only road to certainty in a confused and cynical world. And whatever you think about this particular situation, remember that you are the only watchdog of the truth. Don't leave it to others. Truth is the only weapon you need in life. And I'll try to remember it too, as I watch a news report saying that two major cable companies are going to stop picking up and rebroadcasting United States radio stations because of the possibility that details of the Homolka trial may be broadcast. And when a blue screen pops up and blanks out a US television news broadcast for the same reason. Discussion? Send mail to me via Teletimes. Until next time... - Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada -- The Quill: Discovering Blue Magic -- "You are a beginner big time!", loudly proclaimed Efra Figueroa looking at the plastic sticker still attached to the front of my shiny new mask. I couldn't deny it. My diver certification card was still the temporary kind and I displayed the eager nervousness of the novice diver when it hits that this is really the Big One, out in the middle of the vast ocean surrounded only by horizon. What was more, we were going to hit 80 feet -- four times deeper than I had ever been before. I was in the picturesque little seaside town of La Parguera in Puerto Rico. Two weeks earlier I had shivered through my open water certification dive under gray skies in a scummy lake near Columbus, Ohio. The thermocline there was 15 feet deep, I could feel the water seeping into my wet suit all the way to the bone, and the visibility was all of two, maybe three feet. The instructors practically had to huddle next to us to evaluate our diving skills. In sharp contrast the sparkling Caribbean here warmed body and soul at 85 degrees and visibility ranged up to 100 feet. My journey to this little known part of Puerto Rico began four years earlier when I fell in love with the blue magic underneath tropical seas while snorkeling in Hanauma Bay near Honolulu. Just snorkeling was pure enchantment, so as I watched angelfishes dart effortlessly through caverns in the coral I resolved that the next best thing to being able to sprout gills and follow them would be to learn scuba diving. The only real obstacle was myself. I had to fight a major fear of ear problems and a mistrust of my own athletic abilities. Four years elapsed before I enrolled in a course at a local dive shop. My instructor was reassuringly competent and I encountered no real difficulties. But even after certification I was a mixture of enthusiasm to do a real ocean dive, and anxiety that something would go wrong. After all I had so far descended only 18 feet La Parguera is on the diagonally opposite corner of the island to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. The day after we arrived my wife and I drove leisurely over a mountain range, the Cordillera Central, the backbone of this enchanting island. Underneath an azure sky all of Puerto Rico was verdant, with flowers flaming in pinks, oranges and yellows everywhere. We arrived at a resort in Guanica, about ten miles from La Parguera. Our next two days would be spent in a charming cottage beside a turquoise lagoon. I couldn't sleep that night, even though I wanted to be fresh and alert the next morning. It was a strange state -- calm on the surface but tense on the inside. Mercifully it was soon time to arise and drive to La Parguera where I met my first guide to the marine mysteries, the divemaster Efra Figueroa. Efra's innate cheerfulness expressed itself in a ready smile, teasing quips, and a rough-spun but amiable demeanor. When I admitted that this would be my first real ocean dive, he emphasized that I was to stay close to him. I had every intention of doing exactly that, since Efra exuded the comforting air of absolute confidence which characterizes the master of any discipline. An instructor at a local college, his expertise was easily evident. Single-handedly, he had located and named about 50 great dive spots around La Parguera. After announcing to everyone just how much of a greenhorn I was, Efra cleaned my mask with toothpaste and washed it with a thick amber liquid to ensure that it remained clear. Later when I discovered how well the liquid worked I asked him what it was. "Baby shampoo, no more tears!" Efra laughed. He had discovered that the residual film left by baby shampoo worked much better than "Sea Drops". A few minutes later we sailed out into the Caribbean through channels between mangrove islands. In the mellow morning sunshine with a cool breeze blowing, the journey to the 'Black Wall' passed pleasantly. Glauco, Efra's assistant, is the strong silent type and I was somewhat jittery, so the others did most of the conversation. Jim and Lydia had started only a year ago and had already logged 31 dives, mostly in Florida and the Virgins. According to them diving in Puerto Rico easily matched these destinations. They talked to me often to allay my nervousness. Efra loved to laugh and relate diving anecdotes. A friend of his was photographing a somnolent octopus at close range with a new two thousand dollar underwater camera. The octopus, startled by the flash , instinctively wrenched the camera from the photographer's startled hands and vanished at high speed! The camera is now presumably in use recording significant events in the life of the octopus family and the photographer could only splutter impotently, "An octopus stole my camera!" After about an hour we arrived, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. It was a perfect day to initiate diving -- a calm sea, bright sun, and a gentle breeze. Forty feet below I could just see the beginning of a wall which, Efra said, fell a further forty feet down to the sea bed. We would back roll into the Caribbean and I would be first! And now it is time for me to enter the water. I throw myself backward and the Caribbean welcomes me with inviting warmth. Efra signals downwards. I release air from the BC and sink head first into a deep cyan light. Fishes in shapes and colors I have seen only in photographs right before my astounded eyes. Midnight blue Creole wrasses, French angel fishes sporting electric blue, orange, and neon red. A trunkfish looking for all the world like a white and black polka dotted stealth bomber. A school of yellow jacks importantly heading towards a private destination. A barracuda, silvery and lean, eyeing me with the grumpily suspicious expression of a farmer who doesn't quite know what to make of this intruder on his property. Fan coral, swaying back and forth in an undersea breeze. From crevices and openings in the wall fishes gape at me in fluttering alarm. Only five humans in this underwater vastness. Our ascending air bubbles have a metallic sheen. Playfully I try to touch the fishes with my fingers but they dart away easily with contemptuous fin flicks. Efra breaks up chunks of bread and instantly large numbers of bucking and lunging wrasses and parrot fish appear. I hold my finger out in the melee and for a magical instant touch the side of a Creole wrasse. It feels mottled and strangely dry - like rough leather. I discover that with my arms tucked behind me and my legs kicking gently from the hips I can glide like an eagle over the mountains and through the valleys of this alien planet. This is probably the nearest to bird flight that we humans will ever experience. The scuba equipment, so awkward and cumbersome on the surface, feels weightless as I soar through canyons in the rock and coral. A green moray eel, four feet of slithering muscle, gapes its toothy jaws warningly at me. A thrill to touch the ocean's sandy bottom with my bare hands at eighty feet. All too soon Efra gives me the thumbs-up signal -- no, it can't be forty five minutes already! It's time to rise towards the ragged circle of sunlight directly above. We ascend and I constantly look downward at the blue magic, unwilling to leave. And finally emerge into the air replete with the ecstasy of knowing that the doors to a new infinity have just opened up for me, all my fears are gone, it is more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, and I am truly and completely hooked into scuba diving. - Madurai G. Sriram, Cincinnati, USA -- Special Report: Looking to the Future -- When I heard about a place in Winnipeg called the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) I was intrigued. Was it just another government PR effort? It sounded worthy, interesting, important, but what did such a grandly named organization actually do? I turns out that the IISD is a small (about 40 employees) organisation set up by the Governments of Canada and Manitoba, with a budget of $25 000 000 dollars over its first five year period (1990-1995). It's stated mandate is to promote the concept of environmentally sustainable economic development, integrating the needs of private, public, and voluntary sectors at the national and international level. The first, government appointed head of the Institute resigned after the first 6 months. He was replaced by Dr. Arthur Hanson, who has remained there ever since. Hanson was an original member of the board, with a Ph.D. in fisheries ecology and had worked internationally on a number of large projects. The seniority and breadth of experience of the board and its advisors is impressive, they include very senior figures from the Canadian scene and from other countries such as Algeria, Indonesia and Zambia. Curious, I visited the IISD to ask a few questions, poke around in the cupboards and generally be nosy. Pretty much everything looked very much as you might expect from a government - corporate environment. I wondered about the IISD mandate and how that was translated into action. My host, Frank Cosway conceded that the staff at IISD are perceived as very conservative, but he insists that image is quite misleading. In the internal running of projects, the institute has brought together health workers, representatives from government and private industry, youth workers, economists, environmental activists and others. He feels that the fact that they have helped such diverse interests to reach a consensus, sufficient at least to agree on the contents of published documents, is evidence of IISD's independence of action and of spirit. In fact documents, books, information gathering and education are really what the IISD does. A regular publication it supports is the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, a summary of events and discussions at UN meetings dealing with environmental issues. It is a daily overview for meeting participants, and is downloaded regularly to the network. In line with the aims of the IISD the Bulletin is a self financing publication. In 1992 the institute published Sourcebook on Sustainable Development as a part of its effort to develop an information centre, like the ENB this is available through the Web. Of perhaps more general interest is the product of a cooperation between groups from the USA, Canada, Mexico and India "Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation". It provides a condensed expression of the perspectives of indigenous peoples on issues related to development and the environment. But how can the IISD be truly independent and objective ? Right now its funding does come from government sources, and theoretically the government could just get ticked off and pull the plug. Similarly how, with an emphasis on business connections and influencing "decision makers" how much can the institute be trusted in its dealings with the issues of trade, agriculture, poverty etc. Is it possible to remain close to the business and political communities, draw your support from them and not become in some sense their agent ? I raised these questions with Frank Cosway. He accepted that the funding issue is a problem, although he says the Institute has had no problems with government pressure so far. To strengthen its independence and security the long term aim of the IISD is to become self supporting - in line with the philosophy of its existence. This is to be accomplished by drawing in more support from private industry for specific projects, and developing collaborations. His response to my second point was that business is the most influential factor in shaping the ways in which development occurs, and that in changing trade, agriculture, social situations or whatever -- one way or another -- business is going to come into the picture. One way that "corporate bias" has been counteracted is simply the drawing in of representatives of organisations such as the Earth Action Network and United Nations Networks to take part in many of the projects the IISD has had a role in. Another aspect of the organisation which Cosway believes gives the IISD much of it's credibility and ability to communicate confidently with people who have influence and decision making power is it's range of board members, including the original UN director of the Somalia project (who was sacked for telling the world that the operation was a screw up). Another of its advisors Vandana Shiva, was described by the Guardian as "one of the world's most prominent radical scientists", certainly not your regular crowd follower. Cosway believes that the calibre of the board members and staff, as well as their dedication to the goals of the enterprise will keep the organisation on the rails. As it develops its financial base and security, he predicts that the institute will eventually start taking positions on some issues where it might currently remain neutral (things like transport policy, and national issues within Canada). I wondered what motivated business interests to get involved with an organisation associated with problems many companies and indeed governments would prefer not to think about, an organization with other goals to consider besides the financial "bottom line". An example of commerce as a partner is a joint project between the IISD, Deloitte, Touche Tohmatsu International, and SustainAbility. The result of this was a very polished looking document 64 pages long called "Coming Clean: Corporate Environmental Reporting". It summarises, from a corporate perspective, important issues in corporate reporting practice, what, when, why, how, based on information from a survey of companies which have produced environmental reports in Europe, North America and Japan. It recommends corporate reporting on environmental issues for a number of reasons, partly to understand and limit liabilities, but also for more positive reasons, such as using it as a marketing tool and educating employees. Among their guidelines : reports should be systematic, honest (including both the good and the bad news), develop meaningful performance indicators, and ask for feedback. Why would a private company volunteer its cooperation in such a major enterprise, which is telling businesses that they should get their act together and add a new dimension to their performance monitoring, data gathering, and reporting procedures? Cosway believes that part of the incentive is the potential for a new market, Deloitte and friends can simultaneously point out the dangers of not having a coordinated and rational reporting strategy, suggest solutions, and set themselves up as an obvious place to turn to for help in implementing the necessary changes. As a part of its aim to become a major international resource centre for issues dealing with sustainable development, related business opportunities, problems of empowerment, poverty, and so forth the IISD is developing its own databases accessible through the Web, an on-line hypertext system, CD-ROM databases, possibly an electronic discussion group and so forth. They recently hosted a conference here in Winnipeg dealing with new business opportunities that are arising from the current emphasis on environmental protection and sustainability. Through the Earth Negotiations Bulletin the IISD already has an increasingly unique perspective on the UN and its role in environmental and developmental work. Most people - even the conference goers - only encounter small fragments of the proceedings, but the four people who put together the ENB see both the specifics and the generalities of the conferences, and they have the information collated and available over the net before many governments (because of security, secrecy, paranoia, or whatever) get information from their own delegates. The IISD does have an e-mail address (iisd@web.apc.org) for anyone who might be interested in their archives. But I have to warn you that e- mail doesn't necessarily get read more than once a month so don't be in a hurry. - Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada Sources IISD annual report 1992-1993. Earth Negotiations Bulletin - various issues. Coming Clean: Corporate Environmental Reporting, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu International, SustainAbility (1993). Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation: Indigenous peoples and sustainable development, Clarkson, IISD (1992). Various issues of the Globe and Mail (Toronto) and the Winnipeg Free Press. -- Cuisine: Vegan Cooking -- "I always serve a bowl of soup. My father was a laborer, and when he came home in the evening he was never happy unless my mother served him soup." -- Jean-Louis Palladin Soup is the ultimate comfort food. When it's cold out, there's nothing like coming in to a nice, hot bowl of soup. Soup can be a meal in itself, the start of a fancy meal, or just a snack. One problem a beginning vegan cook has in making soup is that most soup recipes in non-vegetarian cookbooks call for chicken stock. Many say "chicken stock or water," but if you've ever tried that, you'll know it's pretty boring. Have no fear, Billy Magic's here. Vegetable stock is not just a great way to add some flavor to your soups, it's a good way to eliminate a lot of the waste you generate in cooking. If you ever watched your mother make stock, you know it's just a matter of cooking the aftermath of some poor animal to an undignified paste in a big pot. Well, vegetable stock basically consists of doing the same thing to plant remains. So, the first tip for making stock is to save your vegetable cuttings. Keep onion and potato skins, mushroom stems, carrot ends, tomato cores, and so forth in an airtight bag in the freezer until you're ready to make stock. To make stock you need a big stockpot, a knife, a stove, a lot of leftover vegetable scraps, and a lot of water. Cover the scraps with water and cook them for an hour or so. If you actually do this, chances are you'll taste the stuff and pour it down the sink. Then you'll ask yourself what you did wrong. The answer is, you didn't read the rest of the column. A properly cooked stock requires an aromatic base. There are several ways to make this, but the simplest is to chop up a big onion and a leek white, crush several cloves of garlic, and cover them with about two inches of water. Bring the water to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and let cook until most of the water is gone, about 15 minutes. (Note: leeks are a great addition to stock. They cost a bit more than plain old white onions but are well worth it.) While the onions are cooking, clean your vegetable scraps. Discard any mushy or smelly scraps, and clean the dirt off of mushroom and potato scraps. Chop large pieces into 1" squares. Now check the proportions you have; the mix should be at least one third carrot and celery pieces. If it's not, cut up enough fresh carrots to bring it up to that level. You need a carrot-to-celery ratio of at least 1:1. Too much celery will overpower the rest of the flavors. Note also that cabbage family vegetables, such as cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbages of all colors and flavors emit nasty sulfur compounds when added to stock, so don't use them in any great quantity. When the onion base is ready, add the vegetable cuttings, cover with about twice their total volume of water, and bring to a boil. As soon as the liquid boils, reduce to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for about an hour, adding more water if needed to keep the vegetables covered. Have a second, smaller pot ready. Pour the liquid through a fine strainer, pressing down on the vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Don't do this with your hand -- the veggies are hot. Use the bottom of a small skillet or the back of a bowl. Now comes the hard part. Since the liquid is probably about 190 degrees, it will soon cool to a perfect temperature for all the bacteria waiting to make it taste bad. You must cool it as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is to plunge the pot into a second, larger pot full of ice water. If you don't have a large enough pot to do this, add as many ice cubes as you can to the stock and put the pot into the fridge. It is important for the cooling that the stock be in a pot other than the one you just took off the stove -- cooling hot metal quickly will make it warp. You can keep vegetable stock in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for a couple of months. Another important trick to vegetarian soup-making is to create an aromatic base for the soup itself. The secret to this is to saute the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, herbs, and spices for a few minutes, until they turn fragrant, before you add the rest of the liquid. OK, so now that you've got the basics, whaddaya do with 'em? Well, it depends. When you get home from class at 6:00 on a freezing evening you want something stick-to-your-ribs good right then. For that you should have some soup in the freezer at all times; if you keep it in heatable containers you can have dinner ready within ten minutes of getting home. Either of the following two soups is great for this, enough to feed four hungry college students on a cold night. Mushroom Barley Soup 2 cups dried pearl barley 1 cup dried lima beans 1 Tbsp olive oil 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 large clove garlic, minced 1 large carrot, finely chopped 1 stalk celery finely chopped 2 large potatoes, diced 2 cups mushrooms, sliced 8 cups vegetable stock 1/4 cup dry sherry (optional, but it helps the flavor a lot) 2 bay leaves 1 Tbsp dried rosemary 1 Tbsp dried sage 1 tsp dried thyme salt and pepper to taste Pick through lima beans and remove dirt. Rinse and cover with water. Soak overnight. Drain and rinse again. Pick through barley as with beans and rinse. In large stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute about a minute. Add garlic and saute another 3-4 minutes, until onions become visibly lighter. Add mushrooms, carrot, and celery, and saute about a minute. Add herbs and stir a few times. Cook another 3-4 minutes, until fragrant. Add potatoes and, if desired, sherry. If you're not using sherry, add 1/4 cup stock. Stir several times and bring to boil. Let most of the liquid cook off, then add barley, beans, and stock. Bring to boil, reduce to low simmer and cook, partially covered, about 1 1/2 hours, adding more water if needed. The soup should be quite thick. Remove bay leaves before serving -- they're inedible. Important cooking tip: as soon as soup starts to thicken, taste a spoonful (let it cool before you stick it in your mouth). If it tastes like it needs more of some spice, add it. Remember, you're the one eating the soup; chances are, the guy who wrote the recipe is at least a thousand miles away and eating something else, so always taste and season to the point that it tastes good to you. Curried Cream Of Onion Soup 3 large onions, chopped into half circles 1 carrot, minced 1 stalk celery, minced 1 Tbsp corn oil 1 tsp ground cumin 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg 1/8 tsp ginger powder 1/8 tsp ground cardamom 1/4 tsp turmeric 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 Tbsp salt cayenne pepper to taste 2 green cooking apples, cored and diced 2 cups soy milk, at room temperature 2 Tbsp lemon juice 4 cups vegetable stock In large stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute about 2 minutes. Add all spices and saute about 3 more minutes, until onions are just trans- lucent. Add remaining vegetables and one-half apple, and cook 5 minutes or so, until vegetables are just tender. Add stock and bring to boil. Reduce to simmer and cook, uncovered, about half an hour. Stir lemon juice into soy milk and keep stirring until it thickens. Stir the curdled soy milk into soup and keep stirring until it's mixed in well. Cook another 15 minutes. Add remaining apples and cook 5 minutes more, then serve. Finally, here's an emergency soup to make when all you've got is a few cans of organic tomatoes and some stale bread: Pappa al Pomodoro For College Cooks 1 32-oz can organic tomatoes, chopped 1 medium onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil 1 Tbsp dried basil, or 3 Tbsp fresh 1 tsp dried thyme, or 1 Tbsp fresh 1/2 tsp dried rosemary 1 large loaf of very stale French or Italian bread, chopped into large cubes Heat olive oil over medium in large saucepan. Add onion and garlic and saute until translucent, 4-5 minutes. Add herbs and saute another minute, then add tomatoes and bring to boil. Reduce to low simmer and stir in bread. After a few minutes, season to taste. Cook about another half hour. Eat hearty!!! - Billy Magic, Chicago, USA ------------------------------------------------------------ STAFF & INFO ------------------------------------------------------------ Editor-in-Chief: Ian Wojtowicz Art Director: Anand Mani Cover Artist: Kent Barrett Correspondents: Biko Agozino, Edinburgh, Scotland Prasad & Surekha Akella, Japan Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA Jon Gould, Chicago, USA Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada Mike Matsunaga, Skokie, USA Satya Prabhakar, Minneapolis, USA Brian Quinby, Aurora, USA Motamarri Saradhi, Singapore Dr. Michael Schreiber, Vienna, Austria Johnn Tann, Ogden, USA Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada Seth Theriault, Lexington, USA Marc A. Volovic, Jerusalem, Israel Columnists: Kent Barrett, The Keepers of Light Tom Davis, The Wine Enthusiast Andreas Seppelt, Latin American Correspondant About the Cover: (Graphics only appear in the Mac and WWW versions.) I had wanted to work with text for this month's cover. When someone says "history" to me, I see numbers. Dates, to be precise. 1492. 1066. 1867. Midnight, January 1st, 1904. I pictured these numbers, perhaps rendered in marble, or gold, or...blood. Well, rendered in Infini-D and hung in space, maybe with busts of historical figures superimposed on the lettering. I then saw the text of, say, the Webster's 2nd College Dictionary definition of the word "history" itself etched into the curving side of an hourglass. Well, as you can see, I was desperate. Then I realized the answer, and as always, it was another question: What is history? Where does it come from? How do we know anything about it? In the beginning was the word. And we have it here in: 1. A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls, this one from the caves of Khirbet Qumran. This is the whitish bit above the "y" in "HISTORY", just to the right of the hood of the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar which, by the way, is inscribed with the first example of the Phoenician language discovered in Phoenicia itself. 2. Hittite hieroglyphs. These particular ones are from Carchemish, and are the carved stone shapes visible in the background throughout the entire picture, including the columns of the temple of Aphrodite (at Aphrodisias, one of my personal favorites.) 3. In blue, just above and left of the pyramids, you will find detail from the Code of Hammurabi. 4. The third millennium BC weirdo in the right bottom corner has nothing in particular written on him, but he apparently was the king of Mari, and that's good enough for me. There were many many more examples I wanted to include, such as the maddening disk of Phaestos (probably of Cretan origin circa 1700 BC), whose charming hieroglyphs remain undeciphered to this day, but there wasn't room. Also, it should be noted, is included Futura Extra Bold, an electronic typeface. 4,000 years from now archeologists will have little to puzzle over from our age. Our words are not carved into basalt. - Kent Barrett, Cover Artist Funding policy: If you enjoy reading Teletimes on a constant basis and would like us to continue bringing you good quality articles, we ask that you send us a donation of whatever size you feel comfortable with. Checks should be made out to "Global Village Communications Society". Donations will be used to pay contributors and to further improve International Teletimes. If you are interested in placing an ad in Teletimes, please contact the editor for details. Submission policy: Teletimes examines broad topics of interest and concern on a global scale. The magazine strives to showcase the unique differences and similarities in opinions and ideas which are apparent in separate regions of the world. Readers are encouraged to submit informative and interesting articles, using the monthly topic as a guideline if they wish. All articles should be submitted along with a 50 word biography. Everyone submitting must include their real name and the city and country where you live. A Teletimes Writer's Guide and a Teletimes Photographer's & Illustrator's Guide are available upon request. Upcoming themes: February - TV and the Movies Deadline for articles: January 20th, 1994 E-mail: ianw@wimsey.com Snail mail: International Teletimes 3938 West 30th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. V6S 1X3 Software and hardware credits: Section headers and other internal graphics were done in Fractal Painter 1.2 and Photoshop 2.5 on a Macintosh Quadra 950. The layout and editing was done on a Macintosh IIci using MS Word 5.0 and DocMaker 3.96. Copyright notice: International Teletimes is a publication of the Global Village Communication Society and is copyrighted (c)1993 by the same. All articles are copyrighted by their respective authors however International Teletimes retains the right to reprint all material unless otherwise expressed by the author. This magazine is free to be copied and distributed UNCHANGED so long as it is not sold for profit. Editors reserve the right to alter articles. Submitting material is a sign that the submitter agrees to all the above terms.Ê ------------------------------------------------------------ NEXT MONTH ------------------------------------------------------------ TV and the Movies: in February we take a look at some of the serious concerns surrounding television and cinema as well as some lighter reviews of movies and TV shows. Also next month, Gerry Roston will have a rebuttal of Jon Gould's gun control article "American in Denial." Should be very interesting, so stick around!Ê ------------------------------------------------------------ BIOGRAPHIES ------------------------------------------------------------ Kent Barrett Kent is a Vancouver artist with over twenty years experience in photography. His work has been exhibited in galleries across Canada from Vancouver to St. John's, Newfoundland. He is currently working on his first nonfiction book "Bitumen to Bitmap", a history of photographic processes. Ryan Crocker Ryan is a Vancouver actor, writer, director, and general mouthpiece. He has worked in Vancouver, Victoria, and Los Angeles. His rŽsumŽ looks like a parts list for an aircraft carrier - long and varied. He enjoys good friends, conversation, and playing with his pet iguana, Isis. Prasad Dharmasena Prasad is a Solid State Electrical Engineer turned into a C++ programmer who works at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC. He has been known to take decent photographs when the phase of the moon is right. Though he was born in Sri Lanka, he cannot play Cricket. He enjoys playing Frisbee beside his favorite temple, the Lincoln Memorial. Jon Gould Jon teaches law and political science at both DePaul University's International Human Rights Law Institute and Beloit College. He is a former counsel to the Dukakis- Bentsen Campaign and has served as General Counsel to the College Democrats of America and Vote for a Change. Anand Mani Anand is a Vancouver, Canada-based corporate communications consultant serving an international clientele. Originally an airbrush artist, his painting equipment has been languishing in a closet, replaced by the Mac. It waits for the day when Òthat ideaÓ grips him by the throat, breathily says, ÒPaint MeÓ and drags him into the studioÑ not to be seen for months. Dr. Michael Schreiber 32 years ago, born near Salzburg, Gemini Michael reconstructs social and business realities as self-similar competitive environments at the Department of Marketing at the Vienna University for economics and business administration. Madurai G Sriram Madurai does systems and applications development in the School of Medicine at Ohio State U. Not content with the pain of three masters degrees (Electrical Engineering, Statistics, and Computer Science) He is also trying to complete a Ph.D. in CS. Hobbies include music, scuba, and foreign languages -- Madurai has a working knowledge of Brazilian Portuguese. After his Ph.D., Madurai hopes to get a job which will enable him to travel a lot! Johnn Tan Johnn is a Mathematics major at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, USA. He is one of the founders of Wasatch Area Voices Express (WAVE), an alternative Ogden paper. When he isn't eating vegan food, cooking, hiking, or philosophizing, he is active in politics, socialism, and feminism. Dr. Euan R. Taylor Euan grew up in England where he did a degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. Before moving to Canada, Euan spent 6 months traveling in Asia. Now living in Winnipeg, he is doing research in plant molecular biology, and waiting to start Law School. Interests include writing, travel, studying Spanish and Chinese, career changing and good coffee. Pet peeves: weak coffee, wet socks and ironing. Ian Wojtowicz Ian is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaurate program at a Vancouver high school. His interests include fencing, running big projects (like Teletimes) and sleeping in. He was born in 1977 in Halifax. 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