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I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E L E T I M E S
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? Vol. 3 No. 1 January 1994 ?
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CONTENTS
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-- 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
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EDITOR'S NOTE
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-- 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-Chief?
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MAILBOX
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-- 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.?
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FEATURES
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-- 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
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DEPARTMENTS
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-- 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
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Submission policy:
Teletimes examines broad topics of interest and concern on
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Upcoming themes:
February - TV and the Movies
Deadline for articles:
January 20th, 1994
E-mail:
ianw@wimsey.com
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International Teletimes
3938 West 30th Ave.
Vancouver, B.C.
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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
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a sign that the submitter agrees to all the above terms.?
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NEXT MONTH
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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!?
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BIOGRAPHIES
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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 r?sum? 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
?that idea? grips him by the throat, breathily says, ?Paint
Me? and drags him into the studio? 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. He has since lived in
Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ottawa and travelled with his parents
to numerous other locations.
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