Chrystal Ocean's blog

I've written three posts over the past couple of months focused on the GST for municipalities. One was in response to a TorStar report on the Liberal strategy for municipalities. The second responded to another (and supporting) editorial in The Star. The third was a copy of my letter written to the Liberal Party's Urban Committee and commenting, in a fair amount of detail, on their full report to the party.

Only the Greens have seen how RIGHT and REASONABLE the One Cent Campaign championed by David Miller and endorsed by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is.

This policy shouldn't fail to convince people who give it more than two cents' thought.

There's an intriguing article in Scientific American today, about the work of Bernie Krause, a bioacoustics expert and former Moog synthesizer player for George Harrison, the Doors and other '60s musicians.

At the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, Krause made a recording of the natural ambient sounds of birds, animals, insects, reptiles and amphibians. Having made spectrographs of natural soundscapes in his musical career, he realized that the recording of these creatures “looked like a musical score. Each animal had its own niche, its own acoustic territory, much like instruments in an orchestra.”

At least three stories of animal abuse are in the news today.

One reports a cat which was set on fire and left to die a horrible death. The second tells the tale of the shooting of a 14-week old puppy. And the third describes the case of five puppies which were thrown down the hole, and left slowly to die in a stinking outhouse.

Yes, I know we should ignore polls, especially those which are done other than by my favourite pollster Nik Nanos (well, since the 2006 election at any rate), However, when polls are in one's favour, it's tough to ignore them, right? So here is the full PDF report of the poll taken by Angus Reid, which was completed over September 10th to 12th. It's well worth reading the whole thing, all 15 pages of it, since it contains lots of interesting information which could be useful for the campaign.

Here's the summary from the first page of the report.

As this blogger notes, accusations fly constantly of the Green Party being a "one issue" party, with a focus solely on the environme

The following was a comment submitted to cbc.ca in response to the article Greens' inclusion in debates a 'tectonic' shift in politics: May. It was largely duplicated from a post on my blog Challenging the Commonplace. Out of 148 comments so far, readers have placed it in a tie for 2nd as Most Recommended.

If this "tectonic shift" should mean democratic and electoral reform getting back onto the table - and front and centre - then I'd be ecstatic. The recovery of our democracy, with voters becoming once again engaged and their votes having meaning, is the single most pressing issue of our time.

Not the environment. Not poverty. Not the healthcare system. Not crime, gangs, or violence against women. Not abortion. Not the war in Afghanistan or the US invasion of Iraq and their imminent attack on Iran. Not the sabre rattling between the US and Russia.

While no one would claim that these issues aren't important, no matter on which side a person stands, the fact of the matter is they won't get addressed by ANY party or politician. Not in any substantive, meaningful way.

Not unless something fundamental changes in our eroding democracy.

I say this as a woman and activist whose employment income is limited to well below poverty levels by disability and who is passionate about peace, the environment, food and housing security, a woman's right to choose, and the development and sustainability of local economies.