Briarpatch articles from November 2002

Briarpatch archives from November 2002

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2002... Dear Briarpatch, The following is an open letter to The Honourable Lorne Calvert, Premier of Saskatchewan: Dear Premier, I am sure that you and your colleagues in Government recognize that we in Saskatchewan are in a major way...

High-flying captains of industry are stopped in mid-flight: a small farming community wards off the powerful forces of neo-liberalism when they attempt to make a land grab.
November 1, 2002... Not more than a year ago, the town of San Salvador Atenco, Mexico could be described as a small quiet farming community with an aging population. Side-street cockfights and grilled corn-on-the-cob are staples in the pueblo (community) that has...

Caterpillar executives "arrested" for war crimes.
November 1, 2002... On September 17th, a media advisory went out stating that executives from the Caterpillar corporation would be arrested at their office in Washington DC and at other locations across the USA. The media responded immediately, assuming it was...

Health care for profit needs expanding illness.
November 1, 2002... As the Romanow report on the state of the Canadian health-care system winds down, one must wonder whether the report is going to the root cause of many Canadian and world health issues - Capitalism. Capitalism is a system of property...

Scanning the results of experiments in assembly-line health care.
November 1, 2002... The Ontario Health Coalition released a review of the available evidence on for-profit MRI and CT Clinics in response to Ontario government plans to introduce 25 MRI and CT Scan clinics open to for-profit corporations for bidding. Among the...

Care-givers in the heartland: an interview with a rural nurse exposes the harsh realities of the job, and explains the reasons they stay.
November 1, 2002... "I think the biggest issue for rural nurses in Saskatchewan is the amount of responsibility that's placed on them in their facilities," said Tracy Zambory when I interviewed her at the SUN Annual Meeting. "Often times, you're the only RN in the...

Give it or guard it: a national call has gone out to open up the buildings. Bring your banners, your noisemakers and housewarming gifts.
November 1, 2002... Directed to the various levels of government, "Give it or Guard it" means simply this: Either they find the political will necessary to open abandoned buildings for housing or they throw a ring of cops around them because homeless people, poor...

Europeans are still winning the fight against mutant food.
November 1, 2002... This summer we were invited by Ulrike Brendel, agriculture and gene-technology campaigner for Greenpeace Germany, to tour Germany, Austria and Switzerland to inform Europeans about the Canadian experience with GMOs. Our first stop was...

Do you know what you are eating?
November 1, 2002... Greenpeace has launched the first comprehensive Shoppers Guide telling consumers which products do, and which do not, contain genetically engineered ingredients. The guide reviews over 1,000 products commonly found in Canadian supermarkets. ...

It's Hitting the Fan.
November 1, 2002... A new report released by Environmental Defence Canada cautions that no new Factory Farms should be built in Canada until the federal government establishes standards to protect human health and the environment. The report, It's Hitting the...

Regrowing Saskatchewan: farm families are pulling together to find solutions to the challenges they face...not unlike the survival strategies of their ancestors.
November 1, 2002... Rural Saskatchewan has certainly faced more than its share of difficulties over the past few years. The flooding that occurred in its southeast region in 1999 was followed in later years by "well below average rainfall" for much of the...

"Where can I buy clean clothes?".
November 1, 2002... "Where can I buy clothes that aren't made in sweatshops?" is probably the question we at Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) are asked most frequently, over e-mail, by phone and quite often in person. It's a fair enough question, but to date...

Clothes the door on sweatshops.
November 1, 2002... As of September 30, over 20,000 Canadians had signed the "Stop Pulling the Wool over our Eyes" petition addressed to the federal government. This shows the high level of popular support for our proposed changes to federal regulations, which...

Illicit vacation: the rain in Spain hardly dampened this holiday...when compared with the impact of the other surprises.
November 1, 2002... Twelve days in Spain to finish off the summer seemed like a good idea at the time. How could I resist? Our four adult children were keen on the idea. How often can we expect this to happen in the future? And, although I had visited Barcelona, I...

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. (Book Reviews).
November 1, 2002... Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser HarperCollins Publishers New York, NY, 2002 The fast food industry might appear to be one big playground of happy meals and treats of the week, but...

Dubya speak...(before they put the speaker in his ear).
November 1, 2002... I would have to ask the questioner. I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning. - Austin, Texas, Jan. 8, 2001 I've been talking to Vicente Fox, the new president of Mexico - I know him - to have...

Thank you Bob. (My Opinion).
November 1, 2002... We have recently commemorated the tragic and fateful events of September 11th and remembered their victims. It behooves us as a society to now reflect on how we have handled ourselves over the past year in the face of fear, hate and violence....