RANT: On cops, Crown, courts and criminalty - a wake-up call is required
I just published an article about prolific offenders that is going to have many locals feeling furious, and justly so. It’s about two local prolific offenders who, between the two of them, are facing 40 separate charges for crimes committed within a two-week span. Both have been arrested – within that time frame – at least ...
Editorial: What to do?
Current and anticipatory grief The reality of the continuing extinction of many so species is profoundly upsetting. Readers may wonder why old people should care. For example, I’ll be dead in a few years myself; it will be up to others to live their lives diminished by the loss of caribou and many other creatures, many...
Op/Ed: Few things are as dangerous as economists with physics envy
By John Rapley, for Aeon Two questions: is it good or bad that professional athletes earn 400 times what nurses do, and is string theory a dead end? Each question goes to the heart of its discipline. Yet while you probably answered the first, you’d hold an opinion on the prospects of string theory only if you’ve studied...
COLUMN: Political Intelligence, Elections, and the Demos
Some Elections matter more: this should be one Canadians are about to choose a national, federal government on October 21. It is a more significant choice for our nation than we have faced in many elections, and not because Canada alone is facing some unusual circumstances: the entire human world and the non-human species...
Column: Our biodiversity crisis -- connecting the dots
The polar bear has become the poster child for climate change impacts in the Arctic. Sea ice, which the bears depend on for hunting, is melting at an ever-expanding rate. For other species, climate impacts are not as direct. The 2019 State of Canada’s Birds report found aerial insectivores like swifts, swallows and nightjars...
Column: What if the children could vote?
Young people have been speaking out for their rights. Many are wise beyond their years. Without the blinkers of ideology, workaday priorities and ingrained values, they can see clearly what’s happening. They’ve had to step up for their own futures because too few of their elders are willing to accept that rampant consumerism...
Editorial: It’s back-to-school time. Drive much?
It’s time to reflect on our driving habits, and on the facts cited below – especially for the safety of everyone’s children. According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, motor vehicle incidents are the leading cause of unintentional injury and death in Canada for children from 1 year old to 19 years old. The BC Injury...
COLUMN: The trouble with captive breeding programs to save species
B.C. is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a captive breeding program to protect spotted owls. With an estimated six of the owls left in the wild in Canada, all in B.C., that seems like good news. But while the program includes some habitat protection, the province is also approving logging in habitat the owl needs...
Column: From the Hill -- Health Care, and Ride the Riding 2019
As I knock on doors across the south Okanagan and West Kootenay, one issue is a common topic of conversation—health care. Canadians are rightfully proud of our public health care system, and the NDP is proud that it was Tommy Douglas who fought for the free, universal program that we enjoy. It is not perfect, but...
A stolen bike; and an OPINION on our stuff and the RCMP
If anyone sees the KHS model 650-800 mountain bike stolen from a St. Paul Street residence in Rossland sometime between August 14 and mid-day August 16, please call the RCMP at 250-364-2566 or CRIMESTOPPERS at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) if you wish to remain anonymous. The bike, pictured above, has been modified since the photo...
