“Too many, reaching for a piece of cake. … Too many hungry people, losing weight.”     Paul McCartney “There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.”     Bob Dylan “I was always working steady, but I never called it art. /  I had my shit together, reading Christ and reading Marx. … Go ask the young Messiah, what happens...

The BC government is proposing a strategy for improving wildlife management and habitat conservation.  Readers can provide input on the plan until January 9.  The letter below expresses opinions from the BC chapter of Backcoiuntry Hunters and Anglers.  Your editor thinks that the proposed strategy leaves too much leeway for...

New Year’s resolutions are a common topic of  columnists at this time of year, and I’ve been wondering what sort of resolutions might be most helpful, to individual people or to the world as a whole. Over my lifetime I haven’t made a habit of engaging in New Year’s resolutions – always thought that if I wasn’t already doing...

The BC Ecosocialists are the first provincial political party to respond to the revelations published in The Guardian on Friday, alleging that the RCMP planned to deploy snipers and were prepared to use extreme tactics including child apprehension in a raid on the Indigenous land defenders who continue to oppose the gas...

Things to help us feel better are welcome during a season that can be hectic, stressful, demanding – and, for many, isolating and lonely. The demands of holiday entertaining can raise blood pressure levels and jangle nerves.  Soothing music, designed to be calming and healing, might help, and is guaranteed to cause fewer...

By Sharon J. Riley, for The Narwhal The fate of a massive new oilsands project is being seen as the litmus test for the future of the oilsands themselves.   There’s a huge oilsands project that’s getting a lot of attention these days — and it’s not the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. A massive new oilsands mine project...

Many years ago, I helped the parents of a seriously disturbed young person by obtaining a court order for his involuntary committal. He had been delusional, and doing things that could easily have resulted in his own death.  The parents had made one attempt on their own, but had failed to convince a court of the need to protect...

By Raynold Wonder Alorse, for The Conversation Modern society has given significant attention to the promises of the digital economy over the past decade. But it has given little attention to its negative environmental footprint. Our smartphones rely on rare earth metals, and cloud computing, data centres, artificial intelligence...

Taxes – who wants to think about taxes at this time of year?  Can’t we put it off for a few months? Relax – this isn’t about doing the dreaded tax return.  It’s about trends in taxation, and what they achieve.  Or not. And what voters can do about it.  Besides, it can take...

A Kootenay man, environmental consultant Michael Keefer who lives in Rossland and Cranbrook, was invited to go to Uzbekistan for a conference on solutions to the Aralkum Desert problem.  While there, he toured the area and took many hundreds of pictures.  When I sat down with Keefer, who told me fascinating tales ...