News from the Denman Island Garden Society

September 12, 2024

News from the Denman Island Garden Society

The Denman Island Garden Society would like to extend a sincere thanks to all who contributed to another successful Show What You Grow segment of the Fall Faire – the volunteers who made it possible, those who contributed your garden produce, and those who turned up to admire the wonderful vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers on display. A special thanks to the businesses (and anonymous individuals) who donated prizes for the competition: DIRCS, Abraxas, Denman Island General Store, Corlan Vineyard and Winery, Denman Island Tea Company, Denman Island Chocolate Factory, and Crooked Warden Cider. You put a lot of smiles on grateful faces.

Now that the gardening season is winding down, the Denman Island Garden Society is gearing up for another interesting run of monthly meetings. Please note that our meeting time has changed and is now from 1 to 3 pm on the third Wednesday of the month at the Gathering Place at the United Church.

Our first meeting will be on Wednesday, September 18^th at 1 pm. Devmurti Singh Khalsa and Hari Amrit Khalsa will give a presentation on Growing Figs, Other Fruits and Nuts. New members and drop-ins are welcome. Memberships are $15 for an individual, $20 for a family. Again, the meeting time is from 1 to 3 pm.

Green Wizardries: Quiet Desperation

September 12, 2024

Green Wizardries, Quiet Desperation by Maxine Rogers

Harvest is upon us! This is the busiest time of year for any gardener or farmer. Gardeners have a cascade of green beans, figs, tomatoes, apples, some lucky ones have plums and pears to deal with too. The onions have to be lifted and cured; the potatoes the same.

I spent yesterday blanching and freezing one cauliflower. It was one of the largest I have ever grown. I ended up with a large baking tray heaped up with cauliflower florets. Then, we went on to canning tomatoes. My husband went out with a large, strongly-built basket and came back with it overflowing with tomatoes. We chopped the beautiful, fully vine-ripened tomatoes up and cooked them quickly and then poured them into clean and warmed glass quart jars and popped them into the water-bath canner. Then, we had 45 minutes to do other things so we went and watered and fertilized greenhouses and garden beds.

This is normal for us so we don’t get too excited. We are, however, getting older and cannot accomplish so much each day as we used to. My sister and brother in law visited recently and helped us with project work such as summer pruning the apple trees and thinning the apple crop. They also helped on a construction project so I fed them like royalty and sent them home with many farm presents.

What we really need to do is to cut back on farming and gardening but we have to think how much we can afford to cut back. I am always amazed at how little I buy at the grocery store and how extraordinarily expensive it is. We don’t really buy food there, just coffee and soap and such, so I wonder how people without a garden and farm can manage at all.

I am sure a lot of people around here think they will always be able to afford a good diet purchased from grocery stores but I did notice the last time I went grocery shopping that the store had many fewer products for sale. Seems odd to me but shipping around the world is much impacted by the drought in Panama which has interfered with shipping. They need a lot of fresh water in the canals to float the really big boats but the drought meant they had to conserve water so the biggest ships could not use the Canal. And of course, the jolly old Houthis in Yemen are making the transit though the Suez Canal and Red Sea so much more exciting than it used to be.

Ships are now having to take much longer routes to avoid these conditions. This makes shipping much more expensive. If some product becomes too expensive due to shipping costs, it will not be shipped.

On the subject of shipping, if the Americans go to war with Iran, as the Israelis seem set on, the Iranians will probably close the Strait of Hormuz by sinking a few ships in the narrowest parts and suddenly, everything made of petroleum will cost vastly more and be in short supply.

Almost all the food in our civilization is grown with petroleum-derived fertilizers, drenched with herbicides and pesticides also made of petroleum and planted and harvested by machines that run on petroleum products and finally shipped by truck, train or airplane all of which run on petroleum products. It is enough to make a person thoughtful.

Considering all these factors, it makes sense to harvest and process whatever a person can both as a learning experience and as a tiny cushion against troubled times. In any case, what you preserve yourself will always be better than what you can buy and at a fraction of the cost.

Some of our friends are so accomplished that they make their own smoked salmon which is delicious. That is, kind of, post doctoral work but dehydrating some fruit and vegetables is really easy and it is so convenient to have a jar of dehydrated onions or peppers or zucchini on the counter to add to meals if, for example, you have run out of fresh. Dried peaches, apples and pears make wonderful candy.

Blanching and freezing vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and green beans is also really easy and a good place to start. Drying herbs is even easier. I hang bunches of mint and lemon balm from a beam in my living room and I have enough of these herbs dried, rubbed up and packed to supply us with tea all winter and into next spring. If you have trouble sleeping, I hope you will try a pot of lemon balm tea before bed. It gives a wonderful, refreshing sleep.

If you are new to vegetable gardening, and are in a bit of a panic as everything seems to come ripe at the same time, don’t worry. Just go out there and harvest what won’t wait and know at the end of every long day that you have made your household that much more secure, better nourished and cozy.

Denman ART Studio Tour – announcing 2025 dates!

September 12, 2024

Denman ART Studio Tour – announcing 2025 dates!

We had a wonderful weekend for the Denman ART Studio Tour this year. Despite the rain on Sunday morning, we counted on average 150 visitors per studio. Some of our studios recorded higher sales than last year. A very successful weekend!

Thank you to all our sponsors that made this event possible: Denman Works, Arts Denman, Denman Island Homes – Jordan McDonald/Local Wizard, Terry-Lynn Hemmerling Yoga, SURE Copy Courtenay, Denman Water, The Denman Island Tea Company, Denman Craft Shop, Denman Island General Store, Abraxas Books and Café, Coastal Arts Academy and Atlas Café Courtenay.

Also book your calendar for next year! The Denman ART Studio Tour will take place August 16 & 17, 2025. Save the date!

Shucking Oysters: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

September 12, 2024

Shucking Oysters: Don’t Worry, Be Happy

By Alex Allen

Anytime I have a “negative” view on anything, I am constantly reprimanded. How can I think that way? It’s not as bad as you think. Why are you such a downer? Stay positive. Think good thoughts. One platitude after another. Nathan J. Robinson, wrote that most platitudes are just “needlepoint-pillow wisdom.” Everywhere, pillows, wall art and people, imploring you to breathe, to be happy, to be thankful, to have hope, to relax. Well, there’s a word for this, my superficially bright and optimistic acquaintances. Toxic positivity.

Yes, it is possible to be too upbeat and optimistic. Toxic positivity is all about avoiding or denying any acknowledgement of stress or negativity. It’s a preoccupation with viewing everything – even something unavoidably tragic – in a glaringly, positive light. Your house burned down, but “it could have been worse.” Laid off from work. “Maybe it was meant to be.” Broke up. “Everything happens for a reason.” Even suffering and early death?

According to clinical psychologist, Dr. Jaime Zuckerman, the inherent problem with toxic positivity is that we assume that if a person is not in a positive mood (or whatever we think a positive person should look or act like), then they are somehow wrong, bad, or inadequate. We are saying to them that they should feel ashamed for feeling sad or that they should feel embarrassed for being concerned.

It’s human to have emotions. Ups and downs. That’s what it’s all about. Anger and sadness, just like happiness and joy, come and go. Zuckerman warned, “If you don’t confront or process emotions in an effective and timely manner, the science shows that it can lead to a myriad of psychological difficulties including disrupted sleep, increased substance abuse, risk of an acute stress response, anxiety, depression, and even post traumatic stress disorder.” We need to let ourselves experience painful feelings. It’s OK, to not be OK.

Nicole Karlis writes: “Humans are meant to feel and embrace a full range of emotions – not to be happy robots all the time, especially when bad things happen. And yet, the phrase ‘good vibes only’ is consistently splashed across walls, screens, and doormats, and has become a sort of millennial and Gen Z mantra.”

In a Salon interview, Nora McInerny, author of “Bad Vibes Only (And Other Things I Bring to the Table),” questions those who naively believe that if they think positively, that they will be rewarded, that good things will naturally unfold. But we all know (well, some of us), that we are not our thoughts. Therapy is not to just think happy thoughts, and then you will be magically transported to a joyous, pleasure dome.

It’s hard to go to a bookstore or online without seeing book after book on how to be happier. “The Art of Happiness.” “The How of Happiness.” “Mastering the Art of Positive Thinking.” “You are the Happiness You Seek.” There is this assumption that a good life is a happy life. We’re bombarded with the message that happiness is the most valuable thing that we should aspire to. (And yes, money can buy happiness, but it can’t buy a sense of purpose.)

Happiness can’t be pursued, it happens, it’s the byproduct of leading a meaningful life. Research shows that when we chase happiness and value it in this obsessive way our culture encourages us to do, that we actually end up feeling unhappier, lonelier. But if we do things that we think are meaningful, we’re left with this deeper sense of well being and contentment.

There is much academic debate about whether meaning and happiness are different. When you try to look at people who say that their lives are happy and meaningful, they correlate very closely. People who have meaningful lives tend to be happy and vice versa. But these two are different pursuits. What motivates you and what is your orientation?

If you are motivated by the pursuit of happiness it’s a little bit more of a personal journey because it’s about your happiness. That orientation changes your behaviour. Studies show that when you tell people to go out and pursue happiness, they do things like sleep in, go to the spa; whereas if they pursue meaning, they volunteer in their community, visit an elderly neighbour. Each action changes our mindset, and the distinction is very apparent.

This idea that difficult emotions need to be pushed aside is, no doubt, accounting for so much of our fragility in our communities and in our psychological well-being right now. Emotions are normal. The world is not. As for me, as Lawrence Durrell wrote, “I am neither happy nor unhappy; I lie suspended like a hair or a feather in the cloudy mixtures of memory.”

NATO – Not A Tenable Option (Part 2)

September 12, 2024

NATO – Not A Tenable Option (Part 2) Sally Campbell

Many of my learnings about NATO are found in the excellent little book: NATO: What you need to Know, by Medea Benjamin & David Swanson, published this year, in time for NATO’s 75^th “anniversary celebrations”, which sounds so benign to describe the world’s largest arms trading cabal.

Some of the book’s key points are:

NATO is run by the US

NATO is unaccountable to its members NATO’s primary function – weapons dealer

NATO has “partnerships” worldwide, including many dictators NATO members violate international law

NATO has an expansionist agenda

NATO partnerships

This was new information for me. NATO has dozens of “partners” circling the globe, from Columbia to Mongolia, including Iraq, Pakistan, & Afghanistan. A key concept of partnership is interoperability, which means “partners buying the same weapons, relying on the same people to maintain and repair and upgrade those weapons…to train military personnel on those weapons, and organizing militaries to function under the same command” (NATO@ 66). It involves the integration of new partner militaries into NATO through war drills such as are held in the Baltic Sea each year, and by participation in wars like Afghanistan & Libya. Training & war-preparation are also offered to NATO partners, through NATO’s 30 “National Partnership Training and Education Centers”, the NATO School in Germany, and the NATO “Defense College” in Rome. NATO has been a way to tie Europe to the US’ military, geopolitical and economic interests. (NATO@13) Of the US’ more than 900 military bases around the world, NATO forces use 54.

Canada is already deeply enmeshed in the US military machine. We have had interoperability with the US for years. (In fact, Amlo, Mexico’s very popular outgoing President, described Canada as “almost an associate State of the US”. Because of that, Mexico included Canada in their recent “pause” in diplomatic relations with the US. What does that say about us?)

NATO members and partners account for 69% of the world’s military spending. China spends 19% of what they spend. Russia spends 6% and Iran spends .4% of what they spend. (NATO@76)

Israel is a special partner, with a permanent “official mission” to NATO headquarters since 2017. There is close cooperation between Israel and the weapons industries of NATO members, who have bought billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from Israel (NATO@ 77). American- Israeli anthropologist Jeff Halper’s eye-opening book: War against the People: Israel, The Palestinians & Global Pacification (2015) exposes Israel’s mastery of technologies of control –

exporting high-tech weaponry, security systems and means of pacification around the world, “field-tested in Gaza”.

NATO Support & Procurement Agency

Even though I knew a big part of NATO’s purpose was to benefit the arms industry, I underestimated the extent to which arms-dealing is foundational to NATO. This agency lines up weapons deals between manufacturers and governments, is headquartered in Luxembourg, and has “operational centers” in France, Italy and Hungary. It actually has a greater number of staff, and handles greater amounts of money than does NATO itself. NATO has a relatively small budget, about $3.6B. It’s Procurement Agency has over 1,400 civilian staff and a budget of over

$5B Euros annually. NATO obligations are not really about dues; they are about how much money each country spends on its military, most of which spending goes into US coffers.

The NATO “Defense Ministers” decided amongst themselves in 2006 that each NATO country should spend a minimum of 2% of its annual GDP on military spending. (www.nato.int) In 2014, only 3 NATO members met that goal. In 2023, with much pressure from the US, that number had climbed to 24! (NATO@87) Canada is still not there, but our military is lobbying for our country to “meet our obligations” by increasing our spending to this arbitrary number, tied to our economy. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg now calls this target a ”floor, not a ceiling”. The US spends 3.5% of its GDP on the military, but somehow even that sounds more benign than $1 Trillion/year which is the actual tab if you include nuclear weapons (under the “Energy” budget), Veteran’s Affairs & Services, and Department of Homeland Security.

Naturally, the US military is much bigger than all other NATO militaries combined which perhaps gave members some false sense of security that “Big Bro” would protect them if need be, when actually our “protector” uses NATO as a cover for its global hegemony agenda.

Here at home, our military budget has nearly doubled in the last decade, from $20B to $39B per year. In 2023, we spent $3B on environment and the climate crisis. Canada is the 6^th highest military spender of NATO nations and the 14^th highest military spender in the world in 2021!

NATO’s expansionism is well-illustrated by its describing Western Asia & North Africa as “our southern neighbourhood”, a chilling parallel to the US Monroe Doctrine claiming Latin America as its “backyard” (NATO@124). NATO plans for world dominance are well-described in the book, which I recommend reading.

(Next week: NATO & the Parliamentary Petition)

Revolution Is Now

September 12, 2024

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

SEP 06, 2024

People are always asking me what we can do to fight the tyranny and depravity of the empire and create a healthy world.

“But what can we do?” they ask. “You always talk about the problems, but we need solutions! How do we solve the problems you keep pointing to?”

It’s especially common during US election season, because I tend to spend a lot of time pointing to the fraudulent nature of western electoral politics and saying Americans will never be able to vote their way out of their problems.

Which is of course fair. If I’m saying “Not that way, it’s a dead end,” it’s only fair that I should be asked which way actually leads to the exit.

Trouble is I talk about solutions all the time here, and I’m always practicing what I preach and leading by example; some people just can’t seem to hear what I’m saying. It goes in one ear and out the other, because I don’t have any solutions that are as easy and immediate as “Cast your vote for Donald Trump, he’ll fight the Deep State” or “Cast your vote for Kamala Harris, she’ll stop fascism.”

The truth of the matter is that in the here and now there are no easy and immediate solutions to the problems we face in our world. The system is far too deeply entrenched, and people are far too deeply indoctrinated with propaganda to be persuaded to fight against it right now.

And I emphasize the words “right now”. My solutions might not be easy or immediate, but unlike voting for Trump or Harris in November, they will actually work if put into practice in sufficient numbers.

An effective solution that we can all begin applying in the here and now is working to foment a revolutionary zeitgeist by spreading awareness of the depravity and deceit of the empire. The primary obstacle to real change is the fact that far too many people are far too brainwashed by propaganda to rise up against our rulers, so our first task is to begin working to wake people up out of that propaganda-induced coma so they can see how desperately real change is needed.

The tyrants won’t end their tyranny until they are forced to, and they can’t be forced to as long as enough people are propagandized into believing things are fine. That’s why so much energy goes into narrative control measures like mass media propaganda, censorship, government secrecy, the war on journalism, and Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation. They wouldn’t pour so much energy into protecting that part of the imperial machine if it wasn’t very vulnerable to attack.

So we attack it. We cultivate a habit of small acts of sedition, trying to do something every day to de-normalize the abuses of the empire in the eyes of the public. Our historically unprecedented ability to share ideas and information around the world in real time makes circulating unauthorized materials much easier than it used to be, and much more democratic. This is something we can all dedicate ourselves to.

The machine is far too big and powerful for us to take down on our own, but if enough minds can become unplugged from the narrative matrix, we can definitely bring it down together. Once enough minds are pointed at this project, more concrete solutions will emerge and begin gaining traction in our collective consciousness.

It’s too early for an uprising right now. Ever seen Les Miserables? The part with the barricade? That’s what it would look like if we tried to take the machine head-on right now. The people wouldn’t come. It would be unwinnable. History is full of such failed revolutions. So in the here and now we dedicate ourselves to the project of making sure there will be many others joining us at the barricade, in whatever form that direct concrete resistance might wind up taking.

The good news is this brings the revolution into the here and now, since right now the revolution looks like something we can all start doing today. Each and every one of us.

None of us can do everything, but we can all do something. Anything you can do to help open the next pair of eyes to the horrors the empire is inflicting upon our world, the injustices our rulers are imposing upon us in our society, and the lies we’re being told to justify it all.

You can do this using any means at your disposal. Talking to people. Distributing literature. Making videos. Making TikTok skits. Making tweets. Making art. Making memes. Writing on the wall. Writing blogs. Printing zines. Writing letters to the editor at your local paper. Anything you can do to help get unauthorized ideas into eyes and ears which may not otherwise have encountered them, using your own unique set of skills and personal conditioning.

The more eyes are opened to what’s going on, the more hands we will have working toward the task of waking up the others. This allows for the possibility of nonlinear growth, which means things could move very quickly from looking impossible to looking inevitable.

All positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness, whether you’re talking about changes of the behavior in an individual or changes in the behavior of our entire species. So let’s get to work expanding it.

It is my sincerest wish that one day before too long what I do here will be seen as nothing special, because there are so many others doing what I do that I no longer stand out in the crowd in any way. And ideally this project here will then fade into total obsolescence, as we create a healthy world together which makes it completely unnecessary.

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Letter to the Editor – Bob Morley

September 12, 2024

‘Wine Wisdom’

Upon opening the latest vintage of 2024 Grapevine, an article by ‘alcohol’ Alex, with a 13.5 vol content, poured into my cheeerful cup. Numbed by his buzzed words and worship of the Roman god Bacchus, whose ‘sheer hedonic pleasure’ if crossed, could become vengeful, driving one into madness – ‘alcohol’ Alex ‘releases us from the stress of being conscious of ourselves’? And this is a joyful encounter!

Is there really a need to justify Your behaviour? As a member of the self-confessed ‘philosphical hedonist’ society of ‘modern drunkards’, you are drinking from ‘old wineskins’, and you can’t put a new patch on an old wineskin.

There is a ‘new wineskin’ that is not a part of your old ‘wino wisdom’ status quo. The wine inside is inspired by a shared joy that subltly rises from the soil of community, revealing how true freedom springs from the pleasure of our company. We don’t ‘need’ to go to AA, but if you’d care to investigate one of the ‘greatest contributions…to human life’, there is abundant joy to imbibe from their prayer: ‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage, to change the things I can, and ‘Wisdom’ to know the difference!

Cheers! Bob Morley

Letter to the Editor – Eric Atlee

September 12, 2024

CHINA

Canada will put a 100% tariff on Chinese EV’s. China will retaliate by not buying Canadian canola oil. Nobody else wants the stuff.

Canada, as a pre-emptive strike should switchable canola fields to wheat. With the disturbance in the Ukraine the world is screaming for the stuff.

This hasn’t occurred to the government economists, all of who make a very healthy six figures.

The solution is obvious to a retired (semi-crippled) yard worker and lawn mower.

It is China’s goal to destroy all economies of western democracies thus proving dictatorships are superior. Chinese goods are cheap because their workers are paid one or two bucks an hour and their industries State subsidized by the above profits.

Those of us who buy their goods (it’s hard to get away from now. Chinese wages and State policy have killed American manufacturing), buying their crap is treason.

Me? Guilty as charged.

Clairvoyant not buoyant

September 12, 2024

Court Orders Sale of Union Bay Estates Developer Kensington Island Properties

September 5, 2024

Court Orders Sale of Union Bay Estates Developer Kensington Island Properties

A court has ordered the sale of Kensington Island Properties (KIP) as a result of $100 million in debt. As of December 31, 2023, the total amount due and owing to the Petitioners, pursuant to their Loan B Agreement, their Loan B Security, and their Forbearance Agreements, was $78,867,149.52, plus interest of 30% per annum, compounding monthly. This development proposal has been stalled for many years as the developer was not able to fulfill promises made to the Union Bay community, and requirements of the CVRD relating to sufficient water supply, and investments in sewage and other public infrastructure.

It’s important to note that this may not be the end of the story for this massive development project that was slated to be built over many years, starting with a “”200 slip marina” and a residential village, a hotel, and large retail amenities. The primary creditor is listed as Fox Island Development Ltd., owned by Advanced Venture Holding Co. Ltd., which may find a way to reorganize the project and debt, and attempt to continue with this project, but would be subject to the water and sewage regulations pursuant to the the Province, the CVRD and the Union Bay community.

Significantly, Kensington Island Properties had also made commitments to K’omoks First Nation, in an agreement to share the cost of public infrastructure, all of which are now in doubt. (original reporting by allthingsunionbay.com) edited by TIG.