"The Earth Path" by Starhawk

"Phantom Parks: The Struggle to Save Canada's National Parks" by Rick Searle

Interesting Links:
Utne Reader
David Suzuki Foundation
New Scientist
Discover Magazine
The Medical Post Online
Ad Busters!
New Internationalist
Mother Jones.com
Salon.com
NOVA On-line
The Book of Zines
Killing the Buddha
London Review of Books
American Council on Exercise
Runner's World
The Great Illusion


Recent reads:
"A Deepness in the Sky" by Vernor Vinge

"Celtic Folklore Cooking" by Joanne Asala

"Power Spellcraft for Life" by Arin Murphy-Hiscock

"Reinventing Medicine" by Larry Dossey

"Wicca: A Year and a Day" by Timothy Roderick

"The Science of the Craft" by William H Keith

"50 Years of Wicca" by Frederic Lamond

"The Magical Life" by Vivianne Crowley

"Which Witch is Which?" by Patricia Telesco

"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville

"Cyberhenge: Modern Pagans on the Internet" by Douglas E. Cowan

"An Ye Harm None: Magical Morality and Modern Ethics" by Shelley Rabinovitch

"Crystal Ball" by Sibyll Fergusen, revised and expanded by Witch Bree

"Gaia Eros: Reconnecting to the Magic and Sprit of Nature" by Jesse Wolf Hardin

"A Century of Spells" by Draja Mickaharic

"Evolutionary Witchcraft" by T. Thorn Coyle

"Witching Culture: Folklore and Neo-Paganism in America" by Sabina Magliocco

"Kundalini for Beginners" by Ravindra Kumar

"Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India" by Roberto Calasso

"Magical Tattwa Cards" by Dr. John Mumford

"WitchCraft Today (Expanded edition)" by Gerald B. Gardner

"Self-Initiation for the Solitary Witch" by Shanddaramon

"The Second Circle: Tools for the Advancing Pagan" by Vanecia Rauls

"Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard" by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

"Black Magick Woman: The Sinister Side of the Song of Solomon" by Janet Tyson

"Everyday Moon Magic" by Dorothy Morrisson

"Advanced Witchcraft" by Edain McCoy"

"Handfasting and Wedding Rituals" by Raven Kaldera and Tannin Schwartzstein

"Joing Hearts and Hands: Interfaith, Intercultural Wedding Celebrations" by Rev Susanna Stefanachi Macomb

"Handfasted and Heartjoined" by Lady Maeve Rhea

"Handfasting: A practical Guide" bu Mary Neasham

" Goddess in the Grass: Sperpentine Mythology and the great Goddess" by Linda Fourbister

"Theories of the Chakras: Bridges to Higher Conciousness" by Hiroshi Motoyama

"The Knife Thrower" by Steven Millhauser

"Schizophrenia: A Very Short Introduction" by Christopher Finn and Eve Johnstone

"Schizophrenia: The Facts" by Ming T. Tsuang and Stephen V. Faraone

"A Community of Witches" by Helen Berger and Colleagues

"American Gods" by Neil Gaiman"

"Scherzo" by Jim Williams"

"Goddess in the Grass: Serpentine Mythology and the Great Goddess" by Linda Fourbister

"The Forest of Souls" by Rachel Pollack

"Wiccan Roots" by Philip Heselton

"A User's Guide to the Brain" by John J Ratey, MD

"A Goddess Arrives" by Gerald Gardner

"A Community of Witches" by Helen Berger

"Nature Spirits" Selected lectures by Rudolf Steiner

"Fatal Majesty" by Reay Tannahill

"Myths to Live By" by Joseph Campbell

"The Secret Life of Germs" by Philip M Tierno Jr, PhD

"Adam, Eve, and the Serpent" by Elaine Pagels

"Whiteout: Melt" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Lieber

"Whiteout" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Lieber

"Queen and Country-Operation: Crystal Ball" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Leandro Fernandez

"Tunnel in the Sky" by Robert Heinlein

"The Sex Chronicles" by Zane

"The Black Man's Guide to Good Health" by Reed, Schulman and Shucker

"The Withdrawing Room" by Charlotte MacLoed

"Queen and Country-Operation: Morningstar" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Brian Hurtt

"The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2000" edited by David Quammen

"The Bourne Identity" by Robert Ludlum

"Gerald Gardner: Witch" by J.L. Bracelin

"Queen and Country-Operation: Broken Ground" by Greg Rucka illustrated by Steve Rolston

"The Ferryman Will Be There" by Rosemary Aubert

"Philosophy of Wicca" by Amber Laine Fisher

"Wilderness Tips" by Margaret Atwood

"Origins of Modern Witchcraft" by Anne Moura

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Playing with the Mind

In one of my classes we were recently looking at a scientific paper exploring mind-machine interfaces. These are essentially computer chips that enable someone to operate an electronic gadget simply by thinking about it. The brain generates electrical impulses which are translated by the computer chip into actual commands that the electronic gadget can understand.

Not a day later an article ran in BBC World News online about a brain chip that uses the same technology to help a paralysed man control common electronic devices in his environment. Definately neat stuff.

Even more interesting though are a series of articles that I've seen recently on how the brain can rewire itself to accommodate perceptual changes, among other things. One of the first articles I read about this was in New Scientist describing a an experiment where people were given a camera helmet to wear and the images from the camera were transmitted to a device that stimulated the tongue based on what the camera was seeing. After a brief time, these people were able to 'see' using their sense of taste.

Quirks and Quarks also ran a similar story this past Sunday called "Seeing with Sound." It really is worth a listen. In it a woman is able to make out the sky and mountains using a device that translates images into sounds. Astounding!

Amanda 1:26 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Playing with Risk

Aspirin cuts the risk of stroke in women by 24%, reported recent media articles picked up from Reuters Newswire. Wow! That’s great news. Or is it? There is a trend in medical reporting in mainstream media to only report relative risk reduction, like the 24% percent reported in this article. Relative risk is exactly that, relative. In terms of medical treatments, it is the risk of developing a disease or condition if you are taking the preventative therapy being studied, compared to the risk if you were not take any therapy at all.

Let’s take a look at the data from this trial as an example. Over the course of the trial, 170 of the almost 20 000 women receiving aspirin in the trial had an ischemic stroke. That is slightly less than 1% (0.9%). For the placebo arm, 221 women had an ischemic stroke, slightly more than 1% (1.1%). What that translates into is that in a group of 1000 women, over a ten-year period aspirin may prevent two strokes. The numbers no longer sound so impressive.

Unlike many other articles in mainstream media, I was happy to see that the Reuters one balanced its report on the benefits of aspirin, with a sentence on side effects: Women taking aspirin were 40% more likely to develop stomach or intestinal bleeding that required transfusion. Yikes! Again, let’s look at the absolute numbers:

Out of the 19 934 women receiving aspirin, 910 experience gastrointestinal bleeding and 127 required transfusion. That translates into 4.6% and 0.6%, respectively. In the placebo arm, the numbers were 751 (3.8%) and 91 (0.5%), respectively. So, in a room full of the same 1000 women, aspirin can be expected to cause about 8 cases of stomach or intestinal bleeding over 10 years, one of which may require transfusion.

So where does that leave us in this case? In a room full of 1000 women, taking a baby aspirin a day over ten years would reduce the number of ischemic strokes by two or three and increase the cases of gastrointestinal bleeding requiring transfusion by one or general gastrointestinal bleeding by eight. In other words, take an aspirin a day for ten years your absolute risks of ischemic stroke is 2 in 1000, your risk of developing stomach or intestinal bleeding is 8 in 1000, and your risk of needing a blood transfusion is 1 in 1000.

A couple of important points did come out of this study. Women and men respond to medical treatments differently. While aspirin reduces the risk of both stroke and heart attack in men, in women it only reduces the risk of stroke and has no significant effect on heart attack. Given the increase likelihood of gastrointestinal complications, it brings into serious question the currently common practice of prescribing low dose aspirin for the prevention of heart attack in women.

Clinical trials, especially in the early stages of drug development and testing, often only study the drug in men. Women, it seems, have too many hormonal fluctuations that may screw-up the results or make the results harder to interpret. But in the end, women use most medications just as much as men when the drug finally makes it to market. This clinical trial highlights the fact that more of an effort must be made to understand drug effects in both genders prior to establishing widespread prescribing guidelines or habits.

Amanda 12:07 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Endangered Fish Alliance

Concerns about environmental pollutants aside, fish is generally believed to be good for you. Fatty or cold-water fish are often good sources of omega-3 fatty acids that are believed to help lower the risk of heart disease and improve mental function. But it is hard not to notice media and science reports that our ocean's are being over-fished, trawlers are destroying the ocean floors, and fish farms destry maritime life beneath them. So what is a health- and socially-conscious person to do?

Quite a while back I'd heard about a group of Canadian Chefs who had banded together and agreed not to serve endangered fish in their restaurants. Together they created the not-for-profit Endangered Fish Alliance. Visit their website and you can learn a bit about the "four fish you should never serve," which includes chilean sea bass, swordfish, orange roughie, and some types of caviar. According to the website, these fish have been "The following fish have been overfished, oversold and overeaten. Now they are almost extinct."

Click on over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch web site and you will find an even more exhaustive list of fish and seafood to avoid for ecological reasons. Some fish on their list include atlantic cod, farmed salmon, imported king crab, atlantic sole, red snapper and bluefin tuna. However, the aquarium also offers an alternative choices section for these fish, as well as a common fish list colour-coded to indicate best choices and those to avoid. Both of thee lists are available in handy wallet-sized cards to help you make ecologically-sound choice while shopping or dining out.

The Sierra Club of Canada also puts out a publication called the Citizen's Guide to Seafood It is available online, as a wallet-sized card, or in a large-format version. If you click on any entry in the online version, a pop-up window appears giving you a little bit more information on the fish or seafood and why it is okay or not okay to eat.

So which fish are safe to eat? Well both the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Sierra Club of Canada more-or-less agree that the following fish have healthy fish stocks or are being farmed sustainably: farmed catfish, clams, dogfish, Dungeness crab, Pacific halibut, pacific herring, mackerel, some farmed mussels and oysters, pacific octopus, pacific black cod(sablefish), trap-caught pacific prawns, Australian rock Lobster, US spiny lobster, sardines, pacific squid, farmed tilapia, albacore tuna, uni (sea urchin), and striped bass (farmed).

The Monterey Bay Seafood Guide was updated in 2005 and the Sierra Club of Canada Guide was updated in 2004. Audobon also puts out a wallet-sized seafood lover's guide.

For folks wanting more information, the Blue Ocean Institute has an on-line guide that lists provides environemental scorecards for dozens of varieties of fish and seafood. As well the Ovean's Alice section of the Environmental Defense Fund offers up its ouwn stats and sound seafood choiceschoice. For a quick summary of whose recommending what, as well as an indepth look at about two dozen different fish and seafood, visit the online Seafood Choices Guide at Sea Sense.

Amanda 1:33 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Friday, August 20, 2004

Take A Free Bike!

A really fun initiative has popped up in some office buildings and public spaces around Montreal: Free-use Bicycles! In an joint initiative between Agence Metropolitain de Transport (AMT), Voyagez Futé Montreal, and Velo-Quebec, Montrealers working in specific office building and companies have access to free bicycles to get around. The program is called Vélos en libre-service and it is modelled on similar programs that are very popular in some Euopean cities. The bicycles can be signed out for a quick break of fresh-air and exercise, or for use to get around town instead of taking a taxi.

Some buildings and companies that are participating in the initiative are the World Trade Centrre in Old Montreal, Cité Multi-Media, Bell, and Gaz Met. McGill University is also participating in the program, with free-use bicycles on both its downtown and Ste-Anne-de-Belleveue campuses.

Amanda 10:51 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Friday, February 06, 2004

Boreal Forest Conservation Projects

The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) recently announced several projects that they claim will help preserve Canada's Boreal forests. Normally I would be skeptical about FPAC initiatives since they are, after all, essentailly an industry-run lobby group, however these projects were developed in conjunction with the Canadian Boreal Initiative, which appears on the surface to be a legit independent advocacy organization promoting the preservation of Canada's Boreal forests.

FPAC is contributing $1 million in project funding to CBI over five years, as well as resources, for two ecosystem conservation projects that will be run by the World Wildlife Fund-Canada (WWF-Canada) and Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC). It is expected that more projects will be announced later.

The WWF-Canada project is a forest conservation toolkit to help identify forests with important conservation values, as part of the organization's "High Conservation Value Forest?"(HCVF) initiative. HCVFs are defined as "forests of outstanding and critical importance because of their high environmental, socio-economic, biodiversity or landscape values." According the WWF-Canada website, properly identifying and managing these forests is essential to maintaining biodiversity and the overall health of ecosystems and wildlife populations. The toolkit will enable WWF-Canada to more broadly implement HCVF assessments through forest companies and other groups..

The project with Ducks Unlimited will support watershed studies. DUC will conduct research to improve understanding of boreal water and wetlands functioning, as well promoting forest management planning practices that sustain wildlife habitat and biodiversity in water source areas. Once again, the contribution of FPAC will go toward the development of tools, in addition the FPAC will develop conservation models for waterfowl and waterbird habitats, and provide information on water systems for the development of other initiatives.

Amanda 9:59 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Thursday, December 04, 2003

Hybrid Vehicles and Other Planet Savers

The Toyota Prius mid-size sedan won the 2004 Car of the Year award, beating out 26 other new or significantly redesigned cars. The Prius was first introduced into the automobile market in 1997, and was the world’s first commercially mass-produced hybrid car. Hybrid cars combine a gas or diesel engine with an electric motor, which recharges itself during the drive. The car works by switching between the two systems, offering improved fuel efficiency, lower emissions and comparable performance to traditional cars. According to a report by the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Prius gets about 25 kilometres per litre of gasoline for city driving, making it the most fuel efficient mid-size car in North America, and passing on potential gasoline savings of about $500 for the average user. The Honda Insight, a two-seater hybrid, also checked in at about 25 kilometers per litre, while the diesel-powered Volkswagen Beetle took the number three spot with11 kilometers per litre. The average fuel usage of 2003 model cars is about 9 km / litre.

Generally speaking, a hybrid will use the electric motor at slow speeds like in the city or when idling, but switch to the engine when going at faster speeds or uphill. The electric motor also helps boost the engine’s performance, effectively giving a 1.5 L engine the power and performance of a 2-L engine.

In Canada, the only other company to offer a hybrid car is Honda, which started to offer a hybrid version of its popular Honda Civic in May this year. The traditional Civic is Canada’s top-selling car, and the Hybrid version is essentially a Honda Civic EX minus the moonroof. The Civic Hybrid offers fule economy of 4.9 litres of gas per 100 kilometres, compared with 7.9 litres per 100 km for the traditional Civic LX, with more moderate saving on highway driving, 4.6 litres per 100 km for the Hybrid and 4.9 litres for the LX.

American automakers will be jumping into the hybrid playing field next summer with hybrid versions of popular Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) and pick-up trucks. Automobile industry watchers expect hybrids to impact b popular in these areas, and ultimately impact more greatly here than with conventional small and mid-size cars. With an projected fuel consumption of 17 km / litre, compared to about 8 km / litre for current models, the hybrid version of the Ford Escape SUV will be hitting the market in the Summer of 2004, around the same time as GMC Sierra and Chevy Silverado hybrid pickup trucks. GM has also announced that a hybrid version of the Saturn VUE SUV should be available in 2005, with hybrid version of the mid-size cars Chevrolet Equinox in 2006 and Chevrolet Malibu in 2007. If the hybrid cars are successful, the system could be readily available on other mid-size models.

Gasoline / electric hybrid systems aren’t the only environmentally-friendly innovations out there or being tested. Another fuel-saving technology, GM’s “Displacement on Demand”, will also soon be available on many of the company’s SUVs and pick-ups. The system automatically works by using only half of the engine's cylinders during certain driving conditions, and reactivating the other cylinders when the driver needs the engine's full capabilities for brisk acceleration or load carrying. Like gasoline / electric hybrids, this system produces the most benefits in stop-and-go driving, where fuel efficiency is at its lowest.

In addition, GM is working on Gasoline / Fuel Cell Hybrid vehicles. A technology originally developed for the US Space program, gasoline / fuel cell hybrids work by cleanly breaking down the gasoline into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The hydrogen then combines with oxygen to create electricity and power an electric motor. This technology has the most potential for larger vehicles such as SUVs and trucks, and is currently being evaluated in some Chevy S-10 pickup trucks.

An finallu, unveiling its version of the future, Ford revealed its experimental model U earlier this year. The car sports a hydrogen internal combustion engine with hybrid electric power, resulting in virtually no emissions other than water. In addition, the manufacturing process will use only green materials. The canvas roof of the model U is made from corn and is compostable, the foam in the seats is made of a soy bean-based product and the engine is lubricated by sunflower oil.

Hmmm, compostable and recyclable cars… what a future indeed.

Amanda 1:16 PM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Thursday, November 20, 2003

Canada: Land of Shit

Shit, or manure, from industrial agricuture is one of the major pollution problems facing Canada and 'industrialised' nations. Figures from the Canadian government show that shit produced by cattle and pig farms is about the same as the sewage produced by 100 million people. That's almost three times the human population of the country folks! And unlike human sewage, which is required to be treated before it enters our ecosystems, animal waste has no such requirements. Current practice in animal agricultre in North America is to keep the waste in underground pits or large open cesspools until it is spread onto the land as fertilizer or dumped into local waterways. This discharges potentially toxic chemicals and bacteria (like E. coli, listeria, salmonella, cryptosporidium), as well as antibiotics commonly used in livestock farming, into our precious landscape.

A recent article in the Ottawa Citizen (November 17) briefly reported on this problem. Apparently "a series of public beaches along a 40-kilometre section of Lake Huron have been permanently posted as unsafe for swimming because of 10 years of chronically high E. coli bacteria levels. Huron is the world's third-largest lake and a major tourist destination." You would think that Canadians and bureaucrats would have learnt their lesson about protecting our Great Lakes after the Lake Erie disaster of only a few decades ago. If you recall, following excessive municipal waste dumping along its shores, Lake Erie was considered to be dead. Large amounts of phosphorous (probably caused by laundry detergent) caused rapid growth of aquatic plants and consequently depleted the water of dissolved oxygen necessary to marine animal life, killing off fish and other aquatic animal en-masse. The lake is only now starting to recover following public awareness campaigns about the environmental hazards of phosphorous waste, and improved waste management technology.

To its credit, the government is not totally unaware of the environmental consequences. They have spent or allocated over 2 billion dollars over the past 5 years to investigate the extent of the problem and how to control the pollution. Sadly, this seems disasterously similar to the approach that politicians took to the "factory fishing" of Atlantic Cod of the shore of Newfoundland, and we all know where that approach got us, don't we? Some scientists and local fisherman were already sounding the eco-alarm well over 10 years before modeling techiques and stock surveys revealed that the stocks were on the edge of collapse in 1988. Not that that helped: Despite the recommendations of fisheries scientists to more than half fish catches in order to prevent the stock's collapse, politicians yielded to the economists' and political interests and compromised on what could not be compromised: Quotas were cut by only 10 percent. A decision from which we have never recovered, and has ultimately led to even more environmental and economic devastation for the region.

Okay... but I'm rambling...

Not everyone is taking a research, watch and wait attitude before stepping in and reducing the poop. This year Quebec put the brakes on industiral pig farming in the province. No new industiral pig farming operations will be permitted in the province. But Quebec is the exception, other provinces like New Brunswick are actively solicitating big farming operations to set up shop in their province. It's an appealing prospect for foreign farmers who are being driven out of their countries by tough regulations and environmental restrictions on waste management and industrial farming. How nice...

Organisations like the Canadian Medical Association are also sitting up and taking notice of the situation. Last summer, they passed a resolution asking governments to put a moratorium on large livestock operations, notable hog farms, until the health risks are adequately studied. Many environmental researchers and activists feel the same way.

Now we just have to get the government to listen and put the environment, and the long-term interests of Canada ahead of short-sighted economic greed.

Amanda 11:44 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

Friday, August 15, 2003

Lunar Land Wars

Want to own property on the moon?

A loophole in the 1967 Outer Space treaty seems to allow companies to claim property on the moon and sell it off. Under the treaty nations are prohibited from claiming the moon or any other celestial body, but apparently no one thought of the conmmercial sector, or individuals.

Lunar Embassy was the first to get in on the gig. Land is only $19.95 USD plus $1.51 'lunar tax' and $10 is shipping and handling. They also offer land on Mars, Venus and Io.

Planetary Investments is also now in on the action. They claim that over a million people now own over 300 million acres of lunar property. Owners include former US presidents and current NASA employees.

It's not sure how well land claims will stand up if we ever do try to colonise the moon and other planets in our solar system, especially with rival companies apparently selling the same property. Could this lead to future lunar land wars? Only time will tell.

Amanda 10:13 AM
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Thursday, May 22, 2003

Perception: Eliminative or Productive?

Yikes! More deep thoughts for so early in the morning.

The French philosopher and Nobel laureate Henri Bergson argued that intuition is deeper than the intellect, and that mind exists on two levels: The first can be termed the deeper self and is home to creative become and free will; the second is merely the external projection of the first. Access to the deeper self can only be made through deep introspection, and that the distinction between the two is one of degree and not of kind.

The Cambridge philosopher C.D. Broad summed up the philosophies Henri Bergson as follows: “…the function of brain and nervous system and sense organs is in the main eliminative and not productive. Each person is capable of remembering all that has happened to him and of perceiving everything that is happening everywhere in the universe. The function of the brain and the nervous system is to protect us from being overwhelmed and confused by this mass of large of largely useless and irrelevant knowledge, by shutting out most of what we should otherwise perceive or remember at any moment, and leaving only that very small and special selection which is likely to be practically useful.”

According to such a philosophy, we are each have infinite access to knowledge and experience, but only a small portion is accessible to us at a given moment. How much we access the "All," "Mind at Large," "Collective Unconscious," or "Akashic Record"—all different names from different philosophies or cultures for essentially the same concept—is limited by only our own selves and how we train we our mind to 'filter' this knowledge.

Amanda 9:23 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com

I am Centre. I am God.

In the 12th century monograph called The Book of Twenty-Four Philosophers, we are told that "God is an intelligible sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere." From where I stand that means that I can be at the centre, and therefore I am god. WoooHooo! God is within us as well as everywhere around us. Sound familiar?

Amanda 9:08 AM
E-mail your comments to: ramblingraven@cosmic-muse.com