Imagine, if you will, your favourite summer street festival or an indie parade. Add a joyous rallying cry, one amazing cause and 24 beautiful hectares of farmland in a wild corner of Vancouver. This mix of music festival and protest march made Tuesday's Great Farm Trek to UBC Farm the highlight of my year so far, on the most gorgeous spring afternoon we could possibly hope for.

When I got off the bus at UBC, finding the Student Union Building wasn't too difficult: I followed the drumming noises (percussion ensemble Sambata) and the hum of a thousand voices gathered in the square. I was pleasantly stunned to see how many people turned out.
The opening speaker began soon after I arrived. Ben recorded a video of the inspirational speech by Shane Pointe (Musqueam Nation). I recorded some of it but his view was better. The crowd exploded in cheers when he encouraged us. I fell into awe and silence during his song.

This weekend

The Projecting Change environmental film fest continues through Sunday at Fifth Avenue Cinema with a screening of Blue Gold tonight and a second screening of End of the Line tomorrow, among others.

Tuesday: Save the UBC Farm: the Great Farm Trek

Wednesday

Stop Gateway has organized a protest at Kevin Falcon's constituency office. Wednesday 3pm - 5pm at the sidewalk adjacent to his office at 17700 No. 10 Highway (56 Ave) in Cloverdale. And if I still lived there...

Kevin Falcon is BC's Environmental Enemy #1. His massive highway, port and airport expansions collectively pave more than 7,000 acres of BC's finite farmland.

He destroyed the environmentally sensitive wetlands and raptor forests of Eagleridge Bluffs, and his South Fraser Perimeter Road is poised to seriously harm Burns Bog.

While he is pouring public funds (that BC taxpayers cannot afford) into paving away our aspirations for a livable region, he is chronically underfunding public transportation.

This is a rally for farmland, wildlife habitat, fisheries, clean air and a healthy, livable region.

Saturday, April 11

Hard rock and metal fans: my friend Dan plays the 5/4 time in ODDCHiLD, which plays the Red Room with Macula and Drums of Autumn. Doors at 8pm, show at 8:15, $10 cover.

Here's what's going on!

Save the CBC!

Farmer's market: Saturday (tomorrow)

Good-bye winter blues (and flus!) — spring has sprung at the Vancouver Farmers Market and what better way to celebrate than with the arrival of spring crops. Brian Patterson of Shalefield Gardens will have several varieties of sprouts including Broccoli, Mustard and Red Radish, as well he will have Micro Greens, Jerusalem Artichokes, Strawberry plants, and Nettle, oh my!

Still fighting off that winter cold? Don't forget to pick up some garlic, which Brian says his customers are most excited about. His favourite recipe? Garlic broth soup, with celery, carrot, and nettle. Don't forget to also visit Langley Organic Growers, for their selection of spring greens, including Baby Kale, Arugula, and Mustard Greens. Join us at the Market for this delicious start to spring, but get there early if you want the greens! — Facebook event page

Stopping the Gateways to the Tar Sands: tomorrow

The Tar Sands megaproject in Alberta has been described as the most environmentally destructive project ever built. But many people don't know about the pivotal role proposed BC projects could have in facilitating tar sands expansion and fueling demand for tar sands oil.

Join us for a short video, presentation and discussion on the ways tar sands plans depend on proposed projects in BC. The presentations will focus on the Tar Sands, the Proposed Enbridge Gateway Pipeline, and the Gateway freeway and port expansion schemes.

Presenters:
Harjap Grewal — Council of Canadians: The Gateway and other proposed tar sands pipelines.
Eric Doherty — Livable Region Coalition: The Gateway freeway and port expansion proposals.
Jessie Schwarz — Greenpeace: The environmental and social impacts of the tar sands.

Earth Hour! Tomorrow night

Here are a couple upcoming FREE events for folks interested in sustainability and social media.

Audacious Visions for Vancouver
Friday, March 20 (tomorrow!)
Pacifica Photography Studio, 821 Powell St, Vancouver

"A World Cafe style dialogue to discuss the future of Vancouver. How do we make Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020? Come and contribute your thoughts in an afternoon of creativity and audacious thinking. A collaboration of the SFU Undergraduate Semester in Dialogue and the City of Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team." Details: audaciousvancouver.com
Register online for the first portion beginning at 1pm, or come down at 6pm for some casual conversation.

Vancouver Net Tuesdays – Remixing the Web for Social Change!
Net Tuesday is a regular gathering of bloggers, social media folks, designers, non-profits and other folks interested in the role of the web for social and environmental change. It's been going on in Vancouver for about a year.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
5:30pm – 7:30pm
WorkSpace, #400-21 Water St, Vancouver

Presenters (confirmed thus far):
Raul Pacheco – Social Media in Sustainability and Public Policy
Grace Carter – ChipsNotDeadYet.com (BC Children's Hospital Social Media Case Study)
Doug van Spronsen – MakeGood.com
Steve Williams – Data for Good
Joe Solomon – The future of the Green Web — Joe is the Net Tuesday organizer

Host/MC is Darren Barefoot. Yay!

More details on Facebook or MeetUp.com

Blogs and websites are constantly evolving. As a result one can probably expect users to be evolving too — in fact, with the presence of RSS readers, we hardly need spend time on people's blogs in our web browsers save to comment. User behaviour changes with technology. This is clear. So when I have a model for my blog that is almost 3 years old, I have to wonder... what is still relevant? What features do users actually use and how do they find information?

I googled this already but Google help me I didn't find an answer. That, therefore, is where you come in. The question I pose you is: how do you use blogs? When you arrive at a post, what helps you move on to another post (assuming you enjoyed the content or found it helpful)? How do you navigate the information — through tag clouds, categories, recent comments? Are lists overwhelming or redundant?

Your feedback will help me determine what features are of most use to you when you read my blog. Thanks in advance for helping me out.

A side note: in its next incarnation, I expect comments to appear immediately on thirteen cent pinball. Hooray! The facelift is a modernization, rather than a redesign, so the overall visual "flavour" of the blog, if you will, shall remain the same.

Other friends have had letters in the Province published recently, and finally it's my turn to get some ink—not in the Province, but in what apparently is even more important: the Surrey Leader. My letter is copied below in the format in which it was published.

In related articles, there's a link to a Surrey Leader article about Paul, which I had not noticed before!

The David Suzuki Foundation is making green sexy this Valentine's Day with a series of Valetine e-cards. The one above is my personal favourite, but there are two others to choose from. They're a little cheeky and should make your significant other, if not your mother, laugh. Save some paper this year and spread a little cheer and love to people who may not normally get a Valentine card from you. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

If you haven't got a camera, paint; if you cannot paint, write.

The weekend before last, I went to the park two days in a row. On the Saturday it was achingly cold, but I didn't notice til I'd been outside at length. Regretting not bringing a camera, I put the view to memory and wished I could paint.

The fog was still on its extended visit; however, it had broken away from the shore and hovered, almost still, above the water, who knows how close to the other shore. As the sun crawled away behind trees and the horizon, it glowed against a ship's bow; reflected off Belcarra's houses and the power station up the Arm; coloured the fog. The water deemed itself a deep blue with hints of grey and purple, and as it met the fog a strong but organic line formed between the two, harmoniously, one disappearing into the other. And as the colour noticeably became fog, it moved from blue into a thick and solid but desaturated purple, then upward increasingly more pastel until it touched the sky in wisps and rolls. Behind it the sky was a pale yellow, white, eventually blue somewhere above. The fog stood out from it, blended into it, touched it and made the dark, jagged slopes in the distance disappear.

Stephen Rees's blog has been bursting with exciting news lately, nearly every single post. When I say exciting, I don't necessarily mean good, but the headlines do indicate multiple turning points in a potentially positive direction in what has so far been a steadfast plot on the part of our provincial and even federal government to proceed with Gateway.* At a time when gas prices have begun to increase once more, international shipping is declining, and peak oil is on the horizon, our provincial and federal governments are teaming up to build more roads and expand the port on the premise that it will create jobs. While I agree that creating jobs in British Columbia is of utmost importance, the economic benefits of redirecting funding toward building transit would more than double the number of jobs — and they would be local. That keeps BC money in BC. In fact, a study by the Canadian Urban Transit Association found that three times as many jobs are created in public transit as highways. Public transit encourages smart growth, reduces congestion and pollution (thereby making a grand step toward the Province's 33% reduction in GHG goal), and has minimal environmental impacts.

Want to help steer the government away from highway jobs and construction to green jobs and transit, all across Canada? Here are some petitions and events happening right now:

PETITIONS
- Halt the Gateway Project
- Rail for the Valley: bring back passenger rail now

WRITE TO OUR POLITICIANS/MEDIA
- A Green Economy Makes Cents:

"On January 27, our federal government will introduce a new budget and invest billions of your tax dollars on stimulating the Canadian economy. Let's make sure that as much of the stimulus package as possible is green." Send a message to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty asking the government to invest in green jobs and green infrastructure. (David Suzuki Foundation)

Read my letter. (Americans can use the Wilderness Society's page to send a letter to Congress on the same issue.)

You may have noticed I really like adjectives. They're useful, and today they're piling up in abundance: magnificent, incredible, beautiful, bright, amazing, powerful, crunchy, quiet.

This is the most magnificent sight I've ever seen. In my twenty years of living here I've never witnessed such detail of the view across the water. Somehow the snow and sunlight bring out every branch, roofline and curve of the shore.

This past week it has been snowing in Vancouver, which brings some joy and others frustration. I'm in the first camp. My dear colleague has escaped the harsh and unusual cold by escaping to Mexico; meanwhile I have no desire but to stay here and enjoy it! (I did not inherit my grandmother's snowbird tendencies.) The wind chill is expected to be, well, bone-chilling and when the wind and cold sweep through and suck away all the warmth it is difficult to get it back. So, anyone want to go Christmas shopping with a (*dreadful gulp*) vehicle? I need some warm clothing! Vancouverites aren't prepared for this!

Dec. 9, 2008

DELTA – The Agricultural Land Commission's decision to reluctantly hand over prime Delta farmland to Campbell government bulldozers reveals the extent to which the integrity of the farmland protection process has been destroyed, say New Democrat MLAs Charlie Wyse and Guy Gentner.

The commission has reluctantly agreed to remove 90 hectares from the Agricultural Land Reserve so the Campbell government can proceed with its preferred route for the South Fraser Perimeter Road, despite widespread public opposition. The commission said it "deeply regrets that suitable highway alignment alternatives to the use of prime agricultural land were found not to be acceptable from transportation and environment perspectives."

The news follows last week's discovery that construction along two sections of the proposed route started before any decision had been finalized.

abundance
(22 november)

what an amazing day.
the sun is warm happiness radiating
at the market voices buzz and twitter
I talk at length with four people
and indulge my vices
apples crisper than ever imagined greet me immediately and yes, kind sir, I will see you again soon.
the hall is stuffed with scents and warm colours that suggest the turning of fall into Christmas. I cannot wait for the next two.
at the market I move in slow motion, with thoughtful decisions and careful handling of the earth's most sacred gifts for which I have a delectable passion.
suddenly the presence of honey, maple and bread intermingle with curiosity and my senses urge me without hesitation to ask for a plump loaf of sourdough which I shall with butter enjoy later.
hues of pumpkins, squash and apples overflow amongst varieties of mushrooms, potatoes and dried fruits, all the colours and textures singing the plenty that is the harvest here, even so late in the fall. this is abundance.
I leave with luscious beet greens slung across my back and deeply enjoy the sight from the corner of my eye.
it makes me feel somewhat of a peasant or... something special... a collector of sorts.
a perfect day for a walk.
to pass time I follow people to a cluster of studios in the most unlikely place for the Eastside Culture Crawl which I had not planned to attend. when I am wealthy I will buy other people's art and gourmet cheese. today my wealth is my experience.
happily timed my bus arrives and I cradle my earthly belongings.
a young man strums an acoustic guitar at the back of the bus, a surprising reminder of when I once did the same.
sunlight pours in across the city and the trees, between the branches, the dead leaves
it's a perfect day

november moon
(19 november)

it was dark inside, and outside the fog had rolled in, shrouding everything, and through which the neighbour's light glowed softly. and yet I could still see shimmering clearly a star — nay, a planet — in the black sky. the moon lit up the top of the fog's arm that stretched over the inlet, yet I could not see the moon. little time had passed since I saw its reflection, perfect and white on the still water. its face looking downward and half hidden, the moon played hide-and-seek behind the thickest part of the cypress, thick enough to block it from entering the house. but I knew it was there; on the sparkling dotted glass its shape blurred and crackled. tonight it was shy but it will soon light up the darkness like a second sun, come fullness.