Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Victory for the Spirit Bear! Dear NRDC BioGems Defender, I am writing to share wonderful news of a spectacular victory for the Great Bear Rainforest of British Columbia -- one of NRDC's very first BioGems! For nearly a decade, we've waged an all-out campaign to win government protection of this vast coastal temperate rainforest that is home to the Spirit Bear, a rare white-colored black bear, and other populations of endangered wildlife. Yesterday, the government of British Columbia officially announced that it will grant formal protection to more than five million acres of this irreplaceable natural treasure. Five years ago, under pressure from hundreds of thousands of BioGems Defenders and other activists, British Columbia officials and logging companies signed a groundbreaking accord with Canadian First Nations and environmental groups in which they committed to negotiating formal protections for the rainforest. When British Columbia's premier did not immediately ratify the conservation agreement at the close of negotiations in 2005, BioGems Defenders sent more than 20,000 messages urging him to act. BioGems Defenders like you have played a lead role in making sure that the world's several hundred surviving Spirit Bears can thrive in their irreplaceable rainforest habitat. Yesterday, all our hard work paidoff in a victory for nature that is well worth celebrating. Thank you so much for your tireless activism on behalf of the Great Bear Rainforest and all our other endangered BioGems. Sincerely, Frances Beinecke President Natural Resources Defense Council http://www.savebiogems.org/ 11:53:29 PM

Extending New Year's Vision PHOTOS: Colorado Vacation. Happy New Year! The northwest is getting little snow and more rain so we paid a visit to family in Denver, Colorado. The Summit County pass is probably one of the best deals in the ski resort industry. The prices are half what they are in the Northwest and their good for multiple resorts. Even if the pass isn't a free ride, you'll still get hooked up with a discount. We hit them all - Arapahoe Basin (A-Basin), Keystone, Breckenridge and of course Vail. [Ridertech Ski and Snowboard Videos] 10:38:44 PM

2008. A Lot More. A Lot Earlier. USA Today - 2008 article by Jill Lawrence and Susan Page. 9:55:54 PM

empas.com - 'Hypercamp' Hypercamp results on empas.com 9:26:58 PM

Orquesta Maravella Orquesta Maravella. "Here's one of the best Spanish orchestras. From Catalan town named Caldes de Malavella, this orchestra still exists on our days. More than 50 years working around European scene, you can check it looking at the back cover. They recorded a lot of stuff in sixties and seventies covering international pop hits directed by Luis Ferrer, the most interesting work of their discography. Inside the zip file you can find a vinyl from 68 which includes a great cover of Soul Finger, a French classic (Love is Blue), and the winner Spanish song of '68 European Song Contest (Eurovision) titled La la la. " Orquesta Maravella - ¡¡Baile ritmos de hoy con la Orquesta Maravella!! (1968) available at Phil Musical's Lounge Corner . By (mrdantefontana). [PCL LinkDump] 9:16:52 PM

Demo '06 - Phoenix Yahoo Photos adds new Web 2.0 features. Blog: PHOENIX--With its purchase last year of the photo-sharing service Flickr, Yahoo signified that among other things, it takes seriously... [CNET News.com] 8:44:19 PM

Protecting the North American Rain Forest Protecting the North American Rain Forest. BBC Environment -- Canada's province of British Columbia has announced plans to protect a huge swathe of Pacific Coast rainforest, known as the Amazon of the North. The forest is home to a rare white bear species and is the ancestral land of several indigenous Canadian tribes. The deal will save a vast area of forest for wildlife, while allowing sustainable logging in other parts. The settlement between tribes, loggers and environmentalists is being hailed as an example for other countries. The land covered by the Great Bear Rainforest is huge. At 64,000 sq-km (25,000 sq-mile), it is about twice the size of Belgium. It stretches 400km (250 miles) up the Pacific Coast from Vancouver Island all the way north to Alaska. It has seen frequent disputes in recent years between the lumber industry and environmental groups. Under the new agreement, about a third of the land is being preserved completely to protect wildlife in the region, including the Kermode bear - a sub-species of black bear with white fur, found only in this region - wolves, grizzly bears and wild salmon. The rest of the region will see some logging and mining but even environmental groups say they are satisfied the companies will use sustainable practices that will be a model for the rest of the world. Local aboriginal groups have given their backing to the agreement. They have been fighting for a much greater say in land use around their traditional territories for decades. Provincial Premier Gordon Campbell, announcing the agreement alongside native Indian drummers, said: "The result is a strong marriage that balances the needs of the environment with the need for sustainable jobs and a strong economic future for coastal communities." (02/08/06) [Synergic Earth News] 10:31:33 AM

NYC Fall Fashion Week: Bill Blass NYC Fall Fashion Week: Bill Blass. Turtlenecks and designer eyeglasses - while these trademarks of intellectual sophistication were not present on the runway, they dominated the style of the literati in attendance for the Bill Blass show. It was the crowd you would expect for Blass: sharply dressed middle-aged men and women who probably spent their twenties frequenting coffee houses. The show's concept focused on the no-nonsense, on-the-go career woman - the models walked briskly down the runway and did not pose at the end of the runway to be photographed but made a quick u-turn as though they couldn't be bothered to pause (they did not even look at the cameras as they turned). Daria and Gemma opened the show with walks that floated along the runway - conveying that while they were fast-paced, they were not frazzled nor hurried. The designs captured this concept of a woman who is serious and focused, but in a cool, calm-and-collected way. The collection consisted of outfits that were, for the most part, multiple shades of one color, but wide belts that cinched the waists of suits, coats and dresses saved these one-tone designs from being visually boring. Blass also presented several coats that were styled to look more like dresses than outerwear (something we saw earlier this week at Twinkle) by the use of heavy brocade and embroidery as well as fur hoods. While the designs were generally conservative, they retained a sharp, modern style that caters to the Bill Blass audience. - Ali [] 10:06:49 AM

Through RSS, Why Dialogue? Why Dialogue. David Bohm wrote: "Dialogue" comes from the Greek dialogos: Logos means "the word", or in our case we would think of "the meaning of the word", and dia means "through" (not two-a dialogue can be among any number of people; even one person can have a sense of dialogue within him- or herself if the spirit of the dialogue is present). The image this derivation suggests is of a stream of meaning flowing among us and through us and between us-a flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which will emerge some new understanding, something creative. When everybody is sensitive to all the nuances going around, and not merely to what is happening in one's own mind, there forms a meaning which is shared. And in that way we can talk together coherently and think together. It is this shared meaning that is the "glue" or "cement" that holds people and societies together. Contrast this with the word "discussion", which has the same root as "percussion" and "concussion". Discussion really means to break things up. It emphasizes the idea of analysis, where there may be many points of view. A great deal of what we call "discussion" is not deeply serious, in the sense that there are all sorts of things held to be non-negotiable, untouchable, things that people don't even want to talk about. Discussion is like a ping-pong game, with people batting the ideas back and forth in order to win the game. In a dialogue there is no attempt to gain points, or to make your particular view prevail. It is more a common participation, in which people are not playing a game against each other but with each other. In a dialogue, everybody wins. ...  Dialogue may not be concerned directly with truth-it may arrive at truth, but it is concerned with meaning. If the meaning is incoherent you will never arrive at truth. You may think, "My meaning is coherent and somebody else's isn't," but then we'll never have meaning shared. And if some of us come to the "truth", while a lot of people are left out, it's not going to solve the problem. You will have the "truth" for yourself and for your own group, whatever consolation that is. But we will continue to have conflict. Therefore it is necessary to share meaning. Our society is incoherent, and hasn't done that very well for a long time, if it ever has. There is no "road" to truth. In dialogue we share all the roads and we finally see that none of them matters. We see the meaning of all the roads, and therefore we come to the "no road". Underneath, all the roads are the same because of the very fact that they are "roads" - they are rigid.  (02/08/06) [Synergic Earth News] 9:37:17 AM