Dec
31
2007
While Vancouver’s most vocal peace group (and a wide-ranging assortment of peace groups, NGOs, national governments, unfortunately alongside an unimaginable number of extremist fanatics) remains as focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of the biggest impediments to world peace (see Terry Glavin’s excellent column from a while back on the issue here), some numbers pulled effortlessly off the newswire today are illuminating.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of more than 4,500 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis since September 2000.Meanwhile, 200,000 people have been killed in Darfur, Sudan, since February 2003.In Iraq, well… Nobody really knows. 250,000? 1.2 million? In any case, the most likely reason the numbers for the latter part of 2007 seem slightly better is that the ethnic cleansing campaigns by Sunnis and Shiites seem for the most part complete.The list goes on. Sri Lanka, Colombia, Myanmar…
Meanwhile, Medicines Sans Frontieres has released its list of the 10 top underreported humanitarian disasters of 2007.There’s more to this world peace thing than the actions, hopes and dreams of people in a strip of desert (sans oil) smaller than Vancouver island.
Dec
29
2007
As loyal Currents readers may have noticed, the title of each recent post on Currents is now preceded by a category name.
While Currents is a Vancouver writer’s take on current affairs, politics and life on Canada’s west coast, that list of topics can encompass a pretty nebulous (AKA confusing) array of subjects. The new categories should help our readership quickly figure out the topic of the latest post (and whether or not they might want to read it).
CityView:Comment on Vancouver City Hall, local news and municipal shenanigans
WorldView: Perspectives on current affairs and global hotspots
Globe&Post: Canadian issues, politics and argument
EcoView: Environmental news and green views
Vlog: A video blog post, just for the hell of it
PhotoBlog: Featured image of the week
BlogRant: The technical hurdles and small victories of getting a blog to function properly
TrueNorth: Activism and punditry from Canadians fighting fascism, demagogues and unrepentant jerks
WriteImage: The business of writing, marketing and media manipulation
MyLife:This writer’s personal milestones and speed bumps
Excelsior!
UPDATE: Thanks to new media maven Michael Klassen of Thinking Cap Inc. for some very helpful support in getting this site working properly. The intricacies of RSS feeds and HTML may give others pause, but Thinking Cap’s el presidente himself was on hand to get everything working properly with step-by-step assistance. Now that Currents’ Feedburner feed does what it is supposed to do, this writer can actually get to the essential work of winning more subscribers…
Speaking of which, if you’re curious about how to subscribe to Currents, try clicking on the giant orange button in the top right corner (or the little orange button in your web browser bar). Subscribing only takes a few seconds, and it’s totally painless.