textfiles/magazines/TELETIMES/teletimes-94-01.txt

I N T E R N A T I O N A L                  T E L E T I M E S

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¥ Vol. 3 No. 1                                January 1994 ¥
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CONTENTS
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-- Features --

AUSCHWITZ: CONFRONTING THE HORROR
  "It was like visiting a crime scene and seeing the chalked 
  outlines of 4 million bodies." - by Jon Gould

WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
  "If you listen to some of the press folks here, you'd 
  think that this is the center of the universe. However, 
  they are a little modest and call it the capital of the 
  free world." - by Prasad Dharmasena

WINNIPEG: A BLOT ON THE HORIZON
  "When it finally became clear that the strikers would not 
  just bow to the government 8 of the 10 strike leaders were 
  arrested." - by Dr. Euan Taylor

VIENNA SINCE 1859
  - by Dr. Michael Schreiber


-- Departments --

DEJA VU
  "Indeed, one would think that if NAFTA were truly about 
  free trade, it could be written in a single paragraph, and 
  yet it is over 2000 pages long!" - by Johnn Tan

NEWS ROOM
  "You may know her name, Karla Homolka, from your 
  newscasts. Unless you live in Canada, that is..."
  - by Ryan Crocker

THE QUILL
  "...I resolved that the next best thing to being able to 
  sprout gills and follow the fishes would be to learn scuba 
  diving." - by Madurai G. Sriram

SPECIAL REPORT
  "When I heard about a place in Winnipeg called the 
  International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) 
  I was intrigued. It sounded worthy, interesting, 
  important, but what did such a grandly named organization 
  actually do?" - by Dr. Euan Taylor

CUISINE
  "Soup is the ultimate comfort food. Soup can be a meal in 
  itself, the start of a fancy meal, or just a snack."
  - by Billy Magic


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EDITOR'S NOTE
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-- A Teletimes New Year --

The New Year is generally a time for looking ahead, for 
commitments to the future, it's a time to prepare for fresh 
new beginnings. The New Year is a time for recovering from 
your New Year's Eve hangover and resolving to quit smoking, 
lose ten pounds and become a better person. Well, at least 
for a week or so.

The New Year is also a time for reflection, for remembering 
the past, accepting mistakes and praising achievements. That 
is why I'd like to welcome you with pride to our January 
issue simply entitled History.

This is a rather short issue as many of our writers 
dissapeared for the holidays. However, rest assured that 
when I find those romantics who would rather spend some 
quality time with their families instead of working (unpaid) 
for me, they will feel my wrath. Bah, humbug!

Ian Wojtowicz
Editor-in-ChiefÊ


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MAILBOX
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-- Yeah! Our First Angered Reader! --

I was absolutely horrified by Jon Gould's article, if such 
rubbish can be called an article, entitled "American in 
Denial". His statement "A boy growing up in the US today is 
more likely to die from a violent confrontation than from 
almost any known disease." is a lie, period. 
  - Gerry Roston, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

MR. ROSTON GOES ON TO TALK ABOUT SPECIFIC DETAILS IN JON'S 
ARTICLE, BUT I HAVEN'T INCLUDED THEM HERE SINCE HE HAS 
AGREED TO WRITE A FULL BLOWN REBUTTAL TO "AMERICAN IN 
DENIAL". WATCH FOR IT IN NEXT MONTH'S ISSUE!


-- Milder Reader Feedback --

Congratulations on your move to WWW! Best thing you could've 
done. We have to move beyond the "downloading" paradigm! 
Anyway, I enjoyed it in DOCmaker, but it's so much better in 
Mosaic...
  - John Maxwell, North Vancouver, Canada

I read Teletimes over Mosaic and the photos are fantastic.
  - John Pescatore, Rockville, Maryland, USA

Just saw Teletimes on WWW: Fantastic!!

The photographs in "The Keepers of Light" are beautifully 
done. But Mosaic and other browsers do restrict the range of 
colors used for inlined images, and especially when there 
are several they may not render as well as the originals.

Why not link the inlined image to the image file itself? It 
would still have the look-and-feel of the magazine and 
clicking on the image would send a new copy off to an 
individual external viewer where the colormap isn't 
compromised.

Your reader response card and the raw HTML files are all 
being received as one long line without breaks.
  - Paul Mende, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR REPLIES REGARDING THE WWW VERSION OF 
TELETIMES. I AM QUITE PLEASED WITH IT DESPITE THE FEW MINOR 
PROBLEMS. I AM CURRENTLY IRONING OUT THE LAYOUT AND 
STRUCTURE AS WELL AS ATTEMPTING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH 
RESPONSE CARD. I HOPE TO TURN THE RESPONSE CARD INTO A FILL-
OUT FORM AS SOON AS THIS FEATURE IS SUPPORTED BY THE MAC 
VERSION OF MOSIAC.Ê


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FEATURES
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-- Auschwitz: Confronting the Horror --

Those who don't study history are bound to repeat it.

I've heard that expression hundreds of times, but this time 
I couldn't stop thinking of it. There we were, diplomats and 
human rights activists discussing ethnic tolerance, when 
just three hours south stood a monument to the worst 
impulses in human nature. Auschwitz. I had heard about it, 
even studied it, but as a grandchild of the Word War II 
generation it just didn't resonate in me the way it did with 
my parents or grandparents. That would soon change.

I hopped a train to Krakow and was met by a driver who took 
me to Auschwitz. I quickly learned that Auschwitz is, in 
many ways, a misnomer. "Auschwitz" is the German 
pronunciation of a Polish town where the Nazis established 
three concentration camps. I had the opportunity to visit 
two: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, better known as Birkenau. 
The third, of somewhat lesser significance, was attached to 
a chemical plant, the inmates providing the plant's 
workforce.

Auschwitz I is the one I had seen in pictures. It was built 
before the war as an army barracks, and I was surprised at 
its relatively small size. The camp began as a detention 
camp for Polish political prisoners and was only later 
expanded to include Jews, Gypsies and others.

To be sure, Auschwitz I was a horror, but in a strange way 
it was a comforting horror. For the most part, the 
punishments inflicted there had already chronicled in human 
history. Prisoners were worked hard, food and clothing were 
sparse, and solitary confinement was a way of life. Indeed, 
I was hardly surprised to come across the gallows. If not 
for the laboratory of Dr. Mengele and one relatively small 
gas chamber, Auschwitz I could almost have been written off 
by history as just another terrible prison.

I realize that it is strange, if not absolutely bizarre, to 
speak of such a horror as being, in some sense, a relief. 
But by that I mean that Auschwitz I was, in many ways, a 
confirmation of the known ability of human evil. One could 
walk among the buildings and think "yes, these things have 
been done before." We already knew that humans throughout 
history were capable of such terror. Even the horrible irony 
of the sign above the camp's gate -- "work makes you free" 
-- was a testament to the cruel regimes that have dotted our 
period on the earth.

Still, the displays at Auschwitz I brought the terror home 
in very personal ways -- the clothing made of human hair, 
some of it with traces of the gas used to kill its victims; 
the suitcases with the victims' names stenciled on the side, 
signs of their false belief that they would be released in 
time; the clothing of children stripped off before they were 
killed; the photographs of those liberated, many subjected 
to crippling experiments.

When I say that Auschwitz I was comforting, I probably 
really mean that it was confirming -- that as horrific as it 
was, it confirmed what we already knew about the human 
potential for evil. Birkenau, however, was entirely 
different.

It is difficult to explain the feel of Birkenau. On its 
face, it could pass for a UN refugee camp. Less than half of 
the original buildings still stand, and these are the former 
barracks of its victims. In fact, at first glance, Birkenau 
might even appear benign.

But as I looked beneath its layers, an utter and depraved 
filth poured forth. This camp, this horror, was literally a 
factory of death. The mechanization of Birkenau shocks the 
conscience in a way that I have never encountered before. 
Like many Americans, especially American Jews, I had heard 
tales of the concentration camps, but they had never settled 
in like viewing the remains.

It would be too easy to say that the Nazis were animals, and 
in fact, animal would be too kind and non-judgmental a 
label. I cannot even think of a word that properly describes 
the utter depravity of these Nazis. They constructed an 
efficient, almost business-like mechanical system for 
exterminating a whole line of people. They had a goal, they 
had a plan, and they were carrying it out -- and very well 
until the Soviets liberated the camps. It is almost as if 
the Nazis thought of themselves as ranchers preparing cattle 
for market. But their goal was extermination -- complete 
annihilation of a people.

The railroad tracks still run through Birkenau. Trains would 
pour in, and the victims would be let out before a line of 
SS. Able-bodied men and women were picked out and placed to 
side. They did not realize it at the time, but they were the 
lucky. They were being culled out to work. Their jobs were 
excruciating, usually with little nourishment, but at least 
they had a chance to survive.

The vast remainder, including almost all of the children, 
were destined for immediate death. The SS instructed them to 
leave their belongings on the platform and then marched them 
to the end of the platform. There the victims were told that 
they had to shower before entering the camp. These, of 
course, were the gas chambers, where all were killed 
immediately.

Once the gas dissipated, dentists and others were sent in to 
extract gold from the bodies and teeth of the dead. Then, 
the mass of the dead were moved to an adjoining room where 
they were fed into the crematoria.

The Nazis had four crematoria at Birkenau, none than 200 
yards from the train platform. It was a death science: off 
the train, out of one's clothes, into the gas chambers, off 
with the gold and into the oven.

It was here that the horror overcame me. Although the Nazis 
had tried to destroy evidence of the gas chambers and 
crematoria, two still remain, although crumbled. The other 
two have been replaced with a monument to the dead, nearly 4 
million at Birkenau alone. As I stood there in the cold 
November wind, I couldn't keep my mind off the picture of 
those innocent victims being herded to their deaths. It was 
like visiting a crime scene and seeing the chalked outlines 
of 4 million bodies.

I knelt down in front of the monument and started to cry -- 
for the dead, for the horror of it all, and for the human 
race in general. I cannot understand how such evil 
impregnates one to do what the Nazis did there. I still get 
shivers as I write this. Nothing I have ever experienced was 
like Birkenau. I doubt I could ever have been prepared for 
it.

I know that I will never understand how the human spirit can 
become so utterly depraved. But I did come away from this 
experience knowing that I, and indeed the rest of us, must 
learn from Birkenau. Especially now, with the rise of ethnic 
violence in Yugoslavia, Russia and even Germany. Everyone 
should have to come to see Birkenau. Not necessarily for 
political reasons, not to chastise the Serbs or to warn the 
Germans, but rather to confront the possibility of evil in 
all of us. It is not so much that we must ensure that a 
holocaust never happens again, but rather that we do not 
allow ourselves to become such wretched beasts as the Nazis 
and their death machine.

For those of us who believe in human rights, the first step 
begins with ourselves.

  - Jon Gould, Chicago, USA

[If you enjoyed this article and would like to enrich 
yourself even more, I highly reccomend that you go and see 
the movie Schindler's List. If you have already seen it, go 
and see it again. I will be writing a review of it for next 
month's issue on TV and the Movies. - Ian]


-- Washington, District of Columbia --

Silver Spring, Maryland is an insignificant suburb of the 
Washington, DC metropolitan area. It is so insignificant 
that there isn't even an old, Civil War time fort in my back 
yard. Washington, DC, on the other hand is where history is 
being made, "fresh from organically grown produce," every 
single day of the year.

If you listen to some of the press folks here, you'd think 
that this is the center of the universe. However, they are a 
little modest and call it the capital of the free world. The 
truth of the matter is that decisions effecting the course 
of this whole planet are being made right here in 
Washington, DC by people who wouldn't have passed even the 
kindergarten level if there were 12 years in driving school. 

It is with pride, inspiration and a hint of faith that I 
take my out-of-town visitors to the city to look at the 
monuments and to do the "touristy" thing. Pride, in knowing 
how the events in the past have shaped the system of this 
country, inspiration, in knowing that we can learn from the 
great Presidents and leaders of the past and a little bit of 
faith in that at least half of us were right more than half 
the time when we "supposedly" did everything the democratic 
way.

Most people would think that the Washington monument is the 
center of the town. That wasn't the plan. According to the 
plan, the Capitol building where the House of Senate and the 
House of Representatives of the US congress meet was 
supposed to be the center. Historically, they wanted the 
city to be built on the east side of the Capitol Building 
and that's the reason why the Statue of Freedom atop the 
building is looking away from the rest of today's city. 
(Maybe it is really hoping that someone would bring the 
"freedom" to this city full of wheelers and dealers.) The 
capitol building is a working historical artifact. Paintings 
and sculpture in the chambers are testimonial to the quest 
to preserve the past for the benefit of the future 
generations. Not only that, if you visit the building on a 
working day, you may get a glimpse of the present day 
history being made by the representatives of the highly paid 
lobbyists.

The Washington Monument, the tallest completely masonry 
architecture in the US (boy, am I glad that there are no 
earthquakes in DC area to crumble this thing to ground) is 
the Cleopatra Needle created in honor of the first President 
of the US, George Washington. The bottom third of the 
monument saw this country engulfed in the greatest internal 
conflict to this day, the Civil War in the 1860s, while 
waiting to be completed after the conflict was over. While 
Washington's name is very much intertwined with this city, 
he never got to stay at the White House. But George 
Washington's private mansion and his farmland (now historic 
landmarks) are only a few minutes drive, even on a horse 
driven carriages, away from this "center of the universe." 

A monument giving tribute to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the 
"Declaration of Independence" and the US Constitution, is 
directly to the south of the Washington monument. One of the 
most eloquent writers of his time, he made quite clear to 
the British empire that this one group of people would not 
put up with undue restraints of a far away king. From his 
other writings it is quite clear that he was a deeply 
religious person with his own convictions based on 
Christianity and God. However, it is very significant and 
interesting to note that he did not bring the faith into the 
Constitution and in fact, kept the church and the state 
quite separate. "We hold these truths to be self evident 
that all men are created equal." A statement that would be 
used again and again by other great leaders such as Abraham 
Lincoln and Martin Luther King in this same city, originated 
from Thomas Jefferson's mind in an era when slavery was a 
part of life. 

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with 
firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let 
us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the 
nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which 
may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among 
ourselves, and with all nations." With these words in his 
second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln urged the people 
to heal the wounds of the terrible civil war. As the 
President, he never knew of these United States as a 
peaceful nation. Yet, after his untimely death, even his 
opponents agreed that this self-made lawyer became one of 
the greatest presidents this country has ever had. Not only 
did he safely guide the country out of a great difficult 
time, he used opportunity to free the southern slaves and 
prove to the world that this nation is indeed "dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal." It is with 
deep admiration that I always visit the Lincoln Memorial 
where "as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the 
Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever." 

One hundred years after Abraham Lincoln signed the 
emancipation proclamation freeing the southern slaves, on 
the steps of the Lincoln memorial Martin Luther King echoed 
the sentiments of the forefathers of this nation. It was in 
his now famous "I have a dream" speech that he expressed his 
desire for a country where his children, and all children, 
"will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the 
content of their character." If we are to learn from the 
history, as every child who has ever gone on a road trip 
with parents, we must ask ourselves, "are we there, yet?" 

Among other things, this city has intimately known both 
World Wars, rise and fall of the communism, Cuban missile 
crisis, death of President Kennedy, defeat in Vietnam, 
victory in Iraq, and the NAFTA debate between Al Gore and 
Ross Perot on Larry King Live.

Is this a history making town or what!

  - Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA


-- Winnipeg: A Blot on the Horizon --

That is how Manitoba was originally described, a blockage in 
the way of the anticipated North West Passage. It was in 
this way that Manitoba was discovered in 1612 when Captain 
Button saw land on the horizon somewhere in the vicinity of 
present day Churchill. 

By 1738 the great explorer La Verendrye - still commemorated 
in La Verendrye Park - had set up a fort at the junction of 
the Red River and the Assiniboine, the first European 
station in the confines of the later city of Winnipeg. La 
Verendrye had just laid out the water highways , but it was 
the early 1800's before the land fell to the plough at the 
instigation of Lord Selkirk.

A unique reminder of those days of the fur trade, the 
Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, is Fort 
Garry on the banks of the Red River. In the summer it is a 
kind of living museum with folks in period dress talking as 
if it is still the 1800's. The fort took eight years to 
build with walls seven and a half feet high and three feet 
thick. Even though it ceased to be the governmental centre 
of the area, it remained the social centre of the Red River 
district for years. The province of Manitoba came into 
existence in 1870, and the remaining years of the century 
saw the Metis rebellion, and the capture and execution of 
the Metis Leader Louis Riel who had been elected President 
of the Provisional Government of the North West Territories. 
He is still remembered and commemorated by a statue outside 
the legislative building here. One of Winnipeg's best 
recognised landmarks, the legislative building itself with 
its distinctive statue of the Golden Boy on top only dates 
from 1920. However, socially important historical events 
occurred before that date.

Between 1900 and 1919 there was increasing labour unrest in 
the city. In 1906 there was a streetcar strike which ended 
in violence and reading of the riot act, backed up by a show 
of riflemen and machine guns. But it was on May 15th, 1919 
that the relatively well known Winnipeg General Strike 
happened. Demanding higher wages, employer recognition, and 
better working conditions the workers of the city brought 
the place to a halt. This culmination of labour unrest and 
discontent that had made strikes commonplace by 1918, was 
aggravated by the visit of the Minister of Justice later in 
May. The police force were all fired for refusing to sign a 
pledge saying they would not strike, and 2,000 special 
constables were signed up. When it finally became clear that 
the strikers would not just bow to the government 8 of the 
10 strike leaders were arrested.

In June a "silent parade" of protesting war veterans 
apparently became "unruly" and was broken up by policemen 
with baseball bats and rifles. Two men died and an unknown 
number were injured, the strike was over by June 26th. In 
terms of it's immediate aims the strike was a failure, but 
the subsequent commission of inquiry concluded that the 
strike arose from discontent due to "genuine and legitimate 
grievances, long hours and low pay and bad housing". In the 
long run the strike has had a tremendous impact on the 
social and political history of Canada and established the 
power of labour as a force. Today the city is rightly or 
wrongly something of a byword for inactivity and isolation. 
Winnipeg is city of about 700 000 people with Polish, 
Chinese, Ukrainian, Latin-American, French, English and 
Vietnamese communities, a large university, an 
agriculturally based province around it, and a typical 
continental climate of hot summers and freezing winters. 
Life and commerce no longer revolves around the rivers. 
Always something of a backwater in North American mythology 
its attractions and interest remain dictated largely by the 
eye of the beholder. That is true of its history too, there 
is more there than strikes the causal inquirer.

  - Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada


-- Vienna Since 1859 --

::
.1860 convers!oN
.walls leve2leD
.a str!ng of stylE
::
1859 a company.
.W. A. R!chter«S.
.Meta2l !ndustrY.
Lathes !n rows,
::
.900, now 50 peoplE.
.Full-cost!ng 11.
.MBO-turnarounD.
.cheap east-labor.
::
.1994 l!ke 1900
.gardens & workshopS
.scal!ng t!me warpS
::

  - Dr. Michael Scheiber, Vienna, Austria


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DEPARTMENTS
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-- Deja Vu: Opposing NAFTA --

[You've read Andreas Seppelt's articles praising NAFTA, now 
here is an article from the opposite point of view! - Ian]

"The entire logic of free trade rests on the mobility of 
capital ... and the lack of mobility of labor and 
communities. In a free-for-all in which the lowest bidder 
'wins,' workers in all countries end up competing with each 
other to offer the lowest-cost, least militant, most 
obsequious labor conditions possible, while countries vie 
with one another to repeal environmental standards, safety 
and health measures, and the right to organize."
-- Ron Reed, Alaska Greens

I find it amazing that the arguments for the North American 
Free Trade Agreement (recently passed in the U.S.) 
completely miss the point. Come to think of it, even 
arguments against, like those by the two-faced Ross Perot, 
divert the focus from the real issue.

The NAFTA has little or nothing to do with illegal 
immigration (a racist remark on the face of it); workers' 
rights; human rights; consumer protection; leveling of 
safety and health standards; or even environmental 
protection. It certainly has very little to do with free 
trade vs. protectionism. See Noam Chomsky in The Nation or Z 
for proof positive that the NAFTA is very highly 
protectionist. Indeed, one would think that if it were truly 
about free trade, it could be written in a single paragraph, 
and yet the NAFTA is over 2000 pages long!

All of these issues are important, but they are all rooted 
in the more fundamental question: the ascendancy of 
capitalism.

If the conditions and wages of workers in the U.S. are 
merely "side agreements" and if the condition and health of 
the environment are also merely "side agreements," then one 
wonders what exactly are the "front agreements" of the 
NAFTA?

When the level of analysis is brought to this depth, the 
NAFTA treaty comes undone and its true purpose exposed, 
namely, the free and unrestricted flow of capital and 
profits for transnational corporations -- in short, 
"corporation rights" (and you thought animal rights were 
bad!).

NAFTA is less about free trade and more about power. Who 
will control the flow of capital? Who will control the wages 
of workers? Who will control the benefits gained by workers 
in the past 100+ years in the U.S and the past 50+ years in 
Canada? Who will have control over domestic trade? Who will 
control the balance between international trade and the 
quality of the environment? Who will control the state of 
education in the coming years? After all, through privatized 
education (AKA, brainwashing) the corporations will have 
overcome the last impediment to maximal profits.

Ultimately, the question is simply "Who will decide?" Even 
with Clinton's band-aid side agreements on labor and 
ecology, public participation is effectively shut out under 
the NAFTA, with decisions made by free market econocrats 
behind closed doors. Now that NAFTA is passed, the answer to 
all of the above is simple. The Transnational Corporation. 

Says Sierra Club member Rick Lamonica: "The greatest danger 
with free trade is the empowerment of transnational 
corporations to transcend political governments and expand 
exploitation everywhere. It institutes methods for 
corporations to circumvent environmental, labor, and 
consumer protection regulations through appointed, 
unaccountable international trade bureaucrats that can 
declare laws 'hidden trade barriers.'" 

The NAFTA will create the largest trading bloc in the world 
in order for U.S. corporations to remain competitive in the 
global market with Japan and Germany (which, like the U.S., 
would have hegemonic standing under a united European 
market). Without challenging the capitalist logic 
undergirding this convenient arrangement, movements for 
social justice and especially environmental protection are 
already lost. Murray Bookchin, in particular, notes in his 
excellent book The Ecology Of Freedom that "the notion of 
the domination of Nature by man stems from the very real 
domination of human by human."

Furthermore, as corporations roam the continent in search of 
low taxes, government subsidies, cheap labor, and 
environmental permissiveness, when the NAFTA econocrats now 
speak of "comparative advantage," they are no longer talking 
about a nation's ability to specialize in a particular 
commodity, but rather a government's willingness to short-
change its own citizens to accommodate corporate demands. 
This is something which President Carlos Salinas, ruling 
under Mexico's 80-year, corrupt, one-party system, has 
consistently expressed interest in doing, not to mention 
Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien going back on his 
promise to renegotiate the NAFTA.

Finally, something that you certainly won't hear from the 
NAFTA ideologues is the fact that under this treaty, 
agreements will be negotiated in secret, with a narrow 
composition of dispute resolution panels and no publication 
of the texts presented to those panels.

In short, the NAFTA engenders a threat to national and local 
sovereignty, a preempting of the right of communities to 
political self-determination, the concentration of wealth 
and power in the hands of the few, and the imposition of 
trickle-down economics on the entire continent.

So what can one do in the face of this corporate onslaught? 
Since the NAFTA went into effect on January 1st 1994, then 
one might wonder, what's the use? Why struggle against it? 
Perhaps there is not a whole lot that we each can do 
individually, but our collective efforts can make a 
difference. We need to seek ways to restore an inner locus 
of control, to regain power over our own lives. 

Gardening, buying locally, quilting, cooking (vegan or 
otherwise), sewing, bartering, walking, biking, reading 
Usenet News, doing street theatre, crafts, art, self-
directed construction, housing and food cooperatives, play, 
mutual aid, communal child-care, farmer's markets, and above 
all, community trading systems -- all of these activities 
and structures are political in nature. They re-value those 
endeavors that are neglected in the corporate frenzy for 
unlimited economic growth. They take back decision-making 
power from the wealthy business elite and place it where it 
belongs: in the hands of individuals and communities. 

The fact that the NAFTA has passed is irrelevant. Those who 
are concerned with environmental destruction, privatization 
of education, and erosion of workers' benefits must, as 
always, continue the struggle for social and economic 
justice. In our opposition to unmitigated greed and 
corporate control of society, each one of us must be willing 
to make a change in lifestyle. We must challenge the 
ascendancy of classical economics and its emphasis on 
materialism, and instead create decentralized, non-
hierarchical, egalitarian alternatives, with production 
based on need, not profit. Power should be with the consent 
of the governed.

As Joan Roelofs stated, "If we look at what needs to be done 
to sustain human existence, instead of what we can sell or 
export, nurturing of children and communities looms large." 
This was and remains the real reason to oppose the North 
American Free Trade Agreement.

  - Johnn Tan, Ogden, Utah, USA


-- News Room: The Teale-Homolka Controversy --

In Canada, as in all democratic countries, the right to know 
the truth is sacred, if unspoken. In many charters that are 
the basis of democracies, the freedoms of speech, and of 
worship are spoken of. But for a democracy to truly work, 
the truth is paramount. Like politics, the justice system is 
reliant upon the truth. And even more than politics, the 
search for truth in justice is paramount. Without the truth, 
there is no justice, only ambiguity.

In Canada right now, there is a controversy brewing. A 
Vancouver man, Paul Teale, stands accused of sex crimes and 
murder relating to two teenage girls. His wife is currently 
on trial for complicity in these events. You may know her 
name, Karla Homolka, from your newscasts. Unless you live in 
Canada, that is. 

This is due to the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling that the 
truth, as has been found so far and used in Karla Homolka 
trial, may prejudice jurors for the future trial of Paul 
Teale. We have been shut out of the process, and may not 
know what really happened for years. 

There are two sides to every argument, and I will attempt to 
give them to you. On one hand, the ban on publication will 
serve the interests of justice. It will keep the future 
jurors of this case relatively free of bias. The chances for 
a fair trial are thus increased, giving Mr. Teale chance for 
a fair trial of his peers. On this level, the system works.

On the other hand, the need to know the truth still stands. 
In a recent court case before the British Columbia courts, a 
person suing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for, 
shall we say, an unsavory report done on him, succeeded for 
a short time to have a similar ban on publication enforced. 
The resulting outcry from the press and public caused a 
minor furor. The truth was finally released when a judge 
reversed the ban a week or so later. 

The truth, the argument goes, is not really the truth until 
it has had it's day in court. This is an interesting 
argument, since small truths, called "evidence" in 
criminology, are what brings the subject to trial in the 
first place. We already know that the list of crimes 
revealed in the courtroom disturbed and repulsed the most 
seasoned law enforcement and judicial staff. Circumstantial, 
some may say. Unproved, say others. But previous cases, 
equally horrible in scope, did not require a ban of 
publication. And that, friends, is the thrust of my 
argument. I do want to ensure that Paul Teale receives a 
fair trial. But I resent the Supreme Court of Canada telling 
me what I may, or may not, reflect on. I dislike the fact 
that there are certain truths that I may not know. The truth 
will find a way to get out anyway. I can find the truth 
through CompuServe, by simply scanning Buffalo newspapers, 
using keyword search techniques. The truth can be found by 
rooting around for it. But is that the idea behind a free 
society?

I can understand the fears that some rather unsavory 
journalistic types might turn this story into the tabloid 
headline producer of the decade, in Canada at least. But, 
the truth can generally look out for itself if it is set 
free. Influence jurors? The details of the murders is 
already public knowledge. What is there to fear in a full 
accounting? 

This may seem like a tempest in a teapot, but think about it 
for a moment. Is an abuse of a judicial system possible? 
History has shown that it is possible. Could it be perverted 
into a way for the truth to be withheld from us? Again, I 
think it possible. Is it likely to happen? I hope not, but 
where is the certainty? If you live in a democracy, the 
truth is what you need. Your power as a free person is 
diminished without unimpeded access to information.

There is an old maxim, used by the United States' CIA of all 
places, that states that the truth can set you free. I 
contend that the truth is the only way to stay free. If 
nothing else, remind yourselves that the truth is the only 
road to certainty in a confused and cynical world. And 
whatever you think about this particular situation, remember 
that you are the only watchdog of the truth. Don't leave it 
to others. Truth is the only weapon you need in life.

And I'll try to remember it too, as I watch a news report 
saying that two major cable companies are going to stop 
picking up and rebroadcasting United States radio stations 
because of the possibility that details of the Homolka trial 
may be broadcast. And when a blue screen pops up and blanks 
out a US television news broadcast for the same reason.

Discussion? Send mail to me via Teletimes. Until next 
time...

  - Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada


-- The Quill: Discovering Blue Magic --

"You are a beginner big time!", loudly proclaimed Efra 
Figueroa looking at the plastic sticker still attached to 
the front of my shiny new mask. 

I couldn't deny it. My diver certification card was still 
the temporary kind and I displayed the eager nervousness of 
the novice diver when it hits that this is really the Big 
One, out in the middle of the vast ocean surrounded only by 
horizon. What was more, we were going to hit 80 feet -- four 
times deeper than I had ever been before. 

I was in the picturesque little seaside town of La Parguera 
in Puerto Rico. Two weeks earlier I had shivered through my 
open water certification dive under gray skies in a scummy 
lake near Columbus, Ohio. The thermocline there was 15 feet 
deep, I could feel the water seeping into my wet suit all 
the way to the bone, and the visibility was all of two, 
maybe three feet. The instructors practically had to huddle 
next to us to evaluate our diving skills. In sharp contrast 
the sparkling Caribbean here warmed body and soul at 85 
degrees and visibility ranged up to 100 feet. 

My journey to this little known part of Puerto Rico began 
four years earlier when I fell in love with the blue magic 
underneath tropical seas while snorkeling in Hanauma Bay 
near Honolulu. Just snorkeling was pure enchantment, so as I 
watched angelfishes dart effortlessly through caverns in the 
coral I resolved that the next best thing to being able to 
sprout gills and follow them would be to learn scuba diving.

The only real obstacle was myself. I had to fight a major 
fear of ear problems and a mistrust of my own athletic 
abilities. Four years elapsed before I enrolled in a course 
at a local dive shop. My instructor was reassuringly 
competent and I encountered no real difficulties. But even 
after certification I was a mixture of enthusiasm to do a 
real ocean dive, and anxiety that something would go wrong. 
After all I had so far descended only 18 feet 

La Parguera is on the diagonally opposite corner of the 
island to San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. The day 
after we arrived my wife and I drove leisurely over a 
mountain range, the Cordillera Central, the backbone of this 
enchanting island. Underneath an azure sky all of Puerto 
Rico was verdant, with flowers flaming in pinks, oranges and 
yellows everywhere. We arrived at a resort in Guanica, about 
ten miles from La Parguera. Our next two days would be spent 
in a charming cottage beside a turquoise lagoon. 

I couldn't sleep that night, even though I wanted to be 
fresh and alert the next morning. It was a strange state -- 
calm on the surface but tense on the inside. Mercifully it 
was soon time to arise and drive to La Parguera where I met 
my first guide to the marine mysteries, the divemaster Efra 
Figueroa. 

Efra's innate cheerfulness expressed itself in a ready 
smile, teasing quips, and a rough-spun but amiable demeanor. 
When I admitted that this would be my first real ocean dive, 
he emphasized that I was to stay close to him. I had every 
intention of doing exactly that, since Efra exuded the 
comforting air of absolute confidence which characterizes 
the master of any discipline. An instructor at a local 
college, his expertise was easily evident. Single-handedly, 
he had located and named about 50 great dive spots around La 
Parguera. After announcing to everyone just how much of a 
greenhorn I was, Efra cleaned my mask with toothpaste and 
washed it with a thick amber liquid to ensure that it 
remained clear. Later when I discovered how well the liquid 
worked I asked him what it was. "Baby shampoo, no more 
tears!" Efra laughed. He had discovered that the residual 
film left by baby shampoo worked much better than "Sea 
Drops". 

A few minutes later we sailed out into the Caribbean through 
channels between mangrove islands. In the mellow morning 
sunshine with a cool breeze blowing, the journey to the 
'Black Wall' passed pleasantly. Glauco, Efra's assistant, is 
the strong silent type and I was somewhat jittery, so the 
others did most of the conversation. Jim and Lydia had 
started only a year ago and had already logged 31 dives, 
mostly in Florida and the Virgins. According to them diving 
in Puerto Rico easily matched these destinations. They 
talked to me often to allay my nervousness. Efra loved to 
laugh and relate diving anecdotes. A friend of his was 
photographing a somnolent octopus at close range with a new 
two thousand dollar underwater camera. The octopus, startled 
by the flash , instinctively wrenched the camera from the 
photographer's startled hands and vanished at high speed! 
The camera is now presumably in use recording significant 
events in the life of the octopus family and the 
photographer could only splutter impotently, "An octopus 
stole my camera!"

After about an hour we arrived, seemingly in the middle of 
nowhere. It was a perfect day to initiate diving -- a calm 
sea, bright sun, and a gentle breeze. Forty feet below I 
could just see the beginning of a wall which, Efra said, 
fell a further forty feet down to the sea bed. We would back 
roll into the Caribbean and I would be first! 

And now it is time for me to enter the water. I throw myself 
backward and the Caribbean welcomes me with inviting warmth. 
Efra signals downwards. I release air from the BC and sink 
head first into a deep cyan light. Fishes in shapes and 
colors I have seen only in photographs right before my 
astounded eyes. Midnight blue Creole wrasses, French angel 
fishes sporting electric blue, orange, and neon red. A 
trunkfish looking for all the world like a white and black 
polka dotted stealth bomber. A school of yellow jacks 
importantly heading towards a private destination. A 
barracuda, silvery and lean, eyeing me with the grumpily 
suspicious expression of a farmer who doesn't quite know 
what to make of this intruder on his property. Fan coral, 
swaying back and forth in an undersea breeze. From crevices 
and openings in the wall fishes gape at me in fluttering 
alarm. Only five humans in this underwater vastness. Our 
ascending air bubbles have a metallic sheen. Playfully I try 
to touch the fishes with my fingers but they dart away 
easily with contemptuous fin flicks. Efra breaks up chunks 
of bread and instantly large numbers of bucking and lunging 
wrasses and parrot fish appear. I hold my finger out in the 
melee and for a magical instant touch the side of a Creole 
wrasse. It feels mottled and strangely dry - like rough 
leather. I discover that with my arms tucked behind me and 
my legs kicking gently from the hips I can glide like an 
eagle over the mountains and through the valleys of this 
alien planet. This is probably the nearest to bird flight 
that we humans will ever experience. The scuba equipment, so 
awkward and cumbersome on the surface, feels weightless as I 
soar through canyons in the rock and coral. A green moray 
eel, four feet of slithering muscle, gapes its toothy jaws 
warningly at me. A thrill to touch the ocean's sandy bottom 
with my bare hands at eighty feet. All too soon Efra gives 
me the thumbs-up signal -- no, it can't be forty five 
minutes already! It's time to rise towards the ragged circle 
of sunlight directly above. We ascend and I constantly look 
downward at the blue magic, unwilling to leave. And finally 
emerge into the air replete with the ecstasy of knowing that 
the doors to a new infinity have just opened up for me, all 
my fears are gone, it is more beautiful than I could have 
ever imagined, and I am truly and completely hooked into 
scuba diving. 

  - Madurai G. Sriram, Cincinnati, USA


-- Special Report: Looking to the Future --

When I heard about a place in Winnipeg called the 
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) I 
was intrigued. Was it just another government PR effort? It 
sounded worthy, interesting, important, but what did such a 
grandly named organization actually do?

I turns out that the IISD is a small (about 40 employees) 
organisation set up by the Governments of Canada and 
Manitoba, with a budget of $25 000 000 dollars over its 
first five year period (1990-1995). It's stated mandate is 
to promote the concept of environmentally sustainable 
economic development, integrating the needs of private, 
public, and voluntary sectors at the national and 
international level.

The first, government appointed head of the Institute 
resigned after the first 6 months. He was replaced by Dr. 
Arthur Hanson, who has remained there ever since. Hanson was 
an original member of the board, with a Ph.D. in fisheries 
ecology and had worked internationally on a number of large 
projects. The seniority and breadth of experience of the 
board and its advisors is impressive, they include very 
senior figures from the Canadian scene and from other 
countries such as Algeria, Indonesia and Zambia. Curious, I 
visited the IISD to ask a few questions, poke around in the 
cupboards and generally be nosy. Pretty much everything 
looked very much as you might expect from a government - 
corporate environment. I wondered about the IISD mandate and 
how that was translated into action. My host, Frank Cosway 
conceded that the staff at IISD are perceived as very 
conservative, but he insists that image is quite misleading. 
In the internal running of projects, the institute has 
brought together health workers, representatives from 
government and private industry, youth workers, economists, 
environmental activists and others. He feels that the fact 
that they have helped such diverse interests to reach a 
consensus, sufficient at least to agree on the contents of 
published documents, is evidence of IISD's independence of 
action and of spirit.

In fact documents, books, information gathering and 
education are really what the IISD does. A regular 
publication it supports is the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 
a summary of events and discussions at UN meetings dealing 
with environmental issues. It is a daily overview for 
meeting participants, and is downloaded regularly to the 
network. In line with the aims of the IISD the Bulletin is a 
self financing publication. In 1992 the institute published 
Sourcebook on Sustainable Development as a part of its 
effort to develop an information centre, like the ENB this 
is available through the Web. Of perhaps more general 
interest is the product of a cooperation between groups from 
the USA, Canada, Mexico and India "Our Responsibility to the 
Seventh Generation". It provides a condensed expression of 
the perspectives of indigenous peoples on issues related to 
development and the environment. 

But how can the IISD be truly independent and objective ? 
Right now its funding does come from government sources, and 
theoretically the government could just get ticked off and 
pull the plug. Similarly how, with an emphasis on business 
connections and influencing "decision makers" how much can 
the institute be trusted in its dealings with the issues of 
trade, agriculture, poverty etc. Is it possible to remain 
close to the business and political communities, draw your 
support from them and not become in some sense their agent ? 
I raised these questions with Frank Cosway.

He accepted that the funding issue is a problem, although he 
says the Institute has had no problems with government 
pressure so far. To strengthen its independence and security 
the long term aim of the IISD is to become self supporting - 
in line with the philosophy of its existence. This is to be 
accomplished by drawing in more support from private 
industry for specific projects, and developing 
collaborations. His response to my second point was that 
business is the most influential factor in shaping the ways 
in which development occurs, and that in changing trade, 
agriculture, social situations or whatever -- one way or 
another -- business is going to come into the picture. One 
way that "corporate bias" has been counteracted is simply 
the drawing in of representatives of organisations such as 
the Earth Action Network and United Nations Networks to take 
part in many of the projects the IISD has had a role in. 
Another aspect of the organisation which Cosway believes 
gives the IISD much of it's credibility and ability to 
communicate confidently with people who have influence and 
decision making power is it's range of board members, 
including the original UN director of the Somalia project 
(who was sacked for telling the world that the operation was 
a screw up). Another of its advisors Vandana Shiva, was 
described by the Guardian as "one of the world's most 
prominent radical scientists", certainly not your regular 
crowd follower. Cosway believes that the calibre of the 
board members and staff, as well as their dedication to the 
goals of the enterprise will keep the organisation on the 
rails. As it develops its financial base and security, he 
predicts that the institute will eventually start taking 
positions on some issues where it might currently remain 
neutral (things like transport policy, and national issues 
within Canada).

I wondered what motivated business interests to get involved 
with an organisation associated with problems many companies 
and indeed governments would prefer not to think about, an 
organization with other goals to consider besides the 
financial "bottom line".

An example of commerce as a partner is a joint project 
between the IISD, Deloitte, Touche Tohmatsu International, 
and SustainAbility. The result of this was a very polished 
looking document 64 pages long called "Coming Clean: 
Corporate Environmental Reporting". It summarises, from a 
corporate perspective, important issues in corporate 
reporting practice, what, when, why, how, based on 
information from a survey of companies which have produced 
environmental reports in Europe, North America and Japan. It 
recommends corporate reporting on environmental issues for a 
number of reasons, partly to understand and limit 
liabilities, but also for more positive reasons, such as 
using it as a marketing tool and educating employees. Among 
their guidelines : reports should be systematic, honest 
(including both the good and the bad news), develop 
meaningful performance indicators, and ask for feedback. Why 
would a private company volunteer its cooperation in such a 
major enterprise, which is telling businesses that they 
should get their act together and add a new dimension to 
their performance monitoring, data gathering, and reporting 
procedures? Cosway believes that part of the incentive is 
the potential for a new market, Deloitte and friends can 
simultaneously point out the dangers of not having a 
coordinated and rational reporting strategy, suggest 
solutions, and set themselves up as an obvious place to turn 
to for help in implementing the necessary changes.

As a part of its aim to become a major international 
resource centre for issues dealing with sustainable 
development, related business opportunities, problems of 
empowerment, poverty, and so forth the IISD is developing 
its own databases accessible through the Web, an on-line 
hypertext system, CD-ROM databases, possibly an electronic 
discussion group and so forth. They recently hosted a 
conference here in Winnipeg dealing with new business 
opportunities that are arising from the current emphasis on 
environmental protection and sustainability. Through the 
Earth Negotiations Bulletin the IISD already has an 
increasingly unique perspective on the UN and its role in 
environmental and developmental work. Most people - even the 
conference goers - only encounter small fragments of the 
proceedings, but the four people who put together the ENB 
see both the specifics and the generalities of the 
conferences, and they have the information collated and 
available over the net before many governments (because of 
security, secrecy, paranoia, or whatever) get information 
from their own delegates. The IISD does have an e-mail 
address (iisd@web.apc.org) for anyone who might be 
interested in their archives. But I have to warn you that e-
mail doesn't necessarily get read more than once a month so 
don't be in a hurry.

  - Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada

Sources
IISD annual report 1992-1993.
Earth Negotiations Bulletin - various issues.
Coming Clean: Corporate Environmental Reporting, Deloitte 
    Touche Tohmatsu International, SustainAbility (1993).
Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation: Indigenous 
    peoples and sustainable development, Clarkson, IISD 
    (1992).
Various issues of the Globe and Mail (Toronto) and the 
    Winnipeg Free Press.


-- Cuisine: Vegan Cooking --

"I always serve a bowl of soup. My father was a laborer, and 
when he came home in the evening he was never happy unless 
my mother served him soup." -- Jean-Louis Palladin

Soup is the ultimate comfort food. When it's cold out, 
there's nothing like coming in to a nice, hot bowl of soup. 
Soup can be a meal in itself, the start of a fancy meal, or 
just a snack.

One problem a beginning vegan cook has in making soup is 
that most soup recipes in non-vegetarian cookbooks call for 
chicken stock. Many say "chicken stock or water," but if 
you've ever tried that, you'll know it's pretty boring. Have 
no fear, Billy Magic's here. 

Vegetable stock is not just a great way to add some flavor 
to your soups, it's a good way to eliminate a lot of the 
waste you generate in cooking. If you ever watched your 
mother make stock, you know it's just a matter of cooking 
the aftermath of some poor animal to an undignified paste in 
a big pot. Well, vegetable stock basically consists of doing 
the same thing to plant remains.

So, the first tip for making stock is to save your vegetable 
cuttings. Keep onion and potato skins, mushroom stems, 
carrot ends, tomato cores, and so forth in an airtight bag 
in the freezer until you're ready to make stock. 

To make stock you need a big stockpot, a knife, a stove, a 
lot of leftover vegetable scraps, and a lot of water.

Cover the scraps with water and cook them for an hour or so. 
If you actually do this, chances are you'll taste the stuff 
and pour it down the sink. Then you'll ask yourself what you 
did wrong. The answer is, you didn't read the rest of the 
column.

A properly cooked stock requires an aromatic base. There are 
several ways to make this, but the simplest is to chop up a 
big onion and a leek white, crush several cloves of garlic, 
and cover them with about two inches of water. Bring the 
water to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and let cook 
until most of the water is gone, about 15 minutes. (Note: 
leeks are a great addition to stock. They cost a bit more 
than plain old white onions but are well worth it.)

While the onions are cooking, clean your vegetable scraps. 
Discard any mushy or smelly scraps, and clean the dirt off 
of mushroom and potato scraps. Chop large pieces into 1" 
squares. Now check the proportions you have; the mix should 
be at least one third carrot and celery pieces. If it's not, 
cut up enough fresh carrots to bring it up to that level. 

You need a carrot-to-celery ratio of at least 1:1. Too much 
celery will overpower the rest of the flavors. Note also 
that cabbage family vegetables, such as cauliflower, 
broccoli, and cabbages of all colors and flavors emit nasty 
sulfur compounds when added to stock, so don't use them in 
any great quantity.

When the onion base is ready, add the vegetable cuttings, 
cover with about twice their total volume of water, and 
bring to a boil. As soon as the liquid boils, reduce to a 
simmer and cook, uncovered, for about an hour, adding more 
water if needed to keep the vegetables covered. Have a 
second, smaller pot ready.

Pour the liquid through a fine strainer, pressing down on 
the vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Don't 
do this with your hand -- the veggies are hot. Use the 
bottom of a small skillet or the back of a bowl. 

Now comes the hard part. Since the liquid is probably about 
190 degrees, it will soon cool to a perfect temperature for 
all the bacteria waiting to make it taste bad. You must cool 
it as quickly as possible. The best way to do this is to 
plunge the pot into a second, larger pot full of ice water. 
If you don't have a large enough pot to do this, add as many 
ice cubes as you can to the stock and put the pot into the 
fridge. It is important for the cooling that the stock be in 
a pot other than the one you just took off the stove -- 
cooling hot metal quickly will make it warp. You can keep 
vegetable stock in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer 
for a couple of months. 

Another important trick to vegetarian soup-making is to 
create an aromatic base for the soup itself. The secret to 
this is to saute the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, herbs, 
and spices for a few minutes, until they turn fragrant, 
before you add the rest of the liquid. 

OK, so now that you've got the basics, whaddaya do with 'em? 
Well, it depends. When you get home from class at 6:00 on a 
freezing evening you want something stick-to-your-ribs good 
right then. For that you should have some soup in the 
freezer at all times; if you keep it in heatable containers 
you can have dinner ready within ten minutes of getting 
home. Either of the following two soups is great for this, 
enough to feed four hungry college students on a cold night. 

Mushroom Barley Soup

2 cups dried pearl barley
1 cup dried lima beans
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1 stalk celery finely chopped
2 large potatoes, diced
2 cups mushrooms, sliced
8 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup dry sherry (optional, but it helps the flavor a lot) 
2 bay leaves
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
1 Tbsp dried sage
1 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper to taste

Pick through lima beans and remove dirt. Rinse and cover 
with water. Soak overnight. Drain and rinse again.

Pick through barley as with beans and rinse. In large 
stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute about a 
minute. Add garlic and saute another 3-4 minutes, until 
onions become visibly lighter. Add mushrooms, carrot, and 
celery, and saute about a minute. Add herbs and stir a few 
times. Cook another 3-4 minutes, until fragrant. Add 
potatoes and, if desired, sherry. If you're not using 
sherry, add 1/4 cup stock. Stir several times and bring to 
boil. Let most of the liquid cook off, then add barley, 
beans, and stock. Bring to boil, reduce to low simmer and 
cook, partially covered, about 1 1/2 hours, adding more 
water if needed. The soup should be quite thick. Remove bay 
leaves before serving -- they're inedible. 

Important cooking tip: as soon as soup starts to thicken, 
taste a spoonful (let it cool before you stick it in your 
mouth). If it tastes like it needs more of some spice, add 
it. Remember, you're the one eating the soup; chances are, 
the guy who wrote the recipe is at least a thousand miles 
away and eating something else, so always taste and season 
to the point that it tastes good to you.

Curried Cream Of Onion Soup

3 large onions, chopped into half circles 1 carrot, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
1 Tbsp corn oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger powder
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp salt
cayenne pepper to taste
2 green cooking apples, cored and diced
2 cups soy milk, at room temperature
2 Tbsp lemon juice
4 cups vegetable stock

In large stockpot, heat oil to medium. Add onions and saute 
about 2 minutes. Add all spices and saute about 3 more 
minutes, until onions are just trans- lucent. Add remaining 
vegetables and one-half apple, and cook 5 minutes or so, 
until vegetables are just tender. Add stock and bring to 
boil. Reduce to simmer and cook, uncovered, about half an 
hour. 

Stir lemon juice into soy milk and keep stirring until it 
thickens. Stir the curdled soy milk into soup and keep 
stirring until it's mixed in well. Cook another 15 minutes. 
Add remaining apples and cook 5 minutes more, then serve. 

Finally, here's an emergency soup to make when all you've 
got is a few cans of organic tomatoes and some stale bread:

Pappa al Pomodoro For College Cooks

1 32-oz can organic tomatoes, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp dried basil, or 3 Tbsp fresh
1 tsp dried thyme, or 1 Tbsp fresh
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1 large loaf of very stale French or Italian bread, chopped 
into large cubes 

Heat olive oil over medium in large saucepan. Add onion and 
garlic and saute until translucent, 4-5 minutes. Add herbs 
and saute another minute, then add tomatoes and bring to 
boil. Reduce to low simmer and stir in bread. After a few 
minutes, season to taste. Cook about another half hour. 

Eat hearty!!!

  - Billy Magic, Chicago, USA


------------------------------------------------------------
STAFF & INFO
------------------------------------------------------------

Editor-in-Chief:
 Ian Wojtowicz

Art Director:
 Anand Mani

Cover Artist:
 Kent Barrett

Correspondents:
 Biko Agozino, Edinburgh, Scotland
 Prasad & Surekha Akella, Japan
 Ryan Crocker, Vancouver, Canada
 Prasad Dharmasena, Silver Spring, USA
 Jon Gould, Chicago, USA
 Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada
 Mike Matsunaga, Skokie, USA
 Satya Prabhakar, Minneapolis, USA
 Brian Quinby, Aurora, USA
 Motamarri Saradhi, Singapore
 Dr. Michael Schreiber, Vienna, Austria
 Johnn Tann, Ogden, USA
 Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada
 Seth Theriault, Lexington, USA
 Marc A. Volovic, Jerusalem, Israel

Columnists:
 Kent Barrett, The Keepers of Light
 Tom Davis, The Wine Enthusiast
 Andreas Seppelt, Latin American Correspondant

About the Cover:
 (Graphics only appear in the Mac and WWW versions.)
 I had wanted to work with text for this month's cover. When 
 someone says "history" to me, I see numbers. Dates, to be 
 precise. 1492. 1066. 1867. Midnight, January 1st, 1904. I 
 pictured these numbers, perhaps rendered in marble, or 
 gold, or...blood. Well, rendered in Infini-D and hung in 
 space, maybe with busts of historical figures superimposed 
 on the lettering. I then saw the text of, say, the 
 Webster's 2nd College Dictionary definition of the word 
 "history" itself etched into the curving side of an 
 hourglass. 

 Well, as you can see, I was desperate. Then I realized the 
 answer, and as always, it was another question: What is 
 history? Where does it come from? How do we know anything 
 about it?

 In the beginning was the word. And we have it here in:

 1. A fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls, this one from the 
 caves of Khirbet Qumran. This is the whitish bit above the 
 "y" in "HISTORY", just to the right of the hood of the 
 sarcophagus of Eshmunazar which, by the way, is inscribed 
 with the first example of the Phoenician language 
 discovered in Phoenicia itself.

 2. Hittite hieroglyphs. These particular ones are from 
 Carchemish, and are the carved stone shapes visible in the 
 background throughout the entire picture, including the 
 columns of the temple of Aphrodite (at Aphrodisias, one of 
 my personal favorites.)

 3. In blue, just above and left of the pyramids, you will 
 find detail from the Code of Hammurabi.

 4. The third millennium BC weirdo in the right bottom 
 corner has nothing in particular written on him, but he 
 apparently was the king of Mari, and that's good enough for 
 me.

 There were many many more examples I wanted to include, 
 such as the maddening disk of Phaestos (probably of Cretan 
 origin circa 1700 BC), whose charming hieroglyphs remain 
 undeciphered to this day, but there wasn't room. Also, it 
 should be noted, is included Futura Extra Bold, an 
 electronic typeface. 4,000 years from now archeologists 
 will have little to puzzle over from our age. Our words are 
 not carved into basalt.
 - Kent Barrett, Cover Artist

Funding policy:
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 Teletimes examines broad topics of interest and concern on 
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Upcoming themes: 
 February - TV and the Movies

Deadline for articles:
 January 20th, 1994

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NEXT MONTH
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TV and the Movies: in February we take a look at some of the 
serious concerns surrounding television and cinema as well 
as some lighter reviews of movies and TV shows.

Also next month, Gerry Roston will have a rebuttal of Jon 
Gould's gun control article "American in Denial." Should be 
very interesting, so stick around!Ê


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BIOGRAPHIES
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Kent Barrett
Kent is a Vancouver artist with over twenty years experience 
in photography. His work has been exhibited in galleries 
across Canada from Vancouver to St. John's, Newfoundland. He 
is currently working on his first nonfiction book "Bitumen 
to Bitmap", a history of photographic processes.

Ryan Crocker
Ryan is a Vancouver actor, writer, director, and general 
mouthpiece. He has worked in Vancouver, Victoria, and Los 
Angeles. His rŽsumŽ looks like a parts list for an aircraft 
carrier - long and varied. He enjoys good friends, 
conversation, and playing with his pet iguana, Isis.

Prasad Dharmasena
Prasad is a Solid State Electrical Engineer turned into a 
C++ programmer who works at the Federal Reserve Board in 
Washington, DC. He has been known to take decent photographs 
when the phase of the moon is right. Though he was born in 
Sri Lanka, he cannot play Cricket. He enjoys playing Frisbee 
beside his favorite temple, the Lincoln Memorial.

Jon Gould
Jon teaches law and political science at both DePaul 
University's International Human Rights Law Institute and 
Beloit College. He is a former counsel to the Dukakis-
Bentsen Campaign and has served as General Counsel to the 
College Democrats of America and Vote for a Change. 

Anand Mani
Anand is a Vancouver, Canada-based corporate communications 
consultant serving an international clientele. Originally an 
airbrush artist, his painting equipment has been languishing 
in a closet, replaced by the Mac. It waits for the day when 
Òthat ideaÓ grips him by the throat, breathily says, ÒPaint 
MeÓ and drags him into the studioÑ not to be seen for 
months. 

Dr. Michael Schreiber
32 years ago, born near Salzburg, Gemini Michael 
reconstructs social and business realities as self-similar 
competitive environments at the Department of Marketing at 
the Vienna University for economics and business 
administration.

Madurai G Sriram
Madurai does systems and applications development in the 
School of Medicine at Ohio State U. Not content with the 
pain of three masters degrees (Electrical Engineering, 
Statistics, and Computer Science) He is also trying to 
complete a Ph.D. in CS. Hobbies include music, scuba, and 
foreign languages -- Madurai has a working knowledge of 
Brazilian Portuguese. After his Ph.D., Madurai hopes to get 
a job which will enable him to travel a lot!

Johnn Tan
Johnn is a Mathematics major at Weber State University in 
Ogden, Utah, USA. He is one of the founders of Wasatch Area 
Voices Express (WAVE), an alternative Ogden paper. When he 
isn't eating vegan food, cooking, hiking, or philosophizing, 
he is active in politics, socialism, and feminism.

Dr. Euan R. Taylor
Euan grew up in England where he did a degree in 
Biochemistry and a Ph.D. Before moving to Canada, Euan spent 
6 months traveling in Asia. Now living in Winnipeg, he is 
doing research in plant molecular biology, and waiting to 
start Law School. Interests include writing, travel, 
studying Spanish and Chinese, career changing and good 
coffee. Pet peeves: weak coffee, wet socks and ironing. 

Ian Wojtowicz
Ian is currently enrolled in the International Baccalaurate 
program at a Vancouver high school. His interests include 
fencing, running big projects (like Teletimes) and sleeping 
in. He was born in 1977 in Halifax. He has since lived in 
Nigeria, Hong Kong and Ottawa and travelled with his parents 
to numerous other locations.


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