Oh boy… it’s been a long time since I’ve posted and I have very little time right now – I have to go grab lunch before the next session starts but I think I’ve found a new way to fight for something I care about. What do we know about a movement to have Canada boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics which is lately receiving the moniker The Genocide Olympics. Mia Farrow has been super-active in this area and has done a great job raising awareness.

I’m at a Conference on the Prevention of Genocide this weekend – one of the speakers has already tried to chase me away from studying in this field – too depressing he says. I guess he won’t be my PhD advisor. ;-P

Ah Friday! Time to wind down with one more rant for the week. Here are 5 Reasons to boycott Chinese goods – just off the top of my head.

5. Questionable safety standards in manufactured goods that have resulted in several recalls. ‘Lead makes everything look and taste better.’

4. Massive environmental degradation. ‘Wow! It’s so much cheaper to produce goods when we can just dump the waste into the river.’

3. Illegal fishing vessels in international waters. ‘So what if the UN made drift nets illegal 15 years ago – they still work for us!’ or ‘Mmmm… this canned tuna is dolphin-y goodness.’

2. Human and workers rights violations on a grand scale. ‘If our people don’t like the Olympics we have ways of keeping them quiet.’

1. China’s support and enabling of the military junta in Burma. ‘Hey, their government actually makes us look pretty darn good, plus we get cheap oil!’

Here’s a bonus one: when you support manufacturing somewhere else you help destroy Canada’s remaining manufacturing sector. Buy Canadian! Be proud.

On a slightly different topic, here is a hopeful piece on the demonstrations from CBC this morning. If it has moved to the archive it is titled ‘Conflict Getting Worse’ and is Sept 28, 2007.

Very exciting developments in northern York Region. Our green bin arrived today and it is very spiffy. I feel fortunate that I already know how to use it since my clients down in TO have had theirs for a couple of years already. I haven’t really explored the wonders of mass composting since Biochemical Engineering back in the day and this is a great new initiative…

or is it…

As my young friend Amanda explained, “So, let me get this straight. You take your organics and put them in a plastic bag made from fossil fuels, put that in a larger garbage bag, made from fossil fuels, and put that in a green bin, made from fossil fuels. Then, the city burns fossil fuels to send around a truck to pick up all the bags, takes them to a facility where they are composted and then you burn more fossil fuels to go and pick up the finished compost to put on your garden. Couldn’t you just compost?”

Indeed! I think I’ll continue to use my backyard composter.