OVER THE EDGE NEWSPAPER. OCTOBER 11, 2006 ANNA GRADOWSKA COLUMNIST In my column, I can't expect to be able to present the ideas that I feel are important in their entirety. The most I could ever hope for is to stimulate in- terest or debate (both of which I'm sure are lofty goals for a lowly university col- umn). I thought this issue I would pres- ent and review a couple books I found to be not only inspiring but also incted- ibly informative on subjects not usually presented in mainstream media or class- room settings. RADICAL ENVIRON (MITHE EYARE OF CVILIZATION - The first thing that caught my eye about this book was the title and upon reading the book, I wasnt dis- appointed. The author and cofounder of Earth-First, Christopher Manes, sets on a ideological and historical journey into the world of direct action and radical en- vironmentalism in the US, Despite the resource industry's most aggressive at- tempts at demonizing and paralyzing the direct action movement, Manes explores ’ the many triumphs and stories through- out the history of direct action. He writes a defense of ecotage, deep ecology, and the inherent right of natural world to exist in and of itself. The book is full of interesting facts and events that really show the information bias people are fed about the very nature and effect of dir- ect action. Not only is it not harmful to people, but it is also vastly effective. The book is very spirited and really enhanced my understanding of environmental rad- First Nations Corner THIS SPACE IS FOR RENT If you would be ineerested in writing the First Nation's Corner, please contact over-the-edge@unbc.ca, The First Nation Club will have nom- inations and elections for chair, vice chair and Treasurer and Historian elected for the year, on the 13th of October, 2006 in the Elders’ Lounge. Books for Thought icalism in the US as well as the philoso- _ phy behind ic. I'll be exploring direct ac- tion and ecotage in this column in issues to come, but this book was a really great platform for me. Dr. William Rees, creator of the eco- logical footprint, originally recommend- ed this book when he came to UNBC earlier this year. The book investigates the rise and collapse of past civilizations as they are related to ecological crises they created. In the histories of Easter Island, Rome, Sumer, the Aztecs, and many other civilizations of the past is the evidence of societies brought down by their disregard for ecological systems. Wright describes the “progress traps” of civilizations that used technology to paint themselves into an ecological cor- ner, Wright poignantly remarks, “...the truth is that humans drove themsélves from Eden, and they have done it again and again by fouling their own nests’. He also draws blatant analogies to our cur- rent modern empire. In this CBC Mas- sey Lecture publication, Ronald Wright argues that without serious and immedi- ate change, we too are doomed (like all those before us) to drive ourselves into famine, disease, and eradication. I found this book an informative and easy short read as well as very enlightening, as it put our current civilization into startling context. Since we didn’t receive any feedback this month, we're going to print junkmail we get in our inboxes. This will continue to happen every time no one writes in. You've been warned. This time round, classic encounters have been hard to find. McClaren was almost absolved from blame for England's poor 2006 World Cup finalsmodernization program has made it a rare find indeed for those lucky enough to occupy it. was sent off after 62 minutes for a Editorial Campbell's Dog ANDREW KURJATA EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Ivan Pavlov, for those of you dont know, was a famed Russian scientist who found that ringing a bell before serving food to dogs would condition the dogs to associate the food with the bell. After a while, he could cause the dogs to sali- vate simply by ringing a bell. Turns out the same thing has happened to me. I don't salivate when I hear bells, but I have been conditioned in a different way. I discovered this when I opened my daily newspaper and discovered a full-page ad depicting people of different ages, gen- ders, and ethnicities looking happy in front of a white background. This im- mediately struck fear into my heart. Why? Because full-page ads depict- ing people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities looking happy in front of a white background are the calling card of the BC Liberals, And the BC Liberals _break them out whenever they're about to do something-- I hesitate to say “evil,” but “good” certainly isnt the word. If they were about to do something good, they wouldnt need full-page ads to con- vince you of how great it is. In this case, they're plugging a “con- versation on health care” (meaning that Cambpell and friends have come up with some way to at least partially pri- vatize health care and are about to stuff it down our throats, regardless of what we say). Now, I’m not going to go in de- tails about everything that is wrong with this “conversation’-- that’s something for another day. My beef right now is with the fact that every freaking time the Liberals come up with a way to screw us over- from going way over budget on the Olympics to completely ignoring labour contracts- they rub salt in the wound by spending money on propaghanda to tell us they're doing something we should enjoy. It's as if the Liberals think by repeating themselves often enough and showing us paid actors happy about what they're saying, we'll become con- vinced. Look, the laws of conditioning might apply to humans, but we're not going to be trained that easily. As much as it might suprise you to hear it, Gordon, voters are not dogs, Stop treating us like it. stamp on Ricardo Carvalho. The incident occurred right in front of Argentine ref- eree Horacio Elizondo, who was Beckham almost won a penalty with his last contribution of the game - and probablyAfghanistan in its efforts to counter cultivation, production. Michael Owen can be forgotten for most of next season, so McClaren will surely putEverton new boy Andrew Johnson and Charlton's Darren Bent may also stake their claims to the new coach. that was settled in extra-time by On the Digital Front Picture this: you are an en- thusiastic ama- teur video editor and actor, You absolutely _ love making content on your own about whatever you enjoy most, You dont just start making video content for yourself, friends and family, you want the whole world to know what you know about what you love to do. You purchase some web- space, program your website, then up- load a weekly informational show on the thing whatever it is you love to do. You run into a problem though, you don't know anything about how to make it legal for other people to access it through third party sources. You dontt care, in fact, you endorse the idea of people obtaining your video through third party sources because your show got so popular thar allotted bandwidth is a serious issue. If you live in Can- ada (which I’m sure almost all of you are) you go to CreativeCommons.ca and fill out how your work should be redistributed. Creative Commons will then compile the very simple informa- tion (none of this information will be about you, so you get privacy) and create your Creative Commons deed which is completely legal in Canada. They give you code for you to copy and paste on your website so others know that they can post your show on other sites and even P2P file-sharing networks. This is exactly what you want to happen as a content creator. Now, under the Webcasting Treaty being contemplated by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), even under this very classic example of a Creative Commons creator, that file is now completely illegal anyway even though you gave your users permis- sion to share that file, The Webcasting Treaty, which is a spin-off of another proposed treaty called the ‘Broadcasting Fortunately for McClaren, England have been gifted a group from the heavens in Euro 2008, treatment was performed on his ankle, although he did later bear the pain long enoughsurrounding his arrival means he will not be afforded the traditional . honeymoon period, Very good games, but were either of them classics? Are they the games that peopleCalls on Sudan To Comply With UN Resolution 1706 Take the Swiss. Rarely has a team ever played with less inclination to attack OPINIONS Proposed Copyright Restriction Even the US Doesn't Want JEREMY JOHNSON COLUMNIST Rodriguez's thunderbolt from the blue. 15 Treaty, the company who sold you that _ webspace now has ownership of that content for 50 years. Why? Because they ‘broadcasted’ or disseminated’ that content to the users, They dont own the actual piece that you made, but they own the file that was downloaded through their host. In essence, they can go after the users who downloaded that file and sue them for copyright infringe- ment even though you gave those users permission to download and share that video. In essence, they circumvented the Creative Commons deed legally because of that treaty, Think that’s bad? Its copyright re- striction legislation so bad, even the - United States officially opposes this treaty. Canada currently also opposes this treaty, Japan and Mexico on the other hand is backing this treaty. The treaty was tossed out the first time, but was brought back in a little later on. It confused ‘and concerned the representa- tives according to an unofficial transcript posted by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) From there, it gained a fair bit of publicity. Companies like Intel, Telus, and Verizon sent in a letter of op- position to the treaty signed with vari- ous other big companies and organiza- tions. Who.is for this? The only known companies that are for this is Microsoft and Yahoo! The EFF also created a pe- tition against the treaty that is signed by over 200 podcasters or vidcasters (people who make the content a lot like the example mentioned) The scope of this treaty isn't entirely well known. Whether or not it encom- passes software or even written content is unclear. One expert noted that it’s not just Creative Commons affected by this, but also the public domain. If any ser- vice uploads public domain work, that'll still be under the ownership of that ser- vice. Right now, the treaty is being delayed a second time because those opposed to this state that there is no democratic consensus on this treaty. If the treaty goes through, it could radically change the face of independent content online forever for any country that chooses to ratify it, thanMcClaren has talked a good game so far - now he must prove he is the right McClaren needs results quickly be- cause his was an appointment that was - hardly well- Had enough? Send us your feedback, plus vite!