It’s Not About Tupperware

I have purchased Alternatives from time to time from my local health food store. I signed up for a subscription when I was at the Guelph Organic Conference in late January. I just received my first magazine, and happy to see all about building green.

I am always interested in what I would call deep ecology. I produced and directed a 56-part program on the environment for TVOntario 25 years ago, and came to the conclusion then that matters of the environment were, at heart, matters of the spirit. All these years later, I am more convinced of this than ever. It’s not about tupperware. It’s about spirituality. You don’t see anyone writing on that – well, other than Wendell Berry, of course.

Other than that, I am happy to learn about what is the latest in environmental thinking.
– Candice Bist, Shelbourne, Ontario

Here’s to the Next 40 Years

Congratulations on 40 years and also on a really excellent 40th anniversary edition of the magazine. The opportunity to review the years of my own practice (plus a couple!) through the reminiscences of a number of the articles has underlined how forward thinking the magazine has been from the outset – and how I wish I had discovered it in those years when environmentalism was considered quirky and not quite respectable!
May the next 40 years of the publication be as informative and successful as the first!
- Charles Simon, Eden Mills, Ontario

Dirty Joke

I have a suggestion for a future cartoon for Alternatives. My parents live in Edmonton, and my dad recently had the “pleasure” of attending a staff party for the high school where my mom works. My dad was having a conversation (slightly one-sided, as he remained fairly quiet) with a teacher’s spouse who worked for one of the tar sands companies. This fellow harped on the “ridiculous claims of those horrible environmentalists who are killing our economy.” Then he said, completely straight-faced, “Besides, those environmentalist folks should thank us … we’re cleaning things up by taking the dirty oil out of the ground!”
– Christine Rickley
via AlternativesJournal.ca

To read other articles from this issue, buy Art & Media 38.3