This Moraine's Terminal

  TWO CONTENTIONS   A Reasoned Response to HIV West Yellowhead       It was Socrates that advocated learning through dialogue. To that end I am glad to read of HIV West Yellowhead’s invitation to discourse (consider it accepted); in this we are on the same wavelength and saves me a phone call. So, although there are many other pressing matters I would rather turn my attention to than modern sexual mores (not a pre-occupation of mine), since this issue had generated so much heat from numerous replies, as well as verbal commendations from people on the street, may I attempt another fumbling exposition of the 2 reasons that I find the secular stance of Harm Reduction deficient?   After reading numerous articles printed over the last few years by various HIV West Yellowhead staff and volunteers (who I am sure are sincere and well-meaning folk - I am speaking against a philosophy, not a person), there are two repeated sub-texts in every piece, ...

  Happy Easter, from Albania   Faith in Jasper Article   Shortly before the war in Kosovo erupted, I and the girl who would become my wife were in neighbouring Albania, poorest of all European countries. The town we were stationed in was at the end of the road, high in the dusty hills where two rivers joined: one cold and clear from a spring somewhere deep and the other muddy and warm, eroding the land. 80% of the population was unemployed, living in Communist-built apartment blocks, sending sons to work illegally in Greece and Italy.   This farming village had been built up with a few dummy factories to divert attention from the fact that the town an hour away had an underground armaments manufacturing plant. Now the charade was over, now the factories were gutted, now the communist dictator was dead, now the doors to the world were open, but what attraction did Albania have for the world?   For hundreds of years the Ottoman Turks had dominated the ...