June 2000 - Nr. 6
Letter from the Editor
Dear Reader
Now that we are into our 11th year of publication it could be said that our apprenticeship is over. That of course means that we have to change again for the better. We hope to have accomplished this with this issue, which is enriched with three new features. Firstly, in case you have not noticed, we already introduced another columnist in the last issue. Her name is Antje Steiger. She studies law in Dresden Germany and has a wonderfully fresh point of view and is going to share this with us in German, for the time being.
Another new contributor for Toronto affairs is Vasile Poenaru, who wrote the last 2 years for another German Canadian paper and has now joined us. He too will report to you in German. This is what you asked for, and we listened.
The third item is of interest to all our readers, not just the German speaking ones. It concerns our health. And how the system takes care of it, or rather, as we find out more and more, doesn’t. Most of us decided some time ago to look for alternative methods that might be less dangerous, more holistic in its approach.
Recently we came across "Consumer Health organisation of Canada" (CHOC), a not for profit organisation that has a mandate to inform and educate interested parties in new approaches to old problems. Their newsletter "Total Health" will come to you as an insert in Echo Germanica, starting with this issue. With this service we hope to be of help to our community in a most important and fundamental way.
There is a German saying, which states that health is not everything, but without health everything is nothing. This is very real to all of us. We know that our environment is not as conducive to health as it was 50 or 100 years ago. And even though Canadians live longer than just about any other population on this planet, we also know that the quality of this long life could be much better. The industrial age and commercial needs and greed have caused irreparable damage to our planet, disturbed the ecology and destroyed many species of flora and fauna. And while the evolutionary process might balance the books some day, it is now that we too are suffering from these events. Therefore it is important to be informed of what is happening concerning all facets of our lives. Only if we know what we are dealing with can we take reasonable precautions, make good decisions.
We do not necessarily endorse the information offered in the insert publication. We simply believe that it is important to look at all information available so people can make choices other then the system of old has to offer.
In the meantime we continue to celebrate the good things in life, within our community as well as outside of it.
We hope to be able to please and serve you, inform and surprise you, and occasionally even provoke you.
Our
anniversary celebrations have not come to an end yet. The first gathering on
Mother’s Day was very well received and you can read about it in one of
the editorials. And because it took place in German, we are reporting about
it in German!
Like you we hope that the temperatures will climb soon to more summer like conditions so we can enjoy our great outdoors. After all, that is what we long for after the much too long Canadian winter. We had already a couple of luncheons in the garden, but never stay very long outside. It simply is still too cool.
Until next time!
Sybille Forster-Rentmeister
Comments to: editor@echoworld.com
