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Is Abbott your man?
A love story
B.C. Liberal leadership hopeful George Abbott stopped by the News with some local allies to discuss Richmond’s influence on the party race.
Valerie Berg was about to leave a Single Mingle when Paul Kallio caught up to her. She didn’t feel a spark for him — until she was being rushed to hospital.
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A visitor views a projection from the video The Last Riot, a new exhibit at the Richmond Art Gallery by Russian artist collective AES+F. The piece, which was one of the sensations of the 2007 Venice Biennale, is now part of the Vancouver Biennale and will be on display throughout Richmond’s Winter Festival of the Arts.
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Anti-bullying flashmob video a surprise Internet hit Richmond woman came up with idea to get 300 students to do an ‘impromptu’ dance with crucial message acampbell@richmond-news.com
A Richmondite is behind an amazing anti-bullying flashmob video that went viral on the Internet within a couple of days of going live. The video — showing 300 Grade 3 to 12 students in a mall, ripping off their jackets to reveal pink anti-bullying T-shirts for an apparent impromptu dance routine — was the idea of Vancouver school principal Mette Hamaguchi. After being posted on YouTube last weekend, the performance at the Oakridge Centre by students from Hamaguchi’s David Lloyd George elementary and nearby Sir Winston Churchill secondary attracted almost 50,000 hits $
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by Wednesday. On Thursday at press time, the number hit nearly 100,000. The video has also been posted on celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton’s website and the Ellen Degeneres Show — whose presenter is a high profile anti-bullying advocate — has been bombarded by emails requesting she highlight the video with the antibullying Pink Shirt Day coming up on Feb. 23. “When you start this thing from a grass roots level, you don’t really expect it to go much farther than the two schools,” said Steveston’s Hamaguchi, wife of Seafair Minor Hockey Association’s executive director Ken Hamaguchi. “We’re absolutely overwhelmed by the reaction and we’ve been
getting emails from around the world. “We did not expect it to have the effect that it now seems to be having.” Hamaguchi sheepishly admitted the flashmob — when a large group of people perform a choreographed routine in a public place in an off-the-cuff manner — was her idea. “I did come up with the idea, but the whole thing was definitely a team effort,” she said. “We were at a family function and we got talking about all the negativity with things going viral on social media. I then thought it would be a good idea to do a positive message using social media for a change. “So I said ‘let’s do a flashmob
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Students create a flashmob at Oakridge centre with an anti-bullying message.
Watch the full amazing video at www.richmond-news.com with an anti-bullying theme.’” Hamaguchi said her school works hard at re-enforcing antihomophobic and anti-bullying messages. And when she asked the dance teacher at the neighbouring Churchhill secondary to help with choreography, it was decided that
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the two schools join forces. As for Perez Hilton and Degeneres, Hamaguchi isn’t expecting any more publicity. “We’re quite shocked that it made it onto Perez Hilton’s website,” she said. “And we really don’t expect to make it onto the Ellen show.” 07283111
BY A LAN CAMPBELL