August 15, 2014, carnegie newsletter

AUGUST 15, 2014 carnnews@vcn.bc.ca carnnews@shaw.ca www.caronews.org 401 Main Street, Vancouver BC V6A ZT7 604-665-2289

FREE. Do not pay for this paper.

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Photo by Casey Bowman.

News from Oppenheimer Park Asahi Baseball Game I Saturday, August 16 at Woodland Park Looking for baseball players to play our annual ball game with the Asahi. Please sign up at Carnegie Center 3rd floor Program Office if you are interested . We will drive together and a bagged lunch will be provided . Let's play ball!

Upcoming Art Workshops with Eva I At Carnegie 3rd floor gallery

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Printmaking: Friday, August 15, 10am-12:30pm Drawing: Tuesday, August 19 & Friday, August 22, 10am-12:30pm

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2D Collage: Tuesday, August '1h ft Friday August 29, 10 am-I 2:30pm

Bto & Statement Wo,kshop facilitated by UBC Leam;nq Exchange At Carnegie Art Room I Tuesday, August 19, 9:30am-ll :30am

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Learn differences between artist bio and statement, share your current bio and/or statement to elaborate! Drop-in .

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Community Art Project "petit BONHOMME'' At Carnegie 3rd floor gallery I Tuesdays & Fridays, 2pm-4pm .

etc. out of wine corks and recycled materials!

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The 8th Annual Endless Summer Festival Saturday, August 30 at McLean Park .

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** * _;:;;:i=路~;路"~ i'"'楼;~' ~~ ~ New Location! Expect endless fun and music at this year's Endless Summer Festival rain or shine . "- ~

UBC

Hum un1versity set free

Arts & Humanities Humanities 10 1 Community Programme offers three free university-level courses for people who live in and around the Downtown Eastside and Downtown South. The courses are for people who have encountered financial and other barriers to university education and who wish to expand their intellectual horizons in an accessible, challenging and respectful environment. Applicants must have a love ofleaming, b<ific literacy skills and be willing to attend classes, complete assignments and participate in group discussions.

Applications for these non-credit courses are Jo' accepted not on the basis of past academic history, but on applicants' desire and ability to be part of the Hum 101 Programme.

Classes· take place at UBC Point Grey campus on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, beginning in early September. You can apply for an eight month interdisciplinary course where you will study a different subject in the arts and social sciences each week, including history and politics, art, music, architecture, philosophy, literature, soci<jpgy, first nation studies, economics, gender studies, popular culture and more.

Or you can apply for a three-month long, hands-on writing course where a new genre and style of writing will taught each week. Participants receive school · supplies, student _cards, bus tickets to get to and from class, meals, and childcare if needed.

Please attend the upcoming information and application sessions for more details on how to participate in I th.~rogramme. Information is also available at \ humanities101.arts.ubc.ca I

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Carnegie Centre, Main and Hastings St. (top floor classroom)

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Saturday August 16, !lam for Hum 101 & Hum 201 Tuesday August 19, !lam for Writing Thursday August 28, llam for Hum 101 Hum 201 & Writing · ' · Gathering Place Community Ctre, 609 Helmcken St. Saturday August 16, lpm for Hum 101 & Hum-201 Tuesday August 19, lpm for Writing Vancouver Recovery Club, 2775 Sophia St. Wednesday August 20, !lam for Hum 101, Hum 201 and Writing Crabtree Comer,•533 East Hastings St. (3rd fl. room) Wednesday August 20, lpm for Hum 101, Hum 201 and Writing Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, 302 Columbia St. (women only) Thursday August 21 , 1pm for Hum I 01 , Hum 201 and Writing Humanities 101 Community Programme Dr. Margot Leigh Butler, Academic Director Paul Woodhouse, Programme Coordinator Alison Rajah, Writing Coordinator Wil Steele, Programme Assistant Michelle Turner, Programme Assistant Madeline Gorman, Programme Assistant tel. 604-822-0028 Programme Office: #270 Buchanan E, 1866 Main Mall, U.B.C. Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6T lZl Website: http://humanities1 01.arts.ubc.ca/

MIC

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MIC develops and makes weapons of war.

MIC is the most prolific employer in the Western World.

MIC decides who will be President.

MIC tells the president and congress what to do.

MIC is what Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about before he left presidential office in the early sixties.

MIC is: the *'Military Industrial Complex,"* and it rules the Western world as long as we stupidly allow it to.

Garry Gust

night gift "Water is to land what the voice is to the body" - Kaluli knowledge, via Steven Feld and Walter Lew make space and let the night speak through you- what will the darkness say? will it sigh the song ofnightcleaners, the lament of the wrongly imprisoned, the rage of the ragged, the dispossessed? how will the night take you back? will you be the vessel for earth shatter, hydro poison, ancestral revenge? perhaps steady weeds, growing irrepressibly into the cracks, urban repurposing, straddling both the drugs that kill and the ones that heal ?' the globe moves around the sun, unstoppable, feeding pine trees and the 路petro-state alike, giving us the days and nights by which to stand with the trees, what the industry calls overburden, or to die more rapidly, more stupidly, by peak oil.

as rivers and ocean s fill with carcinogenic wastes from the petroleum-plastic-supply-chain, the political systems follow, stuffed fu ll of suncorpse and tired old neo-colonial ego that refuses to stop growing until it reaches the limits of the planet's patience. who knows what alliances and monkeywrenches will be enough to stop the greed of the greasy machine? what I do know is that humble migrants who've traveled the ocean know its wisdom better than an arrogant el ite that doesn't heed the world's necessary stories. jai l the stories and the storytellers, but they wi ll keep speaking the night until empire expires, with or without the multitudes alive. in this race may we be ready to move fast, yet steady enough to encompass musicians and lake gatherings, forests and guerri lla gardens, fueled by a love more immense than the unnatural systems we've inhe rited! we need to live the world that is possible even while we struggle through war. respect living coasts and fluid watersheds, not murderous imperial borders. in grief and in celebration, in fear and in courage, in anger and in compassion, the night replenishes us so that we may continue to embody her songs.

Rita Wong

One needs a place . ..

To sleep, to weep, to contemplate and eat.

A safe place to park our things.

So we can be there when the whistle blows or the school bell rings.

To work we can then go, through sleet rain and snow.

Knowing at day's end a warm, safe place is just around the bend .

You say I am a bum. I say no way.

Give me a home, be it one I can afford, with security, And oh, my lord- You will see the person I am.

Affordable housing has sometimes been there, until now.

In past times my relations could stroll in the woods and lay claim to a home site without a worry or a care.

But to this generation such affordable housing is no longer there.

From the LibrarY We are in the heat of summer, the fans are going, the windows are up & we are here to maintain your quest for the perfect book. Las t weekend l visited the I lastings Urban Farm across from Save-o n-Meats, and the Strathcona Community garden where the excess of blackberries inspired me to do some foraging and attempt to bake a blackberry pie!

Here are some books at Camegie around the theme of foraging, feasting and ancient wisdom ...

The so-called Forest-Service burnt down our cabins in the woods.

Sending us packing to cities in search of a place to call home.

But none are to be had unless one is rich, indeed.

The wealthy have more housing than they need.

Those in this fair city have many homes privately owned and often leave them empty because the city allows this vile greed. The Earth Knows My Name: Food, culture and susEmpty they sit, serving the rich: To drive up housing prices tainability in the gardens ofethnic Americans (2006) not affordable to this old bitch.

by Patricia Klindienst. This book contains knowledge of gardening from the perspective of First Nations The shortage of housing goes ever higher.

The city officials abound with promises that, if I made them, peoples, immigrants and ethnic Americans who all would make me a liar. value restorative ecology and justice for their land .

The Province buys the Woodwards building to house the poor, and the city says no, the rich of housing, they need more.

So a few crumbs the city throws to the poor in the 'hood.

The rest of the housing goes to those in the high end loop.

While the most are begging for housing, jumping through hoops.

A home to be in within our means, not a mat on a shelter floor is what we need.

If it was not for those following the god of mammon, for greed, We would have this and much more. Yes indeed . • Yes, in the past we could sit at the door of our own cabin and watch the world go past.

But greed has made this situation so it would not last.

Our country was one where all had a home. Today we've been reduced to tenting in a city park or left to roam.

Colleen Carroll

• Revolution: Growing healthy food, The Good Food people, and communities (2012) by Will Allen.

From being a KFC executive and professional basketball player, Will Allen tums the tide and looks to his farming roots. He became an urban farm advocate, showing how local food can help at-risk youth and create a thriving community.

Walking with Aalasi: An introduction to edible and medicinal Arctic Plants {2009) by Anna Ziegler.

While this is a basic guide to traditional plant use, the author also shares memories and stories from Aalasi Joamie who learned how to observe and ·h arvest plants from her mother in Pangnirtung in the 1940s.

Where People Feast: An Indigenous people's cookbook {2007) by Dolly Watts.

An award-winning book for " Best Local Cuisine," Dolly Watts offers a mouth-watering description of food traditions and recipes with a focus on west coast Native cuisine. Learn how to utili ze local seafood, game, fruits & vegetables, and create delicious feasts for friends and family.

Your Carnegie Librarian, Natalie

My Childhood ... so far Childhood, innocence, pure curious wonder, learning to walk. running, skipping, jumping, hiding&seeking, climbing, making mudpies, crazy stone fights, buillding forts. rend ing under the covers. radio the same ... playing house, post oftlce, staying up late not wanting to ever sleep unti l passing out from excitement and fatigue, sneaking into the fridge, into the cookie jar way up high, tiptoeing on a precarious rickety kitchen chair, getting dirty 'n tearing ofT clothes, kneescrapes, bandaids stinging & Mommy ki sc;ing it better. Fairy tales, make bel ieve, story-te lling at beddy-bye time, sneaking out the window at night for whatever reason -maybe to raid the neighbourhood's cherry trees here & there; dressing up for Hallowe'en as a pirate or a tramp, going door-to-door with a ragged pillow case com ing home n' tossing out all the fruit popcorn balls & other junk I really hated only to keep chocolate chips, pixie stix n' gum, gorging out with my best friend on a major sugar high; bel ieving in Santa Claus Popeye, the Fli ntstones, Jetsons and many others ...

The Ford Building Is it affordable housing or deplorable housing?

Propetty Management hired a new & cheaper elevator repair company.

The 8-storey build1ng has had no e levator for 16+ days! Lots of seniors with physical handicaps live there & they can' t get out for food &/or to get their prescri ptions filled.

There is no access (except for Management) to the basement laundry room .

The situation is abso lutely horrendous. Please, everyone, spread word o f this as widely as possible.

Management has reportedl y decl ined to assume responsibility for any stress or peccadi lloes caused ('not our responsibility'). The thinking is that only public embarrassment I humi liation will work.

A resident.

and now, still sometimes wondering what if whatever spin the bottle knicky-knicky 9 doors, growing up to be a fireman/astronaut/secret agent -go figure ... delusions of grandeur, pie-in-tht.:-sky pipe dream s; smoking cigarettes getting headaches Grampa's home made.. overdoes, throwing up sick as a dog... oh yes all the beautiful wondrous memories with no regrets really, uh huh. Those were most definitely the be~t years of my life!

By ROBYN LI YfNGSTON E

Embassy for Strays The entrance is intimidating to some.

Once inside, however, A discovery.

People everywhere.

Playing chess, Cutting hair, Bead in~.

Read ing, Meeting friend s. 路A home for the forgotten, The mi sunderstood, Unloved, Unwanted, Don' t fit in, "Wish they'd just disappear."

A place where things happen.

Dreams dare to become, Action plans hatch, ~ Learning occurs, Appetites are satisfied, Connections are made.

Life is normal, If only for a short v.路hile.

A refuge the neighbourhood looks up to.

An embassy for those Who are strays no more.

Lisa David

Notes on 'anti-Semitism' & terrorizing minorities -By Ron Gostick (fhe Globe & Mail,published the following leller by I. Zayid off lalifax, dealing with the Israeli- Palestinian controversy) "We read \\~th amazement your June 3 report fi·om Israel (Israeli Peace Activists Attacked By Settlers): 'The seminary's spiritual leader.

Rabbi Vitzhak Ginsbw·gjustilied the slaying (of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl by Je\\-ish settlers) and said the blood of Jews and non-Jews cannot be equated. "We have to recognize that Je\\-ish blood and the blood of a goy (non-Jew) are not the same thing," he told Israel Radio: "Every law that is based on equating goys and Jews is completely unacceptable."

"On another page we read of a computer game, developed in Israel, where liquidation of Arabs is fun; Arabs are dehumanized and wiping them out is the objective (Computer Game Based on Arab Uprising Causes Stir in Israel). A few days earlier we read that the Jewish settlement af Ariel required that Arabs be 'tagged' as alien workers. A reminder afthe Nazis' yellow star? These trends are simp!) incomprehensible from a people who have suffered so much from similar supremacist and dehumanizing ideologies.

"We are, however, heartened that there are honorable voices raised in Israel against such sickening ideas. Knesset (parliament) member Dedi Zucker condemned the computer game and said: 'A society in which liquidating human beings becomes a computer game will, in the future, be unable to explain why kill ing a man because he is an Arab is a crime and not fun.'

"AlufHa Reuventfo, fom1er Israeli general, described the game as 'totally destructive and dehumanizing' and asked: '!fin Germany they had a game of getting Jews into a concentration camp and 9-year-olds played it, what would be the implications?'

Perhaps the most significant point in the foregoing letter is the statement of Rabbi Ginsburg, justifying the slaying of a young Palestinian girl, contending that the blood of non -Jews is of less consequence than that of Jews- which, ofeourse, is th e Talmudic teachi ng.

The same issue of the Globe followed th is letter with one by Alan Lazerte, Executive Director. Canadian Friends of the 1nternational Ch ri stian Embassy, Jerusalem. Mr. Lazerte began his letter in these word.s: "The recen t defacing of a Jewish sy nagogue and school in Toronto was more than an isolated event -it was th e intent of the perpe trators to terrorize Canada's Jew ish community. many of whom carry un speakable memories (Synagogue Spraypainted With Swastikas- June 12). The balance of Mr. Lazerte's letter was an attack upon freedom of speech in Canada, even dismissing the defences of "truth" and "in the public interest" as being irrelevant to group intimidation or libel. Mr. Lazerte concluded his letter: "Canadians must be vigilant. The world is erupting around us and 'it can happen here.' " Analyzing Mr. Lazerte's opening paragraph (reprinted above), re the defacing with swastikas of a Toronto synagogue and school, it's rather interesting that although he does not seem to know the perpetrators, he knows their intent: "to terrorize Canada's Jewish community." Mr. Lazerte is absolutely correct- but for reasons obviously far beyond his understanding of so-called 'anti-Semitism' and its use in discrediting and destroying any effective opposition to the anti-Christian total• itarian policy of Political Zionism.

Patrick Walsh, a former RCMP undercover agent, authored a reveal ing little book on this very subject: The Unholy Alliance, documenting how Communist and certain Jewish organizations themselves use agents provocateurs to commit outrageous acts of desecration, and then blame them on and thereby discredit their adversaries, while at the same time terrorizing members of the Jewish community in order to extract heavier financial support for their 'defence' and 'protection,' and gaining sympathy for the policies and actions of the perpetrators of this hoax. The truth is that for any group to deface a Toronto synagogue, except for the architects of this agem-provocateur ploy explained by Mr. Walsh, it would constitute nothing more or less than an exercise in asininity.

The photographic reproduction on the next page of Mr. Andrew Benjamin posing for The Jewish Chronicle in the U.K. ("the world's leading Jewish newspaper, established in 1841") is rather revealing. This photo, in the March 31, 1989 issue of Jewish Chronicle (" JC"), is accompanied by this report: 'Blood and Honour' organisation- a breakaway from the :\'ational Front's White Noise Club. fascist links here and abroad.

"Mr. Benjamin plays down the significance of his business. Speaking from his shop, surrounded by T-shirts and flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols, he said: 'It pays for the car and mortgage.'

"His connections with the neo-Nazi music scene in this country extend far beyond the mere sale of records. Last April, a London concert of skinhead bands degenerated into fighting that spilled out into the street. A passerby was stabbed. The promoter of that conce11 was a Mr. Andrew St. John. 'Andrew St. John is an alias I sometimes use in business.' Mr. [lenjamin told me.

"In spite of last year's problems, he is helping to organise a similar concert at a secret location in May. It will feature all the top Nazi-style bands, including Skrewdriver, Brutal A/lack and No Remorse.

"No Remorse members are avowed British Movement supporters. One of their numbers is called 'Six Million lies.' "Mr. Benjamin is adamant that he will continue his business ... " The foregoing Jewish Chronicle report illustrates Jewish promotion of so-called 'Nazism' for a purely financial motive.

But far more dangerous to our freedom is the agent-provocateur-organized 'Nazism' and 'anti-Semitism' which usc swastika-spraying and synagogue-defacing to scare and bilk the Jewish community and psychologically condition and manipulate public opinion in the interests of the unseen architects and promoters.

lnci~e~tall~·· :'vir. La.zcrte and hi s "Canadian Friends of the Internationa l Christian Embassy" arc \\ ell 1-.nown to us _ and

to Ch~tst.mn~

the Mtddle Ea~t. Many of them arc Palestinians, who have suffered so gri evously under the ·ackboot of financed and s tcked on by the Lazertes and \\ell-meaning, nai\e but mi s led Christians ofth! West The ns:;a~ .~~v~\~Oma~, ~rac.e I lalsell. who actually joined a Jerr) -Falwell Israel tour as part of her im cstigation of th is so-ca .c ;.tsttan Ztontsm racket came back and published a tremendously revealing book, Prophecy and Politics _ essentta 1 rea tng for ~ho~e who wam to rcall) understand what's going on in the name of Christianity touay.

(Recommended readmg. The U1~holy Allwnce by Patrick Walsh; Prophecy and Politics by Grace llalscll ) All !halts necessary for the triumph of evil, is 1//(/f good people rio nothiug.

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"Get Back to Active" Program 'S111all Clas-; '>•: s~i ons Ortt:n.:u !11 '\n,_ ,,nc \\ i.n E'\isti lL \lu:;c!e. 8on..: or AoJ~ 'njuri~-.'. ' FRL:E. it~jury ·1ss..:c;-;m.:m ilnd ~xcrcis.: pro..!::.Jm by certified personal trainer. ~ *Get back ro bein::, you r <~ctiw :-cl,!

Get hel p wirh i.:;sues such as ~lrthriti s, ostcoporo:.-.is, ml.sclc degenerat ion or aches and pains \\ ·t:· a pcrsonal iLeJ c:-..cn: ise and stretching r~gil!lC'"' .

Tuesdays, 12-1 pm Thursdays, 10-llam Starting Aug 5, Carnegie Centre, Classroom 2 Facilitated by NCSA Certified Personal Trainer For more info, Contact Mary Ellen at 604-665-3005

Hoodwinked Again?

If one of us so-called 'little people', which is to say those without huge money, influence or power was to intentionally or accidently pour a litre of motor oil down a gutter-drain and was caught, there would be needless to say- Hell to Pay! However, wi ll Imperial Metals and its executive and rhe BC Liberal government have hell to pay?

111 In Tuesday's August 12 Province columnist Michael Smyth wrote that "The majority sharehold~r of Imperial Metals (whiclt owns the mine) helped organize a $1 million private fundraiser for Premier Christy Clark." In the same article Smyth wrote that Mines Minister Bill Bennett told him that "It's really insulting for anybody to suggest thar because we rake donations from a group of corporations like the mining industry that we're going to cut them a break."(!)

Bennett then continued on: '·We can ' t be bought, OK? We're not go ing to be cutting this company a break. If

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they have been negligent, if they have been dishonest, if they have made mistakes even in an honest way, they're going to pay for it." Bennett then concluded that there would absolutely be an independent investigation into the collapse of the tailings pond dam at Mount Polley.

In Monday's August 11th Vanco uver Sun, Stephen Hume wrote that, '"Since 1960 there have been more than a hundred ~uch major containment dam failures reported worldwide. Tailings Dam failures have killed more than 1600 people, destroyed more than 2500 homes in downstream locations, poisoned thousands of kilometres of ri ver systems, ruined thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land and deprived mi!lions of people of safe drinking water. The Mt Polley accident on Aug I occurred on a tributary which connects to a river basin that's home to 63% of B.C.'s population. About 2,4 million people live along the Fraser River in 32 downstream communities and the urban sprawl that is Metro Vancouver. That' s where any toxins escaping from the spill are ultimately bound."

What we now need - besides an independent investigation- is the same independency in testing of the water bound here. As is scientifically known, water raken from a shallow depth is different from warer taken from a deep depth. Is the water being tested taken from clean, shallow depths or dirty deep depth?

Most likely it's being taken from the shallows,

By Harry Schorncck

community rising I rolled into vancouver on a greyhound bus in 1986 just after expo evictions from the hotels executed oiur martyr olaf solheim whose death was officially attributed to eviction from the room he had lived in for decades and at that time the poverty agencies were in constant conflict with each other city hall and its developers reduced low-income housing ~ throughout the city deliberately forcing poor people into the downtown eastside from where we are to be driven elsewhere I nowhere and city hall refused to enforce by-laws and so the hotels parks and alleys became festering cesspools for pandemics hiv/aids hepatitis a b and c tuberculosis and overdose deaths the highest in the western world and the money/power people call it revitalization when our situation by definition was genocide meaning withholding the necessities for life of a targeted group primarily the very ill street addicts there were no demonstrations or protests in the streets then but dead bodies disappeared women serial killers police thugs and a health board having spent more money on an outbreak of bumble bee stings infecting a dozen students at ubc than on a health epidemic in the downtown eastside and while I early recognized signs of the violence of gentrification I was told to just wait until the next provincial government was elected and when they were welfare rates were cut meanwhile a few poverty agency directors claimed to speak to the media and politicians for thousands of suffering people but finally a small group of downtown eastside residents

organized and made signs hit the stn and spoke loudly for health and the promises 1 to help d~ the mentally traun and missi disappeared after grar and we learned bitterly that our governme often gov rather than human and now 22 years after I an only hom where housing the centra is disappearing

the hiv/ids an1 is closer to th< yet there is act

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organized rncl! again and made signs hit the streets and spoke loudly for health and housing and the promises made from victoria to help demonized addicts the mentally traumatized and missing women disappeared after grandiose and fake announcements and we learned bitterly that our governments often govern by political announcement rather than human reality and now 22 years after I arrived at the only home I've ever known where housingthe central determinant of health is disappearing

unity amon an once thoug an alongside L fip to support 1 as unique con wi and what~ is of resistanc re1 the face of on and everyti so and everyti wl and sandy ce and what v

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the hiv/ids rate is now close to botswana's according to the united nations and life expectancy is closer to haiti 's than the rest of vancouver's yet there is again an active inspiring hopeful unity among agencies and organizations and there are accomplishments once thought impossible and allies alongside us fighting in many ways to support our continuing existence as an extraordinary unique community exploding with beauty and knowledge and what we have is a powerful history of resistance reminding us each time we see the face of bruce eriksen on the building honouring him and everytime we hear libby davies advocate so fiercely for us and everytime we see jean swanson whose presence empowers us â&#x20AC;˘ and sandy cameron whose writings celebrate and safeguard our history and what we have more than ever at this critical and desperate moment is self-sacrifice and care for one another and a multitude of our voices now speaking fiery powerful truth to lying destructive power and we have a remarkable amazing sustaining deep and impregnable spirituality of strength joy hope and determination

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tearing apart trauma and liberating courage

1t of health Bud Osborn

THE WEAKEND One & only thing we sort of have in common is our fear of Pigs, the Bulls that must show off their might that blood red day seeps thru living ti ssue & into the night, when people disappear are attacked or killed like a rabid dog people look up to their chosen god (so many to choose from) while others collapse and others fade into that last big sleep but when Officer Down & his vaudevillian troupe storm on in you won't hear peep from the weakend of the twilight pool it's out of sig ht, like a boy not allowed to even watch his family eat sentenced to eternity in the corner of his room one day he will make an excellent play-by-p lay announcer for his generation's war(s) Until then he plays with darkness building his own cocoon his remembering will never stop, He could be the next Adolph Hitler or the next Abraham Lincoln with shrinking seas & overpopulated cities .. am I one of the few who at least are thinking every writer who's he lped the Carnegie Newsletter I Centre don't g ive up because of the futility of it all & by no means let that Aftliction Finder make that reason a killer cop, just living gets them all angry & pissed & that is something I could never resist so to does the boy in a corner of a room, I'd feel safer kicking a long row of Hell 's Angels motorcycles over than asking a cop for directions hospitals are better than shallow graves we maybe remind all people of authority that we live in that same world where everyone deserves to be saved & maybe one day no o ne will have to sit in a corner of a room.

By ROBERT MeG ILLIVRA Y

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism."

-Sir William Osler

FM radio tunes from the past Somehow more charming than 'in the day' Shania warbling about LOVE The Beatles had the same song Rain on this day in .July Has been on and off again; th is time around ol' Sol a w路elcome wetness, and cooing too.

Unpredictable has been the order of the day Accepti ng the vicissitudes of NATURE We have no choice in this matter.

This Pilgrim awakens in the same downish mood That dark brown taste, the ache in every bone and sinew Me mory flooding in Remindihg me GOOD FORTUNE is coming breathing hard.

Bright future beckoningThe finger crooked toward me.

Slough of Despond: Swamp of Despair Hope long gone Expectations only a memory or a memorex Now a light appears in the forest The end is in s ight The 0 coming up warms my old bones Expanding the metallic parts of my body Easing the pain - casing the tension As I walk that tightrope once more From dawn to dusk Trying to maintain homeostasis Trying to modulate the dreadfulness I witness Trying to keep my cool in a world gone mad Again.

Wilhelmina M Miles @ the Ovaltine the Ides of August Dog Days of2X14

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HELP DOWNTOWN Resources for SRO Tenants *City of Vancouver vancouver.ca Phone 3-1-1 Problems in your building including: broken toilets or fixtures bedbugs general repairs rodent/pest infestations heat and fire safety *Residential Tenancy Branch rto.gov.bc.ca Problems with your landlord with your tenancy agreement Phone 604-660-1020 or visit 520 Richards Street, Monday to Friday, 9-11 :30am or Four Directions 390 Main Street, Monday to Friday, 12:30 - 4pm *Shelter and Housing bchousing.org Phone 2-1-1 Provincial information line on shelters. *Subsidized H,ousing Registration 604-648-4270 or visit 297 East Hastings, Mon to Fri, IOam-4pm *Vancouver Coastal Health vch.ca 604-736-2033 Info about health services in your community. *Emergency Assistance Phone 9-1-1 Immediate help for health or safety of yourself or another person.

EASTSIDE *47"*

JUNE 2014

FREE OR lOW-COST GOODS ................ .!

SHELTER & HOUSING ................................2 HFALTH SERVICES .....................................3 COUNSELUNG, SUPPORT, INFO ............5 LEGAL SERVICES ·····················-··················9 ADVOCACY RESOURCE UST .................10 EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE .................10 LANGUAGE, LEARNING ........................... 11 SOOAL, DROP-IN, RECRFA110N ....... .12 REPLACING 1DEN11RCA110N ............. .13 INFORMATION: Legal, General ................14 DTES YOUTH SERVICES ..........................14 OTHER SERVICES, RECYCLING ............15 COMMUNITY ACTION PROJECT ..........16 HlV+/AlDS, Immigrant Services .................17 Map-18, Mental Health Consumers ··---..19

~~ CARNEGIE NEWSLETTER 665-2289

How The B.C. Liberals balanced The Budget The New Democrats said, "It can't be done." Yet the B.C. Liberal government did it; They balanced the budget. And out of a total $44 billion budget they even ran a small surplus of$135 million.

That's the good news. T he bad news is that this balanced budget comes with a price and it's called "People's needs." The needs of many people in B.C. are short changed and even ignored.

Here's how the Li berals performed their balancing act.

First off, they raised gove rnment fees all alo ng the line. Medicare premiums got hi ked 4 per cent this year and will go up again next year. B.C. Hydro bills go up nearly $100 this year for the average household and will keep rising until 201 9. T he Liberals boosted ICBC rates 5 per cent this year. Now even park fees witt go up since a reservation fee is now slapped o n to the $42 a night fee yo u pay when you stay in a park overnight. Every night you stay in a provincial park you pay an extra $6 reservation fee.

Then there are ferry fares . They're rising and will continue to shoot upwards.

And don't fo rget water fees. "Water is the tree of life," the Bible once said. Now the B.C. government may soon hike the price of water for everybody but especially B.C. households. But first, the government wi tt set up a commission to examine this issue.

Anyway all these hikes means more money streaming into government coffers. To add to this money, the Liberal government raised the tax on high income earners. Yet this tax only applies for the next two years. Then it comes off. The government also hi ked the corporate income tax.

"Those tax hikes were part of our 2013 election program," groi1sed an N.D.P.'er. This man was surprised that premier Christy C lark had carried out a small part of their program. But like they say, "That's politics."

Now after jacking up fees and taxes, the Liberals kept a tight lid on social spending. When the teachers went out on strike in June, the government saved more than $ 170 million in unpaid wages. Welfare rates are held down to basically starvation wages. A single person on welfare gets only $6 10 a month. And the Liberals have now extended the waiting time for get1ing welfare from three weeks to an incredible five A welfare parent with o ne chi ld gets only $845 a month from the C lark Liberals. A single hand icapped

person receives about $910 monthly. Premier Clark has made it clear there'll be no increases in this kind of social spending.

Then the government plans to spend only very small amounts on more social housing. "We don't build social hous ing," Housing Minister Rich Coleman said in effect this past spring. Instead government money will go into housing subsidies.

Still, two out of every three dollars go into health and education. The C lark Liberals haven't been ab le to make too many cuts here. Yet that's only because they've already made them.

"Cut health and education," Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell told his cabinet ministers when he became premier in 200 I. And the min isters of health and education, one of whom was o ur premier Christy Clark, followed Mr. Campbell's o rders. So right now there's not too much space for many more cuts. Stil l some have happened.

The old Pine Free Clinic in Kitsilano that dated back to the late 1960's is gone. The Portland Hotel Society has been taken over completely by the government. Maybe more cuts are on the way here.

Meanwhile II ,000 British Columbians sleep in the streets or in shelters every night. And up to 60,000 more people exist on the edge of being homeless.

So yes the" B.C. Liberal government balanced the budget in 20 14. Yet for the poorest third this budget is terrible. And for the poorest third of these people, or the bottom ten per cent, it's a disaster.

By DAVE JAFFE

Big news!

Negotiations on the proposed Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) corporate rights deal have hit a major stumbling block.

A report has just s urfaced that Germany is now raising serious concerns over the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism in CET A- the part of the deal that grants foreign corporations the right to sue govemments over laws that infringe on their corporate profit-making.

This is modeled on NAFT A's notori ous Chapter II, which has already cost Canadian taxpayers over $170 million in awards to U.S. corporations- and potentially S2.5 billion more in pending challenges!

Council of Canadians

To Serve and To Protect?

I worked at the Arco a few years back, the night shift with this feeble seventy year-old man. I mean, I don't wish to speak ill of the elderly, but this guy was irascible & unpleasant & extremely decrepit & absolutely useless in the extreme. What a wreck! The only thing worse than his ceaseless flatulence was the stunning halitosis in the aftermath of one of his frequent belches. Ay Canm1ba! And I'm in a small office with this guy for eight hours, all night! Good God! So anyway, when this scary looking dude walked right by us at the front desk, I was on my own- this old man was in no way any kind of back up.

Now, at night at the Area, it was my job to stop practically everybody from getting in the building. I never cared for that rule. If a person wanted to visit a friend, who was I to get in their way? But if someone looked like real trouble - like this dude - then I figured I had to something about it.

Well, this dude was indeed real trouble. He was trying to get into the rooms on the fourth floor. He was smoking crack. For all I know he may have been mute -he never said a word. Despite all that I had to say to him; he just stared right through me when I talked to him. He had a scar on his forehead and wore leather gloves with pointy metal attachments on the knuckles.

1 implored, cajoled and beseeched this big crazy bastard to leave the goddamn building but he just kept trying to get into rooms and smoking crack in the hallway. Sometimes a door would be unlocked and a tenant would exclaim, "What the fuck!" Who the fuck are you?!" And then I'd step between the outraged tenant and this mute, impassive crackhead, thinking all the while this situation will surely erupt into violence at any moment.

After a half hour, when the cops didn't show (my constant warnings about the imminent arrival of the police didn't faze him) a helpful tenant, emboldened by a whack of gib, came to my aid and we lured this crazy loon down the stairs with promises of going to a room where there was this wonderful sale on crack, where he could find a plethora of smokable cocaine essentially for free. Luckily, he was not only mute but also gullible. When we reached the first floor, we pushed and shoved the mute madman down the stairs and out the front door. 1 felt terrible about lying about the crack .. just kidding, of course .. sometimes in this old world mendacity can be a noble thing.

At six o'clock in the morning - five hours after I'd twice called for the cops!_,_ the dispatcher cal led back and asked if I still required help.

"No cops required," I told her. "You can tell your scaredy-cat police to relax now. I took care of it."

And I hung up.

A few days later (on my day oft) I'm running at night, three or four in the morning. Police car stops me. Officer asks who I am, where I'm going, why am I running so fast? I explain to them about "exercise"-a concept that is apparently unknown to donut addicts.

They treat me Iike a criminal for at least 15 minutes, checking me for needle marks, frisking me, asking questions about the history of my life. I grew agitated.

They remarked about the fact that I'm "agitated." It's pretty suspicious, my being so agitated and all. 'Why am r so agitated?' And I say, "Two heavily armed strangers stop me in the middle of night for no reason. I don't know who you are; I only know that I better take what you dish out. For some reason, you're suspicious. I don't know why. But it's up to me to allay your suspicions. Until l do, I can't move. So yeah, I'm fucking agitated."

Throughout the interrogation on Georgia Street, I'd noticed that they 'd received & turned down two radio calls. Then it hit me. This is what cops do. They make up shit to do in order to avoid doing something that could be real trouble for them. You know, like responding to a potentially dangerous situation ~tan SRO ...

"Where were you guys Saturday when I called from the Arco?" I said to them. Then I explained what I meant. One of them looked a little sheepish and said I could finally go.

Oh well.. if the cops had showed up they would've probably killed the mute madman. l know for damn sure if one decent, thoughtful fellow human hadarrived to deal with Robert Dziekanski or Paul Boyd, instead of a gaggle of pumped up, macho cops, Boyd and Dziekanski would be alive today.

By DAN PAGE

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Censored 2012: An informative book Project Censored started a few years ago with a few actual investigative journalists doing research, compi li ng mainstream-media presentations of news and non-presentation of the full or even true story.

T he categories are entitled as clusters of ideas/ideals/ issues that have the actual facts or takes so spun or distorted that what becomes 'news' is often (well , almost always) the way-of-thinking that those w ith the most invested in reports tailor-made to be theirs.

With the Internet and search e ngines and more, the existence of ' false flag' operations (9/11), groups being up fro nt environmentalist ( fishing, forests, nuclear waste etc) are set up by gove rnments (read CIA, NSA, the "military-industrial complex" and others) to produce and endorse the very bullshit that actual environmentalists abhor. Like how 'wonderful ' nuclear power is, or how overfishing is a myth, or how trees are a 'renewable resource (while actual forests are c learcut and replaced by monoculture tree' farms').

Little bits of truth are mind-blowing. The first one that stopped me was the fact that as many US soldiers commit suicide as are killed in combat ... thatthe si.mple number of those wounded doesn't inc lude those wi th serious mental disorders due to horrific acts committed while ' under orders' or the hundreds of thousands with long-term disabilities (nor the denial o fveteran's benefits to these and more).

The next bit that rocked me was the entire, complex and extremely well-funded attack on the public education system. First of all, the very wealthy own the major media- television networks, radio, various inte rnational news networks & the daily print media.

The prefac路e of this entire chapter was the story of where the term "Welfare Queen" came from. Ronnie Reagan, in one of his speeches about the evil of welfare, threw that term out with " freeloaders, bums, lazy, ... all the buzzwords about economically poor people. Right-wing pundits picked up on it and a new stereotype was born, even though such a person "with 80 names, 34 addresses, 175 children all starving to death while "mom" drives a Cadillac" does not and never has existed. But when it 'works' flaunt it.

Now the luxuries in the life of this "welfare queen" can be safely imagined and thinking by those being fed such crap can go to Charlie Sheen's drug-addicted antics or the sexual escapades of Tiger Woods. All women on welfare are welfare queens and bettering

their lives or those of thei r children (invariably those "crack babies") can be relegated to the garbage cans.

The first Censored story was then al l about Public Education. You know, the system that is "broken, worse-than-useless, with ' teachers' who are overpaid incompetent blocking innocent students from actually learning, administering provincial tests for the extra money to buy breast implants or penis-enlargement kits to wow their non-existent classroom aids AND ALL BECAUSE OF EVIL UNIONS!!!.

The scenario of the BC gov't (read C hristy Clark) so opposed to any improvements suggested by these same stereotyped teachers now gets clearer. The multi-billion dollar industry of Charter Schools in the States and the up-and-coming thing of private, forprofit schools in Canada is hell bent on denigrating every aspect of the public education system, including underfunding by their government hacks (identical to the unfolding drama in the health industry) to make those with any money forego public institutions for the very expensive private ones. The extent that this goes is personified in movies like "Bad Teacher" and " Waiting for Superman" which are then referred to ad nauseum by politicians and on televisions shows. The kids who appeared in WFS were even invited to the White House and Qbama came out repeating how broken public education is.

Here we have the Fraser Institute and its ' rating' of High Schools; always topped by private, for-profit businesses and its myriad publications based on "expert" research/opinion presented as indisputable fact.

To quote from the book: " ... education reform has become a euphemism for a very narrow, specific philosophy, a free-market one [promoted & extensively funded by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation [Microsoft..world's richest man] the Walton Family Foundation [owners ofWa lmart, four people collectively worth $120 billion], the Koch brothers et al). As Joanne Barkan observes in a comprehensive investigative report on private spending in education policies, reform has come to mean 'choice, competition, deregulation, accountability and databased decision-making. In other words this means supporting policies that either privatize public education, or turn public education into a simulation of education in the private sector. This includes, as Barkan shows, "charter schools, high-stakes standardized testing for students, merit pay for teachers whose stu-

dents improve their test scores, firing teachers & closing schools when scores don't rise adequately, and longitudinal data-collecting on the performances of every teacher and student. This ' free-market' education reform movement means pushing public schools from a model of cooperation to one of competition ... turning schools into a marketplace where the consumer is king." Free choice curriculum is replaced by corporate training to be an employee for life. In Japan this corporate training has hooks- leaving, quitting, changing companies etc is viewed as high treason & can lead to being blacklisted or scorned or cut dead by friends fearing for their security at the same company.

Mirrored throughout this coverage, to me anyway, was Christy C lark again. Her vehement vitriol about the BC Teachers Federation must stem fro m some real or imagined traumatic experience. Maybe she was trying to make money as a substitute teacher when in college, or even applied for a juicy job as a top teacher at some hoity-toity school , and was stymied by some obscure (to her) union rule that union members had first dibs, or experience and good people skills were also considered along with whatever you think of yourself. She's been frothing at the mouth about "education reform " ever since and this "free-market" stuff is music to her ears. (You know, where it's not so much what you know as who you know ... ) An ongoing censored story is the community and people of the Downtown Eastside (not in the book but the same slant/coverage/stereotyping as everywhere else). Economically poor or drug-using or alcoholdependent or disabled or just discriminated against non-people! Every 'improvement' suggested by the developers, owners/speculators is for the best always.

Make a wish and it can come true! ? Our community has been relegated to the shadows so pioneering can proceed like a juggernaut.

Keep your mind, ears and eyes open to this aspect of all so-called news but especially to what the coverage is trying to convince you of. It's never what it seems!!

One taste of Volunteering is deliciously rewarding.

VOLUNTEER TODAY FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

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By PAULR TAYLOR

Submitted by Starr Wah Sing-Long, Volunteer Coffee Seller

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it · 5 tho; )111~ t 1 !li~ ~ 1 1;;_ ~ ·lc•· ins ·· -Margare: Meade 401 '1lain Street 'ancouver t6A 2T7 o04-665-21d9 THIS NEWSLETIER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles rep resent the views of individual contributors and not of the Association.

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