The Community Edition: January 2017

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 4 • JANUARY 2017

THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH: 2016 IN REVIEW BELMONT’S NEW BEER BAR PAGE 12

JIM TUBB PAINTS LIFE PAGE 11

OPIOIDS GET STRONGER PAGE 6

JANUARY 2017 // @THECOMMUNITYED

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Volume 5, Issue 4 Next issue: February 1, 2017 75 University Ave. W Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 519-884-0710 x3564 Advertising All advertising inquiries should be directed to Care Schummer at 519-884-0710 x3560 care.schummer@wlusp.com THE COMMUNITY EDITION TEAM Editor in Chief Jesse Bauman jesse.bauman@wlusp.com Publisher Lakyn Barton lakyn.barton@wlusp.com Social Media Editor Sarah Pouramn

General Inquiries info@communityedition.ca Web Manager Care Schummer care.schummer@wlusp.com TCE Radio Megan Nourse

CONTRIBUTORS Beth Bowles Rick Cober Bauman Mike Chong Emily Gleeson James Gowland Stacey Jacobs Jon Johnson Pooja Lal Mohan Janice Lee Emma McKenna Montana Mellett

Andreas Patsiaouros John Roche Eva Rucki Matt Smith Sharron Smith Nick Stanley Anum Syeda Dani Stock Dave Thomas Stephanie Turenko Cara Vandermey

WLUSP ADMINISTRATION President Executive Director Advertising Manager Treasurer Vice-Chair Director Director Director Corporate Secretary

Meghan Roach Lakyn Barton Care Schummer John Pehar Abdiasis Issa Mynt Marsellus Maddy Cutts Matthew Burley Taylor Berzins MATT SMITH PHOTO

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The staff of the Community Edition shall uphold all commonly held ethical conventions of journalism. When an error of omission or of commission has occurred, that error shall be acknowledged promptly. When statements are made that are critical of an individual, or an organization, we shall give those affected the opportunity to reply at the earliest time possible. Ethical journalism requires impartiality, and consequently conflicts of interest and the appearance of conflicts of interest will be avoided by all staff. The only limits of any newspaper are those of the world around it, and so the Community Edition will attempt to cover its world with a special focus on the community of Waterloo Region. Ultimately, the Community Edition will be bound by neither philosophy nor geography in its mandate.

The Community Edition has an obligation to foster freedom of the press and freedom of speech. This obligation is best fulfilled when debate and dissent are encouraged, both in the internal workings of the paper, and through the Community Edition’s contact with the community. The Community Edition will always attempt to do what is right, with fear of neither repercussions, nor retaliation. The purpose of community press is to act as an agent of social awareness, and so shall conduct the affairs of our magazine.

FEATURE

8-9 OUR FAVOURITE PHOTOS FROM 2016

INSIDE 3 4 6 6 7 10 11 11 12 12 13 13 13 14 14 15 16

IN BRIEF YEAR IN REVIEW: BOOKS, BANDS, MOVIES BASIC INCOME AND BASIC JUSTICE DEADLY DRUG COMES TO WR FIGHTING GENOCIDE FAR FROM HOME THE POLITICS OF VALUE VILLAGE SET YOUR BREASTS FREE, IF YOU WANT ARTIN’ AROUND WITH JIM TUBB FIVE EVENTS TO ATTEND IN 2017 BELMONT’S NEW BEER BAR COPING WITH WINTER WATERLOO WANTS YOU UPRIGHT PRIVILEGE AND CULTURE UNITY THROUGH TRAGEDY COVER IMAGES (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): Matt Smith (times MAKING RESOLUTIONS REAL two), James Gowland and Emily Gleeson. Robert Frost wrote, “the OONA MOON, CHAPTER TWO best way out is always through,” and we tend to agree.

HOSTING AS GUESTS

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IN BRIEF

In December, Waterloo Regional Police Services found carfentanil, typically used to tranquilize large animals, in street drugs in the region. Carfentanil is up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine. See page six for more details.

NICK STANLEY PHOTO

NEWS

ARTS

URBAN

BLACKBERRY BETS ON ROBOT CARS

CLITERATURE IS FOR EVERYONE

CITY WILL NOT CLEAR SIDEWALKS

After disappointing smartphone sales in the last quarter, BlackBerry announced in December that they are opening an “autonomous driving research centre” in Kanata, Ontario. The Ministry of Transportation recently gave BlackBerry permission to test robot cars on Ontario roads. We, for one, welcome our autonomously driving overloads.

Cliterature returns for its 13th year, and another weekend of sexy fundraising for Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region. According to Facebook, “Cliterature is a transformational and artful celebration of women’s sexuality through erotic readings, live music, dance and more.” Over 25 performers will hit the stages Jan. 20-22.

Despite the precedent set by other Ontario cities, Kitchener councillors voted in December against a proposal that would have seen the city take over sidewalk snow-clearing. A local resident brought the proposal to council, because she says her daughter, who is blind, experiences major mobility issues once the snow falls.

YOUNG MAN DIES IN SEGREGATION

ART COLLECTIVE “EXNOVATES”

FREE INTERNET THROUGH THE KPL

Soleiman Faqiri, 30, had to drop out of his engineering program at the University of Waterloo after a car accident and diagnosis of schizophrenia. On Dec. 15 he died under “mysterious circumstances” at the Central East Correction Centre in Lindsay, according to the CBC. In the days leading up to his death his family was refused visiting rights.

#Exnovation is the new art show

by Collective Identity. According to the local collective of professional artists, whose aims are to “build solidarity and engage our committed community,” an exnovative process is one in which change occurs as the result of an intervention by some one or thing outside of the core team.

The show runs into February at THEMUSEUM.

Don’t like the two hour internet limit at the Kitchener Public Library? Can’t afford internet access at home? The KPL is expanding its wi-fi hotspot lending program.

In a release, the KPL’s CEO points out that the program “illustrates the very real digital divide that exists in our technology-focused community.” The local tech company Sandvine is funding the program’s growth.

PAYING TO PUMP WATER IN 2017

FEAST FOR THE SENSES AT KWAG

ANOTHER BASIC INCOME CHAT

The provincial government is reviewing the fees that it charges to companies, like Nestlé, that sell bottled Ontario water. Currently companies can take one million litres of water for the cost of a cup of coffee ($3.71, to be precise). Many operators also pay a $750 permit fee. The new fees will likely accompany other regulations that aim to curb bottled water usage.

Though this event is happening in February, interested parties should get tickets (which aren’t cheap, $55+) soon because it sounds rad. KWAG is hosting its fifth “Feast for the Senses,” in which it pairs art-inspired tapas-style food and drinks.

Kent Monkman’s art provides the inspiration for chef Shawn Adler, who just opened Pow Wow Cafe in Toronto.

To learn about “how giving people a basic income might impact individuals and families,” the province is holding a community consultation at Bingeman’s on Jan. 10. Anti-poverty activists have interrupted each of the meetings to date, demanding that the province raise social assistance rates while it studies the effects of giving people with a little money, more money.

CAMBRIDGE GETS GRT TERMINAL

COSPLAY AND ALL THINGS NERD

NEW HOME FOR RECEPTION HOUSE

A new Grand River Transit terminal opened early December at Cambridge Centre Mall. The $5 million terminal features 10 bus platforms and heated shelters for riders, which Cambridge mayor Doug Craig told The Record is his favourite feature. GO Buses will also pick up passengers at the terminal. So far, no public washrooms though.

Tri-Con KW is this region’s annual convention that celebtrates cosplay, interactive experiences and all things nerd. This year the convention includes a gaming zone, maker space activities and meet and great spaces for fans and cosplayers alike. Cosplay is a contraction of the words costume and play and is a kind of performance art.

Reception House, which last year settled more government-assisted refugees than in the last four years combined, is getting a new home. Newly arrived refugees will still find a temporary home in the organization’s building overlooking Victoria Park, but the growing organization is moving its administrative staff to Queen St. South.

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THE YEAR IN REVIEW NOT EVERYTHING IN 2016 SUCKED. REALLY. WE ASKED THE EXPERTS TO TELL YOU TO QUIT SLEEPIN’ ON THESE BOOKS AND BANDS AND MOVIES, ALL MADE IN CANADA.

BO OKS CURATED BY SHARRON SMITH

SHARRON IS MANAGER OF BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICES FOR THE KITCHENER PUBLIC LIBRARY, WHICH MEANS SHE OVERSEES WHAT’S IN KITCHENER’S LIBRARIES

HAG-SEED

BY MARGARET ATWOOD Magic, illusion and revenge, it’s all here! Part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project, celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death, this one is a modern retelling of The Tempest.

When artistic theatre director Felix’s position is usurped by his assistant, he finds himself adrift, going into self-imposed exile in a remote rural area.

When he is offered the opportunity

to teach a course in Shakespeare at a local prison it seems like the perfect solution to his dilemma. Working with the inmates, Felix finds a new purpose, but when his nemesis schedules a visit to the prison, the class just may provide him with the perfect opportunity for revenge. Atwood’s wit and humour craft a mystical journey.

KAY’S LUCKY COIN VARIETY

BY ANN Y. K. CHOI In straightforward, honest prose, Choi explores what it is like to grow up in a new country while your parents cling to the old ways, and you just want to fit in. Yu-Rhee, now known as Mary, is the daughter of Korean immigrants who arrived in Canada when she was six. Chronicling her life journey, the story follows her strug-

gles from child to university student, where her dreams and choices are not in line with the expectations of her family to a place of understanding.

This is ultimately a timely family story that provides insight into how the choices of past and present make us who we are.

THE WONDER

BY EMMA DONOGHUE English nurse Lib finds herself in the midst of controversy in a small Irish village in the 1850s. A local child seems to be existing without food and many believe they are witnessing a miracle. Called in to oversee the situation over a two week period, Lib watches and waits, hoping she can determine whether this is a case of

THE NATURALIST

BY ALISSA YORK Plans for a journey down the Amazon take a dramatic turn when amateur naturalist Walter Ash unexpectedly passes away. To honour her deceased husband, his widow Iris decides that the trip to gather specimens will go on as planned. Along with her adult stepson Paul, and her ladies’ companion, Rachel, the journey begins. However it

connected while working together at a summer music camp run by the Toronto District School Board, and their sound is dark and dreamy, channeling a variety of influences from Phantogram to Tove Lo to Bjork.

DAN ROOT Based in KW, brought up in Appalachia, Dan Root’s powerful vocals and talented instrumentals draw on a variety of musical influences – from American folk tunes to Stan Rogers to the Tallest Man on Earth to Colin Meloy of the Decemberists. Dan is half of the duo Quiet in the Land, which is temporarily on hiatus while the

other half, Laura Dyck, is studying community music in Ireland. His lyrics are a thoughtful reflection on his lived experience, from his Mennonite upbringing and childhood in Pennsylvania to his close-knit yet transient community in KW to being stuck in traffic on the 401.

JANICE LEE Janice Lee, former City of Kitchener artist in residence, has been a pillar in KW’s music and arts scene for the better part of the last decade. Her music is at the same time empowering and challenging, witty and fun. If you like

live, local music and are a part of the KW community, Janice is definitely the kind of artist you want to check out. Not only is she deeply committed to her music, but also to her work in the community and its arts scene.

is, surprisingly Rachel, a quiet Quaker, who steps up to replace their fallen leader as she forges a path into Paul’s past, while helping Iris forward in her grief. Lyrical language and an exotic setting will transport the reader from 1850s Philadelphia down the Amazon during the time of the great explorers.

NEWS OF THE WORLD

BY PAULETTE JILES With her trademark lyricism and elegance, Jiles transports readers to 1870s Texas. Captain Jefferson Kidd, a veteran of three wars, travels around the state, reading the news to anyone willing to pay for the privilege of hearing him. Life on the road is a lonely existence, but the old soldier gets by. Everything changes when he

FEATURETTE If there’s a band I expect my friends to have heard of a year from now, it’s this synth-pop duo out of Toronto.

Both attended Etobicoke School of the Arts in Toronto’s west end, and then went on to complete degrees in music performance at UofT. They first

truth or fraud. As word of the tale is spread by the media, tourists and the curious arrive to watch the drama unfold. Anyone who thought the media and fake news creators are a new phenomenon will be fascinated by this complex, yet simple story.

is asked to escort a 10-year-old white girl who had been held captive by a Native American tribe since she was six. The girl has long forgotten her native tongue, and so the two begin an adventure-filled journey back to life and family and in the process develop an unlikely partnership.

MU SIC

CURATED BY MIKE CHONG

MIKE LIVES IN KITCHENER AND IS THE KIND OF FRIEND WHO MIGHT STILL GIVE YOU A MIXTAPE FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY.

AARON COMEAU A multi-instrumentalist currently running a recording studio out of Toronto’s east end, Comeau’s recent solo work is a reflective collection of improvised instrumental pieces based on folk tunes and hymns. Comeau is a musician worth following because of his connections in the Toronto music scene, where he’s played regularly

as a member of Sam Cash and the Romantic Dogs and in the past as a member of Dear Sister. His versatility as a musician means you can often find him performing with one act or another somewhere around Toronto, from playing regular evenings at the Cameron House to opening at the Rivoli.

MERIVAL With a hauntingly beautiful voice, and raw, genuine lyrics, Merival plays the kind of music to steady your mind and feel emotion to. Merival is the solo act of Anna Horvath, a Toronto based musician with roots in Kitchener,

who has played in the past with First Rate People and Beau. Her wonderful folk sound is somewhere in between Gillian Welch and First Aid Kit, and it’s definitely worth seeing her live if you get the chance.

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BELOW HER MOUTH Below Her Mouth is super sexy. It’s about an unexpected affair between two women — one is a lesbian and one is not. The movie seems to “normalize” the idea of queerness — I don’t think the word lesbian is ever said in

FIL MS

the movie. It’s also the first film with an all female crew and makes Toronto look like a really cool place without cliché pans of the CN tower.

THE GRANDFATHER DRUM Director Michelle Derosier is another powerful female filmmaker.

The Grandfather Drum is an animated short made in a pop-up book style that makes the heavy content — the theft of cultural artifacts from Indigenous

communities, residential schools and current realities — a bit more digestible for viewers. The narrator is the real drum maker’s grandson.

ANGRY INUK My coworkers and I went to see this movie at HotDocs this year, and about five minutes in we knew it was going to be great. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is a powerful director and storyteller everyone should know about. Powerful

and thoughtful, Angry Inuk is her exploration of the effect of the European Union seal hunting ban on her Inuit community’s survival.

WINDOW HORSES (THE POETIC PERSIAN EPIPHANY OF ROSIE MING) Window Horses is a beautifully animated feature about a Canadian teen with a Chinese mother and a Persian father who coincidentally gets invited to a poetry conference in Iran. Through her interactions with

the people at the conference, Rosie (Sandra Oh) learns more about her parents and her own heritage. Funny, serious and philosophical, this film is a great Canadian story about identity searching.

CURATED BY STEPHANIE TURENKO

STEPHANIE WORKS AT REEL CANADA, A NON PROFIT THAT HOSTS FILM FESTIVALS ACROSS CANADA FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS AND NEWCOMERS.

3 WAY (NOT CALLING) A girlfriend talks her boyfriend into having a threesome to spice up their sex life. Choosing the barista from their cafe, awkwardness ensues as their age gap becomes more apparent.

3 Way (Not Calling) is a well written and well performed comedy about pseudo-adulthood and the need to stay interesting.

MAUDIE One of the most well known Canadian folk painters from Nova Scotia, Maud (Sally Hawkins) was born with rheumatoid arthritis making it difficult for her to do daily tasks, including her beloved painting. Her husband (Ethan Hawke) is the biggest grump

HAVE YOUR OWN FAVOURITES FROM THE YEAR? SHARE YOUR SUGGESTIONS. @THECOMMUNITYED

but together they end up making a unconventional entrepreneurial duo.

The Maritime scenes that inspired Maudie’s paintings are also stunning.

There’s a reason this film got a standing ovation on opening night at TIFF!

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OPIOID CRISIS DEEPENS AS DEADLY DRUG HITS REGION

CARFENTANIL IS UP TO 10,000 TIMES STRONGER THAN MORPHINE JAMES GOWLAND CONTRIBUTOR As the wave of deadly carfentanil continues to illegally land on Canada’s western shores, the effects have hit home.

Waterloo Region was the first community in Ontario to detect the toxic bootleg opioid after it was discovered at the scenes of two separate overdoses early last December.

Arriving from countries such as China, where it is legally produced, carfentanil is an opioid pain reliever and derivative of fentanyl used mainly in the capture of large, wild animals.

It can be up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine, where an amount the size of a single poppy seed can be lethal.

“Drug, substance use and overdose can affect everyone,” said Chris Harold, manager of information and planning at Waterloo Region Public Health. “The reality is people across the age spectrum, the socioeconomic and income spectrum use drugs.”

Unregulated versions of the drug are now routinely being used as a cheap filler in other popular illicit drugs such as cocaine, heroin and crystal methamphetamine.

“There are anecdotal reports from clients who feel they are dealing with tainted drugs in the current supply,” said Harold.

With the overdose rates continuing to spike in communities across

the country, a progressive approach created by the Waterloo Region Crime Prevention Council in 2011 has encouraged a conscious and vigilant recognition of the issue in the region.

“In the point of view of my position, it is about starting that community dialogue,” said Lindsay Sprague, coordinator for the Waterloo Region Integrated Drugs Strategy. “Can we, as a strategy, help to provide education and awareness?”

The five branches of the community initiative are harm reduction, enforcement and justice, prevention, treatment and integration.

The WRIDS released an overdose alert on Dec. 5 through the OMARS initiative. The Overdose Monitoring, Alert & Response System cautions drug users of the risks involved with carfentanil, as well as all drugs. It explained how carfentanil is especially furtive, considering it cannot be detected by sight, smell or taste.

Sprague also mentioned WRIDS’s interest in a “rapid access addiction service.” She is looking into how Waterloo Region can implement a service where people can access an addiction physician and counsellor in a timely way. “We have a working group in place,” she said.

The WRIDS, through WRPH and along with Sanguen Health Centre, also preach the awareness and proper use of naloxone after 9-1-1 is called.

Free naloxone kits and training are offered from these institutions as well

as from certain pharmacies across the region. Naloxone temporarily reverses overdoses from opiates, allowing emergency responders enough time to arrive and also get the person who overdosed to the hospital. A new nasal spray version of naloxone will be made available in the region for January.

Harold insisted on the priority of calling emergency responders first, in all cases.

“The faster you phone them, the faster they can get there,” he said, explaining further that approximately 50 per cent of overdoses are not called in to emergency services due to fear of repercussions. “There has always been stigma and discrimination associated with drug use.”

When asked about police response in these instances, Harold squashed the old school belief. “Their approach in these cases really is the safety of the individual.”

When asked about her own interest in challenging old beliefs, Sprague was in agreement. “I see working in this field as a way to create more awareness about the issue and also to break down some of that stigma around addiction.”

Sharon Laws, Waterloo Region Public Health nurse, displays components of a naloxone kit, which temporarily reverses overdoses from opiates. Training takes up to one hour and the kit is free to take home.

JAMES GOWLAND PHOTO

BASIC INCOME AMIDST SETTLER COLONIALISM

PROGRAMS LIKE BASIC INCOME CANNOT BE TOOLS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE WHEN THEY LEAVE COLONIALISM ALONE

WR OPINION

MONTANA MELLETT CONTRIBUTOR How would you feel if you could make due with the money you receive every pay check and not have to worry whether you can put food on the table?

At a recent community consultation for Ontario’s apparently soon-to-be-implemented basic income (BI) pilot project, many community members shared their hopes for a fairer distribution of wealth in Canada.

However, redistributing wealth cannot create justice if we are not also interrogating the structures that created unequal concentrations of wealth.

The night was set up as a gallery walk. In each room, there were sheets of chart paper with questions written at the top and space underneath for folks to write their responses.

Basic income seems simple: a guaranteed cash transfer granted universally and unconditionally to ensure, at a minimum, that no adult or child lives in poverty. Over the course of the evening, roughly 40 people talked through basic questions like: “Why

is BI important?” and more practical ones like: “Who should be included in the pilot?”

In a recent article about BI, the Toronto-based anti-poverty activist John Clarke raised other questions and concerns, including that the consultation process itself is a way to delay, instead of addressing the actual issues at hand. Conveniently, this strategy also makes it look like the government is truly addressing poverty at a systemic level.

Clarke also pointed out that we don’t need a study to know what happens when you give some very poor people a bit more money: they will become a bit less poor and a bit better off.

In any case, a popular topic at the consultation concerned how BI would be funded. Many wrote ideas such as: tax reform, deductions from those who have the most wealth, out of country tax havens and large estate taxes.

In other words, people are saying that they want distributive justice, or the fair allocation of resources among diverse members of a community.

These are more radical demands than BI or higher minimum wages,

which help the poorest people get by, because they address the very fundamental state that our society is in during this crinkle in history.

Of course, their practical implementation is more complicated and it (should at least) go without saying that every discussion of BI should include the marginalized groups affected by income inequality, particularly the folks indigenous to this land. Indeed, some folks pushed this question further during the course of the night, asking how we could enact distributive justice on stolen land?

The MC of the night (and executive director of the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region) Trudy Beaulne started the evening by acknowledging the traditional territories of the Neutral, Haundenosaunee and Anishnawbe peoples. What is now known as Kitchener Waterloo is located on the Haldimand Tract, which, on Oct. 25, 1784, after the American Revolutionary War of Independence, was given to the Six Nations of the Grand River by the British, as compensation for their role in the war and for the loss of their traditional lands in Upstate New York. Of the 950,000 acres

given to the Haudenosaunee (six miles on either side of the entire length of the Grand River) only 46,000 acres remains Six Nations land.

As the work of so many water protectors makes clear, Canada (and the US) is still dependent on the land taken from Indigenous nations, land that those nations often still contest.

Settler colonialism is about the need to secure those lands at all costs, which means refusing to acknowledge or working to extinguish Indigenous title to those lands.

This is one of the trials and tribulations of living and organizing for justice in a settler colonial state. The educator and writer Luam Kidane writes that, “as architects of discourse and builders of movements, it is imperative that we shift our political paradigms and begin to act on alternatives that can provide for our material needs.”

So long as projects like BI take for granted settler colonialism, they cannot be tools for social justice. Those of us who are most marginalized by society should and will determine what the movements for change will consist of. We must shift away from what we

know all too comfortably and listen to alternatives that have been proposed.

So how do we move forward? The history of social movements is clear: we need to build coalitions for deeper distributive transformations if we want to make our societies more just. It’s easy to get caught up in the abstract ideas that we brainstorm onto paper. We cannot build a solid structure on rotten foundations.

So yes, the BI pilot project could mean growth in a lot of ways. But if we forget or ignore that the structures were built by and to accommodate those in power, then we risk continuously replicating the injustices that surround us in our everyday lives. But how do build deeper coalitions that could challenge the racist-colonial nation state we call Canada? That is hard and necessary work, with or without a basic income.

The province will host a community consultation on Jan. 10, tentatively scheduled to be held at Bingeman’s Conference Centre.

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GENOCIDE CLOSE TO HOME A LOCAL COMMUNITY ORGANIZES TO STOP THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THEIR BURMESE KIN. BY JESSE BAUMAN

Anwar Arkani says he has barely slept since Oct. 9, when Myanmar’s military ramped up its indiscriminate killing of Rohingya civilians, including members of his extended family.

Various international agencies say the state violence underway in northwest Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) constitutes crimes against humanity, if not genocide.

“I still have brothers and sisters there, though most of them have been killed. And they call me all the time.

Somebody advised me, don’t look at your phone, but it’s not possible. By God, I wish I couldn’t read or hear, my life would peaceful. I know it’s impractical, but that’s sometimes how I feel,” said Arkani, who is chairman of the Rohingya Association of Canada. He estimates that about 70 members of his extended family have been killed in the last decades in Burma.

The Burmese government says its current violent campaign is meant to find and punish those responsible for an October attack that left nine soldiers dead. Others point out that the targeted extermination of an ethnic community is never a justifiable response to particular instances of violence.

Until Arkani arrived in Canada 19 years ago, as a refugee, he was stateless. The Burmese government stripped the Rohingya of national citizenship in the early 1980s, and the neighbouring Bangladeshi government continues to reject their asylum claims, a situation that has led a United Nations official to describe them – before this most recent iteration of ethnic cleansing – as “the world’s most persecuted people.” Indeed, the Rohingya are especially vulnerable because they are not citizens of any country. Though we often invoke the abstract notion of human rights (for example at a genocide protest), for the most part we meaningfully have rights and get to exercise them because our national governments make it so. Well aware of this dynamic, the governments of Myanmar and Bangladesh continue to refuse such rights, believing it’s unlikely that outside parties will intervene.

Arkani estimates there are 35 Rohingya families in Kitchener Waterloo, while hundreds of thousands are stuck in a violent limbo in internally displaced persons camps on either side

of the Myanmar-Bangladesh border.

We talked on Dec. 10, international humans rights day, while he and many others demonstrated in front of Kitchener’s city hall to raise awareness about the genocide.

“Without intervention these people, our people, will be finished,” he said that bitterly cold day. While Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs recently tweeted about the situation, expressing concern and a desire for humanitarian access, Arkani is not satisfied.

“We’re trying to tell the Canadian government to say something, do something.”

Walking to the demonstration I thought of Susan Sontag’s book, Regarding the Pain of Others, in which she writes that, “being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience.”

I had earlier that morning talked with friends about the Syrian family they sponsored last year, and the violence that family’s family continues to endure, or not. Syria is again in everyone’s newsfeed, but to what end? Sontag wonders whether we comfortable people see too many images of too much suffering, here and everywhere, to motivate us to care about strangers. Or at least to start to connect the dots between our ways of life and violence abroad.

Sontag is writing from and about a privileged perspective like mine, which is secure (and narcissistic) enough to use a distant tragedy as an opportunity for intellectualism. The kind of person who thinks, however briefly, when confronted with a genocide, about their self.

A genocide is never about us – not in that way, anyway – though I have kept myself in this story, and if I’m honest, at least part of the reason I showed up to the rally is because I spent a month in Burma many years ago. Nevertheless, and white-saviour-complexes aside, there are times when we can meaningfully show up for justice.

Showing up means not being overwhelmed, and here again Sontag offers wisdom: “Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question is what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. People don’t

become inured to what they are shown … It is passivity that dulls feeling.”

I returned to those words when I got home, in part because of conversations I had with a group of young women at the demonstration, who did not seem or sound overwhelmed by world events.

“Despite the fact that [the genocide] doesn’t directly affect us … in order to develop our awareness about the struggles that other people or communities are experiencing … we need to be able to help others and make their issues our own issues,” said Shama Saleh, one of the more talkative of the women I spoke with. Saleh is not Rohingya, but explained that her family has been directly affected by the so-called refugee crisis, and that she sees important similarities between the injustices her community and the Rohingya community continue to experience.

“We can help and make a difference, and there are other people, not just Rohingya, who are also suffering,” added Ruma Ruma, another of the women I spoke with. “And if we don’t do anything about it, then really we shouldn’t call ourselves human.”

Saleh and Ruma’s words suggested they have found strength and energy in their relationships, which they’ve built through action, by showing up and standing up for each other.

Arkani said he hoped the demonstration would raise awareness and motivate people to write their MPs about the situation, to leverage Canada’s “very good name relating to international human rights.” I also heard that we should think critically about news from abroad, and that giving money thoughtfully is more impactful than a retweet or fire emoji.

A teacher of mine once suggested that we “think of [human rights] as mules. They do not exist in nature and do not reproduce on their own, but they can exist. [And so] the essential difference between a unicorn and a mule is not that the mule exists, but that it will work.” What that teacher didn’t say is that human rights “work” because of people like Saleh and Ruma, singing in the cold, demanding and deserving your attention and concern. And because of people like Arkani, sleeping fitfully beside his buzzing phone.

Dozens of Rohingya people and their allies demonstrated at Kitchener city hall in December to bring attention to what many observers describe as the genocide of their people, in Burma. JESSE BAUMAN PHOTO

a year in a review YOU TAKE THE GOOD. YOU TAKE THE BAD. YOU TAKE THEM BOTH AND THERE YOU HAVE. A 2016 YEAR IN REVIEW. DON’T CRY BECAUSE IT’S OVER. SMILE BECAUSE IT’S OVER. PHOTOS BY MATT SMITH

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SELLING THE POOR WE FETISHIZE POVERTY AND VALUE VILLAGE PROFITS

WR OPINION

Despite its deliberate public image, Emma McKenna argues that Value Village’s products are too expensive for many poor people, and fetishize poor and working class people’s clothing and style. MATT SMITH PHOTO

EMMA MCKENNA CONTRIBUTOR In the past two decades, second-hand clothing has — like many other cultural objects of the poor — become trendy, coveted and hip. There is now a bursting local market of vintage clothing shops, international online retailers and even commercial corporations like Urban Outfitters selling used and “revamped” items.

While many second-hand stores often do contribute to charity, build community and decrease dependency on the global sweat-shop economy, when it comes to the massive retail corporation Value Village — where the reselling of donated used clothing is a corporate strategy marketed to poor people — it is critical to examine Value Village’s actual politics and their effects on low-income communities.

On the one hand, the search for cool second-hand goods has led to an increase of middle- and upper-class people shopping at Value Village.

This expansion of its demographic has certainly normalized wearing second-hand clothes. This normalization has perhaps led to a decrease in the stigma that poor and working-class people may experience when their clothing is not visibly name brand, from the mall, high quality, or trendy. However, this has also led to the increasing prices of Value Village and other second-hand stores who are taking advantage of a developing market where second-hand clothes are a surplus commodity — objects that already exist, demand very little labour power to sell and maintain, and result in high profit levels for the original owners of the products, the owners and investors of Value Village.

This widening market is both responsible for and a result of a fetishization — a revaluing of an object for the purpose of consumption — of the clothing and style of poor and working-class people, particularly clothing racialized as belonging to a particular racial or ethnic group. The style of poor people is taken out of its context and sold as a commodity – appropriated – because it provides to consumers implied meanings that are both spatial (think rural or urban) and cultural (think dangerous or uneducated). One need only look at the lifestyle clothes of celebrities — and the way this is translated into mainstream, fast fashion — to see examples of poverty being fetishized.

But the key to how appropriation and fetishization work are that, for those with economic or racial privilege, they are choices, temporary, and ultimately stylistic; one can “choose” to take on the signifiers of poor and racialized groups of people without the social, material and legal consequences that really being poor and racialized mean.

This leads me back to Value Village, and what is by now a kind of love-hate relationship with the company. Since my first shopping trip there two decades ago as a poor teenager, I have witnessed Value Village becoming increasingly expensive and — indeed — unaffordable. I currently have relative economic privilege to choose whether or not to shop at Value Village or at select other retail stores, within reason.

So my bone to pick isn’t about Value Village’s accessibility to me, per se, but to the community of low-income people it purports to be providing “used

quality goods to,” and the ethical issue of framing itself as a charity, when it is in fact a multi-national corporation.

Value Village is actually owned by a large American company called Savers, who are one of many corporations owned by the conglomerate TPG Capital. One of the impacts of Value Village being one of many companies owned by this multi-layered corporation is that the profits from Value Village need to travel all the way up to TPG Capital. Meaning Value Village needs to make a huge profit. By selling at a high price its surplus commodity, Value Village can maintain its workers at minimum wage, pay administrators, donate something to charity (exactly which charity and how much is being donated is unclear), and finally — most importantly — pay out its wealthy investors.

My local Value Village, like so many Value Villages, is located in a neighborhood that is on the busy city-bus line, and is annexed between low-income rental units and small private property. This particular Value Village is therefore situated within a low-income community and, through its marketing strategy “Buy More, Spend Less” has advertised itself as economically accessible to poor and working-class people. However, the actual products inside Value Village are marked very differently from the store’s claims. Value Village is not fulfilling its claim to help communities when in reality the pricing of the used goods is often economically inaccessible, all the while requiring customers to do the physical work of rooting through often worn-out, stained, and broken merchandise to find something affordable. Over the past 10 years, the prices at Value Village have become inconsistently and drastically high, sometimes more expensive even than those very same clothing items purchased new from discount retailers like Ardene, Sirens, Wal-Mart and Joe Fresh.

I have complained in person and in writing to the manager of this particular store, only to be given the corporate line that, “As a store we place over 10,000 items to the floor daily and 95 per cent of the items sold are under $10.00.” Anyone who’s shopped at Value Village knows this is clearly not true, with regular products priced upwards to $25.00. And these are not exceptional or “high quality” products. In fact, the idea that a “high quality” item should be priced higher is dubious; wasn’t that product donated in order for a low-income person to have access to it?

In any case, I believe that $10.00 is too much to pay for used, donated clothes when the minimum wage of an Ontario worker is $11.40/hr. The employees of Value Village would be hard-pressed to clothe themselves and their families at the prices Value Village now demands.

It is time that Value Village changes its everyday business practices to reflect its mission statement and the needs of low-income community members. But we can’t expect Value Village to do this on its own, as it is invested most of all in profit.

Locally, we can support the $15 and Fairness campaign or learn more about the growing living wage movement in Southern Ontario. Or, we can choose to donate our used goods to actual non-profits like the Working Centre or MCC’s Thrift on Kent, where profits are used to support social programs.

Emma is a PhD student in English & Cultural Studies at McMaster University.

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PAINTING WHAT LIFE LOOKS LIKE TCE KEEPS ARTIN’ AROUND, THIS MONTH WITH PAINTER JIM TUBB

EMILY GLEESON CONTRIBUTOR I stumbled across Jim Tubb’s art gallery earlier this fall when I was walking down Duke Street near Breithaupt. Located in what used to be Schippling’s bicycle shop, I felt transported into something unique – like an artist’s studio you might see in a documentary, but not necessarily situated in one of Kitchener’s oldest neighbourhoods. Upon entering, there were canvases stacked everywhere on the floor and covering the walls throughout the warehouse-type apartment space, even some in what was labelled a “shower gallery” towards the back. As I walked around, I heard someone talking in a room near the front entrance and realized it was the artist himself, on a chair happily chatting about the history of the building with another patron who just happened to stop by.

I found Tubb sitting in that same chair, in front of a paint-splattered easel, when I returned to interview him. There was a lot of snow on the ground this time, but his welcoming smile was just as warm. Like visiting an old friend, our conversation started easily, and I entered the mind of one of Kitchener’s most intriguing and original artists, “Experimenting, is a lot of what I do, eh?” he says. “A lot of my art is not very easy on the eye. Maybe it’s a little disturbing.”

Tubb is wearing blue medical gloves, and, pointing with a brush towards paintings scattered about the room, adds that “sometimes it’s one little mark, one little swiggle … and that’s the part that makes it work.”

At 68, Tubb has been able to dedicate himself full-time to painting after

retiring from a successful career as an investment manager. He tells me that making art was always something he wanted to do, but realized early on that making a living as an artist in Canada was “virtually impossible.” I tried to imagine him in a room full of suits.

“I loved it,” he assures me. “You can be creative in finance.” Looking around the room, however, there are no allusions to that lifestyle, only the tell-tale signs of an artist at work: a splattered utility sink, discarded coffee cups (whether they held paint water or coffee is anyone’s guess), scribbled words on the wall with things like “HONEST, ALWAYS,” and a dusty old sound system and turn table. An Art Blakey record sits on the table nearby.

Music has always driven Tubb’s work. “I like getting to know the piece well enough that you can hear it in your head, and you might be humming something and that song will position you emotionally in a certain way that influences the way you paint. Joni Mitchell’s songs will evoke a calmness whereas the avant-garde will create a more chaotic approach.”

Inspired by famous musicians across the spectrum, he puts them into the playful and wordy titles he gives his paintings, like “Listening to Dizzy at the Silver Rail in 1972” and “The Dvorak Cello Concert as Played

by Rostropovich (circa 1966-1967 at Massey Hall).”

Tubb uses acrylic paint and oil sticks to create colourful, abstract pieces. He says the brush can “slow you down” whereas the oil stick allows him to create the gesture he really wants. His process mimics musical improvisation – he will start out with an idea that might be completely different when finished. Many of the paintings showcase disorderly lines and lawless shapes, always subject to the artist’s mood and un-conscious musical memory. His process speaks

to a different force than the cognizant mind, towards something you can’t control.

Tubb admits to having little formal art education, but says he’s been interested in art since his early days, when he travelled for work. After visiting galleries around the globe he decided to try painting himself, but said he suffered a few “false starts.”

“I was pretty crappy at it, at first,” he says. “I didn’t even know what the term ‘visual artist’ meant.”

I ask if he considers himself one now.

“Oh, a hundred and five percent, yeah.”

Tubb has collaborated with other artists and put on shows around the region and in Toronto, with stints in gallery ownership as well, but lately he’s more interested in just painting.

In terms of showing his work, he has an open-door policy where anyone walking by can have a look around.

There is little pretense in how he sells his work: you won’t find any precious, white gallery walls with uniform framing, and you literally have to flip through stacks of canvases like you might through posters in a music shop. The more you immerse yourself in the environment, however, the more you come to understand the harmony between the art and how it’s displayed. There’s beauty in the alleged randomness, and you begin to realize just how prolific the artist really is.

“It’s a hobby that got ridiculously serious.”

Tubb makes approximately 50 paintings a year, sells around 15, and gives a lot of them away. When I ask what the return is from making art, he says it’s hard to put into words, but offers that “if you’re pure about this and you get a compliment, there’s nothing better.” He adds, “you’re just an artist and that’s enough.”

From top: Jim Tubb paints in his Kitchener studio, which includes finished works for sale and more philosophical artist statements scribbled on the walls. EMILY GLEESON PHOTOS

TO BRA OR NOT TO BRA? SET YOUR BREASTS FREE! SEXPLANATIONS

STACEY JACOBS COLUMNIST I wish someone had told me when I was young that I didn’t need to wear a bra. I remember my friends’ mom suggesting to my mom that the four of us go bra shopping together at Sears.

I was horrified. I didn’t want to wear a bra. I didn’t need to wear a bra! The

bra I ended up getting was beige and ugly. It didn’t even have a proper size.

It was a “training bra.” What the hell is a training bra? Training for what? I was so angry.

My new year suggestion to those of you who wear a bra is this: wear one if you are comfortable wearing a bra and have made a conscious decision to do so. Do not wear a bra if you have felt pressured into doing so, whether by society, friends or family. If you have never thought about it before, stop and think: do I actually want to wear a bra?

Bras are not mandatory or necessary.

Breasts may bounce and swing and

jiggle, but that’s what breasts do. If this bouncing and swinging and jiggling is uncomfortable for you, either mentally or physically, by all means wear a bra. Going without, however, sometimes just takes a little getting used to.

I often hear, “the second I get in the door the bra comes off!” Bras are not comfortable. They leave chaffed skin, red marks, dents in shoulders, bruises from underwire poking out. This is often because bras are not fitting properly. Most people never get a proper bra fitting and sizes change bra to bra and over time. Breasts grow and shrink when people lose weight, gain

weight, get pregnant, breast feed or take any kind of hormone, including birth control. It is extremely difficult to always be in the proper bra size.

Most importantly, bras disallow movement, prevent deep breathing and can hurt your lymphatic system.

Breasts gain nothing from defying gravity. Many people think that if they push their breasts up to their chin in a restrictive bra they will magically stay there once the bra is off. They will not.

The truth is, if you avoid wearing a bra when your breasts are developing, the outcome is perkier breasts. The breasts will naturally produce more collagen, which is found in the skin

and connective tissue, to hold up the breasts. If your breasts are constantly in bras, less collagen will be produced, meaning less perk.

Not that perky breasts are the be-all and end-all. Society has trained us to value this type of breast over others, which is unfortunate. We tend to forget that breasts have a purpose.

A very important purpose: they feed babies. But instead of valuing this, we have sexualized breasts and made it controversial for a parent to feed their child in public. Let’s resolve this year to respect the breast for its purpose and not what it looks like.

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FIVE EVENTS I PROMISE TO ATTEND THIS YEAR JANICE LEE CONTRIBUTOR I’ve lived in Kitchener Waterloo for 11 years and profess myself to be a local arts enthusiast. But there are some events I’ve said I’d go to for years and still haven’t attended. So I’m putting it in print. Hold me to it. Join me?

CONTACT JAM Last week I tried contact improv and it was as freeing as I imagined. With a partner, you have at least one point of contact, then you move together

in momentum with gravity. There is no wrong movement and this is what makes it so inviting, especially for people who don’t consider themselves dancers. The flow, rhythm and energy exchange I have seen in contact improv is fascinating. My excuse for not going has been that I’m not loosey-goosey flowy-bendy enough.

But I realize now that the stiffer you are, the more freeing contact improv will be. Let’s jam: every other Tuesday and Thursday at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Kitchener, $5 - $15 or pay what makes deep sense. I love this hippy-dippy riff on pay what you can.

THEATRE ON THE EDGE Did you know KW has an improv

comedy group? Theatre on the Edge is a sketch comedy project by the KW Little Theatre. Amateurs are invited to workshops Sundays at 4 p.m. at the Button Factory and the resident troupe performs every Thursday at 8 p.m. Five dollars gets you in, and remember what your grade eight drama teacher told you: the only rule of improv is always say yes.

HEP CAT SWING In 2009 I sang once for the Hep Cats, but my lindy-hopping has not improved one step since. This year I am determined to jump, jive and jiggle with Hep Cat Swing at their studio on 42 Erb St. E. You don’t need to bring a partner because the dances are struc-

tured so that you alternate partners, and the price of admission ($7 - $11) includes an 8:30 p.m. dance lesson on Monday nights. Whew! The folks here are super friendly and you won’t feel like a loner loser wallflower.

LESBO BINGO Line up five in a row and shout out “lesbo!” at this annual Tri-Pride fundraiser. Local rainbow community icon Shelley Secrett has been producing events like Cliterature and Lesbo Bingo for 13 years. And while I may feel slightly awkward at an event attended by mostly white middle-aged lesbians, I also want to win prizes surrounded by my fellow queers at the Schwaben Club. This one-night-only event will

happen sometime in March, is family friendly and costs $5 - $12.

POETRY CIRCLE I used to run this event, then a couple years ago schlepped it off to my poet colleague Bashar Jabbour.

However, I still love sitting in a circle, reading poems and then geeking out over diction, syntax, metaphor and rhyme scheme. Poetry circles bring out a diverse group of people and poems and is more relaxed and less intimidating that the poetry slam. Bring poems to read, written by anyone, and prepare to explicate. This one’s free, and happens the third Monday of the month at Seven Shores Cafe or Words Worth Books.

BEER IN BELMONT

NEW BAR IS ALL ABOUT SERVING BEER WELL

BRFC ON BEER

Arabella Park, a new “beer bar” in Belmont village, focuses on serving a variety of beers, and well. MATT SMITH PHOTO

JON JOHNSON COLUMNIST Arabella Park Beer Bar opened in Belmont Village (the stretch of Belmont Ave. between Union St. and Glasgow St.) at the beginning of December. The space feels fresh, with lots of white and a blue glass panel wall that also serves as a whiteboard for 18 rotating taps. In the summer, the three big windowed garage doors on the front will open onto Belmont Ave. It’s all very hip, and modern, and according to some people, it’s what Belmont Village needs: something to draw the nightlife. The area is perhaps best known currently for its eateries, like the Belmont Bistro, Janet Lynn’s Bistro and my favourite breakfast spot in town, The Checkerboard. But Arabella Park is different.

Opening at 4:00 p.m. most days, with a food menu only offering what they’re calling “beer snacks” (definitely try the “franch” fries) the vibe is distinctly not that of a restaurant — it is a bar. Tables are small, or long and bar-height, meant to be shared, and servers will not come to your table except to drop off food that you’ve ordered at the bar. The focus here is very clearly beer.

Stephen Cleary is Arabella Park’s cellarman. Cleary decides what beer is on hand, how it is handled and how it is served. When he toured me around

the space, he described it as a dream job, and his passion for beer and his excitement about the space was clear and infectious. He made a special point to show me the keg fridge and I can understand why.

You may or may not know or care that different beers are best served at different temperatures. Arabella Park’s keg fridge is built to accommodate that idea, whether you care about it or not. I do, and love the fact that their fridge is actually three fridges, each with its own temperature control, so that different beers can be kept at different temperatures.

This is a rarity. I’ve gotten used to ordering big and heavy beers and having to let them warm up to truly be able to taste them. When I ordered Block 3’s Russian imperial stout, called The Loneliness, the glass was barely cold to the touch and I could taste all of the complex elements right away. It was much appreciated.

Arabella Park won’t be for everyone.

I’ve heard comments about the fact that it is bar service only, about the limited menu, and about the price of the bottles that round out the beer selection. I was a little disappointed that the tap list when I was there a week after they opened was a little less exciting than the week before.

Some of these things are understandable, and some may change, but I also don’t think they’re trying to be for everyone. They’re trying to offer something different, and I think they’re succeeding. I know I’ll at least be stopping by when I see them tweet about a beer I want to try and want to see treated right.

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3 WAYS TO COPE WITH THIS AND EVERY WINTER MENTAL MATTERS

JOHN ROCHE COLUMNIST Now that the days are as dark and cold as Justin Trudeau’s soul, it’s pretty normal to be feeling kind of down. And while Netflix and brooding Spotify playlists are awesome, they’re not usually enough to carry us all the way to April. The good news is, therapy nerds have wrestled for a long time with the question of how to address the winter blues and we’ve come up

with a few solid suggestions.

DO SHIT According to a bunch of research, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is the most effective form of therapy for depression. Why? Because the most important part of the CBT protocol for depression is “behavioural activation,” which basically means “come up with really concrete plans to get depressed people to do a little more shit each week, because as they do, they’ll start to feel better.”

The trap of depressive thinking is to believe that you need to feel motivated in order to do stuff. What research has shown, however, is that you actually need to do stuff in order to feel motivated. That’s right: first we

change behaviour, then cognition and mood eventually follow suit. If it were true that I needed to feel motivated in order to floss my teeth every night, I’d be on an all-liquid diet by now.

ESPECIALLY DO SHIT YOU VALUE Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) takes the insights of CBT a step further and says that while the general doing of shit makes you feel better, “engaging in values-based activities” makes you especially happy.

What do values-based activities look like? Think of the last time you felt truly alive. I mean really pumped, grateful, and content. Those feelings are your cue that there was an alignment between your values and your actions. What were you doing? Who

were you with? Do more of that.

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK As the name suggests, ACT is also really big on acceptance. Sometimes we can limit our suffering in the ways outlined above, but sometimes we suffer just because we’re humans and that’s what humans do. If you walk through a forest in the winter, you’ll see that the trees are scarred, naked, and harsh-looking. Bears just full on bury themselves and sleep all winter.

And neither trees nor bears beat themselves up for not being livelier in the winter months.

Sometimes it’s not so much our suffering that causes us the most hardship, but the judgment and resistance with which we meet our suffering. If

plants and animals can give themselves a break for not spending the winter dancing around like the actors in a GAP ad, maybe we can too.

Winter is hard, but applying the principles of CBT and ACT can make it a little less so. Of course, for moderate to severe depression, psychotherapy and medication are a better course of treatment than reading a 500word article. And yes, so are systemic changes, like leaving abusive relationships, including the one we call capitalism. But I’m at my word limit, so you’ll have to talk to Justin Trudeau about that one.

John is a therapist who practices in Waterloo.

WATERLOO PREVENTS FALLS

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SAYS CITY IS “AGING FRIENDLY”

ANUM SYEDA CONTRIBUTOR When it comes to health risks, an accidental fall is not, for most people, the first thing to come to mind.

Yet in Waterloo Region, falls are the leading cause of emergency-room visits, hospitalizations and deaths in adults over the age of 65. According to the Canadian Patient Safety Institute, older adults hospitalized for falls spend an average of nine to 10 days longer in care than from any other cause. After a fall occurs, there is often a cascade effect that can lead to further disability, isolation and depression.

It affects quality of life in ways that are not always considered. Hospitalization increases the risk of delirium, which results in worsening health outcomes than if one was not hospitalized at all. Or a person who has had a

fall in the past may limit their physical activity due of fear of falling, which could lead to muscle weakness and reduced participation in daily life and can increase the risk of a second fall event.

Adults over the age of 65 make up 13 per cent of City of Waterloo’s population, according to the 2011 census.

In 2012, Waterloo was designated as an “aging-friendly” city by the World Health Organization (WHO), joining a global network of cities committed to accommodating their older residents.

Out of WHO’s eight aging-friendly dimensions, at least three (outdoor spaces and public buildings, transportation and housing) can directly affect fall risks. And inevitably, all components work together to promote the overall health and activity of older adults. Starting with the creation of an Older Adults Housing Directory, which makes information about housing more accessible, Waterloo is slowly inching towards its priority targets in the eight areas.

Accidental falls present a health consequence that can be mitigated,

in more and less obvious ways, like by removing tripping hazards, clearing walkways or discussing your medications with your pharmacist or doctor.

Some of these are under an individual’s control, while others are not.

According to round table discussions from the annual Mayor’s Forum on aging in 2014 and 2015, installing more handrails, increasing support within homes and better by-law enforcement for sidewalks (such as strict snow removal standards), especially in or around residences populated by older residents, are priorities.

The question is, how are we progressing towards these goals, accurately measuring them, and making this information available to residents? The summary reports provide a clue, but a limited snapshot.

As our community ages in proportion to the national average, the bridge between commitment and action is closing quickly. Given the costs — personal and economic — associated with accidental falls, there is absolutely no time to waste.

The World Health Organization designated Waterloo an “aging-friendly” city in 2012, though accidental falls remain the leading cause of emergency-room visits for older adults in the region. NICK STANLEY PHOTO

ZERO TALENT, MUCH PRIVILEGE WHAT SEEMS SIMPLE RARELY IS, WHEN EVALUATING DOMINANT CULTURE

Zero talent is a matter of perspective. BETH BOWLES ILLUSTRATION

DAVE THOMAS CONTRIBUTOR There’s a meme going around the internet that lists “10 things that require zero talent.” Sounds great. Just make sure you have those 10 things — after all, you don’t need any talent at all to have them — and you’ll be on the road to success. Except that life isn’t that simple for everyone.

There are slight variations in some versions of the list, but the 10 items are: being on time, work ethic, effort, body language, energy, attitude, focus, being coachable, doing extra and being prepared.

Perhaps demonstrating these 10 attributes isn’t so hard for many people, but there are other factors that come to play in life than talent, like health, social connections, education and wealth.

I’m a white, straight male, raised in a comfortable middle class home, and I’ve enjoyed good physical and mental health. I’ve had the advantages that

privilege confers, making it much easier to get ahead. While I doubt the original author of that list intended to slag anyone, they have overlooked many people in the community who don’t have those advantages.

According to the Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation’s 2016 Vital Signs report, one third of Waterloo Region residents have “experienced limitations in participating in activities due to a physical or mental health problem expected to last six months or longer.” That’s a pretty substantial percentage of the population.

Looking at people’s sense of belonging, the report indicates that one in five residents perceive that the Region’s programs are not in touch with the community. The report notes that “those with a weak sense of belonging are more likely to think the Region is not in touch with their needs.

Although residents think the Region is a safe place, over recent years levels of trust have declined.”

How might these factors affect whether one can demonstrate those 10 “no talent required” attributes?

Maybe I’m naïve, but I think most people do their best, most of the time.

In my role with a non-profit organization in downtown Kitchener, I’ve helped many people for whom some of the items on that list are hard to demonstrate every day.

For example, if you are a single parent and have to take one of your kids to school and another to daycare and then get to work — in yet another part of town — while relying on public transportation, being on time is hard.

It may also be quite hard to be energetic, stay focused and do extra if you’re dealing with depression or anxiety.

What’s more, body language and gestures means different things in different cultures. Perhaps a newcomer hasn’t yet learned all the nuances of the Canadian mainstream cultural construct, which are often taken-for-granted by those in positions of power.

For those of us who enjoy a lot of advantages in our society, we should strive to be me more open-minded in our thinking, to be aware that not everyone’s journey on the planet is the same as ours.

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MAKING OUR RESOLUTIONS REAL

Last June, thousands gathered in Kitchener and Waterloo following a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that left 50 people dead. Many of the dead were queer people of colour. ANDREAS PATSIAOUROS PHOTO

UNITY AFTER TRAGEDY QUEER AND MUSLIM COMMUNITIES COME TOGETHER AFTER 2016 PULSE MASSACRE

POOJA LAL MOHAN CONTRIBUTOR One the most devastating events in North America in 2016 has birthed a local movement to champion solidarity and empathy among queer and Muslim communities.

A diverse group of community leaders recently came together at a public panel called “Waterloo Region, Let’s Talk. Pulse, Orlando” to explore this topic with a roughly 120 person audience that included students, professors, curious souls, allies and members of the queer and Islamic communities. The event was inspired by relationships developed at a candlelit vigil in Waterloo in the days following the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

One of many themes that permeated the discussion was figuring out how to writhe ourselves out of binary extremes such as “us” and “them.” Since our subjective experiences often tell us that we’re right and others are wrong, how do we change the ways that we are socially conditioned, so that each of us can gain a more nuanced sense of our shared reality?

Corey Johnson shared that he believes that the answer lies in coalition building and “acknowledging the multiplication of pain that exists across marginalized communities so that we can effectively share resources and support advocacy in order to build community from within.” Johnson is a professor of recreation and leisure studies at the University of Waterloo, and also said that “we must lean into the pain to understand it.”

While systemic issues do not have silver bullet solutions, empathy and allyship proved to be persistent points when discussing diversity, inclusion, and understanding intersectionality as a means to unite our community.

Intersectionality describes the fluid web of social categories that we are born into and/or identify with, and which sometimes connect us. Race,

gender, class and sexuality are some of those categories, an intersectional perspective can help us to see that inequality and hatred don’t stem from singular factors but myriad social elements and systems that overlap in ways not always apparent. For example, Johnson asked the audience to consider how “LGBTQ identities might look different as they intersect with race and religion.”

In the context of the Pulse shootings, the panelists talked about how racism and homophobia (and really all forms of hatred and implicit bias) are learned over time through repetition, and consolidated by the social group we belong to. They explained that this can lead to the mass silencing or closeting of marginalized groups, which in turn limits their sense of belonging due to the lack of recognition of their suffering, and a huge deficiency of safe social space to exist within society.

Over longer periods of time, these patterns of exclusion affect how our communities are governed, or rather who they are governed for.

According to the speakers, we must continue to have what might feel like the same conversations until we are able to truly see shifting intersectionality and confront our own implicit biases. By trying to be as open as possible to diverse – and sometimes challenging – narratives we might also start to be able to change our behaviours and resist tendencies to uncritically accept fictitious narratives about Canadian multiculturalism and diversity.

El Farouk Khaki, co-founder and Imam of Toronto Unity Mosque, reminded the audience that “our society is based on a colonial settler project,” but also that we have the power to continue decolonizing our minds to seek true unity.

Moving forward, we should keep in mind that problem solving is critically stalled without diversity of thought. It only makes sense then, that un-learning would require time, repetition and critical thinking. Progress will require reaching out to diverse groups to learn from and amplify hidden voices if we are interested in working toward sustainable social change for all.

DANI STOCK CONTRIBUTOR “[S]he who breaks a resolution is a weakling; [s]he who makes one is a fool,” writes the artist F.M. Knowles.

Thanks to Knowles’ wisdom, we can all raise a glass to complacency, knowing that, contrary to new year’s tradition, we had best avoid self-reflection altogether. With the heavy majority of new year’s resolutions statistically bound to fail, what’s the point of this ritual anyway?

For many of us, a resolution, new year’s or otherwise, is like the whispered fortune cookie message of the soul. It may be a deep intention, but it’s often expressed as a pithy response to a cocktail party question; a vague open-ended desire to “be healthier” or “invest more time in my relationships” or “find my passion.” While it may come from a true and hopeful place, a resolution feels like a wish exhaled onto birthday candles, lacking any kind of substantial plan for making it happen.

The ritual of projecting our loftiest visions onto the unspoiled year ahead may seem rather detached from the flow of modern life. Our personal life events are far more likely to inspire self-reflection than the always certain dawning of a new year. In wintery parts of the world, where introducing change can feel incompatible with a season of shorter days, heavy boots and chronic vitamin D deficiency, our resolutions may seem particularly bound to fail.

So, if the squeaky clean newness of a fresh calendar year is not filling you with resolve, I get it. And, no, I don’t think you should adopt a new year’s resolution. As far as life changes go, when the time is right, the moment will make itself glaringly obvious.

Whenever a personal resolution does present itself, consider that your newfound intention is not just a fleeting wish, but the beginning of a much larger project. And despite your probable desire for newness, that large project involves nothing new. Just the opposite—it involves working on your relationship with your oldest and, oftentimes, most stubborn friend: you.

Regardless of the goal, no matter how large or small, concrete or abstract, any kind of meaningful resolution requires that we learn more about ourselves. Why is this change calling to you? What’s not working right now?

What doesn’t feel right? Every time you create a personal intention, you are tapping into an exploration of your own potential.

In order to transform your intention into something more lasting than the greasy piece of paper you extracted from your fortune cookie, we have to talk about something else: life design.

Instead of forgetting your resolution

by February, or avoiding one altogether, design your days, weeks, months and years with purpose.

Over five weeks, for 30 minutes per week, I invite you to commit to the following steps: WEEK ONE: Begin by expressing your intention “out loud.” Write in a journal, create a vision board, record yourself speaking, or use any other creative medium. Begin with the vision, itself, and imagine what it could

look like. Let that vision rest for one week.

WEEK TWO: Record your answers to some important questions. Where in your life are you now? What sorts of things need to change to fulfill your intention? Try to sum up your resolution in one brief line. Write it on your bathroom mirror or stick it to your computer screen and read it aloud to yourself. All. The. Time.

WEEK THREE: Do one thing that works toward your goal. It should be small and achievable. In the meantime, sit down with a supportive person in your life to share your intention and tell them how you’re feeling about this project.

WEEK FOUR: Reflect on how things are going so far. Write down your next steps. Perhaps contact an acquaintance who can keep you accountable and move along your plan or idea.

WEEK FIVE: Think about a longterm challenge related to your intention. Scribble down some ideas, or draft a step-by-step plan for bringing that to fruition, and follow it over the coming months.

As you adopt the habit of weekly check-ins, notice how the practice of consciously expressing your dreams guides you into action.

Perhaps your resolution practice follows a different sequence than the one outlined. The central kernel of wisdom lies in the deliberate, ongoing practice of setting aside time to sit down with yourself and be purposeful about your direction. Re-assessing on a regular basis allows you the flexibility to reorient or adjust your plan.

Cheers to a new year of discovering what has been there all along.

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ARTS & CULTURE EVENT LISTINGS FRIDAY, JANUARY 6 ROMEO SEX FIGHTER RHAPSODY BARREL BAR Local band Romeo Sex Fighter is bringing their sweet tunes to DTK. Be there, or be somewhere else — you are in charge of your destiny.

Eyes of Alice is an Alice Cooper cover band. They are playing a show at Maxwell’s.

Music • $15 • 19+ • 8pm

ONION HONEY DESCENDANTS BREWERY

Music • 9pm-1am • No Cover

Onion Honey is a local band. They are playing at Descendants, which is a local brewery. What a good match.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 7

Music • Free • 7pm

BEST OF 2016 JANE BOND

SATURDAY, JANUARY 14

DJ Frank will be on hand for The Coolest Thing About Love #23, a journey through the best indie pop of 2016. Dance your heart out, eat some antojitos and tweet us about the cool jams.

Music • No Cover • 19+ • 10pm

TRI CON KW THEMUSEUM Hey Nerds! KW’s annual cosplay and celebration of all things nerdy is back. Special guests Tamsen McDonough & Thom Allison from KILLJOYS will be there for a Q&A and autographs.

Fun • $18 • 9pm

SUNDAY, JANUARY 8

SCAVENGER HUNT HURON NATURAL AREA

NEW YEAR’S LEVEE KITCHENER CITY HALL Celebrate the new year with Mayor Berry! There will be free, carnivalthemed activities.

Fun • Free • 1:30pm-4pm

Bring your camera and meet in the play area! Dress weather appropriately and be prepared to pee outside if you didn’t go at home.

Fun • Free • 1pm-2:30pm

KITCHENER TITANS THE AUD The KW Titans are a new basketball team in the newly formed National Basketball League of Canada. This is their first home game of the new year (they’re facing the London Lightening). They have several more over the month of January, you should look up their full schedule on the Internet if you’re interested in basketball.

Sports • $21 • 2pm

SUNDAY, JANUARY 15 LEBOWSKI FEST BINGEMANS This event is perfect if you’re the kind of person that likes to bowl and watch The Big Lebowski at the same time. Show up to the Kingpin Bowlounge dressed in a bathrobe and you’ll get in to this event of unlimited bowling for half price.

Fun • $10 • 9pm

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11 ARTIST TALK: PATRICK CULL OPEN SESAME Patrick Cull will be at Open Sesame to discuss the history, ecology and politics that inspired this new series of print/painting hybrid work.

Support the arts, please.

Art • Free • 7pm-10pm

THURSDAY, JANUARY 12 USS PLAYS MUSIC DALLAS NIGHTCLUB Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker is coming to K-Town. They are a band and they will play music at Dallas, which is a country bar.

Music • $25 • 19+ • 8pm

EXNOVATION COLLECTIVE IDENTITY THEMUSEUM Twenty-seven artists will be exhibiting, and live music will be performed for the Exnovation opening reception. Exnovation is allegedly the opposite of innovation, Waterloo Region’s favourite buzzword.

Music • $25 • 19+ • 8pm

FRIDAY, JANUARY 13 MUSIC AND MOVEMENT KITCHENER MARKET

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18 BEER + BEYONCE THEMUSEUM Want to learn the choreography for a Queen Bey song? Or just have something to Instagram?

Beyography is landing at THEMUSEUM to teach local Beyonce fans some of her signature moves to one of her TBA hits. You also get a beer. There’s a round two of this event Feb. 1 if you miss the first one.

Fun • $35 • 6:30pm

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19 QUOTE THE PRINCESS BRIDE PRINCESS CINEMA What’s a quote-a-long? We don’t know, but The Princess Bride is an excellent work of film, so just go to this and don’t ask too many questions.

Film • $12 • 6:50pm

THE WORLD’S END BEER TASTING APOLLO CINEMA Here’s a chance to drown your sorrows on the eve of Trump’s inauguration. The Apollo is screening the pub crawl epic The World’s End and Together We’re Bitter will be on hand.

Film • $27 • 6:30-9:30pm

Bring your babies (newborns to age six) to explore imagination and creativity through rhymes, songs and motor activities. Sounds pretty damn cute.

Kids • Fun • 10am-11:30am

ALICE COOPER COVER BAND MAXWELL’S

TEXAS KING MAXWELL’S Texas King is playing a show in Waterloo. Aukland, Flowers for Daniel and Safe as Houses are also playing.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20 HARPDOG BROWN THE BOATHOUSE Do you like blues music? You should probably go to this show. Harpdog Brown and the Travelin’ Blues Show has been a strong presence in the Canadian blues scene since the early 80s, so trust that they know what they’re doing.

Music • $20 • 9pm

CLITERATURE VICTORIA PARK PAVILLION A celebration of women’s sexuality through erotic readings, live music, dance and more. There will be 25 performers over the weekend with all proceeds going to support the Women’s Crisis Services of Waterloo Region. There will be food, drinks and an after party dance. Sounds cliteresting! Runs all weekend, passes are just $30.

Culture • $20 • 9pm

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22 PATHS TO IMPROVED CREATIVITY KW ART GALLERY Does creativity improve happiness?

Take this workshop and let us know. Participants will paint with watercolours and guidance from the session leaders and then write a letter celebrating gratitude and affirmation, whatever that means.

Art • $25 • 1:30pm-3:30pm

FRIDAY, JANUARY 27 FLASH 2017 THE TANNERY Flash Waterloo Region is back to celebrate the art and science of photography for a third year.

Canadian photographer Larry Towell will be there! Make sure you Instagram this, too.

Photography • $15 • 7pm

SKATE NIGHT DATE NIGHT WATERLOO PUBLIC SQUARE You can go on a skating date at the uptown rink literally any winter night. But if you want there to be music and free hot drinks, you should go this night. You also don’t have to be on a date to go skating.

Single people like free hot drinks too.

Fun • Free • 6pm-8pm

SATURDAY, JANUARY 28 CLOTHING SWAP KW COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE Hosted by Trusted Clothes. Bring your gently used clothing to donate and shop around! Donations will be accepted starting at 10:30 a.m., and the swap starts at 11 a.m. Reduce, reuse and recycle, folks.

Shop • Free • 11am.

THE BRUSH OFF THEMUSEUM Twenty artists will compete in a four-round live painting competition. The audience votes will determine the winners.

Attendees will be able to bid on the art created with proceeds going to museum programming. There’s a dance party too!

Art • $18 • 7:30pm-10pm

Music • $20 • 9pm

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HOSTING WHILE GUESTS

AS WE WELCOME NEW NEIGHBOURS, WE SHOULD REMEMBER THOSE WHO WELCOMED US TO THE GRAND RIVER VALLEY, LAST YEAR OR LAST CENTURY

On page 11 of this issue, we chat with painter Jim Tubb about his life and work.

EMILY GLEESON PHOTO

RICK COBER BAUMAN CONTRIBUTOR I know it is a bit simple, but in Canada one is either a guest or a host. You are a guest if your ancestral roots do not run only into this place many of the hosts call Turtle Island. And you are a host, if they do.

So no matter that I need to dig back a whole nine generations before I get to the Baumans and Martins and Shantzes who sailed here from Europe, I am still a guest.

I have had the privilege of making friends with Indigenous people across much of Ontario who have no sailing in their history, and who understand their history as starting nowhere but here.

Of course there is much mixing and mingling. Finding purity is not the point.

However it is worth remembering that we guests were generally treated as just that, guests. When those Baumans, Martins and Shantzes came to this valley of the Grand over 200 years ago, the valley was shared. Over the last 20 years of visiting friends at Six Nations of the Grand River, there is an interesting story that I have heard multiple times.

May I not sully the oral tradition by writing it here!

It might have been a Bauman, or maybe not – the tradition did not preserve that detail – but a guest farmer was leasing* land from a host at Six Nations.

I am not sure if that person was a Henhawk or a Jacobs or a Brant – that detail is missing too. But in the first crop year, there was a drought. Harvest was scant.

As he was bagging the grain the farmer realized he had barely enough to pay the lease rate. Nonetheless he piled the bags on his wagon and went to his host at Six Nations. While unloading the grain the farmer was asked about the harvest. “It was very modest,” he answered. “Barely enough to pay what I owe you. In fact everything I harvested is here on this wagon.”

The host was alarmed. “You mean you have nothing to feed your family, or your livestock for the winter? And you have kept no seed for next spring?”

And the host started restacking the grain sacks back on to the guest farmer’s wagon.

“I am not accepting any grain payment this year. We are neighbours now. You are not going anywhere and nor am I. We can settle this over the coming years as crops improve.”

Of course that valley land is now, with the exception of a 49 square mile reserve, all deeded to guests. I believe some was bought and paid for fairly. But not nearly all.

And with the passage of over 200 years those guests decided they wanted

to welcome other guests fleeing troubles in their lands. And so the valley became home to Serbs, and Colombians, Eritreans and Sudanese. And in the last year to hundreds of guests from Syria. Over the last 12 months guests-turned-hosts have been practicing their Arabic and introducing their guests to everything from Canadian Thanksgiving to ice hockey.

We guest Canadians became renowned for our welcome of refugees from a viciously violent Syrian conflict. I think our renown was well deserved.

But it would be more complete and wholesome if at the same time we were making fair lease payments, while maybe learning some Cayuga and inviting our Haudenosaunee hosts to feast with us, in gratitude for two centuries of friendship.

Rick is executive director of MCC Ontario, whose programs include the private sponsorship of refugees and building just relationships with Indigenous neighbours. *One Six Nations friend who tells this story points out the importance of the fact that guests were making lease payments to the hosts. In other words, we settlers recognized some sense of our hosts’ interest in this land that required some payment for its use.

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