TIME FLIES ... The history of the Carnegie Newsletter is replete with high points and extraordinary examples of the talents & skills of our various communities' members. The paper has attracted the voluntary efforts of over one thousand eight hundred individuals, some just once in a lifetime, others in varying degrees up to almost every issue for decades. This building opened as a community centre on January 20, 1980 after a years-long battle with dinosaurs on City Council, naysayers in both public & private roles and the ever-present prejudices & stereotypes the decision-makers exploit. See The Fight for Community by Sandy Cameron and read about the efforts of Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davies & Jean Swanson. Found a copy of a one legal-size sheet 'newsletter'dated 1982 that, if not the first, was a beginning. It listed programs & events in-house. Somewhere in the following year the Carnegie Crescent was born. It came out sporadically, maybe 4-7 times a year, but eventually imploded due to everyone wanting to be the editor & have final say on content & layout. Rumour had it that the last person to have it, who'd take it to the Printer, would take other's stuff pout to put his more important stuff. A staff person, Cindy Carson, took advantage of a UI {Unemployment Insurance) top-up program where a person could get work in their field while looking for work. Al Mettrick had been a city editor at a Toronto daily and lost his job. He responded to Cindy's inquiry, saying he could make a community newsletter in his sleep. August 15, 1986 saw the first edition of the Carnegie Newsletter, 12 pages in 60 copies made on an old photocopier upstairs. After 7 twice-monthly issues AI's UI ran out and he carried on. Those of us who had input in the first efforts saw that it wasn't that hard and just kept it going. In this anniversary issue are reprints of some writing, poetry & art that are as relevant today as when each first appeared. The initial idea was to 'go over' thirty years of newsletters, some 698 editions (according to the website) but that's not doable in a day. Suffice it to say that the energy inherent in this paper has always been incredible! By PAULR TA YLOR PS: Current print-run is 1200 copies with 16-28 pages twice a month. Stamps to mail single copies are $28 a year. It is available via email . Go to the website.
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Congratulations "Carnegie Newsletter" on 30 years of publ ication, and may there be many more years to come! If you're feeling nostalgic for those early newsletters, we have an in-house copy of The Heart of the Community: the best of the Carnegie Newsletter (edited by Paul Taylor), as well as archived newsletters. For the month of August, library staff will be joining forces with the DTES Literacy Roundtable, offering Friday "Tech Cafes" in Oppenheimer Park from 10:30 am - 12:30pm. Drop by the clubhouse with your questions and gadgets, and the team will provide one-toone assistance. For all the tech geeks, here's some cool new books: The Big Book of Hacks (2016) - This is the rebooted book by Popular Science with the latest DIY tech projects, like an LED light saber, automatic cat feeder, glowing mousepad, etc. "Fire up your soldering iron"! Big Data: Does size matter? (2016) by Timandra Harkness. Journalist and Comic writer, Harkness takes a deep look at the history of data science to demystify assumptions that bigger, faster, shinier technology IS better.
Luke Skywalker Can't Read: And other geeky truths (2015) by Ryan Britt. A cheeky read by Britt who takes on Jar-Jar Binks, how to kick depression after a "Doctor Who" Netflix binge, and reveals that almost everyone in the Star Wars universe is illiterate. "An inferno ofgeekery." The Scientific Secrets of Doctor Who (2015) by Simon Guerrier. The title alone suggests some serious nerding-out. Guerrier explores the possibilities of time travel, life on other planets, and more. . Your librarian,
Natalie
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--~ When I left New York, the black remnants of snow were being sprayed everywhere by the thDusands of Cars. It was well below freezing, but that is normal for January, right? Before this flight, any airplane that I'd been on had a maximum time of three hours in the sky, with a movie and people sleeping or reading. -~ The flight time to India is twenty hours, with two stops for some reason but no getting off. The inside became like a tourist trap after 5 or 6 hours; stewardesses and passengers both having goods and souvenirs for sale. Kids were running up and down the aisles until told to sit down and people of every race and creed imaginable were present. Hello Bombay! I stepped off the plane into 80 degree weather with the tropical sun beating down "it was a cool winter". After customs - "tourist, sir" ~
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and walking outside to get a bus to the train station, I had my first experience with culture shock. Beggars were all over the place, hands out and pointing to th~ir deformities - mangled 11mbs, open sores on their faces and bodies being blind - and trying to get anything from the rich air travellers. I had about $4.50 American, personal worldy wealth, but it wasn't possible to get that across , to the people pleading with me. I was a foreigner - must be rich - in their minds; no one but a rich foreigner comes to India. On the trip to the city proper, every street was lined on both sides with little 4'x4' shops that were hugging the curb and facing the stores on the main floors of buildings. Pedestrians w~~~~d between the double fronts amid sellers hawking and yelling for attention to their wares. Outhouse size shops usually had 9ne or two items for..sal.e .. f ru i t;
g~ains; pots; pans; books; ~hen, ~abled Katmandu. This clgarettes; soft drinks; balls: lS ~ Clty of over 100,000 inof cowshit mixed with straw habltants, but the picture for starting fires ... anypres~nted to the West is of a thing you could think of had mythlcal and isolated abode a store to itself. having on~y sporadic and wary The trains were booked solid contact wlth the outside world. for the next five days for all points - at the station were the omnipresent beggars and about two thousand people with all their possessions. I took $100 from money I was carrying for the General Secretary in Calcutta and bought another airplane ticket. I'd learned from an English-speaking Turk that trains in India have three classes: fist class is like Canadian" railways~with stewards and room and big windows; 2nd class reserved means being in a car with 90 others, all bags and goats and chickens too and just squeezing in wher~ver. In Calcutta, I delivered the money to the GS, and asked to go on to Varanasi for training. The Central Office Sec. said that wasn't advisable, since In reality: shops, stores; an the lifted government ban on open zoo of goats, chickens, ~he ~6 sections of the organcows, buffalo, elephants; both lsatlon was still unofficially foot and vehicle traffic; and in effect - even though Ms. of course beggars, thieves ~andhi w~s in jail for corrupt.. ' con artlsts, wlth rape and lon. A tlcket was purchased for murder and everything else. a one-way trip through the Himala~a~ to Katmandu, Nepal. The The animals are a trip :. as tralnlng centre there was still cows are sacred, they can eat operating and had gotten no anything anywhere - especially overt pressure to close. off the shelves and benches in The Himalayas are incredible! storefronts. If you hit one As the Nepalese bus wound its or even yell, you may find an way higher anJ higher, people ~ arm that looks just like yours 'and animals got scarcer. NothOfr the ground, as some 'devotee' ing else exists but the bus hicks it off with their machete. the mountains and the sky. '
One part of the training is ~ to go for one week begging for Incidently, the bus travelled ~ll food; saying nothing, buyf?r a few miles on the Peking lng nothing and being given one Hlghwa~, built and paid for by clay pot and a box of matches. the Chlnese Govt. This gesture One cooking session per day and of goodwill also provides a a second meal could only be the :oad ~or tanks and troop carrcold remains of the first one. lers lf (when) China decides to The training lasted for a few invade ..like in Tibet. . months and then I went back to !1I111111111111111111111111111111111111l11l11l11l11l11l11l1l1l11l1l11l11l11l11l11l11ummWOUII. Calcutta. Before leaving, I had aquired Congregations dysentery or chronic diarrhea. The trip to Calcutta was beset with stomach cramps, and a few My expectations of the spiritdays after arriving I went blind ual dropped to almost nil when for awhile. At the central I saw a near-riot in Ratna Park~ office, food (rice and vegies) between the local version of was provided twice a day, but Hare Krishna and who turned out my legs ballooned from water to be their head honchos from retention, a sympton of severe HQ in New Delhi. Seems these malnutrition. Body w~ight was vi~ious bastards had come up to less than 100 lbs., but to get WhlP the locals back into line. money to buy better food and medicine I had to beg in the streets. My vision returned as The.Faith days passed, and the dysentery was stopped by nothing but rice. 111I111I111I111111I1111I1111I1111I111111I11111I11I111I11I11I11I1111I1111I1111I1111I11
I wandered around the central marketplace and saw a fullgrown water buffalo, just slaughtered with rivers of its blood adding' to the garba~e in the gutters. This was in an open temple with pictures of their deity, a blue elephant, all over the place. No shit! As I walked down the street to the training centre, a real elephant sauntered by!! When I finally arrived, I had about two bucks left, but the training was free. The teacher expected me to have something, but my delivering the funds to GS in Calcutta had given me a 'by'. Donations paid for food.
When someone comes up to me here and says theytre hungry " ..haven't eaten since last night; no meal for another two hours and I'm starving - it doesn't get much sympathy. Starvation is the daily companion of over a quarter of the people on this planet. What we have here as basic necessity - guaranteed income, food twice a day at least, free clothes, shelter ... - an old saying: you don't know what you've got 'til its gone. By PAUL TAYLOR
7 TOTEMS of the
BA.LMORAL HOTEL
& other-paintings by DANNYDENNIS opening reception: Tuesday; AUgUst 23, 2016 :6:00-8:00 pm Interurban Gallery 1 East Hastings @ Carrall
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The Carnegie Newsletter belongs to the members of the Carnegie Centre. The Carnegie Centre, the most used community centre in Canada, is located in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, one of .the city's oldest communities with a residential population of ten thousand citizens. The newsletter, all 24 to 32 pages of it, is published twice a month. Seven hundred copies are printed, and these are distributed by hand. The paper is free to residents of the downtown eastside. In the Carnegie Newsletter the people of the downtown eastside are exercising the.~ower to define their own reality. Cons~d~r, for example, the following small part of a character sketch by Anne Rayvals about a sixty-two year old woman living in a hotel room: "...oh i know it's not much of a room but i put my things around and it's kind of homey what i like the best though is the window where i got my chair and i sit here looking out at the parking lot i get to see all the nice new cars parked there..••.•.so now ~. don 't go out much ~ince i been living here but i do Ld.kemy window to be hones t about it that's about all i do like
....
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sounds great eh well it's not so great damn there's another one of ~hem bugs where's my shoe who d have ever thought i'd end up here all by myself looking out the window at this stinking parking lot" Traditionally, the woman in this -story has been silent, but now she speaks, and her voice challenges the myth of a just socie~y. .The Carnegie Newsletter overflows w~th the lib~rating power of self definition: "Carnegie didn't just happen along like some flower-girl in the beer parlour smiling and selling teddy bears. Years of hard work went into forcing political dragons to give up dreaming about business men's clubs and parking lots Years of hard work to turn this stone building into something like sunrise." Tora, f~om h~s epic poem "Carnegie".· There s pa~n on a voyage of selfdiscovery. We know that we're not the people they said we were, and we are not yet the people we know we can become: " I fear to feel pain 'cause my heart is not a stone anp.ble~ds
when touched unkindly" 11ichael Dupuis With the pain that is faced in the pages of the Carnegie Newsletter comes anger: "sign in the window says Learning'Front for rent and you hand me a button for literacy day and I say stick it' in your own lapel while you bury our people in prisons and psyche wards." Mike Kramer - on the closing down of the Learning Front, a storefront literacy centre on Main Street, during the international year of literacy. With the pain also comes compassion: "Monday I went to the hospital to tutor.George Chief, a Carnegie member who was on dialysis; his kidneys did not function. I '¡was¡shocked when they said he had died on Saturday. He was a real nice man. I really liked him; he had so many interesting stories. We had planned to write them. I was really upset when the nu.rse said he chose to die." Sheila Baxter, author of No Way To Live With compassion comes caring, and it is this caring which turns the Carnegie Centre from a collection of isolated individuals into a community: "I came to Carnegie to teach in the Learning Centre, but what happened is that I learned so much from so many people who come here. I discovered that friendships go beyond the classroom, and permeate throughout the building." Kathie Leroux
The Carnegie Newsletter is political because it helps people find the power to define who they are, and because of its prophetic sense of justice - the concern with what ought to be. No one is more committed to justice than the editor of the Carnegie Newsletter, Paul Taylor. Whether the subject be housing, poverty, unemployment, pollution, or the GST, Paul speaks strongly in defence of the human rights and dignity of the people of the downtown eastside. The Carnegie Newsletter, however, is not political in the traditional way followed by many who are committed to political struggle. You won't find many abstract references to socialism or ca~italism. You won't find much intellectual discussion about who is left or right of whom. Well, what will you find? "You don't have to have a degree in English Literature to write for the Carnegie Newsletter" - Sheila Baxter in an article commemorating the fourth anniversary of the newsletter. "Just write from the heart about your own experience." "The values of the heart are dangerous to systems" writes Tora. Daniel writes with compassion from his experience: "Depending on where we stand, it is sometimes very hard to see ourselves as we really are. If we look behind, we see a trail that is marked with errors. If we!look ahead, we can see nothing but distance and uncertainty. IttLis during these times that we should listen to our hearts." What are the "values of the heart"? In his es~ay, The Power of the Powerless, Vaclav Havel, the President of Czechoslovakia, writes of the importance of dissent in challenging totalitarian systems. He says that between the aims of an ideological system (communist, capitalist, or whatever) and
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the aims of life~ there is an abyss •. A system serves people only to the extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it. For Havel~ living within the system without seriously asking who and what it is we serve and obey~ is living within the lie. In order to stop living within a lie~ we must begin to live within the truth~ Havel says. By this he means living from,the centre of our most authentic self - or living with the values of the heart as Sheila~ Tora~ and Daniel have said. Havel tells us that living within the truth has more than an existential dimension. It has a political dimension because it is the fundamental threat to the system. This is the politics of the heart. Don't expect to be told what t~ think by the Carnegie Newslet ter.· "The answer is forthcoming ..." Garry Gust~ a poet and cartoonist. There is a healthy skepticism in the newsletter - "a sense that nothing is what it seems any longer~ and that things must be done entirely differently." (Vaclav Havel) It is refreshing to discover a paper with the passion and sense of justice of the Carnegie Newsletter. It is information~ entertainment~ and inspiration. It is celebration as Thomas Merton described the word - celebration as the craziness of not submitting even though they~ the ones who make life impossible~ seem to have all the power. It is a joyous expression of the politics of the heart~ and it is a fundamental threat to any ideology. The Carnegie Newsletter brings hope. By SANDY CAMERON
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Charter Cards are walleUpocket-size & everyone needs to carry one. It cannot be taken away by the police with impunity. Know your rights. The cover of the Jan. 1991 edition of Help in the Downtown Eastside (last page) was #3. A funding crunch had the last edition, #48, out in June 2015. Thanks to the Eedy Lymburner Foundation & Equal & Open Access Foundation, an expanded, revised & new resource guide will be available by September this year.
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CHARTER of RIGHTS & FREEDOMS The Charter contains the following legal rights,"subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". Key Sections
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.
Silent Stories . Voice, Movement, Gesture
Sat Aug 20 Wed Aug 24 & 31 2pm-4pm in the Carnegie Theatre
Breath, body, speech. Imagination, action, curiosity, emotion. Flex, prepare, explore. Workshops led by Teresa Vandertuin
5.11 (d) To be presumed innocent until proven guilty by a court. 5.12 Not subjected to cruel or unusual treatment/punishment. 5.15 Everyone is given equal access, protection & benefit of the laws no matter their race, nationality/ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical condition. Charter
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It has been 30 years since the first words were written for inaugural edition of The Carnegie Newsletter. It was 2006 when I first walked through the large glass doors of the entrance to the Carnegie Community Centre. I had read about the history of this fine building and seeing its grand marble staircase and stained glass windows was a pure treat to my eyes. I went to meet Editor Paul Taylor. I asked him if I could be an intern for the newsletter. I still remember him looking at me and after a short chat and without hesitation he obliged my desire. I could hear sirens in the background and I felt like I was in the heali of this action packed community. I knew there was so much going on in the area and I wanted to write community stories, to get peoples voices heard. I remember Editor Paul 'asking how long I could stay and I said, 'As long as you'll have me." So I have been writing stories and taking photographs over the past decade from time to time. Over the years I've been involved with writing groups at the Carnegie put on by Sheila Baxter, enjoyed musical events, had my first documentary screened at the theatre and also found my own voice as a Poet. The best part about being part of the newsletter is the people I have met and been honored to call friends. So many but I remember, Harold David, Harold Asham, Bill, Miriam Truan, Kelly and the amazing writer, Sandy Cameron. Sandy Cameron I met on my first newsletter gathering He told me he like the photo I had taken of a Downtown parade that was published in the Newsletter. I remember how that made me feel appreciated and welcome at the same time. I have seen a lot of people really working hard to help the community exist with dignity and that is a struggl that these people devote a lot of their time doing. Mostly I want to Thank Editor Paul Taylor for allowing me to be part of this Carnegie Community Centre Newsletter. It has changed my life for the better as I feel like I am a part of something that is worthwhile. Bravo to all the Newsletter workers. Jackie Humber
Letters to the editor Ottawa Citizen newspaper To the editor, A recent CBC Radio 1 programme discussed some of the phenomena accompanying Trump's popularity. US political polarization today is at an all time high. "Grid locked" is the standard description of the US federal government. There are now no negotiations between the parties. The voices of the extreme right and left seem to resonate most loudly, drowning out the needed centrist voice, the voice of compromise. Personal reappraisal of political ideology is calcified and entrenchment of same is maximized. There's no halfway: it's either one or the other. There's something positive to be said for condemning extremism. (Letter written but not published "When History Cries' Emergency.' [Aug 1, 2016 Carnegie Newsletter]") However, because of the aforementioned phenomena, fighting Trump's fire with the same type of fire (i.e., by belittling and/or ridiculing him) will not succeed in winning over supporters. Further alienation - fuelling and strengthening personal ideological entrenchment - is the predictable result. Unfortunately, also a strong contributing phenomenon to the ideological malaise is the standard news media response to Trump's demagoguery: shun and attack Trump. If the news media truly are serious in trying to overcome Trump's successful harnessing of xenophobia, hatred and fear, something different is necessary. Humour is a potent weapon, especially if both sides can laugh and meet on that point. I'm certain other approaches exist. What about a delicate treatment of policies? As a poet, I could write poems about this. You op-ed columnists, you journalists, you editorialists, surely you all are familiar with other ways of appealing to gentle reader sensibilities? Please try. Yours truly, Rolf Auer
The Fraser Institute presents bL()(~b A?-..rUb(Z~()~
It was a dark & stormy day ... and Michael . Walker of the Fraser Institute, a rabidly right-wing tank that does much of what passes for thinking to justify cutting all social programs, privatising and deregulating everything, and cheering on tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and being at the vanguard of the corporate agenda .. Michael said that Eloise Anderson, the head of California's Welfare Department, had ideas and policies that were "completely compatible with the Fraser Institute." Hmmm Walker said this when Gordon Campbell, that champion of the wealthy, spoke on Dec.5th. Anderson appears to be the darling of the corporate media as well for her ideas on families and what's called AFDC - Aid for Families with Dependent Children - in the States. I went and listened for the asides, quips and audience reaction to her talk, hoping to get an insight into what rhetoric (yes, that word comes up all the time) the right and politicians will be slamming home in the coming year as BC goes to the polls. First, Ms. Anderson gave a very down to earth talk, but had some gaps in her viewpoint. .gaps that were eagerly shared by many in the room. She referred to people who work being upset at providing money for people who "don't do anything." She called AFDC out of date, said that children were already largely abandoned, that the government made a poor parent, that families had to be kept together and the man made more attractive than welfare. She gave a fair amount of time to saying that
teenage mothers were unfit to join the workforce, due to "never having learned discipline or subordinate skills (as opposed to insubordination, another fundamental to her idea of the problem with single parents.) She gave credence to the stereotype that people who work have h\1O advantages over those who don't - the first is that they get up (out of bed) and the second is that they show up at work (as opposed to not going anywhere, I suppose). Her ideas behind cutting hundreds of dollars from parents on AFDC include: • •
•
• • • •
making the man/father more attractive than welfare by providing incentives to work; finding w~rk seems to be possible for illegal immigrants so it is therefore possible for citizens (no mention (or thought?) of type of work, conditions, wages, etc.) and that many immigrants find it possible to send money home so talk of minimum wage being unliveable is wrong; training and bringing people to the doorway of minimum wage is all the government is required to do .. that trying to prepare people fo~jobs that pay higher than minimum wage is a waste; people are personally responsible for their poverty and for getting themselves out of it day-care is better left to friends and relatives than 'centres' disabled people should work, beginning by figuring out what they can do family should help out first, government last incentives to get training/work are children, so if someone gets pregnant too soon, before ever working, they should not be able to get
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can get free food. She doesn't know where they'll sleep. "Lookout (an emergency shelter) gives priority to people coming out of hospital," she explains. "No one knows what's going to happen to them the .next day. People are so angry. They talk about beating the workers up. I try to focus their anger on the politicians, not on the workers who don't have the power." One of the social services workers told Alayne, "We're under a microscope for everything we hand out. We can't do our job. We're doing things we don't believe in." Leslie Campbell, an advocate at First United Church, has similar stories and feelings. The BC government keeps saying it is more humane than Alberta, but the Church just helped a young man go to Alberta because their program of three weeks of workfare and life in a hostel held more hope that being hungry and homeless in Vancouver. A man from the Yukon, looking for work in BC, was also denied welfare. He told Campbell that would never happen in Whitehorse. "If you can't be part of the community and assist people in trouble, why are you here," he wondered about the Ministry. A landed immigrant from Africa used all his money to get to BC to look for work in November. After not finding ajob, he applied for welfare in December and was turned down. "This is not the country it says it is," he noted. "There's no way he could have known about the residency requirement," Campbell explained. Campbell is angry about another Social Services policy. The Ministry now refuses to reimburse people who have endorsed cheques or cash stolen .. One of Campbell' s clients, a woman with a severe disability, was robbed. She called police, then asked Social Services to replace the money. A
person in the Minis~ told Campbell, "We don't \ have to help people like that. If she gets evicted, we'll put her in a hostel. She can go to the Food Bank for food." "They have no concept of what this means to a woman who needs to use a wheelchair," says Campbell. "She can't get to a food bank. She'll lose her subsidised housing. The government has taken away all capacity for Ministry workers to be . human and flexible." "Evil" is the word that Campbell uses to describe what people in need face when they deal with the "renewed" Ministry of Social Services. "These policies have nothing to do with making the system better for BC. We don't see a similar bare bones cut to politicians' salaries," she says. When the federal government abolished the Canada Assistance Plan last year, it made it legally
possible for provinces to deny welfare to people in need, to reduce welfare below what people need to live on, to end the appeal process for people on welfare, and to force people to work and train for welfare. Lloyd Axworthy is mad at BC because MacPhail abolished the only right he didn't get rid of'- the right to income assistance when in need regardless of what province you are from. Alberta and Quebec have violated the right not to have to work or train for welfare, but Axworthy didn't seem to notice that one. New Brunswick and other provinces violated the right to an amount of income that takes into account budgetary requirements, but Axworthy ignored that. Now BC has abolished only one of the five rights and already people are being forced hungry into the streets. Unless we stop the federal government from implementing the Canada Health and Social
government aid; "you can't take out until you've put in" other incentives include time limits for social housing and income assistance - after so many months/years the benefits of welfare are cut off The one question written down and asked (tb-s time) by this writer had to do with fraud: ''Welfare fraud is statistically 2-3%. Opinion has it as high as 40%. What is your opinion and what comments do you have on the difference?" Walker sputtered in disbelief at the first statement but asked the whole question. (He'd refused to ask a similar question to Gordon Campbell the week before.) Anderson stated that welfare fraud in California is "50-60%" and, based on the 'truth' of her opinion: proceeded to talk about investigations, home visits and all the usual 'tips from
neighbours' stuff. She didn't even hear the real question on the difference between fact (2-3%) and opinion (40-50-60%) The talk and question & answer finished with Ray Addington, reading his spontaneous reaction to her inspiring words; he thanked her for coming and speaking on the same day that "special interests" were holding the city of London, Ontario, up for ransom by denying 'normal' people the "right to go to work". He gave her a Fraser Institute scarf. Everyone bubbled on the way out of how right she was to get these "poor girls to stop having babies." One chilling comment was "we have to stop the whole goddamned thing" meaning all social programs .. just like in every other Third World country ...
t7
Bnd Osboru
'\)ancou\)er's Downtown Eastside Poet A poet can survive everything, claimed Oscar Wilde, but a misprint. Bud Osbom has survived even that. It came from the ceremonies to launch a special bank serving some of the poorest people in Canada in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Over speeches by Glen Clark, former premier Mike Harcourt and popular local politician Jim Green, "the aftemoon -s biggest applause," wrote Elizabeth Aird of the Vancouver Sun, went to Osbom when he finished this fmal verse of his poem to mark the opening of Four Comers: so our hope and trust today is that four corners community savings fulfill the same savings role ... "Saving role" it should have read, not "savings." One is a financial, the other a spiritual investment. Yet the day and its coverage were a triumph for the community --- our most vulnerable suffering afflicted and besieged community '/0111' most creative beloved and spiritually inspired community;' our community that is therefore! a tremendous gift to this city. That meant more to Osbom than words. No one else speaks "as a member of the downtown eastside community of the poor" in quite the
'. same voice, or articulates so forcefully to outside interests what membership in it means. Nor do many Catholics like Osborn ("God relies on human beings to relate him") heed the call to social justice with as much integrity through their life's work. Born in Michigan in 1947, he survived a brutally dysfunctional childhood which seemed bereft of any form of grace. His father committed suicide, his sexually abusive mother often tried and his aunt murdered his grandmother, making an unhappy end seem preordained. His 1995 collection of poetry, Lonesome Monsters, describes one of Osboms many suicide attempts in "When I was 15." On a reading tour years after the event, "this girl came up who'd just gotten out of the hospital, whose circumstances were uncannily similar, clutching a copy of this poem which she'd xeroxed." It gave her strength, showing her she wasn't alone. It was the ultimate compliment for Osbom. "I read poets," he says, "and they understood me better than J understood myself. It helped me to read these people." Meeting "rahter" Jack Micheline, an associate of the beats+the rambling, counter-cultural, roadwalking poets of the '60s--was his greatest inspiration. 'Forty, homeless and broke,' Micheline made poetry out of the facts of his life and urged Osbom to do the same. Lonesome Monsters, which is dedicated to Micheline, states up-front: "Resemblances to people alive or dead are purely intentional." Vivid, jagged verse dissects all manner of experience and' everywhere finds God. The precipitous window of death in "Keys to Kingdoms"--the story of when Osbom was almost killed over five missing dollars--draws a meditation on divine mercy. "Down Here", a long and beautiful ode to the Downtown Eastside, ends with a prayer not a curse . to the tragic & sacred mystery 'of our / beautiful . suffering.' eternal worth. Having left the U.S. during the Vietnam war, Osborn came to Vancouver from Toronto with Marie, the eo-protagonist of many of the pieces. I
Both overcame their dependence on drugs and converted to Catholicism. After following a long and hard route together, the two went their separate ways. "Mane lIves a protoundly spiritual life," Bud explains. "She's a much more private person, while I find myself ever more drawn to 'public expressions." A battle-weary smile inflects the last observation. Friend and fellow Downtown Eastside activist Sandy Cameron sees in Osbom something of the Old Testament prophet. A favourite book of Cameron's iยง theologian Walter Brueggemann's The Prophetic Imagination, with its exegesis on "the articulation of pain." For Osbom, articulating the pain of the DowntOW11Eastside has meant talking to churches and to concemed groups, meeting with city councillors and planners, sitting on the regional health board to represent the.community (it has the Westem world's highest rate ofHIV infection), and spraypainting the boarded up windows of buildings waiting idly on the real estate market amid homelessness and unliveable living conditions. He believes the giant threat of gentrification-market -driven development suffocating the social housing and hotels affordable to this poorest of communities--is one Christianity is mandated to fight. The bible is replete with struggles for land and community, Osbom points out; the Promised Land, the Kingdom of Heaven. "God is community. You' come here and you find God. What makes a traditional community---caring, knowing who your neighbour is---is here. Here, who Iam is important rather than what I am and what I have to give. This is a spiritual gift, this community. "I felt more at home, more free here, than anywhere else. I decided to commit myself here, and being free to make that choice is how I'm able to do it." In October, 1996, Osbom started the Political .0
Response Group (PRG), "an independent group formed to protest the abandonment of a community of the poor by elected government officials, and the assau lt of upscale development on the integrity of the Downtown Eastside." Its multi-media presentation, "Community in Crisis," incorporating slides, dance, monologues, an oral history of the area and readings by Bud, has been performed to acclaim in Vancouver-area churches and community centres. Says Cameron, "John Milton was Cromwell' s secretary but there's somehow a prevailing notion of the poet as 'removed' from the world. That's completely contrary to Bud." In Osborn's case ifs the poet's wonder at beauty and God's presence which fuels the activist. Afte; articulating its pain in well-chosen words, he relates an act of unselfish community to explain best what makes the Downtown Eastside special. "1 have a friend who's a native fellow, just tumed 25, and he's a hard core drug addict diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. "1 saw him again at that block ofE.Hastings, supposedly the most infamous block in Canada and he was wal~ing beside a very old white man with a walker. He said this white man had been knocked down in broad daylight and robbed of all his money the week before and since then he'd been accompanying him on his errands to protect him and reassure him and keep him safe. I thought that was very remarkable." It exacted a poem equally remarkable for the author's own, unrelenting empathy. James is a drug addict. ends the last verse, and knows he will never live / half the length of time / the old white man " has been alive. Osbom calls it "One of the Most Beautiful Things IHave Ever Seen." By SABITRI GHOSH (*This appeared in the Catholic New Timesi Lonesome Monsters is available in bookstores around the country or from Anvil Press, Suite 204A, 175 East Broadway, Vancouver, BC, V5T 1W2
raise shit - a downtown eastside poem of resistance "the myth of the frontier is an invention that rationalizes the violence of gentrification, and displacement" NEIL SMITH "these pioneers in the gradual gentrification of the downtown eastside say their hopes for a middle-class lifestyle are undermined by the tenderloin scene down the street" - DOUG WARD 1997 there is a planetary resistance against consequences of globalization against poor people being driven from land they have occupied in common and in community for many years
conditions we in the downtown eastside in the poorest and most disabled and ill community in canada are part of the resistance which includes the zapatistas in chiapas, mexico the ogoni tribe in nigeria and the resistance efforts on behalf of and with the lavalas in haiti the minjung in korea the dalits in india the zabaleen in egypt the johatsu in japan and these are names for the flood the abandoned the outcasts the garbage people the homeless poor and marginalized people and gentrification has become a central characteri sti c of what neil smith perceives as "a revengeful and reactionary viciousness against various populations accused of 'stealing' the city from the white upper classes" and this viciousness
and violence
"prominent amid the aspects of this story which have caught the imagination are the massacres of innocent peoples - atrocities committed against them and, among other horrific excesses, the ways in which towns, provinces, and whole kingdoms have been entirely cleared of their native inhabitants" BARTOLOME DE LA CASAS, 1542
brought to the downtown eastside by friendly predators such as builders planners architects landlords bankers and politicians is like violence brought to our community by other predators by johns and oblivion seekers by sensationalizing journalists
and while resistance to and rapidity of global gentrification differs according to specific local
by arrogant evangelizing christians predators like developers and real estate agents who remind me of no one so much as gilbert jordan the serial killer who came down here repeatedly and seduced bribed and bullied 10 native women into drinking alcohol until they wer dead and one woman revived after a night with jordan though pronounced dead On arrival I at st. pau l's hospital i described jordan as ! "a real decent-looking person very mild-mannered t a real gentleman I he looked like a school teacher white shirt and tie 1 I trusted him"
I
I
I
i and I
j'1
was the word words against the power of money and law and politics and media words against a global economic system the word "hebrew" originally designated not a racial class but a social class of despised drifters and outcasts who existed on the margins of middle eastern cultures and those advocates those ancient hebrew prophets said "the wealthy move the boundaries and the poor have to keep out of the way the poor spend the night naked, lacking clothes with no covering against the cold ¡the child of the poor is exacted as security from the city comes the groan of the dying and the gasp of the wounded crying for help damn those who destroy the huts of the poor plundering their homes instead of building them up those who tear the skin from off our people who grind the faces of the poor who join house to house who add field to field until there is room for no one but them those who turn aside the way of the
in our situation in the downtown eastside the single weapon we wield like the weapon native indian prophets like the weapon ancient hebrew prophets used in situations of vicious displacement and threatened destruction of their communities
afflicted who trample
our words like bolts of lightning in a dark night lighting our way our words like tears like rain like cries like hail from our hearts feeling with each other in our suffering for each other our words angry as thunder exploding in the ears of those who would ignore or dismiss or inflict upon us what they in their ignorance think is best for us our words defiant as streetkids in a cop's face our words brilliant and beautiful as the rainbow I saw spanning our streets our words of resistance and comfort and commitment
upon the oppressed"
and the native prophets of the americas who said "when these times arrive we will leave our homes like dying deer the land will be sold and the people will be moved and many things that we used to have in this land will be taken from us we have been made to drink of the bitter cup of humiliation they have taken away our lands until we find ourselves fugitives, vagrants and strangers in our own community our existence as a distinct community seems to be drawing to a close our position may be compared to a solitary tree in an open space where all the forest trees around have been prostrated by a furious tornado"
like mountains our words prophetic on behalf of the hard-pressed poor our words buttons t-shirts fliers inserts newsletters pamphlets posters spraypaint slogans stickers placards speeches interviews essays poetry songs letters chalks paints graffiti
we have become a community of prophets in the downtown eastside rebuking the system and speaking hope and possibility into situations of apparent impossibility a first nations man recently told me he had come to the downtown eastside to die he heard the propaganda that this is only a place of death, disease and despair and since his life had Decome a hopeless' misery he came here specifically to die but he said since living in the downtown eastside what with the people he has met and the groups he has found he now wants very much to live and his words go directly to the heart of what makes for real community a new life out of apparent death and this is what we speak and live with our words our weapons â&#x20AC;˘
for as one prophet said "when all is dark the murderer his bed to kill the poor and oppressed"
leaves
jeff and muggs and eldon and kathleen and frank and maggie and earl and lori and duncan and margaret and mark and sonny and ken and fred and sheila and Liz 1and tora and terri and ian and chris and I bob and leigh i and jen and shawn and darren and sarah and irene and cathy and ann and lorelie and nick and
i
,I
!
linda and john and lorraine and joanne and judy and allison and sharon and deb and marg and dan and jean and don and libby and carol and Iou and dayle and mo and barb and ellen and sandy and tom and luke and gary and travis and bruce and paul and deidre andjim and lisa and so many others our words and our presence create a strange and profound unity outraged at each other disappointing each other misinterpreting each other reacting against each other resenting each other unhealed wounds dividing us when to be about unity is to be caught in a crossfire of conflicting ambitions understandings perspectives
still our words and our presence create a strange and profound and strong unity as in memory of the long hard nervewracking battles for the carnegie centre against the casino for crab park against brad holme for zero displacement bylaws against hotel evictions for poor people living in woodward's against condominium monstrosities and for our very name _ -the downtown eastside removed from city maps the most stable community and neighbourhood in vancouver suddenly disappeared but recovered through struggle our name reclaimed but the meetings the pressure the downtown eastside community besieged and beleaguered strung-out and dissipated running on constant low-grade burnout fever
meetings and meetings and meetings words and courage and love and hope , love as in our public celebrations and unity a dozen fronts to fight at the same time love as in our public grieving deal with one and a dozen more appear if only we had love going past fatigue again another dehumanizing media story the means for self-determination love taking risks in the face of or a new condo threat , instead uncertainty a hundred needs crying out all at once love as stubbornness sticking to "the real estate cowboys ... also a hundred individuals with emergencies I community principles enlisted the cavalry of crying for a response love as willingness to go one more city government for ... reclaiming the sirens and sirens and sirens length land and quelling construction noise to make one more leaflet the natives, in its housing policy, drug automobile mayhem love sitting down together one more crackdowns, and a disabled population time especially in its parks strategy, the city a poor and ill population love saying hello to hate and fear and devoted its criminalized goodbye efforts not toward providing basic up against globalization love as resistance, tolerance and services and living pressure cooker emotional atmosphere acceptance opportunities for existing residents but excruciating questions and dilemmas love toward routing so much happens so fast for this poor beloved community many of the locals and subsidizing how much compromise? reeling from global upheavals opportunities for how to organize? love real estate development" where to fight? taking on the consequences of a systen wrote neil smith about the lower east more sirens and screams and break-ins producing side of new york welfare cuts more wounded more murders and suicides sounds familiar, literal more damaged more bodies on the sidewalks and in like the day the police showed up on more excluded alleys and parks horseback more refugees space and places for poor people to patrol the 100 block of east hastings more unemployed and never-to-beshrinking horses on the sidewalk employed and the ambiguities of advocacy where some of the most ill and suffering and love's the rumours â&#x20AC;˘ human beings immense capacity to care the well-founded paranoias most drugged and drunk and and love as courage the political manipulations staggering human beings like the other day near main and exploitations confusions deliberate slipped and stumbled through the huge hastings horse turds obfuscations ' an old white man headed across left laying on the sidewalk and seduction of the gentrification hastings system 1 remember attending a kind of in the middle of the block the backroom deals somewhere else gentrification summit traffic roared and blasted in both in office towers and government office called by a vancouver city planner directions meetings and more m etings to examine the city's victory square the man was using a cane and moving and yet redevelopment plan very slowly beneath the ostensible reason david ley, jeff sommers, nick blomley his eyes fixed somewhere beyond for attending another goddamned and chris olds it sure looked like he'd never make it meeting reached a similar conclusion but would become is that which truly holds us together the plan does nothing to prevent another vehicular maiming or death holds and has held every real displacement and gentrification down here community together but when recently reminded of this and then a native fellow verdict love waiting at the bus stop the city planner still pushing his plan like a matador dodging furious bulls not as passive abstraction or a said dodged into the traffic commodity privatized "I don't care if god and david ley ... " and stopped it but love using his body as a shield and that's just it as fiery personal and collective social and escorted the old white man the necessity for heeding justice passion safely to the curb the prophetic blast and rallying cry
delivered by larry campbell now the provincial coroner in the carnegie centre last summer
against itself against pan handlers
"raise shit," he said
raise shit when a city planner in with the convention centre seam says "the voters of vancouver can easily live with 20 to 25,000 homeless people and not even notice"
raise shit against the kind of "urban cleansing" gentrification un leashes it's a war against the poorest of the poor 1,000 overdose deaths in the downtown eastside in 4 years highest rate and number of suicides in vancouver lowest life expectancy for both men and women fatal epidemics of aids and hepatitis c and lack of humane housing identified as a, major factor in all this violence against us raise shit when a friend of m ine, a gay native man, tells me "I'll try anything to get a decent home I'm gonna become a mental case I'll even go into an institution if it'll help me get a decent home" raise shit when both young people and hard core addicts either deliberately infect themselves with hiv or take no precautions to prevent infection so that they have a better chance at obtaining housing, income, health care and meals raise shit when a city cop in a newspaper column says "the locals were at their best fighting and howling" and calls drug addicts "vampires" raise shit when an extremely influential north american theoretician of displacement, george kelling is brought to vancouver by the business people and the police to define and divide our community
and we, you and I, us are all that stands between
and prostitutes
and when I think of raising shit I think of this basketball team I once played on composed ofmiddle-aged beat-up alcoholics and addicts from the streets who'd been sober for awhile and we entered a city recreational league against teams that were younger, stronger, faster, healthier and more skilled and though we lost most games by a large margin we determined that no matter what the score each hotshot team we played would know by their fatigue and sweat and bruises that they had been in a game that they were up against an opponent we knew we couldn't out jump or outrun those teams but we sure could raise shit better than they could and amazingly we actually won a few games¡ to raise shit is to actively resist and we resist with our presence with our words with our love with our courage we resist person by 'person square foot by square foot room by room building by building block by block we resist because we are a community of prophets, of activists, of advocates, of volunteers, and agency workers
the unique vulnerable troubled lifegiving and deathattacked community of the downtowi eastside we are all that stands between our vas community and those who would gentrify and displace and replace it replace with greed the singular leadership we have here where it is said we lack a single dynamic individual leader but we have the most powerful leader there is the most effective leader we can have in this grave situation our community our community itself has emerged as our leader the downtown eastside community itself leads us and it is to our credit that this is so for it is from our prophetic, courageous, conflictual and loving â&#x20AC;˘ unity that our community raises shit and resists
BUDOSBORN 2001
Raise Shit - Social Action Saving Live
is the story of the years-long struggle to open Insite, an accepted & 'legal' Safe Injection facility -the first on the North American continent. The book's author are Susan Boyd, Donald MacPherson and Bud.
A Prayer for Children We pray for children Who put chocolate fingers everywhere, Who like to be tickled, Who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants, Who snea.k Popsicles before supper, Who erase holes in math workbooks, Who never can find their shoes. And we pray for those Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, Who can't bounce down the street In a pair of new sneakers Who never "counted potatoes," Who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead, Who never go to the circus, Who live in an X-rated world. We pray for children Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, Who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish, Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money, Who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off key, Who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink, Who slurp their soup. And we pray for those Who never get dessert, Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, Who watch their parents watch them die, Who can't find any bread to steal, Who don't have rooms to clean up, Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, Whose monsters are real.
We pray for children Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, Who like ghost stories, Who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub, Who get visits from the tooth fairy, Who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool, Who squirm in church and scream in the phone. Whose tears w~ sometimes laugh at, and whose smiles can make us cry. And we pray for those Whose nightmares come in the daytime, Who will eat anything, Who have never seen a dentist, Who aren't spoiled by anybody, Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep. Who live and move, but have no being. We pray for children Who want to be carried And for those who must. For those we never give up on And for those who don't have a second chance. For those we smother... And those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it. Ina Hughs
Congratulations Carnegie Newsletter on your
30th Anniversary! 'The Carnegie sheds light on the lives of the community The stories of the daily lives of the community. We come alive through the Carnegie Newsletter. Ourtears. Our laughter. Our beauty. Our pain. This chronicler of our community Gives us a reason to exist. For decades through all kinds of change. Its still there. The voice. Our voice. Our phoenix. Community run. Community owned." Excerpt from 'Hooray for the Carnegie Newsletter',
by Terry Hunter
26 October - 6 November 2016 Survivors Pole Raising, Pigeon Park, Saturday afternoon, The Downtown
Eastside Heart of the City Festival is produced & Association
of United
Ukrainian
by Vancouver
Canadians,
working
Moving
Theatre
5 November with
2016
the Carnegie Community
with a host of community
partners.
Centre
WRITING CONJTEST to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Carneqie Newsletter Entries will be accepted for the following categories: > Poetry (maximum: 40 lines) »Essay (up to approximately 450 words) > Memoir (up to approximately 400 words) Contest Details: • . • • •
•
You may write about any topic of your choice that you think would interest or entertain readers of the Carnegie Newsletter. A panel of judges will read all entries and choose a winning entry for each category. The winner in each category will receive a gift to inspire future writing projects. All entries will be potentially eligible for publication in a future issue of the Carnegie Newsletter. If your writing is chosen for publication, you will be remunerated with volunteer tickets. Submissions will be returned to the writers, upon request, after the contest winners are announced. •
How to Enter the Contest: I
1. 2.
3. 4. 5.
6.
Do not put your name on your poem, essay or memoir. Put your poem, essay or memoir into an envelope. Complete the contest entry form. Place the ent form inside the same envelope as your poem, essay or memoir. Seal the envelope. Print the following words on the outside of your envelope: WRITING CONTEST
ENTRY, c/o Carnegie Newsletter. 7. Deliver your entry to the Carnegie Community Centre (401 Main Street, at Hastings Street) before the contest deadline. 8. DEApLINE: Contest entries must be received by 12:00 p.m. on
October
1, 2016.
Questions? Please direct all questions about this contest, in writing, to Lisa David in care of the Carnegie Newsletter. You may either leave a note for her in the Carnegie Community Centre Association Office (second floor) or send an e-mail message to carnnews@shaw.ca. If you send an e-mail, please put WRITING CONTEST in the subject line.
WRITIN6 CONJTEST to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Carnegie Newsletter
ENTRY'
FORM
Please print as neatly as you are able. Thank you. Mynameis:
_
How may we contact you? Phone:
_
E-mail:
---'--'_
Mailing. Address:
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Other:
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Please enter my writing under the following category (check one):
o Poetry o Essay o Memoir Thank youfor entering our writing contest. Good Luck! â&#x20AC;˘
Rhymes for the Unemployed I don't want to keep you in the dark After several years of searching for work I'm ready to leave my mark -, I am available and free For hiring as Crocodile Dundee Kangaroos or flees I will train for a fee. For dough I would be glad Bake 'brioche' or toss your 'salade', Prepare flatbread or trout, Cultivate berries or sprout, Push grocery carts or do bingo shout. Have no doubt, hard work I cannot live without. There's no job too small, To be on a payroll I'm ready to do it all Vehicles park and retrieve your golf ball, . Exterminate roaches and rats, . , Fire ants, mice and bats. I washed wigs and bull shit, Cover seats and cockpits, Marble floor and concrete, Velvet chairs of elite. I served food an' highball t slicker's elegant ball And decorated my neighbourhood mall; You name it: I did it all. I perform magic tricks, Trade promotional knick-knacks, Mark marathon race tracks And apply therapeutic mudpacks: When pay isn't too shabby, I accompany elderly to Kyiv or Abu Dhabi For rent and bill money I will bamboozle any judge or Jury; Sewing velcros, Installing door knobs, Looking for work Is a full-time job. I mourn at funerals, Do wedding rehearsals, Do bar mitzvas after dusk.
I did customer count For perks and discount, I've worn kilt and elephant snoot Where the money comes from I don't give a shoot. Although this confession Could make CESOC sad For a steady salary I would work for Mossad.
Live Fast
Since carrying caskets, Trunks, milk crates Higher incomes Did riot purport, I am employed by the Prince of Pot Transporting parcels, growing cannabis Are top items on my current to do list. Mila Klimova
- die young in Amerika
Those folks in Cleveland republican convention centre Walk around carrying Uzis, Automatic Rifles! A wet-dream in reality for fascist, Trump and his maniac supporters See that Ohio is a "gun State", weapons encouraged and proliferate This is not HG Wells fantasy, or Huxley's Brave New World', Sadly it is reality 2016 Amerika with the 4th Reich in Star Wars and Stripes. To all of which I say tripe! Is this progress or regress? Bring back horseless carriages with clubs -- not guns! By the time any killer swings that stick Lots will tackle stifle and kick. So fewer will live fast n' die' young For living and loving well and long is the real fun! John alan douglas
HOW THE NEWS REALLY WORKS .â&#x20AC;˘.
Pondering Life
~.
If you win, Saves the moment, Th~ rry 011. Le;!' rom the experiences, Then carry on. If you lose someone special, Celebrate that life, Then carry on. But on occasion remember that life Is precious and savour all that you can Absorb for you never know you might not get tomorrow. Maria Teixeira
OLD TIME RELIGION 1ust because you can't see it Doesn't mean it doesn't exist It's here and now and has no beginning or end Our thoughts are its creation It is the connections of the universe Where everything is and isn't simultaneously Where there. is no theory of everything And the subject observing affects the outcome To exist in this world is just one dimension And our- great purpose is to learn and teach Our bodies are but a vessel used by the Creator For Her divine purposes. She provides the tools. To drive the self to great achievements When One is clean in mind, body and soul Through a pure transparent heart. Johnny "maple syrup" Jaworski
Member of Firestarters Writing WorkshOp with Phoenix
August 3 - 3D, 2016 Carnegie Centre Third Floor Gallery Main & Hastings
We all need to be tolerant and respectful of each other. We are all different & unique which makes this world an interesting place to Jive in with diversity. We all need a sense of peace, safety and love, We cannot feel tarnished by the labels society places upon individuals. Battles we face day to day must be conquered for our own well being. At the end of the day all we, as brothers and sisters, need is Love and Peace. Moria Teixeira
The Bleaching Process Text and Textures Opening
Statelessness
on the Occultation
Friday August 5, 6 - 7 Pi\l
UFO
of Self by Dan Feeney
Business is not a victimless crime. Homelessness is not an accident. Re: PaulR Taylor's "What can ya' say?" in Feb. 15, 2007 edition of Carnegie Newsletter What's the matter PaulR, did someone steal your 'thunder'? Or maybe you didn't really bring any to start with. The 'Doomsday Clock' was a great idea, don't get me wrong. And, contrary to your assertion it actually did get quite a bit of mention in the corporate media, as did the issue of homelessness. In fact, the only slogan mentioned was "Homes Not Games!" The entire rally was described as anti-homeless protesters, or members of the Anti-Poverty Committee. The APC have done tremendous work in raising the profile of homelessness in Vancouver. They have done this through a variety of means, including leaflets, posters, public forums, meetings, protests, and direct actions (inc. squatting and disrupting city council meetings). They work hard and face police harassment, surveillanee, and arrests. They have the respect of a lot of poor people because of their commitment. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Gord Hill. I was one of those arrested at the Feb. 12 AntiOlympic Countdown Clock protest. In fact, it was me who is alleged to have stormed the stage and grabbed the microphone to scream 'profanities' into live TV. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member ofthe APC. I am a Native warrior from the Kwakwaka'wakw nation. For many years I was active in the Native Youth Movement and continue to be involved in the struggle of my peoples. I helped organize the Feb. 12 rally, specifically to get Native people out
and mobilized into opposing 2010. It's hard work, since so many of our groups & organizations are funded by the government, which makes people complacent and controlled. Many have been bought off by V ANOC and are participating in 2010-related events & Public Relations work. But there are also Natives who opposed the Olympics, including the Sutikalh camp near Mt. Currie, the Skwelkwelk'welt defenders at Sun Peaks, and the Native Youth Movement. Our elder, Harriet Nahanee, was recently sent to jail . for 14 days for participating in the May 2006 blockade of highway construction in N. Vancouver (and is now in the hospital with pneumonia as a result). At the rally there were probably about 20 Natives (out of60). We had NYM speakers, Native banners, Warrior flags, drummers & singers. but you know what? There wasn't one word in the corporate media about Native participation in the rally, or any Native opposition to 2010. The entire protest was portrayed as anti-homelessness, disregarding Indigenous concerns over sovereignty, ecological destruction and displacement as a result of corporate invasion '& resource exploitation. So please, give it a break. Your message got out there, "Homes not Games'' got out there (thanks to the APC), and even your clock-prop got mentioned. As for an entire race of people? They were somehow invisible (which your one-sided rant against APC only perpetuates). Am I angry at APC for 'stealing the show'? No, because it's a clear attempt by corporations to silence & marginalize Native resistance to the Olympics. As for¡ the effect of the direct action taken on Feb.12, I know many people (Native & non-Native) who feel empowered as a result of the rally. Strangers & friends alike have thanked me and congratulated me for what was done. Let me close with a quote from the Globe & Mail: "Until yesterday's protest, the 2010 Games had at~racted little public hostility, with opinion polls showmg a large majority of public supportive" ("Olympic cloc~ ticks off protesters," Globe & Mail, Feb. 13, ) ThIS was an effective direct action. Your personal bias against APC appears to have impaired your ability to thi~k logically. I suggest you review the corporate media coverage again. Virtually every article mentions anti-homelessness, and most also mention
your crude 'doomsday clock'. Try to find anything about all the Natives that were there. Gilakas'la! Gord Hill, Kwakwak'awakw Said well. Actions of the APC also include their co-optation of the Women's Centre and a representative group of elders with drums, singing and set on presenting their demands to the civic body at the Vancouver Public Library. The extreme necessity was to get money for a women-only shelter in the very cold days after the new year. APe, after sidelining any leadership of these women (t'your cause is only a small part of our larger, more noble cause" (?}) says and demonstrates that their sole purpose was to disrupt that meeting, which they did screaming obscenities, throwing chairs and overturning tables, and washing police people's faces with their spittle as they screamed, from six inches away, "Youfucking Nazi pig asswipe!!" then whined as loudly as possible when the most belligerent were arrested. Following their playbook/script?! apc people turned with vindictive denunciations and further obscenities focused on any 'civilian' who didn't support such behaviour. Ditto at City Hall, ditto at a public meeting at Carnegie, ditto ... it's sadly expected now. There was not one word about the Women's Centre and, again - to use your words - the Native presence (elders with drums, singing and chanting) with crucial demands, issues, was invisible. I may have watched the wrong TV news after the Doomsda~ Clock event (CBC was reportedly fairer) but CTV IS the ofJicial media for 2010 and it and all afJiliat~ ~ewspap1rs and radio made no mention of the legitimacy of Natives or the fact that all issues focused on were even worth giving coverage to. It was all spun down to 'violent protestors and security' with no native aspect whatsoever. They did make a non-verbal statement: 'This is the exact kind of coverage that will be given to protests and dissent from now on until after 2010.' Control of media will play a major role in how the "world" will see us. Months, even afew years passed before the tactics used in Atlanta and Salt Lake City got international coverage. In Atlanta, with all kinds of promises about social responsibility in place, the homeless and street people were put on buses and taken out of town for the duration of the Games. Ditto
in Salt Lake, with arrests of those refusing to become 'invisible'. The US media long ago disowned being held accountable for covering Native concern over land and sacred places. Guess who owns Canadian media? If I were on the side of corporate hegemony, the tactics and strategy of APC is close to what I'd try to provoke in 'those' people (all wanting social justice andfair treatment). "Get headlines and coverage so all involved are seen as violent, unsane and crude , with 'reasoning' an impossibility. Get TV coverage with screaming obscenities (like, heard over the mike from someone storming the stage "... fucking cunt!'') As long as the 'anti-poverty committee' gets their 15 seconds, the majority of people will disavow affiliation.ileaving us fragmented and easily picked off or just rolled in and under the anti-a pc tactics categorization. It's funny that your/their strategy added greatly to keeping the Native aspect of all this invisible. The entire issue of housing, as opposed to just stopping the Games entirely for whatever reasons, was virtually lost - again, with APC efforts contributing greatly. PaulR Taylor Respectfully submitted,
3
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Thanks for the response Paul. As for the DE WC protest at the library, I was there and to be honest, the DEWC lost their leadership when they stopped to pose for the cameras while cops & security guards were attacking people. I saw the news on that too and there they were in a nice semi-circle singing and drumming away. Ya it also showed people getting rowdy but that's what it's gonna take. Again, it's because of APC's militancy that the issue ?fhomelessness is a major concern in the city. Not Just them, but their actions are contributing to raising the profile of the group. As for Feb. 12, again the issue of homelessness was front and center, even as police denounced us for our actions. Denunciations from our common enemy we expect. Any act of resistance is used to justify their repression, if not they'll fabricate it... this does not invalidate the necessity to resist. Gord¡ It's not the denunciations from our common enemy that concern me. It's the groans and frustration and
anger that boil up towards these people (ape) when; despite any considerations agreed to or just voiced before, the public venue is claimed by apc and all other concerns / voices are elbowed out of the.way as ape people launch into their schtick. I hear maybe one response that "everyone has a right" but that's what Campbell and Sullivan said for their soundbyte. And that's an average of one vague support for every twenty (from people on our side) who get really pissed, who now have to make plans on what to do at the next event where apc will insist, again, that their voices/tactics/strategy are the only valid way. It just sucks. Paul
to, if anything. The calling of names didn't originate with the ape but the most verbose of those speaking/ yelling immediately trash anyone not 100% in agreement with anything ape-sponsored or initiated. Virtually any community activist or organizational re'p knows this for a fact, seeing and hearing it at public venu.es again and again. The vitriol against me personally - one of the few people I have great respect for once told me that I'm an idiot .. that I have no brain. It's always helpful to have criticism.. with one's own degree of psychospiritual parallelism helping intuit veracity. PRT
The Editor, Carnegie Newsletter, Congratulations on an informative issue with many good letters and poems. The one thing that struck a sour note was the verging-on-hysterical article, signed by you, trashing the APC. It's unfortunate that the press focused on the fracas, but as you well know, that's what the press love to do. So in fact, creating a stir was a good strategy for that day and that in no way undermined Carnegie's excellent presentation on the spot. Your nasty comments smacked of yellow journalism and gave weight to the media claims that APC had projectiles and used them. The APC may be more flamboyant than you are comfortable with, but violence is not their style. They are devoted to challenging the status quo, and it I is good and necessary that there are many groups and many ways to express our common outrage. That your position of privilege and power be used for this spurious attack is a real low and arrogant move. If we stoop to calling each other names instead of working to co-ordinate strategies, then we all lose. Watch what you accuse folks of doing, then look in the mirror. I don't suppose that you will recant or apologize, but if you publish this, it could undo some of the damage done with that article. I want people to know that everyone in Carnegie is not a flaming reactionary. Delanye "If we stoop to calling each other names instead of working to co-ordinate strategies, then we all lose. " My point exactly, and one that the anti-poverty committee seems to rely on to elbow their way in front of whatever else community collaborators have agreed
Where do they want the poor to go?
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Original Airdate 8: You Should See the Other Sky Like an observatory for our solar system's criminally insane there was a time when this city was truly the best in the world but that dream burst into flames 35 thousand people come here every year back then it was a blast, like money back guaranteed world war survival holes-in-the-ground no bathroom doors let alone walls but who's going to complain about very loud sound nothing was ever built to last, like turning down the stereotype or turning up the revolution because the underground is against authority so it has to be alright The following cast iron tales may be insane with a touch of vigour you just have to open your eyes god was a regular he brought his son to just about every gig Darwin the Apostle taught them how to slamdancethose years were solid gold but that never slowing-down entity called Time could not be bought off it just kept killing off weeks & months its partner Mr. Death made every fibre of our being old I have to commit memories to paper as you never know when your expiry date arrives, When 1took off for good at 17 in '82 I didn't really have a plan so I called my friend Mink & told him I was at the liquor store at Broadway & Maple he had 1 or 2 seconds to decide what he wanted to drink but his Mom was listening in he said'fuck off & before I knew it w.ewere both looking for a place to live, we found what we'd be looking for a Native family were moving out at 128 West 8th & Manitoba with a soccer 1 field across the road we both knew we'd just scored it came with an ancient cat I named Auschwitz(don't ask me why!) this is all true Incident: When the Indians above us asked what kind of beer we drank Hi-test Old Stock I saw them get into a car 30 minutes later, a knock on the door they'd returned with 11 cases of Budweiser & 11 cases of Old Stock the next 4 days we learned they were from Jackson Hole Wyoming I think we got drunk that dayevening-morning-day/moonlight they were pretty cool Incident: A few of Mink's Kitsilano high school mates came over one idiot picked up Mink's rat Ratscabies & like a baseball threw it at the wall its head was grim one turning into a tumour-like growth so we killed it quickly then dragged its 3 x 1 foot cage into the soccer field under the goal post & set it ablaze, 15 minutes a screaming firetruck drives onto the field to put out the burning goal post wooden cage & ratscabies a cremation of sorts I nor they will ever forget, Incident 3: We
had created our own gang the "Boozer Bloke & Birds" - to be a member was simple: Drink a case of beer in 90 minutes or a 26er in 60 minutes. The Night Scruff (my lead singer in No Exit) had 3 drinks to go & 5 minutes to guzzle but was comatose so I drank one as did Mink we poured the yd one over his head. As proof of being a member he vomited black liquid? All over my bed but drove me t Burnaby to get a new one. Incident 4: Our second place 54 E 6th & StGeorge only 4 blocks from Kingsgate Mall Liquor Store I drove Mink's bike with a carrier basket in front picked up 16 cans of beer decided to use a shortcut through Saint George's School parking lot when at the last second . noticed the chainlink is Up! Me & cans of beer do a somersault over said chainlink. A soccer game was in progress until Slam! 22 players their girlfriends coaches everyone stops. Some cans are 100 or more feet away spraying beer out of tiny pricks meanwhile make sure I'm not paralysed as game stops everyone looking at me beer spraying from faraway I say, "Did you enjoy my ignorance?!" as I walked the non-working bike to every can whether spraying or straying and home. That sucked Incident 5: Me & Sean (guitarist for The Repellants) & Andrew enter the 7-11 at Fraser & King Edward. Sean runs into a school chum & as they talk a thug-lite enters the store chum zells Sean "If it wasn't for your Daytons the air would blow you away" we exit store to . Sean's car and thug-lite & friends descend throwing punches & kicking the shit out of Sean' scar 2 or 3 fall off as Sean speeds bleeding from punches like Andrew never had I been so happy to be 'stuck' in the backseat Incident 6: I come home from a party in the West End to 3 surprises -backdoor kicked in, a bucket of vomit outside my bedroom door & a new kitten on the couch which Mink named Thurston Auschwitz III lovely & the rest just swell, like taking a meteor shower after a hard welfare day with many more things to say but they aren't rotting which is just as well. .. like taking mushrooms for the first time getting higher than high as I near Broadway it is like a pinball game Lights (cars) Camera (my eyes) Action (getting home alive) you should have seen the sky nothing was virgin territory anymore but I like to think we came just a little closer to heaven than any level of hell. By ROBERT McGILLIVRA Y "How often is imagination the moment of truth?" -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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POOR·BASHING ... • It's immoral , It hurts people • 11helps justify policies which widen the gap between rich and poor , It must be stopped
I went for Cl walk I went for a walk one night because I was bored, but as this time in my life is, so I say, a lonely time, the walk, leisurely e-nough, became something of an emotional circularity, and in three hours or so, the time it took me to walk from thg house to the middle of Granville Bridge and back, circuitously, I fluctuated between intense happiness, almost giddiness, at some really quite' silly things, like the ocean breeze, little goodnatured, or whatever the term is, actsor words between people that I happened to witness, to overhear, a lone seagull, a thought about D, and intense sadness, almost depression, at some of the same thiru!~. but more at the fatal absence of any. thing eve; vaguely resembling .community in this city, community based on relationships with land bevond fiscal, commercial, proprietary concerns. The history of so-called progress is the history of land theft, I thought, the conversion of productive, fertile land" by way of very destructive processes, into non-productive, useless real estate. and the so-called real estate barons are actually nothing but thieving and murderous pirates. It is theeasiest, commonest thing in the world 19 say that dead real estate barons, or dead industrialists etc. were thieving and murderous pirates. Everyone does it. But no one wants to call the living real estate barons ormdustrialiststhieving and murderous pirates, though they are as thievish and murderous' as .their predecessors, if not more so. By time we can be certain of something, I thought, it is far too late, which is why we advocate so strongly, I continued thinking, from our positions of passion, even when we are uncertain of the outcome of our struggles, or whatever the term is, as we generally are. Up and down emotionally 1 went, not without plateaus, as when I stopped to examine a building' or a fountain, to examine some part of someone else's real estate. Everything I know, I thought, I learned by walking, by looking, by looking at things, by listening, and if I had never ambled, I thought, I would be complete imbecile. Books are like signs pointing out possible directions to
a
amble, I thought, but the ambling is the thing. We read posters, sign~. engravings, graffiti etc. when we walk, but there is also .something very close to reading involved in looking at concrete, fenders, bricks.vclothes, trinkets, stairwells etc. I thought. I'm glad I'm no longer the kind of person to correctsomeone when they say "eksetra" instead of et cetera, I thought. If we nip something in the bud, as they say, we are more often than not denying, or destroying, the part of ourselves that can read the streets and buildings; as it were, the part of ourselves that learns just by being in a place, the part of ourselves that is in and of a place, as opposed to the part that merely observes a place, the part of, ourselves that can be involved in something without being completely defined by that involvement. Ob.servation of that other, anal-retentive sort, some of us are fond of saying, is willful blindness, . or whatever the term is, an example of the same posture of so-called objectivity that makes mainstream newspapers so unintelligible, so reaction- . ary, so much a part of and contributor to a world of nipped-in-tee-bud thoughts and feelings and impressions; the world of television and newspapers, and, I might add, the iniernet. Everything has a proper response or interpretation, according to them, and any other response or interpretation' is strange. There is, we suppose, a way oflooking at these things similar to ambling, a way ofwatching TV or reading newspapers or surfing the internet such that one learns about everything, about everything else, by doing one thing, any' thing, observantly, self-observantly but not overself-consciously; and participatingly. But the circumstances that obtain now, we note, almost preclude ambling or observing, and selfconsciousness is anathema. The world we live in now, we find ourselves saying, is a world of pe~ple who are either anal-retentive or who lack any sphincter control whatsoever, a world of strict rules and silly gestures, of law-enforcers and comedians, of batons and beach balls.
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Dan Feeney
SRO's of the DTES It's such a waste of time as we pay, We are spending money day by day. Why do they do this to the very poor? While they can help it - I'm quite sure. The wealthy take the money and run, It's like they do this just for fun. They can't relate to how we feel, The lives we live are so unreal. Such a shame to grow up this way, Because of things we do and say. Should money put smiles on their faces? Each time they collect from many races? We don't need shame or unwanted pity, To live in this great big beautiful city. This is Vancouver, and it is fine, This wonderful city should be mine. They should try to understand the mentally ill, Instead they stare like- "iflooks could kill." And the truth is, it's very low, It's always going to and fro. Our money is always being spent, The damage deposit and our rentWhen we starve they don't even care, Most of us don't think that's very fare. Should we let them get away with it? Like all of the money? Like- bit by bit? So why should we let this go on and on? I wish, we could wish, it was totally gone. Š DJ Bruce Constituency Office Now Open
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2572 E Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V5K IZ3 Tel: 604-775-5800 Fax: 604-775-5811 Email: Jenny.Kwan@parl.gc.ca
MP for Vancouver East NDP Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Critic
A Final Good-bye My father passed away many years ago. He was very sick with lung cancer and had been transferred from the Notre Dame hospital in North Battleford to the one in Saskatoon. The doctors told us he had maybe one week to live so I and my sisters & brothers went to see him every day. My father had six white Clydesdale horses and after he passed away the coffin was put on a wagon pulled by them. It was funny that, though there was a blizzard that day there was no snow at the graveyard. After the burial we were coming back on the wagon and all six horses went into the ditch at the same time. My brother had to get them back on the road. Horses are very intelligent and to me they knew they would never see their master again - they were very sad. I loved my father very much and was heartbroken, yet it looked like the horses were saying the final good-bye. Marlene Wuttunee
What, Me Worry?: The Social Phenomenon of Disappearing Privacy By Debra McNaught We've got a second generation now seemingly born with digital device in hand, and that latest benchmark has so cemented the concept of trading private information in exchange for access to the latest technological marvel it has become the new norm. The Youngs appear to be wildly enthusiastic about sharing absolutely everything on the internet, the idea of which leaves the Olds recoiling in horror, convinced the kids are naively unaware of the consequences of all that personal information available for the taking. The Youngs are impervious to the future, so the thinking goes, apparently unconcerned that the right string of data might end up in the hands of the wrong entity. In fact, our Brave New World has created an internet where divulging personal information is your ticket to play. That kind of near-unanimous compliance could lead to thinking the energy spent safeguarding what privacy we have left is pretty much futile, and that perhaps far from oblivious maybe the Youngs just prefer not to think about what future use that data might be put to. Those posted photos of my Misspent Youth might derail future career plans? Nah. Perhaps, however, the technologically-savvy-but-compromised have merely resigned themselves to living their lives in full view of the rest of the world, reality television having normalized many of them to the idea having everyone watching you full time is a good idea, leaving those of us not quite as enamoured with the digital life wondering if the kids are all right. The Youngs seem indifferent to the concept that, as Dana Boyd, a fellow at the Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society suggests, " ... things like birth dates can be used by entities beyond their visibility" (Shaw Harvard); that they lack the capacity to envision that today's soon forgotten disclosure could come back at some future point with very large teeth. But the internet is not the same place your grandfather surfed, so here's an unsettling thought: what if those who eagerly to post every minutiae of their lives online as though privacy is no longer relevant are actually the ones with the right idea? In a 2007 New York Magazine piece, Emily Nussbaum posited it might be "time to consider the possibility â&#x20AC;˘ Sane or not, it would certhat young people who behave as if privacy doesn't exist are actually the sane"ones." tainly make life a lot simpler. As Bob Sullivan of MSNBC put it, "there is abundant evidence that people live their lives ignorant of the monitoring, assuming a mythical level of privacy," (Sullivan MSNBC) that stolen identity horror stories are only the stuff ofblogosphere legend. Can it be attributed to generational shift? Or have we just become resigned to the idea that privacy is dead, and that trying to remain off the radar of every existing marketing group, bureaucracy or government agency is a futile exercise? Surrendering information in exchange for access to technology might be the equivalent of dancing with the devil, but he dresses very: well. Jonathon Shaw, in Harvard Magazine states, "The ambivalence we sometimes feel about new technologies hat reveal identifiable personal information balances threats to privacy against incremental advantages," (Shaw Harvard). Admittedly, surrender has some attraction. Think of the hours not spent worrying about whose radar you might be appearing on, and all those requests for your pertinent information you will no longer have to navigate around, leaving you to focus instead on productively over sharing and signing up for cool shit in exchange for every personal piece of data ever created in your name. Much easier just to fill in al\ the blanks and click I AGREE. Besides, if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear, right? However, as Friedman points out, "that the conversation tends to end whenever privacy is pitted against national-security interests," (Friedman Harvard) throws that old B-movie cliche into sharper relief. The idea that you just might want to keep things to yourself instead of sharing it with the public at large has been twisted to the point where a desire for privacy suggests you are doing something illegal or nasty and therefore whatever surveillance occurs benefits society as a whole. As Daniel Solove states, "The deeper problem with the nothing to hide argument is that it myopically views privacy as a form of concealment or secrecy."(Solove SSRN). Robert O'Harrow, in his book No Place to Hide states, "More than ever before, the details about our lives are no longer our own. They belong to the companies that collect them, and the government agencies that buy or demand them
in the name of keeping us safe," (Sullivan). Of course, making what the authorities consider too much noise in defence of your rapidly disappearing privacy could, if you are completely unfortunate, go so far as to mark you as a potential terrorist when in fact you bought a truckload of fertilizer for your rose garden: As the after effects of911 continue to play out, it has provided governments the world over with all the justification they feel warranted in order to declare a fatwa on their own citizens, spying on us in order to protect us, so goes the logic. "When the government engages in surveillance, many people believe that there is no threat to privacy unless the government uncovers unlawful activity, in which case a person has no legitimate justification to claim that it remain private," (Solove). One of the comments on Solove's blog stated, "To me, the "I have nothing to hide" argument basically equates to "I don't care what happens, so long as it doesn't happen to me," (Horn SSRN). If the government wants to track how many times you order in Schezuan most people are okay with not only because that is the limit of their concept of surveillance but also because they believe individual lives should be subject to national security interests. Edward Snowden, Wikileaks whistleblower and former NSA operative noted, "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say," (Coustik-Deal- Open Rights Group). Worse, Solove points out that, "The security interest .... outweighs whatever minimal or moderate privacy interests law-abiding citizens may have ... Cast in this manner, the nothing to hide argument is a formidable one," (Solove). Formidable it may be, but the idea of CSIS rooting around in my email gives me the willies and should do the same for any rational person, criminal element or no. Continuous collection and collation of data by corporations and governments domestic and foreign adds to the ever higher probability the details of your private life are being or will be exposed to some form of abuse. "Future attacks on your privacy may come from anywhere, from anyone with money to purchase that phone number you surrendered," (SuJlivan) If our every move is scanned, documented, compiled, analyzed, and assessed; if we are observed by CCTV, by satellites, and buzzed by drones what hope have we that the private can remain so? And yet, privacy is critical to our evolution as human beings. "We need to have privacy; we need it to live and love, to make mistakes, and to grow," (Kift Global). Loss of privacy occurs in incremental slices so small you do not feel the knife going in; only if you and your privacy become compromised does the value of what has become permanently lost sink in. Personal information has become a commodity that is available to anyone with the correct currency, or the selfappointed mandate to do so. I Guard yours well. {This piece first appeared online at CCHF Social Justice Magazine and is here with the author's permission.]
Works Cited Coustick-Deal. Ruth. "Responding to Nothing to hide, Nothing to fear." Open Rights Group, December 2015. Friedman, AIIan. Quoted in "Exposed: The erosion of privacy in the Internet era," by Jonathon Shaw in Harvard Magazine, .September - October 2009. Horn, BJ. Quoted from Daniel Solove's blog Concurring Opinions and appeared in his article, "I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy." supra note 17 (June 2, 2006, 18:58 EST). Kift, Paula. "To have or not to have: the true privacy question." Berlin, Germany: Global Public Policy Institute, Volume 2, Issue 4 December 2013. Nussbaum, Emily. "Say Everything." New York Magazine February 2007 Shaw, Jonathon. "Exposed: The erosion of privacy in the Internet era." Harvard Magazine, September - October 2009. Solove, Daniel J. "l've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy." Social Science Research Network. Sullivan, Bob. "Privacy under attack but does anybody care?" Msnbc.com October 17, 2006.
Local Artists
â&#x20AC;˘ Workshops
â&#x20AC;˘ Live Music and More!
Artful Sundays An Outdoor-Multimedia-Visual Arts-Market In Napier Greenway (Napier St @ Commercial Drive)
5 Sundays, August 7-Sept 4, 2016
I
12-5pm
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The donation list is small and people give what you can. Over the years it's been helpful to have money directed at supporting the work. One big plus is how it gets spent - no one is getting paidl Expenses are pretty much what you'd expect with almost all funding paying for the actual printing ($8500); volunteer tickets for submissions & production/distribution ($2000); petty cash for postage, office supplies, soft&hardware & mise ($1500). Another bi ~ plus is the ability of the Association to issue tax receipts. If you catch yourself about to sign a cheque to some charity, consider splitting the amount between that cause and the life or death struggles involved in putting out the Carnegie Newsletter. It'll be 30 years come August 15, 2016. Respectfully submitted, PaulR Taylor, volunteer
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WANTED Artwork for the Carnegie Newsletter • • • • • • • • •
Small illustrations to accompany articles and poetry. Cover art - Max size: 17cm(6 'l':)wide x 15cm(6')high. Subject matter pertaining to issues relevant to the Downtown Eastside, but all work considered. Black & White printing only. Size restrictions apply (i.e. if your piece is too large, it will be reduced and/or cropped to fit). All artists will receive credit for their work. Originals will be returned to the artist after being copied for publication. Remuneration: Carnegie Volunteer Tickets
DROP-IN Mondays - l2:30pm to Spm Tuesday - lOam to Spm Thursday - 9am to Spm COMPUTER ADVICE Vancouver Community Network Cost-effective computer & IT support for non-profits VCN Tech Team http://techteam.vcn.bc.ca Call 778-724-0826 ext2. 705-333 Terminal Ave, Van
Please make submissions to Paul Taylor, Editor. The editor can edit for clarity, format & brevity, but not at the expense of the writer's message.
Next issue:
WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION • • •
SUBMISSION DEADLINE TUESDAY AUGUST 30TH.
AIDS POVERTY HOMELESSNESS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ABORIGINAL GENOCIDE TOT ALIT ARIAN CAPITALISM IGNORANCE and SUSTAINED FEAR
(Publication is possible only with now-necessary donations.) DONATIONS 2016 Sheila B.$200 Robert McG.-$110 Elsie McG.-$200 In memory of Sam Snobelen: Anonymous -$200 In memory of Harold David: Susan S.-$200 In memory of §.@!:D.: L-$10 Barb & Mel L-$100 Cory K.-$19 Sid CT -$50 Laurie R.-$50 Winnie T.-$150 Glenn B.-$200 Craig H.-$500 Ellen W.-$35 Leslie S.-$200 Michele C.-$100 Wilhelmina M.-$44 Humanities 101 -$300 Yasushi K.-$50+ Michael C.-$50 The Farm -$200 New Star Books -$56 Jeremy S.-$30 Laura -$50 Christopher R-$300 Susan C.-$100 Laila B.-$100 _ Anonymous -$110 Maria Z.-$50J
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Vancouver's non-commercial, listener supported community station.
Happy Birthday
to the
YEARS!
Carnegie Newsletter!
For thirty years you have been informing Downtown Eastsiders about celebrations, commemorations, festivals, musical performances, art shows, rallies, protests and all the other events that help knit the fabric of our community. You offer a channel for those who want to express themselves through prose, poetry or drawing, giving an opportunity for talents to be displayed which might otherwise remain hidden, and a voice to those who might otherwise never have their views heard publicly. Though your pages often focus on the trials and tribulations of our community, the issues raised are sometimes of global significance. In the rough area that the DTES can be, you shine like a diamond, and let's hope you are indes tru cti b le.
Happy Birthday Carnegie Newsletter! All the best, and many more. Stay beautiful heart Priscillia Mays
at
At Gore & Hastings a timeless mural is being covered up by a new developer's wet dream. The mural says:
IT TAKES KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTAND OTHERS BUT IT TAKES A CLEAR MIND TO KNOW ONESELF. IT TAKES STRENGTH TO SURPASS OTHERS BUT IT REQUIRES A STRONG WILL TO SURPASS ONESELF. Both are attributed to Lao Tsu l!;.iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~