September 15, 1994, carnegie newsletter by Carnegie Newsletter

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NEWSLETTER klai11 St., ---401-----**

Vancorrver. V6A 2T7 (604)665-2289

SEPTEMBER 15,1994.

MIRAGE CASINO

Speaking Out ISOur Best Bet On Thursday, September 22nd, at 2:30pm in Carnegie, the City of Vancouver will be asking for your opinions on the Mirage Casino scheme for the waterfront. Recently, City staff from almost every department - planning, health, social planning, the police, etc. - did a Review of what would happen if a very large, for-profit, Las Vegas-style casino was built near the Downtown Eastside community. Not surprising, the Review shows that a mega-Casino will have mega-impacts on local housing and business, crime and gambling addiction, traffic and parking, charitable gaming and much more. I

wORLD C R A S ~C A I N V A L I D IN ALL ZONES

The City's Report (copies are Available in the Carnegie Library) does point out the negative impacts of the Casino. It just doesn't use clear and direct language. But now it's our turn. The City is holding a number of public meetings around the town to hear from us. As mentioned, the meeting at Carnegie will be on Thursday, September 22nd, at 2:30pm. This will be an opportunity for us to speak out on the Casino. The mirage is definitely not dead, so it is extremely important that we come out to this meeting and make our voices heard. In the meantime there are other things you can do to voice opposition to the Casino: 1) Phone and record your views on the City's Casino Review Talkback Line (871-6236). 2) Phone Premier Mike Harcourt's office (253-7905) and let him know what you think of the Casino. 3) if you can't go to the meeting in Carnegie, try to go to one of the following: -

September 1 7

Sheraton Inn Plaza 500 1Oa.m.- 12noon Ballroom 500 West 12th Avenue (at Cambie)

September 20

Kerrisdale Community Centre Seniors' Multi-purpose Room 5 8 5 1 West Boulevard

7:30 9:30 p.m.

September 22

Carnegie Community Centre Auditorium 401 Main Street

2:30 4:30 p.m.

Oakridge Shopping Centre Auditorium 3 1 8 650 West 41 st Avenue

7:30 9:30 p.m.

Killarney Community Centre Ban uet Room 626% Killarney Street

7:30 9:30 p.m.

September 26

September

P.N.E.

7:30 9:30 p.m. Dogwood Room Renfrew and Hastings (Gate 15) [CANTONESE, FRENCH, PUNJABI, SPANISH AND VIETNAMESE TRANSIATION SERVICES AVAIIABLE AT MIS MEETING.)

I I

W h a t It's W o r t h T h i s poet comes to town :.&$ and he's doing his schtikt )six people showed up beside &hiswife and kids two guys in the corner eating with their hands

couldn't find the napkins hey, I know this guy !he's a poet, seen him before so this is your life so that was a poem so these are napkins C

MUSIC MAGIC MYSTERY ALL OF ITS WE ARE, ALL THREE AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY THAT'S WHAT YOU ARE TO ME "Butterfly"

R. Loewen

#/**** THE FOOD BANK GREATER VANCOUVER FOOD BANK SOCIETY

To Whom It May Concern: Through your work you may come in contac with people who are in need of food aid; therefore, we would like to make you aware of a change in our policy. Please be advised that the Food Bank no longer provides emergency food assistance through our main office. We do, however, continue to provide to those in need through our 13 distribution centres in Vancouver, the North Shore and Burnaby and through support of over 60 recipient agencies. ! Because of a continuing shortage of resources, the Food Bank has had to reassess I its programs, services and priorities. As a result, we had to discontinue direct distribution of food to individual recipients at our main office and concentrate our limited resources on distribution centres and aid to recipient agencies. If you have clients in need of food assistance ' it would be appreciated if you would ask them to telephone our office at 876-3601 so that we , may assist them by directing them to a I distribution centre in their area.

Smoke Signals

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Sincerely, Monica Orleans-* -

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Sandy Cameron has been giving me personal copies of the Newsletter. Even though I work in a library which receives them, I enjoy getting them HOT OFF THE PRESS! And I ($20 wvaq enclosed) think it's time I pay up! Sincerely, Nancy H.

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It's a damn brave person who will speak up for smokers' rights these days, & if they're not damned by addiction, they are damned by the system. Doctors & bureaucrats damn thousands daily & they're not all smokers. I thing Brian Wagget's "A Smoker's View" in the last issue is correct - not politically correct, nor medically, nor legally correct but correct & right on in a larger sense. Brian's piece is psychologically correct, because people's minds are bent a certain way by what they live with. The conditions that surround us all our lives generally make us what we are, & certainly tobacco smoking has been part of most people's lives & continues to be so, especially in this neighbourhood. I don't say "community" since that word is so often used and abused. It suggests we have "common" understandings, & this place, which can't even legally be called the "Downtown Eastside" is, let's face it, a very divided, generally hostile & difficult hotbed

of conflicting ideas. Some people find this stimulating, but others want to enforce their views on everyone else...this they do in the mistaken belief that we can all become "healthy". "sane", "secure" & "reasonable" according to their own definitions of what those words mean. If the Carnegie "Community" Centre can best serve the "community" by banning the most commonly shared habit -(call it an "addiction" if you will, but don't forget that any habitual action is open to such a label)- if the City Hall Health Dept. "rules-for-yourown-good" guys think the majority habit is just a health problem they can legislate against they are sadly mistaken, & probably more than a little brainwashed. Of course the rule-makers are unfortunates who have been culturally deprived of the experience of hitch-hiking broke in a cold rain with nothing but a small pouch of tobacco to comfort you. This is a rather "common" or shared experience in this neighbourhood. It's one of the few things that makes this place a "community", in my opinion. Also, it's well known that many of us have been jailed at some time during our tough lives, & for those oficial few who are privileged to make the rules by which we are required to live, this, & many other "downbeat" experiences, are lacking. ' It's really unfortunate that these people have not lived life to its fullest potential as a result, they lack the base notes that add a soulful depth to the rock concert of their existence.

Does anyone understand what I'm saying? In jail, on the road, in mental hospitals, hostels & drop-iddrop-out centres around the world, the poor outcast hard-to-house & hard-to-understand have always shared their tobacco. This is bottom line -just like the bottom line of the Health Dept's no smoking objective, only the opposite. Our very identity as a group of individuals is inexorably bound to contraryness, opposition & alternativeness. We, the people who naturally gravitate to "skid rows" & "catchment areas" - we who inhabit the night & are passing through anonymous streets in strange down-beat neighbourhoods, we who enjoy our homelessness, who indulge our madness, are the ones who struggle to free ourselves from conventional social images. Personal freedom & lifestyle choices means absolutely nothing - it c a w s no weight at all in this pseudo democracy. Politically, those who talk so much about individual rights & personal freedoms are usually the ones who will sign the pieces of paper that take your freedoms away. 1 don't want to make a mountain out of the mole hill that is tobacco smoking, but this has already been done by people that are expert exaggerators. This whole issue (which shouldn't even be an issue) has been blown out of proportion. You cannot legislate health - it's a personal choice. If you try to legislate & enforce personal health habits, you will only create a new criminal class - those who disagree & go a different way will be hated & hurt by a minority who think they know what's best for them. So what else is new? TORA

Hi h u l and all the gang at Carnegie! How are you all out there? We are fine. Started delivering the Hamilton Spectator daily for something to do. George gets the Old Age Pension now. I'm still too young to get it so to make some extra money we took on this little job in April & May we were Carriers of the Month. In a contest we won a soccer bag and in another one we got tickets to the Championship Basketball games held here. If all goes well we hope to visit Vancouver in the Spring. It will be great to see you all once again. Love, Lillian & George 3 -

Powell St. Blues - R. Loewen

Sat in a lot of hotel rooms in my time reading books, contemplating staring out the windows bleared on acid looking down on the creatures of the street scared I was seeing myself 50 years down the road in the half conscious eyes of old derelicts hours when the electric buzzing would usher in the dawn find me sitting frozen in my chair cigarette ashes & empty beer bottles on the sill strange freedom when you know you could die and no one would know who to tell here a million of miles from home just another junkie in a forest of cheap hotels just another Mid-Western kid trying desperately to wash away the pain of turning out all wrong

Ofien, I'll wake up in a morning and for the next few hours feel a seething rage at the world, or more specifically a rage at any or all (perceived) injustices experienced. The basis of this anger is withdrawal. Anger is a common result of indulging in psychotropic drugs for a spell, and then stopping. So the hostility is really chemical and not intellectual, as I once supposed. As a way to rationalize the fury I would often feel, I used to scapegoat my parents, shallow people, fickle women, anything, everything except placing the blame where it belongs - namely to myself and my lack of discipline in regards to staying away from tobacco. Yes, quite recently I regressed on to the I putrid path of nicotine,. I would perforate a a pop can an use that as a pipe. No wonder I would feel angry the next day. I 0 Now today, free of any nicotine, I realize that my past morning rages were really m examples of misplaced aggression. For 8 example - I haven't lived with my parents for C about five years. It would be valid to be angy with them for any problems I had five years ago but it is not fair to blame them for any hang-ups I may have experienced five hours ago. And ultimately my parents, society, shallow people, etc., especially my anger with them can be solely attributed to chemicals floating \ around in my brainstream.

Dean KO

Ladner Adventure Last Friday ten fun-loving souls went exploring the pioneer town of Ladner. We had a mini multicultural group with one Chinese man and two Spanish-speaking people. Marina, our excellent driver, also speaks fluent Spanish and Bob Sarti acted as tour guide, historian and photographer. We first went to the former racetrack, saw a handler taking out a lone horse, then drove to the Vanderzalm 'plantation'. We found an open gate and drove up to Bill and Lillian's house. There was a gardener who kept his butt to us. Maybe my detective side was working overtime but I had the sneaking suspicion that it was Bill and he didn't want us to recognize him. The Van Der Zalm's didn't invite us in tbr dinner so we had sandwiches and spinach pie

on the docks. I felt we had gone to the Deep South, but enough about them. People will 7 think I am a reporter for the National Intruder or the Probe and Wail. We saw a lot of fenced in miniature deer, then went to the old part of town where they were making a movie called Lost and Found. The museum in that part of town is fantastic with plenty of pioneering archives and native artifacts. We spent a lot of time exploring that particular building. Walking along the waterfront was most interesting. Anne Larson scooped a fish out of the bin to have our pictures taken. After lunch we walked through local trails and saw rabbits in the woods. Crossing railless bridges was exciting. The day went by too quickly and we dreaded coming back to the concrete jungle. Come and join us if you want to have healthy exercise and unusual experiences. Around us who needs television? By IRENE SCHMIDT

Laurel Stovel, head tutor representative and utor in the Drop-In Centre, a very astute and ikable lady is now staff. The Hiring Committee interviewed eleven well-quali fied people over a period of three Thanks go to all who sat on this committee rep Gus and staff rep Colin - for all

new home

jackson avenue & east hastings little bird barely feathered fallen from your nest prematurely flexing wings too weak to lift you from this hardluck streetcorner of heavy trafic & hungry predators how long will you survive little bird? will the miracle within your little wings save you in time? or the little girl barely dressed across the street on her own dangerous comer waving thin & frail arms attracting like your wings not flight but the attention of killers?

instead o going to prison or killing vietnamese an attic room in toronto on george street with lead-paint-peeling-walls-fall ing-apart a bare lightbulb blazing & a disembodied voice speaking each night at the foot of my bed so cynically it might've been the world's own master-of-ceremonies instead of the amplified speech of a burned out emcee coming from the strip joint on dundas street "ALL RIGHT! LET'S HAVE A BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY.!" and that's all I ever heard except for rats in the walls & traffic moving like a stacked deck being shuffled no angelus of cash registers or applause just that encee's voice & moaning coming from the floor below from mary a torrent of tangled black hair surging around her waist framing her sunken blue-boned face like furious tides around a violated moon where her eyes fled like frightened animals mary lurching through shit & piss & flies the floors & walls hallucinating mary shaking with disease & dissipation & moaning like the soul of nature dying "LET'S HAVE A BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY!" exiled in a city of the future

Editor

The following story was written by myself in the hope that people will take notice of the drug problems that affect all of society. My residence is in the Vancouver area.

A Day in the Life. I very seldom go down to Hastings Street between Victory Square and Jackson Street because I'm a non practicing addict. Every time that I'm there, 20 people ask me " up down or smoke? (Cocaine, Heroin or Marijuana) Since the beginning of 1994 there have been over 45 deaths in the area. It's a war zone no place for me. Over the years 1 personally have had 40 friends die from overdoses, suicide or murder because of their addictions. Some people ask why would anyone use when it's so deadly. The saying goes, "One fix is too many and a thousand is never enough." I can only speak for myself why I used. It is a disease that requires me to take it one day at a time. At times all 1 can do is run and call someone who suffers like I do for they know how I feel. We talk it through until the compulsion passes. There are thousands of non users who go to meetings in halls, church basements and homes to support one another and try to maintain a clean lifestyle. There is no drug or medication that can cure my addiction. I can maintain my health only through the help and support of others who have been there themselves. They alone know how I feel because they have been in my shoes. Some people think that an addict is a dirty bum on the street who steals all day and "

smells. Well I'm going to set the record g . straight. Addicts live in all social levels. Perhaps your doctor, your boss, your lawyer, your father-in-law. Many addicts live in nice homes, maintain a good job, have children who appear well-adjusted and normal. Drugs run rampant in the suburbs of every city, An addict could be the person you just had lunch with at work. I once heard a man say that all addicts should be shot because their scum. A year later his own daughter died of an overdose. I felt really sorry for him. He ignored the problem because he wouldn't believe it could happen to one of his own children. Perhaps he knew, but the pain was too great for him to face. Maybe he just felt ashamed. Addiction is a disease. It's not created by using. It is a psychological problem that awakens when short term use of a substance becomes abuse. Once an addict always an addict, but with the love and support of others it is a disease that can be beaten, I ask all people to get educated about drugs and addictions. By doing so, you cold one day save the life of your own child or friend, instead of enabling a closet user. Addiction is a disease, not a social falling. The real shame comes when a loved one dies through ignorance. I write this with the hope that at least one person will pick up the phone and get intervention. Help is all around. I'm a person who had to learn the hard way. I wish that someone had been aware of what I was going through when all the signs were there. My loved ones just didn't know the signs or what to do about it.

Sincerely

Thanks Bus Driver

It started with me falling into the boat. It was a beautiful boat ride after that and the first evening was spent sittingin our cabin. Next morning sbme went off hiking with Mike and Taum. Others went fishing with Nat and two spent the time complaining. That evening we had Games Night and most had fun. Next day was mostly the same except that we played bingo! Everyone at my table won except me. Even the baby own a prize. Next dav some went fishing or hiking while the rest of us played cards. Again a couple spent the day complaining. They could not sleep because the fire made too much noise, they were too hot or too cold, etc. That evening we had Talent Night. Tony's sister showed up again, Taum sang about Tiffany, Chris and Virginia did a funny skit (also Marie), Doris sang and Alicia answered our questions about mystical powers. Erica and Virginia put on a funny skit as well. Despite the odd commotion is was a great trip even if the coffee was left back at the Centre. Thank you Andy for keeping us warm. I would like to thank the seniors and volunteers who worked so hard in the kitchen. Thanks to the staff and I would like to apologize to all the men who were given a hard time because of two people. Thank you Tora for a beautiful picture. Thank you all, Sheila Bell. P.S.: I missed Donna, Atiba, Irene and Wayne. It wasn't the same without you. SB

~ o i n home g from Camegie can be hectic during the rush hour but on Friday, the 2nd of September, it was also extremely dangerous. The Victoria bus driver was very calm throughout the episode and quite possibly diverted serious trouble. Some passengers also kept calm where they could have reacted with arguments and fist fights. The driver did not say anything when a heavily drugged 30ish male got on the bus, mumbled something, did not pay his fare and sat down. The wobbly passenger carried a bag of chips and ate them while mumbling threats to no one in particular. Shortly afterwards, two well groomed young men got on the bus and asked the driver for change for $5. The driver said he couldn't make change, so the young man asked the addict. The addict grabbed the $5, put it in his pocket, then mumbled vicious threats against the young man. They were stunned by his behaviour and appeared to believe he was ready to do something to them, so they got off at the next stop. Moments later something made the addict get up and threaten the driver, after which he sat down again. I noticed a passenger remove a pocketknife from their clothing and hold it at the ready, for self-defense I think. The addict got up two or more times to tell the driver off Finally the driver dialed a number on his computer. I assume he was calling the company but there was no immediate response. The addict then decided he wanted to get off and stood by the door, but after the bus stopped he changed his mind. "I want the next stop," he said. The bus driver said, "I'm not moving until you get off. If you don't get off someone will$

Mayor Owen & Council. Mayor Owen when 1 spoke to you on you talk show in August, 1brought up my concerns about the 24-hour st0res.h particular the D~amondFast Foods at 165 E

hour stores?'' I would recommend to you - Please close down Diamond Fast Foods. My opinion is that these stores are open to serve the drug dealers and pushers. Diamond should be closed down as soon as possible, due to events that have occurred in the last two weeks. Police are making arrests on a daily basis and last week they made a large seizure of contraband cigarettes plus n

3 More threats,.we waited; some passengers

ere are a few more establishments needing the same attention as Diamond Fast Foods: * All-nite Subs (Hastings & Carrall) * Smilin' Buddha (1 09 E.Hastings) * Blue Eagle (130 E.Hastings) Please keep in mind that when these drug users enter the premise for the sole purpose of shooting up in their washrooms and/or booths, they have NO respect for the owners of these ,$i places. . Thanks , r for your- concern, and 1I hope to hear ndor see you Soon.

am sure that man is asking for someone to do to him what he promises to do to others. The passenger with the knife put it away, then the bus company phoned to see what the proglem was. It had taken them long enough enough. I felt drained, and was glad to get off the bus The bus driver did a good job of averting " trouble and so did those two young men who did not take the opportunity to punch the guy out. Thank you fellas. By DORA SANDERS

JOE FORTES Citizen Of The Century

Joe Fortes was born in Barbados of AfricanSpanish ancestry in 1865. In 1884 he sailed around Cape Horn from Liverpool on the Robert G r r , arriving at the Village of Granville in Burrard Inlet in September, 1885. He saw Granville change its name to Vancouver with the incorporation of the city in April, 1886, and he lived through the fire that burned the city to the ground in June of that year. Over twenty people died in the conflagration. A new Vancouver with many fine buildings of brick and stone quickly grew from the charcoal of the old. Joe Fortes worked in this booming frontier town ad a shoeshine boy an porter at the Sunnyside Hotel, and as a bartender at the Bodega Saloon at Cordova and Camll where the Rainier Hotel now stands. He was a stocky, powerful man, known for his cheerfulness and his habit of discouraging people from drinking too much - a rare trait in a beer slinger In the 1890's Joe Fortes gave up his job as a bartender and lived in a squatter's shack on Beach Avenue, a little to the east of Alexandra Park. He worked at casual jobs, but his life was centred on English Bay Beach. Every morning all year round he swam in English Bay and looked after the beach on his own time. The beach and the sea were a passion for him. In time he became known as English Bay Joe, a powerful7 gentle man wh patrolled the beach as a self-appointed, unpaid lifeguard, and who taught hundreds of children to swim.

In 1901, he was the first lifeguard hired by the Vancouver Parks Board, and he has been ' officially credited with saving twenty-nine lives. The unofficial number of rescues is believed to be considerably higher - some of them in wild and dangerous seas. Joe Fortes was a spiritual person because of the quality of his relationships to other people and to the land. Vancouver responded to his life of caring and simplicity by giving him its affection and trust. When the shacks of squatters were cleared away from the shore where Joe Fortes lived, ayor Bascombe, by popular demand, had oved beside the bandstand in Alexandra Park to stay there as long as he lived. When he died on February 4, 1922, the In Alexandra Park, where he had lived and h a long time, a simple granite monument stands, designed by the sculptor Charles Marega. It is a drinking fountain low enough for the smallest of children, and over the fountain is a bronze plaque showing the head and shoulders of Joe Fortes and three children. At the back of the monument these four words are carved, "Little children loved In these modern times this drinking fountain has fallen into disuse, as have the values that guided the life of this beloved citizen. In 1986 the Vancouver Historical Society named Joe Fortes Citizen Of The Century, and the public library on Denham Street is named after him. These are fitting tributes to a person who saved lives rather than ,and lived a simple life in

By DOUBLEDRUM MIKE

one year to the next

7~~ 7

ricky hood from next door's pounding on our & playdoor heyson parole & wine & ing an unplugged electric guitar & singing "ufo's over houston!" the rats are clawing wailing & hurling themselves against flimsy barricades I built to protect a last loaf of stale bread & fire engines scream through the black & yellow window the radio's reporting annual family holiday massacres & bottle-bombs thrown from the highrise pressure cooker across sherbourne street explode on the sidewalk & smash sunroofs out of parked cars & young wingnuts are down the block wrecking storefronts fighting police a raggedy bum bellows "why light-up city hall? blow it up!" & new year's day talks in its sleep complaining to no avail the ultraviolet blues of unbeaten emergencies in our home in hell in room 4 1 of a downtown misfits' hotel under renovation-siege new owners like toxic

Behind Every Mirror is a Cockroach

It has been my observation that 9 out of 10 poets are conceited idiots in love and forever going on about themselves and their "feelings" like small children

13.

fires starting in the basement panicking every living thing painting the walls white & pink & I'm turning over a dead leaf with a glass of gut-buming tap water a handful of codeine & last night's butts for breakfast the top floor phantom's singing down the stairwell "losers make their own way!" a month ago mark & I were digging through garbage cans in brandon m~nitobanow we strugde through a long line for food we can't use without machinery we don't have & in front of us a familiar filthy young man wearing a thick bandage over a bad bum "~assed-out"he said "against a radiator" & shoved UPhis shirt to reveal old wounds burned black & purple to the bone & laughed & said "I'm into pain" foodbank-footsteps-in-the-snow melting through roses fading on the carpet Bud Osborn

who just discovered their genitalia; they don't know what to do with it but they can't stop playing with their small stuff, so amazed it's actually there Mo Dixen

Class never runs scared. It is surefooted and confident. It can handle whatever comes along. Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh i s the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from past mistakes. Class knows that good manners are nothia more than a serie: 3 f petty sacd ices. Class bespeaks an adslocracy that has nothing to do with money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at nll while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it. Class is real. You can't fake it. The person with class makes everyone feel comfortable because he is comfortable with

The Carnegie Library - Part 3

Andrew ~ a r n e-g i e A Divided Man Andrew Carnegie was a divided man. He considered himself a great humanitarian, and gave away $333,000,000 for "the improvement of mankind." He wrote in 1897 that "My childhood's desire was to get to be a man and kill a king." The motto on the escutcheon Carnegie designed for his family coat of arms read, "Death to Privilege". At the same time Carnegie was a ruthless businessman. His method of handling his own supervisory personnel was so calculatingly inhuman that some managers found life in his service impossible to bear. He encouraged a spirit of unfriendly competition among his department heads, and he left a trail of ruined partners and competitors behind him. The working conditions at the Homestead Steel Mills were akin to the fiery pit itself. Men worked twelve hours a day in a brutalizing heat that left them physically, mentally and spiritually exhausted. How was it possible for a man to be a monster and a benefactor at the same time? Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, fourteen miles northwest of

"Every man a lord; every woman a lady; and every child an heir." The family moved to Pennsylvania in 1848, when Andrew Carnegie was thirteen years old. His first job was bobbin boy in a factory at $1.20 per week. By 1851 he was a telegraph operator, and by 1859 he was superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad's western division. Carnegie condemned "dollar chasing" for its own sake, and devoted himself to the unrestrained pursuit of wealth. He believed in a world without privilege, and used the privilege of his wealth to crush others. He claimed to be the friend of Labour, and smashed the union in the Homestead Strike of 1892. In 1868, at the age of thirty-three, Carnegie wrote, "the amassing of wealth is one of the worst species of idolatry - no idol more debasing that the worship of money ... To continue much longer overwhelmed by business cares...must degrade me beyond hope of permanent recovery...I will resign business at thirty-five," He didn't put business aside at the age of thirty-five, however. He went on for more than thirty years before he.sold Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan for $500,000,000. During those years he tried to reconcile his personal philosophy of humanitarianism with his business philosophy of laissez faire capitalism. In my view Carnegie was not successful in bringing these two philosophies together, and we will look at his efforts in the next article.

b Edinburgh. It was the first capital of a united Scotland under Malcolm, following his victory over Macbeth, and the town had a tradition of liberation. Carnegie's father was a weaver, and his mother was the daughter of a cobbler. Both families were in the tradition of skilled, proud, crafts workers who were part of the movement for political democracy in Great Britain. They would have agreed with the Levelers and Diggers who believed that "the poorest person that is in England hath a life to liver as the richest person." In fact Carnegie's grandfather on his mother's side had written,

By SANDY CAMERON (to be continued)

Room ~onularwith readers Small Carnegie library looks to resident needs - Carnegie

"Many are disabled,

libmrian Eleanor Kelly returns from a visit to several Downtown East Side hotels d e books. R O &gtphoto ~

Iwith an armful of long o

are addicted, have mental health problems, and poor health- but t h e y , manage to come i n and be pleasant. "

rowers often "live lives that can be very disruptive," pursues missing books her own way. Accompanied by a centre security person, she visits area hotels and bars - including rough turfs like the Balmoral - and posts a bright orange notice that shows the cover of a ~, o o u l a rWestern paperback and reads: "If you see books like this one in ... hotel rooms, bars or restaurants - please return to the Carnegie Reading Room." While s h e a d m i t s her forays haven't netted many books, she says that getting out and talking to people has helped dispel an elitist image that the reading room once I

nothing in them -if you have a TV you're'really lucky. And there's no recreation in those hotels. So this centre is sort of the living room for these local people." The reading room is also a one-ofa-kind Vancouver Public Library service designed for area residents. It's open from 10 to 10 - 365 days a year. It stocks what people w a n t Westerns, hue crime, science fiction and. h o m r stories in paperback, as well as glossy magazines, native art books, and a wide range of Chineselanguage literature. Literacy materi-

als are also well used. The library eschews services in little demand - like a full-time reference librarian and multiple computer terminals. "We really try hard to serve the community by providing the things they need," Kelly says. Neither does the small library, which is funded by the city through its social planning department, levy fines for overdue or lost books. Instead, Kelly, who knows bor-

had. Kelly also allows patrons to drink and eat in the library -most often a coffee or soup purchased upstairs. And there's a bulletin board where newspaper arhcles of interest - current clippings discuss the pmposed casino and area drug arrests - attract readers for whom an entire newspaper is daunting. Kelly says the biggest pmblem in the reading room is with mental patients who may be disruptive. However, she says security staff come quickly and see they get help.

She's also concerned about the drug trade currently thnving at the busy intersection, and the safety of her small staff. However, she says library regulars, people who, in her experience, demonstrate more patience a n d kindness than m a n y patrons at more upscale iibrary locations, make up for the difficulties. "Many are disabled, are addicted, have mental health problems, and poor health - but they manage to come in on most days and be pleasant." The reading room is about to undergo a $300,000 renovation to replace what looks like temporary shelving, improve the crowded area where new books (including donations - the library's in dire need of Westerns) are sorted a n d catalogued, and, most importantly, add 17 seats. However, Kelly says it won't lose its homey, century-old ambiance. "It's a really nice little space, and it will remain historically the same... just a friendly place to come and sit and read."

A greeting & welcome from the Volunteer (tutor) Coordinator of the Carnegie Adult Learning Centre. I wish to extend my "Thank You's -job well done" to all the tutors who will be leaving and a warm welcome to those just joining us. Every volunteer tutor I have had contact with is very special. Your tasks at times can be very demanding and time consuming but you all seem to have the qualities required. The challenges never seem too great or to small. You do provide a guiding light for those wanting to achieve educational goals. At this time we are beginning a new 'semester' (Fall '94) and accepting new applications for volunteers, For all presently tutoring, please take note that the September Workshop Schidule is now available and it is time to schedule yourself for attending. ' Once again, thanks one and all for your C ~ ; O volunteerism.

WHAT ABOUT THE <HILDRENI They are dying at the hands of their parents Why can you not hear the cries of our children Why are you acting as if our children do not count? Why is it that no one sees or feels the pain that our children are enduring? Why is it that the bruises, broken bones & open cuts are invisible to the naked eye? Our children are genuine individuals they have feelings all they've ever wanted or needed is love... Is that so much to ask for? Love is for real. Death is final. Please support our children Give them a chance for life Let us stop them from being hurt or killed anymore. Margaret Prevost.

MINDY TRAN: Tips have b e e 3 2 p~uringin since girl disappe His hair was short and shaved at the bottom, and he may have a mousj tache. Anyone having information that) might help police are urged to call t h e Mindy hotline at (604)861-1239.

SHARONIANNA

*:Oo - 3:30

'FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAYw@art 1) Author: SUSAN JEFFERS

16 SEPT Fri

2:30 - 4:30

ESL OVERVIEW

19 SEPT Mon

1:Oo - 3:OO 1:oo - 2:oo

FIRST NATIONS PROGRAM (in theatre) CANTONESE Class

ERNIElTERRI YUET FONG

'STRESS AND PARENTING' Workshop

PAULINEISHARONI CHARLOlTE PHIL SPRATT

15 SEPT Thurs

20 SEPT Tues

How to access LIBRARY RESOURCES Everyone Welcome 'Identity ADOLESCENCEIADULTHOOD-theconcepts * TUTOR MEETING All tutors

WINDY

2:oo 4:oo 12:30 - 2:OO

SIDE BY SIDE CONVERSATIONALFRENCH PROGRAM

MAURICE ERNIE

22 SEPT Thurs

2:OO - 3:30

"FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY" part 2

SHARONIANNA

26 SEPT Mon

1:OO - 3:OO 1:oo - 2:oo

FIRST NATIONS PROGRAM (in theatre) CANTONESE Class

ERNIEITERRI YUET FONG

PERSONAL BREAKTHROUGH #3 (follow-up #l&WL) "POWER RELATIONS" Workshop

RIKA

SIDE BY SIDE - ESL TEACHING ESL - Speaking Skills CONVERSATIONAL FRENCH

MAURICE MIKOS ERNIE

21 SEPT Wed

27 SEPT Tues

11:OO - 1:Oo 6:30 - 8:OO PM.

28 SEPT Wed

29 SEPT Thurs

2:OO 3:OO

'RUMOURS, GOSSIP and LIES" Workshop

FIRESIDE PROGRAM - Storytelling and Cultural Sharing MON to FRI 7 - 8 PM.

WINDY

DORAISHARON

WINDY

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird o r the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful. - Pete Haniill in Esquirc Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

- Joseph Addisori

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of SOTTOW. - Chinese epigram Everyone complairls of his memory, and no one complains of his judgement. - La Rochefoucauld One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. - Luciano Pavarotti with William Wright, Povnrorri, M y Own Srorv (Doubleday) It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line. - Ashleigli Brilliant A friend is someone who makes rne feel totally acceptable.

- Ene

Riisna, quoted by Letty Cotrin Pngrebirr in .4rnong Frierrds (McGraw-flill)

A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.

Some people march to a different drummer

- Epictetus

and some people polka. - Loc Angeles Times Syndicate

What we d o during our working hours determines what we have; what we d o in our leisure hours determines what we are. - George Eastman T h e reason people blame things on previous generations is that there's only one other choice. - Doug Larson. United Feature Syndicate T h e clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

- "GraRiti."

McNaught Syndicate

Live each day a s if it were your last because one of these days you'll be right.

- Leo Buscaglia Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

- Mark Twain

. ..-

In the "space opera" of thetwilight world between science and fiction there is said to flourish a group of extraterrestrials known as the Brotherhood of the Serpent, familiar in terms of Mayan history. They are described as members of a Great White Brotherhood who arrived on earth frorri bases they had established on Mars and the moon during the Atlantean and Lemurian periods to set up mystery schools to teach humans how to free themselves from mortal coils. These Serpent People are described as a pro-evolutionary group, on whose instructions the original pyramids in Egypt and Central America are said to have been built. G. I. Gurdjieff in his Beelzebub's Teles l o His Grendson claims that the beings responsible for the occult school in which he was instructed in Central Asia-the ones who developed the Sufi movement-also had a base on Mars. Psychics have described certain temples in Atlantis as being used by priests to encase spirits in human bodies so they might better learn to care for them, a process which apparently degenerated into a state of identification with the body in which they forgot who they were: a condition only to be remedied by other initiate priests who could get them out of their bodies to recognize the game-through initiation. From the accumulated data on the rites of initiation in the mystery schools, it is clear that the initiate was led to see and be and know without a body, facing certain out-of-body terrors as illusions that could be handled by postulate and will. Initiation was a rebirth to the world of levity and the realization that no harm can befall a spirit other than that which it does to itself, mostly by willing harm to others, or by restricting, for the perverse enjoyment of the sensation, its own unlimited powers. Once initiated, a person could be in this world but no longer of it, see it as an entrancing game in which a player can be trapped by believing he is a body, or by agreeing he must hurt when the body hurts, or die when the body dies, despite the fact that such a notion is easily disproved by a hypnotist in twenty minutes, when pain can be seen to be a subjective imposition on the body, and that one can be and see without the bonds of space and time. Any Indian taking peyote can tell you that all are one, and each is but a point of view. Out of body, anyone can see, and be, like Edgar Cayce, a thousand or n million miles

Sensitives say the Serpent People are due to return to earth in 2011 to help create a world government. But all is not so simple. In opposition to the Brotherhood of the Serpents, the grand opera of space has its heavies: members of the "Marcab Confederation." Marcab, or Markab, is a star In the constellation Pegasus. It is located in the same general direction as the stars belonging to the group reconstructed in a three-dimensional model by Marjory Fish from Betty Hill's hypnotically described star maps of the area seen while aboard a space ship. Those spacemen are said to be monitoring this planet preparatory to manifesting themselves en masse, and to be sending ahead scouts in human bodies to prepare the way. Some indlviduals, when regressed or out of body, describe the Marcabs as having been In existence some 200,000 years, operating meat bodies and androids, or robots modeled to look like human beings, but who have lost the power to crawl out of their present condition. I n this semi-degenerate state they can apparently only try to control others and drag them to thelr level. Subscribers to the Marcab-Serpent People theory envisage a struggle between extraterrestrials for the souls, minds, and bodies of terrestrlals, with the Marcabs using control methods to keep humans ignorant and enslaved while the Serpent People use initiatory methods to help humans recover the knowledge of thelr true splritual Identity. Identity with a body can lead to easy blackmail by a controller who wishes to enslave an individual slmply by guaranteeing the requirements of shelter, food, sex, and security. Hence the varlous attempted routes of escape via faetlng, abstinence, free love, and vagabondage. Hubbard's remedy is to recover the certainty of one's spiritual essence and and learn to operate, successfully and at will, with or without a body. -Much of the violent history and pre-history of this planet , could rationally be accounted for by such a hypothetical conflict between the Marcab-type "controllers" and the Serpent People "liberators," or the roles could be reversed. For those who find it hard to postulate the existence, even in space, of friend and foe on the Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatiipoca order, it is suggested that a,cosmic game, just like any earthly game, requires levels of "friend" and "foe," stacked in alternating harmonics, otherwise the layers will coalesce until eventually everyone will be on one side-and the game will end.

THE CAPITALIST SATIRE MANIFESTO

G a r r v Gust

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW:

Why Owen & H a r c o u r t a r e

eag

acconiodate c o r p o r a Steve Wynn.

p.3

connection t o M i r Las Vegas. p.7

Gordon C a n ~ p b e l l ' scampaign funds.

p.10

Why Mike H a r c o u r t accepted $ 1 . 2 m i l l i o n

i n a German r o l l e r

THESE S T O R I E S

8 HOKE

INSIDE

CROSSWORD # 4 ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

ACROSS

DOWN

Copied illegally (71 City i n Nepal (9) Set sail (4.3) Battleaxe (6) Greek letter (7) Again 14) Red and Black (4)

Glue (5) Native Medicine man fe) Nuts (7) Prepares t o kiss (7) Electrical component (8) Means of public transportation (7.3) For sure (10) Dental procedure (6.4) Mint treats (5.51 Bronze or stone (3) Cured (8) Immature wine (3.41 Earn (7) Grounds (8) Moron ( 5 )

(5)

Hint again on stege (5) Require (4) Pitcher (4) Mountain (71 Allowed i n to university (8) Continuously (7) Altitude (9) Grasshopper ( 7 )

DOWNTOWN STD Clinic - Monday through Friday, loam - 6pmFREE MEDICAL CLMlC - Mon, Wed, Friday, 5:30-7:30pm, EASTSIDE NEEDLE EXCHANGE - 221 Main; every day, 9am - Spm. YOUTH ACTIVITIES Needle Exchange Van - on the street evenings, Mon-Sat. N.A. meets every Monday night at 223 Main Street. SOCIETY 1994 DONATIONS

i Paula R.-$20) Sandy C.-$20 C e c i l e C. - $ l o B i l l B.-$16

Lillian H.-$50

E t i e n n e S -$4O Adult LCC -$I2 C a r n e g i e LC-$30 Anonymous -$35

B r u c e J.-$10 B i l l s.-$2 C h a r l e y B.-$32 S t u a r t M.-$50 K e t t l e FS - $ I 6 Nancy H.-$20 H a z e l M.-$10 J o y T.-$12 D i a n e M.-$16 L i b b y D. -$20 CEEDS -$50 Margi S . - $ 5 Sue H,-$35

FREE

- donations accepted.

.--" ...

t3)

K~EWSLETTER I..LI I

I...,......

THE WEUSLE'TTER I S A TUBLlCATION OF TllE CARNECIE C O M U N l T l CENTRE ASSOCIATION. A r t l c l e m reprement t h e vlcum o f L n d l v l d u a l c o n t r l b u t o r m and n o t o f t h e Asmocimtlon.

Help i n t h e Downtown E a s t s i d e ( f u n d i n g )

OSubmissionx Deadline NEXT ISSUE

Legal Services Society -$935

NEED HELP ?

27 September

Tuesday

The Downtown Eastslde Residents' Association can help you with: any welfare problem Information on legal rights disputes with landlords unsafe living conditions income tax UIC problem finding housing opening a bank account Come Into the DERA office at 9 East Hastings St. or phone us at 682-0931,

DERA HAS BEEN SERVING THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE FOR 20 YEARS.

Miss Daisy takes her last drive She always scoffed at reports that she "created" the role of Blanche. "A writer creates," Tandy said. "An actor NEW YORK Jessica Tandy, who won an Academy Award at age 80 for her portrayal of interprets. Sometimes an actor can find things a spirited southern matriarch in Driving Miss in a part that even the author didn't know were theie. But it was there. It was there." Daisy, died yesterday at her Connecticut Tandy didn't get the part of Blanche in the home after a four-year battle with ovarian movie version of Streetcar. cancer. She was 85. "I was disappointed and hurt," s h e said. Her husband, Canadian actor Hume Cronyn, "But I wasn't a film star, and Vivien Leigh was by her side when she died. Tandy's acting career spanned more than 60 was." Some of her best-known stage appearances years, mostly on stage in New York and London. She was Broadway's original Blanche were with Cronyn, a native of London, Ont. Together they starred on Broadway in such DuBois in the memorable 1947 production of plays a s The Fourposter, The Physicists, A Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Delicate Balance. Noel Coward in Two Keys, Desire that co-starred Marlon Brando a s The Gin Game, Foxfire and The Petition. Stanlev Kowalski. But it was a s Daisy Werthan, the independent, crotchety widow who forms a deep friendship with her black chauffeur, that Tandy scored her biggest popular success. Driving Miss Daisy, adapted from Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, was a boxoffice and artistic hit, grossing $100 million US and winning a best-picture Oscar in 1989 a s well a s Tandy's top acting award. Born in London on June 7, 1909, Tandy was the daughter of a rope manufacturer who died of cancer she was 12. Her mother worked several jobs to put her through private school. She had three children: Susan by her first husband, actor Jack Hawkins, and Chris and Tandy, by Cronyn.

Associated Press

Hume Cronyn by her side

put, we revitalized poetry in Vancouver on a scale not seen in many years. We held numerous readings at Carnegie, jamming the building's theatre with uninhibited, enthusiastic audiences comprised of people from the neighbourhood, students from university poetry classes, and others attracted solely by the free coffee provided. Prominent local poets Helen Potrebenko, Peter Trower, Evelyn Lau, and Gerry Gilbert read with us during some of these events, but the Carnegie readings were only part of our activity.

THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE POETS 1LI.r'. In the Fall of 1988 a wildly diverse group of unknown poets meeting at Carnegie Centre with the collective intention of performing readings and producing an anthology, but because of extremely conflicting personal backgrounds there seemed little chance the group would survive from one week to the next, let alone organize serious literary activity. Most of the dozen or so poets comprising the group lived in the Downtown Eastside, in social housing, cheap hotel rooms, and relied on missions and sandwich lines to supplement their diet. Others hailed from the Commercial Drive artistic-political scene, and one member actually commuted from her home in the exclusive British Properties. When the group dissolved in the Spring of 1990, it could accurately be said that we exceeded our most fanciful ambitions. Simply

Locally Group members read continually throughout Vancouver - at La Quena, the W.I.S.E. Club, the Maritime Hall, R2D2 Bookstore, May Day events, the Phoenix School, art galleries, several now defunct clubs, on the radio from Simon Fraser University, and regularly from Co-op Radio on the "Main & Hastings" and "radiofreerainforest" shows. On the road... Funded by grants from the Canada Council, the poets traveled all over the province, making tours to Victoria, the Kootenays, the Okanagan and to northern B.C. The latter journey featured 7 readings in 8 days including 3 locations on Queen Charlotte Island. We read in universities, public libraries, pubs, hotels and high schools, besides putting on a workshop in Smithers and giving radio, television and newspaper interviews. Getting the word out -

Two of our members decided, after unending controversy regarding the format for a book the group wanted to publish, to just go ahead and produce the inexpensive anthology we finally offered for sale at readings and in

local bookstores. Though we kept no oficial records, as closely as can be determined more tan 1000 copies were sold, making our little book one of the best-selling anthologies of poetry published in BC during the period of our group's existence. We also became involved in demonstrations supporting End Legislated Poverty, reading our poems on the steps of the Art Museum and making available pamphlets of information and poetry protesting welfare cuts and cutbacks in funding for children and single mothers. Under the editorship of Paul Taylor, and with our participation in all aspects of its production, the Carnegie Newsletter became a significant community poetry publication. It was not unusual to be approached on the street by a non-poet demanding to know what the hell was meant by this poem or that, and asking when the next big reading was going to be, anyway?

What it was... Brazen, idiosyncratic, well-wrought and terrible, our poetry hurtled between the ridiculous and the brilliant, but was never dull. A creative writing professor at UBC, by openly denouncing our cruder efforts, only confirmed 1h3t \VC were a force to be reckoned with.

Memories Anecdotes abound regarding our misadventures, but a few examples should suffice to give an idea of the manner of group we were. * After our van had been broken into and robbed during a trip to Nelson to give a reading, two women poets engaged in a loud, prolonged exchange of insults at the RCMP detachment where we reported the theft. The Mounties, curious why we were hanging around so long, finally asked if we needed help in resolving a domestic dispute. By way of explanation the group's majordomo, Vancouver Sun reporter Bob Sarti, told the bemused police, "It's okay, they're friends.'' While the turmoil raged, other poets held an impromptu reading on the Mounties' lawn. If it were not for Sarti's commitment to the poets, the group would not have held together longer than a Vancouver weather forecast. There was undoubtedly no other human being in B.C. who listened to more poetry, attended more readings & liked poetry less than he did. * During a turbulent visit the group made en masse to an organic farm commune near Williams Lake, Bob was overheard making a remark which pretty well summarized his position: "I'm not here to enjoy myself. I'm here to drive the van and cope." * The poet from the British Properties had to endure slagging from less "privileged" poets resentful of her socio-economic status, and who questioned her motives for participating at all. But our individual motives were varied indeed. * Between jail incarcerations, one poet discovered our readings to be a most propitious forum for his near-psychopathic rants described by outraged feminist members as sexist, by others as racist, and by unsuspecting hosts as thoroughly distasteful. My feelings

were that he was an equal opportunity misanthrope, hating just about everybody and everything. * Still another one of us would have easily won first prize for stage fright if there was such a dubious honour. Onstage he shook like the proverbial leac even his worn-out runners flapped as though whipped by a mighty gale. His persistence in performing was fueled by a singular goal announced at an early group meeting where he declared he was a virgin and was only going to suffer the writing and reading of his poems until the condition was remedied. His poetry was both unique for the forms he invented and powerful in its depiction of skid row life. Yet when he realized his poetry inadequately expressed his ambition, he began writing and declaiming what could've passed for personal ads in the newspaper. When at last he gained satisfaction, he vowed he was finished with poetry and so far as 1 know hasn't gone back on his word. * A group member who wrote moving poems about the loneliness of life in a rented room on East Hastings, and of the need for love and fellowship in the world, included within his poetry a challenge for anyone in the audience supposing themselves charitable to take him home for the holidays. Our most enduring legacy however, has been the productivity and literary achievement of several original members of the Downtown Eastside Poets.

As time goes on...

Sheila Baxter has written three books about poverty, homelessness, and the effects of poverty on children, for which she has won prizes including the prestigious VanCIty Book Award. Jancis Andrews has published a highly acclaimed book of short stories. David Bouvier has had a collection of his poetry published and is a very active participant in Vancouver Poetry circles. Cuba Dyer and myself have continued to write and publish poetry, works of ours being included in the popular anthology East of Main, edited by Tom Wayman and Calvin Wharton. Other members I know who write and publicly read their poetry are Diane Wood, Tora, Pam Fleming, Taum Dan y Creag, Dave McConnell and Tom Lewis. If not for these disagreeable, wacky, rambunctious poets coming together and sticking it out, neither I nor several others would have been able to see so much of BC, nor have the opportunity to meet the other poets, students, teachers, and the many people so appreciative of our appearances in communities like Siverton, Kaslo, Kispiox, Masset and Tlell. I can honestly say that not only did not one of us have any idea at the time of the remarkable and eccentric contribution to poetry we were making, I do not believe other members are aware even today of the impact we made. Recently one poet asked to describe her experience as a member of the Downtown Eastside Poets, replied that it was still much to soon, and too painful, for her to be able to talk about it . I hope this account helps heal wounds still raw, and allows us to finally take pride in a very formidable accomplishment,. By BUD OSBORN